A Week away from Work

My lists are completely checked off; our bags are packed, the food is packed, the toys are packed, the camper is packed and we are ready for a nice long week away in the sun, on the beach, at the pool and doing whatever we want with no work or co-workers in site.

And it couldn't come at a better time. I need a break from work, from the people at work. They drive me crazy! One day they are in good moods and fun to work with, the next day they are moody and won't talk to me (apparently because they are tired and don't want to be at work today...who does). I hate having to stick around on a Friday night until 9:00pm when our work was done at 6:00pm...but at least we don't have to stay until 11:00pm. There is a new girl here who is now the only one with me on this shift. She is young and like I said moody. I tried to help her today, but got no response, so I stopped helping. I asked if she was done and her response was "yep" as she walked by and said nothing more. What the heck. That was all she talked to me for the rest of the night?? I asked her if I had done something to upset her and she said no, she just didn't want to be here and wasn't in the mood to talk. Funny, she is in the mood to talk to everyone else around here but me. Why do I have such a hard time making friends at work...I just don't understand. I hate it when people make me doubt myself and make me feel like I am doing something wrong because they are in a bad mood on a particular day. I think mostly I care to much about what people think of me and I end up doing and saying the wrong things...but it really sucks to be stuck here for 2 hours with someone with nothing to do and they won't talk to you. I understand being tired, I understand not wanting to be here, but I don't understand being rude and short and not saying thank you when someone helps you. Can I attribute it to her age, she is almost a decade younger than me. I don't know! We just must not click or something or she just needs to get past the training phase when everything sucks. I know I did and I forget that sometimes. I will do what I can to give her her space and try not to be rude in the meantime. However, I get to be gone away from here for an entire week and I won't have to deal with any of them and their mood swings for 9 days.

30 more minutes and I am free (okay, now 21 minutes)!!!

Garage saling side note: I bought a laptop at a garage sale today for $15. Can you believe it! It came with Windows 98 and had lots of errors popping up whenever you started or shutdown. But luckily we have a copy of Windows 98 at home and can erase the hard drive (which Dan is doing as I type this) and start fresh. There is only 64MB of ram and 4GB on the hard drive, but for putzing around and playing games with Josiah, it should be fun! If I get a wireless card, I could also check my email, but it will be very slow, so I don't know if I will want to deal with that or not! But $15, what a buy!

The Menu and lists

Here is our camping menu, I wasn't sure how else to pack food for an 8 day trip without coming up with a menu. That way we can decide each day what we feel like, but have everything we need on hand to make it.

Breakfast meals:

1. Oatmeal or Cream of Wheat
2. Dry cereal
3. Poptarts
4. Eggs and cornbeef hash
5. Swedish pancakes and ham (which reminds me I need to add syrup to my packing list)
6. Eggs in a nest with sausage and bacon ( from 2 Labor Day's ago).

Lunch Meals

1. Chicken Salad Sandwhiches
2. Hotdogs and baked beans
3. Ham and cheese
4. Spaghettios/Raviolis
5. Tomato soup and grilled cheese
6. Peanut butter and Jelly of course

Dinner Meals

1. Hobo Pies (meatballs, carrots, potatoes, onions and italian dressing cooked in aluminum foil over the fire)
2. Spaghetti, corn and garlic bread
3. Bacon and Cheese Hamburgers
4. Bagel Pizzas (pepperoni, ham and pineapple, black olives all cooked in our new toaster over that I got at a garage sale just for the camper)
5. Brats, chips, pickles
6. Tacos or Taco salad, whichever is easier

I have been working hard to get the camper ready. I have cleaned out all of the cubby spaces and consolidated all of the stuff. Even though we are still just storing the camper for my mom, there was a lot of stuff in there that was old and rotting, 10 year old toilet paper, dead bugs and whatnot...and it just needed to be cleaned thoroughly. There was a lot of stuff in there that was duplicated between my stuff and their stuff that I just made into one big lot and took out all the extra stuff. Much more organized and much easier to locate the stuff we need. For those of you who know me well, you know that this part of packing is fun to me. I love taking things that are chaotic and making them clean, nice and neat. I also had fun packing and organizing the food. I got a few tupperwear containers that I can put cereal and what not in them, so I got that all done today. Plus I made up the swedish pancake mix (minus the wet ingredients of course), but that way all we have to do is add a few things and Wala! Pancake mix.

Tomorrow: I am going to go shopping for the last of the stuff we need and finish making the beds. I got Josiah's bed made, and all the bedding is cleaned, I just need to make our bed. I was also going to make some cookies tomorrow, but we will see how early we get up and around tomorrow.

Wednesday: I have to do laundry and start getting bags around to pack, so that Thursday I can fold the rest of the clothes and pack our clothes.

Thursday: I am going to take pictures at the daycare again. Several of the kids are going to be leaving the daycare (because they are too old, have older siblings to watch them or are going to full day Kindergarten). So Kim asked

Friday: Take everything out to the garage that won't fit in the camper, so that Saturday morning we can back the truck up to the garage, load it up and head on out :)
Satuday: We are off to go camping :)

Day Care Fun

The day after I bought my new camera I asked my daycare provider, Kim, if I could come over and take pictures of the kids. I thought it would be great way to help determine if I wanted to keep the camera. It also helped me start to feel comfortable with the camera. A long ways to go, but I was able to capture some great moments on camera.

Day Care Portrait Pictures

My first attempt at posed pictures with my new camera. The sun was very bright and the kids were all squinting, but I was still able to capture some great faces :)

Hunter and Forrest

Josiah (of course, who was not very willing to pose for me...I can't imagine why??)

Mallory and Trey

Harrison

Bryant


Olivia and Zachary

Walker and Wyatt

Misc pictures from August

Just a hodge podge of pictures. I have taken so many pictures with the new camera that it will be difficult to not post a crazy amount of pictures on this blog...then again the time it takes to upload pictures, save them as a small file and create the post may minimize the amount I have time for. It just so happens that Dan has not been on the computer for several days in a row and I am taken full advantage! We do have a computer in the back room, but it is very warm and not a place I want to hang out when I get home.

The following series of pictures is of Josiah catching a little frog and proceeding to play with it for almost 20 minutes. Poor frog, but miraculously the frog did survivie its ordeal :)

Playing in a tub of water (very cold water)

Driving the jeep...still a great love of his!



Playing around the house!

Dan tried to trick Josiah with pickle juice...but it must run through Josiah's blood to love pickle juice because he did not even seem to react to the new kind of juice. Quite dissappointing from the camera angle.

Dan weeding the garden!

Playing with the garden hose...if there is water, there too shall be Josiah :)