Early Morning Musings

I had a lot to do yesterday. Deposit a check at the bank, pay our home owners' insurance, pay the cable/internet/telephone bill, make a flyer for Thanksgiving Eve party and post Thanksgiving Dinner parties for the Eagles' Club. Got it all done by 11:45am.

Here I sit at 4:20AM ET writing this post. I need to leave for work in a little less than an hour.

Speaking of work, I'm not sure if I ever shared that I became a substitute school bus driver for my kids' school district. I trained in late 2014-early 2015. I was hired as a substitute driver on April 15, 2015 - a tax day I won't forget. ever. The general reaction from people when they find out I drive a school bus is, "I could never do that!" Honestly, that's what I thought before I actually went through the process and got my CDL B SP (that's commercial driver license class B School Bus and Passenger endorsements). I love my job! I really enjoy being among the first people representing our school district to greet many of the kids in the morning and being one of the last friendly faces they see in the afternoon. Sure, it has it's bad days... the trouble-makers, the inclement weather when school really should have been delayed or cancelled, and mechanical issues. There are far more good days than bad ones! Our mechanic, Mike, is the best! He gets the buses in and out of the service garage as quickly as possible!

Starting this afternoon, I'll be subbing long term for one of our drivers who will be out on medical leave. There will be some mornings all my kids will need to go to work with me due to my husband's and my oldest son's work schedules. Today is not one of those, thankfully. Four o'clock in the morning is hard on my two 8 year olds. Next school year will be easier, they will be in 4th grade. In our district, 4th grade is in the Middle School building which means they start an hour earlier than they do this year.

My oldest son is 21. Lives at home. Works 3 part time jobs, which some weeks adds up to a 40 hour work week. He helps me a ton at home, not so much with chores... he's great at getting the kids ready for school and on their buses and he's an amazing cook! Good thing he enjoys cooking, otherwise, we'd be eating cereal and mac & cheese every night. I'm not the best cook and I do not like cooking. I'm learning and growing. My parents always joke that I could burn water, problem, it's no joke. LOL

Enough of my musings for now.

Must check out Pinterest for cute, safe, no mess, and not too mischievous/naughty activities for our Elf On The Shelf.

*****
Rather than make a new post... just thought I would add on to this one.

My 13 year old 8th Grade daughter is currently memorizing the Periodic Table of Elements. She's using this....

to help. I'm almost sick of hearing it already!!

Random Ramblings

WOW! Two years and two days since I last posted. Oops. I guess I've let life just run away with me. I'll try to do better, but no promises.

I'm currently trying to get my house ready for the Thanksgiving holiday and feast that we're hosting again this year. We've been hosting Thanksgiving for 14 or 15 years now. We've almost got it down to a science or art-form. My husband cooks an amazing turkey! One year, no carving required... the bird literally fell apart as we were pulling it out of the oven. Best. Turkey. Ever. He also makes pumpkin pie... from scratch!! I'm responsible for prep (cutting celery and onions for the stuffing), mashed potatoes, sweet potato dessert, and clean-up. He handles the turkey, the stuffing, and the pies. Some years, he's even done all of the grocery shopping.

I'm also trying to plan the Advent/Christmas season fun and activities for our family. It's so hard this year. We have our oldest, 21 years old, still living at home. The other four kids are 13 (she turns 14 four days before Christmas), 10 (he'll be 11 a little over two weeks before Christmas), 8 (she'll turn 9 about three weeks after Christmas), and 8 (he turned 8 the week before Halloween). They are all very different personalities and interests. About the only thing they all agree on is the fun of our Elf On The Shelf "Elfis". I'm planning for his return the day after Thanksgiving.

Speaking of Santa's Scout Elves, does anyone have any tried and true and non-messy things our elf can do? Places to hide that I haven't already thought of? I'm notorious for doing super well for the first 5 or 6 days... then I get spotty about it. I'm going to make an appointment in my calendar or an alarm on my phone to remind to get it done each night. Any other suggestions on how I can handle that little dilema? My biggest enemy this year is going to be my work schedule. I'm a substitute school bus driver, so I get up very, very early in the morning... which means I go to bed super early in the evening. I'm always up and dressed and ready to go in case my supervisor calls.