Thankful Tuesday

1. Last Tuesday I visited a consignment shop located near where the kids were having history camp. I was *not* impressed with the prices of the items on the racks, but they had $1 bins, and I did purchase eight items from those bins - a skirt for myself and the rest of the items were for Nadia.

2. Last Tuesday I took Nadia and Ian to an orthodontist appointment. I was happy to hear they're not ready for braces yet in light of the fact we'll be getting a new central AC system in the not so distant future. It also made me feel better about the fact I'm not teaching this year. If I had still been FT at BU, I would have had orthodontic coverage for the kids, but in reality they aren't getting braces this year. He said Ian's tooth development is at least two years delayed. He wants to see Nadia in January, but if we're paying for the braces (no orthodontic coverage), we're only paying for Ian to get braces as his teeth and bite are MUCH worse than Nadia's. So I don't think we'll actually return until next summer, as that's when he wants to see Ian again. Nadia

likes the idea of not ever getting braces. :)

3. In April 2018 Paul gave me a gift certificate for a massage. I finally used it last week. It was lovely. Each week that the kids have had a camp I've been able to do at least one enjoyable thing. Most weeks it meant getting together with a friend. Last Friday I was supposed to get together with Cheri again, but I wasn't feeling up to driving to her house. I hung out at the library on Wednesday and Friday morning last week, but the library didn't open until 12:00 on Thursday. So I brought my laptop to Panera instead. I figured I should buy something if I was staying there for a couple of hours, and I do love their strawberry poppy seed salad. It's a bit pricey in my opinion, but I figured that splurging and buying that salad once a year is not unreasonable. It was delicious!

4. Tomorrow is Oliver's 7th birthday! I'm so grateful he joined our family in 2012. We have two days of celebration planned. We started with

birthday donuts this morning and then we are driving to DelGrosso's Amusement Park. Micah, Isaiah, Tab, my dad, and Margie are planning to meet us there. Thus far this year we are 1 out of 4 in successful attempts to visit an amusement or water park. Thankfully the weather forecast looks good for today. Hoping rain won't be a factor today! Tomorrow evening Pop Pop and Grandma are joining us for his birthday meal. He picked hot dogs, Grandma's baked beans, macaroni and cheese, watermelon, and birthday cake. Then we are meeting Micah and Isaiah at the roller skating rink where it's free to skate the first Wednesday of each month.

5. The kids enjoyed the field trip yesterday to Papa John's. They are always game for a field trip that involves making their own  free small pizza with whatever toppings they want and drinking a free fountain drink of their choosing. Oliver and Nadia chose raspberry iced tea, and Ian chose root beer. Nadia put a little Canadian bacon on her pizza, Oliver had Canadian bacon and pepperoni on his, and

Ian had (regular) bacon and pepperoni on his pizza.

6. A girl in our neighborhood who is two years younger than Nadia (and goes to the same church we do) came over for a spontaneous sleepover on Sunday night. The girls enjoyed it! Last week a seven year old girl in our neighborhood (Karyss) spent a lot of time playing with Oliver both outside and inside our house, which pleased Oliver very much!

7. I did a little more shopping of the clearance racks at Kohls again on Friday, and I purchased one pair of earrings for myself and two dresses plus one pair of pants for Nadia from the Juniors department. I can literally go as long as a year without entering a department store these days, especially since most of them have closed around us. It might become completely a thing of the past at some point.

8. The kids enjoyed swimming for about an hour at my friend Cheri's house on Friday.

9. Sunday night the temps dropped which was greatly

appreciated due to us not having any air conditioning. Usually the temperature inside our house (main floor) is between 73-75 when we wake up in the morning. Yesterday it was only 70 degrees inside our house when I got up, which meant it took longer to get to the 80's inside our house yesterday. Central air has definitely been something I've taken for granted the past almost eleven years we've lived in this house. Opening the windows helps lower the temperature in our house but it's brutal for my allergies. The piano is also suffering by being in such a hot and humid environment. I will definitely need to get it tuned after we replace our central air conditioning. We have had two different men come out to give us estimates thus far, and a third is scheduled to come this morning. One perk to not using an air conditioner is that we *should* have a lower electric bill next month (which can help compensate for the cost to get the piano tuned). I *thought* the only big project we'd do on the house in 2019 was the deck. It seems I was wrong! We might end up doing the deck, central air, and the roof. We're not sure yet on the timing of the roof. I'd like to get some estimates for that as well as a roof inspection to see if we can wait on that or not. This wouldn't be possible if we were also paying for braces this year. Ian's slow tooth development is a blessing.

10. I've done more organizing and purging over the past week - the three closets in the kids' bedrooms and Nadia's room in general. I wish we had done that before her sleepover, but better late than never! I've made many trips to Goodwill this summer, and we've also had more garbage than usual.

11. When I mowed the lawn on Saturday morning, I was able to mow ALL of it. Most of the summer I've had to use the weed whacker for part of the lawn because it's been a marsh. Three of our neighbors have done work recently with installing more drains to keep their basements dry. Ideally that would be on our list as well, but I think we'll have to wait at least five more years to do that.