Why I hate Peanut Butter

Jax's 504 Plan accommodations came in handy today when he excused himself from homeroom while the rest of the class had a party and ate peanut butter cups. While I am pissed about the peanut butter cups and him being excluded, he has matured enough to not feel like he is missing out - he cared more about his well-being. Of course it meant that he sit in the office for an hour reading but better than choking to death from the aroma of peanut butter while 30 other kids ate them around him.

I hate peanut butter. Even if it were just shelled peanuts, there would be no smears of peanut butter around. :\

Ok, off to email the guidance counselor to suggest that his homeroom class might need to have the desks washed.

I received a Bounce Dryer bar to try (gotta love free samples!). I use Bounce sheets in the dryer so I thought the Bounce bar would be good to try. I had seen it advertised in the past but did not quite know how it "worked".

I put the Bounce bar in the dryer and for the first load I of course reached over and threw in a Bounce dryer sheet (old habits die hard). I had to fish it out and put it back in the box the started up the dryer. Easy-peasy! Except for the next two loads I automatically reached over and got the dryer sheet again and threw it in. I even wondered two of those times why the sheet was not neatly in the box. The next load I reached over but caught myself before I threw in the sheet. Then I smarted up and turned the Bounce box around so even if I do reach over I will touch cardboard rather than the sheets.

Anyway, the first few loads looked fine. No static. Fluffy towels. Seemed to be working. But on a load of darks, the Bounce bar left these white chalky-like marks on my son's jeans. I only noticed them because the jeans are brand new and a very dark blue. I looked in the dryer and the Bounce bar looks like this:

Oops, that is sideways.

Anyway, you can see that the Bounce bar has dark marks on it (like from jeans??). I will give it another few loads to make sure that it doesn't happen again and if it does I will pry it off my dryer (although it seems to be stuck on there really well - hope it doesn't leave an adhesive mark when it comes off!).

Anyone else have the same experience with a Bounce dryer bar?

Crafty

I mentioned last month that I am addicted to Pinterest. There are so many cool and exciting crafts, DIY things as well as neat ideas, beautiful homes, etc posted on there. I saw a really cool wreath craft posted on there so I had to make one for myself. And here it is:

I made it last month for Spy's birthday and had a bright pink ribbon on it and a sign that said OVER THE HILL. Then for Halloween, I just changed out the ribbon and added the orange spider. I am making a Halloween costume inspired by something I found on Pinterest as well. I will post a photo (if it turns out!). Love being crafty!!

I took Stephen's car into the dealership today because he got a flat tire last night.  He *insisted* that only tires from the dealership were good enough for his baby.  And not only that, they had to be identical to what was already on the car.  Unfortunately, since the car is an AWD and the tires were 3+ years old, we had to buy 4 new tires!  And as I said, he wanted them to be the same kind that were already on the car so those tires cost $400 MORE than a cheaper brand. Ouch!  And to top it off, he said his brakes were squeaking so I had the dealership look at them and the back brakes needed to be replaced!  Another small fortune because no cheap brakes for this car because, as the service guy told me, "this *is* a sports car".

I am feeling very fortunate that Stephen has a job and we can afford these repairs!

This and that

This week, my elementary school-aged kids had 1/2 days on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and an early dismissal on Wednesday and no school today (Friday).  Nice.  The junior high just had today off.  I woke up with a migraine and wished so much that they were in school today.

Anyway, I took them to an indoor trampoline jump place.  It was $11 for an hour of jumping on trampolines, into foam pits and playing dodgeball.  I left with a carload of very sweaty, smelly boys. P.U.!  They love that place.  I did buy a groupon for it recently but it can only be used Monday through Thursday.  I hope I remember to use it before it expires.  Maybe we'll use it during the time off at Christmas?

Afterwards, we left the trampoline place, we stopped at a halloween store that had recently opened up (it is a chain that opens up in empty store fronts for 6 weeks or so before halloween).  The kids chased each other around the store with fake chain saws and Cars begged me to buy him a mace for his halloween costume (which will consist of a black t-shirt, black shorts, his hat on backwards, a scary mask and a mace <--huh?  What is that supposed to be?).  I said no.  Put a little more effort into than that...and you don't need a weapon.

Now I sit and watch the clock until bedtime for me (probably before the kids).  Hockey games start tomorrow so up at the crack of dawn on Saturdays for the next few months for Cars' games.  Jax's games are all over the place time-wise.  Should be a fun season.  Go Mite Green!  Go Bantam Grey! 

For some reason the formatting on my blahg is not right.  I am sorry, dear readers, for what looks like one giant paragraph.  I don't know how to fix it.  Well, two of my posts were created using the old publisher and this one is with a new so we'll see if it is any different.

I went away for a 4-day weekend with a friend of mine.  We drove to Anacortes, WA and took a car ferry to Sidney, BC, Canada then drove down to Victoria.  We walked around the downtown Victoria area, toured the BC Parliament building, stayed overnight then went to Buchart Gardens .  It was lovely!  Then we took another ferry across to mainland, British Columbia and drove up to Vancouver where we stayed over for two more nights.  We walked Robson Street, shopped, went out for dinner, walked some more and took a water taxi over to Granville Island where we met my brother and niece for a lovely lunch.  It was a very fun weekend.  I especially enjoyed the ferry rides.  It was exciting to think that these HUGE ships could carry all of these cars, trucks and people across the expanses of water.

The weather was surprisingly nice (well, overcast but no rain!) and I really, really enjoyed Buchart Gardens.  I know I could never, ever get my kids to walk through them or Stephen for that matter.

I did miss my family though and wish that we did more sightseeing trips.  Our trips to Vancouver usually consist of hotel, hotel pool, Costco, grocery store, Whitespot, the Hockey Shoppe and home.  Not that thrilling. I am going to think about where I'd like to go and make it happen!