It Has Been Forever...

since I have posted. I am sorry about that but it has just been a whirlwind around here. May has gone by in a blur but it was all good. The first weeks of June have also been hectic but I am counting the days to Friday when I can officially start summer vacation from school with BOTH kids.

Our addition is started. So far, the old patio has been dismantled and the bricks on the side of the house have been taken down. In its place is this tar paper stuff to keep the rain from getting inside. Our property has been marked by our demolition man (our good, good friend) and I am waiting for the electric/gas/water people to come out and mark the property up even more. Today I am getting excited. Tonight the demolition man comes with his equipment and the concrete slab which was once a porch will be broken up. Starting Friday night or Saturday morning (sorry I don't remember which day), more equipment comes in and the demolition man will be digging 7 feet under our property for what will be a new foundation and cellar. Then in a week or two, DH will start the construction of the kitchen and brand new upstairs. Our addition will consist of a cellar, kitchen and room on top of the kitchen and over part of the dining room. Make sense??? It doesn't to me so I will have to offer photos of all this stuff starting next week.

But most importantly in my life right at this very moment is I have a newly minted 8th grade graduate. Yeppers, DS graduated last night and I am such a proud mama at the moment. He received the Altar Servers Award for his years in the ministry of our Church community and his grades for this trimester went through the roof. I always knew he had it in him to excel. That is where most of May went. It went to projects, reports, tests, reviews and then last week the final exams of grade school. He came through it all shining like the handsome young man that he is.

Yesterday morning the Award Ceremony was at Church. I started tearing up around 10:30 yesterday morning and didnt' stop til around 8:30 last night. The graduation itself was wonderful. He sat with us the whole time and then got up after Communion to receive his diploma. I was a blubbering mess by then. Gosh, how the heck am I going to be when this happens again in 4 years. Sigh...

Tonight his is Graduation Dance and the theme is Casino Night. I bought him a black striped shirt, sage green tie and black pants. He is going to look so handsome. It is at a local country club and I am very excited for him. I made a collage of his life about a month ago with the other moms at school. They will be decorating the ballroom where the dance will be held. I can't wait to see it tonight. The parents get to stay for 1/2 hour and then we get kicked out. I will be on pins and needles til we go get him around 11. I know he will have fun.

Tomorrow he goes to school for a Yearbook Luncheon. He will receive his yearbook and the school will provide a catered lunch for our graduates. I know he will definitely have fun doing that too. I can't wait to see the yearbook but I know there are not a lot of pictures of him. We only came to this school in 6th grade but it will be fun to look at anyway. I know they stressed a lot of 8th grade pictures this year.

As for DD, she is excellent as always. She passed all her exams with flying colors and even got a 90 on her dreaded Social Studies exam. I am very happy for her and I can't wait til Friday when she gets out of school. For this week, she has half days with Thursday off and Friday is only the closing Mass and report cards and she will find out who her teacher is next year. Yesterday she got to go to her brother's Award Ceremony so she really didn't even have school. DS and I will attend the Mass as the 8th graders have a special place at that Mass on Friday also. I love how this school really praises its students. It will be another special day for me on Friday.

I put my stitching away last month and plan to spend some time on Friday pulling it out again. I need my "pool" project and a big project for the evenings. I can't wait to just sit back and relax and not worry about projects, reports, exams, etc. for a few months. May really did me in and May is normally one of my most favorite months of the year. This year, I couldn't wait til it was over.

I guess that is it from me. I am so hoping to get back into blogging on a regular basis once this week is over. I want to stitch and I want to share our house construction with you. I am going to be proud of that as DH is doing practically all the labor himself. :)

Have a great day and great rest of the week!!!

May Day

I cannot believe it is May 1 already!! Where did the months go? It feels like I was just saying Happy New Year on January 1. Now here it is 5 months later. I love May. There are tons of reasons but the top three are 1) my birthday, 2) DH's birthday and 3) this year will mark my 20th Wedding Anniversary. I also feel happier in the month of May. Not because of the birthday and anniversary but with each passing day, the weather will be more pleasant, I will see more and more color in the flowers, grass and trees and school will be winding down in a little over a month. I cannot wait. I think I am worse than the kids. I am not liking 4th grade these days but that will be for another entry. I am in a good mood today and don't want to ruin it (at least from now til 3:15 pm).

This morning I woke up thinking about goals. Not so much in my everyday life but in stitching and reading. I haven't picked up a book in months. Okay, I have picked them up but not opened them. I love to read and I don't know what is going on with me not reading.

On Sunday evening, DD and I were at Barnes and Noble. She wanted a Nancy Drew book. I got so excited thinking she was going to read the same ones I did. Nope!! There is a whole new "updated" series on Nancy. She is loving them. I bought her the first two of the new series and told her that she would even enjoy the old series that I read when I was young. She advised me that the covers did not appeal to her. Nancy was "old" looking in those. Hmph!! In all honesty she was "old" on those covers when I read them in the 70's, but the stories are timeless. Looks like a new generation is going to be reading a new Nancy Drew. And an FYI, the Hardy Boys are updated too. :)

Well back to the reason for goals in reading. While at Barnes and Noble, I went to the Mystery section to see what was new. I even picked up a couple of books. I love Laura Childs and Joanne Fluke and Diane Mott Davidson. I got the books and started to walk where DD was in the children's section. Then it hit me. I "think" I have both of these books. That minute walk had me going back and forth until I decided to just put them back. I have to check first. Yesterday while straightening up, I pulled a bag from my closet that holds my unread books. There is quite a bit in there. Yep, you guessed it. I had one of the two books I was going to purchase. Sigh...I bought them last year with the intent to read a book a week all summer. I never even finished a chapter in one book. Here I am telling DD that she really has to get back into reading this summer once the horror of 4th grade is over. Meanwhile her mother has yet to practice what she preaches. LOL She is anxious too as she was telling me that she misses reading every night before bed. I may no longer read to her, but she had a beautiful habit that I created of reading every night. It goes way back to when she was just a baby and I read books each night to her and her brother. It dawned on me that she has so much on her shoulders these days that she can't even enjoy a chapter a night. 9 year olds should not have this much pressure on them nowadays. They have their whole life for that. But I am digressing and I am so not going into the 4th grade rant right now. So walking to the check out we made a deal. We are both going to read every night once school is out for the summer. Actually we decided to try before school lets out but I know there are going to be many nights that she will be too burned out to do it. But we can start. So now, I need to organize the bag of books and make a list of what I want to buy and keep that in my wallet. I plan on starting a book tonight. She already started her Nancy Drew. By the end of the summer we are hoping that we read the same amount of books. I told her that she will probably read more than me as some of my books are longer in length. But that is okay. She can win by reading the most. It will really be a win for me too if she accomplishes that.

Now if I can just get her big brother to read...

P.S. The stitching goal will be the next entry tomorrow.