School Daze

Here are the girlies on their first day of school. A week ago.

School started for the girls and I a week ago today, and let me tell you, life is cuh-RAZY right now. I can hardly believe I've gone for more than a week without touching my blog, let alone had any time to read other people's blogs.

We are very much in survival mode right now. I started the school year completely overwhelmed by the multitude of textbooks and the accompanying paraphernalia that they seem to come with these days. By Tuesday I was on information overload and experienced a series of little mini meltdowns, all at home thankfully.

I'm not a big whiner, generally, but when Peanut Head came home Tuesday and asked me how my day was, I couldn't get an intelligible word out. I responded "I . . . I . . . I . . . iiiiiittttt's just so HAAAAARD! Whaaa!"

And yes, it was all accompanied by the Ugly Cry. The one where my lips curl up into my nostrils and I can't get them back down to cover my teeth properly. And of course this flattering display is always accompanied by much sputtering and snorting, and just a little bit of snot.

Sorry.

But I got through it after the attractive venting session with Peanut Head and the good cleansing and snort filled cry in the shower. And things are getting better every day.

My sixth graders are great too. They're an amazing bunch of kids and very well-behaved. I have their fifth grade teachers to thank for that, I'm sure.

We are still very busy, and as predicted I need to beef up our supply of under drawers for these lean laundry days.

But we are alive and well, and I don't want you to think that we dropped off the planet or anything like that. I may be popping in and out of here less often and more sporadically, but I will be continuing with the blog, so just keep me in your feed reader and I'll show up now and then. I read each and every one of your comments. Thank you for taking the time to leave them, they brighten my day.

I'll be around . . . 

CH-CH-CH-Changes

So, I have some news. 

You may have noticed that I haven't been blogging as much. Well . . .

I got a job.

Yep. I'm going to be teaching sixth grade again, but this time at an elementary school instead of a middle school. Yes, an Elementary school so I'm preeeeetty sure the Potty Prancers will not be appropriate. Not that they ever were, but I think you know what I mean. In fact, I broke down and made some respectable potty bathroom passes instead. I'll try to remember to get pictures of those tomorrow to share with you.

Life is going to be changing around here. The girls are going to have more responsibilities than ever, and I'm going to relax my housekeeping standards. Seriously, a lot of relaxing and letting things go is going to be happening.

I've always admired working mothers and wondered how they did it all. For me, I know the answer is going to be that I can't do it all, but instead I will do what I can, crappily well and make sure that what I choose to do is important to me.  And I'm going to go and buy a lot more underwear for those lean laundry days.

Not only that, but certain things around here are going to be streamlined. The girls and I had a hair appointment the other day. I got some highlights, or a weave, or whatever it is that girlie girls call this . . .

And I love it. Funny story though, take a look at my Ginormic Head. My head really is not that big. In fact, I have kind of a pin head with a no-neck that looks a little small for my body. Or maybe my body is too big for it. I don't know.

Either way, my head is super-sized here because my hair lady, The Magician, teased it. I believe the term that she used is "back comb," but the result is the same. I ended up with this helmet of hair that I could not believe belonged to me. Seriously, it was immovable, sort of nest-like, and oddly perfect in shape. I could not stop touching it and looking at it. It defied gravity.

Hmmmm. Can I back comb my boobs?

So, I got my hair refreshed and the girlies got their heads shaved.

I'm a horrible mother and this is proof.

For all of our relatives that will be calling (Aunt Marcia), horrified, to demand of me "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO THEIR GOLDEN LOCKS?!!!" I'm going to have to just stop and have a moment of silence and gratitude for Caller ID.

Amen.

I had to get the girls' hair cut short because I will not have the time to mess with it in the mornings. And I know this sounds like an excuse, and maybe it is, but you know about Zoe Bug's little issue. The issue which still has not been resolved even though I was hopeful that the silky pillow case would be the magic bullet. I won't post that picture again because it's responsible for ruining several computer monitors, and for that I apologize. Really, I do.

So I got the girls excited about (I bribed them with ginormous lollipops) getting short (boy) haircuts, all for my own selfish needs.

I've been telling them for weeks that we were going super short with their hair so that they could learn how to comb their own hair. While it was short. And easy. And it was going to be motivation for them to take care of their own hair. So that when they could prove to me that they were ready for long hair by taking care of it themselves, well then they could have long hair.

Yeah. I'm sooooooo smart.

And I know that you know how this is going to turn out, but I'm going to say it anyway.

It backfired.

It backfired BIG.

They love their new hair. They especially love the bangs and to torture me they insist that their bangs be spread out just so on their foreheads in Frankenstein fashion, mocking me. Mocking me. Mocking me.

And I ask you, who won this round?

Backpack ID Tags Take Two

My kids start school next week, so the past several weeks I've been trying to get all their things ready to go. Today I finished their backpack ID tags.

Last year I posted the tags I made for them here, but this year I've changed them a little. The first thing I did differently was to create the tag itself in my Creative Memories digital scrapbooking program. I also laminated the ID tags with my laminator instead of using the plastic badge holders. The tags feel more durable this way, but time will tell.

I'm not sure that our family is the best for stress testing the tags since we have girls. I say this because I see what boys do to their backpacks. They use them as shot puts, they use them as sleds (with or without snow), and all sorts of crazy things. Boys are rough on backpacks. And everything else.

Stinkerbell's backpack has been through two years with Zoe and it's about to start its second year with Stinkerbell. That's what I'm talking about.

Here's what Zoe's tag looked like when I was making it in my software program. After I printed it, I cut it right down the middle and used the right side for the back of the tag and the left side for the front of the tag.

I feel like I should mention that the Creative Memories software is not Mac compatible. You see it on my Mac because I'm running it through windows with a Boot Camp partition blah de blah, gobbledy-gook. The Rocket Scientist set it up for me and it works, that's all I know and it's all I care about.

Once I cut the tag in half, I mounted each side on a piece of card stock. It makes the tag a little more sturdy and it looks nicer that way.

Then I ran it through my BFF, the laminator. I'm thinking for Halloween I need to come up with a Laminator costume. Sort of a parody on The Terminator. I haven't figured out the logistics yet, but I think a cape is involved. Maybe some kind of laminated paper cape. Hmmmm.

You can see here that the tag still needs to be trimmed. I trimmed it, leaving a little excess at the top so I can beribbon it. That's important, you know.

Here are the lunchbox ID tags. They're about half the size of the backpack tags.

Once all the tags are trimmed to the size I want, I round the corners with my corner rounder. We're accident prone in this house, so I want to get rid of sharp corners.

Plus I don't want Stinkerbell putting someone's eye out when she lets them have it with her backpack.

I used my Crop-a-Dile to punch holes in the tags, and then I slipped a split ring through each tag. Split rings are simply key chain loop thingies. The size I used were 20 mm.

For the backpack ID tag, I punched some extra holes along the top to tie ribbon to. I didn't do it on the lunchbox tags because lunchboxes are hard enough to keep clean without adding ribbon to them.

The final step is to seal the ribbon with heat so that it doesn't fray. I just use a lighter and swoop in real quick. Any longer and your ribbon will catch on fire. Take my word for it.

I also have a lobster clasp attached to this keyring. It makes it easier to clip to the backpack zipper, and I can take it off a lot quicker if I need to wash the backpack. You don't have to have the lobster clasp though. They keyring alone is enough.

I'm starting to think these would make cute luggage tags too. Oh the possibilities.

Here are the lunchboxes.

I love the Dora lunchbox.

But I think the Hannah Box is going to meet with tragedy. I had a dream that it got run over by a bus.

Hey, it could happen.