At the River

We love the river. We so love the river. We love the people who are here at the river with us too, which are the neighbors and friends we have me at our campground. We just finished up at the potluck dinner where everyone brings a dish and the campground provides music (tonight from an ipod hooked to the sound system), BBQ sandwiches, and beer. VERY NICE. We brought steamed veggies and there was everything from lazagne to mac and cheese to apple sauce and strawberry shortcake! YUM. So we arrive and it is so nice to here 'hey Sears family, what did you bring?' and we sat with our friends here. They are the nicest four other couples who are always here and all are the age of our parents. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but just saying of all the people we have met in the past year we connect with the older folks. Everyone else came and left in 45 minutes time but we all sat a talked and talked and one of the ladies asked Nicholas if he wanted to play catch with her and she and him walked over to the clearing and threw the baseball around a bit. What nice people!!

This morning was the craft show and there were seven other vendors besides myself and Allie who sold her girl scout cookies. She did well (Allie) and sold most all of them. However it was hard for her to sit in one place for four hours. So to reward herself she bought herself a new pair of fancy flipflops from one of the ladies here. They are fuzzy on the strap made with fun fur. They are purple!

I did well for a slow day. There were three other ladies who were selling jewelry. One lady was a rep for a jewelry company like premier but not them. Another lady was selling sparkly bracelets and necklaces that she crochets the crystals on silk thread. Very interesting and pretty. Then another one, an older lady who is an odd duck was selling some bracelets along with her other crochet blankets, doilies, washclothes etc, that she sells. She priced hers high and I don't think she sold much at all. In the past she bugs the mess out of me at these shows because she, while she is nice, she wants to trade stuff. Well, I crochet the same things that she does and I really don't want much of anything that she has, but she wants what I have. Like last year she LOVED my zucchini pickles and she wanted three jars and she wanted to trade. Well I couldn't come up with enough stuff that I wanted from her and then I felt guilty that I couldn't trade with her so I just picked stuff and then she wanted to trade some more stuff and I had a really hard time telling her I didn't want to trade. It was horrible for my psyche if you know what I mean. Okay back to the craft show.. .....So I sold beaded bracelets, necklaces,and earrings all for $5 each. Then I had my hairbows, dog pull toys and handmade card sets and the funny pencil toppers. I sold no card sets but everything else I sold some. I think I sold 8 or so pencil toppers, 8 or 9 pieces of jewelry and 5 or so hairbows. Oh and 6 or so dog pull toys.

The next craft show is in two weeks and I want to make a bunch more bracelets and finish off what I have of the fleece for dog toys. Last year I sold dog biscuits, canned pickles, relish, and fleece blankets and scarves when it got chilly in the fall. The other ladies sell sewn projects like wine glass cozzies, jar toppers, fabric wreaths, and crocheted blankets and washcloths, booties, bonnets, etc. And the flipflops. So I am wondering what might be a big hit around here. Help me out. I need some ideas on something that would be fun to sell that everyone would want one around here.

I am so sad....

I only have four more days left of my summer vacation. I return to work on Friday, August 1. We have a teacher work day on Friday and then start up with kids on Monday. I am so sad. I am more sad because I still hate everyone that I work with and I so don't want to go back to work.

Kenneth and I were talking and mused about taking the kids out of school and traveling around homeschooling the kids in our camper for the next year and selling my hairbows in craft shows to make money (and on line of course!) Do you know how many hairbows I would have to sell to make any money??? We would have to form a good ole "sears sweatshop" kicking out hairbows by the hundreds!!! It is fun to muse though.....

Okay, so back to reality. I want to really work on my Disney album and finish that up before I go back to school and I know the kids will want to spend a bunch of time at the pool so we will be spending the next four days here at the house and down at the pool with that clock ticking ever so much faster now....

I do have to say that I have really enjoyed having our camper down at Grey's Point Campground. The kids love it and we really like getting away every weekend again. It has been a long three years since we piled in the car on Fridays and headed down to the river for the weekend. We will continue to go through the fall and I am looking forward to the quiet fall weekends down there. I hope that Nicholas will want to do some fishing in the fall and that the girls will enjoy swimming in the warm river water once the jellyfish move out of there.

They have asked me (Grey's Point) to do some crafts with the kids. Last weekend I did notecards with them and will do that again this coming weekend and then in two weeks I will be painting with the kids.

I am so enjoying the...

sucking up that is going on at work right now. This one teacher has realized last week that I am not such a bad person. I think she is also realizing that there are other teachers who are deliberately being rude and mean to me. She is seeing this and realizing that she used to be "one of them". So the sucking up has begun. Last week she needed a ride home and she was complaining about not having a ride and I offered her one and she accepted. While we were riding home she broached the subject of the mean and caddyness (is that a word??) that has been going on. I told her that I was well aware of what they were doing and while it was frustrating on my end because they are attempting to sabatage all the nice things that I am trying to do for all the teachers (time to work in classrooms, a luncheon that never ended up happening because everyone protested, etc.) that I am not going to play their game and succumb to their tactics. I don't play. I work and use the rules that are set in place previous to me coming into this position. I try to follow the rules and expect everyone else to work hard and follow the rules too. If they want to sabbatage the nice things then so be it, I just won't do nice things anymore. She agreed with me and has been more chatty recently and has come to vent some frustrations of her own. I don't talk bad about any particular person and will from time to time make comments like, "I don't understand how we can't be mature individuals and work nicely together", or "sometimes people need to belittle others to make themselves feel better", or "the faculty is a unique group who while we all do our jobs very well have difficulty coming together as a group and enjoying the differences of each other rather that being critical to them". You know stuff like that. Lel, see your workplace isn't the only place that is disfunctional!!

Everyone else have done a great job of ignoring me blatently to my face and by avoiding exposure to me. I must have leprocy or something contagious. All I can say is that I have two and a half days left and am counting down the hours, well class periods left. For the count, that makes 18!!

On a good note, we had a great weekend and I can't wait to get back down to the river. For those friends who don't know, we rented a seasonal space at the campground just down from my parents house. Their house is a bit small for us to be invading their space every weekend and this way we will have our own space to hang out. Plus it has a super cool pool!!

Here is our little slice of heaven...

And this is another shot so you can see our whole spot.

And another angle:

And now meet the neighbors!!

They are the Bennetts and they are from the Richmond area too (Highland Springs) and they LOVE to sit on their back deck and stare at us. Our family will most likely become their summer entertainment this year. Can't wait!! It seemed like everytime we came back to our trailer they would come out and sit on their deck and watch us. Do you know how hard it is to read a book while being stared at. Kenneth said that we need to plant some Leeland Cyprus trees right there in front of their deck on our side of the line so they can't see us directly. He said he felt like he was in a fishbowl. I say that they won't be coming down as much once we are there an entire weekend without three loud kids. We will ruin their peace and quiet and they will find it not as enjoyable. OR they will move to the front deck on the other side. Whichever is fine with me.

The neighbors adjacent to us in the second picture up where you see the back of another unit, apparently never come down. They (according to the Bennetts) bought the place last year and have spent one night here. They don't expect to see them at all this summer as they weren't there at all last summer.

Everyone else we have seen have waved or said hello but not introduced themselves to us or come up to talk. We weren't around much last weekend but I intend to do some "friendmaking" this weekend while down. I will also take some pictures of other people's places. Most are "park model" trailers and look much more perminent than ours but in the next coming weeks we will be making some improvements to our space so it will feel a bit more homey.

Peddle Tractor Pull

Here are some pictures of the kids at the peddle pull. It is a fun little tractor pull for peddle tractors.

Nicholas and Alexandra waiting their turn.


Alexandra trying her best! She was in the 6-7 year old group.


Nicholas participated in the 8-9 year old group.


Caroline watching her siblings. She didn't want to do it.


My lovelies with their certificates and Nicholas won a ribbon, coming in third place. There was some tough competition out there this year and lots more kids participated. Last year, both Nicholas and Allie won first place.

"Honey you were Right!"

There are times when you just have to say "Honey you were right!". I will gladly say it when it is due and it can be quite often in my house. My husband and I have a great relationship and are usually on the same wavelength on most everything.

This weekend we planned a camping trip to Chippokes State Park. They were having an antique gas and steam engine show. Basically the festival consists of two full days of antique tractor pulls and a bunch of antique cars on display and a bunch of old steam and gas engines, which I am not exactly sure what they do. Chippokes State Park is an old plantation and it is one of the few working farm museums on the east coast. It lies directly across the James River from Jamestown. There is an old farm house and there is a "summer house" that the family would move from the old farm house to the summer house in the summer. The two houses are about 600 yards apart but the summer house sits on the hill, and apparently there was a better wind in the summer house keeping it cooler in the summer. They have a working garden and a farm where they plant hay, soybean and some other crops. They have a kitchen garden but I was too hot and sweaty to walk down and explore. Chippokes State Park is also known for its BIG bugs. Now I am not a bug person and I particularly don't like those that buzz around your head and then land and bite the crap out of you.

Back to my story. So we pull the trailer down Friday evening and set up just before sunset and bed down for the night. Saturday we wake up and pack up the car with a cooler, the wagon, a bunch of folding chairs and a new item...a 10x10 canopy. I told him that I didn't think we needed it, I wondered that we would be looked at as a problem because we were going to erect this along the tractor pulling competition, I worried that others would tell us to take it down. I told my husband that I didn't think it was necessary. I worried when we took it, I worried as we were pulling our large wagon across the grass. Most people who were visiting or enjoying the festival didn't bring with them such a set up. We weren't competing so I thought it wasn't really necessary. We set it up next to another tent and I was surprised at how many tents there were. I counted 8 other tents that I could see from our tent. We settled down and set up the chairs and sat down and started watching the competition and I realized, "honey you were right". We did need this and it was nice and cool under the shade of our own personal canopy. It was a nice home base for the day and what a hot day it was. The high for the day was in the 90's. The humidity was high too. The shade and chairs made the kids much more pleasant too. They didn't complain too much, which in turn, made the day nicer too.

More to come tomorrow with photos of the kids competing in the peddle tractor pull!

The Longest Week

This has felt like the longest week. It is finally Friday. Whew! I made it. This morning I was commenting to a fellow teacher as we both dragged in late that even with an inservice day on Monday it has felt like a terribly long week. She too agreed and also added that she was glad that the bus came to pick up 4 kids to take them to prison yesterday. When that happens it makes the next day a bit nicer because those who are usually picked up are the ones that cause trouble during the days just before the pick up day. Are you following me? So today did feel a bit better but looking back it feels like last weekend was forever ago.

Another teacher also commented on it and our principal agreed as well.

Let's think for a minute, yes, 6 1/2 weeks to go before we are off for "summer break", if you can call it that. We work an extended year so our summer is only the month of July. Then the 1st of August we are back with our little jailbirds again. This year we get exactly 5 weeks to the day for summer break. I guard those weeks with all I have. This summer two of my three are going to summer school in the mornings and the afternoons are filled with time at the pool. I don't think we will get to the beach but I do plan on taking some long weekends camping. We have this trailer that we don't use enough. Anyone know any good fun places to camp in the VA, MD, NC, WV area? Tell me about them...