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June 21st, 2008 by Not Martha

Moving makes you realize how much stuff you really have. We don’t generally have a lot of stuff… heck we barely had furniture. But, I mean the little stuff.

Like Noah had about 50 pencils in his backpack… all sharpened down to nearly nothing. For some reason Lucas has a bajillion more t-shirts than everyone else. That got pared down a bit, gave a few to Noah & Ethan and quite a few in a donation box.

And then there’s the office. Let’s just say this, when no one knew what to do with a thing…. it ended up in the office. So, the office became full of stuff that I have no idea what to do with. Guess what room we saved for packing and moving until last?

June 21st, 2008 by Not Martha

You all are going to laugh at me. I was working last night and I got up to stretch my legs for a minute and walk around. I went out on the front porch and just sort of stood there and did some stretches and stuff. It was QUIET. I mean way too quiet.

I don’t know if I can handle all this quietness. I stood outside for about 5 or 10 minutes and there was nothing. No traffic sound. No dogs barking. No noisy partying teenagers. No train went by. For those that don’t know much about the town I came from, I grew up living very close to train tracks. Very, very close.

Our house that we lived in right before we moved down to Virginia was the furthest away I had ever been from a train track, but it was very, very close to the Pennsylvania Turnpike. If you’ve ever traveled on the Turnpike you probably know that there’s plenty of sounds to go with that too.

So here I am in the very quiet neighborhood wondering if I’m going to go completely crazy or what. Brian said during the week I’ll probably be able to hear the shift change whistle over at the shipyard, because it’s pretty loud.

We had a few neighbors say hello already. The kids of course have met a few other kids that were outside playing. It’s going pretty smoothly.

And …. for the first time in about a year and a half I have a sofa to sit on. That was my contribution to the “stimulate the economy” out of our stimulus check. The rest went to paying bills and moving costs. We stopped at about 6 or 7 furniture stores the other day. Then I had to go to Best Buy to get a new CAT5 cable, the clippy thing broke off one end of mine so it was just loosely sitting in the router and I was getting knocked offline.

Value City was next to Best Buy, so Brian went to get my cable, and I popped over to Value City. Lucky me, right in the front of the store they had sofa and chair sets that were marked way down in price for fast sale. We had gotten our stimulus check, and I figured I should do my part to stimulate the economy since most of my stimulus did go to paying bills and moving expenses.

We picked up a sofa and chair set for only $300. My living room has furniture in it … it’s amazingly cute. Of course, the boys would have rather we stimulate the economy via Game Stop, but they’ll just have to wait for Christmas to do that.

Pictures and more Videos from the kids to come very soon.

June 19th, 2008 by Not Martha

I recently received some really great sunscreen samples to try out. I don’t go outside without sunblock and sunglasses. And since my boys inherited my complexion there is no bike riding or going to the park without some sunscreen.

And that’s not just because it’s summer, we use sunblock all year round. Because guess what? Skin cancer doesn’t take a winter break. You can get sunburn all year long.

Now in the fall and winter you really don’t need sunblock all over quite so much. But you still need sunblock for your face. And that just happens to be Screen Inc’s specialty. Facial sunblocks.

At its core, Screen, Inc. strives to educate and inform people of all ages about how to safely enjoy the sunny outdoors. Without proper protection, that warm, friendly sun can easily turn into our skin’s worst enemy.

 Screen, Inc. offers an innovative facial sunscreen for all walks of life.

Tweeny Screen and Teen Screen have been designed for the younger bunch, while the “Wish They Were Young Again” crowd will relish in the Man Screen and Chic Screen. Our sun-protective Lip Screen is available for kissable smackers everywhere.

And they also carry lipbalms with SPF protection, a very important step that many people overlook when applying sunblock. Your lips can get sunburn too! And believe me, you don’t want that. It hurts! Yes, I speak from the experience of my younger days when I was stubborn and dumbheaded and didn’t think I needed lip balm when I was going swimming.

Screen Inc carries a sunblock for everyone, just in case your tween likes to smell good and have fun there’s a Tweeny screen, which is the only scented facial sunscreen with a Tropical Scent. I was lucky enough to get samples of each type. My oldest two boys used the “Man Screen” because they wanted to be all grown up and manly. *sigh* My younger two boys used the Teeny Screen, and I used the Teen Screen and Chic Screen myself.

Well, we’ve had a lot of outside time the past few weeks and no one has gotten burnt using these facial screens. Noah almost always ends up with sunburn on top of his ears, but this really stuck on there and kept him protected. It also protected his head! Nothing is worse than sunburned scalp and Noah has a mohawk so I had to sunblock almost his whole head, and I figured why not use this moisturizing, soft, good smelling stuff instead of that generic off the shelf stuff. And I’m glad I did. So far his little head is safe and sound.

Myself? I’m not much for scented products usually, with my allergies and everything so I avoided the Tweeny Screen, but the kids liked it. The other three don’t have any added fragrance to them, however there is scent that I’m guessing is from the natural ingredients of shea butter and avocado oil. Thanks to those same ingredients the sunscreens are definitely non-greasy just like they claim on the label. They feel more like a nice lotion than your typical sunblock.

The Teen Screen, Man Screen, and Chic Screen are all exactly the same sunblock with a different name and different color on the label. The only difference is you can show off at the beach with your fancy named “man screen” I suppose and not feel like a wuss. Hey, whatever gets you to protect yourself from the sun is fine with me. But, honestly I don’t understand having three products that are the same with a different name. Why not just call in Screen Routine and get it over with?

We’ve almost used up all our samples now, I’ve got one Tweeny Screen and one Chic Screen sample left. I have a feeling Noah will probably use up the rest of the Tweeny this weekend on his bare head -lol-

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June 13th, 2008 by Not Martha

Yesterday was the last day of school for my kids. I’ve got a lengthy post in the works about all their awards and grades and whatnot… but today is about the first day of summer.

Dylan has spent most of the day today working on a beat up, neglected, abused bicycle that a neighbor gave him a few weeks ago. He fixed it at first and he’s been riding it all this time. Well, it gave up today and needed more work. He’s trying really hard to get it up to par and just having very little luck. I wish our stimulus check had come today …. I would scoop him up and go to Target and just buy him a shiny new bike!

He’s really been putting his heart into this beat up old bike, and he’s never ever asked me for a bike … and he did so great in school this year. I think he deserves a decent bike. Maybe that check will be in tomorrow’s mail and I can surprise him with a new bike for the summer.

Lucas …. well, Lucas is not a go outside and run every chance he gets kind of kid. Lucas is more of a I’m going to sit in this recliner, watch cartoons, play video games, and read comic books kind of a kid. He’s spent most of the day in the recliner with his new comic books just relaxing.

Noah has been puttering around going through the toy box deciding what should go to the new house and what should go to GoodWill or Freecycle… He’s more interested in moving than anything else.

Ethan has spent his day snuggling the cat and eating all the food in the house. Okay, maybe not all the food, but seriously I often forget what it’s like to have the boys home all day. My poor refrigerator doors.

It has been an interesting day to say the least. Lots of family stuff going on … non-blog appropriate stuff that is. All on the first day of summer break. I’ve gotten next to nothing done so far today, I’m distracted and fuzzy headed. Is it bedtime yet? Everyone go to bed so I can work in peace and quiet already.

June 12th, 2008 by Not Martha

When I was getting the boys video footage from the camera I realized I had a few pieces on there that I hadn’t pulled off and saved yet. Ooopssies.

Like Christmas morning opening presents!

And our pathetic snowfall this winter …. poor Ethan waited and wished and hoped for snow and this little dusting is all he got.

All that winter should cool you off today ;)