Summer is halfway over

It seems hard to believe that now we are into the middle of July and summer has almost come and gone.  Well, it's still here.  But ususually it is us Moms that start to think, wow, we're almost into August and we know what that means.  School is just around the corner.  Fall time shopping will start to enter our minds.

Next week is Jake's birthday.  We treated him to the new Spiderman movie on Saturday.  It was really good.  I wasn't sure if I would like the new one, but I like it just as much as the first ones with Toby MacGuire in it.  Jake came out all excited.  I think it was the highlight of his year!  I could just tell that he loved it.

Note:  He's been Spiderman for the last three years at Halloween and will need a bigger Spider man costume this year.  I'm going shopping for him on Thursday.  He will probably end up getting shorts and maybe an action figure.  He already has so many movies and music, that he probably doesn't need another.  But he usually gets one of the new kid movies when they come out onto DVD.  He and Sean are hard to buy for.  I usually end up giving Sean a gift card or one of those credit cards and then he can get what he wants.

So, now, we really only have a few weeks left of July and we're into August.  I like August as it starts to begin to get just a little cooler.  I like the crispness in the air.  You start to get a feeling of fall time.  I like all my seasons, but would have to say that I like winter the least.  Or I guess I can say that I don't like trudging through the snow.  I think that's a universal gripe with all us adults.  But I do like seeing it come down.  It is pretty.

The other thing about end of summer is the thought that the kids will be back in school and there will be a little quiet time again for a while.  I have been enjoying getting to be with them all summer, but I think for most parents the idea of keeping them entertained all summer becomes a big chore.  None of us want to have a bored child on our hands.

Mine tend to keep pretty busy.  Of course Sean is busy in the basement with his games, and his friends.  All my kids tend to be able to amuse themselves pretty well.  Jake and the girls have been going to school this month.  Jake goes every day for a while.  This is a given with him as he is Downs and he automatically needs to go every summer so he won't forget what he has learned in school all year.  For part of his school in the summer he gets to go down to the neighborhood pool a lot.  He's end of the day treat after school work.

And the girls go three days a week for three weeks this month for a math and reading program.  Their on IEPs and need the extra help.

And then, they like to all play on their laptops, and lately for Julia she has been requesting playing on mine for her two games she likes to play.  Free Realms and Feroheart.  The site was down the other day and she got so upset that it wasn't working.

So, I guess that will be one reason why I will like for school to start in the fall as I will get complete control back with my laptop!  The girl hasn't woken up yet, this morning so I am surprising myself by getting two posts done.  Once she takes control for hours, I won't see the laptop back until later.  So, during that time, you can bet I will be knitting instead.

I got back to my house last night and the cats got a hold of one of my knitted bracelets that I hadn't sewed up yet.  I won't be bothering as they tore it in half.  So that is letting me know that if the finished knitted bracelets come home to my apartment, I am going to have to contain them in a special box away from the cat's.  I don't think my boyfriend's cats would tear apart my knitting, but mine will.  So, also, my lovely knitted skirt is also in a place where they won't get to it.  I'm not about to suddenly find a big hole in that.

They have also in the past tore apart my knitted dishcloths.  I had a bunch of them in the ziploc bags for the craft shows a few years ago and I would see them grab a bag and try to take off with it.  I'd go chasing them for those, but if I left one out that I was using, I would later find a hole in it.

It's just nice to see the kids hop on the bus in the fall.  We just know that they need to be there to learn.  Summer is nice and fun, but it's a good thing it's just the summer.  And I think the kids do pretty well to have a well rounded summer.  They've been camping and are going again in a few weeks.  Sean and his Dad are going to Canada for a day to go to an IMAX theater.  I'm treating the girls in a few weekends to the new Madagascar movie.

We watched a kind of stupid shark movie a few nights ago.  My Shark Night movie came in the mail (Netflix) and I wanted to see it.  PG-13 so I figured it would be alright for the girls.  We popped it in and told them that if they get scared, we'll turn it off.  And in the preview my ex and I saw a scene where two girls are undoing their tops and you only see the back.  So he and I were thinking where it was pg-13 there wouldn't be too much nudity in it.

It ended up not being too bad.  A lot of blood more than anything when the sharks get the people.  It ended up some guys were dumping sharks in a lake and were killing people.  And there was one scene in the beginning of the movie where the girls saw the naked body of a nude male model.  Back to.  They saw no front luckily.  Mollyanne said something and I told her that he was just a model for artists to draw.  Then I told her that I had to draw nude models when I was in college.  We had a black male model and a woman that usually posed.  I've got some drawings somewhere of the male model.  I don't think I kept many of the woman.  I had painted her once and the painting came out beautiful.  Of course it was just of her face and I sold it at the school auction one year.

The Shark movie ended up being kind of stupid, but watchable once.

The Reef was scarier.  It had a lot more suspense than this one did.  I had to close my eyes on some parts of that movie.

Well, now the girl is up and we're watching Animal Planet.  She is happy as she hasn't had that channel for a little while.  Yesterday, Mollyanne had it on her channel for a while.  And we were watching Eragon for a few nights.  It was on Saturday night and then again last night.

I was leafing through my knitting patterns yesterday and later today, I might pick out one of the doll outfits and start knitting some little stuff besides the bracelets.

I found a pretty floral binder for fifty cents at a yardsale the other day and have decided to use it to contain my knitting patterns.  i also have decided to replenish a few of my dolls and start collecting a few of the vintage ones from the 50s.  The Madame Alexander ones are nice.  My Aunt Mary used to have a bunch of the bride ones at her house and one year when I was in college, I took pictures of them.  Of course the pictures didn't come out very well, so I was looking very hard to see the dolls.

So now I have a Margaret and a Sweet Sue.  I might call my Aunt sometime to see if she can remember what the names of some of them were.  I would like to someday get my own.  And I've got some of the knitting patterns for them.  Once I can perfect it, I would like to try selling some on Ebay later this year.

And I've got to fire up my sewing machine to make the sewn up doll clothing too.  It looks like it is selling if it is done nicely.

And another thing I am going to try selling later this year is some scrapbooking stuff.  I was looking around for a few of the paper punches that I would like for my crafting projects lined up for fall time when the kids are in school.  I've been cutting up all those cereal boxes and am going to make some collage stuff at some point.  I'll be printing up a bunch of pictures for part of it.

But what people are selling on Ebay are the cutouts from paper punches.  They are selling a package of fifty paper pieces, say butterflies, hearts, etc...   And I have the a bunch of the paper punches already to do it.  So I'm thinking I will start getting some packages done up and invest in a few more pretty paper punches for it.  Some people would rather buy the paper pieces than do it themselves.  I'm trying to think of other things to sell on Ebay for fall time.  As I will only have summer to find yard sale items to sell and I'm running out of my stuff to sell.  So I need to be thinking of other things.

That was also my yard sale treat the other day.  I went to one where I got a bunch of the unopened inks and some scrapbooking Paris paper for a few bucks and there was a baggie of some gardening tape and in the bag was a nice big knitting needle for sewing up the bracelets.  I saw it and grabbed it as it had a bigger hole for stringing the yarn through.  Some of those smaller needles are hard to push the thicker yarn through.  And I hate when I can't find a needle to sew my stuff.  One day I had one at my apartment and the cats knocked it and I can't find it.  Then I found another one and it went down the crack of the couch.

Luckily, I was able to find another one.  And I broke down and ordered a plastic set of 18 plastic sewing knitting needles.  So once that comes, I shouldn't have an excuse not to find one.

What I need to do is organize it and have all the little sewing needles and the cable needles in the same spot, so I can find them.  I hate not being able to find things.

Another fall time project is painting one of those white styrofoam mannequin heads.  I'm waiting to pull out my good paints when the girls are gone to school.

Jennifer Jo Fay

Copyrighted July 17, 2012

This was the pattern on a bathingsuit that didn't fit me anymore.  But I took a picture of the chrysanthemums before I sold the outfit.  I love this pattern.