Out of the Box Day

We all had to dress out of the box (*out of our comfort zone)

Yvette (the pink-loving girly girl) is Elvis, and meak Hanna is Cotton Candy.

Introverted Janneth as playboy bunny.

Rick took us to dinner after work

I hate when I come in from work and can't doze right off.

It's the very early morning and my brain is still awake. The last three days I've been pulling long hours at work. Wednesday night and Thursday night I worked til 12:45pm and 1:15am, respectively. Tonight we worked til almost 2am. Rick and Regina drive me home all these nights. We've been preparing for this weekend at work. It should be insanely busy, all the time.

All the costumes that have been reserved in advance have been pulled from the racks, matched to their accessories and bagged up (like a dry cleaner does) in plastic. Then they were all alphabetized by the last name of the person renting each costume. So that's what all we've been doing late at night. Plus, Rick fixed the washer and dryer at the new store. So I've been cranking out loads of laundry.

Today at work, I dressed as "Mimi" from the Drew Carey show. Yvette was one of Hugh Hefner's girlfriends, Holly.

Jim had a check engine light come on while he was doing his paper route . I didn't hear how all the van was acting, because Jim and I haven't really been able to talk yet. Everyone is asleep, and I just got home. Jim gave me the short version of the van story on the phone when he called me at work. I heard that Hope & Scott took care of paying for the mechanic today and that the van is fixed. But I still don't know what all was wrong with the van.

I probably wont see Jim tomorrow. Yvette, a girl I work with, is driving me to work this morning. We have to go in early. So, I probably wont wake the whole house before I leave for work. I'll let them sleep in, if the kids will. Today I'll work all day, at least until close (9pm). I don't know if we will stay late on top of that.

No word yet from Health and Human Services about what they think about our foodstamp application. I'll let yall know how it goes.

Allan the Lionheart

Allan's 'Happy Hallelujah' costume came out of my paycheck today. After my employee discount, the lion costume cost $12. Not bad for something he'll play in all year. The nose on the costume is a button that makes the costume "ROOOAAARR"
We will borrow Elaine's Happy Hallelujah costume from my job. She's gonna be Snow White. My costume will be whatever costume I wore at work that day. I'll just wear it home from work that night, like I got to last year. I haven't decided which one yet.

Here's what I wore today at work. The picture doesn't show it. But I have copper eyeshadow on and opalescent face glitter. The more makeup I wear, the easier it is for me to sell it to people. I'm a walking example. :)

Jim's boss has doubled his paper route. So tomorrow Jim has to go (with Allan) and learn where all his new route stops are. He'll be paid for the mileage he uses to learn the route tomorrow. Jim wants to go do this right after he takes Elaine to school. So he's taking me to work early. I always have projects to work on. And Rick lets me work extra whenever I want to. I think I'll spend the morning at work catching up on rental costume laundry.

The best things in life are free.

Rick gave the kids some more boxes to slide down hills on. We went to the park when I got off of work tonight. I worked from after church, til 6pm.

Allan called me Silly kitty

Another girl quit at work today. That's the second one this week.

what i'm up to.

Jim's out doing his paper route now. He took Robert along with him, to keep him awake and help count out the papers for each stop. Jim made "birds in a blanket" for dinner for himself and the kids. He took Turkey Hotdogs and made dough to wrap them in, like pigs in a blanket.

We heard back from the church that the church's benevolence account for this month has already been emptied and that "if you have any other options you should try them." I think Jim is gonna call our options for help tomorrow while I'm at work.

Today, on the way to drop me at work, Jim swung us by the Health and Human Services office. I hopped out of the van and picked up a new application form. The basic application form was in a hige stack in the lobby.
I know we also need this form called a 1049 (because Jim is technically a self-employed driver who works contract for the paper route), but there was a huge line and I couldn't wait in the line to get the form I needed. I'm now looking online to see if I can find a version to print out for myself. I talked to Rick at work. He said for me to let him know if he needs to sign anything or do any paperwork related to verifying my income for Foodstamps.

blogging while the coffee is brewing....

We emailed the church, and are waiting to hear back from them about if they can help with our electric bill. It can take them a full day to respond, depending on who is in the church office.

Jim and I are about to re-apply for foodstamps (probably later this week), to take some of the load off. I should have gone and done the paperwork this morning, since I don't work until noon. But I really needed to catch up on sleep. Maybe I'll get it done tomorrow morning. :)


My friend Cher had all her biopsies come back clean! So we are super happy for her. A weight of worry is lifted. She just has to have a screening every 6 months.

We got the form for Elaine's school portraits yesterday. Picture day is the 29th.

Allan learned to spell his name on the LeapFrog toy. He can find the buttons for A-L-L-A-N.
Coffee is ready, so I'm going.

Big news!

Jim DELETED his World of Warcraft account today and deleted the program from his computer.


Much love to Jimbo for that one.
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Another day at the office:

Allan asleep, looking cute:

Tonight I got off work at 5pm and we went to Bible Study. Sue and I traded some scrapbook paper. She picked 21 sheets out of my paper and I picked 21 sheets from her paper. I am super happy with my new paper. I got lots of polka dot paper and other retro-looking fun paper, for free. I traded paper that I had that I wouldn't use (like when a slab of paper has 3 of the same pattern, I wont use all three). :)

see.... dotty. :)

Day off Work Today

We took the kids to the park with the kites

It was windy!

Parent/Teacher conference and Costumes at work

I realized that it's been 5 days since Jim's parent/teacher conference with Miss Monroe and he had not blogged about it. I wasn't there. But I will fill yall in from what Jim told me. He said that the poster for 'the pledge to the earth' was put away during their meeting. At first he thought this might mean that the whole pledge thing was over. But, Elaine has since told us that the class still says the pledge with the poster. Elaine says she does not say it, but the class does.
I wrote MIss Monroe a letter that listed all the things about Halloween that we choose not to expose Elaine to. This included:

witches spells magic
abominations (Frankenstein's monster)
& the undead (vampires, zombies & whatnot).

Jim said Miss Monroe was super receptive to the list. She also said that the school as changed which pumpkin patch that the kids go to because there were complaints last year about the old pumpkin patch. Jim is considering letting Elaine attend the feild trip this year. Wednesday Jim got a call from Miss Monroe. She said that the class is gonna start a new type of homework. The kids are taking home books on Mondays and have to read them during the week and take a little quiz about the books. They get points for passing the quiz and they can use these points to buy prizes in the school "store". With all that said, Miss Monroe isn't gonna have Elaine do this same homework. She said that all the books in the series are beneath Elaine's abilities. Instead Elaine will get a workbook to take home and complete. Jim thinks that it will be similar to the homeschool workbooks that we have Elaine complete for fun. -----------------------------------------------------------------------

Jim heard from Miss Monroe that Hodge Elementary has discontinued their 'Head start' program (aka Pre-K)! Instead they will have another ESL class. If anyone needs Pre-K to get them ready for Kindergarten, it's Allan. I'm frustrated. So now Allan wont get to go to Pre-K unless we drive him almost to Argyle. That seems SO inconvienant since Pre-K is a half-day and we'd have to drop him off and pick him up.

Allan is speaking more and making more sense, but he's struggling to learn his letters. He can sing the alphabet song and recite how to spell his name. But he can't spot an 'A' or any other letter. He's better with colors, but struggling with shapes.
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We've started the October rush at work. We have to either wear our lime green uniforms, so customers know who are employees, OR we can wear a costume at work. So far, I've worn a poodle skirt a couple times and been a convict (orange jumpsuit, etc). I'll try to take pictures of the rest of the costumes I wear. This should be funny in the scrapbook.

Jenn as super girl sweeping at work.

Me wearing a blond mullet wig in the convict jumpsuit.

One of my faux tattoos. I used Mehron's Paradise makeup to do the tattoos.

Felling better

Today was the first day I woke up without feeling cruddy. It does not hurt to swallow any more. Jim had back spasms yesterday, on top of his cold, but is doing a little better this morning.

Jim has a teacher conference with Miss Monroe on Monday at 2:10pm.