Getting Ready for a book fair?

Our Friends from Frolix 8 by Philip K. Dick - 1st Hardcover Edition

So far, I've got ONE new book (that's interesting -- at least to me) for the book fair ....

which is closing in on me in four weeks time.

(huff, huff, hyperventilating here..)

BUT

As far as my list of things to do from yesterday ... I got the ink for the flyers today. Yippee!

I also finally got a new wrist rest that I've needed for about oh, eight months now. The previous wrist rest was torn apart by son number two who, when using my computer, can't seem to keep his hands on the keyboard, but has to TOUCH things -- my wrist rest, my stapler (found it without any staples about four times before I yelled), my tape dispenser, my pens, my sticky notes (expensive toys!).

Sharing my desk with my children is a real motherly sacrifice (and I'm trying to find ways around it -- they HAVE their own laptop to use, but for some reason, my machine seems to be necessary as well) and I don't do that sort of sacrifice well. Day long soccer jaunts in wind, rain and 50 degree weather - sure, no problem.  But mess with my desk.....

AHHHHHHH!

Besides, right now, my desk looks like a case of who did it and ran (who ever thought up these colloquialisms any way?).  Papers everywhere, piles of files, books higgledy-piggledy, envelopes, fliers to  be addressed and mailed, sticky notes (some of which make sense, some of which don't). books that need REFERENCES to find out which edition / state / etc. they are.  And don't forget the BOXES behind my desk.

Tonight, I also spent time googling for scouting information -- Webelos is great fun, but there's real WORK involved as the boys get older and move towards Boy Scouts and more self-sufficiency. Which, in turn, means more work for the den leader.  Luckily, I found some really nice worksheets that I can use to supplement my meetings.

Tomorrow is Veteran's Day. A day of rest and remembrance for the men and women who went to war for our freedoms. And it means another day off school...

Four more weeks.
Four more weeks.
Four more weeks....

sigh

Camp Out time again...

We actually got a shot of all of us -- of course it was on the SECOND day, so everyone was looking a bit dirty and unwashed -- but we had a great time.

This is our Cub Scout pack -- well, most of it (with complete families too). Yearly we go on a family camp out which generally lands somewhere in September. This year it was 100 degrees in the shade which (I hear) was better than the last two where it was frigid by nighttime.  Son number two was with me. He and his den of Webelos worked on two pins while we were there which was cool. 

Son number two really wanted to spend all his time fishing. Luckily, we had THREE (count them) THREE dads who not only brought fishing gear, but actually knew how to USE IT!!!!

AND -- they were patient. With the boys, with the fishing rods and reels, and with the fish.

This is the first batch of guys I've seen who actually put the line in the water, brace the fishing pole against something then -- WALK AWAY!  and it worked too.

While son number two didn't catch anything, one of my Webelos did. Twice.  The first was a large Carp (that's what the dad said -- who am I to know if he's right or not... though how a big old gold fish got in a lake in the middle of Merced County I wouldn't begin to guess.  The second was a rainbow trout. Or a trout of some sort.)  Dad and son gutted, cleaned and then cooked the fish with dinner -- and handed out tastes to all who wanted to try it.  What fun.

Now son number two can't stop talking about fixing his fishing pole (don't even ask) so he can go fishing by himself.

Here's the new webelo and his  dad with fish.

A good time was had by all. We came back home dirty, sweaty and tired, but happy.

Next month, it's family camp with the Boy Scouts and son number one. This time we head out to Monterey.

Today's fun book entered into my database is:

Dorothea Lange and the American Country Woman

great pictures of women during the depression. Or, just plain great documentary photographs period.

Darn. No post yesterday.

Man,  I was trying to make it a whole week with some sort of blog entry & I blew it again.

However, since I wasn't going to be able to blog tomorrow or Sunday anyway, I guess I'll just start fresh again on Monday.

I had high hopes of sitting down and getting work done today -- that's before I tried to get some of the things on my  "LIST OF THINGS TO DO" done.

My list is not TOO long, but it is long enough.

Today I was going to get the cub scout calendar out to my new (Yippee!) possible den member.

I told you, right, that last May I had 9 boys signed up to be in my den?

Well, cut to September and now I have six. It bums me out to see boys leave the group and go off for other things as I think scouts is important (and FUN too), but that's life.

The thing is, six (or maybe five) boys isn't that many for a group like this & we have a small pack as well, so any new members are pounced upon wildly.

We had our beginning of the year pack meeting this last Monday and got about 8 new boys come to take a lookie loo around.  One of which was a new Webelos possible.

I promised his mom on Monday that I would send a calendar for the year -- it's been on my to do list since then, but since I have to figure out how to send the copy I have (which I put in Microsoft Outlook for some strange reason) via email, it took me til today to work up the umph to want to figure it out.

End result -- CAN'T be done via Outlook, so someone suggested Google Calendar.  Which means I have to re-enter all the data, enter the scout emails, etc. and then invite the parents to google calendar as well.

It takes an unbelievable amount of time to do fiddly little tasks like this.

So basically, nothing of book business stuff (except for shipping off books that sold overnight) gets done -- for a lousy calendar.
Ha.

I wish I could clone myself into about six clones -- two of which would be working full time on data entry and tax data entry alone.
Another clone would be the errand runner and food preparer and cat scratcher.

The others would be assigned tasks on a daily basis for whatever crops up that the real me just isn't up to doing that day.

And the real me?  Well the real me would probably be reading a book.
 

Oh, and just because it's cool, here's one of the books I entered yesterday:

It's written by Mabel Watts and illustrated by the wonderfully imaginative Mercer Mayer

Four days in a row? Wow!

See -- when I started this blog I expected that I could post a new blog entry every day without pulling too much of a sweat. Well, for the most part, that went by the wayside quickly. The first thing to go was the weekends (kid stuff gets in the way -- and now it's baseball season, so evenings are gone too).

Darn -- I just thought of a picture I SHOULD have taken & posted. Son number one is now deep into Boy Scouts (as compared to Cub Scouts like his brother). He officially started work on his Gardening merit badge yesterday (with a bit of help from me) -- he and several other troop members got a chance to PULL WEEDS! Yup, the beginning of the gardening is to prep the ground and they got to use real live tools (and watch men use power toys --oops tools-- as well.
I should be taking blow by blow pictures. Next week, when we go back for more ground prep and planting, I'll remember to do the picture taking thing then. It was 96 degrees (Fahrenheit) outside as we were working (at 5:30pm) and NO shade to be found... we were all red and sweaty.


SO -- back to the blog thing. This week, I've posted four times in a row, AND with photos!

I'm so proud of myself.

Of course, once I post this, something will happen so I can't post for three more weeks... life

Here's another:



These are two of the five books I've gotten added to my database & uploaded today. I would LIKE to try for more books per day, but so far, it's not to be.

If you'd ever like more information about any of the books pictured here, please email me.

Enjoy!