Goals

Summer is almost a third over. I don't care that the calendar says that summer starts June 21. Summer = June, July, August. Now that most of my classes are done, and dance is done, I'm going to be home a lot more. I'm planning to take it as an opportunity to get a lot done around.

Big, Vague, Long-Term Goals:

• sew
• websites
• clean house
• clean out basement
• Community Center classes
• walk
• school

Goals for this week:

• sew summer outfits for the girls (had the patterns & fabrics for weeks)
• get the Bathliners website posted; develop price/service list for other potential clients
  
• thoroughly clean out one of the three bedrooms
• spend half an hour every day working on the basement
• set up a meeting with the CC people about classes (develop class list)
• walk half an hour every morning
• get back on track with Science, Spelling, Social Studies, Math and Reading schoolwork
  

Opportunity + Nerves = Excitement

My crazy schedule is about to slow down to almost a complete halt. Two of my classes finish this week, along with dance. My last class will continue for 4 - 6 more weeks, but sporadically. This is good, because I'll have more time. But the other side of that coin is that I'll be bringing in less money.

I've been trying to figure out how to generate other income streams. One way (that will hopefully pay for our vacation in September) is to create small, basic web sites for local businesses. No e-commerce, no inventory. Just basic, informational sites that don't need frequent upgrades. I've been working on one for quite a while, but there have been a few hang ups. Hopefully it will be ready to go live soon. Then I'll be able to use that as an example of what I can do. If I can get five clients, that should cover us.

The other thing I've been giving a lot of thought to is classes through our community center. I'd like to do German, Computers, and seminars for parents who are interested in improving their kids' educational experiences. I've also thought about Reading classes, but those are a much larger amount of work.

The issue right now is that the community center doesn't have much of a computer lab. The computer classes that I'm teaching right now (through a community center for a neighboring suburb) got a grant, and they have a very nice computer lab, even though there isn't a projector, with does make things more difficult. Anyway, I saw in the paper that Jenny Jones (of talk show fame) was giving out grants of $25K each. That would definitely be enough to outfit a rockin' computer lab, as well as pay for a Nerd Herd guy to do maintenance, and an instructor or two. I have a feeling that free computer classes (for kids and adults) would fill up pretty quickly, you know?

I'd still have to charge for German and anything else I wanted (unless I could get another grant, hmmm).

I still need to talk to the community center some more about my plans and ideas, but I think this could be a really good fit for me. Now I just need to make it happen.

Dance Preview

WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?

They look way too old to be my children.








By the way, the car is going to cost $800 to fix. Don't know that it's worth it to get the insurance company involved.

Not the worst Father's Day Ever

That honor, of course, still goes to 2006.

2008 is now #2.

It's a tradition with us to go to a baseball game on Father's Day. If we can't get Tigers tickets, we go to Lansing or Toledo. This year, we headed south of the border. On our way there, the hood of our Corolla, which has been rusty for a long time, but getting much worse lately, unlatched in the wind and blew back up in front of the windshield. Luckily, there wasn't tons of traffic, and Jeff was able to get us to the side of the highway. It blew back so hard that it cracked the windshield and even dented the roof a little bit. Also, the hood itself has been dented/popped out (kind of like an umbrella).

We called his parents, and while we waited, talked about what we were going to do. Should we have it towed someplace close by, or pay extra to have it towed closer to home?

Luckily, we called Jeff's dad instead of my dad, because when he showed up, he got out some tools and took the hood right off. No tow truck needed! He drove our car home, and we took his Durango the rest of the way to Toledo. We saw the second half of the game (Mudhens lost to the Syracuse Chiefs, 5-3), then came home.

I have no idea how much all of this is going to cost, and thinking about it tires me out. But no one was hurt, so this falls into the category of "expensive inconvenience" instead of anything worse.

Know what these are?

These are pictures of my babies breaking boards. The one of Lauren is really blurry, but I only got one chance--that's why I don't have actual video up.

Friday was their last night of karate, and they tested for their first belts: white with a yellow stripe. Jeff said he was a little worried about them making it, but--cynical me--I told him that it was in the teachers' best interests that the kids be successful, so they'd want to continue. And of course, they all were successful, both with the test for the belt and breaking the board. Still, the looks on every child's face was a priceless, "Wow, I really did it!"

During the class, the instructors passed out information about the school itself. The classes we've been taking are an introductory thing through our rec center. They're very cheap: $40 per kid for 8 weeks. Continuing on at the dojeng (it's Korean karate, so not a dojo) is considerably more expensive: $80/month for 1 child, but $140/month for 2 or more.

Both girls have liked karate, although Sarah is a lot more focused and generally does better. Jeff said that if they wanted to continue, he'd do whatever he had to in order to make that happen. While I applauded his commitment, I can't conjure up and extra $140 a month. I said that we'd see just how interested they were before committing to anything more.

As it turns out, they're both more interested in gymnastics. There is a summer intro program, again offered through Parks & Rec, but our summer is plenty busy already. Scouts is almost over, but we won't be done with dance for a few more weeks. Golf starts for Sarah in a few weeks, and we're already starting to think about swimming. VBS is in July, and I'm still working a fair bit, at least for the rest of this month.

Although the intro stuff would probably be cheaper through P&R, I think we'll wait and sign up in the fall with our homeschool athletic program. It'll probably be a little more expensive, but it'll be during the day, so it'll fit better into our schedule. Part of me wishes they'd find/pick one thing to love and stick with it (they're both in their third year of dance, but that's as much my choice as theirs), but I'm glad they're dabbling in lots of different things, to see what suits them best.

This is them with their teacher, holding their boards back together.