Hair

Summer is coming to an end here in Washington, so it's time for me to make a hair care decision. Do I continue with the blonde hair I've sported all summer or go back to my natural brunette? Initially I figured the blonde would just be something fun for the summer, but I am enjoying being blonde, even if I don't like the upkeep or the damage to my hair. But it is a hassle. Going back to brunette would be easier and better on my hair, but not as much fun. I can't seem to make up my mind. Any thoughts? I considered going red, but I don't think red would look right with my tan, and I will be maintaining the tan up until the cruise in November. Seriously, I can't make up my mind! Does anyone else have an opinion?

Blonde or Brunette. That is the question of the day!

Finished!!

I am FINALLY finished with my data entry job!! I got the last of the envelopes yesterday and spent about 3 hours last night putting 3500 labels onto them. Scott will be delivering them, along with my invoice for $1276.68 to them later today. I am so thrilled to finally be done!

Fizzy Joy: The machine Scott was able to borrow for me that peeled labels off the sheets so I didn't have to! It saved me HOURS!

I'll be brief.

I don't have a lot of time to blog, but it's been so long since I posted one, I wanted to do something. I have a rather busy week this week so this may be the only chance I get to blog!
I still have not finished my data entry job. It's not that I'm being lazy, just that I've encountered one problem after another. At the moment, I'm waiting on more envelopes from the people I'm doing the job for. All I have left to do is put the labels on the envelopes, but I can't do that until I have them!
Rachel starts school on Thursday. She can't wait! We have an open house at the school tomorrow. Tyler has orientation on Thursday and testing on Friday but doesn't start officially until next Tuesday.
Until the primary sacrament program is done, I'm going to have weekly presidency meetings. It happens to fall on Wednesday night this week, the night I would have preferred getting Rachel ready for school. But I serve when and where I'm asked, and it was the only night that worked for everyone else.
Peaches and pears are finally in, so somewhere between everything I have to do, I need to find the time to do my canning! This is one thing I'm not complaining about. I'm down to 1 jar of pears and 2 jars of peaches so I need to restock! The timing just ended up to be bad. Why couldn't they have waited one more week when I had 2 kids in school??
I've had some fun things happen over the last week or so, I just haven't had time to write them up. I'll try really hard to get back to them. I promise!

Fizzy Joys: this blog, knowing how to can fruit and make jam, having smart kids, my big back yard, a sunny day.

Family Pictures

The entire Carnegie clan met together to take new family pictures yesterday. There are 18 of us total, and Sears was brave enough to take us in. It was quite an experience. We had more grumbling and problems from the adults than from the 7 kids! The kids were all amazing and did just what they were told. They mostly stayed still and smiled when asked. We were all so thrilled with them! Anyway, I thought I'd share some of the pictures we got!

Here is the entire clan!

And the very handsome brothers.

The sisters-in-law! Aren't we hot?

And the 7 grandkids all together.

The experience was long and hot, but we got such great pictures that nobody is inclined to complain about anything! Even Rebecca's hair ended up to be pretty cute!

Happy Birthday Scott!

Today is Scott's 35th birthday! I thought I'd take a moment to rave about him and how much I love him. :)

So here are some of the qualities I love about him:
He is a very hard worker.
He is very handy and can fix almost anything.
He enjoys changing the oil on our cars.
He enjoys a good joke more than anyone I know.
He's very funny, even if his comedic timing needs a bit of work. ;)
His sense of time is so bad, it's become a running joke with almost everyone who knows him!
He does dishes willingly!
He always has warm hands.
He'll sit on my cold feet to warm them up for me.
He sticks out his tongue when he concentrates.
His eyes squint into little slits when he laughs hard.
He encourages me in anything I want to do.
He stands up for me.
He'll help me see when I'm being unreasonable.
He loves his kids with all his heart.
He is a good husband and a good dad, and I love him so much! I am so glad to have Scott as my husband. So today, since I know he reads my blogs, I just have to say

Happy Birthday Scott!!

I love you!

Zucchini

This isn't the biggest zucchini I've grown from my garden, just the only one we thought to take a picture of before we ate it! I'm not sure how many more I'll get before the end of the summer, but I've sure enjoyed having fresh zucchini from my own garden!

Fizzy Joy: Having a mother who taught me to love vegetables!

She did it again!

Rebecca, for about the 5th time, cut her hair today. She took huge chunks out of her bangs, off the side, and even off the back. Her hair was finally at a point where I could at least put it into pigtails if I needed to, and except for the chunk taken right out of the front of the bangs, it would look normal, but now I can't even do that. I don't know what to do with her. I'm on the verge of just cutting it all off and making her go bald until it grows back. I don't know how to teach her not to do this! I've sort of learned to live with her goofy hair, but this comes at a particularly bad time since we're doing family pictures with Scott's entire family on Saturday. There is just no real way to fix her hair at this point.
Oh, and when I caught her, she was done cutting her hair and was about to start in on Tyler's! He was just sitting there, allowing her to do it!

What do I do about this girl??

Tedious part 2

So here I am more than a week later, still trudging through this data entry job. When I started, I was told it would be about 3,000 names. Whoever did the estimate on that was way off. When I'm finished, it will be....
4,583 names!
That's a good 50% more than expected. The good news is that I get paid per entry, so my paycheck will be bigger, but it also means this project STILL isn't over. And add to that the fact that they still haven't gotten me the envelopes I need, and this is looking like the job that never ends.

Fizzy Joy: A teacher who included 10 key in our typing class!

Tedious

I finally got the information I needed to start my data entry project on Friday. We had a really busy weekend, so there was no time to work on it. I had this idea in my mind that I'd have it done in a week. I figured I could type in all the names and addresses during the week, then on Saturday Rachel and I could put the labels onto the envelopes then Scott could deliver it back to them next Monday. It was great in theory, but it's not working out quite so well. I worked all day yesterday and only managed to get about 850 of the 3,000 names typed up. That wouldn't be so bad except I have 2 days this week I will not be home at all. I really needed to get a whole lot more done than that yesterday, my one and only day where I had no other commitments during the day. It looks like I'll be at this a lot longer than I thought. I just keep reminding myself what it's going for. This job is a blessing. But already my back is sore and I'm missing being outside with my kids.

Happy Birthday Mom!

You may be another year older, but really it's just another day older than you were yesterday. And with the years you've lived, you have gained wisdom and insights that you continue to share. You have raised 8 children, and raised them well. We are all blessed because we had you as our mother. And with your wonderful blog that you think so little of, you are continuing to share your wisdom with others. I think I speak for all of your readers when I say thank you for sharing your knowledge and testimony with us. I just can't begin to list all the many ways I've been blessed by you. I have often said if I could be half the mother you were I'd be doing pretty well. You really have been a perfect mother. I couldn't ask for anything more. You are my greatest example of what it means to be a righteous mother in Zion. You are my hero.
I wish I could be with you today to make sure you celebrate in a way that is fitting for such an amazing woman. I love you!

Surprise!

A few days ago Jill had a blog that included a bit about Landon's cd that he created for himself with all of his favorite songs. In commenting on her blog, I asked if I could have a copy of it, never dreaming she would actually make me a copy and put it in the mail to me. But that is exactly what she did! I should have known! I know how much she loves good mail, both sending and receiving, and how caring and giving and generous she is, so it shouldn't have surprised me. But it did. I am thrilled, as is Rachel who loves it as much as I do! Thank you so much Jill. You are just wonderful.

Data Entry

A salesman Scott works with mentioned to him that he was looking for someone to do some data entry. Scott suggested me. I don't know why, but he did. My name got passed around to several people and I got an e-mail last week from a woman asking me if I was available to do some work for them. It's a pretty simple job, just entering in addresses from a printout and printing them on labels. After a few e-mails back and forth about what it would entail and how much I would charge, I found out today that I got the job. It's just a one time thing, but it's going to pay for fall tuition for my kids to do gymnastics. I had no idea how I was going to manage to pay it this time, but along came this odd job, and now I'll have the money. Funny how these things work.