Occupado

We've been pretty occupied these past couple of weeks. Notice I didn't say "busy". That's actually one of my least favorite words these days. I overuse it, others overuse it, it's like the word "like" that annoys us all. So, occupied, yes, that's better.

I spent several days preparing for a garage sale, then several days having the garage sale, and I'm now in the stages of trying to put my house back together, which, you guessed it, will take several days. I don't know if garage sales are really worth all the work. I still have tons of stuff to deal with, I still have a mess in my basement from tearing stuff out. I can't park in my garage yet....oh, whatever. The main goal of the sale was reached, which is school clothes money. With our economy the way it is, we've really had to make some big changes. Short of moving, I can't think of any more places to cut!

On Sunday we took one of our spur-of-the-moment road trips! We headed up to Crystal Lake, where we enjoyed beautiful scenery and maybe just a touch of envy. Some of those lots were just screaming to me! I would love to live on a lake one day! We ended up having a lovely picnic at Beulah Beach, then looked at some big ole boats in Frankfort. The girls love walking the downtown areas of the cities we visit, so we did a little of that too. We kept the trip alive by doing a scavenger hunt all the way there and back. Daddy and Natalie against me and Serena. We all came up with a list of things we had to find, then the competition was on! We had a few funnies in there, such as "dark socks with shorts"....Natalie actually found that one, which put them in the lead by one point. It was probably the most fun thing we did the whole day and it was totally free! Serena and I lost by that one point, and since losers had to supply dessert, I made a blueberry pie on Monday!

The best part was that our only expense was gas! We stopped in Cadillac at sunset and took some silhouette pictures of the girls. Then everyone except for the photographer took a turn trying to walk on the back of the park bench, causing some hysterical laughter. We arrived home around 10pm, tired, but knowing we just had an amazing day!

I am spending this week doing some cleaning, and the girls are preparing their closets for the start of school. They're doing their last bits of sleeping in, and staying up late. Soon we'll be all business again and will certainly keep ourselves "occupied"!