June 8th

We got our new bottom retainer this week - so now she has the upper one and bottom one - She wears them for about 10 hours a day- but we are going to try and add a few hours in the afternoon to move it along a bit- there are teeth on the bottom that are waiting for space to come in - and she still has a bunch of baby teeth- I had an appointment set up months ago for July 3rd for the cleaning and then set up Dr A for that day but now they called and said that the dentist was not going to be in on the 3rd and I need to reschedule - which is not a bad thing - just one more thing for me to do - I like things to go smoothly - and for some reason rescheduling - calling - is not something I enjoy doing - for instance I got our AT&T bill - this one is for down here and is only for TV and cable- for the past two years it has been the same amount every month and it is just taken out of the account and I don't pay much attention to it but this month it came in and was 75 more dollars- which after two years of the same amount seemed strange so I opened the bill and it said promotion ended - so apparently we had some two year promotion when we signed up that is no longer available- and what we have is now 75 more a month-this is just the tv- so I call to find out what is going on and an hour and half later with Tom involved as well - we got no where - we did not know the codes - they could not call us back - I could not understand the first person or the supervisor - come to find out after I explained that she needed to slow down and speak clearly because I could not understand her - it dawned on me that they were not in the US- so I asked and she hesitated and then said that they were offshore- hmmm..well that made sense- so I started trying to go back myself and see what I could do on the computer - and finally got it fixed -myself- they actually had the wrong phone number but since she was talking so fast I could never get that across- which is why my codes did not match and why I had no idea what my favorite restaurant was and on and on- but when I got into the account it said that we had the top one with all the channels- (we only watch one-Game Show Network) and that for the cheapest with 190 channels it would be 102.00 a month a raise of 25 a month - which is upsetting when I don't even watch TV- we do Amazon or Hulu or Netflix and I pay for all of that on top of paying so I can watch GSN once a day for a half hour while we eat- so I switched and when we went to watch GSN that night it said I no longer have that channel- so I am starting to think that I do not need cable at all - and can simply do away with the 102.00 bill a month - then yesterday I decided to clean up our AT&T phone bill - not cable down here but phones- it went so smooth- I got rid of Rainey's IPAD- 10 a month- she can still use it on wireless but she never uses it anyway so that was 10 saved - got rid of Krista's number which has been suspended for 2 years but still paying so that was another savings- then we had 40 GB but now we have unlimited for less - so by the time I finished with him- I got my bill down 50 dollars a month- I feel like I am on a roll- there are so many things that come through each month that you just don't pay attention to or want to have to take the time to deal with -
We are 100 hours into our summer school- I am trying to work ahead because we will have some time without huge amounts of time and it will slow down a bit - but every bit helps- We went to Scooters Jungle yesterday for open playtime- 4-6 pm - they do not have her age open playtime that often but I will check and put it on the schedule because she really had fun- today we have an hour of piano because of make up for last week - I really need to clean when we get home so we are going to listen to Who Was? P.T. Barnum - hour long books that are interesting and educational to listen to while I clean and Rainey works on art projects- we have to finish the one on Blackbeard first which is good because I probably have two hours of cleaning downstairs- I am going to try and get out to the pool this afternoon with Rainey- we went the other day and there were some unsavory folks there being disrespectful in their language so we had to leave- hopefully on a Saturday it will be better- also we are going to start reading the book on Barnum- -it should get here today - Rainey wants me to watch the movie "The Greatest Showman" with her and so we are going to go a bit more in depth before I watch the movie - good learning opportunity- I love good learning opportunities- we have an overwhelming amount of great learning resources right now- so many that it is hard to get them all in during the week - I really need to prioritize and decide what we should get through - like math - I have four online programs- and one regular that are great for learning- we can sit down and do two hours of math a morning without even blinking an eye- and have fun with it - but where does that leave 7 other activities - and 5 hours a day is pushing it- but we tend to reach it - my actual goal is 4 hours a day 7 days a week - so 28 hours a week - but like today - it is already 9am  and she has to leave at 10 for music so I really don't want to start anything - I like my free time :) to putz around in my office - then by the time we get home it is lunchtime - so we will get started around 1:30 and probably go until 5:30-and then go swimming - anyway - this program Switched on Schoolhouse which is online - does Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies - it is really time consuming but you learn so much !! I do it next to her and I am learning so much - and we enjoy learning together- so it takes my time as well -
June 10th - I made 25.5 hours for school last week - just a bit shy but we did have a fun afternoon going to Dillards on Wednesday and Yesterday we went to Valerie's acting class in Hollywood from 10-12 so that took time and then we went swimming for a bit and finally had some delicious salmon from Gelson's Market- While Rainey was in class we went to Gelson's - it is super nice -almost like a market but they make the fruit look so delicious and they have a ton of prepared food - most of the time they have a turkey out that they carve or roast - anyway it was too early so I got the salmon to cook on the grill - we made mashed potatoes and Rainey made salad- so good- then I went over to It's a wrap- I could not find that much for Rainey but they had 75% off on kids clothing and I was able to find a few things for Mister. Today Tom has guitar and Rainey singing lessons - then we need to come straight home because Jessica (director of the plays) is coming over to work on Lion King with Rainey to give her a headstart before camp starts next week - She will be here for two hours- I need to figure out dinner before then- I usually have about 20 minutes to go to the grocery store in between dropping Tom off at his lesson- 4pm and then Rainey at 4:30 - then back to get Tom who gets done at 4:45 and then back up to pick up Rainey at 5pm- but Jessica will be here until 7:30 and I hate to wait that late to figure things out- then I need to get wrapping paper for Rainey to wrap her gifts in for the birthday party she is going to on Thursday - the little twin girls that used to live here are turning 10 I think and the party is at their new house - Tom will take her and stay - he enjoys visiting with the dad- the dad is in the movie business - rents army vehicles and such out to movie sets- then we (Rainey and I) got invited to go see the Phantom of the Opera at Pantages Theatre tomorrow night with Cindy- she is picking us up at 6:30 pm and I think it starts at 8pm - Rainey plans on dressing up for the occasion - I should get some good pictures- and then I get to rest for a few days :) no school work, no meals to plan and make, no schedules to follow - just a nice break !so that is probably it for now - I will go ahead and post -and as my Aunt Diana likes to say "Lord willin and the crick don't rise."