a whole new dianne

Today I took Benjamin for his 2 year medical checkup. Overall, he’s healthy and growing great – Yay! He was a good boy in the office until the doctor came in the little room. He was ok at first but once he started touching him the volume rose a few notches. Overall he was great though, and no shots!

Afterwards I took him to Burger King for lunch – they have a huge indoor playground/climbing thing. We ate first – I got him a chicken nuggets kids meal. He ate the fries, I ate the chicken. Well, I should say, he ate the ketchup. He loves to dip the fries in the ketchup and then suck the ketchup off, over and over. The fry usually never gets eaten. Instead, it gets discarded into the container and a crunchier fry takes its place as ketchup utensil

After we ate, we checked out the playground/climbing Benjamintrap. It is designed so children can climb up and get stuck up there. It is also designed to be too small for parents to fit up inside it comfortably. Needless to say, but Benjamin happily climbed up the steps inside it, got scared, and “forgot” how to turn around and climb back down. He was inside it standing at the top looking at me through this small hole, holding his arms out to me. I tried to coax him down but no go. So up I go, climbing up inside this thing that’s too small for me to climb in. But up I went and I got him. He was happy to see me but still too scared to go back down. It was a bit of a struggle but we made it! I think I’ll skip Burger King next time

So, one of the jobs on my “Summer Todo List” was/is to organize my mess of clothes. I want to clean house and donate all the clothes I’m never going to wear anymore. Easier said than done…Since I’ve been many shapes and sizes over the past 5 years or so, I’ve accumulated quite a mass of clothes, also all shapes and sizes. I have pants – blue, black, olive green, khaki – in sizes 8-16. I have shirts and sweaters from M-XL. I have dresses and work clothes for all ranges too. So, my task was/is to go through the clothes, REALLY get rid of the things I haven’t worn for the past 3 years (going to GoodWill), and organize things by size, in large storage containers.

But, why don’t I just get rid of all the clothes that no longer fit me? Well, I aim to get back to that size 8, so don’t want to give them away in case that happens anytime soon I don’t want to dispose of the larger sizes either in case of pregnancy #2, if and when that may ever happen. So, organize I must.

I started with my pants. I have WAY too many pairs of pants. I have a large storage container now for each size: 16/pregnancy, 14, 12, 8 (I’m currently wearing the 10s, so they aren’t in containers). The containers fit nicely at the top of my closet… nice and organized!

I’m 1/2 way done organizing my work clothes. Out of all the dresses hanging in my closet, I happily put about 1/3 of them in my GoodWill pile. I haven’t gone through them in years and there were a lot of old things there! Yay!

Next I need to tackle my sweaters and sweatshirts. Many of them have “sentimental” value to them as I’ve had them since high school and college and can’t bear to part with them. Most of the sentimental value items are things I will most likely not wear again. So, what to do? Do I put them in a storage box at the top of my closet for the sake of keeping them just to take out and look at every once and awhile, or do I give them to GoodWill? Hrm, since I’m a packrat, I’m sure I’ll keep them.

Some days I wish life were like Star Trek when everyone wears the same uniform all the time. I wouldn’t have to waste my time thinking and writing about clothes!

So, since I decided to have this blog and if I want there to be stuff here, I actually have to post, here goes….

So, I’m a teacher and I get my summers, well 8 weeks, off. “Off” is such a peculiar word because yes, I’m not getting up every morning and going to a workplace. But, although I am not in my classroom teaching everyday, I am quite occupied with thinking about school, dreaming about school, contemplating new projects, planning new lessons, etc. I am a teacher 12 months out of the year for sure, and after 9 years now, I really do look forward to going back to school in August (remember when it was September??)

Another reason I am not “off” – Medievia. We are working very hard this summer to get some new life into the game. Dubbed “The Summer of Medievia V”, we are in the throes of releasing new programming, new adventures, a new website, and a lot of new work! I have been busy all summer, hours a day, trying to market the game. I have no experience with PR or marketing, but I do pretty well. I also serve as the head cheerleader for the game, getting players motivated enough to vote for us and donate to the game they love.

Benjamin is a full time job himself He has just turned 2, so he is go go go go go all the time. He has decided not to nap more days this week than he has actually napped. Needless to say, it is difficult working, well, doing anything, with a 2 year old around. He plays very well by himself but he needs mommy lots! But, since he is my beloved cutie, he gets all the time he wants.

Summer vacation is more than half over now and although when Mike asked me the other day if I was looking forward to going back to work I said “no”, I’m starting to get more motivated I redid my Madame Krause website the other day and although it’s not wonderful, I like the new design lots. I’ve also started thinking about going back and getting units reoganized and new ideas for projects. Like it or not, the last week of August is almost here and I have to be ready!

Please use this entry to post comments and just say hi

Have fun!

I’ve created this blog mainly as a place where I can post the links to websites I’ve created and also websites that belong to family members, friends, etc.

Here’s what the links are:

• Medievia ~ Medievia is the game that my husband Mike and I run. Medievia is a multiplayer online text based role-playing game that has been in development since 1991. Do you Dare Enter?
• The Country Deli ~ The website for the restaurant that my dad & stepmom own and that my sister and bro-n-law help run. I used to work there!
• Benjamin’s Page ~ This is the site that I created for my 2 year old son Benjamin.
• Madame Krause Site ~ This is the site that I use for my students and their parents at Wissahickon High School. I just redid the whole site a few days ago!
• Soleil’s Sun Spot ~ This is my personal website that has links to pictures of me, my husband Mike, our animals, our wedding, etc.
• The Learning Potential of MUDs ~ This is the website of my Master’s Thesis that I did on MUDs
• Vote for Medievia ~ Click here to vote for Medievia

Well, I’ve created a blog for myself.. let’s see how it goes..