First of all, a repeat of the last post---I'm ticked off that AOL is closing down the blog site. Grrrr. I've checked into wordpress & blogger tonight. They're both very similar. Since most of the world uses blogger/blogspot (what's the deal w/ the 2 names anyway?), I will probably go there, but I'm not sure yet. If you have any experience w/ other blog sites, let me know which ones you like(d) best & why. I could use the input.
As far as my day today........
I'm much less weepy feeling & sad tonight. Last night was rough. I was seriously missing Larry like crazy. Today I'm ok. I mean, i still miss him, but I'm not so whipped with hormones tonight I guess.
I went to work today, took a 20 min nap afterward before going to pick up the kids & decided I wanted a snack from Sonic. We pulled in & ordered. 20 minutes later, our food still had not arrived & I was getting a little mad. I watch 4 or 5 cars of teenagers pull in, order & get their food while we sat there & waited. Finally, some guy came by (a manager of some sort) & I waved him down & asked how much longer it would be. He asked me what I had ordered & when I started telling him he said "ok, so that was your order!" Apparently they had somehow not rung up what stall to send it out to when it was done so they weren't sure where to take the order & it had just been sitting on the counter all this time. He said he'd have it "right out". I waited for another five minutes before I drove off without anything. What a colossal waste of my time! All in all, I spent nearly 1/2 an hour sitting at Sonic waiting on food that never came. Since I was (by then) super thirsty & still feeling kinda munchie, we drove 1/4 mile to Dairy Queen & were in & out of their drive thru in 5 minutes.
Tonight I had 2 meetings at work -- an age level meeting (all the 3yr old teachers) and a staff meeting (the entire staff). The kids went with me & sat in my room to play while I went to meetings. We got info tonight on the workshop that we attended last Fall. I'm really anxious to go again. I enjoyed the classes last year, so it was fun to read through all the course descriptions this time & pick out what I'd like to go to!
It's getting late. I need to hit the sack, but before I do, I'm giong to take a quick shower & get my clothes out for tomorrow. :::Yawn::: I have an 8am PTO meeting before I go to work. I wonder if I could cram anything else into the day tomorrow.
AOL is shutting down their blog site on 10/31/08. I have 1 month to manually move the entire content of this blog elsewhere. I may just save it all to a word pad file & put it on a CD and start fresh with a new blog site, but I'm really irritated that I have to do this at all! Stay tuned. I'll let everyone know where I'm going as soon as I figure it out.
I have friends whose husbands have been deployed for as much as a year at a time.
And here I am, 4 days into this trip Larry's on......and I'm dying. I am REALLY beginning to miss my sweetie. This is part of an email I just sent him a little bit ago:
Ya know, I've gotta tell you.... it's nearly 11pm on day 4 of you being gone. We're ok, but I'm beginning to miss you like crazy. I need my buddy around to tease & hug & hold & snuggle up to in bed. These first few days have gone by pretty quick and I have been OK. People have asked me if I was doing alright with being so far away from you for so long & I have truthfully told them I'm ok. But the novelty of having a whole bed to spread out in is wearing off. I am missing your sense of humor & your jokes & just hearing your voice. I want to touch your face & hold you tight & kiss you. I guess I figured that since you're often at work late or whatever that this trip wouldn't be so hard because I'm kind of used to taking care of a lot of things on my own. But, well.....it sucks. I'm not too good at this after all.
Take care & be safe over there. Stay clear of the drunken knife-wielding folks. Tell them about God, hug them and let them know that the One seated on the throne loves them. Hold the children, flirt with the old ladies, offer them a little touch of Jesus, and then come home to me safe & sound on Saturday. I'm praying that these last few days go by quickly. I miss you baby. I'll go wipe my tears now & take a shower.
I Love you!
You see? Good grief.....I would never survive a year-long deployment. Girlfriends, my hat is off to you!
Into the wee hours of this morning (about 1:15am to be exact), I heard from Larry via email!!!! Yahoo! I was so tickled to get his emails & get to "talk" to him in real time. I had hoped & figured he might get online, so I stayed up & voila---I "saw" him! I miss ya baby. Here are some excerpts from his emails:
"I crashed as soon as I saw a bed."
"the flight was good. the first leg sure was long, i got pretty stiff, but I watched four movies. that was pretty cool. they had an interactive screen that would trak the flight and tell you where were at each time. I think we ate 4 times on that flight. I lost trak."
"The city we stopped in to eat was a real mix of 2 worlds. You can see the old soviet influence in the architecture, the way the street are laid out. then you see mcdonalds and satelites hanging out the window of each of the apartment windows. what a mix."
"the pastor took me to the church i will preach in this morning. it is beautiful. it is round looking thing. 3 story. It reminds me of the old drawings i have seen of Spurgeons church."
"Oh, just so you know, the urinal in the mens room, is like a gold fish bowl on the wall that does not flush."
"I preached this morning. The church very beautiful. lots of natural light and great accoustics. the hold thing is round. the choir sang and there was testimony time. they sang a couple of songs that we knew the tune too.
Leslie Brotherton interpreted for me. We worked well together."
"the homes are late 1800 model, some have been re done and are great. other are need some tlc. the streets were cobble stone. the pastor's house reminds me of a southern american type, formal sitting and dinning room. the pastor has travled lots. he had many books from around the world. on top of one table and shelf were books about Texas"
As for our day back home, it was a good one. Our church had their big groundbreaking ceremony this morning for the Family Life/Community Center we're building. The mayor, chief of police & several other local 'celebrities' were there. A quick shot of the service itself:
We came home, ate lunch & took a nap (I was tired from staying up so late to hear from Larry last night!) and accomplished quite a few things I needed to get done for work tomorrow. We spent the evening watching a movie & just hanging out. It was a great day.
I'm going to take a shower now & will send Larry a quick email before heading to bed. Gotta actually sleep tonight!
We started out our day pretty early. Well, early for a Saturday morning when we could've just slept in & hung out at the house. For FOUR weeks, Samuel has been cleaning his room. No, I'm not kidding or exaggerating. You read that right. 4 weeks. Count 'em. FOUR! After the first couple of weeks, he slowly got grounded from doing just about anything he enjoys -- TV, going out to play, computer, you name it. I'm a very patient, very layed-back parent & preschool teacher. I don't ruffle easily. I can take a lot of things in stride. But seriously, after FOUR weeks of working on ONE bedroom, what parent wouldn't be getting a little flustered? He really is a good boy, but he's a slob. He's so stinkin' creative & distracted (ok, I'm saying A.D.D. in a nice way aren't I?) like his mama that he can't ever finish a job. He gets started & has good intentions, but about 2 minutes into the job, he gets distracted & then spends 3 hours sitting in the floor writing a story or drawing a picture or playing with a toy. I'm the same way. My house perpetually looks like a bomb went off. I have the "but first" syndrome. You know the one... I was going to do the dishes BUT FIRST I saw the mail on the counter, so I sorted it & threw away the trash. I realized the trash was overflowing so I went to get a trashbag from under the sink BUT FIRST I needed to get Sarah a drink of water. I went over to the fridge to get the water and realized that the pitcher needed to be refilled BUT FIRST I found a coupon on the counter. I picked it up to put it away BUT FIRST the phone rang. I could go on & on, but you get the idea.
ANYWAY.... On Tuesday, I walked in with a trashbag & told Samuel to start filling it up. He freaked out a little. I told him that I would let HIM be the one to fill the trash bag if he'd get on it & do the job. The instruction was clear. Either clean up your mess or throw it away. If you don't have a place for it, but you want to keep it, ask me for help on where to put it. If you don't have a place to put it & aren't that excited about keeping it, THROW IT AWAY. After school each day this week, he did his homework then went immediately to clean his room. On Wednesday night at bedtime I told him that he had til Saturday morning (today!) to get the room done. Whatever was left laying in the floor by then would be thrown away. I would come do it myself.
Last night I set his alarm for 6:30 & told him to get up & start cleaning when it went off. I'd be getting up at 7:30 to come through with a trash bag. And this morning, I did it. There were no tears. In fact, he helped me walk things to the big giant Hefty bag in his doorway. I threw away broken pieces of toys, a thousand disks from those dollar store disk-shooter toys (& the disk-shooter too!). I threw away old pens, dried up markers, a million pieces of paper, trash, a pair of outgrown, stained up socks (WHY OH WHY did he still have these?). I filled an entire big, black trash bag. But it's done. He vacuumed his floor up afterward to get all the teeny bits of paper up and now, after four weeks of asylum in his bedroom, the boy has been released from his dungeon.
I'll give it 5 days.
We reported to the city park at 9:30 this morning to get our order forms & instructions for the annual Boy Scout POPCORN BLITZ! Today was my first experience with a popcorn blitz. Larry usually handles all things Scout-related, but since my sweetie is away at the moment, I got to be the Scout mom today. I wore Larry's Cub Scout pack Tshirt & trotted myself to the park with my sweet boy to figure out what a mom's to do for a "blitz". Apparently the idea is that you get your selling supplies (paperwork, collection envelope) & then you go out for a very short period of time & SELL SELL SELL. Today, our selling timeframe was about 2 hours. At the end of the 2 hours, you come back & report how much you've sold and the highest sellers get a prize. Cool! Let's do it! Go, Samuel, go!
We went to our street to sell popcorn this morning. Look at this sweet baby ringing his first doorbell.
No one was home, but I just thought he looked cute, all uniformed up & anxious to sell some popcorn!
The very next house brought our first sale of the day -- a $40 order! THANK YOU, lady in the yellow moo-moo house dress! We appreciate your business! And by the way, your little white dog was cute, too.
The girls & I stayed in the van with the windows down, rolling along behind the great salesman as he went from one house to the next all the way down & back up our street. When we reached our own house, Savannah asked if she could have the holy grail of preteen years. She wanted to go into our house & stay there alone while we sold popcorn. I decided that since I'd be RIGHT THERE on our street & she could flag me down at any time...and I had Larry's cell phone w/ me, it would be OK. She was so excited to get to stay home alone for the next 45 minutes. Wow...what freedom. :)
By the time we reached the end of all the houses on our street (plus a couple of others on connecting streets), Samuel had sold $219 worth of popcorn!!!!!!!!!! Hooray little man! I'm proud of you! We made our way back to the park for a hotdog lunch & prizes. Samuel earned a small scale cast iron frying pan. I'm sure it'll make the Spring trip to Tyler State Park with us when we go camping again.
We left the park, took the frying pan home, let Samuel change clothes & then headed out again. To the grocery store. Need I say more? I think that near the end I had a permanent dent in my forehead from beating it against the freezer doors & shelves in the store. Why is it that my children must nit-pick & snip at each other all the way through the store? :::sigh::: I sure was missing Larry by the time that I reached the checkout. He usually keeps the kids at home for me while I go grocery shopping. Not this time. Oh honey.....are you ready to come back home yet? :)
When we got home, we unloaded the groceries & everyone sweetly helped me put them away. Really! If only they could be so kind & sweet while we're in the grocery store. You know, where other people have to observe their behavior. On one aisle, I was looking a little frustrated I guess, because another lady (no doubt a mom of several closely spaced kids like me) grinned & said "I feel your pain".
It could've been much worse. They could all still be toddlers, screaming bloody murder while throwing a tantrum. They could've been stealing things. They could have piercings & tattoos of creepy blood-dripping skulls or something. They could be running down the aisles throwing things at other customers. They could be sooooooo much worse. I shouldn't complain. But at the moment I was walking through the aisles asking my eldest to stop picking on her brother...and asking my son to quit aggrivating his big sister....and thanking Sarah for all her "help", I wanted to pull my hair out. On the way home, we had a good talk about a particular Scripture that I felt like they needed to hear. My children were not exactly exhibiting the fruits of the Spirit on our drive home, so they needed a reminder of how to treat each other. It says
A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.
Then tonight, I saw THIS video. What a great perspective. I've heard this song a bazillion times before, but putting the video with it makes all the difference. Thank you, Father, for my precious children & this crazy, chaotic time in our lives.
Today, my eldest embarked on one more "new" thing. It may not be a big deal to many of you, but it is pretty huge at our house. You see, when Harry Potter books (& movies & bookbags & toys, etc, etc, etc) came out a few years back, our kids were all pre-school aged. Larry & I decided pretty early on that we were not comfortable with our kids jumping onto the Harry Potter bandwagon without us having some time to research it and see what it was all about. Our kids were much too young to even worry about it anyway, but we knew that all too soon they'd be older and if HP was still "popular" then, they'd want to know what the fuss was about. Larry & I rented the first HP movie several years ago. And while a lot of the movie was no more "dark" than many other fantasy-themed movies, there were things that we decided were not child-appropriate for our family. We decided then that we'd prefer our kids not read HP books until we felt like they were firmly grounded in our faith with a strong sense of right & wrong, with a good grasp of the Scriptures. We felt like we could call that age 12, but discussed that we'd have to decide on a case by case basis with each of the kids when they reached 12. We have told the kids this & reminded Savannah over the summer that if she was interested in reading one of the HP books, she had our blessing to give it a try. She checked her first one out of the library at her school late this week. She usually plows into books & goes through them FAST. She's only a few pages into this one so far. We'll see how it goes and if she has any desire to read the rest. I really wouldn't mind her reading them if they turn out to be something she enjoys. It's something of a milestone since these books were such a HUGE deal in the past few years.
Tonight, we watched a Garfield movie together before the kids headed off to bed. It's now nearly midnight & I need to hit the sack myself. Goodnight!
Since Larry discussed his trip a little bit on his facebook page, I figure it's ok for me to mention it here. Due to safety concerns, I'm not going into detail of where he is, what he's doing or how long he'll be there....but, here's the scoop on what I can say.
This morning, before we left to go to the church (where he joined the others), I had to take a picture. After all, I make all the kids pose like this before going to camp! He was a good sport & played along.
We got into the car & cranked it. Then he remembered that he'd forgotten his glasses. I turned off the van, gave him the keys (to get back into the house) & waited. He got back in & we left the driveway.
Then he remembered something else. That's our house in the picture. Yep....we didn't make it far. Finally, we left. We got to the church & joined the others in loading the ministry boxes into the van. Afterward, we loaded all the team's luggage. Don't worry...there were 2 vans. This is the one w/ all the ministry boxes.
After a huddle with the group & some prayer time, they were off! See?
I got into the car, said a prayer for their safety while they travel & went to work. I felt like this.
So I did what any intelligent, independant, responsible, strong woman would do.
Yep, it worked. I've felt just fine all day today! :) We'll see how I do with my Cub Scout mama responsibilities tomorrow.
At 9:20, one of the subs I contacted earlier this morning called me back. She was available! She would arrive at the school late, but she was on her way there when we talked! Hooray! At least that was covered!
I picked up Samuel & went to the doc at 9:30. When we checked in, the VERY SWEET receptionist said "are you aware that you have a balance of $62?". I was aware that we had a balance, but it was $100 last time we checked.....but I told her that yes, I knew we had a balance. She asked if I could pay it today. I had NOT been planning on this visit even occuring, let alone adding $62 to my $30 copay. I explained what had happened w/ the $100 ear wax removal thing. She laughed about it all & agreed that it was insane to charge that much for that! But then she said (in a quiet, whispered voice) that our account had a note--- "Pending dismissal if balance is not paid". I asked her (in an equally whispered voice) "Dismissal from what?". Apparently the doctor who had frozen our account also marked us as a "non paying patient" & if we did not pay it off, they were going to "dismiss" us from being patients there!!!!! Ack! You've GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! We have children who've been patients there for 12 years now....and you're going to cut me off from having a pediatrician b/c of a $62 balance?! Good grief! What are poor people supposed to do for health care???? We are by no means poverty-stricken, but we certainly don't roll in the dough either. I expressed by shock & disbelief about this little matter & she was soooooo very sweet & gracious about it. This same lady has been the receptionist for the entire 12 years we've been seeing Dr. H, so she KNOWS us & knows that we're not going to skip out on paying them, even if we couldn't do it right away. She told me (in that quiet, hushed tone) that she's actually seen the docs in this practice "dismiss" patients for a lesser balance. Good Lord!
I went ahead & paid the balance just to get it over & done with....but I was seriously ticked off about the whole scenario. I joked with her that "Samuel's ear had better be infected....I've lost a day's pay & now I'm paying $90 for an office visit!"
Since we were being worked into the schedule, it took us forever at the doc's office. The appointment was at9:45, but it was nearly 10:40 before we got in & then it we got to sit & wait in the exam room forever. Thank goodness Samuel's Ibuprofen had kicked in & he was feeling alright. We played a thousand games of tic-tac-toe on the exam table paper while we waited.
And as it turns out, Samuel's ear was flaming red & his eardrum was bulging when I looked at it before the doc came in. (Yes, I borrowed the otoscope!) He confirmed that & gave us an antibiotic (can you say "ka-ching"?). By the time we got out of Walgreen's & I got him some McDonald's for lunch, it was 12:00 by the time we got home.
Oh, and to make matters worse, Larry discovered fraud on our checking account this morning.
Can you say SPIRITUAL ATTACK?! Larry leaves in the morning for a mission trip & every member of the group has been attacked. God must have something HUGE waiting for the team when they arrive. Feel free to cover all of the team (& their families at home) in prayer! Looks like we can all use it!
Have I mentioned that I don't like to be frustrated & confused & mixed up in a lot of chaos? I'm an order person. I plan things. I make lists & cross them off. Most of my co-workers would laugh & classify me as OCD. I MUST organize things...it's just who I am. (Now, mind you...this doesn't necessarily roll over into my HOME...although I really wish it would!)
This morning, Samuel woke up screaming, holding his right ear & saying it HURTS. Going on his history of thousands of ear infections, I assume this must be the case, however, he hasn't had a cough, the sniffles...nothing. So for this to pop up out of the blue is weird. But then again, weirder things have happened. His lymph nodes on that side of his neck are swollen, too, so it sure looks like he probably has an infection. I can usually look into his ear with our powerfulest flashlight (yes, it's a word....LOL) & see whether or not he's got fluid or pus on his eardrum, but I couldn't tell today. Oh boy. I gave him some Ibuprofen & sent him to school w/ a promise that I'd call the pediatrician & get him in this afternoon. Just to be sure, ya know...
I took everyone to school, came home, got dressed & then called the pedi's office. That's where my frustration begins. Grrrrrr
First off, my phone line died in the middle of scheduling the appointment. It came back on after a minute & I called back, only be to told that our pediatrician is out this afternoon. Only one doc is seeing patients this afternoon & she has put a freeze on our account (meaning we can't schedule an appointment) til we pay off the bill from an appointment several months ago. You see...they charged $100 (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) to dig earwax out of Samuel's ear that day. Seriously. Give me Qtip. I could've done that. When the insurance co got that bill, they decided that THAT procedure fell into the "surgical procedures" category which is covered differently than a pediatrician digging earwax out of an ear in the office. And so, for a couple of months, the doc's office & insurance co have argued about what happened. Not to mention that we haven't had a spare $100 lying around to pay that bill. Oy! The schedule lady said I'd have to speak to the billing folks before she could schedule an appointment. She transferred me over to talk to them, but all I got was VOICE MAIL!
I hung up & called Larry. PLEASE deal with this. By this point, it's 8:25. I leave for work at 8:30-8:40 and I really didn't have time to sit & go back & forth with someone about this stuff. Hooray! My hero. He called, talked to someone & got an appointment with our pediatrician this morning at 9:45.
Now that's great & all, but then the race was on for me to call & find a sub for my class. There was none. They were all already working for someone else or were busy today. Yikes! My class of 3 year olds will be divided up today, filling spaces in other classrooms for the day. I feel awful about that, but there's nothing else I can do. I'm stumped. I emailed all the parents to let them know, so hopefully the ones that would be terrified of that will stay home instead of going to school & freaking out all day.
No, I don't mean that I'm addicted to MY blog, although I really do love it. I'm referring to the gazillion OTHER blogs I read or check in on nightly...or at least several times a week. I have a whole file in my favorites of blogs that I check. Church friends (current or old churches I've gone to), friends I've met online, blogs of sick people that I like to keep up with, IRL friends (that's in real life...had to abbreviate to make it fit into my favorites file name), and then just other blogs I like to read because they're funny or interesting or inspiring or whatever. Do you check other people's blogs regularly? Whose do you read? Wanna see my list? Email me!
The idea is to tell your top 5 favorite things about living wherever you currently live. She used pictures to show her favorite things, so I will too! :)
1. I love our schools. The kids have been taught by great teachers thus far & our district is just the right size...not too big, not too small.
2. The pretty, shady, tree-lined streets. There is so much green everywhere you look in our little town. I love that there are tree frogs croaking & birds chirping......not honking horns & jack-hammer noise.
3. The lake. We may not get out there very often, but it's so peaceful & pretty.
4. Family---all of our family lives pretty closeby.
5. I love the fact that, in our area, there is a church on every corner. There are plenty of places to choose from if you want to go to church. Faith is high on most people's list around here. I know that is not the case in other parts of this country & I feel blessed to live in the middle of the Bible belt.
(this is actually a picture of my church...the rest were pictures I swiped off of photobucket)
So....what are your 5 favorite things about living where you are?
A couple of years ago, I was at the library with my kids & went over to look through the "grown up" section (as opposed to the childrens' books). I had been through a series of Francine Rivers books & read all that the library had of hers, so I turned to face another section of Christian fiction books. They were by Karen Kingsbury, another author I had been told was AWESOME. I had never read any of her stuff & picked up the first one I saw. It was a book called Redemption.
I had no idea what I was getting myself into....and boy am I glad! I read this book in a matter of 2 or 3 days. It was soooooooooo good. Immediately, I was hooked. It turns out that I had stumbled upon the first book of the Redemption series. There are 5 books in that series.
After those 5 books, a new series based on the same characters & storyline began. And after that series, another one.
All together, I've been following the Baxter family through 13 books! All of the Redemption series, then all of the Firstborn series, and then the first 3 books of the Sunrise series. TODAY, the final book of the Sunrise series was released. It's the final book of this series of serieses.
For a few months now, I've been anxiously awaiting the release of THIS BOOK! I can't wait to get my hands on it. I feel like I"ve been a part of this family's lives for the past couple of decades because the books have covered about a 15 year timespan. If you like Christian fiction at all, I HIGHLYYYYYYYYYYYY recommend these books. The family of characters is so very REAL. Nothing churchy-religious-holier than thou about these books. The family involved has real problems & real faith. Watching how they trust God to get them through so many different things is what makes the books so good. You'll laugh along w/ the characters. You'll cry like a baby at other points. The author is amazing!
I mentioned Larry's father's hospitalization on Thursday. I'm sorry I haven't updated sooner.
Here's the story--
On Thursday morning, Jim was passing a great deal of blood & feeling awful. He was taken to the doctor who sent him to the hospital in Tyler. It was determined that he was bleeding internally & he was admitted to the hospital. Between then & Saturday, he was given 2 blood transfusions to raise his hemoglobin level. In doing so, he got his energy back & felt much better. They did an upper GI scope procedure & could not locate the source of bleeding. They released him to go home on Saturday with plans to have him see his doctor to swallow a camera pill this week. As of this evening, he has not been able to schedule that appointment yet. He wasn't able to reach the doctor today. As soon as he does, they will do that. Larry spoke to him this evening & it turns out that the 2 transfusions are apparently "wearing off". He is back to having no energy & feeling pretty rough.
Every day, on my way to work, I pray for my students, for the day ahead, for my reactions to their behaviors, etc. It really helps me walk into the classroom with the right mindset and sets the tone for a good day. Not to mention that it gives me a way to see God working through me in a secular classroom.
Today, I was singing to the radio & praying about other things when I realized that I was less than a mile from work....and I hadn't had a chance to pray for my day & the kids yet! Yikes! At that point, my prayer was very short & sweet, almost an after-thought sort of thing. It went something like this.
"God, I'm sorry that I don't have time to pray for each of my students individually today, but you know them by name & know what's going on in their homes today. Please give me a smooth, easy day with them."
WELL......soon after I walked in, I was told that one of the other teachers was absent today & they had not been able to reach a sub for her. Because of this, I would be 'inheriting' 3 of her students. It's always difficult when you have someone else's students for the day because they're not used to how your classroom works, what the rules are, etc. And since I don't know their personalities, it can make for a difficult day behavior-wise as well. I was not looking forward to spending the day with 3 extra kids. The kids arrived, we did an arrival activity & began to eat a snack when (surprise!) the sub arrived! She came to my room & took the extra kids back to their regular classroom. That's when it hit me.
I only had THREE kids left! 3! Just t-h-r-e-e! Hooray!!! Talk about an easy day! When I am prepared to have 8 each day, ending up with just THREE is much calmer, much easier, much smoother!
I had never expected God to answer my prayer in that way. Thank you, Lord!
Samuel was a Tunnel Cat tonight. You may remember my post from a couple of weeks ago when traffic kept us from arriving on time. Well, tonight we went WAY early to make sure he was there on time & he did it!!! Here are some pictures. You can spot Samuel pretty easily. He's the only one in a red shirt!
I seriously got teared up right after I took this picture. When I put the camera down, there were 2 little boys in wheelchairs being run/pushed down the field by their dedicated teachers. Those 2 boys won the honor to be a Tunnel Cat tonight, and while they couldn't run on their own, they earned the right to do it, so they had a "runner" for each of them! God bless those precious teachers who took a jog tonight to push a wheelchair-bound child down the field to celebrate their good behavior at school! Dang it...here I go getting all teary eyed again!
In all of our band family glory, tonight before the game:
I took quite a few pictures tonight at the game, but I will spare you most of them. This is where the band sat. Look at how many kids there are in the Jr. High band!!
My niece & Savannah both play French Horn. I don't know if this pic will show up big enough for you to spot them, but if you put your finger in the very center of this pic, my niece & Savannah are just below your finger, to the left, looking directly at the camera. Savannah said they saw me holding the camera & posed for me!
It was a great night. Our team won the first game 24-0. I'm not sure what the final score was on the 2nd game, but they were doing pretty well when we left.
On a more serious note, please add my father in law to your prayer lists. He is in the hospital again.
Tomorrow holds 2 'firsts' for my firstborn. Tomorrow she will experience her first pep rally & her first junior high football game, both as a band member. Tomorrow she will wear her band Tshirt to school for the first time and Larry & I will don our matching band parent Tshirts. Tomorrow night, she will wear her band 'uniform' (all white, which I think is INSANE, but no one asked me) to the football game. Tomorrow, she will sit in the stands with the band & play her French Horn. (Don't worry...there WILL be pictures!)
I'm excited for her. I'm excited to get to be a part of the great band "family" that I feel like I'm just joining in on. In middle school & high school, I thought it was nerdy to be in band, so I never joined. My husband, on the other hand, was a band geek right through high school (wink!) and actually got a college band scholarship as well. Then again, I thought boy scouts & girl scouts were nerds, too. Then I married an Eagle Scout. But I digress...
Tomorrow will be a great day of 'firsts' for my sweet girl. What a fun day it will be!
Tonight was our monthly staff wives' dinner. We ate at Olive Garden & enjoyed our meal & the fellowship of other ministry wives. On the way home, I stopped at Brookshire's (local grocery store) for a couple of things. When I got to the check out line, there was 1 lady ahead of me buying a gallon of milk. The checker was my neighbor, a 17 year old girl who I've watched grow from a new-teenager who was still quite the tomboy when we moved into this house. Anyway, I figured it would only take a minute & I'd be out the door, headed home. It was past the kids' bedtime anyway. Larry had them at home. I was just hoping to get home & kiss them in their beds before they fell asleep.
So anyway, I walked up to the checkout & there is this one lady in front of me. Let me paint you a picture.
She's wearing what looks like pajamas. Her hair is pulled up in a ponytail. The ponytail itself is blonde, but underneath it's purple. She's got 3 children with her. The oldest, a little boy who looked to be about 8 or 9, is pushing buggies back & forth across the front of the store, ramming into checkout lines & "threatening" to get into one of the motorized carts & ride it. The mom is screaming at him from a distance, creating quite a scene. She's got a little girl, about 5 or 6, standing quietly next to her, wearing a pair of little girl-sized high heels. Cute. She is holding a toddler who is squirming & whiney. Oh, and did I mention that all three kids are in their pajamas? Aside from the high heels on the little girl, all of them are wearing slippers. It's late. The purple-haired, pajama-wearing, bratty kid toting mom is buying a gallon of milk with her motley crew & then she does it. Yep...she pulled out her LoneStar card. (If you don't know what that is, it is Texas's version of welfare/foodstamps.) I rolled my eyes & waiting for her to get her wild bunch of kids & go home. It turns out that she was buying the milk on WIC & apparently the one she picked out was not a WIC-approved type of milk, so there was a 15 minutes-long fuss between her, the cashier, a 2nd cashier & the manager. I sat there getting more irritated & judgemental of this woman in front of me who was causing such a fuss. While watching the scenario go down, a man & his Cub Scout uniform clad son walked up behind me.
At this point, I've been waiting for this transaction to end for at least 15 minutes. I'm getting more frustrated by the moment & then the man behind me asks the cashier "Pardon me, how much is the lady's bill?" When she tells him that it's $3.88, he offers to pay the bill for her. He never says he's doing it to get her out of the way or because he's in a hurry or whatever. He simply says he'll take care of it. The lady politely turned around & thanked the man and left.
By now, I'm cringing & slapping myself in the forehead. Here I was, whining (although silently) about how long this weirdo Welfare-mom was taking and some complete stranger steps up & does what I should've offered much sooner! What a great Christian example I was tonight! Ouch.
I drove home thinking to myself what a great picture of grace & kindness this man was tonight. I was frustrated, and rightfully so, but he walked up, saw a problem & offered a way to solve the problem that put more weight on him than the person who was causing the problem to begin with. He took the cost of her purchase & paid a debt he didn't owe to help her.
I know this may sound silly....but can you pray for King?
A couple months ago, back in late June when our neighbors (behind us) moved in, they did a ton of work clearing out brush & stuff. A few days after they did that, King was covered up in big ticks. We pulled them all off of him, shampooed him w/ flea & tick shampoo, put on a flea & tick collar, and put a dose of the Frontline stuff on him. (we had 1 last dose of it at the time, thank goodness!) Within a week, we quit seeing ANY ticks on him at all. We were happy to see them gone & felt like the brush-clearing must've been what started it all because our backyard (where King lives) backs up to the yard where they cleared out so much stuff. I guess they were living in all that mess & when their habitat was disturbed, they went haywire. We have continued treating him all summer even though we have not seen any more ticks on him since that first week, and trust me, we've checked him extensively almost daily up until a week or two ago when we quit being so obsessive about it.
Fast forward to today. When we got home from church, he didn't come greet us at the fence like he usually does. However, he's nearly 10 years old & is 1/2 crippled anyway, so once in a while, he doesn't jump up & run to the fence....but it still bothered me, so I went to check on him. Larry followed me & I quickly discovered (while petting him) that he was covered up in ticks again! Larry & I sat there & pulled tick after tick after tick off of him. Immediately, we decided to re-treat him & the yard. We went inside & changed clothes & grabbed a quick bite before going out (all of us--kids included) to bathe him. We used about 4 layers of the shampoo, covered every inch of his body & found (seriously) at least a hundred more ticks--babies & big fat adults. It got to the point that I wanted to throw my hands up & say "forget it..there's too many." We pulled so many off that his fur was bloody in places & our hands were bloody when we came in. On his chest, there are several lumps that look like infected bites. Before we finished bathing him, Larry put tick poison stuff all over the back yard (dog-safe stuff) & afterward, we put a new collar on him.
As Larry & I sat there pulling off ticks, he whispered to me "you know, this many ticks could kill him...I hope we found them soon enough." We sat there, silently pulling off ticks, praying that he will be OK.
King has his vet check-up on Tuesday afternoon, so I guess the doc can give us some idea of how good or bad things look. We're really worried about the poor old dog. We haven't said anything to the kids about how bad this could possibly be. No need to worry them if there's nothing to worry about. But if there is a chance he could be seriously ill or die from this, it would just kill them. They're so attached to the big fluff-ball & it would break their hearts (& ours!) to lose him!
This morning as the hurricane began to blow through, I went out & took these pictures.
This is the windsock that Sarah made earlier this summer at daycamp. It's made of craft foam (stapled together) with ribbons tied onto the bottom. I figure if it stays together & doesn't get torn apart in the wind, we're probably OK.
We were kind of laughing at the idea of this storm doing much damage. I mean, we're 8 hours inland & we figured that it would lose its strength by the time it got to us. A couple hours into the storm, this was all the "massive wind damage" we had. One little piece of a branch in the yard. Woop-tee-doo!
And for the most part, we were right, but we did get a little bit of trouble from it. Several hours into it, I was walking around the yard with my camera & umbrella to see what I could see. I found this. Yikes! When did that happen? We didn't even hear it! That's our fence under there!!
Thankfully, it didn't do much damage. The 2 caps on the top of those posts were popped off & broken, but once we cut the branch off the fence, everything was fine. My dad told me I ought to apply for FEMA help to replace those caps. (snicker, snicker) We'll have to clean this up later, but for not, it's off the fence.
As the storm as gone on, we've got more debris out in the street in front of us. But still, there is nothing real major going on. Just a lot of wind & some moderate rainfall.
I took a bit of video to show the wind whipping around earlier. I could email it but for some reason, AOL won't let me post it here. Let me know if ya want to see.
These are all things A-Z that bring back a memory from growing up. If you were born in the 70's, you'll probably recognize a few..........
A- Annie: it's a hardknock life for us...Yes, Mrs. Hannigan!....the red curly hair....loved it! AND American Bandstand (loved that show!) AND Al Denson (he did the music at the Dawson McAllister conferences)
B- BIG bangs (oh, the 80s & early 90s were not nice to my hair!)
C- Cabbage Patch Kids & Cartoons that were only seen on Saturday mornings for a couple of hours
D- Def Leopard (the Hysteria CD still rocks!) AND Dawson McAllister conferences w/ the church youth group
E- Eagles (the band) My family listened to a lot of their music.
F- the Fonz, Fraggle Rock, frizzed out hair
G- Guess? jeans! They were the ONLY pair of "designer" jeans I ever had. My mom made me wait til my birthday to buy that $50 pair of jeans. It was my only present that year & I wore them til I couldn't breathe deep enough to get them zipped up. I was soooo proud of that little triangle on my rear end!
H- Hypercolor shirts! They were so cool!
I- Ice, Ice Baby
J- Jelly shoes (oh my gosh..sweaty feet & blisters....but they were so cool at the time!)
K- Kirk Cameron....my future husband (when I was 12)
L - Layla (the Eric Clapton song---I was in High School-- such a catchy tune)
Like many of you, Larry & I have spent much of our evening watching the news reports on Fox & CNN & all the local stations as well as the weather channel. As you know, our eastern side of Texas is in trouble. We've got Ike hurdling toward us & we're just hoping for the best.
Today we went to buy bottled water, lots of canned foods, some batteries, a little battery-powered weather band radio & a 12-pack of soda. ha ha!
We went to the library this afternoon & got some books to power-outage entertainment. We got the kids a few movies for stuck-inside-during-the-rain entertainment.
We're far enough north of the coast that people are coming HERE for shelter from the storm, so we're just hunkering down & riding it out now.
I am a little nervous for Andrew & Kourtney's family, though. They live down in south Texas, near the area that was evacuated. I'm not sure if they were evacuated or not, but when I called today to check on them, there was no answer at their house. Please pray for their safety during this storm!
I've got my camera batteries all charged up & ready to go. Hopefully there won't be much of anything for me to get pictures of....but in case there is, I'm ready!
And on a lighter, more fun note, today while we were in CVS picking up batteries, the kids & I were playing around in the Halloween aisle. They had political masks. I was Obama. Savannah was Hillary. Sarah was McCain & honestly, I don't know who Samuel was. It was so funny to see the kids put on those masks, so I had to join in. Larry snapped a picture w/ his phone.
And one last thing---pray that we all stay healthy! It turns out that the tummy issues I had on Wednesday were part of a virus that is going around! Another teacher at my school had it yesterday. And tonight when I picked up Samuel from his friend's birthday party, the little sister went running to the bathroom to throw up before I got out the front door. So...something's going around! yuck, yuck, yuck! Vomitting & diarrhea during a hurricane is NOT my idea of fun!
Early this morning I woke up with some sort of lava-in-my-tummy feeling. Oh great. Really, stomach...I don't have TIME for this. I've got kids to get up & ready for school, other kids waiting for me at work, stuff to do, people to see....can we just do this another day?
Apparently, my stomach wasn't listening to my little argument with it. I will just say that I had some intestinal disturbances today. By 7:00am, I knew it was time to call a sub for the day & call it quits. I called (& probably woke up!) a substitute teacher who readily agreed to work for me & gave my husband the car keys (figuratively of course...he already has the keys) and crawled back under the covers. Somewhere in there, I managed to take a dose of some tummy medicine & eat a plain piece of toast.
I tried to rest this morning, but ended up not feeling drowsy, so I just read & hung out at the house. By around noon, I felt almost better. I decided that it was time to feed the dog & figure out whether or not I could eat lunch. A plain chicken sandwich sounded good, so I fed the dog & drove to Burger King & got one. (I would've made my own but tomorrow is grocery day, so we're out of everything.) And besides...BK's chicken sandwich is tasty.
I took a nap after I ate lunch & then went to pick up the kids. I told them this afternoon that I feel like I'm up to being about 95.2% better. ha ha! My stomach is still the tiniest bit unsettled so tonight, while everyone else is in church, I'm hiding in Larry's office reading blogs & checking my facebook account so as to not breathe any of my germs on anyone else...just in case! If I make it through the night without any further uh... episodes...then I'll consider myself healed. :) I don't think there are any stomach viruses going around the schools yet, so hopefully this was just some weird fluke.
First, before I go any further......tonight at 5:55pm, my girlfriend Alyssa's daughter (G) celebrated her 9th birthday. Yep...she was born on 9/9/99 at 5:55pm. How fun is that?! I've never forgotten her birthday because of that little number trick. (sometimes I forget to send an e-card, like today....so Alyssa, please show this picture to "G" & tell her it's just for her!!)
Second, an update on our little Tunnel Cat! Remember my post on Friday night? Well, after typing up that post, I sent a copy of it to Samuel's teacher. She took pity on us & talked to the lady in charge of the program & worked it out so that Samuel will get to do it after all!!! The fun part is--the game where he'll get to be a Tunnel Cat is the same game where Sarah will dance on the field with the High School drill team! She's going to a little dance workshop this Saturday & will learn a simple pom pom routine which she'll perform with the "big girls" on the field! Hooray! We'll have 2 kids on the field that night! (Plus my nephew who's in the HS band!) Looks like that'll be a football night for us!!
Savannah learned a lesson the hard way today. That lesson is--keep up with your stuff & be on time. She was counted tardy because she had to go back to her locker for something & made it back just in time to be late. AND that paper she went back for wasn't there. She got a 0 for not turning in her work. (NOTE: Turns out, she had left the notebook in another classroom yesterday & found it later today. And she was allowed to use a homework pass to bring her 0 up to a decent grade. So it's not as bad as it seems, but she's now paranoid about being tardy to the same class ever again. If she is, she'll get a detention!)
Samuel's been working on getting his room totally cleaned up for over a week now. Of course, that's an ongoing project for my son, so it's not entirely shocking that it's taken him over a week to clean it. But the funny thing is, each day for the last several days, he's come to me & asked a very poignant question (snicker, snicker).
On Sunday afternoon
Samuel- Mom, if I was blind would I still have to clean my room?
Me- Yes, Samuel.
Samuel- But how would I find the stuff to put it up?
Me- You'd feel around with your hands til you found it. Now hush & go work on your room.
On Monday
Samuel- Mom, if I was blind & dead would I still have to clean my room?
Me- Excuse me?
Samuel- You know, if I couldn't see or hear....??
Me- Dear, that's deaFFF, not deaDDD. There's a big difference. (giggles)
Samuel- Oops! Yeah, that's what I meant. So if I was blind & deaf, would I still have to clean my room?
Me- Yes. Get to work, Mister!
Today
Samuel- Mom, if I was blind, deaf, half dead & missing an arm, would I still have to clean my room?
Me- (busting out laughing, then calming down to answer the question) Yes Samuel. If you made the mess, no matter how your half dead, dangly armed self did it, it would be your responsibility to clean it up. Get to work, goofball.
Samuel- (dragging his feet to his room) Yes M'am.
LOL! I swear. He's a mess. (both physically & figuratively!)
Sarah asks me every day how many more days it is til the "Little Ladies" dance class. This is the class she'll attend Saturday to prepare for her football field debut next week. She's really excited! Crossing my fingers that she doesn't back out at the last minute!
On Tuesday, September 2, my school opened the doors for the 2008-2009 school year. The kids all arrived a little early, got their gear stowed on our peg shelf and we started the day. That first day was hard. Really hard. The first month is usually the toughest as we work on everyone learning how to behave, how my clss works, what is expected of them, how to interact with their new friends and so on. But add to that the first day jitters & tears and well, wow. It was such a hard day.
The following day, I went back to work. (& really...I should get some sort of award for that, shouldn't I? ha ha) The group of kids on that day was less teary-eyed that the day before and so the day went really smoothly. I left school skipping & singing instead of dragging and feeling like I needed caffeine. You see, my Monday/Wednesday/Friday group and my Tuesday/Thursday group are markedly different in so many ways. As the week went on, each day got a little easier. I could feel the prayers of so many people who I'd asked to join me in praying for a smooth week.
The highlight of my week was seeing "my" kids from last year. Each one that I saw greeted me with giggles & laughter & hugs & kisses. Several of them spotted me from down the hall & came running to the tune of "Mrs. Liz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!". It makes my heart swell every time one of them comes by to see me after school, just to say hello & check in with me for a little snuggle time. I see them on the playground & they talk to me through the fence. While my class was in music this week, I went to peek into their rooms & wave to them. I even peeked out my classroom door & made silly faces at them while they were in music class. I see them doing so well in a new class & see how often they want to come say Hello & give me a hug and I realize....wow, I did something right last year. They all still remember me & love me. Hooray! Hopefully I'll leave the same impression on my new class this year!
My prayer for the year is that each one of 'my' kids spends enough one on one time with me every day that they feel like, at least for a couple of minutes, that they & I are the only 2 people in the room. I want them to have my pure, undivided, full attention for a little time every day. I want them to know that I love them & care for them. I want them to feel safe with me and to learn lots of fun stuff!! In the end, I want to see a new set of kids running to greet me & tell me hello for no special reason. I want to make a difference in their lives.
Tonight, Samuel was supposed to be a "Tunnel Cat". This is a program our school district does to encourage positive behavior in the elementary kids. They are awarded the great privelege of running onto the field through the tunnel with the football players & breaking through the big paper thing if they have good behavior, good citizenship, etc. They get to run down the full length of the field with the "big guys", cheering & yelling. Samuel got to do this once last year & he loved it, so when he was given the award to do it this week, he was SOOOO excited.
He almost lost the privelege at home because, for the past week, he's been grounded from TV for having a horribly messy room. Every afternoon after doing homework, he's been in his room "cleaning" (which interprets to goofing off & playing with his toys). Today we cracked down & said "get it done or we're not going to the football game". Boy....the right motivation is all ya need. In less than an hour's time, he did more toward cleaning that room than he's done all week long!! ha ha!
We left the house about 6:40, thinking that 30 minutes was plenty of time to drive 2 miles to the stadium & get into the gates on time. (He was supposed to be there at 7:10.) Turns out, it wasn't early enough. We didn't realize it, but tonight was the first home game of the season & apparently the people of Whitehouse were very excited about that. The traffic was horrible. At 7:10, we were still out in the road trying to get into the stadium gates. It was 7:15 before we got into the parking lot driveway. Larry let the kids & I out at the gates & we took off running to try to get Samuel to his spot. We had to stand in a long line to buy tickets. [NOTE: Larry tried to buy them in advance at the high school today but they had sold out before he got there.] While standing there, a friend of mine who already had her tickets walked up & offered to take Samuel in for me while I stood in line. Hooray!! I sent them in, praying I'd get through the line in time to see him do his thing. It was too late. They went in & came back out moments later. The Tunnel Cats were already running down the field when they walked into the gates. We missed it becauseof the traffic.
Talk about a let down for all of us. Samuel was crying when we got there because he was worried about being late. He was watching the clock in our van as we approached the field, saying "we may as well go home...we're going to be too late" but we kept encouraging him that we were doing our best & would get there as fast as we could. Turns out, he was right. We were too late. We were all heartbroken. Poor Samuel was sooooo upset, crying & disappointed. Rather than sit through a game that we really didn't care anything about (we had planned to leave after Samuel ran the field anyway), we made a U-turn, went back to our car & left. We tried to cheer him up by going to get icecream at Dairy Queen, but he held his milkshake & cried all the way home. I hate to see my babies brokenhearted.
Like most of the rest of the country, we spent a good bit of time today in front of CNN watching the effects of Hurricane Gustav. Watching in concern as the waves of the Industrial Canal lapped at the top of the walls that should contain it was a little nerve-wracking. All the weather forecasts say that we should be seeing some rough weather (lots of rain, high winds, etc) by morning, so I am curious to see what happens. Hopefully we won't see much damage or heavy enough rains to cause any flooding. Join me in praying for all the areas struck by Gustav.
In an effort to keep my mind on other things today, I spent much of the day doing laundry & other housework. When the kids had quiet time today, I watched another movie. Today it was this one:
It was funny! Certainly not a picture of a moral love story, so beware when you watch this one...but if you are looking for a funny movie with a love story on the side, this one fits the bill. It was only rated PG-13, but it should've been R.
We've watched the sky all day for a sign of the storm, but as of right now (it's 10 minutes before 10:00 now), the most we've had all day was a light rain. Light enough that I could walk across the yard without an umbrella. We'll see how it is by this time tomorrow.
I am married to the most awesome man alive. I have 3 fabulous kids that make me proud to be their mom every day. I am an unashamed follower of Jesus. Without Him in my life, I wouldn't be who I am. I love to write, so this is my world.
The idea is to tell your top 5 favorite things about living wherever you currently live. She used pictures to show her favorite things, so I will too! :)
