Monday, May 22, 2006

Mondays are so painful!

Don't you just hate Mondays after you have had a weekend off? Princess just does NOT want to wake up. It's a chore to get her ready for school. Heck, it's a chore to get ME ready for school! Especially since I knew I had a test first thing. Our Prof had told us last Wed that he was covering another class (at one the other campus no less) and that he would be late to our class - but that he would have somebody from the office come protor the exam.

Class is supposed to start at noon. noon plus ten and STILL nobody to give us the test...we had to send somebody to the office to ASK them to come give us the test. Geesh. Thankfully it was only 60 questions, multiple choice. I think (hope) I got a B on it. There were a few, thinking back, that I think I got wrong. So, we'll see! The two hours of lecture after the test, were sort of a blur.

Tomorrow I'm going to school with Princess in the morning. There's a bulletin board with my name on it! All the Flat Stanleys have come back and they need to be proudly displayed on the board outside of class. I volunteered - I love doing bulletin boards :-) Princess sent her Flat Stanley to visit her aunt and uncle in California (and their 1 yr old twins). He had a great time - he went to work with Uncle Scott (Uncle Scott works at Mattel.....how cool of a job is that?!) and he got to see the Pacific Ocean, and even climb a tree. Princess was so excited to see everything that Flat Stanley did.

I'm also going to start tutoring the kids one on one for a few hours each morning (before I go to class). I told the teacher I'd be happy to come in and I was shocked that she had so many kids who need help with the addition facts. Wow! This is the end of 2nd grade. Since there's only a couple weeks of school left, I figured I could squeeze in a few days of volunteering.

OY!! (sorry, CSI: Miami is on and I KNEW she was the mole!)

Have you seen the cute little build-a-bears that McD's is giving out in the Happy Meals? I'm looking forward to day after day of "can we go to McDonald's?" "can we go to McDonald's?" " PLEEEEEASE, can we go to McDonald's?" Lucky for her I'm really good at saying "No!"

Sunday, May 21, 2006

Test Me

The bad thing about summer school is the pace of the classes. Cramming 1 week of material into each day of class makes for interesting study patterns. I already have a test in each of my classes this week. I think they will both be fairly easy, but I don't want to take any chances, so studying is the word of the day. And let's not forget the rest of the homework I need to continue working on!

Speaking of homework, I'm going to come to the blog-o-sphere and ask you if you know anybody who is physically disabled who might be willing to answer a couple of general questions. I'm writing a paper on the challenges faced by people with physical handicaps and I thought it might be better if I included some real thoughts, instead of just what the books say. More than that I really want to include the perspective or real people in my paper. So, please, if you know anybody that is paralyzed or an amputee or confined to a wheel chair for another reason, please drop them a line on my behalf and ask them if they have a couple minutes to answer a few questions. (Thanks guys! You're the best :-)

I volunteered to work with the PTO next year. The mom that got roped into being President has a daughter in Princess's class so I took pity on her and volunteered to help. AAAHHHH - I'm not sure it was the best decision on my part. I'm going to be busy next year, but the year after that is student teaching so there's no way I'll be able to help then. And let's face it education is all about parents being involved.

We signed Princess up for Junior Cheerleading the other night. I can't even wrap my mind around the fact that my adorable daughter thinks cheerleading is cool. My nose was too far into the closest book to think about cheerleading. 'Course back in my day the cheerleaders were not always the sharpest tools in the shed. Now it has morphed into a sport at some schools. Well, she can try it now while she's young and see if it's something that she likes. I just have to try to avoid getting roped into being an assistant coach or working at the concession stand!

Here's another question for you, why is it when you are trying to avoid doing anything productive that you can NEVER find anything good on TV?

Friday, May 19, 2006

Armed Forces Day

Tomorrow (May 20, 2006) is Armed Forces Day. I don't think you need to hear my opinion on this one. Support your troops (or else?!! LOL).

I'm thankful that our troops are supported, despite the way many people feel about the "cause". Despite it all, we know that being a soldier is more than just a job.

Now there is a new challenge which is going to spread our military thinner than it already is.

Seems like there is always a new job to be done.

So tomorrow, your job is to go find a military blog and tell somebody how much you appreciate the sacrifices that their family is making for this country.

I pray that God may continue to bless all of those who are and have served in uniform.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Don't you just hate it.....

So, I'm starting to suffer withdrawl. For a couple of reasons. It started a few months ago when the contact solution that I use (AoSept) was completely GONE from shelves in all my local stores. Now, this was before all the eye infection "scare" and Bausch & Lomb pulling one of its products off the shelf. I kept checking the company web site to see if had been discontinued and I couldn't even find reference to it! Well, the good news, now that all the hub-bub hit eye care, there is a letter on the company web site saying they are shipping more! Woo Hoo! So, if they were planning on discontinuing it; well, they aren't anymore! Which makes me a little bit happy.

Unfortunately, this is not the end of my dilemma. I have a weakness for the greatest potato chip ever made. It's a Ruffle's flavor called "The Works". I can't find them anywhere. It's been a month, a girl could die :-) When mom & dad went to Florida I even made them check the stores down there -and no luck. So, I go to the Frito Lay website and it's still listed as one of their products. But, GET THIS! under the "contact us" tab - no email address! Do you think I'm going to remember to call customer service between 8 & 4:30? (or whatever time is actually posted there, I don't even remember!).

In the midst of this dilemma, my darling daughter has been so supportive. We were at the store the other day and as we went down the chip aisle she says "don't even bother looking, you know they're not there". LOL; how well she knows me! Of course since she brought the subject up I took the opportunity to whine a little bit at which point she tells me I better just deal with it, because if she could live through them stopping making her "bites" I could live without my chips.

Now, she had a good point there. I had forgotten that NutriGrain had stopped making her favorite breakfast food. Princess doesn't like to eat much in the morning and this was one of the few things I could get her to eat. At least I think they were Nutrigrain. Anyway, they were one of the fruit/breakfast bars and they had yogurt frosting, of course she would only eat strawberry flavor - but these were bite sized so she could kind of eat one and then come back to the bag a few minutes later.

Gosh, is this going to be another pointless post, or what?!! My brain is so fried from all the reading. I have 2 tests next week already.

Oh, I do have a good Princess story; well, maybe a couple. Pardon me while I go on about how smart she is, but she is my daughter after all. She loves her teacher, she loves 2nd grade and now she has the opportunity to demonstrate to her class how superior she is to all of them, so she is living high on the hog. A couple times a week during math they take a 24 question math fact test (1+4, 6+4....basic stuff) and they have an hour to take it. They all started out at +1 and after they do 24 of those in less than a minute they move on to +2.....up to +10, and then they start on subtraction. Well, there is a group in her class of 5 or 6 kids who are pretty math savvy and they were nipping at her heels up to -8 (most of the class is still back down around +8) and what do you know, the other advanced kids got stuck on that darn -8 and Princess has soared up and did X 4 today and passed on her first try! I'm so excited for her, the next test will be X5 (of course) and she knows those cold (hey, we don't watch schoolhouse rock for our health :-). But we practiced flash cards tonight just to make sure. We had gone through them a couple times and the card I had up was 8 X 5 and she looks at me and says "oh, these are just halves, so 1/2 of 8 is 4, so the answer is 40" To which I said OK smarty pants if it's that easy then what is 24 X 5, and without blinking she says "120" WHOA, she's scary sometimes.

On top of that they are starting to study state names and she insists that she is going to learn 40 states by Friday. Thankfully we've been working on the states for fun since our trip to Georgia in March. She already knows almost 30 by heart. Just looking at a map she can pull the names out of her head. If I give her the list and have her cross them out as she goes, she can already do more than 40.

I'm so glad she got my smart genes. Although I'm not sure I'm going to like it in a few years when she realizes that she's smarter than I am!


Sunday, May 14, 2006

How I'm spending "My" day




Wow, how young AM I in this picture? If you must know, I was 21. (And, yes, I know it's an old grainy picture - lol) Ah, those were the days!

This photo popped to mine after taking myself to the movies today. Princess and I were slackers and stayed on the couch watching movies all morning (my mother's going to KILL me for not being in church, I'm sure!) Princess went to spend a few hours with idiot. I headed to the library to grab a couple things that I needed and then headed to the movie theater to watch
United 93.

I can't contribute much to the other reviews that I have seen. It was good. Scary in it's accuracy. Having worked a commercial hijacking when I was on active duty, I can tell you this is exactly what happens. All the direct lines you have don't mean anything when nobody can figure out what's going on. And the movie ends on the note of stating that the military was not even informed that this flight had been hijacked until several minutes after it crashed.

So, back in the day when we had 6 bases under Huntress control sitting alert (and by that I mean, 2 planes sitting, weapons armed, pilots on base, and 2 more planes on standby at each base) would the military have been able to make any impact on the 9/11 situation? I honestly don't think so.

The situation was so unexpected. Controllers couldn't figure out what they were seeing. Rules of Engagement couldn't even be clarified because nobody "in the know" could get the President on the phone. When we sat alert in fear of Russian Bears attacking, things were a little different, but not much. We were prepared for an assault that we understood. Not for terrorism.

And I think the movie portrayed that. There were a couple times when I choked back a few tears - but I wasn't crying. Maybe I was too far into my military hat. I had butterflies in my stomach remembering the days when that was my job.

I have to recommend the movie to everybody though, if you don't go to the theaters, rent it when it comes on DVD. Buy it and show it to your children to remind them when they are teenagers that there are no guarantees in life. That America is a symbol of something so amazing and so great, that the symbols of it's freedom strike fear in those who don't understand it. Those who are so small and scared, those who see that they cannot hold onto their power much longer, those who think that America will somehow be bullied into a corner.......

We come together in the face of fear, we overcome, we fight back

God Bless America

Saturday, May 13, 2006

Saturday Six #109

Join me at Patrick's Place to play along!

1. When is the last time you switched from one company to another for an important service? What made you switch? Did the company you were leaving try to make you a better offer to make you stay?
I recently switched from T-Mobile to Nextel for my cell phone service. I had been with T-Mobile for almost 8 years, and things were just getting continually worse from a customer service aspect (gee, that reminds me of AOL for some reason! >giggle<) And no, the rep that I talked to when I called to cancel was one of the rudest I have ever dealt with, and never offered to help or in anyway tried to keep my service.


2. What emblem or logo was on the last coffee mug you drank from?
The last mug I drank tea out of was my big ole Grumpy mug from the Disney Store - it's SO me! LOL

3. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being a world-class chef and 1 being someone who can't even scramble an egg, how would you rate your cooking ability?
I guess I'd rate myself about a 5. I'm a good cook, when I get around to it. But, I'm not very imaginative and most of the stuff I do cook is standard fare.


4. Take the quiz: Are you a good cook?

You Are a Learning Cook



You've got the makings of an excellent cook, and the desire to be one.

But right now, you're just lacking the experience. You couldn't be a top chef yet, but you could be an apprentice.



5. When was the last time you prepared a meal for someone other than yourself or those already living with you? Was it well received?
My parents came back from Florida last Saturday night so I cooked a big dinner on Sunday to welcome them home. They loved it (of course!)

6. Since it is that time of year, what show's season finale are you most looking forward to? Which show do you wish would just go away?
I was really looking forward to the end of 7th Heaven - although I have to say I was totally disappointed with the way the "wrapped" it all up. Ah well, maybe the end of West Wing would be better - although I wish they would bring it back next season!

Friday, May 12, 2006

Mother's Day Shmother's day

This time of year stinks. It does. I don't enjoy holidays anymore. Not like I used to. Easter has come and gone and I didn't even decorate. I haven't celebrated Mother's Day since Josh died. Oh we still go over to my mother's house and Princess gives grandma a cute hand crafted card. But that's it for the hoopla. I told them 6 years ago I didn't want anything for Mother's Day (well, nothing they could give me anyway).

I really am not as big of a humbug as it sounds. I don't sit and mope all day (although given the opportunity I would probably enjoy it). I would like to be able to lock myself inside the house all day - heck for weeks prior so that I could avoid seeing all the clueless people going on about their clueless little lives thinking that everything is great. That sounds bitter, doesn't it?

I guess I just hate that I feel this way. I wish I could go back to days when my life was nothing but an uncharted future. But now, too much of my heart is tied to the past.

My classes are keeping me busier than I ever imagined. It's hard to sit in a classroom for 3 hours at a shot and absorb a week's worth of information in one afternoon. I certainly am feeling my age!

I feel like such a mother when I get to class. Yesterday I was sitting there and one of the last girls to come in (mind you this is a Freshman class so these girls are probably not even 20 yet >gasp<) was wearing a white tank top (like men's undershirt style) that was too small for her with a black bra underneath. Since the t-shirt was too small she had rolls of fat hanging out between her shirt and her lowrider jeans. I had this urge to just go over and put my coat on the child! Eek! I hope my daughter knows better than to go out in public looking like that when she goes away to college. On the other hand, maybe I should just be excited that this young lady was even showing up for class, right?

Princess has decided to stay home tonight instead of going to her idiot father's house. Did I mention that he went to the west coast for 9 days and didn't call her once or even bother to send her a postcard? She must have said something to him about it because Tuesday night. After their visit she came home and said "dad said he didn't call me because since I didn't call him he figured I didn't want to talk to him". PLEASE! Just let me smack that man now!

It's feeling like a pizza and a movie night. I could go for a nice cheesy pizza loaded with pepperoni and mushrooms - mmmm, my mouth is watering already!

Monday, May 08, 2006

Back in Class

It felt good to be back in class today. (Even if it was 3 hours and 20 minutes worth!). Today was Psychology of Disabilities. I feel pretty good about choosing this class. The professor is going to be interesting, and I feel like I'm familiar enough with the subject matter to pull out a decent grade. (the good part about being an "old" student? life experience!)

I was reading an article today about the shows that are ending this season. Those of you who know me, can't help but knowing that I am a West Wing nut! At the beginning of this season, I have to say that I was glad they were cancelling. The caliber of shows were not up to their usual standard and each episode just got more disappointing. But, after the last couple episodes I'm dying for them to try and make a go of it! The dynamics between the characters, the laughing, the crying - it's all back! Unfortunately it's back on Sunday night's at 8:00. Which NBC idiot came up with this idea?! Oh sure, let's put one of the only good shows in our lineup against Extreme MakeOver: Home Edition! Let's put it on at 8:00 so Kelly can't watch it because she's busy putting Princess in bed (and therein lies my biggest complaint! lol)

And wasn't NBC the stupid network that decided to piss off half of America by airing a show about a minister and his wacky family? Have they learned nothing from the long running series? West Wing has been on 7 years, 7th Heaven has been on what 9 or 10 years? and how long was Touched by an Angel on? These shows have proved that family friendly drama have a place in programming, so why aren't more production companies and networks embracing them? Are writers just not writing stuff like this anymore?

I certainly don't claim to know. I just wish there were more decent choices out there.

Sunday, May 07, 2006

Sunday Seven

Play along at Patrick's Place

THIS WEEK'S QUESTION:
Name seven foods in your kitchen (including your refrigerator or freezer) or pantry that you could prepare as a meal in less than ten minutes.


This is sort of a no-brainer, imagine me, single mom, full time college student, sometimes we have less than 10 minutes to make AND eat the meal! lol

1. Stouffer's Frozen Dinners (Grace's favorite is the baked chicken with mashed potatos, mine is the bbq chicken with cheesy potatos)
2. Easy Mac (EWWWW, but hey, the 8 year old loves it)
3. Cheerio's
4. Grilled cheese
5. Tomato Soup
6. Eggs
7. Pizza Rolls (she thinks those are a meal in themselves and gets very angry when I make her have fruit or yogurt along with the nasty pizza rolls!)

I have more, can I list more? ROFL - There's the first 7 I could think of :-)

Saturday, May 06, 2006

3 for $1

It's been a couple of lazy days around the house. This means more work for mommy trying to entertain the little one while making her stay on the couch. She was exhausted yesterday so I let her stay home from school. By noon I couldn't take it anymore and we headed out to go see Hoot. I figured at the movie theater there was at least a chance she wouldn't be whining to go outside and play. Both of us really enjoyed the movie. There was only one other person in the whole theater, so it was kinda cool being at a private showing! (Getting there before school gets out made a big difference on opening day :-))

Before the movie we had a few minutes to kill so we went into the local dollar store. She found a bag of punch balls (you know, thick balloons with rubberbands attached to them). Three for a buck - what a deal! We have been playing with them all day. I highly recommend them for releasing all that pent up frustration! Of course, they are cheap, so every once in a while, the end pops open and the whole thing deflates. And then you get to blow it up again. But, what the heck - it's been keeping her entertained for hours. We also picked up a huge bag of Smarties while we were there.....so I'm sort of on a sugar high right now :-)

I did eventually give into the princess last night and let her go to open gym. I figured she had been taking it easy all day and told her she could go with her friend as long as she promised me she would take it easy. They had a really great time, but of course, she woke up with a fever this morning. When will this mommy learn?!! Thankfully after a couple Motrin, she has been back to semi-normal all day.

We are both excited. Grandma & Grandpa should make it back to town before 9 tonight. We have a play to go to (our middle school is putting on a musical). Hopefully by the time we get out of the play, they will be home waiting for us.

I have been a good girl today. While her majesty has been on the couch taking it easy, I have gotten a few of the things off my list done! I feel like I have almost accomplished something (almost being the operative word here).

Classes start on Monday, so I'm trying to juggle the carpool schedule and make sure that everything is set for next week. I can't believe it's time to go back to class already! One of my classes only has 10 people in it; the other one has about 20 - so it should be a nice 6 weeks. This semester I'm taking Psychology of Disabilities and Introduction to Education. Second half of this summer will be Calc 2 and Computers in Education. It's going to be a lot of work, but I'm looking forward to getting it over with. One semester closer to being done!

On a happier note, I forgot to report that they caught the freak that raped the 84 year old woman last week. He says he doesn't remember a thing because he had just been smoking meth (or doing some drug; not sure which it was - and do you think I can find the story on our local news page?!!)

And speaking of local news - 2 thumbs up to the residents who showed up in force at a military funeral yesterday to stand between the family and those freak protesters from Kansas. If God is going to condemn these soldiers for defending such an awful country..... I wonder just what He is going to do to all of THEM for continuing to live here?

Thursday, May 04, 2006

Thursday Thirteen

13 Things I Wanted to do This Week
(before her majesty got sick.....)
(also known as mommy whining)

1. Nap (I sort of got a few of those in while princess slept, but I was still in mommy mode, so that's not really sleeping)
2. Take myself to 3 movies (I managed to squeeze in one)
3. Read the Stephen King book my brother got me for my birthday in February (haven't cracked it open)
4. Sort through the pile of crap that has accumulated on my never used dining room table (pile of crap.....still there!)
5. Nap some more
6. Get a couple hanging planters for the front of the house (that's the extent of my gardening skills folks!..... and they're still empty)
7. Work on the template for my journal (and as you can see I haven't touched it)
8. Have lunch with the girls from the doctors office that I was working at (no lunch dates made my organizer this week)
9. Catch up on laundry (are you freakin' kiddin me?)
10. Get all my notes/papers from last semesters classes put in order and filed with the rest of my school stuff (refer back to #4)
11. More napping
12. Get the carpet cleaner from my mom's and get the living room carpet done (I'm laughing so hard now that I just spit pepsi out my nose)
13. Put away the winter clothes and pull the spring/summer clothes to the front of the closet (Guess that'll just happen naturally as I dig for cooler stuff to wear!)

Wanna play along?
Visit the home of the Thursday Thirteen :-)

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Six Years

At about 9:30 at night on Wednesday May 3, 2000, my beautiful 5 year old son Joshua was declared dead. The doctors and nurses in the ICU stopped trying to resuscitate him, and one of my favorite nurses came out to the nurses station to tell me that he was gone. Since all the rooms were only closed off by glass sliding doors, I had seen their valiant efforts, and there was really no reason to tell me that. No reason, I guess, except for the closure. The "hearing" the words said even when you don't want to hear anything. The brain tumor had finally won the battle.

Thinking about it now, it dawns on me that they hadn't pulled the curtains when they ran the code, and so the entire ICU had front row seats. At that time of the evening though, there were not many people left. Just kids sleeping, many in drug induced stupors.

Funny how I hadn't thought of that before.

I took myself to see "Stick It" today. Figured stupid comedy was just what I needed to take my mind off all that ails me. I managed to laugh a couple times, not sure I would actually advise anybody to go see the movie though! Overall it was pretty bad :-)

Princess tried gymnastics practice after school today. I kept her home from school 'til 10:30 - but she insisted that she wanted to try. They are practing their "routines" (and I use the word loosely) for the spring show, which is on June 1; and of course she did NOT want to miss a practice. She hung in there pretty good overall. Bedtime was a nightmare. She whined about everything, but I figured that would happen as tired as she was.

While mom & dad are still in Florida they are having a tree taken down. When we popped over after gymnastics to get their mail, the tree dudes were there, chain saws in hand and chipper at the ready. They had already brought a good portion of it down. Princess looks at me and says "can we just make sandwiches here and watch them out the kitchen window while we're eating?" What can I say? She's easily amused!

Despite all that, today has been tough. Six years seems so unreal. One of the boys we carpool with is in 5th grade, and I often try to wrap my mind around the fact that my son should be this old. He enjoys picking on princess more than picking on his own sister (perhaps because his sister learned to ignore him years ago? lol). I really have no idea how much my life would be different with two kids.

I just don't have the energy to talk about this anymore tonight. Thank you to all of you for lending me your support today through kind words. I could not ask for a better group of cyber friends :-)

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Just Breathe

Somehow I managed to make it through the entire day (up until about 3 minutes ago) without realizing that tomorrow is Wednesday. And not just any Wednesday. May 3 - already! How could it be here already?! I'm aghast at myself for not realizing that it was practically here. I mean, I knew it was coming, but geesh! I'll save that post for tomorrow because there's no reason to make myself cry buckets any more than is necessary :-)

My grades were FINALLY posted today! I just want to go shout to the world:

I GOT a "C" IN CALCULUS....and not even a pesky minus after it, a solid C - woo hoo! I have been dancing all afternoon!

So, for those of us who are keeping tally; it's two A-'s and two C's. Not too bad. GPA is a solid 2.85 (which isn't quite up to my usually oh 3.4ish, and let's not forget my solid 4.0 from last winter! I'm getting that one framed!) I'll take what I can get though, and I am gonna be doing a happy dance well into the night over my big fat C from my stupid Calculus professor!

I was reading over at
John's blog (and yes, I still read him, even though he works for the bad company) that half of adults between 18 and 24 can't find Mississippi on a map! Somehow, sadly, this doesn't surprise me. If you want to test your skills, here's a test my daughter loves. And when that gets to easy, go back to the main page and find a harder test! And just so you know - I ROCK at these games, I kick the princess's butt every time we play (LOL - look at me, beating the eight year old!)

On the subject of not knowing where Mississippi is.... I was playing a game online last night, minding my own business. A couple of people were talking in chat so I checked out their profiles (because, yes, I'm nosey darnit all!). One of them has listed UK as the place they come from. The other one has listed Deep in the South as theirs. As the one from the UK says good night, the other one says "hey, were is the UK from the USA?" (meanwhile I'm thinking, is this person SERIOUS?) the answer? "across the ocean" (really, what else was she supposed to say?) So basically we have become a nation that can't find Mississippi and doesn't know where England is on the map?

Where's my "proud to be an American" t-shirt.....maybe i'll start wearing it inside out :-)


Monday, May 01, 2006

Alright already! And the Boycott

All I'm going to say on the subject is that she woke up sick again, and long story short, she DOES have mono >sigh<

I feel like all I've been talking about lately is my sickie little girl! And since it's the big boycott today, I thought I'd take time to vent about that for a minute.

I heard a great analogy once regarding illegal aliens. The speaker said - imagine you are Bill Gates, you have worked hard, you have a huge house, and one day a family of ten just walks into your house and moves in. They're living in a wing of the house that you never use, so they are not in your way. They don't cause any problems, and relatively speaking would be considered good housemates.....except for the fact that they weren't invited!

It made sense to me. And really cuts to the heart of the problem. I don't want to hear "oh, we'll do jobs that nobody else will do". Living in a state that has one of the highest unemployment rates, I'm thinking that if illegal aliens were not doing some of these jobs - owners would figure out a way to employ some of those who are out of work.

And while we're sort of on the subject - let me just go off on a tangent and mention that when I was stationed in Tucson there were stories all over the news about how excited everybody was over the first citizenship ceremony being conducted in Spanish. Really, I wouldn't kid you! People becoming American citizens who don't even want to bother to learn enough of the language to be sworn in as a citizen!

Sometimes I just want to beat my head against a wall.......

And on that note I think I'm done ranting, for a few minutes anyway!