Jay and I were discussing today how even our pets are all girls when he said...

"It's like living in a flower."

:) Someone needs to take him to a ball game soon. :)

If things can possibly go wrong....

Yesterday I spent my day off dealing with college complications. Apparently, they lost my prospectus and other documents essential for graduation. Jay and I tore the house upside down finding copies. I learned an important lesson; always have copies. Do not trust that things are running smoothly. Find out. I went there and waited for the lady to finally return late from her lunch. I wanted to put the documents directly in her hands. Then I was told to go to another office for more documents. That office told me to go to the one I had just come from. It's enough to make a person a bit jaded.

Today, I had to take another Praxis, this time for a reading endorsement.

Jay told me to blog about it because he thought my story was funny....

The room held about 40 people. I was assigned a seat at the back of the room right by the air conditioner. It was making quite a noise. It was a constant grmmmmhmmmm sound. The proctors were very stern and began reading the instructions. The only problem was they were speaking softly and I was by an industrial sized machine just a hummin away in my ear at the same time.

So this is what I heard.

GRMMMMMHMMMMM .... "listen carefully"..... GRMMMMMMMHMMMMMMMMM ..."place these numbers"...GRMMMMHMMMMMM .... "354t"...GRMMMMMHMMMMMMMMM.... "important".... GRMMMHMMMMMM... "questions"... GRMMMMMHMMMM ..

I asked the lady as she was handing me my test if she could speak up a bit. She looked at me sternly as if to say "Are we going to have a problem with you?" and said, "Do you need to be re-seated?" I said no thank you. I think by reading her lips and process of elimination, I got the gist of what I needed. :)

Balance

Balance is hard to achieve for me. I and so many of my friends and family have lots of hats to wear and balls to juggle, as the idioms go. My new job is taxing and the learning curve is high. Any new job is the same. And the house and kids don't suddenly stop needing attention because I am busier than before. And my college class is demanding respect and its proper place on the hierarchy of my responsibilities. I want to be a good wife, friend, daughter, relative, mother and teacher and student. I have found that I tend to dwell on one aspect and the others suffer. Lately, I have to tell myself not to think about work when not at work. Otherwise, I'm always kind of there. I want to kick back and watch a show, but then feel guilty because the girls aren't being attended to at that moment. I guess we all feel this way. I just wish I did it better.

On a lighter note, I am not in this alone and that makes all the difference.

If you eat at Subway, save your little game piece and go online. You may win. I am doing it. When all of us eat, I get four game pieces. We've done it twice and I've won a cookie and chips. Anyway, it's fun. Try it! I am an advertiser's DREAM. :)

Mom's birthday

Mom enjoying her new balloons from Aunt Dee

Mom had potatoes, jello and pudding cake. She got wind chimes, clothes, new towels, a funny card and a cookbook ( a replica of Better Homes 1953 edition). The girls were happy to get two dollars each from Aunt Dee. I still must assert that I was here first. I'm just setting the record straight. I'll be waiting for my two dollars....

After Aunt Delores and Uncle Jim left, I sat with my mom and read her some of the cookbook. We laughed because every recipe seemed to call for onions. So when I read the recipe and got to onions I would stop and she would say "ONIONS" and we'd both laugh. We also read some of the gross ones that called for pig knuckles as ingredients. I hate sausage and I swear every other night growing up we had sausage and brussel sprouts for dinner. So when we got to any recipe like that, I joked with my mom that we were now in "Faith town". I called her the living Octoberfest representative. She laughed. It was so fun.

Ten on Thursday

1. I just got home from my night class, hopefully my last one before graduation in December. What a long, long road.
2. My first week of work is behind me. I have had ups and downs that I feel better sharing in person rather than on a blog.
3. Jay is bathing the girls as I write this. What a great dad he is.
4. Emily and Tara are in different schools this year and are liking it so far.
5. I cleaned my whole basement and I feel so good about it! It was really messy. Really messy. Embarrassingly messy. But now it's clean!
6. Our power, cable, phone, car and hot water all broke this month. Not fun.
7. The hamsters and Millie are happy and healthy.
8. Em saw a profanity on the bathroom door at school today. She asked her classmates what it meant. They laughed at her. That breaks my heart. So when is it a crime to be innocent? The word was b----.
9. On a similar note, Tara came home today sad that a girl no longer wanted to be her friend. I wish they would never get hurt. But I guess no one leaves this world untouched.
10. On a happier note, I can't wait to celebrate my mom's 62 birthday this Saturday. She is an amazing person and I want her day to be special and fun for her. :)

Fishing and Visiting weekend

I thought the sky was beautiful from the boat.

Toward the end when everyone was getting tired.

Fishing for Nessie.

Stuffed bear is fishing with Tara.

Dad's camper.

Dad, Jay, Em, Tara, Mom and I went fishing at Cinnamon Lake on Saturday. It was a beautiful day. Mom stayed in my dad's camper while the rest of us went out on his pontoon boat. Everyone had fun but the girls got antsy after .0001 of a second of fishing. "Why aren't we catching anything?" My dad told them to be patient. The girls fully expected the fish to swarm to the worm, even though they cast the line about two inches from the surface at first. Well, it was a learning experience anyway. By the way... we caught nothing.

Then yesterday we had friends over for the day. It was great seeing my friends. It was cute seeing all the kids playing and then giving us singing concerts using a dollar store play microphone. Emily was too shy to sing in front of the adults but she sang for the kids. She uses these elaborate hand gestures that she learned from watching American Idol contestants. It cracks me up.