Finger Injury System

Yes, yes there is such a thing.

It exists. And there is a system, with several steps, and parts.

Do you know how I know this? Because I have teenage sons who cannot even play flag football at co op without injuring themselves.

Now I must add that he went to writing class after his injury, and did most of his homework at home before he mentioned his ‘wee little accident’ (his words) to me.

He has a carpet burn (from the non carpeted gym floor, hummm?) and a damaged finger.

It is jammed at best, broken at worst.

I am not terribly worried as this is not my first broken finger, well I personally have never broken my finger because I’m a girl; a delicate, graceful flower who does not do such things. What I meat to say is, this is not the first broken finger on a teenage boy (or grown man for that matter) that I have had to doctor.

D broke his finger putting trash in the dumpster when he was the lowly warehouse guy many years ago. The lid closed on his hand.

B broke his finger playing dodge ball at AWANA. This one was bad. His finger was at an unnatural angle (that is the nicest way to say what his freakish finger looked like) and had to be set and casted.

G’s finger is just swollen and painful. It is still in its intended position, thank goodness for small favors!

So today we went to CVS for another ‘system’ to deal with the latest teen boy injury.

Ahhh, life with teens. It’s amazing any of them make it to adulthood.

Mad Picture Taking Skills

I had to share some photos my budding photographer has taken. He really has an eye for creative photography.

















Of course he is a 13 year old boy, so we still see the occasional photo like this...

The Beauty Is Lost

And this is what happens to Beauty when you add homeschooling...



One teenage boy extracting the DNA from split peas.

One ten year old daughter reading a historical fiction book.

One 8 year old daughter trying to light paper on fire with a magnifying glass ON MY KITCHEN TABLE.

And one 13 year old boy taking photographic evidence.

A regular old homeschooling morning...priceless.





I have to say though that that is pretty cool. See those strandy things? That is not imperfections in my glass (because I have totally given up on glass and those are acrylic 'glasses' but that is for another post) those are DNA strands, or something (hay, I'm not the one taking Biology).

COOL!

I'll restore Beauty after school is done for the day.

Beautiful

It has been a hard few weeks around the Hilltop. I haven’t blogged about it much because, well, who wants to read my whining?

I can’t go into it all, but suffice it to say others’ bad choices have vomited into our household. We have things to deal with weather we caused them or not, weather we want to or not. It is hard and I am tired.

I feel like my home has sorta been invaded and I am out of sorts.

I was at the store today and I saw all the pretty flowers in the floral section and I just looked at them for a while. God’s beauty. It just makes me feel better when I can take some time to reflect on Gods beauty. My house currently does not feel very beautiful, and a trip to the mountains or some equally beautiful place is not in the cards right now.

So I did this.


We don’t have a lot of extra $ right now so the big bouquet of red roses was out, but the little $5 Poinsettia plant and $5 sparkly pot were within my budget. I also bought this cinnamon scented candle.

I have to say that having something beautiful and something that smells pleasant can go a long way to restoring my attitude.



A little beauty goes a long way.

Thank you God for creating beauty.

Getting political here on the Hilltop.

I watched a TV news show yesterday all about the United States current immigration situation, and I just don’t get it. Why is this such a big issue? And let me tell you, when you live down here on the southern border, it is a HUGE issue. There is something on the news every night or in the paper every day.

Here is the thing. I can solve the whole issue, so President Bush here’s the deal. Ask any Elementary school teacher and they can tell you that it is just not nice to cut in line. If you cut in line, you go to the back.

See? Done.

If you are here illegally, you must go to the back of the line. You don’t have to go home entirely, but you don’t get full rights and privileges of a citizen of the US until everyone who is going through the process legally is done first.

If you want to come here…great! Get in line; we have a process by which people can become citizens of the US. Follow the Process.

If you are not currently in the US, and you decide to come here illegally after we have instituted the Tricia Policy, we’ll send you home.

I also don’t understand why those who have come here from Mexico are so upset about this. This is not about being Mexican. (I must digress here and tell you that my own sister is Mexican, her dad is from Mexico, she is my half sister, and she thinks the terms ‘Latino’ and ‘Hispanic’ are ridiculous. She is an American with a Mexican heritage. Her dad is Mexican. So I will use the terms Mexican and American)

This new Tricia Policy is equal no matter where you are wanting to come to America from; Mexico, China, Europe or even Canada.

We have rules; follow them and we’d love to have you. Weather you are from Mexico or Borneo. And if you are Mexican, don’t take it personally that we want all who come here to do it legally, it is not about where they come from, as much as it is about how they came here.

My Canadian friends, do you have immigration issues?

And tomorrow we’ll be tackling World Peace.

Monday Morning With Alvin

Deck the halls with something jolly,
Fa la la la la, la la la la!

This is what I woke up to this morning. It was being sung in a high pitch, at breakneck speed, by no less than three giggly girls, over and over and over...and repeatedly.

Remember Alvin and The Chipmunks from the late 70's early 80's? Yeah, like that.

They did this while they ran back in forth down the hallway for reasons still unclear to me.

I am pretty sure their tromping measured at least a 5.5 on the richter scale.

Folks, break is over. School starts back today.

The problem is that the teacher is still in bed in her robe because it's a Monday after a long holiday weekend.

If I could just get the singing to stop I could go back to sleep. But because it is such a catchy tune, G is whistling it now. This is funny because he has asked them to stop singing it several times. But now he is whistling it.

It is too early and, you know, too much Monday for all this...jolly.

Coffee, coffee is the answer. And Prayer.

Theologically speaking...

You must be very intelligent to attend my Sunday School class. I am not very intelligent. These are some of the words I heard today that stretched my little brain. It hurt. Next week I’m bringing my laptop so I can look up the words that the teacher is using. And I am going to drink A LOT more coffee.

Seriously people, those that attend and teach (excluding myself of course) my class are the Christian version of the rocket scientist…theologians. I am surrounded by theologians.

Eschatology – is a part of theology and philosophy concerned with the final events in the history of the world, or the ultimate destiny of humanity, commonly referred to as the end of the world.

Justification – In Christian theology, justification is God's act of declaring or making a sinner righteous before God.

Sanctification - refers to the act or process of making holy or setting apart.

Glorification - is the third stage of Christian development. The first being justification, then sanctification, and finally glorification. (Rom. 8:28-30)
Glorification is the completion, the consummation, the perfection, the full realization of salvation.

Zionism – is an international political movement that supports a homeland for the Jewish People in the Land of Israel.

Ethnomusicology – formerly comparative musicology, is cultural musicology or the study of music in its cultural context. Formed from the Greek words ethnos (nation) and mousike (music), it can be considered the anthropology or ethnography of music.

Millennialism – (or chiliasm in Greek), from millennium (which is Latin) means "thousand years", is primarily a belief expressed in some Christian denominations, and literature, that there will be a Golden Age or Paradise on Earth where "Christ will reign" prior to the final judgment and future eternal state, primarily derived from the book of Revelation 20:1-6.

Theological anthropology - refers to the study of the human ("anthropology") as it relates to God. It differs from the social science of anthropology, which primarily deals with the comparative study of the physical and social characteristics of humanity across times and places.

Eyes glazed over yet?

Winter is Here!

The new winter blog design is up! Heather is great at what she does! She even cleaned up the ‘Cast of Characters’ over on the left.

I am still tweaking the blog a bit. I am having trouble changing the fonts. It is weird, it lets me change the colors, but not fonts and sized.

I’ll keep messing with it and see if I can get it to work.

So, what do you think? Is it whimsical yet soothing? It looks so clean and orderly to me, I wish it were so easy to order everything in my life!

SMILE...or not.

Getting a family photo where all 6 of us look good, is impossible.

Getting a family photo where all 6 of us look decent, is impossible.

And apparently even getting a family photo where we all look like members of the human race, is impossible.







I guess this will be another year with no photo in the Christmas cards.

Thanksgiving Turkey -

Don't eat too much turkey tomorrow and don't forget to be thankfull!
(I know I'm thankfull I'm not a turkey!)

A Target at Target; A Scary Story.

Colleen Coble over at Girls Write Out, told a scary story and asked if anyone had any similarly scary, true life stories.

This got me to thinking, and I decided I have to tell on one of my sister in laws. We’ll just call her Sally. It is more funny than scary, but it was scary to her.

Sally was in the Target parking lot heading for her car with a handful of packages. As she was on her way to her nondescript white MPV van, a man came up to her and asked for spare change; he was a scary looking homeless guy.

She said no and he began to get angry, asking her in a more forceful way for some spare change, surely she had some change she could spare, she had just bought all that stuff! Scary homeless man was scaring Sally.

So she did what any hardened suburban wife would do. She ran for her car! She opened her door without having to unlock it; which was odd because Sally knew she had locked it. After she hit the door lock button, she threw her packages on the passenger seat and tried to quickly start the car. Odd, the ignition would not turn. Hummm? Just then Sally noticed a cup that was not hers in the cup holder, and a strange jacket on the passenger seat under her packages. Realization dawned…THIS WAS NOT HER MINIVAN!

Sally looked out the window and saw her minivan sitting pretty-as-you-please about two rows up.

Fortunately the homeless man had moved on to greener pastures and was begging from other Target shoppers heading for their cars. Unfortunately, he was doing his begging between the car she was in and the car that she actually owned.

So Sally waited in the car that was not hers, for the man to move from his current panhandling position, praying all the while that the real owner of the van she was in did not come out of the store.

Her prayers were answered, the homeless man moved on to greener parking lots and Sally was able to go to the car she actually owned, unmolested by scary homeless men or irate van owners.

All in all, things ended without incident. And when Sally told us the story we all laughed at her and definitely not with her. Sally still could not see the humor in the situation!

Learning to Drive...Praying Hard.

I am spending a lot of my life like this right now. This comic made me laugh and I had to share it.



If you can't read it, get glasses. Hehehe, just kidding. Click on it will show it larger in a different window.

It's About Time!

Before: sad, sad, chairs

















Much...hard...work.














Must inlist help.













Why did I decide to do this?













Were those chairs really that bad?













Yeah, I guess they were.














After: pretty, happy chairs!














I have the bleeding knuckles, and extream back pain to prove I did it! But don't they look purty?

I think I'm going to have a hard time letting anyone put their bum's on them; or eat near them. Hummm, this could be a problem since they are our dining room chairs...

Undercooked Steak & Man vs. Wild, An Unfortunate Combination.

I didn’t sleep too well last night. I had a stomach ache. I don’t know if it was from the undercooked steak D fed me, the shrimp (you never can be too careful with shrimp) or watching a guy climb inside a camel carcass after drinking water from it’s stomach! Yes my friends, I’m afraid you did read that right.

D and I had our friends S and C over for dinner last night. Originally I had decided I was going to cook a nice meal for D after the kids were in bed and we’d have a date. But when D saw the amount of food I had bought for this little dinner, he said we should invite friends. So S and C came over.

I had the table set with the white roses D bought me this week, (for no reason, and no you can’t have him, he’s mine) matching forks, knives and spoons on real plates, not the paper kind. (In the ‘green’ age will I get in big trouble if I say I still use paper plates from time to time? Because 7 people x 3 meals a day + snacks = way too many dishes!) We had crystal-ish water pitcher on the table, and classical music coming from the satellite radio…on the TV. (That is just so weird that the radio comes out of the TV. My stuck-in-the-80’s brain just can not handle it!)

If one overlooked the pile of laundry that was on the living room couch (that is visible from the dining room table) and the ripping dining room chairs (which are getting fixed TODAY) it was a very classy meal. It would have cost a mint in a restaurant. It was a very nice night out/in with friends.

After we cleared our dishes and played a rousing game of Take Two with men who refused to take it seriously and made up words, (dipwad is SO not in the dictionary!) we retired to the living room.

C had never seen Man vs. Wild (can you imagine!) so D thought it was time to educate him. I think this was the first of the new season, and OH. MY. GOODNESS. GRACIOUS!!! He was in the Sahara desert and the things he ate…and did. I can’t even let my mind go back to what he did with that camel carcass. It was just…wrong, and wrong.

It turned every good thing that was so nicely digesting in my stomach, to rock. And it stayed rocklike for most of the night. I had nightmares of being eaten by a giant camel, Jonah style. Truly it was awful.

And do you think we deleted such horridness off the DVR? No, of course not. While S and I were green, D and C were fascinated. D said that we must save this for the boys, they’ll love this one!

Testosterone causes brain damage, Of this I am certain!

*****Under Construction*****

Things will be changing around the Hilltop. Nothing too drastic, but I've got a new winter design in the works. And by I've, I mean the lovely Heather over at Goofy Girl Designs and not me at all.

I also have some ads on the blog to earn a little spending $ for the Mama! (This crocheting habit I've developed has become quite expensive to maintain, not to mention the chocolate I need to sustain myself.)

So stay tuned and don't be frightened if things appear different for a while. It'll all be okay.

I'm letting you know in advanced because change makes me nervous and I like to prepare myself. I thought there might be other strange and neurotic people like me out there who read my blog; you know, birds of a feather and all that.

Finally, Confirmation.

I found this over at Coffee Mom's Blog. I can't begin to tell you how good I feel about making the right career choice! :o)

You Should Be a Social Worker

You are deeply caring and empathetic. You are able to take on other people's problems as if they were your own. Sensitive and intuitive, you understand human emotions well. Helping others gives you the most joy in life. You feel like it's your purpose in life. You do best when you: - Have a lot of responsibility - Greatly impact someone's life with your work You would also be a good philanthropist or stay at home parent.

What Should You Be When You Grow Up?

Solving Life’s Big Problems, One Flippant Comment at a Time.

Folks, it’s time for a Come To Jesus Meeting

Okay, not really, it is time for a poll. Is that offensive? Saying Come to Jesus meeting? My dh says this from time to time and he said it today to his boss. Well, not to his boss per say, but to his boss about someone else. Anyway, his boss said that comment was offensive and he should probably not be saying it.

They were out to lunch and it was just the two of them. His boss is also a Christian. My dh was surprised, so he called me and asked me if this is offensive in the way that racist comments are offensive, or is blasphemous, like taking the Lord’s name in vain, or is his boss just too sensitive?

So people, I need to know. What do you think? Help me out here...

Panty Lines, A National Crisis.

There was a thing on the local news last night about panty lines. Or more accurately, a new panty that promises no panty lines. These were Hi-Tech panties, with technology and stuff.

I did not really pay much attention to the ad, but when it was over I started thinking. This whole no panty line thing is big business. There is a whole line of panties with a no panty line promise. Is this really that big of a problem?

Because I’m thinking that if panty lines are such a big problem that you need Hi-Tech panties, well maybe panties are not your problem. Perhaps you need looser pants. I’m just saying.

***There will be no photo to accompany this post, this is a family friendly bolg!***

A Good Man

Thanksgiving is coming soon and I am starting to think about the things I am thankful for. I know I should do this more; all year in fact, but sometimes you just get bogged down in the minutia of life, or sometimes you get so used to things that you forget to be thankful for them, you forget that not everyone has these things in their life.

One thing I have been thankful for lately is D in general and his work ethic in particular. D has been at the same job for 16 years. He started out sweeping the floors in the warehouse while he was finishing college at night. We were married then, and to call those the lean years would be an understatement. D knew he had the potential to do the job and do it well. He told the Branch Manager back then, that he planned on being in outside sales one day. The boss told him to finish college then come see him.

Long story short (sort of) he worked his way up through the ranks. He was not so proud that he was not willing to start out sweeping the floors even when he knew he was capable of more.

There is some talk now, among the bosses of making him Branch Manager of a different branch. (one closer to the house!) We’ll know more in April.

My point is, there are many times when he had better offers of more money for less stressful/physical work early on, but he saw the potential in his current job, and he knew the importance of the benefits (health ins, co car etc). He always put us (his family) first and stayed the course.

D gets up every morning and goes off to work weather he feels like it or not. I have taken this for granted lately. I have some acquaintances whose husbands are not so reliable. They have to work because they can not count on their husbands to keep a job and provide for the family. I also have acquaintances whose husbands have lost jobs and have not been able to find new ones. I am blessed to have a husband with a strong work ethic who provides for his family with a regularity that can be counted on.

And he’s pretty cute too!

Vernacular, a sign of the times.

Remember when we were kids and someone would say "Are you serious?" and someone else would say "Like a heart attack"?

Well, I overheard a version of this from my kids and it made me laugh.

G said to B, "Are you serious?" to which B replied, "Like satellite radio".

Sirius Satellite radio did not exist when I was a kid, and I'm young! Still 29 you know.

The times, they are a changing.

Take Two!

When I was at S’s yesterday we played a new game. Actually it’s a new twist on an old game, but I thought I should pass along this little gem.

It's called Take Two or Speed Scrabble. Take all the Scrabble tiles and put them, face down, on the table. Then pass out 7 tiles (still face down) to each player.

Then say go. Everyone turns over all their tiles and makes their own little scrabble puzzle, with regular scrabble rules applying. The first person to use all the tiles (only playing in their own personal puzzle) says “take two” and everyone has to take two more tiles. This goes on until all tiles are gone.

The way to score is to add up the tiles you had to “take” but didn’t use. Lowest score wins.

S and I, one teen, two 10 year olds, one 8 year old and one 7 year old all played together and had a lot of fun!

Oh, one other thing, you are never stuck with the words you have down. You can, at any time, take apart your puzzle and make a new one that uses the letters better, just be aware that if someone finishes up while you have your puzzle disassembled you’ll get stuck with a lot of points, so you don’t want to do this late in the game when all the tiles are almost gone.

Have Fun!

Oh, and if you homeschool this totally covers the spelling requirements for the day!

We played it a bit different form the 'Official Rules' by taking two instead of one. The game moved faster that way.

Turns Out, the Sky is Not Falling After-all!

Yesterday as I was rushing around trying to get ready for the party, at the same time I was trying to clean my house for men’s bible study and my dad’s visit, I got a phone call. Two actually.

D was stuck at work, and Men’s bible study would meet elsewhere. My dad also called to inform me he was on antibiotics for an infected salivary gland (who knew those could get infected?) so we rescheduled his visit.

I sat down on my couch and rested. My weekend had just opened up and as a bonus I could stop running around like a chicken with my head cut off to straighten up the house.

I am sad my Dad is not coming; I do like it when he visits but somehow this time, there is just so much chaos going on right now that it was stressing me out.

On another good note, D and his brother D (yeah this is going to be hard to keep straight, he is the second born in the family so perhaps we’ll call him D2) looked into the cause of our water leak on Wed night.

Now I have to tell you, D and I have been going over worst case scenarios. We were expecting this thing to be BAD. Turns out, D2 found out, it is 2 separate problems (oh, yippee I thought, twice the expense) but no, it was not. One is in the roof, some slight problem under one of the roof tiles that is easily, and more importantly, cheaply fixed. And the second, the one that had caused the water D noticed when he looked under the bathtub? The silicone around the tub faucet had worn off and during the course of a shower, a little water was leaking down under the tub. A simple bead of silicone around the faucet and we’re done. (This is a photo of D2 looking under the tub. The panel that you remove to look under the tub is in my closet. Can't tell you how much I did not like the thought of D2 hanging out in my not so clean and organized closet.)

I think the words THANK YOU JESUS! are in order here. It could not have been any simpler or cheaper.

So now that I don’t have anyone coming to my house for bible study, I won’t have grungy construction worker types in my master bath, and I don’t have to prepare for my dad’s visit, I have decided that today we’re going out! We have a little school to do, and then we’re going to my friend S’s house to play (kids) and eat unfortunate amounts of chocolate and crochet (adults) for the afternoon.

Mama, needs a Mental Health Day!

So Much To Do....

Today is Co op day.

Then tonight I am going to a surprise birthday party while D is having his men's bible study here.

My house is a MESS!

My dad is coming from KS to visit tomorrow afternoon. (I just found out yesterday)

I have GOT to go to the store.

I SO need a clone. Anyone know how to do that? Do we have that technology yet?

Or maybe I need a Fairy Godmother.

Shades of Dirt and Gravel

When did I start making all my decorating decisions based on how well the item in question will wear?



I realized I do this when D and I were picking out our hard wood floors, or fake hard wood floors as it turns out. We were asking the man helping us things like…”what if a piece of ice was dropped on the floor and left…for days?” and “what if someone rode their scooter or roller blades on it? Will it scratch significantly?” And “Does it still look nice when it is all scratch up and worn like real wood floors?”

Finally the man asked us where in the world we were going to put these floors.

We did the same thing when we put in the current carpet and lino. D and I walked into the floor store and D asked the sales man to show us all they had in the shades of dirt, or gravel color will work fine too.

When D and I were picking our fabric to re cover the dining room chairs, we had a lady helping us. She asked for some idea of what we liked. I told her I was looking for something in the dark blue and green family, something with a pattern but not too busy. Everything she showed us was not good enough. We were saying things like.

No to plain, it will show everything.

No, not enough pattern, it will show everything.

Imagine ketchup on that, it’ll show bigtime.

We finally found something that was nice, but it’ll still show everything. D said just make sure I scotch guard it heavily.

By the time we were done, the sales lady was looking at us and wondering what kind of nut house we lived in. Little does she know.

Our living room furniture is either, beige, leather (brown) or a twill type fabric. I even consider my living room accent cushions to be disposable. I know when I buy them that they will last maybe 6 months. Less if they have any kind of embroidery or tassels that can be pulled out. I buy them on clearance knowing what their fate will be.

I am starting to wonder if I will ever be able to decorate in a style that I like, as apposed to the style that will not look like I live with a heard of elephants.

The problem is that we USE what we have. Almost nothing is for show in this house. It is too small for things that don’t serve a purpose. I do have a shelf running the length of my wall in the dining room that holds all my tea pots and pretty frames and candlesticks that I want to last. But everything else gets used.

When my ‘nice’ dishes were destroyed, mere months after the boys started doing the dishes (okay, I’m exaggerating again, but only slightly) I replaced them not with the dishes I liked best, or even the ones that were the best deal. I replaced them with Correlle, because they say it will last forever. Something my kids are disproving at an alarming rate.

The dining room chairs? We spend tons of time there. That is where we eat three meals a day, and homeschool. It seems someone’s bum is planted in one of these chairs 24/7! Okay that may be an exaggeration, we don’t sleep in them. And lets not even get started on the place they actually do sleep. How in the heck do they do that to the sheets. While Sleeping?

As for the floors? Well, we live in a neighborhood my MIL affectionately refers to as Sesame Street. There are packs of roving marauders, I mean adorable children that go from house to house, daily.

They all play together and drag in every dirty thing they can possibly get to stick to their feet, in and out of everyone’s houses along the street.

We mom’s just shake our heads and wave to one another as we sweep the dirt out the front door for the zillionth time that day.

I know one day they will be gone and my house will be the way I like it, and accent pillows will last longer than 6 months and I will not find branches in the back bathtub (don’t ask).

I know I will be lonely and miss my kids; at least that is what everyone tells me. I think I’ll be too busy enjoying the way everything stays where I put it, to notice.

School?

B was working hard on a 2 page paper about the importance of Bible translation and cultural literacy.

G was reading a book on the America Yellow Fever epidemic of the early 18oo's.

At least that is what I thought until they showed me this video.

No wonder my kids like homeschooling so much!

Of Music and Beer.

Last week was a long and somewhat stressful week, what with water droplets coming out of the ceiling and educating 5 kids, and still recovering from shingles. So when D suggested dinner out I jumped at the chance.

We did what we always do on one of our dates, we ran errands first. We went to Home Depot and picked out a new wood blind for the upstairs. I have now decided, by the way, that faux wood blinds are the best thing ever and one will soon be appearing in every window of my home…when I get the money to do so, which could take a sweet forever considering the aforementioned drippy ceiling. We then went to JoAnn’s to pick out the fabric I’m going to recover the dining room chairs with. I wanted to have D with me for this so that I did not have to hear about how unmanly the chairs were for the rest of my life. If he helps me pick it, I can remind him he okayed it. It is a beautiful system of love and understanding.

I also wanted to point out to him the sewing machine that I want for Christmas. I wanted him to look at it and touch it and understand its importance and significance in my life.

So after all this romance and shopping, we headed off to dinner. It was late, around 9 on a Sat night. (Remember we’re old. We have teenagers, 9 on a Sat night when you have to get up for Sunday school the next morning is late!) We wanted something relatively quick, so we chose the Bennigan’s next to the JoAnn’s. We walked in to the restaurant and noticed quite a bit of noise. Like loud music playing in the dinning area, competing with even louder music coming from the bar area. But the hostess’s station was right next to both, so we overlooked it. When we got seated things went downhill fast.

D ordered a beer. He’s not a huge drinker, but he likes to try different kinds of beer, he’s not a Miller Lite kinda guy. Give him something he’s never had before and he’s a happy man. So after our nice waitress Jasmine, came and yelled out the beer list, D ordered something I’ve never heard of. Jasmine came back a few minutes later and said they don’t have it after all. So D chose the other thing he’d never tried before, only to have her come back again and tell him they were out. So he had water. D was sad.

I have to tell you, at this point the noise was really starting to get to me. Rap style music was blaring from the bar area. I could not tell you the song or the singer, all I could hear was the base. Then, over my head was the speaker for the dining room music. It was pop stuff, but was almost unidentifiable over the base coming from the bar. It was so distracting, D and I did not even try to have a conversation.

To make matters worse, there was a large party in the center of the room that had apparently been the ones drinking all D’s beer because they were tanked. One man in particular was so very loud that he could be heard over the vibrating base and the annoying pop music coming from the speakers. When he started yelling obscenities, I’d had it. I just wanted to leave. Was no one else offended that he was, among other things, taking the Lords name in vain coupled with some choice curse words, repeatedly, and loudly? No one, including the manager, asked him to stop.

D and I just tried to eat fast. It was at this moment I looked around and really took in my surroundings. Most of the booths were filled; some with couples, some with teens. The couples were yelling at each other, not seeming to be a bit ruffled at all the chaos. Then there were the teens; they seemed to be energized by it.

There was a group of 4 teen girls that were sitting at a booth near us that were actually listening to an ipod and singing to the song on the ipod. How could they possibly be able to tune out all the other music (plural) and the crazy group of people yelling obscenities, and listen and sing along with a third song? How were their heads not exploding?

It was truly a frustrating and enlightening experience. I learned a few things.

1. I am old
2. Apparently the world no longer believes that background music should STAY IN THE BACKGROUND!
3. Bennigan’s does not re stock their more unusual beers very often.
4. Yelling obscenities in a public place is no longer frowned upon.

I understand why take-away stations at restaurants are doing such a brisk business.

I’d rather eat at home where there will be no loud music and no one screaming obscenities. It made the noise of 5 kids in a small home seem downright inconsequential.

And Bennigan’s? You are now dead to me.

Tales of Woe

My husband said horrible words to me on Saturday, words that strike fear into the heart of every woman. Words that made me cry. Then want to eat copious amounts of chocolate.

“Honey, we have a leak in the master bathroom (which is UPSTAIRS by the way) and I will have to tear it up.”

“We will have to use the downstairs bathrooms for a while”

“I’m going to have to tear out the sink, and possibly the toilet, and get under the shower.”

The sound I heard while these sentences were coming out of his mouth? CHA-CHING!

Remember this post where I mentioned how close we are to getting out of debt?

This could possible set us back months, or (PLEASE, NO!) years.

Photos to follow, just as soon as I can get up the nerve to survey the damage.

And to top it all off, many strange and grungy men will be wandering around my master bedroom in the near future. My sanctuary is about to get invaded and turned into a construction site.

A Cold Day in...Well, You Know Where.

Yesterday afternoon I took the girls Ice Skating at a local ice skating center. That phrase sounds innocuous enough, except for one thing. I haven’t been inside that Center for a little over a year; since August 25th, 2006 to be exact.

On August 25th 2006 my best friend and I went to the skating rink with our kids because we’re homeschoolers and we can. (Seriously, there’s gotta be some perks to all this hard work). And in TX in Aug, the Ice Skating Center is about the only place you can feel cool, unless you want to drive to Canada, or crawl into your freezer.

There were 9 kids there altogether and 2 adults. Me and my friend, heretofore known as S (Tonya you don’t even have to read any further as I KNOW you know this story! :o) her 3 kids and 2 nieces and my 4 kids. S is braver than I, and actually put on ice skates to get some exercise. The next thing I know she is on the ground whispering “help me”. I thought she was kidding because really she was whispering.

Turns out, she told me later, she thought she was screaming. My friend had broken her ankle. There was only one man on the rink that was not part of our party and he skated over to help. Somehow a lady who works there appeared too and the three of us got her off the ice. The kids were all standing around doe eyed and scared.

This is where things get ugly for me. Turns out I’m not really the best person to have around in an emergency. I didn’t know what to do. S was obviously in extreme pain and the man and lady were trying to help her and get some info from her. I got all the kids away from the scene and did the only thing I could think of…called her husband, C. (I find this works best in my own life. Are things are out of control? Don’t know what to do? Confused? Call your husband!) C thought I was joking until he heard the tone in my voice, I think he detected a slight bit of utter panic. C works nearby and was there in minutes to help.

I’m sorry to say it got even worse for me (remember who’s blog this is, I know it was S who broke her ankle but this is my blog, if she wants to be the star of her story she needs to get her own blog :o) S’s keys had disappeared. Her son was looking high and low, I was looking high and low and no one could find them. C had to lay S out on the pavement in the parking lot because he could not unlock the car because he didn’t have the keys, they were in her purse…on my shoulder…back in the rink. I do believe C gave me some serious stink eye when he finally found me as I was frantically searching the rink area for the keys that were in a bag on my shoulder.

When they finally got to the dr. they found out she had really broken her ankle and ultimately, 2 surgeries and several screws and a few plates were required to fix it.

Because S is brave and I’m a baby, S has been back into the center. I have not.

Yesterday was my big day. S and I met at the rink for her daughter’s birthday party. I went. I even let my kids skate. I did not throw up and the world did not come to a screeching halt. I did not, however, skate, and neither did S. I think some things are just unreachable. These feet will never don ice skates again.

Here are some photos of my kids skating, with their little rubber bones that don’t break. A & T spent much of their time like this, and I died a little bit every time they hit the ice, and then revived every time they giggled instead of whispering “help me”.

I Love Me A Giveaway!

Have you ever seen a cuter apron? I wonder if I can wear it as a dress? I couldn't possibly wear this thing while cooking. I am a terribly messy cook. I think I might have to wear my yucky apron over the nice apron over my clothes.



And this Holiday one? It almost makes me want to host Christmas this year!

Go check out the Apronista Blog for details as to how to win this from Heavenly Hostess.

Halloween

This year A went as a Renaissance Princess, and E went as mommy-all-morning. She carried around a coffee cup all night wearing this getup. I was offended; I don't look like that all morning. First off, I don't wear curlers, and my robe is blue. :o)



As you can see, I am dressed up too. D and I worked at the welcome table at the church carnival so we had to look the part. He went as Tom Sawyer, fishing pole and all, and I was Becky. All I can say is, I don't know how anyone got anything done back then wearing all those clothes!

The boys were bummed because I would not let them be terrorists. Poor taste anyone? So in protest, G refused to dress up and told everyone he was a pedestrian, and B wore his cowboy attire and wrote the word RED on his neck. I'm not sure that was in good taste either, but his collar covered most of it.

D and the boys went early to help set up so I don't have any photos of them, you'll have to use your imagination.

A good time was had by all.