Fairmont Fairies

I spent the weekend at a hotel with my aunt. The Fairmont Hotel in Downtown Dallas to be exact. We spent Friday night chatting and watching an extremely overpriced movie. We could have gone to the movie for the price we paid for that movie, but probably not in our pj’s so I guess it was okay.

On Saturday, my sister and her daughter (my niece), my other aunt and her daughter (my cousin), and the little guy in my cousin’s tummy all came to the hotel to hang out with us. I hesitate to mention the little guy in my cousin’s tummy because he did not contribute much to the conversation, but we were all happy to have him there none the less, even though it was a girls day. But I digress.

Once we all were together we hiked the block to the Museum with the Tut exhibit. The Tut exhibit was what you would expect. It was cool. It was old. It was crowded. There was culture. There was history. I loved it.

But here is the amazing thing. This is the thing that left me speechless and awed.

When we came back to the hotel…some sort of cleaning fairy had swept in and restored everything to order. The coffee had been replenished. The wet, dirty towels had miraculously been replaced with fresh folded ones. The beds had been made, the pillows had been fluffed, and the floors had been vacuumed.

It was like magic.

I checked online because I know The Fairmont sells many of their items. For instance, their body soap and shampoo were fabulous and I was tempted to buy some, but I did not. I was put off by the $100 a bottle price tag. Know what I would have paid $100 for? One of those Fairmont Cleaning Fairies.

Anyone know where I can get one? They didn’t sell them online.

Giblets ain't just for making gravy.

Sir D and I went last night to do our qualifying on the range. We already passed the written portion of the CHL classes, and all that was left was the shooting portion. I must say I was a bit nervous. I knew I could hit the target enough times to acquire the points needed to pass, but I was unsure if I could do it while The Rangemaster guy was yelling out instructions and looking over my shoulder. I don’t do well under pressure.

When we got there we were planning to do one more round of practice and then take the test. The Rangemaster said not to do that, our hands would get tired, just to do the test. “You’re either ready or you’re not.” Words of wisdom from The Rangemaster.

So we did it.

I was a bit nervous at first, but The Rangemaster was very nice and even gave me some tips when he saw my aim was heading south (literally) and it pulled it right back up.

In the end, I scored a 246 out of a possible 250. All 50 rounds hit the target and only one went really low on the target. That was the first shot at 15 yards, the farthest point you have to shoot.

I was really proud of myself and the guys at the range were joking about wondering how I’d do when I wasn’t nervous.

Sir D also did very well. He scored 3 points less than me. I felt a little bad for him because the guys at the range wouldn’t let him forget he’d been beaten by a girl. In fact, I believe The Rangemaster said that if we ever find out selves in a situation where we need to pull the weapon, he should hand it to me and he should be the one calling 911. Sir D handled it well, was very happy for my success, and reminded me he was qualifying with a type of gun he’d never shot before. Surely that was worth three points.

And on a much more refined and intellectual note, my sister, niece, cousin, aunt and myself are going to see the Tut exhibit tomorrow. I am really looking forward to it. We’re making a weekend of it. My aunt is coming to get me around noon and we are going to lunch and shopping then to a hotel near the museum. Then we’ll meet up with my sister, cousin and niece for a day of Tutting and a nice dinner out with the men in attendance after. Odd that the men were only interested in the meal and not the museum. Hummm?

I am looking forward to this weekend. After spending all this time at the gun range, I feel I need a little edification lest I start chewing, cussing and/or using words like ‘giblets’ when referring to where my low shot bullet would have hit an actual person.

Ahem.

I need some culture.

Getting Honest

I admit to you all that I am finding the teen years a little bit tricky. I am wading in unfamiliar waters. I am a bit adrift.

When I found out I was pregnant with Will, I read everything I could get my hands on about pregnancy and babies and toddlers. I soaked it all in. I learned. I prepared. I knew what to do.

When Will reached school age, I read up on all options; homeschool, public school, private school and everything in between. I made informed decisions based on all the information I obtained.

But the teen years? I am finding them somewhat confusing. There are many Christin people, 'experts' if you will, who have advice but so much of it is conflicting. I guess this was the case with all the info on how to raise babies, but I don't know, so much of taking care of my babies was intuitive to me. I just seemed to feel what was good advice and what was bad.

I don't have that intuitive feeling with the teens. I feel like I am doing it all wrong, honestly. I feel like my years to teach, train, and love my children are coming to a quick end and I don't feel like I have done it right.

I'm feeling a little overwhelmed at the 'how to's' of parenting really, for the first time in my life.

So that was my state of mind when I read this, by Sally Clarkson. She is so eloquent and encouraging.

Go on over there. Read this. You'll feel better.

Dead Center, My Friends!

Sir D and I went shooting last night. It was fun. It was really fun. I haven’t gone shooting since I was a teenager. Apparently it is a lot like riding a bike. In fact it was more like riding a bike than riding a bike. I got a new bike a few years ago and that did not come immediately back. The balance, she ain’t what she used to be. But the shooting? I’m all over that!



See all those holes in the black, dead center of the target? Totally mine! Okay, Sir D got some in there too. Okay, Sir D got a lot of them in there too. So while I may not be a better shot than Sir D, I am just as good. And that is important, you know, in case things head south and come to a shootout between us. Ha! I kid.

The point is I have to take the shooting test soon. I am quite nervous about the shooting test. I don’t doubt my ability to get the pointy sharp things through the paper in the correct spots, but I do doubt my ability to do this while instructions are being yelled at me (because of the ear protection you have to wear) telling me how many shots to fire and how long I have to fire them and at what distance. And there will be all the, READY!...AIM!...FIRE!...CEACE FIRE! And whatnot.

Have I mentioned being yelled at, and watched, makes me a little nervous? I am a bad tester. I can’t take the pressure in a classroom when my tool is only a pencil and paper. How much more nervous will I be if I am using a weapon?

The instructor did mention that I need to be able to perform these tasks while he is yelling at me. If he makes me nervous, how am I going to feel if I encounter an actual bad guy? Yeah, that sounds all good and well, but it’s faulty logic. I am counting on that fight or flight, desire to survive at all cost, instinct to kick in and guide me. That will not be the case in a nice safe gun range, now will it?

Perhaps I should think how embarrassing it will be if Sir D passes the test and I don’t. I’ll probably die of embarrassment. Perhaps I shall think on that. Maybe that will incite that survive-at-all-cost instinct and I'll be able to get the little pointy things through the black portion of the paper.

Remember, we used to be our own country.

I had quite a wild day yesterday. I’ll admit that sometimes, as a stay at home, homeschooling mother, I lose touch with the outside world. You don’t realize it is happening, you just go on about your merry way until something snaps you back to reality. Life is not the nice little cozy, clean, orderly, well mannered place that you’ve created (OKAY, are trying to create) at home.

There are people out there who are, shall we say, different.

I spent the day at the local gun range, taking the class to get my CHL. For those of you not from around these parts, that stands for Concealed Handgun License. Yesterday was the classroom portion. I spent from 8 am (YES! 8AM on a Saturday!) to 7:30 pm in this classroom.



This is not a new facility. This facility has been smoked in since its creation and even though it is now illegal to smoke in it you can still barley breath in there. The air is heavy with the smell of 50 years of smoke. The yellowing walls are plastered with every imaginable gun related poster. It was fascinating.

But even more fascinating than the environment were the people. There were about 25 people in my class and another 10 in a separate class to renew their licenses. The races were pretty equally mixed and representative of our area. 7 or 8 black people, 9 or 10 white people, 6 or 7 Hispanics. Of the black people, there were professionals, a grandma, a couple young college students and one kid that looked like a gangbanger with his saggy pants and hoodie. I sat next to him for a while early on.

Of the white people it was about the same, a few professional looking men, Sir D and I, one other middle age couple, and 5 redneck friends. I am sorry to be prejudice, but there is no other term for these gentlemen. They were all friends and sat at a table together across for where Sir D and I were sitting. They all had camo cargo pants on, hoodies with T’s advertising ammo or beer under them, and ball caps. I couldn’t resist surreptitiously snapping a photo of one of their ball caps during a break. Can you read it?



Here is a closer view.



Yes my friends, it says ‘Killing Machine’. Turns out, this guy is a Marine Reservist. And this was his hat. And, after listening to his comments with his buddies and in the class, it is also his life’s motto. Soon this man will be legally carrying a firearm. I pity the bad guys this guy encounters. Also, see the Pepsi bottle behind the hat? At one time it did indeed contain Pepsi. It now contains the chewing tobacco this gentleman chewed and spit out into this container during the class. Right across from me. I got to watch it drip down the inside of that clear Pepsi container for the better part of 10 hours.

I must say here that while I did learn some very important things concerning the legality and safety issues regarding carrying a concealed weapon, I think I learned more about human nature.

I would not classify myself as a prejudice person, but we all make immediate judgments on a person upon our first contact with them. For instance, there was a very nice Lexus in the parking lot. I assumed it belonged to one of the white, well dressed businessmen. It did not. It in fact, belonged to one of the middle aged black men wearing casual clothes that appeared to me to be of the Wal-mart variety (I should know).

The sweet little old grandma? She was downright frightening. Part of me hopes she does not pass. She’s ready to shoot anyone who looks at her cross-eyed. The pudgy Hispanic guy, and the non descript 60 year old white haired man? They were the best shots in the place. Dead center, every time!

But this one is the best. I love this part. On the written test, of 50 questions that you must pass after the course (along with a shooting test) only two people got a 100 percent. Know who they were? Not the Marine. Not the redneck hunter guys. Not even the best shots in the class.

It was me, and the gangbanger with his saggy pants and hoodie. Who by the way, turned out to be a very well mannered college student.

Also, I worked on my crocheting all through the class. Got a lot done too. I wonder how many times the instructor has seen a slightly pudgy, white, homeschooling suburban mom show up for her CHL, crochet her way through the class, then ace it with a 100 percent.

We’re just blowing stereotypes out of the water down her in TX. But don’t tick us off, apparently a lot of us are armed.

Oh, and the 5 redneck guys? Well, unfortunately, they were exactly as they seemed. 5 Rednecks; chewing, spitting, cussing and now legally packing heat.

5 Killing Machines, released onto the streets of Texas. It’s starting to feel a little like Tombstone in these parts.

Still Here...

Just popping in to tell you I have not dropped off the face of the earth. I have just been swallowed up by the teenagers. Of course, teenager #1 had surgery on Tuesday and is still in a significant amount of pain. He really just sits around watching ESPN and watching the clock for the next time he can take pain meds. Poor kid. Hopefully today will be less painful. He has not woken up yet today. I don’t know if that is a good sign that he is resting well, or a bad sign that he had a bad night. We’ll see when he emerges from the sick room.

The Other Teenager had a computer crash and most of last semester’s assignments for his Co op science class were stored there. Everything is due today so we’ve been heavily immerse in Earth Science. I hated Earth Science when I had to take it myself and have found age did not improve upon it. I still hate it.

His teacher was very merciful when she heard of our computer crash and Will's accident. (She is Will’s Advanced Biology teacher too.) She is a nurse and has 7 children herself, so The Emergency is nothing new to her.

Now I get to go drop off the three younger kids at Co op and go to the Wal-Mart to buy groceries. Also, I look like Hagatha and will probably remain that way, as I decided to blog instead of shower. You should feel good. Apparently I love my cyber friends more than those who have to smell see me today.

It's not the Bahamas, but it'll do.

I know you have all probably seen this already. It has been viewed by a gazillion people, but I put it here anyway.

I had not seen it before and Bob sent it to me. I laughed my head off. Seriously. I have watched it three times and I laugh hysterically every time.

I really needed a good laugh today!

Calgon where are you?

We started some school today. So far, it is not going well. Bob and Will had to go off and do his pre-Op stuff. I stayed home to do school with the girls.

It seems that Eve has become a grumpy teenager who does not like most everything and Ann has forgotten everything she has ever learned pertaining to math.

Will left a great deal of Science Co Op homework (due on Thursday) for this week. He is going to be unable to get most of it done because of the whole one hand thing, not to mention the mind altering (they make him GRUMPY!) pain meds and surgery . I am having a hard time feeling sorry for him. Procrastination is a big issue for him.

I refuse to jump through hoops because he can’t get it together! (Can you tell this is an ongoing issue?) I keep trying to explain to him that when we continually run our lives with no margin built in, we seem to always be running in emergency mode.

Emergency mode exhausts me!

Bob lost many of his labs during the great computer swap we experienced over the holidays. These labs were supposed to be turned in to the same science teacher Will has. That is going to be a fun conversation.

Will’s surgery is tomorrow at 2. He can’t eat or drink anything after midnight tonight. I’m not sure how he’s going to take his pain medicine or antibiotic. I’m sure that is going to make him even grumpier.

I want a vacation.

I want to go to the Bahamas.

Oh, and to add insult to injury, today I was given some idea of how much this whole accident is going to cost...lets just say I could be sipping drinks from a coconut with an mini umbrella in it on a nice beach for about the same price.

How Many Things Can We Break in 09?

Wonder what that picture is? That is the picture of money...burning. The One Handed Teenager dropped his laptop and now it looks like that.



I think the chances are good it is forever dead.

The One Handed Teenager will be starting an English Composition 2 at the Community College on the 20th using only his non-dominant hand and no laptop.

No, this is not a trick.

The One Handed Wonder is getting expensive.

He's a Little Broken

We’ve had another little incident here on the Hilltop. This cliché is getting well, cliché, but it’s never a dull moment around here.

Will and Bob were diligently working on their Uncle’s rock wall when a rock got away from them and landed on Will’s hand. And when I say rock, really I mean boulder as it was somewhere in the 300 pound range.

I am told that Bob managed to get his hand loose but Will was not quite fast enough. The other version of that story is that someone let go and the rock/boulder fell on someone else. I mentioned to someone, when he suggested this, that it was okay and it was just a freak accident. Someone replied, “Yeah, he’s the freak and I had the accident!” We all laughed uproariously, and a nurse popped her head into the ER room to make sure we’d not all been sharing in the happy juice they gave the patient.

We managed to get in and out of the ER in less than 4 hours which was miraculous, or a result of being at the upscale, ritzy ER near my SIL’s house and not the local Parkland extension we have down here on our end of town. I then stopped by BIL and SIL’s house to pick up Will’s stuff and leave Bob to have his turn at blunt force trauma work some more.

Will and I headed home from there and when we got home I made a few phone calls to try to locate a Orthopedic Hand Specialist in our area. I was not surprised to learn that there is such a specialization as we visited one last time Will broke a finger.

Because the Lord is merciful, the Dr.’s office said we could come in right then. Yes you read that right. RIGHT THEN. It was truly an amazing thing. We hotfooted it over to the Dr.’s office with all our ER paperwork and X-rays on CD (how cool is that?).

The Dr. took one look at his sad mangled hand and said ‘Wow, that’s bad”. Lovely. Not the kind of comment you want to hear from a Hand Specialist. Don’t they see this stuff every day? And that was before he even saw the X-rays.

Once he saw the X-rays he began to mutter things like ‘interesting’ and ‘bad’ and ‘Humm, that won’t work…maybe if we…no.’ ‘Humm.’ Yeah, it was not very comforting.

It seems that the bone in his middle finger, from the first knuckle from the tip, to the tip of the finger was broken…into 4 pieces. The growth plate was broken in two and the bone from the knuckle to the tip was split down the middle, vertically. He said normally they would but a pin down the middle of the finger to hold the growth plate together, but since his finger is also broken down the middle, they couldn’t do that. He knew he would have to surgically put the bones back together, but he was unsure how he was going to accomplish that. Surgery has been scheduled for Tuesday.

It is somewhat disconcerting to have a Dr. tell you he’s going to do surgery, but he’s not sure exactly how he’s going to do it. Oh, he also broke a bone in the tip of his index finger, but that will heal on its own, splinted as it is, next to the other broken one. He will also lose both fingernails. Oh, and he had a few stitches put in somewhere on one of those fingers. Needless to say his hand looks a little mangled and is quite useless. Yes, I know what you are all thinking now; right or left hand. Right, I am sorry to say. Guess who will be taking A LOT of dictation for Will once his English Composition class at the Community College starts.

I personally feel like it was a whole lot of bother just to get out of building Uncle’s rock/boulder wall and doing a few chores around the house.

And now for the pictures…if you’re squeamish, now would be a good time to look away.