I think I forgot about my Blog!

So, it's been almost a year and a half since my last post. In my own defense, nobody reads this anyway! I wrote my weekly newspaper column like a good girl until a couple of months ago when I finally took a little leave of absence. Seems I was having Migraines. No writing deadline does seem to help the Migraine.

My parents moved here from Oregon in May. I'm the happiest girl in all the world. My mom helps me in the business office and my dad putters....he's a putterer now. That's a good thing. It's wonderful to have them here not only for me but for my kiddos. I know my kids love it, too!

So, are you wondering why I'm writing? It's because I'm stuck at the computer. Today my QuickBooks program decided to lock up. Tomorrow is payroll and I can't get my accounting program to open. Niiice. I spent over 2.5 hours on the phone with Intuit tech support. I finally loaded the program onto the old laptop and it is working. Tomorrow I can pay our workers. Won't they be happy.

In the meantime, I am going to hit the hay. Gotta be up at 3:45 to be at work by 4:45 and make the java. Tomorrow is Friday and it will likely be busy! I love that!

I will try not to wait so long before I post again, but I ain't making no promises!

Let the Work Out Begin

Since it's been a month or so since I last worked out, I HAD to get back to it. Went to the YMCA this morning with a friend and did the elliptical and the treadmill. Felt good to move but now I"m still in work out clothes and un-showered. One pet peeve about exercising after kids are up. No time for me to be 'ready for the day'. I'll live. I'll be smelly for a little longer, but I"ll live.

Can't belive the weekend is here already. Don't know where the week went. I keep checking my planner to make sure I haven't forgotten anything.

My desk looks like a tornado blew through. I live by the addage "If I cant' see it, it doesn't exist". Seems I need to have everything out or I'll forget to do it. Sometimes I organize things very nicely and neatly...then forget where I put everything. I think I need a secretary....or a mother :)

Tomorrow is prom for my high school senior. He and his friends requested that I make dinner before they go to the prom. They want steaks on the grill so I think I can manage that. I should take a leaf (or 2) out of the table and use a table cloth. We typically have 8 people at the table which isn't exactly cozy for 4. I could light some candles and keep the little ones out of the dining room. I'm drawing the line at dressing like a waiter and carrying a folded towel over my arm while I speak in a french accent.

Think I"ll clear the desk top and then hit the shower. Then I'll be organized AND smell good.

Have a good weekend!

Wednesday....deadline looming.

Wednesdays mean deadline. My weekly column is due at noon today. I'll write it at 11:00. I think I'll re-work my column from last week, actually. I got it done and turned in early on Monday so that it would run on Friday while we were in Jamaica. Checked email at the resort and got an email from my editor saying he couldn't find my email with column attached. So, my column that actually referenced the current holiday (Easter) didn't run. I'll see if I can salvage it for this week.

If I can't, I might tackle the immigration issue. Have to say I'm a little ticked about the while thing. Why is it the illegals think they should get a pass on abiding by the law? How would they feel if the US instituted a new law that made it legal to committ a crime against a Mexican without consequences one day each year? If they don't have to obey the law, why should anyone else? I paid hundreds of dollars and jumped through too many legal hoops to mention in order to bring four of my children into this country legally. If we are going to let the illegals stay for free, I want to be reimbursed!

I'm currently trying to get these Jamaican braids out of my hair. I only had the front braided and am hoping it doesn't break off and leave me "bangless". That would be unattractive to say the least.

I was supposed to have jury duty today but apparently the case was settled and now I get to go on July 29th. Hope I get an interesting case.

The sun is shining brightly today, finally! I won't have to pop open a vein after all.

Better get busy and get that column done so I can move on to bookwork, mean menus and grocery shopping and folding that laundry I didn't get to yesterday.

A Blog A Year?

Hmm..seems I haven't blogged for almost a year. Where oh where did that time go?

I'll tell you where, it went to buying school supplies, swim meets, basketball games, breakfast lunch and dinners, homework, crisis, elation, arguing, traveling and sometimes even sleeping. Time flies when you are having fun...

I am now the proud owner of an almost graduated son. I'm not positive that we should unleash him on society. He is standing on the edge of the nest and all I can see are the things I've done poorly, or worse yet, failed to teach him altogether. I had 18 years. What was I thinkin'?

On a less stressful note, my husband and I just returned from a little jaunt to Jamaica where we celebrated our 20th anniversary. I've traveled internationally before, but this was the most amazing. Sure, Eastern Europe in the winter is lovely and all, but Jamaica is like living in a postcard. We relaxed and reconnected and planned our next 20 years.

While in Jamaica I jumped off of a 35' high cliff into the ocean (see picture). It was the scariest thing I've ever done in my life. I'm glad I didn't drown on the swim from the boat to the cave where we climbed the ladder to the cliff. I'm equally glad I did not die from the sheer terror of the jump. Cliff jumping falls into the catagory of "what was I thinkin'?"

I worked this morning and designed 10 tropical silk arrangements. They were actually pretty cool. The sun has not shone since I arrived back in the "Land O'Corn" and I'm beginning to feel blah. I need sun. Maybe I have that Seasonal Affective Disorder. Wonder if the doctor can write me a prescription to move to a sunnier locale?

Well, it's almost time to pick kids up from school and I've still got errands to run. Best put away the black jelly beans and hit the dusty trail.

I'll blog again soon. I promise. And I mean it this time.

Chase...Luckily in boy clothes 

To Mommy With Love

This week I received the most precious gift of a necklace made from the finest multi-hued plastic beads and delicate elastic cord with the most adorable little turtle pendant. It is rare and exquisite. It was made by my soon-to-be five year old son, Chase.

Chase made this necklace in preschool and couldn’t wait to give it to me. While he should have handed it to me like a gentleman, he chose to shoot it to me from his car seat in the back of the truck. I received my gift as a zinging projectile. I’m lucky I didn’t roll the truck as I tried to catch it.

As he shoots it toward me he says, “Mom! I made you this beautiful necklace!” Before I can even get a good look at it, as I’m driving and trying to catch the necklace, he asks if I love it. When I stop at a light I’m able to really take a good look at the ornate necklace his little hands have constructed for me.

“Oh yes, Chase! I love it! It’s so beautiful.”

“Are you going to wear it? You can put it on?” He just can’t wait for me to stretch the elastic over my head and don his gift.

I immediately begin to gush about how lovely and beautiful the necklace is and how very happy I am that he loves me enough to give me such a wonderful present.

He beams from the back seat.

At home when I finally sit down after dinner he leans on the arm of my chair with his chin in his hands and smiles up at me.

“I loooove your necklace, Mom. You love it, Mom? You wear it in your room? You put it in your box in your room?”

“Yes, Sweetie. I’m going to wear it and then when I go to bed I’ll put it in the jewelry box with all my most favorite things.”

I think his face is going to crack, he’s smiling so big. He can’t take his eyes off the necklace he made and gave to me. He can’t help but reach up and count the beads and point out the blue turtle pendant; for the 100th time. He is so overjoyed at giving someone a gift that he made for them. What a beautiful thing.

I remember when I was in 1st grade and it was my mom’s birthday, my dad picked my sister and me up from school, took us to a little drug store where we perused the store for a gift for my mom. I chose this ceramic, or maybe it was porcelain, kitten. It was SO cute with its gray fur and blue eyes. It appeared to be walking along and its little tail stuck straight up in the air. I knew my mom was going to love it.

I was right. She just gushed about what a sweet little kitten it was and then she proudly displayed it on her dresser. I have to tell you that my mom is really a most excellent mother because she was neither a knick-knack OR a cat fan. Nevertheless, she could see how much I liked the kitten and so she did too.

Unfortunately every time she would go outside or over to the neighbor’s house to visit for a bit I’d go in her room and play with that cat. I just couldn’t keep my hands off of it. I’d walk it around on her dresser by holding onto the little tail.

I broke that poor kitten’s tail off more times than I can count. I’d always rush to glue it back on and it finally had a huge globby ring of glue where the tail had been glued on repeatedly. I may have gotten in trouble for playing with and breaking it, but I don’t remember. I just remember that my mom loved the gift I’d chosen for her solely on the basis that I loved it.

I will have to keep a close eye on my jewelry box now. I know that my little dress-wearing guy will have no compunction about sneaking away with the beautiful bead necklace with the stunning blue turtle pendant that he gave to me. He really loooooves it.

You Put Your What in Where?

For the past 2 months at least one member of our family has been ill. Many days it has been multiple sickies and I'm fed up with it.

After spending all of Sunday in bed due to a serious sinus infection, I finally broke down and called the doctor. He called me in a prescription, bless his heart. On Monday Sofie began to run a temp and Chase continued the fever he'd been running all weekend. Again, I rang up the doc and he invited us all to come in for a little look-see.

When I arrived, I received both the news I'd expected AND a little surprise as well. Sofie was diagnosed with a sinus infection. Seems she takes after her mommy. The doctor looked in Chase's left ear and pronounced it infected. He moved to the right ear and peered into his ear canal for quite some time as he contorted himself to get a better view.

Feeling guilty that I'd not cleaned Chase's ears prior to the visit, I asked if it was filled with 'gunk'. Doc said it wasn't 'gunk' but he was not sure what exactly it was he was seeing.

After irrigating the small boy's ear, we left the office with a diagnosis of double ear infections AND two small pink beads wrapped in gauze.

Knowing my little dress-wearing gender-bending four year old, he was only trying to wear 'eeings' (earrings) when he placed the beads into his hear.

Now that Chase's ear is beadless and we are all on antiobiotics, hopefully we can all be well at the same time. If not, look for the national headlines, 'MOTHER OF SIX CAUGHT TRYING TO FLEE NEBRASKA IN HOPES OF FINDING WARMER CLIMATE'.

My Sofie! 

All Dressed Up & No Place to Go

It has happened again. I made plans to go somewhere and a kid got sick. Of course, sick kids are the norm around this house lately. Every time one of them gets better, another falls victim to the lastest malady circulating through the public school system. I can't even say that things would be better if I homeschooled. With six children, sickness just perculates among them all. I've spent a fortune this 'cold and flu season' on waterless germ killers and Lysol.

The sickie today is seven-year-old Sofie. She has had a fever and her tummy hurts. Bless her heart, she really wanted to go to the surprise birthday party we had plans to attend this evening.

Since she's under the weather I thought I'd post her picture on here so she can see herself on the computer. Vanity is high on her list of attributes and I know this will cheer her right up. She joined our family at the ripe old age of 19 months from Bulgaria. Being born with only her right leg has not slowed her down one iota. She wears a prosthesis and informed me last week that she is in the 'toppest box of jump-ropers' in P.E. She is a major chatterbox and talks in a cartoon-ish voice. She loves to admire herself in any shiney surface. When she was younger I'd often find her gazing at her distorted reflection in doorknobs.

So, here is a picture of my little one-legged Bulgarian. She's joy in my heart and I hope she feels better soon. And I'm not just saying that because I have plans to go away for the weekend, either!

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