Palms to Pines

Remembering the Challenger tragedy

2012-01-28T21:55:00.000-08:00

Today marks a sad day in history. It was 26 years ago – on January 28, 1986 – that America witnessed the Challenger explosion. This was supposed to be a day of great joy and pride. For the very first time, a school teacher was being sent into outer space. Sadly, she was the first and only teacher sent off into space in a space shuttle, because as many people know, the space shuttle, Challenger, exploded shortly after liftoff. There were no survivors.

I was almost 12 years old at the time. I remember how I was in school that day, and how I noticed some of the teachers were acting really sad. We did not watch the launch on TV as so many other schools did for their classes, but we all had heard about it. What we didn’t know was that the shuttle had exploded. I finally asked one teacher why she was so sad and she told me that a teacher died on her way to outer space. She said the space shuttle had blown up and that it was really sad. She was wiping tears from her eyes as she turned away.

Later, I asked my mom about what had happened. She gave me more information about what was going on. Later, I would hear her and my dad mentioning something or other about it. And I was reminded of that sad day when my favorite TV show at that time, Punky Brewster, ran an episode where Punky’s class watched the launch and how she came home crying because of what happened.

Last year, I did some research on the Challenger tragedy. Some of the articles I read brought back those painful memories and I almost cried when I saw a picture pf the teacher, Christa McAuliffe, with her two young children. Like her, I have young children. I could never imagine leaving them and it breaks my heart that her children lost their mother at such a young age.

When I was a kid, I dreamed about being an astronaut. I took pride in the fact that they were sending women into outer space, and I idolized female astronauts such as Sally Ride. I read everything I could about outer space and being an astronaut, and I dutifully completed astronomy programs on the computer just so I could learn more about what lies in “the final frontier.” I was and still am a huge Star Trek fan, and dreamed of exploring space one day just as members of Starfleet did. Later, my interests turned more toward joining the Air Force (which I never got to do because of my deafness), but I still dream, even today, of being an astronaut. That dream lives on in my heart, despite the Challenger tragedy.

We have not attempted to send a teacher into outer space ever since that one attempt ended in tragedy. Will we ever try again? I know the space program is changing, but one wonders if there are any teachers out there who still dream of being the first teacher in space. Just so we can honor the dream of the one teacher we lost. The one teacher who came so close to making that dream a reality.

May the astronauts we lost on that sad day forever rest in peace and be remembered in our hearts.

Astronauts aboard the Challenger on January 28, 1986:

Michael J. Smith
Dick Scobee
Ronald McNair
Ellison Onizuka
Christa McAuliffe
Gregory Jarvis
Judith Resnik

Dawn's Hubby is (Not) on Facebook

2012-01-20T22:39:00.000-08:00

When I first signed up for Facebook, it was for one purpose only: To network with fellow writers. Of course, the fact that I had so much family on there became a plus. Then my presence on Facebook took a big turn. My reasons for being on Facebook got to be a little bit personal. I used it to stay in touch with family and friends.

Still, I worried about having that “author presence” on Facebook, as I know I wanted to have. Didn’t like it so much that the personal stuff AND the author stuff were on the same profile.

The solution? An author page on Facebook! Yay! So I created an author page just for that author stuff and I use my personal profile for family, personal and occasional writing stuff.

Eventually, my husband joined Facebook. He didn’t like Facebook at first and didn’t really see much use for it. But then he saw how it would help create a better connection with family and allow them to stay in touch with him better. So he finally created a profile. Yay! My husband was FINALLY joining me on Facebook!

Or … was he?

I started to notice he didn’t participate so much on Facebook. Sure, he added people and stuff, but he still has not really taken to it just yet.

And I’m going to stop right here and say that, YES, my husband REALLY IS on Facebook. He REALLY exists. I didn’t create a fake profile of his, or anything. And he IS a real person!

And I say all that because, in the time he has had a Facebook account, he doesn’t really use it so much.

And he has not really made his presence known on my profile, either. He has never commented on anything or liked anything on my profile. Ever.

But he really, truly exists! He really, truly has his own Facebook account!

He just doesn’t use it so much.

I asked him today about that. it kinda bugged me that he has NEVER commented on anything on my profile or liked anything. Didn’t he WANT to make himself known on my page? Didn't he want to show that he is there, reading stuff and looking at stuff?

So when I asked him why, he told me he doesn’t really like Facebook. He’s not much of a Facebook user. He hardly ever logs in there. He usually does only if someone messages him. He told me NOT to take it personally, but commenting on things and liking things on Facebook are just not something he wants to do.

Well, I DID take it a little bit personally, because, you know, I don’t want people thinking he doesn’t give a crap about the stuff I put on Facebook or that he Just. Doesn’t. Care. Or that he doesn't really exist!

But, you know, I got over that. If people are gonna think that, then people are gonna think that. And there’s not a darn thing I can do about it.

For the record, my husband and I have a good relationship. We get along. We love each other. We spend time with each other. Etc., etc. And that is true whether or not it’s obvious by what he does (and doesn’t do) on Facebook.

He’s just not much of a Facebook user and that’s all there is to it.

One thing at a time

2012-01-07T09:49:00.000-08:00

You know that mantra, “One day at a time”? I use it often, especially when things get really trying and I feel like NOTHING is getting accomplished. But, lately, I have had to repeat to myself a new mantra: “One thing at a time.”

Especially this week.

I know this week is important, being the first week of the new year, but I can’t allow myself to cave in to the pressure of getting EVERYTHING done or accomplishing EVERYTHING on my list of goals in just the first week.

I have not accomplished everything, but I am getting there. Eventually. It’s been an exercise in taking baby steps towards reaching my goals.

One goal for the year is to get a job – OUTSIDE of the home. No more working from home for me! It’s time to work OUTSIDE of the home. And I’ve been working on that. I’ve been out there filling out applications. I’ve been scouting out places with “Help Wanted” signs, reading the classifieds and checking Craigslist for jobs. In other words, I’m TRYING. It’s not easy – there are hardly any jobs right now that I qualify for – but I’m putting myself out there, at least. You know? I am trying to make that happen. It hasn’t yet, but I’ll get there.

I have to believe that I’ll get there. Won’t allow frustration or pressure or impatience to get me down. This isn’t going to happen right away. I know this. It will take time, and I am willing to take as much time as needed to get there. It’s too bad we can’t afford classes or special training for a job (one reason why I am trying to get a job!), but that’s just the way it is. I hope someday I can go back to school to receive certification in something, something like medical coding (the original plan) or some such.

Another goal was to start my day off with a workout. I want to take my workouts up a notch this year! Last year, I had them here and there. This year, I want them to happen every day and every week. But that hasn’t happened yet, either. I have allowed this setback. It’s okay. I’ll try to start up with that next week!

Another goal was to change my diet – and I DID start out with that this year. But it has not been consistent. I try to eat healthy wherever possible, but those cookies and fudge bars have been a temptation. Ack! I tell myself “those are for the kids” but I have snuck one for myself here or there. I know, bad! But at least it was only one on a particular day (not two or three!). Hopefully, next week, I can put a stop to that. But I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go without chocolate. Maybe I can use a Dove chocolate piece as a reward.

Another goal was that this year, I am going to learn how to make clothes. No, that has not happened yet. That did not get done this week. BUT I did find a class that offers instruction on this very thing. So that's something, right? I found a class for that. I have to find out how much it will cost and what their hours are. (I also found a place where Jennifer can get horseback riding lessons, but I have to see if we can fit it into our budget.)

Still, I have accomplished some things. The big thing is, no more beer. Hooray! I have had beer here and there last year, but I know that beer is not healthy for me. And it’s too easy to have one too many of those beers. (And I think that beer was hampering my attempts to lose weight!) So I took beer out of my diet and, so far, it has stayed out. On the other hand, I know they say that red wine is good for your heart. I have been thinking a weekly glass of red wine might be a good choice health-wise, but as to the beer, nope. It’s outta the picture.

And that is an accomplishment I am glad I made for this first week of the year. (Happy dance!)

Other Week One accomplishments:

*Got Jennifer to either the bus or at school ON TIME every day. Woo-hoo!

*Stayed on top of getting the laundry done. No more mountains of laundry that has me running away screaming!

*Got the house organized -- and have KEPT it that way!

*Found time to read, in a book, every day.

*Kept up with newspaper-reading every day. On the days I GOT a newspaper, that is. (Growls.)

*Got after Jennifer about her chores and homework. I learned last year that I can't rely on her to do those things herself. So I had to make it a point to check in with her about her homework and remind her that the "chore chart" isn't looking very good this week. Success!

Finally, another goal for this year is to save money. And I am saving money, so far this year. I have put aside some money to save. It's not a lot, and it's less than my $100/month goal, but it's there, and that's something.

We’ll be rolling into Week 2 soon enough. Time to get those other unaccomplished goals – the workouts and healthy diet – into action! It’s actually a good thing I didn’t accomplish some things during the first week, because now I am all the more eager to take them on in Week 2! LET’S DO THIS!!!

Happy 2012!

2012-01-01T21:49:00.000-08:00

A new year is finally here. Yay! And while some good things happened in 2011, there were some sucky things, too. I hope there will be a lot MORE good things in 2012 and not so many sucky things.

I have to pause, though, and think about one thing: Now that it’s 2012, people have just one more year to go all number-crazy. I read about some people who went ALL OUT on 11-11-11. And now we’ll have 12-12-12 this year. We’ve seen people go a bit number-crazy for the past 11 years. In fact, one of my sisters had a baby due on 6-6-6, but she asked her doctor to induce labor so that she could have her baby before 6-6-6. And speaking of that particular date, there is a business here in Eugene that has “666” in its address. That address is on a big sign in front of the building. On June 6, 2006, somebody spray-painted “HELL HERE” underneath the “666” on that sign.

The interesting thing about this being 2012 is that, not too long ago, I read about how some people were suggesting a change to our Gregorian calendar, to add another 13th month. That way, we’ll also get to have 13-13-13 when it’s 2013!

Am I the only one who thinks this numbers craze has gone on long enough?? Good riddance! Please, please don’t add a 13th month just for the sake of having a 13-13-13 next year. That’s just crazy. (And think of all the people who are scared to death of the number 13!) What’s next, adding a 14th month for 2014? And a 15th month for 2015? How far will this insanity go?

Not only did that idea strike me as odd, but think about all of the changes that will have to be made if we did indeed have a 13th month. All the new calendars that would have to be created. Plus all the old 12-month calendars people will then have to get rid of – and while we’d all like to think they’ll be recycled, they could very well end up in the trash. That’s more trash to worry about right there!

Nope, I think we should stick with 12 months. And here we are, at 2012. The very last year of the new millennium we’ll all get to go number-crazy.

But this year, we’ll also see some folks go a little bit “end of the world” crazy, too. After all, there is that popular doomsday date of 12-21-12. The Mayans beat Harold Camp to the punch long ago in scaring up a lot of people to think this year will be the very last for all mankind. And planet Earth.

Should be interesting stuff to watch, and poke fun at.

Happy New Year.

New things for a new year

2011-12-30T11:59:00.000-08:00

A new year means new things happening. And as I work towards wrapping up some loose ends before 2011 leaves us, I have to ask myself, what new things will 2012 bring? I know what it WON’T bring, but I have to wonder what it will. And what sort of path I should take.

On a personal level, there’s the usual suspects: Lose weight, learn how to swim, and eat healthy. (How many times am I going to make these things my New Year’s resolutions?? Sigh.) As to losing weight, I don’t exactly have a particular diet to follow, though I have been interested in the Mediterranean diet. I am starting a fitness plan. I’d love to get back into martial arts (I think that injury I had has healed by now) as well as get back into running. But gotta take things slow at first. I have had very mild exercise this year. Nothing intense. That will change in 2012 and I hope to gradually work my way back to martial arts and running as part of my workout regime. Yes, swimming will be in there, too. At some point.

But I also decided that it’s time to stop thinking “if only” with certain things and just learn them! I know I had trouble learning web site design in the past, but I KNOW I want to be able to do this, so I’m going to work harder to learn it next year. Ditto with learning how to make quilts.

On a bigger level … well, I know there is a job hunt in my near future. In the past, I have not had much luck getting a part-time job outside of the home. I had all the luck getting write-from-home jobs. So is it any wonder that I wrote from home for so long and so often?? But I’m done with that and now it’s time to get work outside of the home. I am nervous about succeeding in landing something, anything, but I’m going to give it a try! I have to.

Also, I know I want to work in book publishing, but this year I found out that editing and proofreading are not a good fit for me. But I still want to have my hand in that in some form. I actually learned about a new publishing company that is starting up next year and I put my name into their hat. They contacted me and said they’ll let me know if they could use me. This won’t be a paying gig, unfortunately, but it will at least help me to see where my strengths lie and give me some experience there.

Jennifer is excited because next year, I am signing her up for piano lessons. She’s been asking for them for years and I finally found someone who is affordable. So she has that to look forward to next year. As for Jesse, he is going back to preschool full-time. He is super-excited about the prospect of getting into a swimming class (that boy will swim his time away in the bathtub if I let him!) but I want to get him into other activities, too. That will have to happen in its own time, though. For now, I’m not going to throw the kids into EVERYTHING I see. Though Jen wouldn’t mind that. Ha! She likes to stay as super busy as I do.

We’re excited about a new year on the horizon. I am excited about this new journey I will take, these new things I will bring into my life, and see where those paths will go.

The perfect Christmas

2011-12-26T07:07:00.000-08:00

We had a great Christmas this year. Even though things got a little frantic on Christmas Eve, complete with remembering that we needed last-minute gifts as well as last-minute items from the store in preparation of stores being closed on Christmas Day, Christmas Day itself went really well. It was peaceful, happy and filled with lots of laughs and good cheer. Aside from receiving really bad news about a family member that made me really sad that I can’t talk about here, it really was a blessed day.

I woke up early on Christmas. For once, the children slept in! I used this time to tidy up a bit then sat at the desk to do some writing. After I was done writing, the kids were still asleep, so I enjoyed a peaceful cup of coffee and just relaxed for a while. Then I took a shower and after I was dressed, Jesse woke up. It was almost 10 a.m.!

So after Jesse woke up and I gave him hugs and kisses, wishing him a merry Christmas, he saw the tree with all the presents, got excited and woke his sister up. It didn’t take much effort to wake Jennifer up once Jesse told her that Christmas was finally here! Even though the kids had to wait for their dad to get out of bed for the unwrapping of presents, Jennifer could already see that she had the Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie in her stocking. She could see this because it was sticking out of her stocking! (Her Christmas stocking is the smallest. I told her that next year, we should get her a bigger stocking. But that matter was resolved later when the kids opened the box of presents from their grandparents [hubby’s parents] and got new stockings. Jennifer was happy about this and said the stocking she received would be her new Christmas stocking. Thank you, Jim and Mindi!) She was happy that we finally owned this movie. As to Jesse, he’d received the movie he had specifically asked for: A Charlie Brown Christmas.

When we were all on the couch, Jennifer played Santa and handed everybody their presents. Well, except for the time that Jesse grabbed one present he knew was his. For days before Christmas, he’d seen this present under the tree and he always reached for it and held it in his hands, eager to open it. It was one of the gifts from me and hubby. Two books, one about fish and the other about farm animals. He opened this present first and got really excited over them. Jennifer got him a book, too; a Spiderman pop-up book. Jennifer also got books; I got her the new Wimpy Kid book, Cabin Fever, as well as Diary of a Zombie Kid. She was so excited about the first book (it was on her Christmas list) but a little surprised by the second one. At first, she thought it was funny, but as she paged through it, she thought it was a little weird. I’d seen the book when I was buying the Wimpy Kid book and I thought it was an interesting spin-off of the popular series (though it’s not by Jeff Kinney). To say the least, she was a little unsure about this one, but appreciated the book nevertheless. (She is a big Wimpy Kid fan!)

Hubby and I did not receive books but we did get each other a gift card to Barnes & Noble, so we were happy with that. Yay! We get to buy a new book! I know just the one I’ll be buying: The Help by Kathryn Stockett.

The kids were happy about getting books but I think they were really excited to get the things they really wanted for Christmas. For Jennifer, it was a Dragon Ball Z Kai game for her DS and for Jesse, it was a remote controlled Mater. (He likes the Cars movies.)

And I got what I really wanted, too: A PRINTER!!!!!!! YAY! I GOT A PRINTER! I GOT A PRINTER! FINALLY!!! I GOT A PRINTER!!!!!!! WOO-HOO!!!

I was sooooo happy to get a printer. I actually excitedly jumped up and down when I saw it! Hubby got a super-big hug and kiss from me for that! He knows I really wanted a printer. The last time he got me a printer was on Valentine’s Day, I think … about seven years ago. It had conked out on us eventually and we’d been printer-less since. And I’d been taking many trips to a local Office Depot to get stuff printed out : A contract from my publisher, notes for an article that I needed to use my Hi-Liters on, interviews for book projects and resumes. Now I would not need to do that anymore. BECAUSE I GOT A PRINTER!!!!

Hm, I sure am gonna miss the folks at Office Depot who have grown so familiar to me because of all of those trips there to get stuff printed…

NOT!

BECAUSE I GOT A PRINTER!!!!! YAY!!

You can tell I am excited about this, right?? I told hubby it was funny that he got me a printer because I spent some time on Friday loading stuff onto the flash drive that I was going to take to Office Depot to get printed out. Now I don’t have to do that. BECAUSE I GOT A PRINTER!!!!

OK, OK. Enough of that. Heh.

As to gifts for hubby, Jennifer got him a book light (which was on his list) and Jesse got him an Oregon coffee cup. We had tried to get him a pirate coffee cup, because the one he had broke, but there weren’t any black ones at Fred Meyer. Only pink ones. (Jennifer has the pink one. The two of them share a like of pirates. Arr!)

And something else I got him was a chainsaw. I’d wanted to get him one in the past, but when Jennifer heard about that, she got really scared and begged me not to get him one. I didn’t understand why the thought of her dad having a chainsaw scared her so much. Good grief, it’s not like she has ever seen the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies. She’s seen characters using chainsaws on TV shows, but never in a violent way. I wanted to get him one because, well, we live in the Northwest! He should have one! (He is a Mountain Man in the making. Heh.) So when I went to get his gift from me, Jesse was with me. At this point in time, Jennifer was not so scared of the idea of her dad having a chainsaw anymore. But this time, it was Jesse’s turn to be scared of it! I was confused over how frightened he acted at the store when we were looking at the chainsaws. He actually tried to convince me to get his dad a leaf blower instead! (Sure, a leaf blower is fun, but they are insanely loud. I have read a lot of letters in the local paper from people complaining about the noise from those things, so I did not buy one for him.) I got him the chainsaw anyway and I guess Jesse was relieved when the cashier covered the box with paper bags after I told her that, yes, it was a Christmas gift. After hubby unwrapped it yesterday, he took it out of the box later on. Jesse chose that moment to walk into the room and he saw the chainsaw. I watched him fearfully back up, his eyes never leaving that thing. (What the heck???) I assured him it was okay, he didn’t need to be scared and it was safe to look at it. Once I calmed him of his fear, he grew curious about the chainsaw and walked over to examine it. Hubby held it up for him and even answered a couple of questions Jesse had about it. That pretty much got him over his fear and he seemed to be okay with it after that. He went right back to playing with his RC Mater.

After all was settled down from the unwrapping of gifts and excitement over presents, it was time for a Christmas tradition in our home: Eating cinnamon rolls while watching A Christmas Story. Jennifer, however, also wanted scrambled eggs with her cinnamon roll, and Jesse also wanted yogurt. (I had some scrambled eggs, too. It was a nice complement to the rolls!) I called my mother to wish her a merry Christmas then soon it was time to get Christmas dinner started. This year, hubby made the turkey for Thanksgiving, which was a nice change because A: I got a break from making the Thanksgiving turkey! And B: It gave him a chance to work his culinary skill in the kitchen. (He is a good chef!) This year, he took over making the Christmas ham, as well. It was REALLY good!!

The day ended with me and the kids cuddled up on the couch to watch A Christmas Carol. This year, I’d been fixated on A Christmas Carol (for some reason! I even mentioned the story in a Christmas story I am currently writing) and this version of the story, with George C. Scott, was the latest movie version we were watching. It was good, but we all agreed it was not the best one. Sorry, people, I still like the one with Patrick Stewart the best. Jennifer likes that one, too, but the one with Mickey Mouse is her all-time favorite.

Well, I do still need to watch a couple more before reaching a final decision on which one I like best. But, I gotta tell ya, I can only take so much of Tiny Tim saying, “And God bless us, everyone.” I’m ready to cover my eyes and scream at the top of my lungs, “Enough, already!!” And God bless us, everyone. And God bless us, everyone. And God bless us, everyone. All right, kid. We get it.

When we were eating dinner, Jennifer told me, “This is the best Christmas ever.” I had to agree. Even though the kids did fight a couple of times, it was still a good Christmas and we all enjoyed being together on this special day.

P.S. I GOT A PRINTER!!!!!

Christmas paper chain

2011-12-23T21:04:00.000-08:00

I remember making these paper chains when I was a kid. I also remember how I would tear off one chain link each day, counting each link that was left and excited about Christmas getting closer and closer, until the very last one was left on Christmas. And I always marveled over how they were the exact number of links that led right up to Christmas Day. Silly me, it never occurred to me that my teacher just made sure we used enough links for it to last until then.

Recently, we saw the movie Jingle All The Way, and in the movie, there was a Christmas paper chain hanging on the wall, which we must assume was made by the young character, Jamie. The chain in the movie had a lot of links on it and I thought that was odd since the movie starts two days before Christmas. I guess they were not using it as a “countdown chain.”

The kids didn’t make these chains at school, so I thought it would be nice to include this activity for them to do while they are on Winter Break. Of course, it’s too late for it to work as a “countdown chain,” but when Jennifer had heard about this idea, she was really insistent that we do this. They had fun tracing lines along the ruler to create the strips on the colored paper (I cut the strips out), and it was a challenge for them to glue together the links to keep each link perfectly round and fit together to form a chain. In the end, they were happy with their creation and Jesse was so proud of himself for gluing almost every single one of his links together.

Today’s Christmas movie is The Santa Clause.

Here are the kids with their chains:

Seeing Santa

2011-12-22T22:54:00.000-08:00

Today, the kids got to see Santa. Yay!

Being 10 years old, Jennifer took one look at all of the little kids in line and said, “I think I’m getting too old for this.” What? Too old to see Santa?? Never!

Well, I think never, anyway.

Today's Christmas movie is Frosty the Snowman.

Here’s a picture of their picture with Santa:

Paper Christmas trees

2011-12-21T22:22:00.000-08:00

The kids are really enjoying their “time off” from school – and a school schedule! I am also enjoying the chance to sleep in this week. I am still getting up early in order to get things done, but not at 5 a.m. like I usually do during a school week. Ahhh, no more waking up and making my way through the bedroom in the dark! The kids are enjoying getting their extra sleep, too, and being able to eat cookies or ice cream at night. Plus, they get to stay up past their normal bedtime. I reminded them they’ll be going back on schedule next week to get ready for when school starts again, so they are enjoying this fun while they still can!

And while I have been lax on some rules this week, I won’t go easy on all of them. Everybody still has to take their baths, brush their teeth and comb their hair!

Today the kids decorated a paper tree. I thought they were going to go all-out with the decorating – using glitter, string, etc. – but it seems they were content to just use crayons. The one on the right is Jesse’s tree. Jennifer decided to turn hers into an ornament.

Today’s Christmas movie: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

A gingerbread house ... picture

2011-12-20T21:19:00.000-08:00

It’s Day 2 of Winter Vacation! Woo-hoo!

Last year, Jennifer created a gingerbread house. And I thought she’d be up to doing that again this year, but she told me that she wasn’t interested. (No Christmas without a gingerbread house?? The scandal!)

So, instead, she wanted to DRAW a gingerbread house. I wasn’t surprised; that girl will draw every chance she can get! She wants to be an artist someday, so I was just as pleased that at least we would still have a gingerbread house, even if it was one that she drew.

And I must say that, after seeing her picture, I sure wished that was a REAL gingerbread house! It sure would look neat!

This year, we are watching as many of the Christmas Carol adaptations we can. We have seen three of them so far (including Scrooged) so tonight we continue this mission with the next adaptation, the 2009 version with Jim Carrey. Yay!

Here is the picture Jen drew:

Gingerbread men

2011-12-19T20:29:00.001-08:00

Today officially marks the beginning of winter break for the children. I decided that we would do something for every day of the week for the first week just to make it special. To go with each activity, we would watch a Christmassy movie.

For Monday, the activity is to make gingerbread men. The movie we are going to watch is Home Alone.

It was fun to make the gingerbread men. Jennifer helped with the mix then she got to roll out and cut the first half of the dough. Jesse got to roll out and cut out the cookies, too. It was really cute watching them create their own gingerbread men.

The icing, however, proved to be a challenge. Usually, I buy the icing at the store, but hubby forgot to buy it while he was out and we were not able to buy any. The box of the mix had a recipe on the side for making homemade icing. I wasn’t sure if I was up to that. I have never made homemade icing. I even asked hubby to do it instead and he asked why. “I’ve never made icing before!” I said. “What if I mess it up?”

“It’s easy,” he said, then he went over the ingredients and said to just follow the directions.

Retreating to the kitchen, I figured, what the heck? I’ll give it a try. So I made up the icing – and I must point out that I had to use more water than what it said to use on the box. In fact, I just added water until it was actual icing and something that could be drizzled over cookies.

Next, we decorated our gingerbread men. I told the kids that they could each have 2 cookies. They each decorated their own cookies. Once again, cuteness overload while watching them dress their cookies up with icing. We didn’t have any candies or decorative goodies for our gingerbread men, though. So we just ate them with icing. Yummy!

Here’s a pic of the kids with their cookies. Mine are in the foreground. They couldn’t stop licking at the icing. I had to smile about that; I guess I done good.

12 wished-for books for Christmas

2011-12-11T21:20:00.000-08:00

Since I had some free time this evening, I decided to check out one of several articles I have bookmarked to read at leisure. One such article was "The 12 books of Christmas" by Sarah Crompton. This inspired me to create a list of 12 books I would like to receive for Christmas. Of course, I know I won't receive all 12. (LOL! Sure is a nice thought, though.) But I decided to go ahead and create the list, anyway. Besides, I had to wonder if there are 12 books I'd like to receive as gifts for Christmas, what would they be?

While creating this list, I decided to have a theme for it. I don't have a whole lot of Christmas-themed books on my mega wish list of books I'd love to own someday, but I DO have a lot of Bible and religious-themed books. So these are those kinds of books from my wish list. Since I am planning to really work at studying and reading through the Bible next year (one of my personal goals for the year), I have some books on my list that might compliment this. Also, I am writing a book about prayer, so I also look for those kinds of books, too. I don't have a Kindle or e-reader, so I had to limit the books on my wish list to books that are available in print.

1. A Bible
(Unfortunately, my KJV Bible is falling apart. I am sad about this because I have had it since 1985 and it was given to me by my dear aunt and uncle. So it's time to get a new one and the one I have will be a keepsake.)

2. Know God and Love Him by Joanne M Rypma

3. You Were Made for More: The Life You Have, the Life God Wants You to Have by Jim Cymbala

4. The Peace God Promises by Ann Spangler

5. The 52 Greatest Stories of the Bible: A Devotional Study by John Alan Turner and Ken Boa

6. Bible: The Story of the King James Version 1611-2011 by Gordon Campbell

7. Through the Bible in One Year: A 52-Lesson Introduction to the 66 Books of the Bible by Alan B. Stringfellow

8. Revelation of the Magi: The Lost Tale of the Wise Men's Journey to Bethlehem by Brent Landau

9. The Authentic Letters of Paul by Arthur J. Dewey

10. Meetings with Mary: Visions of the Blessed Mother by Janice T. Connell

11. Tortured for Christ by Richard Wurmbrand

12. How to Pray Without Talking to God: Moment by Moment, Choice by Choice by Linda Martella-Whitsett

25 Days of Christmas Movies

2011-11-27T15:13:00.000-08:00

In keeping with the "31 Halloween movies" post I made in October, I decided to put together a list of 25 of my favorite Christmas movies. Unfortunately, we don't own all of these movies, and I do try to get them through Netflix when they are available, but they are definitely good Christmas-themed movies no December should be without.

These movies are not listed in any particular order. I just listed them at random.

Enjoy!

1. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
2. Home Alone
3. How the Grinch Stole Christmas
4. Santa Buddies
5. Santa Paws
6. Elf
7. The Polar Express
8. A Christmas Carol
9. The Santa Clause
10. The Nightmare Before Christmas
11. Gremlins
12. Santa Claus is Comin' to Town
13. The Little Drummer Boy
14. Jack Frost
15. Jingle All the Way
16. Frosty the Snowman
17. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
18. Scrooged
19. It's a Wonderful Life
20. Miracle on 34th Street
21. Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer
22. Prancer
23. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
24. A Christmas Story
25. A Charlie Brown Christmas

Generosity at a gas station

2011-11-23T22:34:00.000-08:00

Today, on my way to a doctor appointment, I realized I had to get gas in the car on my way there. I was almost out of gas and I didn’t want to run out on my way to my appointment, so I decided I’ll just stop on the way to get just $5 of gas and be off. Shouldn’t take too long, right? Just $5 of gas was fast and it’d put enough in my tank to get me there and back. I’d be in and out of there, right? Wrong.

When I got to the gas station, I told the attendant I wanted $5 of gas. (Let me say here I did not hold up my hand to show five fingers like I normally do, but I DID repeat what I said.) He asked for my store card after I handed him my debit card. So I handed that over, too.

When he set the pump up on my car, I noticed that he walked away. This confused me. Why did he walk away? Normally, when I buy just $5 of gas, the gas station attendant stays at the pump until it’s done. So I was concerned about this. I tried to find the guy but didn’t see him.

Then I looked at the gas pump. Oh. My. God. It was going past $10. Then $20, Then $30. Oh, my God!!

I jumped out of the car and frantically looked for the attendant. But he was NOWHERE. I saw another attendant and, pointing at the pump that was still running up the cost of gas, I cried out, “How do you turn that thing off?!” He saw my predicament and ran over to the pump. But right when he got there, it stopped.

It had filled my gas tank.

I practically crumbled into a million pieces on the ground. There went the money I would need to pay for my doctor appointment. And then some!

As the attendant was placing the pump back into the holder and closing the gas tank on my car, I started to freak out. What would I do? I almost even cried. I didn’t WANT a full tank of gas! I just wanted $5!

I explained all this to the attendant. He said something but I couldn’t lipread him. I told him that I’m deaf and to please speak slower. He explained that he would tell the people in the office about what happened and everything would be taken care of. He told me to wait there then walked off.

I stood next to my car, trying to get ahold of myself. This has NEVER happened to me before, so I didn’t know what would happen. If I was now without the money for my doctor appointment or something else. I also worried that they would not believe me.

Finally, another person came over to where I stood. She was a lady nicely dressed and it said “manager” on her name tag. She said that we could go into the store with my card and they would reimburse the extra money back onto my card. They would also take out of the gas tank the extra gas so that there was only the requested $5 left in there. (I didn’t know they could do this! And I thought they needed special equipment to do this but the lady said they could do that right at the pump.)

So I followed her into the store. She talked to the store associate and stayed there to watch as he went through the motions of putting that money back onto my card. I was sure to keep both receipts from this. After that was settled, I rushed back to my car because I was still running late for my doctor appointment.

When I got back to the gas pumps, I asked the man if he’d already removed the extra gas from my car. He said that everything was fine. “Everything’s okay?” I asked him. He said yes. He seemed really nice, too, even as he waved when I was driving away, and as I drove, I thought, ‘Gee, what a friendly guy.’

Now, when I got back into the car, the first thing I looked at was the clock. EEK! Panic! I was gonna be late for my appointment. I started the car and drove off.

But as I was driving …. My eyes fell on the gas gauge. And that’s when I noticed …. I had a full tank!!

WHAT THE HECK!!

I started to panic AGAIN. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. First, I thought maybe it was a glitch. The needle would move down to wherever the $5 worth of gas would be. But noooo. It stayed on “F.”

The entire time I drove to my appointment.

I panicked over this. Oh, m God. I’m a thief! They’re gonna arrest me! I’ll go to jail and I’ll never see my kids again! The judge will dart angry eyes at me and announce, “YOU ARE GUILTY FOR STEALING GAS!”

In fact, I was so freaked out over this, I started to have trouble breathing. THEN I realized I was having trouble breathing because of my anxiety over this situation and HAD to get a hold of myself. I had to calm down. Stop these breathing problems.

So first I tried the breathing exercises I do when I have trouble breathing. That did not work. Next I tried to focus myself on what I was doing right now. I kept telling myself, “I am driving right now. I need to pay attention to my driving right now. I need to pay attention to my driving!”

That, too, did not work. The breathing problems continued.

Finally, I took a harsher tone in my voice and I commanded myself, “Breathe! BREATHE!”

And that is what worked. Eventually, I was able to breathe okay again. Thank goodness!

That settled, I came up with a plan. After my doctor appointment, I would go to the bank to explain what happened and BEG them not to charge a fee against the account. Then after that I would go to the gas station, find the attendant, and say something like, “You didn’t take the extra gas out of my car. What gives? Get to it!” Or, something like that. Haha. The point is, I would make it right. It was the right thing to do.

At my doctor appointment, I was talking wth the ASL interpreter about what happened. I was trying to figure out where things had gone wrong. I thought maybe I had not spoken clear enough. (I knew I should’ve held up five fingers!!) But she said, “You speak very clearly.” Maybe I did not speak loud enough. She said, “Or maybe he wasn’t paying attention.” Well, whatever had caused this mess, it had still happened, and I had to set things right. So after my appointment, that’s what I did.

But when I was at the gas station, things did not work out the way I thought they would.

I did find the attendant. And when I saw him, I said, “I thought you took the extra gas out?”

He acted all friendly again and said, “No, I gave that to you.’

It took a moment to sink in. WHA—This guy … this gas station attendant … paid $30-something dollars in gas for a complete stranger? Really?

I was really taken aback. And touched. I even asked him if he meant what I thought he said he meant and he said yes.

I took his hand and squeezed it. “Oh, thank you!” I said. What a nice thing to do for someone!! Wow! That is just so …. So …. Really, really nice. (When I told Jennifer this story later, she was surprised at such generosity and also thought that was very nice.)

We wished each other a Happy Thanksgiving before I hurried back to the car.

Back in my car, I could only sit there, stunned but so moved. Wow. I could not believe this act of kindness just happened. I smiled. How nice! And I would make sure that one day, I would pay that act of kindness forward to another person who was in a similar situation.

I would definitely have another thing to be thankful for this year. Yay!

Contract: Impossible

2011-11-09T22:18:00.000-08:00

“That’s impossible!”

I looked at what Jennifer was pointing at on the contract she was supposed to sign. Yes, my 10-year-old daughter is signing a contract. It’s a teacher-parent-student contract from her school. We had to sign one last year and do it again this year. I’d told her to read over each line of the contract before signing it and, apparently, she found something wrong with it.

In the section of the contract where it talks about the teacher’s goals, it says that the teacher will strive to provide a safe and friendly environment.

I read this over then looked at Jen. “What do you mean it’s impossible?”

She shook her head and looked at me as though I had the IQ of a thumbtack. “Nobody can do that.”

It was then I figured out what she meant. She thought the teacher was promising to provide a safe and friendly environment in the classroom.

So I told Jennifer, “Well, she is going to TRY to provide a safe and friendly environment. Look, see. It says the teacher will 'strive' to do that. Not that she is promising to do that.”

Jennifer frowned. “But this is a contract.”

Ah, even at 10 years old, she understood that you don’t fool around with a contract. Contracts mean business!

If only I had the time and insight to explain to her the concept of a “loophole." See, this is why doctors never say someone is DEFINITELY sick with something when there are no test results to back them up. They want to cover their ass in case somebody tries to sue them if they screw up!

Instead, I told Jennifer that “strive” is the same thing as “try” and that the teacher will “try” to provide a safe and friendly environment.

Then I told her the cold, hard facts: “You can never promise to create a safe environment. Nowhere is 100% safe. You could do all of these things to make sure someplace is safe, but there’s always going to be one rotten apple to screw it all up.”

This is something I have learned as a parent. No matter how safe I try to make our home, a baby/toddler/child/teenager might do something that could cause him/her to get hurt or sick. I’m reminded of the safety locks we put on our kitchen cabinets. Jesse tore those right off! Or the dangerous items both hubby and I have put waaayyy up high out of the kids’ reach. They found a way to get to those things, anyhow! No locks can keep a determined kid away. But we sure TRY to make our home safe. It is the best that we can do – and at least accidents won’t happen so easily.

Jennifer seemed to understand this is true for anywhere – even a classroom. We try to do the safe thing, the positive thing, the friendly thing. But something or someone could mess that all up.

She accepted this. Fortunately, our conversation was enough for her to understand that it was all about TRYING to do the things outlined in the contract, and not exactly guaranteeing those things will happen.

She finished reading to the bottom of the contract then signed her name. Then we moved on to some other paperwork she had for us to go over.

Hopefully, she learned something important today. Something she could take with her into the rest of her life.

Jesse turns 4!

2011-10-25T16:41:00.000-07:00

October may be National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but in my home, it's also the "birthday month." It's actually the second such "birthday month" in our home. My husband and I both have a birthday in May, while our children both have a birthday in October. (Pretty convenient, eh?) Yet it seems we can never celebrate the kids' birthday the way birthdays are normally celebrated. One year, for example, the kids had three birthday parties each because we went to different relatives' homes to visit in California. And this year, each child got to celebrate their birthday twice because their special day ended up being on a school day. So, for this year, each child gets a special "family party" for their birthday and, later, on the following weekend, a birthday party with friends. (Alas, I won't share those pictures publicly because of the parents' privacy concerns.) Jesse got to have a little party on this day, his REAL birthday where he turned 4, and then on Sunday he'll have a party with friends. Yay!

Here are pictures from today's party. Happy Birthday, Jesse! You are four years old! We love you.

Jesse with his yummy birthday cake!

Jesse with his goofy sis, Jennifer.

Jesse enjoying some of his birthday presents. (Cake? What cake?)

Jesse getting some extra B-day love from his daddy before he heads off to work.

31 Spooky movies for adults and kids

2011-10-16T11:18:00.000-07:00

Recently, I read this interview with a writer who said she tries to watch one horror movie for every day of October, just to get into the Halloween spirit. Once upon time, I tried to do this, too. I even tried to put together a list of 31 movies for those 31 days, but ended up running out of some REALLY good ones so I moved on to other things.

Seeing that in the interview rekindled my curiosity to see if I could actually put together such a list. And, ta-da! You'll find that list below. I even managed to put one together for kids! Yay!

In the lists below, I have included movie preferences in the event of remakes or other versions of movies which I didn't care for. I also noted one movie in the list for kids that frightened my daughter at the time she saw it so I included a note on a good age group for it -- just my opinion, though.

There are A LOT of good horror movies for adults that didn't make the cut since I could only include 31. These are the 31 I recommend but there are other good ones, too.

Enjoy!

31 Horror/Halloween Movies for Adults

1. The Thing (1982)
2. Friday the 13th
3. The Amityville Horror
4. The Messengers
5. Poltergeist
6. 13 Ghosts
7. The House on Haunted Hill
8. Fingerprints
9. Interview with the Vampire
10. Underworld
11. Gothika
12. The Grudge
13. The Grudge 2
14. Night of the Living Dead
15. The Shining
16. Nightmare on Elm Street
17. It
18. Psycho
19. The Exorcist
20. Dawn of the Dead
21. The Ring
22. Saw
23. Saw II
24. The Omen
25. The Omen II
26. The Omen III
27. The Evil Dead
28. The Changeling (1980)
29. Hellraiser
30. 1408 (Unrated Version)
31. Halloween

31 Horror/Halloween Movies for Kids

1. Corpse Bride
2. The Addams Family
3. The Addams Family Values
4. Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit
5. Twitches
6. Twitches, Too
7. Bedknobs & Broomsticks
8. Ghostbusters
9. Hocus Pocus
10. The Nightmare Before Christmas
11. Coraline (not recommended for the under-10 crowd)
12. The Haunted Mansion
13. Halloweentown
14. Monsters, Inc.
15. Gremlins
16. The Worst Witch
17. Scooby-Doo
18. Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed
19. The Dog Who Saved Halloween
20. The Canterville Ghost
21. Blackbeard’s Ghost
22. The Little Vampire
23. The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad
24. The Halloween Tree
25. Spookley: The Square Pumpkin
26. Clifford the Big Red Dog: Clifford’s Big Halloween
27. Scary Godmother: Halloween Spooktacular
28. Pooh’s Heffalump Halloween Movie
29. Casper
30. Monster House
31. It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

People like that

2011-10-15T10:57:00.000-07:00

For all of last week, the kids weren’t feeling so good. Jesse had a terrible cough and stuffy nose and Jennifer was complaining of stomach pain and nausea. Jennifer was not as sick at first – she was well enough to go on her class field trip – but as the week progressed, she got worse and kept coming home from school complaining of discomfort. And at first, Jesse stopped coughing so much, and I thought he was better so I stopped giving him medicine, but then it returned with a vengeance, along with stomach pain. So yesterday I took the kids to their doctor to find out what was up. Turns out they both have a stomach virus.

After we were done at the doctor’s office, we drove through downtown Eugene on our way to the grocery store. As I drove, I happened to notice these girls in the car next to me, staring wide-eyed at me. I had my hair up and when I wear my hair up, the third degree burn scars on the back of my head are visible. The fire permanently damaged some part of the hair on my scalp, so I have hair missing in the back, making my back hairline uneven. This, too, can be seen, along with the left-ear-that-is-not-an-ear (I lost my ear in the accident so the doctors reconstructed an ear for me made out of rib cartilage). Judging from the looks on these teen girls’ faces as they freaked out over my face and head, I could figure out what they were reacting to. I completely ignored them, stifled a growl and drove off. Far be it from me to stay within their view so they’d have to withstand such horror!

But, seriously, even as this was something that I’m used to by now (after over 30 years of living with these scars, I’ve seen the worst of people in how they react to my burns!), it still kinda hurt. It made me sad, you know? That there are young people out there still reacting so negatively to someone who is not “beautiful.” I know we live in a world where beauty is EVERYTHING and if you are not beautiful, people will shun you and talk negatively of you. But it saddens me that we are allowing the future generation to grow up thinking this kind of logic is okay. Why are we teaching our children that it’s okay to react so negatively to people with burn scars, deformities or even skin ailments? Why are we teaching them to think less of someone who is not so appealing to the eye?

Given that these girls were teenagers, I was reminded of one other unpleasant experience involving teenaged girls I came into contact with. Once, while I was in church, I was sitting in a pew in front of a group of teenaged girls. (And, yes, I had my hair up!) It wasn't long before I realized the girls behind me were kicking the pew I was sitting in. I turned around to let them know this was uncomfortable. They only laughed and said, “Sorry.” Then they did it again. I was so annoyed by it, I left the church. Yet I was saddened that young people could get away with being so mean to someone like that. And that, worse of all, they thought it was okay to do that!

No. It is NOT okay.

It’s rude. It’s not nice. And it hurts. Ya know? Have a little compassion for someone not as BLESSED or LUCKY as you to be so beautiful.

I am grateful that there are people I know who are not so shallow and who are kind to others no matter their appearance. These are the people I cling to. These are the people who I feel are important people in my life.

But the biggest kind of comfort I took from that experience? Knowing that my own daughter will not grow up to be like those girls. Knowing that other little girls who have accepted me will not grow up to be like those girls. And you know why? Because they know me as a person. They know me as a human being – and that’s what we all are underneath the burn scars. We’re human beings with feelings. With personalities. With hopes and dreams.

My reminder of this was reinforced after Jennifer found out about what had happened. Of course, she was irritated. She said, “Those girls!” Then she stuck her tongue out in the direction we’d driven away from. (Haha. My feelings exactly.)

I only shook my head and told her the same thing I have been telling myself for years, “There are always going to be people like that.”

She frowned and said, “I don’t like people like that.”

Yeah. Me, neither.

Jen turns 10!

2011-10-03T23:16:00.000-07:00

My oldest child, Jennifer, turned 10 years old today. Hooray! Happy Birthday, Jennifer!

Because her birthday falls on a school day this year, we decided to have a little family party today, then on Saturday, she'll have a birthday party with her friends. She will have TWO birthday parties this year! How cool is that??

Here are some pictures from today. Because my husband works at night, we decided to celebrate her family party during the day before he leaves for work.

A surprise awaits Jennifer upon her return home from school!

Ten years old means a ten dollar bill. Woot!

Interestingly, I call her a "silly monkey." Before her birthday came along, she let me know she wanted a BROWN sock monkey. Took a while before we found one!

She lubs her new robe! Arr!

She'd been asking for My Neighbor Totoro for MONTHS! So nice I found it at Target. And, yes, she wanted Dumbo, too!

Jen enjoying her birthday cupcake with TWO flavors of ice cream! Num.

Little brother Jesse had fun eating his cupcake.

The best of both worlds

2011-09-20T22:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, as I was reading a book, Jennifer came over to where I was and sat down. I could tell she needed to talk. Up until then, she’d been playing with her little brother. But now something troubled her. Something was on her mind. So I put down the book and asked her what was up.

She explained that she wasn’t sure how she could balance spending time with Jesse with spending time with her friends. For so long, she always wanted to run off and play with her friends instead of play with her brother. And on several occasions, I’d remind her she needed to spend some time playing with her little brother, too. I guess it finally sank in. Now she couldn’t figure out how to divide her time.

This question made me smile. I looked at her and said, “You notice how this is a brand new thing for you? You didn’t have this problem before Jesse came along.”

She thought for a minute then nodded with a smile.

I set about explaining to her that she’ll figure out how to balance her time with her brother and time with her friends. I told her that she could also have Jesse along when playing with her friends. Yes, Jesse is still a baby, but she has friends younger than her and it could work. Or we could all get together to play at a park.

And also, sometimes it will work out on its own. She’ll play with Jesse for a while then she’ll play with her friends. After a while, it will just happen on its own and she’ll figure it out.

I also told her not to stress on this. Just wing it. See what she can fit in with her brother and see what she can fit in with her friends.

This seemed to help her understand the situation. And today, she was able to spend time with her brother and her friend. They played together for a while, then they joined her friend to ride bikes outside. It helps if the friend doesn’t mind having Jesse around, but in cases that doesn’t happen, I step in and tell Jesse I will play with him. That helps him feel better.

There is still so much Jennifer is adapting to as far as having a sibling and being the oldest is concerned. I’m glad her dad and I can help her navigate these waters, since we grew up with siblings too (and her dad is the oldest), but I think she’ll find a way to make things work just for her. And her brother, too.

Ten years after 9/11

2011-09-11T19:19:00.000-07:00

Today marks the 10th anniversary of September 11, 2001. Up until now, my oldest child, Jennifer, who turns 10 next month, has not been made aware of the full extent of what September 11th means. She only knows it is a day her mom lights a white candle, cries a little bit and takes time to reflect.

She also knows it was a day that happened while I was still pregnant with her.

But up until now, she did not know what September 11th was.

Today, I told her. After 10 years, I felt it was time. As a child born that year, after that event, it was time for her to know.

When I explained to her what September 11th was, a mix of emotions washed over her face. She was shocked that such a thing had happened to our country. She was in disbelief that there are people, terrorists, who hate America and brought their hatred to our country on that day. She was saddened to hear that so many people died on that day. Nearly 3,000 lives were lost on 9/11/01.

I told her about what happened, but I would not allow her to see any of the pictures. I would not allow her to watch the shows on TV remembering that sad day. I just couldn’t bring myself to do that. I could not expose my child to that.

I still remember the shock and disbelief I felt on that day. I did not know about what had happened until after both of the planes crashed into the Twin Towers. An online friend I chatted with on the computer told me, “You need to turn on the news.” So I did. And I could only stare, in shock, at what I saw. I was horrified to watch the Towers collapse, knowing there were more people dying in that collapse.

I watched all of this ... and then I looked down at my very-pregnant stomach. Where my baby was safely growing inside. I remember looking at that stomach and thinking, ‘How could I bring a child into this world now?’

Was this the kind of world I wanted to bring a new life into?

I really struggled over these emotions. Why bring a child into a world that had such evil people? Where there was hatred so strong, lives were being taken away?

I talked with some online friends about this. It was really a difficult situation for me.

But even still, 10 years later, I remember what one of my online friends said to me that changed everything. She said: “Who knows? Maybe your child will be someone to make this world a better place.”

I thought of that today, during my conversation with Jennifer. I was reminded of it after something she said. She said, “I love everyone.”

I looked at her and asked, “Even the people who hate Americans?”

“Everyone,” she answered. “I love everyone. We should all love each other.”

My heart lifted when she said those powerful words. Maybe there is hope for this world yet.

Week One: Success!

2011-09-09T23:42:00.000-07:00

This was the first week of the kids going back to school. I am happy to report that it went well.

These are my goals for the new school year:

Get Jennifer to the bus stop on time EVERY DAY that she is going to school
Get Jesse to the preschool at 8ish
Have a drama-free morning
Get the kids up at a sufficient hour of the morning where they don’t have to RUSH, RUSH, RUSH to get out the door
Have EVERYTHING we need ready and at hand so we don’t have to make last-minute decisions on clothes or hunt for a missing shoe (oy, those missing shoe hunts!)
See my kids off with lots of hugs, smiles, extra love – and NO SAD FACES because of a sucky morning.

Yes, it does seem like a tall order. But I am happy to report that we met ALL of those goals for the first week of school. HOORAY!

And … nobody missed a bath/shower. Nobody had incomplete paperwork or forms on the day of going to school. And everybody was well-fed and dressed before heading out.

Yay again!

Before the start of school, I did some serious planning. I decided on what kind of goals I wanted to meet for this year. We also went through ALL clothes to have school clothes in one drawer or in the closet, and playclothes in the other.

Thankfully, we didn’t have to buy school supplies for either of the kids. Their schools provide supplies. With Jennifer’s school, I pay an annual fee for the supplies. So it worked out well. All the kids got for the new school year were new backpacks (though Jesse got his during the summer). While the local paper ran articles about families struggling to afford school supplies for their children, I was grateful that we didn’t have to worry about that.

This year, I’ve had to make some changes, too. The kids know they can’t watch TV while getting ready for school, because then they won’t get ready for school. (That’s what caused some of the drama last year.) Same with computers. NO COMPUTER on school mornings. I have seen how I have to follow that rule, too. I’d get distracted watching the news on TV or checking email. So, no more of that for me! Because I did not drive them to school this week, however, I was able to do some early morning online stuff. But it just can’t happen for the mornings that I am the driver. I also can’t get my morning workouts until AFTER the kids are in school (they just take too long and I might not have time for a shower then show up being all stinky – yuck!). These are changes I’m totally okay with. The important thing is taking care of getting the kids off to school FIRST. That is the number one priority on school mornings.

And that rule just might help us have some other school morning successes in the weeks to come. At least, that is my hope!

A fair-ly good time

2011-08-21T17:50:00.000-07:00

It’s been 6 years since we moved to Oregon but not once have we attended the annual Lane County Fair. That changed yesterday.

By the time we got to the fairgrounds late in the day, the parking lots were filled, so hubby had to drive around and around neighboring streets to find someplace to park. During all that driving, I noticed how some people were charging fairgoers $5 to park in their front yards. After some time of driving, I suggested we just come back the next day. But hubby was determined to find somewhere to park. We were already there and he wasn’t going to give up just because he couldn’t find a parking space. Eventually, his determination paid off and we managed to park in front of a house two streets away from the fairgrounds. I was grateful for the nice weather as we walked.

I was also grateful for our timing. We arrived at the fair at dusk and all the lights were starting to come on. It was very pretty. As the sky grew darker, and the lights became brighter, Jesse was really mesmerized by all of the lights and special effects. Many times his dad had a hard time getting his attention because he couldn’t take his eyes off all of the lights! (Jennifer told me the music was loud, too. She could hear it all the way from where we parked! I asked her what kind of music it was and she said it was “fair music.”)

Of course, the kids wanted to go on EVERYTHING, but because the tickets cost so much, we had to be choosy. I definitely wanted the kids to go on a carousel, but we couldn’t find one. This was Jesse’s very first fair visit, so hubby and I both knew we had to be especially certain he went on some good rides.

Before we got to the fair, I was anticipating the kids having fun on the rides. What I didn’t expect was freaking out when my little baby was placed inside of the first ride. My heart was pounding in my chest and I had to keep myself from running to his seat and pulling him out of there. I was standing there thinking, MY BABY!!! This particular ride was the kiddie version of the swings. (You know, those swings people spin around a pole in?) I kept telling myself that this was a ride for kids. He’d met the height requirement. And, most of all, Jennifer was in the seat with him. Surely she would grab him if he started to slip out. (And they did have a strap that went between the legs so kids couldn’t slip out.) So I just watched, and prayed, as the ride started up. Thankfully, it was not as fast as the adult version. And he was fine. Phew! But I put my foot down later in the evening when they wanted to go on the adult version of that swing ride. I kept saying, “I don’t want him on that ride!” Hubby wanted to go on, too. But even with him, I was NOT going to allow Jesse on that ride. He already was on the kiddie version and that was good enough. (Hubby saw how upset this made me so thankfully he agreed not to put Jesse on that ride.)

When we got to rides that Jennifer was big enough for but not Jesse, then either I or hubby took Jesse to a kiddie ride or hubby went with Jennifer and I took Jesse to another ride. At one point, hubby even suggested I go find a ride I wanted to go on but I said I didn’t want to go on any. That changed when I saw The Haunted Mansion ride. I went nuts and said, “I wanna go on THAT one!” We all ended up going on that ride. I rode with Jennifer and as we went through the ride, I worried it might be a bit much for Jesse (who was riding with his dad). After we all got off of the ride, Jesse huddled close to Jennifer and they started talking. I asked hubby if the ride had scared him and he said, “A little bit.” After Jesse was done talking to Jennifer, he looked at me and said, “That ride was a little bit scary.” (Later that night, he told me again the “monsters” on that ride scared him.)

We ate our dinner at the fair. Two bacon cheeseburgers, two orders of fries, two hot dogs and 4 soft drinks. It cost us $43! The whole fair experience was pricey and I decided that, for next year, we will start saving EARLY if we want to go to the fair again.

Another thing about fairs is how they rig the games so very few people win the prizes. That night, Jennifer was introduced to the term “carnie” and I told her horror stories of how carnies trick people out of their money by fixing the games. Hubby shrugged it all off and told Jennifer she could go ahead and play one of the games. She really wanted to win something but she couldn’t knock over the stack of blocks with the baseball she was given.

Another thing Jennifer wanted to do at the fair was go on the Ferris wheel with her dad. She did get to do that – but unfortunately Jesse was too small for it. So while they were on that, he went on the kiddie airplane ride. Every time I looked at the lit-up Ferris wheel at the fair, I was reminded of the short story I’d written last week that Jennifer’s request had inspired me to write.

Jennifer also got to have some cotton candy – and Jesse, too – but she wasn’t able to play certain other games she’d hoped to play or win a goldfish. (Well, there’s always next year. I promised myself that next year I will drop the whole “carnies are EBIL!” warning and just let her play the games.)

Soon we ran out of tickets – and money to buy more tickets – so we had to go home. We’d been at the fair for 3 hours and we all agreed we had fun. As we walked to the car, my feet hurt from all that walking and my legs were dead. I told Jennifer I had gotten my exercise for the day. It was A LOT of walking!

But it was a lot of fun, too. Jesse had his very first fair experience and Jennifer got to have some good memories of going on rides with her dad. I’m glad we finally went to the Lane County Fair and look forward to going again next year.

Bye bye, baby teeth

2011-08-09T11:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Jesse lost a couple of his baby teeth. At the age of 3, one would think this was happening a little early for him. But in truth, these teeth did not come out naturally. Actually, they were knocked out in a fall he had yesterday.

Now I am not going to say who caused this fall. I don’t want the offender to be outed here. I don’t want to make this person look bad. The offender has been punished and already feels as guilty as it is about causing this to happen.

Anyway, yesterday morning, I was in the bathroom, getting ready to take a shower. The kids were in the house and hubby was in the kitchen, getting a cup of coffee. Jesse came into the bathroom, crying with blood dripping out of his mouth. He had blood on his hands and shirt.

I freaked!

I cried out to Jennifer to get her father and they came rushing into the bathroom. Hubby took over and assessed the situation while I cleaned up the blood on the floor.

On the floor was a tooth. There was another tooth on Jesse’s hand. His two front teeth had been knocked out.

Hubby told me to call the dentist to find out what to do and I got on the phone while he took care of Jesse. But before I could actually type their number into the box for relay, the offender came up to me crying and explaining what had happened. How Jesse had lost his teeth. I was shocked and horrified. I even screamed, “He’s just a baby!” Of course, this didn’t help the offender feel any better. I told said person to go somewhere else, I was too angry and upset to talk to that person right now. I was riveted! I was also on the verge of tears. Why did this happen to my baby? I kept wiping away the tears as I tried to focus on the phone call.

I called the dentist and they told me to bring Jesse in right away. Hubby got Jesse's mouth cleaned up and he told me to change Jesse’s clothes while he got ready, because he was going to take Jesse to the dentist himself. So I took Jesse into his room and we both picked out some new clothes for him to wear. After he was dressed and hubby was ready, they went out to the garage and got the car seat from the truck and into hubby’s car. I double-checked that hubby had the teeth with him before they left. I watched as they left, my heart sunk. I felt just terrible for Jesse and hoped he wasn’t in too much pain.

At the same time, though, I couldn’t stop thinking that I’d been here before. When Jennifer was 7 years old, she was at a friend’s birthday party and in all the fun and excitement of the kids playing, a boy accidentally kicked her in the mouth and knocked her two front teeth out. There was the blood, the tears, the shock, the pain. Just as Jennifer had lost her two front teeth in an accident, Jesse had, too. I only prayed it wasn’t his permanent teeth that were lost.

After they got back from the dentist, hubby told me that Jesse had not suffered any serious damage. They were his baby teeth and that Jesse didn’t need any pain medicine. As to the teeth, it looked like Jesse was going to get his very first visit from the tooth fairy. I was so relieved he was going to be okay. The whole time they were gone, I was shocked and trying to keep myself together.

Since Jesse is too young to have money, he got a toy car from the tooth fairy. He’s been playing with it all morning. He seems to be fine.

Eating is another matter, though. At first, he would not eat at all yesterday. As it was, the only thing he would accept at dinner was a kernel of corn. (I did make something soft for dinner. Looks like I will be making him soft foods for a while! It’s a good thing he loves yogurt.) This morning, he ate part of a doughnut and a Nutri-Grain bar. That was about it. I am hoping he will be okay to eat without trouble at mealtimes. l am glad that a lot of the things he likes are soft foods: Peanut butter sandwich (without the crust and cut into squares), yogurt, spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, chicken noodle soup. He also like hot dogs and he eats them cut up. I wonder how that’ll work for him. (He’ll probably figure out to chew food on the side if he can’t chew it in the front.) I am hoping we can coax him to eat a little more today, but if it’s pain that’s preventing him from eating, I’ll have to either call the dentist or give him Tylenol. Or both.

This week, Jesse is being kept home from preschool. (During the summer, he has been going there twice a week.) This was something hubby wanted. I think Jesse’s fine and should be okay at the school, but I have to respect hubby’s feelings on this. After all, this is his little boy. So Jesse is home this week.

And the offender will be at home all week, too. No playdates or going to a friend’s house. Unlike Jennifer’s experience, this time around the situation could have been avoided. Granted, the offender probably did NOT do what was done with the intention of knocking Jesse’s teeth out, but that is just one of the things that can happen to someone when something like that is done to them, and I hope that message is not lost on that person. On top of this, I don’t condone violence. I will NOT have violence in my home. I grew up in a violent home and I will NOT let the same thing be said about my children. NO VIOLENCE. Period.

Hopefully, everything about this experience will ensure that won’t happen again.

Still got it

2011-08-06T19:36:00.000-07:00

Today I took Jennifer to the library. As we rode in the elevator, I assured her I didn't need to check out any books. I already have a hefty supply of books to read for book reviews, so I had enough books to keep me busy. Sometimes, when we go to the library, she'll accompany me to the second floor as I pick out books to check out, too, on her library card. Not today, I assured her. Take your time in the kids' section of the library.

But of course, I was wrong. I did end up finding a book to check out -- in the kids' section!

What is it with me and library books?? It is like there is at least ONE I am bound to find that I would like to check out. Sigh. So many books to read, so little time....

Anyway, Jen was checking out comic books and I turned to find a bunch of Halloween books on display. Cool! I love Halloween! So I browsed through the books and found there was an interesting variety of Halloween books.

But, wouldn't you know it, they also had "ghost story" books and "haunt" books on display there, as well. I ended up grabbing these books, but this gave me pause. Lately, I have been so interested in science and astronomy articles that I started to wonder, have I lost interest in the paranormal? Have I lost interest in ghost stuff? Ghost stories? Haunted houses?

This interest in the paranormal books at the library answered that question with a resounding, "Nope!"

I guess I will always be interested in the paranormal. But I'll still be interested in science and astronomy, too. (That's an interesting combination, isn't it?) I was a BIG astronomy buff as a kid and teenager, then I was a BIG paranormal buff as an adult. I guess my interests in one will occasionally increase or decrease in time, but it will never go away. I may not talk about ghosts and hauntings as much as I used to, but I guess I'll always be into that stuff, because I am still into that stuff.

Which is a good thing, too. Still got the haunted cities book project going on, as well as the middle grade series, which happens to be set in a fictional haunted city.

The old switch-a-roo

2011-07-13T08:13:00.000-07:00

It started with a pair of sandals. Recently, I was at a department store with the kids, where all their summer shoes were on sale. Knowing I needed an extra pair of shoes for Jesse, I started browsing through the display of boys sandals until I found a pair that would probably match with everything. I had him try one on and it seemed to fit okay. (Didn’t ask him to walk around in it, which was a mistake!) So I bought them.

They seemed to fit him at the store, but after we got home and he put them on himself, he struggled to strap on the upper part of the sandal. Oops.

Okay, I just told myself. I’ve got the receipt. Got the tag. I’ll just take them in tomorrow and exchange them for a bigger size.

Now it was a matter of keeping the sandals CLEAN and in good condition until then. Not an easy task for a 3-year-old!

So I waited until he lost interest in them then discreetly hid them in the store bag, with the receipt and tag, and put them up. Later, he wanted to know where his new shoes were. All I could do was shrug my shoulders and innocently reply, “They’re around here somewhere.” I didn’t think I would have much luck explaining to him the intricacies of making exchanges at a store and why we needed to keep the sandals clean. Eventually, he stopped looking for them and just went off to play.

Early the next morning, I hurried to the department store to make the exchange. I got the sandals in a bigger size. “This is the right size!” I declared to the store representative. She just smiled and nodded as she keyed the exchange into the register.

The only problem is, they weren’t. And I found that out at Jen’s next-to-last baseball game. We were all there and hubby noticed how Jesse’s toes were sticking out over the edge of the sandal. He pointed this out to me and I could only sigh and shake my head. Whoops.

So, the next morning, I was once again off to the department store. This time, I bought the sandals in a bigger size. (Thankfully, they were still on sale. And thankfully, they had those shoes in that size.) This was the biggest size available for these particular shoes. I only prayed that THIS was the right size.

This time, however, I was not alone when I was switching Jesse’s old shoes for the new ones. Jennifer caught me in the act. I explained to her the situation, set the new sandals up in the closet where Jesse had left his old ones, and put the old ones away on a shelf, deciding to toss them into the yard sale pile later.

When I showed Jesse where he’d left his shoes, Jennifer wanted to tell him they weren’t the same ones he’d worn yesterday. They were a bigger size. But I asked her to keep quiet about that at first. I wanted to see how these shoes fit him first. (In case I had to hide them again!) No problem putting them on. No problem strapping them on. His toes were below the edge of the upper part of the sandal. And ... he walked around in them just fine. His feet didn’t slide in them, he wasn’t tripping over his feet in them. Everything looked A-OK. Woot!

So I gave Jen the green light and she told Jesse they were the same shoes, but only a bigger size. He clapped his hands and said, “Yay!”

“They fit!” I declared, holding my arms up in victory.

But I know I am not out of the woods yet. Hubby has not seen Jesse wearing these latest editions just yet. And I can only dread the three words that might come out of his mouth. Three words that will send me into a nosedive: “They’re too small.”

Bloody baseball

2011-07-10T22:12:00.000-07:00

Today was Jennifer’s last baseball game. Unfortunately for her, it was not a pleasant one.

During the early part of the game, Jennifer was upset because she hadn’t been able to hit the ball. She kept grumbling, “I suck.” I kept encouraging her to try her best and have confidence in herself. Eventually, her spirits lifted, and we both felt good about her hitting that ball.

Except that it never happened. The second time, she was at bat, I sat with my fingers crossed, hoping she will get just one hit. But then something else happened that made me forget all about her hitting the ball. The ball hit HER – right in the face!

When I saw that happen, I was stunned at first. I was sitting there thinking, Did that just really happen? Did the ball just hit her in the face? IN THE FACE!!!!????!!!!

I blinked, squinting to get a better look and trying to see past the umpire and coach who ran over to her. She was crying and taking off her glasses. And there was BLOOD! Blood came out of her nose. Blood dripped onto her shirt. (I later saw it was even on her glasses.)

I jumped off the bleacher and ran to the fence to get a better look. I was thinking, Oh my God! Oh my God! My heart was pounding. Parents were crowding around me at the fence, too.

The umpire and coach comforted and talked to Jennifer. She was crying pretty bad. The coach walked her off the field and over to the dugout.

I grabbed my purse and nearly knocked another mom over as I ran to the outside entrance to the dugout.

The assistant coach brought Jennifer out. Her nose was bleeding pretty bad. He sat her on the ground and examined her. A lady appeared next to Jennifer and started to talk to her, too, as well as examining the damage.

I stood there in shock, watching the whole thing. My heart was still pounding in my chest. Other parents came over to check on her, too.

I watched the lady help Jennifer. She sure seemed to know what she was doing! I kept asking “is her nose broke?” and they finally told me it wasn’t. (Thank God!)

I couldn’t believe there was all that blood. The whole thing was surreal. I couldn’t believe this had just happened.

Finally, the lady stood, turned around and started talking to me. I had to tell her I am deaf and to please speak slower. She explained that the ball hit Jennifer’s nose and upper lip at the same time. Her upper lip and cheekbones had swelling and Jennifer was in pain. She said I needed to give Jennifer Ibuprofen and it would help the swelling go down. She also told me to use hydrogen peroxide on her clothes to get the blood out.

I asked her if she was a nurse. She smiled and nodded. “Thank goodness!” I said. What a relief there was a nurse here to look at an injured child!!

She went between comforting and helping Jennifer to talking to me. Jennifer was obviously in shock and the nurse checked her to make sure she was coherent. One of the moms I know from last season let Jennifer sit in her chair and we kept giving her tissues to try to stop the bleeding. (The blood was on her hands, too.) Eventually, we took Jennifer to the bathroom so she could wash the blood off. The nurse was so helpful to Jennifer and she really was concerned about her. This woman was missing her son’s baseball game to care for another child. I could only thank my lucky stars for such a caring, helpful and kind person to be there when something like this happened.

We sat out the rest of the game. Even though Jennifer wanted to go home, we had to stay longer for the “award ceremony.” Each player got a medal (no trophies this year), and some kids got two. Jennifer was one of them. The coach had her up first and he congratulated her on playing so well. He was really nice to her and made her feel special. I thought that was nice of him to do that.

Before we left, the nurse, whose name is Kristen, wrote out several kinds of instructions for me for caring for Jennifer. She said to call Jen’s doctor if the bleeding didn’t stop. (It did, thankfully.) I thanked her for her help and she hugged us before we left. What a wonderful person!

At home, I gave Jennifer Ibuprofen and instructed her to take it easy on the couch. I also gave her an ice pack and we worked on using it on either side of her face to avoid swelling. Or even further swelling.

After we got home, I was still in shock over the whole thing. But then I got really angry. It was no fair this happened! Why couldn’t she have a great time? A nice game? No fair!

And Jennifer was mad, too. She said the boy who pitched the ball wasn’t even looking at where he was throwing it. I was mad because he didn’t apologize. I know it was an accident, but he still should’ve said he was sorry! He was the one who pitched the ball! He didn’t even check on her after the game. Grr.

Well, I got over my stewing. It’s like I told Jennifer, “At least your team kicked their butt."

And we did find one thing funny about this whole thing. Jennifer told me the catcher picked up the bloody baseball, looked at it with disgust and said, "Ew." We had a good laugh over that. She also told me that she wondered if her blood was still on home plate.

What a way to end her baseball season.

No cable? Oh, no!

2011-07-07T23:00:00.000-07:00

Last night, as I was trying to relax from a hectic day and just veg out, I sat down on the couch to watch some TV. The baby was sleeping and Jennifer was playing one of her computer games. So I finally settled on an episode of I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant. (I blame Jennifer for getting me hooked on this show. Her aunt got her hooked and now she got ME hooked!) The problem was, I couldn’t really watch the whole show. It kept blacking out!

I thought it was a signal problem and thought it would go away. But today, when Jesse wanted to watch Dora the Explorer, it happened again! And it kept happening with other shows and other channels.

Not only this, but all the shows we had on DVR weren’t showing up. It said “42% full” but nothing was there. (Jennifer went into panic attack mode because this meant she couldn’t watch her beloved Dragon Ball Z Kai.)

Hmmm. Something was definitely NOT right here. But for the life of me, I could not figure it out.

So, we have to wait until my husband looks into it.

Meanwhile, we can’t watch any TV – not unless we don’t mind a show constantly going dark. (Ugh!)

The thing of it is, having no cable feels weird. Sure, the kids can watch a movie. (Jesse settled down with Toy Story 2.) But the movie thing does not happen very often. We want our stories!

I’m actually curious about our reaction to this. All this time, I have complained about all of us watching too much TV. (Though I hardly watch ANY TV, as it is! Maybe a show a day.) And I’ve always longed for the days when it was just me and Jennifer. When I couldn’t even afford to have basic cable. (BASIC!!!) We had NO TV. No cable. No movies, either. (I couldn’t afford a TV or DVD player.) Jen and I spent our days doing other things. Going for walks. Reading (a lot of) books. Playing games, doing crafts. And talking – a lot of talking!

I loved those days. We had such strong bonding moments. So much together time. So many memories and lots of laughs.

And we can have that now. So, what is the problem? Is this so terrible?

It seems we have gotten so used to zoning out in front of the TV, we don’t know what to do with ourselves when we don’t have TV. Sure, we still read books – just not as often or as many. We play games – once in a while. And of course we talk, especially at dinner. But it’s like those things just don’t add up as sufficient entertainment anymore.

Could it be an age thing? Jennifer has not outgrown crafts. She still loves them. She loves books, as I do. And we have fun playing board games. So maybe it’s not an age thing.

Maybe we just need to be more creative. After all, that’s what TV seems to sap away from us when we put too much time and attention into it. So maybe if we take our creativity up a notch, we’ll come up with other stuff to do while we wait for this cable craziness to be fixed. It could happen.

The summer she spent away

2011-06-27T07:34:00.000-07:00

While Jennifer may be too young to go to summer camp this year, it seems like she has a “day camp” thing going on. I have noticed how, these days, she is rarely at home – she’s at her friend’s house. Or, friend’s houses. Instead of staying at home during the day, she’s hanging out with friends or with our neighbors.

On one hand, I’m happy she’s turned into such a sociable person. It’s good for her to interact with other people and build her social skills. But on the other hand, I worry. I worry she’ll forget the safety rules we have taught her, or be careless with her personal safety, and something bad might happen. And I worry that all this time she’s spending with her friends means less time with her family.

Still, maybe I shouldn’t complain on that last note. After all, it’s not like her “family time” is suffering. Just yesterday, she went to the park with her dad and little brother and they all played baseball. Then they went out for ice cream. That quality time with family is there.

But is it there enough?

I know, it’s summer. Kids should be allowed to be kids during the summer. They should be riding their bikes, hanging out with their friends and going swimming. They shouldn’t HAVE to spend more time at home or with family. They need to get out and enjoy this break from school. This break from schedules and routines. But quality time with family is just as important during the summer, too. I mean, after all, families go on vacations during the summer. Or check out county fairs and stuff like that. And I keep asking myself, are those two things balanced? Is she spending as much time with her family as she is with her friends?

I’m probably just being neurotic here. I should count my blessings. I’m glad my daughter has so many friends. I’m glad she is able to hang out with her friends and have fun with them. I'm glad she's not such a couch potato during her summer vacation. I’m glad she is safely returning home from her friend’s houses every day – so far.

Maybe she just really needs this time away from family. She needs a break from her brother driving her crazy or her mother suggesting she do just one more page of math problems in her math workbook or her father giving her one job around the house or another. She needs to create some happy summer memories with her friends. Maybe she just needs this.

But we need that family time, too.

I suppose instead of stressing out that she isn’t getting enough of that family time, I should just wing it. Allow her to continue hanging out with her friends so much and grab that family time that includes our daughter whenever it pops up. Summertime is no time for stress, after all. It’s a time for relaxation and going with the flow. So we’ll go with the flow and just enjoy summer.

Some unexpected me time

2011-06-23T22:12:00.000-07:00

For the summer, my son Jesse is taking preschool twice a week. I have him there full-time instead of part-time, because I want to “gel into” the full-time schedule since that is what he is going to be signed up for in the fall. Jennifer is not taking summer school this year, but today I had an unexpected surprise: She got to stay at Jesse’s school today.

I was surprised and a little nervous at first. I didn’t know how Jen would take to this “school setting” during what is supposed to be her summer vacation. But, it was only one day out of the week. And she seemed so eager to be there. So I just let that worry go and decided to wait and see how it turned out.

At the same time, I was taken off guard. I’m so used to having at least ONE child home with me every day this summer. Now they were BOTH at summer school!

The shock hit me so much, I actually had to stop walking on my way into the grocery store as I realized ... my children weren’t there.

They were in summer school.

Both of them.

I was ... I was ... (gasp!) ALONE!

I was FREEEE!!!!

Okay, seriously, though. I actually had a hard time accepting this. I kept looking around like they were missing, or something, and I had to find them. It was such a big grocery store, you know. What if they wandered too far? What if a stranger kidnapped them? What if they had wandered out of the store???

But, wait. I had to remind myself. Both kids were in summer school. I did not have one child at home with her father. I did not have one child missing at the store. They were at school. Summer school. Both of them.

Wooooow.

And after the shock faded, I started to wonder: What am I going to do with myself??

Well, the OBVIOUS answer is ... WRITE! Write like the wind!

I had already written two articles earlier in the morning, while the children slept. Maybe I’ll write some more!

And ... maybe watch a movie? Read a book? Run some errands?

Instead of making plans, though, I just took the day as it came. Yes, I did write. I worked on the charity ebook. But I also read a crapload of articles on the Internet. Hung out on Facebook. Answered a bunch of emails collecting dust in my inbox. And sent my articles off to an E-zine.

I also FINALLY organized Jesse’s closet, cleaned the bedrooms and did some assorted housekeeping. Took some time to read, sure. The newspaper. ( I read a book AFTER the kids came home. And Jennifer told me she had a great time. Phew!) And I also took care of some financial business over the phone.

In other words, I got quite a bit of stuff done. And even after the kids came home, I got MORE stuff done. Did some book promo and sent off a book review.

The truth is, I can still be productive whether or not the kids are at home. True, I can be MORE productive when they are at school or at a friend’s house. (I just can’t clean Jesse’s room when he is home, though. Because he makes a whole ‘nother toy mess in an area I JUST tidied up right after I tidy it up.) Still, it was nice to get things done without distraction today. Or without worrying about the kids. It was nice.

I hope Jen will be up to visiting the preschool again next week. And I also hope the teacher is ok with that being a “Thursday thing.”

Girls can play baseball

2011-06-19T13:22:00.000-07:00

One of my all-time favorite movies is A League of Their Own. Sure, I like other baseball movies, but League stands out because it’s strictly a girls-baseball movie. We see so many boy-baseball movies, despite some kid movies having girls playing baseball (The Sandlot, for example). But League is definitely The Real Thing when it comes to girls baseball. In League, the women are asked to play baseball because there is a NEED for ballplayers while the men are away at war. However, in real life, this inclusion of girls in baseball has its problems.

Mainly, getting girls INTO baseball teams.

Even though baseball is dominated by boys/men, I have always felt that girls can play this sport, too. Coming from a large family, we often got together to play ball. And none of us girls were EVER told we couldn’t play because it’s a “boy sport.” Girls can play baseball, too!

This is a message I try to pass on to my daughter, Jennifer. She has been playing ball ever since she was old enough to start T-ball. Like me, she loves baseball, and we even play catch or hit the ball around in our yard.

However, sometimes, I have run into problems trying to get Jennifer onto a baseball team. At Kidsports, where I sign Jen up to play, many staff have seen her gender as “girl” and, instead of placing her into the baseball team, as I requested, they moved her to softball instead. (I never learned of this until after I was notified by email of just how she was registered.) Of course, I’ve had to remedy this myself. Call them, email them, and explain to them that we prefer BASEBALL. Not softball. (Many thanks to Matt Brown for continuously helping me fix this problem when it has come up!)

Every year that Jennifer has played baseball, we’ve enjoyed the excitement, challenges and mystery of each game. She’d attend practices at the fields and we’d practice at home, too. Baseball was the sport we often talked about at home, and there has been a time or two Jennifer has come home from a game shivering or limping. But there’d be a smile on her face and a twinkle in her eyes when she’d inform me, “We won!”

Time and again she has proven that she can play baseball just fine. Of course, being in an all-boy team means she’s had to get used to all the “boy talk” and the ways boys behave – especially around girls. (Surprisingly, though, she and her teammates have gotten along well, and no one has accused the other of having cooties.) I’m proud of the progress she has made in this sport. If she chooses to pursue it again next year, that’s fine. If she chooses not to pursue it again next year, that’s fine, too.

We’ve had some good years playing baseball, as well as some pictures and happy memories to remember those years by.

I am grateful to all the coaches and team players for welcoming Jennifer into a sport that is mostly played by boys.

It’s good to know that other people out there agree that, yes, girls can play baseball, too.

The last week of school

2011-06-13T23:07:00.000-07:00

This is the first year I get to see both of my children meet the end of the school year. For Jennifer, it's the end of third grade. For Jesse, it's the end of his first year in preschool. They will be moving on to the next grade and the next year come Fall semester. I am so proud of them both.

Somehow, I think, my children sense that it's high time for school to end. (I have heard that other schools have already released students for summer vacation.) Jennifer has gone into Night Owl Mode -- which is understandable since the days are longer and warmer. Getting up for school in the morning, however, is a big chore. But so far, so good.

As for Jesse, he, too, is ready for some R&R. He will be going to preschool this summer, but not as often as before. I think he'll have some vacation time before the summer semester begins. Overall, though, he's ready to just lounge around at home and get some extra sleep. Can't say that I blame him.

I, too, am ready for another school year to come to an end. It has been a hard year for us in consistently getting Jennifer to school on time, her struggling with her math and failing to meet the requirements to be a TAG (Talented And Gifted) student. (That last part left her crushed.) But we are hopeful things will be better for her next year. She has also complained about being bullied at her school. Thus far, the bullying has not been severe, but I have been keeping tabs on it.

I am also looking forward to getting some extra sleep, too. Time to unleash my inner night owl! No more waking up at 5 a.m. for a couple of months.

Still, it is as though summer vacation has happened already. The kids just want to chill. Get some sleep. I have to keep telling the children "this is the last week of school, let's finish it." They sooo want summer vacation to start up already. And it will, but they just have to wait a teensy tiny bit longer before it does. Just three more days to go and then they'll be free.

The trip to St. Louis

2011-05-29T11:45:00.000-07:00

Around mid-April, we got news of my mother’s deteriorating health. She had initially been hospitalized due to complications from cancer, but after the cancer miraculously disappeared, she came down with a life-threatening infection. Each day brought bad news and it wasn’t looking good. Siblings and relatives on Facebook were posting things about my mother’s failing health and sending messages on how if any of her children wanted to see her one last time, now was the time to do it.

It just was really bad.

I tried to keep a stiff upper lip during the whole ordeal. I prayed for her every chance I got, putting my faith in God she will pull through. At the same time, however, I knew we might lose her. And I eventually accepted this.

When it looked like my mother was going to die, I broke down and cried. I hadn’t seen my mother for years. She means the WORLD to me. And now she was going to die.

My children were home at this time and I had to tell them the bad news. Up until then, I hadn’t said anything because I still had faith she would make it. But now I had to tell them that their grandmother was on her deathbed. We were all in tears and broken up about it.

Everyone was saying I should get on a plane to get out there to see my mother for what could be the last time. But I refused. I just couldn’t leave without the children. We didn’t have the money to pay for all of us to fly out there. Let alone for me to fly out there by myself. Even if we did, there weren’t any seats available on such short notice. (I know. I checked.) My husband tried to figure out how we could get to St. Louis to see her – one last time. I helped prepare for this journey knowing we might end up going to her funeral. I had this bizarre image of introducing my son to his grandmother via her tombstone.

Eventually, we had everything in order for the drive from Eugene, Oregon to St. Louis, Missouri. But right then, my dad and sister were saying not to come out there after all. Wait until Mom was better and able to talk. Too late. We already had our plans in place. They had told us how important it was to get out there, so we were going to get out there!

We left Eugene on April 20th. We were originally going to leave on the 19th, but we had car trouble. My husband spent a day and a half working on that car until it was in good enough condition for such a long trip. We piled everything into the car: Books, games, toys, blankets, pillows, snacks and writing tools.

For some strange reason, I was parched during the first half of our journey. I was glad I’d packed a lot of bottled water into the car, because I was dying of thirst! Jesse was thirsty, too. So we took turns passing the water bottles back and forth. (I rode in the back with him.) Whenever we stopped for gas or the bathroom, we got more water bottles and drank those up, too. Thankfully, Jesse was very calm on the trip there. Jennifer kept herself preoccupied with her DS, books, writing/drawing and just sightseeing. We were fascinated by all the sights on our cross-country trip. We were surprised to see there was still snow in some parts of Oregon, as well as the rest of the country (Utah and Wyoming).

As we moved along on our journey, I kept track of the states we entered, as well as the date and time. In order to avoid confusion in keeping track of our timing, I relied on Pacific time. I still have that page in my notebook:

Left at 5:30 p.m. (Eugene, OR), 4/20/11
Entered Idaho at 2 a.m. next day (4/21)
Entered Utah at 6:22 a.m. same day
Entered Wyoming at 10:26 a.m. same day
Entered Nebraska at 6:30 p.m. same day
Entered Iowa at 2:15 p.m. on 4/22
Entered Missouri at 3:38 p.m. same day

It wasn’t until 1:00 in the morning that we arrived in St. Louis. But, oh boy! When we GOT THERE!! We were in for such a shock.

Because there was a TORNADO!

RIGHT AT THE TIME WE GOT THERE!

I could not believe it. I was sitting in the car watching that weather outside the car windows and thinking, “Oh, my God. PLEASE don’t pick up our car.” I started to quietly pray we would be safe. The weather outside was just insane. Rain, wind, and … other things. I prayed we wouldn’t actually see an actual person flying past us in this storm. The children were frightened by the storm outside of our car (they knew there was a tornado going on), and I kept assuring them we would be okay. My husband tried to alleviate their fears by pointing out the “neat” effects of the storm in the sky. I even joked, “Just call us the storm chasers!” I’d been texting my sister in California for the bulk of the trip (as well as relatives in Missouri and Illinois to let them know of our progress), and when I told her there was a tornado there, she texted back, “OMG get in somewhere.” I could only look around the confines of our car and think … WHERE?? We were on the highway! My sister in Illinois even advised us to seek shelter ASAP. I told her we were still driving on the highway. She said if it started hailing, we HAD to seek shelter.

The shelter thing was another problem. At first, we thought my dad had arranged for us to have a hotel room waiting by the time we got there. That’s what my sister in Illinois had told me before we left. But as we got closer to St. Louis, she revealed the bad news: My dad had NOT gotten us a room. We had to find somewhere to get a room. The problem with that was that we were very low on money and barely had enough for a room. I told my relatives and my cousin in Missouri rented us a room. (THANK YOU, CAROL!!! YOU ROCK!!) We were soooo relieved we now had a room to go to.

The next problem was getting there! Because of the storm, exits and roads were closed. There were police cars everywhere. It was so surreal. We ended up being commandeered onto the highway and ended up in a city that was about a half hour away from St. Louis! GAH!!! We were there then we weren’t there! So we drove back. Miraculously, my husband found alternative routes that were not closed and we finally got to our hotel room in St. Louis. PHEW! We finally made it!

And with our feet on the ground, too.

We had made it through the storm.

When I awoke the next morning, I turned on the news. My jaw dropped. I could not believe the amount of devastation the tornado had wrecked the night before. And we had driven through it!! I took a picture of one particular image of the damage that was on the news and sent it back to my friend in Oregon. She, too, thought that was pretty bad destruction from the storm. (I still have the newspaper from that day with all of the pictures in it.)

We finally got to the hospital and I got to see my mother. I must admit, my first sight of her was a shock. She did not look good. She had a tube down her throat to help her breathe. All these tubes and everything. It was pretty bad.

But I was just so insanely grateful I was finally seeing her again. Finally, after all these years, I was with my mother again. We tried to talk to each other but she could not talk very well. She was in and out of sleep and woozy from all of the drugs they were giving her. She did have problems remembering things.

I just held her hand and let her know we were all there. I told her we loved her and promised to visit her as much as we could. I also prayed over her, pleading to God to help her. Before she went into surgery, she and I prayed together.

At one point, it was really hard for me to continue seeing my mother like that. I had to cut one visit short because I couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. My dad saw this breakdown and advised me, “Don’t fall apart.” He reminded me we needed to stay positive and upbeat. We couldn’t let her see us crying and all broken up about her situation. That would NOT help her to get better.

The whole thing was just getting to be too much for me to handle. I texted my sister in California about this. She said, “I know, I’m sorry.” Somehow, that sentiment helped me to feel a little better. Maybe she understood what I was feeling. And it kinda helped that she understood. Somebody understood this. It was like she had given me a hug from across the miles. So after that, when I prayed for my mother, I asked God to help me out a little bit, too. Just give me the strength to get through this.

Yes, my mother was finally able to have her surgery. It was a miracle. She was getting better, but she still needed surgery. That was crucial to her recovery. On her way to surgery, the nurses brought her bed to a stop in the hallway so that she could finally meet her 3-year-old grandson, Jesse. I will never forget that moment the two of them just looked at each other, Jesse smiling and Mom holding his hand. It was a dream come true.

While Mom was in surgery, I kept quietly praying she would get through it. I was ready to shout for joy when my cousin texted me to let me know she was out of surgery – and that she was doing fine. I also sent up a prayer of gratitude that she’d made it through.

After her surgery, Mom looked like Mom again. I don’t know if that makes any sense. She just seemed more … “alive.” Like herself again. She was even able to talk a little bit. My dad and I were with her. My mother could not use much of a voice to talk with and my dad had trouble understanding her. So I relied on lipreading to figure out what she was saying. My dad said it was a good thing I could do that.

We visited her for that day and then the next until we had to regretfully leave for the trip home. We managed to do some sightseeing while we were out there (took a ton of pictures) and reunite with relatives I hadn’t seen for ages. My children got to meet these relatives, too. Even I met for the first time relatives I had only heard about. We had all reconnected on Facebook before this trip, but actually seeing them in person did a world of good. I had visited with my mother on Easter at the hospital but we also had Easter dinner with my cousin at her house. I learned what amazing relatives I had. These people opened up their homes and their wallets to us during this time. They were just so awesome and I don’t think this trip would have been possible had it not been for them. Thank you to all of yous who helped us out and gave your hugs and support. And thank you to those who visited my mother at the hospital right along with us!

When the time came to leave St. Louis, leave my mother AGAIN, I was really upset, but I tried to hang in there. We HAD to go home. There was no two ways around that. My husband had to go back to work. The kids had to go back to school. I tried to be tough about it, but inside, my heart was breaking. I know by now I should be used to being so far apart from my mother. But it’s hard. It really is. I didn’t want to leave her. But …. we had to leave. It was time to go. Saying goodbye was so difficult, but I promised her I would call. (And I have, when there is an answer and she can talk). So on April 26th, we left for home.

After we got back home, I kept tabs on how my mother was doing with phone calls, texts and Facebook. Thankfully, she is recovering. I pray she will continue to recover and that soon she will be able to go back to her home in Illinois again.

Thank you, Tall Oaks!

2011-04-30T21:17:00.000-07:00

It used to be that every time I went on a road trip, I would take my dog, Chewbacca (aka “Chewie”) along with me. Of course, this compromised our lodging wherever it was we went, but I love this dog like I love my own child, and I just couldn’t bear to leave him behind.

That was until traveling WITHOUT my dog was a requirement. That meant figuring out what to do about Chewie. On our first trip away from home, I asked a friend if his teenage son could come over each day to feed Chewie and let him outside to go to the bathroom, but that didn’t work out very well. The friend's son ended up just leaving my backdoor open the entire time we were gone and pouring out a ginormous amount of dog food for Chewie to eat from. The second time we had to leave town, we hired a dogsitter to come into our home and feed the dogs and let them out to use the bathroom. (This was during a time I was petsitting, so there were two dogs.) This situation worked out much better.

On the other hand, for our recent trip to St. Louis, we didn’t hire the dogsitter this time around. I don’t know why my husband didn’t suggest her, as she was a lovely person who did such a good job of caring for the dogs, but this time he suggested a kennel. I thought of my friend (and Jesse’s preschool teacher) Kim, since she’s a dog owner herself, but my husband really pushed the kennel idea.

The idea of leaving my little buddy at a dog kennel filled me with dread. I’d heard so many horror stories of animals being abused and neglected at dog kennels. I didn’t want to chance putting Chewie into that situation. But I calmed my fears by just telling myself I would be thorough in my search for a kennel and personally check out the premises. I have a strong intuition with people, so I would also pay attention to what kind of vibes I pick up from them.

I passed over a bunch of kennels that just didn’t seem right and settled on one that did: Tall Oaks Dog Resort. The “resort” idea made me think: EXPENSIVE! But I checked their rates and it seemed really fair. I explored the web site and liked what I saw. Saw some good comments about this place. Everything looked good so far.

One problem, though: I didn’t have Chewie’s shot records. I lost them in the move from California to Oregon. I debated whether or not I’d have any success in placing Chewie with this kennel.

Still, I thought, it wouldn’t hurt to give them a try.

So I called them up, hoping whoever answered didn’t wig out over a relay call. (Sadly, a lot of hearing people still don’t get it that the deaf must use relay to make phone calls to them. I have had the lovely experience of a lot of hearing people thinking relay was a scam and hanging up before I could get a word in edgewise.) Fortunately, the lady who answered, Heather, had no problem accepting my relay call. She was very friendly and helpful as we talked on the phone. I explained the situation with Chewie’s shot records and she said it was no problem, we could try to get a copy from his last vet in California. (He didn’t have one in Oregon at this time.) So I called Eldorado Animal Hospital in Palm Desert, CA, and asked about Chewie’s shot records. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any shot records for Chewie on file, only for my other dog (who died in 2001). I could only shake my head. How could they NOT have his shot records?? Good grief! Well, it was what it was. So I called Heather back and explained the situation. She suggested I take Chewie to a veterinarian business they use and get him updated on the essential shots. Fortunately, the vet was able to see him that same day, Chewie got his shots, and everything was all set.

My daughter accompanied me on this errand. Before I could visit the kennel, however, I had to get Chewie some dog food from the store. We also took a favorite pillow he likes to sleep on. When we arrived, I immediately had a good feeling about the place. It’s out in the country with LOTS of room for animals to romp and explore. The entire front of the house is animal-friendly and there was even a sign on the door alerting visitors that a delay in answering might mean the owners were busy with the animals. The owners, Heather and Frank, were very friendly and welcomed us with smiles and enthusiasm. I held my breath on how Chewie would react to them, knowing he barks at strangers a lot, but he actually didn’t bark at them at all. Good sign! He immediately took to Frank, and I smiled as I noted how comfortable Chewie seemed as he sat on Frank’s lap. The kennel was like a second home to him.

There were good vibes all around so I agreed to leave Chewie with them. I’ll have to admit that I cried a little on my way back home. I’ve had Chewie ever since he was a puppy, and especially after learning he has a heart condition, he means even more to me than ever. But we had important business ahead. We had to travel to St. Louis to be with my mother. I had to focus on that.

And, at the same time, knowing he was being taken care of while we were away was a big weight off of my shoulders. It allowed me to enjoy our trip and focus my energies on my mother.

While in St. Louis, I received occasional updates from Tall Oaks on Chewie’s progress. I was glad to know he was doing well. And relieved that I left information with them on how to reach me on my cell phone since I hardly had any Internet access while away.

When we returned to Eugene, Oregon, I was very eager to get Chewie back into my arms. I missed my little C-Dawg. When I picked him up, he appeared just as clean, healthy and content as he had been when I left him. He kept staying by my side, and I could tell he missed me, too. I allowed him time to explore the yard a little before we left. It was so good to see my dog again and bring him home.

Thank you, Heather and Frank, for taking care of my dog while we were away. It was definitely one less worry for us and it helped knowing that Chewie was doing just fine while we were away. We’ll definitely bring him by for an occasional visit and be sure to recommend you to all of our friends.

And of course, after we got home with Chewie, I spoiled him like crazy. Gave him treats, lots of love and hugs, bought him fancy dog food and a brand new bed.

(To see a picture of Chewie on their web site, go here

Back home!

2011-04-29T09:51:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a short blog post because I am trying to get caught up on a ton of things that had to be put on hold while we took a road trip to St. Louis to be with my mother during her emergency medical situation.

The good news is that my mother is on the road to recovery. Her surgery was a success. I literally saw her "brought back to life" the day after her surgery. It was like my mother was back. If that makes sense! It will take her some time to adjust and completely recover, but news of her doing well is encouraging. Go, Mom!!

I am so very, very grateful to everyone for their prayers and good wishes for my mother.

Also, I want to say I have some of the most AMAZING relatives back east. You guys are so AWESOME!! Thank you to everyone who opened their arms, their homes, their wallets and their methods of communication to us during our stay in St. Louis. I will never forget any of you. It was so good to finally meet some of you and to see others again I have not seen for over 20 years!! It has been so long since I have been back east. Thank you, also, for all of your prayers, texts and support for my mother during this time.

And thank you to our friends in Eugene who watched over our house while we were gone. You guys rock!

I will post about our travels from Eugene, Oregon to St. Louis, Missouri. What an adventure it was!! I will also share pics. We have soooo many pictures to go through!!

For now, it's a matter of getting caught up and getting our lives back in order again. Lots of laundry to do and luggage to unpack. Lots of business to take care of today -- among them, picking my dog up from the kennel he was staying at while we were away. I sure missed him while we were gone, but it was a HUGE load off of my shoulders knowing he was being taken care of during this time. It's gonna be a busy three days getting everything back in order. I am looking forward to getting back in business on Monday.

Enjoy the weekend and God bless!

I surrender

2011-04-18T13:53:00.000-07:00

This is an update post from my last one. We are still trying to get the money together so we can travel to see my mother. I hope...really hope that can happen.

She is not doing well today. It has just been one thing after another after another. First it was her stomach, then her leg, her kidneys and her heart....

She is not expected to live much longer. The doctor has given her 48-72 hours left to live.

I am struggling to keep myself together. It's getting harder and harder for me to focus on everything else besides this. As a wife and mother, I am acting on autopilot, but on the inside, I am extremely fragile right now. I am trying to fight back the tears. I will NOT shed a tear while there is still hope!

But I am scared to death. I don't want to lose my mother.

But at the same time....I accept God's will. She is literally in God's hands now. If He decides it is time to call her home, I accept this.

Yes, it's unfair because I haven't seen her for so long. And she has yet to meet her 3-year-old grandson.

Yes, it makes me angry she is being taken away from everyone like this.

But I am surrendering it to God. I surrender my mother's fate to God.

At least, if she goes, she will finally be without pain and can have peace.

I want God to heal her. But I accept what He decides. As painful as it is if she goes.

Still praying for her. Every minute of the day.

We had one miracle, that her cancer was taken away. I am praying for a second miracle, that she will live.

But I accept whatever God decides.

If you could do one thing for me, one thing for her, please pray for my mother. Please.

UPDATE: We have the funds for travel. Thank God! We are making arrangements to travel out to be with my mother. I pray we will get there in time to say goodbye....if we have to say goodbye.

Not out of the woods yet

2011-04-16T10:36:00.000-07:00

The other day, my mother was officially declared cancer-free. Finally, after years of battling this disease, the cancer is gone. It’s truly a miracle. I cried when I heard the news and have thanked God every day that she is finally free of that disease.

It was the best news I have received all year. It is THE best news of this year. The best gift anyone could ever receive.

Unfortunately, however, she is not yet out of the woods.

A day after this came about, I learned that my mother was rushed into emergency surgery. My sister and I were sending texts back and forth while she was at the airport waiting for her flight. (And she apologized to me about the email. We’re blaming it on her pregnancy hormones.) Then she told me right before boarding her plane that she’d just heard that our mom was rushed into surgery. I logged in at Facebook to find out from my relatives out there what was going on. There are problems with my mother’s stomach and that’s why she had to go into surgery. I immediately sent out a prayer request for her.

Meanwhile, I started praying. People in my network let me know they were praying for her, too.

I prayed so hard for her yesterday. Fighting back tears and fear, I focused on asking God to help my mother. Yesterday, I prayed more in one day than I have ever prayed in my life. Jennifer prayed for her, too. She even included her grandma when she said grace at dinnertime.

I kept my phone with me, relying on texts from my cousin for news, but I kept checking my Facebook messages for news, too. I called the hospital both while my mother was in surgery and after she’d been moved to the ICU. They could not complete the surgery because she is too weak. They planned to complete the surgery tomorrow.

The situation stressed me out. I could barely focus on anything else besides my mother. I kept checking my phone and checking my messages. I know it annoyed my husband I was on the computer so much, especially right after I’d put dinner on the table, but this was (is) an emergency. I just could NOT focus on anything else! I’d made, dinner, sure. I’d edited and resubmitted an article to DMS, sure. But not much else was a priority for me.

In a way, the distractions could be a good thing. I could barely sleep last night because I was so worried. But I stopped myself from pacing around the house and wringing my hands and sat down to watch the movie Secretariat instead. (This was my FOURTH attempt to watch the movie! And I finally got to watch the whole thing. And because Jennifer could not sleep, either, she sat down to watch it with me. And remind me again how much she wanted a horse. Well, I want one, too, but the horse ranch thing will have to wait for a future time.)

Now, as of today, things don’t look good for my mother. She might not make it if she goes back into surgery tomorrow. They have put her on a breathing tube. She isn’t doing well. And I’ve just learned she is going into surgery today.

Please, dear Jesus, please heal my mother. Please help her.

I am going to see if we can get out to St. Louis to be with her this weekend. We HAVE to go see her. We HAVE to be there. I have to accept the fact that she might not make it….which is why we need to get out there to be with her all the more. We NEED to be there. We must.

I’ll be praying that will happen, too. Somehow.

Just because I'm happy doesn't mean I don't care

2011-04-14T10:12:00.000-07:00

They say you should never assume something, because then you end up “making an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me.” But still, people assume. It seems like people can’t stop assuming things, especially about people. What’s tragic is that they tend to believe their assumptions are true. Never mind trying to see if it is true. They’re gonna go ahead and believe it is true! This has happened so many times with me. People have made assumptions about me. I hate it when people make assumptions about me. But what I hate even more is when they believe those assumptions.

Case in point: This situation with my mother. She has had cancer for a long time, and lately, it has gotten worse. Thing of it is, I have not seen my mother for YEARS. I thought it was four years. But now I think it’s been three years. Anyway, it’s been a long time. And with her cancer getting worse, her health deteriorating and things not looking so good, the pressure is on EVERYONE – all seven of her children – to see her before she goes. To be there with her.

I have no argument with that. In fact, I agree with it.

The problem is that it seems like one of my sisters thinks that I don’t. Somehow or another, she thinks that just because I don’t jump into a car or onto a plane to go out to Illinois from Oregon, I don’t give a crap that my mother is dying.

Or the fact that I’m apparently “happy” with life. So happy that I can continue to work as if I don’t have a care in the world. Or take care of my children. Write books. LIVE MY LIFE.

Excuse me, when did it become law that EVERYONE is supposed to stop living their lives just because their mother is dying?

And I may not act all sad or dramatic or cry all the time. But that’s just because I decided one day I’m NOT going to live like that anymore. I have already been there, already done that. I won't go back to that. I decided one day, you know, I’m not going to be sad anymore.

But then I went from being sad to being ANGRY. Whoa, was I angry! I was screaming a lot. Stomping around a lot. Wearing a bitter look on my face all the time. Drinking really bad, too.

That was a path of self-destruction. The anger was just tearing me apart. I was angry because my mother has cancer, that the cancer is obviously winning the battle, angry I couldn’t see her and even angrier that I might not see her before she dies.

That anger was just really tearing me apart. It made me into a bad person. I didn’t like that person, either. I CHOSE to be happy instead of angry. I’m done with being sad. And I’m done with being angry.

I choose to be happy, right here and right now. Even as my mother is slowly slipping away from all of us and I can’t see her. I won’t put my life on hold for that. I have seen what letting that get to me does. It hurt me and it hurt the children. All of that sadness – walking around the house crying and being depressed all the time – and all of that anger – the screaming and stomping around – it was making life miserable for all of us.

So I said, no more. No more of that. I want to be happy. And I want my children to be happy.

But because I have made this decision, now people are thinking, “Gee, Dawn’s mother is dying, and she just doesn’t seem to care anymore.”

WRONG!!!

I DO care. I DO give a shit, contrary to what one of my sister’s thinks, who said in a message to me yesterday, “I ASSUME you give a shit.” I’m just tired of people talking to me like I DON’T.

I CANNOT let this thing with my mother get to me that way anymore. I CAN. NOT!

YES, I AM trying to get enough money together so we can go see her. You people will have to accept the fact that I won’t travel to my mother without the children. If I go, they go. That. Is. That.

YES, I care about what is going on with my mother. I DO CARE! So don’t you people dare treat me like I don’t. I DO!! I just have my own way of showing it.

I pray for her every day. I support her and her fight against this killer disease. I love her more than any words could ever say. I DO make an effort to call her as often as I can – if by some miracle, my calls get through over there. Or somebody answers the damn phone. And if by some miracle I have a CHANCE to call her. You know, life can get pretty dang busy for me on my end. Some people just don’t get it how much work I do taking care of the kids, the house, running errands and TRYING to write all in one day. I have responsibilities, people. I can’t sit at the computer 24/7. I call when I can.

And unlike some people, I don’t have the luxury of grabbing the children and jumping into the car to drive back and forth from Oregon and Illinois. I am not blessed with the gift to snap my fingers and make enough money for travel to magically appear in my hand. You do know it takes money to travel, right???

I DO care about what is going on with my mother. But I will NOT allow this to tear my life apart. I am NOT going to act like my mother is dead NOW – because she is NOT dead! She is ALIVE! I am going to live as though she is alive, because she IS alive!

And while she is alive, I will be happy that she is alive. I will thank God Almighty that another day is here that my mother is alive. I won’t live as though she is dead. I want to be happy. And I want my children to be happy, too. I want us ALL to be happy and enjoy the fact that Carol Colclasure is living for another day! Instead of us all being sad with this…”cancer cloud” hanging over our heads.

And meanwhile, we, on this end, are doing what we can to make arrangements to go be with her before she is gone. Believe me, it IS on the “to do” list. It IS a priority. I KNOW we need to go see her. We WILL go see her. It’s going to happen.

So please don’t treat me like I don’t care. Because I do.

Peace out!

UPDATE: As of today, the doctors have revealed that my mother's cancer is GONE!! SHE IS NOW OFFICIALLY CANCER-FREE!!!! Hallelujah! Thank you, Jesus!! Praise God! All of our prayers have been answered!!!!!

Eye on the prize

2011-04-10T10:22:00.000-07:00

So I wasn’t able to return to school last year. I am determined to do so this year – especially now that I have a part-time gig going on that is bringing in some extra money each month.

I have even decided on an occupation. No, it’s not medical coding. I only chose that one because of the perks. I did some serious soul-searching on this one. I figured if I pursued something that I am actually passionate about, then I will do better in that field. I’ll be happier, too. Life is too short to waste away at a job you hate.

And while writing and publishing are my whole world, I know I want to pursue something OUTSIDE of that as a career: Herbal medicine. If there’s anything else I am passionate about, it is that.

I know there are risks associated with being an herbalist. But, really, there are risks associated with everything you do. I used to be terrified I might give somebody the wrong herb for their problems, but how is that different from the doctor who is secretly terrified of botching a diagnosis? Or a surgeon botching a surgery?

They accept those risks and try to avoid making those mistakes. I must be the same way if I am to become an herbalist.

I just really would feel better following my heart on this one.

So I was back to looking for where I could go to receive training on becoming a certified herbalist. And I found a school – an ACCREDITED school, at that. A REAL school: The American College of Healthcare Sciences. Best of all, they offer correspondence courses for the study of herbal medicine. And they’re based in Portland, which is a 2-hour drive for me. Convenient if I have to go there for lab work or an exam.

When I found out about this school, I became VERY excited. Yay! An accredited school that can help me become a certified herbalist!! That is so cool. I’m so grateful I found out about it, and even more grateful that they offer correspondence courses. I am hoping I can get Jesse signed up to go to preschool fulltime in the Fall, when I plan to enroll, and if so, I’ll be grateful I’ll have extra time for that, as well as any trip to Portland should that come about.

Right now, however, I’m in the process of paying off certain medical bills. That stack of medical bills just kept piling up and it got a little scary. Thanks to this gig I have going on, I decided it’s time to start paying them all off. I am working my way through them, but we are also saving up money to go visit my mother in Illinois. I haven’t seen her for 4 years! Well, maybe 5 years. I have lost count, really. But I DO need to see her, especially since she has been getting sicker.

So, that’s my plan. Save up to go see Mom. Save up to pay off the medical bills. Then save up for school. As it is, the gig will continue even after I start school, so that extra money will help to pay for any other educational needs, as well.

I am looking forward to beginning that new chapter in my life. I can’t wait to go back to school and receive certification in a trade. Hooray!

Lost cops?

2011-04-08T09:16:00.000-07:00

Never let it be said that nothing interesting ever happens at a bus stop. In this case, Jennifer’s bus stop. I once saw a girl facedown on the sidewalk at this bus stop and panicked, thinking something had happened to her. (She was actually asleep. LOL) I thought that was the most excitement I’d see at that particular bus stop. The events which unfolded this morning proved me wrong.

We arrived early, and while Jen and I stood there huddled together, freezing our butts off, I noticed a police car driving around the area. I didn’t think too much on it, but I had a feeling something was up. Soon the other kids arrived, as well as one of the moms, and we were all standing there, making small talk.

Suddenly, the kids got excited about something down the street. I turned around to see three police cars racing up the street, sirens and lights going off. I had to pull Jennifer back to keep her on the sidewalk because she was practically getting into the street to see them. They raced past us and I could literally smell the rubber of their tires burning. It was two police vehicles and one city police vehicle (if that's what you call a regular car with sirens on the inside?). They pulled into the parking lot of the apartment complex across the street, but not for long. The car in the back started pulling out backwards. The other two vehicles followed. They went up the street and into another parking area adjacent the building. But then they came back out again (this time, not in reverse) and zoomed past us to pull in at another parking area of that building.

I shook my head as I looked at the mom. “They’re lost,” she said.

I laughed. That’s not supposed to happen! Aren't police officers supposed to know their neighborhood??

Anyway, they came back out of THAT parking area again, flew past us yet again, this time with a state police car joining their pursuit, and they pulled into the lot they had gone into on the second try.

“Don’t they have computer maps in their cars?” I asked the mom.

She modded and the look on her face indicated that she didn’t get this situation, either. How could those cops get lost?

I told her about how I’d noticed a police car driving around the area earlier and that maybe it was canvassing the area. She agreed that that was probably what was going on.

I had to feel sorry for the bus driver, who was down the street caught in the middle of this chase. Maybe she didn’t know whether to stay put or keep going if the cops had finally gone into the right parking lot they meant to go into. When it seemed like they did find the right lot, she drove the bus on up to the stop and opened the doors. As the kids proceeded to climb onto the bus, once again the cops came speeding past us, lights and sirens going off. And then they went past us AGAIN just as the bus was pulling away.

While we were watching all this excitement, a guy on his bike stopped riding past us to check it all out. I noticed he was talking to the mom (couldn’t read his lips) then he took off on his bike back the way he came to check it out. A lady at the apartment complex across the street came over to us to talk about what had happened, motioning with her hand how the cops had driven all around over there.

Finally, it seemed like the cops were at the location they meant to be at because they pretty much stayed put this time. It had been like watching a tennis match, with them going back and forth. Me and the mom had a laugh over the whole thing and wished each other well before parting ways. After I got into my car, started the engine and drove away, I noticed the guy on his bike riding down the street, talking on his cell phone.

At least all that excitement helped us to forget about how cold it was.

Bloody waffles, anyone?

2011-03-31T21:39:00.000-07:00

I know, “bloody waffles” sounds like something you’d see on a menu for a Halloween feast or in some kind of vampire novel. But that’s actually what Jennifer almost ate for breakfast this morning.

Well, sort of.

As I was getting the kids their breakfast this morning, I clumsily got my finger nicked by a frozen waffle, which I was about to pop into the toaster for Jennifer. I know, how dumb is it that somebody could actually get their finger nicked by a frozen waffle?? Nicked so badly that it would bleed?

But that’s exactly what happened to me. The evil waffle nicked my finger. To my shock, it started bleeding. BAD.

But I had no time to sit around and wait for the bleeding to stop. So as I tried to keep my finger wrapped in a paper towel to slow the oozing blood, I continued with preparing breakfast. This would probably gross somebody out, of course, but I was careful NOT to get any blood on the kids’ food. After all, my finger was wrapped with a paper towel!

I tried to be nonchalant about the injury but of course Jesse spotted my finger all wrapped up and became concerned. He wanted to know what happened. I explained the situation and unwrapped my finger to show him the bloody spot where I got nicked. When Jennifer saw it, she almost freaked. I assured her I was going to stop the bleeding.

Still, she became concerned about why I’d gone ahead and made them breakfast while my finger was bleeding – especially since the kind of waffles I served her were strawberry. With red spots all over them.

She took one look at those waffles and got upset with me. She thought I’d dripped blood all over her food!

After I finished laughing so hard I almost bust a gut, I explained to her they were STRAWBERRY waffles, and all those red dots were the strawberries.

Even as she, too, laughed over the mix-up, she decided she didn’t want the waffles and opted for a bowl of cereal instead. I was too busy trying to stifle extra laughter to be upset over the wasted food.

I guess the thought of eating bloody waffles grossed her out too much to eat something that looked too much like them.

As I drove the kids to school, I started to think about what I would eat for breakfast after I got home. I almost laughed when remembering the “bloody” waffles left in the freezer, but then I “grred” over that darn waffle nicking my finger so bad that it started to bleed.

Eat the bloody waffles myself? No, thanks. Those things are DANGEROUS!

I tossed those evil waffles into the garbage instead.

And from now on, I'll stick to BLUEBERRY!

Why is this an issue?

2011-03-26T08:54:00.000-07:00

Recently, one of my cousins posted a “post this for 1 hour if you agree” status update on her Facebook page. The message was in support of gay rights. Someone on her Friends list posted judgmental comments and made discriminating remarks against gays and homosexuals. It got so bad that she had to block him. (This was a childhood friend.) While I’m all for gay rights and agree we should not judge them (only God can judge), I have to wonder why a person’s sexual preference is even made an issue. Why is it so important that we all know what everyone does in the bedroom?

The reason why I feel this way is because I just don’t see the logic in judging someone based on their sexual preference. Whatever happened to judging someone based on their character? Their skills? How about judging someone for how they treat others? Is any of this making any sense?

A person’s sexual preference does not interfere with how well they can do a job or how they treat others. Heck, it does not even influence how they treat their co-workers! (And on that note, I’ve heard of some straight employees who treat their co-workers pretty rotten.)

And yet, sadly, we live in a society where a person’s sexual preference is being judged, even harshly. This is just so wrong. If a person is gay, then no matter what they have done in the past, what kind of perfect record they have at their job or how nice they have been to others, they are OUT OF HERE. Apparently, some people are just so insecure, self-righteous, homophobic or judgmental that they simply won’t tolerate being around someone who is homosexual. Once again a person’s sexual preference is being judged, and not their character.

In some way, I guess people are always going to find something to judge another person with. If it’s not their sexual preference, it’s their religion, the color of their skin or what university they graduated from. People these days are so judgmental of others that to NOT have some kind of judgment against people seems almost unreasonable.

We should not judge other people. It’s not for us to get on our high horse and say “I am better than you.” Really, is anybody really so perfect themselves that they can be in a position to judge everybody else? And on the note of judging a homosexual: Can’t people even see past this difference and get to know the PERSON instead? Stop seeing someone as “gay” or “lesbian.” See them as a HUMAN BEING.

Because, bottom line, that’s what they are. That’s what we all are. We’re all in this world together, and if we want to survive in this world together, we need to stop this hatred, stop this discrimination and stop this judgment of each other. Life itself is hard enough. Let's not make this journey any harder.

It's not helping, it's cheating

2011-03-18T23:59:00.000-07:00

Several years ago, one of my sisters turned in a report on the history of music. The teacher told her “very good” and gave her an “A” on her paper. The only problem was, it wasn’t her paper. She didn’t write it; I did.

For as long as I can remember, we all took turns doing each other’s homework. My mom would do homework assignments, as did my older siblings. We thought nothing of it. Sure, it was cheating, but at least everybody got a passing grade. I can still remember how, in high school, another sister called her BFF up every night of the school week to get answers to her math homework. I can still remember how I was asked to do another sister’s assignment, which was to write a letter to her congressman about animal testing, and how I was asked to write a different draft because the one I wrote was too sarcastic. (I have always been something of a smartass.)

After a while, I finally wised up and realized something was wrong here. This system wasn't right. It didn't seem right I was writing everybody's book reports or essays. They should do it themselves. Just because I was the writer in the family, and that I could put sentences together more coherently, it wasn't fair I was being used this way by my siblings. And yes, it IS being used! Eventually, I declined requests to write somebody's paper for them. They had to write it themselves. After a while, they took their "will you please do my homework for me?" requests to other people.

Sadly, many of my siblings are doing their kids' homework, too. Apparently, all that matters is the grade they get on their paper, not that the kid actually learns anything!

But the thing of it is, even as my siblings continue that tradition with their kids, I don’t do that with mine. And I don’t do that for anybody else, either. I won’t help somebody cheat. I won’t do anybody else’s homework anymore. I won’t become some kind of homework mill.

Maybe some parents don’t think it’s a big deal, but I do. I mean, how are kids supposed to learn anything if somebody else is doing their homework for them? It’s not right. And, fortunately, my daughter also understands that this is not right. When I told her about this, and about how I refuse to do that kinda thing anymore, she gasped and said, “Cheating is bad!” I’m glad she feels that way. Maybe I'm on the right track in not doing her homework for her.

And here I was, thinking we were done with diapers

2011-03-16T16:22:00.000-07:00

For what has seemed like an eternity, we have been pottytraining Jesse. It has been a struggle to get him completely pottytrained. It’s been a journey of ups and downs, lasting for months on end. Yet we are hopeful, encouraged by the little victories (even if they are funny victories, such as Jesse running out of the bathroom while wearing NOTHING under the waist and announcing, “I went poopie in the potty!”). And in spite of it taking SO FREAKING LONG for him to wear only underpants instead of Pull-Ups, we persevere.

Ah, yes, the Pull-Ups. That savior who is oh-so-forgiving when it comes to the occasional accident. (And it saves us the job of washing the accident away. Some days, he’ll go through his 10-plus pairs of underwear because of accidents! And meanwhile, I’m cleaning up and washing all of those pairs of dirty underwear.)

Only today, there were no Pull-Ups. We had underwear for him, sure, but no Pull-Ups.

I’d told my husband last night that we were out of Pull-Ups, and could he please pick some up on his way home from work? But, silly me, I’d forgotten that he now gets off work at 2 a.m. instead of 1 a.m., so of course all the stores were closed after he got off work. He couldn’t get the Pull-Ups.

So what was I to do? I needed to get Jesse to preschool, but I didn’t want him to be wetting his pants. Or worse.

Then I remembered something. Not too long ago, when I was doing some organizing in the garage, I came across Jesse’s diaper bag. I remember cleaning it out and finding diapers in it. Diapers that were actually a size he could fit into.

So I ran into the garage, grabbed one of the diapers from the yard sale pile, and double-checked the size. Yep, perfect. I went back into the house determined to get my son dressed and ready for school, even though that meant putting a diaper on him. My resolve lasted as far as me walking to his room to wake him up. I literally sulked there in the hallway. A diaper. I am putting a DIAPER on my preschooler! Talk about taking a step backwards. We’re trying to be DONE with diapers for good, not have to use them all over again! It was embarrassing. Humiliating. And even though Jesse is only 3 and probably wouldn’t even notice, I thought it was STILL humiliating for him to wear a diaper.

And, actually, he did notice. When I was cleaning him up while getting him ready, I started to put the diaper on him. He freaked. He panicked. It was like the Incredible Hulk.

A diaper? Forget it!

“No diaper!” he cried, moving away from the diaper I held as if it was a biohazard.

Now, even as I agreed with him on the whole DIAPERS ARE EVIL thing and how he is a big boy now, and not a baby anymore (this has been the message we have been trying to get through to him during this whole pottytraining saga), we had no choice. We had to use a diaper. Forget underwear; I just knew he’d end up wetting his pants!

I explained to him that we didn’t have any Pull-Ups and that we HAD to use the diaper. I apologized to him about this and told him I know he didn’t like diapers and I don’t like them either, but it was either that or stay home from school. Eventually, he calmed down and understood the situation. He allowed me to put the diaper on and, surprisingly, he even joked about wearing one after it was on.

As I proceeded to dress him, I started to worry. What if Kim saw him wearing a diaper and flew off the handle about it? My husband reminded me when Jesse started preschool that they won’t let him attend if he’s in diapers. And I didn’t want to send a preschooler to preschool while “still in diapers.” But then I knew we had to do what we had to do (maybe she would understand that) and it’s not like I DO send him to preschool in diapers! He wears Pull-Ups!

Yes, we could have gone to the store this morning to get him Pull-Ups before dropping him off at school, but we were already an hour late (stupid alarm clock!) and I had some work to get done. I got the Pull-Ups AFTER I dropped Jesse off at preschool. We got rid of his diaper after he got home (and it was a very wet diaper – surprise, surprise. Oh, someday I will get my son to use that toilet at his preschool! I hope!!) and got him into a Pull-Up. Next week, however, he’ll be in his underwear for all of Spring Break, and I’m hoping THAT will be the week we’ll finally be done relying on Pull-Ups.

Because we sure are finally done relying on diapers.

Should we blame the school?

2011-03-11T22:38:00.000-08:00

Because we FINALLY had some nice weather today, and because the kids are finally over their fevers/coughs/sore throats, I took them to the park this afternoon. Before then, they spent some time out in the backyard, working with plants. I was so proud of them; they were pulling weeds, watering plants and checking on flowers, all without my asking! Anyway, after the park, we piled into the car and went to the grocery store. Everything was going fine, we were in the freezer section picking out dinner, when Jesse pointed at someone and said, "Hey! You're stupid!"

Jennifer looked at me in shock. I double-checked with her to see if he had said what I had THOUGHT he said. Yes, she confirmed that he did indeed call a complete stranger "stupid."

I grew up in a family where name-calling ran rampant. I myself called others names, but what hurt me the most was my father often calling me "stupid." This left a wound that has never really healed. But this is why I am so against name-calling. I just won't stand for it. We don't call names at home, so I had to wonder why Jesse was starting to call people a name.

It's possible he heard it on a TV show. But my husband thinks otherwise. He thinks Jesse has been exposed to name-calling at his preschool.

This is not the first time he has blamed Jesse's preschool for something. Sometime after Jesse started preschool, he began hitting and kicking us. We don't allow that kind of behavior at home. We don't hit and kick each other! (Unlike how my own childhood was like.) So after he started doing this, my husband thought Jesse picked up on that behavior at school.

I cannot really tell for certain if this is true. I HAVE quizzed Jennifer a couple of times on what goes on at that school, because she has spent the day there a time or two. She said that hitting, kicking and name-calling NEVER happened at the school. And believe me, I know Kim! She is one of the most gentle and nonviolent people I have ever met. She has enormous patience with those kids.

But, still...we have to wonder. What if a child did call someone a name? What if Jesse did pick up on that from his preschool?

Then again, we must remember: He's 3. He doesn't need to be exposed to these things at preschool for them to happen. He's a boy, he's a toddler, he's working through his emotions the only way he knows how.

And of course, I'm probably just making excuses here....

We have made it clear to Jesse we won't tolerate name-calling. In fact, at dinner, he called Jennifer a name and my husband had to remove him from the table to have a face-to-face talk with him about this name-calling business. I only hope it is enough. I don't want to take Jesse out of preschool just because he is exhibiting this behavior. Hopefully, something will click for him and the next time he sees a child calling someone a name, he will know that that's bad instead of copying it.

No more "Selfish Saturday"

2011-03-06T11:32:00.000-08:00

Some time ago, I posted about “Selfish Saturdays.” I created this because I REALLY needed to find some way to take a break from everything and have some “me time.” So Saturdays became my day to just get out and spend an hour or so enjoying a meal, having a coffee, reading or just exploring Eugene. Hubby and I took turns enjoying this chance to have some time for ourselves; after I got home, he’d go out to the bookstore or…wherever.

However, lately I have realized that I don’t need “Selfish Saturday” anymore. Now that both of the kids are in school (with Jesse in school for 4 days of the week), I can have that time for myself more often than on just one day. In fact, I can enjoy a movie or take a long hot bath on any of those four days. I don’t have to leave the house anymore for that coveted “me time”! Sure, I create some “me time” in the mornings by getting up before the kids, but there are morning rituals there, and only so much time to enjoy that. By enjoying the “me time” while the kids are in school, I can enjoy it for much longer.

Of course, this can’t happen when the kids are sick or there’s no school. But to have at least one day to enjoy that time alone is better than none at all.

Also, I get my Saturdays back, which I am now using to “prepare for the week ahead” like I normally do on Sundays. Like yesterday, I did a ton of laundry, cleaned out my bedroom closet, put a bunch of stuff into storage bins and got things organized. I got the kids’ backpacks ready for Monday and checked on the lunch arrangement, just in case I didn’t have a lunch for Jennifer to take to school. Now we all relax on Sundays before the busy week starts.

I don’t miss “Selfish Saturdays.” I’m glad to be able to enjoy time with the kids on Saturdays again, because we don’t have much of that during the week, and now I get more done on the weekends. Now I look forward to having “me time” again while the kids are in school. Unfortunately, the new writing gig I have has me working like crazy while the kids are in school, but I still make sure I squeeze in some time to relax or watch that movie.

We don't need no Physical Education?

2011-02-12T09:32:00.000-08:00

This morning, I read an article about how the more physically active kids are, the better they will be at math. Well, it makes sense; there’s a lot of math and science involved in sports and play (such as physics in baseball).

Still, I could only grumble to myself over how physical education in my daughter’s school is grossly overlooked.

Last night at dinner, I was talking with Jennifer about P.E. at her school. Last year, we received occasional updates on what kind of progress is being made in P.E. This year, I don’t get any updates at all. So, I wanted to know what was up with P.E.

Jen told me that they only have P.E. once a week this year, and that all they do is play dodgeball. She went into a lecture about how much she loved P.E. last year, when they had P.E. three times a week and they did a whole host of activities: Jumping, climbing (especially climbing ropes), balancing exercises and running. Especially running!

This year, however, the amount of activity in her P.E. class has dropped considerably. Now I knew why the school sent home a note to parents about getting their kids into more physical activities. Apparently, the school can’t do it themselves! Sigh. Of course, they have recess, but recess only lasts anywhere from 10-15 minutes. That's just not enough time for kids to benefit from physical activity.

One thing Jennifer noticed about this change in P.E. is that it happened after they got a new gym coach. Her old P.E. coach was, well…old. Unfortunately. He retired last year. But, wow, to be around that man! He was bursting with energy! I was amazed at how energetic and passionate he was about exercise and physical education. He just really put himself into it. He actually cared, and he inspired so many people to get active. This year’s coach, who happens to be a younger overweight guy, didn’t strike me as very active when I met him at the start of the school year. He was quiet, stood around a lot and didn’t really seem interested in talking with anyone. Jennifer told me she misses her former P.E. coach. At least he had the kids doing more physical activity! And he really cared about how well they could do things, too. He encouraged them to keep trying and to get out there.

Once again, it’s up to the parents to take charge of their child’s level of physical activity. Apparently, investing ourselves in our child’s academic performance is not enough. We need to also make sure that they are excelling physically, because it seems like the schools just aren’t going to be able to do that anymore.

At least, my daughter’s school can’t.

What we want and what we get

2011-02-06T10:47:00.000-08:00

It's interesting how we sometimes get what we wish for -- especially when it comes to food. We'll often think something like, "Gee, I could go for a hamburger right now," and somebody shows up with a hamburger for us. Or we'll think how nice it would be to try a red velvet cupcake sometime, and we'll see just that at the store bakery.

This has happened to me a time or two. Once, I saw a picture posted on MySpace; a celebrity showing a pic of his breakfast. I laughed, nodded and said, "Eggs Benedict." Then I thought, Gee, I've never had Eggs Benedict. I wonder what it tastes like. I soon found out; I was having breakfast at a local restaurant one morning and Eggs Benedict was on the menu. Of course I tried it! They were delish. (A nod to Ye Olde Pancake House here in Eugene.) Recently, I was thinking about how nice it would be to have biscuits and gravy for breakfast. At a local Dari Mart I was at one morning, I was pleasantly surprised to see that they were offering just that as a breakfast choice for customers. Sweet!

One would think that I should be able to make these things myself. That if I want a hamburger, why not make some hamburgers? And, hey, I'm all for that! If I want to have sloppy joes for dinner, then I go to the store and get the stuff I need to make sloppy joes for dinner. If I wanna bake cookies, I go buy what I need to bake' em! That's not an issue. But sometimes, I won't have the money to buy the things I'll need to make the stuff that I crave. Or, I don't know how to make it. (Like Eggs Benedict!) Or, I won't be able to eat the stuff I crave because I'm watching my sugar intake. Or it just isn't available in these parts. (I still mourn never again enjoying one of those date shakes they make in the California desert.)

Or, sometimes, I'm just not able to make the things that I'll get a hankering for. Like the gravy on those biscuits. You know the kind; the sausage gravy. I just can't make sausage gravy. I have tried a time or two, but it just didn't turn out right. My mom was a whiz at making that stuff, but I could never get a handle on it. Nor could I figure out how to make fudge. I've tried making fudge but it didn't come out right. Ditto with steak, hash browns and fried chicken. I tried, failed, and gave up.

But now I'm thinking, maybe I shouldn't give up. Maybe I should try to figure out how to make those things again. The source of this inspiration? Corn muffins. Yesterday, I made corn muffins from scratch. It was my second attempt. My first attempt failed; they tasted gross. But these corn muffins were awesome. In fact, Jesse kept eating them up!

So I had tried to make something again which I failed at the first time. And the second attempt was a success. So why not try again with the other things?

Well, I have...with some. Steak, eggs, French toast. I've tried making them several times and never really got 'em right. Maybe I did on one or two occasions, but not consistently.

I suppose I should just keep at it. And pick up on the other things I pretty much labeled as "unlearnable." Maybe I'll get them right the next time. And if not, at least I'll work at it until I do.

When the morning is mine

2011-01-31T12:45:00.000-08:00

On weekday mornings, things tend to be shortened or rushed. I find a way to squeeze in my morning prayer and have a cup of coffee before I head out the door with the kids, but there’s so many days I wish I could get more out of my mornings, so to speak. As it is, I usually get up at 5 (give or take, depending on when I can get into bed -- I aim for 6 hours of sleep) just so I can have a little “me time” before I wake Jennifer up for school. So “get up early,” while still good advice, is not an option to get more, because I REALLY don’t see myself getting up earlier than that. So I pretty much resigned myself to just squeezing in a couple of “morning joys” for myself before it was time to get the day going, or at least cut down on how long I got to indulge in them.

Today was different. Jennifer does not have school today and Jesse’s time-of-arrival at the preschool is iffy. (It’s 8ish or 9ish.) So that meant I did get more time to do things this morning, because I didn’t HAVE to wake the kids up! Yay!

And what a lovely morning it was, too.

As always, I had my morning prayer. Let the dog out and enjoyed my cup of coffee – but this time, I was able to sit down and enjoy that coffee, instead of grabbing a drink from it here and there as I helped the kids get ready.

Also, I got to have a longer workout. Hooray! I really got into that workout and started to feel bummed when the 20 minutes was almost up. Then I realized, I don’t have to stop after 20 minutes! LET’S! DO! 30! And that’s exactly what I got to do this morning: A 30-minute workout. Awesome! I was really supercharged and revved up after that! Sweaty, too, though, but that’s a good sign.

After the workout, I also got to enjoy a nice, long hot shower. How nice not to have to rush through a shower like always! Even after I got out of the shower and got dressed, the kids were STILL asleep! Yayness.

Another thing I got to do this morning? Enjoy the sunrise – I mean REALLY enjoy it. Instead of looking out the window to catch sight of the sun appearing in the sky as I get the kids ready (or even see it from my car window as I drive Jen to her bus stop), I got to sit in a chair and stare out the window, enjoying a bowl of oatmeal as I watched the colors take over the previously-gray sky. It was breathtaking and so refreshing. Sometimes, seeing those beautiful colors of purple, orange, pink and white light up the clouds is just like catching a glimpse of Heaven.

Watching out the window, I saw the lady walking her army of Chihuahuas along the street. We see her from time to time. It is so cute watching those little dogs scurry along their way.

And, finally, I had a chance to check my email. It was nice to have time to answer emails so early in the morning!

Then Jesse woke up and so started the “busyness” of the day. Yet I went into it grateful for the chance to have that extended amount of “me time” to enjoy before taking the day on, because then I was ready to do the “them time.”

My four-month goals

2011-01-25T20:34:00.000-08:00

Today, I was thinking about how nice it would be if I could FINALLY visit the Queen Mary ship in California. I learned that this year marks the 75th anniversary of its maiden voyage. Chances are good they'll have events planned. It's the perfect opportunity for me to promote my book, Spook City, because the Queen Mary is in it! Maybe I'll be lucky enough to do a reading there.

Then I got my head out of the clouds and came back down to earth. With all of the financial obligations we have right now, there is no money for travel. Even if we drove there, we just don't have the money for it! I got depressed. I got even more depressed when I realized it was probably just as well, because I'm not all that on the attractive side, anyway. Why bother going out looking the way I do?

I need a new look. Seriously! A new hairstyle, new clothes and a new figure. To be honest, I am overweight. I just don't like the person I see in the mirror. I need a complete makeover.

Then I realized that my birthday is in exactly 4 months. It's the perfect opportunity to accomplish certain goals that are important to me! So, why not try to reach those goals by then?

I only have a few of them:

1. New me! Get a new look, lose weight and new wardrobe.

2. Get a job.

3. Save enough money to travel to California so that I can visit the Queen Mary.

So these are my "birthday goals." We'll see if I am able to meet them by the time May 25th rolls around. As it is, the anniversary of that maiden voyage is May 27th, so the timing will be just right.

Forgiveness and karma

2011-01-23T20:30:00.000-08:00

Lately, I have had forgiveness on my mind. Mainly, forgiving others. I was reading a column about the importance to forgive in the newspaper the other day, and it really got me to thinking. Actually, this is a topic I will occasionally revisit, only because I have had a very hard time forgiving someone that did a Very Bad Thing to me long ago. I thought I had forgiven him, but because it still makes me angry, I guess I haven't.

That column I read really touched a nerve. It stressed that carrying around a grudge was unhealthy, and that even if the person who has wronged us does not ask for forgiveness, then we should still try to forgive them all the same. I know this is true, how carrying around a grudge can be unhealthy. But I just haven't been able to bring myself to forgive that person yet. He has never asked for forgiveness. In fact, he acts like he didn't do anything wrong. And even if I did forgive him, he'd laugh about it, thinking he got away with a crime.

In a way, he did....

The other day, I was thinking more on this. I always keep asking myself, "WHY did he do that to me? Why?" But I know the reason why. I KNOW it. The family he is in loves HIM more than any of the other family members, and he knows he could get away with anything because, in his mother's eyes, he could Do No Wrong. Also, he was the "special" one in the family. He was raised to believe he was superior to others. That is why he did what he did. I understand that. But I still get angry. That should NOT have happened.

But it did happen. I can't change the past. I believe that we can learn from the past and draw strength from it. But that has not happened, with this particular incident.

I also know that, because he is not remorseful, he would just do it again to somebody else. That is another reason why it's so hard for me to forgive him.

But I could write a whole book of reasons why I should not forgive him. The bottom line is, they are only excuses.

I don't need to forgive him for him. I need to forgive him for myself. It does trouble me that I have not.

All the same, this has made me think about other people out there who have had worst things visited upon them by bad people. Parents whose child was murdered. A child who was abandoned by a drug-addicted mother. I know there are people who have had worse. And I wonder, have they managed to forgive the wrongdoer?

I think if they can, then so can I.

And, you know, this isn't about vengeance. I don't want revenge. I just want closure on that part of my past. I want to stop getting angry over it. I want to heal that wound.

And as for vengeance, well, I am reminded of a quote from the Bible: "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord." When someone does something wrong to one person, something wrong is done to them. It's the law of karma, which I believe in. You get what you give. I have seen this in action. I have done bad things to people in the past, and I have had bad things happen to me in return. Sometimes, it's the exact same thing I did. (I was reminded of this today, in fact. Someone in my family who stiffed me ended up getting stiffed by another family member. What goes around comes around!) And, in fact, the person who did that to me has had bad things happen to him, too. You know, life has a way of balancing things out. An eye for an eye. So I have no interest in seeking vengeance.

Just...forgiveness. Peace. Closure.

I have prayed on this a lot. I will continue to pray on it. Hopefully someday, I will be able to forgive that wrongdoer. That is the one thing I must do before I can find peace. Forgive.

"When a deep injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive."-Alan Paton

Two passions

2011-01-13T23:21:00.000-08:00

They say that when it comes to a job, you should follow your passion. And this was true for me for a long time; I followed my passion. That is, writing. Writing was and still is my passion. It will always be my passion. It took a while before I started earning good money each month for my writing. Then the seasons changed. Sales came in less and less. Then it got to where I hardly had any sales at all anymore.

And, ever since, this has continued. Instead of making money from my writing every month, I made money once in a while.

It just got to a point where I was rejected from left to right, or my emails were not being answered. It was a VERY dry spell that lasted for a VERY long time.

And I wish I could say things changed and started to pick up again, but I can’t. Well, I can’t, as far as sales go. But as far as books go? I was flying off the charts! The acceptances came in. These acceptances did NOT mean money right away, but they meant money “later.” And they were “yesses” instead of “nos.”

I think the reason for this shift is because, at one point, I was wishing I could just write books, and not articles. I wanted to thrive as a writer of books, and not have all of these articles to write instead. In some way, maybe I got my wish.

Unfortunately, this shift meant I no longer had money coming in from the writing. I have occasional royalty checks, but they don’t arrive every month like checks from the freelancing did. I want something that brings in extra income every month. Earning money every month from something, ANYTHING, that I am doing, is important to me.

I considered alternatives. Go to school to get training for a job? There’s no money for that. Get a part-time job? Where or how will I get childcare?? On top of that, I have trust issues with strangers caring for my children.

I considered working from home, but have no idea WHAT I would do. I’m not qualified to edit books; I need training for that. (I have a problem of being too wordy, and I think the training would help nip that.) I considered other writing jobs. There’s copywriting, but I HATE advertising and advertisements with a passion. I don’t have a head for technical writing, and don’t feel comfortable with ghostwriting.

What other work-at-home jobs are there? I considered medical transcriptionist, but I heard the pay is not as good as some may think. I thought maybe I could bake and sell cookies, but I don’t have my own cookie recipe. I revisited a T-shirt company idea, but I remembered that involves chemicals and I wouldn’t feel comfortable having that anywhere around the children.

When I was divorced, I cleaned a friend’s house to bring in extra money. I considered hanging up a sign and doing that again, but I realized there was a safety hazard with this job. Number one, I am female. Number two, I am deaf. That sets me up for someone harming me. Of course, I could have a rule about not having anyone in the house while I cleaned, but I didn’t really see that helping matters.

Still, I haven’t left this idea. And it really got me thinking. Cleaning IS another passion of mine. Seriously, I DO like to clean. The problem is, hubby thinks I am not very good at it. In the beginning of our marriage, I spent HOURS cleaning our homes every day. Then he'd act like I didn't do any cleaning at all, or that I did a poor job. So I threw in the towel (if you'll pardon the pun) and decided, you know what? Forget it. I'll clean on my own time. But still, I DO like to clean. Even if I’m not a pro at it. I like to clean. I like a room, a house, being clean.

It saddens me that I am not very good at cleaning. I have often thought that, out of spite, I’d hire a maid to clean for us if hubby felt I was not good enough at cleaning. (Like I could even AFFORD it!!) But, I thought more on this.

Writing is my passion. I did it even when I was not good at it. I kept at it and got better. The same could apply to the cleaning. If I keep at it, I’ll get better. Heck, maybe I’ll get a job cleaning and get better at it from there.

I don’t think it would be fair to abandon doing something I love just because I’m not good at it. If it’s something I’m passionate about, then it’s worth keeping in the picture. It’s worth taking the time to invest in perfecting. Later on down the road, it will be another thing I am good at, and maybe by then it can be something to bring in that extra income.

15-on and 15-off

2011-01-12T17:35:00.000-08:00

As some of my Facebook friends (some of who are also real-life friends) know, Jen had a sleepover at her BFF’s house over the weekend. There was some drama that went down, but not something which could’ve caused Jen to have a physical problem she encountered on Monday morning: Her right arm hurt. A LOT. It hurt her so much, she couldn’t lift it, and she winced every time I even touched that part of her arm.

I took stock of the situation: Was this a typical “arm ache” that would go away? It didn’t look like it. At first, I’d thought maybe she’d slept wrong or had her arm twisted in her sleep. But the fact that she couldn’t even lift her arm was very troubling and pretty much deep-sixed those theories. This was something BAD. And no way was I going to send her to school. Not if it hurt too much to lift her arm! So, I kept her home on Monday.

Later, after the office was open, I called her doctor and scheduled an appointment. Fortunately, they would be able to see her that same day. We ended up at that doctor appointment for two hours, going back and forth for X-rays of her arm and shoulder. (It is the humerus bone. I joked that there was nothing “humerus” about this situation.) When the doctor had removed Jen's shirt, my eyes almost popped out. The area of her arm that was sore was swollen! Swelling like that might earn a bodybuilder a pat on the back for nice biceps, but this was NOT from lifting weights! And it was not muscle bigness, either. It looked like she had a medium-sized balloon in that part of her arm! This must’ve occurred since the pain had started in the early hours of the morning.

Well, they did the X-rays. The doctor suspected a fracture, but, thankfully, there was no fracture. Turns out there was a bruise on her bone. This puzzled me, that a bruise on her bone would cause so much pain and swelling.

The doctor said to do the 15-on and 15-off ice pack method for her arm and give her Tylenol for the pain. And rest it. (My sister had told me about the 15-on and 15-off method for ice packs when I had bursitis in my hip. Believe me, it WORKS! It worked better than the pain medicine they prescribed.)

So that’s what we did. I spent that day constantly looking to the clock and reminding Jen about the ice pack. By the next day, unfortunately, she was still in pain. But at least the swelling had gone down. Still, because of the pain, we kept up with the ice pack and Tylenol, and I kept her home from school again.

By evening, she was finally pain-free. She could lift her arm again, bend it and do assorted tasks without any problems. Yay!

I was relieved that, after missing two days of school, she finally got to go back today. And, so far, we have not had any reprisals.

When we were at the doctor’s office, we tried to figure out how Jen had gotten her bone bruised. We all threw out a bunch of scenarios. Had she fallen on her arm? Did she bump against a wall? Had someone hit her? Etc. Then she finally remembered that, oh, yes, she and her friend had played in the ball pit at the pizza place they went to for dinner. I was puzzled over why my husband and the doctor accepted this as a source of the bruising, and hubby said she probably hit her arm in the pit and didn’t think about it. I started to wonder just what kinds of accidents and injuries happen to kids in those ball pits. (This was not an inflatable ball pit; it has a surface to jump off of and a hard ground underneath all those balls.)

Also at the doctor’s, while we were waiting for the doctor to check the X-rays, I reminded Jennifer of how it was interesting this happened, on the day after we saw the movie Rookie of the Year. Because she plays baseball, we thought it would be funny if what happened to the kid’s arm in the movie happened to her arm, too. Our interpreter had not seen the movie yet, so we didn’t talk too much about it in order to avoid giving too much away, but we both thought it was an interesting coincidence.

I’m just glad her arm is better now. Maybe the one thing she’ll take away from this is a reminder to be more careful in a ball pit.

Back to the ol' schedule again

2011-01-04T21:03:00.000-08:00

Today was back-to-school for both Jennifer and Jesse. For a few days, I had them on their “school night” routine to get used to the new bedtimes and wake times. Unfortunately, Jennifer has been having a hard time adjusting to this change. She has never been a good sleeper at night, as much as I try to help her sleep better. She keeps waking up in the middle of the night and sometimes it can be hours before she’ll finally doze off. (We’ve set it up for her to be able to read her books in bed before sleeping but this has only helped her to fall asleep, and not to stay asleep.) Still, her time to get up in the morning has to happen whether or not she got enough sleep. I set up a routine for her on school mornings where she can still manage to get a little extra sleep before staying awake for the day.

On the other hand, Jesse is adjusting well. I have found that if he doesn’t nap, he’ll fall asleep earlier and easier at night. Of course this means no break for me – but that’s okay. I grab a nap while he’s in school, even if it’s just a cat nap!

The one thing I dislike about going back to this schedule is having to exercise in the dark, get dressed in the dark, get the kids into the car in the dark. It’s aggravating. This morning, as I was buckling Jesse into his seat, I could hardly see the seatbelts!

And it would be nice to get some extra sleep, too. And NOT have to wake up at 5 a.m. But I have found that if I do, we can all get ready and out the door on time. (Well, usually. The problem is that Jesse takes FOREVER to eat his breakfast.)

Today was Jesse’s first day of going to preschool fulltime. Before today, I was DREADING it! How could I stand being separated from my baby for 7 hours?? HOURS! I just couldn’t imagine it. I kept telling hubby I wanted to change my mind and go back to part-time but he told me, “Just do it.” When I dropped him off, I wasn’t fearful. It was just like the many times I’d dropped him off before. But as the usual time of picking him up came and went, and as I kept missing him more and more, I wanted to run over there, pick him up and say, “Let’s go back to part-time!” My arms literally ached to hug my little baby. It was really, really hard. Even though I was busy with the books and running errands, I still missed him so much. And I was sad to have lunch without him. I did call, but just to let Kim know I had to pick him up earlier than planned. And this was NOT because I missed him so much – it was because his dad wanted to see him before leaving for work. (I did ask about him and she told me he was fine. Phew!)

Jennifer got home from school before Jesse did. I went to pick him up and he was contentedly snacking on graham crackers and milk. I asked about how things had gone, if he’d adjusted okay, etc., etc. Overall, it had gone well. And THANKFULLY he didn’t throw a tantrum when I tried to bring him home – as he had before. I think maybe he was ready to go home. I started to wonder if having him there fulltime had been the secret to stop those “time to go home” fits after all.

We all shared about the first day back at school. Jennifer was happy to see her friends and teacher again. Jesse said he had fun at his own school. And I was glad to get a lot of work done on my book.

I’m glad the day worked out well. Let’s hope the rest of the school year will, too.

The number 11

2011-01-01T23:21:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! So here we are, in 2011. I can't help but be a little suspicious about that number "11." Why? Because I'm one of those people who is haunted by numbers. Seriously. You know how there are people who see one particular number everywhere they go? Yep, that's me. I'm one of them. Sometimes it'd get as bad as me always ending up with THAT particular amount of money in my pocket!

And for the longest time, I was haunted by the number "11." I kid you not. It's not so much that I used to live on West 11th. But I'd see that number EVERYWHERE. Of course, I started to think there must be a reason why I saw That. Particular. Number...EVERYWHERE! Then OTHER numbers started to haunt me, too. So maybe it's just the whole "numbers haunting a person" thing, and not so much some reason for the number itself.

Still, I had to think, there must be a reason. Why the number 11? And, after I moved, it was the number 13! So I started asking...why the number 13?

Could it have anything to do with those years coming up? 2011? 2013?

Only time will tell.

Anyway, in honor of 2011, I will now list 11 of my favorite blog posts from last year....

Sunday, January 03, 2010
Save the Earth! And maybe the sun, too

Thursday, January 28, 2010
Special moments

Sunday, February 07, 2010
Meeting W.S. Merwin

Friday, February 12, 2010
Remembering Toby

Friday, May 21, 2010
Pictures from first baseball practice

Sunday, June 27, 2010
The second time around

Sunday, September 05, 2010
And when he was bad

Sunday, September 19, 2010
Living life ugly in a beautiful world

Thursday, November 04, 2010
YOU again!

Saturday, November 20, 2010
Counting on your fingers

Sunday, December 05, 2010
Weekend warrior

Sick on Christmas

2010-12-26T12:14:00.000-08:00

Christmas is supposed to include candy canes and mistletoe. But, this year, my Christmas included sneezes and coughs. I’ve been dealing with a nasty cold and have been taking DayQuil. Unfortunately, it has taken some time before the relief from symptoms were an actual relief. All the same, I swallowed the pills on Christmas morning and hoped for the best.

The night before Christmas, Jennifer was too excited to sleep. We had to keep sending her back to bed. This had me wondering if she was going to be up bright and early on Christmas Day. Nope! Actually, I was the first one up yesterday. And, believe me, I cherished that “calm before the storm”! So I let the dog out, made coffee and made sure everything was in order. Then Jennifer finally woke up and, after seeing the presents and getting all excited, she ran to wake her brother up. Both kids started getting all excited around the tree and I reminded them we needed to wake up their dad before we opened gifts. I waited until 8, then I told them to go wake him up.

As if on cue, the coughing and sneezing hit me with a fierceness when we sat down to open gifts. Jennifer played Santa. Because Jesse wanted to help pass out gifts, too, he was designated as her elf. It was cute watching her read the labels, handing him a gift and telling him who to give it to.

Jesse got a lot of toys for Christmas this year, but also a good supply of new clothes. Jennifer also got new clothes, as well as a chess game, books, art supplies and a snow globe (which she’d had her eye on for months). She also wanted just one big thing for Christmas, if nothing else on her list: A Nintendo DS. She was disappointed that it was not among her gifts. When she unwrapped an Atari game console she could hook up to the TV, I thought hubby had no luck in finding the DS. (We could only find the DSi and DS Lite, but not the regular DS.) But then he said there was one more gift for Jennifer hidden under the tree. She had to go hunting for it. I thought it was cute he had hidden her special gift, but he didn’t stop there! Not only had he hidden it but … he’d overwrapped it!! Jen opened one gift bag after another and another and another until she got to the box. Which was a box within a box! We kept laughing over her little obstacle in trying to unwrap her secret special present. Finally, after the third unwrapping of a box, she had her REAL present. And she was ecstatic to see it was the Nintendo DS! Hooray! He’d found it! She was walking on air. So excited she FINALLY got a Nintendo DS.

Now I must include a side note here. Up until now, I have banned video games from our home. I did this because I was worried about Jennifer becoming a video game addict. I don’t want to be one of those moms who let their kids play video games all day! But, see, the key word here is “let.” It’s up to the parents to draw the line on that kind of thing and curb the video game addiction. Nip it in the bud before it gets worse! Since I have been doing this with Jennifer and her computer games, I have come to realize I can probably do this with her video games, too. And as if to test this idea, I had to tell her absolutely NO video games at the dinner table when we sat down to dinner that night, and told her to set it down. (Hubby didn’t help my cause much. He picked it up and started playing it, too! I had to remind him that I was trying to set an example here.) So now we have video games. I will just have to make sure it does not become an addiction.

As for me, Santa (hubby) brought me the file cabinet I wanted. My sister, Millie, got me the flannel PJs I wanted. (Thanks, Millie and Allison!) And I also got chocolate covered and flavored sweets! Yay! (Thank you, Bob and Kathy.) I also got the Jovan perfume I wanted (again, from hubby), a Fred Meyer gift card, more chocolates from hubby, and bath salts (thanks, Stephanie!). We also got a beautiful crystal palm tree ornament – again, from Millie and Allison. It is so pretty. The palm tree reminds me of my desert home, so it’s meaningful to me. (I guess the California desert will always be my home no matter where I go!) I was really moved by this gift. It’s beautiful. Another “family gift” from them were, you guessed it, chocolates! (We’re big chocoholics in this house!)

One thing I wanted to get hubby for Christmas was a tool cart on wheels. It also had a locked drawer on it. Even though it was marked down, I could still not afford it. I was really bummed about that. But he was happy with the creeper I got him. I could not wrap it -– the box was too big! Jennifer got him an auto first aid kit. I advised her to get him one that has flares in it, but none of the stores here had any! So I got online and was lucky enough to find one on Amazon.com. (Good thing I shopped early this year!) Jesse got him a waterproof pouch for his cell phone. He also got a movie, as did the children.

After the gift business was taken care of, it was time for breakfast. Every Christmas, we have cinnamon rolls for breakfast. However, because I’m sick this year, I just wasn’t up to baking cinnamon rolls. So I told hubby to get a pack of them from the bakery at the store. He got the kind with cream cheese icing – which are heavenly, actually. I lubs them! But Jennifer … did not. She didn’t care for the cream cheese icing. I felt bad. I felt like I ruined her Christmas breakfast tradition! Was I being selfish on account of being sick? That’s a guilty feeling I really wrestled with. We also had the movie A Christmas Story on during breakfast, which was also part of that Christmas breakfast tradition. At least she still enjoyed the movie.

The medicine seemed to kick in, finally. I had enough strength to do dishes, laundry, make beds and do some other assorted chores around the house. I also managed to go to the grocery store. After I got home, I baked a pizza from the store while Jennifer’s friend, Michael, visited. Then he left and we ate lunch. After that, my strength had left me. I crashed on the couch. I don’t know how long I slept – probably not that long – but after I woke up, I was refreshed and ready to go again. I used this new burst of energy to make Christmas dinner: Ham, mashed potatoes, corn, carrots and dinner rolls. (I made corn AND carrots because one child wanted one veggie and the other child wanted the other veggie.) Jennifer couldn’t get enough of the ham, even though it was not a traditionally baked ham. (Again, me being sick, I wasn’t up to that.) After dinner, we had pumpkin pie, then the kids had their baths then got into their new PJs that was part of their Christmas present from their paternal grandparents.

I didn’t take any pictures for Christmas. I know parents usually do this, but I did not even THINK about taking pictures, because I was so “out of it’ with my darn cold. Even if I had some physical strength here and there, my head was just too congested and foggy.

I keep telling myself that next year will be better. Next year, we’ll have lights on our house for Christmas. Next year, we’ll have an area rug under the tree so that any glass ornaments which fall won’t break on the hardwood floor. Next year, I’ll get hubby the gift I WANT to get him. Next year, I’ll send out the cards early, and start shopping early, too. (I’ve entertained the idea of shopping for Christmas all year.) Next year, we’ll have more Christmas decorations and Christmassy stuff in our home. Next year, I’ll be able to afford buying gifts for EVERYONE in my family. (All 46 people – unless there are more babies!) Next year, we’ll make homemade gingerbread men that taste AWESOME! And homemade sugar cookies that are Christmassy and taste better than the ones we got from the store! Next year, we’ll have a garland on the fireplace mantel. Next year, I will remember to take pictures of the children opening their Christmas presents on Christmas Day. Next year, we’ll have the usual kind of cinnamon rolls for our traditional Christmas breakfast. Next year, we’ll have Christmas music playing in the house!

And, next year, I won’t be sick on Christmas.

The gingerbread men mystery

2010-12-20T10:17:00.000-08:00

Every Christmas season, Jen and I get together in the kitchen for our annual baking of gingerbread men. That’s exactly what we did last night, but this year, our bonding moment didn’t turn out so well.

All I can say is, I am so glad I did not end up taking this year’s gingerbread men to her school, as we planned to do, because this year’s batch just tasted awful.

But the thing I don’t get is, what had happened? Where did we go wrong?

See, we normally use a boxed mix to make our gingerbread men. This year, however, I came across a recipe and thought, why don’t we make the gingerbread men from scratch this year? I got excited about this prospect, because I’ve never made them from scratch and I always want to learn how to make something or other from scratch. And when I told Jennifer about this idea, she go excited about it, too. Still, hubby ended up buying the box mix all the same. I promptly deposited it into the cupboard, determined to make gingerbread men from scratch that would rival any box mix.

So we got the necessary ingredients, I got out the rolling pin, and we set to work. The recipe says to leave the dough in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, but we ended up leaving it in there much longer. Something like 2 hours or so. (Maybe that’s where we went wrong?)

Because Jennifer is an aspiring chef and because she’s so eager to learn this cooking and baking stuff, I let her do the bulk of the work in kneading and rolling out the dough. She also cut out almost all of the cookies. She learned about using flour on the surface, rubbing flour onto the rolling pin and using flour on your hands so the dough won’t stick to them. She had a hard time standing the heat of the oven when she had to put the cookie sheet in, and I reminded her to ONLY touch the pan and NOT the oven or the racks if she is not wearing a mitt when putting the pans inside. After the cookies were done, we let them cool and she decorated them herself. You can see some of her work on here.

One of the cookies broke during handling. I laughed it off and told her that we get to eat the mistakes. Wow, what a mistake it turned out to be! And not just as something that broke or had a decoration goof on it. I broke off a piece of the cookie and tried it. It didn’t taste very good. In fact, it tasted horrible. I gave hubby a piece to try and he agreed it didn’t taste good, either. Well, at least I knew now it wasn’t just me and some kind of mutant taste buds preventing me from enjoying a cookie! Even Jennifer tried it (the chef MUST do a taste test, after all) and she didn’t like it, either. Still, she kept decorating all of them. While I enjoyed her decorations, I kept trying to think of what to do with these yucky cookies. Was it too late to use them for decoration? How does that work, exactly? I wouldn’t donate them; they don’t taste good, so why give them away to people who wouldn’t even be able to enjoy them? Should I trash them? They looked too cute to toss into the garbage.

For the time being, they are stored in the refrigerator. And as I try to figure out what to do with them, I’m also trying to figure out what exactly went wrong. Why don’t they taste good? We used safe food handling. The surface they were rolled out on was clean. I suppose the rolling pin was clean – though not entirely sure there. There hadn’t been anything accidentally added to the dough, and we had followed the instructions. So what had gone wrong?

Maybe it was just a bad day to make things from scratch. If you looked at the picture in the link, you could see the corn muffins that I also made from scratch last night. They didn’t taste good, either. Actually, they were bland. Flavorless.

Maybe it is just the recipe itself. Maybe I should just keep looking and trying until we find one that is perfect.

And, meanwhile, stick to the box mixes.

A day of surprises

2010-12-17T18:01:00.000-08:00

Today was Jennifer's last day of school for the year. Hooray! She took a Christmas present to her teacher but I wanted to do something to make the day even more special. So when I dropped her off at school, I said, "I might see you before school is out." Little did she know I was up to something.

I went to the grocery store after I dropped her off and browsed through the bakery department. I checked out all of their goodies. My plan was to take something from that bakery department at the store to Jen's class. Up until today, we had talked about baking gingerbread men and taking the bulk of them to her class. (We bake gingerbread men every Christmas season.) But then I remembered that the school won't allow homemade goodies -- for some reason. (I have never figured out why, or even asked why.) So I decided to get something from the bakery department at the store. I scored a tray of over 3 dozen Christmassy cookies for just $7.

The first thing I did was plan to be at Jen's school in time to join her for lunch. I got there JUST in time! So we enjoyed lunch together and played together at recess. (Well, she played. I just pushed her and her friend on the swings.) Then I brought in the cookies and everybody got happy and excited. I held the tray while Jen passed the cookies out to each child in the class. The teacher got one, too. They were all happy to get a cookie and I thought it was a nice "end of the year" treat to offer to everyone in her class.

There were leftover cookies, so I gave the rest to the office staff. they were happy to receive the cookies, too, and one secretary I've known there ever since Jennifer's first day of kindergarten gave me a hug. I was surprised by the hug. I'm not usually one to give hugs so easily because of bad experiences in the past with people who I thought I could trust. (It takes me time to warm up to people.) But her hug didn't bother me and it was just nice to have that gesture.

It was also a good thing that I went, because Jennifer's teacher needed some papers back from me and also needed me to take care of some other business.

After I got home, I was in a really good mood because it was such a pleasant experience. I was in an even better mood later in the day when my copies of the haunted houses book finally arrived. Hooray! Here is a picture of me holding one:

This is my third book out this year. Very exciting! I keep staring at it because it's still so hard to believe I started writing this book all those years ago, and what it has turned into now. It was a nice surprise to receive the books.

Later, I surprised myself when I hugged another person I barely know; The mother of one of Jen's best friends. I don't know her very well but I thought, heck, she's trusting us with her daughter for one whole night (the girl is having a sleepover here tonight), so, why not?

You know? Why not. It's just a hug. It's not THAT painful.

Weekend warrior

2010-12-05T19:04:00.000-08:00

Today, after I gave the dog a bath, I cleaned the bathtub.

Then I realized, I'm already in here with the Comet. Might as well clean the toilet, too.

So I cleaned the toilet.

Then I realized, I cleaned the bathtub and the toilet. Might as well clean the sink, too.

So I cleaned the sink.

Then I realized, I'm already in here with these paper towels. Might as well clean the mirror, too.

So I cleaned the mirror.

Then I realized...I've cleaned the bathtub, the toilet, the sink and the mirror. Might as well clean the floor, too.

So I swept then mopped the bathroom floor.

So now I had a clean bathroom. And just think: All I did was go into that bathroom just to give my dog a bath.

My day as a haiku

2010-12-04T22:02:00.000-08:00

Blogged, dishes, email.
Read book Girl, Interrupted
Pizza and movie.

A lifeline

2010-11-29T05:45:00.000-08:00

For most of the day yesterday, I’d been dealing with chest pain. I didn’t say anything about it, thinking it would go away. It was probably just gas build-up in my chest. So I didn’t worry over it so much.

Later, however, the pain became pretty intense. It got to be so bad, I had to lie down. But as I lied there, flat on the bed (I thought if I lied flat, it would help), the pain only worsened. It grew and grew in intensity. It was pretty bad. I was on hat bed, writhing and in tears, as it felt like something was squeezing my heart and growing bigger by the second.

I tried sitting straight up, up against the pillows against the headboard, but that didn’t help. I tried squatting over the side, lying on my right side, standing up against the wall. Nothing. The pain only got worse.

Then something else happened, something I’d been dreading: I could hardly breathe.

At first, my breathing came out in short gasps of air. I tried to keep that air in my lungs but, soon, I could hardly breathe at all.

“Breathe!” I instructed myself. “Breathe! Breathe! Breathe!”

I struggled for air that was quickly disappearing from my lungs. I started to panic and worry over what to do. I’d tried breathing exercises earlier but that didn’t help. And I was running out of air fast.

At one point, I didn’t even have enough air in my lungs to talk anymore.

I lied across the bed, gasping for air. As I did so, I started to remember a time I had gone through a similar episode. I was alone one evening and, all of a sudden, I wasn’t able to breathe anymore. It’s like my lungs had closed up. I’d struggled for air, even going outside to try to get some fresh air. That is where I passed out on the ground. After I woke up from that, I could breathe okay. But what had happened before then is that I had been up in the stars of the night sky. The stars had been so close that I could almost reach out and touch them. That experience had been very frightening. I shuddered as I remembered it, hoping it would not happen again. What if I didn’t wake up this time?

I started to wish someone in my family was there to help me. Millie, Allison, Elizabeth, Jeanette, Melissa, my mom – even my cousin, Carol. A familiar face. Family. I wished so hard that someone in my family was there to help.

But I was alone in this struggle to breathe. Then I realized, no, I’m not alone. I’m not. I could turn to God. And that’s what I did.

With nothing else to help me breathe again, I started to silently pray for help. I just prayed and prayed for air to return to my lungs.

Soon, the pain in my chest lessened and I could breathe again. Thank God! I sat up, breathing normally now, so thankful for this air in my lungs again. I said a prayer of thanks then got up and left the room. I went to the kitchen and drank some water. I went to check on the kids, who were in the bathroom with hubby, having their bath. I told hubby what happened and he told me to sit down. After I did that, the remaining pain in my chest disappeared.

As I sat there, I started to think of what I should have done to get some help. I know I should have run out to get help from my husband, but I didn’t have the strength. A call to 911 might have been in order – but there is no phone in that room. And, anyway, I’m not exactly 100% sure how a deaf person should call 911. I mean, we were taught in high school to dial 911, wait a few moments, then say we are deaf and what the emergency is. I am not sure if that method would be very effective.

Then I thought, what about my cell phone? What if I could text for help? Would I be able to text for help if I was having another episode of being unable to breathe?? It was still better than nothing.

I thought for a few minutes. I had to think about the very few people I know in Eugene who I text. Finally, I decided on one of the moms of Jennifer’s friends. Jen has had a sleepover at her house before and she and I often send text messages here and there. She’s an awesome lady, about my age, and very friendly. So I got my phone and texted her, asking her if she would be willing to call 911 for me if I ever needed that kind of help. When she replied, she said that she would do it and, actually, she even asked one of her girlfriends the same thing. (Is this some kind of network among friends I am unaware of? Hm.) She also said that if we needed somewhere safe to go, we were welcome at her place.

I breathed a sigh of relief and thanked her profusely. Didn’t I say she was awesome?? She rocks! What a huge relief that this is in place, for emergencies.

Now I only hope that that particular kind of emergency doesn’t happen again. This was actually the second time I have had chest pain so bad, but it was not so bad before that I ended up struggling for air. Then again, I had been taken to the ER when I had bad chest pain that lasted for a long time. (They ran all these tests and couldn’t find anything wrong, so they just gave me something for the pain.) This time, even though that latest episode ended, I’ll get it checked out by my doctor. I still have some tightness in my chest this morning, so it might be a good idea to get that checked out.

At least I have someone to reach out to for help if there are any emergencies. Thank goodness for that!

A belated Thanksgiving blog post

2010-11-26T09:02:00.000-08:00

(I meant to post this last night but because I burned three of the fingers on my good hand, typing was not something I really wanted to do when I had the chance to type this post out. A phone call to my mom on Internet relay and a few emails were about as much typing as I was able to withstand. Thank goodness for ice packs and Tylenol. On with the blog post!)

Even though I do enjoy cooking and baking, the last time I made a large meal for my family, hardly anyone ate any of it. As it was, hubby didn't touch any of it. He just left to go back to work. That incident left me feeling not-so-excited over the prospect of making yet another Thanksgiving feast for my family. Last year, Millie and Allison visited for Thanksgiving, and the 3 of us scurried around in the kitchen, hard at work on the meal. This year, it was just me again. Another thing I did not look forward to. (It's no fun cooking a big meal by yourself.) So I awoke to Thanksgiving day feeling a little bummed. Add to this I couldn't visit with any family today.

But then after I wished my 3-year-old son a happy Thanksgiving, I asked him, "Do you want a turkey dinner?"

He got this wild look in his eyes. He grabbed his tummy with both hands and licked his lips.

That's a yes if I've ever seen one! So if it was a turkey dinner that my son wanted for Thanksgiving, a turkey dinner he would get!

That determination faded somewhat after hubby told me he was VERY sick. He spent most of the morning in bed. The day before, Jennifer got very sick, too. Her temperature was 102! Fortunately, when she woke up this morning, she was not as sick as before. She only complained of a headache. The baby had been sick with a cold, but on Thanksgiving, he was just as bouncy and mischievous as ever! After an episode of him laughing and tackling me as I sat on the couch with him, I mumbled, "I guess he's starting to feel better now." His congestion had finally cleared up and his runny nose was not as bad as before. Thank goodness that at least the children were well enough to enjoy Thanksgiving!

Still, I kept to my vow to make a big Thanksgiving meal for my family. When Jennifer saw all the things out on the countertop, her eyes widened and she said, "We're going to have a feast!" I laughed and said, "That's the idea."

My determination to make a great Thanksgiving meal was renewed later on. After the children saw the turkey in the oven, they got excited and happily danced around the kitchen.

It turned out that I was not alone in the kitchen cooking the meal after all. I had a helper. Jennifer has told me many times she wants to be a chef and she loves to help me cook and bake things. So she helped with the pumpkin pie and she was my assistant with the other items on the menu. I was certainly grateful for her help! Yet another thing to be thankful for on Thanksgiving. One of these days, who knows? Maybe she'll be making some of the side dishes or pies for Thanksgiving.

At one point, however, I was rushing about trying to get everything ready at the same time. I ended up getting a little distracted. This is where and how I burned my fingers. I grabbed a pan without realizing it had been on a hot burner and screamed as I released it. The kids and hubby came rushing into the kitchen to see me bent over and clasping my hand against my legs. I told them I'd burned my fingers and hubby was all, "Don't scream." Jennifer, however, was more sympathetic and hugged me. She helped me get an ice pack together and, while I was putting everything on the table, I was going back and forth to that ice pack because my fingers hurt so much. I also had to take turns between buttering rolls and soaking my fingers in ice water when we were all at the table. Ditto while I was eating the meal. (Thankfully, when the blessing was said, it was not a long one!)

After we ate, Jen and I were the only ones who had dessert. We sat at the table eating our slices of pie and talking about the day while hubby gave Jesse his bath. Hubby complained that I made too much food. He said, "You made enough for 10 people and there are only 4 of us." I had to smile over this. Old habits and all that. I come from a large family so I am USED to big family dinners and making big meals. And, anyway, we can be thankful for leftovers -- more food to eat for tomorrow!

Later, Jen and I shared what we were thankful for. I told her I was thankful for my children. She said she is thankful for her family.

I also thought on some other things I am thankful for.

I am thankful I got to talk with my mother on the phone. Also thankful that they were able to give a Thanksgiving meal to a family that had nothing for Thanksgiving. I am thankful that my elderly dog has been able to spend yet another Thanksgiving with us (he got extra helpings of turkey this year!). I am thankful for the chance to send ecards to certain people on Thanksgiving. I am thankful for our new home, which, even though it needs some more work (especially the back yard!), is a home that I love and especially love the central air and heating! I am thankful for a car that has a heater, even though lately it has not worked as good as before. (Must get that checked.) I am thankful for the accomplishments I have made so far this year. I am thankful we are able to live comfortably and not go hungry and that we all have a bed to sleep in and nice clothes to wear. I am thankful the children can occasionally hear from their grandparents and relatives. I am thankful for my friends -- both in real life and in cyberspace. I am thankful for the people I have worked with in the writing, editing and publishing industry.

But, most of all, I am thankful for my faith and for God being there to turn to in hard times. For answering my prayers and my concerns in His own way. For the Bible to offer guidance and wisdom. And for the second chance I have been granted in life -- for turning away from the person that I used to be and honoring that promise I made to myself to be a better person and strive to be the best I can be. With God always at my side along the way.

Counting on your fingers

2010-11-20T10:54:00.000-08:00

In the adult world, counting on your fingers is supposed to be a sign of less-than-optimal intelligence. But in the deaf and hard-of-hearing world, those who sign use their fingers to show numbers all the time. Just as there are signs for the letters of the alphabet, there are also signs for numbers.

When Jennifer was little, I taught her the alphabet by voice and sign. I would sign and say the letters at the same time. This was repeated when I taught her numbers. We are doing this with Jesse, as well. Just as we sign letters to him, so he knows what the signs are, we also sign how to count on his fingers with each number.

When children use their fingers to count, it usually goes that they would hold up each finger and count to 10 with both hands. But for signing, we only use one hand for all the numbers.

To get an idea of how to sign the numbers with one hand, check out this video:

Anyway, I have been working with him on that. It took some time for him to grasp signing "3" the way it's done in ASL. Holding up the three big fingers for "3" is the same as the letter "W" so, for a signer, we use the middle, index fingers and the thumb for the number "3." (When hubby and I watched the movie Inglorious Basterds, I had to marvel over how a character discovered a spy based on how the bad guy indicated the number "3." He did so using the way the number is signed in ASL. I could only think that a deaf person during that part of history must have been too scared to sign "3" for fear of being accused of being a spy!) But he has finally been able to sign "3" like we do, though occasionally he reverts back to "W" instead. And, for a time, he also forgot the number "4," both verbally and physically (yes, he counted 1-2-3-5 for a while there).

Yesterday, while we were waiting to be called at his doctor appointment, I tried to keep him preoccupied by counting things. He would point at pictures of flowers and count them in each photo. He counted all 10 flowers in one picture. And he counted on his fingers correctly. I praised him and gave him a little cheer for counting to 10 both verbally and physically (the way a signer counts to 10) and he was quite proud of himself. He counted all 10 flowers again before dashing off to study something else in that waiting area.

I am glad he can count to 10 the way a signer does. Now we need to work on getting him to count higher -- both verbally and on just one hand.

"I can't read your lips with that thing in your mouth!"

2010-11-11T22:08:00.000-08:00

The plan was to get Jesse off of the pacifier (“binky”) when he turned 3. His third birthday has come and gone…and he is STILL using the binky! But, thankfully, we have managed to get him to understand that binky is for sleep time, not any other time. Of course, he’s so attached to his binky that he STILL tries to use it for every other time of the day. But we have been working with him on that. I just don’t want him to be one of those kids with blistered lips because he’s still sucking on his pacifier when he’s 5 years old.

Certain changes in his life have meant disposing of the binky. For one thing, he has started preschool, so on the days he goes to preschool (two days of the week), I tell him “no binky at school” before we head out the door in the mornings (on weekdays) and he’ll happily spit the pacifier into the sink (I wash them religiously so we have taught him to spit used binkies into the sink).

For another thing, he has gotten pretty talkative now – and I just can’t lipread him when he has the binky in his mouth. I have told him several times, “I can’t read your lips with that thing in your mouth.” Of course, he has continued to try to talk to me with the binky in his mouth. And, for some time, I have been telling him the same thing: “I can’t read your lips with that thing in your mouth!”

He does know some signs, and even as he tries to sign other things, he hasn’t quite mastered it yet. So for things he can’t sign, we rely on lipreading to understand what he is saying.

As often I have tried to get him to understand that I can’t read his lips when he talks to me with the binky, it really never got through to him, because he kept trying to talk to me with that binky in his mouth. I feel that, perhaps, tonight, I have finally made some progress.

After I gave Jesse his bath this evening, I had him on my bed, drying him off. He was trying to talk to me, but he had the binky in his mouth. (I had promised him he could have it back after his bath.) I stopped drying him off, got to his level, and explained in as simple language as I could that I needed to see his mouth when he is talking to me and his dad. I can’t understand him when he talks with the binky in his mouth. Gradually, I coaxed the binky out of his mouth and told him to tell me again what he said. He pointed at his leg then said that he has an owie. (He got a scratch on his leg last week and, ever since, it has been his cross to bear.) I acknowledged his owie and reminded him, as I had before, that it would go away. He got his binky back and I finished toweling him off then dressed him. After we brushed his teeth, he said goodnight to his big sister (who gets to stay up tonight because of no school tomorrow) and I put him to bed.

As I was saying goodnight to him, giving him hugs and kisses and telling him goodnight, he stood still in his crib, looked at me and said something.

“What?” I said. “I can’t read your lips with that thing in your mouth, Jesse.”

I tested his reaction as I gently pulled on the binky. He had no problem letting me remove it from his mouth. "What did you say?" I asked him. He looked at me and said, “I love you.”

I smiled. At least this was something he could sign, even with that thing in his mouth. I told him I love him, too, gave him an extra kiss then gave him back his binky. Then I reminded him that “I love you” is something he could sign. I showed him the sign for “I love you” and he did his best to sign it the normal way, not his way. But it’s close enough, and at least this way I get what he is saying whether or not I can lipread him.

YOU again!

2010-11-04T21:36:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, I can be so forgetful. As it was, I have been to the post office three times this week, for three days in a row. But I had a good reason to be there!

This week, I had a few things to mail: A new book contract for the signatures (yay!), a copy of one of my books I have been invited to have displayed at a book fair being held next month in Kentucky (yay!) and my sister's VERY LATE birthday present (um, yay?). As it turned out, however, I was informed on Monday that Tammie King of Night Owl Reviews shipped me a box on Monday -- BUT I forgot to give her my new address! (We moved in April.) Actually, I forgot that I EVER gave her my mailing address at all, because for a while, I was only reviewing E-books. I have since "graduated" to reviewing print books (yay!) and I was waiting to hear from her about my mailing address. Turns out, I'd given her the old one while I was at the old one. Gah! So I let her know I had a new address and she said she hoped the people at my old address would send the box back. (I didn't hold out much hope for that. When I moved, I made a list of people I had to notify of my new mailing address, but I think I forgot a few. Such as, oh, say, the editor of The WRITERS' Journal, because the magazine my article appears in was sent to my old address and, well, hasn't been accounted for since and they never got it back. They sent me another copy -- thanks, Leon! -- but who knows if that original copy was kept by the new tenants at the old addy.) So, I assured Tammie I'd ask about it at the post office the next day, since I was planning to go there to mail stuff, anyway.

See, that was my plan. But you know what they say: "Man plans and God laughs."

Sooo, I headed to the post office on Tuesday morning. Got the birthday present mailed off.

But I forgot to mail the contract. And the book. And ask about my package!!!!!

Wednesday, I was back at the post office. I mailed the book. Woot! Mailed the contract. Yeah! Buuuut.....I FORGOT TO ASK ABOUT MY PACKAGE!!!

So, here we are. Thursday. I go to the post office AGAIN. This time, with only ONE THING to mail, but with a mantra repeated in my head the whole time I walk into there: "Ask about the package. Ask about the package. Ask about the package."

And I did. Yay! FINALLY! I remembered to ask about the package. Woot! Turns out that BECAUSE I'm still in Eugene, BECAUSE they have my forwarding info on file (and, um, cough-cough, I've recently bugged them about forwarding my mail to me at the new address *innocently looks away and whistles*), and BECAUSE it's still the same zip code, I have nothing to worry about. They will definitely forward my package to me when it gets there.

Maybe because they know that I'll bug them if they don't.

TIME FOR A DISCLAIMER!!!! I am not some homicidal maniac stalking employees at the West Side Eugene, Oregon Post Office!

I'm glad I finally remembered it. Yay! Tomorrow, no post office. But I WILL need to go to the bank. I just hope I remember to stick the check into my purse so that I'll have it with me to deposit while I'm there....

Three years old

2010-10-25T23:02:00.000-07:00

Despite turning only 3 years old today, Jesse knew something was up. I think he figured out today was his special day after I kept wishing him a happy birthday this morning, after he woke up. At one point this morning, while I was in the kitchen making Jen's lunch, he walked into the kitchen and danced side to side as he sang the happy birthday song. (This was sooo cute!)

Up until his special day, I'd been trying to figure out how we were going to celebrate it. Eventually, I decided not to have his birthday party anywhere and not to have a theme party, either. We just had a cake and ice cream thing at home. We considered inviting his one friend over, but since this was on a weekday, that wasn't doable since his friend would be in daycare.

For his presents, he got new pants and a toy car from me and hubby (he LOVES cars!), a PillowPet from Millie and Allison, and a pair of SpongeBob PJ's and Thomas the Train bath toys from Jennifer. I took a few pictures, which I plan to upload on my Facebook page -- just as soon as I find the dang cord to do that!

I keep thinking this is all a dream. My son is three years old, but I still have a hard time believing he is actually HERE! I am just really amazed and I feel so blessed to have my little boy in my life. Sure he gets cranky and has tantrums sometimes. and he wants to do EVERYTHING by himself. But I just love him SOOO MUCH! I give him lots of hugs and kisses every day. Every new day with him is a gift. Even Jennifer still says she is happy he is in our lives. He is really special and I'm thankful he is with us.

Happy Birthday, Jesse! I love you more than anything. You are one of my two favorite people in the whole wide world. Here's to many more birthdays.

Smarter than SpongeBob

2010-10-11T20:48:00.000-07:00

Last night, as I was washing Jennifer's hair in the bathtub, she grew sad and told me that she had something to confess. I asked her what it was and she explained that the kids in her classroom thought I look ugly. (Here we go again, with the whole "looking ugly" thing! Sheesh! But with children, this kinda thing is inconsequential, because children are not mature enough to understand that there are burn survivors in this world.) I have visited Jennifer's classroom MANY times. The people there know me because I am there so much. (And I kinda have a face that's hard to forget and easy to recognize! LOL) So I have been there enough for her classmates to know what I look like.

This confession did not surprise me at all. I explained to Jennifer that it's only natural for children to think that, because they don't understand why I look the way I do. We discussed how some people try to cover up their scars with make-up and stuff. I told her I would never do that. I am not so ashamed of my face that I will cover it up for the world. I do wear make-up for special occasions, but not every day. And it's only BECAUSE of the special occasion.

I guess she felt bad telling me this because she assured me that she thought I was "beautiful" and she counted off all of the good things I have done for her and her little brother. That just warmed my heart. It's not every day a mother gets thanks and appreciation like that after giving so much of herself to her children every day. I let her know I was glad she felt that way and I appreciated how she told me that.

We talked again about my burn scars. I told her I couldn't do anything to fix it. I have severe third degree burns. The skin is destroyed and it can't be repaired. I told her some people wear skin-type gloves and coverings over their scars but I won't do that. That thought made her remember an episode of SpongeBob Squarepants, where SpongeBob wanted to have muscles so badly that he bought fake ones to show off. She recounted the episode, though I already knew it because I've seen it a million times. She said that was a stupid thing to do. I agreed and I told her I wouldn't do that. "I'm not going to be a fake," I said. "This is the real me, and I want the world to see the real me."

She thought for a minute, smiled then said, "You're smarter than SpongeBob."

I laughed and said, "I certainly hope so."

Never be nice to a stranger

2010-10-06T09:25:00.000-07:00

This morning, I was alarmed to read that an 8-year-old girl was kidnapped and sexually assaulted by a man who succeeded in luring her to his truck. A nearby adult who saw this shouted out to them and the man grabbed the girl and sped off with her. Thankfully, she was rescued by someone who recognized the abductor's vehicle from an Amber Alert, but not before a horrible thing had been done to her. Sexual assault can mean many things -- exhibitionism, fondling, sexual harassment and exposing a child to pornography, among them -- but the fact remains that this man put this child into a situation that was considered to be "sexual assault" and whatever it is that happened to her is something she will have to live with. It's so horrible the perverse things that monsters do to children in this world.

I keep thinking about how he managed to lure this child to his truck. I've gone over the "stranger danger" conversation with Jennifer many times. I have explained to her some of the tricks strangers use to lure children away from a safe area. One of them, such as asking a child to help them look for a dog, is one that actually happened (and which I saw for myself) but thankfully Jennifer was smart enough to tell him no. But even after that, I still had this conversation with her again later on.

Even so, she has sometimes forgotten safety rules and did things she was not allowed to do. One thing, for example, was reaching into a truck to pet a man's dog. The man was sitting there without a shirt on, for crying out loud! He could've grabbed her arm and pulled her inside. (She is lightweight so it could happen.) Afterwards, I lectured her AGAIN about tricks strangers use to get to kids but I don't think I'll ever need to ease up on that. As it is, I give her the "don't talk to strangers" warning every single time she goes out to ride her bike. I have also told her if a stranger tries to get to her, scream and run away. I told her if she screamed, it would attract attention.

But another warning about strangers I have given her is that she should never, EVER be nice to a stranger. Of course she knows she must be polite and respectful around grown-ups, but I have told her that when it comes to a stranger, don't be polite or respectful.

In fact, be rude.

Don't talk to strangers. Don't sit next to a stranger who asks her to sit with them. Don't help a stranger.

I know that this makes it seem like I am telling Jennifer to be selfish or disrespectful, but actually I'm trying to teach her yet another way to stay safe. We live in a world much, much too dangerous for children to be nice to everybody. Being nice to strangers, helping them find or move something and showing them where something is (such as her home) are all ways she could get kidnapped.

I remember a story my grandmother told me long ago. Once, as a young woman, when her husband was away for the night, she was awakened by a phone call by a man who asked her how to get into her house. "You don't," she answered, then hung up the phone and unplugged it. That story reminds me of how we DO need to be rude to strangers. I mean, why be nice to somebody who is planning to hurt us or do something terrible to us? I am the same way myself. I have taken many walks alone and men who try to talk to me are ignored or I just steer clear of them. I don't trust people I don't know well enough to trust -- and that right there is another important safety lesson a child should be taught.

Nine years old

2010-10-03T21:45:00.000-07:00

It's been 9 years since she was born. Nine years of going through the ups and downs of parenthood.

I love her more than anything in the whole world. I love her when she is good. I love her even more when she is bad.

She may have a sibling in this family, but that fact will never ever replace the special place she has in my heart. She will always be my baby, no matter how old she may be.

Happy Birthday, Jennifer. I love you for always.

Living life ugly in a beautiful world

2010-09-19T07:18:00.000-07:00

Not too long ago, I was reading the Dear Abby column in my local paper. A letter in there was from a woman who was confused because her friend all of a sudden started to ignore her, give her the brush off and just not arrange to meet with her anymore. At one point, this woman tried to reach out to her friend via email, only to get a response from her along the lines of “leave me alone.” She wanted to know why her friend was all of a sudden shutting her out, since she couldn’t come up with an explanation herself.

This was something I could relate to. I know someone who has done this same exact thing – not just to me, but to us.

When Jennifer became friends with a girl at her school a couple years ago, her mom and I started to communicate via email. This particular friend was one Jennifer couldn’t stop gushing about! Every day, she had this or that to say about her friend. They also talked on the phone for hours. So it was arranged Jennifer could have a sleepover at the girl’s house. I met the parents and they seemed nice. The sleepovers happened, as did several playdates. The two of them were in BFF Heaven.

Then, something happened.

Jennifer would call her friend only to be told that her friend could not talk now. Whenever we asked about sleepovers, the friend said that her dad was sick – but I started to grow suspicious after the friend kept feeding her that line for several weeks.

I tried to reach out to the mother via email. She refused to reply, so I tried to communicate with both her and her husband. I kept the emails to every so often, NOT every day, just so it would not look like I was “hounding” them. I asked about what was going on and expressed my concerns for the friend’s dad being sick for so long. I apologized for every imagined crime under the sun. I gushed over what a “beautiful and smart” daughter they had (which is the truth, actually). Finally, out of frustration from not receiving an answer, I just came out and asked why they were not communicating with us anymore.

Nothing. Zip. Zilch.

I considered the possibility that they had changed email addresses. That they lost their Internet connection or that my messages just somehow ended up in their spam folder. However, I knew they still used that email address, because I later would occasionally see them as logged in.

It wasn’t any of that. They were just ignoring me. Yes, I KNOW this is rude, but I’m used to this. People HAVE ignored emails from me. Yes, it is rude, but they just don’t seem to care and decide to be rude anyway.

So I decided to just let it go. They didn’t want anything to do with us. Fine. It wasn’t like I was THAT desperate for this woman to be my friend, anyway.

But what pissed me off was how they were hurting Jennifer in all of us. They did not see the sad or hurt look on Jennifer’s face when she could no longer talk with her BFF on the phone, how there were no more playdates or sleepovers. The friend even started to ignore Jennifer at school. That was even MORE hurtful for her! I would even see that happen myself and just get so angry that this was likely the girl’s mother forbidding she interact with my daughter.

I mean, at this point, I was boiling!

It was just so wrong they were doing this to my daughter. Hurt me, I can just walk away. But hurt my kids, and I go on the warpath.

Then I read that letter in Dear Abby. Dear Abby (in title, not as a show of affection) threw around a bunch of possibilities why this friend was acting the way she did. Why she shut her BFF out and just stopped communicating. But, in the end, she suggested to the writer that she just give that friend her space and wait until she decides to come around again, if that ever happens, and until then, just be a friend.

Even as I related to that woman’s predicament and wanted to know what to do myself, the answer Dear Abby gave was useless. I had pretty much given up on that friend’s mother. I’d given up on the possibility that Jen’s BFF was even a friend anymore. I started to encourage Jennifer to find new friends, even a new best friend. I counseled her so many times on this and reminded her that sometimes, things like this happened.

As for me, I just washed my hands of those people. I just didn’t care anymore. They didn’t want communication. Fine. They didn’t want to explain themselves. Fine. Whatever! Life goes on.

Then the other night, after Jennifer had experienced all the excitement of entering third grade this year, I decided to ask her about how things were going at school. We three sat at the table, eating dinner, and I asked her about the new friends she was making. I also asked if she happened to see any of her old friends. Eventually, the former BFF came into the conversation. I was surprised yet VERY relieved to hear that the girls were playing at school again. This was a weight lifted off of me, especially since I could see how Jennifer’s eyes lit up as she talked about what they did. She had that BFF spark again!

But my happiness was shot when Jennifer grew sad then mentioned that her friend had explained why her parents didn’t want to see us anymore. I held my breath, unsure about whether or not I should allow this to continue. But I DID really want to know! So I asked her what her friend said.

Want to know their reason for shutting all of us out of their lives? It wasn’t for something like an unintentional faux pas or something we said.

It’s because we are ugly!

Or, so THEY think. Actually, they think hubby and I are ugly. So they’d rather avoid us like the plague. Ooh, beware! Don’t want to catch the Ugliness!

Good grief.

And all this time, I thought maybe they thought we were devil worshipers, or something. I never would have guessed it was because of something so petty and shallow.

When Jennifer told me this, I was shocked. I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t believe it! I know my burn scars make me unattractive. And, if it weren’t for them also thinking my husband is ugly, I would have pinned the blame on that. But, no. It’s not my burn scars. Or maybe it is. I don’t know.

The truth is, I don’t CARE.

Like I said, I washed my hands of those people. As shocked as I was that a supposedly MATURE and ADULT person would sink to something so low, I realized that there are just people like that in the world. There are people who think looks are EVERYTHING. They have this shallow idea of how people should always look BEAUTIFUL and PERFECT.

Well, guess what?

THERE ARE UGLY PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD!

Deal with it.

Even so, I do not consider myself to be ugly. True, I’m not exactly a knockout. (And this particular mother is not a knockout, either. Neither is her husband. Actually, they are average.) But I know I’m not ugly.

And you know what? Neither does Jennifer. She kept insisting that I am not ugly and that her daddy is not ugly. She told me she told her friend, “They are wrong.” Her friend AGREED.

I told Jennifer if that is the kind of people that they are, then I didn’t want to be friends with them, anyway. Some people just can’t look past what they see on the outside of a person. They only focus on what they see, not on what they can find. They are a waste of my time and I don’t want friends like that. Phooey on them!

Still, I grabbed that window of opportunity and explained to Jennifer that it is what’s on the inside of a person that is important. People should NOT be judged by their appearances, by their scars or by their weight. They should be judged by how they are on the inside. We may live in a society that demands beauty and perfection and that takes everybody who is fat, scarred, short and disabled and labels them all as "ugly." But people who follow that religion are missing out on the important things in so-called "ugly" people that are more important than appearances. Things like honesty, helpfulness, selflessness, compassion and generosity.

And, best of all, we know what REAL beauty is. It's not what you see. It's what you feel.

Believe me, I have known “beautiful people” who were jaded, selfish, greedy and filled with some kind of “holier than thou” attitude. Some of them like to play head games with others, trick people and use them for their own sport. They are NOT pleasant people to be around!

And I have met people who society perceives to be “ugly” – the obese, the scarred, the physically disabled and the plain Janes – and these people have hearts of gold. They are so giving, so kind, patient and helpful. THEY are the people I would feel blessed to call my friends. THEY are the people I want to have in my circle.

That night, when I tucked Jennifer into bed, I kissed her and told her, “Goodnight, my beautiful daughter.”

She smiled and said, “Goodnight, my beautiful mom.” Later, she made me a card gushing about how “beautiful” she thinks I am. She made one for her daddy, too. In this card, she even pointed out some of his better qualities.

I can shake my head and roll my eyes over how petty some people can be. I guess age and life experiences just won’t decide on how mature a person can be. That’s life. What matters is that we are able to walk away from this confident in the fact that WE know what beauty really is, and that at least we can share that true inner beauty with each other.

The money comes and the money goes

2010-09-12T07:19:00.000-07:00

Okay. New plan.

I'll be attending school to study for job certification NEXT year. Not this year.

The money I had for this had to be used for family expenses (that's just the way life is!). So, I'm going to start all over again and save up for next year. Also, it's probably just as well. The classes I had to take were all full. So maybe next year I can get in there early and get the classes that I need. Jesse will be in preschool fulltime next year. And at least this way, I can get a regular job (not the kind you need certification for) and just work my way through that and have regular employment in place if I don't end up being able to get a job in my desired field after this schooling ends.

So, it's all good. It'll work out. I'm VERY frustrated, because I was so ready to do this, but that's just the way life is. Maybe this can be a good thing. Hubby keeps telling me this approach would be better. He stressed that even if I went to school and got a certificate in medical coding, there's no guarantee I'll have a job waiting for me. I can see how that could happen. The new plan just makes better sense, because I'll have something to fall back on even after I complete the schooling. So I'll do it this way.

I just have to be careful with expenses. I will REALLY need to be firm to save up for this. It's just that it's like....money leaves your hands faster than it can stay in them! The money comes and the money goes. Hubby and I have been trying to establish a savings for YEARS, but it's like there's ALWAYS something that comes up. The car needs a new tire, something in the house breaks and needs to be fixed, something comes up at our daughter's school that we need to pay for, etc., etc. It's just, always something! As it is now, even as I have a nice check on its way to me, that money isn't going to last, either. My dog has a loose tooth and I need to take him to the vet to get that taken care of. (We don't have pet insurance. Is there even such a thing??) So that money has to go towards that. Such is life.

This is part of the reason why I want to have regular employment. We need to have that extra money there -- if anything, so that we can build up a savings. We literally have NOTHING saved. So if our house is crushed by a wayward comet, we'll be living on the streets. I know it's important to have a savings, and that's why I want a regular job. Hubby's job pays him well and we also have my annuity. But that can only carry us so far. And, like I said, things keep happening where the money just doesn't last. So if I have a good job that I receive certification for, that will help us a lot.

For as long as it can, anyway.

I just need to try to hang in there. Next year will be better. But that's what we all would like to think!

9/11 -- We Will Never Forget!

2010-09-11T07:49:00.000-07:00

Pictures from the following sites:

http://www.radified.com/911/

http://911.navexpress.com/

http://www.nyartlab.com/bombing/

Also, please visit this memorial site:

http://www.11-sept.org/home.html

These photos are not copyrighted in my name. I am sharing them so that people see just a glimpse of the images kept on other sites which capture terrifying moments from that sad day. If you visit these sites, be warned that there are disturbing images of people leaping to their deaths from the flaming Twin Towers.

God Bless America. Nine years later, they are gone but not forgotten.

And when he was bad

2010-09-05T23:00:00.000-07:00

I've got it! The perfect title for a book if I ever decide to write about my son's life: "And When He Was Bad..."

I love my son. Really, I do. He is so precious to me. BUT! Believe me, he is VERY mischievous. My mother used to share horror stories of the kind of mischief I caused when I was a toddler. I guess history is repeating itself.

This month, a new book for parents of 2-year-olds came out called The Terrible Twos: A Parent's Guide. It's by my friend and fellow writing parent Shanta Everington. I mention this book because I am in there, discussing how I'm getting through the "terrible twos" with my own toddler. I have earned my place in that book! I will be sharing some instances as to the sort of mischief Jesse has caused in his short life on her blog next weekend.

The kind of mischief Jesse has caused has been enough to make us scream, tear our hair out, have our hearts in our throats and cry. Yes, cry. But, we need to laugh, too. For instance, Jesse got a hold of the hose this evening while I was cooking dinner. His older sister was supposed to be watching him (as hubby was busy in the garage) but she had other plans. Anyway, Jesse was in the back yard, got hold of the hose, pointed it inside the house and...let it rip. It took hours to clean up the mess. We were cursing, grumbling, stomping feet, refusing ice cream to the children and sending them to bed early. But in the end...hubby joked about it. He said, "At least the house is cleaner than it was before."

You just have to laugh at these things...after you cry.

Not too long ago, I was on the phone with my mom. I was sharing with her my worries over Jesse's latest ailment (the doctor thinks he has a cyst next to his eye) and complaining of how it was so unfair that Jesse was going through so much medical trauma at such a young age. There was this, then that and then THAT! Heck, he was born with the side of his head uneven! But I reasoned that, just as I went through so much early in life and all that nonsense ended later on, as I got older, maybe it will be that way for Jesse, too.

I'd like to think that the same could be said as far as Jesse being a troublemaker is concerned.

Well...maybe.

Who knows.

A girl can dream!

Down with diapers!

2010-09-01T23:58:00.000-07:00

I have a new mantra: Down with diapers! Up until today, we have been going back and forth on the pottytraining thing with Jesse. Some days were good, some not so good. Today, however, I feel more confident about this pottytraining stuff, because today I got Jesse everything he needed: A potty training seat and his own underwear.

Yep, that's right. His first underwear! No more diapers!

I have, however, kept a few of his diapers on hand, mainly because he WILL be wearing them for his naps and at bedtime. But other than that, he's going to be wearing the underwear and not much else besides a T-shirt. I think it would be better if he mastered the whole picking up on when he had to go potty, experiencing the accidents and learning how to pull the underwear down and up thing before I add pants to that mix.

This is the way my mom pottytrained her kids and grandkids. I have heard of some parents letting their toddlers run around with NOTHING covering the bottom, but I don't feel comfortable about that. I think it's better to have him wearing underwear instead. Worked for my mom, so maybe it will work for us, too.

I have also noticed, as I worked with him today, that he got impatient waiting for something to happen while he sat on his potty. So I got a bunch of his books and put them into a drawer by his potty chair. I joked to Jennifer about how I never understood the whole "boys and reading while on the potty" thing and she admitted that she liked to read while using the potty, too. So she, too, had some of her books put into the bathroom. I guess I am the only one in this family who doesn't read while on the toilet!

The book thing worked like a charm. He quietly sat on his potty chair, going through his books. Sometimes, though, he would say he had to go potty and when he was on that thing, nothing happened. I think he just wanted to sit on an uber comfy seat and enjoy his books!

The potty chair I got for Jesse had an inflatable seat on it. I told Jennifer they didn't have anything like that when she was pottytraining and she was NOT happy. I told her the potty chairs they have for babies now are so different than what they had when she was a baby. Heck, one of them even plays music! And Jesse's even has a bar on it for toilet paper. We no longer have Jennifer's original pottytraining seat but it was interesting to compare how they were all different. The one thing that stayed the same, however, is that Jesse's chair can be converted to a stepping stool, just like Jennifer's was.

I'll be working with Jesse this week on getting this pottytraining thing down pat. And I just may start reading on the toilet, too -- not while using it!! -- because I have noticed that sometimes it takes him a while to go to the bathroom and determine if he is done.

At first, he wanted to check out the potty chair, take it apart and put it back together again, and I read this is normal at first. I am reading EVERYTHING I can on this pottytraining stuff -- not so much to refresh my memory but also because this time it is with a BOY! And I read that you should teach boys how to pee sitting down first, then later how to do so standing up. (That will be where his father will come in.)

It has been quite a challenge but I know it's important to stick with it. After all, Jesse is READY for this phase of his life. So I have to keep at it until he figures out how to do this on his own.

It's beginning to look a lot like September

2010-08-28T07:53:00.000-07:00

It's that time of the year again! Line up, troops! Backs straight and eyes forward! Pencils sharp and lunchboxes packed!

It's.....

BACK TO SCHOOL TIME!

And as if to herald this busy time of the year, I was on the phone for over an hour the other day making all the necessary doctor and dentist appointments. (Gotta keep those kids in tip-top shape, dontcha know!) I even scheduled a check-up for the dog!

And last night, I was going over various extracurricular classes for the kids to take this fall. In the end, I chose swimming, gymnastics, karate and music for the both of them. (Well, Jesse's not old enough for karate yet, but he, too, will be taking swimming, gymnastics and music. He'll also have a "toddler playtime" class on days he doesn't have preschool.) Despite the busy schedule in place with all of these activities, Jennifer wants to do one or two more things! As it is, she will have Friday and Saturday "off." I told her, "You will be grateful for those days off!" Still, she wants to do more. So I thought that maybe it would be a good idea for me to find a "mommy and me" class that we could take together, on Saturdays. Since Jesse will have a "mommy and me" class for the swimming, it's only fair that Jennifer has one, too. We've narrowed it down to a few options: Yoga, art and cooking. I hope I can find something that will take place on Saturdays. She wants to be a chef, so I am hoping I can find a cooking class we can take together. (I love to cook, too, so that should be fun!)

We've been buying the kids new clothes and shoes for the new school year. Jennifer also wants a new backpack, even though her dad says the one she has now is fine. But we both think it would be neat to have a new backpack for the new school year, so we'll keep our eyes peeled for a good one. She also wants a new lunchbox. After three years with the same old lunchbox, I agree that it's time to retire it for something new.

As to Jesse, I am planning to enroll him in the same preschool Jennifer went to. This time, however, he'll be attending two days of the week, instead of four. I also want to start him off on the "half day" schedule, just until he gets used to this. (OK, OK. Until I get used to this, too!) We have been working on pottytraining him, to get him ready for this. That in itself has been a work-in-progress. He has done well with it but just having trouble recognizing when he has to go to the bathroom. So we have to keep asking him, "Do you have to go potty?" So we are working with him on that. I can't believe my baby boy is almost three years old! Time sure flies. Wow.

But I know this will be good for him. He needs to build those social skills and explore his physical skills. I have every faith in Kim to be able to work with Jesse and also nurture his creative growth. I just hope we can still get him in there!

It's not just the kids who are going to school this year. I will be "attending" school, too! But, only on a part-time basis -- one, on account of the baby, and two, because the school I'll be taking classes at is soooo far away. It's about an hour away! And, three, because by going part-time, it won't cost an arm and a leg to take the class. I'm starting with ONE class and I'll work my way through it. The classes I'm taking are mostly available online. I think there are one or two of them I'll need to take that are not available online at this time. But that can come later. By the time I'll need to take those courses, the baby will be in kindergarten (not a baby anymore!), so I'll have time to make that commute. I have been talking with an instructor of the courses and checking out what I need to do. This is for the medical coding job. The training will last for 3-4 years at the rate I am going -- which is fine by me, really. I need to have this time so that I can still be available for my children and be at home until the baby is older. I DO want my kids to be independent and self-sufficient, but they are still too young for a lot of things that go with that.

Overall, it's going to be a REALLY busy autumn/winter. Of course, I'll also have to get Jennifer signed up for basketball, when that time comes. (She plays it every year.) I'm excited about this new adventure and I know the kids will be happy to learn all these new things, too. They have enjoyed their "lazy time" during the summer. Now it's time to get back to that old school desk, and to get busy!

Yakety-yak--ACK!

2010-08-18T22:35:00.000-07:00

Normally, I am not a very talkative person. After I lost my hearing, my mom was afraid I'd lose my voice, too, so she was encouraging me to talk A LOT. And quite loud, in fact. And I guess being around so many people to actually talk to, I had no choice but to yak my head off every day. Ever since moving to Eugene, however, that has changed. Sure, I talked with the friends I had (emphasis on "had"), but it's not like we chattered away at all hours. Mostly, I was quiet. And I have grown quieter still, despite writing so much and being a virtual chatterbox on the World Wide Web.

But that's as far as it goes.

These days, I don't have friends to hang out with or family to talk to in person every day, so I really don't feel so compelled to talk so much. I guess I'm trying to salvage the kind of silence I could not have during my teen years. But because I have small children to care for, silence is darn near impossible. There are many times I have to talk with my children ... A LOT!

I suppose I should be grateful my kids want to engage in so much conversation with their parents so much (even the baby, who will be 3 in October). After all, they'll be teenagers before we know it, and they would rather talk with their friends instead of their parents. But all of this yakking can get frustrating, especially when I am trying to drive and I have to keep my eyes on the road and NOT on my daughter's face to read her lips. These are the times I'll announce "Driving!" when she tries to tell me something, and she'll know she'll have to wait until we get to a red light or when I can stop briefly to turn around and read her lips. (She is learning she can't take these small windows of time to sit there and go "uuummmmm....").

It's also frustrating when I just want to STOP talking so much. As it is, my throat hurts if I have to talk so much, even if I drink water while I am speaking. So sometimes, you know, I just have to tell the kids, "Give me 5 minutes of peace!" OR..."Eat your food and stop talking so much!"

This evening is a perfect example. At dinnertime, the kids just yakked and yakked. My husband and I are not big talkers when we sit down to eat, so both of us tend to get a bit rattled by the kids constantly getting our attention to tell us something or ask questions. Or, as often happens, to go over words in sign language. (And, yes, he does speak, just as I do.) At one point, I had to tell Jennifer to wait before telling me something YET AGAIN because I had to run to the baby, who was getting into something.

Then, when putting the baby to bed, we spent time together in his room as he pointed out things and I had to say what had to go to sleep now, because ALL of us had to go to sleep now. So I kept having to say "Caterpillar has to go sleepy...fan has to go sleepy....chair has to go sleepy....night light has to go sleepy....backpack has to go sleepy..." And just on and on.

Then, finally, after a while, my throat was hurting from talking so much, so I just calmly sat there nodding and saying "mm-hmm" every time he said something to me from his crib. (Heh. What if his baby talk translated to "Mom, there are aliens outside my window"?? Mm-hmm.)

Then Jennifer showed up, asking me to read them a story. I was tired, wanted to STOP talking, but how could I turn away a child who wants to be read to? So I read them a story. Afterwards, Jennifer went back to bed. Eventually, the baby fell asleep. And I could once again fall silent without any need to talk again.

At least....until tomorrow comes.

So long, and thanks for all the fish

2010-08-15T22:05:00.000-07:00

In my last post, I noted that I made the switch to a vegetarian diet. However, it was not a TRUE vegetarian diet, for I still ate seafood. I did this because I know there is nutritional value in seafood which is not in any other foods.

After a while, though, I got sick of eating so much seafood. I ate so much of it, my breath started to taste like tuna! I know it is dangerous to eat too much seafood, because of mercury, but I still ate it, anyway.

Until now.

Today, after some serious thinking, I decided to end my semi-vegetarian ways. That's right; I will go back to eating meat! And poultry.

Did I make this decision because I'd grown weary of eating so much seafood? Well, partly, yes. But the other reason why I abandoned this diet is because the rest of my family is not vegetarian, or even semi-vegetarian, and I hated seeing meat and chicken going to waste. One thing I CANNOT stand at all is waste. Wasting money, wasting energy, wasting resources, and, especially, wasting food. My grandma made it through the Great Depression and she, too, always made sure food never went to waste. Even if she had to give food away so it would not waste, she gave it away. (I do that, too.) I sort of picked up that habit from her. So, this was the BIG reason why I decided to start eating meat again. And, to make it official, I made meatloaf for dinner tonight. And ate it, too.

All the same, I won't go nuts eating meat, like some people do. I will try meatless meals whenever possible -- and, of course, the seafood, though not as regularly -- but I will also be eating meat again.

Jeans weirdness

2010-08-04T22:10:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, I went to Old Navy to finally buy a new pair of jeans. The ONE pair of jeans I owned were getting holes in them and I don't like wearing clothes that have holes in them. (I usually assign such old clothes to my pajama drawer, but not jeans.) I just got really fed up with them so I threw them out and decided to get new jeans. The plan was to get two pairs for now, since I'm trying to lose weight and want to get to a smaller clothing size in the near future. So, I finally made the trip to buy them, and since Old Navy had a jeans sale going on, that's where I went. I grabbed a bunch of jeans and tried them all on. All of them barely fit me -- and they were ALL a size 14! I almost cried. The only time I've been more than a 14 was when I was pregnant. And since I'm not pregnant now, there's no reason for me to be that size! But I DID need jeans. I decided to get ONE pair of the 14s (I was too humiliated to get 2 pairs, or even to try on the 16s) and maybe I will "fill them out" later so they won't be too tight.

Oh, boy. Did I ever fill them out!

Now, four days later, I put the jeans on again. I seriously debated keeping them, since it would be an even bigger rush to see how many inches I could trim down from a size 16, but I just couldn't bring myself to exchange them for a bigger size. And, anyway, like I said, maybe they won't be so snug later on. So I took the tags off. Threw the receipt into the recycle bin. Washed them and dried them.

Then I put them on.

Guess what? THEY WERE TOO BIG!! What the heck!

I tried to wear the jeans, anyway. After all, they weren't exactly sliding down to my ankles. (I hate wearing belts and won't wear them.) But later on in the day, it got to be REALLY annoying how they slid down so much and how I had to keep pulling them back up. UGH! They were so big, you could literally pull them right off of me! That's crazy!

Finally, out of frustration, I took off the jeans and changed into pajama pants. I was angry and upset that I NOW have a pair of jeans on my hands that are too big for me and I can't return them to exchange them! What a waste of money! I've already washed them and worn them. I don't understand how this happened. How can a pair of jeans that are tight one day end up being too big to wear four days later??

I considered the possibilities. One, maybe I dropped too much weight in that time. But I don't have a scale to weigh myself and see if that is true. I DID go back to a vegetarian diet as of the first of this month, and even as I know my weight plummetted the last time I was a vegetarian, it couldn't happen that fast! I DO look a bit skinnier in the mirror, but like I said, don't have a scale to find out. All the same, four days to slim down like that is just too scary a thought. And not very likely, either. Besides, I haven't been exercising -- unless you count the insane amount of housework I have been doing lately. That definitely has made me break a sweat! And I've noticed I've been more flexible because of it (sit-ups are no longer a nightmare, for example).

Of course, I thought, maybe it's the jeans? Maybe they're the kind that just stretch out when you wash them? Or...that's the style? But I made sure they were regular jeans when I bought them. Not low-riders, or something like that. Normal jeans. I thought if I throw them into the dryer enough, they will shrink to fit. Maybe.

Nevertheless, this is really confusing. I wish I could exchange the jeans. Maybe I will be able to. I'll have to stop by Old Navy when I'm out in that area this weekend and find out. And, meanwhile, stick to wearing the two pairs of pris I have that aren't too big for me (got a lot of clothes like that now), or the dreaded skirt.