Goodbye 2007

What a way to end 2007! Kenny's driving back from Florida after helping a family from the softball program through the death in the family, the church is having their "family" New Year's Eve party, but the teens decided to have their own party, and I'm the bad guy because I wanted to have a family New Year's Eve and if I go to the church 2 of my kids won't be with me all evening. Sheesh! And to top it off I'm in the middle of the monthly thing and I have work to "look forward" to on Wednesday. I know I shouldn't be griping, but having a bit of the "loll around life" for the past week really makes me want to, well, loll around! Unfortunately, no one pays for that!

December Days

Yesterday was Katie Cannon's wedding day. Katie and her family were our first supporters (Ken and Sandra not-withstanding) when we started at Bethel. When we went to Mom and Bill's wedding the summer after Kenny took the job with Bethel, Katie came with us to "man" the kids since Kenny and I would be busy with wedding stuff. Jo was almost 4, Meg 6, Lorie 7 and little Kenny 11. (I think that's right, I get goofy trying to figure out ages. It was the summer before preschool/1st/3rd and 5th for sure). Anyhow, the man Katie married goes to a nice sized church, and since Katie's family is in the photography business, they have bunches of people they wanted to invite. So the wedding was held at Jonathan's home church in Rutledge. Good thing too! It was standing room only!! One of my favorite parts of the wedding was watching Katie's eyes pop a bit when she came through the door into the sanctuary and saw the crowd. :)

I did the dancing thing, against my better judgement, but with the pushing and shoving of some of the teens I couldn't NOT dance. Well, wiggle embarrassingly (but not like Elaine Beniss from Seinfeld fame...well, not much like her dancing style). I was able to get Meg on the dance floor and made sure she got some laughs and fun. She didn't feel comfortable hanging with Lorie and her friends and Meg's weren't out and about. Johanna had passed out from antihistimines (that's a long story for another blog). Little Kenny and I had our first, albeit uncomfortable, dance. Kind of cracked me up.

Legos and band auditions

Another busy Saturday at the Stokes' house. Lorie and Meagan both are on school teams for the FIRST Lego League (www.firstlegoleague.org) that went to the regional qualifier today. Neither team ended up qualifiying for state, but Lorie's team won first place (and a trophy) for the research part. I felt badly for Meagan because she's always sure that she's going to win something and her teams ususally don't do very well. I don't know why that is. If she's on a team that does well, it's always such a surprise.

We're about to go out on our "B" night. Someone gave us a gift certificate package for Stevi B's and then we're going to use movie gift certificates that Lori gave me to watch the Bee Movie.

Tomorrow is church, choir practice and then a party for one of the kids' friends. It's a Treasure Hunt theme and all four kids are invited, so I'm using that time to work on the hosue and to get things squared away for next week! Time to get them ducks in a row!!!

Back in the saddle again

One word...ugh! This morning was back to business as usual with school being back in session. Let me tell you, I argued long and hard with my alarm clock and it won! I got my body clock all out of whack over the Break and ended up irritated with myself at 12:30 am when I STILL wasn't asleep, only to be even more irritated when the stupid alarm rang at 5:30! Needless to say I spent much of the day trying to remember to be "perky" to be in keeping with this family-friendly office environment I'm trying to work on since so many people were complaining about me. (Now, in my defense, the 5 or so complaints came from people who would have complained if Perfect Patty was in the office. They didn't like that I was asking them to follow county policy and complained to county office to be buttheads!! Not because I was "bad" to them!) Anyhow, I'm so perky and friendly now, I irritate the fool out of myself! But ah, well, thems the grapes. Actually I don't think that the correct phrase, but I can't come up with it just now. So there you go.

I also had the unfortunate problem of being gassy for some reason today. I think it was all the black beans I ate over the Break (don't ask. I got a hankering for a corn/black bean salad the technology teacher made one time and so I made some!) Anyhow, I was extremely uncomfortable all day being that the bathroom I use is right off the staff workroom and since the workroom was busy all day, and I'm quite private by nature, I wasn't really comfortable, er, working off the gas. However, now that I'm home things are feeling better. Hee hee.

Tomorrow Jeanmarie will be out which means probably a pretty sucky day for me! Blech!

Thanksgiving Break

I've been sooooo looking forward to this Break. Then it got here. I knew I didn't feel well at work on Friday and when I got home...temperature of 100.4! Kenny went to a get together and told everyone that I was home with a 104 degree temperature! When he came home he was all "let's take your temp and then take you to the hospital" because everyone there told him that 104 was pretty high. They must have thought he was the worst hubby ever to have gone to a party and leaving me home sick! Got a good laugh out of that.

I've been between 99.5 and 100.7 ever since. Called today for an appointment and they were booked up until tomorrow morning. I'm sure I'll be all better by then!

Kenny and the kids have been upstairs (we live in my in-laws' basement) helping them get the house ready for my brother-in-law Rick, his wife, Mendy and their family, who are heading here from Oklahoma for Thanksgiving. They are repainting, caulking, moving furniture, and cleaning to beat the band. Luckily, I've been able to escape that and a lot of the kids fighting and horseplay because I've been bedbound.

I thought it was strep because of how bad my throat ached, but with my stomach and bottom issues, I'm thinking it's more of a stomach virus! Nice timing!

My daughter with her chorus picture. Love the eyebrow!

So much for blogging

Meagan's class is blogging (mrsdreslinsblogspot.com) each week. I thought "I ought to blog" and came to put together a blog spot, forgetting that I already created one. How sorry is that?

So what's happening now? Hmmm, guess I should have checked what was happening in my last blog! Wow...batting 1000. Well, what am I doing NOW? In 20 minutes I have to be at church to eat dinner and direct children's choir. I keep asking myself how in the world I managed to get myself roped into doing children's choir again...then I think of Meagan and Jo not have the opportunity to do it like Kenny and Lorie did and how can I say no? But am I putting the time into that I should? Well, no, not if I'm being honest. But then that's how I kind of slide through life, unfortunately. When I grow up, I'm going to do things on time and with great passion. Of course, I'm 38, so I guess this is as grown up as I"m going to get.

Money is an issue. We just suck at budgetting and handling our money. Sometimes it truly bites to be an adult.

6th day of the rest of this blog

Well, still no Aunt Flo, but boy am I cranky! And eating like a starved person! Personally I can't hardly stand myself. But good news is that I worked an hour late yesterday, so I'm taking that hour at the end of the day tomorrow!! So, hmph! Oh, something good did happen today. I had to get gas and pulled into a station that's weirdly set in the parking lot of one of our local grocery chains. First thing the pump asked was if I had a Kroger card. I actually did, so I swiped it. That got me gas for $1.89 a gallon! That's 10 cents a gallon lower than the gas station near my house that I usually use! How awesome is that?! Now, the car will probably be knocking so loudly that the neighbors will be able to hear me coming home when I reach that other gas station...but there you go!

5th day of the rest of this blog

Well, I'm getting gripier (which is a word whether it's in the dictionary or not!) as the day goes on which only means one thing...Aunt Flo's a-comin'! Nothing seems to be going right; I don't seem to be able to come up with the correct reaction to anything and my mouth keeps getting me in trouble. Plus, all the idiots seem to have come out to play which drives me bananas! I can't stand stupid people (not low IQ people, but ones who insist on doing things their way no matter what) and today I was surrounded by them! I also find myself, as usual, broaching this time of the month with deadlines surrounding me and no patience to deal with things the way I should! Ah, hormones...geez, I'm too off to come up with a cute, pithy remark! That totally bites the big one!

4th day of the rest of this blog

So the whole icy road thing turned out to be a bunch of hooey. Four people did actually call asking if schools were open. I was a bit snotty and said that the TV and radio stations had not announced that schools were closed, so we were open for business. My co-worker just told them that schools were open. It just irritates me that in the time it took them to call the school and sit through the opening schpiel, they could have turned on the tube and found out for themselves without bothering me!

My co-worker had to take off halfway through the day and it was like all heck broke loose. It wasn't obnoxious people, but just one after another with questions and weird stuff. I was glad to turn my computer off and go. Course, there was no "home" to add to the "go" because Meg got her braces off and then had clogging. I did luck out because the way time fell I swung by the older kids music lesson place so Meg could show off for Big Kenny and Johanna opted to stay with him. That meant that instead of running errands with Jo (whining) in tow while Meg had her 1.5 hr.lesson, I got to do it all by myself. Nothing like trying on pants with a 7 year old providing commentary! It was nice to have time to myself.

3rd day of the rest of this blog

Okay, so the title's not as smart as I thought it was, but I can't come up with anything better. So...

Tonight the freezing rain has started up. I had a call at the school around 1 asking if we were having school tomorrow. I gotta tell you, I need to be earning brownie points for NOT saying some of the smarmy things I want to say when people ask doofus questions like that. Our bad weather policy is very clear. Plus, at the time of the call it was sunny and 46 degrees outside. Why would anyone call off school on a 30 % chance of icy roads. People are stupid.

I've quite decided that the honeymoon is over with my job. The every day tasks are starting to irritate me and the meaningless things people ask me to do to save them a couple steps are just grating. One of my bosses walks out of her office all the way to my desk to ask me to pull a file. She could have saved a bunch of walking and a lot of time by just going one door down from her office and pulling it herself. But, that's why she gets paid the big bucks and I...don't.

Wow, Gripe-city in this post. I need to go and get a better attitude. And on that, this post ends.

2nd day of the rest of this blog...

Hee...I keep typing "blag" instead of "blog." I don't know why that makes me giggle, but it does, so there you go. Today was amazingly rough...I wish I knew why. No one fussed at me, no parents pulled any stunts, no teachers got snotty...it was just a lot of questions and a lot of stuff to do. I am the school secretary at an elementary school and take care of attendance, enrolling/withdrawals, scheduling, students files. And the visitors. Joy. Anyhow, I ended the day laughing with the bookkeeper and principal, so I guess that was good. Plus, it's a 3-day weekend, nothing to sneeze at with that! I'm going to go in tomorrow for a couple hours just to finish up some loose ends that will only take me a couple hours with no one bothering me vs. all day long with teachers and students mucking up the process!

And joy of joys, American Idol starts tonight! All is right with the world.

The first day of the rest of this blog...

I've been inspired by my little sister (not the first time, sure not to be the last) and so begins my foray into the Blog-o-sphere.

Thursdays are our "ouch" day, meaning it's busy from sun-up to sun-down and if someone doesn't pull their weight..."ouch." My day starts at 5:15 since I have to be at my desk by 7 and have 3 little girls (okay, one ain't so little and pulls her own weight) to help get ready. Meagan has 1.5 hrs of clogging classes, Lorie has guitar lessons and Kenny has drums in the afternoon. Daddy takes Lorie and Kenny from school to lessons to home and they deal with dinner. I take Meg to clogging and spend the time she has in class tootling around town with Jo in tow and we do dinner. All that just means I'm too pooped to party when I get home. Best thing about Thursdays is that it's Becca-day! Daddy pays one of the teenagers to come and mop the kitchen, vacuum the house, scrub the kitchen and dust. It's wonderful to come home after a l-o-o-ong day and the house is clean!!