Here I sit playing with my FaceBook page and blog while my minions WILLINGLY make dinner! I love it! They all came home talking about how much homework they had so I got things going for dinner. The next thing you know I've got kids telling me that they didn't have as much homework as they thought and they'll take over dinner prep! Boy am I glad I was making spaghetti, which is one of the things Lorie can cook from beginning to end without any coaching. She even answered a question Jo had about her math homework while taking care of dinner! How absolutely freakin' cool is that?
I'm beyond thrilled!
Monday, February 23, 2009
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Disney planning
Phew! The worst part of the Disney planning nightmare is now over! Lodging and dining plans have been paid for and now we're on the hunt for good prices on tickets. It's been a long haul from me saying to Kenny, "I was thinking, wouldn't it be great if we could go to Disney over Spring Break to watch Kenny march there?" to "That's all I need. Have a magical night." from Mario of Disney's Magical Gatherings last night. (The high school marching band was invited to march at Disney over Spring Break.)
Kenny spent many an email conversation with someone named Pam of Kingdom Konsultants and my wonderful sister, Lori, sent lots of emails with info and questions to try to get this show on the road. Kenny finally realized he didn't really have any oomph left after school, church and softball to devote to getting things decided for our Disney trip and put the whole kettle of fish in my lap.
First thing I did was get in touch with Lori with an "oh crud...we need to start from square one because I wasn't paying attention...help!!" email. After a couple days of gentle reminders from the long-suffering Lori, I finally got my procrastinating keister going and Lori called and we started going over all the good/bad/ugly aspects of this. We got pretty far in my quest for Disney Planning knowledge when she had to sign off and do some actual work (bless her heart). In the meantime I played around with several scenarios online trying to figure out pricing and all. She called me back that afternoon and already the "cheap" rooms at the value hotel we'd been looking at were gone! She volunteered to call the Magical Gathering phone number to see what was up and to find out how to keep our group together (ain't she the best?). What we found out was that, yes indeedy, there were only two rooms left during the time we wanted to go at the value hotel! My awesome sissy put on her Director's hat and quickly booked rooms for herself and froze those two rooms for Mom (who will take 2 of the girls in her room) and me AND was able to use her passholder's whatever-it's-called to get a decent price and dining plans. We'll buy the tickets later.
But hark! That couldn't be the end of the story could it? Of course not! The rooms were only froze until 10 p.m. and I couldn't get in touch with mom OR Kenny. By the time Kenny came home at 8 p.m. I was a babbling idiot and I think he told me to just book the rooms to get me to shut up about it! I called mom with my fingers crossed and when she answered (hurray!), she got front row seats to Act 2 of the Babbling Idiot Show.
All's well that ends well. I called Disney and suffered through their automated answering system (okay, confession time, I hung up on them twice out of frustration, but 3rd time's a charm!) and finally spoke to Mario who took my credit card numbers and confirmed we had lodging and food and all was well.
Just typing this is making me breathe heavy again!
Kenny spent many an email conversation with someone named Pam of Kingdom Konsultants and my wonderful sister, Lori, sent lots of emails with info and questions to try to get this show on the road. Kenny finally realized he didn't really have any oomph left after school, church and softball to devote to getting things decided for our Disney trip and put the whole kettle of fish in my lap.
First thing I did was get in touch with Lori with an "oh crud...we need to start from square one because I wasn't paying attention...help!!" email. After a couple days of gentle reminders from the long-suffering Lori, I finally got my procrastinating keister going and Lori called and we started going over all the good/bad/ugly aspects of this. We got pretty far in my quest for Disney Planning knowledge when she had to sign off and do some actual work (bless her heart). In the meantime I played around with several scenarios online trying to figure out pricing and all. She called me back that afternoon and already the "cheap" rooms at the value hotel we'd been looking at were gone! She volunteered to call the Magical Gathering phone number to see what was up and to find out how to keep our group together (ain't she the best?). What we found out was that, yes indeedy, there were only two rooms left during the time we wanted to go at the value hotel! My awesome sissy put on her Director's hat and quickly booked rooms for herself and froze those two rooms for Mom (who will take 2 of the girls in her room) and me AND was able to use her passholder's whatever-it's-called to get a decent price and dining plans. We'll buy the tickets later.
But hark! That couldn't be the end of the story could it? Of course not! The rooms were only froze until 10 p.m. and I couldn't get in touch with mom OR Kenny. By the time Kenny came home at 8 p.m. I was a babbling idiot and I think he told me to just book the rooms to get me to shut up about it! I called mom with my fingers crossed and when she answered (hurray!), she got front row seats to Act 2 of the Babbling Idiot Show.
All's well that ends well. I called Disney and suffered through their automated answering system (okay, confession time, I hung up on them twice out of frustration, but 3rd time's a charm!) and finally spoke to Mario who took my credit card numbers and confirmed we had lodging and food and all was well.
Just typing this is making me breathe heavy again!
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Eye exams
I've needed to get Johanna and Lorie's eyes checked for awhile now. I kept putting it off and putting it off because of money and time issues but finally got a jump on the calendar and scheduled them for Winter Break.
I wish I could have read the thoughts of the optician because Johanna was ON! The way she was talking reminded me of game show contestants from the 70's and 80's..."I'd like to buy an E for $300, Jim" in that overly-loud, overly enunciated way they talk. So funny. "That's an H, then an I, then either a G or an O, then a T. Wait let me go back to the G-slash-O and I'm going to say it's a G." She also read the letters from right to left, which threw us all for a bit. Add into it all that with the thing you look through in front of her face, she was stylin' a little like Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars I getting ready for a Pod race, and you can understand why Lorie and I giggled our way through Jo's exam.
The glasses should be ready Monday. I'll post pictures after we pick them up.
I wish I could have read the thoughts of the optician because Johanna was ON! The way she was talking reminded me of game show contestants from the 70's and 80's..."I'd like to buy an E for $300, Jim" in that overly-loud, overly enunciated way they talk. So funny. "That's an H, then an I, then either a G or an O, then a T. Wait let me go back to the G-slash-O and I'm going to say it's a G." She also read the letters from right to left, which threw us all for a bit. Add into it all that with the thing you look through in front of her face, she was stylin' a little like Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars I getting ready for a Pod race, and you can understand why Lorie and I giggled our way through Jo's exam.
The glasses should be ready Monday. I'll post pictures after we pick them up.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Auditions
Lorie has really caught the acting bug. It became apparent that her being part of school plays was no longer going to be enough for her. While we were at the dance studio for our ballroom dancing we noticed that they are actually more of an Arts studio. They offer all sorts of dancing, vocal lessons, acting lessons, etc. Dakota Fanning was part of that studio once 
upon a time. We took home one of the brochures and called the acting coach. We found out that they allow a lesson audit to see what was involved so we went to one. While the audit lesson wasn't all that great (how can it be when half the class is auditing students with their parents alongside). We decided to try it for a month to see how Lorie liked it. After her first REAL lesson, she was starstruck. She went on her first open cast call for casting agents for TBS and CNN and Tyler Perry Studios today. She's scheduled to get her headshot by a professional photographer (the amazing Roger Cannon) on Thursday but needed to take a photo with her to her audition so Kenny took her outside last night and didn't do half bad! Her teacher helped her with her resume, picking out a monologue for the a
udition and picking out her headshot from the shots Kenny took. I don't know if anything will come of it, but I'm excited about her excitement and proud of her going all out for something that she wants. She's a heck of a lot braver than I am!
upon a time. We took home one of the brochures and called the acting coach. We found out that they allow a lesson audit to see what was involved so we went to one. While the audit lesson wasn't all that great (how can it be when half the class is auditing students with their parents alongside). We decided to try it for a month to see how Lorie liked it. After her first REAL lesson, she was starstruck. She went on her first open cast call for casting agents for TBS and CNN and Tyler Perry Studios today. She's scheduled to get her headshot by a professional photographer (the amazing Roger Cannon) on Thursday but needed to take a photo with her to her audition so Kenny took her outside last night and didn't do half bad! Her teacher helped her with her resume, picking out a monologue for the a
udition and picking out her headshot from the shots Kenny took. I don't know if anything will come of it, but I'm excited about her excitement and proud of her going all out for something that she wants. She's a heck of a lot braver than I am!Friday, February 13, 2009
Princess Ball
Tonight is the Princess Ball at Hightower. (We changed the name from Father/Daughter Dance so that girls without fathers in their lives would feel more comfortable coming with their stepdad, brother, uncle, granddad, etc.)
Jo's been complaining for awhile how hard it is to be the last kid...she has to go to bed first, she doesn't have a cell phone, she doesn't get to do Youth Group stuff, etc. Tonight she got to go to the Ball with Daddy all by herself...something her sisters never got to do because there was always another sister there! But now she's the only kid in elementary school so she doesn't have to share. She started getting ready at 3:45 for their 6:30 "date". He's going to take her to Golden Corral for dinner.
I tried to get a picture as they walked out holding hands and Kenny opening the car door for her but the dumb camera didn't work right and it started sprinkling so I didn't want to make them come back to the house and do it again. (I'm such a good wife and momma!)
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Facebook, baby!
Kenny has "allowed" us to start using Facebook. For as long as I can remember he's had this major thing about MySpace and Facebook...mostly the ads on MySpace, not trusting the security of those places AND how easy it is to stop communicating face-to-face and relying on the web, txting, etc to be your communication with other people. I don't know what changed his mind about FaceBook but he came home last night and gave the okay and actually did the technical part of setting mine up. I'm adding photos left and right and trying to figure out the ins and outs of it. It's all very flustering to me to have instant messaging popping up as I'm adding captions or writing on someone's wall, but it's interesting just the same.
And can anyone tell me what a "poke" is on Facebook? And why am I poking people back?
And can anyone tell me what a "poke" is on Facebook? And why am I poking people back?
Monday, February 9, 2009
Monday, monday
Well, the alarm clock won again. But not without me sticking my tongue out and reminding it that next week is Winter Break and I get to sleep in! Today was one of those weird kind of days. The bookkeeper had a meeting at county office and was gone most of the morning. The principal was in meetings almost the whole day. The lady that will be secretary came up and worked with me for about 45 minutes. I didn't get to work with the lady who will train me, but I really wasn't in the mood anyhow, to be honest. I'm so tired these day. I'm trying to up my water and make sure that I take a vitamin everyday, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to start actually start exercising.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Ah, the weekend
All day long the mantra has been, "I love Friday. The day just gets better every minute!"
Today was a weird day. I spoke with the Employment Manager yesterday about my job position change since my reviews have all been good and was told that the principal could do anything she wanted. Today Kenny spoke with our lawyer and he said, "Since she's not in the union, there's nothing we can do." Um, Georgia is a right to work state so the union has no say. I did find out today that the change won't happen until next year instead of in a month. There's a lady from the County's Technology department that is a whiz and a half who will come in 2-3 days a week to clean up the helpdesk problems so I'm going to start walking around with her and training for the new job and the lady who will take over my position will be coming up on Fridays and whenever she has some free time to learn my job so maybe next year won't be such a slap in the face for her.
Today was a weird day. I spoke with the Employment Manager yesterday about my job position change since my reviews have all been good and was told that the principal could do anything she wanted. Today Kenny spoke with our lawyer and he said, "Since she's not in the union, there's nothing we can do." Um, Georgia is a right to work state so the union has no say. I did find out today that the change won't happen until next year instead of in a month. There's a lady from the County's Technology department that is a whiz and a half who will come in 2-3 days a week to clean up the helpdesk problems so I'm going to start walking around with her and training for the new job and the lady who will take over my position will be coming up on Fridays and whenever she has some free time to learn my job so maybe next year won't be such a slap in the face for her.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Little lost Kenny
Well, little/tall Kenny had his first experience of panic behind the wheel. I'd ordered new contacts for Meagan and him and they'd come in. I'd tried to pick them up over the weekend only to find out after I'd driven to the store that they weren't open on Sundays! So I asked l/t Kenny if he thought he could handle driving to get them. There are four turns within three miles of the house and then it's a straight shot to Lencrafters. 8 miles in total. He said he could do it so I wrote out the instructions and drew him a little map and off he went.
He managed to get there with no trouble. But, bless his little heart, the old male logic thing obviously didn't hit him too hard in the head because it somehow didn't occur to him that if he just followed the directions in reverse, that he'd get home. He drove the wrong way out of the parking lot and managed to drive about 10 miles before he figured out that he wasn't seeing anything familiar. So he turns around and gets the first turn back okay but at the next turn...he turns the wrong way again!
Since I was in someone else's car on my way to a Premier training, he called big Kenny and over the course of 30 minutes (remember, our Lenscrafters is a total of 8 miles away!!!), got talked through the whole getting home thing. Big Kenny said that when he got to the house he ended up crying because besides the whole getting lost thing, he had no money and was worried about running out of gas and getting stuck in the middle of nowhere!
Sometimes, there are no words.
He managed to get there with no trouble. But, bless his little heart, the old male logic thing obviously didn't hit him too hard in the head because it somehow didn't occur to him that if he just followed the directions in reverse, that he'd get home. He drove the wrong way out of the parking lot and managed to drive about 10 miles before he figured out that he wasn't seeing anything familiar. So he turns around and gets the first turn back okay but at the next turn...he turns the wrong way again!
Since I was in someone else's car on my way to a Premier training, he called big Kenny and over the course of 30 minutes (remember, our Lenscrafters is a total of 8 miles away!!!), got talked through the whole getting home thing. Big Kenny said that when he got to the house he ended up crying because besides the whole getting lost thing, he had no money and was worried about running out of gas and getting stuck in the middle of nowhere!
Sometimes, there are no words.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Job woes
As with everything, the economy is hitting education. It always occurs to me when these things happen that maybe someone should take a look at the salaries and perks of those at the highest levels and do some reducing there, but those that make those kinds of decisions are the ones whose salaries and perks would be touched, so that doesn't happen. Instead it's up to the peons at the lower levels to take the brunt of it all.
Here in Rockdale County, the School Board just revealed each school's points and the Title I money for the next year. And, indeed, there are teachers and parapros who will not have jobs at their current school so there are transfer requests flying all over the county to the few schools who will be adding teachers. At our school not only are we adding 3 teachers, but the principal was able to crunch the numbers so that all of our parapros will have a job next year, but they have to take one hour less a day. I'm being moved from my secretarial position to the INTEL position. It's a $7000 a year cut, plus I'm a little upset about how the job change not only because it wasn't my choice, but that how it might be perceived by the staff. After all, perception is everything. I'm going from a job that has my thumb on the pulse of the school and access to pretty much everything with the trust and responsibility that goes along with it to a position where I troubleshoot computers. Ask me how much I know about computers. That's about how much. Hmmmmm...
Can you tell I'm a little frosted about the whole thing? It makes me want to curl up in bed and eat Pringles (that's not a random thought, it's actually how I spent my Friday evening.). I used to look forward to going to school on Mondays and now? I can believe I have to go to school on Monday...
Here in Rockdale County, the School Board just revealed each school's points and the Title I money for the next year. And, indeed, there are teachers and parapros who will not have jobs at their current school so there are transfer requests flying all over the county to the few schools who will be adding teachers. At our school not only are we adding 3 teachers, but the principal was able to crunch the numbers so that all of our parapros will have a job next year, but they have to take one hour less a day. I'm being moved from my secretarial position to the INTEL position. It's a $7000 a year cut, plus I'm a little upset about how the job change not only because it wasn't my choice, but that how it might be perceived by the staff. After all, perception is everything. I'm going from a job that has my thumb on the pulse of the school and access to pretty much everything with the trust and responsibility that goes along with it to a position where I troubleshoot computers. Ask me how much I know about computers.
Can you tell I'm a little frosted about the whole thing? It makes me want to curl up in bed and eat Pringles (that's not a random thought, it's actually how I spent my Friday evening.). I used to look forward to going to school on Mondays and now? I can believe I have to go to school on Monday...
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