My Son?

Is made of AWESOME.

Just thought you all should know.

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There are times when I find myself looking at him and thinking – “How did I get so lucky to have HIM for my son?”

And truthfully, there are times when I find myself looking at him and thinking – “What the heck buddy – what are you thinking??”

But lately, he has been made of AWESOME, and I know it’s not very often that I say it, and many times parents don’t say it out loud.  So I let him overhear me tell my sister how awesome he has been lately, and how lucky I am to be his mommy… I pretended not to notice that he was in the next room… but I knew he could hear me, and his smile… almost gave him away.

I have a challenge for all the Momma’s and Daddy’s – find something awesome about your child and let them overhear you brag about it to Grandma, or an Aunt, or someone special… many times it’s easy to find the naughty or disappointing thing that they have done… but I’m guessing you can find something that makes your son or daughter be made of “awesome” as well.

And maybe it’s something simple such as …”He held open the door for me”; … ‘he picked up his toys’  … put the dishes away without me asking…

Or maybe he tells you he loves you as he is getting out of the truck – even though his friends are within ear shot, and says – “Mom, I hope you have a great day at work, cause I’m going to have a great day at school – love you!”

Yeah, how did *I* get this lucky?

Happy Birthday to you!

Happy Birthday to you!

Happy Birthday Mr. Incredible!

Happy Birthday to you!

If any of you were close enough – I’d invite you over to have cake with us!

Now go wish him a Happy Birthday!

They say that the human mind can play tricks on you.  “they” say all kinds of things, but I wonder – is there a particular item, or scent, or taste, that instantly takes you back to a place in time, and you instantly feel something good.  You can close your eyes and be in that happier place?

Okay, so maybe, that was just me.

“Nutcase Party of 1 – your table is ready!”

The kids went with me to the store the other week, and since they were helping, I let them choose their toothpaste (Normally, we are a crest for kids); but they wanted something different.  And they picked up something else.  Not thinking much of it, into the cart, onto the check-out lane, and out the door it went.

A few days later, I was out of my own toothpaste, I forgot to pick some up when I was at the store.  No big deal, I’ll just use the kids.  So as I’m getting ready for work, brushing my teeth, putting on mascara, running through my day – it hit me.

A sense of happiness, a calmness – peace.  It took me back to a time, when the world was a much different place.  The worries I had then, much different from the ones of today, and to a time, when all the people I loved were still close.

I can remember

her hands – years of work, almost as tough as leather, but full of love.

her stories – the depression, being dis-owned from her family because of love, and the love she had for Grandpa B, her kids, and life…why didn’t I listen more closely?

I miss is her voice… I couldn’t get it right in my head… I couldn’t “hear” her anymore, but as I was standing there brushing my teeth.  I could hear her again, her voice almost as clear as day… and my world was a better place.

On March 25, it will be 19 years….

Why is it that something as simple as toothpaste can make my world a better place?

It’s Monday.

I think that about sums up what is going on in my world.

Tink played with the easy bake oven this weekend – she was so proud of her cookies.

Have I mentioned lately that I’m so glad that Pan is her older brother?

He came home from a birthday party – and saw that she had made some cookies and asked if he could have one.*  When he took a bite he told her how great it tasted and that it was the best cookie he had all day!

The smile on her face – doubled, no, tripled.  She was just so happy, proud, and so sure of herself… she did almost all of it herself – just needed help figuring out how thick to roll out the dough.  And I worry about her burning her hands, so I didn’t let her take it out of the oven.

Have a great week people!

*For those of you that have not had the privilege of tasting easy-bake goodies, to say they are comparable to cardboard is pretty accurate.  Keep in mind that it’s ‘baked’ by a light-bulb!

You hired me to do a job.
You gave me no direction, told me to make it my own.
(a week ago, the entire board praised me for doing such a great job, etc.)
You told me that I’m in charge of the office.
So, when the weather went to hell in a hand-basket, I sent the gals home and closed the office.
How was I to know that the weather guys from three different stations would get it wrong?
How was I to know that the Highway Patrol would get it wrong?
I rolled the dice, I error-ed on the side of employee safety.
Don’t like it – develop a policy.

Medical clinics closed, schools, public events, churches etc all closed and canceled activities.

oh, and convince the landlords to do snow and ice removal of the parking lot, because they closed the campus…

Got it? Good.

Long, long time readers know that when I a hit a wall (in this case a big brick one).

So anyone have any questions? From how to get wax out of carpet, to well, whatever…

If only wishes could come true, the wishes I would make.

The dreams….

I wish….

More than anything,

More than life….

I wish….

(leave your wishes in the comments… who knows, maybe your wishes will come true.)

I broke the frames of my glasses, and scratch the hell out of the right lens.

The local eye doctors office put my lenses in temporary frames – price – $30.

The local eye doctor no longer participates in my vision insurance, they can’t get me in for an appointment until Feb, and they don’t “recommend” that I take my prescription elsewhere.  (even when I get the cheapest of frames my glasses are around $435 – I need to have the vision insurance).

My former eye doctor died of cancer this past summer.  He was an amazing man, and believed in working with his patients.  If you had insurance, chances are he participated in the program.  If you needed something that your insurance didn’t cover – he would work out a payment plan, or something so that you could get what was needed.   He would have worked me in that day for an exam, and he would have given me my prescription so that I could go to one of those “you’ll have your glasses in an hour” places because he knows I need my glasses.

I told my former eye doctors office I’d think about it.

Called my vision insurance.

Found a new provider.

They had a cancellation at 8:40 the next day, they don’t care if I take my prescription elsewhere.

They are also open evenings… so in the future I won’t have to take off work to go to an eye appointment.

New glasses are coming – who knows what I’ve been missing…

We rang in the New Year tearing down paneling and tearing out old insulation in the garage – during one of the coldest weekends of the winter season – What did you do?

Here’s the back story:

At the beginning of December a house up the street had a house fire.  The guy was working on snowmobiles in his garage, and something went horribly wrong. Within 15 minutes the house was gone.  The fire departments (in addition to our local, two other towns were called in to help) were there for several hours trying to get it out.  He ran through the burning house  to get to his wife.  Spent some time in the burn unit, but will recover from his burns, and they are living with family in town.

The next day Mr Incredible happened to run into one of the guys on the fire department, knowing the layout of our home he was very insistent that we get drywall up ASAP…  Long story short, we are in the process of doing a garage remodel, at the coldest time of the year, because we (me more than him) have a fear of house fires, and our bedrooms are above the garage.  Those of you that have been around my blog  for any length of time know that nothing is ever done easily in this house.  No, we can’t just put drywall up over the existing paneling and call it good.  Nope.  Not us.  That would be easy.

There are a few things that we’ve been wanting to do – like pull cable &  CAT-5 wire to the bedrooms which are above the garage, put new electrical in the garage, etc, add more insulation… yeah, so putting up drywall – and then in a year tearing it down so we can do all that – seems ridiculous.

You all know that funds are tight  – Mr. Incredible isn’t getting ANY  overtime, and that’s just how it is, when things are good – they are good.  when they are tight – it’s like squeezing into a size 4 when really you are a 10.  So this would be a do it yourself type of project… but that’s not so bad.  I like doing projects with Mr. Incredible, we work well together, and I think it is good for our kids to see us fix things and see us work together as a team.  Some people say DIY projects either make or break your marriage- it makes ours.

That and the fact – that the contractors around here all want a pretty penny for their work.  (there’s a reason I’m so frugal… you can call me cheap – but the money fairy does not visit our home, damn it.)

This is what we’ve done this weekend.

1) tear down the paper thin paneling that was the ceiling of the garage.

2) pull out the 2 1/2 inches of insulation that was full of – get this – NUTS! (apparently at one time there was a rodent problem – squirrel? chipmunk?)

3) re-wire the garage – out with the cloth wires, and old two prong outlets, old light fixtures… scary would be an understatement – nothing like finding wires laying on the fiberglass insulation with the cloth coating chewed off.

4) pull ethernet and cable to all the bedrooms (not that the kids will have tv’s in their rooms, but if I ever give in on that – then they can have it.)

5) put new insulation up, we will have an R value of 30 – I’m not sure what we had before – but going from 3 inches to 9 1/2 inches should make a difference.

6) Put in wired heat sensors one in the garage and one in the hallway outside our bedrooms.

7) Seal all the little air pockets, and BIG holes in the walls, around the gas line etc.

Next weekend the drywall should go up.  I think he has a couple of guys coming over, if not, we will get it done, the local lumber yard said we can use their jack – which should help.

I’m beginning to think there isn’t anything we can’t do together.  He amazes me with what he knows to how to do, and I’m lucky that I have him in my life.  (Watch out next weekend, I’ll be bitching because he’s an idiot about something I think he should know, even without me telling him -  I love him,  but he’s still a man, and men can be idiots.)

You’ve got to give a little, take a little
And let your poor heart break a little
That’s the story of, that’s the glory of …. working with kids.

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Warning – this is a Rant, I’ve been chewed out today more than I care to admit.  and on a day when I wanted the kids to do well, and have a GREAT DAY – it just didn’t happen.  I’m cool with that, sometimes things just don’t go well.   What I’m not cool with… is the rest of the story.

Way back in April of 2009, there was an informational meeting, and Pan really really wanted to be a part of this group.  But NONE of the parents wanted to be in charge, none of them were willing to say – “Sign me up”; I’ll do the work.  So I did what any parent, who wanted their child to have an opportunity to do – I said “I”ll do it.”

and the other parents said… “We’ll help”; “you can count on me”… blah blah blah – empty promises except for two.  Mr. Incredible, and one other Dad.

and in September we found out that we received our grant.  Our parts arrived, Pan and I spend an afternoon sorting them by size, shape, color, and project area.

We started having meetings, what took other groups to do in 3 hours? took our group 9.

What should have been group discussions, and believe me we tried to include everyone, but some kids were more interested in their cell phone games, and the DS.   Or wrestling on the floor.  So starting in September EVERY Thursday Night from 6:30 to 8:00 I became a babysitter for 6 kids, and the other 4  wanted to work.  Because of the organization we are associated with, we couldn’t discriminate…we had to let everyone in – and our team is all over the board.

I had four kids that really understood how “big” this project was, and wanted to do well.  One that just wanted a trophy, and the other 5, I don’t know why they were there – I think their parents made them.   I began to dread Thursdays.  Pan began to dread Thursdays.    We had missions that we needed to complete…. and it wasn’t happeneing, but every Thursday, I’d go out unlock the building, and try to get the kids to work on the project… 4 would and the other – well, they had their DS, or they would throw legos across the room… seriously.

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, we had the 4 that got it work on it from 1:00 until 8:00 pm – we were making progress – got two missions complete… the Saturday and Sunday, Pan, Mr Incredible and I were out there working on it… making progress….  and then we had a meeting… and one my kids with a slight behavioral issue starting making changes to the programming… and saving what his changes over our programs… because he felt that it would work better… and all those hours of work – GONE.  (this is my fault, I should have made copies of all the programs, and saved them somewhere else…)  and no, there was no keeping this kid from the computer, he just shoves others out of the way… I can’t handle that… drives me INSANE.

Today was our “BIG” competition.  We were up 5:30 in the morning, left the house at 6:00 to get to our competition location.  At 6:00 PM I got the first phone call, and at 6:15 a second, and at 6:30 another.  One of the Moms was calling because 1) they couldn’t find one of her son’s shirts, and did I order extras?  NO, because that would be more money coming out of my pocket.  2) One of her sons was having a bad day, and I could hear him yelling at her.  I asked if I could talk to him, and he refused… I told her – he has to either lose the attitude or not come, I wasn’t going to deal with that attitude at competition.  the 6:30 phone call was from another mother, they overslept and would get there when they got there…. yeah.

At the end of the day all that really matters is that we went to competition, we did the best that we could with what we had.

I had two in tears, because they really wanted a trophy – we did pretty well, but not good enough.  I had a few moms tell me that I should have put down on our forms that three of our kids are on IEP’s.  (I wasn’t sure what an IEP was until today when I was informed of what exactly that means…)  But this competition isn’t about making excuses as to why they kids aren’t as good as the other kids, it’s a celebration of what we discovered, as a TEAM.  And as Pan said – “Mom, they got as much out of it, as they put in it.  And some of them didn’t put anything in.”

Wow… he’s 9.  and he knew that they didn’t do the research, they didn’t do what was asked of them, they didn’t work together as well as they could have.  They perhaps whined a little too much, and goofed off a little too much, when they should have been putting in a little more effort to get there.

The hardest thing… the kids that did work, the kids that tried, and cared…. their poor hearts broke a little…