Twilight Mania!
My daughter's birthday is tomorrow. She wanted to have a party, but our house is not ready to host anything, so we came up with a great solution. The new Twilight movie came out today and is a huge deal with the teen-aged set. For her birthday party/present we let her invite 7 friends to come to the movie with us on Saturday, followed by a pizza party at Cobblestone Cafe. Done! She is so excited she can hardly stand it.
power outage
The local power company sent a notice to the school and all the households in this neighborhood at the beginning of the week informing us of a planned power outage today starting at 1:00. The school decided to make it a common day (that means all students come at 8:00 instead of spliting the school population like we do usually). The concern is for the bell system, the fire alarms, the lack of lighting in the bathrooms, etc. However, we will still be in session for 1 1/2 hours without power. The kids think this is a great adventure and they all squealed and giggled when the power actually did shut off. They thought for sure I would not have them paint, because how can you paint without power? Well, they found out you can paint just fine with the light from the windows. :)
ballet trauma
Most days Helena comes home from ballet on a natural high. She thinks it is the best thing in the world and can't imagine doing anything else. When she was cast in the Chinese dance in the Nutcracker, she was on cloud nine!
Yesterday she came home from ballet totally dejected. Apparently, the 3 girls in her cast doing Chinese are not getting the dance down as fast the the directors want. Unless they can pull it off by Saturday, they will be pulled from the part. Helena desperately wants this part! She spent the evening in a lethargic depression from which I could not pull her out.
She plans to stay after at ballet today and tomorrow to put in extra practice and I hope it will be enough. She is still cast in the Arabian corps de ballet and the Waltz corp de ballet, but Chinese was the first part with high visibility she has ever received.
It is so hard to watch your child struggle! I want to comfort her and give her everything her heart desires! I hope that she can achieve this goal, but I also hope that if it is not to be, that she can rise above it and continue to do well in ballet.
Yesterday she came home from ballet totally dejected. Apparently, the 3 girls in her cast doing Chinese are not getting the dance down as fast the the directors want. Unless they can pull it off by Saturday, they will be pulled from the part. Helena desperately wants this part! She spent the evening in a lethargic depression from which I could not pull her out.
She plans to stay after at ballet today and tomorrow to put in extra practice and I hope it will be enough. She is still cast in the Arabian corps de ballet and the Waltz corp de ballet, but Chinese was the first part with high visibility she has ever received.
It is so hard to watch your child struggle! I want to comfort her and give her everything her heart desires! I hope that she can achieve this goal, but I also hope that if it is not to be, that she can rise above it and continue to do well in ballet.
Pepper!
Our new kitten's informal name is Pepper, but we are playing with Red Hot Chili Pepper or some such as a full name. He is a little firebrand! He climbs EVERYTHING! He eats EVERYTHING, including Bill's salsa! And best of all, he totally cowed Tigger! It was the most funny thing to see Tigger running away from a kitten 1/4th his size! Tigger kept hissing and growling at Pepper, but Pepper ignored the rude comments and persevered. Pepper would sneak up on Tigger and sit as close as possible until Tigger noticed. When Tigger hissed, Pepper yawned and laid down with his back to Tigger every time! By this morning, Tigger and Pepper were playing and wrestling together like brothers.
My son Will
Will played football again this year. This time, his team was really good! They only lost one game in the season, but lost in the playoffs. He was #14 this year.
He was a devil for Halloween.
He plays the trumpet with the Jr. High beginning jazz band. 
He also plays the baritone (bass euphonium) with the concert band.
Our basement
We are finishing the basement of our 1927 Craftsman style bungalow house. Believe it or not, the basement remained unfinished for over 80 years before this! We are not completely finished, but we are close. The finish details are the most frustrating parts because you are so close, but they take so long to complete! The caulking is taking forever because I can only work on it in my free time (free time? Ha ha!).
Here is a preview before and after...
The new kitten!
While Bill and I were shopping last night, we noticed 3 children loitering at the entrance of WalMart. They had a cute little kitten with them. It was the last of a litter of 6 that their parents told them they had to get rid of. Mom and Dad were apparently shopping in the store and the kids were hoping some sap would come along and take the kitten. Yes, I agree it was horribly irresponsible on the parents' part to leave their kids unattended like that, but the oldest was a Jr. high student, so I presume they figured he'd look out for the younger ones.
Anyway...I was the sap who fell in love with the kitten and took it home!
This is him! He is 2 months old and doesn't have a name yet. Helena wants to call him Kiwi but we haven't decided yet.
Oh, and Tigger (our other cat) hates him! The dogs, Demi and Bella, both want desperately to love the new kitten, but the kitten hates them, too! I told the kids not to expect much more than an uneasy truce.
My beautiful daughter
This is my cute girl, Helena. If I can find other pictures of her, I'll post them. Right now my favorite picture is missing! At Disneyland, she went around kissing every character she could find.
She plays the violin, but it is not her first passion. I am hoping she will continue to take lessons, but I will not force it.
Her passion is ballet. She dances with Utah Regional Ballet!
So, it wasn't so bad...
The dinner turned out to be pretty fun. My step mother-in-law and I spent the evening steering the conversation into safe channels. She cooked a great meal almost entirely out of her garden and the evening passed pleasantly. I am even considering letting them come to my house for dinner... once I have a dining room again, that is.
A duty visit
Tonight we are going to go visit my father-in-law and his wife for dinner. Just Bill and I. No kids. We do not have a relationship with him by our choice. He was verbally and mentally abusive to his first wife (my mother-in-law) for about 50 years before she finally found the backbone to leave him. Never since I have know him has he been truly interested in our lives outside of trying to sell us on some new crackpot viewpoint of his about politics and/or religion. A perfect example would be the year we had Christmas Dinner with him and he brought 'presents' for Bill and me, but none for the kids. The card attached the the 'present' said... "To Bill and Christina"!!!! I had been married to his son for 13 years at that point and he still didn't know my name?! Oh, and the 'present'? A bag full of anti-Mormon literature. Yeah. Merry Christmas to you, too.
So, 'why in the world are you going', you ask? Because since he has married this second wife, he has actually made an attempt at mending bridges. I think this has more to do with the moderating influence of his wife than anything else. We had a dinner with him last year in neutral territory (a restaurant) that, if embarrassing due to his appalling table manners, was not a complete disaster. So tonight I humor my husband and his yearning for a normal relationship with his father by going to dinner. Not with the kids, of course! There is too much history to expose my children to him.
So, 'why in the world are you going', you ask? Because since he has married this second wife, he has actually made an attempt at mending bridges. I think this has more to do with the moderating influence of his wife than anything else. We had a dinner with him last year in neutral territory (a restaurant) that, if embarrassing due to his appalling table manners, was not a complete disaster. So tonight I humor my husband and his yearning for a normal relationship with his father by going to dinner. Not with the kids, of course! There is too much history to expose my children to him.
Seriously?!
So, last night my husband asked me where I had put the door handle hardware. I thought it an odd question since we are not currently installing the hardware. I should mention now that our doors are old and have the old mortise style locks complete with skeleton keys.
I went downstairs to help him locate the box that the parts are stored in, only to discover that our 12 year old son managed to lock himself in the new bathroom because the mortise was in the door without a handle installed! He was just messing around, the bathroom is not functional yet. Bill wanted the parts so he could rescue our son. LOL!
I went downstairs to help him locate the box that the parts are stored in, only to discover that our 12 year old son managed to lock himself in the new bathroom because the mortise was in the door without a handle installed! He was just messing around, the bathroom is not functional yet. Bill wanted the parts so he could rescue our son. LOL!
Life as I know it
Here is a summary of life as I know it...
I slowly wake up every morning to the obnoxious sound of Bob Lonsberry on am radio. My brain takes at least 1/2 an hour to fully swim to the surface of consciousness. I rouse the kids out of bed and eat my traditional breakfast of organic flax seed/pumpkin seed granola cereal with fat free milk. On A days, I throw on some clothes and drive Will and his trumpet to AF Junior High at 7:00 am for Jazz Band. After finishing my morning preparations, I drive Helena and her violin to the same school at 8:00 am and head for work. On B days both kids leave the house at 8:00 am, but this time we are lugging an euphonium (big brass instrument) for Will and the Concert Band.
I arrive at school at 8:30 every morning. That is 15 minutes early. I like to be early every day so I don't feel guilty if I ever have to leave early for an emergency.
I teach visual art to elementary school students. I have nine 30 min. classes each day with no breaks in between and one 30 min. lunch break. I teach first through 6th grades, a total of approx. 1000 students, but only have 1/4th of the students each term. Right now I have 4 2nd grade classes before lunch and five 1st grade classes after.
At 2:30 pm I leave work and head straight to the Junior High to pick up my kids. They get out at 2:45, but I usually don't reach the school until nearly 3:00 pm. That is okay with me, because it gives the kids time to gather their stuff, visit with teachers, and even fix grade problems. It also gives the parking lot time to empty out. The road and parking lot at the Junior High are the most stressful and dangerous places to be right before and right after school!
We hurry home so Helena can gather her ballet gear. I drive her to ballet every day at 3:30 pm. On the way back home I try to run any errands needed. When I get home I have to 'crack the whip' over Will to get him to work on his homework. During football season, this is also when I drive him to and from his practices.
I pick Helena back up from ballet at either 6:00 or 6:30, depending on the day. It is a 30 min. round trip to the ballet studio and back each time I drive it. When we get home it is time to help Helena with any studying she needs to do. At that point I need to go to the basement and work on the remodel of the house. Right now I am doing the Spackle on all the finish carpentry nail holes and the caulking of all seams.
Dinner is a sorry affair at our house. Most days it is fend for yourself. I know I could do better in this area, but dinner prep takes time that I usually just don't have. Bill gets home at such sporadic times that I can't predict when to have a traditional meal ready. And, of course, we don't have a dining room because it has been converted to my bedroom during the remodel.
Bill goes to bed around 9:30 and leaves me the dubious pleasure of sending the kids to bed. If I am lucky, I can get the kids to go to bed by 9:30 pm. Usually, however, the kids make it to bed around 10:30 with me following suit at 11:00 pm.
I slowly wake up every morning to the obnoxious sound of Bob Lonsberry on am radio. My brain takes at least 1/2 an hour to fully swim to the surface of consciousness. I rouse the kids out of bed and eat my traditional breakfast of organic flax seed/pumpkin seed granola cereal with fat free milk. On A days, I throw on some clothes and drive Will and his trumpet to AF Junior High at 7:00 am for Jazz Band. After finishing my morning preparations, I drive Helena and her violin to the same school at 8:00 am and head for work. On B days both kids leave the house at 8:00 am, but this time we are lugging an euphonium (big brass instrument) for Will and the Concert Band.
I arrive at school at 8:30 every morning. That is 15 minutes early. I like to be early every day so I don't feel guilty if I ever have to leave early for an emergency.
I teach visual art to elementary school students. I have nine 30 min. classes each day with no breaks in between and one 30 min. lunch break. I teach first through 6th grades, a total of approx. 1000 students, but only have 1/4th of the students each term. Right now I have 4 2nd grade classes before lunch and five 1st grade classes after.
At 2:30 pm I leave work and head straight to the Junior High to pick up my kids. They get out at 2:45, but I usually don't reach the school until nearly 3:00 pm. That is okay with me, because it gives the kids time to gather their stuff, visit with teachers, and even fix grade problems. It also gives the parking lot time to empty out. The road and parking lot at the Junior High are the most stressful and dangerous places to be right before and right after school!
We hurry home so Helena can gather her ballet gear. I drive her to ballet every day at 3:30 pm. On the way back home I try to run any errands needed. When I get home I have to 'crack the whip' over Will to get him to work on his homework. During football season, this is also when I drive him to and from his practices.
I pick Helena back up from ballet at either 6:00 or 6:30, depending on the day. It is a 30 min. round trip to the ballet studio and back each time I drive it. When we get home it is time to help Helena with any studying she needs to do. At that point I need to go to the basement and work on the remodel of the house. Right now I am doing the Spackle on all the finish carpentry nail holes and the caulking of all seams.
Dinner is a sorry affair at our house. Most days it is fend for yourself. I know I could do better in this area, but dinner prep takes time that I usually just don't have. Bill gets home at such sporadic times that I can't predict when to have a traditional meal ready. And, of course, we don't have a dining room because it has been converted to my bedroom during the remodel.
Bill goes to bed around 9:30 and leaves me the dubious pleasure of sending the kids to bed. If I am lucky, I can get the kids to go to bed by 9:30 pm. Usually, however, the kids make it to bed around 10:30 with me following suit at 11:00 pm.
Do I really have time for this?
So, really, do I have time to blog? I think it is a really cool way to communicate, but I have a really hard time getting time on my own computer. With two teenagers in the house with an unbelieveable amount of online computer homework it can be difficult to get on my own computer! The computer is also currently sitting in my 'bedroom' (which is really our dining room doing standby bedroom duty during a house remodel), which means that by the time I get hold of the computer, Bill is ready to go to bed!
I'll give it a try, though.
I'll give it a try, though.
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