School

Moms and Muffins

I’m a little leery to google that title phrase. Yikes! Anyway… that’s what we did the Monday before Thanksgiving with our kiddos at school. It was called Moms and Muffins. Mom went into the school, where we spent time with our kiddos and ate muffins.

We also helped/watched them make turkeys out of apples. Earlier in the month the teachers sent home a feather that the students were to decorate and design to get them into the Thanksgiving spirit. Then during Moms and Muffins, we took an apple and made it into a turkey.

There were marshmallows (large and small), m and m’s, fruit loops, gumdrops, icing, and toothpicks to help decorate the apple into a turkey. After the first round of decorating our turkey, Abug ate some of it. Then she redecorated it and ate it again. I took home half a decorated turkey…? (more…)

Walking in a Winter Wonderland (in November…)

I woke up on November 12, 2018, wondering if I still lived in Southwest Missouri. Why do you ask? Because we got snow. Snow in November. That doesn’t typically happen in Southwest Missouri until late December or January if any at all. And it wasn’t just a light dusting… oh no… it was flat out snow. I think we got a few inches.

And of course, school was canceled. So we went out and played in the snow. (more…)

Finding My New Norm

Hi guys. I show up here every day, open a new post, and stare at a blank page. They say that successful people adapt to change easily. I sometimes wonder if I’m successful or not. I adapt, but I also resist a little. Sometimes I prefer the safe, comfortable feeling of normalcy.

What am I babbling about? My sidekick started school. Every morning 4 days a week we’re up at 7 am. We brush our teeth, get dressed (sometimes argue about this), and hit the door running.

I might have cried a little on that first day. I’ll leave that for you to decide. As I was trying to take some photos, hubby was trying to shew me out the door. I might have been annoyed with him… a little a lot. My friend Tiffiny gave me advice to not be by myself in those first few days and to keep myself busy. I went to the gym and took out my sadness on the treadmill. That day I also conquered the elliptical and started on this stair climber that hurt way to bad so I moved to a stationary bike. I came home in a better mood. But I was also ready the minute it was time to fly to the school to get her. (more…)

Trying to Keep it Together

 

I’m sitting here having what can only be termed as anxiety or panic attacks. It’s already back to school time. No, no, I’m not going back to school. Whew, for now, that’s over… I mean I could always get my Ph.D. but I truly don’t see that happening anytime soon. I’m having these feelings because I’m going to have a pre-schooler and a 10th grader.

Gosh, just typing that makes me want to go crawl in a hole, curl up in the fetal position, and cry. Last year Tbug had a t-shirt on that said class of 2021. What. the. heck!?!? That’s exactly 20 years after I graduated. I was class of 2001 which there was a huge debate if we were the first class of the new millennium or if the class of 2000 was. But that’s another debate for another day.

Exactly 20 years. Gosh, am I that old? I’ll be having my 20th class reunion the same year she’ll be graduating. {rocking back and forth in that fetal position… breathe, just breathe}

At my 10-year class reunion, hubby and I had been married a year. We had just gotten back from our 1 year Anniversary in Hawaii in fact. I had a former classmate ask me what it felt like to do things in the right order. Her definition of the right order was graduate high school, graduate college, get married, and then potentially have a kid. Remember, I didn’t have a kid until 3 years after that reunion. I laughed. Apparently, she did it in a different order. She did the graduate high school first. (more…)

Writing

Here’s an interesting topic that has been on my brain today… Writing.

Seriously, who thinks about writing? Well, obviously I do. But why? Writing has kind of a negative connotation. I think some of that stems to school when you are required to write papers. Papers on things you don’t want to write about. Required to write X number of words on a topic you may or may not know anything about or care about. But writing is a unique quality.

It is a way to convey a message. When you read a piece of writing, it can make or break what you are trying to say. Heck, think about texts. They are a form of writing. It’s a form of communication. You type something one way and someone takes it another and BAM! you have a fight on your hands. That’s the interesting thing about writing. Some people spend years honing in on that talent and ability. The ability to speak and write. If you read a lot of job descriptions, they want you to be able to communicate effectively and efficiently and that includes having the ability to write.

In a job, you’ll write memos, emails, meeting minutes, notes, etc. In those, you have to be able to convey a message to multiple groups of people. And two words about that are Quickly and Effectively. (more…)

Fearless Fourteen

Janet Evanovich Fearless Fourteen Book Cover

Guys, I’m back at it. This time let’s discuss one of the Stephanie Plum Novels, Fearless Fourteen. Now here is where I should say that I started reading this prior to grad school and then BAM! Grad School hit and I had no time for personal books. I know I’ve been out of Grad School since May 2016, that’s almost 2 years, but I finally got around to reading this… again.

Fearless Fourteen

Personal vendettas, hidden treasure, and a monkey named Carl will send bounty hunter Stephanie Plum on her most explosive adventure yet.
The Crime: Armed robbery to the tune of nine million dollars
Dom Rizzi robbed a bank, stashed the money, and did the time. His family couldn’t be more proud. He always was the smart one.
The Cousin: Joe Morelli
Joe Morelli, Dom Rizzi, and Dom’s sister, Loretta, are cousins. Morelli is a cop, Rizzi robs banks, and Loretta is a single mother waiting tables at the firehouse. The all-American family.
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Just One Day, Just One Year, Just One Night

Just One Trilogy Book Cover

Just before Christmas, I was wandering through Sam’s with my mom, aunt, and Abug. Now if there is one thing I can tell you, Abug LOVES Books. I love that about her. By the way, Tbug loves books too! Score!

Anyway… we were wandering around Sam’s Club and Abug took us over by the books. Since Grad School, I haven’t read a whole lot of books, to be honest. And truthfully I felt like something was missing in my life. At the same time, I read such intense, thinker type books in grad school I wasn’t sure what to read now.

When I was in Grad school one of the classes I had made us think about how we read literature. So you could read a book in your 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s and have a different opinion on it every time. I wish I could remember which professor told us that. It was either Dr. Carlson or Dr. McCallum and I can’t remember. Either way, they taught us that your life experiences help mold your impression on things. So a book you read in high school that you absolutely adored could have a different impression on you once you got into your 40’s. I had a lot of thought-provoking classes like that.

So back to Christmas time. I keep picking up books not knowing if I really want to read them or not. But there was a book that caught my attention. It was a 3 part trilogy all in one book. Score! (more…)

College Life

 

I’m not sure why the last couple days I’ve been stuck in the past. That’s how it feels anyway. Maybe because College seemed so easy… or maybe it was the phone call from Camille that brought back the memories. My {step}daughter is a Freshman in high school. She’s at the part of her life when grades totally matter. When she’s starting to think about her future. Starting to make plans about going to college (or not, but right now yes).

A lot can change in four years. Right now she has college narrowed down to two choices. One is in state, one is way out of state. But either choice she has plans to live at home (the out of state is with family). If there’s one thing I keep trying to stress to her, promise me she’ll live in the dorms at least 1 year. Bam! Seriously though, you learn a lot from living in the dorms, and that is one way you make those lifetime friends. (more…)

The Damn Water Tower

The other night I was watching a movie with my husband and my mother-in-law. I think it was My Secret Valentine or it could have been Very, Very, Valentine. Either way, it was a Hallmark movie. If you haven’t figured out… Hallmark movies are my absolute favorite. Christmas and non-Christmas alike. There’s always a plot twist right before they have a happy ending and they are always so predictable. Either way though, I like them. They give me that warm tingly feeling.

But while I was sitting there watching the movie, my phone rang. I answered the phone and it was my friend Camille. In college, I always teased and called her Camel Jockey. Sometimes to her face, sometimes not. I was caught off guard a little bit because I haven’t spoken on the phone with her for about 10 years. The last time we spoke on the phone, she had just gotten engaged. I found out via Facebook and was giving her crap to the point she called me.

We chatted for a good almost half hour. We reminisced about good times and bad. A few years ago I was sitting in my Midevil British Literature class when we went to break. During the break, I jumped on Facebook for a minute and saw a very scary message. She said something to the effect of don’t wait until the last minute to tell your best friend how you feel or something like that. I can’t remember the exact words because it’s been almost 3 years now if I remember right. (more…)

You have to Dance at Dance Class

Wednesday night my baby girl started dance class. Yes, I know, we’re about a month late, but every time we talk about putting her in dance class we forget about the sign-up date. Luckily we found out we could still enroll her, so that’s just what we did. She was officially enrolled in dance class Tuesday and Wednesday night she had her first dance class.

I was in ballet for 10 years while I was growing up and loved it. Although I do remember sitting there at times wishing that the hour dance class would be over because I was bored. Things you remember…

She was quite nervous. So they put the littles in the smallest room. The rooms all have video cameras and so you can watch their lessons on a tv monitor. I saw that the teacher gave them all a circle that they went and placed on the floor. That was where they were supposed to sit. My poor baby must either have extremely good manners or was extremely scared. She sat while the other girls sat, did summersaults, spun around, etc. She just sat there.

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