Superpaige's Pad

The Trials of a Busy Mom

Author: Superpaige (Page 84 of 180)

What is this ick that I’m breathing?

January 21, 2009 / / 1 Comment

We’re thick in the middle of an inversion here, and it makes the fog/smog thick, and the air heavy with pollution. And it’s dang cold. I’m freezing all the time! Hopefully there’s a storm coming through in the next few days to blow all this ick out of the valley, and then we can see our beautiful mountains again.

I heard on the radio that we are NOT supposed to exercise today because of the poor air quality. Ok. I won’t.

What? That only applies to outside exercise? Well, they didn’t SAY that. I heard NO exercise, so that’s what I’m going by.

This Historic Day

January 20, 2009 / / 2 Comments

“Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America – they will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.”–Barack Obama

What an amazing day today has been. As I was watching the inaugural address on tv, my daughter was practicing the piano in the other room, playing “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”. It brought a tear to my eye. And although I might not have voted for President Obama, and I may not agree with all of his politics, he is now my president, and I have high hopes for the future. I believe he can be a great president.

As the kids came home and I was watching the whole thing on tv, they said, “Oh, we watched this all day at school.” I’m glad they watched it at school. I don’t know about the ‘all day’ part, but I hope that they remember this day. The day that a black man became the president of the United States of America. A day that they should remember.

“For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.”

Dreaming again

January 19, 2009 / / 3 Comments

I had the weirdest dream last night! I dreamed we moved to…well, I don’t want to offend anyone, so I’ll just say we were moving to “Somewhere else”. I hated it. I had a friend there, (Joan Cusack, actually) and she had told everyone at church about her wonderful friend, Paige, who was moving there and how much they would all love me. When we got there, we went to church, and everyone was wearing their red team sweatshirts and sweaters and jeans. At church. Hmmm. We Mormons usually dress up for church, but I guess things are different there. My friend kept introducing us to people, but with their thick accents I had to keep asking them what they had just said, and still wasn’t understanding. I did a lot of smiling and nodding, but I wasn’t fooling anyone. They would look at Joan, and say, “Well, I don’t like her.”

Our house was small, and had about 6 feet of yard on all sides of the house. I tried to meet neighbors and they all turned away from me and wouldn’t talk or get to know me at all. I was so sad.

This morning Ryan put his arm around me in bed, and all I could say was, “Please don’t make me move to “Somewhere else”. They don’t like me there.” He reassured me that there’s not much chance of us moving to that particular place in the near future. Good. I like it here.

But I’ve still been thinking about that dream today. Wondering why those people didn’t like me, and wondering how long it would take until I got used to things and the new neighborhood and all that. As if we really were moving! How silly is that?

Don’t you hate it when you dream something that’s so real, and then you think about it during the day and wonder about things in your dream? Or am I the only one that does that?

Yeah, High School was EXACTLY like that

January 18, 2009 / / 3 Comments

Saturday we went to see High School Musical 3. By “We”, I mean me and the five kids. Noticeably absent was my husband, who for some reason does not enjoy the musical. His idea of a good movie was Valkyrie, which we went to see for our date on Friday night. It was WAY crowded, and we stood outside in the FREEZING cold for way too long waiting to get inside and buy tickets. We did end up with tickets, but by the time we got into the theater, it was almost full, and we ended up sitting on the second row. I’m glad it was kind of a slow moving movie, and I could look up Tom Cruise’s nostrils without getting totally dizzy and sick from the closeness of our seats. And although it was a good movie, and informative, and a great story, it’s not a “feel good” kind of movie, and you don’t walk out of the theater singing or anything like that. I mean, I don’t want to give away the ending, but their plan to kill Hitler didn’t work, and lots of people die.

So on Saturday, I decided to take the kids out to something fun (and cheap). Since we hadn’t see High School Musical 3, and Ryan’s nephew is totally in the movie, I figured it was about time. So, we went to our local sticky shoe dollar theater (actually, it’s one-fifty, but who’s complaining?) and set ourselves down, to prepare for the experience that is High School Musical.

And I was not disappointed. I felt like I needed to clap and cheer after every number! I wanted to get up and dance and sing in the isle! And I can NOT dance, so that would not have been pretty. I can sing, but since this was my first time seeing the movie, that mightn’t have been pretty, either. We loved watching for Italo, (the kids’ cousin), and the movie was a nice mix of fluff, fantasy, and cool songs. I didn’t get too wrapped up in the Troy/Gabriella angst about what are we going to do after high school/I have to make my own decisions stuff, but it was nice that they did address the fact that No, you can’t stay in high school forever.

Although I did have to point out to my kids that actual high school is a lot more homework and a lot less singing. I WISH High School had been like that. Although….. My senior year I had two music classes and a drama class, was in every available play or competition, sung or played bells in a ton of concerts….the only things missing were the dancing. If only I had taken dance, my high school years could have been JUST like High School Musical.

But a funny thing. My friend Melinda has been gently encouraging me (that sounds a lot better than hounding me, doesn’t it?) to join facebook. She’s been telling me about all these high school friends she’s reconnected with and how much fun it is and that I HAVE to sign up. So, this weekend, I signed up. And I must say, it IS fun. I’ve had people I haven’t seen in years, or at least since the last reunion, signing up to be my “friend”. Cool.

Maybe we can all get together and plan a musical. High School Reunion Musical! We can all dance and sing around the lunch tables and talk about how our kids are driving us crazy and our stock funds are in the toilet and how our church callings and our carpools seem to take up all our time. You’re right. Nobody would go to that one.

As we were walking out of the movie, it was VERY cold, and my kids were complaining about how cold it was, and so I started singing to them.

We’ll All be cold together
Once we know
That we are
We’re all stars
And we see that
We’re all be cold together
And it shows
as we walk
to the car
and we’ll start it up

Ericksons. sing along
Yeah, you got it goin’ on
Ericksons in the car
Everybody say it now!

We’ll all be cold together….

And my kids, true to form, said, “Stop it, Mom! You’re embarrassing us!”
Nope. Life is not quite like a musical.

diet coke, please

January 16, 2009 / / 3 Comments

I’m a diet coke girl. Yes, I am. I am not exclusive in my choice of drink, though. I also enjoy a nice diet Dr. Pepper, or Fresca, Diet Root beer or even diet Shasta. If I’m at a restaurant and they say, “are pepsi products ok?” then I will of course say yes, and take a diet pepsi instead. But I would prefer diet coke.

That said, however, when there’s a screamin’ deal on Pepsi, I buy it. My husband likes the icky cherry flavored colas, and so if Pepsi is on sale, I’ll try to pick up some cherry pepsi for him. One thing Pepsi did have going for it was that they carried the vanilla diet whereas Coke no longer carries that flavor. I even talked to my sources at Coke (hi, Scotty!), and was told that they discontinued that flavor. Why? Why? Why would you discontinue the most luscious flavor? With no warning, I might add. I could have stocked up and had a nice cache of vanilla diet in my food storage.

Deep breath.
Moving on. Pepsi may or may not still carry vanilla diet. I haven’t seen it in a while, but I can still hope, right. *snif*

BUT– I was talking about the great deal on Pepsi, wasn’t I? This week if you buy five 12 packs of Pepsi at Walgreens, you get a $5 register reward, so it’s like paying $10 for your five 12 packs, which is a GOOD deal. Well, to make it an even SWEETER deal, you can buy a couple of frito lay products along with those Pepsi’s and then send in the old rebate form and get $15 in coupons back. (details here) So, it essentially makes those Pepsi’s free, right?

For free, I’ll drink diet pepsi instead of diet coke. Even though it doesn’t taste as good.

So, yesterday, I was purchasing said 12 packs of Pepsi at Walgreens, and on the way out to the car, one of the 12 packs slid off the bottom of the cart onto the ground. That’s a distance of –what would you say? — three, maybe four inches? Not enough to do any damage. So, I picked up the carton and put it inside my cart (lest it try to jump out again). When I got to my car, the carton was making a strange hissing sound and dripping. Dang! How does a fall of three inches cause a can to break? How? I pried open the carton and got out the damaged can and put it on the ground. I can’t have a dripping fizzing exploding can in my car. So, I loaded my purchases into the back of the car and got in. As I was pulling out, I thought I heard a hissing sound. (How I heard a hissing sound over the car sounds and the radio sounds, I’ll never know, but I guess I have extra special hearing powers or something.) I put in in park and got out and checked the back. Sure enough, hissing and dripping. I had to take EVERY. Single. Can. out of the carton to find not one, but two more cans that had sprung leaks!

What is up with the flimsy cans, Pepsi? This is NOT the first time I’ve had pepsi cans break or explode on me. Do they use thinner aluminum than their competitors? Is pepsi just more volatile than coke? What is up with that?

So, I ended up with a Nine pack instead of the standard twelve pack, and some pepsi drippings in the back of my vehicle. Thankfully it was diet.

And that’s why I chose Coke over Pepsi anyday.

Bowling

January 14, 2009 / / 1 Comment

Yesterday I went bowling with the preschool set. So much fun! John’s preschool teacher always has a bowling field trip, and I try to go to that one every year. It’s just a hoot to see these four and five year olds bowl. Of course they use the bumpers, so the most out of control throw could net you a strike, if you’re lucky. They can also use the ramps, if they want, so they don’t even have to do much except carry a ball over from the ball holding thing-y, put it on the ramp, and give it a little push. The adventurous ones ended up taking at least few turns hucking their own bowling balls.

I took the four little boys that are in our carpool. Since I already had all the seats in my car, they just got back in and went with me. John and his boys are pretty tight. They’ve all been together for the past couple of years, with preschool, playgroup and primary. There are 8 boys roughly the same age. Some of them went to kindergarten this year, some went back to preschool. Sadly, there are no girls that age in the neighborhood, but John’s got plenty of friends. So I was in charge of getting my four boys going on the bowling thing. I got their shoes, put away their own shoes and coats, and set them up for the game. I let each boy “type” in his own name, which was fun for them. Then we got started.

There were squeals of joy and even some “Oh, Yeah!”s when they knocked down a few pins. Everyone seemed to be having a good time. Until some of the boys on John’s “team” started scoring spares and strikes. John hadn’t had such luck, yet, and was getting discouraged. He got upset and tearful and said, “Why do I NEVER get a strike, and they ALWAYS do?!” He was taking out his frustration and anger with his score on me. Each time he went up to bowl, he would be discouraged by his 6 or 7 just because he didn’t get them ALL. He had a little breakdown, and was soon crying. His teacher assured me that he was doing this all for my benefit, and I agree that if I hadn’t been there, he would have been fine. The other boys are quite competitive and kept asking who was winning. I tried to sidestep the question and said, “Look! Together you have over 200 points!” But they weren’t buying it. “But who’s in first place?” they asked. These kids have older siblings, and know that the score is important. The teacher heard one of them asking and said, “We’re all winners if we’re having fun!” Yes, it’s a generic answer, but it quieted the questions for a few minutes, at least.

John finished off my diet coke (and felt all sneaky about it), and then it was his turn to bowl again. He took his ball up there, and his friends were right by his side. I was amazed that they were being not competitive, but supportive with him. One of the boys patted him on the shoulder and said, “You can do it, John.” They helped him adjust his ramp to maximize his chance of getting a strike or a spare.
bowling I love this picture of friends supporting each other. It didn’t really help. I felt bad for him, but was irritated that he was throwing such a fit. It’s just bowling, for heaven’s sake. You don’t have to “win” to have fun doing it.

On the last frame, those boys got lucky. Three out of the four of them got spares! Of course, that extra turn really messes them up, when they are used to bowling TWO times. Oh well, some of them got extra turns, but it wasn’t always the one who had bowled the spare. Even John got a spare! Hooray for small miracles. He ended the game happy, even if he was discouraged through the game. It turned out to be lots and lots of fun.

After I took the boys back to school, I had almost an hour to kill. Knowing that there was some clearance going on, I made my way to old navy. I wanted to look at their coats, since my standard black wool coat is about three years old and starting to get a little bit ratty looking. But what to my wondering eyes should appear, but this coat.
Be still, my heart, I think I’m in love. I must have that red trench coat. It’s so cute. I tried it on, and it fits great. No, it’s not a warm winter coat, it’s more of a spring coat or warmer jacket for winter, but I love it. But, no, it’s not on sale, and I can’t just spend $49.50 on a coat for myself. It’s January, and I’m trying to get our finances all in order and stuff like that. And it’s not even on sale. Ugh. Sadly, I hung the coat back on it’s rack and went to look at the clearance coats, but even at 70% off, I couldn’t find anything I really liked. So, I’ll be searching the web for a coupon code, watching the Old Navy sales, and maybe looking elsewhere to find THAT coat. Do you have an Old Navy gift card you’d like to donate to the cause? Because I’m not above charity, y’all. I may have to wait a bit, but I believe in the end, if the stars align, I will end up with that coat. I could be all Scarlet O’Hara like and fall down on my knees and say, “I will never go without that coat again”, but that’s a little bit overdramatic, don’t you think?

Close? Maybe not.

January 13, 2009 / / 0 Comments

There are a bunch of radio contests going on right now. Well, there are ALWAYS a bunch of radio contests going on. But right now I’ve got to turn my radio from one to another, and write myself notes on when to listen and when to change the station. It’s all very complicated and not for the casual listener, you know. I haven’t won anything yet this year, and that’s disappointing.

Just now I was the correct caller and was able to take a guess in the FM 100 Office pool. To win the money, you have to correctly guess the number between one and one thousand. Unfortunately, the last number (523) was guessed this morning, so I was starting out fresh. I guessed 811. Too high. But at least I got through and was able to guess.

Here’s hoping that next time I get through, I’ll actually win something.

Testimony

January 11, 2009 / / 1 Comment

A testimony is like a piece of gum.
It won’t stay fresh and minty just because you put it in your mouth. You have to CHEWS to nourish your testimony, just as you have to CHEW your gum. And sometimes you have to refresh your testimony (as well as your gum) and put in another piece.

This was my handout for my lesson on Testimonies today. And, of course, each girl got a pack of gum with it.

How’s that for random?

January 9, 2009 / / 6 Comments

It’s Friday! Hooray! It’s also the last day of the quarter for my kids. Hooray, again! In honor of Friday and kicking back, I’ll just tell you some random things going on in our lives right now. You don’t have to read on, if you don’t want to.

***Last night I dreamed that my husband was a vampire. And not one of those cool, sexy vampires we have all read about in Twilight. And I was going to get myself tested to see if I, too, had the latent vampire genes in my blood. What the heck? Thanks, Stephanie Meyer.

*** I watched Little Miss Sunshine this week. It was on tv, so I figured it’s edited, and it was SO FUNNY! I laughed very hard, and loved it. I’ve actually owned that movie for over a year now. I won it in a radio contest, I’m sure. I was originally excited because I had heard it was funny, but then when I saw that it was rated R, I was disappointed. I don’t watch rated R movies. I just wait until they eventually come on tv and are edited. Is that hypocritical? I don’t think so. I think it’s sitting here in my office, actually. (pause while Paige digs around her office) Yep! Here it is. In fact, if you would like to own this brand new never been watched copy of Little Miss Sunshine, leave me a comment and I’ll send it out to you. It’s VERY funny.

***I just found a bunch of Christmas candy hiding in my office. Now the dilemma–do I eat it all or save it, feed it to the kids, pretend it’s valentine candy, or what? I decided to stick it in the box of Christmas gifts and things for next year, and just hope it’s good in a year. Then next year when I pull out the box, I’ll be pleasantly surprised. “Oh, look! Holiday M &M’s!” What would you do?

***My sister did some beautiful drawings of my kids for Christmas.(which I’ve been trying to scan and post, but something’s not working out right with the scanning process, so you’ll have to wait to see them) But then I had to decide where they go. So I bought some frames, and figured out where they should go. But 5 is a hard number to arrange. I told my husband that we need one more child JUST so that our frames on the wall are easier to arrange. He was all for that, and suggested we work on that right away. Ha! I’m not having another baby just so that my frames on the wall look better balanced. Can you imagine? When he’s 5 and asked why he’s so much younger than everyone else, and we say, “Well, we really were done, honey. We didn’t want any more kids. But the frames didn’t line up right on the wall, so we had you so that we could make them match.” Yeah, that would be great for a child’s self esteem. So, I have new frames, and I bought a cool new mirror, and now when it comes to putting them all on the wall, I think, “I really would like to paint that wall a different color….” This is how it starts. I don’t want a PROJECT, I just wanted new pictures of my kids. Ugh. Maybe I can just put things up without having to paint. We’ll see.

***I took my kids out for what they might consider the perfect outing last night. I took them to the library, and then to Wendy’s for free junior Frostys (we had some coupons). It was free, and yet it made them happy. It made me happy that I had a vehicle that we could all fit in (that I borrowed from my sister for the weekend. Thanks!).

***Are you a Biggest Loser watcher? I watched week one of the new season yesterday, and I cried and cried. I think this is going to be a really good season. You should watch it.

***I’m trying to dig out my office. I’ve still got Christmas wrapping stuff, boxes, presents stashed, and huge amounts of clutter. I’ve got to get it cleaned up! Want to come over and help me? Pick up some paint on your way over and we can do both projects at the same time.

***My roomba keeps telling me to remove and clean it’s brushes, and then it stops doing it’s vacuuming after about a minutes. I keep removing and cleaning those dang brushes, and it’s still doing it. I need a more obedient robot. Maybe this one would do the trick.

***My girls start basketball games tomorrow. I guess we needed a diversion from soccer. Fun, Fun.

***Have you sent in a bill to the “Delete my debt” contest? Not that I need any more competition or anything, but you might as well try. You just send in a bill, you can black out the account number and all that, and then listen to the Arrow 103.5 for your name to be called at 9, 11 and 3. If they call your name and you call back in 10 minutes they will pay off that bill. I faxed in my American Express Bill. Yes, it’s a slim chance, but it’s still a chance!

So, that’s all I’ve got. If you made it through my random bunch of thoughts, good for you. What are YOU doing this bright and lovely Friday? Well, let’s make it a good one.

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