Category: Uncategorized (Page 35 of 118)

I’m organizing my volunteer time so that I go in to the school ONE day a week, help for an hour in the 5th grade classroom, then go and help for an hour to an hour and a half in the kindergarten classroom. The 3rd grade teacher/room mom hasn’t asked for my help yet, but hopefully if she does, I can make it work on Thursday.

As I was correcting spelling booklets, I realized that 5th graders do NOT have the best handwriting. Some of those kids probably know how to spell the words, but their handwriting is so bad, they almost got the words marked wrong. I laughed to myself while the teacher taught them about identifying the simple subject and predicate, and wondered why some of these kids still don’t get it. One girl spent more time combing her hair than listening to the teacher. Oh, WHY didn’t my super smart daughter stay in the accelerated class? I’m afraid she’s going to be so bored in this regular class, after being in the accelerated class for the past two years. But she wanted to be back in the regular class so she’d see more of her friends. I hope we didn’t make a mistake.

Down the hall in the kindergarten room, I find the kindergarten teacher VERY glad to have the help. Her army of volunteers haven’t started coming in to do centers and other such helping, and her student teacher was also gone. With 26 kids in there, she doesn’t even have time to escape and go to the bathroom unless someone comes in to help her. I was glad I was able to help her, even if it was only stuffing the homework folders and putting them into the kids’ boxes.

Later, as I was getting into the car, I heard the Pleasant Grove bell tower playing a somewhat familiar tune. It took a minute to realize it was “Bicycle built for two”.
Daisy, Daisy, give me you answer true.
I’m half-crazy all for the love of you.
It won’t be a stylish marriage,
I can’t afford a carriage;
But you’ll look sweet
Upon the seat
Of a bicycle built for two.

Henry, Henry, here is your answer true;
I’m not crazy over the likes of you.
If you can’t afford a carriage,
Forget about the marriage;
‘Cause I won’t be jammed,
I won’t be crammed
On a bicycle built for two.

The song took me back to high school. When a friend of mine, wrote a song to be sung in answer to an invitation to a dance. As far as I remember, it went something like this:

Wade-y, Wade-y, here is my answer true,
I’m have crazy to go to the dance with you.
We’ll have such fun together
No matter what the weather
(something, something, something something )
to the Homecoming dance with you.

I don’t remember who sang it, but they must have sung it in A’Capella, because I know we were in the choir room at the time. Isn’t that funny, what music can do? It can bring back a memory from 20 years ago, just from a song. Wow.

My kids enjoy watching the occasional episode of the Brady Bunch. It’s a fun show to watch while making dinner, and I love quoting episodes I must have seen 10 times. What? There was not much on when I was a kid besides Brady Bunch, Gilligan’s Island, Electric Company and Zoom. Anyway, as we were setting the table, Jenna said, “We’re just like the Brady bunch!” (because there are three girls. Only two boys, but who needs Peter, anyway?)

Megan, the oldest, said, “I’m Marsha.”
Natalie, the middle daughter, said, “I’m Jan.”
Jenna, the youngest daughter, said, “I’m Susan!”

Um… ok.

My husband is out of town for a week or so. That means we don’t have to cook real dinners. The kids get to eat pizza, sandwiches, chicken nuggets and pancakes for dinner. When my husband leaves town, not only does it leave me as a single parent, but things stop working when he’s away. Seriously. The house misses Ryan. Last time he was gone, I had no internet for 3 days. Three days, people! When he came home, he found out that some router thingy had gone bad, and had to be replaced.

This time, he left on Sunday, and by Tuesday, none of my remotes were working. May I remind you that we live in an automated house. Since Ryan works for an automation company, we get to test out all the gadgets and equipment, so I have remotes that control the lights, radio, tv, thermostat, and other things. No remotes, eh? And lights that normally go off at certain times or come on at certain times are also being disagreeable.

I emailed Ryan to ask him about certain things not working, and why I couldn’t run a specific something on my computer, and this is the response I got.

Ryan is out of the office until Monday, the 14th.

Ryan

Thanks!!

In all actuality, though, Cole is a decent tech support guy.

When Ryan figured out that some power supply had gone bad (after having me poke around behind the entertainment center and tell him which things have blinky lights and which don’t), he arranged to have a guy from his office bring over a new power supply, and then Ryan would talk Cole through were to unplug the old one and plug in the new one. However, the guy came while I was gone to multiple soccer games last night, and Cole let him in the house, to look around for where this little doodad would go (oh, the horror! This guy went in the basement of doom!) After a call to Ryan, they got it installed, and today I have remotes again.

Now let’s hope we can keep everything together until he gets home.

So, Ryan, if you are reading this, checking up on me while you are gone, we miss you!

It’s on.

And let’s just not forget who we root for around here.

“Jan Jorgensen and Max Hall break out into perma-grins after walking into the “world’s greatest stadium” and wresting a win out of the hands of No. 3-ranked Oklahoma”

Let the football season begin.

John has GRAND expectations for his upcoming birthday party. He JUST came to me and said, “Mom, at my party, can we have my friends take a picture of them standing by me wearing a storm trooper costume?”
Me–“Well, we don’t HAVE a storm trooper costume, so that will be difficult”
John–“Oh, mom, we can just MAKE one, and cut all the pieces and tape it together. Ok?”

Oh. My. Heck. This kid had these GRAND ideas for his birthday party, and he keeps coming to me and demanding more and more and MORE things. I’m afraid that whatever I do, my best won’t be good enough. Usually the kids are fine with whatever we do, but this kid has been telling me his grand plans for weeks, no Months! I just want his birthday to be over, because the pressure is getting to me! For example, back in July, John came to me and said that we needed to have a YODA pinata for his Star Wars birthday party. Not a Darth Vader pinata, because his friends already did that. So, I told him that I’m sure we could work something out, there must be a yoda pinata I could find online somewhere. Zurchers has ever kind of pinata you could want, right? I guess not. No Yoda. While I was searching, John decided he was going to make his own. Not real good about waiting, that one. He got a box, and decided to draw Yoda on the box.

See the little Yoda there?
Then he had to “cut a whole in the bottom and the top” of the box for the candy. Unfortunately, he picked one of the sturdiest boxes he could have found, and the cutting part wasn’t as easy as he thought it would be, but he was not deterred.

I put something on facebook about how he wanted to make a Yoda pinata, and my brother-in-law told me he had a friend who made pinatas, and that he would take care of that. So, hopefully we will have an actual Yoda pinata on Monday. If not, I guess we’ll be using the custom “box” one that John wants to use.

And he’s ultra demanding about the games, too. And the lightsabers. And the cake. It’s a party for a 6 year old, not a flipping Hollywood movie premier!!! Aaaagh!

Added on Tuesday–We went over to Julene’s house to pick up this Yoda pinata last night. I must say, it far exceeds my expectations. This thing is HUGE! And Cute! I don’t know how we’re going to possibly hit it with a stick to get the candy out. Maybe I can just stand nearby and throw candy at them when they “almost” hit him with a stick.

I’m all for dickering over the price at a garage sale, sure. But when the seller gets down to their lowest price of almost giving it away (let’s say $1.00) and then you insult them by asking them to go even lower, that’s not cool.

Or when you gather up a bunch of baby clothes that looks like about 7-8 outfits and then ask if you can take this armful for $5, it’s NOT ok to be also hiding four pairs of little baby shoes that were clearly marked $1 each INSIDE the bundle of baby clothes.

But other that that, we had a pretty decent yard sale. I sold all the “big” items I wanted to get rid of, such as the little tykes car, a couple of bikes, a double jogging stroller and a ride on pedal car. I also sold a fair amount of games, toys, and clothes, and the cinnamon rolls went over very well, too.

Of course my kids had to also BUY from the garage sale, and they ended up with a bike for Cole (he paid for his himself, so who am I to complain) and a couch for Cole (yes, seriously! He wanted this little couch up in his room! I had to haul it up the stairs with him, of course, because Ryan gets kind of whiny when we bring things home from garage sales and then ask him to do our heavy lifting), OObies slippers for Natalie, some clothes for the girls, a yoyo and a bear for John, and four gallon bags filled with legos.

But, that’s an entire truckload of stuff that is gone from the house, gone from the garage, and we made a little bit of cash from it. Is it worth it? To give up a Saturday sweating and getting sunburned, and the many hours sorting and purging? Hardly. But it has to be done. And as long as you have your garage sale with a couple of friends, it hardly seems as miserable as it is.

There’s so much to blog about! If only my INTERNET weren’t down! My husband and resident technical support left town on Tuesday morning. Isn’t it a coincidence that as soon as he left our internet connections seemed to mysteriously vanish? In what should be an unrelated occurrence, our “smart home” seemed to have suffered memory loss, and doesn’t remember what it’s supposed to be doing. None of our remotes work, our auto lights don’t work, we can’t access our tivo or pick movies to watch. Heck, we can barely turn on the tv, for heaven’s sake. And I’ve been radioless for three days, since I don’t have any radios around the house anymore. Why would I need radios? I have speakers all over! Needless to say, it’s been a bit frustrating. I mean, no email, no blogging, no facebook! I have people I needed to get a hold of, but don’t have their phone numbers, since I’ve only communicated through email. My sister called me Thursday and left me a message like, “Are you OK? Because your email bounces, and so does Ryan’s, and you haven’t blogged or anything.”

Sigh

But, anyway, just because we haven’t had technology, doesn’t mean things aren’t HAPPENING around here. We’ve had injuries, stitches, moles, horses, skits and kindergarten busses, pushy salesmen and police, birthday party plans and dodgeball. Now, I’m hoping to soon get the time to write about it.

Today was the dedication of the new temple in South Jordan. The Oquirrh Mountain Temple.

Since we can’t all attend IN the temple, they broadcast the dedication to Stake Centers so that many more of us can watch the dedication. It’s really like being there. There were two sessions today, and we were scheduled for the afternoon session. In the morning, we watched one of John’s friends, since he isn’t old enough to attend.

We enjoyed a leisure morning, the kids played a game, we read, and then the kids showered and bathed. As I was getting John out of the tub, I wrapped him up in a towel, and then was helping him out of the room, and I whacked my foot on the door frame, tripped and fell on John. Luckily, my cat like reflexes kicked in and I rolled OVER him without smashing him like a bug, but we both lay on the floor crying in pain. He had bonked his leg, and me with the injured toes.

Now toes may not be all that important. Balancing and painting the toenails are the big things. But when you hurt one, you KNOW about it. My two littlest toes on my left foot are not happy right now. It hurts to walk, and it hurts to sit there. Basically, it hurts. So, at a little before 3, I decided I wasn’t going to go to the temple dedication. I didn’t know how I could sit through the long meeting with my foot throbbing like it was. But Ryan and the kids got ready, had a snack, and left. They dropped John off at his friends, and went to the stake center. It was right around 3.

A few minutes later, they were back. What? I didn’t read the tickets, I just thought I remembered that it started at 4:00. It started at 3:00. You had to be in your seats at 2:30, not 3:30, as we had thought. Because I didn’t look at the tickets, I misinformed my family, and made them all miss the dedication.

So, here I am, with a hurt and swollen toe, and none of us attended the temple dedication.

Some days just do not turn out like you planned them.

Today, my honey and I have been married for 17 whole years.

We haven’t changed all that much.

Happy Anniversary, Ryan. I still love you!

School starts this Thursday. Why on a Thursday? I don’t know. I don’t make the rules. While I’m now ready for the kids to go back to school, I’m not ready myself for them to be back in school. You know what I mean, don’t you? The carpools, the schedules, the soccer season, the piano lessons, the after school activities, the lunches, the permission slips, the homework checks, the lost papers, the daily checking of powerschool, the forgotten band instruments, the PTA jobs, the lunch money checks, and all that.

I am feeling particularly overwhelmed having kids in three different schools. How does one mom keep a handle on ALL that? Tomorrow night is back to school night for three schools! How? How is this possible? I’m only one person!!!

I’m sure once we get into the routine, it will somehow be manageable, but today–Right now–I’m scared.

Help.