Category: Uncategorized (Page 43 of 118)

I just checked the library website to see when our books are due, and lo and behold, they are due on the 8th. Well, most of them are due on the 8th, some of them were due some time last month. And I have fines. Not knowing if I’m going to get to the library today (hey, it’s snowing outside! I may not leave the house ever again), I clicked on all 24 items to renew them. But lo and behold, I got this message:
Renew failed: Unable to renew, maximum fines exceeded.

What? You’re going to block me out for a lousy $6.25? Oh, come on!

That’s it, kids. I’m tired of the library fines! No more reading! I’ll be like the book Nazi: “No Books for you!”

Or I guess maybe we WILL be going to the library today.

I was all excited to update my blog with this cute Christmas look, and then waited anxiously to hear from all my readers how much they loved it, and then……nothing.

Maybe they don’t realize where to click to comment. Well, that is a bit different, it’s up at the TOP. You have to click on the “comments” or, more commonly, the “no responses” little button. To read the comments, you can just click on the post title.

So, let’s all try that and show Paige that there really is someone out there reading her blog and you haven’t just abandoned her because she hasn’t had the time to get on FACEBOOK yet. I’m telling you, my life slows down significantly after Christmas, and then I’ll try to do that whole newfangled facebook thing, and then maybe I can have friends again. Because apparently you can’t have friends unless you click on people and ask them to be your friends. Can’t I just have OLD FASHIONED friends? Or people who leave comments on my blog so I know I’m not all alone? -snif-

But in real life I’ve actually been really busy. Friday I finally got all my reflections things done and turned in, and let’s hope that’s the end of that. And I’m done with my PTA responsibilities until the spring book fair. Are you kidding me? I signed up to do the spring book fair? Why would I do that? Well, I guess I did, and that will be fine. I’ll drag all my neighbors and friends (even if they don’t love me enough to read and leave comments on my blog, they’ll still help out at school when I ask them) to take a shift, and we’ll all spend lots of money on books. Friday night Megan and I went with all the young women in her class up to Kingsbury Hall to see It’s a wonderful life. It was a great show, and we enjoyed seeing our friend dancing in the show.

Anyway, I was talking about the business factor here. Saturday I had a lovely long rehearsal, which involved an awful lot of running up and down the stairs at the conference center. Change bells, line up, squish in there backstage with about 70 other people in the stairwell, run up the stairs and play a song, repeat. It’s fun. Really.

After I got nice and sweaty and disheveled, I walked over to the Garden Restaurant in the Joseph Smith Building for lunch with my dear friends. It was our annual Christmas party, and we decided to do lunch today. Since I had this rehearsal downtown, they were nice enough to plan around my schedule and have the lunch close. I was actually going to go underground through the tunnels to the restaurant, but funny thing–my Thanksgiving point membership card won’t open up the doors like my tab choir ID badge does. I guess those two are NOT interchangeable. Silly me! I’m going to have to find the correct id card next time.

Lunch was SO much fun! I love these ladies with all my heart. We laughed about how old we are, as our discussion turned to the cost of insuring a teenager and how to deal with our boys and their silly not turning in assignments habits. But then we also talked about Kindergarten teachers, our parent’s health and other issues. The food was great, we ordered lots of desserts, and we didn’t feel like we were burdening anyone by staying at the table so long talking.

After lunch, I came home and took Jenna to get her hair cut. She’s been wanting to get her hair cut shorter for a while, and so off to Great clips we went. I could use a trim, too. On a whim, I got my hair cut much shorter than it’s been in a long time, and even though it’s kind of a shock, I like it. And Jenna’s hair looks darling, too. Maybe after a shower and hair curl, I’ll take pictures.

We came home in time to make dinner, throw in a load of laundry, eat dinner, and then it was off to the concert of the week!

I had entered a contest for tickets to this show, since this is Cole’s favorite band EVER! On Thursday night, a lady called and said, “I’ve got some extra tickets to the show, would you like some?” When I told her I’d need seven, she said that was fine, and they would be at will call for us. Cool! So, Cole did get to go, even though he’s not worked himself totally out of the doghouse yet, but he’s making progress. So, we all went last night and enjoyed a fun and energetic concert.

So, yes, it’s been busy around here, and it’s going to get busier this week. So, kids, if I haven’t yet wrapped and put under the tree all the presents with YOUR name on it, you’ll have to be patient with me.

And you–yes, you. The one reading this right now–do me a favor and leave me a little love in the form of the comments. Just so I know there’s at least ONE person out there reading this.

We really do love you. We so want the best for you.

We’re new at this parenting of teenagers thing, so if we seem inept at it, please cut us some slack. And we’ll try to do the same for you.

Today is the day that:

1- The repair man is finally coming to fix my washing machine. It’s had a problem for quite some time now, as it doesn’t really agitate. I don’t know what I was waiting for, and why I put it off for so long to call him. Maybe I thought it would just magically start working again! Well, that didn’t happen, so I called over the weekend, and today he will come and hopefully fix my washer.

2- I registered John for the “Teeny Tiny Basketball” class at the local rec center. If you want a good laugh, go and watch a bunch of 5 year olds play basketball!

3- The advent calendars start! I’ve got one calendar with little pockets and the kids get to pick out something every day. Sometimes it’s candy, sometimes it’s a promise of what we will do that day. It worked out so nicely when we had only one or two kids. But now there’s five of them, and try putting 5 pieces of candy in a little one inch by one inch pocket! So, now a lot of them will be filled with little notes, or pictures, or small candy. And they have to take turns picking out of the pocket. We also have a little Advent Kit that a friend gave us. So, we’ll put it together for FHE tonight and get started on that, too.

4- I will finish putting up the holiday decorations. I will, I will, I WILL. Because…

5- The kids are going to school today! Not that I don’t love my kids–I totally DO! But I can’t really get that much done when they are all here messing up the house for 10-16 hours a day.

6- The kids will be repeating such lovely phrases as “You’ll shoot your eye out, kid!”, and “I double dog dare you”. Why? Because they watched A Christmas Story last night, and even though I think that movie is a little crude and rude, they LOVED IT.

So, what’s on your list today?

We watched some home movies last night, and seeing Ryan, John said, “Dad! You kept your bald!”

I didn’t even know that was an option.

I am thankful for so many things.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

This is Jenna’s talk for Primary today. She helped me write it, and I think we did a darn good job. These are things I’m thankful for, too.

Jenna asked me yesterday if we could get out the nativity set and play with it. So, down to the basement we went to look for the nativity set. We found both the Fontanini set

and the veggie tales set.

Normally I would have said that it’s too early to get out the Nativity set. It’s the middle of November, for heaven’s sake! But Christmas seems to be starting early this year. Our neighbors have their yard and house COMPLETELY decked out and TURNED on, and they are not the only ones. This week is our bell choir Christmas concert.
We’ve been practicing Christmas music since…well, since July, actually. So, if you want to get yourself into a Christmas mood, you’ve got three chances this week to attend this concert this week. I’ve also been buying Christmas presents here and there, so I’m thinking about gifts. On Saturday we gave our Christmas gift to my sister and her family. Yes, it’s a month early, but it’s always the right time for giving, isn’t it? We hope they can use their gift for a long long time. I’ve been listening to Christmas music for a while, but the kids for some reason think that we shouldn’t listen to Christmas music in the car. Whatever. I think they were just ticked off that we wouldn’t let them watch a movie on our short ride from Pleasant Grove.

So, I say, bring on the Christmas cheer. I know we haven’t had Thanksgiving yet, and I’m not pulling out the tree and the decorations or anything, I’m just trying to prepare a little bit. I’m not trying to skip Thanksgiving, either. I LOVE Thanksgiving. We were going to go down to visit my brother in sunny Arizona for Thanksgiving, but that’s off now. So we’ll stay here and enjoy the time off from school and work. We’ll get together with extended family and have a wonderful day. And we’ll eat sweet potatos with marshmallows, thank you very much.

And if you’ve noticed that the blogging has been sparse lately, you are correct. And I’m so sorry. I’m sorry if you’ve rushed over here daily to see what kind of shenanigans we’re up to and all you see is my four day old post about spilled milk. No, I didn’t go to SanDiego this weekend with my husband or my friends. And no, I’m not at all offended that two of my friends went to SanDiego this weekend and no one even invited me to go along. I did have a friend invite us out to party with them this weekend, and I, brilliant person that I am, went to the wrong place and then wondered where they were. Oh well, maybe we’ll meet up NEXT time.

Well, I’ve been kind of swamped lately, and until I climb out of this mountain of work, I won’t be blogging much. We hosted a baby shower here on Saturday, and I was busy getting the house ready for that, (and speaking of babies, my sister had her baby on Friday–Congratulations, Chrissy!!) and I was trying to take advantage of the Oprah/Snapfish deal, and I spent hours downloading and then uploading pictures and arranging my book, only to have my kids close the window to play a game, then then arrange and arrange again and then them NOT credit me with the $29.99 for the book once I placed the order. I’m going to have to call them about that one). I’m just trying to tell you all that I’ve been busy. And I’m literally surrounded with piles of reflections entries in my office. A pile here, a box there, some prizes there, a box of medals there (medals that I ordered engraved, and when they came they were noticeably NOT engraved, so I’ve got to call about that one), a case of candy over there. I’ve got to get all reflections done by Thursday night, as our assembly is scheduled for this Friday. I’ve also got rehearsals or concerts or other obligations every night this week (except for tonight, and I think the theme of our FHE tonight will be…help Mom with reflections), so blogging is kind of low on my list.

So– wish me luck, send good thoughts, send food, send money, send help. Whatever. We’ll get through this and then we’ll get to blog all about it.

jocund
[jok-uhnd, joh-kuhnd]
–adjective
cheerful; merry; gay; blithe; glad: a witty and jocund group.
Origin:
1350–1400; ME jocound to help, benefit, please, delight

My fourth grader had to come up with a sentence for “Jocund”, and I didn’t even know what it meant. I had to look it up. Is that a word that’s in your vocabulary?

Last week, as I walked out of the house and into the garage, I saw a tiny streak of black running through the garage. I dropped whatever I was holding (probably a bag of garbage) and jumped back into the house.

No. No. Please don’t let that be what I think it was! No No NO! Because what I saw was either a mouse or a very large, very fast spider. I was hoping for the spider.

I went back inside to the supposed safety of the house and informed my husband that I was pretty sure I had just seen a mouse, and we would either have to get a cat, clean out the garage, or move.

You may think I’m overreacting on this little issue, but I’m not. Let me take you back a few years and fill you in on our history with the disgusting little creatures.

(Now the fog appears as we go to this flashback in time. Or, we could just have the words “ten years earlier” like they do all the time on Heroes.)

About ten years ago, when we only had two little kids, we decided to up and move our little family to Illinois. Ryan had a consulting job with Illinois power, and we thought it would be an adventure to move to the midwest for a year or so while he did the job. Plus, there were some pretty nice financial compensations to entice us to move, so we decided to go. Since we weren’t planning on staying there for very long, we looked for a renter for our house. My cousin had just gotten married, and he and his wife decided to rent our house while we were gone. We gave them a good deal on the rent, and they didn’t mind that we left our stuff in the unfinished basement. It made the move a lot simpler to not have to worry about moving our food storage, unopened wedding gifts, boxes of book, holiday items and the like. We packed those things into the basement, and packed up the rest of the stuff and took it with us. In fact, we packed our CAR into the large truck, then they built a wall, and we packed the rest of the stuff in the second half, to tell you the truth.

The job out there actually only lasted 7 or 8 months, and then it was time to move back again. I’m sure my cousin wasn’t too thrilled with moving out of the house, but they knew it was just a temporary thing, and they graciously moved out so that we could move back in.

Once we got ourselves settled back in our own home, we realized we had some unwelcome visitors. It started with some suspicions whenever we’d go down to get something out of the storage area. There it was, the tell tale mouse poops on the shelf. Then we’d discover the entire box of granola bars–empty. Sugar and flour strewn across the shelf. Living in a dream world, we hoped that there had been mice, but they had all left. Ryan set some traps. When I saw one of the creatures run across the floor, I had a little caniption fit.

More and more traps were set, until Ryan had trapped and killed at least a dozen mice in the basement. He also discovered their secret entry way into the house–the foundation zigged where the framing zagged, and there was an open overhang where the tiny troublesome creatures could easily gain access to the basement, and therefore the rest of the house. That corner was fixed, more traps were set, and eventually we felt like the house was livable once again.

Back to the present–I am NOT going through that again. When I complained to my dear hubby, he informed me that HE was the one setting all the traps and disposing of the deceased critters, and I did none of the dirty work. But I had to LIVE in the house that was infested with rodents! With my little kids. I lived in fear that one of those disgusting things would bite us, or we would all catch the Hanta virus and die! And NO, I’m not overreacting. So, when I discovered that streak of fur, it was like reliving the nightmare. And in order to not let that happen again, I suggest we get a cat. Or borrow a cat. Or rent a cat. Something with a cat.

Of course, that idea doesn’t go over real well with Ryan, who is allergic to cats, and he doesn’t believe that I could get an OUTSIDE cat and not let it come in the house. But I’ve talked to lots of people who say that cats CAN live outside, and they won’t die. Besides, if we don’t name it, we won’t get attached to it, and then if it decides to run away or dies, we won’t be all that sad, right?

So there you have it. Clean the garage, set traps, get a cat, or we could just move.

My daring husband set some traps in the garage on Saturday and caught ONE mouse that day. He assures me that it was just one, and the mouse problem is all over, and I don’t have to live in fear and not go in the garage anymore. But I don’t believe that it could only be one mouse, and I’m going to check into borrowing a cat while he’s at work. Cat play dates. Only we don’t have a cat for your cat to play with, only mice in the field. Or the garage.

I encouraged my kids to enter the contest for a new musical instrument from a local music store. I had to help some of them, but Cole did his own.

He wrote:

I should get a new instrument because as a flautist I am never taken seriously. If I could get a piccolo, then my peers and my family would take me more seriously. If I got a piccolo then I would be able to further myself as a musician even more than I would have been able to with only my flute. If I had a piccolo, then I would be able to reach new heights in my musical career. Without a piccolo, I may have to live in a cardboard box. With a piccolo, I may get a music scholarship.

Well, now. That’s a winning entry if I’ve ever seen one. Maybe.

Cole is actually with the band on their tour right now. They got to march in the Main Street Parade at Disneyland, go to the beach, and attend workshops. Today they are recording in a sound studio at Disneyland. It sounds like fun. Although I’ve only heard from him once. On Wednesday night. I think he forgot about his instructions to “call me every day.” Hmmmm. Well, let’s hope he’s having fun.