It's over...

Our very busy weekend has drawn to a close. (Thank goodness!) I would post pictures, but I had to drop the camera off for repairs so no pics. This weekend we managed to attend the AHS homecoming game, watch Kali play soccer, start a fence, go to dinner with the family, go to church, watch the Junie B Jones production, finish a fence, and go to the grocery store. It is 8:30 on Sunday and this is probably the first time that I have rested. I have not gotten a single thing ready for this week, but I guess I can just wing it! (Or so I hope!)

We ended up eating dinner with the family on Saturday to celebrate my niece's bd. That way we avoided the entire dealing with the ex thing and my kids got to see Junie B. Jones.

That's all for now as Rt needs my compt to do his homework... guess I'll post more later!

Busy, Busy...

I started to list all that we have to do this weekend and it isn't all that much, but it seems like a lot. Kali has a sleepover tonight to go to, but she has to be at the AHS game tonight and a soccer game in the morning. Bet she'll be in the best mood for the soccer game!

I do need some advice. My niece is having her bd party this weekend and I cannot decide if we should go. My little brother and the baby's mom are not married and their break-up was not exactly nice. The mom hasn't exactly been a nice person and I frankly don't want to go to a party with her and all of her family. I suggested to my brother that we all go out to lunch and celebrate her bd, but he didn't seem interested. Not to mention the party is on Sunday at the same time that I promised the girls we would go see Junie B. Jones. Give me some advice... what do I do?????

Funny Stuff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_oc1j5NakY

This is funnyyyyyyy!

Pics

I promised pics from this weekend, but so far the only ones I have are the flood... so here goes!

Pretty, huh? I think we got there in time, though, so the damage isn't going to be toooo bad! or so we pray!

Crash

If you are feeling up to a eye opening experience watch the movie Crash with a freshman class of college kids and make them read this article . Wow! If you haven't seen the movie I strongly suggest that you take the time and watch it. I know it is rated R and several of you don't watch rated R movies, but it really is worth the exception. The movie discusses stereotypes etc and has a way of really opening a viewers eyes to the ways that we all struggle with this.

My weekend....

Thanks Amy for your comment. It's just nice to know people are reading! Heehee! I used to say I blogged just for me and I do sort-of... it's just that sometimes you need to know people care! haha!

Ok... so about my trip this weekend. Our music minister was called to another church and has been gone for about 3 wks. His wife is one of my favorite people and Amy, Karen, and I have all missed them both terribly. So... we decided to go see them. We packed up Saturday morning and drove to my cousin's lakehouse (thank you so much Brooke) and Krista was to meet us there! That's where all the normalcy ends! When we got to the lakehouse we found that a hose under the sink had busted and the entire bottom floor of the lakehouse was flooded. We found the water meter and turned the water off and began scoopin' out the water. It took about 2 hrs to get the water out. I have never seen so much water in all my life (at least without the pool). It really is a good thing we went this weekend, though, because that water could've flowed forever. We did call a plumber and it took the man all of 20 min to fix the hose! Nice!!!!

So, then we decided to go eat lunch in Granbury at a girlie food place and in the middle of lunch my hubs called to tell me he was stranded on the side of the road. Apparently one of our cats decided that riding inside his engine was fun and the belt slipped off and the truck overheated. Kali was supposed to be at the soccer field at 2 and he called at 1:35. Our good friend, Matt, came and picked them up and got them to the soccer field, another friend took the kids and kept them safe at the soccer field, and then Matt took Rt back to his truck to fix the belt. I will say that I am very proud of my husband... he didn't freak out and he was very calm when he told me what happened. (As for the cat, this was cat #4 of the 4 adorable kittens we got a few months ago. Never will I get kittens from those neighbors again as they seem to be retarded. And while I cried at the loss of another kitten my children just rolled their eyes. We have got to move back to town!)

Other than those dramatic events the weekend was great fun! We spent lots of time shopping, talking, eating, more talking and more shopping. We got up this morning to drive to Cleburne to watch Brett lead music. I will say that they seem to belong there, as sad as that makes me.

I did get the entire living room clean before I left and came back to a house that was still relatively clean! Yeah family! I do have a question of the day... The kids went off with a family friend yesterday and then today they both went home with another family. Why does no one take my kids when it is just me? Do people just feel sorry for dad's? Matt had someone offer to take his kids for the afternoon toO!

Ok... it's desperate housewives night... I know, awful show... but it's the premiere and I must watch! Oh and spell check doesn't seem to be working! Sorry for any mistakes!

The plague...

Seriously, do I have the plague? I write these thought provoking posts and no one comments! :) Just kidding about the though provoking, but I just realized that out of my last 6 or so posts I have had a total of 6 comments (all by the same people!) Ok, I'll quit whining now.

My husband just informed me that our house has to be spotless before I can leave town tomorrow. I'm not sure what he was smoking at work this morning, but I am pretty certain that his wish is a little unrealistic. Not that I don't wish I could snap my fingers and the house be perfect, but it doesn't really work that way. I did get up at 4am and clean the kitchen. Don't get all excited, I haven't become a morning person, I just had really bad heartburn and couldn't sleep. I screwed up, though, and went back to bed at 5:30 so when the alarm went off at 6:30 I had much difficulty getting up. Oh well, at least the kitchen is clean. Only 4 more rooms to go...

Ok... have a good weekend... I'll post pics when I get back!

Perceptions

I am teaching a dual-credit course at one of the high schools in town this semester. Part of my concern with teaching the course was dealing with underage children and censoring myself. In a true college class I can talk about whatever I want to and it doesn't matter... I don't have the same freedom in a classroom full of 17 yr olds on a public school campus. Today we were discussing perceptions, stereotyping, and prejudice and one of the students brought up homosexuality. (AUGH! This is one of the subjects I would've rather avoided.) I'm not really sure how we got to the topic other than we were discussing segregation in churches and all of a sudden we were discussing the other. One of the student's piped up with "aren't they all going to hell anyway?" and the conversation took off from there. I was very careful about what came out of my mouth, but it was VERY difficult. Not that I was going to say anything offensive, but sometimes my view of loving everyone irritates people.

Listening to my students discuss all of this made me really think about how much our children absorb from us. Most of their comments started with a "my dad says" or a "my mom says" or even "my church says" as if the kids didn't have an opinion of their own. It's a little scary to see how prejudice can flow so easily from generation to generation without even a blink. I mean, the kids who asked the hell question looked shocked when I answered her in a way that obviously contradicted her parent's view.

When I left the classroom I was struck with an "I'm so old" moment, though... never in all of my years of public school did I even hear the world homosexual come from a teacher's mouth in any way other than negative ... and I could probably count those times on one hand. My how times have changed!

Schedules...

I woke up this morning and realized that I have a teacher's conference at 3:15 and Kali's speech therapy at 3:30. Hmmm... It is times like this that I could use a clone! Or at least a wife. Robert gets a little irritated when I say I want a wife, but wouldn't it be nice? I mean, come home to clean house and a hot meal? Not that I have ever been that kind of wife, but wouldn't it be grand to have one? You would think Robert would agree since many of our fights during our marriage have been about me not being that kind of wife. I can't say I blame him, it would be nice to be taken care of. HAHA, I'm only (half) kidding... polygamy is wrong.

Edit: Just got off the phone with a friend whose husband went home during lunch and vacuumed and cleaned out the fridge. This is so not fair!

Emergency!!!!

So, I don't really know what happened to my blog. One minute it was all flowery and the next it was solid black. So... this is all I could manage with my limited technical abilities!

Ok, on to the emergency. Kali dropped Robert's new tablet pc into the bathtub full of water. We have taken it apart as best we can and it is sitting in front of the fan, but does anyone have any other advice as to how we might save it? I've read a couple of things online that suggest if the power is off and you can get it dried out it might survive. Today has definitely been a lesson in patience!

Wow...

You know how sometimes you don't realize you have a problem or you don't realize how bad the problem is until you begin to fix it? Well, that is precisely how I am feeling right now. I didn't realize how active my brain was until I started taking this medication. Never have I been able to sit calmly and quietly mentally (I have always been able to physically sit quietly, because my brain is quite entertaining). Usually there are constant thoughts zooming through my head... constant worries... constant questions... but for the last two days things have been calm inside my head. Not that there haven't been thoughts, there have been, but now they come slower and are more understandable and cause less anxiety. What is funny to me, though, is that I didn't realize that what was happening inside my head wasn't normal. I assumed everyone has constant messages floating around at the speed of light. Anyway, let's just say I am slightly amazed right now.

Other happenings in my life... Kali told me this morning that she didn't want to go to school today. I told her she didn't have a choice, if she didn't go to school they could put mommy in jail (there is actually a law that says parents will go to jail if their child doesn't go to school and they aren't homeschooled). Her response...that's ok Grandad would take care of you. My dad works at the jail... so I guess that would make it ok! Kids amaze me sometimes.

Kali has her first wall word test today. Pray that she does well. It really is different having a child that struggles with reading. For Megan we did nothing. She just got it. In fact, I'm pretty sure I never went over her wall words with her (I know this should get me the bad parent award) but she just didn't need our help. Kali, on the other hand, requires a great amount of assistance from us. She starts reading camp again next week. McMurry has this great program where kids can come to the school two times a week and be tutored by early education majors. I'm not sure how much the program costs, but we did it this summer and the girls seemed to enjoy it. The classes are MW 4-5:15 (?) or something like that!

Here's my question of the week... Megs really doesn't care for PE. She never has and I know it is because it is hard on her and she can't stand not succeeding at things. Her new PE teacher likes to yell (hollar) at the kids which Megan doesn't understand or handle well. In fact, yelling at Megan usually has the opposite affect of what was intended. The teacher has been doing her job for 20 yrs and I'm sure she isn't going to understand what I'm saying and I have told Megan to do her best and try to understand some people yell and it doesn't mean your in trouble... but she still comes home upset. How do I deal with this? I feel guilty telling her to suck it up and deal with it when (in my opinion) there have to better ways of telling a kid to get it together. UGH! (Oh, by the way, this is why I don't teach elementary school... I would feel the need to yell at the kids.)

JW

A day of dr appts...

Kali had her eval with the speech therapist at Hendricks today. She will begin speech with someone next week and we will do about 10 sessions and see if some intense R therapy will do the trick. The speech therapist isn't sure if she has a tongue thrust, but she is certain that she at least has a lazy tongue! As for her Rs, she cannot say them... not sure why... but she uses all kinds of substitutes and will go as far as to use a completely different word to avoid an r. Hmmm... guess that means she should be increasing her vocabulary! :)



Rt went to the dr today for his weird bald spots. He has alopecia. Dr. Martin suggested he just draw a smiley face on it and not worry about it because there isn't much that can be done. He did inject a steroid into the smaller of the two spots to see if it will help. If hair grows there we will inject the larger spot. Fun, fun. I guess there is a risk that the hair could come back without any color at all... hmmm... what is worse a big bald spot or a white spot?



I also went to the dr today and was placed on Adderall and removed from my Wellbutrin. I'm hoping this fixes my memory issues. My friend Emily suggested that I was going to be able to focus, but so grouchy that no one would be able to tolerate me. Let's pray that doesn't happen. Edit: Rt just brought my pills home. I've never filled a prescription before that 5 full pg medication facts booklet. Hmm....



We went to the fair last night. We had a good time and saw tons of people that we knew. I could've lived without the crickets though. We rode the Ferris wheel and one jumped on me. And then, I was just walking along and one landed on my head... I rubbed my head and it fell down my shirt. EWWWW! I'm not a fan on those icky things! Anyway, here are some pics from our adventure!

We took an extra with us. His mom didn't think she should brave the fair with 15mth old twins.

The Texas Tornado. Notice mommy isn't on it? HAHA!
What is it about that girl and her tongue. She sure does stick it out a lot. Uncle Billy said she reminded him of his heavy metal days. haha!
Such pretty faces!

The last ride of the evening. Watch out for the crickets!!!!

New tubes?

At dinner tonight Megan and Kali were telling me that they want a little brother or sister. I explained to them that my tubes has been cut, burned, tied and therefore I couldn't get pregnant. At this point Kali looked at me and asked why I couldn't just buy new tubes and have them put in. Thank goodness that's impossible... right? :)

WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME????????

At the end of last semester I really began to think I was losing my mind. I was forgetting the sentence I was saying in mid-sentence. I was forgetting impt dates and appoints. I even forgot to feed my kids (long story). I went to the dr and he said it was stress and that I should get better when things settled down. Then summer came and I didn't get better. I was doing less so my incidences of forgetfulness were less, but I have decided that is only because there was less to forget. I went to the dr again and asked why it was still happening and his response was that my brain didn't know what to do with nothing to do... huh? You mean it was under worked? Well, not it is 8 mths later and my forgetfulness is getting worse. I walk into a room and realize I don't know how I got there. I say the wrong word 3 or 4 times in a sentence (this happened last night) and don't even notice I am doing it. I started looking online for answers (which let me tell you can be dangerous). One of the articles I read suggested that ADHD in women presents itself in a myriad of ways and that sometimes it is mistaken for depression or hormonal issues. Hmmm... Now I really don't know what to think. I mean, I am on depression for ADHD (ok I thought I would leave this one in... see what I mean, I'm losing it... what I meant to say was I am on Wellbutrin for depression/anxiety) and on birth control for hormones and yet my symptoms have not gone away.

This leads to an even bigger issue... my dr doesn't believe that ADD is an actual disorder. He told our music minister that ADD was not a diagnosis in other countries. So what do I do? There is no actual test to determine if you are ADD so it really could all be in my mind. I read part of the article to Rt last night because it cracked me up. It said that women with ADHD struggle with money management and budgeting and are usually unable to save money. At this point he volunteered to go to the dr with me! (We have serious budgeting disagreements in our household for those who don't know.)

Anyone got some words of wisdom for me????

Kali

For those who don't know, Kali was in speech therapy from about 18 mths until half way through kindergarten. When Clyde discharged her from speech I wasn't exactly happy about it, but there was nothing I could do. I noticed over the summer that she has started replacing sounds she cannot make. For example, curler instead of curl. A couple of weeks ago I asked one of the speech therapists at church what she thought and her suggestion was to take her back to speech because she has started "phoneme replacement." Huh? She also questioned whether Kali had a tongue thrust and suggested I ask our dentist. Well, our dentist happens to go to church with us too so I asked her Sunday morning what she thought and before I could get the whole phrase out she said yes. ugh! So... now I either have to fight with AISD for specialized speech therapy or I have to PAY $50 a session for it. UGH! Apparently Kali's issues aren't something the school district likes to deal with because they require individual treatment instead of group therapy. I wish there was some magical treatment for Kali's tongue (she started with an articulation delay due to her refusal/inability to use her tongue). I know there are parents who just ignore this kind-of stuff, but I have noticed that her speech issues have effected her ability to read. So I guess here's to another year of speech...

Payday

Can someone explain to me how I can get paid my monthly salary on Friday and now it is GONE?????

This week...

What a week it has been! We all started school on Monday and have lasted an entire week without much drama. Kali did get in trouble daily for talking, but Megan managed to make it a week without trouble. We were late to school twice due to Kali misplacing her backpack one day and a folder the next. Sometimes I just don't know what to do with that child. I mean, Megan was always so worried about getting in trouble at school that she rarely did things like that... Kali on the other hand, ugh!

I started teaching a dual-credit class at one of the high schools this week. I'm trying to not be gripey about it, but it is getting harder and harder to do. The school district wants the kids to take college level classes, but they want us to run them like high school classes with 3 wk and 6 wk reports. They also want us to average grades. I have a list of questions that no one seems to know the answers to or that no one is willing to answer and I have been called into my dean's office already this week because the AISD administrators are concerned about my friend and I teaching our classes. Come to find out what they are concerned about has nothing to do with anything that matters they just don't like that we are young and ask questions. Let's just say that I am not overly impressed with the decision making process at AISD right now.

Robert started classes this week too. We are excited about it, but I can tell it will be way different than when I was in school. I left him at home today so he could work on his homework without the noise from the kids. I'm trying not to be bitter about things like that, but do ya'll remember how many tears I cried due to the frustration of dealing with the kids and his demands all the while knowing how much work I had to get done? I guess the part that is even more frustrating to me is that he hasn't even realized how hard he made it on me to be in school. Oh well, I'll just keep praying that God will take away my frustration with all of this because I really do want Robert to succeed in school.

We start our new Sunday School class tomorrow. I am excited about moving out of the 20ish class into the 30ish class. The teachers in the other class are supposedly amazing and I am ready for that. I am ready to go to SS and learn as opposed to spending the entire hour frustrated. Tomorrow will be a little sad, though, as it is the first Sunday without our music minister. I know that God is in control and that if Bret is called to be at the church in Cleburne then there is a person who is being called to be at our church... but, gah, this stinks! I think I liked it better when I was a kid and was completely oblivious when ministers came and went.

I went through all my fave blogs tonight and caught up on the happenings of everyone. I've missed not being able to sit and read. Maybe having office hours that are required will give me time to do that... you know, instead of working on stuff I should be doing!!! haha!

Hope everyone has a blessed week!