Category: Day-By-Day

Well I’m doing it. I’ve made an appointment to get my hair whacked off tomorrow at 10:00 a.m.

Hopefully, it’ll look something like this:

That’s my goal, at least.

I’ll post a picture of the new cut as soon as I can. (And that’s code for: if I can make it look right. If not, you’ll just have to use your imagination. ha!)

I’m looking forward to having it short again. I had it this short years ago and loved it. The only problem is, I’ll have to go to the salon more often for trims and well … yuk. But I want a STYLE. Something that looks professional and will be easy to take care of.

At any rate, I’m cutting it off … again.

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Jazz’s marching band is getting new uniforms next year! YAY!!!!! I’m SO EXCITED to see what they look like. I hope they aren’t dorky looking. Their past uniforms looked pretty snazzy, if not a little space-suit-ish, but we’ll see. I really like his band director – he’s a man of taste and always comes up with really cool ideas for the performances, so it’ll be interesting to see what he comes up with this time.

The band only gets new uniforms like every ten years or so (they’re SOOO expensive), so it’s awesome that Jazz will be one of the first classes to wear the new uniforms.

They’re supposed to have a fitting next week some time, so Jazz wanted me to weigh him and chart his height.

Jazz now weighs 118 pounds and is 5’8 without shoes on. WOW! He’s only a few inches shorter than I am now. That’s so WEIRD when your baby is nearly as tall as you are.

Of course, I had to see what Dude’s weight and height were … he weighs 131 pounds and is 5’10 1/2 without shoes on.

I’m hoping the boys grow taller. Kevin said that was one of the things he liked about me, was my height. He figured if he married a tall person, then he would have tall children. Which is cool for boys, not so much for girls.

Trust me. ha!

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Kevin was issued a subpoena today. He’s scheduled to testify against the woman who ran him over on his motorcycle last year. (She left the scene of the accident – which is a felony, in case you didn’t know that).

I will go with him to support him, of course.

It will be really weird for Kevin because this will be the first time that he will face the woman who nearly killed him.

It’s probably a good thing it has taken so long to bring this to court because if it had happened a few months after the accident, they would have had to restrain me from attacking this woman, I was so angry. I’m still angry, but it’s more of a simmering anger now and I just want this woman off the streets. She’s a menace to herself and to other drivers. (She’s been picked up for a DUI SINCE the accident, believe it or not). She needs to be punished and she needs to learn there are consequences for her actions because up until now, this woman has been free to drive around and resume her life as if nothing catastrophic happened.

Though I’m not holding my breath that this hearing will actually take place (it’s been granted a continuance now every few weeks for a year), I’m really hoping it happens – mainly because we just want it to be over. We’ve already moved past this accident and to be forced to relive it again will be uncomfortable and painful for Kevin, I’m sure.

At any rate, that’s where we stand on the issue. We’ll see what happens.

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Kevin has been busy digging our backyard up. He’s putting in a patio. He borrowed his sister’s Roto-Tiller and that really helped move things along. I’ll take some pictures of it this weekend.

We went to Lowe’s last weekend and picked out the pavers. We’ll likely order those sometime this weekend, (if Kevin feels up to it, he’s got a gig tonight and tomorrow night, so he’ll probably be worn out from that).

He still needs to dig the rocks out next to the house, then we’ll order some gravel, put that down, smooth it out, then top it with sand, smooth that out before putting the pavers in. We’re hoping to have the patio done before Dude’s graduation reception next month. It would be really nice to have his party outside, weather permitting.

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My job situation … geez, I’m so frustrated with this whole thing. For one thing, I’m in limbo. I just don’t know which direction to take on this job thing.

First of all, I never heard back from the place I had my three interviews with. Which was very disappointing because I really thought they liked me. It was between me and one other person – I guess the other person was a better fit. I have an application in for three more positions with the same company but so far, I haven’t received a call, though all three positions are still in the “open” status on their website. However, they’ve been listed for a while, so I’m thinking they are probably interviewing and I just wasn’t picked. Maybe I’m not meant to work for this company, I don’t know. I’m not giving up, but I am a little discouraged.

Kevin suggested that I apply for a temporary employment agency. They would call me whenever someone needed someone to work in their office and I would do … whatever they needed me for. The pros of doing this would be that I would be working for several different companies and would have a chance to “try” them out, so to speak. Kevin’s company used people from this temporary employment agency quite a few times and often times, they would like the person so much they would offer him/her a full-time position.

The cons would be that I would be working for several different companies. I would be walking into a brand new situation and working with brand new people all the time. I’m sure that would be disorienting. Also, I would have to be ready to go at a moment’s notice. Which is really not that big of a deal, now that I think about it, because I’m at the office every day anyway, I would just have to make sure I’m wearing more office-appropriate attire. (Slacks as opposed to the jeans I wear every day now).

So, I don’t know. It’s definitely something to think about. I’m pretty sure I’m going to try it, just to see what happens.

Another option is to try and get a job at Missouri State University. They require all of their clerical applicants to take a test in Word, Excel, basic filing abilities and bank reconciliations. I suppose your chances of getting called back for an interview depends on how well you tested. I’d like to try this, too. Although I’ll have to work a bit more within Excel and Word 2007 as I haven’t really used those programs all that much (I have those programs, but they’re older versions and there are quite a few new features in the ’07 versions). In addition, and don’t laugh, I haven’t reconciled a bank statement in, oh gosh, YEARS. I haven’t had to, Kevin has always taken care of that stuff (there are some perks to being married to an accountant), so I’ll definitely have to brush up on that skill before I take any sort of test.

And I could always fall back on the tried and true job option – retail and/or restaurant. I have a lot of experience in both and I know those industries are ALWAYS looking for people. But the question is: do I really want to work evenings, weekends and holidays? Answer: no. I’ve had my fill of doing that (21 years worth, thanks), and I’m ready for a 9:00 to 5:00 job. I have a lot of office experience and know my way around office-related programs, SURELY someone out there wants me. Surely. 😐

So I have options, it’s just a matter of time before I get off my lazy butt and take those options. I’m nervous. That last interview process was a bit of a blow to my pride, quite frankly, and now I’m a bit more nervous about putting myself out there again. However, I’ll get over that. I’ll work myself up to it, believe me.

In the meantime, I come to the office every day and keep Kevin company. I write and work on websites and will likely continue to do those things even after I get a job. I do have one mark against me, though. We plan on going on our family vacation in July, which I have to disclose at the onslaught of an interview because I don’t want to spring anything on them at the last minute, and companies probably aren’t going to like that they will hire me, only to have to let me off for one week of unpaid vacation.

I wonder if that was one of the biggest reasons I didn’t get that last job.

*sigh*

Oh well. I just have to be patient and put myself out there. Nothing is going to happen just talking about it.

They Are Watching You…, originally uploaded by Uncle Phooey.

I finally got Kevin’ CaringBridge book made.

That’s only been on my to-do list since January.

I’m making progress!

It took me nearly all day yesterday to put the book together. It’s not that it’s a hard process but rather the CaringBridge website was slooooooooooow and it drove me craaaaaaaaaaaaaaazy.

Of course. THE day I needed the site to run well, it didn’t.

Also? I couldn’t preview the book. My laptop needed a plug-in and every time I tried to download the plug-in … nothing. I chocked it up to my running Windows 7. (You sort of have to expect to run into bugs when you’re running an OS that hasn’t been on the market that long. It sort of comes with the territory of jumping on an early bandwagon. Which I don’t normally do, but this laptop was a Christmas gift and it came with Windows 7 so … yeah).

Finally, at about 4:00 yesterday afternoon, I’d had it up to my eyeballs with the CaringBridge page and Firefox. (Actually, my frustration with Firefox has been building for a few weeks now. It keeps crashing on me and there are certain things that won’t run, like the plug-in I needed).

I downloaded Google Chrome.

I really SHOULD download alternate web browsers anyway so I can test the websites I build to make sure they look okay in those browsers, I just hadn’t on my laptop. So I downloaded Google Chrome, navigated back to the CaringBridge book, previewed it, just for kicks, and it worked! And it was fast! And now I’m thinking I spent the entire day wrestling with the book-making process thinking it was the website when it fact, it was Firefox!

AARGGH!!

So now Google Chrome is my default browser and I’m really liking it so far. It claims it’s faster and I have to agree – I’ve noticed a marked improvement. The only thing I don’t like about it (so far) is that bookmarks are a bit hidden.

At any rate, the CaringBridge book is done. Kevin and I went through pictures from his accident, both when he was in the hospital and on the road to recovery and we added ten pages of photos to the book. CaringBridge automatically adds all of the entries in the Guest book, so we’ll be able to look back and read all of the nice things people said during that time period, too.

It was sort of expensive, but it’s a hard back book and it looks like it’ll be pretty nice. Besides, it’ll be nice to have a physical reminder of that time period, something we can flip through and say, “Can you even BELIEVE you went through that??”

Because seriously, the whole experience doesn’t even feel real at this point.

We went over to my in-laws last night for pizza and a jam session.

They have a friend, through their church, who is from Russia, and he plays the acoustic guitar. He’s a bit lonely because his family is back in Russia, so my in-laws invited him over to play a bit with Kevin.

Jazz took his saxophone over there, too. I was really surprised that he WANTED to, quite frankly. I mean, the boy likes to play his sax, but he doesn’t normally touch it outside of school. (And to be fair to Jazz, he plays his saxophone during Band class AND Jazz class at school, which ends up being two or three hours, so I can see why he wouldn’t want to play it at home as well).

But he took his fancy-smancy black sax over there and him, Kevin, the Russian guy and Kevin’s uncle (who played the drums) had a great time just putting some improv together.

I braced myself. I thought it would be a bunch of noise, but I was totally impressed – Kevin picked out a few chords in B flat (which is a good note for the sax, apparently), played it a few times, the other guys picked up on it and before you knew it, they were all playing together. It was a lot of fun to listen to them.

Kevin had everyone pause a few times to give Jazz the floor, which he took and ran with. He did an EXCELLENT job winging his way through the song – I must say, the kid is a natural saxophone player.

Something has “clicked” for Jazz and his playing. He’s played improv in past Jazz classes and though he was pretty good, he wasn’t great. I’ve always thought that was one area that Jazz really needed to work on. But he said that they’ve been having an Improv teacher coming to his classes, teaching them some basic improv moves and WOW. The kid has really caught on to the premise. He did really well. We were all impressed.

Afterward, Jazz said he really enjoyed himself and that he would like to do more of that sort of stuff. Playing Jazz is his favorite thing to do in music and now that he has appeared to have crossed a musical hurdle, I look for him to take this talent and really harness it in the next few years of high school.

And that reminds me … I need to start seriously looking into some music scholarships for him.

I took a bunch of videos of the guys playing – I’ll try and get those online in the next week.

UPDATED: Jazz just text me that he is having to learn the clarinet for Jazz band. He then text me that he is also learning the trumpet. He later text me that it was an April Fools’ joke … well, the trumpet part was a joke, the clarinet was not a joke. I never knew I was so gullible, but apparently, I am. Grr lol

Side note: We were listening to the Russian guy talk about his homeland last night – Americans truly have no idea how spoiled we are. He was talking about how the life expectancy for men was 58 and the life expectancy for women was 63. It was a rare occurrence for people to have living grandparents. Kevin asked him if they played rock and roll over there and he said no. If they were caught playing, or listening, to rock and roll, they would be thrown in jail. He said Elvis Presley, especially, was a big no-no over there. He also told us how expensive housing was. For a 740 square foot home (imagine that for a moment), it would cost anywhere from $200,000 – $300,000 dollars. It was quite common for families to live together because it was much cheaper than trying to buy something on their own.

It sort of makes whining about $4.00 for a gallon of gas sort of pathetic, doesn’t it.

I also think it was really good for the boys to hear him talk about the differences, too.

Kevin’s office is ant infested. I’ve been spraying nearly every day and every time I go back into the break area, I end up wiping about twenty dead ants off the sink area.

I know, gross right?

It could be worse, it could be cockroaches. *shiver* UGH.

We’re going to make a trip to Lowe’s this weekend and buy some industrial-sized ant spray and just spray the crap out of his office for a few weeks to see if that makes a difference. If it doesn’t, then we’re going to have to break down and call an exterminator out.

I don’t know if the previous tenants were just slobs, or if the whole center is riddled with them, but we have to do something, it’s getting out of control.

Speaking of the office, Kevin and I switched offices – FINALLY. I FINALLY talked him into taking the nicer office, I’m now in the windowless office and I’m perfectly okay with that. It’s his office, he deserves the better space. My office needs some work – the walls are pretty scuffed up. So I have “paint my office” on my to-do list and will hopefully get that done in the next few weekends.

Since I didn’t get the job I had applied for (which, btw, I still haven’t heard anything official – that’s sort of disappointing), I’ve decided to just concentrate on my websites and my writing right now. I’ve talked about wanting to get some of my writing published since … forever, it’s time to do something about it. I have the perfect opportunity, I just need to take advantage of it.

I still have applications out there, and I’m still keeping my options open, but for now, this is what I’m going to do.

I’ll take a video of the new office set up soon – I know you’re all DYING to see what we’ve done. 😀

Speaking of writing, I’m doing the NaNoWriMo challenge this month. I didn’t do it last November and I’ve had this story in the back of my mind for a while now, I need to purge it or go crazy.

And we all know I don’t need to heap on anymore crazy, right?? (ha!)

I’ll post excerpts once in a while and you can also keep track of my word count progress in the sidebar.

And speaking of that project, I need to get started on those 1,667 words for today.

Have a great weekend, friends!

Our oven conked out on us.

The same, beautiful oven that we bought a little over a year ago to put in our newly-remodeled kitchen.

(you can see the whole kitchen process, from start to finish, here. I can’t believe it’s been a year already!).

Did I mention it’s only a little over a year old???

GRRRRRRR – Talk about frustrating!!

Here’s what happened: I cooked chicken pot pie. I blame the chicken pot pie. Okay fine, it’s MY fault that I didn’t put the pie plate on a cookie sheet to catch the drippings. *sigh*

When we went to turn on the self-cleaning option, to clean up the chicken pot pie drippings that happened because of my lack of foresight, it kept telling us that the door wasn’t completely closed. Um, yes, it was. At least, we thought it was. But the oven light wouldn’t shut off. And when we took a closer look at the oven door, we could tell, yes, it wasn’t closing properly.

(This actually happened last Thursday night. We had to turn the breaker off to the oven over the weekend so we wouldn’t burn the oven lights out. They’re special lights. Which is really code for “EXPENSIVE”, I’m sure).

Since the door wouldn’t close properly, the oven wouldn’t permit itself to turn on and heat up. We could still use the stove top, just not the oven.

So we had to call a repair guy. Actually, we had no idea where to even find a guy that would know how to work on our oven, so we called the place where we bought the oven and they recommended the place to us.

The guy came out this past Tuesday. Kevin had to leave work to meet him – I had to brush up on a program that was required for the position I applied for and my interview was later that day. I couldn’t afford the time away to meet the guy, so Kevin did it.

Luckily, the only thing that was wrong with it was the latch. (I was afraid it was a computer issue. Because computers are AWESOME, until something goes wrong). Apparently, that’s a common complaint with this particular oven – the latch is a bit wonky. The repair guy said that he gets a TON of calls about ovens not working right before Thanksgiving because so many people pick that time to clean their ovens and then something goes wrong with the latch and it no longer heats. I can’t imagine not having an oven to cook the Thanksgiving turkey!! Talk about freaked out!

So. The moral of this story? We won’t be using our self-cleaning option in the future. We’ll just have to don some old fashion rubber gloves and scrub our hands off.

Sweet.

The boys are pretty much on their own now. They (and when I say “they” I mean “Dude”), drive themselves to school every day. Unless there’s a chance of snow/ice – then I drive then. (No sense pushing the envelope, don’t you know). They’ve also been driving out to their cousin’s house in a nearby town – which is about thirty minutes away.

I also made them drive to a Hallmark store to buy their cousin a birthday card, by themselves. I thought it would be a good exercise in independence for them. Drive there, pick out the card themselves, (instead of mom picking out a few and saying “which one do you like the best?”), paying for it, and then driving back home.

Dude was a little nervous about doing all of this by himself, but he’s a little more brave with his little brother with him. (Jazz is my outgoing, social kid and doesn’t shy away from people like Dude does. Though Dude IS getting better about being around people).

I’m so glad they’re doing all of these things on their own, because it’s just a matter of time before I land a job. (More on that in a second).

I was just returning to the office after my second interview, when Kevin says to me, “Hey, did you know the boys are going bowling with your mom at 4:30 today?”

*blink-blink-blink*

I guess the boys feel it’s okay to make plans without me.

Which ……………. okay. I mean, on the one hand, I WANT them to do stuff, you know? They’re teenage boys, they have friends, they have a right to their own lives, and they have the transportation to get there, but ………….WAH! It’s WEIRD letting go, you know? It’s weird knowing they are ready to do things away from me and Kevin.

At any rate, I had no problem with them taking off with my mom. (And thanks for taking them, mom, they really enjoyed themselves), I just want to know what the plans are.

And thank goodness for texts. I swear, I talk to my sons more now than I ever have since we all have phones and can text each other now. And though I knew my boys were funny, I didn’t really appreciate their senses of humor until they started texting me.

They had a good time. (Who doesn’t have a good time with grandma, right??) And I got tickled when my mom told me that Dude kept worrying about how much money she was spending on them. HAHAHA! I’ve taught them well, apparently!

I also got tickled when I talked to Dude after he returned from buying a birthday card and I asked him how much he spent on the card.

“Three dollars and twenty-nine cents. That’s too expensive for a birthday card, mom,” he says.

HAHAHAHA. Hence the reason I insist that Kevin not buy me cards for holidays. It’s such a waste of money (to me, at least).

It’s really encouraging to see them starting to live their lives separate from me and Kevin. It’s sad, but exciting at the same time. I don’t want to hold them back. I have no desire to clip their wings and keep them home with me. But at the same time ………………. *sigh*

I have to say, though, that it’s kind of fun to watch their lives unfold before them.

Kevin’s parents’ 50th wedding anniversary party was this past Sunday and it was a lot of fun. His sisters did most of the planning, Kevin and I just helped carry things in, set things up, tear things down and I did a lot of dishes.

Which was FINE with me, that meant I was out of the way yet doing something productive.

Anyway, Kevin’s parents’ church was kind enough to allow us to use their facility for the party. Kevin and I went over to his sister’s house on Saturday and I spent the entire afternoon washing and chopping fruits and vegetables. We then packed everything up (it took three cars full!!) and we unloaded everything at the church. Since the church planned on having service the next morning, we couldn’t set everything up, so we stuffed everything into a back room and all met at the church at 12:30 the next day. We all frantically worked on setting up tables, food, pictures, cake, my MIL’s wedding dress, a slide show of their life together and Kevin had downloaded some 50’s music onto his iPod to play for background music.

We all worked well together. We brought our steamer so we could steam the wrinkles out of the tablecloths and Kevin worked on steaming the wrinkles out of his mother’s wedding dress.

(I was too petrified to even try it. The dress was 50 years old, after all, and if I ruined it … HELLO!! That’s my MIL! I’d likely never live it down).

My in-laws arrived and they looked so cute together!

Everyone clapped when they came in and I could tell they were really enjoying the attention.

I mean, it’s FIFTY years together! That’s a big deal!!

The gathering was pretty informal, people came and went for about two hours and we did a lot of socializing. I didn’t know most of the people there, but Kevin really enjoyed reconnecting with family friends and some of his cousins. The boys drove themselves over there, so they left before we did. Kevin and I stuck around to help clean up.

Kevin helped tear down tables and put the chairs back where they belonged while I washed dishes. Between standing for two hours and then standing another hour doing dishes, my back was pretty much shot by the end of the night, but we had a really good time and it was worth seeing my in-laws’ happy faces.

We ended up taking more family shots once everything had been cleaned up and everyone had left. You can tell, by my rather greasy-looking hair, that it was limp from sweat because this was right after I finished washing all the dishes.

Oh well. Such is life.

I’ve been very blessed to have married into a really great family. Everyone is sooooo nice and we all get along sooooo well. Not to mention, we all have the greatest kids and not one of them has gotten into trouble or been (much of *wink*) of a rebel.

My side of the family is the same way. I just can’t tell you how fortunate I feel, especially when I read about the troubles other families go through with not getting along or some other drama affair.

It’s such a blessing when you actually LIKE your families, you know?

Kevin and I were talking about our fiftieth wedding anniversary – he’ll be 79 and I’ll be 75. I hope we LIVE to see our fiftieth anniversary!!

I had my second job interview yesterday.

It was another one of those whirlwind days. I had returned the call on Wednesday, but hadn’t heard anything, so Kevin pushed me to call again. (Something about the squeaky wheel … something-something. I don’t know. I was too distracted to pay attention). I had expected to get the woman’s voice mail, but to my surprise, she answered and here I was, put on the spot, again, and had to force myself to think fast.

(No easy feat, let me tell ya!)

She looked at her calendar and asked if I could come in at 3:00 that day for the interview. And I would be interviewing with two of them because they liked to double team up that way to save them from having to schedule another interview.

I said “Absolutely!” and died a little inside.

I wore the same thing to my second interview as I did for my first interview with the recruiter. Again, I didn’t have time to shop, but more importantly, it somehow felt wrong to wear a suit and/or a blazer. I wanted to fit in, so I stuck with my “office-type” garb.

I’m glad I did. I didn’t feel over, or under dressed and that helped me to relax a bit, I think.

I arrived, right on time, and checked in. (I was rather surprised to see you couldn’t just walk in, you had to be buzzed in). The woman came to get me and en route to her office, she stopped to introduce me to her team – the same team of women I would be working with IF I get this job. I just sort of gave them a shy smile and a wave and then she took me back to her office. She introduced me to the other woman and we sat down to have a little chat.

I was nervous, and yet, I was not. I felt comfortable with these women right away (they were my age and we discovered we had a lot in common – children in band, teenagers, etc). They asked me a series of questions and I was quite honest in my replies. I kept everything professional and my awkward answers were tactful, but I also tried to keep everything friendly, too.

They acted like they were really pleased with my answers. They also acted VERY interested in the fact that I have some training in technical writing. In fact, they both looked at each other and named off some sort of project name so I’m assuming they could use my talents for some project at some point.

I mentioned, and apologized, that I would need a week off in July so we could go on our family vacation. I told them that it had been planned for a few months now (which it has been), and that I couldn’t really get out of it. They appreciated my honesty, once again, and I just hope that doesn’t hinder my chances.

But again, I would much rather be up front and honest about possible snags than surprise and disappoint them later.

So, I left feeling pretty good about the interview. I hope they liked me and I REALLY HOPE they will give me the job. They said that it would likely be a week before I heard anything (more applicants), but they were desperate to fill the position, so I’m hoping it’s sooner than that.

Kevin is a bit sad at the prospect of losing me in the office. But I’m READY for this. I’m excited to get back out into the working world. Even though the pay isn’t that much, it’s enough to pay for our groceries every month and every little bit helps, right?

I’ll keep you posted as to what happens. If I get the job, I probably won’t be blogging as much – I simply won’t have the time. My hours would be 8:00 to 5:00 Monday through Friday, so any blogging would have to be done later in the evening. Actually if I get this job (or just any job), I’ll have two jobs – my “day” job and my website business job. I’ll have to update websites when I get off work every night AND THEN blog – in between cooking dinner, exercising and of course, catching up with my family.

Just the thought of being so busy makes me smile.

(Flickr credit)

C..C..Cold and wet today. The north wind stole my breath away when Kevin and I went to lunch at Panera Bread. This is my least favorite time of year. Not only is the weather ugly, unpredictable and sometimes dangerous (tornado season), but the grass begins growing and the trees begin to bloom.

I hate that.

Not for ME, but for Jazz. He has spring allergies and I have to dope him up on Singular during the day and Zyrtec at night. This double whammy cocktail serves to strengthen his lung capacity and trick his body into thinking it’s NOT inhaling oak pollen thereby keeping his lungs from going nuts and morphing into asthma.

That has happened a few times over the years. It got so bad I had to take him into the clinic for breathing treatments until I finally got smart (notice I said this took years?? Yeah, I’m slow on the uptake sometimes) and took him to see an allergist where we determined that he’s EXTREMELY allergic to oak and moderately allergic to grass.

Which both show up in spades in the spring.

Ever since then, I’ve doped him up and he’s been able to sail through this time of year with very little problems. Only last year, when I was living out of a Columbia hospital with Kevin while he waited to have his pelvis reconstructed, I wasn’t around to remind Jazz to take his medication so that by the time I got back to Springfield, his allergies had morphed into asthma and I had to administer breathing treatments with old medicine (because there hadn’t been a need to buy more Albuterol, what I had was old) and a too small mask (because I have a child’s-sized mask and now need an adult-sized mask because the boy is virtually a man now). I’m hoping we get through this season with very little problems because if he needs another breathing treatment, I’ll have to A. make an appointment to see his allergist so that I can B. buy more Albuterol and C. buy a bigger mask.

And did I mention that our insurance dropped us this past December and we’re under a new plan with a higher deductible and this allergy stuff is expensive?? (Our insurance dropped us because we were part of a group plan through Kevin’s work and since his work went into liquidation and there was no longer a group to insure, well, our insurance dropped us. Yeah. NOT the best time for that to happen, but you know, such is life).

I’m going to have to time this allergy season perfectly because I only have 30 Singular pills, enough to last him 30 days. In order to refill our prescription, we’ll have to go back to his doctor (because the man refuses to simply refill the ‘scrip without a consult – “Has anything changed?” “No.” “Is Singular working for him?” “Yes.” “Okay. Here’s a ‘scrip for a refill and oh, by the way, don’t forget to pay the cashier for this pointless visit on your way out.” – so annoying) and buy more drugs (which are OVER $100, geez, drugs are insanely expensive) and since this is the only time of year any of us have any medical problems to speak of, it would be nice to sail through it without having to break open anymore piggy banks.

All this to say, I’m okay with the weather staying cold and wet for a few weeks longer – keep that pollen under wraps, Mother Nature.

*****

We got an information packet in the mail from Disney World the other day. Did I mention we’re going in July??

I have to admit, Disney knows how to get people excited about visiting. I watched the DVD that came with the packet, showed my family the brochure that “personally” welcomed our family to Disney and poured over maps for Epcot and Hollywood Studios (the two parks we plan on visiting, because we only allotted two days to spend at Disney World) all while trying not to act like a 10-year old girl breathlessly waiting to meet her fairy princess of choice.

(Which I would totally do if I wasn’t going to Disney World with three guys who have no interest in meeting fairy princesses).

I’ve been wanting to go to Disney for quite a few years, but every time I suggested it, my family vetoed the idea. The guys simply couldn’t get excited about going – they thought it was too kiddy-ish, or too girly. Which it might be, I’ve never been so what do I know. But now that we’ve decided to go, and we’re getting information tailor-made to our family, they’re starting to look forward to it.

We decided to go this year because we’re planning on catching a boat out of Port Canaveral to go to the Bahamas, only we couldn’t find a flight on the airline we usually use (because we have a credit card through them that we earn points on and later cash in for free flights – which is AWESOME when we have enough points, NOT SO AWESOME when we don’t), and had to sort of jump through hoops to find another airline that would take us to Orlando in a timely matter without breaking our bank account.

We found an airline that flies, non-stop, from St. Louis to Orlando, but not on the days we needed it to. So, we decided to take advantage of the fact that we’ll be in the area a few days before we sail to drop a small fortune at Disney World.

All of that to say, we’re finally starting to get excited.

*****

I put my Twitter account on private status. I’ve been applying for jobs and I figured if they Googled my name, it might come up and they would see what sort of nonsense I tweet and think, “this girl is insane. We don’t want her working for us.”

Which is exactly what WOULD happen if they Googled my name. Because I Googled my name and my Twitter account WAS the first thing that showed up.

It’s not that I have anything to hide, per se, but you know, it’s weird to face someone who reads the crap you write when you don’t really expect anyone to read it in the first place.

So, hopefully I’m eliminating that problem by going private, at least for a little while.

My blog doesn’t show up when you Google my name. Thank goodness. And that’s precisely WHY I don’t publish my first/last name here – because I don’t want anyone Googling my name and HI – READ MY LAME BLOG. It’s also the biggest reason I don’t call my sons by their real names on this blog either – I don’t want to put them in an embarrassing situation when (notice I said WHEN) they get jobs and are forced to explain to their potential boss about the time they ran around our backyard with no clothes on.

(By the way, that’s totally made up. They’ve never left the house with no clothes on – that I’m aware of, anyway).

So yeah. The Internet is SO FUN when you don’t have to meet anyone FROM the Internet, you know?

*****

I had to ground Jazz from his favorite computer game yesterday. The boys got their progress reports and Jazz is getting an F in English.

Now. Getting an F in any subject is bad enough, but when it’s in ENGLISH, and your mom is an ENGLISH nerd, is quite hurtful.

Not to mention disappointing.

Now, I take progress report grades with a grain of salt. (And progress reports are reports that come out every few weeks to let parents know how their kids are doing in their classes up to that point). The problem with progress reports are, they’re not always accurate. If the teacher hasn’t recorded their grades up to the point when the progress reports print out, then it’s possible the grades will be pretty crappy because there are several outstanding assignments that haven’t been recorded but have been added in the total points possible.

Does that make sense?

It took a HUGE fight with my oldest son several years back before I realized what was happening with these progress reports – ever since then, I’ve been a lot cooler about progress report grades. If the grades are sub-par, then I pay special attention to that subject to make sure the boys are keeping on top of that class. Most times, it irons out. In the end, the grades are acceptable come grade card time.

But sometimes, like yesterday, something’s off.

I looked at Jazz’s transcript the other day – the kid has ALL A’s and B’s since he started high school. And the rest of his classes this semester are all A’s. So this F in English? Stood out like a lighthouse beacon on a pitch black night.

His last progress report grade in English was a C-. Again, Jazz told me that the teacher simply hadn’t recorded all of his grades. Fine. But when I saw the F on this report, I investigated.

And by investigated, I mean I asked Jazz a bunch of SPECIFIC questions. (Note to moms – when your kids reach the teenage years, you have to be VERY SPECIFIC in your questions to them. Otherwise, they can shrug later and claim, “Well, you didn’t ask me THAT.”)

Jazz said he knew I would be upset by the F, so he talked to his teacher after class. She told him that he hadn’t turned in several reading logs, which dropped his grade. The thing is, Jazz claims not to have KNOWN he was supposed to do reading logs every day because the teacher never said they needed to do them every day.

Now. I’m not one of those moms who think my children crap gold. They are quite flawed and have lied to me in the past. They’re kids. They test the boundaries like every other kid. BUT, Dude has had this English teacher in the past and he had the same problem with this same teacher – she didn’t really make them work very hard, she wasn’t very good at communicating things with the class, and she took forever to record grades. So, even though I understood that Jazz quite possibly had a lemon teacher, it still wasn’t an excuse for the bad grade. It just meant that he couldn’t take anything for granted and he needed to overachieve in that classroom. In other words, he needed to go above and beyond what was expected of him so that he would have some “insurance” if/when the time came.

In the meantime, I had gone ahead and emailed his teacher before I had talked to Jazz. I simply asked her what the dealio was. Was Jazz not turning in his assignments? Was he doing poorly on his assignments? Please let me know what the problem is so we may work on it. Nothing confrontational because again, he’s my kid and I love him, but he’s not perfect.

Since Jazz had an F, he was no longer allowed to play his favorite computer game. That’s our deal. The boys know our deal. If their grades drop below a C, then they lose stuff. Period. Once those grades come back up, they get their stuff back.

It’s pretty black and white.

We set the bar at “C”, because we’re realistic. Not every kid is great at every subject. BUT, if they do better than a C, then we’re more apt to say yes to things they want in the future. You make the grade, you earn our respect.

Again, pretty black and white.

I heard from his teacher today. She told me that he now has a “C”, which tells me that she finally got around to recording his assignments. It also reaffirms the importance of parents following up – teachers are more apt to do their jobs if they have parents breathing down their necks, I’m sure. She also finished out the email by saying, “Jazz is a very polite young man, I enjoy having him in class very much.”

*MOM PRIDE*

(Also? She could have been kissing my butt. But whatever, I’ll take it).

Okay. So the boy is now back up to a C. Acceptable, but not desirable. He’s no longer grounded from his game (as per our agreement, because I’m a strict mom, but I’m a fair mom), but I will be keeping a very close eye on everything he does in that class to insure that he stays on top of things and ends the semester with a decent grade.

Because I’m his mother and that’s my job.

*****

I mentioned that I’ve been applying for jobs. I’ve also been looking at job listing sites twice daily and have been researching the jobs listed. I’ve seen quite a few pharmacy tech jobs. If you want to be a pharmacy tech, you have to be licensed. I’ve been looking into that and now I’m seriously thinking of doing that.

“But Karen, what happened to the paralegal idea?”

Ugh. Thanks Internet, you would have to bring that up. I have scratched that idea. Why? Because I started reading some paralegal blogs and these people work their tail ends off. Not that I’m scared of a little hard work, I’m not, but they travel a lot to take depositions and they work insane hours during trials and quite frankly? I don’t want to be away from my family that much. Even though the boys are on the verge of taking flight and doing their own thing, I don’t want to be away from Kevin that much. He’s my best friend and I need him. He needs me. It would just be too hard. So now I’m looking for something closer to home and with some (semi) decent hours.

I know. There’s no pleasing me.

*****

Kevin’s parents are having a 50th wedding anniversary party this weekend. My sis-in-laws want me to come over on Saturday and help with food and then Kevin and I are going over to the church early on Sunday to help set up.

My mother-in-law plans on displaying her wedding dress. How cool is that?? I’m really looking forward to taking some pictures, but I’m also a little nervous. My in-laws know A LOT of people, and from what I’ve heard, they’ve all been invited, so this is turning out to be quite the shindig.

This also makes me think about my OWN parents’ 50th wedding anniversary in four short years. (Cynthia, Dave, Angie? Are you reading? Just a head’s up. *wink*)

*****

The woman who hit Kevin head-on? Had yet another court appearance today. And yet again, she’s been granted a “continuance.”

To my knowledge, this woman hasn’t been punished for nearly killing my husband almost a year ago (Seriously ya’ll, it’ll be a YEAR since Kevin’s accident on April 16th. Can you freaking believe that???), though I think our insurance company has issued her papers and I know she’s been picked up since the accident for a DWI.

She’s a real winner, that one.

But that is what is wrong with our legal system – this woman has been out and about, endangering herself and others almost a year after hitting Kevin. That is seriously pathetic.

Will she EVER pay for her reckless behavior?

That’s the half-a-million dollar question, right there.

*****

And I’m done now.

We’re snowed in – AGAIN.

Well, Kevin and I aren’t snowed in, we’re at the office (thank goodness for his 4×4 truck), but school has been canceled – AGAIN.

This makes the sixth snow day this school year – one more and the kids will start having to make them up.

The snow has been around for a solid week now. This is unacceptable. I’m not a big fan of snow to begin with, but when it’s been around for a week and the temps haven’t gotten high enough to melt much of it, I get downright cranky.

The side streets were never cleared, so when the temps did get high enough to melt a little of it, it was enough to make the ice break up into chunks. So now our street has deep groves of ice in it and my little car isn’t liking that one little bit. I’ve gotten stuck a few times and when I went to pick the boys up from school the other day, I got stuck halfway in/halfway out of a driveway with about ten cars behind me.

That wasn’t embarrassing.

I was finally able to rock the car enough that it found traction, but I honestly thought the boys were going to have to get out and push me.

The last time school was out this long was during the ’07 ice storm. It seems like they were out a week at that time period because the schools didn’t have power. Since Missouri declared a national emergency, the kids didn’t have to make up those days.

I hate snow days. They’re disruptive to everyone’s schedule. Not to mention the boys’ schooling. However, we’re lucky. The boys are older now so it’s no big deal to leave them at home. I feel really sorry for working parents of younger kids – I bet snow days like these are just a major pain in the butt for them.

At any rate – we’re supposed to be up in the 50’s this weekend so HOPEFULLY it’ll melt most of this crap away and we can get back to normal.

I just called and rescheduled my doctor’s appointment. I was supposed to go in for a follow up to my abdominal surgery. Kevin wanted me to go, but since he’s my taxi today, and it looks like we’re going to have to make a trip to the orthodontist’s office today because Jazz’s new wire in his braces has caused his teeth to shift and now the wire has extended past his teeth and is digging into his gums which requires snipping and we’ll likely grab lunch on the way back which means that Kevin won’t have had that much time in the office today because of all of the taxiing around and since I know the man like the back of my hand and know that he won’t feel like he got anything done today and that will make him cranky and he’s not much fun to be around when he’s cranky – I rescheduled my appointment because that would mean one less thing for us to do today.

I do believe that might have been the longest, and most confusing, sentence I’ve ever written.

Anyway, it’s no biggie. It’s just a follow-up. I’m sure it’ll go something like this:

Me: “Hey doc.”

Doc: “How are you doing?”

Me: “Great! I feel really good. Thanks again for fixing me.”

Doc: (*blush*)

Me: (*big smile because it’s amusing to make the doctor blush*)

Doc: “Any problems?”

Me: “Not a one.”

Doc: “You’re having bowel movements and passing gas okay?”

Me: “You mean, am I pooping and farting? Yep. Everything’s running on schedule.”

(I know what you’re thinking, “Now Karen. You wouldn’t say that.” To which I would reply – oh yes I would. I like to say things like that and shock people. It makes life interesting that way).

Doc: “Great! Then I hearby dub you cured and I don’t want to see you back – ever.”

And that would be that.

So see? I’m not missing much by postponing this appointment until next week. Though I DO want to ask him if there’s any possibility of me suddenly growing more intestine or if I have enough large intestine left for anymore twists to happen.

Because GAH, I don’t want to go through that crap (pardon the pun) again if I can help it.

And plus, it’s fun to watch his brow furrow as he tries to ascertain if I’m indeed stupid enough to think it’s indeed possible for me to grow extra intestine (hey, it could happen) or if I’m just jerking his chain.

Serious people are so fun to mess with.

I’m suspicious.

The Documentation Specialist position is still listed.

Hhmm ….

It’s been listed for quite a few weeks.

Hhmm …

I wonder – does this mean that they simply can’t find people who have graduated from college with a technical writing degree? Or, are they turning down all of the applicants because they’re old and stodgey?

See. This company is a young, hip company. Which makes me wonder if I would be a good candidate because, well, I’m old. Let’s be honest.

HOWEVER, I don’t always act my age so … BONUS!

OR, maybe they had another Documentation Specialist job open up right after they filled the first position and they just didn’t bother taking down the first listing because hello – same job, same job description, same job requirements, etc.

I know they update their list because I’ve seen other listings come and go so …

I wonder.

I’ve been eating a lot of oatmeal lately.

My body RESPONDS to oats.

*ahem*

But I’ve noticed that if you don’t rinse your bowl out immediately after you’re finished, oatmeal turns into concrete.

It’s a PAIN to clean after that.

Just a little public service announcement.

Kevin is now an official QuickBooks Pro Advisor. This means, he can easily take care of all of your Quickbooks needs.

He has spent quite a few hours studying the material and taking tests and is now certified. He’s listed as an adviser on the Quickbooks website, too. They also gave him a handy-dandy sticker to put on his window and I will be putting an “official” notice on his website sometime today, too.

So if you know of any small businesses that need an accountant, Kevin is your man.

I’m going to help him write some ads today and we’ll start the ball rolling on advertising. He’s already had one client meeting and that was just word of mouth, so I’m really hoping we can carve out a niche in the community.

Seriously. If you, or you know of someone that needs some accounting services, contact me, or visit Kevin’s website and contact him.

We’ll even come to your business and pick up your paperwork for you!

We’re full service, ya’ll.

I”m getting pretty darn tired of (uninformed) people touting that this blizzard is PROOF POSITIVE that climate change (which is now what Global Warming is called because it’s hard to preach warming when half the country is buried under snow) happens.

Well, yeah. Climate change happens, it’s called WEATHER. And weather is cyclical. (which means: revolving or recurring in cycles – in case you didn’t know that).

Case in point:

There’s an article on Yahoo today about the Midwest blizzards.

Here’s the part that I think people intentionally ignore whenever they start spouting off about Global Warming, oops, sorry, Climate Change:

But after the record 14-inch snowfall that kept students out of school for at least six days, halted garbage pickup and kept some roads impassable, the city of 390,000 was bracing for the worst. By 9 a.m. Wednesday, Tulsa had received 4.5 inches of new snow, putting it just two-tenths of an inch from matching its seasonal record of 25.6 inches set in the 1923-1924 season.

Dude. This means that Tulsa received even MORE snow in 1924. Are you telling me that MAN-MADE Global Warming was happening back in the early 20’s??

COME ON MAN. Get real.

Weather is cyclical. It goes in cycles. Next year, we’ll probably have a particularly mild, warm winter. The year after that, it’ll be colder and maybe just a bit snow. The year after that? Spring-like conditions.

It’s called AVERAGES. That’s where AVERAGES come from.

Give me a break.

I’m sorry guys, but I don’t buy it. The Earth may be warming up, but it’s not because of man. Can we work on being more efficient and less wasteful? Of course. But man is a tiny speck of dirt – I highly doubt we’re killing our planet.

Sorry to go off on a tangent, but good LORD, this stuff drives me nuts.

Don’t believe me? Tell you what – read articles both for and against Global Warming. Weigh the evidence for yourself. What makes more sense? I’ve done that and it just doesn’t seem feasible that man is causing the Earth to warm up. Science is great – science is not always accurate.

And the rant is officially over.

C..C..C..Cold. The high got up to 15 today. That’s freaking cold. I’m pretty sure I was numb the entire morning.

Kevin took the boys to school (because the roads were slick and I’m a big wuss when it comes to driving on slick roads) and he came back to pick me up so we could both go to his office and work. We’ve been following this pattern and it seems to be working pretty good for both of us. We go back home for lunch (except for Wednesdays, that’s our lunch date day) then he returns to his office by himself and stays until five. I stick around the house, catch up on emails then pick up the boys from school.

His office was freezing cold. He turns the thermostat down at night, to save on utilities, and it never really catches back up until after lunch. So, I quite literally froze while I surfed job sites.

Oh yeah. I surfed job sites. In FACT, I found a job that would be perfect for me, but I’m terrified of applying for it. Mainly because they state in their application guidelines that they will issue some sort of work test to see how I do.

I’ll be honest. I’m pretty good thinking on my feet, but honestly? Only when it comes to areas I’m pretty comfortable in. This particular job requires technical writing skills, which I have a Bachelor’s of Science in, but which I haven’t actually used since I gradated. I stumbled into the website design business shortly after graduation and that’s where I’ve been ever since.

If I apply for this job, I will need to brush up on my technical writing skills. Which, in essence, is everything to do with technical writing. The job title is a “Document Specialist” and it’s with a software company that sells software to insurance companies. It sounds awesome. And reading the requirements, I’m pretty much a shoe in … but I’m TERRIFIED.

I will be a (bigger) fool if I don’t apply, I think. I’ll never get over my fear of doing what I’m actually trained to do unless I just take a deep breath and jump in. The problem is, there aren’t many of these types of jobs around Springfield (at least, there didn’t use to be, maybe there are more now – I mean the last time I seriously looked into the industry was back when I graduated from college, in 2003), so I’m not sure how many “practice” opportunities I’ll get before the opportunities run out. You know?

Also, I registered on the hospital health care site today and found another position that looks like I’d be a shoe-in for – it’s in patient registration and the location is pretty close to home. The hours are 6:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, though I would be a “floater” and would be required to work other locations, if they needed me.

I was pretty encouraged by my searches today. I’m feeling excited and scared. I’m working on my resume now, which is another sobering experience considering I haven’t put a resume together in YEARS and I’m trying to come up with a creative spin on my working from home all these years. One of the things I think might be a good thing to point out is that now that our boys are (virtually) grown, or at least are at the stage where they are self-sufficient and not really relying on me anymore, I won’t be called home to take care of a sick youngster and have the time and motivation to commit all of my attention to my job duties.

Kevin has a resume book I can consult, but it’s really old. Do resume tips expire? I know NOT to pull the same “am motivated, friendly and work well with others” stint because let’s face it, that’s what all employers are looking for anyway and putting that on a resume is redundant and mundane. I’m thinking I might make a trip to our local Barnes and Noble and thumb through some resumes books to see if anything new and different jumps out at me.

I also saw a pretty slick “about me” page that I would like to incorporate into my resume/cover letter package. In essence, it’s one page with a picture of me and a short paragraph listing my abilities and accomplishments. I don’t know how “different” that really is, but I’d like to try it, at any rate.

My desk still hasn’t arrived. Kevin said that the company where he ordered the desk from shows it’s supposed to arrive sometime next week. I’m really ready to move into my own space. Though technically, it won’t really be MY space, but just SPACE, since I’m carting a laptop around and pack everything up before I leave so that you can’t even tell I was there to begin with. I have a pretty good idea what I want to do with Kevin’s website, I’ll likely start on that tomorrow, providing I can find some decent pictures to purchase on iStockphoto.com.

I’ve got to do something about this fatigue. It gets to the point where I can’t even concentrate, I’m so tired. And when I say tired, I mean droopy and can barely keep my eyes open tired. I’m back to drinking coffee in the afternoons. It’s funny, but I don’t truly start waking up until around mid-afternoon and I’m pretty awake until around 10:00 at night.

I was late picking the boys up from school today. Did I mention the high was only 15 degrees? I didn’t know they got out of school early today and they were forced to stand out in the cold for about ten minutes before calling Kevin, who told them to go back to the school and warm up. (Why they don’t have the presence of mind to do that to begin with is beyond me). They tried calling me multiple times (I had eight missed calls), but I had the radio on and didn’t hear my phone. (I’ve since changed the ring tone and turned the volume way up). They were frozen and quite annoyed with me. Jazz had the good sense to at least zip up his jacket and pull his hoodie over his head. Dude’s jacket was unzipped and flapping in the wind. When I asked him why he didn’t zip it up, “My hands were too numb.”

I’ve told the boys repeatedly they need to wear something other than a t-shirt and sweat jacket to school when it gets this cold, like a sweatshirt and a heavier jacket. But Dude just told me that that “Looks dorky” and he flat out refuses to dress warmer. This is the part where I shrug and say, “well, then you’re going to freeze and I don’t want to hear about it.”

Teenagers are so STUBBORN. Jazz is at least a little more reasonable when it comes to his clothes, but Dude wears the three exact same t-shirts all the time with the exact same three hoodies all the time and this does not deviate, ever. I have stopped buying him clothes because he simply won’t wear them. God forbid the kid stand out from his peers in any way. I did finally make him get his hair cut, so at least now he looks like a respectable young man instead of a homeless guy. And he will maintain that ‘do as long as he lives here. As I told him, “It’s time to grow up and look the part.” I mean seriously, if you were an employer, would you hire a kid that looks like he just crawled out of a dumpster?

Exactly.

At any rate, that was the drama for the day – mom screwed up. But to be fair to me, I didn’t KNOW the kids got out early, so they should have taken the initiative and made sure I knew that they did.

I’m glad we went ahead and bought a parking sticker for Dude’s car – it looks like he might be driving them both to school very soon. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.

Working at the office today. My desk still hasn’t arrived yet, Kevin called the company and they were waiting on the conference table, which is on back order, so they could ship everything together. But he told them to go ahead and send the desk, just send the table whenever it finally gets in.

It’s freeeeezing in here. Kevin turns the thermostat way down when he leaves at night so it takes a while for the office to warm up. I’m currently working with my coat on and my toes are frozen. But hey, at least our utility bill should be pretty low.

It snowed here yesterday and last night, I think we only got about an inch and a half, but it’s cold, like only a high of 20 cold and the windchill might be in the negatives. Our school district kept our schools open and people are throwing FITS over it. Honestly? It’s cold, and there are slick spots, but it’s really not that bad. I did feel sorry for the kids that had to walk and/or ride the bus this morning, that couldn’t have been fun. Hopefully they were bundled up.

But some of the complaints on the district’s Facebook page didn’t make any sense to me. For example: what about the poor kids that can’t afford winter coats, gloves, etc.? I don’t understand this argument. We have a clothing bank that supplies winter clothing to kids who need that sort of thing (for free!) so I can’t help but wonder why parents wouldn’t adequately clothe their children for this type of weather. Even if they don’t get the clothing from the clothing bank, (did I mention it’s free?), buy coats and other winter accessories when it goes on sale in the off season. In other words, prepare. We live in an area that gets ice and snow every year – EVERY YEAR – it’s not like this is a surprise or a rare occurrence. And anyone who lives in this city knows that our district is rather notorious for NOT calling off school in weather like this so … why aren’t they prepared?

I’ve been truly flabbergasted at the number of nasty comments on the district’s Facebook wall. I also wonder if their reactions are being noticed by their children and what sort of lesson those children are learning from all of this. That when the weather gets a little bad stay home and complain? Most jobs expect you to show up, rain, shine, snow or ice … I just wonder if parents are aware that their children are learning future coping skills from them.

Our boys? Didn’t even complain. In fact, they weren’t even surprised that the school didn’t cancel school. They got up and got ready as usual. They knew that there was no way we were allowing them to stay home, that when something like this happens, we tend to just shrug it off and say, “Oh well. We’ll deal with it.” They don’t even bother asking to stay home anymore because we’ve always been consistent in our answers – nope. We’ll get an earlier start and drive very slowly.

Though I understand everyone has different circumstances and must make the choice whether to keep their kids home themselves, I do wonder how they handle these situations and what sort of lessons their children take away from times like these. Children are sponges, they soak up this sort of stuff whether we’re aware of it or not.

I don’t jump on bandwagons … I prefer to stand back and watch people fight for a seat and make fools of themselves, myself. It’s really quite interesting to watch. Not to mention sad and a little disturbing, quite honestly.

Updated: I couldn’t take the insane comments on our district’s Facebook page anymore. I responded with:

I’ve read these comments all day and I’m confused. This weather is not unusual for our area. We have cold snaps come through every year.

Every. Year.

And every year, people get upset on whatever the district decides to do; the district can’t… win. I’m sure it’s a tough call, either way. It’s our job, as parents, to teach our children to adapt to the situation/circumstance.

I guess I don’t understand why people aren’t prepared. If children need coats, scarves, hats, gloves, etc. there are places you can go to get them: PTA Clothing Bank, churches, charities, thrift stores, garage sales, off-season sales. My point is, we know there will be days like this, have a plan, prepare. Talk to the kids. Prepare them. If they have to wait for the bus, then tell them to stamp their feet to stay warm. If they’re walking, then make sure they have adequate footwear and are wearing hats and scarves. If we’re driving them, then leave earlier and drive slower – show the kids, by example, how to navigate weather like this.

If parents sincerely don’t want to send their kids on days like this, then don’t send them. Again, have a plan, prepare where they will go before hand. And that’s it. Don’t grumble or insult other parents who have other plans or opt to do something different.

This has nothing to do with money, with education, with what side of town we live on but all about individual choices and preparing our children to endure these hardships. Just wait until they gets jobs, jobs don’t have snow days. Bosses will expect their employees to show up, regardless of the weather.

As far as the school’s responsibility, I agree with what others have said – if school is going to be in session, then please make sure parking lots and sidewalks are cleared off beforehand so that everyone can arrive safely.

I truly wasn’t trying to be an asshole, but don’t you think this is common sense stuff? I swear, people don’t seem to have the capability to think for themselves anymore. Maybe it’s just me. *shrug*