Category: Life-condensed

Hey guys,

Just wanted to tell you that my aunt re-opened her Etsy shop if you want to take a gander. 🙂

Thanks!

Finally got the band pictures I ordered of Jazz from this past season’s competitions today:

This one was at the Broken Arrow Invitational in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.

This one was taken at the Bands of America competition in St. Louis.

The band didn’t get to march in our city’s Christmas parade today – the wind chill was just too much for any mortal to stand. This makes the second year that the band has canceled marching in our parade. I hope Jazz gets to march in the parade at least once before he graduates!

I was really bummed that it didn’t work out, but after stepping outside and not only being blown away but nearly having my ears iced off, I can understand why the band director made the call.

Oh well. Maybe next year. 😦

Remember these?

For those of you too young to remember, these are typewriters.

I’ll say it slowly – type-wri-ters.

Kevin and I had to go to the IRS office the other day to pick up some forms to fill out for his boss’ tax information. Though Kevin didn’t have to type the information into the forms, he says it’s more professional, so he had to go up into the attic and pull down our electric typewriter.

I forgot we even had the thing. In fact, Kevin bought the typewriter specifically for this reason – to fill out tax forms. (He’s an accountant – explains a lot, doesn’t it).

I remember spending half my day at the college library typing up my papers, and then spending the last half of my day correcting my papers. lol Talk about an exhausting process!

Oh you young kids nowadays – you don’t know how good you’ve got it with these new-fangled word processing programs. 😀

Christmas song #9 Little Drummer Boy by Josh Grobin

Kevin and I just returned from our weekly lunch (we go out to lunch every Wednesday – we’ve been doing this for a few years now), and we stopped by an area Harter House, (the one on Republic Rd and Fremont if you’re from the Springfield area), to buy some Sprite for the kids (their stomachs are still a bit tender). I was on my way out of the door when I spotted a Christmas tree with tags tied to it along with a huge sign that said, “Be a Santa to a Senior!” (http://beasantatoasenior.com/). It’s set up like the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree program for foster children – you pick a tag, buy a gift (I think the senior tags actually have gift ideas listed), then return the gift, along with the tag, to the store hosting the program.

Kevin and I always pick two children, a boy and a girl, (usually teenagers) from the Salvation Army’s tree every year, but this was the first time I had seen a tree set up for seniors.

Isn’t that a GREAT IDEA?!? People that fall through society’s cracks just break my heart – they are so alone and in some cases forgotten. Can you imagine not having a loved one to share Christmas with, or a gift to open on Christmas morning?? That’s just so SAD!!

At any rate, I just HAD to share this program with you all and I hope you will find it in your heart to get involved. If not with this program, then another program that blesses your community.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Tis the season to give!

Christmas song #8 Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas by Martina McBride

A bump woke me up at 5:00 this morning. It sounded like a body being slammed into a wall.

It was because a body HAD been slammed into the wall.

Then I heard it, the tell-tale sounds of a kid being sick.

*sigh*

I stumbled out of bed to go see what was going on with Jazz (because I had assumed it would be Jazz).

I walked out into the hallway and to my surprise, was met by Dude.

Dude is never sick. And I mean never.

Apparently, Dude was up at 3:00 a.m. emptying the contents of his stomach, and then up twice more.

In fact, Dude told me that he got up to vomit and Jazz was already using the toilet to empty his stomach so Dude had to use the trash can.

Poor boys.

I made them sit up and drink a little water and nibble on some toast this morning to see if they could keep it down and go to school. Dude looked a little green and ate very little. Jazz ate his toast and drank some water, but promptly threw it back up.

I told the boys to go back to bed, there would be no school today.

Now I’m trying to figure out what made them sick. We all ate ham and beans last night (well, I ate the ham, not the beans) and Kevin and I are fine. Well, not exactly. Kevin said he woke up nauseous last night but didn’t throw up. I’m fine. The ham was left over from Thanksgiving (we had frozen the left overs). Now we’re wondering if it was the ham.

But why didn’t I get sick?

It just dawned on me that the boys might have eaten cereal last night before bed. I wouldn’t know for sure because Kevin and I had already gone to bed when the boys shut their computers off and prepared for bed. They usually eat a bowl of cereal first and then take their showers. If they ate a bowl of cereal, I’m betting it was the milk.

Which I’ve already thrown out (the best by date was yesterday). I’ll have to ask them when they wake up. (They both fell back into bed after I told them they didn’t have to go to school).

I hate this. I hate that they’re sick and I don’t know why. (By the way, neither of them was running a fever). But I also hate them missing school, especially Dude. Dude hasn’t missed ONE day of high school – today will be the first. *sigh*

Oh well. These things can’t be helped. I just thank God our boys are as healthy as they are.

*Side note: The school administered flu vaccines yesterday, we decided against the vaccine for our boys – but I’d be curious to hear how many kids called in sick today from reactions. I heard a lot of kids had adverse reactions to the H1N1 vaccine last year. These are the kinds of things I wonder about.

Christmas song #7 Christmas Lullaby

ADDED December 8th: It’s been 24 hours since the kids puked their guts up and I still do not have any idea what made them sick. I questioned them about eating something before bed the night before last – Jazz ate some cereal, Dude didn’t eat anything. Hmm .. then I asked if maybe they shared some food with a friend at lunch on Monday – no. Hmm … If they had eaten something bad at lunch on Monday, they probably would have been sick at dinner Monday night. I don’t know, the only common denominator were the beans, which I didn’t eat. Can beans give you food poisoning? The culprit is still a mystery. They went to school today. Jazz was fine, once he got his headache under control. Dude … was borderline. He was running a 99.1 temp and felt a little queasy, but his headache was gone. I really think once he moves around (because laying around makes it so much worse sometimes), I think he’ll start to feel a little better. But I have my cell phone close, just in case. I HATE not knowing if I made the right decision! Aargh!