Category: Life

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.