(A phone post) I was just in a restaurant having some sesame noodles. The O' Jays 'Love Train' was playing. I guess I never had really caught the lyrics before. Sounded so cool, especially this part:
Please don't miss this train at the station.
'Cause if you miss this it, I feel sorry, sorry for you.
I think I'm just really excited to see all the family tomorrow! Gobble, gobble!
Yesterday Gary put on a cd for us to enjoy a little relaxation time together and I was instantly reminded what a good set of tunes it is.
Hot Rocks 1964-71 by the Rolling Stones is made up of great song after great song. I had no idea about the manager/label business that was all going on contributing to this album until reading this on wiki, but regardless of how we got it, whoever had the idea to do this compilation was smart, and the musicians and Mick make my day when I hear these songs.
Sometimes I wish I had been a teenager about fifteen years earlier. 
It’s hard to pick a fave from Hot Rocks so here’s three and lemme tell ya, it was hard to limit myself to three. I know the sound quality is all over the place on these old clips, but I like actually watching a live performance video, even if lip synched, rather than just a studio version with a RS lips logo stagnant on the screen.
I made Gary go see the Stones with me in 1997 because I thought that would be the last of them. Ha ha.
Ah, my birthday was this past week. There were some ups and some downs that day.
Up: Jackson got up and made his own breakfast and packed his lunch as his gift to me.
Down: I had an email in my inbox from The Scooter Store. I wish I was kidding.
Down: I put on a sweater that is, um, not quite fitting right this year. I asked Caroline if it looked ok and she said, “No, it looks too small,” just as I suspected.
Up: Then she said, with all innocent sincerity, “Mom, you must still be getting taller.”
Up: I worked at the school library. At one point, I was searching for one specific book out of thousands at the request of a little kindergartener that tells me “on the cover there’s a duck.” And that’s all he knows, but he really really wants it. And his eyes tear up when it’s not looking like I could possibly find it and I’m questioning him if it is a made-up story or a book about real ducks. But wow, did I get a huge beaming smile once I finally found the book for him. It was a Disney comic-type book with Donald Duck on the cover. I feel good about my patience some days.
Up: I had a good check up at the dentist, no work needed.
Down: I had the talkingest hygienist on Earth. She drug a fifteen minute cleaning out to an hour. I am not kidding.
Up: I learned all about her hometown Benld’s burned down Coliseum Ballroom and its ties to Al Capone and that Tina Turner herself is making a donation and appearance to memorialize the building where she and Ike got their start.
Down: I left my phone at the school and couldn’t call them to tell them to just leave it in the library until I could swing by and get it.
Up: When I stopped by to get it, my friend told me her first thought was to text me to let me know that I’d left my phone.
Up: I treated myself to French onion soup in a bread bowl at Bread Co. followed by a trip into the shoe store.
Down: The shoes I’ve been eyeing for months still weren’t on sale.
Up: I bought them anyway, rationalizing it as ok since I had $15 off in coupons and had won $25 at Bunco last week. And I love my new shoes!
Down: I did something wrong that I can’t even remember right now related to Grant.
Up: When I admitted my wrongdoing, he said with all innocent sincerity, “That’s ok, mom. I’m not going to explode on you today. That can be your birthday present from me.”
Down: I had to go to a medical office for a follow-up. I was fine with it, but wished I wasn’t there. Especially on my birthday.
Up: In walks my hubby who had secretly taken off work to be there with me.
Up: He also gave the one tangible item I wanted this year as a present. Yesss, my garbage disposal!
Up: Gary and the kids met my one other demand request and took me out to La Fonda, my favorite Mexican place. I told them I did not want a big to-do like the giant sombrero and drink on fire and singing and wickedly loud spinning wooden noisemaker like last year. I just wanted a meal. Nothing else.
Down: The kids told the waiter every single time he stopped by the table that it was my birthday.
Up: The waiter seemed to respect the knife-to-the-throat-cutting gesture I gave him. I again am not kidding.
Up: He brought me a beautiful, muy delicioso dessert with absolutely not one bit of birthday fanfare.
Up: I received like what felt like a million Facebook messages about my birthday and that felt great. Plus, phone calls and cards and sometimes it just amazes me the people that think of my birthday!
Up: I talked to my folks on the phone and had a nice little conversation catching up.
Down: My dad wished me a Happy 46th Birthday (on my 44th!). I laughed and he didn’t. I said “Dad, really? 46??!” And he said, “Oh, am I off? Well, I thought you were gettin close to 50.”
Up: It was a great day.
Down: It’s over until next year.
Wow, this was an eventful weekend. No one major big thing but so many small ones.
Thursday—
Grandma Barbara came for the night before she flew off to Phoenix. The kids were so happy she was here.
I had an excellent night at Bunco, bringing home a prize of $25, clinching the deal that I should just buy the shoes I really want and have been watching for months, even though they never go on sale. I forgot to notice that it was the Marine Corp birthday. I do this every year.
Friday—
The kids were off of school for Veteran’s Day. Their dentist appointments were cancelled by the dentist and I was actually relieved because getting everyone up and out the door by 7:30 a.m. on their day off from school was not looking very fun for me. Instead, I spent a couple of hours actually sitting in a comfy chair and I watched dvr’d Dancing with the Stars episodes while waiting for the kids to get up. Later in the morning, I took Jack to the podiatrist and discovered that podiatrists are wonderful people for fixing feet that hurt. Within the 45 minutes we were in the office, we were called back to the exam room, was reviewed by a nurse, saw the doctor, was treated by the doctor and walked out feeling 100% better than how either of us felt when we walked in.
The Backstory: Jack had had an awful ingrown big toenail that he didn’t let us know about for a few months. Once we became aware of it, it was really, really bad. He was seen by his endocrinologist and the pediatrician for it and taken two rounds of antibiotics but those didn’t phase the infection and swelling. So today when we were expecting a recommendation of coming back for a surgery, the podiatrist got right to business, numbed his toe, trimmed the nail in a major way, put carbolic acid on the nail bed to cause permanent death to that section of that nail and, wah-la, problem fixed. No ongoing lifetime battle for him, fighting ingrown toenails, which can be especially concerning being a diabetic. And Jack watched the whole procedure while I scrunched my head into his shoulder so that there was no way I could see what was happening. And I might add, he marched in the Veteran’s Day parade six hours later.
**I am thinking there should be a special news segment or maybe a public service announcement on tv and radio about this wonder treatment for ingrown toenails. For something that can be so incredibly painful and ugly and horrible to live with to be remedied in a matter of minutes completely painfree within a doctor’s office, I think it should be well advertised.
I asked the doctor if this was a new procedure and he told me he’s been doing it for twenty years.
I just think the world deserves to know.**
Friday—continued. I met that afternoon with an architect here at our house to help us finalize some plans about expanding our house. That was exciting and he will be getting back to us soon (I hope this week) with some preliminary drawings.
We went to the Veteran’s Day parade that night and I got all teary just like last year on Veteran’s Day and we brought home one of Caroline’s friends for a sleep over. And you all should just see Jack march sometime. He stands out so prominently being so tall but also by having a really impressive posture holding and playing his trumpet.
Saturday—I was looking forward to a warm and beautiful day in the woods helping Gary with wood, but it turned out that after I Zumba’d in the morning and Kitti’s parents came to pick her up, I spent the afternoon instead carting my kids around to places like Target to buy a birthday present five minutes before Caroline’s friend’s birthday party and getting Sam to gymnastics where I realized that Sam could be considered a total spaz. He loves being in gymnastics, but God bless him.
Isn’t it funny how this three word phrase conveys so much more than the three actual words themselves?
I retrieved Caroline from the party and and swung by to pick up a friend of Grant’s who was spending the night. I took a phone call from my friend and neighbor asking if I was free to go to the Fox Theater with her at 7 pm to see a musical and whadya know? I was. I got as dressed up as dressed up can get given my current pitiful SAHM wardrobe and we went to one of my fave restaurants for a quick supper before the show, Billy Elliott. They spoke with heavy British accents and I did fall asleep several times, but it was cool to be there at the gorgeous Fox and the dancing was so impressive and entertaining. I got home after midnight!
Sunday—I helped Jack with an unbelievable math project which in a nutshell was to provide an imaginary Thanksgiving meal for thirty people. He had to come up with a menu, a grocery list, a documentation of the food bill based on an actual visit to a real grocery store (no online shopping allowed) to determine what items he needed to buy given the recipes, how many at what size, and at what cost, keeping in mind he had to serve thirty people. He also had to include a summary of his “shopping experience” and an account of his fictitious cooking experience. We were at the grocery store from 12:30 or so until 2:30. It was crazy! And then once he came home, he had to type it all up, including creating an invitation to the meal and a written conclusion of the whole event.
And this was an assignment for Algebra 1. ?!
Then, I mowed and helped Gary a bit with wood before cooking up some chicken and dumplings and heading off to a Zumba MasterClass with….Gary! We Zumba’d together for 90 minutes and it was so much fun. He was the only XY chromosomer there, but it didn’t intimidate him at all. He did great but did reveal he prefers his P90X moves to samba and salsa.
And I personally find that to be whack. All I can say is God bless him.
Next, we hit Target to buy more ink for the printer that Jack’s project promptly drained and then quickly regained the calories we exercised off times three with a meal at my other fave restaurant, one of a Mexican persuasion.
And now here it is midnight ending the weekend and I am tired and so looking forward to bed but have to pass along this one more thing. I found out this little tidbit just yesterday and had no idea this was on her mind.
Caroline confided in me that she is so excited to say yes when Aunt Debra asks her to be her flower girl!
Debra, you better get on that.
This pic was taken before Jack took off for Fancy Day at school. Looking quite dapper, no?
We had a meeting last week about Jack going to high school and we have another one this week with information about choosing his classes and high school graduation requirements and…
Wait. High school?! Did someone say high school?
Is this the same kid? Our first born? My baby that took so dang long getting born?
I remember a time like this, back when clothes were actually too big for him. Not man-sized like now. Now it’s 32 x 32 jeans, people. And I have to buy him such unbelievably huge shoes.
Look. He used to let me take his picture.
And he’d actually smile.
What a cutie pie.
Yeah, I remember the good old days. He let me dress him in bad, primary color 90’s toddler outfits (if only I owned a digital camera back then, I would easily prove it to you). He was counting 1 to 10 in Russian at the same time he was learning 1 to 10 in English. He used to love to smell the spice jars from the kitchen cabinet. He was Superman for his first Halloween and rolled over for the first time that very night wearing his blue footie pajamas with the homemade felt S. He would let me pick him up and rock him in my arms for hours. He would lie on my chest all nuzzled in at my neck and we’d fall asleep together on the couch.
Yep, I think it’s hitting me. I’m missing my baby.
Go away, dumb high school.
Her birthday was in June, but Caroline just recently received her special present from our neighbors, a chance to ride their horse. The summer was so hot and then the horse had an injury and anyway, the timing just now worked out.
Here they are after letting her have a little run.
Caroline learned to duck under branches.
And then she learned all about care after the ride.
I think I see a girl in her own personal heaven.
Gotta say, this kind of day alone makes living out here worth it in every way.
We learned so many things:
Like what footwear is advisible.
That climbing trees is still fun:
That boys truly do say Look, Mom, no hands!
But I have to add, he was literally saying “Look, Mom, no hands and no butt!”
That kitties also like to climb trees:
That kitties are easily perturbed and aren’t afraid to show it:
That trees come in all descriptions:
That the funnest game in the world is throwing hedge apples into the creek and counting whose takes the longest to float back up. Here I am a girl that played in the woods all her childhood and I had no idea there was so much variance in bobbing up time. One took more than a minute and some took three seconds and the others were anywhere in between.
Most importantly, I’m hoping we learned being outside is possibly even more fun than sitting in the basement watching Spongebob.
Here’s a sampling of pics sitting in my phone. Some date back by at least a couple of months.
Day at Six Flags with three goof balls:
Maybe Grant was a little big for this one?
At our electric co-op meeting with two goof balls:
“My Screaming Aunt Karen wins $100, and all I win is this lousy rubber bracelet and a stamped S on my hand?”
Our co-op is centered in Greenville so that’s where the festivities were. Greenville Junior High has this pond of water right in the hallway with koi and turtles, and how cool is that for a school?
The night Gary was named new Scoutmaster:
Now I feel I have to call him Master.
This was only amusing because I wasn’t the one pinned in, the day I went to Alton Square Mall:
In the day of the old deck when I was wondering just who dumped all the watermelon and left it:
and then realized it was just Scooter eating a sponge.
Whew, I feel like I can catch my breath today. You might not know but I have a job these days and it’s just kept me hopping since September. I’m away from the house so much that all my work here at home piles up so it’s like work, work, work around the clock to keep caught up.
This past week for example, I worked:
Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday morning, Friday night
I guess I took Sunday off.
Too bad I don’t get paid for this position, Volunteer Mom. This is what I did:
Saturday—worked kiddie pool game at Sam’s school Fall Festival
Monday—worked library at Caroline’s school
Tuesday—made a huge amount of vegetable soup to take in for teacher appreciation at Sam’s school plus with some help from Gary and Caroline, sorted/trimmed/counted Box Tops
[Btw, this is what $65+ back to your school looks like at 10 
This is a four foot wide table.]
Wednesday—worked library at Sam’s school
Thursday—worked library at Sam’s school
Friday morning—worked Accelerated Reader at Sam’s school
Friday night—worked a game station at Jack’s school Fall Fling
Oh yeah, add on yesterday: Monday—worked library and Halloween party at Caroline’s school
Whew.
But I love doing it. You know, I remember when the older boys were younger and I couldn’t go in to help at school that much even though I really wanted to because of having the babies at home. Well, now I have my chance and I really enjoy doing all of this. But I think maybe I am going to have my fill by the end of this year keeping up with this schedule. I think I might have taken on this volunteer thing with a little too much enthusiasm.
On the other hand, it won’t be that long before the kids are all in college and I don’t think their schools will be calling me to come in to help then, well, other than to write a check.
Which reminds me that I think I better be considering maybe a paying job.
