Tuesday, May 26, 2009

I'm still here!

I've started to write a few blog entries but I type a few words and then POOF the writing mojo is gone. No idea why but that's why I haven't written in awhile.

I got a surprise Thursday evening. Mark, Katie, Robbie and I were eating supper when I heard the front door opening. In rapid fire succession these thoughts tumbled through my head "check, check, check, we're all sitting here..........then who the hell is just walking into our house?!?!.......why isn't the door locked.........why isn't Mark alarmed by this??........." That was all in a split second and I was up out of my chair heading towards the front door ready to kick some stranger out of my house. I came around the corner with Katie and Robbie behind me and see Samantha about the time Katie yells, "Sissy!!!" My first comment to her? "What the hell are you doing here?!?" Ah, nothing like motherly love to make you feel at home! LOL Mark knew she was driving from Wichita that day and they kept in contact through the cell phones. Katie knew she was coming but not on Thursday. Robbie, the dogs and I were left in the dark. She brought out a car load of her stuff before the move next month.

Which brings me to the next item: the post-college job hunt is not being kind to her in the Wichita area. Her lease is up in June so she's moving here to look for a job that will pay her bills without her working 24/7. She's never minded working a lot of hours so that's not the problem. It's just finding a job, or two, that will allow her to cover her expenses and actually have a few hours to sleep too! Indy was named the top city for job seeking college graduates this year so hopefully one of those jobs will belong to my brilliant, hard working newly graduated from college daughter! All employers having just read that please contact me and I'll get you in touch with her! ;-)

Alumni week-end a couple of weeks ago was great! I'll have to post on that sometime soon!

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Rainbow at the end of the crapstorm

I know I'm tempting fate but you know what I'm going to live dangerously! I think we're actually having a respite from the crapstorm of the past year. Maybe it's just the eye of the crapstorm hurricane but it's wonderful to have some time to regroup and not feel like we're having to bail out the life boats 24/7!

Tuesday night was the parent info meeting for the REACH program at Robbie's school. I think this is going to be a wonderful fit for him! The teachers were going through a list of personality traits of "gifted" kids (I dislike that word because it seems pompous to me. ALL my kids are gifted just in different ways! But I digress....) and Mark and I kept looking at each other like "Check, he's got that!" The teachers warned that there is an adjustment period at the beginning of the school year because these kids have never really had to THINK before. Most of the material they see in class they automatically get and don't have to figure out how to figure things out basically. I related to that myself. I never studied in high school and was still second in my class (yes, it was only 15 that graduated but I was still second! lol) but once I got to college I felt like I was struggling to keep my head above water. I don't want that for any of my kids! But everything they were saying at this meeting just felt like a balm to my stressed out Mama's soul! I had tears in my eyes on the way home talking about it to Mark. Then the clouds parted (no, seriously they really did! lol) and the evening sun's rays were shining down and looking like a light from Heaven. I know you've all seen what that looks like! I said "I hope that's a sign!" I'm taking it for one anyway!

Funny part was when we were talking to the teacher for next year she said Robbie's current teacher had great things to say about him. Mark and I both asked "She did?!?!"

Yesterday was my birthday. Mark and the kids made me a chocolate cake which was uniquely and beautifully decorated! I'll have to keep the pictures uploaded soon. And the pictures are from my combo birthday/Mother's Day present that I went and got. Mark used my camera over the week-end and complained about the lag time between being able to take pictures. He told me to not worry about the costs and to go get myself a new one. So I sucked it up and I did! A Canon PowerShot SX 110 IS wish a 10x optical zoom! I played around with it yesterday and took pictures through our back door since it rained all day. I was able to zoom in on a house on the other side of the pond and pick out the details on their grill! LOL Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice! Then last night I played around with it and took pictures of the beautiful tulips Sam sent me. I'll have to get it all uploaded soon!

And then this week-end I'm heading back to Rankin for my 25th high school reunion. A month or so ago I wasn't even sure I was going to go and now I can't wait for Saturday! The last I heard 11 out of 15 are going to be there and I'm surprised by how much I'm looking forward to seeing everyone and catching up again! I'm also surprised by how many memories have been crashing and tumbling over each other in my head! Things that would mean nothing to anybody else but would get an "Oh yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah" and a smile from us. I know that's true for everyone, there's just something when it's your own set of memories though. And then go further and go into the one-liners that my best friend, Sharon and I could spout off to each other and be able to have entire conversations in just a few words where no one else would know what we were talking about....... to quote Sam, "Good times, good times!"

My own little Rainbow Connection!