It's a sad day

I got some really bad news today.
My favorite cousin, Don and his wife Peggy are the fun ones we hang out with when we go down to my hometown for holidays. Their two boys, Devon and Sam are my kids' ages, and when we come to town, we get a hotel room and the hotel has a pool. After the family get-together, Don and Peggy bring the boys and some beverages, and we throw all 5 kids in the pool and the four of us sit there poolside and talk and laugh all evening. The kids play great together and turn in to prunes, and the four of us, being the only 2 couples with kids this age in my extended family, we get along so well, we understand what it's like to have kids like ours, because the other couple, their kids are JUST LIKE OURS.

Last night Peggy had a massive heart attack and she died.

At Christmas time, we were talking about them coming up here this summer, getting a hotel room and hanging with us for a weekend...

Peggy is such a nice woman, a great mom, and she and Donnie are such a wonderful couple. I just feel so bad for Donnie, and those boys, Devon is 13, and Sam is only 11... too young to lose their mom.

I will be leaving for the funeral as soon as I hear when it is, I am assuming Wednesday or Thursday, so I will be decidedly OUT for a while.

Now go hug someone that you'd miss if they were gone.

have enough sense to come in out of the rain?

It's raining, and I literally JUST went outside and hollered this at my kids... such a cliche.

Last night I took Eric (age 10) across town to pick up his girlfriend and took them to the movies. My BABY'S first date. I would have been sad, but it was just SO CUTE!! He was such a little gentleman! He went to the door and spoke to Savanna's mom, and opened doors for her and bought everything, including the sour gummi worms at the concession stand that she wanted. She was wearing a cute little dress and she looked very nervous, almost as nervous as Eric!

I sat in the theater alone, about 10 rows behind them, and met them at the van afterwards (I was about 20 paces behind them, always had them in sight! Even in our small town, bad people are a concern... I wasn't watching them worried about kissing, or anything like that, it was more... making sure 2 small kids walking alone weren't bothered by creepies, ya know?)

We saw the new Indiana Jones movie. It was good, not good like the old Indie, but the new Indie was good, too. It had some good laughs, some pretty good special effects and thrills, and some surprising twists to it.

So I'm sitting here working on my 3rd drink...UV Blue & lemonade... why the hell not, right? This whole working full time gig is taking some getting used to. I mean, I did it before, I have almost always worked full time, other than a couple years here and there between giving birth and moving and being pregnant, I've pretty much always worked. But I sure got used to going to school full time and working part time.
I come home from work each day just exhausted. There's laundry to do, and supper to make and with the remodeling being half done, waiting on money to finish, it's just a mess.

It's nice to have a long weekend, so ENJOY IT!!

HAD to post this one!

I must explain this, because it LOOKS so bad, but it was so funny!

My instructor, Michele, took the picture.

So, first off, it's JP, then me, then Mark (my brother's hubby) and lastly, my mom...

It was a joke that Mark and I were just goofing, after realizing that Michele wanted to take a picture of me... we were NOT doing it beforehand!

But my favorite parts are the expressions of JP ("eh, whatever") and my mom ("OMG!")

And yes, obviously this was taken at the bar!

Pictures of last night

EDIT: For clarification, the yellow sash I have on is for PTK, the honor society, the yellow cords are for President's List and the burgundy cords are for Student Senate. Of the entire body of graduates, there were only 3 of us with all 3 honors, myself, my friend Jacqui and another girl, Susan. (and finally, a look at my smile, been promising a pic of that for over 2 weeks now! Sorry!)

Mom took this picture before the ceremony started, see, I didn't have the stupid hat on yet! And if you look close, you can see the blue streaks in my hair... THAT was a fun idea that Cheri and I did, they were these little clip-in hair pieces, just for a little funk.

This one is Cheri, Jacqui, me and Karmeen... By the luck of the draw (ok, alphabet, really) the four of us who became friends got to be next to each other last night.

I am waiting for pictures from the other girls, my mom took all the pictures on my camera (from the graduation anyway, I took a few at the bar) and when I get some from them, I will post more.

The perfect gifts

My husband is wonderful! Sometimes (ok, ok, MOST times) he gets it not only right, but PERFECT.

He got me a couple of gifts for graduation. Perfect gifts, really.

A pair of Crocs and perfume.
"Lovely" by Sarah Jessica Parker. It is just a... well, lovely scent.

Shoes and perfume, EXACTLY right.

Under Pressure

Some people work well under pressure. Some people fall apart. I am a pressure player. I do a quick spazz, then I'm fine and I can buckle down and "get 'r done"

Today, we had graduation rehearsal at 11 am, then a bunch of us girls went out to lunch... AT A BAR, of course. One mushroom & Swiss burger and 2 UV Lemonades later, and I am home, it's 20 minutes to 2, and I have an entire house to clean, and I need to shower and gather my stuff, and I'd like to finish "the big list" that I made up Sunday night. It's almost done, I'm amazed at how much I got done this week... but it is NOT done.

And here I sit, blogging. And yet, when people start arriving here, beginning with my kids home from school at 3:30/4, next my hubby at 4:30 and my mom shortly after, my dad and his bitch, as well (not sure when to expect them) and my brother and his hubby around 5:30, WHEN they all get here, my house will be clean... know how I know?

Because I work well under pressure. As soon as I am done with this blog post, I will do my spazz, get it over with and then suck it up and get to work. And if I don't? If I don't get EVERYTHING done, as I had hoped earlier in the week, like having all the trim work done on the remodel... Who the hell cares? It's my house, and quite frankly, this is MY day, and if someone (cough*Steven*cough) doesn't like it or doesn't think it's good enough, then he can just go back down to Minneapolis to his plastic little world and leave me the hell alone!

I'm having a great day, gang!
Pictures within the next few days

On a side note

Alex started reading my novel last night.
I took advantage of my last week of classes, last week, to print out the whole thing!
Hey, I pay tuition, and part of that covers the cost of the ink cartridge and reams of paper... better than using all my ink at home, right?

Anyway, I could not believe how nervous I was last night as he sat on the bed next to me, reading it as I was pretending to play Bingo at Pogo.com... I was watching him, waiting for him to toss it aside and say "this is dumb, why did you waste your time?"

But he didn't say that.

Not yet anyway.

But he didn't finish it, either... so maybe the "this is dumb..." will come yet.

A first for Eric

I alluded to the conversation I had with Eric last night, well, here I am to talk about it. I bet if he knew I had a blog and that I discuss HIM and his life on said blog... he would be cranky!

But he doesn't know, so let's dish!

He started the conversation with this "Mom, you know Savannah, the girl on Emma's hockey team?"

yeah.

"She's in my grade, and she's even in my class"

yeah.

At this point, he turned from his normal butt-white to a bright red, and kept looking away and grinning like an idiot.
I said "Is she like... your girlfriend?"

yeah.

Good news and bad

The good news is that I can now walk in to my garage... that's what the two pictures below are showing... a winter's worth of "needs to go to the dump" and a couple of weeks worth of remodeling demolition debris.

My living room furniture was also stored in there, while the new flooring was going in... and now that I can GET TO IT, I can spend tomorrow putting it back in the room.

It took four trips to the dump... one for carpet and pad, one for wood products, old ugly trim, etc, a third trip for metal, the baseboard heating crap that we replaced, and a fourth for "miscellaneous" crap, including 2 mattresses, (one twin and one queen) and a broken TV AND a storm door that has never been installed in my (on my?) home because it was not the right size... the father-in-law brought it up only to find that it was TOO BIG and it got 'set aside' and I was tired of seeing it and knowing it was WRONG...

I also cleaned up broken glass today, 3 of our front windows had broken panes and needed to be cleaned up so the frames can be taken to the glass place for replacement.

I then had to quit on my big list, and go to work... what a boring night, very very slow... a Wednesday and not a usual payday (the 1st, 15th or last day of the month are usually pretty busy, along with Fridays)

When I got home from work, lo and behold, my kids had done chores, their rooms were either clean, or well on their way to clean, and supper of yummy ham, baked potatoes and corn were being put on the table... Thanks Mom!

I went out after dinner to pick up a few things, took Eric with me... the conversation between he and I is a whole 'nother post, coming soon. I stopped and got my hair cut... fixed. The last haircut did not make me happy, so this is better. It's still a bob, but a better cut than the girl who did it last time.

Now for the bad. My dearest friend, Gina sent me a text tonight, saying she might not be able to make it to my graduation, she's at the hospital being with her grandfather as he passes away. I'm so sad for her, she loves him so much, and they are very close. I know she can find strength to get through this difficult time, but I wish she didn't have to.

Ugh....

So... what are YOUR plans for today? I'm thinking of SEVERAL trips to the dump here...

Pet picture time!

While I was trying to get pictures of the remodel I had serious competition for my attention... After I hollered at them to GO LAY DOWN, and after I got the pictures of our projects, I had to make up with them... so I took their pictures, too. EVEN TINY! I know I don't mention her much, but Tiny Sue is our cat.

Here she is, in all her fat glory.

And here's Hailey and Comet (Hailey is darker, Comet is the blond)

Picture time!

I've been so busy the last (almost) 2 weeks, so I decided to snap a few pictures of what's been keeping me from blogging. Remember the hallway I painted during spring break? Well, it grew... JP and I redid the dining room, kitchen and living room walls and we laid laminate wood floor in the living room and down the hallway. We still have a bit more floor to lay, a laminate tile in the entry way and we still have a ton of moulding to put up, and we were short one piece of the baseboard heating stuff, but it's looking SO good... I just wish I had gotten some before pictures... but think of this: EVERYTHING you see used to be DARK wood paneling...and UGLY carpet...

Now it's pretty!

Wow, this feels really great!

OK, so yesterday was pretty busy, got the metal mouth removed in the morning, then Mom and I went shopping. I was looking for a nice 'something' to wear at Graduation.

I didn't know if I wanted a dress or what, but what I found is SO CUTE, and kind of sexy and short, and it's just perfect. It's a royal blue dress with this cute little fringe-y thing going on on the bottom...

I think I will have to try it on and then take a picture of me SMILING.

I also bought myself some little "gifts" to celebrate: a bag of apples, some gum and a 5 lb bag of TOOTSIE ROLLS! Just a few things that I haven't been able to enjoy for over 2 years. I also had a Snicker bar as my first food post-metal. MMMM-mmmm, they are so good!

Scott, you're right, the first thing I noticed was how smooth my teeth are, and how nice it is to finally be able to feel them!

Today is my husband's 36th birthday. I have to work all day, and will be home late tonight... I feel bad about that, maybe I will stop at KFC on my way home and bring supper. He shouldn't have to cook on his birthday.

It's time for me to go get in the shower and get ready for work... including flossing my teeth, which does not take 40 minutes anymore!!
I'm meeting Gina for lunch, we've decided that is the one way we can be sure to see each other once a week, at least! Lunch on Fridays has sort of started to be a weekly date for us, we get to catch up on each other, and do a little girl gabbing, always good!