What do you get the person who has everything?

We've all had the problem of trying to find a gift for someone who pretty much has everything they want already... and even if they didn't have it, they would buy it when they saw it. I have this situation with many people I would like to give gifts to in my life, and one such person is my wonderful babysitter, Bri-Bri. Her birthday was last week, and I knew that I paid her enough for her to buy whatever she wanted, but I still wanted her to know that I was making an effort. So, I got creative. I made her a card, and every word that is in italics and colored is a candy.

To Our MAzing Bri-Bri:

We thought we’d Take 5 to let you know exactly how Extra special we think you are. When we’re in a Crunch you’re always a Lifesaver! “Your boys” are like the 3 Musketeers, and no matter what kind of Goobers they are, or the Mounds of Whoppers they leave for you, you’re never a Butterfinger and things turn out perfectly.

There may have been a few Snickers from Airheads that think babysitting isn’t a worthy pastime, but Now and Later there’s NO ONE we’d rather trust with OUR boy with than you. Come Payday you deserve 100 Grand! Too bad we’ll never have that much to give. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!
Happy Birthday!

Luckily, she thought it was pretty creative too, and I'm still allowed to leave my boy with the other woman in his life that loves him almost as much as his mommy. :)

I'm so excited!

Since January of 2003, I have been attending classes at SFA in order to get my master's degree in secondary mathematics education. I have enjoyed being able to get my master's without much cost to me, really nearly none, and without having to go like a real college student again. No early morning all week long classes, no dorms, and no yucky cafeteria food. We only go to SFA one Friday and Saturday a month, and then there were three summers where we went for a total of six weeks each summer. Now, during that time, some members of our class had to stay in a dorm, but I live close enough that I was able to shower in my own shower, and not the closet they call a shower that would cause a clausterphobic person to hyperventilate.

My point in all this is that I am finally in the home stretch! I have five class meetings left! I am so excited! This is the last August that I have any classes, and then next will be no more September classes and so on, until December, when we officially meet for learning for the last time.

Once that is over, I have to turn in a portfolio of all my work and how I've applied it to my teaching over the past three years, and then take a monstrous test over the topics we've discussed over the past three years, and then I will walk away with my master's degree! :)

The only thorn in my side about all this is that my little sister will have her Master's in December. So, she will have hers a few months before I will, and she will have finished hers in less time than it took me to get mine. But, I can always say that I got mine for free! :) Sometimes being a math teacher really pays off!

I've Noticed...

I live in the way, way out boonies, compared to most of you people that live in or near a city. I live about 25 minutes outside of a little town that most of you wouldn't even consider as a city. So, on my way to town, or to school, or to the sitter's house, I drive by mostly pastures and lots of cows and other such farm animals on these pastures. I was once told something that I didn't believe, but I have since paid better attention and now am a true believer.

I have noticed that any time I drive by a pasture with cows, they see me coming and at least one of them raises his or her tail and proceeds to relieve him/herself. I'm not joking! Every single time! It's almost like they see me coming and say "Oh No! Human!" And it scares the poop or pee out of them!

Next time you drive by a herd of cattle, pay attention, see what you find!

Sucks to Be Him

I found this on a news site, and thought that I should share it with my adoring public. The parts in italics are my own personal comments...

3 wives greet man after triple bypass surgery

LONDON - Some people bring flowers, others bring balloons. When Melvyn Reed's three wives showed up to visit him at the hospital, they brought an unexpected curtain call to his years as a double bigamist.
British police confirmed that after Melvyn Reed woke from his triple bypass heart operation earlier this year(wonder if stress caused his heart problems), his complicated marital affairs took a turn for a worse. All three of his spouses had turned up at the same time, despite his efforts to stagger their visits.

Media reports say that, upon realizing that something was amiss(and how did they realize this, did they know each other?), the wives held a meeting in the parking lot, and learned that they were all married to the same man.

The 59-year-old company director from Kettering in central England turned himself into police on May 12 saying he was married to three women at the same time, and confessed to bigamy, an illegal offense in Britain(where isn't it illegal, so I know not to move there!), London's Metropolitan Police said in a statement.

A spokeswoman for the Crown Prosecution Service confirmed that Reed had turned himself in to police in Wimbledon, south London in the presence of his lawyer, and admitted he was a bigamist.

He pleaded guilty to two charges of bigamy on July 19 at the Wimbledon Magistrates' court, and was given a suspended sentence of four months in prison and ordered to pay 70 pounds ($126) in costs, police said. (Is that ALL? $126? Are you kidding? Does he have to pay anything to each woman, at least?)

It wasn't immediately possible to reach Reed or his three wives. A phone call to one of the women went unanswered. Reed's lawyer Laurence Grant was not immediately available at his office for comment.

The Metropolitan Police said Reed married his first wife, Jean Grafton, in 1966, then left her without divorcing her. He went on to marry Denise Harrington in 1998, then married Lyndsey Hutchinson in 2003.

British media have widely reported that Reed recently moved back in with his first wife, Grafton. They say she is the mother of his three grown children.

The Metropolitan Police said Harrington and Hutchinson had sought advice on getting their marriages annulled. But media reports say lawyers have advised the women that their marriages were never valid.

Interesting, isn't it? How some people think that the law doesn't apply to them, or how one woman isn't enough for some men. What a jerk. This makes me very thankful that I am married to the ONE man who chose me to be his ONLY wife. :)

One of those days

Have you ever been in the shower and forgotten whether you were about to pick up the shampoo or the conditioner, and you couldn't remember whether you had already shampooed or not?

Have you ever shave your underarms and washed up, and then gotten out of the shower, dried off, and remembered you needed to shave your legs because you were planning on wearing shorts, so you had to get BACK in the shower just to shave?

Have you ever been in such a hurry to get out of the bathroom that you put your makeup on, and your lipstick, and then remembered that you forgot to brush your teeth?

I have.
Today, in fact!

I better get back on track by Monday when school starts. Ugh.

Just Like College

I couldn't resist sharing this with you...

20 Ways Parenthood is Just Like College

1. You feel like you're constantly being tested.

2. Someone's always smarter than you (or at least they think they are).

3. Your roommates are slobs, and they steal your food.

4. There's nothing in your bank account.

5. All-nighters.

6. You get kicked out of the library for leaving behind crumbs and creating a ruckus.

7. Keg parties and parties at Chuck E. Cheese produce the same kind of hangover.

8. You never seem to be able to get the place to yourself.

9. Naps.

10. You hate your roommates' music and they hate yours.

11. You can neither identify nor locate the source of that funky smell coming from your roommate's closet.

12. Five in the morning is really really early -- or really, really late -- depending on whether or not you've been to bed yet.

13. People talk to you while you're in the shower.

14. You're too exhausted to retain what you're reading.

15. Oh, now you can identify that smell. You forgot to take that half-eaten sandwich out of the backpack yesterday.

16. You're wearing your college sweatshirt again -- it's the cleanest thing you could find.

17. Someone always leaves the party crying.

18. Hey! How about pizza? Again!

19. You think you're the only one who feels clueless.

20. It goes so fast.

Some of these could just apply to a spouse, but I thought they were funny enough about my child.

Hope you get a giggle, too! :)

All Signs Point to...

Well, quite frankly, they all point to this year not being my favorite. Maybe I'll amend this statement in the near future, but today just wasn't a good day, and I don't know HOW tomorrow could be.

Our new principal handed out all these new things we're supposed to do, like decorate our rooms and new discipline techniques... Then I get to my room only to discover that our air conditioner doesn't work. Then I start putting desks back into place, only to find that most of them are stuck to the floor from when they re-did our floors. So, when they moved, they left holes in my one year old flooring.

Then I turned on my computer only to find that the updates they were supposed to do over the summer weren't done on my computer, because of some password problem or something... like they couldn't have called me.... harumph.

The only bright spot to my day is that they said we could leave at 3:15, and when I do, in mere minutes, it is to go and visit my newest "nephew," as I received a phone call yesterday evening announcing his impending arrival. I'm so excited! One baby boy here, and another little "nephew" coming soon! I knew I didn't need to get pregnant again yet! :) I'll have my baby fix plenty of times before I need another one.

Here's to hoping that the rest of the week shapes up better than today! :)

Nothing

I got nothing.

I have nothing in my head that I would consider funny, rude, thought-provoking or even remotely interesting.

This may be in part to the fact that it's Saturday, and on Monday I have to go back to work. I think just knowing that has somehow diminished my mental capabilities. I think I know that I am going to have to start thinking extra hard in just two days about how to plan out the rest of the school year, and I don't want to waste any unnecessary thought processes on anything else.

Sorry for being so lame.

Maybe I'll have more later this week. I'm expecting to become an "aunt" again any time now. I'll let you know.

There's No Stopping It

No matter how many times a day I check, time keeps going. No matter how many times I pray that it hasn't moved while little Micheal is taking a nap, allowing me to accomplish tasks without a child around, the minute hand still moves, clicking away the number of minutes that I have wasted being on the computer and not cleaning the floor.

Being a math teacher, I have known that time stops for no one, because we teach that it is the independent variable, as it waits for no one and depends on nothing. But, I was just hoping that since I had spent so much time working on my Master's this summer that I could maybe catch a break and time would at least slow down on this week I had off with my little man, and that Monday wouldn't come as fast as it had when I was going to school. Unfortunately, time kept its own schedule, and waited for no one, not even me, as good-intentioned as I was.

Today is now my last Friday of the summer. Monday starts back to work for me, and I can't believe that it's already here. Right now there are a bunch of rules and laws going around that may push the start of school back until the week after Labor Day. I don't think I like that. I mean, I know I complain about starting back already, but as long as we start that early, then we can have all the week long breaks for Winter Break, and Spring Break, and a whole week instead of just a few days at Thanksgiving, and two weeks at Christmas instead of just one. I'm so worried that once we start after Labor Day, they may cut out all my breaks. Those breaks are what keep me sane, and keep me from injuring the adolescents that I teach, and vice versa.

Oh well. So, Monday it's off to meet my new boss, and a few new co-workers, and get back to my normal routine of waking up too early and being at school more than eight hours a day. So, as much as I'm really not ready to get back there, I'm glad that it means I'm back to a schedule, and I'm hoping that I can accomplish my goals this year, and get all the things I'm supposed to get into their little heads in there...

Wish me luck!

Why do I do this to myself?

There are some things you would assume that would make you feel better about being married to a police officer. However, this is not the case. My husband is particularly paranoid, mainly for good reason, since our dogs alert us to any strange movement coming anywhere near our driveway. Now, you wouldn't like this sort of thing if you lived in a city or a neighborhood where your neighbor was just footsteps away. But out here, in Way-Past-BFE, if someone is at my driveway, they better know me and my dogs or else they'll be barked at continuously until either the hubby or I call them off. This is a nice thing most of the time, but tonight is not one of those times.

My husband decided to take an extra job, which means he's been gone all evening and won't be home until really late tonight. So, my senses are on super drive, since I'm the only one here and am supposed to be protecting my child and my house and all that. So, every light inside is off, every light outside is on, so that I can see them, but they can't see me. Whoever "them" may be.

So, you would think that I could handle myself and all that, right? Except there's a problem. I'm such a scaredy cat it's not even close to being funny. So, I don't like things that make you scared when the lights are on and everyone's around you, let alone sitting in the dark in the boonies by yourself at night.

So, why am I watching a scary movie on TV?

The worst part is that I have seen this movie dozens of times, and the ending makes it so that you can't watch it from the beginning again without forgetting a few things before you watch it again. But, still, I'm sitting here watching this movie because I feel like it's a good enough movie to be on in the background while I am playing hide and seek with the boogey man.

Oh well. Back to the movie and scaring myself stupid.

Breathing a HUGE Sigh of Relief

I know that a few of you were kind of confused about my last post about people that don't call when they say they will. Well, I was a little out of my mind at that moment, but things have calmed down and now that I know more, I can share more.

I had a doctor's appointment for my yearly exam at the beginning of July, and then a few weeks ago, they called back to tell me that it had come back abnormal and I needed to do another test. So, I went in last week praying that he didn't find anything and I could go home with my mind at ease. Unfortunately, he did see something, and he sent off a biopsy of an abnormal spot. This was Tuesday afternoon and he told me that we would have some information on Friday. So, every time the phone rang Friday morning, I was thinking it was them. But, to no avail. I left class about 10:30am, and ran some errands, still with my phone in my back pocket to make sure that I didn't miss a phone call.

By noon, I realized that they weren't going to call me in the morning, and I picked up the phone to call them. Then I realized, with much chagrin, that their office closes at noon on Fridays. So, I looked at my watch, saw five after, and dialed as fast as I could. But, no luck, the answering machine picked up. They gave me a pager number to call, and I did, but it was just a nurse on call at Med Center hospital. I tried to give her my sob story and see if she would give me a way around the answering machine, because I knew there was no way that everyone was out of the office only five minutes after noon. No dice.

She said sorry, but there's no way to get in touch with them until Monday. DANGIT!

So, I called at 8:30 this morning, and got someone on the phone... and she told me that everything turned out okay and I don't have to have anything else done. I may have to go back a little earlier than a year to get another test done just to keep tabs on it, but other than that, nothing to do! :) YEAH!

Thank you God for answering my prayers.