Good Riddance, September!

Beware: I needed to vent!


I thought I was never going to make it out of September alive! It was honestly one of the busiest months I've had in a loooong time. Getting back into the routine of school, with Kendall in preschool and a new carpool schedule. Working more because I started a third survey for the Census Bureau (what, you didn't even know I had an actual J-O-B?), I worked about 60 hours in September and put 800 miles on my car just for work (that's about double my usual work schedule)! Even though it was nice to make the extra money, we spent a good chunk of it eating out because we were so busy. Yuck. I'm sick of fast food. Busy as ever with my calling of Enrichment Counselor, as we had our quarterly enrichment meeting and I made most of the food for the dinner, on top of teaching the first Sunday lesson as well. We also had doctor and dentist appointments all around, I reviewed a book for the school's library committee and I'm working on another one, threw out my back for a few days at the end of the month, got most of my visiting teaching done, shopped for a lot of Coupon Sense deals (I have toiletries and granola bars and Powerade galore!), did some serious reorganization in my house (kinda unfinished though), went on a Dysart bus tour (and got my picture in the paper), almost switched my kids' school, chauffered Hannah to her ever increasing activities/lessons, and just tried to keep up with the normal housework, homework, etc. Thankfully Joey helped out with a lot of that stuff, but I felt like I headed out the door almost every night after he got home and we hardly saw each other. I'm craving a family vacation or a weekend without the kids (guiltily though, because I feel like I haven't seen them enough lately). And I'm going to be just as busy with work at least through December, so I don't even know how I could possibly get away for the weekend! The good news is that I'm mostly done Christmas shopping, so the fact that the holidays are coming doesn't stress me out so much this year. And by the way, September was hot! So I'm just glad to be in a new month and looking forward to cooler weather and fun holidays.


This week Noah had to do his first book report (which he received 100% on, good job!). I sat with him while he did the writing portion of it, and then I had him start drawing the picture while I got some things done around the house. When I came back to check on his finished product, I couldn't help but laugh. See if you can figure out why:



Do you see something out of place there?

In case you couldn't figure it out, check out the "Parent Signature" line. He's hopefully not heading into a career of forgery. It gave me a good laugh though.

How was your September?

Do You Disney?

If you love Disneyland as much as I do, you need to take advantage of this deal! In 2009 Disney will be offering free admission on your birthday! I'm going to try and get a trip out of this next year for sure. If members of your family have birthdays on the same day you are really lucky! If you have an annual passport already you can get some other special offers instead. You do have to register for this in advance though. (You people know how much I love FREE). You have to register and then you can add your kids. Your spouse will have to do a separate registration. Now, I must go plot whether I can go in February, April, May, June, and August when each member of my family has a birthday! I love Disneyland.

Register here!

I Waited 30 Years . . .

. . . to finally have a sister. I have two older brothers, and always begged my mom for a little sister. When I was 11 my hope was renewed, but I got a baby brother instead.

I actually cried on the way to the hospital, until my cousin Jennie who was driving me to the hospital said, "It's okay, we can still put him in dresses." Of course once I saw him I loved him and didn't mind that he was a boy.

But since my brother graduated from high school this year, my parents weren't quite ready for an empty nest, so they decided to adopt.

Her name is Winnie, and we got to babysit her over Labor Day weekend so that my parents could go out of town. And after all, they deserved a break because having a newborn is hard work.
She's a Maltese/Yorkie mix (Morkie, according to Jessica). It was fun, and a lot of work, having her for the weekend. Noah and Kendall are a little scared of dogs in general so it was good for them. I can safely say that Kendall has overcome her fear of "Winnifer" (as she sometimes calls her), but the jury is still out on Noah. In his defense, Winnie can be very rowdy, barks a lot, and she does bite sometimes.

So I guess I have a little sister now, although I think that she bears a stronger resemblance to my three brothers.

Remembering . . .

Not to be cheesy, but since I was just listening to people on the radio share their "Where were you?" stories from September 11, 2001, I thought that I should record mine. Even though I'm sure my own experience is not significant to anyone but me, I think that it is an event that we will always reflect on and think about throughout our lifetimes and someday I probably won't recall the details that I still remember now, seven years later.

At the time, we were living in Joey's parents' house, and his sister Kristi and her husband Mike were living there with us (his parents had already moved to New Mexico). I was in my first year of teaching at Barcelona Middle School and Hannah was in kindergarten. I remember that I was blow drying my hair in the bathroom and Joey walked in and told me to come look at the TV. We sat in our bedroom for awhile and watched the events unfolding, still really uncertain of what was going on.

I would take Hannah to my parents' house on my way to work so that she could ride the bus to school with Andrew, and as I dropped her off I got really emotional. I was terrified of planes flying into buildings across the country, imagining that it would keep happening all day long. Since my parents both worked downtown I was afraid for them, and I was also scared of letting Hannah go to school and being away from her. I remember that we said a prayer with my mom before I left for work.

Being in an 8th grade classroom that day was an interesting experience. As teachers, we just felt speechless and shellshocked. We would listen to the radio and check the internet periodically throughout the day, trying to find out more but without having access to a TV I felt a little bit in the dark. I spent a lot of time just talking to my students, trying to explain the facts that I knew and trying to disspell the junior high rumors that had already started spreading. It was similar to the day I spent as an intern in another classroom on the day of the Columbine shootings. I felt a great responsibility to my students on those days.

I of course remember the terror and the disbelief and the sadness, and just being glued to the TV, trying to understand why this would happen. I remember being grateful that we had just returned from a trip to Kentucky for my grandma's 80th birthday celebration, and that if the party would have taken place on her actual birthday (September 18th) then we wouldn't have been able to fly there. And I couldn't forget the amazing stories of patriotism and love and kindness that came out of September 11th.

It just so happened that we were trying to conceive at that time. It must have happened within days after, because about a month later I found out that I was pregnant with Noah. There was a little baby boom at that time, and when I was delivering him the stories were all over the news about how hospitals all over the place were overflowing with deliveries from what they called "September 11th babies". I've never considered that anything but a coincidence since we were already trying before September 11th, but I love the idea of all of these sweet spirits being sent to earth at that time to bring comfort and love and help people remember what really matters.

Visiting "Ground Zero" in 2005 was an interesting experience. It was hard to connect that big hole in the ground with what I had seen on TV. It was a solemn experience but I had a difficult time making an emotional connection when it looked completely different from what was on TV (and thank goodness, because if it looked the same it would have been overwhelming). I felt that it was necessary to go there, but I didn't want to spend a lot of time there. It was a sad, empty place.

On a happy note, I love America! I feel so fortunate to live in this country.

The end.

My Olympic Moment

I knew that blogging good things about the Olympics would bring me good karma. Joey scored some sweet seats for the D-backs game tonight, and while we thoroughly enjoyed the game, something else eclipsed the victory as the highlight of the night.

Sometime around the 7th inning we noticed all kinds of commotion in the section next to us, including cameras and a guy from Fox Sports News. We couldn't exactly tell what was going on until they announced, "Straight from Beijing, China, please welcome two time Olympic gold medalist Misty May-Treanor." Sure enough, she was on our row just across the aisle. Everyone went crazy cheering for her, especially when she pulled her gold medal out of her purse. After that, they couldn't keep the aisles clear because people kept coming over trying to take her picture and talk to her. Poor lady, I actually felt bad for her.

Security escorted her out at the end of the game, and she went to sign autographs. We were right behind them, so we figured why not wait and meet her. We only had to wait about five minutes to get her autograph and meet her. Joey got a picture on his cell phone, which I will post as soon as I figure out how to get that up. He was too close to get me in the picture with her, but that's okay. So now you know what Olympic sport I would probably choose. I really love watching gymnastics, but if I could choose to be an Olympic athlete, I would definitely choose volleyball, and hope that I would gain a few inches in height too! I loved watching the beach volleyball. You might not know that I actually played a few years in high school, but I'm way too out of shape to play now.

Anyway, it was the highlight of the night for me :) And what girl wouldn't idolize someone bold enough to offer her backside for the president to slap?


(For the real story on this picture, go here.)

Kendall Learns the Truth about Bras

Hmm, I think I'll try on this bra that I found while my mom was folding laundry. I want it on the real way, underneath my shirt.

Darn straps, they're hard to keep up.

Nevermind, that's way too uncomfortable. I'll go back to playing with my toys and pretending to be an Olympic swimmer.

The Olympics

I have so much to catch up on with this blog, but I could not let my ugly photo stay at the top of my page any longer! I figure since it's the first day of school, I have to at least do one thing for myself today as I enjoy the peace and quiet that comes with only having one kid at home.

So I was up last night after everyone else was in bed and I turned on the TV to fill the silence. The Olympics were on and I literally stood up yelling and cheering all by myself during the men's 4 x 100 freestyle relay. It was so exciting! It was one of the first times I've been able to sit down and really watch since they started, and it reminded me of how much I love to watch them. Here's some of my thoughts on the Olympics:

*They're only every 4 years, so you don't get sick of them. As opposed to most other sports that you can see pretty much every day of the week. I often wonder why we see so little of certain sports except for during the Olympics, but it does help to make them more exciting.

*It is so amazing to be reminded of patriotism and how great our country is. We spend so much time disagreeing about so many issues that the Olympics help unify our nation, even for just a short amount of time. (Immediately following the Olympics, we have the political party conventions to divide us up again right away, don't worry!)

*Even though the Olympics encourage healthy rivalry with other countries, I think it is great to see people from around the world, reminding us that no matter where we come from, we are more alike than we are different.

*Olympic pet peeve: When the media spoil the results because of the time difference. I'm glad to see that MSN's homepage (also my homepage) allows you to hide the results if you don't want to know yet!

*The dedication of the athletes is astounding, and it reminds me that my goals are attainable also, if I am willing to put in the effort to attain them.

*My first Olympic memory: Mary Lou Retton. Resulting in several attempts at gymnastics, which I never really stuck with. But I could do a mean cartwheel back in the day.

*One thing that I don't like about the Olympics is how much attention is given to the end result. There are sometimes hundredths of seconds separating winners from losers, and those same hundredths of seconds determine whether someone goes down in history as the best ever or leaves them relatively unknown for all their accomplishments. Of course everyone loves to win, and I get that, but I do always feel bad for the losers. Maybe I'm just still bitter because I really wanted to be either the valedictorian or salutatorian of my graduating class, but I ended up as number 3 instead. I mean, they don't even give a title to number 3. I think I'll call it bronze from now on.

*By the way, if I was an Olympic athlete, what do you think my sport would be? Come on, leave me a comment and if you say Sumo wrestling I'm going private and not sending you an invitation.