24 posts tagged “joey”

The only thing I loathe today is that I'm having a hard time concentrating enough to study for my board exam. I'll absolutely die of embarrassment if I don't pass....which to a normal person would be impetus to buckle down & study. Me, I got as far as coming upstairs to get the laptop for the CD-ROM that came with the study guide. Now I'm blogging.

What do I love today? Lots of things.

1. I love that Bailey starts at her new school tomorrow and is very excited. (And a little nervous.)  We had Meet the Teacher last week and Miss Williams (soon to be Mrs. Douglas - she's getting married a week into the school year!) seems very nice. I think Bailey's in good hands. Now to make sure we can manage the tuition payments every month. We've got a decent little tuition nest egg stashed away should we need it, but we're hoping we can absorb it. (Which means no more shopping for me - waaah!)  When Joey starts, it's going to be a little more challenging. But it'll work out.
2. I love my Minnesota Twins! Seriously, when did I get to be such a baseball fan? I've kind of slowly gotten into it over the past few years but this year has been my dive off the deep end. We have the best back-to-back hitters in the AL (if not all of MLB) and the best catcher and first baseman in the AL, and possibly some of the best right fielders and second basemen as well. What we really need now is some good pitching. Watch out, Detroit!
3. I love Joe Mauer. He's dreeeeamy and so awesome. Well, ok, I don't love him, but I do like him. A lot.
4. I love that I finally found the wherewithall to go back onto South Beach. I wasn't going to, but I spent most of last week hating myself for having gained 10 lbs back over the past 6 months, and I finally decided to quit whining and do something about it. What a concept. It's only the second day of Phase 1, and I'm not as motivated as I was last time, but maybe after the scale moves I'll get more excited.
5. I love that my house has been painted (exterior) and partially relandscaped, and that a new sidewalk is on the docket for sometime this month. It's a mess right now - all buckled and crazy. I'm surprised no one has taken a face plant on it yet.
6. I love that, after a first week of saying he hated it, that Joey has finally decided that he likes being on his football team. He's going to be a defensive end and possibly a tight end as well - I think it helped to know where he's going to be. He was kind of hoping for something a little more glamorous (who doesn't want to be th QB or RB or WR?) but now he's convinced that every position is important or else they wouldn't be out there.  He was so excited last night after practice that one of the coaches had watched him hit and told him "That's the way to make a hit, Joey!" I guess the coach even told a couple of the other guys later that they need to hit like Joey had.  And? He's totally adorable in his pads & helmet. :)

Alright, time to study. I was tempted to study blood bank today because I knew I'd know 99.9% of the answers, but I actually found that boring. How weird and sad to find it more interesting to realize how much you don't know.

My poor blog, it's become so neglected. I promise one of these days I'll actually have something worthwhile to say. In the meantime, I'll try to scrape together a TonT.

Loathe:

• Being tired all the time.
• Watching my poor boy and his friends get crushed in three baseball games over the weekend. This was his second (and last) tournament of the season. We got to the point where we were just hoping for them to make some plays because there was no hope for them winning.
• Having to hear my little boy say, "I stink at baseball!" and try hard to fight back tears even though he was around his friends. :(  (For the record, he doesn't stink. He has some things he needs to work on, but I maintain that he's got potential to be a solid player, even if he never becomes a star.)
• Knowing that Joey's team that's been practicing for 5 weeks on a team we paid $60 for him to be on got crushed by a team of kids mostly a year older than them, that's been together since March, whose parents paid $500 for them to be on. Seriously! In third grade!
• Not losing weight like I've wanted to since we restarted South Beach a couple of weeks ago. I've lost 2 lbs. I started closer to my ideal weight this time so knew the weight loss would be less dramatic, but still I was hoping to see some better results. Oh well. Plug away, I guess.

Love:

• Watching my kids when they don't know I'm watching.
• Watching a project at work that I've been leading for almost a year finally come to fruition. We're working on getting everyone trained and will implement on July 21. The new process isn't perfect, but what process ever is? It's WAAY better than what we currently have. I feel such a sense of accomplishment, and I daresay I'm looking pretty good to the higher-ups! I had a great team, though...which goes a LONG way. I'm proud of them.
• Cuddle Time: a ritual in our house where all 4 of us pile onto Brian's & my bed and just watch something on TV. And cuddle. :) The kids are always asking, "Can we have Cuddle Time?" I love that they want to do it, even when we have to say no.
• The unpredictability and variety of midwestern weather. Last week it was pushing 100; today it's not even 70. As they say, if you don't like the weather in Minnesota, just wait a few minutes. Gorgeous weather is always nice, but I need it to change now & then. I could do without snow, though.
• Even though the games were not so great, at Joey's tournament last weekend I got to meet all of the parents. It was so much fun. In particular I spent a lot of time talking to the mom of a boy that Joey has gotten to be good friends with over the last half of the school year. Now they're on the same team for both tournament and house league baseball. I like her a lot. And the really cool thing is that they're thinking of switching their son to Schaeffer Academy after he finishes elementary school, just like we plan to do with Joey! Crazy. She said she's been praying for a good friend for her son, and to think that my guy might be the answer to her prayers just about makes me want to cry. In a good way.
• Holidays! Because they equal days off work!
• That Brian checked out the X-Files movie from the Bookmobile today. I'm finally going to see it, Kelly!

Are you bored yet? LOL

As aforementioned, I fully plan to give this blog some attention once I actually start having coherent thoughts again. :)

Thanks for the well-wishes regarding my coccyx. It hurts like crap this morning, but I'm pretty sure it's not broken because while it's painful, I can still move around. I had already decided to take today off of work, which turned out to be a good thing even better than it normally would have been. I couldn't imagine having to spend all day in a desk chair. I haven't gotten any rest, though, since this morning we had to take the van in for some work and also run some errands. This afternoon will be at least physically more restful, as I'm planning to listen to some hematology lectures online. I might have to have Uncle Rico come over & take care of things for a while.

So yeah, we took the van in this morning for that oil-change-and-27-point-check deal that GM has been offering. We were afraid the brake lines were leaking fluid, so wanted them to look at that as well. So we took it down there (as the driver of the getaway car, let me tell you that driving a stick shift was not fun this morning) and they told us it would be ready in an hour. We ran to Wal-Mart & Kohl's and it was probably more like 2 hours when we got back there. They told us that in fact, the brake lines were not leaking, but the brake pads were bad, the tie rods were bad, and the water pump was bad. Sheesh. So by the end of today and eleven hundred bucks later, our van will be good as new. Oh wait, that's not entirely true. They gave us a whole list of things that really need to be done, but can wait a while. Sure, I'll get right on that. Good thing this is a 3-paycheck month (I get paid every 2 weeks so 2 months out of the year I end up with three paychecks. It feels like a nice bonus and seems to always be very timely).

We did our periodic Sam's Club shopping today as well. We've decided that we're going back on the South Beach Diet starting either Sunday or Monday, so we stocked up on things we can eat in Phase 1 - the no-carb phase. It's going to be hard - I think harder than it was last time. I'm not as motivated, plus I've been so carb-dependent with all the junk food I've eaten to get me through the spring semester. It was so bad. I've put on somewhere between 5 and 10 lbs but it feels like a lot more since I haven't exercised regularly since February and I'm losing muscle tone - especially noticeable in those trouble spots. So just to warn you, I'll probably be blogging about my diet again - it helps me stay focused, even if no one reads it.

I guess the big news of the day in our house is this:

BEFORE

AFTER

He looks like a different kid! Maybe it's just because I haven't gotten used to it yet, but I'm missing the long hair. But at least he'll be able to get his baseball cap on.

Check out the place where he got it cut: http://www.thebarbershops.net/ I only wish they did women's hair.

One other interesting thing....a week or so ago we accidentally got a package delivered to our house. It had the right address, but the name of the daughter of the family that lived here two owners ago. So we called them and when they came to get it, I asked if they'd like to see the house. It seems like kind of a weird thing to do, but I know in the places we've lived in, I would LOVE to see what has been done to them since we left. I thought they might get a kick out of it, and they did. A few things were the same as when they lived here, and many things had changed. (They sold the house in 2000, we bought it in 2003.) They had a lot of memories here, and they liked being able to come back through - I could tell they were feeling reminiscent. They were so nice.

All right, well, it's off to work I go! Schoolwork, that is.

Someone tell me why I decided to have both of my kids in the same month? Oh yeah, I didn't plan that.

The good part about having their birthdays ten days apart is that you get the parties done with in a couple weeks' time and then you're done for the year. The bad part, in our case anyway, is that February comes shortly after Christmas so while we're just getting the tree put away, it's time to start thinking about planning parties.

This year they both wanted slumber parties. And the only way it would work out is that we would have them two Fridays in a row. Eight eleven-year-old girls singing karaoke ala American Idol, followed by nine nne-year-old boys wrestling and roughousing ala Indiana Jones.

Just because I thought it turned out so cool, I'm putting up a picture of the dessert I made for Joey's party. Given the theme, I decided to forego regular old cake and do that dirt dessert that was so popular a few years back.

The good thing about them getting older is that they can entertain themselves for the most part, and in my experience don't seem to want as much structured activity. The part that doesn't get any easier is that you still have to make sure that no one's being mean and no one's getting left out. So even though we're not on constant duty like we used to have to be, it's still exhausting to have a slumber party, let alone having them two weeks in a row. So I'm glad that birthday season is over for another year. We do have one quasi-birthday left, I guess. My parents try to come up in February every year for a weekend, and while we'll probably have some sort of birthday cake, it won't be a party per se, and I won't have to plan anything because my parents don't expect much (God bless 'em). They don't even expect that my house will be clean, which is good because it probably won't be. And my mom never makes snide comments about the state of my house or offers to "help" me clean it up. She's awesome that way. (And in other ways too.)

Your kids do find ways of embarrassing you, have you ever noticed that? This morning during breakfast the boys were talking about how drinking even one drop of alcohol when you're a kid will kill you.  Joey went and said that his parents drink wine and that sometimes they ask him & Bailey if they want a sip. Of course all the boys were just dying and I'm thinking, do NOT go home and tell your parents that Joey's mom & dad give them wine to drink!! Imagine how that could be misconstrued. Very rarely, we give them a taste of our wine. I wouldn't even qualify what they get as a sip. (BTW, I wrote a post a while back on why I allow my kids to have an occasional taste of wine - and a great discussion ensued...and thinking back on it now I wonder if their idea that alcohol will kill you hinges off of what Amy Sue said in her comment to that post.)

Anyway, so now everyone's gone home and we're cleaning up (thank goodness for paper plates & cups, and a dishwasher for things we can't throw away! And a good vacuum cleaner) and I'm thinking about getting some homework done. Joey's playing with all his new toys (he got 4 Nerf guns!!). Today is Joey's actual birthday so he gets to choose what we have for supper. He chose Pizza Hut - works for me!!

We now return me to my regularly scheduled life.

As mentioned previously (I think), we're having a Super Bowl party tomorrow. We have the potential to have a LOT of people here! Which is going to be fun. We spent a good part of today beginning the prep work, you know, the kind of things that can be done ahead of time like making snack mix and picking up some of the clutter around here (some of it won't get picked up....I'm not going for a housekeeping award here, I just don't want anyone to be completely repulsed). The rest (bathrooms, floors, the remainder of the food prep) will have to wait for tomorrow. Fortunately, I have awesome friends who are bringing food as well, so I don't have too many things I have to make.

The kids are getting into it, too. Joey was thinking this morning that since there are going to be a lot of people here, it might be nice to have some signs to help them out, "you know, like when you're in a store and they have signs that tell you where things are."  So today he did his part to get ready for the party by making what turned out to be a lot of signs around the house. Bailey decided to help out too.

The floor plan of my house is such that when you first come in the door you can go straight ahead to the kitchen, upstairs, right to the dining room, or left to the living room. Joey remembered that I'd said that some people who aren't interested in the game might want to sit in the living room and chat, and that maybe we should bring up the tub of baby toys that we keep around for visitors. Thus, when you first enter the house, you will see this:

About halfway down the hallway, taped to the door jamb that leads into the dining room (and on your way back to the kitchen), you see this:

At the end of the hallway, a sign hangs in the doorway to the kitchen, to help you find the things you came for: FOOD and FOOTBALL:

A note of explanation about the above sign: The down arrow refers to the fact that you have to go downstairs if you want to watch the Super Bowl in HD. The right arrow indicates where the refreshments (his word) are, and also that we will probably have the TV in the kitchen on, but not in HD (or, as Joey put it, "the regular Super Bowl").

Once in the kitchen, you see these signs:

 

A big concern for Joey is how to let people know where to put their shoes and coats, since we may have to put them in more than one spot in order to accommodate everyone. On the doorway to the mud room:

And at a 90-degree left to that doorway is another important sign, a last-minute epiphany for my little signmaker:

And more direction to get the football watchers to the right place (the basement family room):

(We're giving out prizes at the end of each quarter.) At the bottom of the stairs, just before you make a right into the family room:

I told Bailey that it probably wouldn't be a big deal if someone's phone rang. She said she knew that, but apparently she just thought it would be a cool sign. I hope no one actually thinks they have to turn off their phone. 

The kids thought it might be important to designate the upstairs as the kids' play area:

Bailey thought that the kids needed a prize drawing as well. (I don't think she has a prize figured out yet, though.) She decided to ask the kids a tricky question and then out of those who answered correctly, draw a winner. This is upstairs, taped to our bedroom door (which will be shut) at the top of the steps:

...I don't think any of our guests will get lost in our house, do you?  Especially given that they've all been here before and our house isn't that big........

I love this meme that's going around, and I needed something to write today.  Bailey's answers are in red and Joey's are in blue. They collaborated on part of one answer so that's in purple.

Two things: 1) "Huggies" and "Kissies" are actually what they're called in our house.  2) They do still call me Mommy.

What is something Mommy always says to you?
I need hugs
I love you

What makes Mommy happy?
Us obeying her
Huggies & kissies
 
What makes Mommy sad?
Not obeying her
Not obeying God
 
How does Mommy make you laugh?
(sily giggles) Tickles!
Tickles
 
What was Mommy like as a child?
Bad.  (giggling) I don't know!
Boring.  I don't know.  You've never told us about when you were a kid. Loving.
 
How old is Mommy?
35, I think it is?
68!  Just kidding.  Um, 36? How old is Daddy? [37] 37??!! I'll go with 36.
 
How tall is Mommy?
Let me guess....6 feet?
I'll say....um....um....I'm thinking.  Four feet eight inches.
 
What is Mommy's favourite thing to do?
Not study.  No!  Spending time with us.
Spending time with us and watching TV.
And watching TV.
 
What does Mommy do when you're not around?
Work or study
Work or study
Together: Most of the time! [What about the rest of the time?] Sitting around, doing laundry, doing chores. watching TV
 
If Mommy becomes famous, what will it be for?
Being an awesome mom.  Or for being an awesome singer! :)
This is a hard one! Getting a good job!
 
What is Mommy really good at doing?
Working. Also, doing chores and making desserts
Studying, also watching TV. also, loving us
 
What is Mommy not very good at doing?
Ice skating
Playing baseball
 
What is Mommy's job?
Working at Mayo Clinic
Teaching at Mayo Clinic - I can't remember what you teach
 
What's Mommy's favourite food?
Dessert and cheese sticks
Cheese sticks and buffalo chicken
 
What makes you proud of Mommy?
She makes us money and buys us cool stuff like doughnuts
Loving and getting a good job
 
If Mommy were a cartoon character, who would she be?
Charlie Brown [Why?] Because he never really gets things that he wants, but sometimes he gets what he wants. 
Surely not Patrick, you might be Squidward.  Actually, I'll go with Squidward.  [Why?] Because sometimes you're grumpy and Squidward's grumpy, and you always want quiet so you can do stuff. [Bailey: Not always.] No, not always.
 
What do you and Mommy do together?
Spend time
Spend time doing huggies & kissies
 
How are you and Mommy the same?
We're both girls.  And.... um....we both like watching TV sometimes.
I'm not saying this is any better than Bailey, but we're both smart.  We look the same.  We like TV or electronics.
 
How are you and Mommy different?
We don't really look alike.
Mommy's a girl and I'm a boy.
 
How do you know Mommy loves you?
She gives us lots of huggies & kissies and she says it every night.
Same thing as Bailey.

Who's smarter than a 3rd grader?  Joey is, that's who!!

Today we got word that Joey is going to be able to start having math class with the 4th graders.  I'm so proud I can hardly stand it!  It all started a month or so ago when we had parent/teacher conferences and Joey's teacher mentioned that he might not be getting enough of a challenge.  We discussed some things that we could do to help him push himself a little bit.  The next day, both Bailey's and Joey's Stanford Test scores came in the mail.  They both did well, but what stood out was Joey's 30/30, or 99th percentile, in math.  The next day, Brian mentioned it to one of his coworkers, who heads up the GATE (Gifted And Talented Education) program at the middle school where he works.  We ended up meeting with the GATE coordinator at Joey's school, who tested him out of 3rd grade math.

I wanted to tell everyone I saw today about this, but I didn't want to be one of those insufferable bragging moms.  So instead I'm going to tell you all about it, because you have the freedom to ignore this post if you want. :)

Brian's on his way to pick me up from work, so in lieu of doing actual work while I wait (as if), here's my lowdown.

• My main floor bathroom has now been officially gutted.  I moved out yesterday* so every morning for the next month or so I'll be getting ready for work in the upstairs bathroom.  I'm going to miss listening to my beloved Fox & Friends from the kitchen TV, but being as it's temporary, I think I'll live.  Construction was supposed to start tomorrow, but our contractor guy had to take an emergency call from some mutual friends who have some kind of hole in their basement wall with water gushing in.  I suppose that is more important at the moment than my bathroom.
• My little guy left for church camp this morning.  He comes home on Saturday.  I'm not worried at all about him getting homesick, especially given that he went last year so this isn't his first time.  He's going to have a blast.
• Speaking of Joey, we signed him up for 3rd grade football in the fall.  How funny is that?  How funny is spending $132 on second-hand equipment for an 8-year-old?  Ack!  Thank goodness for Play It Again Sports!  But he really wants to play.  He weighed in at 74 pounds.  I'm curious as to whether that'll qualify him as a lightweight or heavyweight.  He's neither fat nor skinny, but he's kind of tall, so I'd guess on a team of 2nd and 3rd graders, he might be among the bigger ones.  I hope he doesn't get pummelled.
• Speaking of camp, Bailey goes on Sunday - the day after Joey gets home.  Our church camp is about 4 hours away, and I get to be one of the vehicles in the caravan taking them up there.  So my Sunday will go something like this: Go to church.  Leave for camp from church, drive 4 hours.  Help get kids settled in and hopefully say hi to a couple of friends up there.  Drive back home 4 hours, hopefully with a stop at Trader Joe's while passing through the Twin Cities.  Get home around 8 or 9 and crash, all the while thinking I should do some homework before going to bed.  But I'm going to let myself not do any.
• Speaking of homework, I have so much this summer it's not even funny.  I'm wishing right now that I'd have taken a clue from Hannah and taken the summer off.  There are too many other things to do, like go to Joey's baseball games and try to get my house ready for some of my girlfriends to come in a few weeks (I apologize in advance if the house looks like crap when you get here!!).  One class has me reading government regulations, which I expect to have to do for work, but it's kind of depressing to have to do it for school.
• I'm having a party on Wednesday.  You know those parties where you send out about 7 million invitiations to everyone you've ever met, and about 3 people come because the goal of the party is to sell stuff?  Yeah, one of those.  This party is for Norwex cleaning products.  The best part is that she wants to demonstrate the products so I really don't have to clean my house!  Woo-hoo!  I need some ideas for quick, easy hors d'oeuvre that don't look like they were quick and easy.  Ideas?

OK, I got a call that Brian's on his way.  See ya!

*I mean I moved all my makeup & stuff out.  I personally didn't move out of the house.  :)

I'm a day late for Me and My Monday, but my dad asked me this weekend why I never talk about my parents in my blog.  So while I unfortunately am about earlobe-deep in homework and can't actually write anything right now, I am going to give my parents a shout out....and show off my new niece Maria at the same time.  These photos are from her dedication service on Sunday.  (FYI if you don't know, a baby dedication is similar to a baptism except there's no water.  It's where the parents [and often the grandparents too] pledge in front of God and the congregation to raise the child up in a Christian home and to encourage him/her to choose a walk with Christ when he/she is old enough to know.)

 

 

 

 

Hi Dad!

Lesseee....pretty calm day today.....

I'm not liking:

• The fact that I need to listen to the second half of a 2-hour-45-minute lecture on things I already know for school.  I'm so tempted to skip it but I'm sure there will be one or two things in there that I'll need for the test. 
• Knowing I'm a procrastinator - I'm blogging instead of listening to lectures on things I already know.
• Running.  But I told Brian I might try to train for a 5K in August.  In the same event, he would run a half marathon.  He'd do the half with Erik and I'd run the 5K with Erik's wife Erin.  What on earth was I thinking, saying that?  (I'm tempted to back out so I'm writing about it here, which will require me to follow through.)
• Going back to work after a three day weekend.
• When the kids whine & argue with everything I say.  Grrr.

I'm liking:

• DVR.  HD-DVR to boot.
• Free tickets to a baseball game in June.
• Good hair days.
• Having my picture FINALLY get updated on the intranet directory at work.  My old picture was from 2003, and I looked forty.....which would be fine if I had been forty at the time.  I was twenty-nine.  The new picture is much better and less embarrassing.  I shudder to think that people would look at that old picture to see what I look like!
• Little-guy baseball starts this week.  I love watching Joey play.  He's not a bad hitter and also has a pretty good arm.  (Yeah, and I'm not biased or anything.)

I think that's it.  Happy Tuesday!