Seanna (n. shaw-nuh)

Saturday Randoms

1.  I have a huge..blemish..on my cheek.  I haven't had such a thing on my cheek since, let's see.  Maybe ever?  It is situated in such a place that if it were a beauty mark, it would be quite dashing.  Or dotting, as the case may be.  However, it is not in the least beautiful.

2.  It's almost 1:30 in the afternoon and all I've managed to accomplish thus far today is a load of laundry.  And really, did *I* accomplish that?  I just put the dirty clothes into the machine, added some potions, and punched a few buttons.  I didn't even twist a knob, for heaven's sake.

3.  Speaking of laundry and laundry machines, mine is somewhat on the fritz.  I am told it is due to a failing solenoid.  Because it works intermittently, I am relating the faulty solenoid to an alternator/starter on a car.  When those go bad, the car will sometimes start and sometimes not.  That's the situation here.  A part has been ordered.  Now that I know that's the problem, I will be quite dogged in my determination to get to the good parts of the solenoid.  Right now we are on "good part."  That will probably stop at any moment, though.  So, I did my stuff first.  Heh.  Just kidding.  I actually did the children's stuff first, but it was several days ago so they probably have a whole new crop of stuff.

4.  One girl is actually still at home.  This is rather miraculous for a Saturday afternoon.  I think she plans to depart soon. 

5.  I have decided I would like a ragdoll someday.  Would you like to see what a ragdoll looks like?  Of course you would!

This cutie pie ragdoll lives in Austria.  I picked him in honor of Corky, the Austrian Wonder Exchange Student.  Doesn't he look mad about the snow situation?  Poor baby.  Ragdolls are huge, up to 20 pounds or so PLUS the fluff, and they get their name because when you pick them up, they just go all limp like little ragdolls.  Got to get me one of those.

6.  Speaking of Corky, we picked her up from SOM last night and she had to go to Wal-Mart.  Yikes.  It was way after 10:00 and that's when the miscreants and ne'er-do-wells really show up.  I try to limit my Wal-Marting to once per calendar quarter if at all possible.  I think I have been 2 times so far this quarter, eep.  The lady who checked us out was very, very nice.  She had purple lipstick and purple nails.

7.  I owe my sister-in-law, Tracie, about 3 emails.  Hi, Trace!  Hope my brother's not driving you nuts. 

8.  My brother-in-law has a gig tonight here in our lovely town.  All he has to bring is cymbals and a snare drum.  Apparently that is traveling light, not that I really have a clue.

9.  My brother-in-law also does website stuff in addition to his music stuff.  He recently revamped Daryle Singletary's website, if you would like to visit:  Daryle Singletary--New album coming soon!  He is also Daryle's drummer.  He is a man of many facets.  A man of many facets who spends a lot of time working on his laptop on my couch.  Because we can't get the wireless network to work with his iBook or whatever it is, and the modem and router are under the end table right next to my couch.

10. E cleaned the downstairs bathroom.  Thank God.

11. My children tell me that my friend, Dani, is on Facebook now.  Hi, Dani!  When are we getting together?  I've also heard you've been cropping at Samantha's with Jody.  You are a busy Dani.

12. I have been very good about not spending money lately.  Fear will do that to you.  I think more people should have fear of this sort.  The savings rate has increased in the past few quarters.  About time.

13. My job is keeping me very busy, and I still have the part-time thing as well.  I have been depressed about not working on my cool hobbies (be quiet children, they are cool.  You just don't know) but then I realized that my work week went from around 30-35 hours including the part-time thing to 48-55 hours. That's a lot more.  So, now I'm still depressed but at least I don't feel like a total loser.

14.  We have been asked to host an exchange student next year.  You get to pick them, apparently.  Who knew?  It's sort of like shopping.  Only, for people instead of a bracelet.  I had no idea things worked this way.  It's always interesting to learn new things.  Right now, we are leaning toward one who is very art-oriented.  I figure I can throw her in the studio and tell her to find something to do if things get dire.  Then there's one from Finland who likes cats.  That may or may not also be the one whose mother is "an agent to distribute drugs."  I figure that could definitely come in handy.  Corky is supposed to help us but it makes her sad because she is not ready to start thinking about leaving.  Neither are we--we are getting a kick out of her. 

15. Steve stayed up all night and took Corky to school at 6 AM this morning.  Well, he stays up all nights probably half the time anyway, since he is somewhat nocturnal.  He said she got up at 4 AM and he's never seen such a production of a teenager getting ready to go somewhere.  Hahahaha yeah.  4 AM?  Whoa.  That's dedication to a routine.

16. I thought I could get to 25 randoms, but I'm tapped out.  And my attention is starting to wander.  And I have to go pay some bills.  That last sentence almost made me try to go the distance for 25, but...I must try to be responsible.  I'm out.

Sometimes I think...

...he is doing this for my amusement. 

He sticks his whole head up into this Ikea light on my desk and sometimes he even licks the bulb.  His eyes get all dreamy and he goes into a trance.  He's a bulb worshipper.

Today is a snow day for all the children, even my 44-year-old boy child.  I actually think today's is warranted. Wet roads from yesterday have turned to ice, and now there is snow slicked on top of that.  P&E had an orthodontist appointment and their dad took them, yay!  I got to sleep in a bit. 

Speaking of my fabulous husband, he is in the kitchen grilling poor little C.  "Ever been to jail?"  "How do you say 'stupid' in German, 'schtoopid'?"  Very nice.

Better watch your step at my house

We have our own Mother Superior.

We went to the Friday night performance of Sound of Music, and it was amazing.  AMAZING!  It was so funny to see this girl be so somber because she's usually smiling and hugging and laughing (see photo in my last post).  She did a fabulous job--what a beautiful voice this girl has.  I kept wondering if the audience thought she was faking the Austrian accent for the sake of the play. After all, how often is a Middle Tennessee high school production of The Sound of Music going to have a child with an authentic Austrian accent playing one of the leads???  Not too often!!

Turning 80

I am sure he only sits in this chair when company comes over.  Hi, Bill! 

This is not a great photo but I like it because he's obviously up to shenanigans again--look at his wife with her hands on her hips.  Meanwhile, the candles burn down, down, down....and some of them were recycled to begin with!

See what I mean?  Could you imagine if we'd tried to put 80 candles on this cake?  I'm not that talented a candle lighter. Nor am I that talented a cake decorator--the "Happy Big 8-0" was me and it took quite a lot of effort to even get it looking THAT good.  I'll have to work on that.  Maybe by "Happy Big 9-0" I will have it down.

 

Lots of girls.  Aren't they cute?

It was also Peggy's birthday (although certainly not her big 8-0) this past weekend, so she helped Bill blow out the candles.  Happy birthday, you two!  We love you!

I have more photos but I think I will make a separate post for them since they are not related to the festivities.  OH but get this.  This is so spectacularly gross.  My mom, who passed the big 8-0 more than 5 years ago and considers Bill a baby, came with us to Bill's party.  She sat in the back seat of her own car, and B (pink girl above) drove.  So she was sitting back there and decided to check out the storage pocket on the back of the front seat.  In goes her hand.  Out comes her hand, apparently clutching a three-month-old half-eaten banana that had seen better days.  So she was just holding this thing in her hand and, while I refused to look back there once I heard the squeals of alarm, horror and disgust coming from B&E, it was apparently all sorts of colors, with all sorts of mold, goo and fur growing on it.  And my mom just sat there calmly with it in her hand.  I think she actually planned to hang onto it until we reached our destination..in OVER AN HOUR.  Beth used her driver's controls to roll down my mom's window, and both girls positively commanded her to toss it.  She was concerned someone would see her do it and arrest her, but the girls were adamant, so out it went.  What did B&E learn from this?  "Whoa.  I guess Grammy's not squeamish at all, is she?"  Nope.  I guess now I know what that smell was back in November when I was driving my mom's car somewhere.  Apparently the banana dated back to the weekend of October 12th, when the girls and my mom drove to Pennsylvania for my niece Colleen's wedding.  GROSSSSSSS!!! 

Sorry I don't have a photo of the banana.

Thursday afternoon...day seven of no school

So let me tell you about the weather.  Sunshine, blue skies.  White billowy clouds here and there.  The temp?  The temp, you ask?  A frigid 49 degrees.  Yes, that's correct.  One degree away from 50 degrees.  And yet...and yet.  There is no school, not only for the county we live in, but for several counties that surround us as well.

It's baffling.  Baffling, I tell you.  I know we have a mountain in our county but honestly--it's not like it's a ROCKY mountain.  How much different can the weather conditions really be on "the mountain" vs. what I described above?

I guess that's why they plan for more than 10 snow days each year.  Occasionally, there will come a day when it's one degree below 50, the sun is shining, and yet the roads are fraught with danger. 

In other news, we will be attending The Sound of Music tomorrow night at the high school.  Our lovely exchange student, Corky, will be playing Mother Superior.  She needed a ring for the other nuns to kiss, so they will be paying homage to my Class of 1984 Lake Mary High School ring.  Go Rams!  At least it ended up being good for something beyond 1984.  Which reminds me:  The other day, I received an invitation to the combined Class of 84-85 reunion.  I actually had just as many Class of 85 friends as Class of 84, but I dunno.  Doesn't it usually work out that only the annoying people attend these things?  What to do.  What to do.  Skip it.  I think that's what to do....like I've skipped all the other stuff.  Yes?  No?  I dunno.  Hey, that rhymes.

Enough procrastinating.  It is time for me to do my part-time gig.  Then it will be time for me to do my full-time gig.  Normally Thursday is my Friday but we are so snowed under that we've all been working 7 days a week for the last month or so.  So, Thursday is just another dadgum day.  But I am grateful to have a lovely full-time job and a lovely part-time job as well.  Believe me...very grateful.  Did you hear Microsoft is cutting up to 5000 jobs for the first time ever?  In 34 years?  At some point we are going to cross over from the R word to the D word if things don't start to shape up.  I wonder if it would be valuable to document what's been happening.  I have been trying to find stories about what the Depression was really like and I've only been able to find a few that are told from the point of view of someone who actually lived those years.  On that note...off to perform the work I am very grateful to still have.  I sure don't make six figures or have a high-powered glamorous job by any stretch of the imagination but at this point?  I think that's a gift as well.

So, we get a new president today!

I think that's pretty cool. I want him to do well.  This will be the first president in my adult lifetime whom I both (a) did not vote for; (b) think is probably an OK guy.  I want him to do well.  We should ALL want him to do well.  Even if I disagree with his some of his policies, I have come to realize that I can admire the integrity with which he pursues their institution.  Refreshing. 

It's also interesting to have all this happening with our little exchange student in the house, to sort of see things through her eyes.  We had a lovely little talk about #42 last night and she thought it was very funny that I can't stand to hear or speak his name.  Blech.  So, this time around it's kind of cool because last time there was someone in office for whom I did not vote, I pretty much avoided watching the news for years, or only watched parts of it.  Pretty much instant disgust on that deal, starting in 1992, confirmed through the years in small ways until the big impeachment disgrace.  Anyway. Politics.  Today is a good day.  I'm embracing the change. I'm also glad we are not there for this particular inauguration as we were for the last Scroll down to 3:29.  (The second 3:29, oops--no, we were not in the crowd in the first 3:29 p.m. shot) You have no idea how many people were waiting to take that "snow step" from us.  We had to pretty much guard it.  This was not "along the route," by the way.  This was on the west lawn outside the Capitol and I believe it was after the actual inauguration but before it was all done.  I couldn't even tell you where the parade route was, because we weren't anywhere near the parade route.  When you have tickets to the Inauguration, you have to get there early and make it through security and then wait.  We were probably there building the snow step by 9:30 or 10:00. It also wasn't 3:29 p.m. By that point, we'd already made it back to Union Station and had lunch before the Secret Service swept through and cleared the building.  I can't tell you how COOL that was!  Just like a movie to see it in action with their ear pieces and the talkie thing on their wrists.  Those guys mean business.

Anyway, glad we are not there.  Wayyyy too many people for me.  But it's so worth doing-- if you ever get a chance in the future to attend a Presidential inauguration, go for it.

The peaceful transfer of power.  It's a great day. 

Wednesday morning temperature: 27

That puts me in the mood for some Colorado photos, what do you say?

I think I shared the other photo of the closed road, back here: Rocky Mountain National Park on Christmas Day.  This is actually the same road, just at the other end, in Grand Lake.  I think there are about 50-60 miles of closed road in between, so normally it would take a person about an hour or maybe an hour and a half to travel from Estes Park, where we were from Christmas Eve until the day after Christmas, to Grand Lake, which is just up the road from where we spent the rest of our time in Colorado.  Instead, we had to take a windy, circuitous, 5 or 6-hour trip to get to Granby from Estes Park.  Crazy!

This is the guest room in the townhouse.  The info on the photo says it was taken at 1:45 a.m.  Did I ever mention I have approximately ONE MILLION photos of B inserting herself into the shot like this?  She can hear the shutter open from 50 paces, I am convinced.

This is Grand Lake, just before sunset.  We shopped for souvenirs here and I also got a Welcome sign for my front porch (which is still sitting on one of the chairs, ignored and waiting to be hung...).

Nice, two of the children are cringing away in fear of a snowball attack. I just want a decent photo, guys.  That's all.

Ha, an action shot.  Notice how no one is wearing gloves.  I think it warmed up to a whole 36 degrees that day or something!

 

I took probably 20 shots just to get one where everyone was behaving.

I'm off to figure out what to do about my work desk upstairs.  I was working last night when the keyboard tray/drawer came crashing down to the floor.  I'm not sure I have the technical know-how to make a repair, but I don't really want to buy a new desk, so I think I will wait until Uncle Steve is up and about to get his take on things.  I really like my desk.  It's battered and probably 10 years old.  It's been through two whole-house moves and lots of room-to-room moves.  It's definitely nothing special but we've been through a lot together and I'd like to keep the family together if possible.  I also have to pay bills and go to the bank.  Oh, see that jacket on my husband in the photo above?  That's at the cleaners because one of the cats BARFED on it.  Worse:  He had laid it on the bed and that's when a cat barfed on it.  That's basically how I started my Monday the other day.  The discovery of cat barf on my husband's new winter jacket.  So so gross.  And of course, none of them would fess up to it, either.  I guess it could have been worse.  The cat could have just barfed on my bed instead.  So far, that has never happened in all my years of cats.  So I should probably just chalk it up to a close call.

On that note, I am OUT.

I couldn't resist this: For C's family

This is what I found when I walked in to let C know I'd be going out for about an hour

Boy, are they going to like her.  She wouldn't even move for fear she would disturb their slumber, so she's twisted like a pretzel to accommodate Sam at the foot of the bed, and then Leo just plopped himself right down on top of her so she could pet him. 

She seems to be feeling better and is upstairs talking to her people on the computer right now, I think.  We talked about going to the doctor today but she said she thought it might be OK to wait until tomorrow to see if she is feeling better.

This is only my third blog post of the year

And I have just been advised that I need to go to the Social Security office with my mother.  We arranged it this past Friday and of course I had conveniently forgotten already. I've actually been doing a lot of that lately and I'm starting to worry about myself.  I haven't put my "book" back into my purse from our vacation and I think that is part of the reason.  No planner, no plans? Anyway, I don't really like to go to the Social Security office.  It's a bit like the Driver's License office, only with slightly older clientele.  Hopefully it will be a quieter trip amongst the hoi polloi than this other time (at the Driver's License office).  We shall see.  Never know when a random octogenarian might decide he's had enough of living on a fixed income and go all Bonnie and Clyde on us.  Well, Clyde anyway.  Although I don't think the Social Security office has actual money, so that would be kind of a bad plan in the end.

Poor Corky is under the weather today.  She had an ear infection for which she was on antibiotics recently, and I'm sort of wondering if she took her medication on the "teenager schedule," otherwise known as "When I remember to, not very often."  I think a return trip to the doctor is probably in order; it's not normal to still have ear pain after a course of antibiotics.  She is asleep in her bed under blankets and at least two cats at the moment, so I think we'll try to make it out there this afternoon unless she is feeling better.  I would be concerned about her missing school except that she showed me her report card.  Her lowest semester grade was a 97. Uhhhhhhhhhhhh.  I think I can cross that off my list of things to worry about.  In fact, no girl in the house brought home a grade that wasn't at least in the 90s.  Smarties!

I have many photos from our trip that I want to share, but things have been so very busy here lately that I've gotten way behind on those plans.  Let me pick out one for today, though, and then I have to go with my own personal octogenarian out into the wide world for a while:

This photo was taken by P, as the sun was just starting to set while we were shopping on the last day of our trip in Grand Lake.  I'm pretty sure that's a tiny bit of Grand Lake there, frozen and snowed over. 

My husband says he wouldn't want to live there (too remote) but I think I'd survive just fine.  I think the elevation in Grand Lake is just under 8500 feet.  One of the entrances to Rocky Mountain National Park is there (another being in Estes Park, with the road connecting the two towns being closed more than half the year because parts of it are at over 12000 feet).  It's a snowmobile town--you ride your snowmobile up and park it right alongside SUVs and pickup trucks and the occasional brave sedan. 

I'm out.  Wish me luck.

I received two correct guesses about my new project!

Yes, this is about an exchange student.  It's not a customary exchange student situation where you volunteer for just any old student they want to send you.  This is a student who has been going to school with P&E, so we all knew her at least a little bit before she moved from her former host family to our family.  We will call her C (and I learned yesterday that her nickname on the basketball team is Corky, so maybe we'll call her that.  Hehehe, Corky.  I like that nickname). She is from Austria, and she is a teenage girl, so that accounts for those clues.  The furniture thing?  Hahahahaha check this out.  I did not set up this photo; they just did it.  I don't know why I find it so funny, but I do:

Hehehe the hands.  OMG, that just cracks me up! 

Sorry, E--you kinda look funny in that photo but at least everyone can see your cute new jeans from your shopping expedition yesterday, right?  C is just out of range--I think E is looking at her in that photo. 

So, I had been planning ever since this summer, when we made the Teen Cave, to put a queen-sized bed up in the bedroom up there and move the twin bed down to E's room (or put it in storage if she didn't want it there).  I figured it would be really neat to have a guest suite up there if B was going to be living out in the big world from now on.  Then Uncle Steve moved in, and I felt even worse because he had to sleep on B's twin bed up there. Not that there is anything wrong with it--it's perfectly fine--but it just seemed kinda small for a grown man.  So the arrival of C was just the push I needed to go procure a new bed and play musical beds with some of the beds we already have!  We've now moved B's twin bed downstairs to E's room, so there are two twin beds in there.  E moved out of her room for the rest of the semester and into P's room (with its queen-size bed--this was not a hardship for E, apparently).  P and C are now in E's room, and Uncle Steve has the official "guest room" now!  Not that he is a guest.  Guests don't cook and do dishes and their own laundry.   That automatically qualifies them for "family member" status, yes? Yes! 

Here is a photo of Uncle Steve pressed into service as the Operation Bed Shuffle 2009 was underway:

I include this photo only because he requested Eqyptian Cotton Sheets for the new bed in a bit of a Prince and the Pea-esque maneuver.  Fortunately for him, they were on clearance at Sam's Club.  I hope his new accommodations meet his most exacting specifications...

Also, notice how the photographer does not have to perform the heavy lifting.  That's a little trick I thought I'd pass on, from me to you...no charge, of course!

I'm off to enjoy my long Sunday of working for the rest of the day...hope you enjoy yours!