Me and My Shadow

I have a cute little shadow and she follows me everywhere.

Since Baby Doll's birthday is in October, she ended up with one more year of preschool. I'm not a bit sad about that since she is my youngest. I like having a fun little partner to do everything with. (Except the selfies, I could do without all her selfies...) She is constantly using up all the memory on my phone by taking the same picture over and over and over.

Or the embarrassing video. I deleted this one, but the other day I wasn't feeling very well, so after the kids got off to school, I climbed back in bed. She decided to take a video of my sleeping. Good thing my head was totally covered up!

We do all sorts of things together, shopping, chores, errands, appointments. Yesterday she went with me to the dentist and we got to hang out while Sport got his sealants. She loves the pediatric dentist's office as long as she doesn't have to get in "the chair."

Sport didn't take very long and when he was finished, I overheard the receptionist tell him he could have 2 prizes. He came out a few minutes later and showed me two little balls he had chosen. In the meantime, Baby Doll put away the trains and we gathered up. I was surprised when he headed back to the prize box with Baby Doll in tow. "You can have one of my prizes," he suggested as he slipped on of the little balls back into the box unnoticed. She reached for the sparkly little crown, but its brilliance was nothing to the smile on her face as she gave him a hug and a big thank you.

Maybe my little shadow just might start following her big brother everywhere. He's probably nicer than me, at least until she takes a video of him while he is sleeping...

Happy Birthday, Crafty!

This cute girl turned 15 today. We had a big party for her last night with all the family here. We put together turkey dinner and my sweetie made lots of delicious rolls. I'll probably gain a couple more pounds this week...

We boiled down the leftover turkey for soup tonight with homemade noodles. All the the kids are fans of this meal. My favorite part about it is not only is it delicious, it's super cheap! All it takes is a couple of dozen eggs, flour, 1/2 a pound of carrots, and the leftover turkey and broth.

But I digress...

I was talking about my cute Crafty. I can't believe how grown up she is getting! She is now dancing with all the top companies at her studio and she is an Arabian in Nutcracker which is not quite a solo, but almost. Dance is her life right now and she is never quite as happy as when she is spinning and stretching and doing pointe.

She is sweet and kind to her siblings and generally helpful around the house. She is a straight A student, a senior girl scout, and a member of the library board and the Youth City Council. I'm so proud of her!

Happy Birthday, Crafty!

Guest Blogger: Early Halloween Display by Dog Walker

All right, I will admit that I've been so excited for holidays to come back this year. But some of the times, I just want to enjoy the holidays already, even if they aren't at the right time. For instance, all these years since we started this blog, I was always in charge of putting up the holiday displays every year when the holidays come. It's close to the end of September and I just barely started school at UVU and now I'm employed to work at a warehouse to store things in boxes in order to earn enough money to buy gas for my car or even buy some gifts for Christmas and birthdays. But spending money so much just always makes my parents so worried about me losing all that money. They would usually tell me not to go crazy of buying so many things in the stores that could cost a fortune.

 

For example, before I was ever hired to work at Integra Core, in the doTerra company, I hear some teasing remarks from my sister, Bossy who tells me about the blow-up spider that moves its head. She did give it to me for my birthday when I was in high school. While taking her teasing remarks so literally, I decided that I've had enough of her being so jealous, I just wanted to buy one of the blow-up spiders to give her. I buy one and I sneak-or-treat to her house. When I got home, Mom received a call from Bossy telling her that what I gave her was the spider that cost $79! Mom asked for the receipt and I grudgingly give it to her. It just made me so upset with Mom and Bossy that I was just trying to be givable to others and to know how much I'm trying not to show hatred and greed to people. At first I thought that Bossy was being so ungrateful about it and I just didn't want to admit that what I just gave her would be so expensive.

 

I'm sorry that took a little long to talk about my sister Bossy and the expensive birthday gift incident, but I just wanted to point out about how she and I are trying to compare our home displays to each of our neighbors in the neighborhoods we live in. Anyway, I'm now going to tell you about  the early Halloween display that I set up this year. The other day, my Dad told me that I could start putting up the display only on the first day of October. A week ago, he went on a business trip to Boston for his job. Now, I thought we were finished with the last bits of corn on the cob from our garden. I made sure that I harvested all the good corn we had and we had a little bit of good corn still left, while being stung by a bee in the process. Then after I made sure all the corn was harvested, I then chopped all the stalks down and left a big pile of it in the garden. I started to put some pole posts up and Mom told me not to take the poles off the tomatoes since they're still being produced on the fences. She told me to either wait for a while or go to IFA to buy some more pole posts. I decided to go with the second option. I bought the pole posts and I post drilled them onto the front lawn.

 

I started carrying the stalks around and I tied them around almost all the posts, we had less corn stalks then I thought we would have (maybe next spring, I'll plant even more corn). So, I felt like there wouldn't be any way on how I can finish this up with not any more. Princess's boyfriend, Daylen mentioned to me that he had more stalks in case I needed some. It took a few days for him to bring them over in Drama Queen's truck.

 

I put the last bits of stalks onto the poles and then started to put up the lights. I got all the lights up in one night. I even had to buy new sets because some of the old ones weren't working all the way. The corn maze that I put up this year was going to be a bit different from the ones from the previous years. I even bought three bags of spider webs to stretch all around the maze. I kind of challenged myself that I would get this entirely done before Dad would be home from Boston on the Friday. He came home on Friday and was stunned. Mom talked him over it and then he got over it. I was thinking that next year when I set up a display, I would start a little later than just this time, because I'm still trying to get used to the idea of patience, especially when holidays are coming and you feel so excited to get traditional things ready for it.

 

I had almost the entire display set up, except for getting the spider webs stretched and hooked onto the display. I'm not usually good of making things perfect, especially when trying to make nice and spooky looking webs all around. And I still sometimes don't have the patience to take the time to get them all the way stretched onto the corn to make it dirty. I guess, making a mess is as hard as cleaning a mess. LOL!

Anyway, when I got all the display done, everyone, especially Dad was very impressed of it and they still reminded me that it's still a little early to set up a Halloween display, but I still challenged myself to get it all done before Dad got home from Boston and so that I won't stress over doing it while I'm either working at Integra Core or I'm at school trying to get homework done before the last minute. Children around our neighborhood start to admire it and are still hoping to come trick-or-treating at our house on the 31st.

 

Sadly, most trick-or-treaters from last year didn't go through the maze, they just went through the driveway and the sidewalk. Maybe this year, I'll convince mom that we should move the vehicles closer to the sidewalk between the driveway, so the kids can go through the maze. I hope you enjoyed this so much and I know you're going to remind me that it's a little too early to get it ready for Halloween yet. I just wanted to show you how much I enjoy trying to impress the neighbors, especially ones from our Family Ward. Happy Early Halloween, Blog-Followers! :)

One of Those Days

Today was one of those days. You know, when everything starts out badly. I blamed Prima Donna, but it probably wasn't really her fault. She did keep me up until about 2:30 AM reading a play that likely would have put her to sleep if she hadn't been reading it aloud.

I had already had a long day that culminated in 4 hours at the church, 3 playing volleyball and the other in clean up/set up. Since my sweetie was out of town, it meant early mornings too and you know how I feel about those.

I don't know what I did, but somehow, the alarms never went off this morning. I woke up at 8:24. My little ones were due at the elementary school at 8:25. Curly immediately went into meltdown to the point where he had to use his inhaler. Scout was more stoic; she is used to being late.

Thank goodness it was Friday. That meant Crafty and Sport had an hour, but Prima Donna was still snoozing and she was also supposed to be in her seminary class at 8:25. Princess and Drama Queen were long gone for school. I quickly called the Dog Walker who had to catch his train at 9:00 as I pulled on my clothes. He had 15 minutes to the train station.

I handed Curly and Scout each a protein bar as we headed out the door. We pulled up in front of the elementary school at 8:37. Curly was still upset and hustled to the front doors, although my heart swelled with gratitude when he pulled open the doors and then waited for another boy and his dad to pass through before he hurried inside. Scout gave me a kiss and climbed out of the van. Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon occurrence for her.

When I got back to the house, the Dog Walker had returned from the train station. He missed his train because he couldn't find his pass. He was stirring through couch cushions and dirty laundry, anywhere he could think of. Finally I convinced him he would have to drive to school and park in the free lot and he'd better get going or he would miss class.

Crafty was helping Baby Doll get ready for preschool and by 10:00 I had dropped Crafty and Sport at the middle school, Baby Doll at preschool, and I was trying to decide if I should go to Curves. My good sense won out and I headed for home and crawled back in bed.

An hour later, my cell phone rang. It was my sweetie asking me something about cornstalks. In my confusion, I'm not sure what I said, but 30 seconds later he came through the front door, 12 hours early! I was so happy to see him! They had finished up and caught an earlier flight. Now maybe my life (or at least my mornings) can get back to normal.

Back to Back Football

My Baby Doll ran errands with me after preschool yesterday, so we had a fun mommy-daughter date at In N Out Burger. Teach gave us her free coupon so the two of us had lunch totally free.

But that's not what this post is really about. I just wanted to share that cute pic of her.

It was so fun to watch the football scrimmage yesterday for Curly's team! They played Burrito's team (coached by Gamer). If you remember, we missed football tryouts and the Scout league is brand new so my cute son was an unknown. He was placed on the Platinum team which is the lowest in the pecking order, but since it is his first year, we are totally fine with that.

His coach was pleasantly surprised by his size and although he is the youngest on his team, he is one of only 3 X men (which means he must play the line). He gets to play pretty much all the time, every game! He plays on the offensive line and on the defensive line, and yesterday he was lined up against Burrito. It was fun to watch them push each other around on the field instead of in the family room.

Had we known Gamer would be a coach, we might have been able to put them on the same team, but it's probably best this way. I think if they were playing together they would just distract each other. The only sad part is that normally they play on different fields at exactly the same time so we can't watch both of them play.

Usually.

There was the game where Bossy and I sat back to back and updated each other on the plays...

I Finally Updated!

The kids have been harassing me for quite some time to update our "meet the fam" button and I have resisted. Partly because the day after the update, everything changes again. But they are right, Baby Doll was only a few months old when I originally wrote those paragraphs and now she is (almost) 5.

If you have a minute, check it out and let me know what you think. Should I pull out all the ages to keep it less confusing? Or does that help with the confusion. Or is this whole conversation confusing?

Guest Blog: "Zebra Popcorn Popping" by Baby Doll (and Drama Queen)

We had a fun time together yesterday making Zebra popcorn.  It's called Zebra popcorn because it has dark stripes on it and its really awesome.  Drama Queen figured out how to make it while she lived in Nephi and so we decided to make it together.   First, we had to get the supplies: like an air-pop popcorn maker and a big bowl to catch the popcorn.  Then we put kernels in the popcorn maker, and it popped the popcorn.  Sometimes it was so silly and tried to jump out of the bowl.

Next, we made sure that there were no kernels in the popped popcorn and spread in out on cookie sheets.  And then we got a pan out to make the caramel.  First in the pan was 1 1/2 sticks of butter, plus 1/2 cup of sugar and we melted that down.  Then we added 14 oz. of sweetened condensed milk (Drama Queen likes that so much she tried to lick the extra off the lid!) and three tablespoons of corn syrup.  We had to stir it a lot - like for ten minutes!  But then it was ready and we poured it on the popcorn.  It was really, really hot, so only Drama Queen could stir the popcorn around and get it all carmaley, but I got to eat all the pieces that fell off the pan onto the table!

We needed to let it cool down but then we could add the chocolate!  We just used some chocolate almond bark from the food-store and melted in the microwave.  It was so easy.  Then, Drama Queen flipped the melted chocolate all over the popcorn so that it looked pretty.   We wanted to serve it for family home evening treat, so we had to hide it in the oven so the kids wouldn't eat it all when they got home from school.  (Prima Donna can eat sooooooo much popcorn when she is hungry.  It's like her favorite food.)  ...We may have let Mom snitch a little though..  

At family home evening, everybody loved it!  We love learning about Jesus and we love eating popcorn too.  It was so yummy but it kinda made me thirsty. What do you eat for family home evening treat?

Normal Crazy Weekend

I'm so sorry I've been a bit AWOL this week! I told you my computer is having issues and Bossy has been running constant tests on it since then to try to bring it back to life. I don't love working at my sweetie's computer. He has a weird keyboard, I can't find anything on his desk, but mostly, it just isn't my desk, my computer, you get it...

Friday was pretty slow and I got to spend a few minutes with my sweetie before he headed out of town yesterday. Not that I don't have plenty of company and problems to deal with when he is gone, but I just miss him so much when he travels.

We did get a chance to watch the Homecoming Parade. Prima Donna was supposed to walk with the drama department and the Seven Brides for Seven Brothers float, but her foot could only make it a block or two before she stopped and stayed with us until we headed for home. Although she is doing well and not wearing her boot at all, it is still difficult for her to do tons of walking or worse than that is quick walking and running is out of the question.

Saturday was football (both boys won!, as did the grandsons). Princess had a Nutcracker rehearsal and then she and Prima Donna went to the Girl Scout Annual Meeting. It was their last duty as delegates to our Oquirrh Community. Delegates only have two-year terms and they are both ending those two years. It's nice having them a bit more involved.

Burrito is such a little tease.

Fajita had a date to the Homecoming Dance and she had her date pick her up here. She looked so happy and beautiful! (Add a picture, Bossy!) We spent the rest of the evening making tomato sauce and beans. We got 12 quarts of tomato sauce after my sweetie made stuffed peppers out of a bunch of it. The beans are winding down now as the weather is getting cooler and we only had 4 quarts this time.

Daylen tickled the tease out of him.

Sunday was church. Scout had a talk to do and that was trauma getting it ready. For some reason she has forgotten that she can do things by herself. We also got my sweetie on an airplane and then we made homemade pizza for Princess's birthday dinner. We completed our celebration with cake and ice cream and then it was homework and Reflections and a poster contest until bedtime.

I'm hoping for a slower week that allows us to get some things finished up before rehearsals for Nutcracker and the musical get too crazy. Did I tell you Prima Donna got the part of Mrs. Holloum? She is super excited!

We are off. Time to get my sweet Baby Doll to preschool. Have a fantastic Monday!

Guest Blogger: Harry Potter Books by Dog Walker

I know it's been a couple of days since you've been waiting for the latest story of our family. As a matter of fact, my mother wanted to tell all of you about one of the best moments that can be part of spending quality time with a family member, like your mom: Reading Harry Potter books. When I was young, my Mom was worried about how I was struggling with my reading abilities for school. Some of the times, I never felt like reading anything, because I've heard that reading is hard and long at the same time. That's how I wasn't fond of reading, until now. I've watched Harry Potter movies, but never read the books, until Mom asked me when I was ten to start reading them. When I started reading, I was still having a hard time trying to get the words to pronounce right and make the right tone of the character or the author's perspective. Whenever I encountered a word that was in the profanity list, I would always translate it to a word that's more appropriate to say. My parents have been teaching me about profanity, and some of the times in my childhood, I always quoted from movies, and I didn't know what actors would say was either offensive or inappropriate. So for the rest of a lifetime, whenever I encounter those profaning terms, I do the best I can to say them different instead of having to swear while reading.

For all of my childhood when reading Harry Potter to my mom, she said it was helping me know how to read hard words and I've been reading so much in my life. That might be impressive to all of you for an autistic person, but think about it when I earned all the merit badges. In order to earn them all, I had to do some reading too. Anyway, reading all of Harry Potter was a challenge. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to finish the seventh book to my mom, because it felt very long for me to read and I couldn't decide if I should keep on reading or if I can stop for a while. Ever since then, I assumed that Harry Potter is all read and I don't feel like reading them anymore. But today, since I'm taking Children's Literature class at college, I'm asked to read one Harry Potter book. So I decided to read it to my mom, because she loves to hear me read and she always me with the other big words that are hard to pronounce. For a few days, I've been reading three chapters in one day from the first book to my mom, because she's so intrigued to hear what happens next. It sometimes gives me a headache whenever I read those long chapters and all the ten point font words, but I didn't want to disappoint my mom, so I keep reading until the times right to stop for a while and then get back to reading. I hope you enjoyed this and hopefully I'll be able to pass the Children's Literature class by December.

Good Deals

I think my computer is finally dying a slow and agonizing death. I'm sad to see it go because it is an XP machine (I know, but I don't like learning new technology), and it has served me well for a long time. It has been difficult to update since they stopped supporting XP and that is actually the problem. I fell for a fake Norton virus.

Sometimes things are not always what they seem. I thought that when my son told me about this deal he got online at the Men's Warehouse for a suit. He asked me to hem the pants and then proudly told me he got the entire thing for $29. Of course I was stunned. You can't even buy that much fabric to make a suit for $29. He laughed and told me it was clearance and then they took an extra 40% off. So I immediately scolded him for not telling me about it at the time.

Then over Labor Day weekend I got a text, "The suit sale is back on!" I put my sweetie on it and promptly forgot about it, figuring he probably didn't have the time to figure out his size, let alone peruse the online site. Then this week they arrived, 3 high quality suits, one for my sweetie, one for Sport, and one for Curly. Yeah, he had to order 3 so he could get the free shipping, and for all 3 the total was just over $100.

Some good deals are exactly what they seem to be, but you have to be willing to hem your own pants.

CFA Kids' Club

Chick-Fil-A is so cool! Here in South Jordan they have a kids' club that meets once a month. The club is free and they focus on a different thing each month. My kids did it some last year, but Bossy took them every time, so this was my first time. And my second time. And my third time.

It was a crazy evening. I took Baby Doll and Curly to tap as soon as the kids got home from school. When I picked them up, I had to take Curly straight to football practice. Then Baby Doll changed her clothes and we loaded Sport and Scout in the van so we could drop Scout at her tap class. Then I took Baby Doll and Sport to CFA for the kids' club.

They had so much fun touring the fire engine and making badges and hats. They were each given a cookie and Sport also got a little stuffed cow and a free shake for his birthday. We had to hurry. I dropped Sport and Baby Doll at the house and then ran to pick up Scout. Round 2. I took her to CFA and did the same thing all over again.

Then it was back to the house to throw dinner together. At 7:00, I sent Dog Walker after Crafty at the dance studio and I picked up Curly from practice. Sport got his own ride to Young Men's. Then Curly and I came back to the house, picked up Crafty, dropped her at the church, and I drove to CFA for a third time today.

Curly knew everything ended at 7:00, but they had given us his little cow and shake coupon for his birthday and he was anxious to cash it in. He didn't want to miss out on all the fun. Sadly, when we arrived at 7:15, everything was cleaned up so we ordered his free shake and stood by the counter to wait. Then I saw the girl who was running the cookie station and I asked her if they had anything left over for my boy. She told us "No," but she must have seen the disappointment on my little guy's face, because she disappeared and returned a minute later with a cookie for him anyway.

Then, to top things off, his shake was a size bigger than he was expecting! This is why I love Chick-fil-A.

No Pictures

I just looked at my phone and I didn't take a single picture for you today. I don't know what I was thinking! Princess helped my Activity Days girls make two kinds of muffins today, banana nut and zucchini and we talked about making the girls a cookbook and taking pictures for them. Then in the craziness of the moment, neither one of us remembered to take a single one.

I watched Baby Doll dance this morning and thought she was so cute, but sadly, I left the camera in my pocket there too. She and I delivered fliers in the rain today and we splashed through the deep puddles with the van. I thought about taking a picture of the ducks at the retention pond where Curly usually practices with his football team. Unfortunately, they had to find a different place for practice because those ducks were swimming in at least 8 inches of water.

My sweetie tells me there are flash floods and calamities everywhere, but sometimes I am so wrapped up in my own little world I have no idea what is going on around me. Do you tend to be hyper-focused? Or do you follow
the news once in a while?

Dancing in the Rain

The Dog Walker sent me a text early this morning. "It's supposed to rain today and tomorrow." I was sure hoping he was going to be wrong on this one because Princess and Crafty were supposed to dance tonight at the Taste of South Jordan event and it was outside.

I watched the skies all day. I was excited to see Princess dance again. This opportunity came up before the new performing teams had time to put anything together, so they asked the girls from last year to come back and dance. They do the most beautiful number to David Archuleta's Glorious and it was supposed to be the final number.

At 3:45 when the girls left to set up, it was windy, but no rain yet. Then, the minute Baby Doll, Curly, Scout, and I got in the van to head for the park, we saw the first drops of rain. At 4:30, it was still pretty sparse. Unfortunately, the sound system hadn't arrived and the girls couldn't dance without their music. So we waited.

And the drops came down heavier and heavier. Finally the sound system arrived. Crafty's group took the stage for their first number and one of the girls slipped a little on the wet stage. Still they danced on. Fortunately for us, we were under a canopy and so were they, but the rain was starting to come in sideways.


Two more numbers and Princess's group did their Western number. It was fun, but not Glorious. Sadly, by then the rain was unrelenting and the girls were sent home. They were all wet and disappointed. Things cleared up a little later, so hopefully the tasting event was a success.

In fact, I hope it was Glorious!

Grandpa's 80th Birthday

We celebrated my dad's 80th birthday today with a grand party at my house.There were 46 people here and we fed them spaghetti and meatballs, salads and garlic bread. It was a little crowded at first, but people eventually settled into their gathering spaces and that kept people from walking over each other.

I made a huge german chocolate cake, but I felt like it was a little dry, so I was glad that Princess and Crafty jumped in and put together some different desserts.We also had 2 kinds of cookies and peanut butter bars. It was fun to visit with everyone. We had 2 cousins and their spouses here. I hadn't seen them in years!

By about 8:00, everyone was gone and it was time to clean up and get the kids ready for the new week. There are so many things coming up over the next few weeks. Prima Donna got the part of Mrs. Holloum in the musical at Bingham, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. She is super excited about that! It is the part she auditioned for.

Other auditions going on were for Nutcracker and we should see those results on Wednesday. It is pretty nerve-wracking. Until we get everyone settled, we just don't know how our lives might change. One thing for sure, there is always change.

Sport's Poor Toe

The doc was so good about letting us take pics!

Sport has had an infection in his toe for over a month now. We have nearly finished the second round of antibiotics and the doctor suggested that it was time to have the ingrown nails removed in a "procedure." Sport was nervous! He hates needles, but he isn't fond of having the toe pain all the time either.

His older brothers have both had their nails taken off and they have been very happy with the results. It seems to be a hereditary issue.So we let him decide.

It took him a few days to come to the conclusion that this was a good move. He was worried about football, but he didn't want to wait until November when the season is over.

Friday was the chosen day. He helped put up flags for 9/11 and then when all his friends and Crafty were leaving for school, I took him to see the podiatrist.

He took it like a trooper at first, but after a while it started to get to him. He is like me and he needs that extra bit of pain killer to get numb. By the time the doc was cauterizing the edges, we had all had enough.

Fortunately, he has been able to play football and keep his commitments to his team although they did lose today. And he did go to school right from the doctor's office, but other times he has had trouble from the pain. Hopefully by Monday he will be back to normal.

Anniversary Lunch

I told you it was my 32nd wedding anniversary yesterday, but we had a very busy day. Even so, they didn't stop us from finding some time to be together. We met for lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. The Dog Walker doesn't have classes on Thursdays, so he watched Baby Doll. It was nice to have lunch with just the two of us.

We had a generous gift card from our friend, Missy, and we only ended up pay about $7. But honestly, I think $67 is way too much to pay for lunch! We didn't even get anything that exciting. I had the orange chicken and my sweetie had salmon. We shared an appetizer and a piece of cheesecake and he had a soda. That was it. We could have eaten out at our favorite Chinese place at least twice for that price, maybe 3 times and the food would have been just as good.

But I digress...

I'm not ungrateful. Really I'm not. Just a bit surprised by the prices. Then after I finally got home last night around 10, we went out for ice cream while Drama Queen put the kids to bed. We sat in the Sconecutter lobby until past 11:30.

I need to soak up all the time I can with my sweetie. It looks like he might be spending a lot of time traveling over the next 3 months. We have been so fortunate to have him here most of the time. He has watched our kids grow up and his jobs have allowed us to live comfortably, so I guess I shouldn't complain about a little travel. Some people have to deal with it all the time.

I feel like I'm rambling today. I'm so glad it's Friday. I hope you have a long and happy weekend.

Trifold for Gold

Prima Donna is getting her Girl Scout Gold Award at the Recognition of Excellence ceremony next month. These aren't at all like a Court of Honor for the boy scouts. First of all, they only do them once a year. Secondly, they have them at a hotel downtown. This one is at the City Creek Marriott. They also include lunch for her and two guests.

It's a big, huge deal!

But not only does she have to do all the work to qualify and earn the award (which she did over a year ago), she also had to make a trifold that will be put up in the foyer of the hotel so that all the other scouts can see what she did to earn her Gold. That's due now and she finished it last night so that I can take it down to the council office today.

She did such a good job I wanted to share it with all of you.

As for me, life is insane. Dance started up again this week and we have Nutcracker auditions and volleyball, football, Activity Days, and scouts. I'm trying to reform my troop and get a calendar ready for the rest of the year. We are having an 80th birthday for my dad on Sunday with all the family here, so we are trying to get the house ready and plan a meal for 40 people.


And today is my 32nd Anniversary. My sweetie is working although he is going to try to get away so we can go to lunch. He has been putting in long hours this week so he can prepare to travel next week. I have to defend the grant at the Arts Council tonight and Sport has football pics so we can't really go out this evening.

Some people think that at 18 you don't really know what you want to do with your life, but for me, it was the perfect age to get started on my lifelong journey with my best friend. Why walk the path alone? We have had some amazing adventures. 

I'd do it all over again.