I'm Having a Bad Day

I know I've made it a rule not to whine here, but I'm in the need of pouring my heart out today. It has NOT been a good day. First off, Scout has been sick. I was up late last night, so I was happy this morning when my sweetie ran some of the kids to school before he left for work. The only one who didn't get a ride was Crafty. And boy did she let me know about it! Truly, they walk most of the time, but because Scout was staying home so she could see the doctor, and Sport had left early for band, she was on her own. She screamed and cried at me for almost half an hour before she finally realized I was serious and not planning to take her. She finally went downstairs and asked Teach for a ride. (Yeah, she gave in...)

After that I delivered Curly to his first day of preschool. He was happy and excited to go which is good because I was already on a short fuse. After I picked him up and dropped Burrito at Kindergarten, I figured I had a couple of hours before the doctor's appt to get a few things done.

The mini van needed an oil change and to save time, I chose the Jiffy Lube closest to my house rather than the one in Sandy I usually go to. Big mistake! They tried to sell me everything and I finally gave in on the serpentine belt. Problem was, they broke the first one they put on and had to run to an auto parts store to get another one. I waited for over an hour!

Then I headed for my favorite grocery store. After filling my cart and heading for the checkout stand, I was told that my discount didn't apply to some of the items I was buying. Since I was already upset, this didn't help.

I left the store thinking "It's already 2:00, maybe I just need some lunch." I had a code to join the text club at A&W and get a free hamburger. I punched the number into my phone and immediately received the answer. I drove the short distance to A&W and proudly gave them my code. But no, the code wasn't good until tomorrow!

I left the driveup abruptly and rounded the corner to the Sonic. I can always get a good deal there. (And I did...they were very nice to me.)  I pointed the van toward home. I still had to unload the groceries before Scout's doctor's appt.

We made it just in time! Turns out she has croup and needs regular breathing treatments and steroids for five days. When we got home, Sport was stomping around, trying to find his football stuff. He yelled for a good twenty minutes before Curly discovered the missing thigh pad in the little kitchen oven. (Don't ask, I have no idea.)

I ran Sport to Scouts (in his football equipment) and stopped by Curves. I barely had time to get in my 30 minutes before I was rushing out the door to pick up Crafty, then stop by the church for Sport, swing through the park and drop him for football practice, then take her to the dance studio, pick up the neighbor girl, drop her home, and arrive back at the house.

I had exactly 20 minutes before I had to leave again for Tupperware training. I decided to use that 20 minutes trying to solve a problem the Dog Walker was having for school. Yes, I was late for training and I still didn't manage to solve the problem. At least I already had dinner under control. Teach and I had assembled a pot roast in the crockpot this morning.

An hour and a half later I walked through the door. The kids were arguing about dinner. Apparently my pot roast wasn't done. After 20 minutes of trying to hurry it along, I reset the table for cold cereal. I threw some odds and ends from the bread loaves into the toaster and immediately managed to burn my finger.

After dinner I was cleaning up when I noticed something. Remember last fall when Princess took a ruler and smacked it down on my ceramic cooktop? My new cooktop now has an 18-inch crack right down the middle. No one seems to know anything this time.

Maybe tomorrow I just won't get out of bed.

High School Clubs

My dad the teacher.

Did I ever mention that I was a super-over-achiever when I was in high school? We had a small school with around 300 kids in four grades. My dad taught there and even though you might think that would keep me in line, it didn't. I was involved in so many things!

OK, hold your breath while I run through a list of clubs...

GAA (Girls' Athletics), Spanish Club, FHA, Marching Band, Chamber Choir, Swing Choir, Newspaper staff, Yearbook staff, State Choir, Drama Club, Sterling Scholar, Basketball team...I even tried out for the Drill Team! Only one year though. My best friends made it and I was the 19th girl or in other words, the last one cut. (I only know that because they told my dad.) That didn't really make me feel any better, but that's another story.

One of my favorite clubs was FHA or Future Homemakers of America. It doesn't even exist in that same form now. They call it FCCLA or Family Community Careers Leaders of America. I guess being a future homemaker is just not that appealing to today's young girls.

Teach was an officer in the FCCLA when she was in high school and she became a Sterling Scholar from that department. Her high school was huge though and mine was small. They had a much bigger focus on the preschool and day care programs and my school was just trying to convince girls to stop getting pregnant!

What can I say, it was the 80s and there wasn't much to do in my hometown. My junior year it was like an epidemic. If I'm remembering right, there were 13 girls who got pregnant (out of about 150), beginning with the Head Cheerleader. No, I didn't join THAT club.

But I did join FHA and we had tons of fun planning the Sweethearts' Dance and preparing our entries for state competition. Mine was some sort of Child Care presentation and sadly, I didn't place that well, but it was still exciting to stay with my friends for a couple of days at BYU. Can you figure out which one is me from this black and white yearbook picture? I didn't think so. OK, I'll tell you. Third from the left on the back row. You sure can tell it was 1980 from the hair, can't you?!

Cleaning Fairies

My sweetie actually told the kids this story today...

"Once upon a time, we lived in Logan. I had been working for an engineering firm as a technician and I decided to finish my degree. School was hard! I had a headache for six months straight! It was all I could do to keep up on my homework. Differential equations was taking all of my brainpower. Mom was in school too, and she was working on her Masters Degree. Bossy was little, but mostly a good girl. We were all SOO busy!

Then one day a miracle happened. I went to bed at night and when I woke up, the cleaning fairies had come! The house was totally clean. I was so glad that I didn't have to worry about housework and doing my share. I was so grateful for those cleaning fairies."

A couple of the kids started to snicker. I rolled my eyes and said, "Yeah, I wonder who those cleaning fairies were?" My sweetie got defensive. "No, seriously, every once in a while they still come!" Then Teach piped up from the back seat. "Only their names have changed a little...instead of just Mom and Bossy, now they are Teach, Drama Queen, and Princess."

My sweetie looked stricken. "I think you're wrong." He actually said that with a straight face.


Do any of you have cleaning fairies at your house? If you do, send a few of them my way.

Chastized!

So this morning we drove down to my brother's to see his new baby get a blessing. It's the brother on Ockey Family Adventures on my sidebar just in case you want to know more about him and his cute family. The first things they said, even before a proper greeting, is "Why happened to your blog? Why aren't you posting every day?"

Baby Doll has a great sense of style!

I quickly reminded him that this was a new trend and I've only been doing the every-other-day thing for a couple of days, but he wasn't to be appeased. So I asked him (and my 3 sisters who were there) what they would like me to write about. His answer was immediate, "Write about the stuff when we were growing up."

The problem with that is that he is my youngest brother. He was almost 10 when I got married so many of my growing up memories are not the same as his. His first suggestion was that I tell you about when we all put water on our corn flakes because we were out of milk and Mom wouldn't buy any. Unfortunately (maybe fortunately!) I don't remember that at all. During my growing up years we had cows and there was always tons of milk. Mom had a little pasteurizer and she always had it running. She sold milk and cream to friends and neighbors to bring in a little extra. Sorry, Randy, I have never in my entire life eaten corn flakes with water...now Groovy, that's something else.

Just a fun pic because every post needs a picture!

Our mom was frugal though. One thing we all remember is the tator tots story. Mom counted out seven tator tots for each of us. We were not allowed to eat any more than that. She had a two-pound bag split completely even (although I'm pretty sure Dad got a few more). The couple of times I grabbed an extra, she always knew and boy could she lay on the guilt trip! Randy, however, figured out how to make it work. While they were still cooking, he would open the oven and at the risk of burning his digits, he would grab out a couple while they were still sizzling. I didn't love tator tots that much!

But he's right, it's been a long time since I wrote about my childhood, so I am going to pledge, here and now, to write at least one story from my past at least once a week for the rest of the year. Hopefully that will appease the masses and my siblings will stop calling me a slacker...

And Randy? How about the same challenge for you?