Interesting Combination

Last night, after dinner, Mike and I ran to the bookstore to get Taryn a book she needed for her physics class. Mariah also piped in that she wanted a book in a series she's been reading. At the check out counter, the clerk thought the combination was humorous. What? Don't you think quantum physics and secret spy school for girls colliding makes for an interesting reality...or is non-reality? I get it mixed up.

Miss Perfect

Hey everybody, It's Mariah. I am going to show you pictures and videos of the Miss Perfect Contest done by the guys in my class.

Guys modeling their dresses

Rosie (aka Russ) not ready for the picture being taken

Me, Sarah, and Andrea's group. Left to right: Jacob, Zach, and Jack


Kieren having a bit too much fun being a girl.

This is my homeroom doing our final Miss Perfect contest.

Now What?

Well, I was all set to snag Mariah's camera while she was at school and go through the photos of the Ms. America-Verb pageant and put some photos on the blog - without parental consent - and guess what?! It's missing!! I've seen that camera in the office for the past 2 days and now it's gone! I told Mariah to upload the photos but she didn't do it, and now she must have taken the camera to school to show off her photos some more. I sure hope the boys don't get ahold of it or you know they'll delete them.

So now I have to find something else to bore you with. Ummmm....I've got nothing. I'm too depressed that the Jets didn't stick it to the Colts and that Brett and the Vikings lost their game. Now I have to cheer on the Saints. I really wanted the Rookie Vs. The Ultimate Veteran Quarterback in the Super Bowl.

Better do some laundry and go grocery shopping. There's no cat food, no peanut butter, no bread, we're low on milk and we're supposed to get snow flurries this week. That's a recipe for disaster in the South. I hope we get a snow day on Thursday and/or Friday!!

Little Operator

We have some weird school assignments here. This one had to be one of the most unusual; but Mariah found it to be one of the best and capitalized on it big time! It was for English class and had something to do with verbs. There was an explanation in there somewhere but it didn't make any sense to me. All I know is it started out that she watned Grammy to take her to the material store and she'd sew a prom dress but a boy would be wearing it. She didn't want to buy a pattern, she wanted to wing it. I explained that would probably stress Grammy out big time, that Mariah probably isn't ready to sew without a pattern, and it would be really expensive to buy a lot of material and patterns - for (and the story unfolds) TWO dresses for 2 different boys by Monday (this was Friday) because she's partnered with another girl and we have the dress assignment - oh, wonderful..... So, I skipped the whole what does a Ms. America fashion show have to do with verbs and cut to the chase of how can I get out of this CHEAPLY and EASILY?!?!

The answer: PLATO'S CLOSET.

The next morning, Mariah and I scooted over there and got 3 cute dresses for about $30. One was a back up dress in case something didn't fit one of the boys. It was way fun shopping while hushing Mariah and avoiding eye contact with other shoppers after Mariah would say "this one is PERFECT for Jack!". And shocker of all shockers.... they all fit Mariah and were actually cute enough for her to wear! She rejected all my attempts to go for hideously funny and only liked ones that she could turn around and wear after the pageant. Hmmm.... Well, she won't be wearing the leopard print one...that one was for Ms. America gags. But still, the orange polka dot and the blue dress had Mariah written ALL OVER them. She even had Grammy make some alterations to the dresses when we got home and sized them to herself. After all, if one of those dresses didn't fit a guy, she had that leopard print dress as a back up.

So, beauty pagent over, verb assignment completed, and it wasn't very painful for me. I think the Orange Polka Dot dress/boy won a prize. And Mariah has 2 new very cute dresses. She says the polka dot one is for her birthday. She also has some future blackmail photos of the boys too. :)

Come On In!

Welcome! Today we have a quick tour for you!

Starting at the front door:

Enjoy the beautiful sight of a Belle Meade Green door

there's alot of history behind that particular color you know.

Now you find yourself upstairs...it only took you a tenth of a second to get here, but I assure you the results here were achieved after a 3 day weekend. An entertainment center was removed, and an Intervention was performed on a closet and a bedroom. Minimalism is our catchword of 2010. That crooked chair will be headed to the Goodwill when Mike makes the run to the dump and the pretty chair from Indy's old bedroom will go in its place.

And here is The Closet Shared By Many...

Mess Owned By None NO LONGER

We've emptied it out to the bare minimum. Mariah's stuff on the left. College Girls stuff will be in the back. And of course...The frogs! They survived the purging somehow.

(I saved them because whenever I see them I remember Gib and I at Target just before a Christmas about 5 yrs ago laughing our fool heads off trying each and every frog out on the shelves choosing the funniest and most obnoxious as gifts for his sisters and dad...and then laughing all the way home, pushing the buttons on the frogs every other second, snickering at our great secret imagining their reactions, and hiding the frogs up in the attic laughing like loons at our utter hilarious-ness. How could you give those frogs away?! They are keepers! Even though only 2 work now - how sad. I know everyone misses them.)

So somebody's bedroom is as spotless as the closet. Nightstands are a thing of the past. Minimalism dictates that a bed and a standing lamp are all one needs for a good night's sleep and a clean room. Grammy made the Goodwill run today with a car load so big she couldn't see out her back window!

Now, on another weekend, I want to move out the old green sectional and bring up a smaller and more comfortable black leather couch. Just gotta find some muscle to help. It's a sleeper sofa and it almost killed the movers to get the green behemoth upstairs in the first place. And now I want it gone. Figures.

Going Green with Paint

Yesterday the weather finally warmed up enough to begin painting the front door! The painters finished the second coat today. It looks amazing! I love it. It's called Belle Meade Green. I got a history lesson on the color at the Porter Paint store. I know you want to know....

So, apparently, in the city of Belle Meade just up yonder from us, about 10 years ago a builder mixed himself up some paint with 3 parts black and 1 part green. He liked how it turned out so he used it on a couple of his homes. Then other home owners in Belle Meade (and it's a swanky area lemme tell ya) started requesting the color, but Porter didn't actually have it. So they cataloged the color but there are no actual paint chips and you can't find it in the Porter Paint Wheel. You have to ask for it. And people are still askin' for it today.

Luckily for me, Lara knew it was called Belle Meade Green (because she painted her stair railing MY Belle Meade Green! :) and she said to call Porter Paint or see if Home Depot had it in their computers. They didn't; so I called Porter Paint. I got the c'mon down and we'll set you up jest fine...and yak your ear off while your paint is a mixin. Oh, and there's a color called Franklin Green, but I won't go into that one. I'm thinking they didn't have alot of female customers that day. What a nice bunch of guys though. They shook up a Benjamin Moore can of white trim paint for me I bought a few years ago and never opened and only teased me for 5 minutes about it. They even carried my paint to the truck for me.

The shutters were repainted as well and mom's window trim. We also had the painters do a few touch up jobs inside the house. Nice to get a few things beautified. We also got a new windshield put in on the Volvo. It got hit by a rock on the drive to Macon and cracked. Bummer.

While all that work was getting done I cleaned the house and baked cookies. Wow, what a domestic day for me.

I planned on attaching a photo of the beautiful new green door but I left my camera at preschool. Drats! I lent it on Tuesday to another teacher who needed to document an IEP (individual education plan) report and she forgot to give it back to me until Thursday when I went to collect it. So I didn't have it on Wednesday so I didn't get any photos and we always send photos each week of our activities - both for the parents and for documentation of fine motor, gross motor activities, etc. covered in class. It was a great day for photos too but without a T.A. (because that's MY job, but I'm a teacher on Wednesday's so we don't have one as an extra pair of hands and to go for stuff for you).

I wouldn't have been able to leave my room to go get it even if I had half a second to think about it which I didn't because we were elbow deep in 8 colors of paint (ROY G. BIV + W) and about 25 sheets of paper that had to be painted Eric Carle style - which means more than once and with texture! We painted in the morning a solid bottom color and then we painted on top of all the paintings again in the afternoon with sponges, rollers, dots, scrapers, and a whole bunch of things. We went through an entire roll of paper towels and half a box of wipes. It took me an hour to wash out all the paint brushes and tools after school. See the example of the Eric Carle style here - now image that as a cat collage made out of 5 different colors from our paintings....they are sooo cute!

I just hope my camera is still locked in the preschool room. I may have to drive over there and look for it. You hate that it isn't safe in a church Sunday School room, but I guess nothing is anymore.

Feather in My Cap

On the way to work yesterday, a co-worker who drives her daughter and a friend's child both to preschool with her so they can go to Pre-K overheard them playing pretend school in the backseat. She heard her daughter say to the other girl:

"Let's play school. Let's be Ms. Chrissie and Ms. Lyneve. I'LL be Ms. Chrissie and you be Ms. Lyneve" and they had some folders and pencils and were pretending to write things down.

I thought that was hilarious. In that class we often put a sentence or two in their calendar which is in their folder about their day, so they do see us writing in it sometimes. :)

Carnival Fantasy

The past couple of weeks have been spent searching for destinations for Taryn and I to spend in the second edition of Mother & Daughter Spring Break Getaways! A blast to the recent past last spring - Indy and I went to St. Simon's. Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate and it rained a good majority of the time...pretty much if we stepped out of our room. It put a bit of a damper on our trip. But she got her placement on Mercer Service Scholars out of it, so it wasn't a complete bust, just not the fun in the sun trip and tanning on the balcony of our ocean view hotel room we had hoped for!

So in an effort to circumvent Mother Nature's unpredictability, and increase the odds that when we hit the beach chairs it won't rain, I looked farther south. We found a cruise out of Mobile, Alabama but we have to leave a day before Taryn's break officially begins. Oh well, she will smile her cute little smile, ask if she can take any tests a day early, and we will be pushing away from the docks while everyone else is in school regardless of anything pesky like permission!! We already booked it!!! Hey can I help it if they had a snow day the day I needed to know this information?!

April Fools Day and we'll be on our way for a 4 night cruise to Cozumel and back!

Today we sent off for Taryn's passport and booked the trip. An hour in line in an unheated post office couldn't dampen our enthusiasm. Bored us, yes... wipe the smile from our faces?! No!

Tomorrow we'll look through the Cozumel excursions we have to choose from but it's pretty much just a matter which dolphin adventure Taryn wants. We're gonna have a wonderful time!

Brrrrrr!

12 Degrees this morning at 6 am. Wind chill made it feel like 2. So I drove Mariah to her bus stop 100 yards away. We had a nice chat at 6:40 a.m. Well, I should say Mariah talked and I listened. What she really wanted to do was start some drama over her tv viewership allowances but I wasn't buying into that so early in the morning. She was only 4 minutes away from some girlfriends she could get all fired up with over trivial stuff. At that time of day, my conversational gambit runs more along the lines of - got your lunch, taken your pill, got your try out papers for Beauty & The Beast, got all your library books, brushed your teeth, ate breakfast? OK we're good to go...let's stop talking now. Seriously, not a morning person... especially not the first Monday of the new year in Arctic tundra freezing at the bus stop wishing the truck's heater was instantaneous like my electric heater in the office!

Because of the weather, the front door will not be painted this week. Maybe next Monday or Tuesday. Looking ahead at the forecast, Gib anticipates a snow day on Thursday. Amazing after 2 weeks out of school, on the first Monday back, how exciting that sounds. We all have our fingers crossed - snow, snow, snow, snow!!!

Mike was super nice and braved the frozen tundra last night to fill the car up with gas so Taryn wouldn't have to this morning. And he returned our Red Box videos for us. Which turned out to be a pain because it's often full on weekends. I guess people check them out from all over but like to drop them off right down the street...you know, like we're trying to do?! C'mon people!!

We hope to get some mid-term stats from Taryn's high school counselor today so we can send off another scholarship application this week. Taryn and I are trying to plan our Mother-Daughter spring break trip. We are thinking Disney. Orlando isn't too far away, but I would rather fly than drive. On my to do list today is to see if I can find anything in our budget. Advice is welcomed!

Indie is here one more week and then we won't see her again until next May. Yikes. I don't know about that. I might have to finagle something. We are going to try to spend a day this week just the two of us having fun before she leaves. If Mother Nature doesn't give me Thursday off, I will try to get a sub at preschool to spend the day with Indie.

Too bad I have an appointment in an hour, and errands to run to get ready for preschool this week, because the blessed quietness of this house is sooo nice. If only it were clean. Oh well, I will get to it....eventually. It is so cold outside and it is actually gently snowing right now, so curling up with a good book in front of my instantaneous heat space heater would be heavenly.