Colorful Life

Not too long ago, while I was searching for inexpensive curtains for Indie's apartment, I found a great deal on a new bedroom comforter set! I was really excited to change out the color scheme and was ready for a new look!







Today Mike pulled the widow topper off the wall for me and I took off the fabric I had covered it with a few years ago that matched the old bedspread and we covered it with the new blue paisley one. By the way, I had totally forgotten how ugly the original fabric was! Ugh black and gold cherubs!





Last weekend, Mariah and I travelled to Macon to visit Indie and help her paint her apartment!

The first room we did was her bedroom. The color is called Salem Gold. Here is a photo of the results.



Next we tackled the kitchen. It was painted Inca Orange. A very bold choice! The painting that we hung back up to see the effect is one Indie bought from the artist in Armenia. We chose the wall color based on colors pulled out from the rooftops in that painting.



These are out of order, but the night we arrived, we gave Indie a couple of early bday gifts. Mariah couldn't wait to give her this one - a miniature giraffe! (Kay and Colton might remember the 5' tall one we saw at Earthbound Trading - this is the "Honey I Shrank the Giraffe" version from the same store). As you can see, Aussie was ever so eager to make friends with it. He actually BOXED its face!! Pow-Pow-Pow, a left, a right, a left, left, right paw smak to the helpless birthday giraffe. Imagine how different the movie "Toy Story" would have been if Aussie was involved.



This was Indie opening the giraffe. She never had a clue....



This is the little orange demon demonstrating what happens to Indie's homework

"when I hear the printer fire up, I rush over and stick my paws in like THIS!!!"



"I can't see it, but I know there's something in there!"



"Finally, I shred whatever comes out if Indie doesn't grab it first. No foreign toys allowed in my kingdom!"





That was what Aussie would see if he ever looked up. The TV wall is Crimson Brick. It meets up with Salem Gold in the living room.

And then our weekend was over! We had a wonderful time :)

Today's Message

I get daily messages from Applebaum Training, as an addendum to a training class our preschool teachers attended together. I've gone to a few Applebaum all-day sessions and have signed up for another one in November. We each have to get 20 hours a year of certification hours for our job in Pre-K, and we have found that some are much better than others. Applebaum is one of the better ones and it is 6 hours credit. And for the past couple years, I've been enjoying these daily gems to reinforce messages we already know:

A child's smile is worth "riches."
There are some children that light up your heart when they smile. They make you feel good, warm and fuzzy inside. You can't take that smile to the store and exchange it for groceries, but you sure can put it inside the memory box of your mind to open up on rainy or tough days. That is one of the many perks of working with children.

Lately, the quote from Steve Jobs about loving what you do, has been floating around the family courtesy of Mike's fb and letters to Indy and Taryn. I've been pondering part of the message about if it were your last day on earth, would you spend it doing what you are currently doing. For most people, it is unrealistic to ever think one would go to work if you knew it was your last day to spend with family. But many people don't have that knowledge ahead of time. I agree it is important to like what you do, to find moments of enlightenment in even the most obscure of ways, to be strengthened and grow as a person as a result of what you are doing. To realize that how you are being challenged right now has some effect on you that if you stand back and look at the big picture you can say "I learned this, or I gained that" from the experience. Where there is no joy, no end result worth the sacrifice, no service to others, no love for yourself and those around you, I think there really needs to be an abundance of prayer for guidance.

So I am counting myself lucky right now. Because I get to experience a whole lot of golden smiles and hugs from precious children. They are so filled with light and I love to soak it up and let my love wrap around them too. I work with a fantastic group of supportive ladies. If it were my last day and I spent it at preschool, I would consider myself lucky to have had that day.

My family knows I love them with all my heart. I'm not in any hurry to go anywhere; I am fulfilled with where I am at, but if I'm called, I am confident that I'm doing the best I can to be the person, wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, and teacher I know Heavenly Father wants me to be. The greatest part is today is another day to learn, to be thankful, and to enjoy someone's smile.

Stand Up Guy

Gib is fun to be around. He casually drops these remarks and one-liners that are really humorous. Since I'm still smiling about the one from this morning, I figured you ought to enjoy it too.

It was the 3rd day in a row I spent with my son huddled over a mirror at the kitchen table while he tried to get his contacts in. After he finally got the second lens in he goes,

"I feel like such a girl. I have to get up early and spend 20 minutes in front of a mirror. Geez"

I think I will go out and buy him a much nicer mirror to use now. It's the least I can do.

P.S. Gib gets better every day with those contacts, but we are both speculating about 30 day lenses at this point.

Starting Early

It's early, but I think it's a good idea to start now. So, the official College Search for Gib is ON. It's not in full swing, but I have spent a few hours on a couple different weekends scouring websites with my son in mind as I sort through what is out there and what he may be looking for. Right now that would be the big question. He doesn't really know which makes it kind of hard. Operating under his instinctive response to what size university, I'm going for under 10,000 students, and even much smaller than that. An early contender is Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. We are going to a Preview Day during Gib's fall break in October. He has invited a buddy to come with us.

Samford is a liberal arts college with 4,715 undergraduates and 8 academic divisions. There is $220 million in endowments and they appear to give pretty hefty scholarships based on both need and merit. Over 60% of the students come from out of state which is good for the diversity on the campus, and another positive for Gib is the fact that over 60% of the student population is female. The professors are highly ranked in their field, no graduate students teach classes, and the student to teacher ratio is 12:1. The university is highly ranked and I'm pleased with the statistics. So off we go to check it out. It will be an important first step in the search process for Gib to see what he thinks about the atmosphere of this type of university, the size, the feel of the campus, etc.

Another school that has made it to the list is UT Martin near Memphis. Its even larger with 7,559 undergrads, almost all in-state students.

There is a college fair at the mall at the end of the month. A friend of mine and I will drag our high schoolers with us, grab a bazillion brochures and talk to all the admission counselors. We'll see what impresses us there.

I am excited for him to start thinking about college and the next phase of his life, even if it is a bit in the future, he needs to plan for it now so he can be rewarded for all the hard work of high school. There really is a reason WHY his grades are important and to realize that keeping a GPA of 3.75 or higher and doing well on the SAT or ACT means a university like Samford will give him money to go there. Just having a mental picture in his head of sweet freedom (hah) and being his own man, having fun on campus, getting a college degree and maybe having a sizeable scholarship to do so will hopefully stick with him for the next little while of his Junior year, and as he gets ready to start taking those college entrance exams and write those all important essays.

Quality Time

So tonight it's just me and the kids. Mike has a work dinner at Stoney River. Gib and I got caught up on some shows on the DVR together. We thoroughly enjoyed Big Brother followed by an episode of the Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson. He had Julie Chen on, who is the hostess of The Talk and Big Brother. She is also married to the big boss of CBS which was kind of a running joke. We both really like listening to his Scottish accent and how much he cracks himself up, which in turn cracks us up. We can totally relate to that.

Mariah wondered what all the laughing was about. She's not quite old enough to watch that show; it is after all on late at night for a reason... but she was upstairs trying to nap after school today. She came home feeling yucky and was pretty pale so I called it on Volleyball for tonight. We won't be able to go to the game this Saturday anyway because of a Girls Weekend to paint Indy's apartment. She was bummed, but after a bit she rallied.

If she wasn't so disappointed about missing Volleyball, I would have been suspicious. But I guess if you're weak and pale your mouth could technically still work just fine. We talked out on the patio for quite some time. Then we came in and talked to Gib, who got ready to leave to go to Boy Scouts. I'm pretty sure he left a little earlier than planned. Haha. Yeah, buddy, I've seen that trick before. He can claim he was hungry and headed to Wendy's, but we woman may look like we aren't paying attention and are only going blah-blah, blah, blah, blah about nothing in particular, but we see all and know all.

One down, one to go and Mariah kept talking. We couldn't decide what to get for our dinner, so we decided to copy Gib and left for Wendy's too. All the way downstairs, in the car, out of the driveway, down the street, she kept up a constant stream of chatter. I have no idea what she said anymore, but I do know she never stopped talking. I think my amazement showed. I have to admit, I don't mind being the blah-blah, blah-er, but I kinda have a low tolerance for listening to it too. Heh heh. At the corner the conversation went something like this:

Mariah: blah, blah, blah-blah, blah..... am I talking too much?!
Me: yea
Mariah: Oh, I'm sorry. I'll stop.
1.5 seconds later: Ooooh, look!! A Titans fan! Do you see it?! Huh?! Do you?! Look over there. It was on the license plate.
Me: half-smile (I knew she couldn't do it) but slightly surprised she didn't at least make it until the light turned green
Mariah: Oh.
3 seconds later: (hands fly to her face and gasps) I just thought of something I have to tell you!!! I got Stephen to talk in his British Accent the other day!!
Me: Sarcastic look to Mariah
Mariah: blah-blah.. blah, blah, blah, blah, (all about how she got him to do that I think) and then "Oops. OK, I'll stop now".
She picks up her cell phone and starts texting.
Me: Texting IS still talking. Just to someone else with your fingers. It still counts.
Mariah: Guess I can't stop talking....

Blah-Blah, blah, blah, blah-blah, blah.... Haha, I'm just making a little bit of fun of our talkative girl. I assure you it was all QUALITY time. Me and whoever she was texting enjoyed it very much. I think she is feeling much better now. Nothing like Wendy's to perk a girl up.

The Edge of Glory

Our Saturday started off in high gear. Gib is making some progress on writing his proposal for his Eagle project. Mariah has her first Volleyball game. And this evening we are joining some friends for a picnic and to listen to an outdoor Jazz concert.

This morning, Gib met with our contractor for the patio, Skeeter, who graciously volunteered to be an expert consultant on the horseshoe project. Mike reports it was a very productive meeting. Gib thought a nap was in order afterwards, but his dad urged him to write it all up while it was fresh in his mind. Skeeter believes the whole project can be accomplished in 3 Saturdays, including one for clearing the brush. It sounds like he has some contacts in the field who will be willing to lend their assistance in their area of expertise as well, which will prove to be very helpful. It is a big project for Gib, but one step at a time will get the job done. It's overwhelming with so many "but firsts" however, when Gib sees the big picture and gets an idea of where, when and how to get to the end result I think he will take the ball and run with it.

Speaking of running with the ball, or throwing it, or kicking or punting it.... it's NFL season!!! We had our Fantasy Football draft. I decided to go in blind and put absolutely no effort, time or research into my selections. I don't think Coach appreciated my lack of preparation.

As a matter of fact, when I logged in to our draft room, I was so busy trying to figure out how to do everything, that I ignored the smack talk/chat room verbal barrage going on at the bottom of the screen. Had I read it, I don't know if it would have made me pause before my fateful CLICK. But it included information about a certain someone's untouchable pick and when he was going to make that selection. I was the last person in the draft I had 2 turns in a row each time. Well by the time I got there, all the really good RBs were snatched up. So I got the best one I liked that was left, (Ray Rice, Baltimore) frustrated that I would not have a consistent 20 point RB (or two) per game, and thought to myself, in the freakin' minute I had left to analyze my decision, that this would happen to me every single time and I'd end up with a mediocre fantasy team unless I went out of order and didn't go all RB, then WR, then QB.

What to do? I decided to grab the first QB. Now I could have gotten #1 - Rodgers of Green Bay; but as a die-hard Farve fan I'm not ready to root for another Packer QB yet. Maybe next year. And besides there's something about him that annoys me. It's like the year I could have picked Peyton but he annoyed me too so I picked Brady instead. So I look and see Brees of New Orleans and think to myself, he used to be a Charger, he's a Super Bowl QB, he's been working all off season even when there wasn't necessarily going to be a season, there's the underdog factor which I like, and he throws like crazy putting up some points to make up for my less than spectacular RB's. So that took me like 3 seconds of reasoning, and I clicked on his name. All of a sudden I hear Mike choking/laughing next to me, and he goes "I can't believe you just did that!" Gib bursts out laughing "Mom!" and Mariah is laughing and and I'm all WHAT?!

Then it dawns on me, as I see the smack talk screen come ALIVE that I have snagged the untouchable Drew Brees, the QB that "BELONGS" to another fantasy team player who was planning on taking him on his 3rd pick. Ooops. My bad. He was slightly annoyed to say the least so I figured I needed to respond in some manner so he didn't realize it was some Woman Move that ruined his year. So I told him to Bring It. He assures me he will. He took Brady with his next pick.

The rest of my fantasy team has some potential, but really kinda rides the line between OK and greatness. And then there's the Team Chino curse. It would be nice to kick that this year. Most of the time my players have the worst year of their career. As soon as I drop 'em, Mike snatches them up and they start racking up fantasy points again. Case in point: Last year I drafted more logically than emotionally and took Peyton. Look where he is now. Hey, at least we made it thru the season that time. The year before that I think I had Brady, and it might have been he messed up his knee on my watch and I ended up going with my back up QB which was Farve (who true to form hung in there like a champ and delivered on the Fantasy points until Brady was back). Gib laughs and commiserates with all the players who will now tank, be put on injured reserve, eat bad nachos, whatever; unless of course they happen to be on my bench that week and then they get like 45 points... C'mon Man!!! So, I really hope I do decent after making such a bold move early on. There's a bounty on my head.

Gib, Mike and Mariah all built solid teams. They didn't make any bonehead moves like taking Ochocinco because there wasn't alot of choices left and it's fun to say Ochocinco. In retrospect, I probably should have gone with a NO or GB wide receiver instead of NE. You never know who Brady is going to throw to and Mariah took my favorite already - Welker. To show some hometown support I took Hasselback as my back up QB. All I can say is Brees better not go out because The Hass and the Titans are not exactly pegged for a race to the title. Mariah got Chris Johnson. Mike and Gib have multiple leagues. I can't keep track of who they have where. Whatever. If it's not my team, I don't care. If they want airtime they have to blog themselves.

By the way, Brees got me like 35 points in the season opener. I don't care how many points Rodgers got his fantasy owner. Because You-Know-Who with an axe to grind didn't pick him! Mwahaha! I figure there's a chance for a really great trade. Or not. I like living on the edge of glory.

It will be an interesting season after all.

5 Days 6 Doctors

Well, doesn't that sound like fun?! And nobody is even sick, really. Well I guess technically Mariah was, but we didn't know that. Bad mom card pulled.

I got a triple gold star at the dentist for my Monday, Wednesday and Thursday appearances. Oh, and a chuckle for my dentist fetish joke. That's it. After all the money they got and a stellar patient performance for the crown replacement, a cavity filling and a filling adjustment. I think a free teeth whitening or something would have been nice. Maybe a tube of toothpaste, or a free toothbrush to go?! Oh wait, they already gave that to me LAST week when I got my bi-annual cleaning.

Then Mariah and I went to the Allergist that Indy and Mike go to. It was about time! She has those same allergies and the weather here has been sending people over the top with the pollen and stuff. Mariah has been miserable since February and already on steroids twice since then to deal with it. So we were hoping to start allergy shots soon, but the doc said we have to wait for all the pollen to go away with the first frost to test her. Then the shot treatment (aka immuno therapy) can begin. Meanwhile, turns out she was super WHEEZY and breathing all shallow to compensate. That was why I couldn't hear it. When she began breathing like a normal person she sounded like a creaky door. Oh, that was a lovely thing for a mom. We were at that appointment, in a place that rivaled a meat locker for temperature, sharing Mariah's tiny denim jacket, for 2 hours. She got a breathing treatment, 2 inhalers and a nasal spray to try to get a handle on it.

Today I had another doctor appointment and then met Mike and Mariah at her pediatrician. Turns out it was a half-day for school with the long weekend, so Mariah didn't even miss anything and didn't have to go back to school! Mariah had requested an adjustment in her ADD medication so we went to discuss options. Mike left when I arrived. A little warmer there, and dressed in layers anyway, we comfortably discussed the previous days events and breathing treatment. We decided to switch Mariah to a non-stimulant medication called Intuniv. It stays in the system for 24/7 (provided you take it everyday of course) but you can take it at night and the effects (ie increased ability to focus in school and do homework) might prove to be a better fit for her. If it does a better job regarding dry mouth, stomach issues and resting pulse Mariah will be thrilled.

More news of the day: Mariah opened her first savings account with $100 earned from babysitting. She likes to keep a modest amount in her wallet for spending money - enough to buy make up, an outfit or a pair of shoes for example - but wanted to sock the rest away. She and her dad found a local bank which offered a free savings account. When she reaches $250 she will receive a $25 bonus added to her savings from the bank! Pretty sweet. Mariah is also tithing and we are very proud of her choices and maturity. She and I have been babysitting her regular little gal the past couple weeks as baby reached the separation anxiety stage and mom was having a hard time with it too :) We got both talked into using our home and it worked very well last week. It was a much easier night with practically no tears at all. Mariah's arms about fell off, but she is thrilled to be babysitting and for such a cute little gal too!

That's about it. Preschool started. It was a great week!!!! The best start ever. I have to get my preschool legs and energy level back up to speed, but it's like riding a bike, or a trike as the case may be.

So it was really off-putting to me today to see in my email a position that I always said I would apply for if it passed my path. It did, so I did. It took me all day too, which also irritated me. It's at Vanderbilt University in the college admission processing center. We shall see if anything comes of it or not. I don't really want to leave my job at the preschool, but one of the benefits at Vandy is that in 5 years any dependents are eligible for a big chunk of college paid for or even free admission at Vandy if they can get in. That's quite an incentive.

I'll probably need to see another doctor to deal with the stress now.....