My Fuzzy Goose

I was reading my niece's Bobbie's blog this morning and it posed the interesting philosophical question of what can't you live without. I answered somewhat sarcastically. The Cell Phone featured predominantly.

Like most of you, I sleep with my cell phone right next to me. I set my alarms before I go to sleep, text my kids, check my email, fire off another round of Words with Friends, maybe I'll check the weather, the calendar for tomorrow, and if I don't feel connected with the world enough, I will go to a few news sites and get the latest and greatest. In the morning, the alarm goes off and I often have a struggle finding it. Or should I say accessing it. The reason why this happens is because:

A) I might have used it for the handy-dandy flashlight feature in the middle of the night and put it someplace weird like under my pillow and then it got jostled around
B) I checked it for the time, thinking it was about time to wake up and hallelujah! I had another hour of sleep but instead of putting it back I kept it in my hand and when I fell back asleep it ended up somewhere in the bed
C) Chino is sleeping on top of it - his favorite thing to do, or if I didn't feed him he pushed it off the bed so I can't find it at all

I'm telling ya, Chino is like the goose with a golden egg. My cell phone is usually near the edge of the bed, because the charger cord is not very long and I can't get to it fast enough anywhere else (sensory issue: I hate loud alarms when I'm asleep). Chino also likes to lay there, so then he lays ON it and his fluff (polite way of saying FAT) is so fluffy that sometimes that alarm is quite muffled!! Then it goes off for awhile until I'm like "what is that weird noise?" and I realize in my groggy haze that it's my alarm under Chino fur. I wouldn't mind, but he won't move.

The wrestling match ensues. Chino does not want to give up his nice warm spot in the bed on top of my nice warm cell phone. He could care less that it is vibrating and making a loud pinging sonar noise. I tug it by the cord hoping it will slide out from under him. He gives me a warning bite. I have to shove him off the bed. Hey Chino, don't come between me and my iPhone.

I couldn't sleep this morning, so we got up extra early and avoided all that. Now I have to go make lunches for the day. The alarm went off twice already.

Girls Rule

The women in the family have risen to the occasion and in an amazing two-by-two, three city feat, outshined the menfolk in getting our FLU SHOTS! Indie and Taryn got theirs on the same day last week while Mariah and I just returned from getting ours. The gauntlet has been thrown down boys; let's see what you do with it.

Mariah actually stayed home from school today. She went to bed with an irritated stomach that was still with her when she woke up. Not knowing if it was IBS or a virus I decided to play it safe and keep her home. I told her there was still a pneumonia vaccine with her name on it if she needs to stay home again anytime soon. Also Whooping Cough vaccine. And you know just for kicks, I bet we could start in on some of the less common but still useful vaccines such as yellow fever, small pox, etc. You never know when an outbreak might occur and it's always good to survive.

One More

I had to take this one in the dark of Aussie cuddling with Riah. It was so cute. He lifted his head to see what in the world I was doing. So we don't get to see him with his forehead tucked up on her arm. But look at his little paw....

Awwwww!

he's much to cute to be a Toad.

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.