If Only

So we found a Volvo, not quite as inexpensive as some of the others we've looked at in person and online, but it's waaay nicer too. This one is at the Volvo dealership which is worth a little more to me because they check the vehicle a little more thoroughly. It's at the tippy top of our price range so it all depends on the news we receive today on the interest rates. We have to keep in mind that Indy may be taking over payments at some point in the future and because it's an '02 you have to go with a 36 month loan, possibly a 48 if Volvo can come through with something. If we get it, we're putting Indy on the loan as well so she can start building good credit. Indy and Taryn had to swing by and exchange cars with us so Taryn could go to soccer and they got to see it. They liked the looks of it - Indy was glad it didn't have "grandma tires" like some of the others we were looking at online did...so think happy Volvo thoughts today!

Oh, and that rescheduled soccer game that T got to play in?! She took a real bruiser of an elbow in the ribs from a giant that normally would've knocked her flat, but she managed to stay on her feet and went on to score a goal! And she just missed scoring another one by only 2 inches. Her team won. Go T!!!!!

The Weekend

On Friday night I was up at church for enrichment night. A lurking migraine that I was trying to push off until I got home erupted full force and I had to bail before it ended. I went straight for the big guns and did the nasal spray while I was driving home, but I had waited a tad too long and it had a good grip on me. I was annoyed with myself because I realized I hadn't eaten lunch or dinner, and with a storm coming in the next day, that was the clincher. By the time you figure it out, there's no way you can eat because you're about to hurl. Mariah saw me briefly when I walked through the laundry room and straight to my bed and my last conscious thought was "I wonder if Mike even knows I'm home. Maybe I text him...ugh, he'll figure it out". I don't know when it was that he did, he said something to me. I woke up at midnite and he was on the couch so as not to make the waterbed slosh which has disastrous results. Since the worst had passed, it was safe for him to come to bed. Whew!

On Saturday, we had to get up early. Gib was going to try to go hiking - everyone was to carry 10 lbs and we were weighing his textbooks to see how much they weighed. It had rained and was really wet out there, but c'mon, they're Boy Scouts! This ain't Baseball - there aren't rain-outs! They left at 6:30 a.m. and returned at 7:15 a.m. because nobody else showed up at the Barn to go hiking. I guess it rained out after all. Wimps.

Taryn had to get up early for her ACT practice test, but at least her soccer game was cancelled! Yay! That's two so far that she'll get to play in that she would have missed. And I had an all day workshop to attend with 4 other ladies from my preschool. We were meeting to carpool there at 7:30 a.m. That was a bit brutal. But I made it. Once I got some enhanced Crystal Light in me and managed to choke down a power bar, I knew I was going to be okay. I think the Topamax is doing its job, because that migraine was a Mega but I only took the nasal spray and a Clint Cocktail in the morning to knock it out. That's about 3 or 4 fewer doses less than previous Mega's would have taken. The workshop was half good and half c'mon people I got up early for this?!

Indy didn't have to get up early, but she did work...ALL DAY! The restaurant parking lot was totally filled when I drove by on my way home. She served the lunch shift, and then was asked to stay on as a hostess because they had been on a wait all day and I think somebody had to go home and they needed someone really good at seating folks and managing the flow of customers. Indy had 3 rooms that she was in charge of while the other hosts had one, maybe two. I don't remember exactly when she got home, but it was after 9 pm. In all that time, she had one 10 minute break.

By afternoon we were in a Tornado Watch. By the time I got home we were in a Tornado Warning. Remember my motto: Bigger Word Bigger Problem! Mariah and I got the cats in, but forgot to lock the kitty door, and Pixie went right back out. We worked and worked to talk Pixie out from under the deck as giant thunderheads rolled in, ranging from white to gray to black. I could see a wall cloud off to the west with fingertip clouds coming down from it and hoped that was the storm line that news was saying had the rotation in it. But nevertheless, just as I was going to call it and let Pixie fend for herself, she came out. We had a little talk on the deck while I was pretending I didn't want to scoop her up and then I scooped her up! It wasn't even raining yet, but it didn't take long for the rain to hit followed by a nice Spring thunderstorm.

Then Mariah and I got the tornado closet cleaned out. It was dubbed The Closet Of No Return when we moved in because everything got dumped in it until we decided where it would go, and sometimes it seemed like once it went in there it was never seen again. It is a nice sized long skinny closet under the stairs that if you really needed to, say in a tornado, you could get 6 people in it. If everyone is here, and we can't all fit in the tornado closet, we can also go into the half bath right across the hall. Mostly you want to be in a small enclosed space, in the interior of your home without any windows. It'd be great if we could get into the Man Cave without going outside because that would be the absolute safest; and I would under two conditions: 1) my head was about to explode - a sure sign the pressure is jumping and there is imminent danger and 2) the storm report spots one on the ground and says hey, it's headed straight for you! My head was fine, so we just prepared the tornado closet so it would be ready for Spring! By the time we got it all cleaned out the warning was over. Now we are prepared for the next one, and we won't need 20 minutes to get inside the closet!

Mariah wanted me to share some photos from her camera she got for her b-day. This is her first Volleyball game from two Saturday's ago. She had one last Saturday too. I didn't get to go, but she says they won. It was a bit of a struggle and the coach wasn't happy that people didn't arrive 20 minutes early for warm-ups. I thought for sure with my early-bird hubbie that Mariah was one of the 3 who made it, but she said Nope. What?! Did everyone go back to bed?!?! .

The first point for us

The first huddle of the season

The end of the first game

We had a few daffodils in the yard for Emily's birthday

The cats helped me pick them

It's a Two-fer

So, while I was incommunicado those past couple weeks, a couple really nice things happened that I wanted to share. One was that our niece Mickie visited Emily's grave for us last week which meant the world to me. She sent a photo and everything. Emily would have been 12 this year. So sweet of her to do that for us, especially considering she is expecting a baby! You don't see that kind of selfless giving very often. It's always a bittersweet time for me and the world goes on but for me it's like moving through mud in slow motion. It really brightened the week for me, so thanks Mickie!

Another nice thing that happened last week was when Fred did something really sweet for me. I was getting my hair cut, so I wore my new red shoes I found in Florida the day before Fred's wedding because I knew Lori would flip over them. My hairdresser was chatting away and then she spotted them and froze, then she goes, "where did you get those?". So I smiled and announced, "Florida!". She would have ripped them off my feet and made me leave with a nice hairdo and barefoot, but luckily for me she wears a size 10. (wow, that's a big foot, huh?!). So, anyway, she was so enamored of my red shoes, and I was too, that I decided to call the store where I bought them and see if she could order them over the phone and have them shipped. They said NO. So I asked if they would hold them because their price was about $20 cheaper than anything online and then I called & emailed Fred and asked if he would go get them and mail them to me. He did - what a sweet guy! Of course he played golf first, but we forgive him for that. When I called Lori over the next couple days, she never said hello, she just answered the phone going, "do you find my shoes?" & "did Fred go get my shoes?" and "are you coming over with my shoes?". It was really funny. But, Lori and I just LOVE Fred and our red shoes! By the way, the dentist did too, but I told her there was only room for two pairs of these red shoes in my town.

Doing Our Thing

Well, you know it's bad when one of your lurkers calls you on the phone and wonders why there hasn't been a blog in nearly 2 weeks! I had to point out that the title of the blog isn't Ringo's Wife but Ringo's World and he called the wrong number and should be talking to his son!!! Good thing his son was right there to hear that! That was funny - thanks for lighting a fire under Mike...you'll never know when it might take! And you know what, I'm surprised Mike hasn't blogged to tell you all about his great night of poker and his lucky new poker table! It's very nice and he didn't even have to pay for it in the end - as a matter of fact, I even got $60! Yep, it was another work guys poker night at our house and Mike won! Gib was thrilled he got to play too even though his dad took him out. The next night Mike took me out....to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory.

Here's one of Gib's paintings from his 8th grade Art class. His first ever. He did pretty good, dontcha think?!

Taryn has been hard at work on the ACT prep class and is taking the final class & practice test this weekend. The following Saturday she takes the ACT test for real and then she takes it again for real in school on 4/22. I sure hope she has been as diligently studying as I have been diligently nagging. It sure is alot of hardwork...for both of us! We've started the college search process and I've already logged in several hours this week alone in that endeavor.

Mariah sadly experienced some bullying at school. It makes me see red and I feel so bad for her. She did get to see the fearsome Mama Bear emerge though. That's always a sight to behold. Well, she knows she's loved and her family is in her corner and nobody wants to mess with her mama! I am actually looking forward to Mariah getting into middle school because the drama level goes down when it's not one group of 20+ all day and everyone changes classes each period.

Indy is now serving all the time when she works and not hostessing at all anymore. She was kind of bummed at first because she liked doing both, but now she likes it. One cool leftover from being a "slash" employee for so long - when she was a runner the other night her base pay was as a hostess instead of the measly server wage! She is starting to really rock the serving job too and her tips are getting better and better. Indy is always in the top rankings and last night came home with the news that she moved up from her previous highest ranking at #4 to #2 of all the servers there for last month!

I have started another search for a 2002-2006 Volvo. I actually found the perfect vehicle on my first day of going "hmmmm, I think I will look to see if there's a cheap Volvo out there" but it happened so fast that we wanted to think on it overnight and lost out. Oh well, we're in no hurry. It'll happen if it's meant to be. The van has really kinda had it. Mike thinks one more repair before we send it to the gallows, but even then, we've got a bit of a conundrum here between cars and drivers, and cars that our drivers can actually drive. So the plan is that if we can find a Volvo cheap enough it will make the summer soooo much easier and then when Indy is ready she can take over the remaining loan if she wants it. Or Taryn can do the same when she goes off to college and if Indy takes that Volvo, we'll hunt up another pre-owned cheapie for Taryn. Then we'll be back at the drawing board for Gib. We might still try one more time on the van so we have it as a backup vehicle, but it will never go far. That last family trip to St. Augustine was its final hurrah.

Girls Weekend

It's an all girl weekend here! Mike and Gib are working on the Nuclear Science merit badge at Oak Ridge Nuclear Power Plant and then camping at the Lost Sea Caverns. It sounds like a fun trip. I heard something about how they get to camp inside the caverns and there's a lake in there they take a boat across and everything. Pretty cool.

Meanwhile, we ladies are just hanging out at the house. It's a cold, gray, rainy weekend. I would have been happy to sleep in, and then just stay in front of my heater the entire day but Taryn had to get up early for the ACT prep class, and Mariah and I had some prep work of our own to do to fill an assignment she was given from her Girl Scout leader. Mariah is in charge of organizing a donation drive for our local animal shelter. She's left a message with them to call her back, emailed, and will check back with a carpet store on Monday to see if they have any carpet squares to donate. Then she will put a together the list of supply items the shelter needs and pass it along to the leader to give out to the troop on Tuesday. She was so excited about the project that we just had to go to the pet store and buy squeaky Kong dog toys, a giant fuzzy football with arms and legs, and even squeakier tennis balls. We got Chino's favorite Cosmic catnip burlap bag toy, 2 of Pixie's favorite catnip dynamite, and 2 feathered catnip mice from our cats to donate to the shelter. We also got the kind of cat litter that the shelter uses.

This evening Mariah made sure we celebrated Pi Day by making Chocolate pudding pie and two Loganberry/Blueberry pies. I'm taking one to Jo Ann tomorrow. Brace yourself girlfriend, because they look goooooood!!!!

Just Because

I simply have to put up a blog today:

• just because I can't stand to look at Mike's Elephant Man Face in the one from yesterday!

• just because I gotta tell you about a Minor Miracle! I am NO LONGER drinking diet coke! I know!!!! I gave it up for Lent, and quite possibly beyond. I am not completely caffeine free however, as I discovered Crystal Light comes enhanced. I have several boxes of varying degrees of caffeine from Zero to Holy Smack!!! I do cut off the good stuff at 3pm though in case you were wondering.

• just because it's better than playing on Webkinz. I had to do a little (ahem) research and am having a hard time not going back to check on my little furry friends to make sure they are still smiling. They had been sorely neglected and were all sad and hungry when I found them. It was pitiful and the mommy in me just couldn't stand it! I played games for an undisclosed amount of time to earn the Kinzcash to feed the poor babies. You see, my preschool is having a silent auction fundraiser and we teachers were encouraged to donate "teacher time" that could be up for bids. For example, a teacher will be bringing cookies & milk and reading a bedtime story to the winning bid family. I am doing a day called Webkinz Camp from 10 am to 2 pm for 15 kids. Two other teachers are helping me. It will be like Mariah's birthday party last year only for 4-6 yr olds. The fundraiser committee decided to sell my donation at $50 a head! I would have charged less; I sure hope all 15 spots get filled! It will be alot of fun.

Mike's Dentist Adventure

Wondering why only half of his face works? Here's the story:
It's hard to tell in the video, but trust me, if you look closely you can see one side of his face is incapable of movement. Very disturbing.