I'm track meet-ing in my sleep

So, we were at a middle school track meet last night, a high school one at the same place tonight, another one is scheduled on Thursday night and next week there are 2 more and a middle school concert.  And to think this winter we were wandering around with nothing to do.  We're also going to Milwaukee for the weekend this weekend and we've got a wedding next weekend.  Looks like the summer rush has already begun.  Fortunately, the beautiful weather has also arrived, so sitting at track meets isn't as arduous as it has been so far this spring.  It's not much fun cheering the kids on when you're bundled up in winter coats and mittens - especially when the kids all have to run in those skimpy little track uniforms, so then I feel guilty that I'm whining about the cold when the kids are wearing about 1/4 the amount of clothes that I am.

Angel #4 got a second place in the discus last night, that has quickly become her favorite event and I think she's going to talk to one of the high school girls who is really good to see if she can help her out a bit since the middle school coaches don't have much time or experience to help the field event kids, most of the focus is on track at that age.

Lastly, what is it with all the press being given to athletes 'coming out'?  It amazes me that how people prefer to have sex has any relevance in anyone's lives but the participating parties.  Why does this make the news?  I don't care if some football player plays for the other team, so to speak, and I can't see how anyone else would care either.  That goes for anyone, actually, if you want to be gay, go right ahead and have a good time, but why do I need to know and/or care about it?  I don't tell them how I prefer to have sex, so why do they feel the need to tell everyone?  Keep it in the bedroom people.

we opened windows today!!

We had our first open window day today.  Yay!  Hubs and I went for a walk and it got so warm we stripped down to tee-shirts.  Finally nice weather.  It was beautiful yesterday as well, but rather than be home with the windows open, I was coerced into going to the mall with Angel #4 to get her 8th grade graduation dress and a dress for a wedding we've got coming up in 2 weeks.  It was nice having an afternoon with just the two of us - as a special treat we did all you can each Chinese, I prefer to think of it as my reward for voluntarily taking her to the mall end finding dresses for each occasion.  I also had a minor mom victory when both the dresses she ended up getting were ones that I'd picked out for her to try on.  Also at the mall were dozens of prom kids.  Apparently, the thing is to go wander the mall before going to prom.  I guess it's one way to show your dress of to as many people as possible.

My house is also a disaster area.  Hubs put up the final sheet of drywall and has been mudding and sanding my kitchen ceiling.  The original ceiling had been taken out and never replaced by the people who lived here before us, so we've been living with a partially finished kitchen ceiling since we moved in.  It was decided that this was one project that was going to get done before summer if it killed us.  There's one more coat of mud to  put on yet, then one more round of sanding, then I can finally finish painting the kitchen and it'll look a little bit more like a room where you'd be willing to eat the food prepared there.  But first, I've got tons and tons of drywall dust to clean up.  It's all over the house and covering everything, in spite of the fact that we hung plastic sheeting over all the doorways in the kitchen before hubs did the sanding.  It sifted through cracks and crevices and is everywhere.  We've done minor cleaning up, but it doesn't pay to work too hard at clean-up until the sanding is completely done.  I can't wait.  I've decided to paint the ceiling the same lime green color as the walls in the dining room, with the melon colored cabinets and turquoise blue walls, it's going to look spectacular.  Then the next step....replacing the cracked linoleum flooring, then that kitchen will be a freakin' showplace, people.

another butt freezing

Last night was ANOTHER track meet, but this time it was for Angel #4.  Fortunately for us, she does mostly field events and only one running, which is one of the early events, so we could boogie out early and didn't have to stay for the whole thing like we do with WE.  He's in the 4x4 relay, which is always the very last event at any track meet.  #4 didn't do real great at her running event, but that's understandable, she's not a runner and isn't built like a runner.  She was right in line with the other girls in the shot put and didn't do real great in the long jump, but I think that has more to do with the cold weather.  At the middle school level, the kids don't do much to warm up before events and don't even take off their sweats to do their events if it's too cold outside.  But then, #4 did the discus and pretty much sent the competition home packing with their heads hung low.  She took a first place with the 2nd place winner throwing a full 3 feet shorter than #4's throw.  At 57 feet, it also beat #4's previous best by about 10 feet.  I think the discus just might be her event.

Hubs did awesome at open mike night at the comedy club.  He was one of 16 participants and I think he was the funniest of the lot.  Of course, I might be just the teeniest bit prejudice.  He got pretty steady laughs and only bombed on his very last joke, but that may have been more because of the delivery than the joke itself.  He's going to give it another try next Monday night.

Sunday, Angel #4 lost her cell phone.  We've searched high and low and cant' figure out what happened to it.  So she's been using my phone for texting.  The other day we were on her case over her excessive texts and told her she's going to have to start paying for them.  She claims there's no way she could have made over 6000 texts last month.  Well, I checked out my phone yesterday.  In 1 day, she had one conversation with a boy that consisted of 71 texts - 65 of those texts said, I miss U  do U miss me  I miss U 2  or some variation of that.  Really?  How much can you possibly miss someone you've just spent the entire day at school with?  And yeah, 6000 texts per month doesn't seem that impossible anymore, does it?

just thawed out

Thanks for the birthday wishes.  I love my birthday and I can't understand those who hate getting older.  I just think of each birthday and each year older as a massive accomplishment.  It's like, "hey, I'm 45 years old!  That means I didn't die at at 44. Yay me!"

So, Tuesday, I froze to death at WE's track meet.  It's the last half of April, you'd think we'd get a few days that didn't require full-on winter wear.  The temps were in the mid-40's, which isn't that bad, but it was windy as well and we were all bundled up in hats, gloves, winter coats etc.  Right after the meet I went home and stood in a hot shower until I felt human again.  The same thing happened Saturday, except this was an Invitational, so it lasted most of the day.  I was rooked into volunteering at the concession stand, so I showed up around 10am and got home around 3.  Once again, I was all bundled up, though it was a few degrees warmer standing inside the concessions than it was out in the open, but you can't see the races real well from inside the stand.  I did get out to watch WE race and he did rather well.  He got 3rd place medals in the long jump, 4x4 and 4x2 relays.  He also got a 6th place in the 200 meter dash, which was pretty good since there were over 20 kids running in that race.  He also PR'd (personal record) in the long jump with a 17'3/4" jump, not his best ever(17'9"), but pretty good, especially since I'm sure his muscles were cold and stiff because of the weather.

Yesterday, we were invited to a friend's for dinner and had a great time.  Back in the day we spent a lot of time with them, but now we live 70 miles apart, so it's not quite so easy to hang out anymore.  Angel #1 and their youngest daughter are the same age and essentially grew up together, so we've decided that we need to get the 2 of them together so we'll have more of an excuse to make the trip to hang out together in the future.  After we left their house, we stopped by my little brother's house.  We don't see him real often either - actually, I don't think I've seen him all winter, so it was nice catching up with him as well.  It was his little girl's 7th birthday party yesterday, so he was still trying to unwind from that chaos while my niece convinced Angel #4 to play with her new Barbie cruise ship with her.

Tonight, hubs is trying something new.  He's going to open mike night at a comedy club and give stand-up comedy a try.  I'm going to go along sit in the audience and laugh at all the appropriate places to help him out.  Should be interesting.

busy weekend

Friday was grandparents day at school.  Normally, this wouldn't affect me since I'm not a grandparent and not planning on being one for a long long time.  But, you've gotta feed all those grandpas, and that's where the lunch ladies come in.  We served pizza, which is easy to make, but creates a whole lotta dirty pans, and someone's got to scrub them.  That someone was me.  Even though I was wearing 2 pair of latex gloves, I scrubbed through the fingertips of the ones on my right hand and didn't notice until I had also scrubbed away the fingernail of my index finger so short it almost started to bleed.  It still hurts now, 3 days later.

Friday was also my birthday (YAY!!).  Hubs and I went with WE's girlfriend's parents to a comedy/hypnotist show.  We could have lived without the comedians, but the hypnotist was incredible.  It's amazing how deep some people go into hypnotism.  It wouldn't work on some people, but others really got into it, some so far that when the hypnotist said they were lying on a hot beach, he had to stop a few from taking their shirts off.  It was pretty funny and we had a lot of fun.

Saturday we went to a bridal shower for our dear, sweet friend Sarah.  We are so happy for her and Brian and can't wait for the wedding next month.  Angels #1 & 2 are both going to try to make it up for the big event. I hope it works out, it would be nice to have all my babies home at the same time, I haven't had that since last July and who knows when it will happen again.  Angel #1 said he may not get pre-deployment leave this summer before he ships out in August, so this might be it.  Also getting Angel #2 home is challenging, she's been putting a lot of hours in at work and has made a pretty busy life for herself down in Texas.  My babies are all getting so grown  up!

Yesterday we were busy with church stuff all day and now today, it's back to the daily grind.  We've finally got a decent-looking day though.  Sunny and low 50's, after a solid week of cold and rain/snow, I'll take 50 and sunshine. It looks like this is a short reprieve and the rain and crud will be back again, I just hope it holds off until Wednesday, WE has a track meet tomorrow and it would be nice to sit though it in decent weather.

We'd better have some pretty stinkin awesome May flowers, is all I can say

What is with this weather?  Rain rain rain, slop, mud, more slop, and then yesterday?  Ice storm!  Tree branches went down, our power went out, it was ridiculous.  Things aren't supposed to get nice any time soon.

Hubs and I got our taxes all signed and paid for this afternoon, it's nice we got that done.  Though, it just burns my butt that we've got to fork over $800+ to get something done that we're required to do by a government that takes no responsibility for its own actions.  At least this  year we're getting money back, it would really suck if we had to pay that kind of money only to find out we have to pay more money so the government can take it and screw it away.  That's happened before and it's no fun. Our accountant, who's also a friend, looks pretty exhausted and I think he'll be pretty happy when April 15 rolls around and his life can get back to some semblance of normalcy.

The local paper had a picture gallery of 86 pictures posted online of the prom.  About 10 of those pictures featured WE, most of which were of him dancing on the stage by himself.  A few were of him  dancing a slow dance with his besty while their girlfriends looked on.  *sigh* and he's embarrassed to be seen with US???  At least he had a fun time.

??

From Angel #2's Facebook:

 "It was like dance except it was pudding. Except it wasn't pudding because it was poop."

I'm sad to say, that is a direct quote from a conversation we had yesterday.   I think we both need therapy.

Rules, rules, everywhere are rules

I spent 3 hours today listening to DPI (aka government) workers run over the USDA guidelines for school lunches.  It was nuts.  It's nice to have a few guidelines, but this goes beyond mere guidelines.  Every time the government starts to "improve" something you can be sure that it's going to be an effed up nightmare in the making.  This is going to be SOOOO fun.

Then, since my brain was already fried, when I got home, I decided to call the bank and deal with an issue we have with them that we'd already spent half an hour on the phone and went to the bank personally trying to rectify.  We thought it was taken care of, but it obviously wasn't since the same charge was on our newest statement.  The women I talked to on the phone tonight said that it wasn't   something she could take care of on the phone and we'd have to come into the bank personally.  Sorry, Bank of Hawaii, we'd already done that once and took care of the problem and there was no way it was going to happen again and I told her so.  I informed her it was going to be dropped and she was going to drop it now and we weren't ever going to see that charge again.  Amazingly enough, even though 3 minutes earlier she said it couldn't be done over the phone, she managed to do it.  For a bank that had already been sued by their customers just 2 years ago (and had to fork over a buttload of $, which the lawyers all got), you'd think they'd be a little more customer friendly.  I guess they're very slow learners over at BOH.

The Proma is finally over for WE.  It all went off without a hitch on Saturday night and he's thrilled he doesn't have to deal with it anymore - until Homecoming when it starts all over again.

 

Angel #4 complains that I don't write enough about her - I told her she has to do something interesting and I will.  Well, she obliged on Friday afternoon.  I got a text from her saying she was 'going to go die now'.  I asked what happened and she said I should just ask her brother.  So the next time I saw WE, I asked him what happened to #4.  He stopped and thought for a moment, then burst out laughing.  Apparently, to get their buddy's riled up, boys go and flirt with their friends sisters.  The whole boy's track team was outside getting ready for practice when Angel #4 walked by.  WE's buddy called out her name and ran over for a hug.  Angel #4 went running in his direction, slipped and fell on her butt in a mud puddle.  I told her that if she wanted to do something embarrassing in front of the whole boy's track team, she couldn't have picked a better time.  After school on the Friday before Prom is perfect, by the time everyone gets back to school, they're going to have much more interesting things to discuss than some poor 8th grader who plopped on her butt in a mud puddle.  She survived with nothing more than a little wounded pride.

supper shouldn't go boom

Last night, Angel #4 asked me what was for supper and I said "nothing, it just exploded."  Her only response was, "oh".  Does that say something about my cooking skills that it doesn't surprise my kids when I explode supper?  

So this is what happened.  I don't have a roaster pan, so when I make a roast chicken or turkey, I just put it in my 9x13 glass cake pan.  Last night I was roasting a half chicken, I went to check on it and noticed that it was getting a little dry in the pan. I put some water in a cup and was adding it to the pan when BOOM!!  The pan shattered into thousands of pieces.  The water I added must not have been hot enough and its coolness broke the glass.  And I'm telling you, it exploded. There was glass all over the oven, not a piece bigger than a quarter and the chicken sitting there directly on the oven rack.  It didn't take long for this to appear on facebook: I'm making ramen because mommy exploded dinner. There are no secrets with facebook.  Mission tonight:  buy new cake pan

oh deer, that's a lot of critters

I think we're running a whitetail all you can eat buffet out behind the house.  It started out with about 3 deer munching away in the field.  They must have told their friends, who told their friends, who told theirs, etc etc.  Every night we've got more deer out there and last night I counted 23.  What are the odds that they're going to stick around and be such easy targets in November during hunting season?  I sure could use some venison in the pantry.

The birds are all coming back as well.  I saw the first robins last week and the Canadian geese are honking their little hearts out.  I was at the window yesterday and heard a weird noise, it took me awhile to figure out that it was birds singing outside.  It's been a lloooonnggg  winter.  If we're lucky, maybe one of these days the snow will finally all be gone as well. We can only hope.  I think I'm going to start some tomato plants this week.  I've never been able to start plants inside, but I keep on trying.  Maybe one of these years I'll get it right.

WE's girlfriend and her family are back from vacation.  It's nice having only one dog in the house again. This place just isn't big enough for 2 big full-grown mutts.