Josh's Birthday

Today is Joshy's birthday. Here are a few things that I love about this kid:

*He is super funny, and he loves to make jokes with me. On the way home in the car he always wants to tell jokes or he wants me to make up funny things to make him laugh.

*He says, "I love you" often. He's done that ever since he was little, and it's always at random times when you aren't expecting it.

*He loves his dad and wants to be just like him. If you ask him if he wants to be a firefighter or pilot or race car driver when he grows up, he always has to check and see if you can do that *and be a dad before he decides. Because first and foremost, he wants to be a dad.

Brittney's birthday

Yesterday was Brittney's 13th birthday. She's such a cool kid. Here are a few things I love about Brittney:

She's freaking hilarious. I love her sense of humor, and she keeps me laughing.

She's smart, she works hard, and she gets good grades. She's taking a pretty heavy load and doing well at it. She's also a great writer, and I love reading her stuff.

She's sweet and generous. She's always been one to share and to give gifts to people and to think of others.

She loves music and movies and can quote awesome movie lines at just the right moments.

Halloween

Halloween was a crazy, busy day. I had to work and then run a bunch of errands. Brittney had a friend birthday party that night. Josh and Lexi were reaching full-on meltdown by the time Sean got them out the door. And then by the end of the night I was sick with a stomach thing. Considering all of that, though, somehow it managed to be a decent night. I didn't get very good pics, though.

Courtney on her way to a Halloween party, dressed as a rocker in an authentic 80's Def Lepard t-shirt. It probably still has the original pot smoke and sweat on it. (FTR, it wasn't my pot smoke or sweat. I was down on the floor in the General Admission, back in the good old days when it was a giant pit of crazy.)



Brittney on her way out trick-or-treating, dressed as a punk rocker. She shredded her jeans and wore hot pink tights under them.


Josh refused to have his picture taken. This was the best I could get. He's a stinker. He was dressed as a sheriff.


Lexi as a teddy bear, crying.


Josh and Lexi's pumpkins


Brittney's Twilight pumpkin


So that was Halloween.

I finally got my Suburban back. I did something last week I've never done before. I drove a mini-van. I told the rental people that I might not bring it back once I saw how good the gas mileage is. They told me that's fine, they'd love to trade me, because they rent Suburbans for $100/day. OK so how do I cash in on that? I loved the gas mileage, and loved how much lower it is to the ground, but I am glad to have my own car back. I missed my seat warmers in the morning, and my stereo is better.

Saturday night Sean and I ditched the kids and went to the drive-in. It was way fun. We saw a couple of really stupid scary movies, but it was fun. It was a nice night for it.

Weight loss tip for those of you who are interested: I got a new scale because mine was having problems, and I lost 5 lbs! Woohoo! Guess the old one wasn't accurate. So just remember... you aren't fatter, your scale is just broken. It's true!

I'm so glad that the election is over so that people (myself included) can stop being annoying and stupid. Thoughts on last night: I really, really loved Obama's victory speech. For the first time in a long time I've really felt hopeful. I felt bad for McCain last night. I feel bad for him because I really liked McCain in 2000. During the 2000 primaries, I wasn't an Al Gore fan, and I definitely didn't like George Bush, so I totally would have voted for McCain over Al Gore if he had made the ballot. I remember liking and admiring McCain, and this man that we saw in this election was not that same McCain. I don't think what we've seen the last few months is who he really is. I thought his concession speech was well done, gracious and classy, and I felt like that was much more who he really is. I do have to wonder, though, if there is a little bit of relief for him in losing. I mean, really, at 72 years old, he had to have looked around at the mess we're in and said, "Damn, I'm glad I'm not the one who has to deal with that." And he can go back to being a senator.

Well, that's the wrap up for the week. Tomorrow night is Survivor. I'm hoping that half the castaways and Jeff all get eaten by a crocodile and that the baby elephant they keep showing wins the game.

Another week gone by...

Time really seems to fly by. I was home with sick kids at the end of last week, so I've got lots of catch-up to do. I graded a two-foot high stack of papers over the weekend and got the scores entered, so that's a good feeling. I'm having such a hard time keeping up this year.

My sister came for a visit, and it was so fun seeing her. Bummer that she had to go back. It was too short.

The deer hunters are home, luckily without a deer. Josh said to me, "Know how many deers we got?" "How many?" "None!" Sounds like they didn't really even see any, which is a bummer for them, but good news for me.

I haven't done my Survivor commentary in quite a while, so just a brief few words: Crystal: annoying and disappointing. I so wanted to see her kick some butt. Randy: I agree with him quite often, but he bugs me with his stupid I-hate-the-world thing. Ace: still only has the accent sometimes. Prat. Still like Bob. Surprised to find that I like Matty. (He had a trust fund that he totally blew through with partying, so I expected to hate him.) Everyone else ranges from eh to meh to haaaatttte.

Well, this week I've got to take my Suburban in for never-ending repairs. They still haven't fixed it right since the accident, but the guys at the shop dismissed our concerns... until State Farm's quality control inspector came and looked at the car and agreed with us. So back in the shop it goes. Josh is seeing a new allergist this week. I don't know what I expect her to tell me at this point, but hopefully she'll shed some new light on things. Brittney is having a birthday party on Halloween. And I've got to read The Secret Life of Bees this week. I'm advising a book club that some of my students wanted to start, and that's the first book they chose, so I've go to get it read before next week. Should be a busy week, but good busy not crazy busy, so can't complain. Off to bed.

Hope

It's hard not to get depressed when I read the newspaper lately. I've been troubled by a lot of things in the paper, on the news, in the debates... this little video lifts my spirits and reminds me there is hope for the future.

I'm off work today and tomorrow. I have a modest list of things to accomplish, but haven't done all of it yet. Partly because I'm being lazy (yay for laziness!)and partly because I just don't do well with unstructured days and small children. I get so easily distracted by "She licked me!" and "I'm hunnnnggggrrryyyyyyy" and "Eww boogers/poop/blood!" We had a 30 minute meltdown over nothing this morning. At some point I've got to get the laundry done, though. Josh is down to his last pair of underwear. I know I'm not supposed to admit things like that, but you all know me anyway, so what's the point pretending.

So I just heard they are remaking the movie Footloose with Zac Effing Effron playing Kevin Bacon's character. Gag. I wonder if they'll Disney-tize it, because I can't imagine Zach Effron doing this scene:



It's impossible to listen to this song without tapping your feet along. Try it. I dare you.



I just went over next door and visited with The Band. Seems they got a new touring van for hauling their instruments to their gigs. It's a delightful little p.o.s. for which they paid $500. It's a constant used car lot over there, but gotta love a group of young, optimistic guys. OK this totally cracked me up. I wanted to laugh, but years of training as a mom and poker player have served me well and I was able to keep a straight face. I was talking to 2 of the guys, and one of them commented about our neighbor's BYU flag that he hangs on his garage on game days. I said, "Oh, are you guys fans?" and they said that indeed they are. Then one of them says, "Yeah, I always wanted to go there, but by the time I got up to college age I had tattoos and I guess I wasn't churchy enough for them. People look at me and are always suprised that I'm Mormon." He says this in all seriousness, with a cigarette in his hand LOL Then the other guy, tattoos up the arms, cigarette in hand, lip ring, long hair with shaved sides... says totally sincerely, "Yeah, people are always surprised that I'm Mormon too. It's just fashion choice, man, it has nothing to do with religion." I like these guys. They crack me up. They have a show coming up in Salt Lake and they promised me VIP passes. Woohoo!

Let's see what I have to ramble on about today.

Lexi has some monster hair after naptime.




Survivor: Yay! It's back on! Boo! I hate almost everyone this season! Well, maybe hate is too strong... Half of them I don't care about, a fourth of them I am cautiously optimistic about, and a fourth of them I hope will get eaten by an alligator. And live! I'm not a monster, after all. Hated Michelle; glad she's gone. Gillian was nice, but too excited about elephant poop (seriously, girl wanted to eat that crap. Ha! Crap!) and too slow in physical challenges. Paloma was OK, but I don't really feel too bad about her going home. Early favorites are Bob, Crystal (started out weak but girl owned that last challenge) Early hate going to GC and Ace of the Fake Accent. The rest I'm ambivalent about at this point. We'll see what happens tonight.

Presidential Debates: Haven't had a chance to watch the VP or 2nd debate yet. It's all more of the same probably, but I'll eventually watch it anyway. The thing I don't get, honestly, is this whole notion that Sarah Palin is a good candidate because "she's just like you and me!" Well guess what... You and me... we aren't qualified to run this country! I like you and me very much, and you and me can hang out and drink margaritas and talk movies and politics and read classic literature and shop for shoes... but you and me have no business being that close to the presidency, especially with the current state of the world. GAH.

Books: I finally finished reading my Kurt Cobain biography, and man, talk about a downer. I normally try to avoid any type of sad movie or sad book. I have the potential to get way too involved with the characters or people, especially when I'm reading, and then I'm depressed for 3 days. I kinda picked this one up on a whim, and then I couldn't put it down even though I wanted to. I dragged my feet finishing it, but I had to. And then it put me into a major funk. Seriously. I hate that. I just couldn't stop thinking about that poor little Frances losing her dad when she was only 2. And it was weird... as I kept mulling over the whole thing in my mind, I could relate to Cobain in some weird way I never thought I would. Anyway... it was a very fascinating story.

Kids: Sick kids over the weekend. Everyone seems to be better now. I've been in the doctor's office way too much over the last month with various kid things. Courtney got her CNA testing finished up, and she was hoping to do an internship with the medical examiner, but the lady at the school told her they don't do that. So she wanted to do one with a midwife. But they don't do that. She wanted to get a job at a nursing home, but they don't hire 16 yo's. She's wondering why she spent her summer going to school since now she can't do any of the things she wanted to do with it. I feel bad for her. We'll see how it all pans out.

Sean: So I told Sean I was tired of the truck in my garage. So what did he do? He pushed it out into the driveway, all proud of himself that he got it out of the garage for me. It had no doors. No bumpers. No. freaking. hood! Just the big stupid engine all exposed, with all the metal frame removed. I felt like I needed to go around personally and apologize to all the neighbors. Finally I threatened to move out if he didn't put it back into the garage, so he did.

That's about it for here. Not looking forward to snow this weekend.