Want To Be Even More Proud of Your Own Daughter? Watch Miley Cyrus at the VMA's.

You know it has to be bad when your 17-year-old daughter describes a musical performance by someone only three years her senior as nasty. 

Ren's New Chapter

Thirteen years ago when Ren started kindergarten I hid in the kitchen of the cafeteria at her school to video her first school lunch. 

Friday Night Lights

Just a few random, football-related thoughts tonight...

John-Heath Gets Court-Martialed

Three of the things I love most about my son are his tenacity, strong-willed personality and adventurous spirit.  Three things about my son that drive me absolutely loony bin nuts which cause me grief are his tenacity, strong-willed personality and adventurous spirit. 

If you've followed along with me on this blogging experiment very long you'll recall that my husband, children and I live on my husband's small family farm (I get amused when I see 5 acre tracts of land for sale advertised as "plantation-like", "grand estates", "horse ranches", etc.  I'm sure people in Texas find that equally funny).  Anyway, the 150 acres or so on which we live is far from plantation-like or grand but it is a pretty awesome big back yard.  One sister-n-law keeps a few horses on it.  The other sister-n-law's husband keeps a hangar and a few planes on it.  We have no horses or planes but John and the kids love to go for walks (Ophidiophobe me not so much - "ophidiophobe" is the technical term for someone who would pee their/her/my pants should they/she/I see a snake). Of the farm, we are all quite blessed to have been left with such a gift.

My son, aka Captain Winters or Captain Speirs or "Buck" Compton or "Babe" Heffron or any one of the fantastic men of Easy Company from Band of Brothers he may be portraying at the moment, could name few places he'd rather be than somewhere out on this vast playground.  Many times, like yesterday, he is dressed in his medals-adorned camo and boots and is on patrol - no doubt on the lookout for Nazis.

My son's creative, adventurous, role-playing spirit is often at odds with his somewhat helicopter mother.  One hundred fifty acres is not huge by any stretch of the imagination but can seem massive when I am looking for 65 pounds wrapped in camouflage.

 

After making phone calls which went unanswered and searching high and low, we finally found him on the other side of the farm...a mere fifteen feet or so from the old highway.  Decked out in his army green, he was lying flat on his stomach, Nerf rifle in hand shooting down passing vehicles.

 

And so, because he advanced beyond the approved boundaries and failed to follow the orders of his superior officers (aka his dad and I) he has been court-martialed (aka grounded from playing in his uniform until Saturday).

P.S.  I really wish I had had a camera on me when we first spotted him.  Of course, these times I set out to look for my missing son, taking a camera is far from the first thing on my mind.

John-Heath's Room Update

                                                Remember the blue?
Okay, we're not quite ready for a complete room reveal here but I do have a picture (or two) of the new paint job in John-Heath's room.  As you probably guessed from the paint chips I showed you in a previous post, we're going with a camo theme.  Yep.  Another stolen idea.  One day -one day soon I hope - my little boy (a lover of all things military) will have a room very similar to this - my inspiration.  Mind you, our version of this room has only been about two years in the making.

                                                A new camo pattern

                                    with a splash of color on the chair rail

windows in need of some TLC...bring on the fabric

Now, the only thing left is to have his curtains made and pick out some new furniture.  Bless his heart he asks every time we head out to go shopping, "Are we going to get my new furniture?" Patience, grasshopper, patience.   

Lexie's Luncheon

 

 

This past Saturday, Ren, along with another friend Sydney, hosted a surprise baby luncheon for one of her very best gal pals, Lexie.  These girls have all known each other for what seems like forever.  They've spent many a night at my house over the years and have bookoodles of stories to tell between them (Ren will always remember the night she ruined her favorite pair of Buckle jeans falling in a ditch...while running from a dog...while out trying to roll a friend's house with Lexie).  Shortly, they will all go their separate ways as they head off into life. 

 

Ren, Lexie, Sydney, and Alexis

 

 

"Let me apologize beforehand, Lexie, in case

I stick you with the pin"

 

How many monkeys does it take to pin on a corsage?

 

 

Waiting on some yummy food at

 The Chocolate Covered Strawberry.

 

and cupcakes from Gigi's.

 

 

 Present time

 

The soon-to-be mommy with her mommy

 

 

I was really impressed with what a great job the girls did.  I think Ren probably worried the socks off the people at TCCS calling to confirm the reservations she had made, and reconfirming on one or two other occasions, but I am proud of how responsible she was about it all. 

 

This fun weekend was all about Lexie, though, with the luncheon on Saturday and a shower hosted by family on Sunday.  Come late September the real fun begins, and Ren and I can't wait to meet little Miss Adalynn.

Thanks to The Big Bang Theory...

..I knew what today's Google doodle meant and didn't even need to look it up.

Thank you, Sheldon!

image via Google.

Twenty-Five

Twenty-five years ago on this day, August 6 of the grand and glorious year 1988, my best friend met me at the front of a church (just as I had predicted four years earlier to another friend he would do).  He was in black, I was in white, and that friend to whom I had made my prediction stood on the other side of me with four others wearing peach taffeta.  My apologies, girls.

 

 

 

It has been a rip-roaring quarter of a century (sometimes quite literally) and I can think of no other person with whom I would want to share it.  My better half, my other self, the pater familias of my world. 

Here's to many more years, babe!  I love ya!

School Supplies Giveaway WINNER

 

Drum roll, please...

The winner of our little drawing for a bag of goodies to start this school year is Ms. Jean Carter (Ms. Jean, you can thank John for picking the card on which your name was written).  Give me a day or two and I'll get you your booty.  I know you've bought plenty of these items over the years.  Enjoy the freebies!!!

 

Today, my school system headed back to work...which meant the start of year 28 for John (and his 3rd as an assistant principal) and year 21 for me. 

 

It seems like just yesterday I was standing in the hall at my former elementary school with a few fellow teachers and we were all looking at our TCRS (Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System) statements.  These statements always list the years you've taught, the money you've saved toward retirement, etc.  They also list the year at which you can retire with full benefits (30 years).  I'll never forget what my friend Debbie, a 3rd grade co-worker who only had a few years to go before she was able to retire, said when she saw my statement..."If I had that many years to go I think I'd just shoot myself." 

I guess what they say is true...time flies when you're having fun.  Though there have been many "long days" over the years, it has been an awesome job and I feel blessed to have taught some wonderful students and to have worked with some fabulous people, including Debbie, who passed away this summer from her third courageous battle with cancer.  I was the baby on that team and what I learned from her, Susie and Wanda (plus so many others) cannot be learned from a book or a college class or professional development.  I salute you, one and all.

 

Today, was also the first day of third grade for my little man.  According to what he said just before I took the picture below, cool kids carry their backpacks on just one shoulder.

 

Here's to a cool year for us all!

 

P.S.  This first day back was just a little bittersweet, though.  It is the first year in many I have not been able to take a picture of my Ren on this day.  She didn't mind.  She thought sleeping in was so much better.

"'Twas the Night Before School"

In honor of the new school year upon us, I found this poem at Mostly Bright Ideas and thought you would enjoy it.  I sure thought it was funny.  Me thinketh the man writith the truth. 

" 'Twas the night before school starts, and all through the town,
Not a teacher was sleeping, just thrashing around.
Thoughts of the classroom brought a tear to each eye,
And all of them wished it could still be July.

The students, meanwhile, were doing just fine,
Texting and talking and typing online.
Yet they, too, were longing for more fun and games,
And hoping to hear that their school was in flames.

But the building was ready, the windows were clean,
The desks were now free of the rude and obscene.
The floors were well-polished and the lockers repaired,
All was in order, no effort was spared.

The next day the students will mope and they’ll fuss,
And with backpacks and lunch bags will climb on the bus.
The Welcome back, everyone! announcement will blare,
And the bell for first period will begin the despair.

Hallways will fill with the dazed and perplexed,
For nobody knows where they’re supposed to go next.
As the masses move slowly, lost and encumbered,
They’ll silently curse how the rooms have been numbered.

But sooner or later the classes will start,
Algebra, history, English, and art.
Summer vacation will fade from their minds,
As another semester slowly unwinds.

Within a few days they’ll resume their routine,
The relaxed and the happy will grow grouchy and mean.
Instructors will gripe that the kids are all lazy,
Students will swear that their teachers are crazy.

Quizzes will take the class by surprise,
While films will just teach them to all shut their eyes.
Lectures are met by simple, blank stares,
Tests will result in complaints of “Not fair!”

Assignments and projects and homework forgotten,
Answers unclear and writing that’s rotten.
Pupils will wonder what that book was about,
Exams will be graded, report cards sent out.

And the months will fly by, every one of the ten,
Then suddenly June will return once again,
Causing all parents to feel sad and unsteady,
Shocked that it’s summer vacation already.

So let’s be glad as September approaches,
Our kids are returning to the teachers and coaches.
We say to them now, as their hearts fill with fear,
“Good luck to all, and to all a good year!”

Charles GulottaMostly Bright Ideas

Happy new school year, everyone!!!

Picture via

P.S.  I shamelessly stole both the poem and the picture.  What can I say?  I am a teacher and we are the best at seeing something great and stealing it (to share, of course).

P.S. Let's hope our year goes a little bit better than the one depicted above.

School Supplies Giveaway

Don't forget...our giveaway for some fun school supplies and gift cards will be tonight.  Go here to enter.  A winner will be announced on Monday (my first day back for another school year -YIKES).

Have a great weekend!