Spring Cleaning...a bit late

Today I had no intention of digging through papers in various rooms in my house. But apparently my circumstances had a different plan. So far I have not come across exactly what I am looking for and it is quite an important document that I cannot believe I have misplaced. The last time I remember seeing it was about a year ago, so there's no telling where I set it down since I obviously did not put it back where it belongs. The thing is, in my heart I wish to be organized. Very, very organized. And in my classroom, I am. However, I (pretend) that I don't have the time to become that organized at home. I may appear organized at times and there was a time at which I had a "control journal" from Fly Lady which helped me keep the house clean for about 3 weeks until I said forget it! And a time after I went to hear a professional organizer speak at a PTL meeting when I got our shoes under control and for the most part, most important and necessary school items. I even used her idea for collecting school papers and artwork...unfortunately I didn't keep up with it and it turned into a huge pile of papers and artwork in my closet. I went through some of it today and threw away two and a half garbage bags full of schoolwork. And that was pretty much just first grade. I found that I put all of the Kindergarten paperwork in the under the bed storage without sorting it last summer. Ugh. Sadly, after going through multiple files and piles, I still haven't found that ever important document that I need. And now I'm going to have to admit to my husband that I can't find it. Yes, I can get a replacement but it's going to take time and I think I really need it TODAY. So no, there's really not spring cleaning going on in my house...it's more like a frantic search which is making me very frustrated.

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Trick or Treat!

Well, the treat is that you get to see an adorable black kitty cat and one silly Commander Cody (from Star Wars, the Clone Wars - I was corrected tonight when I told someone he was from Star Wars) who wouldn't wear his mask. We had trouble getting pictures of both of them together and the family picture turned out okay but I wish we had a little more of Katie's face. Oh well! Commander Cody was not cooperating at that point.

Katie, Sam, Gavin & Kyle

Katie ready to go (the one minute she wore her cat eyes)

Derek & Katie

The whole family

Playing with her glowing jewelry

The spooky pumpkin Miss Amy and I carved - level 3, master!

Now for your trick. Not really a trick, but just to let you know that it is time to bid you adieu, say farewell, close our doors. Rude Manor will be leaving the blogosphere very soon. It's been great sharing our lives with you for the past year and a half, but it's time to move on. Farewell!

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Little Tiger

Just wanted to get a few quick soccer pictures up here. If he was doing this the whole game it'd be a lot more exciting!

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Time Flies

The past two weeks have flown by. I guess that's a good thing, but my house disagrees. Although I did get it picked up for the most part today...there are still piles of laundry waiting to be folded and a floor that should be vacuumed, but I settled for sweeping the obvious dirt away.

So the diet. Hmm. I kind of took a break without meaning to. Last week's weigh-in I had gained .6lbs. Not a big deal. This week's weigh-in, I had lost a pound, so I'm down 15.4lbs from where I started. And I haven't really gotten back to it. I have a goal of losing another 15 pounds...or at least 10. But my heart isn't there right now. I did have to buy a new pair of pants for work last Saturday and when I put them on for work on Thursday, they were already too big. So I am still seeing results, just not on the scale. My plan is to start again tomorrow. I'd say right now, but it's just not realistic with plans to go out tonight.

Work is good. The school part of work is starting to calm down a bit. The kids are finally starting to "get it" so it's not quite as stressful as it had been. I have one child who tests me on a daily basis, but I knew that was coming when I agreed to take the class. And the school office job is great too. I enjoy seeing tangible results each day, being able to check things off as I finish them. I also enjoy being around the kids and not having to be in charge of them. All in all I have a good balance right now.

Other news - Katie finally lost her tooth last week. If you remember it first wiggled the night before school started and she hung on that thing for 49 days. Oh the trauma! And Kyle seems to be finally getting the idea that he has to stay on the field for the soccer game. He has moments where he really gets into it and goes after the ball and then the other 75% of the time he is wandering aimlessly or playing in the goal or chasing his friend Gavin. But he did stay on the field today.

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Scrwles

I just came over to my laptop to check email, look at Facebook, etc. And the page loaded on Internet Explorer says, "Sorry, Page not found." Right before we left for dinner tonight Katie and I had been talking about her upcoming presentation at school and she said to me, "I knew it, I knew there'd be a squirrels.com!" And I was thinking, probably and I'm a bit curious to know what is on there. And a bit nervous that she walked over and typed that in. But as you can see by the title of my post, she actually typed in "www.scrwles.com". So glad that squirrels hasn't been on the spelling test yet!

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Too Good Not to Share

Last week I posted a little about some cookies that I had baked - pumpkin spice blossoms - and how they were great the 1st day and then quite gooey the 2nd day. I found the remedy and I wanted to share this easy recipe. First you need to find the Limited Edition Pumpkin Spice Hershey Kisses. I found them at Target.

Pumpkin Spice Blossoms recipe courtesy of Picky Palate Go there and look at them - if my camera were working a little better I would have taken a picture myself. They are so yummy! But come back and read my notes below...

1 Spice Cake Mix 18.25oz
14 oz can Pumpkin
1/2 cup sanding sugar
1 bag Hershey's Pumpkin Spice Kisses

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Beat the cake mix and pumpkin until well combined. With a cookie scoop, scoop dough and roll in sanding sugar (dough is sticky) then place on parchment or silpat lined baking sheet. Bake for 11-13 minutes, or until cooked through. Quickly transfer to a cooling rack and immediately press kisses into the center of each cookie. Place the cooling rack into the refrigerator for about 15 minutes so the kisses don't melt.

About 36 cookies

My notes:
1. I used granulated sugar since I did not have sanding sugar on hand.
2. I did not use parchment or silpat, just an ungreased cookie sheet.
3. I baked them for 15 minutes.
4. I left the cooling rack in the refrigerator and the cookies are still delicious a day later! Last time I left them at room temperature and that's why they became all gooey.
5. I accidentally used a 15oz can of pumpkin which could also be why they were too gooey last time.

Yum, yum, yum! Now if I could just find a gluten-free spice cake mix so Kyle can have some too!

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Weekly Weigh-In

It's that time again! And oddly enough, I am starting to look forward to these posts! I went to see my nutritionist today and I'm happy to report that I'm done another 3.4lbs. I've lost 15.8lbs since September 9th. Hooray!

And...I ate gumbo (without the rice), sausage, and chocolate cake this week. As well as beef fajita meat (no tortilla), and chips and queso. Oh and did I mention the Reese's that I had to have a few days ago? Yes, I cheated AGAIN, but it's all been small little tastes here and there. Well, not the fajitas, but I have figured out that I can just have a small bite.

I'm almost halfway to my goal...so my goal this week is to reach that halfway point. Oh and probably should start exercising, so I will make it a goal to do something at least twice this week.

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Tigers!

Kyle had his first soccer game on Saturday. It was a bit stressful for me because he wouldn't stay on the field...I suppose he was a bit stressed out as well. He kept telling me he was too shy to play. Shy? Really? I think he's heard that a bit too much coming from Katie's mouth. He played a bit, took a break and then got back on the field after I told him that he was not going to a birthday party later that day if he didn't stay on the other side of the white line. His coach finally got him to play goalie and that seemed to do the trick. He did great!

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Weekly Weigh-In

A day late, but here's the post. I didn't cheat nearly as much as I did last week, so that's good. I was hoping for more of a loss, but I will take the 2lbs that I did lose this week. I'm down 12.2lbs from where I started. And the best part is a couple people have started to notice.

I have already been bad since the weigh-in yesterday because I had to try out this new cookie recipe - pumpkin spice blossoms. They are super delicious, but they aren't so good the next day. They still taste good, but they are too sticky for me to give away - sorry neighbor who is about to recieve dinner, but I just can't give you sticky gooey cookies! So you get chocolate chip instead. :-)

Had a great day at school with my three little friends. Two were absent today, so we ended up doing alot of extra stuff that wasn't planned. We even had a picnic on the playground to delight in this weather. I get a new student on Monday.

And just because it's been so long since you've seen any pictures...here's a super cute one of that girl who just isn't so little anymore.

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Last Night

As I went to bed last night, I reached over to my nightstand to turn off the lamp and found a little green sticky note. Katie had been drawing pictures and leaving notes all over the place yesterday and it kind of exasperated me because she used about 50 of them before I caught her. She also exasperated me yesterday by not listening the first 5 times I would tell her to do something. Oh and she wanted to take her puppy (stuffed animal) in the car but we couldn't find Kyle's so we had said no animals in the car so of course that led to a meltdown by both of them...so once again, exasperated. I know there were more times - it seemed like we really struggled yesterday to just relax and enjoy the day. Despite all of the meltdowns and exasperation the note said, "You are the best mom evr." My heart melted.

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The Weigh-In

Today was my weigh-in at the doctor's office. I was kind of dreading it because honestly I have cheated on this diet every day (except today) for the past week. Just a little cheating here and there and a lot of cheating sometimes, like last Friday night when I didn't have time to eat before heading to Bible Study. We ate a delicious chicken cordon bleu casserole, green beans wrapped in (my favorite) bacon (sorry Jen, but everything IS better with bacon), broccoli salad, again with bacon, yum. Oh and cheesecake. Again. So that was last Friday and that pretty much kicked off my week of cheating. The rest of the cheating was limited to rice cakes, fritos and rice krispie treats...that is, until last night when I stopped to fill up my car next to a Mexican food restaurant and I couldn't get that fajita meat smell out of my brain. Even an hour and a half later, I could still smell that meat. And I gave in. I did okay. I did skip the rice and beans and only ate one tortilla. But I did eat some chips and queso. Oh drat, I did put beans on some chips too. Forgot about that. So you get the idea. I really didn't do that well this week. But, the amazing thing is - I still lost 2 pounds! I was shocked. This diet works so well that I am a believer and I am mentally back in the game.

Some friends have asked what it is exactly. I'm on the Ideal Protein diet. If you look it up on the internet you'll basically get the idea that it's a really strict high-protein, low carb diet. But, you can only do it under medical supervision, so they make sure that you are getting the extra nutrients that you are leaving out of your food intake. In fact, my nutritionist who was new to the job last week mistakenly allowed me to purchase some food that I'm not supposed to have until I've lost 85% of my goal. So, I'm blaming those sea salt and vinegar ridges for making me crave carbs this past week! Well, that and my weak self-control.

So I'm down 10.2lbs from where I started on September 9th. Hooray!

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Sick again...

I thought we were over Kyle's illness last week. Apparently he didn't really get over it or he got another virus on top of it. Last week when he went back to school on Monday, he had another episode so I called the nurse. She asked if I had tried immodium, which I hadn't, so I gave him some on Tuesday and sent him back to school. He said his tummy still hurt, but his bottom didn't! I kept him on a diet of rice cakes, applesauce, bread, bananas, etc for three more days as well as giving him a 1/2 tablet of immodium each morning. By Thursday night it was evident that he was super hungry and ready to eat anything he could get his hands on. No complaints on Friday, no immodium on Friday and no loose stool on Friday. Saturday was any other day. He ate normally and we even went for a bike ride. He was so proud and said, "I'm really good at this bike!"

Sunday morning I awoke to "Mommy, my tummy REALLY hurts!" I told him to go to the restroom and I hear him struggling to get his clothes off and his cries for help so I go in there just in time to see him puke all over the floor I had mopped the day before (had to get that in there because it happens so infrequently that I need to make sure everyone knows that I did clean my bathroom this weekend - ha!). And the diarrhea starts all over again.

Needless to say, I finally took him into the doctor this morning. It could be a parasite (but she is doubtful since our little friend in carpool had it last week as well) so we get to collect stool samples - wow, twice in one year. But basically she said keep doing what you are doing - bland diet. On the advice of a friend (and a couldn't hurt from the doctor), I added in some florastor kids to his yogurt today to see if the probiotic can help rebalance the enzymes in his gut and help him get better.

As far as my diet has been going this week, I definitely did better last week. I think the comment from the nutritionist about not having to do everything to the letter of the law relaxed me a little too much because I have given in a few too many times. Friday night I didn't have time to get my meal together before heading off to Bible study so I ended up eating a delicious chicken cordon bleu casserole that my friend Carrie made for us...as well as a piece of cheesecake my friend Jen brought. I was good and made a broccoli salad, but it did have sugar in the dressing so that was a no-no too, but it was so good. Other than that, I've been eating pretty much on plan with a few bites here and there of things I really shouldn't be eating. I'll be happy if I lose one pound this week. But I'd be a lot happier if it were more than that!

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So Worth It.

If you read yesterday's post then you know I cheated on my diet. But you know what? I still LOST 8.2lbs this week!!!! The nutritionist at my doctor's office asked me for advice I could give her other patients because I did so well this week. Aw, little ol' me?

I'm not expecting anything near that next week since this was the first week, but at least it's a great start. The other thing is, I got Kyle's stomach bug last night so everything I ate yesterday vacated the premises by midnight last night. Luckily I was able to calm things down with some medication and was able to go to work today. But, I didn't eat the food I was supposed to today because I was worried I might get sick again. So I ate some soy crisps, rice cakes and two peanut butter crackers. All carbs, but it got me through the day and I feel fine now.

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Just a Sliver...

Well, I did it - I cheated. I had NO intention of eating anything but my own food today, but what should it be at work when I show up? Pot-Luck - for a birthday. And I was actually pretty good, but I was also REALLY BAD. For starters, I didn't even bother to look at the food that wasn't green. I pulled out my salad, dumped lemon juice on it and then headed over to pick a few pieces of broccoli out of the broccoli salad to dump on top of it. Then I got a small spoonfull of cabbage (covered in cole slaw dressing of course) and dumped that on my salad. Then I shook it all together and ate it. I decided to forego my planned entree of chicken soup and had some brisket instead. I decided I can have my soup for dinner instead of cooking tonight. I got out of there without the chicken salad, the croissants and all the other yummy looking things that I shouldn't be eating. I decided to head back to my office but I did tell my mom - when you cut that cheese cake, I want just a sliver. In my mind I was picturing about 2 bites. What she brought back to me was more like 10 bites. And as I was licking my spoon I said to her, I probably just undid EVERYTHING that I have worked so hard for this week. And you know what? It as WORTH IT! And if you don't think any cheesecake could be that good, you haven't been to Bella Cibo.

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Feeling accomplished

I didn't really accomplish anything other than sticking to the diet, but for me, that's huge!

Last night I stuck by my guns and decided NOT to meet my friends at our regular Mexican food restaurant, Mama Don'tEatUs, as Kyle affectionately calls it. But I had to meet them there later to head over to the Brad Paisley concert. So I waited an hour past when they were going and then met up with them. Unfortunately they were still finishing up and even offered me some food and hey, by the way, don't you want a drink? Um, not today but thanks! I did it - I sat there and drank a water and didn't even attempt to reach toward that basket of chips. I was so proud of myself. Then I went to the concert and while everyone else drank, I happily sipped on my $4 bottled water. I was really craving something salty, so I had my friends look out for pickles for me, but they weren't selling them. And I survived.

Today we headed over to Derek's parents' house to celebrate his mom's birthday. We went out for Chinese food which actually turned out to be a really good restaurant choice for me. I had steamed shrimp and broccoli. Ok, I did dip my fork into the hoisin sauce a few times, but considering that possible teaspoon amount of sugar is all I have had four days, I'd say I'm doing quite well. Yay me!

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What a Week!

Whew! The past two weeks have flown by. And this week has been just a little nutty. As you may (or may not) know, I started both of my jobs this week.

I dropped the kids off for carpool on Tuesday morning and came back home to finish getting ready. I was able to do some dishes, make the bed and clean up the living room before heading out the door at 8:01am. I gave myself a little extra time because I didn't want to be late. But, someone decided to get into a little fender bender (not me!) on the freeway which blocked 3 lanes...so, at 8:37am I called my boss (mom!) to let her know that I wasn't going to be there by 9am. I strolled into the office at 9:30. Ugh. Not the best way to start your day. At least I know the boss well! I was able to stay late to make up the 30 minutes so all was fine.

Wednesday was my first day of class with my new 3 year olds. I had a slight suspicion things were not going to go well since Kyle woke up with a sore throat and a tummy ache. He barely ate anything and had some trouble on the toilet before we left. I thought maybe he had accidentally had something he was allergic to, so I didn't think much of it. As we neared Spring Cypress (about 1 mile from school), I hear, "Mom, I'm throwing up!" and that he did. All over himself and all over the carseat. Gross. The good news is, that finally convinced Katie that she could be dropped off in the morning car line to walk herself to her class. Unfortunately I couldn't just turn around and take him home because I had to walk Amy into her class. I called my boss to let her know that once I could locate Derek (who was on a conference call at home), I'd get him to pick Kyle up. I drove over to take Amy to class, changed Kyle's clothes and ended up walking into the office to let her know that I was just going to drive him home anyway and I'd be back as soon as I could. She was very understanding. Lucky for us, MDO doesn't start until 9am and this all happened at 8am. So I got Derek on the phone and he met us at Target where we switched Kyle to a booster seat - I think we may end up retiring the Britax after this episode - and they headed home. He proceeded to have diarrhea all day long, poor thing. And I made it back to work at 8:55am. I was not nearly as prepared as I had hoped for my day. I didn't get the copies made that I wanted. I didn't get some things posted that I wanted, but in the grand scheme of things it was fine.

My kids were for the most part good. It will take a couple of weeks to get used to the rules and routine, but I was happy that they were excited about sitting for a story and singing some silly songs with me. There will be some challenges, but there are some adorable little personalities to make up for those too.

But, Kyle is still sick, so I've had to take two sick days - one at each school this week. Not exactly the way I wanted to start my jobs. But they will be there next week and I can start all over again.

Now for the other craziness of my week: I decided to start a doctor-supervised weight-loss program on Wednesday. Supposedly I will start to feel better after three days, so that should be tomorrow. My fingers are crossed because I have been fighting a cold while doing this so I don't know whether the diet or the cold is making me feel so lousy. I have almost constant headaches (although I don't have one right now, so maybe I'm on the upswing) and about 3pm I feel like I've been hit by a truck. I've been assured that the headaches will stop and that I will have more energy after my body gets used to the insanely lower amount of calories that I am taking in. So I'm learning a new way to eat and I haven't had any sugar or carbs (besides a strict list of vegetables) since Wednesday. The strange thing is, I don't crave anything sweet - it's the salty crunchy stuff that I miss. I'm definitely going to have to buy some soy crisps this week so I have something to crunch on besides dill pickles. I go back in on Wednesday to weigh-in and get my next batch of food, so I'll post my progress then.

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Lessons

Today was the 2nd day of school for Katie. I worked, Kyle went and hung out Bethany and Carrie and Katie went to school. When Katie was dropped off after school I asked her, do you have any homework? "No, we don't have any until next week." Oh, ok. She dropped her backpack on the floor and happily skipped off to watch tv. Lesson #1 for Mom - check the backpack. While I don't believe it should be my responsibility to check the backpack, I believe for the next few weeks I probably should since she is still getting used to the idea of homework.

Katie and Kyle are watching tv. The volume is deafening so I asked her to turn it down. She didn't. I took the remote. She starts screaming at me as I am turning the volume down to a more acceptable level. I look at her still screaming at me and turn the tv off. More screaming. I instruct her (very calmly I might add) to head to her room. More screaming. Really? Lesson #2 for Katie - when Mom says something, do it and don't throw a fit. Lesson #3 for Katie - next time you throw a fit, you are going to your room and losing your Legos. And the following time, you lose your dolls. And then it's your horses. And on and on until this stops. I am so tired of it.

It's bedtime, lights are out, prayers are said. "Mom, I forgot to do my puzzle!" "What puzzle?" "I have a paper I am supposed to finish at home." "You mean, HOMEWORK?" "Well, she said that we are supposed to take it home and finish it." "Are you supposed to take it back to school?" "Yes." "I'm sorry Katie, but it's bedtime. If you have time in the morning to finish it, then you can, but you are not getting out of bed to work on it because you told me that you didn't have any homework." "But Mom!, there are so many pieces!" "Well, then I hope you wake up early to finish it." Lesson #4 for Mom - being a responsible parent and allowing your kids to make mistakes and pay the price for it is a lot harder that letting them stay up to finish their homework when they lie to you or even just forget about it. And yes, there are a LOT of pieces to whatever she is supposed to be doing to that piece of paper - I didn't even understand what it was. Hopefully she knows and can finish it up in the morning, but if she doesn't then it's Lesson #5 learned for Katie - do your homework!!!

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Firsts

Ahh, peace. The kids are tucked in bed and have been quiet for over an hour, which given the past few weeks and their bedtime habits, is quite amazing! It's the night before school starts and we've had a couple of very busy days. But the clothes are laid out. Backpack are in the car. Morning routine is posted on the fridge. The lunches are made, oops, actually they aren't made - I need to get on that!

To celebrate the last day of summer we took a trolley ride with some friends. If I had known how excited my kids would be about that silly trolley, we would have gone months ago. But what a great treat (and free!) to wind down summer. We took the whole route, twice. Then we headed out to eat. Did some last minute shopping for all those back to school necessities - new socks (apparently Katie was really excited about the new socks because she picked out 7 different sets, meaning packs of 2 or 4), new lunchbag, new backpack, new thermoses, new shoes and oh, one new dress for church too. Honestly I think Katie was so excited about the socks because she can actually pick out what she wants to wear on her feet each day while the rest of her outfit is pretty much set due to the uniform. Funny that they don't stipulate a certain color of socks. But the uniform/dress code is fairly relaxed compared to most schools that wear uniforms. Oh and after our shopping trip we headed over to Senor Gordy's Snow Cones which is inside of Pump It Up. Katie made sure that I knew that Senor Gordy's will be open year-round. :-)

But the most exciting part of the day was when Katie came upstairs to bed after brushing her teeth and announced to me, "Mom, I really do have a loose tooth now!" Of course I responded, "un-uh" because she has been lying to me about this for weeks. And she looked at me with those big blue eyes and nodded her head and said, "yes, I do, I don't know what I did, but when I was brushing it, it got wiggly." And I said, "let me see!" And sure enough, it wiggles! Of course then she broke down into tears because she's so scared about how it's going to feel. I promised her I would email her teacher to let her know that Katie's a little nervous about it. And a few minutes after I came downstairs she padded down here after me to make sure that I emailed her teacher. :-)

I'm so excited for her to start first grade tomorrow. I'm just not all that excited about the homework that comes with it...

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Winding Down

I have writer's block. I start posts and then delete them. I don't have much to say right now except that my brain is so focused on getting ready for school and winding down our summer and nothing seems blog-worthy.

Not even the trip to Randall's yesterday where Kyle and Katie were dancing the in the meat department and she was telling him to fall down on the floor, so he kept laying on the disgusting floor. So I scooped him up and tried to get him to take a break in the cart at which point he turned into a screaming, writhing, 34 pound monster who had the entire store looking at him. After about a minute of fighting to get him into the cart we headed toward the checkout with him screaming "I want my fruit snacks" over and over and over about 50 times. And even though I had told him that he wasn't getting fruit snacks because he was screaming and throwing a fit, he continued to scream it at the checker and the sacker and the manager who came over to help the sacker because she just wanted us to get out of the store since everyone was having to hold their hands over their ears because of the piercing noises coming from my son's mouth. Then she asks the checker for a sticker and tries to give one to him while he's still screaming and I finally just looked at her and said, "he really doesn't need one, but thank you." Yes, let's reward the neurotic little beast with an orange thank you sticker. We went home, dropped him off where he proceeded to have yet another fit for Derek as Katie and I tootled ourselves out the door to Kroger to finish our shopping.

And today when I got up early for church and put pork ribs in the slow cooker so I could make pulled pork sandwiches for Bible study tonight, but by 3pm I realized this isn't going quite the way I expected and those don't look anything like the ones I made a few weeks ago and oh, there's bones in them and I thought I bought boneless and there's lots of fat on there and yuck, I don't have time to deal with this and yes, I have cooking anxiety, especially when it comes to cooking for groups of people. I'm scared that I'm going to poison them or that it will taste bad or that it will look gross or something. I'm not sure why. Derek tells me that I cook well, but he doesn't really like to eat so I'm not sure whether to take that as a compliment or not. Anyway, at 3:30 I decided that I better have a backup plan so I headed to a bbq place down the road and picked up 3 pounds of brisket and some sausage. I should have driven the extra 15 minutes and gone to the one I actually like...next time I will. It wasn't bad, just not what I had in mind. And yes, the pork is still sitting in the slow cooker because I haven't had the time or desire to deal with it. I guess I should put it in the fridge...

Our house is clean, our lawn is mown, the kids are asleep and I should be too. So I am winding this down...

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It's Cold and Quiet

Our air conditioner upstairs is working again - hooray! We have been without a/c up there for about 3 weeks now...which also means that the kids have been sleeping downstairs with us for about 3 weeks now. Ugh. And no, it didn't take that long to get it fixed (only about a week due to an ancient part they had to track down). We just knew it was about to break so we turned it off a couple of weeks ago since we had recently purchased a home warranty. We didn't want to call it in for repair until we had the policy for a few weeks for fear they wouldn't cover it. And the best news - they covered 80% of the cost to fix it. Thank you God!

The problem now is that I told Kyle, you get to sleep upstairs tonight! "No, I want to sleep with you!" repeat...over and over and over again. Hmm.

Katie is at Nana's this week so it has been quite peaceful today. She's attending an art camp at Epiphany. I hope she enjoys it; I think she will. I miss her, but I don't miss the constant fighting that we've been dealing with for the past few weeks.

I am going to work tomorrow for our TEAM retreat. The entire church and school staff get together twice a year for worship, pep talks and lunch. I am looking forward to it even if they are making us do manual labor this time. I think we are going to be painting and vacuuming pews from what the flier mentioned. I hope I get a vacuum job, but if I must paint, I must paint. Too bad I'm not painting my own house.

Derek had a great time at his "orientation" last week. I guess that's kind of what it was. They met all of the first semester professors, took a few classes, took a personality strengths assessment and were broken into groups that they will work with for the next two years. They also went to "Disaster City" where they worked through some team-building exercises. I think that was the highlight of his week. They dealt with a simulated earthquake that caused a train wreck; learned how to lower someone with a neck injury down from a fourth floor; and dealt with reporters and learned how to appropriately comment during emergency situations. They took video of it which he shared with us - he was definitely in his element. They also visited some of my old favorite spots...the Dixie Chicken and the Dry Bean Saloon. He's excited about his program and I'm so proud of him for tackling it. The next two years will be busy, busy, busy, but we will get through it.

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