Mine All Mine
by Lynn Daniels on Thursday, June 4, 2009 at 9:00 pm
A few weeks back, MiniMe came home with a permission slip, but not for a field trip. She took art her first semester this year, and her teacher was asking for permission to auction one of her pieces during the Good Arts Festival (in case you’re wondering, the name drives me insane) at the school, with all proceeds going to help fund the Art Department.
I figured What the heck. I mean, it was going for a good cause; we may as well donate it, right? Besides, I figured we’d be the ones buying the piece at auction, so we’d essentially be donating money to the school. Still — good cause.
Good Arts Festival day came. SoundGuy and I bid on her artwork in the silent auction. We wandered the school, looking at all the displays. Proud parents that we were, we returned just to look at MiniMe’s drawing, especially since we’d seen all the other offerings and we wanted to talk about how much better our daughter’s work was.
Did I mention we’re proud parents?
Anyway, we get back to MiniMe’s drawing… Somebody had outbid us! We couldn’t believe it! Not that we don’t think her artwork’s worthy (proud parents, remember?), but to be honest, I wouldn’t be bidding on the middle school artwork of some kid I didn’t know. Yet, there was somebody out there who felt differently. Somebody who didn’t share our last name, somebody who wasn’t a teacher at the school, and they had actually put in a bid on the artwork. Of course, we upped our bid and won it.
MiniMe’s pencil drawing is pictured above. Yes, I took a picture of it. As soon as we have a little extra cash, we’ll have it framed so we can hang it in our home for all to see.
Yup, it’s another proud Momma moment.
Proud Momma Moment
by Lynn Daniels on Tuesday, May 5, 2009 at 9:16 pm
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Excuse me a post while I brag about my kid. Tonight was MiniMe’s final band concert for the year. Bands were separated by age. The 6th graders played first, followed by the 7th graders. Then we were serenaded by the jazz band, followed by the 8th graders.
MiniMe played with both the jazz band and the 8th graders. She’d warned us that the 8th graders were going to sound really really bad (she didn’t put it quite that nicely), so I was expecting a bit of ear pain. I’m pleased to say they didn’t sound anywhere near as painful as she’d said, but that’s not why I was so proud.
Tonight was also the night the awards were given. MiniMe was recognized twice! I first was surprised to hear her name called as 8th Grade Outstanding Woodwind. She received a medal for that. Then, if that wasn’t enough, I was floored when they announced the award for Outstanding Jazz Band Musician was also going to MiniMe! For that one, she got a really nice plaque.
Yup, I’m a proud momma tonight, and as far as I’m concerned, not without good reason.
Yes, I Still Have My Hair
by Lynn Daniels on Thursday, April 9, 2009 at 9:04 pm
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Once again, I haven’t been posting to the blog. I know I should post, but I end up finding other things to do I deem to be more important. And I still think that’s a good thing.Since I’m finally here, let me take a moment to get you caught up in my world. Share what’s been keeping me busier than busy.
First of all, if you haven’t already done so, be sure to run by Tess Harrison’s blog to congratulate her. She and her husband welcomed Anna Grace Harrison to the world on April 4th. Two weeks early! Mother and daughter are doing fine.
You may remember I’ve had some health issues lately. I already posted about the mammogram/ultrasound stuff — adding to that, I had a mole removed today. My doctor is fairly certain it, too, is benign, but he’s sending it for tissue biopsy to be safe. I should have the results on Monday, but since my doctor’s not worried, I’m not worried.
MiniMe’s team played their final soccer game of the season today. I was praying they’d win this game since they suffered a couple pretty bad defeats over their last couple games. Good news; my prayers were answered! Our girls JV team finished the season with a 2-0 win.
While it seems like the rest of our area is enjoying their Spring Break this week, our county is undergoing their CRCT testing. It’s driving my kids batty, but I pointed out to them that at least they’ll have this behind them when they go to Spring Break in two weeks, while the rest of the area will be coming back from Spring Break to testing. They agreed, although grudgingly.
As I mentioned, Spring Break is in two weeks, and that just happens to be the same week my mother is coming to visit, and staying for a month. It’s a good thing; my mother is great for the kids. She’s better about schedules than I am, and she really keeps my kids on their toes. SoundGuy loves having her here because it means we can enjoy a night out without worries.
Lastly, I’m still counting those calories. I’ve done pretty well; I’ve lost six pounds so far. I’d love to lose another ten pounds, but I would honestly be happy to just drop seven more. I know there’s only a three pound difference there, but believe me, it makes a difference! I think part of my success this time is owed to the fact that I’ve been allowing myself a Cheat Day. One day to eat whatever I want. That usually ends up being the day I’m out with my family and have no choice but to eat fast food. On those days, I figure if I’m going to cheat, I may as well cheat all the way…and I add a Kahlua & skim milk. 
Six pounds! 
Race day last week was great fun and I’m looking forward to more dirt trackin’ on Saturday. It’s that little but of letting loose that’s helped keep me from pulling my hair out of my head. What about you? What have you been up to lately? What are you looking forward to this Easter weekend?
The Hodge and the Podge
by Lynn Daniels on Monday, March 9, 2009 at 5:49 pm
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While my Chicken Cacciatore is simmering (tonight’s dinner), I thought I’d hop online and post a quick update while I had the chance. So, here’s what’s been happening here:
LittleDude had his first sleepover with a friend from school. He’s slept away from home before, but it was always with neighbors who were really good family friends. This time, LittleDude spent the night at the home of a boy he calls his “very best friend”.
It was a little tough for me — I didn’t get my usual Sunday morning LittleDude wakeup, but I didn’t fall apart. And he had a wonderful time, so I guess that all worked out. Unfortunately, they didn’t sleep much, and it was the night of the time change. He was still excited last night, so he couldn’t get to sleep. You know what that meant? Yup, we were miserable this morning. SoudGuy and I finally gave in the the “upset stomach” and let him stay home. But he wasn’t allowed to play video games. So there.
I hit the Publix Buy One Get One Free sale today. Between coupons and sales prices, I paid $87, and saved $100. WOO HOO!
I got some writing done today, which is very exciting for me. I finally figured out the secret to fitting it in. I add writing to my To Do list.
My FlyLady To Do list is comprised of Post-It notes stuck to the front of one of my kitchen cabinets. It’s a system that works well for me; as something is completed, the Post-It is removed from the cabinet and thrown away — that way, I can see my progress.
Everything on the cabinet is allocated 15 minutes. Today I added writing and coupon clipping, and actually got to both things! So from now on, writing and coupon clipping go up on my FlyLady To Do list cabinet.
I actually got to write twice today, so it was doubly good. I snuck some George Randy time in while waiting for the end of MiniMe’s soccer practice. Unfortunately, that’s also when I got my BIG SCARE. You see, I had done my timed 15 minutes of writing earlier, then put George Randy back in his case. When I took George Randy out at the fields, I turned him on and was faced with a readout filled with EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. I think there might have been a stray SSSS in there, too, but mostly it was all EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. That, and a 1/2 sentence.
I quickly hit the “home” key to back to the beginning of the file, hoping the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSEEEEEEEEEEE was just tacked onto the end and I didn’t lose anything. I might have sworn out loud when I saw the beginning of the document was solid EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. I panicked. Switched files.
George Randy has the ability to hold eight separate files, so I checked each one. I’m only using three of the others, and those all looked fine. No EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. So I went back to “file 2″, the file holding Chester and Rube. You know what I saw?
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
Eventually, I decided to try hitting the “end” key to take me to the end of the file. You know what I saw? My file! Apparently the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSEEEEEEEEEEEEE was tacked on to the beginning of the file, not the end.Chester and Rube are safe. Whew!
This may make people in colder climes upset, but I had to turn on my air conditioning today. I didn’t want to. I held back. I prayed the temperature would drop again before I had to hit the switch. It didn’t happen. I finally went to SoundGuy about an hour ago and told him I was going to have to break down and do it. He laughed at me. Nothing new there.
The high temperature’s hovered around 82 here today, and it wasn’t much cooler indoors. It supposed to stay pretty much the same for the next couple days. But come Thursday we’re back to the upper 60s, and my air condition goes back off. I just wish I could open the windows, but it being springtime with LittleDude’s allergies… that ain’t gonna happen.
There you go. The hodgepodge that is my life. And the timer for my Cacciatore just went off. Talk about timing! Gotta go uncover it. Have a great week!
Bad medicine. Bad!
by Lynn Daniels on Wednesday, February 4, 2009 at 12:00 pm
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It’s another good news / bad news morning for me, but I think the good far outweighs the bad.
Bad news: The nighttime cold meds I’d been taking weren’t putting me out all night. I was waking up in the middle of the night, and having trouble getting back to sleep. That’s bad enough when I’m well; when I’m sick, I need sleep. So last night, I switched back to my good ol’ standby.
The good news: I slept through the night! 
The bad news: the dreams. AARGH! The dreams! You know, one of the good things about cold meds (for me, anyway) is the dreams I have. They’re more interesting, more vivid, and yes, sometimes they’re even scarier. But they’re still better. But last night’s dream? Yeah, I guess it was more vivid, but gaaaaaah.
In this dream, I had gained so much weight I no longer had elbows. I mean rolls of fat everywhere. I had managed to gain this weight without even realizing it. One day I looked in the mirror and what I saw was equal to four of me now.
Let me say this before I go on: I know there are people out there for whom this is a reality, and I apologize if I offend anybody.
Anyway, I spent the entire dream running. Exercising. I suppose a good thing about the dream is the fact that despite the extra girth, I had the endurance to run the entire time. But still. Run, run, run. That’s all I did the entire dream. I woke up exhausted.
Yet, despite that, this was the first morning in a while I didn’t feel the need to go back to sleep after my family left for the day. So that’s a bit more good news. It would appear I’m finally on the mend.
More good news: this morning I took care of an account that had been hanging over me for almost a year. A dispute. It’s still in dispute, but the only unpaid portion is the portion I continue to dispute. I’m not sure what’s going to happen with that, but I refuse to pay for somebody else’s mistake. And that’s all I’ll say about that. Except to say I’m glad it’s taken care of.
My final bit of good news, and it’s of the proud momma variety: LittleDude earned his TKD red belt this weekend, and we found out Friday that MiniMe made the high school junior varsity soccer team.
Now I’m off to find something to eat. 
Edited at 12:11pm to add: I’ve had to disable my acronym plugin — the new version wasn’t playing nice with my WordPress install. Once it’s fixed, I’ll enable it again. Until then — no explanations for the acronyms. Sorry.
Sometimes it’s Hard
by Lynn Daniels on Monday, January 12, 2009 at 7:44 pm
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It’s parenting I’m referring to. Parenting. Get your mind out of the gutter. 
Shame on you. 
MiniMe’s an exceptional student in school, always has been. More often than not, she brings home report cards with straight As. She’s an extremely bright kid, and while that’s a wonderful thing, it often works against me.
Today while she was at her pre-soccer tryout conditioning session, my cell phone rang. It turned out to be her Language Arts teacher, who was calling to give me fair warning about MiniMe’s grade.
It seems my child has been slacking off in school: socializing more than usual in class and not turning in her work. According to her teacher, her current grade in Language Arts is a 78.
78!
To say I was shocked would truly be understating my reaction. Disconcerted would be a better word. Horrified would be extremely apt. A 78? How could she be getting a 78? Luckily, her teacher was willing to fill me in.
The good news is she can bring that grade up. But she’s going to have to work at it and do a couple things she’s not going to want to do. And she has until the day after tomorrow. I thanked the teacher profusely for taking the time to call me, and promised I would be having a serious discussion tonight.
Here’s where the hard part came in.
My daughter and I have a wonderful relationship. We’re very much alike in our tastes, thinking, and sense of humor, and we have a lot of fun when we spend time together. I can honestly say that I like my daughter as a person. Which is why it’s that much harder to come down on her when I need to.
I had that discussion with my daughter when we got home, and predictably, she didn’t react well. Her argument has always been that we come down too hard on her about her grades. That we get upset over a B when most parents would be ecstatic over a B. She posed that same argument tonight.
I agreed that most parents would be happy with a B, but in her case, we can’t be happy with a B because we know she’s capable of straight As. A B would be settling.
Additionally, we absolutely would be happy with a B if that B came as the result of her best efforts. If she worked as hard as she could and brought home a B, we wouldn’t complain. But this grade her teacher called me about was not the result of her working as hard as she could, nor was her B on her first report card. On the contrary, these Bs were the result of her slacking off and not doing her work when she was supposed to. She wasn’t receiving a B (or in the case of her current grade, a C — I think) because she worked hard to achieve it. She was receiving it because she wasn’t doing all she was supposed to, and that’s unacceptable.
She didn’t want to hear that.
And now my kid’s pissed at me.
It’ll blow over; it always does. In the meantime, I’m standing my ground. As long as I do that, I’ll have a kid who’s angry with me.
Sometimes it’s hard.
Doin’ the Hokey Pokey
by Lynn Daniels on Thursday, November 20, 2008 at 7:41 am
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NaNoWriMo Day 20
Making progress. Proudly. WOO HOO!
Although LittleDude missed his TKD lesson because of an appointment with his allergy doctor, Master let him take class with MiniMe. With my iPod on, I got 45 minutes of uninterrupted writing time while they kicked and punched and blocked. Not as good as the 1-1/2 hours I normally get on Wednesdays, but certainly better than nothing. It was enough time to introduce Garry Goat and Billy Bullfrog, who have started to warn Chester and Rube about Centipig amassing his pigapede army. And I managed to work in Beverly Hillbillies and Star Wars references, to boot.That reminds me; do goats eat dandelions?
I’m currently in frenzied cleaning mode. It started yesterday and will last until tomorrow morning; my mother is flying tomorrow afternoon for the holiday. I’m not quite sure why I’m cleaning. Check that. I know why I’m cleaning; I just don’t know why I’m frenzied. Regardless of how well I clean, my mother will always re-clean. It’s what she does. One of these days, I’ll learn my lesson and just leave it for her. One of these days.
But not today.
Before signing off, I’ll leave you with this: imagine if you will a small white duck with orange polka dots on his belly and pointy green ears, wearing a blue felt fedora, trying to do the Hokey Pokey while being carried through a forest by a giant purple dinosaur. Got it? Congrats, you’ve just met Chester and Rube.
You put your right foot in
you put your right foot out
you put your right foot in and you shake it all about…
P.S. Happy 14th wedding anniversary to SoundGuy and me!
Seen Any Centipigs Lately?
by Lynn Daniels on Monday, November 17, 2008 at 7:39 pm
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NaNoWriMo Day 17
I’ve come to a conclusion. You see, every time I’ve predicted a good writing day here on the blog, it becomes a crap writing day. Crap writing day meaning I don’t get much written, not I wrote crap — that can happen any day and twice on Sunday. Of course, chances are one has absolutely nothing to do with the other. Or I could just be psyching myself out. Whatever the cause, I’m not doing it anymore. Not taking that chance. From here on out, I won’t talk about my writing day until after it’s occurred.
As you can see by my word meter, my total has gone up, but only marginally. In my defense, last week was a busy one with the tournament and all. And now that soccer’s over, it’s time for me to buckle down, BICHOK, and get Chester and Rube to the Land of the Larrys so they can finally confront the evil Centipig.
And speaking of soccer being over… We got no sleep this weekend, as we had early games, but the girls all had fun. They won one game and lost two, but they were still in great spirits at our little celebration on Sunday after the game. It’s funny; MiniMe has played soccer every spring and every fall since she was five years old. And every season, by the time we reach the end of the season I’m absolutely ready for it to end. Ready to get my weekends back. This season is no different; I was glad to see the end show up. Still, there’s a part of me that was sorry to see it go. A small consolation — MiniMe will be playing with some of the girls from this team this spring on the JV team. I’m still going to miss seeing these girls, though.
Now I have to go and steam my vegetables for tonight’s meal. And pray I get a lot more words in this week.
Evil Plot Revealed
by Lynn Daniels on Wednesday, November 12, 2008 at 1:56 pm
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NaNoWriMo Day Twelve
Didn’t make much progress over the weekend, but I didn’t expect to. The good news is MiniMe’s soccer team finished the season in second place after a lovely end of season party on Saturday. Soccer games and parties don’t leave much time for writing, though, so although I didn’t produce a big ol’ goose egg number of words, my weekend total was pathetic.
More good news, yesterday was a great writing day between LittleDude’s TKD lesson and MiniMe’s soccer practice (she’s playing a tournament this weekend and then we’re done!). I anticipate another good writing day today — LittleDude’s got a doctor appointment so he won’t make it to TKD, but MiniMe will be going to her lesson. And Wednesday’s usually a light day, so chances are LittleDude will get to take the lesson with her. So tonight, Chester and Rube will finally make it to Cranky Canyon on their way to the Land of the Joes. I’m thinking that while in Cranky Canyon, they’ll learn of the evil Centipig’s plot to take over Feckerson Forest.
This story has been fun to write and fun to plot, and MiniMe’s been a tremendous help with it. Bouncing plot ideas off her has been enlightening; she’s got a great mind for fiction.
And now it’s time to prepare for LittleDude’s arrival, after which I’ll whisk him away to the doctor.
Have a great day!
Mud Bubbles
by Lynn Daniels on Tuesday, November 4, 2008 at 10:08 am
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NaNoWriMo Day Four
Whooda thunk writing could be so much fun? I certainly haven’t reached prolific status, but I’m sure making progress. And I attribute it all to letting myself go.
Wow. 
That just sounded wrong. But you know what I mean, right? Writing a totally different kind of story, in a totally different style, without regard for plot or rules or whether or not it makes sense. My only requirement is that it be fun. And fun it has been. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of writing a scene about a duck blowing bubbles in the mud. What’s more fun than that?
And I’m happy to report that Chester the duck with the smart blue felt fedora escaped the Red Trees and made it to the Orange Tall Grass without being attacked by sporgled bloonks.
(See what I mean? PAR-TAY!)
In other news, we’re fast approaching the end of soccer season. Three more practices, one more season game, and three more tournament games and I get my Monday nights back! Although I must admit, this season has been great for MiniMe. Playing with the older girls has forced her to step up her game, and she’s accomplished it with flying colors. She even scored a goal and a sweet assist in Sunday’s game.
If I’m reading the stats correctly, her team will finish second in their division. Not too shabby!
The kids are out of school today, so it looks like I’m taking LittleDude shoe shopping. He’s got his little heart set on a pair of Converse, so tomorrow continues the quest. At least I’ll get to spend their TKD lessons playing with Chester. Maybe I’ll finally get to write the scene where he meets Rube, the pompous purple dinosaur.
Random Photo
Twittering
NaNoWriMo
