Don't Cry Over Spilled Paint

Here's the downside to a three-day weekend: I might kind of forget that it's Sunday and not second Saturday, and that means I forget (or nearly forget) to write and post my Ten Things of Thankful.

1. Okay, it's a three day weekend, with two Saturdays! 

2.  I finally got a new phone! My iPhone 6 was well past its prime and wouldn't hold a charge any longer, so I am now the proud owner of a 14 pro max. There is a steep learning curve here, and I keep sliding down before I get very far up it, but I have faith that this ol' dog still has a trick or two that she can learn, and I expect to be rewarded with a biscuit when I do.

3. We had snow this week! Usually, snow isn't worth my time unless it's enough to give us a snow day, but this was a little snow that began falling during drop off time at school and stuck to everything but the streets, and I was able to take my little nugs outside before we had breakfast to catch snowflakes (the snow was gone in a few hours, so I'm glad I worked fast to get them out there!). Of COURSE, we sang the Barney "If All The Snowflakes Were Candy Bars And Milkshakes" song while we were outside.

4. I am sooooo thankful for my assistant, Baylee. She has had to go above and beyond the past two weeks, and she has never complained once (well, not to me, anyway). I've had to be out of the classroom a lot, especially this week, and I know she has everything under control.

5. I participated in Denise's Six Sentence Stories this week for the first time in a coon's age. You can read it here if you would like. I mean, it's only six sentences long, so it will only take you a minute....

6. I found, well, a wristful of Erimish bracelets on my dresser at the lake house this weekend, which clears up the mystery I had earlier in the week when I gaslighted myself into believing I only THOUGHT I had a half dozen red bracelets in my arsenal. BTW, I totally blame my husband, because when I found the bracelets, they were hidden under his bamboo back scratcher, so obviously, he laid it on top of them and DIDN'T EVEN NOTICE.

7. We've enjoyed watching the Wild Card games this weekend and anticipating who the Chiefs will face in their first game of the playoffs.

8. Oreos. Double stuff.

9. Hot chocolate with whipped cream on top (from a can, but still).

10. Almost forgot this one: I knocked a bottle of liquid water color paint (think highly pigmented and highly concentrated) off the top of the lockers. It fell straight down, the lid snapped off, and purple, PURPLE paint went everywhere EXCEPT on the little pink coat that was hanging inches away. 

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Lead: A Six Sentence Story

Arthur was exhausted. It was February 13th, and men had been flocking into his jewelry store all day, dropping large sums of money on diamonds and watches and jeweled broaches in order to keep their wives and their lovers happy and in the dark, each one about the other, and by the time Arthur closed up and readied the deposit for the bank, he realized he would have to take the money home and make the deposit the next morning. 

Tucking the bank bag inside his shirt and pulling his jacket tightly around it, he walked the four blocks from the store to his home. As soon as he stepped inside the kitchen door, he saw that the oven light was on and his dinner was on a plate inside, warm and waiting for him, and before he even took off his coat and removed the bank bag from his shirt, Arthur bent down to remove the plate, overjoyed by finding it was heaped with pot roast, replete with gravy, potatoes, and carrots, and an involuntary moan escaped his lips at the sight. His bounty in hand, he carried his plate to the kitchen table; the chair legs scraped across the linoleum as he seated himself, and his mouth opened wide for the first forkful of roast, gravy dripping back onto the plate. With a sigh, he slid the fork into his mouth, and as he drew it out, he felt the hair on the back of his neck ruffle slightly as the lead pipe swooshed through the air and smashed into his skull while the empty fork clattered to the floor.

Linking up with Denise at Girlie On The Edge's Blog for Six Sentence Stories with the prompt "lead."

Yes, Virginia, Christmas Is Really Over Now

1. All* the Christmas decorations are down and almost all* are put away.

*I forgot the greenery on top of the switchboard, which I noticed this morning, and I haven't taken down the lighted greenery around the inside of the front door because (a) it's pretty and (b) it's hard to get down

**Except the items listed above, plus the candles from the windows, which are currently on my son's bed and which I didn't take down until Epiphany, because, you know, direction for the wisemen and all. Also there are probably at least half a dozen ornaments scattered about the house that Lewis removed from the tree and has made into toys. I may never find them all.

2. Back to school after Christmas vacation, and I sure was glad to see my nugs! Now to get them back into out daily routine after that nice, long (but not nearly long enough) break....

3. More seasonable weather has returned after that nasty cold and snow we briefly had before Christmas, "seasonable" meaning 40s and 50s and even occasional 60s during the day. That's plenty cold enough.

4. I'm thankful for this sweet, sweet boy. This is Finn. He could have slept on the bed. Or a chair. Or a lap. Instead, he chose to make a bed on the trash bag that I had been filling with newspapers and such from our bedroom. He's been there a couple of hours now. So not smart, but so sweet!

5. I love my bread machine! I made cinnamon roll dough this morning and Italian bread dough this afternoon. Same end result, less work!

6. I praise my Kitchen Aid often, I know, but with the help of it, I made a French silk pie that is now chilling in the fridge.

7. I bought a Vera Bradley handbag last weekend for $2 at a thrift store.

8. The smell of bacon cooking.

9. Friends who will road trip with me for a 120 mile round trip so I can take care of a five minute errand, especially when the road trip ends with a hamburger from the White Grill in Nevada, MO.

10. How 'bout those CHIEEEEEEEEEFS?!

How has your new year played out so far? Write your thankfuls and link up with the Ten Things of Thankful!

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Onward And Upward!

This weekend marks both the end of the old year and the beginning of the new one, so I'm going to write this weekend's Ten Things of Thankful post to reflect both. Ready?

Ten thankfuls for 2022:

1. In spite of mask wearing, vaccinations and boosters, and generally avoiding people as much as possible, I had Covid in February, but it was a very mild case, and my husband didn't catch it from me, either.

2. We had an uneventful tornado season. I don't even remember having a single tornado warning, now that I think about it. Here's hoping that continues into this year!

3. I participated in the A to Z Challenge this year, which is a lot of work but a lot of fun, if you've never done it before. (Spoiler alert: going to do it again this April!)

4. My daughter moved from her sketchy apartment building in Kansas City to an apartment in the attic of a house just west of the Plaza. In spite of the 35 serpentine steps from the sidewalk to her door, it's a much better (and safer!) place for her and Calvin, her big, orange cat.

5. I went to Nashville in May to visit my Person for the first time since before Covid. There was much laughing and talking and eating and problem solving, and it was perfect!

6. Yes, the summer was entirely too hot, but my husband and I took advantage of the heat (and the proximity of the lake house) and visited White Water water park nearly every weekend all summer. Thanks to having season passes, we could run out there for just an hour or two in the late afternoon and cool off before bed.

7. The reason we needed to cool off before bed when we were at the lake house was because the HVAC unit had been on the fritz for a year, and after giving up on the company that installed it and was supposed to fix it (as it was still under warranty when things started going wrong), my dad contacted a different repairman who was able to resolve the problems. Air conditioning AND heat whenever needed! Woo hoo!

8. My son and daughter in law are now in their second year of residencies and doing well. We visited them in October, and my son got to come home for a visit for a few days in December. I don't get to see them as much as I would like, but I will take what I can get!

9. After attending Community Christian Church in Kansas City for over a year virtually (and in person when visiting KC), my husband and I joined the church in November. And if you think you can't get the feeling of having a church family by attending church virtually, let me assure you that the chat feature on YouTube is a terrific form of fellowship! It took me several months of visiting virtually before I was brave enough to join in on the chat, but I'm so glad I finally did!

10. I attended my very first professional football game this fall by going to a nail biter of a Kansas City Chiefs game! Oh, and they won!

And now for 2023? I'm hoping for more. I'm hoping to read more, write more, pray more, love more, learn more, dream more, breathe more, move more, grow more. Aaaaand here I go!

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Maybe It Means A Little Bit More

I totally do not have my shit together this holiday season. Some may argue that I haven't had it together this entire year, or at least, this school year (and I'll totally own that, because I am self-aware enough to realize it, just not able to fix it). I haven't finished decorating the house for Christmas, and while no one visiting my house would know it, I do, I'm woefully behind on Christmas shopping, and anything I need to order will most definitely not make it to our house before the tree gets put away for another year. Haven't made one cookie and only one batch of candy (fudge that in all honesty didn't turn out well). 

What's that, you say? I'm being a cotton-headed ninny muggins?! 

Let me turn it around and tell you about my thankfuls for the week instead:

1. My dad had a heart procedure done about a month and a half ago when he had a Watchman device inserted into his heart to help prevent blood clots caused by AFib. Monday, he had a scope done to see if the Watchman was doing its job, and the good news is that IT IS! He now gets to stop taking a blood thinner (without going into gory detail, the combination of thin skin and a strong blood thinner meant every time he brushed against something, his skin tore and he lost what seemed to be buckets of blood). Within three days, he could tell a difference! 

2. My son was able to come home this week for a few days. He got here on Monday, arriving at the hospital just before they took my dad back for his procedure. My dad had been given loopy juice in his IV and invited my son to go with him to the OR. The nurse's eyes got big and panicky, like she thought my son was going to storm the OR, but he said, "Well, Papa, I don't have any scrubs with me, aaaand I don't work here." The nurse looked greatly relieved.

3. It was a hard week to take time off of work, as it was finals week at the university, as our college student workers had other priorities (imagine that!), but I got to take off early two days to spend time with my son, and I'm HUGELY grateful to Ceason and Nikki for getting my room covered so I could do that. Love you both!

4. He can move away to attend school, get married, and become a physician, but that goofy, curious, little kid is still in there, right under the surface. At least this time, when he started pushing buttons and touching things he shouldn't (i.e., the monitor displaying my dad's vitals in the hospital), he knew what he was doing!

5. In spite of my general failure to conquer the holidays this year, I did have gifts purchased AND WRAPPED for my son to take back home.

6. Before he headed back to Little Rock, he stopped at my school. I had told my nugs that my little boy was going to come by and visit, and when I brought him into the classroom and introduced him as such, my littles stopped what they were doing and looked him up and down, mouths open. They weren't expecting my "baby" to be 6'4" with a beard!

7. I got the Christmas gifts from my nugs to their parents AND the ones from me to them completed, wrapped (thanks to two of my student workers, Baylee and Ashley), and sent home. Whew!

8. Friday, I drove to Kansas City to spend a couple of days with my daughter and to do some Christmas shopping. I found a couple of fun gift shops to visit, thanks to a Kansas City facebook page that I belong to. Pictures of one of my finds in a future post, because, you know, Christmas gift....

9. Saturday night, I had THE BEST time with one of my oldest and dearest friends. Jan and I met in second grade, and we went to school together all the way through elementary school, junior high, high school, AND COLLEGE. So, yeah, we know where all the bodies are buried. We drove all over Kansas City looking at Christmas lights and laughing and talking (her daughter rode with us for part of the night until she couldn't take us any longer, and we dropped her off at home). I can't tell you how many hours during our friendship that she and I have clocked by driving around in a car together (I would say "aimlessly" driving around, but we always had some aim or purpose). We even drove past Patrick Mahomes' house (where he has a GINORMOUS inflatable reindeer in his yard, but the giant Santa had fallen over and the Christmas lights were lovely).

10. Today, I am going to attend church IN PERSON. I appreciate the opportunity to do it via the livestream every week, but attending in person is the BEST. In fact, I'm going to take a shower now and get ready to go!

Take a few minutes to write down your thankfuls and post them with us at the Ten Things of Thankful. The holiday stuff can wait for a few minutes. Or hours. Or you just let some things go, because it's not about getting all the decorations displayed or looking for the perfect gift. Maybe it's a little bit more....

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Another One Of Those Thankful It's Over Weeks

This week has been nuts, and I'm thankful it's over! Here's why:
 

The nugs are wound up beyond belief in anticipation of Christmas. 

On Monday evening, the State office that we share a building with informed us they would have to turn our water off Tuesday morning from 6:30 to 7:00 in order to fix a leak. I thought it would be useful if I got to work really early Tuesday, so I could fill pitchers with water so the kids' water cups could be filled and ready for them, just in case it had to stay off longer than was estimated. Didn't happen, as I didn't get to school until 6:45 due to hair issues (any curly girls out there will understand this).

The water was on when I got to work, which was good, but it gets not good. We have breakfast at 8:00, then we have mandatory Potty Try Time. I went in the bathroom to supervise potty time, and remembering the water had been off, I thought it best to give each toilet a practice flush first. Even though these toilets don't have a tank like a home toilet does, it made sense to try it out, right? Last thing we need is a gurgling toilet to scare a little nug and have a toilet training set back, right?

Big thankful here: I used my foot to push the lever down to flush the toilet.

That gurgling I was concerned about? Try an explosion of water from a tiny toilet that not only shot up like a fountain about a foot above the toilet, but also the fountain was spinning in a circle. (One of my 3 year old boys was with me as a witness for any of you doubting that could possibly happen, and he will gladly describe every detail!) 

I yelled something (possibly a bad word, but I have no idea) and backed quickly away. See why I'm particularly thankful that I wasn't bending over that toilet, flushing it with my hand?!

My student worker was dispatched to the office to get help. The other toilet in the room was useable, so while I was trying to potty 16 little nugs, I put a movie on for them to watch, not caring that they shouldn't be having all that screen time, but you gotta do what you gotta do when there is a water volcano in your bathroom.

Hillbilly came from the physical plant in record time and fixed the fountain toilet as I used the other toilet to potty everyone. He looked over at me at one point and said, as I was helping a one child onto the toilet, putting a clean diaper on another, and making sure a third one was washing his hands, "Bless you! You have a lot of patience!" 

The rest of the week was spent planning and shopping for the Christmas party we held on Thursday evening for our student workers. It was a huge amount of work, even with my co-worker Emily to help me by being the assistant cruise director (or perhaps assistant to the cruise director - IYKYK), including spending FOUR HOURS shopping for gifts and prizes. The student workers seemed to have a good time, as evidenced by how long they stayed, but hoo boy, I was exhausted!

Friday night was the staff Christmas party at my house. I had had no time (or energy) to decorate my house, so it was only half done, but at least I had the tree up and decorated. My husband nearly pulled his arm out of the socket patting himself on the back for "cleaning" the house for me on Friday afternoon, even though his idea of cleaning was sweeping the kitchen floor and hiding all his work stuff upstairs in my daughter's bedroom and I had to clean the bathroom, vacuum, dust, de-cat hair the furniture, and make food. It was a great party (even though a couple of them were probably not so much great the next morning...).

But I survived. I'm bone tired and need about a week to fully recover (preferably on a tropical beach somewhere). Seven more school days and we get a ten day break. For THAT, I am doubly thankful!

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I Didn't Get Killed By A Raccoon And Other Thankfuls

The week after Thanksgiving is a loooooong one. The little nugs have been wound up since Halloween, and now there's no hope of reeling them back in until January. Christmas?  Only three weeks away, and I have done NOTHING. I don't even have my house decorated, which wouldn't be a big deal if I weren't having the staff Christmas party here on Friday evening. The party for our college student workers is Thursday, and it appears I am in charge of that, along with my co-worker Emily, and if that weren't enough, I promised caramel popcorn to get the students to attend. GAHHHHH!!!

Maybe next week's Ten Things of Thankful will include how delightful the children have been, how lovely my house was for the staff party, how the college students didn't think their party was in the least bit lame, with or without caramel popcorn, and that I have all my gifts purchased or at least ordered. Tune in to find out, but in the meantime....

I put a three foot tall Christmas tree in my classroom for the nugs to decorate, and they have only knocked it over once.

To the best of my knowledge, none of them have eaten any of the mint-scented playdough.

I had trouble getting my my internal motor started all week and left the house late every single morning, BUT I made it to work on time each day. This is doubly important because I am the one with the key and am responsible for opening the school each morning, 

Encountered deer near the side of the road two different days this week and discovered that if you honk the horn at them, they literally turn tail and run the opposite direction. Seems to be a LITTLE more effective than my usual M.O. of rolling down the window and yelling at them to go home and stay off the road.

I'm thankful for good hair days, because I've had several REALLY BAD ones this week and they served as a reminder that it doesn't always look bad.

On that note, a guy working at Belk department store told me my hair was beautiful, and I accepted the compliment without saying anything negative.

That and the $7.90 sports bra I found on the clearance rack put a big ol' smile on my face.

My husband and I went to Silver Dollar City this weekend to see the Christmas lights. They were nothing short of spectacular,  the weather was pleasant and a light coat was sufficient, and we didn't lose our car in the parking lot.

Well, I didn't get killed by a raccoon, but I almost did. While walking down the big hill (IYKYK) at Silver Dollar City right at dusk, something ran out from the trees and across my path. I stopped just short of tripping on what I first thought was a cat (although that clearly didn't make sense in a theme park) but turned out to be a VERY LARGE RACCOON. It ran past us and into a dining area behind a restaurant, a move that it was obviously quite familiar with. There were about a half dozen or so people who also saw it speed in front of me, and we all stood there open-mouthed before laughing.

My friend's mom got scratched and bitten by a raccoon this summer that SHE encountered in the dark and had to get rabies shots, so one more thankful that the raccoon I saw not only didn't trip me and send me flying, but it also didn't attack me for just being in the way.

Time to go to bed and not think about everything I have to get done. Wish me luck with that....

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