Taking Requests

By request from Marie (professional photographer extraordinaire) , I'm posting pictures from the ASU vs. Elon game. I'm afraid it was such a nail biter, I only snapped pictures before and after the game. I guess this is why I couldn't make a living as a photographer. Perhaps Katie got more shots.

Random Friday Wrap Up

My daughter was out sick yesterday. I don’t wish her ill and she’s fine now. It was a pain in the butt to change my schedule around but putting on the brakes, staying in, and doing the most important job was just what I needed. It was a reality check.
A few minutes ago I watched last night’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy online. Thanks Nancy for a reminder about that option. What’s up with Alex’s old man’s hair? He and Cristina aren’t going to get paired up – are they?
This picture of the bathroom door shows when I think I’m alone in the house, I’m not really alone.

Have a great weekend! I’ve got a birthday bash to attend tonight. Tomorrow we’re over to nearby Elon University for tailgating and hopefully a Mountaineer win. My son won his game 28-7 last night. They are 4-1 for the season. Not bad for a brand new high school. Take care.

Going Down Hill

I've always had 20/20 vision. Now I don't. Yesterday I went to my eye doctor. He said this change was due to aging -duh. His diagnosis was not as bad as I imagined. I could benefit a little from glasses while driving, watching movies and t.v. My husband and son probably think the solution would be to buy a bigger t.v. I had less issues with reading though reading glasses with a slight correction of +.50 helped. The doctor gave me 3 options:

1. Get glasses to use for distant.
2. Get bifocals for distant and reading.
3. Do nothing.

Everything in my being goes for option 3 but doing nothing has been my problem in a lot of areas lately. Option 2 - no way in h*ll. Sorry I'm just too vain. I can't go from no glasses to bifocals even if they don't have lines anymore. Therefore, I'll probably go with Option 1. He gave me a prescription but there is still a chance I'll turn it into Option 3. The doctor did not list this as an option but I bought reading glasses. You cannot find +.50 reading glasses easily. I did find a cute pair online and ordered them. I've had a little trouble concentrating when reading so I'm hoping they will help.

Conversation You Don't Want to Hear

10 year old daughter to her 14 year old brother:

Daughter: Guess what I'm going to be for Halloween?

Son: I don't know.

Daughter: A go-go dancer. (actually more like a disco dancer)

Son: Is that like a stripper?

Daughter: No.

Son: Does it involve a pole?

Daughter: No.

No Retail Therapy Today

I not a huge clothes shopper. I usually buy basic items that I wear for a while. Perhaps I'll throw in a few fun pieces with them. I'm guilty of wearing the same thing over and over. I tend to do most of my shopping when the seasons change. Not quite the case right now with temps in the high 80's. I'm going to a party Friday night and thought it would be nice to wear something new. Today I went into Gap. Everything was black, gray, or white. Gimme some color, please. I have enough black. I heard another women comment on poor selection. It use to be I would go into a store and have to show restraint from overspending. Now it seems more times than not, I can't find anything I like.
Unrelated - Charlotte has moved on. My husband was careful not to disturb her when he was using the leaf blower however part of her web got damaged. I think she was pissed. Now we have this fellow attached to the window next to our front door. Any name suggestions?


UPDATE: That "blackish bulge" as Katie called it is a spider which killed poor Praying Mantis.

Now a Reason To Celebrate

The season premiere this Thursday! I can get my bad boy Alex fix. A little complication-my son's football games are on Thursday nights and I'm too cheap to upgrade our Directv to the dvr feature. 'Might have to read the spoilers through the month of October until his season is over.

Can't Win Forever

Wofford 42 Appalachian 31. Longest current winning streak (17 games) in college football is now over.

Wallowing in Guilty

A rare window of opportunity opened for me this morning and I was able to leave work at 10:30. There were errands to be run, groceries to be bought, housework galore ( I have been gone 3 weekends), etc. but what did I do? Nothing. Flat out not a damn thing. I spent the majority of time laying on the couch with the cat in my lap holding me hostage. At the time, doing nothing was my top choice of activities. Now I feel guilty.
The Mountaineer mobile will get a rest. I'm resigned to watch Appalachian football on tv and listen to the fight song on my computer - which I've already done today. I should really use the next two days to do something around here. Right ... we will see. Have a great weekend.

No Fussing Today

I actually had another subject to complain about but 3 posts of me bitching would be a little too much. We got Chloe (a.k.a Miss Big Ears) back from being spayed Tuesday. So much for calming her down. She's as wild as ever. Her incision is so small and she has internal stitches. 20 years ago my cat Samantha had wire stitches and her belly looked like a railroad track after the surgery. "Charlotte" has survived being knocked off the sliding door. She reclaimed it in a slightly different spot a day later. She's captured 2 granddaddy long legs and one grasshopper this week. My son hates spiders (think of Ron in the Harry Potter books). He's does not like my new pet.

Advocate for the Environment

When it comes to the environment, I know I can do better. I drive all over the place, my kids went through tons of disposable diapers, and I tend to use a lot of ziploc bags. However one thing that really bugs me is these parents who park in the car line for long periods of time with their engines running. I can maybe see it if you have a young child in a car seat with 90 degrees temperatures outside. Today is was pleasantly mild in the low 70's. The guy (yes, man) in front of me in the car line sat with his engine running, windows up for 40 minutes! Believe me, he's a repeat offender. I hate getting behind him because his engine, air conditioning whatever makes this cycling sound over and over. Life's too short to get upset over this kinda stuff but it gets on my last nerve.
Interesting side note about these wonderful car lines at school. I've read two separate articles - one Texas school banned cell phone usage when the line was in motion due to parents not paying attention. I read another school strongly discouraged idling cars because they supposely have more emissions than moving cars.

What A Racket!

Back in the old days when concert tickets went on sale, you camped out, kept dialing the 800 number, or were lucky enough to know someone who worked at the coliseum. The only concert I camped out for all night was The Police. We went to a Sears store which happened to be a ticket outlet. The manager took pity on us since it was January and let the crowd in early before the store opened. Despite our efforts, our seats still sucked. I felt I deserved better for pulling an all nighter. Sting looked like a colorful blob moving around on stage.
I had pretty good luck with tickets in the early days of Internet. We scored 7th row tickets to The Backstreet Boys - a gift to my son when he was in first grade. Now he will deny it ever took place. At the time, the boy band was extremely popular. It was a hot ticket and a lot of people we knew had gotten tickets.
Fast forward 8 years. I really wanted to surprise my daughter with Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus tickets. We tried to get on the Internet this past Saturday at 10 when they went on sale. We were on our way to Boone but my husband has wireless card from our cell phone company to get online most anywhere. Well either his computer wasn't working or the ticketmaster.com website was jammed. We couldn't get on. We stopped trying once the tailgating festivities began.
I went online later that night and found out the concert had sold out. I was a little shocked since she is also coming to nearby Raleigh and Charlotte. Rumor has it, the concert sold out in 30 minutes. A few others I knew didn't get tickets either.
This morning a local morning DJ said he pulled up one of those scalpers sites and it listed 800 Hannah Montana tickets available for Greensboro. This is just one site. There are several others as well. It makes you wonder how many tickets were available for the average person. On the site the DJ was viewing, the cheapest seats went for $117. Front row were listed as $2700! I'm just glad I never mentioned this whole concert thing to my daughter.

Back Up the Mountain

The Mountaineer Mobile made the trek up to Boone again Saturday.

It wasn’t always pretty but App beat the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks 34 to 21. There may have been 27,000+ people at the game however I know I can count on seeing Katie Bonk. The question is – did she see me?
I love football probably as much as any female but after my son’s game, App’s game then catching some of the Panther’s today, I admit I will be a little footballed out. This coming week, my son’s team has a bye and the Mountaineers are away. Let me go unpack the car and turn the Mountaineer Mobile back into the Mom Mobile (I’m so stereotyped). Though emergencies arise, I probably can manage without a grill, table, and chairs in the back. The cooler of beer may come in handy in the car line at school!

Killing Time

As I've whined in previous posts, for the first time I have to pick my daughter up from school 2 to 3 times a week depending on our carpool schedule. The school bus is not available due to redistricting. I usually arrive 40 minutes before school lets out. Why so early you might ask? Well when I finish work there isn't enough time to go home or do anything else. This school is past the 'burbs. No Starbucks on the corner. Also, if you don't get in line early then you are in the back of the line which creeps along at a snail's pace.
I try to have a plan for these 40 minutes of waiting. So far I've ...

1. brought along my Harry Potter book. I'm finishing up the 4th one. My daughter has far exceeded me. She's finished them all, re-read the first one and is now on the second one.
2. worked on my continuing professional education (CPE). I have to complete 40 hours annually as a licensed CPA. (yawn).
3. packed my laptop. No wi-fi :( but I've watched a few episodes of Weeds.
4. napped. This is the most popular activity because I haven't been getting enough sleep. I set my cell phone alarm 5 minutes prior to the bell ringing. I admit I'm a little paranoid a car ahead of me will pull out of the line and I will awake to car horns honking at me to move my car or Mother/Volunteer of the Year banging on my window because I'm not following car line protocol.
   
5. called one of my best friends who lives out of town. She's a flight attendant and gone a lot so I haven't exactly spoken to her. The thought counts.
   
6. considered bringing along my small dumbbells for arm exercises. I will be in Mexico next month wearing a dress with spaghetti straps. I decided not to. I thought this might look even weirder than me sleeping and drooling.
   
7. decided not to walk around the track as other moms do. I keep forgetting to bring tennis shoes.

I welcome your suggestions however let me add I don't do crafts, needlework, look over recipes or much of anything which requires skill.

What A Day

I don't cry easily or often but I did today when 2 things happened:

1. My cat got in my lap. You have to understand our 6 month kitten isn't a lap cat. She loves to be petted, likes to interact with humans, welcomes you to lay beside her on the floor when she's in her fleece bed but that's about it. Today I was home early spending a few precious moments doing nothing. Chloe got in my lap for quite a while. It brought back memories of Bob and Sam in my lap. We had them for 14 years. I don't think of them often but at that moment I missed them.

2. I looked outside at the leaves starting to fall and for a split second I thought I needed to meet the school bus. Then I remembered my daughter is in a carpool. (due to redistricting, we have to provide transportation this year). I started thinking that for the last 9 years I have been waiting either at the end of our driveway or down at the corner for one or both children to get off the school bus. Next year my daughter will be in middle school. My son is already in high school. You don't stand outside and wait for your kids at that age. It hit me - my days of meeting the bus are over.

So I cried. Maybe because of the above mentioned things. Maybe because it's just an emotional day.

September 11th Remembered

It Might Be Monday ...

I'm tired, this is the first full week of school, and work is piling up but at least I'm not Britney Spears. Life is looking pretty good to me.

Week Wrap Up

The past week has been a blur. I've been busy but everything is still piling up. Friday was a real cluster-you-know-what (vocabulary inspired by Nancy). We procrastinated and tried to get too much done in too little time. I won't bore you with the details. I had a glimpse into the future - my son was with his friend and mom. His friend has his learner's permit and hit a car. Fortunately no one was hurt, no major damage. Saturday we piled into the Mountaineer mobile and headed up to Boone. App had a much easier win than the week before. Final score 48-7. This was our first season we paid up and got an assigned parking space for the game. We met some really nice folks during our tailgating and look forward to seeing them the rest of the season. Also, I hope to meet up with my ASU blogging friends. Well, I'm going to have another cup of coffee, get my butt in gear to do some work around here. Have a great week!
I'll leave you with a picture of the Mountaineer Mobile showing off the Sport Illustrated cover while we tailgated:

Updates

Yosef has come inside and added some flair

More tailgating supplies, another grill

No one has put up their laundry but I won't post pictures of that. What every mother wants to hear : my son just asked me if I've seen his girdle. (it's a football thing)

Cheap Labor

New tailgating season. New grill. My husband paid our 10 year old daughter $2 to assemble it. She's very good at that sort of thing. He is too but he can't put a grill together while sitting on the couch surfing every website in cyberspace mentioning Appalachian football. I guess I'm getting a little resentful. Yes, I was at the game. Yes, I'm still on cloud nine but my life must go on. No one is giving me a break. If I gave my daughter $2 for each thing I need to do, I'd be broke!

Word of Warning

FYI - I've seen 2 different examples of blogs (both with blogger) that have been 'hijacked". That might not be the correct term but someone mean has taken them over. In any case, it's a good idea to change your password on a regular basis. I don't know the particulars with the 2 blogs since I can't communicate with them any longer :(

What Else Can I Say?

Instant Celebrity

For those readers who aren't Appalachian and/or football fans, please have patience. I think I will come off my high eventually. This is a link to the last seconds of the game as called by our Appalachian Sport Network announcers. I get a great big smile every time I hear it. Dave Jackson is the one able to talk, calling the play by play. I can't remember the name of the "screamer". I will try to update it later. I believe he was former player : Final Call . (It's only 40 seconds long).

It has been non stop since I got home late Saturday night. We went to a party Sunday night and watched the game replayed. Monday we went to our neighborhood pool. Two other families had been to the game so we had an impromptu reunion and celebration. I've been wearing one of my many ASU shirts each day. I get stopped and asked about the game. When I say I was there, I'm treated like a celebrity.

Mountaineers ROCKED The Big House

Appalachian State upset Michigan 34 to 32 and we were there!