Well, lots has happened since my last entry...

Katie played in an indoor softball tournament.  Let me tell you, it is nowhere as interesting as regular softball.  It was right up there with watching paint dry on the excitement meter.  I really hope they don't do that again.  Katie didn't like it either.

Katie's volleyball team is playing really well, but they just aren't able to win.  They've been losing games by 2 or 3 points, so they've been close matches.  They just need to figure out what to do to get over that hump and win.

Chris went horseback riding with the boyscouts and absolutely loved it!  He had a great time on their winter campout, AND because the older boys were eating it for dinner, he actually tried Skyline Chili and guess what...he likes it. Never mind that I've been telling him for years that he'd like it if he tried it.  Now our lone holdout whenever we want to go to Skyline is actually suggesting that we eat there!

Chris had his first wrestling match a week ago.  Unfortunately it's also his last for the year.  He was winning 6-0 and when the other kid flipped him to the mat, he broke his humerus, up near his shoulder at the growth plate.  He's got at least 4 weeks in a sling (they can't really cast that area, and they want to let the weight of the arm help keep the bone in alignment) which is then strapped to his chest so he can't move his arm at all.  When the sling comes off, he'll do a couple of weeks of range of motion but no lifting, and then he'll be allowed to work on strength.  We're hoping his arm will be back to full use by the baseball season.  This means he also can't play his tuba in the band for a while, which is disappointing him, too.  But he's already looking forward to next wrestling season.

Breakfast with Santa is over for this year (I'm one of the co-chairs) and next year there are new co-chairs.  It was extra stressful this year because my fellow co-chair wasn't there to help.  I was so excited that it wasn't my project anymore, and then I remembered that I'll still be there the next 2 years.  Eighth grade students work the Breakfast for service hours, and Chris will be in eighth grade next year and Katie the year after.  Oh well, Mary and Tina will appreciate the help.

I have no tree up, no decorations up, and very little shopping done.  I must be crazy.

So, what's going on in your life?

I've been a bad updater again, but I think that's just going to have to be my MO...sporadic.

Since my last post, I spent 10 days dogsitting 2 chihuahuas for one of my best friends.  "Bubba" is her baby since her husband died. "Baby" is her daughter's baby, and since they live together, the dogs are inseparable (in addition to being siblings).  They were going to Hawaii for 8 days, and haven't ever been away from the dogs for longer than overnight.  Since they couldn't face putting them in  a kennel or separating them, I volunteered.   The kids loved the dogs, and the dogs really enjoyed having the kids to play with too.  Katie even turned them into video stars!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POfL3QfZJ10

We also got a new kitten last week, probably about 3 months old.  Mikah (according to my daughter, it's pronounced Meekah) is totally black, so it's a good thing we're not superstitious.  Especially since my daughter's birthday was last Friday, the 13th!  I endured 4 hours of mall hell with her and 3 friends as part of her birthday celebration.   

Chris' football season is over, and there's no easy or polite way to say this:  I'm so glad it's over, because they sucked!  Honestly, the team had a lot of talent, but the head coach didn't seem to know what to do with it and wouldn't listen to his assistant coaches. 

Chris is going to give wrestling a try this winter, they've already started practice.  I've never seen a wrestling match in my life, so I'm not quite sure what to expect. So I've definitely got some learning to do. 

Katie's volleyball season starts this coming weekend, and I can't wait!

Both kids did really well in school the first quarter, Chris had straight A's and Katie had all A's except 1 B+. 

I've now been at my workplace for 25 years.  That's a lot of time, a lot of experience, and a lot of productiviity.  Children's Hospital is a large teaching hospital, with over 10,000 employees overall.  They make a big deal out of recruitment and retention.  Recruitment because nursing is in a shortage, and nursing is generally something of a high turnover career, as are some of the other positions in the hospital.  Retention because if you don't have the experienced staff to teach and mentor the newer staff they're going to suck and kill patients.  At this point, I even mentor the new physicians.  I can't tell you how often we call them and tell them what's wrong, and they hem and haw, and then we suggest "I'll bet you want us to do this and then this, right?"

Anyway, I got a letter from the hospital the other day, thanking me for my years of service and offering me a gift.  Sounds nice, doesn't it?

It was a form letter.  Not even a form letter specific for my years of service.  There was a little graph in the middle of it, telling you how much your Visa gift card would be worth if you had 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 or 30 years of service.  I was supposed to get a $225 gift card.  Not even $10 per year, but still I was okay with it.  After all, it was $225 I didn't have before, and I'm usually not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Then I get to the next paragraph in the letter.  The amount of my gift card will show up on my next paycheck as a 'svc awd' where it will be taxed at the 60% bracket.  WTF?

This rant is now over, as I need to move back before the gift horse bites my face off.

Can we hear it for the Cincinnati Bengals, who totally dominated today!  So much better on the nerves than the 'win in the last minute' strategy we've used in previous games.

Who Dey

Who Dey

Who Dey think

gonna beat them

Bengals?

It's been a crazy couple of weeks around our house. Crazy at work.  Crazy with kids activities.  Crazy with parent activities.  Just altogether nutso.  But it looks like it could be starting to quiet down.

H1N1 is wreaking havoc at the schools, but they've not closed them yet.  St. John had 50 out of a little over 200 students absent one day last week.  The Jr. High had near 15% absenteeism, according to the website.  C and K were both sick, but not with flu.  They had a 24 hr stomach bug--lots of nausea, no vomiting...just the way 9 out of 10 mom's prefer it.   We've also been busy at work because of H1N1 (or hi-nee, for short).  We've had one death at our hospital, and one in Dayton, and lots of other kids really ill, often with secondary infections like pneumonia.  One of my co-workers just lost her mom to it, too.  She had some underlying respiratory issues, was recovering from some surgery, and got ill very quickly and died before she got to the hospital. 

C was supposed to have his first band concert this past week, but at 7:10 pm the band director came onstage and postponed it. They had so many illnesses (including several who left school ill after he saw them in the morning band class) in the band that they were weren't going to be able to play several of their songs.  So, I have to wait until this week to hear the 'mad' tuba skills.

Who'd have thunk the Bengals would be 4 - 2 at this point in the season?  No me.  Last week their 'win in the last minute of the game' offense didn't manage to pull it off, but it's still been an exciting season.  K came to me earlier tonight and asked if I knew the Bengals had a fight song.  I guessed "Who Dey, Who Dey, Who Dey think gonna beat them Bengals" but she said "no, they have a real one."    Then she hunted it up for me on Youtube.   It's bad...and not in a good way.  And even worse, hubby confirmed that they really do play it at the stadium.  Somehow, some way, Cincinnati will always manage to embarrass itself.

This has been a pretty quiet week in our house--about time we had one of those!  We still had activities every evening, and Wednesday evening was busiest as usual, but nothing extra got added in.

We actually had a weekend with no---not even one---extra kids at our house.  This was probably because Katie went to her friends house from Friday after school until Saturday at midnight.  Much as I love the kids friends, they will eat me out of house and home sometimes, and they aren't even teenagers yet.  And, I need to start asking more clarifying questions when the kids ask if someone can come over...last week I thought I was agreeing to let a friend come over for a few hours ("She doesn't want to go with her mom and dad to such and such event") only it turned out that it was for over 24 hours.  I'd been grocery shopping right before she came over, and when she left all the strawberries were gone, all the granola bars were gone, all the shredded wheat cereal was gone, and we'd fed her a steak dinner on top of that!  Where do these skinny little kids put it all?

Chris' school has 'interest based homerooms' at lunch.  At the beginning of the year, they selected 6 activities from a long list, and they will get to do 4 of them during the school year, one each quarter.  This quarter, he's in 'Entrepreneurship in Action' and his little money-hungry soul is loving it.  His group won the kool-aid marketing and selling contest, and they got Arby's for lunch one day.  On top of that the principal gave them coupons for dinner at Frisch's, another local restaurant.  So, the group meets Friday evening for dinner, and a girl comes to the door to greet Chris with a big grin and "You came!" and show him to where they were seated.  I'm so frustrated, he won't even tell me the girl's name!

Chris and I also went to a band competition at the High School Saturday night. I'd never been to one before, and it was a pretty good time. Chris is really excited about band, which makes me happy.

Chris' football team lost in OT today, which was a total bummer.  I had to work as the grill cashier, which wasn't bad, I could see both the game on the field and the Bengals game on the TV.  Bengals managed to pull out another win, also in OT, after blowing a 14-0 lead.  Their special teams need to get it together--they had a blocked FG, a blocked extra point, and fumbled the second half kickoff which led to a score.  

Katie's Softball team had a DH, which they split, 1-1.    

Glad to see my friend Holliday is back to blogging!

What a blah and rainy week it's been.  Not pouring down rain, just constant grey drizzle.  Great for sleeping, but otherwise it's just blah.

The rain did let up for several hours last night, so that everyone could enjoy our parish picnic at Stricker's Grove, which is a small amusement park nearby.  The kids had a wonderful time riding the rides (for free!) and I had a great time talking to all the adults--not that I don't see some of them every day and most of them at least once a week, but we rarely seem to get to sit down and really talk.

One of the topics of discussion was the fact that the school was vandalized this week.  Some low life scum wrote "Jesus hates us all" on the side of the steps leading into the gym.  Also, in front of the school is a statue of Jesus that the students and teachers purchased for our last principal in memory of his mother when she died, and they scribbled on his face and beard with black marker.  The kids were all pretty angry about it happening at all, so I hope they catch whoever did it. 

Other topics were pretty light-hearted, like how addicting facebook is.  I'm enjoying  it,  but I'm not as addicted as some people.  However, I have managed to get re-addicted to the game Bejeweled via the site.  I was addicted to the game several years ago, and one of my friends challenged me to a game on Facebook.  I may need  another stint in rehab.

I attended my first Music Boosters meeting earlier in the week, and I'm pleased to say it was short and to the point.  One of my pet peeves is meetings that go on forever and nothing gets decided.  And, I got to meet the man who is teaching my son his 'mad' tuba skills LOL.  He says Chris is doing great, but he needs to have 'looser lips'.  I don't think anyone has ever said this about my oh-so-talkative son before in his life. 

Chris' football team called a full pads practice this morning--after days and days of rain.  So you can imagine what he looked like when he came home. He rides home with one of the coaches, and the message I got from Chris was "Meet us at the bottom of the hill.  Towels.  Water.  MUD."  I was there with the towels, but there is no running water at the bottom of the hill, so my plan was to have him jump in the creek.  They'd hosed them off after practice though, so he was clean enough to have in the car just as he was.  I did have to run the pre-wash cycle 4 times to get the clothes clean enough to wash, though.  I'm sure it will all be lovely after tomorrows game, too. 

Now I'm off to convince my daughter that I'm really NOT going to take her to the mall today.

Got back from the Bonanza Convention earlier this week (go ahead and laugh and roll your eyes all you want, I had a great time!), I was wiped out from all the fun for a day or two, but now I'm back to as close to normal as I get.  People back home just don't get how I could go to a convention and not know another soul in person, and come home feeling like I've known these people for years.  It really felt like a family reunion with only the family members that I like attending! They are slowly getting used to hearing the names Jeanie, Francesca, Holliday, Cowgirl Jones, Meadow, Cowboy Jim, Chef Jim, and Chuck Jim sprinkled through my conversation.

It's been a shameful amount of time since I updated my blog, as Jeanie not so subtly reminded me at the convention.   So often, it seems as though I have nothing to write about.  Or I think of wonderful blog entries in the car and then can't remember them when I get home.

I was going to wait for the Bonanza DVDs to come to the 'bargain' stores, but I caved in and bought them from Amazon soon after I got home.  And I ordered through the link on BW, so the site will get some money too.  How's that for rationalization? 

I'm also going to start watching Deadwood (swigen!) as soon as I can get the DVDs from Blockbuster.  We have no late fees at Blockbuster, so I decided to wait for them there.  The last time I had a late DVD at the library, it ended up costing me over $20!

Baseball and softball season have both come and gone since my last blog entry.  We had hoped to pare down to 1 baseball team and 1 softball team, but...we ended up with two of each, which was still better than last year. 

Katie's (excuse me, she wants her name to be spelled Kaytee, but I just can't make myself do it) SB team won the league and finished 2nd in a tournament and 3rd in 2 others.  She is going to be playing fall ball, winter ball, and spring ball with this same team, which moved up to 14U.  That makes me a little nervous, because she's just going to be 12 in November, but she went through tryouts.  I just don't want her sitting the bench all the time because she's the youngest on the team.  Their double header today was cancelled because of rain.  She's also playing volleyball this fall, made the A team.

Chris' baseball team finished 1st in the league, but had a really off day and finished 4th in the tournament.  They were 3rd or 4th in most of the tournaments they played in too.  He was excited because he got to catch a lot againt this year.  He really likes that position.    He also umpired quite a bit this summer, including a D ball game with his father--of course, I was there taking pics of that one for the scrapbook.  He's playing football right now, but had a bye this week.

Jon was surprised to get a call from the NCAA this spring--he was selected to umpire in the NCAA College World Series.  One of 96 umpires nationwide.  He didn't even know he'd been nominated, let alone that anyone had come out to evaluate him.  He ended up at Clemson, and had a play from his plate game make the ESPN highlights!

We took a wonderful trip out west in August, 18 days.  That, of course, would have been the perfect time to restart my blog, but I didn't think of it.  What can I say, I'm just a dork sometimes.

I'm going to try to be better about updating. 

Katie's basketball is over.  Chris' volleyball is over.  Willie Wonka Jr is over--if you don't factor in that I'm still  listening to the soundtrack in my car.  Finally, a little down time.  We've only got baseball, umpiring, softball, and working in the concession stand to worry about.

I can honestly say the play was not bad at all. I wasn't looking forward to it, having never been able to make it all the way through either version of the movie, or the book.  But I sat through three showings of the play  .  I'd have probably been able to watch the movie if my kids were in it, too. Chris did a good job singing in his scene (he had some solo lines) and Katie was 'the most awesome squirrel ever!'--her words, not mine.  But I will admit to being just about 'oompa loompa'd' out by the soundtrack.

Went to my SIL's wedding tonight.  I guess technically she's not really my SIL, she's my brother's widow, but that's splitting hairs.  She looked lovely, and my niece was absolutely stunning as the maid of honor.  Her new hubby is the Sheriff of the county they live in.  Hard to see someone who was married to my brother now being married to a cop.  Herb wasn't a felon or anything like that, but as my other brother likes to say "He walked a f-i-n-e line". 

Updating on a few of my current fave shows:

Survivor--I can't believe they had the cojones to take out Tyson and now Debbi, but can't work it up to get rid of Coach.  Taj was hilarious when she realized what the last line on the video from home was--her hubby said "see you back at camp".  I thought she was going to pull Jeff's arm off, jumping around while she had a death grip on it.

American Idol--I wasn't sad to see Allison go.  I think she's very talented, but that gravely voice doesn't really do much for me.  I'm hoping for Adam and  Kris in the finals.  But I still think Adam will win--he's just incredibly talented.

Ever have one of those days that seems to be just a series of unfortunate events?  I had one today.

First off, I stayed up late last night--5 am--because I just wasn't tired and I had it all worked out so I could sleep in today.  Hubby was leaving the house early.  Daughter and her friend that was staying over are both notorious late sleepers.  Son gone on a boy scout campout for the weekend.  I looked forward to luxuriating in bed until at least 11 am, if not noon.

7:50 am--get a call from a friend who wants to know if Chris is coming to the umpire clinic this morning and where it's being held.  Explain he's not going, he's on a boyscout campout, clinic is at the complex. Debate getting up to 'relieve myself' but decide to roll over and go back to sleep.

8:10 am--boy scout outing leader calls--Chris' toe is really hurting him and they are concerned he will not be able to do the hike.  Now, Chris had an ingrown toenail removed about a month ago, and it was pretty nasty with drainage and cellulitis.  He finished his 10 days of antibiotics, and it looked to be healing well.  He had me look at it last week, and it had a little crusted drainage, and was a little tender when I pressed on it, but looked okay.  We decided he would continue to dress it and let me know if it got worse, and I never heard anything else about it.  So I talk to him--it's apparently been getting progressively more painful and draining more, and then he whacked it into a root last night setting up camp and it's been really hurting since then.  So I talk to the leader--the hike is 12.5 miles, all up and down hill, and he'll be digging in with his toes to climb uphill and probably having them hit the front of his shoes on the downhill part.  It's a very rugged hike, with little access, and they are concerned that he'll get partway and be unable to finish.  But the biggest problem is they don't have enough adults to leave 2 at camp with him and have 2 to go on the hike.  So I either need to go get Chris or the hike is cancelled for everyone.  So I say I'll come get him.

Then, this lady--who is a talker--starts in on tales of when her oldest son was a scout, and problems he had with his toe on a weeklong hike.  I keep trying to cut her off so I can get ready to go, but she just keeps going.  Finally, I get her off the phone so I can go pee.  I was about to take the phone in there with me!

Going to pick up Chris doesn't sound like a huge deal...but he was 2 hours away...each way.  Not exactly how I intended to spend my morning.   But, I mapquested the address and took off.  I woke up both Katie and Nat and told them where I was going, but they didn't want to come with, they wanted to sleep. (So did I!)

It really did take me 2 hours to get there.  This place was in Brown County, IN which is a beautiful area with a huge park, lots of hiking, and the town of Nashville, which is known for it's craft and specialty stores.  Nashville is always crowded with both cars and pedestrians, and of course the area they were at was on the other side of the town.  I'm just a couple of turns from where I think I need to go when the phone rings. 

Whiny Voice:  Where are you?

Me:  I'm almost there, just a couple turns left to go.

WV: But where are you?

Me:  I'm through Nashville and almost to the park.

WV:  But why aren't you here?

Me:  I'm coming as fast as I can.  Where exactly are you?

WV:  I'm at home...why are you in Tennessee?

Me:  Wait a minute, is this Chris or Katie?

WV:  It's Katie.

Apparently, despite the fact that they both spoke to me, and Katie was sitting up with her eyes open, neither of the girls remembered any details of our conversation, although bits and pieces came back as I updated them.  Told them I'd be home again in about 2 hours, and to call Nat's parents if they had any problems. 

After I turned off 'Bear Wallow Road' and onto 'Bear Wallow Hill Road' I found the campground and after a few more tries found where Chris and the scoutleader were.  They had stayed at the house at the head of the trail, with a ranger as the second adult. But of course, the phone number I had was for the adult who was on the hike, not the one with Chris.  And cell coverage was in and out  with all the hills, so they had trouble getting me by phone (even when they saw me pass the house LOL).  But we did manage to find each other.

I pile Chris in the car and take off for home.  It's almost 11 am now.   I'd talked to my mom on the way up (had to dish on Survivor with her) and we both thought it would be quicker for me to go home all the way on IN 46 than the way Mapquest brought me up, so Chris and I thought we'd try that on the way home. 

It's never a good idea for someone with no sense of direction and no gps to try muck with directions.  I followed 46 W (after all Indiana is W from my house) and we took off.  Unfortunately about an hour down the road we hit Bloomington...which I didn't think was right.  So we got out the big paper map--the one you can never get refolded right--and sure enough, we should have been taking 46 E.  (duh...Indiana is west from my house, but since I was already in Indiana, I needed to go east to hit OH).  So, we called the girls and told them it was going to be probably between 3 and 4 when we got home, and I fessed up to being somewhat lost, which entertained them to no end.  And we grabbed a little lunch and took off back the way we'd come.  There really wasn't a better way home that wasn't total squiggly little backroads.

Have I mentioned that at this point, we'd pretty much had it with Indiana?  We'd been behind people gawking at yard sales and flea markets, people driving 20 miles under the posted speed limit, and stuck behind a tractor trailer and an RV that were neck and neck for so long they could have shared a meal. 

So, we backtrack. And backtrack.  And backtrack some more.  I call my mom and entertain her with my 'lack of direction' story.  Hubby calls home to see how the trip went and my darling daughter rats me out to him.  So he calls me to express his disbelief that anyone can be that 'challenged' and generally make fun of me.  So I call my daughter and make idle threats to her for ratting me out.  And Chris and I have a really good time listening to music and talking about all sorts of things.  The time one on one with Chris was the one redeeming factor of the day.

As we are sitting in traffic stopped for roadwork--and I do mean sitting, I actually ended up turning the car off--we reached the conclusion that we don't really dislike Indiana. Indiana dislikes us.  They probably dislike anyone with Ohio license plates.  We were there for at least 15 minutes if not 20, watching the backhoe go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, getting dirt and filling up a hole.  And then the concrete truck had to maneuver around and reposition itself, so it could dump it's load of concrete in the hole.  You'd think that the guy holding the sign would have stopped the oncoming traffic on occassion and let us go, but NO, we got the stop sign the whole time.  Except for that one second after the backhoe when he turned  to slow for a brief second to tease us, before he figured out that the concrete truck was on the move.

We finally get home about 4 pm.  Unexpected 4 hour trip turns into unexpected 6 1/2 hour trip.  Had to stop and get dressing supplies for Chris' toe.  It really does look nasty and painful, much worse than a week ago when I saw it last.  No way he would have made that hike.  He's gonna need to see the doctor again.  Katie and Nat spent part of the afternoon at Nat's house, so I had to pick them up when I went past.   Still had laundry to do.  Never did get to sleep in.  I know Jon's gonna poke more fun at me when he gets home.  

All I got to say is its been one helluva Saturday.  I hope Sunday goes better.