Merry Christmas!

The girls and I on our way to church on Christmas Eve. P and J are at work.

Young and Old

Yesterday I went to Fry's for groceries, and I've shopped at that location for a long time the cashier said it was her 37th Christmas at Smitty's/Fred Meyer, Fry's. That made me feel very young. I was 6 when she started working! Today the girls and I went to the dentist, R and I to get our teeth cleaned and S had a tooth that needed to be pulled. The dentist that cleaned my teeth, not the regular dentist, was talking the whole time, asking questions, I nearly choked when he asked if I had any grandchildren. That made me feel very old. Geez, I do have friends I graduated with that are grandparents, but my oldest is only 16.

Christmas Lights 2009

Not as may lights as in years past. Last year we had a problem with the lights blowing fuses, so P decided he would alternate the roof one year and the snowmen and deer the other year. I miss the deer and snowmen :(

He did it!

For the first time since he was in 6th grade J earned honor roll! At his high school they do grades only at the end of semesters, I am beyond thrilled! If you know of his struggles the for the last 5 years you would understand my excitement. S and R also earned honor roll for the 2nd quarter. I am one proud Mommy!

Contacts

S has started in the past 2 weeks not wearing her glasses. She's decided they are very uncool, even at home unless I ask her where they are, so I know she hasn't lost them.. R desperately wants glasses because she thinks they are cool, but right now her eyes are not bad enough to have them. S's eyes really are not good enough to see well for long periods of time. I know when I was in 5th grade I hide my glasses in my desk everyday, my eyes are much better that S's. I totally get S thinking they are uncool. She last went to the eye doctor in January she will have wait a few more weeks to go back. Last year the doctor said when she was 13 she could get contacts. I don't know if she remembers or not, I think I won't say anything and surprise her and wait to tell her when we get there.

Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB)

J took this test in October. On Saturday a Air Force Sergent called him. He did very well on it. 74th percentile, which I guess is good. He was very happy to hear he did well. The Sergent said he will most likely be able to pick the job/speciality he's most interested in doing, which made J very happy. Speaking of J, his knee surgery will be on Jan. 13th, Aunt Marlene's birthday, he missed sharing a room with Aunt Jul by 2 days, her knee replacement surgery is on the 15th. Oh, that reminds me I meant to fill out the form today for a personal day for the 13th, I need to remember to do that tomorrow.

Productive weekend

I got a lot of my Christmas wrapping done on Friday afternoon. I even talked P into helping me after dinner. It feels good to have that mostly done. Saturday I had to get up early, but not as early as the Saturday before J needed to be dropped off at 8, to gather mistletoe with his scout troop. When I got home I laid back down for a little bit, not that I fell back to sleep, but resting felt good, my cold seems to be getting worse not better. I had to wake both girls up at 12, in order to be downtown by 2, so we could watch their cousins dance in The Snow Queen. When we got home I reluctantly did 4 loads of laundry. After church today I started my Christmas baking. 4 loaves of Amish Friendship bread, and pizzels. I think I'll only be baking a few different kinds of cookies, peanut blossoms, M and M's, chocolate chip, and sugar cut outs. Since I really suck at making fudge, I'm not even planning on trying this year, the only candy I plan on making is Christmas bark. Only 4 and a half more days of school,(until winter break) Although I am working till 3 on Friday, I don't want to use my personal time to leave at 12 when students leave, we have to option of working, not getting paid for 3 hours or using personal time, teachers get to leave when students do though, so not fair! I am so ready for the break.

Not trying to stress

But I'm having a hard time keeping myself in check. Not getting enough sleep, and a cold on top of that isn't helping my stress level. I did cross off 2 major things on my to do list. Christmas cards, and the invitations for our church Angel Tree party. I just need to stamp everything to mail. I called P at work to bring me the stamps. I tried cutting down on the amount of cards send this year, by only sending cards to just my first cousins and not second cousins. Since I only send cards to P's Aunts and Uncles, I already send way more cards for my family. The tree is still not decorated yet. Well, that's not completely true, someone started to, but then got bored or something. I have 4 boxes sitting on my living room couch, and on the love seat there's a large broken down box for S to use in her project that's due soon, I hope. The only place to sit in my living room is on 1 of 2 computer chairs. The boxes are making me feel claustrophobic. P is off tomorrow I have hope that the outside lights go up and the tree gets finished. Well, maybe not the tree the girls have dance and J has to work 6 hours. I haven't baked one cookie or wrapped one present yet. Maybe this weekend, I can fit something in, in between all the other activities. I will not stress, and enjoy December, and get a couple of good nights sleep to kick this cold...

Emotions

I'm sure that some of the extreme emotions I felt yesterday had to do with being up since 5:30 AM. Yesterday was the first of 2 shows for my girls as they danced in The Snow Queen. While they were on stage dancing during the first show I just felt very proud of them and happy, and frustrated that because they are in the same scene very hard to watch them both at the same time, and they were on different ends of the stage the whole time. At the end of the show all the dancers come out by group to take a bow. I cried then. The plan was to come home between shows to grab something to eat before heading back downtown for the next show. S and R didn't come out of the dressing room, everyone else left including the show's director, and still no S and R, I was freaking out, and it was worse because I'm the only one standing there waiting for them. I tried to go back to get them, but because of security they wouldn't let me. Finally they come out, They are not alone they have another girl with them, who is about R's age. She wants to go to Subway, R wants to go with her. I was very angry at that point and no way would I let R walk around downtown without an adult and we needed to go home not only to get dinner but to get P who was coming to the evening show. I'm sure I embarrassed her with my anger. I felt embarrassed too, but I was stressed out and angry. We finally made it to the car, and surprisingly I figured out how to get to the freeway by myself. Only one freeway curves off and the freeway I'm in the wrong lane to get on the freeway I need to be to get home. Sigh. So I get off the wrong freeway to turn around to get on the right one to get home. By the time we stopped to get food (fast food) to eat at home, because J and P needed dinner too, we had 30 minutes to eat before we had to leave to drive downtown again. I'll get back to what P did that made me crazy. On the drive home, my cell phone rang. S got it out of my purse for me, I just figured it would be P or J wanting to know where we were or what's for dinner. Nope, it was my MIL who tells me that herself and FIL will not be coming to the evening performance, because her brother died and she was too upset to go and FIL was going to stay with her, so he wouldn't be coming either. OK, I get it that her brother just died and she's upset, I don't want to sound cold here but her brother had cancer, and really he lived a lot longer than his doctor thought he would. So it shouldn't really come as a shock that he died. There's more feelings into this, but I can't get into it. P called her when we got home last night and she couldn't talk very long to him without crying. So she hands the phone off to Dad, P asks his Dad about the Cardinal game they are supposed to go to today. Yes, he would still be going to that. MIL wants him to go. WHAT. That really angers me. She'll be OK, the day after her brother dies, for her husband to go to a football game, but not be OK to let him go watch his granddaughters dance the night before? Really, really angers me. I thought I would feel better about it today, but really it makes me more angrier, because you see my husband as in S and R's father is going to this football game with his father and not going to watch his daughters dance. Back to P last night. He just was getting home when we pulled up to the house at 5 PM. Only he forgot to get my prescriptions that I've had on the counter since Wednesday, I call the scripts in and leave the empty bottles on the counter, so he knows to pick them up, they are filled at the pharmacy located in the store he works at. He leaves to go back to get them. So instead of having a little (and I mean little since we only had 30 minutes anyway) of a peaceful family meal together, I was left to do everything and be stressed that he would be back by 5:30. He barely makes it, and I don't talk to him the whole drive downtown. There was just too much for me to be able to talk nicely, so I just didn't say anything.

Snow Queen Weekend Ahead!

This afternoon P (so thankful he was off to take them to one of the rehearsals) took the girl to their first of 2 rehearsals at the theater they will be dancing at for 4 shows this weekend. Tomorrow I get to take them to the second one. Then I get to take them Saturday for the first show by myself, come home and pick up P and J, and go back down for the evening show (P can drive us then). Sunday I get to do the whole day by myself. I so NOT like to drive down town. I always feel all mixed up, when driving down there, I am already feeling very stressed out. I took J to work, and got groceries this afternoon, which I hate doing, well both buying groceries and going after I've been on my feet all day at school. The girls needed to have snacks for back stage and we'll need food to eat next week, no time for that this weekend. But man oh man do my feet hurt. And I started coughing this afternoon and it's getting on my nerves already. It better go away fast.