My oldest daughter is almost 11 and full of tween spunk. She disagrees just to disagree. She talks back, she thinks most of my suggestions are stupid. On the other hand, she still likes to sit on my lap even though she is almost the same size as me. She brushes my hair.....a lot. She looks exactly like me. She talks exactly like me. She wants to be an astronaut when she grows up.

Yesterday, she made a bad decision.

Yesterday, just like every weekday, I dropped her at the bus stop. It was raining. I told her to get into our neighbors van who was also waiting at the bus stop.

I told her I loved her.

I drove away, headed to the elementary school to make lunch. Other two kids safe and secure in the van.

Five minutes later, her bus pulled up. She put on her hood and jumped out of the van.

IN FRONT OF A SUBURBAN! Thankfully, he wasn't on the phone. Thankfully, he wasn't distracted. Thankfully, he slammed onto his breaks and stopped.

She never even noticed.

But one second later, she would have been hit.

One second later, our Thanksgiving would have been quite different.

One second later and I would have received that phone call that brought me to my knees.

Today, I feel very thankful.

I'm not at work today. Don't worry it's alright, after all it's hamburger helper day. (insert gag) Middle G is on the mend. She has been fever free for 24 hours but she is still coughing like a seasoned smoker. It keeps her (and I) up at night so I thought she could use another day of rest.

Her response "I'm sooooooo bored."

Can you imagine if our children ever really were bored. They're brains would melt.

Anyway, I thought I would share this pathetic photo with you. At the pediatrician's there are giant signs that if your child has a cough and/or a fever they must wear a mask, a.k.a. swine flu. There are no books, not toys and easy to wipe down chairs in the waiting room.

Middle G had to wear the mask.

• family: Both immediate and extended. There really is no one quite like you (and I mean that in the most friendliest of ways). Family sees you at your happiest, they see you at your saddest. They offer a hand, they tell you when you've crossed a line. It doesn't get much better than that.
• Friends: I still think that a gaggle of close women is better than any therapist. People you look forward to seeing. People you can't wait to talk to, whether the news is good or bad. People who know when you need to get drunk, or shop, or just hang.
• bathtubs filled with bubbles: This one is self-explanatory. For me, a long hot steamy bubble bath is just about as good a sex.
• My craft room: It's just four walls, covered in polka-dots with just about every craft gadget you can think of. It's a little piece of heaven on earth.
• Peanut butter cups: If I don't stop eating the ones the kids got from trick-or-treating, my ass will soon be showing up on the local radar. There's a disturbance in the northern part of the county....it appears to be Wendy's ass. Onlookers are advised to seek cover. Film at 11 p.m.
• health: Last but, certainly not least, is our health. This time of year I think it is important to remind ourselves that we are one phone call away from falling to our knees. When the kids get on your nerves, or your mother calls at bedtime, or your husband forgets to pick up the milk, try to put things into perspective. Someone is celebrating Thanksgiving without their kid/mother/husband. Someone is grieving a loss, some are big, some are small.

Let's all be thankful more than one day in 2010.

It's time once again to tell you what I learned this week in the cafeteria. This week has been quite stressful for multiple reasons.

• Serving Thanksgiving dinner to elementary age children encourages waste. I think only two kids out of 200 ate the stuffing.
• Half days are twice the headache.
• When the head cook takes a personally day prepare for hell.
• Computers seldom do what you expect them to do.
• People will try to get away with anything if they think they can. For example, when the head cook was off the substitute making breakfast tried to take 100 chocolate milk with her to her building leaving me with about 50. We use more than that at breakfast. WTF?

Needless to say, I am happy this week is over. My middle daughter has been fighting a fever on and off all week. Traveling for my gram's funeral didn't help the situation and now she has pneumonia.

I think our weekend plans will include a lot of rest.

I would first like to say thank you to everyone who expressed their condolences at the loss of my grandmother earlier this week. I returned to my home town for her viewing and funeral. She was a wonderful woman who is, without a doubt, walking hand in hand with my grandfather down streets of gold.




It's time once again for Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop. Are you participating?

Today I decided to write about the most destructive thing my pet has ever done.

This weekend, like all weekends, flew by. We lost our soccer game and my craft show wasn't very fruitful.

I learned late Saturday night that my grandma wasn't doing well and sadly she died this morning.

I am very lucky to have known her for 37 years and I have many fond memories of times we shared together.

My grandma was a pint-sized powerhouse. She barely stood five foot. She had six kids, one of them my father. She lived as a widow for 8 years, until recently at her home caring for herself.

Last year we had a surprise birthday party for my dad. This is me, my gram and my sister. She was so tickled to be there (as you can tell).

Throughout my childhood we spent many a camping trip with both my grandma and my pappy. She was a fierce card player and didn't like to lose. We played dominoes and uno.

She loved having the family around for holidays and was able to visit me in Ohio numerous times.

I saw her grieve for my grandfather, mourn the loss of a grandchild, as well as a great-grandchild.

The last time I saw her I held her hand at the nursing home across the street from my in-laws house.

My 10 year old daughter was with me and she let grandma repeat her story about lunch over and over again without correction.

We shared cookies together.

I hope my daughter remembers this because I know I will never forget it.

Rest in peace, Gram. Give Pappy a hug from me.

Are you watching Glee? Are you as obsessed with this show as I am? I know it is cheesy and the actors hardly look like high school students, but I can't get enough of Glee.

Here's why:

~ Finn is so cute.

~Glee club director, Will, is even cuter.

~The music is awesome.

~Jane Lynch is the funniest, most under-rated actress currently working in Hollywood. I loved her on 2 1/2 men and in the movie 40 year old virgin. She is hilarious as the cheer leading coach on Glee.

~Very seldom does someone die. I'm so tired of dramas/comedies that feel the need to randomly kill off people. What ever happened to happy endings????

I LOVE GLEE!

Try to get past these twisted pictures and look at the cards. This Santa and reindeer are $1.00 stamps from Michael's. The inside says Merry Christmas (original I know) and Happy Holidays.

1. Chili is not a popular lunch item: Peanut butter and Jelly as an alternate nearly beat out the 67 chili's we served today.
2. The longer you work there the less you find any child "cute". The janitor and the head cook are fine examples of this. Every kid knows how to push their buttons, as do I. (insert evil laugh here.)
3. If offered, kids will take an apple just to throw it away: I'm not sure why but we grind up a lot of yummy looking-not-a-bite-taken-out-of-them apples every day in the garbage disposal.
4. You can cut 50 oranges in less than 30 minutes. Putting two slices of each of those oranges into 100 tiny little annoying bags takes much longer.
5. I hate cutting tomatoes. In fact, I hate everything about tomatoes.

What have you learned this week?

My weekend just flew by! How was yours?

I got quite a bit accomplished but still feel overwhelmed. Why is that?

On Friday, I made the 18 Thanksgiving cards for my mom's friend that I posted. I'm still working on the rest of the wreaths. I'll post pictures of those later this week.

Saturday we had a soccer game again. We lost. The girls played well, though. It was 1-1 till the 4th quarter and then it fell apart.

Next week is our last game and it is during my craft show so I won't be able to attend. However, all three of my kids want to play indoor soccer which I'm not really sure I'm all that excited about. Looks like soccer is going to last FOREVER this year.

Trying to get caught up on some housework, but it's sort of like chasing my tail.

Sorry for the lack of pictures. Be sure to stop back tomorrow for Post It Note Tuesday!

Help! I'm trapped in my craft room and I've made such a mess of the place that I can't find my way out! Only three more wreaths to go until I've made a dozen. There are cards drying all over the place. Stickles are setting, google eyes are drying. It's quite the scene.




Here are some of the completed and almost completed items.

While things have improved, I still have my troubles. Here what I think the problem stems from:

1. Snoring: My husband still occasionally snores. It's better since he got a specially designed night guard, but occasionally the bear returns.
2. Too much on my mind: craft show, my mom's friend needing Thanksgiving cards, my daughter needing some pants that fit....blah, blah, blah.
3. Holidays. Is it really almost time to Christmas shop. Say it isn't so??!!??
4. Thanksgiving: Have it here? Go somewhere?
5. Work: I'm trying to write more than just briefs about school board meetings. Since starting as a lunch lady this writing has falling aside. It makes me sad.
6. Play: Sometime I just want to blog and ignore everything and everyone else--even if it's late and I should be in bed
7. H1N1 and other funk: Now that I'm in the elementary school everyday and I realize just how many germs are walking around and having lunch with my kids, I'm more concerned than ever about the slightest little virus. I blame the media...oh wait I am the media. Never mind.
8. My dog: I think he's depressed, though it's hard to tell since beagles always look depressed.
9. My nephew: My sister's insurance company is denying him glucose strips until mid December. Why? He's used his allotment. Even if your 8 your only allowed to have so many. Ridiculous.
10. Money: Why do so many miscellaneous expenses creep up just in time for the holidays.

I'm sure once I get all of this off of my mind, I will sleep like a baby until then I highly recommend Tylenol Simple Sleep.

• 25 more cards (at least)


• 4 more wreaths

I'm trying to get ready for a craft show. I really don't know why. I never sell much of anything and should probably not waste a whole Saturday trying to but it was for my church and the clincher was they were providing the table and I didn't have too.

I'll show you some of the things I made on Friday. The show is not till next Saturday, but I feel like I have nothing done yet.

off to get crafting....

It's time for Post It Note Tuesday...R U playing along? If not, why not....it's soo much fun!

Yep, it's true. A little kindergartner tossed his cookies right onto his lunch tray today. Ugh. It totally made me loose my appetite.

Trick or Treat was a somewhat wet event at our house. Thankfully the rain didn't drench the evening but it made picture taking quite difficult. Here is part of the mob we trick or treated with.

It was so much fun! But now I have too much candy times three so we are set till Easter.


Middle G played soccer on Saturday and for the first time this season we won! It was total skill and the fact that the ref actually called a penalty on the opposing team for pushing helped a lot! I just had to post this picture of my G and her teammate M. G is in 3rd grade and M is in 4th and my MIL is still insisting on how tall my kids are. Tall compared to what??

We were again bombarded by birthday parties. I can't seem to escape them. It must be because my kids are just so well liked. Either that or everyone gets as many as we do and has learned how to weed better.

Here is a picture of Little G at my SIL house. Because of soccer obligations we could not attend my niece's birthday party and went up on Friday instead. My SIL made these cute apple teeth out of apple slices, marshmallows and peanut butter. They would be even funnier with red apples!

The girls had a blast playing dress up! Here's a picture of oldest, middle and my niece. My long weekend is coming to an end. Today was our last day off for teacher in service. Back to the grind tomorrow. Turkey subs...and yes we really have to slice the turkey!