Happy New Year! Also, please read my previous post!

I just had to throw that out there, my last post is a great true story! Ok so does anyone care about my New Year's resolutions/plans???

I have an ongoing one that involves improving on my social skills. I think it is working, as I seem to be meeting more and more people. In nutshell, all I am doing is being a little more friendly, as I have been told that I can come across as aloof. Really, I think it is just residuals from being extremely shy when I was a kid. But hey, who couldn't use more people in their life? ;)

Getting back in shape, yawn....I know, this is like a default resolution/plan, but it's there!

Move into a bigger house! We just really need one more bedroom, so wish us luck!

Continue with my liberal use of exclamation points....

More quality time with the kids. Meaning where I actually sit on the floor and play, ignoring the phone, laundry, dishes, etc.

Change my blog background for some variety.

I think this is good for now, I may tweak some here and there. Happy New Year to you all, and thank you for reading!

This is a true story! Merry Christmas!

So, since this story is all about Christmas, it was imperative that I leave my hubs to put toys together with the kids so I could post. Some background:

A few weeks ago my sister, who is a Special Ed. teacher for children with severe disabilities, posted a request on her Facebook page. She asked if anyone out there had a xbox that they were willing to donate to one of her students for Christmas. This student was born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. He was adopted by a loving and generous family that has also adopted several other children with disabilities. They have eight or nine kids living in the household.

All this student wanted was an xbox and nothing else for Christmas. As of late, the father has come down with an illness that has affected his central nervous system, rendering him unable to work. The family fell on hard times and they are struggling to make ends meet on the mother's salary alone. This family does not even have a car to take the family anywhere.

My sister never got a response with a donation, so she felt like she at least tried to help them get an xbox. Coincidently, on Christmas eve morning, after swearing I would stay off of Facebook for the day, I logged in. One of the first status updates I read from a friend was, "Does anyone know where I can donate an xbox? It has a few games., (etc.)". I could not believe what I was reading! I immediately responded and asked if this friend was willing to donate it to my sister's student and his family. He, of course, said he would be able to drop it off that afternoon...

My sister went to drop it off at the students house, and the father of the student said his son had been praying for an xbox for Christmas! Lo and behold my sister shows up with one at their house! Is this an awesome story or what??? The father then wrote a very touching letter thanking my friend for his xbox. This friend in turn was touched and happy to be a part of making someone's Christmas special. Gosh I am tearing up again! This is like the third time now, jeez. ...Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to my readers and followers!

Happy 1st Birthday to my blog!

Well, technically, it was three days ago, but whatev. Time sure flies when you are in the blogosphere!

A year ago I had no idea where my dashboard was, or who in the Hell Mr. Linky was. I didn't know about linking to other blogs or what hosting a carnival meant (not that I ever do any of that fancy stuff). I also learned some etiquette rules and most important, that all bloggers LOVE comments! The more the better!

I have "met" some awesome people on here even though we've never actually spoke or seen each other in person. I have been moved to tears by some of your posts and have laughed until my stomach hurt at others! Such a wide variety to read out there.

I know I don't post as much as I used to but thank you all for reading and of course, for leaving your comments, they make my day, awww... Also, you may have noticed my generous use of the exclamation point. I love to use it, and feel it gives my readers a reference point to what it must be like to talk to me in person, ha ha!

So, what has been going on with me lately, you ask? Let's see....still in the throes of my midlife crisis, all I need is to have an affair with my secretary and buy a Corvette and I will be all set!

At work, there is always the drama that keeps me in business, but budget wise, things are grim.
Example:
Me to secretary: "Where is the tape? I ran out and don't see any on the supply shelf."
Secretary: "There isn't any more because we have no money to buy any and you can't borrow any of mine!"
Me: "We don't have money for tape? What am I supposed to do now???"
Secretary: "Use tacks."
Me: "Oh."
And so on, I wish John Stossell from 20/20 would show up at our school and then comment on the sad state of affairs around there. He would be mortified at our lack of tape, I'm sure.

Besides all that we are busy with basketball, gymastics, and just life in general. Thank you again to my followers, I love you guys! Oh, and especially to one of my "anonymous" followers whose only comments are things like, "Viagra viagra viagra" and such.
Peace out to all my sisters from another Mister!

What is my problem???

For whatever reason, I have not posted in a while and am not sure why. I have had lots going on, like everyone else, but it hasn't occured to me to post until I am in bed trying to remember everything that I need to do the next day. I will catch you up on some highlights and lowlights from the past few weeks.

My parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary this month. They could not agree on how to spend it, so they are still planning. They are a happy, traditional couple, and they often crack me up with their discussions of things. My brother is creating/filming a documentary on them, very cool.

We had a great Thanksgiving. My parents hosted 35+ people and the food was sooo good and the company was hilarious! I think the best part was hearing my cousin describe the Halloween party they went to where she dressed up as....her husband! She had his little quirks and mannerisms down pat. Ahhh, that was good stuff!

Sad note, my mom's sister passed away suddenly, she was 53 years old. She had always had health problems so we are at peace knowing that she is no longer suffering. Her funeral brought family that had not been seen in years and years, the one good thing about a funeral I guess. My mom saw some cousins she had not seen since 1965, wow.

We are thinking about moving into a bigger house, but many things need to be in order before that can happen. Also, the last time we moved, I swore I would never move again, and that was before we had kids!!!! Can you imagine?

I find that I am wanting many things for Christmas, but when I mention them to my hubs he reminds me that we are talking about moving. Boo! What a buzzkill he is! Shees... I need to find a Christmas sugar daddy, or mommy, I am not picky, ha ha. KIDDING, unless you are interested, then I am totally serious. :)

Last but not least, I leave you with this: Dear 3 year old son is in the showering looking down at his chest.

son: Mom! Look! I have boobs! (pointing at his nipples)
me: Well, those are not really boobs, those are your nipples.
son: My nipples?
Me: Yeah, every body has them.
son: Why do I have nipples?
Me: Hmmm, yes why indeed...

Anyone reading know the answer to this? I really can't figure it out!

Road trip to Reno! It's like Las Vegas...only not.

Some housekeeping before I begin. Is there a website for "blog post ideas" when you feel like you just don't have anything blogworthy to post about or are drawing a blank?
A few times I would go to post since it had been a few and just thought, "I got nothing." And when I say that (yes, I started a sentence with "And") I mean I really have a lot of great juicy material but just can't post it due to the need to protect my sources, oh well...

Ok, so I went to Reno this weekend to celebrate a friend's 40th Birthday. For those of you who have never been to downtown Reno, Nevada, let me describe it. There are a bunch of casinos ranging from fairly new to fairly old, gentlemen's clubs, and pawnshops. That is about it, really. At least that is all I could see in my immediate surroundings. We went to a few of the more popular casino's and besides the smokey ambience, I think I saw more Larks (a personal scooter thingy, often seen being driven by senior citizens) in one night than I had in the whole year previous.
Before I go on I want to say that I have nothing against the local scene, since I don't know anything about it, so please don't send me any comments telling me how great Reno is if you are from there, I'm sure there is a lot I don't know about, yadda yadda, but I digress!

We started out at this all-you-can eat sushi restaurant where I think I must have eaten a whole side of tuna to myself! It was gluttony, ugh, I was uncomfortable the rest of the night. That's what I get for eating like that, I guess. We move on to the Blackjack tables. I love 21 and I did all right for a while, but nothing to quit my day job over. I then went to the roulette table where I did very well, I couldn't lose! If you have ever played you know how addicting this game is when your number hits. I left the table before I started losing money (and also, it was too hard to reach over the two old ladies next to me, being that I was still stuffed from dinner).

Finally, one of my friends and I decide we are sick of the cheap, watered down wine we have been getting at the tables and go straight to the bar and start playing video poker so we could enjoy a decent glass of wine. Ahhh, that was nice! I also won ten bucks doing that and met some uh, interesting folks. At about one-ish in the morning (still early in the evening in Reno time) I figured I had about twenty minutes before I would collapse on the spot from exhaustion (ok, and some drinking) so I trek back to my room.

As per my midlife crisis, I was dressed in some tight jeans and black leather boots, pretty hot, eh? Until I had to take the boots off, holy moly, what a chore! I tried just bending forward to unzip them but found this position was for some reason hard to stand still in, so I fell backwards on to the bed to try it that way. Let's just say at this point I knew it would be mere seconds before I passed out, I mean, fell asleep, so I had to move quickly. The ONLY thing that kept me awake at that point was knowing that my hubs would eventually return to the room and would have loved to take a pic of me passed out on the bed in my boots! He would've tortured me with that for weeks, he is just that in love with me! Anyways! I finally got them off and slept for about nine hours. This is more sleep that I have gotten in months, so it was a nice.

Well, that was my weekend, it was fun! Thanks for reading about my exciting life. Now I just need a couple weeks to recover...

Ghetto not -so -fabulous outgoing messages

I would like to thank my friend, Angela, a fellow staff member at my school for this post idea. She and I were talking about how as part of our job, we must make several phone calls to the parents of our students. Over the years we have laughed, gasped, or just said, "WTF?" about some of the outgoing messages we have heard. From memory, I will post the ones that stand out the most. To set the scene: Picture me needing to contact a parent for reasons such as behavior concerns, setting up a meeting, or some other question. Here is some of what we hear when we dial some of these phone numbers:

Dialing...then:

A rap song full of obscenities played in it's ENTIRETY until after about three minutes I hear the beep to leave a message but by that time I have forgotten who I was calling.

This one I am quoting verbatim: "Hey all you haters and all you f----n' b-----s if you are calling to start s--- with me then don't even leave me a message. The rest of you please leave a message and I will get back to you as soon as possible."

Or, "If I don't answer the phone that just means I don't wanna talk to you right now. Or maybe I am at the club, hayyyy!"

Or, "Leave me a message, and I will holla back at you when I feel like it!"

Sometimes it is a soulful LONG rendition of a song by Beyonce, who I like, btw. But when I have been trying to get a hold of you all day, by the third time, I really am done with the song.

And so on! I often wonder, what if the electric company calls with a question about their bill?
What if their doctor's office wants to confirm an appointment, or give them test results? Or, God forbid if someone was calling to schedule a job interview/offer? Whatever happened to just common phone courtesy? My own outgoing message is downright boring compared to these!

Just another observation I wanted to share with you all on my day to day life at work. :)

Gangsters and Fashion Designers co-existing!

Once a few years ago I was driving a student home from school, he was suspended and didn't have a ride home. The school was Title 1 and almost 100% of the student body was on free or reduced lunch. Basically a school that had a very high concentration of poverty.
The interesting thing about this neighborhood was that it was surrounded by some of our town's fanciest, priciest restaurants, upper end shops, and gourmet grocery stores. So, as we are driving we pass the backside of one of the fancy shopping centers. There is some graffiti spray painted on one of the brick walls. It was not very noticeable and I am sure I took it in as part of the background not really giving it any thought. The student I had in the car points at it and says,
"You see that? With those letters crossed out? That is why that guy was killed at those apartments last week."
He then went on to explain that a local gang had tagged a "threat" to a rival gang and when a tag is "crossed out" it means someone in that gang is going to get killed. Btw, the boy explaining this to me was only ten years old!
This got me thinking. There is like a strata in society, and I don't mean lower, middle and upper class. I feel like we are all occupying the same space, but in layers, strata, that are parallel to each other, rarely intersecting, except by accident or maybe force. I realized that on those same streets where all the nice BMW's and Mercedes are cruising there is also gang warfare, drugs, and crime operating on those exact streets! Just in a different layer, so to speak.
I wondered what else I was missing about everything that happened around there on a day to day basis. People who don't drive, or who use public transportation also experience that neighborhood in a totally different way than even I did.
Had this student not pointed this out to me, I would have never thought twice about it. Now when I drive around any neighborhood, I often look for clues about other "layers" that co-exist with me. I feel like a sociological detective around here.