12 Days of Christmas

Things got so busy and wild that I didn't have time to post last Friday. We did so much in the last week and a half that I can hardly write it all down. So I think I'll just give a brief timeline of events and put some pictures on, and post more the next time when I'm past all the holiday rush!

The weekend before Christmas we went to my Dad's and went to the gathering of his side of the family. We enjoyed it and ATE lots of great food as well. We came back home and I had that one more week of school with that big program to finish it off. We had bonko that Monday night, band practice that Tuesday, then on that Wednesday we finally got to go to Applebee's and to see "Eragon" - it was great. Somehow or other I finished my shopping during that week and the weekend OF Christmas. We went to Christmas at my Mom's on that Friday before Christmas and had a great time visiting with my family and ATE. Saturday I shopped more and began cooking some stuff. Sunday we went to Rusty's dad's for Christmas and ATE more. Christmas Day I cooked more and we ATE and ATE and ATE MORE. Geez. After that week I felt like the Grinch in that movie where they are stuffing him with food til he's nearly unconscious. Santa came to our house in the wee hours of Christmas morning. I woke up at 3 am to the sound of Tyler and Tanner fighting. Tanner was trying to make Tyler get up and Tyler was trying to make Tanner go back to bed. But we all went ahead and got up and they opened their presents. They got tons of stuff and were pleased with it all I believe. My new keyboard came in last Friday, which was my Christmas present. And I got Rusty some RAM for his computer, a Saints shirt, a basket for his grill, and some speakers for his mp3 player Mom and Pat got him. All in all, Christmas was awesome! But it wore me out and I can't help but be glad it's finished hehehe. Some normal would be nice now. Anyway, here are various pictures from the Christmas week:

2nd Week December

2nd week December - busy week #1.

Last weekend Tyler was gone pretty much the whole weekend. He spent the night with a friend Friday night, then with another friend Saturday night. All 4 of us went to Guitar Center last Saturday and then we ate at Mazzio's Pizza in Jackson. We got Tyler a new mp3 player for his birthday and he was thrilled with it. I made 3 cakes for his birthday, plus one that Terri made. I made a chocolate cake for him to take to church Sunday morning to celebrate. Then I made 2 more chocolate cakes (one with icing, one WITHOUT icing) for us to have Sunday afternoon. Terri made a strawberry cake and brought it over - it was gooood. Keith, Angela, and Jenifer came over Sunday for football and birthday, and Terri came over with Dustin and Cody. Keith and Rusty held Tyler down and I had the honor of giving him the birthday spanking. He was really having a fit about it until he found out that it would be ME that gave him the spanking, and not Keith or Rusty. He didn't care if I did it, he just didn't want them to lol. Papaw and Mamaw came over and gave him a USM shirt and a couple of LSU shirts, which he has worn pretty much every day since. I took numerous pictures:





















Anyway, Sunday was a really great Saints game. Even I got into it.

Monday - I began day 1 of rehearsals for the 4th grade play, or as I commonly thought of it all week - my week's worth of torture and abuse. I don't know how I did it, but I survived without having a nervous breakdown or pulling out all my hair, and we actually put on a pretty cute show this morning. I spent a good bit of Monday trying to piece my home made Santa suit back together. It has seen it's better days. I made it about 3 years ago with a red sweat suit, quilt batting, and hot glue. It looked much better then. Monday night we had band practice and I was just SO tired. But we still sounded good. Can't wait to hear the new speakers and see new lights next week.

Tuesday - We had a PTO meeting that night and I had my honor choir perform Christmas music at the meeting. I usually do a play at the PTO meeting but the last several years I can't seem to get enough kids to show up to make it worth the effort. So this year I decided to use the honor choir, and to get the PTO to advertise that they would serve refreshments. I had 35 out of 40 honor choir students show up. It was great lol. I begged Rusty to let me use a real guitar for my play on Friday. Just wanted to use that little one we have that he lets Tanner play with. He said NO. It's NOT a toy. So I went shopping for an affordable toy guitar that would be suitable, and found NONE.

Wednesday - I began to get tired. lol. I did a bit of Christmas shopping that afternoon. Several times in the last week or so I have gone to a specific place to get a specific thing and I end up getting the very LAST one they have. I've been lucky. We watched a movie at home, and I didn't even cook anything I don't think. Rusty gave a guitar lesson to a friend of ours who just got his first guitar.

Thursday - Rusty had a change of heart for some reason, and agreed to let me use the real guitar. ONe of our teachers informed me that the PTO had a Santa suit and an elf suit that I could borrow if I wanted. Better late than never. It was much better than my old home made pieced together raggedy thing lol. We watched 2 more movies at home. I tossed and turned all night and had those dreams I always have when I'm worried about a play performance. I always dream that I have all the kids on stage and we're about to begin, but I've screwed up something majorly - like I forgot to bring the music or something. Or the kids forget the words, or the speakers blow out. Numerous things. Usually it's that I have the wrong music, or have no music at all. I got hardly any sleep and woke up with a migraine on Friday.

Friday - the big day. The play went well. My "Elfis" (Elvis) got a little shy on me though and didn't ham it up as much as I had hoped. Tanner was the ham - he was Santa Claus doing the "Twist". OVerall, I think it turned out pretty cute. I should have had Tanner be Elvis. lol. I had promised Tyler a month ago that on Dec. 15 we would go to the movies to see "Eragon". He wants to see it badly because he read the book last year. So we all set out to go to the movies in Clinton tonight. We intended to eat at Applebee's, but they were too packed so we just went to Chick-fil-a. We then waited in line at the movies for 20 minutes only to find out that the dang movie had sold out! Rusty had told me earlier in the day to reserve some tickets just in case - I said nah, they didn't even sell out Star Wars so they won't sell out this one. I got to listen to "I told you so" all the way home. And poor Tyler was disappointed, but he really took it ok I guess. Now we can't see it til next Wednesday because we're going to Dad's tomorrow, have a football game to watch Sunday night, I have bonko Monday, and Tuesday is band practice. Rusty got a Christmas card from Ebay. He's way too darn good of a customer I'll say.

Compare, if you will, the fancy PTO Santa suit and my home made Santa rag :

More pics from the play:

So! It's been a wild week! And it's just beginning! lol. Tomorrow morning me and the kids are headed to Dad's, then to a get together of his side of the family. Then Sunday we'll be driving back home. Next week at work I"ll be putting together the big hour and a half singalong for the last day of school, which is Thursday. I think next Friday morning I might get some sleep. And might get to finish my shopping that afternoon I hope.

1st Week December

Last Friday night we ended up going to see the old band (the one Rusty used to be in) play at a local bar. We had a pretty good time I guess, came home by midnight cuz we were tired. I did take some pictures though. Just felt like I was supposed to I guess, since I used to take hundreds and hundreds of them lol. Steve has shaved the sides of his head. Almost like a mohawk kinda thing. But other than that, just the same old guys, same old thing.

















Saturday I took my honor choir to the radio station competition. They did a pretty good job, but we didn't win lol. We spent most of Saturday night working on a song that was giving me fits trying to figure it out. ARgh. Finally finished it Sunday night. Sunday we did the usual football thing here at the house with Keith and Angela and Jenifer.
Monday night we had band practice, and ended up staying there kinda late. But it was fun, and we are still sounding great. To me anyway. Practice seems to keep getting longer.
Tuesday and Wednesday seem to be just regular old days, I don't remember anything especially noteworthy except one of those nights we did watch Superman.
Thursday was Rusty's birthday and we had a great day. We bought him an external hard drive to put all his music cd's on, and I also ordered him a couple of Nightwish Cd's he's been wanting. I made him a hot fudge cake, and we ate Chinese food from the Wok. His dad and stepmom came by to tell him happy birthday, and also brought another loaf of that home made bread! Tanner and I began our Christmas Village we've been talking about doing. We're gonna add pieces to it every year. Forever I guess. I've always wanted to do it, just never have gotten around to it. Here is a picture of our starting village:

Also, this is what a 42 year old man in his new robe looks like:

It has gotten EXTREMELY cold this week. Yeesh! Tyler is at someone's birthday party tonight. Tyler's birthday is Sunday and he's gonna do some celebrating at church I think. Then we'll probably have some cake and stuff for him here too. He's going to be 15! Holy cow! Not ready for that. Rusty took me to eat a steak at the World this afternoon, it really is as good as they say it is. I have a difficult full week at work next week, so I'm hoping to have a nice restful peaceful weekend this weekend.

Last Week November

After posting late last time, I didn't have many days this week to post about. It was just a usual kinda week though I guess. Sunday evening Keith and Angela came over to watch the football game and work on a song or 2. Forgot to say last week that we found Tanner's glasses. They have been missing since the beginning of October. We found them in his bookbag side pocket. We had both checked the entire bookbag for them when they were first lost. Geesh! I began my Christmas shopping this week, which didn't seem to last very long before I ran out of money lol. But I will get paid again before Christmas so that should be fine.

Monday - When we got home from school, our dog came running up to greet us. Which is odd, because we keep him on a runner in the back yard. His cable had broken so he had been roaming the neighborhood for most of the day. I was very happy that he had stayed on the hill here though instead of running off and getting picked up. I ran out to Wal Mart and got him another runner cable. I discovered that I had poison ivy again from doing yardwork last week.

Tuesday - Went to bonko and had an alright time, though it was kinda out of the ordinary this time. Anyway. Rusty took the kids and bought them Taco Bell for dinner, wasn't that nice of him?

Wednesday - Went to the high school on my lunch break to take a doctor's excuse for Tyler and his English teacher happened to walk by. She kinda filled me in on the fact that Tyler has been sleeping in class and not doing assignments, etc. So he got grounded from his cell phone and the computer. He is not happy about that either. We watched the new Superman movie also.

Thursday - Took Tanner and bought him some pants because he was down to having only ONE pair. Dale came by and we didn't do much of nothing. I gave him some of Tyler's jeans that he won't wear anymore because he thinks they are too short. Dale called them "hand-me-ups" lol. I waited all night on the cold weather that was supposed to roll in but it didn't come til late so I didn't get a fire built.

Friday - Mom and Pat took us and Chris and family out to eat at El Sombrero's for the birthdays of Pat, Rusty, and Tyler. We had a really great visit and even got our Christmas get together planned out I believe. Tanner went home with Mamaw and Papaw to spend the night.


Tomorrow (Saturday) I will be taking my Christmas Choir to the Christmas Caroling Contest sponsored by a local radio station. They have sounded so good this week, it has really shocked me. We might even have a chance at winning in our division. Sunday I'm sure we're going to be watching football all day again. And the next 2 weeks at work will be hectic as I prepare for a concert, a play, and a big Christmas singalong celebration. Bah humbug! I also have Rusty's birthday next week, and then Tyler's next weekend. So, should be some pictures on the next post.

Thanksgiving Week

I'm posting late this week. Was a busy week and didn't have the chance to post on Friday, so it's Sunday instead.

THE HOLIDAY:
The weekend before Thanksgiving was a usual weekend. I carted Tyler around to various places seems like - a bonfire party, the movies, church, paintball game, etc. etc. etc. On Sunday we went to Mom's for our Thanksgiving there.





























It was great, Chris and the boys made it and we got to eat Mom's dressing first this year. As it turned out, we ate Mom's dressing at every single eating event we went to as a matter of fact lol. She had a whole pan of it left over and gave it to me to cook at my house later in the week. Then Aunt Joni asked me if I could make the dressing for her house on Thursday so I said sure. I made a pan of dressing and I took Mom's pan also. We ate Mom's dressing first and never got to mine. So we used the dressing that I made on Friday when people came to eat here and it tasted exactly like Mom's. So basically we ate Mom's dressing all week long and it was great lol.
Anyway, back to the holiday(s). I was a bonehead and forgot my camera at Mom's so I pushed her to take pictures the whole time for me with her camera. And I've noticed as I'm posting that Mom managed to use that to get by without having her own picture taken cuz I don't have any of her that day - won't happen again lol. We had a great time visiting at Mom's house like the good old days, then we came back home and watched football with Keith the rest of the evening. Mom and Pat went to Alabama for the actual Thanksgiving Day. I wish I could have been in both places at the same time (here and there). I had intended to do major house cleaning in the beginning of the week but I failed at it. I got lots of rest and cooked til I couldn't stand cooking anymore. Made gumbo, new cornbread recipe, "white trash", boiled cookies, a Snickers cake (which sucked), Mamaw Gin's brownies, Mamaw Gin's pimento cheese recipe, and I don't even remember what all now. Made chicken and dumplings for Rusty's Thanksgiving at work on Wednesday. But I cooked til I couldn't stand cooking no more - for about 3 days. And when I wasn't cooking I was reading or watching TV. Or EATING.
Thursday we went to Aunt Joni's for Thanksgiving dinner. We had a wonderful time as always and got to see Kristi, John/Teresa/Ben, and Jamie/Ethan whom we don't see too often anymore. And the rest of us were there too: Aunt Joni, Uncle Ronnie, Maw, Terri/Donnie/Dustin/Cody, Dale/Naomi, Mickey, John T., but still we had a few missing. We had a great time visiting, and the "kids" all ended up playing football in the yard again. I'm so very thankful that Rusty and his brothers have Aunt Joni and Uncle Ronnie to be with on the holidays. I didn't do too good a job on my picture taking that day either but I did manage to get a few.




























Friday we cooked here. Rusty cooked a turkey on the grill and used on of those injector thingies. It was really really good. He now has to cook the turkey every time. Lee Lee came down with Kevin and Makayla - it was great seeing them again and catching up on things. John came by with Ben for a bit also.















The rest of our week off was spent mainly resting or doing trivial things around the house such as:

Monday was band practice and it sounded better than EVER. I'm getting excited now that things continue to kinda gel.

Rusty built a fire for us several nights last week when it was cold enough. I love sitting by the fire.

I finished that whole book that I had gotten from the library - "Wicked" - it was good. I have now begun the sequel, called none other than "Son of a Witch" lol.

Who would ever think that Jerry Springer or Maury Povich could actually serve a purpose in this world. But early in the week I used them to illustrate some fine points to my teenage son. He walked through while the shows were on one day and sat in SHOCK while watching crazy women trying to pin babies on "poor unsuspecting men" (most of whom ended up being NOT the father). I told him the moral of this story is.....just because some girl offers ya some doesn't mean you should take it - you can very easily become tied for life to some crazy wacko having your baby! I think the show really made an impression on him lol. Gosh I hope so anyway. Now, before every date he ever goes on I'm going to tell him........"Remember Jerry Springer..."

Friday morning 2 Mexican guys rang the doorbell and wanted to buy the van that's been sitting in the driveway for about a year. (Was Mom's van that caught on fire and they gave it to Rusty who was going to fix it up and use it, etc.) I was excited and hoped he would indeed sell it to them. He finally decided he would, woohoo! So now I can clean up that spot it's been sitting in, I can park closer to the house, and Rusty can afford to buy me a new keyboard for Christmas, woohoo! lol

Saturday Tanner and I put up the Christmas tree and some of the other decorations. No one really gets excited about decorating for Christmas around here but me and Tanner. The other two like to look at it when it's done, but they just don't have that desire to be a part of putting it up lol. But Tanner keeps the excitement in it for me. He is all about holidays and family tradition and creating that holiday mood. I told him that when he grows up and moves out he will still have to come to my house every year to help me decorate just to make sure I get in the mood to do it each year. He will always be young.

Rusty played his Star Wars game ALL day Saturday. He needed it too. And today, Sunday, of course is football day again. And we all have to go back to school tomorrow - ick. 4 more weeks of school until Christmas. It's always the most difficult stretch of the school year for us music teachers. All the Christmas programs and special things to put together.......bah humbug! But I try very hard to remind myself that it's a fun thing that I do. I shall begin my Christmas shopping this week also.

Until next week...............

Mid-November

At 5:00 pm last Friday I sat down in the living room recliner and pretty much stayed there until 5:00 pm Sunday. But by that time I was basically cured – that shot did the trick on the strep throat. Tanner just got worse though. He had to stay home with Papaw on Tuesday and Wednesday with a real bad cold, but has since started to get better. Tyler caught the cold by Thursday and he stayed home a day. Hopefully we’re all going to survive now, although Rusty still has not had his turn yet…….
Sunday night we went to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert, which was AWESOME as always. But it’s still the exact same show every year. Not that it really matters, it’s a terrific show I love seeing over and over again. But it just seems like they would add some new things each year. Rusty’s dad and stepmom went and they really enjoyed it. It’s fun just seeing someone else see it who hasn’t seen it before.
Monday night we had band practice and everyone was there woohoo! Sounding better each time, it’s just still going slow cuz we all stay so busy.
Tuesday night we were actually all at home. Tyler had after school detention for not having his shirt tucked in at school. Geez. If that’s the worst he ever does I’ll dance a jig. Rusty and Tyler did the route and Rusty blew out a tire on the Mustang. We knew we needed tires on both cars but were trying to hold out til after Christmas……so much for that. So Wednesday we got new tires for his car and I’ll just have less money to shop with on that day after Thanksgiving sale lol. Dale came over and I helped him get his credit report. Then we all watched a Mystery Science Theatre movie.
Wednesday – another forgotten Wednesday. I don’t think anything out of the ordinary occurred this week. I did make 2 different kinds of stuffed bell peppers, they were both good.
Thursday it started getting cold outside, it was nice. Rusty built a fire in the fireplace and we watched “Pride and Prejudice” and “The World’s Fastest Indian” – both were good. Today is Friday and school is out! For a whole week! We’re gonna eat at Mom’s sometime this weekend. Then we’ll probably watch football Sunday. Then I’ll probably spend at least 2 days cleaning house. And as far as I know we’ll be doing Thanksgiving dinner at my house next Thursday. So it’s highly likely I will have lots of pictures next time. I’ve been a bad photographer these past 2 weeks.

2nd week of November

A week of being a day late and a dollar short.

Example #1: We've spent the whole month saving up money to buy Trans-Siberian Orchestra tickets - $42 each. I had to have enough to buy 4, then Rusty had to have enough to buy his dad/stepmom tickets, and we had to wait on another friend to put his money in too so that we could order tickets and all sit next to each other. Monday morning I ordered the 7 tickets on the internet. Tuesday morning a friend of ours who is a radio DJ called Rusty and told him she could get him a bunch of FREE tickets to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

$%#&@$!

Example #2: For the first time in HISTORY, I forgot to pay the gas/water bill on the 1st. I did not even remember it until Wednesday when I got home and we had no water. (I pay all bills on the internet - the gas/water is the only one that I can't pay on the net.) I rushed out to the gas/water place and paid the bill plus the reconnection fee. When the guy showed up at our house to turn the water and gas back on, it was one of Rusty's buddies from the water dept. and he said, "Hey dude! If I had known this was your house I would have never even cut it off, I would have just called you and told you go pay your bill!"

$%#&@$ again!

Anyway...
Last Friday night we ended up going to the local high school rivalry football game. Tyler wanted to go so we just decided we'd go too. I took Tanner to mom's to spend the night. We got a good taste of what we're going to be experiencing next year. High school football woohoo! There were balloons flying everywhere, rednecks shooting t-shirts out of potato guns into the crowd, school colors everywhere - just tons of excitement and hype. Unfortunately our team lost, but we still enjoyed the game. The marching bands from both schools were really very good and seeing them just increased my recent desire to move upwards in the school system. I'm considering moving up to Jr. High/High School band just as soon as I can. Still thinking it over though, got plenty of time.

Saturday - band practice. Singer thought practice was Monday so he wasn't there, and Keith had to work. But the other 4 of us played and got some setup stuff situated. Saturday night we had a nice lazy evening at home, and Trent came to visit also. Tanner did not want to come home from mom's so he stayed the whole day and then stayed the night again.

Sunday - football day. Keith, Jenifer, and Angela came over. It was great to see Angela feeling better and joining in the fun. I made 2 recipes from the church cookbook. One was my grandmother's "Brownie Bars" and they were MORE than awesome. They were a huge hit and I can't wait to make them again once I get this weight back off lol. The other thing I made was home made fried apple pies which were also awesome. I sent all the leftover goodies to work with Rusty on Monday morning so that I didn't have to resist them all week. Tanner STILL did not want to come home so I let him stay as long as I could and picked him up in the late afternoon. He spent the WHOLE weekend at Mom's and probably had a high old happy spoiled rotten brat of a time! I remember those kinda days when I was a kid at Mamaw's house.....but Chris was always the king of spoiledness for sure - had Mamaw wrapped around his finger lol.

Anyway. Monday - typical school day. We were supposed to have band practice again that night. But the drummer got stuck in Jackson, lost his keys in a store and couldn't find them to get over here. Keith couldn't make it. So we just told the rest forget about it and planned for next Monday. Rusty FINALLY went to the doctor about his arm. Thankfully he does NOT have a torn rotator cuff (or whatever), but he did have a bad case of something kinda like tendonitis. She gave him a miracle drug and he was already getting better by the next day.

Tuesday - Went to a teachers union meeting - my first one. Kinda interesting, but it's just not my cup of tea really. I'm too laid back to be much of an activist. But seems to be a good thing they got going. Also, I was so sick of seeing democrats bragging on the news about how they were going to dominate the elections that I went out and voted. I usually only vote in the presidential elections, but I went out and voted straight Republican down the line. Didn't end up doing much good, but gave me lots of satisfaction lol.

Wednesday - woke up with a sore throat which has since become 1,000 times worse and the doctor wouldn't give me an antibiotic over the phone. I went to the library and checked out a book I've been thinking about reading for several months called "Wicked". It's about the life of the Wicked Witch of the West (from the Wizard of Oz) - about her birth, growing up, what all lead to her being the wicked witch, etc. Kind of a story from HER point of view as opposed to the other characters. I first saw it last spring and thought it sounded stupid, but then I think about it all the time wondering what it might be like so I just went and checked out the darn thing. Tyler went to play practice at the church - he's been chosen to be in a play they are doing some time. Of course he doesn't know when. It sounds like some kind of spoof of MacBeth. With a religious message of course. But he's really getting into this drama thing at church and I can't wait to see him act. Wednesday was also the day of the water bill fiasco.

Thursday - suffered through work with an awful sore throat, and would have sworn it was strep throat except for I couldn't see anything in my throat. My throat looked like there is absolutely nothing wrong with it, hardly even red. But the PAIN ...........geesh! When we got home Tanner was playing with the thermometer and as it turned out he had 103.2 fever! He had no other symptoms. But he has mentioned his ear "making noises". I called and left a message for my doctor to please call me in an antibiotic. Her nurse called me back at 5:30 and said I did not need an antibiotic but they were going to call me in some allergy medicine. I said, "but I don't have any allergy symptoms, nothing but a sore throat!". The nurse still refused to give me an antibiotic, but I know my doctor would have if she had personally handled the situation. I didn't even bother picking up the allergy rx.

Friday - sore throat multiplied by 1 million. So I took me and Tanner both to the doctor. My doctor was not in, so we went to the new doctor - the one that I went to high school with that I took Tyler to a couple of months ago. He did a strep test on me and YES INDEED I do have strep throat. So there. Made me want to call that nurse up and tell her a thing or 2 lol. It turned out that Tanner has an ear infection. I got a shot and we both got a round of antibiotics each so hopefully we are all fixed up.

I did not take any pictures this week. I hate it when that happens, but it does usually signify that I had a nice, relaxing normal time of it this week. This weekend we have a Christian Rock Band concert that we are probably going to end up being dragged to at our friends' church lol. Then on Sunday is the much anticipated Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert - our 3rd time to see them. I bought Tanner a ticket but he has since decided that he'd rather stay with Mamaw instead of sit through a 3 hour concert. So we're just gonna end up giving away his ticket to Dale I think. Hard to find someone to take just one ticket lol. But I know Dale will enjoy it and appreciate the artistry. And we totally enjoy seeing someone see the band for the first time. Check out http://www.trans-siberian.com/ Next week should be a nice normal week, and then the following week I'm off the whole week yipee!

Halloween Week/Beginning November

Saturday – Terri and I took the kids to the “Fall Festival” thing at the church. It was all about pumpkins and costumes and candy so I have no idea why no one will call it a Halloween Carnival around here anymore. They all call it “Fall Festival” and “Harvest Festival”, etc. But you wear costumes and get candy and do Halloween stuff. Anyway, the kids had a really good time. Everything was free, food and everything. They had the jumping castle and the slide and horseback rides and so on. Dusty and Cody spent the night at my house that evening also. I think they all had fun.

Sunday – the time had changed so getting up early didn’t feel so bad. I made pigs-in-a-blanket for Tyler’s Sunday school group. Then I cooked Cajun Cabbage (for the first time), chicken strips, and other stuff for Donnie and Terri and Mickey who came over to eat and visit. Keith and Jenifer were there also for football day. I made banana bread and cinnamon bread and a chocolate cake. I just cooked all day Sunday while they watched football, and enjoyed the heck out of it. I made a comment to Rusty on Sunday about how nice it was going to be this week not having anywhere to go at night, but I was totally not thinking……….

Monday – We were supposed to have band practice but Rusty was too far behind on cigarette work and we both had lots to do at home so he cancelled it and put it off til this coming Saturday. I took Tanner to mom’s to visit with Papaw before he went back to Alabama. Tanner and Papaw carved a pumpkin together and had a good time.

Tuesday – the big night arrived! We went trick-or-treating in Chris’s neighborhood with Donnie, Terri, Dustin, Cody, Mom, Dale, Naomi, Mickey, Kyle, and Blake. We had a good time as always. The younger kids got tons of candy, the older kids went off on their own but didn’t get candy. Tanner just totally thought I should have a costume on, so I braided my hair and stuck a couple of feathers in. All of us older folks outlasted the kids – the kids were tired and ready to quit way before we were. Since it was the end of the month, it was also our “restaurant night”, so we took Mom with us and went to eat at Rowdy’s. We enjoyed the food and the visit.

Wednesday – I usually never can remember what we do on Wednesdays. Wednesdays are just usually uneventful I guess, but not this week. Wednesday morning when I first got to work I opened my classroom door and right as I was stepping in I noticed something fall from the top of the door. There are 2 versions to the rest of the story. There is the version you might get if you had asked a 3^rd grader at about 3:00 that afternoon, and then there is the version that is the truth:

3^rd grade student version: The music teacher had a 6 foot python/anaconda/rattlesnake/cottonmouth (different breed in every story) fall off the ceiling right on her head this morning! It bit her right on the neck and she nearly died! But then the principal came along with a big axe and tried to kill it but it was striking at him! He cut its head clean off, though, before it could bite him too. They buried it’s head by the cafeteria and it’s body down under the hill. This is a combination of various things I heard throughout the day about what had happened to me hehehe.

The REAL version: I looked down and it was indeed a SNAKE that had fallen off the door and onto my foot. A baby one, maybe 18 inches long. But still a SNAKE. On my SHOE (not my head, thank God). I tossed it off my foot and got down the steps as fast as I could. (It did NOT bite me). The snake just stayed there slithering around on my steps and I sent a kid to get the principal. He came and killed it with some kind of tool that resembled a hoe. I have no idea what kind of snake it was. A little country boy that happened to walk by seemed to think it was a rattlesnake but I have no clue. It was multi-colored, but I didn’t take notice of any patterns or size of its head or any other thing that the men at home asked me about. But I guess it had climbed the side of my trailor and was crawling somewhere along the top of my door when I opened it. CREEPY. The rest of my work day just kind of went right along with that too, kids were wild and I had no time to stop and think.

On Wednesday evening we had been invited to the church of some friends and family of ours. A friend of ours 17 year old son was going to deliver the message that evening, as well as play in the worship band. So we were looking forward to seeing it. The 4 of us went. We watched the youth band play 2 or 3 songs and enjoyed it. But the very moment that Zach got up there to begin preaching, Tanner looks at me and says, “Mom, I don’t feel so goooo…………” and then he grabbed his mouth with his hand and I knew exactly what was up. We managed to get out of the sanctuary and at least TO the bathroom before he exploded. But, bless his heart, he was SICK. Bad sick. And made a HUGE mess all over the bathroom floor. If you ever want proof that our cousin Ken is a saint, I’ll just tell you about how he came in there and helped me clean that bathroom up. I could never even consider asking someone to do that, but he insisted on helping me. That was very nice of him. He got a mop and between the 2 of us we had it cleaned up in about 20 minutes. Unfortunately we missed all of Zach’s presentation. But Tanner was much better after that, and impressed at how much he had thrown up. It’s a little boy thing I guess.

Thursday – I had a very busy morning and did not get to breathe until about 11:00. I checked my phone then and saw a message from Tyler from 8:00 that morning telling me he was very sick and needed me to pick him up. So I rushed out and picked him up from school, even if it was a few hours late. By the time we all got home that afternoon he was much better also. Guess it’s a stomach virus or something. The rest of Thursday ended up being mainly a day of rest. I began sorting through all my pictures on my computer, gonna try to organize them all real soon. We got football pictures and school pictures in:

Friday – We had our 6^th grade musical program today and they did very well. We had fun working on it, but I always have that “glad it’s finished” feeling after a program is done. And that’s where I am today. It’s been nice and cold outside the last few days, hope it stays. We have band this weekend, but nothing else scheduled for I don't know how long. So perhaps we might have a boring week or 2 for once hehehe.

End of October

Saturday - Here is my spooky Halloween true story for this year. Saturday morning I woke up at 5 am to the sound of a doorbell. Or, I could have SWORN I heard a doorbell. By the time I got to the hallway Rusty was getting up saying he heard a doorbell too. We went to both doors at the same time and NOBODY was there. In 8 years of living here that is probably about the 4th time that has happened. And we stop and listen for giggles or rustling leaves or signs of kids nearby and stuff. But there is never a peep, and the dog was fast asleep. The kids sleep with their tv's on real low so maybe I heard something off that. Who knows. But we both woke up hearing the same sound.
We cancelled band on Saturday because the singer had a scratchy throat and the drummer had to go somewhere and Rusty had a bunch of cigarette work, etc etc etc. But I did get him to do 3 things for me Saturday: searched for the leak in the bedroom shower, finished sealing the bath tub and fixed my attic fan. He did the bath tub in like 30 seconds. OUr bedroom wall has had an awful spot in the sheet rock ever since we bought the place - right outside of our shower. I wanted to make it clear that it was NOT us who did this bad sheetrock job I have in the picture. But we've been wanting to redo it forever, so he went ahead and cut it out so he could search behind it for the shower leak. The leak is not coming from anywhere obvious like we hoped it would. It seems to be coming from up UNDER the shower somehow, like maybe where the drain goes in the floor. So we decided to stop right there. The last time we tried to fix a leaky shower, we ended up doing an entire bathroom remodeling and we just are NOT up for that again yet. So we're just going to stop using that shower til later on. And I won't discuss the fixing of the attic fan, the time it took, nor the amount of cursing that occured. It was indeed a broken belt that he had to replace, but it was a bit trickier than anticipated. ANd I finally got to take the attic fan cover down and paint it white instead of rusted looking1964 semi-gold. ANyway, I was intrigued as I usually am at home improvement stuff. I don't know why I find it SO incredibly interesting to see the insides of walls and how things are set up. So I took some pictures of our mumbling grumbling Saturday of home improvement:

Ok, so once all that was finished on Saturday, I went shopping with my friend Micheal (pronounced "Michelle") for bonko gifts. It was mine and her turn to do bonko this month and she graciously offered to have it at her house and I would just help her buy gifts and food. We had a great time - went to the outlet mall, Cracker Barrel, Wal mart, Penneys, and had a great time visiting. In the process of buying the gifts, I found something so incredibly adorable I had to have it. I thought I had found something totally unique, but everyone I have told about it has seen one before. It is a decoration for our front yard tree, that I'm going to leave there year round I think. I love it:

Saturday night around 8:30ish Tyler called me to come pick him up from the "barbarian weekend". Gosh I should have taken his picture now that I think about it. It was POURING down raining, and they had been out in it. They camped out in their sleeping bags the night before and ate stuff they cooked on a bonfire. They had played paintball games and something called "airsoft" gun games and numerous other "guy" activities. All of them were decked out in camouflage clothing from head to toe and he said they had gotten about 2 hours sleep that night before. He was so tired, soaking wet, and telling us about his paintball games. If you didn't know what he was talking about you'd swear he had just returned from a real battle hehehe. They had to search for forts and then try to take them over and stuff. Sounds like it was a blast. We came home and watched movies for the rest of the evening. Man, Saturday was BUSY.

Sunday - Took Tyler to church but I stayed home to catch up on some chores and rest. (Of course I find out later in the week that the service was really great that day and they showed a video collage that had Tyler's baptism in it.) Our friend Kevin had invited Rusty and Tyler to go with him and his boys and Ken to see a Christian rock band called 3rd Day in Jackson so they all piled up and went to that. Mom was taking Chris and family to eat at El Sombrero for Chris's and Kyle's birthday so Tanner and I went along. We had a good time visiting with Chris and kids, we don't ever get to see them much anymore. We gotta fix that. We came home and Tanner watched his FIRST EVER horror movies. I was watching one and he just had to be in my lap so he ended up watching and his said they weren't really that bad after all. We watched the movie "Halloween" and the new version of "Dawn of the Dead". He enjoyed them he said, but he slept in our bed that night.

Monday - Had band practice that evening. Had been 2 weeks this time and things didn't seem as good as they had been the time before, but we worked up to it towards end of practice. Not much else happened that evening I guess.

Tuesday - Tyler's last football game, and it was against my alma mater, or however you spell that. They didn't win. But, as always, Tyler kicked butt. He made a hit so hard one time that the whole crowd simultaneously went "ooooohhh!". And he told me later on that one of the referees called him to the side once to tell him, "Son, you need to back off a little and quit hitting so hard." Tyler told the guys on the sideline about it and jokingly told them he had lost faith in the game of football if they are starting to tell you NOT to hit hard! I will include some new awesome professional game pics at the end of this post. I ordered 8 of them this week. But here is Tanner helping out big brother and carrying his stuff to the car for him.

Also on Tuesday, Tanner was sent to the office and got 2 licks with the paddle. It's been brewing for some time now, and it was probably high time she sent him. I think that might calm him down now for a little while, I hope.

Wednesday - Something unusual happened with Tanner. AT the end of the school day my boss came to me with a parent of a kid in Tanner's class. Apparently Tanner has been picking on a kid that's smaller than him. I was shocked. I don't know what I was more shocked about - that Tanner was picking on someone, or that there was actually someone SMALLER than Tanner. Anyway, Tanner has just been aggravating him and the kid is one that is probably easily aggravated. Tanner pokes him on the shoulder over and over, or says goofy stuff to him all the time. He's not really being MEAN, just aggravating kid stuff. So I had a talk with him later on, and told them to let me know if he doesn't stop. Wednesday was the only night this week we were all home in the evening, so we watched a couple of movies together.

Thursday - Bonko night. We did the usual bonko thing, I didn't win anything but it was fun as always. I ate 15 bean soup and it was good. It was my job to make desserts so I made some pumpkin bread and some "hole-y" cake - that yellow cake with the hot fudge dripped down into holes. Whenever people tell me they really like something I have made, it's usually something of Mamaw's Gin's hehehe.

Friday - Today Rusty has gone to Columbus with the old band he used to be in. They have rented his sound equipment for some show they are doing, so he's going along with it to run it for them. It has FINALLY stopped raining, and I am running my attic fan til it gets too cold tonight. But pretty much I"m planning on doing NOTHING this evening, and enoying it immensely. Get some rest that I'm due.

Coming up: I'm gonna try to search out a Halloween carnival to take Tanner to tomorrow somewhere, I think the church is doing one. Tuesday we will be trick-or-treating with Mom and Terri and Donnie and their kids over in Chris's neighborhood. Next Friday is my 6th grade program and I'll be glad to finish it, but I must say it's been pleasant working with them this week.

Football pics:

Here is one of Blake, then the 9th grade team entering the field with Tyler #56 on the left there:

Clash of the Titans!