Last week January

Saints lost last weekend so that has pretty much put a damper on our Super Bowl plans. No more gumbo/jumbalaya/king cake/crawfish plans. I told Rusty I'll probably just make it a Ramein Noodle Super Bowl :(

Anyway, it's been pretty much a dull week. I got 30 minutes notice on Tuesday that an appraiser was coming to the house. So all 4 of us kicked into overdrive cleaning as much as we could in 30 minutes. Tanner, while cleaning his room, came to me and asked, "Mom, will he be checking under my bed?" lol. But it was amazing how much we got done in 30 minutes, just the 4 of us. We decided we might have to do the 30 minute cleaning session once every week. I have the house papers in now but it's taking me awhile to weed through them and gather everything they're asking for. geesh. I also started on our taxes this week - there's a neat little $60 telephone exemption thingy in there this year. But otherwise it's the same old story for us lol. Rusty got a nice raise this week. About $120/month after taxes it looks like. Tyler left his cell phone in his jeans pocket THursday and I washed it. We took it all apart to let it dry out and all but it still doesn't work, won't even turn on. So now I have to find a way to get him a cheap cell phone real quick like. But I guess it's not too bad - that's 8 months he's had it before it got broken/lost/stolen/destroyed. Not bad for a 15 year old I suppose. (Geez! Did I say FIFTEEN??? It hurts to remember that it's 15 now...) TAnner received an award Friday at school for making the Honor Roll. Pictures were hard to take. But soon after he received his award and sat back down with his class he got kicked out of the ceremony because he wouldn't quit talking lol. But here is a couple of pics I got of him and Cody receiving their awards. I had to leave in the middle to judge an art contest so I didn't get to get a pic of Dusty. Let's see what else this week.......band practice was MOnday night - went very well. We're trying to think of a band name so if anyone has any ideas..... Other than that, it's been kinda uneventful. I've been "business-oriented" this week so I have not been thinking or doing much along the lines of fun lol.

3rd week January

The play was TERRIFIC last weekend. We were all very proud of Tyler, he didn’t miss a beat. He played numerous different characters in the play. The play was called “Don’t Say MacBeth” and it was about how the Shakespeare play called “Macbeth” is considered bad luck in the theatre world – so much that no one will even say it’s name for fear of bad luck in the theatre. The play illustrated all the bad things that have happened in association with the play “Macbeth” throughout history. A couple of guys were kind of telling the stories, and other kids were acting out each scenario. Tyler got to be Charlton Heston, a witch doctor, a redneck country boy, a sword fighter, and several other things – it was great! The theatre was an awful place for pictures so I took mostly videos. And there is still no way to get videos on this darn blog thing. But here is the one picture that came out the least blurry. Got a pic or two of his stage make up as well - had lots of fun picking on him and his make up lol.

I spent much of the week listening to tapes and reading a book on finance that Mom gave me for Christmas. Figured what the heck. I heard and read nothing new really, but it just all made so much more sense seeing the information in black and white and really thinking about it for a few. So I got hyped up on finances this week. Went to the bank and got them to dig up my old savings acct that I haven’t used in 100 years and give me the number again so I can hopefully start using it. It has 5 bucks in it. Lol. Then I refinanced my house, cutting off 7 years and .25% interest. Now I’m so excited I’m digging for other things to do but I guess that’s about it for now. Just gotta start paying off other stuff now.
We watched the movie “Gridiron Gang” this week – it was a real good one about football. We’ve still been really DIGGING the HBO channels too. And we’re anxiously watching the Saints every weekend and doing our part to will them toward the Superbowl. We already have the Cajun Superbowl party in the works. This week was the return of American Idol – a guilty pleasure of mine. It’s terrible what they do to people on there but I can’t stop watching it since I first saw it last year. I even had Tyler tape it for me because we had band that night. Then we all sat around being humorously shocked over and over again at the people who auditioned and the stuff they said about them. Like I said – guilty pleasure. Lol.
Oh – and the most exciting news of all: Tyler had a good report card! A’s, B’s, and 2 C’s! Woohoo!!!!!!
We had band practice Monday and Tuesday evenings. Things are still going well, just slow I guess. Hard to add too much stuff at a time cuz everybody is so BUSY. But it’s such fun! Everyone at my house is on some sort of diet now. Most days anyway. I have finally broken (I hope) my renewed sugar addiction for the whole month of December and am back on track. Rusty diets most days til he just can’t stand it anymore. Tyler doesn’t need it, but wanted to go on the diet that I do. I talked him into a “modified” low carb diet. He’s cut out the Coke and sugars, but kept the “good carb” type foods in. He works out heavily every day in football, weightlifting, and track. Low carb would kill him. Lol. So I guess the guys in the house are all just basically cutting out sugar and sweets (except for last Saturday night’s post-theatre-show Oreo binge) and keeping meat, vegetables and a few choice breads.

The New Year Begins

The rest of that week of Christmas we all rested and locked ourselves in the house til pretty much Jan. 2. We were totaly homebodies other than going to Donnie and Terri's for New Years Eve, and to Lisa's house then Mom's house on New Years Day. The view in my house for the first 3 days after Christmas looked pretty much like this:

Seriously, they did that for about 3 days solid I think. I did a little bit of everything. Some minor cleaning, nothing like the cleaning that I NEEDED to do. But I did a good bit of nothing too, which I really needed. Rusty was off work until Jan.2. The rest of the week after Jan.2 I did a whole LOT of nothing - watching the talk shows and court shows that Rusty hates and I had not watched the week before lol. Here are some pictures from New Years - we were all together again at Donnie's and we had a really good time. But for some reason I did not get a single group picture where someone was not shooting the bird. At least one person did it in every picture lol. But here is the one with the least number of "birds being shot".

The going back to work part really sucked this week. But the kids always behave well for a little while right after a big holiday. They are always best right at the beginning of school, then agian right after Christmas. Either that or I'm just a more refreshed teacher.

Ok, trying to think of any interesting highlights.

*Tanner made the A/B honor roll this semester - whoopee! Very happy to have a kid on honor roll again. Been making a real big deal about it in front of Tyler in hopes of inspiring him. His report card is yet to be seen. TAnner did have a "needs improvement" in conduct though. The teacher comment said "Tanner plays and jokes too much. It's great that he has a sense of humor, but he needs to learn to use it at appropriate times and not during work times."

*I finally gave in and got one of the cable box set ups for the local digital cable. It's a noticeably better picture. They gave us free HBO and everything else for 3 days. The kids fell in love with HBO, and I kinda did too. When it was cut off on Monday they were depressed. So I called and ordered HBO as well. So much for a New Years' Resolution to lower my bills lol.

*Tyler's play practice schedule went from 2 or 3 times a week to every day of the week for the last 2 weeks. This coming weekend is the play and I'm totally anxious to see it! I can't wait~! I just get tickled to death when one of them does something "artsy" lol.

*We watched the Boise State vs Oklahoma game - MAN what a game. Watched numerous others as well, seemed like a totaly football week that week.

I'm sure there's much more. I waited too long to post so most of the good stuff isn't fresh in my mind. I've waited too long, so sitting here trying to pick my brain is too time consuming lol. Will have to do better next week.