Where's the humor? I need some humor..... please!

Seems like the closer we get to the end of the school year, the harder and more stressful it gets.   I'll elaborate on this later.

First the week in review. 

Sunday we went to visit a friend from looooong ago.  Back about 20 years ago we lived in McKinney Texas.  That's just north of where we are now.  Our next door neighbors were J and Martie A.  A few months ago I got a FaceBook message that said something like "are you the same JC that once lived on McC Place?"   I said "YES!  Are you the Martie that lived next door to me?"    What do you know.... she still lives there.  She and the hubby split, but her daughter, who was only about 6 months old when we moved, still lives with her.   She had invited us over to watch the Mavricks play.... needless to say we didn't hang around to see that tragic story.  It was so great seeing her and now the ball is in her court and I hope she comes to see us really soon.

Keep in mind, this whole week at school, the 3rd, 4th and 6th graders were taking state tests.  ALL WEEK... shhhhh, we're testing.  Do you know how that sets off a child that isn't in those grades?  

Wednesday my brother's new wife Di, came over to have dinner with us.  She was in North Texas this week taking care of some medical appointments and taking in a weeks worth of yoga classes.  Remember, they live way out on a ranch in West Texas and the nearest yoga studio is about 89 miles away!  It was good to see her and I was able to hand off Michael's socks that I FINALLY finished.  Mikey called last night to tell me that the socks fit perfect and felt soooo good.  He'll not need them for about 8 months but they'll be there when that cold wind starts blowing out on the prairie.  The next pair I knit will have to be for my niece Andee.  Di said she was really bummed that she didn't get a pair when Di showed Andee her's and the messed up Deer Socks.  I'll get started on a pair for Andee sometime this summer. 

Another thing that happened Wednesday, my blood pressure was high.  I never worry about my blood pressure.  For the past 28 years when I have gone to the doctor he usually has to take blood or something to know if I'm really alive.  My blood pressure is naturally REALLY low.  I never stress about anything.  But, Wednesday afternoon I had a dental appointment and my long time Dentist almost didn't clean my teeth because my blood pressure was 150 over 90.   I had no idea if that was high or not.... like I said, I never even think about it.  She even asked me if I'd been having headaches.  Does that mean she was thinking I could have been having a stroke?  I told her "No, but I have been having some pains in my Arse.  But we won't name names."   Great!  Now my blood pressure will go up because I'll be stressing over my blood pressure.

Thursday I had taken the afternoon off to take care of some medical appointments of my own.  My sinus/allergy problem was coming back.  Just when I thought the hacky little cough was gone, the wind started blowing and here it came again.  I dropped by the Minute Clinic.  I LOVE this concept.  No appointment necessary.... It's right in the Pharmacy, when you walk out of the office from seeing the Doctor, your prescription is ready and waiting.  La farmicia es fabuloso!  Mi gusta esta concepcion. I speak Spanish best first thing in the morning. This doctor said I had an upper respiratory infection. YES! No antibiotics for me.  Mi no gusta antibioticos.  They screw up my system.  She did give me a rescue inhaler, some awesome pastillas pills for cough, and some saline nose drops because my nasal passages were swelled it's an allergic reaction.  She told me to lay off the Afrin nasal spray it causes swelling of the nasal passages, you get that 'bounce' effect and not to take anymore Sudafed. I do need to take Zyrtec everyday during the Spring and Fall, my worse allergy seasons. The Sudafed was probably causing the blood pressure to go up.   It was at 111/78 when she took it, coming down.

Later that day I went to Dr. P......  to have some blood work done.  I'll go back to him later this month to get those results and then I'll start shopping for a new OB-GYN.  Dr. P is good, don't get me wrong.  I think he want's to hold the record for delivering the most babies of all OB's in the history of mankind.  I think he holds a record in our county, he has a few personal records himself.  He's just not that receptive to me now that I no longer wish to be birthing babies.  I wonder if he wished he could have delivered my two squirts?  That's exactly how long they took to birth.... the Doc just walked past, caught that baby, quick hand-off to a nurse and he was off to the golf course.  It was almost like a NFL play.  Sorry.... TMI for those non baby peeps. BP was at 110/68... he said that was fine.

Then there was Friday, haven't I always said that we have to pay for our weekends?  If not, I'm telling you now.  Our weeks build up like an earthquake.  The tremors start rumbling around Tuesday morning and by Friday afternoon we're getting the 5.0 shakes.  We sometimes have anywhere from 1 to 6 in the ISS (in school suspension) room in the office.  Which really means 2 in the room, 1 in the ISS office, 1 each in the Principal's office and Asst. Principal's offices and sometimes 1 in my office.   This past Friday was only different in that we had 2 in ISS.  A couple had OSS or moved on to the Alternative School.  I was in the process of helping the two students swap places one in the room the other in the ISS office area when the one in the room a 1st grader decided to sling a book off his desk at my head.  Luckily I was able to fend off the book with my left elbow because my hands were full of his other books and supplies that I was bringing into the room.  I now have a bruise on my elbow.  Does this mean we are going to build up to an epic volcano by the time school is out in a month?   Lord help us.... the pain in my Arse is killing me! Can we get some relief with the barometric pressure too?  No... it's tornado season that won't happen until the end of June.

On another note,  look at the deck!   Nice and clean....  I can feel the breezes now the wind was blowing about 65 mph Friday.  We'll put the new umbrella up in the next couple of weeks and we'll finally be able to open it after the wind dies down in June. 

Have a great week, I'm off to a dance recital today.  I hope I don't have flash backs. 

Happy Mother's Day and other stuff....

.... that should have posted Friday morning that didn't because Blogger and I were having issues.

First off, Happy Mother's Day Jane. She's a wonderful Mom and the best Mother-in-law I've ever had.

Happy Mother's Day to all you Moms out there. Hope you are treated like royalty today, you deserve it. I know it's the hardest job I've ever had... and it's the only one that doesn't have a time clock. 24/7 even when they are grown. But it's the most rewarding job I've ever had. I'm constantly patting myself on the back, our kids have grown up to be fine adults. A little wild at times, but it could have gone MUCH worse. We are blessed.

It's been a great weekend. My future sister-in-law Di came over to see us yesterday. She was up from the ranch to spend the weekend with her Mom, who lives in North Dallas. We had lunch and talked about plans for a family reunion this summer on the ranch and their plans for a wedding in February. She's funny and great to talk with about any subject. She's rather worldly. It was funny to hear her discussing the huge garden they have put in and how her life style has changed from jet-setting around the world producing television commercials to literally watching a garden grow.

Later, Jody and I went to Garland, had dinner at Dos Banderas, for my Mother's Day dinner. Dos is quickly becoming my favorite restaurant. It's classic Tex-Mex, like you'd find out in West Texas. None of that fancy-schmancy shredded tortilla crisps and avocado creme. Just good old chili powder based chili sauce on the enchiladas, refried beans and Spanish rice on a plate that stays hot ALL the way through the meal. When they say it's a hot plate they are not kidding. And the Flan is so sweet, it made my sweet tea taste like it was un-sweet. Heavenly!

We hung out on the square listening to the pickers until about 11:30. Mark (the best picker in North Texas) wanted us to go with a bunch of them to the Beef House afterwards but I was really tired and there's something about the name that conjures up images of a slaughter house. I just picture this place being really dirty, stinky and nasty. I may have to dig up the courage to try that in a few weeks, I think Jody may have wanted to go last night. I'll have to sleep all day Saturday to be rested up to stay out that late AND eat after 8PM. I don't like eating at night. I wonder if they serve breakfast?

Now to the post that has made me crazy since Friday morning.

Thursday night a group of us from school and my hairdresser DeeDee all met for dinner in McKinney. Afterwards we went to a play in the historic Court House turned Play House. This courthouse was built in 1876 and the theater part was actually the main courtroom. At one time there was a gallows where the stage is now. People actually gathered in that room to watch villains of the wild west be hanged.

The play we saw was far from a hanging. We took in Dixie's Tupperware Party. To the surprise of at least 3 of our group it was actually a Tupperware Party. We were handed a catalog, order sheet and a tiny pencil along with other goodies in a goodie bag as we were ushered to our seats.

The play is the story of how Dixie Longate became one the the Nation's top Tupperware distributors. Here are my pictures.... I want to apologize, I'm not a photographer, I have a cheap camera and I was laughing so hard, it's amazing only half of them are not blurry.

This is Dixie Longate from Greenbo, Alabama, single mother of 3, Wynona, Dwayne and Absorbine Jr. See, just like one of us only she made over $17o,000 last year selling Tupperware! (SHE/he actually did..... selling the Tupperware isn't just acting.)

Here she's demonstrating the new cork screw Tupperware has come out with. There were actually members of the audience sitting on couches on stage to make it feel like a real Tupperware Party. I bought one of these Cork Screws... it has a life time warranty! I need that!

She also pulled people out of the audience to play games for prizes and here she had a man come up and demonstrate the new can opener. I don't know if this guy was just a hellova man or if his wife was inflicting Pay Back on him by making him sit in the front row center isle. Word to the wise.... NEVER sit front and center if you are a straight man and you are at a play where the star is in drag. This poor guy was probably tired of hearing his name by the end of the evening. "Chris! No Chris, no Chris, no Chris, Chris, Chris....." (Just repeat that about 20 or 30 times really fast and you'll know what he heard.)

After we made our purchases, we got a group shot with Dixie (aka Kris Andersson), from left to right is Dawn, Cheryl, Kathryn, Lori, Me, Dixie, Dee Dee and Judi.

Google Dixie's Tupperware Party to read all the reviews and visit the website. And if the stage play ever comes to your town, go see it. It's not your Grandma's Tupperware Party. I'm wondering if my co-workers will ever let me pick the play again..... teee heee. (Not only were they baffled by the Tupperware sale they were baffled by her/him. I tried to warn them...)

Have a great week.... I'm going to.

We're just trying to keep the mood light.

One more day of TAKS testing this week. It's hard to get anything done, it's a good thing we're done with any major ordering of supplies for classrooms. I can't seem to stay in my office for more than 15 minutes. Sometimes my job consists of buyer, bookkeeper, typist, editor, teacher, tutor, baby sitter, disciplinarian, nurse, mediator, travel agent and on days like yesterday, today and tomorrow I become an event planner. I have been and will be tomorrow, in charge of setting up the lunch buffets. Do you know how hard it is to guesstimate how much food 97 people will and can eat? It's brutal. I guess I don't eat as much as most people, because what looked like a lot of food to me wasn't near enough. I'm nervous about ordering pizza tomorrow.

On top of this we have had rain everyday this week. Lots of rain. When kids are under stress because of state wide testing they need to blow off steam. The teachers become stressed, they need to blow off steam. The last thing we want to do is keep everyone inside all day. But the rain doesn't look to be stopping anytime soon. Now towns to the North of us are beginning to flood, these are the same towns that were flooded last Fall. My sister's house flooded in Houston Tuesday night.... it's state wide.

Another thing we've had to deal with this week is the Swine Flu scare. The kids are scared, the parents are panicking and we are inundated with phone calls wanting to know if we will close school. Many of the families at our school are from Mexico or have family in Mexico or both. Several of the area day cares have closed. A school in nearby Richardson closed two days ago. Then two other school in two other towns in North Texas closed. Today they announced all school sports events in the state would be canceled. Then tonight a crawl went across the bottom of the TV stating the schools of Ft Worth were closing. 148 schools! I think it said they would be closed until May 8th! That will tack on an extra week to their school year. As of tonight our county has not had any cases reported.

If people would just be responsible and stay home when they are sick. I know why they don't... they can't afford to miss work. Either they need the money too badly or they risk loosing their jobs if they stay home. Then their kids get sick and they can't keep them home because they can't miss work so they send them sick. It's not unusual for us to have a sick child with fever sleep all day on a cot in the clinic because their parent can't get off work to come get them. Or they can't afford to take them to the Doctor, so they just let it run it's course.

I think we are in a vicious cycle here and it's starting to not just catch up with us, we're about to be run down! We need to start going to work and be glad we have a job to go to and do a good job when we get there so our boss thinks highly of us and will allow for us to be off work when we have a sick child. As employers we need to be compassionate of our employees and understand we are people or parents and we need to take care of matters at home sometime (but at the same time we shouldn't take advantage of this....) We need to stop carelessly spending our money so we can take care of ourselves and our families, and be able to save for that rainy day because friend... it's about to start pouring.

In the mean time we're going to try to keep the mood light in the office.... Judi has just been crowned the High Priestess of Goofy. She robbed me of my title of Lucy yesterday when she announced to our Assistant Principle that she was going home with the Swine Flu.


I'm going to miss this girl next year.

Happy Turkey Day

They say "the 3rd time is a charm." And our 3rd Thanksgiving of the year was. Just the 4 of us, which is good, no stress. Not that I stress that much over Thanksgiving. One of the greatest things I learned very early on being married into the Cruzan Clan, was not to stress over Thanksgiving.... just drop kick that bird into the oven and everything else is just stuff(ing).

As long as they have turkey they are happy. Of course Mr. Potato Head (Jeff) has to have a huge mound of mashed spuds. The family really looks forward to the cold turkey sandwiches later in the day.


I cooked the whole meal, Jolea slept until 11 so she didn't have to do a thing other than fold napkins. She's a pro at folding napkins. Besides, she'd had plenty of practice cooking turkey, in the last two months.

Later in the day we had a visit from some dear friends, Trent and Sarah who now live in Tampa, with their two adorable boys. They were here visiting Sarah's parents. Jody and Trent worked together 14 years ago when we first moved here. They were the first people I met when we moved here! We spent the afternoon catching up on things and hearing about Sarah's trials of living in Florida. The difference between living in Texas and in other places in the US are unbelievable. I guess that's why they say "Texas, it's like a whole other country." Sarah is so funny, and is considering becoming a blogger!!! This will be good!

All in all it was a fantastic day, we're sitting here watching Survivor and then we'll brush up on our GSR and blood splatter identification skills by watching CSI.

I am inspired by Bliss over on 1st Mate/Bliss Bloggin to list the things I'm thankful for:

1) My husband, the most supportive person I know, he's always in my corner.

2) My fantastic kids, I am so lucky to have kids who are the best of friends, and enjoy each other's company.

3) My own brother and sister, they check in so much more often than I check in on them... and we have become much closer in the past year (thanks Di.)

4) My In-laws... such wonderful parents.

5) Our little home on the prairie, so it's not a prairie any more... it was at one time.

6) Our bills are always paid, we live comfortably within our means and we eat REALLY well!

7) We are well on our way to good health.

8) We have good jobs, or we're about to...

9) I have friends all over the world, some I see on a daily basis and some I've never met face to face, but have become very close to.

10) I'm most thankful for how lucky our family is. You have no idea the luck that pours into and out of the House of Cruzan.

What are you thankful for? (Jody is thankful that he lives in a country where he can get glasses in almost an hour!)