Hey.
What's up?
I have a head cold, and am going through Kleenex like Abbie goes through movie theater popcorn. In short - we are in danger of running out quickly! So, I am tired and sickly and stuff, but enough about that! I don't feel like talking about head colds!!!
Went to Mom's last week after the parent-teacher conferences. Boy, was that enlightening. Kids are both doing great academically, but my sweet, sunshiny boy acts out at school, and I often don't hear of it (the word "overstimulated" was used). As for Abbie, she's a genius, but has no capacity or inclination for concentration. In both cases, I've been referred to the counselor. Didn't want to go through that with the kids listening, so I'm going to call today. Any support from afar you care to bestow on me, in whatever form, will be appreciated. This is a very deep sort of hurt, and would love to know that you've got my back...or at least are sympathetic.
Moving on.
We went to Rolla to spend the rest of the week with my parents. It was fun. Wednesday night, Dad started reading The Hobbit to the kids, since they finished up Hugo last time. I had started on The Hobbit earlier in the year, but stopped when I found out my dad wanted to read it to them. Wouldn't want to scare him away from the idea. He read it to me, you know.
Thursday, both my parents had to work, so we did, too! We got out rakes and raked up a nice, comfy (if you don't count the sticks) pile of leaves. Then, we spent the whole morning in it. We swam at the indoor pool in town in the afternoon, and then met Mom at Rolla's new Kohl's. We got her some autumn leaf dish towels as a present. I made sure to purchase them before she got there. She likes to not let me pay for stuff - even presents for herself. She bought some stuff for the kids, and then we went back home and had yummy minute steaks for dinner. Also, my dad made our next day's lunch: chicken and sausage GUMBO. Mom had Friday off, so we did all kinds of fun stuff. My favorite was making Halloween cookies!! There were some of the Pillsbury sugar cookies with designs on them, but also we made our own short bread cookies and used cookie cutters. I love cookie cutters. I have a basket full of them downstairs. I even have a T-Rex cookie cutter. Anyway, this recipe is the one the family always used at Christmas, so when I smell them, I think of my grandmother, and green sugar sprinkles...
Before I left town, we went for the first time to a place called South Central Creamery (http://sccreamery.com/). Mom, despite being an authority on ice cream, had never been before. I bought us each a cone. It was good! If you are in Rolla, even just passing through, go grab an ice cream cone! I had a flavor called Mother Lode. It had toffee in it. Yum. Also, it brought back a different set of memories. When I was a little girl, Rolla had a Ruby's Ice Cream, and I never would have remembered that I used to always get banana flavored ice cream, if I hadn't seen it for sale at South Central Creamery. Abbie had peach ice cream, Grant had Burgundy cherry, and Mom had butter pecan.
As I drove through Rolla on my way home, I made a brief detour. We drove past the house that we lived in when Abbie was born, and then on to my own childhood neighborhood. You'll be pleased to hear that the tulip tree poplar I planted when I was Grant's age is tall and beautiful. Next to my house, is the Andersons' house. Into the mailbox went a bag full of our freshly baked cookies. I giggled at the thought of their finding it later.
I was already starting to feel unwell by the time I got back home. I had to rush and grab some PR photos for taiko. The rest of that evening is a little bit of a blur... I think we ate....something?
Saturday, we went to the pumpkin patch. It was really cold when we first got there. I liked it pretty well. We met with our dear friends the Pelikans and the Macneils. I think the kids had a really good time, and we got some great pumpkins, and lots of happy pictures. We ate there, too, which was....okay.Not bad food, but "festival" prices. I ordered hot chocolate, and it was like life's blood. I was revived! The kids started to unravel at the end, so we whisked them all away. I had asked Josh if we could stop on the way home and get bread bowls from Panera so I could make soup in bread bowls for dinner. Josh said yes, but forgot. He really didn't understand why I was gesturing frantically at that exit sign, saying, "JoshJoshJosh!!!" He said to make it up to me, he would go back and get some after dropping me at home. But what he did instead was take the kids and let them order off the menu for dinner, and bring me back a bread bowl and soup to have by myself. It's not the same, even though it was my favorite soup. After dinner, we watched Arsenic and Old Lace.
That night, I really developed a head cold. It was bad. I wonder if it was the one Julie had. It looked pretty miserable. I got up in the morning, determined to go to taiko, but was very dizzy, and Josh fussed at me and said I would just get everyone sick, so I went back to bed.
He's been like that since I got back. He screamed and yelled when I told him that the music teacher wanted to push the kids' lessons back 10 minutes, since I'm always there early anyway, and she had another potential client trying to schedule a time. And when I tried to talk to him about the change in my taiko commute because of bridge work, and how that would affect my picking up Michelle, he was so angry he drove me to tears. Just today he informed me that any changes to my schedule effect him, because it's his car and his gas. [I would like to take this time to announce that it's MY name on the car, because MINE is the good credit. Plus, I made 10 payments on it. He can argue for the gas money at present, since I haven't earned my own since June, but the TIME is not his. Not.]
In the afternoon, Josh went to go fly the plane, and the kids and I started the pumpkins. We also watched Labyrinth. Grant and Abbie both got white pumpkins. Abbie wanted me to draw Kiki and Jiji from Kiki's Delivery Service on hers, but Grant wanted his carved. I have never done a white pumpkin before; are they always that DENSE? It was hard work! But it looks great, and he's happy. Josh came home just as I was starting mine. We watched The Curse of the Ware-Rabbit and ate and finished dinner. Then - Boggle time. I won! Yay! I found Rites and Bites and Greens all in the same turn. Go, me!
After the kids were bathed and put in bed, I finally finished Charlotte Bronte's Villette. I didn't care for it. Not only was it full of those ridiculously borderline run-on sentences of hers, but it was a sulky, cranky book. She was frequently fixated on a fear of being forgotten, and also frequently determined to go on and on [not that this wasn't basically her style throughout the book] in rants of pro-Protestantism/anti-Catholicism. Beyond that, she seemed to really think her audience would be surprised to run into previously introduced characters in a series of highly improbably coincidences - when there are only a dozen characters in THE WHOLE BOOK! So, I found my intelligence insulted, my ire provoked, my spirits dampened and my patience tried from beginning to end. How did that monstrosity ever become published?
Now I just need to decide if I want to read my Dublin Murder Squad book next, or The Mysteries of Udolpho....
There was a sub job this morning, but someone else got it. But! Grant's teacher and the music teacher both put me on their sub lists! That being said....I spent this morning on Career Builder.
Hope you are about to have a great week!
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