Anybody know the song in the title?

We spent a week in Pigeon Forge last month, where we rented a cabin in the mountains. God, it was nice up there. Chris's parents went with us, and we brought all three dogs (Sandy, Jack and their dog Misty). Sandy and Misty were fine, but Jack was stressed the whole time. ("This is not my beautiful house...How did I get here?" - once again, know the song?)

I'll have to write about the vacation in a few posts, since I took a lot of pictures and we did a lot of stuff. Especially eat. LOTS of eating. But that's part of the fun of vacation. Not the extra pounds I came home with, but trying delicious new foods and restaurants.

As we were driving around Pigeon Forge that first day, Becca saw a place where you could mine for jewels. She completely obsessed about it and talked about it until we took her there a day or so later. I thought it was going to be a cheesy rip-off, but it turned out to be fun, and the girls and I actually had jewelery made from the stones they found. Grandma also had jewelery made for stones she mined.



( More pictures this way... )

More to come!

OK, not really. I mean, we're definitely having lots of fun, but it's not a normal blazing hot summer this year. Which means less outdoor pool time, but we've still been doing a lot of stuff.

June 16th was the last day of school (ridiculously late if you ask me). A couple hours after the girls got home, we picked up Grandma and headed to Ocean City for a couple days. It was downright chilly! It rained a bit on the way down, and was just gloomy. But I had taken that into consideration since we'd had a crappy spring, and booked a room at the Francis Scott Key Family Resort, which has several pools, including an indoor heated one. Definitely a good move; it never got warm enough to swim in the outdoor pools or the ocean.

We got there in the early evening, so after settling in, we headed right to the indoor pool. The girls loved it.



( More this way... )

My computer crapped out a while back, and even though Chris got me a new one the same day, he had to get everything back on. Unfortunately, that didn't include the photo editing program I was familiar with, so I had to learn a new one. Chris can tell you I don't like new programs on my computer. So it took me a while to have him show me what to do, then I forgot and had to learn again. I think I've got it now. And I like this program better, which often happens, even though I do my best to resist change.

First, though, I promised Malcolm a book fair story a few weeks back.

It's the last day of the book fair, first thing in the morning, when it's at its craziest with tons of kids thrusting money and merchandise at the volunteers and me. In the middle of this, I hear some woman talking loudly to one of the parent volunteers, and he looked like a deer caught in headlights, so I ask what the problem is. She starts going off on me that I overcharged her precious by $3.00 for a poster. OK, I checked it out, and he was overcharged - by accident. Every poster we sell is $4.50, EXCEPT that one that had a tiny sticker in the corner that said $1.00. Scholastic didn't mention this one single poster was on sale, and we sell like 25 different posters. I apologized, took the difference out of the cash box and went to hand it to her. "HAND IT TO HIM, HE TOOK HIS OWN MONEY OUT OF HIS PIGGY BANK AND YOU RIPPED HIM OFF!!!". Whoa. I responded it was an honest mistake, and she said "I DON'T THINK IT WAS. I THINK YOU RIPPED HIM OFF AND TOOK ADVANTAGE OF HIM. AND YOU SHOULD BE WRITING OUT RECEIPTS FOR EVERY CHILD THAT BUYS SOMETHING!" This is not feasible. If someone pays with credit card, they get a receipt. Otherwise, since we know almost every child in the school, if someone has a dispute, we don't question it and do what we can to make it right. AS I WAS DOING.

At this point, I'm really pissed. But since I am a book fair chairperson and a PTA co-president, I couldn't let loose. So I just clenched my teeth in a poor imitation of a smile and said "You are welcome to attend a PTA meeting and give your suggestions. Otherwise, we are done here." She huffs off, and I'm left pissed and shaking. Fortunately, there were many witnesses - teachers and staff who had had run-ins with this woman themselves. Apparently, I am now a member of a not-so-exclusive club. And not only did this woman get in my face, SHE TOLD ON ME to the Assistant Principal! And then that night, at our Family Dance, she was STILL telling everyone who didn't run away from her how I ripped off her kid. What a freak. I could go on and on about this woman and the things so many people told me about her that day, but suffice it to say that EVERYBODY HATES HER, and she's a miserable person. And that's good enough for me.

OK, onto the pictures. I met a friend for lunch last week. She and I went to high school together, and are still good friends after almost 30 FREAKING YEARS. We met Freshman year, 1979. And now Lauren is starting high school in 2009. Ugh. Anyway, here we are (with her little girl Emily, who is too adorable for words):



Crappy picture of me, but there you go.

And here's a not-so-crappy picture of me, taken by Lauren at Harper's Ferry a few weeks ago:



( More this way... )

Some 8th grade stuff in the next post!

It's been a month since my last update! Shameful, I know. Now that we're heading towards the end of the school year, it's getting really busy. Plus there's that little Facebook addiction I have no intention of fighting. No interventions, please.

It's already late, but I do want to finish up posting about our activities during spring break. And speaking of spring, where the hell is it? It's warm, it's cold, it gets hot for a day, then cold. Rain, rain, rain. Seriously, this is not the kind of spring I remember from my childhood. We actually played outside on Easter Sunday and wore light, spring clothes with no jackets! Global warming my ass.

Anyway.

Our big outing was the DC trip, but we did a few other fun things that week. Pretty much INDOOR things, of course. On Wednesday, we saw the movie "Monsters vs Aliens," and we saw it in 3D. It was a very fun movie, and I really enjoyed the 3D experience. It's come a long way from the blue/red glasses.

Here are the girls getting ready to watch the movie:



There are several 3D movies coming out this summer that we're looking forward to.

( More indoor fun this way... )

So that was spring break 2009. Only a few more weeks until summer, and it's going to get absolutely crazy here. Both Lauren and Becca are moving up to new schools (high school and middle school, respectively), so there are dances, picnics, parties and celebrations coming up. I have taken some cooking and baking pictures and will post those soon as well. I'll try not to let a month go by until my next entry!

Well, not really. We had planned to go to Tennessee for spring break. We had rented a cabin in the mountains, and were really looking forward to it. But the weather had other plans for us. Cold, rain, snow, fog and maybe one sunny day the whole week. SUCK! So we decided to stay home and postpone the mountains until June. Hopefully by THEN we'll have some nice weather!

I still let the girls take off the two days from school they would have if we had gone as planned. So we had about ten days off from school, which was much needed and enjoyed. We had a few nice days, and did a lot of fun things.

Sunday the 5th was a beautiful day. Sunny and in the mid- to upper-60s. So we decided to spend the day in Washington, DC to check out the cherry blossoms and other sites. First we stopped for lunch at one of our favorite places in nearby Urbana, Foster's Grille. They make AWESOME burgers.

The cherry blossoms had faded some, and many of them had blown away the day before with the strong, gusty winds, but they were still pretty.



( More DC fun this way... )

Next entry - Staycation, Part 2

Yet another year down; they seem to fly by the older I get. So that sucks.

New Year's Eve was spent eating Chinese food and playing Rock Band 2. Oh my god, how much fun is that game? My family knows how much I love to sing, but Chris has rarely heard me since I'm pretty shy. He has seen me naked, seen me give birth, yet singing in front of him paralyzes me. Go figure. The kids hear me all the time when I'm driving. So at first I stuck to playing the drums and guitar, which were really fun, but I desperately wanted to take the microphone. However, every time Chris would put the microphone to my face when he was singing, I collapsed with nervous giggles. Finally, I sang along with Becca on a song and really liked it. Then, after a couple of strawberry daquiris, I was on the mic by myself and LOVING IT. If you know me at all, you will be SHOCKED to know that I belted out "Roxanne" by The Police and got 100 percent! Never mind that it's a completely inappropriate song to be singing while the kids are playing; I DON'T CARE. I sang! Out loud! Very loud! And on key! That was a RUSH. I was beet red and nervous perspiring, but I had so much fun. Best game EVER.

I took some pictures of the family playing the game, so you won't find me here. However, I'm sure Chris and his mom will have some extremely embarrassing pictures of me on their blogs sometime soon (links to the left).

( LET'S ROCK! )

Lauren has a really nice voice, although she doesn't believe it (I have no idea where she gets THAT). And I got the biggest kick out of hearing Becca (who is only ten) sing The Who's "Baba O'Reilly", especially when she belted out the words "It's only a teenage wasteland - they're all WASTED!" Awesome.

So it's the time to make resolutions. I don't usually make them, because I always break them. However, there are a few I do plan to keep:

Get back to Weight Watchers and lose these last ten pounds or so.

Get a basic physical and try to get the stupid depression/anxiety under control for once and for all.

I always get my yearly gyn check-up and mammogram, plus I have an appointment with a dermatologist for a skin cancer check (many nasty sunburns as a kid before we knew sunshine was dangerous).

Actually start using the treadmill again.

Better sleep habits! Quit staying up until 2 or 3 am. I may be nocturnal, but most of the world isn't, so I need to adapt them them and not the other way around.

And I make this resolution every year, but don't always keep it: read at least 100 books. I only made it to 80 this year, which was seven less than last year. I've already finished Book #1 for 2009, so I'm off to a good start. I've been keeping a yearly book list since 2007. I really wish I had started doing that back when I was a kid.

( Here is the list of Books Read in 2008: )

Well, it's 2am, so obviously I'm already breaking my resolutions, but it took forever to put the book list together! I'm counting Monday as the first day of keeping resolutions. I hope everyone has a great year!