MOTY walks the red carpet

LOOK WHAT I GOT!!!

As you can tell from my yelling, I'm excited.

My friend Lisa@take90west just gave it to me!




Now what? I'm ready for my red carpet debut.


(Yes, that's really me)


(Gotta Love the 80's)


(yes again, that really is sparkle velvet and taffeta. I'm just a vision aren't I?)


Like how I cut my date out of the picture? He wasn't worth a spot on my blog anyway! (Can you tell he dumped me?)


Anyhoo.... I appreciate Lisa thinking of me since I'm new to this whole thing. I would like to thank her for supporting me in my blog endeavor and answering a bunch of really stupid questions about how things work around here.


All of this is my first reaction. I swear I ran upstairs to the old photo albums to find this picture immediately!


Now for my second reaction: Holy Crap! Do you know how many people read Lisa's blog???? If only 5% of them came to take a look that would be like... um... uhh.... I don't know but a whole lot more people than usual! (Math was never my best subject).


It dawned on me that people I don't know might actually look at the drivel that I write. Yikes! That is a scary thought. So please be kind if I don't know you as an actual flesh and blood person.

I hope I haven't bored you. :)

My new favorite Layout

I made this on Photoshop 5.0. I love these pics of my daughter at dance class. It's like her at 6 at her at 16.

Big Lessons in Little Packages

Well I definitely know that school is back in session - full swing. I am actually working all week! Very exciting. Unfortunately for the class I will be handling for the next two days, I am no sort of Math teacher. Thankfully, no teacher assumes a sub actually knows what they are doing, so hopefully its just a bunch of review! I apologize to these as of yet nameless children now. I promise to do no harm. If I don't know, I will just say that and allow your teacher to help you on Thursday!

So today I got to work in a bilingual 1st grade classroom. Going in, I was a little nervous. I had never been in a 1st grade room except to help host a holiday party. In the end, they were so sweet and it was pretty much like a normal summer day around my house. Kids everywhere all trying to talk to me at once!

There was one little boy, however, at the end of the day who almost had me in tears. We were watching the episode of "The Magic School Bus" where Miss Frizzle turns them into water. The class is working on evaporation, condensation etc, etc so this fit in nicely and a quiet way to end the day.

I turned the show off to get everyone in coats, hats, gloves etc and he was crying so hard. He had to stay at the after school program and he just wanted to go home. He kept telling me that he just wanted in Mom. He held my hand when I walked all the rest of the kids to the buses or their waiting parents and all the way back into the school. He asked through tears and snot if I could just sit with him in the classroom. And he asked me over and over, "Why can't my mom just come get me?" and all I could do was hug him.

So is this what working mothers feel all the time? I wanted to cry too, because I have a 1st grader and it would break my heart to think of her crying like that to her teacher. It makes me wonder, what in the heck am I doing? Isn't there some other way for me to make money??? But when little Jesus was settled into the afterschool program, and feeling better, I thought that I am lucky. I have a degree that will allow me to work somewhere that I will always be home after school for them. I won't be working breaks and days off or over the summer. Who knows what his mother has to do to make ends meet. I AM glad that I was there to comfort him and hope that it helped. Even just a little.

Got Ghilles?

My daughter Meghan has been taking Irish Dance classes since this past summer. She absolutely loves it. It is high energy, fairly easy to learn and loves, loves, loves her teacher.

Prior to Christmas she had been complaining to anyone who would listen, that she was the only girl in class that did not have ghilles. For those of you that don't know what ghilles are, it's this:

They are $85 Irish Dance Shoes. Why are they so expensive? Because China doesn't make them yet. They are imported from either Ireland or Italy and made out of leather, etc.

Anyway, Meg was bummed so my mom (thank God for grandparents) offered to buy them for her for Christmas.

Today was her first class since getting the shoes. After 10 minutes of trying to figure out how to get them on and tied, etc, she runs into class to proudly show off her first pair of ghilles to her teacher! I was so happy for her.

When class was over I asked if her teacher was excited that she got new shoes and with a sad expression, she said "no". I asked what she did say and Meghan said her response was simply "good".

Now I'm sure the teacher just needed to get class going, especially since we were a little late getting in there what with all the tying and untying going on, but I just wish she could have taken a quick second to remember when she was 6 and got her first pair of ghilles and how proud and excited she probably was.

Oh well. Meghan has probably moved on already and its just me who is sad for her. But I am excited for her! I guess that's why I'm her mom.

How do you help a friend in pain?

My neighbor/friend's mother passed away late last night.

We knew it was coming as she has been in and out of the hospital and nursing homes since Thanksgiving. My friend and her sisters decided on Sunday that this was not what their mother wanted and put a DNR in place and had the doctors remove the breathing tube yesterday.

Then they sat and waited for their mother to die.

I find that heartbreaking and could not imagine the courage it must take to make that decision for another person. What's worse today, however, is that my friend is questioning her decision. Her mom had not been able to breathe without assistance for several weeks, but after the vents were turned off, she breathed on her own for almost the entire day before finally dying. That made her second guess herself because of all the "what ifs" involved.

My response was that she knew her mother did not want to have done, the amount that was already done, let alone allow it to continue indefinitely in the hope that maybe it would improve someday. But I know her. She will beat herself up about this for months to come and I don't know how to help except to listen and remind her of all the things she had been telling me for months and weeks...that her mom wouldn't want any of this stuff done.

Sad stuff.

I love you mom!

Getting a new car is supposed to fun...exciting even. So why am I so exhausted?

I guess it has a lot to do with the how and why of acquiring my new car.

Previous to this weekend, I had been rockin' a sweet 01 Chevy Venture ... Warner Bros. Edition.

I know you are jealous.

It had an awesome VCR that loved to eat tapes as well as about 110000 miles on it. This van has safely driven all 3 of my children around. It has been puked in, peed on, pooped on, a mobile restaurant, medical clinic, changing table, dressing room, taxi, limousine. It has celebrated weddings, mourned at funerals, brought a baby home from the hospital, celebrated a World Series and many Little League victories. We have used it as a warming station and cooling center, shelter from the rain and a mobile radio out at the soccer fields.

Basically, we have lived in this car for the last 6 1/2 years.

Last summer, it started acting a little funny. In stop and go traffic, the temperature gauge would rise until the A/C turned on and it went back down. The gas gauge stopped working so I started telling if I needed gas by the trip odometer. I was leaking anti-freeze somewhere and she was burning some serious oil. I haven't had an oil change in a year and a half! The oil never made it to 3000 miles before I needed to add one or two quarts. Nothing seemed too terribly serious. It had relatively new tires, newer brakes and a battery we replaced on a day that was supposed to be the family trip to the Christmas Tree Farm.

So Friday, the last day of the never-ending Winter Break, my sister-in-law invited the kids and I to go with her to Ikea. I thought great! They can go to Smaland for awhile and Ikea doesn't care if they touch, lay on and sit on everything they have in the place! Plus I get out of the house so one more day where I don't kill them and they don't kill each other. Win-Win.

So we're cruising East on 90 and just passed the 59 Exit. For all non north-siders, that is the last exit off of 90 until you get into Schaumburg or for about 10 miles...give or take. All of a sudden, my temp. gauge goes all the way to hot. Red lights start flashing, things start dinging and my car shuts down.

All while I'm going 75 in the left lane.

With my kids and sister-in-law in the car.

So we manage to get to Schaumburg going 45 on the shoulder with the hazards flashing. We get to Woodfield Chevy, check in and get set up with a Rental since the whole thing is going to take at least a couple of days and head to Ikea.

While there, I find out that the problem is that I have blown two, not one but two, head gaskets as well as some secondary cooling system and all this will take a mere 3 grand to fix.

We spend lots of time talking and gathering advice with the consensus being - ditch the car and find something else. Luckily enough, my father in law is a salesman at Chevy. His manager just happened to take in a fairly new Uplander just 2 days earlier and was due to arrive a the dealership Saturday afternoon. We go and take a look at it. It is a nice vehicle, has everything we need and best of all, the price is right. So we go home riding in our "new" car.

Yet there is still the issue of the old car to deal with! I need to go clean the sucker out. No easy task when you didn't know you would be getting rid of it. I was dying! I brought a couple of grocery bags as well as a garbage bag and it still didn't hold all of the crap in that car! Amazing what will build up after a few weeks. I had just cleaned it right before Christmas.

I'm calling tow companies trying to get a price on towing it the 40 miles to my father-in-laws dealership. Best price so far . . . $165. Then there's the changing insurance, faxing registrations, putting on license plates, and worst of all, figuring out where the heck the windshield wipers are!

As Branden and I were leaving the dealership, he hugged the old car and said good-bye. It was really sweet and I actually choked up. It's hard to just leave behind something that has been such and intregal part of your daily routine for almost 7 years.

But I have to say, the thing I will miss most... I couldn't get my White Sox World Series decals off the windows! I started to peel them off and they were flaking in my hand. Where in the heck am I gonna get one of those now!

Who am I?

To be honest with you, this is a question I have been wrestling with for a couple of years now. Almost exactly 8 years ago, I became a mother. My oldest son will be 8 on January 13. For ages, being a mother was my identity. As my first two kids have started school, I'm been feeling a little lost. As they get older, I see my role in their lives changing. They no longer need me to feed them, change them and basically supply their daily physical necessities. I know they still need me, just in other less clingy ways and I'm thrilled. But in the meantime, I have a lot of free "mental" time. When the kids were babies, there was no time to read my email, let alone write a blog or do self reflection...and its freakin' me out a little.

Since some that may actually read this do not necessarily know me, I will fill in a little background. I have been married to my husband B for 10 years now. We have had a lot of ups and downs in the last 10 years but we seem to be in a pretty good spot right now and I'm really thankful for that. I swore before God and my family that we would be together forever and we are both doing our best to live up to that vow.

We have been blessed with 3 fantastic kids. Caden is my oldest at (nearly) 8. Meghan is my only girl and she is 6. Considering I swear she already has PMS and we butt heads like two rams during mating season, a lot of this blog may very well be dedicated to her! My little guy is Branden and he is 3. He is both the funniest of my kids as well as the most annoying. It may be have something to do with the amount of time we spend with just the two of us.

We live in the far Northwest Burbs of Chicago. I am originally from the Southside, so this is "the place where Jesus lost his sandals" as my family likes to tell me. I do with I lived closer (we're a little over an hour away), but I've lived this way for 9 years. Get over it. Seriously. I really like it out here. I have met a lot of fabulous people that I now have the privledge of calling my friends. I wouldn't trade them for the world.

So that's my life in a nutshell. Exciting, huh? I am happy with my life, but things are changing. Hopefully for the good.

Why are things changing? Well unless you have been in the jungles of central america for the last year, you know that the mortgage/housing industry has gone down the drain. My husband is one of the casualties. He's a mortgage guy. So my cushie life as a stay at home mom is being transformed. Once upon a time, I was a teacher. I quit that life when my first bun was in the oven and haven't looked back. Well, I am now attempting to be a substitute teacher at a couple different districts in the area. It's actually a good way to get my feet wet considering that I have stayed at home, longer than I was a teacher. I am actually taking some continuing ed courses as well in an attempt to make myself more marketable in an attempt to get a job over the summer. Wish me luck...I need it. So going into these classrooms and running them efficiently has actually been a real self-esteem boost for me. Being a mom of 3 really helps run a classroom of 28. It's easier for me now than it was back when I was 23, that's for sure. There is nothing like real life experience! So this is what has my head all twisted around. I'm having some serious guilt issues dropping my 3 year old off at the daycare center...especially since the other two had me full time. I also feel a little guilty that I'm happy to drop him off and go somewhere that I feel "useful". From what I hear, this is pretty standard stuff for working mothers and I hope that it goes away soon, because I think I really like being back at work. My head knows that it doesn't make me a bad mom, but my heart keeps telling me that I need to be at home. Unfortunately, that isn't an option right now so it makes the decision to get up and go every day a little easier on me.

Well that's plenty long enough for post number 2! I'll try and find a happier medium next time!

Why is this so scary?

So this is my very first blog post and I'm really nervous. I'm nervous about sounding stupid. I'm nervous about having absolutely nothing to say. I'm nervous about people I know being able to read my ridiculous ramblings. I'm nervous that the name of my blog is too long. I'm nervous that it will become something like my myspace page... A thing that never gets used or tended to unless I'm bored and there is nothing on TV. So, I'm just going to bite the bullet and post this. Then the first one is done and off my chest and I can move on.