So I’ve been busy…. Finals time.

Throw in on top of that Thanksgiving and getting ready for Christmas and you have someone who is woefully unable to blog. I don’t have a lot of time today either. But I wanted to say hello and that I’ll be around to read and visit later — after I get some of my work done.

Right now I’m working on a PowerPoint presentation on a children’s author/illustrator. I’m doing Gerald McDermott — who if you ever are looking for Children’s books, I highly recommend some of his. I have to have a reflection paper that goes along with this…

I also have a book file that needs to be completed. At least 40 books with curriculum applications and etc. etc.

And finally a research papers that is 10-15 pages on the  Pueblo Indians and education.

Yup. My fun meter is pegged now.

We went hiking in the Polipoli forest — Redwoods here on Maui…cool huh? I have pictures, but guess what??? I haven’t  had time to upload them!!

Hopefully I’ll be done soon and can spend some time on here, but right now I gotta go… Have a great week everyone!

So yesterday was spent working on the remainder of my assignments for this week — so much fun. Hubby went golfing. The girls mostly hung out at home and watched movies. Squirt went to the pool for awhile. Otherwise it was just us and the leftovers.

We had a great Thanksgiving. Working at Hale Kau kau was amazing. There were lots of volunteers and we served about 100 or so homeless or down on their luck people and families. Some just broke your heart. One family had a little girl about 5 and a baby. But you know what? They were in such good spirits. The Hale kau kau really did it right too. First we set up the tables with white linen table cloths and real silverware, not plastic. Each table sat 6, and placed on each table was 6 oranges, 6 apples and 6 bags of chocolate covered almonds. There were tables for salad, rolls, fruit, drinks and pies. Each table was assigned a volunteer, and when people sat down they served salad, drinks, rolls and fruit. Then when they ready, their plates were cleared and volunteers got their plates of turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy and corn. The whole day they were waited on hand and foot. There was a musician playing local tunes and a church hula group performed for us. It was great. A fabulous way to spend the day.

We came home and made our dinner; Turkey breast, spiral ham, stuffing, potatoes, dressing, cranberry sauce, corn, deviled eggs, apple cake and pumpkin pie (which Squirt made Wednesday in Home Ec). It was a fantastic day. Made all the richer by our experience at Hale Kau Kau. Now we don’t have to cook for the rest of the weekend — as we have TONS of leftovers.

Now normally I avoid Black Friday. As you can probably tell, I’m not much for crowds. Actually I’m anti-crowd. However, my oldest heard about some amazing sales on clothes and wants to go check them out. So today I will be braving the crowds, instead of going snorkeling or hiking, which was the original plan. Sigh. Oh woe is me. Oh well. Chin up right? Hopefully we won’t waste the entire day doing this, and can still have some fun… and no.. I don’t think of shopping after Thanksgiving as fun.

Shop or find other activities?

As usual I procrastinated the shopping till we  were scraping  food particles off the sides of the freezer, adding some crackers and rice and calling it dinner.  In addition to that, it’s Thanksgiving week….. how did that happen?

So I have my regular shopping as well as shopping for Thanksgiving dinner. We aren’t doing anything real big as we will be out most of the day. Usually we spend the day at the Detachment celebrating pot luck style, which just never really felt like Thanksgiving. This year however, no potluck was ever planned and thanks to that bit of procrastination by someone else, our family got to decide what we wanted to do on Thanksgiving. We have decided as a family to help out at Hale kau kau — which is the kitchen run through our church for the homeless. We will be there most the morning and early afternoon. Then we will have a small celebration at home which I sure will be all the more special after the morning in which we realize once again how blessed we are.

So anyway (sorry.. I got distracted… that happens a lot…. wow… look at that bit of shiny……….

…….

………….

Oh yeah… so like a crazy person who isn’t smart enough to be on some good drugs, I dragged hubby to Safeway to brave the mess. You know right away it’s going to be bad when a) there are NO parking spaces and cars are in every aisle waiting for the nincompoop who got in his car 5 minutes ago to finally start it and back up so they can snatch the spot, and b) there is a queue of desperate shoppers molesting people as they come out of the store trying to bribe, cajole or manhandle their shopping cart away from them.

The smart thing would have been to run away…. and come back at about 3 am when only the druggies are wandering the aisles looking for just the right munchie..but NOOOO!! We stick it out. The end of the rows by the checkstands are blocked with people using the aisles to form the lines for the cashiers, so instead of doing the serpentine pattern that usually works very efficiently and gets your shopping done in record time, we have to go up each aisle, turn our cart around in the middle of  the aisle and head back out the way we came.

Another benefit of waiting till the last minute is all the good holiday stuff is gone — I found myself grabbing generic, low sodium stuff I would never normally choose and saying “I got it! This will work!”. Thanking the goodness that I had spotted that can of generic yams before the lady with the bulging cart and wild eyes who seemed to be stalking my Turkey day fixin’s.

Finally we get through our list, with a few omissions, but hey, overall we are just happy to have some food in our cart, our hands still attached and we’ve only been run over a handful of times. Next we get to line up. It’s a long line. We wait, and wait, and wait. We get up to the cashier and surprise…no bagger for you. By this time my patience is pretty much shot so I jump down to the bagging stand and set up shop, I become Super Bagger! I want to go home! We check out in record time… finally! Of course I can’t move my car, because someone is parked behind me, waiting for a spot to open up. If he would only move back a few feet I would gladly give him mine!

I have to go back a get a few more things, like cool whip. Can’t have pie without cool whip. I’m planning a late night raid however, in a final attempt to retain what is left of my sanity.

Welcome to the Kween_of_the_Queens:

THE THIRD ANNUAL PRESENTATION OF

THREE LITTLE THANKFULS!!!

Third Annual Three Little Thankfuls! 
ANYONE CAN JOIN IN THE FUN!!!
Queens, non queens, Kings, anyone!
Spread the word M’Ladies!
Kween.

Featured_Grownups

2006 NOVEMBER TOPIC 2 of 2

A Person that I Admire

who

why

it doesn’t have to be someone famous…but it can be ~ you choose

and nope, they do not have to be alive

Please go read and comment on all the great entries!

Everyday I see this lady. She’s not so much to look at. She’sslightly overweight and she’s not a stunning beauty. She is friendly and lovesto laugh. She hasn’t had the toughest life in the world, but it hasn’t been abed of roses either.

She attends church regularly, and prays daily and is continuallylooking at this aspect of her life and how she can make it better and getcloser to her higher power, which she knows, is God.

She has overcome some of the toughest obstacles, like drugand alcohol addiction with the help of God and some wonderful people, includingher husband and mother and father.

She has two kids that she does her damnedest to bring up ina way that will allow them to be self-fulfilled, happy, generous, responsibleand loving.

She drives her kids to their activities and lets their housebe the hang-out house because she wants her children to feel secure andcomfortable in their lives, and because she wants to know who her children hangout with, even though she is something of a neat freak and hates that the houseis always destroyed by said teens. She’s worries about the decisions she makes,but makes the hard ones anyway; knowing that taking the easy way out and beingher daughters’ friends will truly not benefit them in the end.

She has a husband who she claims is her soul-mate and bestfriend. They’ve been married over 20 years now. She obviously loves him to distraction and is not afraid to show it.

She’s a teacher, working on her Masters degree ineducation now. She got her education in bits and pieces around having kids andworking full time to help support the family. Her Master’s courses take a lotof time, energy and work, but she often belittles this.

Everyday I see this lady. Sometimes I don’t look her in theeye and acknowledge her worth and her contributions. Lately I have taken tobeing extremely critical of her, so I chose her to be the person I admire. Andtoday, when I’m looking in mirror and I see her, I hope that I can see theresome reciprocal admiration, instead of the self-criticism I usually give.

There are many people I admire in my life. My husband, mymother, and my children are right at the top of the list. Usually, I am at thebottom, if I even include myself. Since I’m working on changing how I thinkabout myself, I figured this would be a good place to start. So today, I will look her in the eye, and smile at her.

Who do you admire?

So, as usually the Wednesday curse holds out.

Silver_Fangz is sick — AGAIN! So today we returned to the specialist who thinks it may be chronic sinuaitis. Long term antibiotics (heavy duty ones again),and prednisone. Then we will do a ct scan of her sinus in 3 weeks and reevaluate. Fun.

Last night her 18 (almost 19) yo want-to-be boyfriend came over to have a talk with hubby. Since we found out they were dating behind our backs Silver_Fangz has been in isolation zone — she’s grounded for 2 weeks, limited computer time and no cell. Then for the next 2 weeks her friends can come over here, but she still goes nowhere except with family. Hubby and wanna-be BF worked out a deal that if they behaved for 2 months (after her grounding is up) and still felt the same way we would met again to discuss the possibilities. It’s a very complicated situation. We’ve looked at all the sides and we just can’t condone her dating someone that much older than her. <Sigh>.

Last night I took Squirt to her new gymnastics class (had to switch when she went to back to school). I listened to 3 parents talk trash about little kids and spread rumors and gossip. I was so tense by the end of the class I was almost flying apart! The pressure caused by me not commenting and pointing out that grown-ups trashing little kids in an effort to feel superior and make their kids look better was truly pathetic, almost gave me a stroke. I decided I better not stay for class any more. Otherwise I might just end up banned for life.

Today I have a headache and 3 chapters in 2 text books to read. Then assignments to read. Hoorah. Once again we have been broadsided by Wednesday. The upside…. only 8 and 1/2 more hours until Thursday!!! Hooray!!!

LOL — Alright, off to take some meds and do some reading. Have a great night everyone!

Question of the day: Hold your tongue or speak your mind??

OK — So I’ve been MIA for the last few days. Been working on school work, and busy going, going , going.  You know how it goes…right???  Hah! Pun intended.  At any rate, my allergies are killing me….. AAAARRRRGHHHHH….. sometimes the price of paradise is just too blasted high!!!

On Friday we went to see Stranger than Fiction — Too funny!! And sad… just good overall. Squirt had no interest in that so she went to see Flushed Away while we saw the other movie. I personally had no interest in watching a movie based entirely on potty humor — LITERALLY! Yuck. No thanks.

Today hubby and I went for a drive with the BMW CCA group. It was a great drive and a great day. We drove up through Kula, stopped at a beautiful park that has a great overlook. Then continued up to Ulupalakua. It’s a mouthful, but a great drive. Then we drove home taking back road into Paia and had lunch at Charley’s which is famous for frequent visits and shows by Wille Nelson. Personally not a big Willie fan, but the food was good and the company was great. Of course, I have pics!

A great view – you can see both harbors, but it’s kind of hazy, hard to see in this pic. Then below, the M3 emblem from Hubby’s car, and a side view of the cars all lined up. We got a chance to drive the Porsche Boxster, NICE!!

   

This afternoon we had some drama with Silver_Fangz. I’m not sure if I mentioned that she broke up with boyfriend a couple of days after Halloween. That whole thing was a drama. After that one of the kids that hung out with the trolls asked her out. Initially she said “no” she wasn’t ready. But they became close. This is where her dad and I stepped in, why? Because like Air Force guy, he’s 18. Uhhhh…NO.  Not going to happen. He’s a nice kid, but too much difference in what an 18 yo expects and what a 15 yo expects. At any rate, we had some drama over that tonight. <sigh>. So we’re dealing with that. Ahhhh…teens…too much fun!

Tomorrow we are contemplating so time at the beach. Some sun and surf sounds like just the ticket to get me out of my funk. Hope everyone has had a great week end!

Question for the day:

Do you enjoy drives as a leisure activity….or only to get from A to B?

I feel gross.  Just that  gucky not happy kind of feeling. Like — I’d get sick all over myself if this felt just a little stronger.  Been feeling this was since last night. Bleh.Here’s my thoughts on that.



Managed to get my paper done. 7 pages, 6 references. A paper about my personal identity. Exciting stuff — everyone wants to know what makes me tick. Kind of like taking a lovely stroll down by the drainage ditch. All kinds of fanscinating stuff ends up there.



Hubby did not make Chief and we are all OK with that. We are done. We are past done. You know the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel? We been staring at it so long we are blind and it will take years out in the daylight to get our senses back. So from now on it’s Mr. not Smsgt and look out NM here we come (OK, OK … here we come eventurallly….in another 9 months or so)

.

So since I’m obviously low on fun and high on (well that’s my secret), I’m off to spend the remainder of my evening rotting my mind with pop culture in the form of trashy TV shows. Have a great night everyone!

Question of the day:
Favorite saying??