First off:

I was finished with the office. OK, OK so I was ALMOST finished with office. I only had two file boxes to go through and I was finito~ ! Guess what happened? Hubby was kind enough to find some more “office” boxes and plop them down.  He also decided that the office area was the perfect place to unpack all the picture boxes. So now I have stacks and stacks of crap everywhere! Ugh. I so don’t want to deal with it.

On the other hand, the family / scrapbook room is finished. Well – in terms of being unpacked. I need to get a cover for the little loveseat we put in there (that we got for free – gotta love that), need a cover for a butterfly chair I’m putting in there, and I need to make some curtains for the bookshelves on which we stacked all the board games in order to hide the clutter. But – overall it looks much better. It’s a cozy little room and we have all taken to hangin’ out there in the morning before the girls go to school.  The scrapbook area has two large work surfaces so the kids do their homework there, away from the computer, TV and other distractions. That was BTW their choice. They just gravitated towards it. Hubby was saying yesterday how he had thought those two rooms would be wasted space and never used. But when we looked at the house I knew exactly how I wanted them set up and could see it in my mind. I told him he just didn’t trust my visions.

I’m going to take some pictures soon of the entire place, a couple more things to get done first.  It’s a nice place though and we are all enjoying it. I wish I had nicer furniture, but that will come. Now that we not going to bang it all over the world, I can afford to get some nice pieces.

Tomorrow we head for the Apple Festival in Hillsboro ~ I guess it’s really a big craft fair. I love craft fairs, and we are meeting my mom and dad there so it should be lots of fun. Then they are coming back to stay over the Labor Day week end. Our first house guests — WOOT!

Well I’m off to the gym ~ the medicine I’m taking hasn’t produced any results, I wonder how long it will take to start making a difference. Hopefully it will make a difference. I am tired a lot now. I think that’s from the medicine. Good news is that my blood pressure is already down. Does anyone know if raised blood pressure increases your temperature or makes you hot? Because I’m finally not dying of heat in the evenings and am even sleeping with covers again.  Since my blood pressure is the only noticeable change I was wondering if that was the cause? Hmmmmm…. something new to google.

Alright, I’m off to work out – Happy Friday everyone!

Question of the day:

What is your decorating style?

*****EDIT******

Going through my subs I found out some very sad news. Camping_diva has left this world and moved on to a better place.  She was a wonderful person and I loved reading about her adventures and her comments about mine. Her daughter Littlelo_63 is the same type of wonderful woman. Please keep their family in your thoughts as they deal with this.  I am so saddened by this…. my heart hurts for their loss.

The guest bedroom is officially “finished” — well at least what I can do with it for right now. Once we both have jobs I plan on getting some new furniture and doing some decorating. I’m soooo tired of my stuff. On of the big drawbacks of being military is you hesitate to buy nice new stuff cause it just gets trashed moving it every few years across the country or the world. We’ve also unpacked the last box from the Master bedroom, just have some pictures to hand — everything is starting to shape up.

Hopefully my folks are coming this weekend. Actually we are planning to meet them in Hillsboro for the Apple Festival. Hubby’s sister and mom may also join us for the week end. It is so awesome having family close by.

In regards to the other problems I had earlier last week, I’m doing a protected update.

Ducky went to her first “solo” concert. She went with a good family friend — we met this family at church and just adore all of them. They are the girls that slept over, and Ducky and Squirt are sleeping over their place this week end. The girls couldn’t make it to the concert, but their older brother and some of his friends were already planning to go and gladly let Ducky join them. She had a blast. She went to the Family Values tour. It had Korn, Evanescence, Fly Leaf and a bunch of other bands.

Speaking of concerts – we got ticket to see Scorpions and Styx two of my favorite bands from my teenage years. Surprisingly, Ducky wanted to go along, so she’s coming too. We have a whole group of  folks going, matter of fact, the same group that went to the Celtic concert in the zoo. Should be lots of fun and I’m looking forward to it! Squirt is not into heavy rock, so she opted to stay home. If Kelly Clarkson comes to town, you can bet I’m going have to go to that one though! ~ I guess you could say I owe her that…. he he he.

In less exciting news, I returned to the Dr. to follow up on some labs. Some of you may remember I was real sick for like a month. I finally went to the Dr. to see what the heck was up. While there I asked about some other things that were bothering. Long story short, I have been DX with PCOS — which is Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. This actually explains many things like why it’s been almost impossible for me to lose any weight at all (even 5 lbs) and why my feet started resembling something out of a Tolkien book. I’m relieved to find that I’m not really just a bad dieter, and to find out that my hispanic heritage isn’t the only reason for my unladylike mustache, however now I have horse pills to take and other things to worry about — hopefully it will get under control. Another condition that can’t be cured, only treated <sigh>. I’m a magnet for weird crap like this. See in 2000 I was DX with PTC / IIH which is Pseudo Tumor Cerebri or Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension – we call this my brain cloud (think Joe Vs. the Volcano). We have officially dubbed my new condition: hobbits syndrome.

OK, that’s all the exciting stuff I have for you – I’ll be around to visit soon, going to write my protected post first.

What was the last concert you went to?

    Photoblog tonight. Pictures of the rainy afternoon / night.

Here the girls are Kung Fu fightin’ ~ And just generally getting soaked to the skin.

They actually pretended to like each other for a few brief moments…. the second picture is of the hail coming down taken from the back porch.

This one can work for the Photo Challenge “Strike a pose” ~ and boy did they! Then one I liked of water coming out of the drain spout.

And then finally this one, I just thought it turned out cool, raindrops.

First let me thank everyone who offered advice, sympathy, empathy and those who volunteered to help me take her out if need be. Your comments were a tremendous help to my emotional distress. So far their have been no repercussion and instead some positive improvements. I’m sure they will be more to come on this, but for now the dust is settling.

Now on to other less traumatic things.

I love our bed. It’s wonderfully soft yet supportive. This hasn’t always been the case. But since we moved into this house, and we bought the new mattress it has.

We didn’t intend to buy a new mattress. We intended to “make do” with our old bed for one more year, and when we bought our own house, buy a new bed for it. But a funny thing happened on moving day. See our old bed was a waterbed that hubby had when he was single. That’s right over 21 years old. Until the move we still had the original full wave mattress, liner and heater as well. Only in HI the cats put a hole in the bed, and the heater crapped out. We patched the hole but decided when we got here we would get a new bag and heater, and then in a year or so replace the whole bed. It’s one of those pine one with the mirror / book case headboard and the drawers underneath. Something right out of an 80s movie. Pathetic I know, but hey it worked and for a long time we absolutely loved our waterbed and hated to sleep on anything else.

The last three years though, I’ve been waking up with a sore back. I’ve enjoyed the times when we traveled and slept on a “real” bed, so we started talking about replacing it – eventually.

Well, eventually caught up with us. Our bedroom is on the top floor ( tri-level) house. It is also above the garage. We set up the water bed, with the new bag and heater. As we started to fill it we started getting concerned. First I asked if our lease had listed no waterbeds. Nope that was clear. Then I wondered if there would be a problem on the top floor. Hubby commented that we’d had it upstairs many places and he didn’t think there would be a problem. Reassured I left to continue unpacking the endless supply of kitchen boxes.

Half and hour later I came in to find him crouched across from the bed with a worried expression.

Since hubby is a calm, easygoing guy, his worried expression worried me.  “What?” I demanded. “Look at the bed, tell me which corner looks the lowest to you”. That was easy, the one in the center of the room was clearly lower. Well, turns out hubby had gotten concerned about the lack of support beams in the garage (under our room). He had gone to double check and yep, no support beams in the middle of the garage, just the walls. Our bed was filled with water right smack over the center of the garage. We debated about 5 minutes and decided we better drain the bed. Hubby propped up a temporary support using his hydraulic stand. We nervously drained the bed, hoping against hope that the floor would not collapse before we got enough weight off of it.

That night we slept on an air mattress in the living room. Correction: we started out on an air mattress, sometime during the night, our little kitty of death, Merry, popped a hole in it and we were sleeping on the ground. I ended up on the couch and hubby on a recliner. The next day we went out and bought a mattress. We still have the same crappy 21+ year old bed, but a beautiful, ohhh soo comfortable pillow top mattress inside it. Now the only thing I need is sheets that actually fit it ~ waterbed sheets just aren’t cutting it!

No more sore backs, no more sloshing, no more heater (ok that one I may miss this winter), and no more filling and draining. I love my new bed!

Favorite place and time to sleep, perchance to dream…..

If you are not on my protected list and wish to be please let me know.

It has been killing me. The waiting. Patience has NEVER been one of my strong suits. I used to be so impatient, that if there was a line at the bank (and by line I mean more than 2 people waiting) I would leave and come back. When grocery shopping if I got to the registers and there was a long line, I would leave my basket full of food and come back some other time.

I prayed for patience once. Not a good plan. For the next 3 months I waited for everything. See God is funny that way. I believe he has a great sense of humor. I had to EARN any patience through sheer perseverance and agony. I never had a green light. For 3 months. I waited for teachers, doctors, friends. I faced lines at grocery stores, banks, fast food restaurants, you name it I waited for it. The end result was that I had a good deal more patience than I had at the beginning, but I still can not be considered a patient person.

I took my CSET exams in July. Almost a month ago exactly. Me being the non patient person I am would have like for them to grade my tests as soon as I finished taking them and let me know right then before I left the room how I had fared. To top of my lack of waiting skills, I was extremely nervous about my results. I was the only one in the room that took 3 subtests in the same testing period. I had only reviewed general material for 3 days prior to the exam. I hadn’t even looked at the study guides and practice items for all 3 subtests. It took me almost the entire 5 hours to complete my exams. I have waited anxiously. Worrying about what would happen if I failed. Convincing myself that I probably failed at least one of the subtests.

Today was the day the scores were to be posted. I went online to check and lo and behold I had to wait till after 5:00 PM Pacific time. ARGHHHHH… more waiting!

I thought about it during the day. I thought “I’ve never failed anything in my life. What am I going to do if I fail”. I knew without a doubt I would be devastated.

However, my good test taking skills held me in good stead. As I clicked on one subtest after another a wave of relief spread over me with each “PASS” score. Whew. The wait is over. The devastation has been avoided. And the job hunting and certifying process continues.

I PASSED!!!!!!

Woot.

Yesterday Squirt had her physical. We love being near an base again just for the health care. While we used to complain about the clinics, now after three years of civilian health care, we are glad to be home! At any rate, we found out she was due for some shots, 1 required 2 highly recommended – one of which included the HPV vaccine. So we discussed it with the doctor, read the information and went ahead with them. She got 3 immunizations yesterday. She was sore and very unhappy.

Well today she woke up with a terrible headache. (not unusual for day after shots). She also complained she wasn’t feeling well. Hubby advised her to eat something so her tummy wouldn’t be upset. She tried to get down a pop tart and it refused to cooperate. Her take on this:

Squirt: “you know what’s bad about throwing up BEFORE you eat? You throw up your stomach acid”.

Me: “It’s called bile”.

Squirt: “That’s GROSS!”

Poor baby. We called the Immunization clinic to find out with this is a common reaction (didn’t remember reading about it) and they said no, we might want to have her seen. Called the Peds clinic and had a phone consult with on of the Nurses. Not a common reaction, the headache and fever are, but the throwing up aren’t. So we’re to watch her, try to get some fluids down and see if she improves. They will call us back about noon. They said she could just have come down with a bug at the same time. Seems to coincidental to me. Especially since during her physical yesterday the doc declared her in perfect health. We’ll see. She did just go back to school, and she’s not quite adjusted yet to the constant exposure she gets from all the mass of kids. That was the nice thing about home schooling, the kids were rarely ill. *sigh*

Ducky is more adjusted and tromped off to her third day of school. So far she’s got: two essays to write, about 80 pages of text book reading to do, had one 100 question test, and done about 100 math problems in her first two days. I think this will be a tough year for her, she’s definitely up to the challenge, but they are going to keep her busy!

OK – I’m off to do my homework, more job hunting and finishing off my credential requirements. Have a great day all!

Both girls had relatively good days. Both think their classes were going to be OK, and for the most part felt good about their teachers.

Ducky has two that she says are going to drive her crazy. One is her AP English class — he has a Doctorate. He made it painstakingly clear he was a “Dr.”. On top of that he’s one of those annoying professors that has to prove how smart he is by making the class impossible. He boasted how rarely anyone received an A in his class and how many students would be dropping out of it. Boy that’s something to be proud of huh? To me it says he’s a lousy teacher if the majority of the students can’t pass and / or drop out. Her other pain will be in Alg II — where the teacher treat them like babies, but claims she will treat them as young adults. She opened up by asking in a baby voice if the students knew and understood that they would be required to take Math in college. *rolls eyes*. You would think that an Alg II teacher would have some grasp of her student body. These are juniors. By now most of these kids have looked at colleges, and are prepping to get in. They are not third graders who concept of college consists of what they see on TV.

Good luck to her with that. She had homework in 4 classes tonight. Could be a tough year. She’s totally stoked about her creative writing class and her philosophy class though — which is good as those are her electives this year!

We have homework tonight too — stacks and stacks of papers to sign, read and memorize. Oh wait, not memorize. On top of that we had to stop off for some additional school supplies. Neither girl had a list this year, so we just got a few basics. We needed some more. Ducky needs a 1″ binder for just about every class. Squirt needed an additional expanding portfolio for one of her classes (they each have one to keep their papers organized, much better than folders) as well as some index cards, more composition books and 2 binders with dividers. The amount of stuff they require for school these days is ridiculous. When I went to high school you needed: Pens, pencils, paper (could be notebook filler paper or spiral didn’t matter) and we usually wanted folders, but you didn’t even NEED them. I NEVER carried a backpack until I went to college. I just didn’t need it.  Some of those little kids today had so much crap they required adult assistance to go to school.

In the good news department:

A friend who I used as a reference (she was also a boss) contacted me to let me know the school district was checking my references. Yahoo — maybe I’ll get a job (subbing, ugh) soon.

and…

Hubby is going back to Maui to work the AMOS conference. In addition he is getting on with this company as an on-call employee and they are trying to find a full time position for him with one of their contractors. Woot! Income — I luvs me some money! LOL

It sure was quiet today with the girls gone, but the day flew by. Tomorrow Squirt has her physical, Hubby has to go sign his job offer, and then we will work out again (we are back at the gym EVERYDAY).  I love working out everyday. It makes me feel so much better about myself, even if I still haven’t lost any weight.

Here’s some funnies about back to school ~ Enjoy!

Question of the Day:

Did you have a backpack when you went to school?

Our bedroom is starting to look more like a sleeping area and less like a storage place. As is often the case, the Master bedroom is one of the last to get unpacked. I typically start with the kitchen, I like to have it about done by the time the movers leave. Then we work on the living spaces and the girls’ rooms – Bathrooms get done in between all that. Master bedroom and Office are left to the last. Hubby has been working on the garage. Gotta have the “man cave” sorted out relatively early on as well…. ha ha ha ha ha. Course, he doesn’t really it call it that. Thank goodness. I would have to beat him.

The girls went to a Youth event yesterday with the friends they met at church. They are also wanting to go to a concert on the 25th. Hopefully it will work out.

I spent a good portion of yesterday engrosed in Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer. Although I love Edward, I was a huge Jacob Black fan, until this book. Now not so much, he was kind of a jerk in this book.  Now only a year to wait till the next one —————– AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

You know what I found out on my trip to CA? That wind up flashlights are a potential source of endless amusement. There’s something so satisfying about winding and winding. First you have that wonderful winding sound. That’s enough to satisfy just about anybody. But then you get to make endless circles with your hand and the final amusement of clicking a button and being rewarded for all your efforts with a brightly shining light.

I have discovered that I am one of those poeple that require constant activity. Usually it’s my feet or hands that are moving. I’ve noticed my hubby is the same, he is always fidgeting. Suprisingly, my girls both inherited these tendencies. This of course means that gadgets like wind up flash lights are more than an emergency tool – they are instead a source of entertainment. Objects that both occupy and amuse. That’s good stuff right there!

Question of the day:

fidgeter or sit still type?

*Edit* For my Kween_of_the_Queens post, please see here.

Ducky got her schedule for school today. Boy will she be busy this year! She has:

Creative Writing (she took this as one of her electives)

Honors English

AP History and Geography

Analytical Chemistry

Algebra II

Philosophy (her other elective)

To top all that off, she found out she has 4 days to read the Grapes of Wrath and complete 6 handwritten pages of Summaries, plot evaluations etc and 4 hand written pages of bullet form notes on characters, setting etc. A fun way to end her summer vacation huh?

In addition she want to take a SAT prep course, get a job and re-qualify for Gifted services. Why you may ask? Since she’s already in all advanced classes? We mostly so she participate in the AP Gifted Mentorship program. It for Seniors and will pair her up with a profession of her choice to shadow for the year. When I told her about that she was determined to get in. To work with a journalist for a year is a big carrot.

Quite a helping she served herself. Hope she has room on her plate!

Squirt had one day to prepare for testing into Alg I and Honors English. They wouldn’t accept her test scores / grades / or classes from last year as prerequisites. For some reason she didn’t get in. So she’s got a cruise year with Pre-Algebra, English, Literature, Science, Musical Theater and Art. She should have some fun in some of those classes. She was however extremely disappointed to find out they didn’t allow any unnatural hair colors in her school, so no purple hair for her. We’ll find out the fate of Ducky’s hair on Monday when we go back for her ID and books.

When I was in High School, we had very few students who took such strenuous academic schedules. The only people who had that kind of schedule are the kids with plaid short sleeve button shirts with pocket protector, high water cords or khaki pants, and participated in activities like Chess club and Latin. Although I graduated a year early from High School, my schedule was full of the basic required courses. Electives were Band, Dance or Gymnastics (once I met my PE requirement). Oh yeah and Art.  Course Ducky tried to get into Ceramics or Photography instead of Philosophy but they were full. She also tried to get into A History of Rock and Roll or AP European History, or a Shakespeare class but they were all canceled due to lack of interest.  What kind of a high school doesn’t have enough kids sign up for a Rock and Roll History class?? I would have been all over that! Ducky said she’s worried about the school now, thinks there must be full of retards – all her Maui friends would have rushed to register for that! We’ll see.

Question of the day: (another twofer)

What were your electives in High School?

and / or

Would you take a Rock and Roll History class?