I Could Write a Book

Dear Mom and Dad,

    Thank you for sending me to a Catholic school. I am happy at this school because I am learning religion. I like all of my teachers and classmates. I love my new school. I want to be a Christian. I like to pray at this school.

love,

Tob

It will be a miracle if I don’t frame this letter. Remember how I agonized over moving him from his previous school ? I am so relieved that he is enjoying it so much. For me, I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect letter from my child.  

    Today was my first day in my grad school curriculum. I was so incredibly nervous and anxious. I wasn’t expecting it(anxiety) to be quite as bad as it was last night and this morning. After I got over my initial fear when I entered the Student Union, I did well. At least my knees stopped shaking.

    In my class, I learned that my syllabus and first lecture was online. Ugh. How come no one bothered to tell me about the little feature called "blackboard" ? Once I started taking notes in class, it dawned on me that grad school is a whole lot like undergrad school. Lots of taking notes. Lots of studying. Hmmmm, is this what I signed up for ?

    I talked some to the girl sitting next to me. She informed me that half of the class was taking "neuro" again for the 2nd time. I asked "why ?". She told me that they all flunked the midterm. Oh, joy. I don’t think I was prepared for my first class to be that tough.

    On a fun note regarding today, I bought a "human brain" coloring book. Woohoo. I’m going to have fun. I also learned about a book that sounds very interesting.  The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.  It was written by a man who had a major stroke and could only communicate using his left eye. I can’t wait to read it.

    And just so you don’t think I’ve lost my nerdness somewhere along the way I assure you that I have not. Here’s proof:

    See how bad I look ? That’s from no sleep the night before. Anxiety, baby. 

    I’m excited about going back to school. Lots of reading and memorization to be done already. Let the games begins ! 

You might be a "redneck" if you still have all of your Christmas decorations up on January 19th. Lol. That was how my sister greeted me today as she walked into my house unannounced. Got to love your sister.

Needless to say, after she left I got everything taken down except the tree. I’ve still got to get everything back up into the attic. I pray that I can get some help with that tomorrow, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

I’ll do a "ketchup" soon. Life’s been crazy, good, sad, down, happy, up, all in the same month.

I hope the New Year is going just the way you want it to.

Peace out,

Babycakes 

    LSU beat Ohio 38-24. I was actually nervous there a couple of times, but truly pulling for my team. I am so excited that we won. I’m proud of all the players, Les Miles and for all the fans who support the team during the season. LSU won. LSU won. LSU beat Ohio.

     For all those games that I sweated my butt off, for the games that I was overseas and getting the scores through text messages, for the game that I literally froze my behind off, for walking (hiking) up to the top of the nosebleed section to watch the games week after week - thank you LSU football players !!! It has been worth it. Every single second. Oh, those last seconds in the games where we thought we might lose - I love you for winning.

    For all the wonderful memories I have from the 2007 season - I am so thankful to all of you. God Bless the LSU football team and coaches and parents and families and tailgaters and everyone else. I almost forgot my friends who text me during the games, one in particular - Tiff - thanks. You definitely made my games more fun, including tonight. Thank you for being such a great friend and sticking with your end of our bet, too. (love ya)

    I bleed purple and gold. I’m floating on a purple and gold cloud right now. We are the champions !!! 

      <<<<— The #1 LSU fan !! 

    Ever experienced a chimney fire at your house ? If you haven’t, I can tell you with all certainity that you do not want to. About one hour ago our chimney caught on fire and I honestly thought the house was going to burn down. The funny thing about that - if there was a funny thing - I didn’t give a hoot about anything in my house. I only cared about my kids and making sure they were outside and okay. Fwiw, don’t count on 911 to save you, either.

    Dh was on his computer, J was in the kitchen eyeing candy, the boys were standing in front of the fireplace warming their backsides and I had just walked inside from taking Winkie potty. I hear a "roaring" and I asked the boys "what’s that noise?" Tob says, "it’s the fire, mommy." Ugh. I was looking at the very modest fire -it wasn’t the fire. I walk over to the fire and the closer I got the louder the roaring when it hits me - the chimney is on fire. I SCREAM for dh and I tell the kids to get outisde "NOW!"  Dh rushes in and I tell him "the chimney is on fire." He is yelling "call the fire department" cause we can both hear this awful roaring and he is also yelling for the fire extinguisher. I rush to get the phone and dial 911. Busy. I’m running to get the fire extinguisher while dh is getting (no lie) a cup of water. That’s almost comical now, but I do understand the reasoning. He douses the fire in the fireplace - the logs. I’ve got the extinguisher and I’m still dialing 911. Either the 911 people were on strike today or I called during the busy time of the day. I never got through to 911.

   By this time, one kid has poked his head back through the front door. I don’t think I’ve yelled so loudly as I did right then. There were out in 40 degree weather with the wind really blowing dressed in shorts and shirts and no shoes. I didn’t take the time to dress them before putting them out. As they go back out the door, dh has the fire in the chimney deceased. He worked the extinguisher just in time. Dh looked up the chimney before putting the chimney fire out and he said he could see it burning for 6 - 8 feet up. Thank goodness I knew where the extinguisher was and I will be buying even more for our house. We obviously can’t count on 911 to show up or to even answer the phone.

   My poor children were completely freaked out. Poor Tob is one day soon going to refuse to even live in our house after going through Katrina in it, stopped-up toliets in it and now a chimeny fire. I guess I’ll be paying for more counseling for him , again.

   I’ve always wondered if I would try to "grab" anything out of my house if it caught on fire. That answer is "no". I could have cared less about the house today. I only wanted my children safe. Tob yelled "what about our Wii?" I told him we would buy everything new if we had to. So, I’ve had my 2nd lesson in "material items" and their worth to me. They can be replaced. Totally not worth risking anyone’s safety over them.

   Just incase you’re wondering, until the chimney sweep man comes out - there will be NO more fires and yes, we checked the roof of the house and there is nothing on fire and if the attic was on fire - the house would have already burned down. I think we’re okay. Hearts beating a tad bit faster, but otherwise, okay with a little excitment thrown in.

   Hugs the one you love, go buy fire extinguishers and make sure your kids know never to run back into a house that might be on fire. I’m more than sure mine learned that lesson today.  Mommy became a bit of a demon there for a few.  Tough love.
 

<<— The fireplace that is going to be visited by a "chimney sweep" now.

Happy New Year ! Here’s to a new year, a new me and hopefully lots of happy changes in 2008. I am truly looking forward to this year and how things play out. I’m going on the thought that I really do not want things to be any worse than they were last year, that I only want positive things this year.

If you’ve made a New Year’s resolution or two this year I hope that you make them come true. We all know that they just don’t happen on their own.

Happy New Year to you.