Senior Night

This seems to be a year of "last times" for us. Cory's last year of high school, thursday was his last football practice, last night was his last football game. I cried. Especially when he told me that he handed over his lineman gloves to one of his teammates after the game. I know it's also a time of "first times" for us as well...Cory's applying to college, so we have his first application and will be looking forward to his first acceptance letter. But for now, it's a poignant time for us as we watch him finish one chapter of his life and begin another.


Here's Cory & two of his teammates. Cory's the smallest kid on the team and played left guard!

Family

I just wanted to post a couple of pics.


Here's one of my new kitty...Gracie. She's a cute little thing. Weighs about 4 pounds now. She follows me everywhere and swats at my feet to get my attention when she thinks I've been ignoring her. The little purple house behind her collapses, and she loves to pounce on the house and flatten it, only to have it spring right back up when she gets off of it. We laugh so hard watching her antics.

Here's one of the kids.

We went to the Redwoods a couple of weekends ago. The last time we were there, Cory was about 7 and Megan 5. It was a beautiful day, and we took several short hikes through the some of the hugest trees in the world. The Redwoods are just amazing, and I could've stayed there forever.

Home Sick

Yesterday, my daughter woke up with a stuffy nose. She didn't have a fever, so I brought her to school. By 8:30am, she was calling me at work to pick her up and bring her home. She sounded miserable. So, home she went with instructions to take some cold medicine, get into bed, take a little nap, read a book, and relax.

Between 8:45am and 9:00am I get these phone calls at work:

Phone call 1:
Her: Mom? When do you get off work?
Me: 3 o'clock.
Her: Can you bring me some kleenex when you come home?
Me: ok. Go to bed now.
Her: ok. bye.

Phone call 2:
Her: Mom? Make sure it's the strong kleenex. And soft. Soft & strong.
Me: Ok. Go to bed now.
Her: ok, bye.

Phone call 3:
Her: Mom? The kleenex needs to be the Lotion kind too.
Me: ok. Anything else you need?
Her: Yeah, some cough drops. But not the Honey-Lemon kind, or the Cherry kind. They're gross.
Me. Ok. Are you in bed yet?
Her: Yeah.
Me: Go to sleep.
Her: ok. bye.

Phone call 4:
Her: Mom? Can you bring some juice. Pineapple-Guava juice. And something minty.
Me: Are you going to close your eyes at some point and take a nap?
Her: yeah.
Me: Good. Quit calling me!
Her: ok. G'nite.

Phone call 5:
Her: Mom?
Me: What now?
Her: I love you.
Me: I love you too honey, now put the phone down and go to sleep!

Conversations with a teenage boy

This is a typical conversation with my son after he gets home from school. (He's 17)

Me: Hi son, how was your day?

Him: Fine.

Me: What'd you do today at school?

Him: Nuthin'

Me: How's Calculus coming along? Do you like the new teacher?

Him: unh (imagine this as a gutteral grunt)

Me: How was football practice?

Him: unh

Me: What did you get to do at your work experience place today?

Him: nuthin'

Me: oh. Good day, then?

Him: yeah, fine.

*end of conversation*

Ganglion what?

My left thumb is numb. Not all the time. Just occasionally. Sometimes my left index & middle finger are numb. Weird, I thought, but not earth shattering. Maybe it was just the way I was resting my hand, or maybe I've been playing with my son's DS game too much. Until last week when I noticed I have a BuMp on my wrist...right at the base of my thumb...where your wrist bends. Hmmm...that's odd. It hurts when you press it. Ok...obviously the key is not to press it. SO I go to the Dr today and he says without much preamble...."It's a ganglion cyst." It happens when you age.

Great.

Gray hair, sore joints, perimenopause & weight gain aren't enough signs of aging? Now I've got to have a ganglion cyst? He said, "In the OLD days, when the cyst got big enough, people would just slam a a heavy Bible onto the cyst to make it ~PoP~". YUK! I don't think so. He said he could "drain it" if it got much bigger. Ewww.

Short of those two remedies...I'm now stuck with a bump on my wrist. He was a bit concerned about the numbness...apparently that is not a characteristic of this type of cyst...so has me going to see an orthopedic surgeon just in case I've got carpal tunnel syndrome.

I hate getting older! *sigh*

Malt Vinegar

Living in a small town is challenging at times, and down right frustrating at others. A friend of mine was telling me this story today about malt vinegar. She used to live here in town 6 months out of the year and then on an island in the British Virgin Isles called Anegada (see the small island on the map that's outlined by a box? That's Anegada). About 2 months before she was to leave for Anegada, she went to the local grocery store and tried to order 10 cases of 1 gallon jugs of malt vinegar that she would take with her. Sounds easy enough, right? Wrong! Apparently, it was going to take 7 weeks to get her order in. She was flabbergasted! In Anegada, it takes 2 weeks at the most to get anything. The store's reasoning? "Because we live in the boonies." *insert rolling eyes here* I suppose Anegada isn't in the boonies, but Coos County, Oregon, IS!

This of course lead to a conversation about how we can't get high speed internet here for the same reason. And how high the gas prices are for the same reason. And it seems to us that someone is feeding us a line of balonie because if Anegada can get gas for the same price we can, and has high speed internet and can get stuff shipped there in two weeks...you'd think this little corner of Oregon could get it as well! Maybe Anegada is a three-cow town and that makes all the difference!

What Joanne needs...

Ok...this was a challenge from Scrapbook Chalet (one of my favorite scrapbook sites). It's a little Google game. Go to google and type in 'Your name' needs - and see what pops up. Here are a few that popped up for me. I put my comments in parentheses.

Joanne needs intellectual stimulation and companionship (had to laugh at this one)
Joanne needs to be very careful not to interrupt, ignore, or judge Paul when Paul is speaking. (Who's Paul??!)
Joanne needs space (YUP!)
Joanne needs some adult company (maybe I've been hanging out with Girl Scouts & the Youth group too much! *LOL*)
Joanne needs to make a difference (yeah, sometimes I feel like that)
Joanne needs to reassess situation (which one?)
Joanne needs more character development. She is gorgeous and has been in the background far too long. (OH YEAH...love that one!)