Mark

Mark just left to go to the doctor and get the results of his liver biopsy that he had a few weeks ago. I hope everything is okay. He's had an enlarged liver for a while now and his enzyme levels keep coming back high when he gets bloodwork. I'm praying that whatever is causing it is just something that can be corrected. Maybe with some medication or whatever. I know he's worried. He says he isn't. He says that if it had been anything serious they would have called him and asked him to come in sooner. He has a point. I guess. But, he just left and he's really tense. He asked me if I wanted to go with him. I told him I had to pick up Myrena at 4:00. I hope he doesn't think I'm just being callous. But honestly, he asks me to go to his doctor appointments with him all the time. I don't know why, I guess maybe he's getting older and thinking about his mortality a bit. He's going to be 50 this July. Maybe he's starting to worry about things a bit.

I'm praying that all is okay with him.

The DVDs are way cool!

I'm all done with the inserts, the discs and the labels. I'm pretty pleased with them. It's not a professional job, but I think they're pretty good having come from my ancient Sony Vaio. ha ha

The front cover. The tap shoe picture was taken at dress rehearsal and the girl tieing her shoes was a dress rehearsal also. The ballet feet were from a program I have for making things like this.

All the little pictures I took at dress rehearsals and they worked perfectly on the back. I didn't put a picture of the dance teacher because she's really picky about that kind of stuff.

I don't know if you can see it or not, but the discs are etched with a lightscribe drive and on the first disc is a picture of the tap shoes that I took, and the second disc has pointe shoes on it. They turned out really cool.

Dang, I forgot to take a picture of my market bag so far. I'm such a knitting addict. It's okay though, it keeps me from eating.

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We went camping this past weekend. The first trip of the year. We had a great time. It could have been longer and I would not have complained. The weather was perfect and we had a great spot near the pool and playground. I took pictures....of course...was there ever a doubt that I'd take pictures. Chelsea's friend Dejuanah went with us and so did Myrena's friend Sara. You can see Sara in the red sweatshirt, and Dejuanah's legs under her. We somehow lost two chairs since last year. I'm not sure where they went, but they weren't in the camper. Of course I'm not in the picture, because I'm taking the picture. Good strategy I think. I'm sure the kids have pictures of me on their cameras. They always take pictures of everything. I've taught them well.

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This picture freaked us all out a little. I was using the night portrait setting on my camera, and Sara moved when I took the picture and this is the weird shot we got. How bizaare (bizarre?) is that.

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We've got way more camping trips coming up. It's going to be a busy summer with all this going on. I love it though. I'm off to call about the Summer Workshops at the Dutch Apple Dinner Theater for Chelsea. That should be a good time for her.

Happy Birthday Myrena

My youngest just turned 10!
*Sniff* *Sniff*
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
I can't believe she's ten already. Just a few days ago she was in Ms. Crostley's classroom in her tiny little uniform pretending to be a student while I graded papers. I can't believe it. She's in fifth grade now!

OMG! I've got one in high school and one graduated! Holy crap I'm getting old!

Okay, enough of that.
We had a nice little party for Myrena tonight, just the family. Her slumber party is on Saturday and she's just about to burst. I was given strict instructions about what I am and am not allowed to do. I may not plan the party out. I may have all of the activities available for them to choose from and they will participate when they're ready. I may order pizza for them. I may not eat the pizza with them. I may put in a movie. I may not watch the movie. I am allowed to be awake in my room and watch my own dinky little t.v. while they watch the wide screen downstairs. How very gracious of her. Right? I make it all sound so mean don't I? I think it's funny. It used to be that she wanted a theme party that was perfectly planned and everyone had something to do at a certain time. Not anymore. She wants to "hang" with her friends. You know, after all, she is a double digit now. Ahem, pardon me.

We bought this little teeny cake today and asked the lady at the bakery to write on it. That was sort of funny. It was a 1/8 sheet cake. I didn't want to go all overboard because she's getting cake and stuff on Saturday but I did want to celebrate a little on her day. So, we got her a cake, some presents from the family and made her a special dinner or her choice. She chose spaghetti, which is good because I can make spaghetti without killing it. LOL I think she knew that too.

She's going to the Think B.I.G. camp at Elizabethtown College this week. She's so funny talking about how she's going to college. She really enjoyed the first day and being the stellar mother that I am, I missed the bus. The principal had to take her and two other kids all the way there. I was going to take Myrena and Kayla, after all it was my fault they missed the bus. Sort of my fault. I could blame it on the kid, but then, it really would have been a good idea to verify the information instead of just taking her word for it. LOL So, they rode in Mrs. Hopkins car and I promised they would be on time tomorrow. Oops. *embarrassed shrug*

I'm going to check out the Dutch Apple Dinner Theater's website tonight. They have workshops and camps and stuff and I want to see if there is anything Chelsea might enjoy. I'd love to keep her busy this summer. Not that she doesn't already have something to do. She has a project due on the first day of school. ha ha ha. It's a reading project and she has to choose from one of these books...
The Catcher In The Rye
The Chosen
I Never Promised You A Rose Garden
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pitman
The Yellow Raft in Blue Water
When I was Puerto Rican
How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

I have no idea which one she wants but we've got to go to Barnes and Nobles tomorrow to pick one of them up. And then she's got to do a magazine project with the book. This should be interesting. And so starts the honors classes at McCaskey High School. LOL

Well it's late and Kayla will be here bright and early tomorrow morning. At least I've only got her for a little bit then they're off to Think B.I.G. camp for the day.

I should go to bed now.

Oh yeah, and I'm working on this awesome market bag. I love it so far. I can't wait to get it done. Then, I'm going to go to market for real. It was so much fun when we walked down with the littles. I want to go by myself this time though. Maybe I'll let Mark go with me, but no littles. LOL

Deranged Math Teacher

I just found out from my daughter today that he math teacher was much more abusive than I initally thought she was. Chelsea tells me that the teacher called the kids "bastards" near the end of the school year. Now, that really makes me angry. So, I wrangled the whole story out of her. Seems this teacher asked the kids opinion on something. She asked them what they thought of her teaching. One student spoke up. He called her out on her constant put downs and comparisons. See, Chelsea wasn't in the honors program at Lincoln, mostly because I didn't think she should since it wasthe first year for the program and I didn't think it was well put together (and I was right) and partly because she talked me in to letting her do it near the end of school so she took the test. She didn't get in (sigh of relief on my part) and they stated that it was her inadequate grades that prevented her from entering the program (she made honor roll all year and her friend who didn't make honor roll even once the previous year got in...see, not well thought out). I insisted that they keep her in the accelerated math class since she passed ninth grade math in seventh grade with an A. They did as well as several other kids. They were all taking 10th grade math in 8th grade. This class is the class right below the honors class. This teacher continually compared Chelsea's class to the honors class. She constantly told Chelsea's class that they would never succeed, never be anything or anyone, that they weren't as good as the honors class, that she loved the honors kids and hated Chelsea's class. She was seriously a looney bird. Once when Chelsea and I couldn't figure out her homework she asked the teacher for help. After yelling at Chelsea and making her cry she refused to go over the problem with her. She was loopy! So, Chelsea worked really hard and passed that class with an A this year. Okay, all that to tell you that the boy that stood up to offer his opinion recalled all of these things to the teacher. He reminded her how she'd made Chelsea and several other students cry for asking for help. How she told them continually that they'd never amount to anything, and how she was constantly comparing them to the honors kids and telling the class how much she hated the class. So he put it all out there for her to see. And she got angry. Really angry! She told the class that they were the biggest bunch of heartless bastards she'd ever taught.

Now I didn't know about this until just today.

What do I do about it? It's done. Chelsea will never have this teacher again. Should I let it go and reassure my daughter that the teacher was loopy? I mean, I've never been one to undermine my kids teachers, even when I wasn't fond of them, if they dealt out a discipline to my kids, I made them serve it. I firmly believe in presenting a united front with the teachers. But this is just abusive. I don't think this lady should be teaching kids if she can't control the way she speaks to them. I realize that middle school kids are difficult. But, to ask their opinion then call them names, all of them, when one student offers a fair account of the year? That's just not right. But I just don't know if I should let it go, or bring it up.

I hate these kinds of things. Argh!

Finally finished...

No, not the dvds, I finished the baby blanket I've been working on FOREVER! It's really cute too. It was tedious but I love how it turned out. Hopefully my niece won't notice the mistakes. *sigh*

I really like the way it turned out. I'm sure Jess will love it for her new baby girl. At least she says she's having a girl. If not, then there will be one cute little boy baby in this pink blankie. *grin*

These are the lovely roses that Myrena's school principal brought to her at her dance recital. It made Myrena's whole day to know her principal came to see her dance. The Pink ones are from the principal, the two peach ones came from her dance teacher.

My eyes are crossing...

...seriously, they are.

I've been working on the recital dvds for two days now and seriously...

Just seriously...

That's all I can think to say. They are really cool though and I already have several orders and three people already brought payment. So I've got to try and get them done quickly so I can get them out.

I'm still trying to find cases to put them in. Ack. It's really hard to find double dvd boxes. I found them at Staples online, but GADS, shipping is 9.97 for my 15.98 order. Are you kidding me? If I order over 50.00 then shipping is free, but there isn't anything else I need.

I'll have to find them elsewhere I suppose.

Back to work *whip crack here*

I'm just sayin'...

I hate flies. They really bug me. There is one buzzing around the office right now. It keeps doing kamikaze runs by my head. Argh!





I'm trying to work on DVDs of the dance recital. I have the first half completely done and I have to say, it rocks. It's so awesome. And I have a lightscribe dvd burner, so I can etch the labels (lables??) right on the disc (why doesn't that word look right? I hate that!) and I have to say again, they rock! I took this awesome picture at recital practice. The kids had their tap shoes all lined up on chairs in the hall and it was begging for someone to take a picture...and I did.

Was I wrong? IT turned out so cute that I used it as the picture for the label (lable? GADS, they both look wrong....guess I've got to bust out the spell checker.) I also used it as the DVD menu but I turned down the opacity a lot and made it sort of dreamy looking. Very cool effect if I must say so myself.

Okay, this was just about the fly in the office. I've got to go finish the DVDs. They're screaming my name....really....they are.

Agh!

Recital time already?

Recital always wears me out. The costumes, the hair, the tights, the makeup....the list is endless. Last night was the first night of dress rehearsals and we found out that Chelsea has scarce time to change her costumes. It goes like this. We start in the very cool tap costume (my favorite by far) with hair in a high side ponytail.

Next, she changes to a ballet costume with very big tutu and hair up in a bun. I have to get better at this quick hair change thing. This year the dresssing rooms are a ridiculous distance from the stage entrance. She has to sprint down the hall after dancing to get changed and ready for the next thing. So she dresses and lightening quick we pull the hair out of the ponytail, make a new one in the middle of her head, braid it, twist it and pin in and then pin in the flowers and she's out of there again. I'm not even dancing and she's wearing me out already.

After that she's racing back down the hall to get back into another tap costume, hair out of the bun, into two low ponytails (if this poor girl still has hair after all this yanking and pulling it will be a miracle) and new tights! Gads. We just changed tights for real. Now she's got to sprint back down the hall to get on stage in time. Sprinting in tap shoes is NEVER recommended.

After tap she's got a few precious seconds to change into her jazz costume. The hair has to go back up to a high ponytail, two piece costume on, jazz shoes on and racing back down the hall. At least we didn't have to change the tights that time.

Finally she's coming to the end and she's got one more costume to get into and it's a doozy. I think this costume was designed by a contortionist. Seriously! The thing is impossible to get into quickly. And the shorts...are you for real? She has more material on her underwear than on these shorts. My husband has a coronary every time he sees this costume and then questions what the costume fee was for this class. He can't see how something so small could cost so much.

She stays in the same costume and hair style for the finale, thank goodness.

In the midst of that chaos is the younger daughter who only has three dances but has to change with the older girls because I can't be in both rooms at once. She has one quick change but it's while Chelsea is out of the room so thankfully we aren't rushing two girls into new costumes at the same time. And blessing of all blessings, her hair stays in a bun the whole recital. Yay!


Every year I'm so tired at the end of all this, and yet I keep doing it. Honestly, I do enjoy the whole dance mom thing. It's fun. Don't mistake this post for complaining, I'm not at all. I love that the girls are so involved and have such fun doing it.

Someone remind me of that statement in the winter when I'm carting everyone to umpteen different practices in the freezing cold. *grin*

Tonight we do it all over again for the second night of dress rehearsals and then tomorrow, the recital. Mark video tapes the recital and then I make dvds for the parents. It's fun to make them and then people don't worry about bringing their cameras and blocking the view of those around them with their cameras.

I have other goodies to share, but those are for another post. I've got to go organize dance costumes now.

Is this thing on?

Okay, I've not ever done a blog before....well....I don't think I have.

Just checking...if this works I'll be blogging all summer I'm sure. Yippee!