Right now.

The University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville are playing the championship game. Both of them are close to here, but we're not really fans of either. My daughter says she likes UK better than U of L because she likes blue better than red, but really, we don't watch the games so that's the only opinion about it any of us has. Not so my town, though. We just got back from the grocery store and the town was nearly deserted. There was maybe 10% of the usual traffic and very few people in the grocery store. :-)

Last night

was Mom's night out with the homeschool group. Only 4 of us could make it but we had a really nice time. My only problem was with the restaurant. We went to a small family restaurant and I scanned the menu as I always do for things that would most likely be naturally gluten free. I'm not a fan of salads, so I avoided looking at them. I finally settled on an order of cheese and bacon fries with jalenpos and sour cream. (Health food, in other words). But then, when I came, the jalepenos had been breaded and fried, which I didn't expect. I couldn't help making a face of dismay when the waiter put it in front of me and he said "what's wrong?" and I said that I couldn't eat anything that was breaded so I couldn't eat this. Normally I wouldn't even attempt it but I felt bad because it's a small family-owned restaurant and they might need the money, you know? So I started trying the pull the jalepenos off in preparation to eat the fries when one of my friends bit into her fry and said "the fries are breaded too" and they were. So we had to call the waiter back over and I had to order something else so I ordered a salad (didn't want one, but I was hungry) and I emphasized to him nicely that it couldn't have any bread or croutons with it. He took the fries and said the dishwasher would eat them. When he brought my salad, it had saltine crackers (gluten!) all along one side. I just ate the side without the crackers and came home and ate my dinner. It was frustrating. I guess we'll have to stick to chain restaurants from now on. :-0

Pre-Easter Thoughts.

When did Star wars become part of our Easter tradition?

Is a Cadbury egg for breakfast pretty much the same as a regular egg?  I'm pretty sure it is.

We still have our let it snow wreath on the front door.  I noticed it last night and was going to take it down but my youngest said, "No, leave it up.  I'm dreaming of a white Easter."

Noah's Hands of Hope.

They are having an auction this week to raise money for families of kids battling catastrophic illnesses.  They bring toys and games and other supplies to the hospital, help families pay for gas and lodging and just generally support them as they go through this.  See if there's something you can use at the auction.  I saw 25 dollar gift cards with a current price of 17 dollars, so you might get a deal.

Noho auctions

Spring Cleaning.

I was working and/or gone all day yesterday it seems and the kids chose spring cleaning instead of school work.  I had hoped that they would.  The spring cleaning really needs to be done.  It's amazing what a motivator 'no algebra" is and I also promised them pizza one day this week as a payment.  I am done with work today so I guess I'll have to join them for today's cleaning.  Can anyone think of a reason I shouldn't?

Please.  I really don't want to.

:-P

I guess it was

a busy-enough weekend that it left me no time to blog!  Truth is, I opened blogger a couple of times over the weekend, but just didn't have much to blog about.  Compared to last weekend, it was very relaxed.  Saturday, the girl and I went to a women's luncheon and then she went with her Mamaw and her cousin to Michael's crafts to spend some of her Christmas gift card money.  (While I got to come home and do medical transcription!)  She came home with pom-pom yard and knitting needles.  it seems that Mamaw had taught her to knit.  Yesterday was a pretty good Sunday because we had choir practice and that terrible, awful, scary duet that I had been worrying about so much got changed into a sextet and now I don't have to sing my part alone.  It's a very difficult song and I'm not really a soprano so it's really, really, really, really high for me.  As you can imagine by the number of reallys in that last sentence, it did not sound good.  :-P    

It is 9:30 on Monday morning and I have not decided whether we are going to do school this week or if we are going to do spring cleaning.  I'm leaning towards the cleaning.  I'd better decide soon because the teens will be up soon and anxious to get some work done.  (Ha ha, did you see that funny I made there!?)  (Yeah, right.)  We have 154 days of school in this year and so we are in a really good position to take some time off and put the house in order so that spring cleaning bug will leave me alone.  I do intend for the kids to do the majority of it this year because they are capable and they do not have jobs that the would have to take unpaid leave from, like me.  The oldest one had a job interview week before last, but I guess maybe it didn't pan out because they didn't call him.  :-(

Oh well.  Back to work for me now.

Good morning ya'll.

School issues and thank goodness.

Thank goodness we don't have quite as busy a weekend planned.  Maybe.  Okay, there's no sweet 16 party this weekend, which took up a good deal of my last weekend and I think that the grocery shopping can be postponed a while.  Today, we've got a women's luncheon which we are going to help set up for here in a little while and it will likely take most of the day.  Then after that I will need to work, since I didn't take off today, but did tell them that I would be gone part of the day.  Tomorrow, we only have 3 things we have to do, not 5 like last week.

Me, at 1:00 a.m. last night when yesterday's grammar was getting done.

The school issue that we are dealing with is procrastination.  They have their schedule and we've apparently given them too much freedom to get it done.  I'm going to have to remedy that as soon as I get the time to sit down with them and talk about it.  Mama is not happy. 

The work thing.

I got the work thingy straightened out this morning after a couple of emails with my supervisor.  It turns out that they had a temporary rule that we had to send all blanks to the editors, but now it is back to what it was before, anything more than 3, which will pretty much totally eliminate my need to send anything to them.  I am relieved.  I know this doesn't mean anything to anyone, but since I whined about it earlier I thought it would be a good idea to update it.   Back to life as usual.

Updates.

I always have New Years resolutions and this year it was going to be exercise.  Trouble is, I haven't started yet.  I've postponed my New Year's resolution until after Easter. I think that's reasonable.

Yes.

I do.


Anyway, onto other things. 

Work is driving me kind of crazy.  First they want one thing, then another.  A month or so ago they were whining that we were not putting the dates on the reports.  Then I challenged them and they found out that their computer system was somehow removing the dates after we'd put them in.  My co-workers would thank me, I'm sure, if they had ever heard of me!  When you virtually commute, you don't know your co-workers, it's weird.  Anyway, during that time, they said that if there was any question about the date, if it was not dictated, that we should not assume the date of service and the date of dictation are the same, that we should leave it blank and send it to the editors to fill in.  So now we do that and now the latest thing is that we are sending too many reports to the editors and we must justify why we are sending things to them.  It goes on and on, but I'll spare you.  I sent them a report of all my blanks and the reasons for them last night (which I was not paid to do) and I thought about putting this P.S,

P.S.:  I haven't had a raise in 10 years.

But I didn't.   Actually, 10 years is how long I've been with them, other than my 2 month break a couple of years ago, which they may count in calculating how long I've been with them.  Anyway, you know that by harping on transcriptionists to justify blanks, they are encouraging us to be sloppier and guess at things that we cannot hear, for fear of losing our jobs in this tough economy. 

But enough about that.

I'm going to focus on the good.
1. We got a really cute outfit for my daughter last night.
2.  We have cupcakes.
3.  I still have a job.  :-/
4.  My daughter has to sing with me on my Easter special, because she got drafted too.  Ha!  That's what she gets for volunteering me.  :-P

Shopping success?!

My daughter and I went to the store to look for something for her to wear in the Easter concert.   We have to wear black bottoms and white tops.  We found a really cute ensemble for her in only a couple of hours, only 4 stores, 1 parking place, which I think may be a miracle.  :-)   It's a black flowered swishy skirt and a white gauzy blouse.  It's adorable.   As for me, I'm going to try and borrow a white shirt from a friend and wear my black pants, not as cute, but then I'm kind of old and with a few exceptions, cute marches on ...  :-P

On my mind today.

I have various things on my mind today.  My husband and kids are getting rid of things today because our county is doing its annual 'bulky item" garbage pickup this week..  We finally got rid of the couch that I hated in the living room and the living room looks so big now.  (yay!)   I'm also worrying a bit a lot about this choir thing.  My daughter talked me into singing for the Easter concert, and then I got asked to sing this duet and another couple of songs that are way above my skill level.  Consequently, I am stressed about that.  I kind of feel like I should do it because of that whole thing I'm always telling the kids about how they should step outside their comfort zone and should not avoid doing something just because it's going to be difficult, blah, blah, blah.  Oh, how my words have come back to haunt me now.  Should I?  I'll feel bad for the concert attendees and the rest of the choir if I mess it up but I'll also feel  bad if I don't even try.  :-(

Also on my mind is what my oldest son should do.  He's currently on a gap year basically.  He has delayed college to find a job to help with costs and hasn't found a job so he's just helping out around the house (a little) and practicing guitar (a lot) and art (a lot).  Meanwhile, I've been looking around for ways to cut college expenses and have found these that are worth mentioning.

Straighter Line - Freshman year of college for 1000 bucks.

Berea College 

College of the Ozarks

Internships

More internships.

City Vision College - Another work your way through kind of college. 

Clep - College by examination.

Thomas Edison College.  (The tuition here is less expensive than a lot of places and I have heard it rumored that they accept a lot of CLEP courses as well.)

As you can see, my mind has not been a blank today as it sometimes is.  Today, it's just full to bursting with all kinds of stuff.  Makes it hard to concentrate on work.

Procrastinating.

I'm very tired and I should be going to bed, but I'm procrastinating about it, because my youngest 2 kids had informed me that before I go to bed, I have to play secret agent laser obstacle bedtime.  Apparently, this is a new requirement around here.  The "lasers" are being played by a yarn maze all over the living room.

Well.  I guess I can't put it off anymore.

Good night.

On the road again.

Yesterday was a nice day of staying home pretty much all day.  I did go see my mom, but she's only 3 miles away so I'm not counting that.  She and I played a game of UpWords and she beat me for the second time in a row, but that's still a restful kind of game and it was a restful kind of day.  Other than work, of course.  I always, always, always have to work.  I considered letting the kids take the week off and get the spring cleaning done but one of the kids (guess which one?) had already done a lot of his/her school work yesterday afternoon when I mentioned this so we didn't do it, but we are ahead this year and the spring cleaning bug has been biting me (this is very unpleasant) and I think next week we might do it. 

Today, we've got to go to 4H and someone else is teaching the lesson so I always like that.  I feel like I am coming down with the cold though, so I might have to make the decision to stay home due to possible contagion.  We will see.  I'm using Cold-Eeze zinc lozenges and I believe I feel better than I did last night.

Whew.

Thursday I had an appointment early then had to clean the house, then had skate night.

Friday, I had to work, had an hour and a half break then went to a concert and was gone from 5:30 to 11:30.

Saturday, up at 8:30 to work until 3:00, then met my friend at 3:15, then took my kids to the party, then went out to eat with my friend, then to the salvage store and then to the regular grocery store to get dog food, then home.  Then back out from 9:00-11:00 p.m. picking up the kids from the party (driving in a terrible storm which is why it took so long).

Then, Sunday, we had commitments at 10:00-12:00, 2:00-4:00, 4:30-5:30 and 6:00-7:45 and in between these, I managed to go to the grocery from 12:30-1:30 ish.

A nice surprise when I came home from the grocery, the washing machine and dishwasher were both running!  Go kids!

What a crazy weekend.  I am glad it's over and all I've got to do today is work.  The kids are still sleeping and I'm halfway done with work.  :-P

Busy x4. I mean 5.

We've got 4 events today, 1 right after another and I also needed to go between 2 events and pick up a gift for the bridal shower and while I was there, I went ahead and got groceries.  Fortunately, the bridal shower was only about an hour and 15 minutes (Yay!) so I got a tiny break between that and choir practice.  Whew.  Only 2 more things to go.

I've been on the road a lot this weekend.

Rut Roh.

I just hit a snag in my carefully planned list of activities today.  I ran out of work in my account.  I need to get 750 lines today before 3:00 p.m., then I'm meeting my friend to go to the salvage store and then we'll drop off my kids at a birthday party and then we'll go out to eat and then I'll bring my friend home.  Then much later, I'll have to go pick the kids up.  Yes, it would help if I'd let my oldest just drive everyone everywhere but I'm just not ready for that yet.  He's had his driver's license how long?  7 months.  Is that enough time?   Plus he complains about not being able to see that well at night and he needs to have an eye exam.  Also, if I let him drive them, I'd miss my trip to the salvage store since he and I share a car and I loves my trips to the salvage store.  (It's very close to the birthday party location).  

This has nothing to do with Scooby Doo except when I got the "no job available" message I automatically said "Rut Roh" to myself.  :-P.

Yesterday's news is my son and I had a great time at the concert we went to last night except at one point, the balcony where we were sitting, started to shake.  It was a sold out show and everyone was standing up, dancing, swaying and clapping and the balcony felt like it was rippling under our feet.  It kind of freaked me out a little.  :-/  Still wonderful fun.  It's nice to have such a handsome, polite, fun young man to go places with and have him not be embarrassed to go out with his mom.  While we were waiting for the concert to start two girls did come over and make a point to say "Hi" to him.  Apparently he went to camp with them last year.  :-)