Stolen from Brad, THIS will keep you busy for hours. See if you can stump it and then come back and tell me who you stumped it with. I stumped it with Steve Sanders from Beverly Hills 90210 and Denise from The Cosby Show.

It's amazing what all can happen over a couple of days...

Jacob turned 18 months old yesterday. Where's my baby going?? I told Michael that Jacob's halfway to 3. What's even more of a sad thought is that Travis is halfway to 7!!!!!!! When I told Michael that last night on our way home from eating at Seafood Junction in Byhalia (you have GOT to try that place....totally awesome!), he said "We're losing him!!!!"

My Dad's retirement ceremony is today. I need to pack tissues in my purse. I talked to my Dad on the phone yesterday, getting details about when and where, and he was telling me that this is supposedly the first retirement ceremony they've ever done "this way", whatever that means, and that there will be some sort of "surprise". Anyway, it's this afternoon at 3 p.m., and I'm supposed to follow my Mom out there and meet her at her house at 2. It'll be interesting to see if my grandparents that disowned me will be there. I'll be shocked if they're there, because usually if they find out I'm going to be there, they won't come.

In other news, I have a job interview on Monday. Now before everyone freaks out, gasps for air, starts hounding me with "what kind of mother are you?" questions, it's a PART-TIME job. It's working for an attorney, downtown, in the same building I used to work in. I talked to him on the phone Thursday, and he said it'd more than likely be in the afternoons, half days, and he probably won't need me every day. He said he's extremely flexible and laid back. If there's ever a time I need to sneak out early because of the kids, or they're sick, or doctor visits or whatever, he said he's cool with that. I don't know any details yet about how much the pay per hour will be. I just know that it has to be enough so I can pay a sitter, have plenty of extra gas money, and still have a substantial amount of money left over. Now for the "who will watch the kids" part, I have a dear friend, Angie, who is currently babysitting one little boy and she has 2 young kids of her own. She lives basically right up the road from me, and on the way to work (assuming I even get the job), and Travis LOVES playing with her son (they are about 2 months apart in age). We've been to her house plenty, they've been here, and she said she knows I have very well-behaved kids, and I told her that I know that she and I both have the same standards in raising our kids and disciplining them, that sort of thing. She said for both kids, she'd charge me $22/day, which adds up to $110/week if I work every day. And truthfully, that's probably the cheapest I'd find anywhere PLUS I love Angie to death and I trust her. The only thing I'm nervous about is leaving Jacob. He's only stayed with me or other family members, and of course the church nursery, which he's been staying there all his life, so he's grown accustomed to it. I'm just nervous about how he'll do at someone else's house once he realizes I'm not coming back to get him for a few hours. The other thing that concerns me is if I'm going to be working the afternoons, it's going to feel like I'm spending my mornings at home getting ready to go to work, making sure the kids have their lunch, dropping them off, and driving to work. I almost wish that he'd either say A) I could work the mornings instead, or B) Let me do a lot of the work at home. If I work mornings, I don't mind getting up at 6 a.m. to get ready, drop off the kids at 7:30 a.m., be at work by 8, work 'til Noon, then have the rest of the day off to play with my kids and have time to tidy up the house and make supper when Michael gets home. If I work in the afternoons, not only will I spend the first half of the day getting everyone ready to go and fed, I'll have to hope I can beat the rush hour traffic home, pick up the kids, and then not even feel like making dinner and the house will be upside down from trying to get ready to go in the mornings. And that'd be practically like working a full-time job for part-time pay and I'll be going against all the things I want to be as a stay-at-home mom. BUT I'm going to go Monday to the interview to find out all the details, and if it doesn't work for me, well I don't NEED the job and I'll let him know up front that I've got to put my family FIRST. It'd be nice to have the extra money to get some bills paid down, but we aren't going to starve or go homeless if I don't take the job. We shall see come Monday.

We rented "Stepford Wives" last night. It was hilarious/depressing/true all at the same time. It's basically about this family that moves to Stepford, Connecticut...they are getting away from the city for a "change" after Joanna is fired from her job running a major television network and has a mental breakdown. Well, Joanna (played by Nicole Kidman), almost immediately figures out something isn't right with the women in this town. They are all ROBOTS, programmed by the men, to be perfect. So she spends the whole movie trying to resist being transformed, and she thinks the whole town is just crazy. She finally gets to the bottom of everything at the end of the movie, but I won't tell you how it ends. Parts of the movie are kinda corny, but it's still one you need to rent. It kind of makes you think about how far women have come since like the 1950's. Oh yeah, and Faith Hill made a great robot wife, lol.

Well I'm outta here for now! Have a great rest of the weekend! :-)

Several random things...

It's the last month of 2004. And 24 days 'til Christmas. Well, in my book, 23 days 'til Christmas, because if you haven't gotten everything bought, wrapped, decorated, baked, whatever, by the time the 24th gets here, you probably won't get it all done. Fortunately, everything here's decorated, everything bought except for like 2 things, and I started wrapping the other day. Now I just have to finish wrapping, get the Christmas cards done and in the mail, and bake some cookies and some fudge.

Why does parenting have to be so hard? Like, and why does it have to be so hard for me and Michael to agree on how to discipline the kids according to whatever it is that they did? I feel like most the time, I'm the one that does the spanking in this house, so are the kids going to be afraid of me, title me the "Mean Mama", and think of Michael as the "Cool Daddy"? Just now, Travis was laying on the couch, and Jacob walked up to Travis, holding onto the couch, and chunked a toy car at Travis' face, whacking him in the eyebrow. Travis was screaming bloody murder, so Michael scooped up Jacob and put him in the bed as "punishment". My argument was that Jacob didn't even know what he did and he didn't mean what he did, but then I got to thinking more about it...Jacob's never going to know what he does is wrong if we don't teach him otherwise.

Dude, last night I was having a dream, and while I don't remember what the dream was about, I remember that in the dream I had a major toothache, and it was in a tooth I had a cavity filled in 2 years ago. When I woke up from the dream, my tooth was still hurting, so I started thinking to myself "Oh great, now I'm going to have to go to the dentist...", and then I went back to sleep finally. When I got up this morning, my tooth didn't hurt at all. That was weird. It's sort of like having a dream that you've been shot, and you wake up and feel pain in that part of the body you were shot for just a few minutes. Very weird.

My Dad's retirement ceremony got moved from this coming Sunday to this coming Saturday, which means I don't get to go to the ladies' shopping day with our church. I had been looking forward to that for like MONTHS, and this week I find out about my Dad's thing getting changed. But I really can't miss his retirement ceremony, so I got to talking to my friend Amanda, and she's not going to get to go to the shopping thing either, so she and I are making plans for Saturday night to go shopping or do a movie or something, just the two of us. We need our "girl time", dang it! It'll be fun!

My December calendar is totally filling up, man! Jacob's neurology appointment is tomorrow afternoon, he goes to the dentist on the 14th, we have a Christmas party to go to on the 17th, the bowl game will take up 3 days...2 days for travel, 1 day for the game. Plus I have baking and wrapping to do, and a couple presents left to buy. And church hasn't even announced when our church Christmas party will be. And I'm having a Home Interiors party on the 10th! I just want to say sloooowwww doooowwwwn! Whoever coined the phrase "slow as Christmas" didn't have a clue what they were talking about.

Anywho, there were some other things I wanted to write, but can't remember. I guess I'm outta here for now!

On December 22, 2004, the University of Memphis Tigers will meet their opponent, the Bowling Green Falcons, in Mobile, Alabama for the GMAC Bowl.

At first we weren't going to go, but, I was racking my brain, trying to figure out what I could get Michael for Christmas this year that was something he'd love, other than boxers and socks (oh yeah, all men love to receive THOSE under the tree), and so after some research, and after seeing Michael moping around the house because he wasn't getting to go to the bowl game, we learned that we can get bowl game tickets for $15 each. They're endzone seats, albeit, but we'll get to go. AND...AND...we happened upon a hotel running a bowl game special for $39.15/night AFTER taxes. You can't beat that with a stick!

We will leave Tuesday, the 21st, as soon as Michael gets off work, drive until we get to Mobile, I figure we'll get there around 1 a.m., sleep in Mobile, and then, an extra special added bonus for me, we're going to drive over to Destin the next morning, which is about a 2 hour drive from Mobile (we went to Destin for our honeymoon), spend some time there shopping, eat lunch, and then head back to our hotel in Mobile a couple hours before the game, get ready for the game, go to the game, stay the night again Wednesday night, then drive back Thursday morning. Imagine that...3 days before Christmas, and we're going to Florida...and maybe get to walk on a beach for a few minutes. It may not seem like that big a deal, but it seems kinda sweet to me or something. It'll definitely bring back some memories, THAT'S for certain.

That's the latest sports news...now for the weather report.

I didn't think it'd ever stop raining, but it finally did. The wind hasn't stopped blowing I don't think since Friday. As soon as I got my outside Christmas decorations up, WHOOOOSH, and it hasn't stopped. A couple of my candy canes in the yard are leaning pretty crooked and if the wind and rain will ever cease, I will go out there and fix them. I went outside to check the mail right before Michael got in from work, and as I rounded the corner to the driveway, I nearly got knocked on my rear by the cold wind. I welcome winter weather, as long as I can stay inside with blankets and something hot to drink.

I'm off to bed for now! G'night to all! Christmas is 25 days away!!

Warning: What you're about to read is the mother of all rants.

I'm upset, steaming mad, pissed off royaly, even.

Let me start off by saying that I'm having a really difficult time understand why my mother has no time for me and my kids, but always manages to make time for my sister's kids. Over the weekend, she took THEM to the movies, she took THEM to Burger King, THEY spent the night at her house. Does she ever come get Travis to spend time with him? No. Travis has spent the night at my parents' house a grand total of TWO times since he was born into existence. She has kept Jacob about zero times. One of those times Travis spent the night at her house was when we had to take Jacob to the emergency room back in April, and the OTHER time was when two of my sister's kids were spending the night and I happened to overhear my Mom talking to my sister about it and I sort of invited Travis myself. I have a few theories, okay, ONE theory as to why this is, but I've not ever voiced it to her.

Not that you ever read this or ever will, but Mom, I know my kids are little "Baptist babies", but they're still your grandchildren. And I'm still your daughter. The few rare times I do tell Travis "We're going to Meemaw's house", or "Meemaw's coming over later," Travis says, "I don't want Meemaw, I want Mamaw (Michael's Mom)." And today...you were supposed to come by this afternoon, and instead you sent Dad, which I fully enjoyed my visit with him...I hope he'll start coming by more often, especially since he's about to retire soon, but when I told Travis you were coming over today, he actually got excited, and then you didn't come. When Dad was here, he was going to ask you if you "had time" to come by after school, and apparently you didn't.

And something else, on Thanksgiving, you said you were tired of having to be the one that we have to "fit in" on the holidays with all the other family we have to see. I love you, Mom, and I want to spend more time with you, but I have a husband with family and they actually want to see my kids and makes time for them. WE feel like the ones that have to be "fit in" with YOUR busy life of grading papers.

It's really sad when you hold Jacob, and he looks at you the same way he looks at a stranger. Or the way Travis doesn't come running to the door in excitement when you do actually come over. Katie's kids know who you are and talk about wanting to see you all the time, but my kids never do. All they talk about is their other grandparents. You work right around the corner from my house and could come by any time you want after school, but you're always too tired, too busy to stop by, even for 20 minutes to see us, even once a week, or even once a MONTH. It's simply inexcusable.

I know you're stressed about everything in life, who isn't. And I probably shouldn't say anything to you about any of this, but I am this close to doing so. I'm not just angry, I'm deeply hurt. I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you can't make time for your family...ALL of your family, you desperately need a new career. That school, your 100+ students, that principal, none of it is worth sacrificing your FAMILY.

It's been awhile. I have been working my tail off around this house to make Christmas "happen". The Christmas village is set up, little people are waltzing on the fake ice pond, and the fake snow has freshly fallen. It's really pretty...I set it up in my kitchen window this year. Then Friday I did all the outside lights I could do by myself without a ladder. I lined both sides of the driveway with plastic candy canes and strung colored lights on them with little red bows, then strung colored lights on the magnolia tree, and put one of those white spiral trees in front of Travis' window outside, and hung all the wreaths on the door and front windows. I've bought the lights that actually go on the house, but it rained Saturday, the ONLY day Michael has off until TWO WEEKS from now, and it's of course no longer daylight by the time he gets home from work during the week, so Lord only knows when that'll get done. (That's a major gripe that I have that I'll save for later. I'll just say this...why is it that everyone else can get a day off whenever they have "stuff to do", and Michael can't like EVER?) Then last night we searched for a Christmas tree, and after forgetting my purse, and going to 3 places, we found a tree at last. What an experience...this was our first REAL tree. I've always had an ugly, fake tree, simply because my mother always told me what a messy pain a real tree is. But you know what? She was wrong! I mean, once we managed to hammer the stand into the tree trunk, set it up, and vaccum up all the tiny tree needles, it's great! And it smells SO GOOD! It took me 3 hours to decorate last night, but now it's done. There's nowhere to put presents underneath because it's so low to the ground, and I hope I remember to water it, lol, but it's a really nice, fat tree. And we have it up before December! Well, a Christmas movie I wanna watch is on TV, so TTFN!