Time for the New Year

Well, It's New Year's Eve Eve. I am sad to 2006 come to end, as it was a good year for Dean and I. I only hope that '07 will be as good or better.

Today, Dean and I were busy. Went to breakfast then returned all the clothes he got me for Christmas. Luckily, they had everything he got me in the sizes I needed, so we just even exchanged everything! I love when that happens! I really hate to shop. I hate to look for things, try them on, find they don't fit, then go back to the rack, get a different size and do it all over again. This way, he did the shopping, I tried everything on at home, and knew I had to go one size bigger in everything. He went with me to do the exchange, so he knew right were everything was! So, we exchanged it all, and I got a new pair of shoes to boot! (No pun intended). It made it so easy! The actual exchanging took forever. I got a new girl and she had only been working in customer service for 2 days. I was able to help her a good bit cause it was the department store at which I was working when Dean and I met~Value City. I had forgotten how nice a lot of their stuff is. I got Dean's TV/DVD player there and his clothes too. So, it was really weird that we shopped at the same store. But then again, we usually do think alike.

Dean and I will be ringing in the New Year at the Pepsi Roadhouse with the Fabulous Gunslingers! Yea! I love those guys. If you haven't checked out their website yet, click on the link to the right and give some of their songs a listen. They really are good. And a really good time. Can' t wait for that tomorrow night. It is their first big show where they are the headliners. They usually open for somebody or other at the Roadhouse or Starlake, or just play by themselves in some of the North Hills local bars. But we love them and they are a good time!

Had our Jordan with us all week. What fun that was! He is really cute and to watch him explore and learn is amazing! I wish I knew what was going on in his little mind when he plays and explores. You can see the little wheels of his mind turning round and round, but can't know what he's thinking.........mmmmmmmmmmmm. I loved to watch him look at the motion ornaments we have on our tree. My mom started getting them for me, my brother and sister every year a while back, and Dean and I still get one for ourselves every year. Anyway, you can see he wants to touch them, but we tell him no no Jordan and he stops reaching. If you turn your attention away from him for one second, he steals an ornament or candy cane off the tree and runs like heck and giggles. What an imp.....

So, he will be one year old on the 5th, which is next Friday. I can't believe it's been a year already! Where does the time go? And it seems it goes faster and faster the older I get. What happened to the time when I was little and weekends seemed so long and summer seemed even longer? Ah, those were the days...........

Well, Happy New Year to all, and to all a good night!

Whew! Busy Holidays, History repeats itself?

Well, it has been quite a while since my last post. We got through Christmas! It was hectic! I usually have the house dressed to the nines for the holidays around my birthday weekend (December 10), but due the the party schedule and the unfortunate death of my boss' brother, I was very needed at work and could not take the days of vacation I had planned to clean and decorate the house. So, I rearranged my schedule and got it all done very late in the game. Then I was planning on finishing the Christmas shopping with my bonus, but again, due to the death of boss' brother, it didn't come as early as I had hoped. So, I was very last minute and disorganized this year. It all turned out fine, however. The house was beautiful and all the shopping got done and all the presents got wrapped and put under the tree in time for St. Nick to add his morsals to the piles. Even though Dean got the biggest present (a 20" tv/dvd player for the camper), Jordan's pile was definitely the biggest! Even though he is not quite one year old yet (Jan. 5 is his b-day), and he didn't quite grasp the whole concept yet of Santa coming and opening the presents, he did realize a little later that he had all these neat new toys to play with! Dean and I kept him till today. I just kept him here when his Mom and Dad left on Christmas night. It was fun playing with him and watching him learn and explore! Very cool! We did not however get to see my brother and sister in law yet this holiday season. Her mother is a nursing home/hospital/nursing home/hospital and just keeps going back and forth. They seem to have finally figured out that she has some bowel blockage and was supposed to have surgery yesterday, but my brother has not called me with the results of that yet. Wasn't it not long ago (9 years ago, Christmas Eve) that MY mother started her horrific journey in our medical facility? I cannot believe that my dad is gone 8 years (October) and it will be 8 years that Mom is gone on Jan. 14. History does repeat itself to some extent........

Christmas Monsters.......Nostalgia and wanting things we had as kids...

I think that the Christmas Monster bites grandparents and infects them with I don't know what. It is a strange bug that makes you go to Toys R Us on a Friday night and buy toys. But the grandparents just don't buy the toys; they have to play with all the toys too. So, I think Dean must have been bitten by this Christmas Monster at dinner tonight. Out of the blue he says to me " Who do we have left to shop for?" I told him no one really. All we have left to buy are a few gift cards. He said " What about Jordan? Are we done with Jordan?" I said no that I had a couple of things I saw at Eckerd I wanted to get him and I wanted to get him a couple of outfits or something. He said he wanted to go shopping. Did I want to go to Toys R US? I said "If you want to?!" with a question in my voice, cause that was just so odd to hear him say. He told me HE hasn't gotten to do any of the shopping for Jordan, that I've done it ALL and he wanted to do some. Soooooo, off we went to Toys R US. The place was crazy! People all over the place! So, we found the VTech aisle so we could get another game for the V Tech Baby.Smiles that we had gotten previously. (I, like a fool, went and bought it on Black Friday) Then we found the Play Skool aisle, the Little Tykes and Fisher Price Aisles. So, we bought him a trike, a xylophone/piano combination,a See and Say, a train set, a handle truck, a farm truck that hauls animals;sings a song; and makes horsie and cow noises, and a story book that has 365 classic stories and Nursery Rhymes in it! Now all this is in addition to the V Tech baby.Smiles unit, the shape sorter ball, a locomotive, a truck that plays music, and a Christmas bib I had already gotten him. His pile is going to be huge under the Christmas Tree this year! Damn the Christmas Monster!!! LOL. And I still want to get him the 2 things I saw at Eckerd and 2 outfits...........Hmm! Being the grandparents is fun. We had a good time tonight! And just think...his birthday is in January and then Easter is in April!
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So, I started to dink around on Ebay. I thought I would look for a high chair for Jordan since the new ones out now are sooooo expensive! I found a couple I thought I'd bid on. So, Dean got on the computer and saw my bid confimation for the high chair and he clicks on the seller's other items and finds she has a Fisher Price Little People Barn. Then he goes and starts looking for any others. He found one that had been in someone's closet for like 30 years, still in the box and never opened! He bid on it! I hope we win it. It's in absolute mint condition! Dean said he had one as a kid. I did not. David and Brian (my nephews) had one. Of course they did. The had the Little People Airport and Garage as well! They could make a Little People city! It was really cool to play with them when they were kids.
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If I could get a toy that I had when I was little, it would be a) the butterfly ball I had when I was really little. I might have been 1 or 2 years old, but I remember it! It was a pink tinted clear hard plastic ball with a blue butterfly in it. The butterfly was on like and axle and when you rolled it, the butterfly would turn around and around. and b) would be my easy bake oven/kitchen sink and washer and dryer set I had. These were all pretty big in size, not like the easy bake oven nowadays. The oven actually had a door that opened like a real oven, all kinds of pans with it, cake mixes and stuff and it baked by using a light bulb! It didn't pass through the oven like the one these days. All the appliances were Gumby green for lack of a better decription.The sink actually had running water as did the washer when you filled the resevoir on the back. It emptied down it's drain into another resevoir. Sort of like the fresh and gray water tanks in a camper. The wash actually washed and I washed all my doll's clothes. It agitated and spun! The dryer even really tumbled the clothes! It was the coolest thing. I wish I knew where my mom had gotten them. I don't even remember what brand they were.......Yeah, If I could get those items, All the world would be right...............

Road Rage????

Is it me or are other drivers getting more annoyingly stupid behind the wheel? I don't get it. Men who drive and talk on cell phones scare me. That takes way to much multitasking and men just don't multitask well. I get nervous when Dean is driving and has to change the setting on the heater or change the radio station or turn on a light or something. Not good at the multitasking thing. I am, however a good multitasker. When I was working at Value City, I would leave work, drive out to the racetrack to meet Dean, and practically have my clothes changed by the time I got off the Parkway!

And now that the Christmas shopping season is here, it seems that people are in their own little worlds and drive like they are the ONLY ones on the road. I'm just driving along, looking for my parking spot, and I will just driver VERY slowly to find it cause there's no one behind me that has to go somewhere............AHHHHHGG! Why can't they be a little more aware of what is around them, get the hell out of MY way, then they can putt along all they like. PARK THE DAMN CAR!!!! Whew! Now that that's off my chest...............
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We had our first bout of bad weather Thursday night. Took me an hour and a half to get home from work! It usually take me about 25 to 30 minutes. The roads were sheets of ice. We only got about an inch of snow, but the roads were wet and the temperature dropped really fast once the sun went down and oila! ice! It took so long that I had to stop at Sheetz to go potty. Figured I might as well get gas since I had to stop anyway.............
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Dean and I have started investing in new Christmas decorations this year. We bought new lights for outside and today we bought a new Christmas tree. I have always had an artificial tree since I was 3 years old. the story my Mom told me was that when I was 2, I got very sick after they put their tree up. My Mom took me to the Dr. and he asked her if we had a live tree. She said yes, and he told her to get rid of it. Put it outside or something, but get it out of the house! So, she told Daddy and he put the tree, lights, decorations and all, on the front porch. So I had to look at my Christmas tree through the living room windows! Even today, if I even accidently touch a real Christmas tree, I get red marks that look like real small measles all bunched together. When my Dad died, my Mom told me to get her tree out of the basement and put it up at my house, so I replaced my artificial tree with theirs. My Mom died 3 weeks after Christmas. So, anyway, that tree has seen better days, so Dean and I bit the bullet and bought a new one today. Now, to get it put up..........
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The annual Racers for Tots Christmas party is tonight. We went and bought our couple of toys for our price of admission last night. While we were shopping, we found some great toys from the movie "Cars". They have radio controlled Lightning McQueens, Tow-Maters, and Sallys. They have a plush Tow-Mater! They have rip tie Lightning McQueens and Sallys! They are soooooooo cool!! A while back, my nephew was pokin' around on the internet and found where they had the prototypes on parade or something. I took the picture of "Mater" and put it on my computer as my wall paper. He's so cute. And it doesn't hurt that I think Larry the Cable Guy (Blue Collar Comedy Tour) is hysterical, as he is the voice of "Mater". so, I am anxious to go the Racers for Tots party. We have such a good time. A lot of our friends from the racing community will be there, our friends, Tom and Lisa, who we camp with quite often during the racing season, and of course, my beloved Fabulous Gunslingers will be the entertainment! How could it not be fun?
I will post some pictures later on of the night's festivities.........

A little clarification on previous post.....

Okay, so my nephew thinks I am opposed to online courses. Noooooooo. Not on line courses. I am opposed to Cyberschool-where kids take ALL of their classes on line. And not college courses. High school or middle school kids. I thinks it's the parents being lazy and teaching the kids laziness too. Now, our soon to be out of office Senator(yay!), Rick Santorum, has his children doing cyberschool. Why? He said in an interview that it was because he didn't want his kids having to be ridiculed by others for what his father A) did for a living, B)his convictions on political issues, and C) his wife and their mother would be more involved with their education. What a bunch of hooey! You are a Senator for the USA representing Pennsylvania! Send them to Private School with the other Senators' kids! Pa-leez!

So, I think online courses are very good for adults that want to further their education and for college kids that want to enhance their current education. I have taken an on line course to further me in my occupation. It was fun. Really. But you do miss that interaction of Professor-student. On the other hand, it was convenient because I didn't have to go out, be at a class at a certain time on certain days. But, I am an adult that works full time, has a house, husband and a life to deal with. sooooooooooo...............

I know the whole on line class is vital to my nephew's having employment for the rest of his working life, unless he decides to change careers (yeah, right) But what he does is not having the whole curriculum via the internet, is it?

Oh, and one exception....If a child physically cannot go to school and this is their only way of getting their education (ie. the boy in the plastic bubble) then that would be a good thing.

Loser Programs????!!!

I don't usually post about a subject that my nephew has posted, but this one, once I thought about it and commented on his blog, just really ticks me off!

It seems that there is a thing called unschooling your children. It's supposed to be a form of home schooling, but instead of learning math, english, spelling, literature and the other regular subjects, the kids are taught about things that interest them. My nephew used the example of the child's interest being hockey, so I will "borrow" that analagy.
According to unschoolradical.org, this is a student-led learning situation... "If they have an interest in hockey- you read about hockey- make a hockey stick, figure out how a Zamboni works, etc. Job as “teacher” is more to facilitate learning (read: chauffeur). To suggest and expose and then run with something if they are eager to pursue or learn more." Since when do we let our children choose what and when they will learn? You can read more on my nephew's blog: justpoppedinmyhead.blogspot.com.

Well, here in Pittsburgh, we have what is called the Late Start program. This was designed for kids who cannot get up and get to school at 8 am. Instead, they start at 10 am. That way, they can go to bed late, sleep late and still go to school. This never happened in my day! If you couldn't get up for school and were late, or didn't show up at all, those kids were marked tardy or absent. if either of these occurances became habitual, seperately or combination, the truant officer was at their house wanting to talk to the parents and then issuing them a citation, which meant they had to appear in front of the magistrate and usually fines were issued! Not any more. Let's coddle our children into be losers! Once they graduate from High School from the Late Start Program, they will find that there is no late start programs in the employment world! (Unless you find employment working a second shift as a nonskilled factory worker or work in a retail store and work all afternoon or evening schedules)The types of jobs the late starters are going to find are going to be very low waged jobs on the pay scale. I think we are teaching our children that lazy is okay. It is not. You have to go to work EVERY day and be on time or you won't be employed for long. One of my pet pieves is people that call off of work, are habitually late, or leave early. (see my first post ever)

And what about Cyberschool? I don't think this is a good idea either. A child can stay at home, take their classes on line, and work at their own pace as long as they complete assignment within a certain time frame. I think it is 4 weeks from the day the assignment is given till they have to have it completed. Now, it is actually due much sooner, but they are not penalized until after the 4 week mark. I just don't understand what we are teaching our children as far as the responsibility of getting up and getting to school. On Time. With every one else. If we keep them at home, they are not learning the things they need to get ahead in life, they are not learning and tweeking their socialization skills, and they certainly are not learning responsibility!