Prom Weekend

So this weekend is prom for El Dorado High School. My daughter and her friends are going. So that means that they will be coming over to my house to get ready. My fear is that they will all be a little neurotic. I get to do their hair, which I am looking forward to. The nail polish and all the make-up, I could do with out. I just hope it doesn't turn into a mini wedding kind of thing. I am not into that. Although, I did order a flower and the limo. Oh well, all that matters is that they all have a blast!

I know I am going to sound like a preacher, and I don't even go to church. There is a lot of negative going on in the world right now. Maybe it always has been that way. It just feels like we are surrounded by negative talk and negative actions. When you are handed a bad blow of something, there is a reason for it. Really. Sometimes who knows why, but as long as you think positive, positive comes out of it. Always. Just look for the silver lining or is it through the silver lining. Either way, life is good. I have read a few blogs where the people seem to have back to back crappy stuff happening. Are they bringing it on themselves? I don't mean to sound mean, but seriously, when you think with bad thoughts, bad stuff hangs around. Life is too hard sometimes, why not try to make things happy in your life. Just by smiling, you can have a great day. When you think those happy thoughts, happiness is all around you.
A couple years ago my husband lost his great paying job. I worked part time at a job and volunteered at our kids school quite a bit. The first day of dealing with what had just happened, was scary. I knew everything would be OK. Things happen for a reason, always. Sure enough, it all worked out just fine. My husband started back at school full-time. I went back to work full-time. I ended up hating my job after a couple of years. But what I gained from being there made it all worthwhile. I got some amazing friends out of it. Some people can look at it and think how much they hate their job and dwell only on that instead of looking at what really matters. People and what they give you. Not financially, but emotionally. I did end up walking out of my job one day in November, but fortunately for me, those people that I became friends with found there way to me in one way or another. I would never take any of the bad stuff out of my life because there is so much good that comes back at me just by thinking positively.

Daughter's driving

So my daughter is now driving legally on the road with an adult at her side. My wonderful husband keeps volunteering me to take her out and practice. I'll admit, I am not the perfect candidate for it. My facial expressions come into play. I am not a good liar in any form. Again, my face says it all. So not only am I trying to get her comfortable with driving, but I am trying to get her used to a manual transmission. I have always found that I have more control driving around the hills with a stick shift versus an automatic. So we were out the other night driving and giving all the neighbors a good chuckle. I had her stop and start constantly so she could get the feel of letting off the clutch and giving it gas. Everyone knew we were coming by the squealing tires. I honestly thought she was doing pretty good, but what I got on my end was "Mom, you are a horrible teacher." I made a point, seriously, of not saying one negative word. I am proud of how I handled myself. I know me and I loose my patience with my own kids. We just have another five months left of this!

Creatures that lurk int the night

There are worse things that happen in the middle of the night, but what happened last night seemed pretty bad. Our youngest dog, Abbott, got up to go outside, so I thought. Then I heard some strange thrashing noises coming from the kitchen or just outside of our slider. I flew out of bed and saw something about raccoon size flying through the kitchen and then it kept bouncing in our slider up and down. I started screaming at Abbott not to go near it, because I still wasn't sure what was in the house and what might be outside. My initial thought was that two raccoons were fighting outside the door and one ran in through the doggie door. Finally, everyone else came to the rescue to help me hold back the other two dogs that came to check out the noise. For some reason, my son opened his bedroom door and the thing ran in there. At that moment we were able to put our dogs in our bedroom and take a breath. We had to process the whole event in order to move onto getting "it" out of his bedroom. Once we looked in to see what "it" was, we realized he was just as scared as we were. It was a cat. He made himself at home in my sons bed, still breathing pretty heavy though, just as we were too. Now to get him out. He didn't want to budge. We were all afraid of him or her because we weren't sure whether it was a feral cat or not. So my husband and son used brooms to try and persuade him to leave. He was not having any part of it. He kept, somehow, holding onto the window and curtain. Finally my brilliance kicked in and I realized that if I take the screen off the window, all we have to do is open the window and he will go out. Not the case. Apparently, we needed to make sure the window was completely opened and then once we did that he ran outside.
It took us a good two hours to finally calm down enough to go back to sleep. I had to keep my focus on mentally writing my next essay in order to stay relaxed. Otherwise the what ifs kept creeping back into my head.
I am a little pooped and sore today, but everyone is safe and happy and that is all that matters!

When it comes to my birthday, I prefer to just let it go by without anyone acknowledging it. From all my friends views, I know I come off weird. My husband surprised me with a few of my friends at a restaurant once. I was absolutely mortified so much that I had a margarita with tequila in it. I don't react well to alcohol or should I say tequila? I wish I could say that I turn fun and that I was dancing on the table. No, I get sick, turn red and want to throw up. It's nowheres near fun . Well, my husband is one of those that want everyone to know when it's his birthday. We (our kids and I) know we are in for misery the entire week of his birthday or depending on how it falls in the week, it could go on for two weeks of birthday week. Ugh! It really is funny. He knows how annoying he is being, but persists anyways. So if he wants something, his excuse is because it's my birthday and I should get it. He also sings. Not just a little singing. It's a lot of annoying singing and really loud obnoxious singing. It's not good. Really really not good. His birthday was on March 25th. So because it fell on a Wednesday, we have two weeks of it. I have never heard of this until him. Does anyone else have birthday week or two? I don't want anyone to get the wrong opinion of me or of him, he is a great guy and I am lucky to have him. He just needs to go somewhere for the week of birthday week, so he doesn't bother us.

OK maybe it's just me, but I am still struggling with this site. I can't seem to be able to read some of the peoples blogs. When I go to click on the profiles they disappear. Is it just me? Maybe it's the weather that is making things freak out. Then again there is that thing called Mercury in retrograde. Maybe we are in that? All I know is that some of the people in the class I am able to see and others I struggle with getting to read their writings. I guess that is enough ranting. I am just frustrated. I have sat here for a half hour trying and clicking buttons. Seriouly, I am not an idiot. I just can't get to where I need to be going. Actually, it took me some time to find my way back to this spot. I had so many windows open.

Great Sunday

I am still coming off of a great weekend. It had been three years since the last time my husband and I had been skiing. We couldn't have asked for a more perfect day, other than it being the time change and all. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law took our son up in their motorhome with our neice and nephew. What a cushy ride for them. We had the truck with the giggly teenage girls. The girls slept over Saturday night. What is amazing to me is how three girls can destroy a clean house so quickly. Oh well, they had fun doing it. Once we got out there skiing, it was like we had just done it the other day. The one thing I love about skiing is the beauty around us. The thing I don't love is the lines and getting stuck on the chair lift when someone falls getting on or off. It had been years since I got on the King chairlift at Sierra at Tahoe. It will be another 30 years before I do it again. It is a quick chair getting on and off, but incredibly slow moving. The chair stopped a few times while on it. There is a spot on the hill, whenever the chair stops, that scares the daylights out of me and everyone else. It is so far down. Your mind races as you sit there. How will they ever get me off of this thing? Apparently, it didn't bother my son because he just kept on talking. It's just scary. As we were over on the West Bowl area riding the chairlift, we could see a critter walking along the snow. My first thought was that it looked like a beaver. There is no way a beaver could be walking through the snow. I must have said it out loud because the group in front of us told us it was a porcupine. They are nocturnal though. We never did see him again. He must have been sleep walking. Back to skiing, the snow was incredible. Some areas were just a little icy in the shade. Once we were all done skiing, my sister-in-law, who does not ski, cooked us dinner. What a way to finish up skiing, spaghetti, garlic bread, and salad. She was our maid for the day, because she also cooked pizza for lunch. We didn't go hungry that's for sure. Then we packed up and headed home. What a great day!