Susan’s Journal

I had three papers due tonight: two for myself, and one for my learning team. I was informed just yesterday that there are only two people left in my learning team–the rest dropped the class. Friggin nice, especially to find out the night before an assignment is due. So the other girl left and myself split the assignment. Wonderful.

Dylan had his first T-Ball practice tonight; well, it wasn’t really his first one, but he was sick with a fever the night of his very first practice. It happened to be during church, so while he was at practice, I took Rainlin to church and dropped her off.

I took my laptop to McDonald’s to grab a bite to eat and take advantage of their wireless Internet. Luckily, they had free coupons there, even though I have about a dozen in my purse. I sat down and started working on my paper, and a short while later a man sat down with two boys my kids’ age. One boy complained that he got a stuffed cat toy instead of a dog. He said cats are girls. I piped up and said, “You know what, I have two kids; and I know that some of those dog toys, they are girls.” The kid looked at me for a minute, then told his dad he still wanted a dog instead. Hey man, I tried, I told the father, and he chuckled.

After finishing up the paper I was working on, I went and picked up Rain. She always has a blast at church, and that makes me feel really good. When I got home with her, Scott was already here, and I went into the other room to change into pajamas and finish up my homework. I reached into my pocket and came out with my fortune.

Earlier today at lunch, we met up with a couple friends at a Chinese restaurant. At the end of the meal when we got our fortune cookies, mine read, “You are talented in many ways.” Aw man, I said to Scott, I got yours, and I handed it to him. He handed me his, so basically we swapped. My new one said, “You are talented in many ways.”

We have the same good fortune.

Tomorrow night is another minor league baseball game, this time with Rain’s school. We also get free ballcaps again, and this time I will be armed with half a dozen markers to pass out to the kidlets, to get autographs on their caps. Much fun will be had by all.

Go figure.

My kids aren’t old enough yet to have gone through this, but in Texas we have something called TAKS test. (You can Google it.) These tests help to gague how students are doing, and if I understand correctly they also have a play on how funding is dished out to schools. So as a result, this testing becomes a major deal, and teachers end up teaching the test a big part of the school year. This is the stupidest crap I have ever heard of. We didn’t have this kind of testing when I was in school (thank goodness).

When you grow up and enter the corporate world, however, things don’t change much. We have audits. They audit our computers, they audit our processes, and they audit our quality. We are given ratings based on these audits, and coincidentally we are given lists of things that we need to fix so that we might conform to the audits’ standards. While, agreed, many of the items that audits bring up need to be fixed or addressed anyways, how often are we “fixing” things just to comply to an audit? Does this not sound much like the same sad story as the TAKS testing in our schools?

Thank you, please drive through. (I’m practicing for my next job.)

I’m not so sure I’m thrilled about how the past three days have gone. There were some okay times, and there were some rock bottom lows. I guess I should start with Friday morning.

Well, maybe I should start with Thursday night. Dylan started getting a fever. I wasn’t too awful worried about it–after all, it’s been a year ago February since he had a seizure. Still, we pumped some tylenol and motrin into him, and off to bed he went.

Friday morning he woke up, still with a fever. Scott agreed to stay home with him, and I took Rain to school and went to work. Scott took Dylan to the doctor around nine or so, and then he got him amoxicillin (chewables! That’s new.) at the grocery store pharmacy. I was walking downstairs with a friend of mine, telling her that my son was sick, telling her that he hadn’t had a seizure in a long time, when my cell phone rang in the stairwell. It was Scott. Dylan had a seizure. It was just about eleven o’clock. I told her I had to go, and I turned around and went back up the stairs. This was the first time that Dylan’s ever had a seizure that we hadn’t called an ambulance. After all, Scott had just been to the doctor with him less than two hours ago, and he had just started giving him antibiotics; there wasn’t much more the emergency room could do. So I had a quiet lunch by myself, eating barbecue and reading the Dallas Morning News, trying to take my mind off the day. That night we had tickets to Gallagher, but there was no way we were going now. I talked to Scott on the phone again, and he told me to call one of my girlfriends and just I go. I told him I felt guilty, but he told me to go anyways. So I called a good friend I hadn’t talked to in forever, and we went to the show. It was pretty good, but he didn’t dish out tons of thought-provoking jokes like he had done in the past, and he spent half the show with the audience on stage, whacking watermelons themselves. Actually, when he walked out on stage, hiking up his black jeans with his thumbs, I thought to myself, holy crap, Gallagher has turned into my dad. It was fun though, and I enjoyed my company, and afterwards we stopped by Bennigan’s for a burger just before they closed. I walked in my back door about twelve o’clock.

Sunday morning I woke to my daughter asking me about a hula skirt. She was worried about a hula skirt at seven am. I told her to wait until later on. I got up, and we all showered, then we went to MacDonald’s for a late breakfast. After breakfast we checked out a new church near us, called a Fellowship Church. It was very, very different from what we were used to; the band of the church was a rock band, and the preacher wasn’t there–they broadcast his pre-recorded sermon on huge screens. I thought about it, though, and sermons aren’t really interactive anyways; so does it matter? I guess not. Besides, the technology behind the whole presentation was so mind-boggling that I found myself instantly wishing and dreaming about working in the audio-visual department of this church. Anyways, we went and picked up the kids, and they both had an absolute blast. I think I’d like to go back there again next week, though again the music and format will take a little getting used to. So the thing about the hula skirt; Rain had a birthday party to go to, and it was a luau, and I had remembered seeing these bathing suits at Wal Mart that had little hula skirts with them. So we went to Wal Mart to get one of those and leaf bags for the backyard; no hula skirts, and no leaf bags–I guess I was thinking of the wrong Wal-Mart. So we went to the other Wal-Mart we go to all the time; no hula skirts, no leaf bags. Darnit! Yeap, it was yet another Wal-Mart that we frequent that had them, but I was not about to drive across town at that point; so Rain got a cute new bathing suit and a little luau-looking three-dollar outfit. She was happy, and so was I. Five minutes before we were due to leave for the party, Dylan started freaking out because he wanted to go. So I brought him along, assuming that even if he was the only boy there, he would still have a good time. As it turned out, the birthday girl had a little brother Dylan’s size, and there was another little boy who came that was Dylan’s size. Notice I said Dylan’s size; Dylan will be five in June, but both these boys were three. My kidlet’s a little small… but he had a really good time, and I’m glad I brought him. Rainlin had a good time too, and I’m glad we all went. The mom was a lot nicer than I anticipated (is that a mean thing to say?)… I just don’t always get along with people, and I was surprised that we are more alike than I had thought. Anyways, they only live a couple blocks from us, and maybe we’ll get to hang out again another time when there’s not flowers in our hair.

Rainlin is in my bed here, asleep beside me, and I’m not far behind…

I’m not a big fan of nightmares; I suppose no one is. Last night I had some horrible nightmares that chilled me to the bone, I would have to say some of the most terrifying nightmares I have had my whole life, not counting the lion one… a story for another time.

The first one started with me in a room. I was reading some kind of hard-cover book, which was sitting in my lap. I was in a chair in a large room. Hanging from the rafters of the room were people, bound by their wrists and hanging there. They had no skin. There were dozens of them. Several at a time were being tortured, if not having skin wasn’t enough, using some kind of electricity I suppose. They were screaming. It was that horrifying, pain screaming that you just never want to hear. I was trying with every fiber of my being to not look up at them, but this was somehow my punishment–for an hour a day to be in this room with these tortured human souls.

I woke up, in real life, for a few minutes. I got up, went to the bathroom, and just kind of sat there in disbelief. What put this horrible dream into my head? It wasn’t awful difficult for me to fall back asleep, which is unusual for me; usually I’m laying there for an hour or more after I wake up.

When I finally did fall asleep, there was some kind of transition between the previous dream and the next dream, though now I can’t remember what it was. I drove into the driveway of my father’s old house in a small car. There was a couple inches of snow on the ground. I crept up towards the front, and peeked inside; and my parents stuff was in there! This is so shocking because my parents moved out of that house years ago. I went inside, and mom and dad was there! I was so excited! I went racing back outside to the car, because somehow in my lucidity I knew I had to take pictures, because no one was going to believe that they were living there again. I rummaged through my car, and became increasingly upset; my camera was not in the car! I couldn’t take pictures! I was so upset that I cried, but I went back inside to my parents.

Don’t worry, I’ve been around. I’m just so stinking busy lately. Right now, for a week at least, we’re relieved of sports practices, so I’ll get a breather. Next week starts t-ball season.

The “big change” here at work was yesterday, as you saw from the previous post. Everything went well. Today, no one is screaming or crying about performance, so I’ll take no news as good news. I received about four different emails from supervisors along the chain saying, “Great job!”, and the last one was from my own boss’s boss. Thank-you emails are nice for a change. Just a few minutes ago, my boss walked up to my cube; he shook my hand and said, “Good job yesterday.” I replied with a smile and that means I can work from home tomorrow, right? “Sure!” he said. “Work from home. Who cares!” I caught him right at the right time.

After I got home from work yesterday afternoon, we packed up the kids and some peanut butter sandwiches and went to the lake-slash-pond for a picnic dinner. I had already eaten, since the guys here at work had brought me some OTB, so I took Luke for a walk. He’s really my buddy, that three-legged wonder. I’m so glad we have him.

Rainlin really began to shine this past soccer season, and Dylan really started to dullen. He was so awesome at soccer last year; I just don’t know what happened. I hope that he takes to t-ball a lot better. I do know that he’s been doing awesome at Awana in church, and he loves to read his Bible verses.

So tomorrow! Me=home! What does that mean? Laundry, and a million other things, I’m sure. That’s including the fact that I’m on-call, which doesn’t mean it’s a day off, just a day I can work on crap around the house while I work. I also have a paper and a matrix and and and… other stuff due for the college class I’m taking right now: psychology. Yay.

I’m finally getting this done–I’m posting my “day in the life” pictures that I took weeks ago–on Good Friday, to be exact. Enjoy!

I took Good Friday off from work, since both the kids were off school. I started the day by taking out the trash.

After I took out the trash, I made our bed. Those are Vermont Teddy Bears that Scott has given me over the years.

I piddled around on the computer for a few minutes. You can see the security software that I can use to watch Dylan play games in the toy room.

Next it was bath time! I’m enjoying having them little enough to still play and take baths together.

All clean, and ready to tackle the day!

The kids asked to have breakfast at MacDonald’s. Sure! It’s a holiday, after all.

Here’s something you don’t see every day. The whole intersection was closed because of this dangerously leaning phone pole.

We stopped by the post office to mail my friend a package.

Crap! Something broke at work, and I had to log in to fix it. Nothing good can last forever.

I let the kidlets set up their very own Easter egg hunt in the backyard.

While the kids hunted for eggs outside, I cleaned Dylan’s room.

Then I cleaned Rain’s room.

Now we’re back outside again, but we’re not hunting for eggs–we’re hunting for rolie polies.

I caught a quick pic of Jabba eating his dinner.

Rainlin helped me plant some sprouts we had in a glass of water.

Rainlin and I chased Luke around the backyard. He may only have three legs, but he is fast!

Rainlin was playing on the swingset. Whoops! She dropped her shoe.

While Rain was on the swingset, Dylan was in the toy room playing video games.

Rainlin LOVES to do crafts. In this one, she used black construction paper, a white crayon, and egg confetti.

This was a HUGE undertaking. We gutted the room that our roomate was in and turned it back into our office. This took me hours to clean.

I brought the kids to the library to bring back their old books and take out some new ones.

After going to the library, we stopped to grab an ice cream, because the kids had been so good all day. Yes, we went to MacDonald’s twice in one day! It’s a vacation day!

Ebony and Ivory, live together in perfect harmony…

Now it’s time to do laundry! UGH! Don’t worry, though, it’s all clean.

This is where I do most of my web stuff. It may not look clean, but it’s better than it was.

RAWR! Daddy was rearranging the office and playing with the kids through the screen.

I took the kids on a little “Nature Walk” at the park near our house. They picked up flowers and leaves and put them into their little Ziploc baggies.

The kids were coloring eggs for the Easter Bunny to hide.

That’s it! Hope you enjoyed this day in pictures.

So I haven’t posted in four days. Are you shocked? It happens sometimes. Usually it’s when I’m in that “I don’t want to talk about it” moods.

And yes, Folks, I don’t want to talk about it. Don’t ask me about my weekend, don’t ask me about the bluebonnets pictures, don’t ask me anything. Just carry on.

Tonight is my first of two months worth of classes on Tuesday and Thursday nights. That’s right, I’ll be at work from 8am to 8pm on those two days for the next two months. What am I learning? I will be taught how to properly write Unix shell scripts. All I’ve got to say about that, is Forrest would say, is that it’d hell better be worth it.

Dylan really hasn’t taken to soccer this season. I can’t be completely sure as to why, but I’ll tell you he’s a different little boy than he was last season–last year, he would get five goals in one game; this year I don’t think he’s gotten one all season. Instead, he’s off in la-la-land, dancing and hopping on the field… I think with his old team, he knew half the kids on the team, and it was a competitive thing for him. This year, he didn’t know anyone on the team, and just didn’t seem interested. He’s supposed to have his last practice tonight, but in light of these points and the fact that I’m stuck here at work, I told Scott to just skip the practice if he wanted to.

Now, on the other hand, Dylan has become a basketball fanatic. He loves basketball, and he’s actually really good at it! I happened upon one of his practices at his school, and watched in amazement as he sank basket after basket (given, I could probbably reach my hand up really high and touch the rim, but that’s pretty high for a four year old).

Rainlin is doing two things–cheerleading and soccer. I swore at one point that the kids could only do two things at a time; now I have her involved in one sport that is all year round, and the other sport that I know every single mother on the team really well. I screwed up on that one.

And what’s next? T-ball starts in a few weeks, and both kids will be doing that. We’ll see how that goes. Rainlin has played T-ball before, but Dylan hasn’t. Hers will actually be modified coach pitch–I guess they get two swings at a pitch, then the T comes out. Should be interesting.

And on this day,
2004… Luke stayed overnight at our house. Man, has it been a year already?
2003… Times Square is actually closed now…
2002… no post.
2001… Read this if you want to know how sad my life was.