Saturday, April 25, 2009

Happy Hodge Podge

There's a For Sale sign in my front yard again, and I'm a little bit in love with our new realtor. We had two showings in the first 36 hours of the new listing. The first happened as she was hammering the sign into the ground in our front yard. That's what I call progress!

I've spent the last two days filling out paperwork, cleaning the house, cleaning out and reorganizing my closet, cleaning out the garage, painting both sides of my front door, cleaning the front porch, painting Dan's speakers, boxing up clutter, gathering stuff for a yard sale, repairing tears in the boys' wallpaper, doing five loads of laundry, and rushing around gathering children, husband, and dog to go to the park when the second potential buyers came to see our house. Please, please, please let someone buy this place so I won't be semi-homeless when school starts in July.

Pray for Dan--he has an audition at the Bluebird Cafe tomorrow morning. He's been playing a few songwriter nights around town lately and getting lots of good feedback from other writers and producers and other music industry types.

Aaron has an audition for the school talent show this week. We have field trips, Carnival, Awards Day, Field Day, my birthday... Seems like there's something going on every single day for the next couple of weeks as we wind down the school year. TCAPs are OVER and we're in the home stretch. 18 more days!!!

Monday, April 20, 2009

Talented Misbehaving Angel

For all my faithful readers, both of you, yes I realized I haven't blogged in a while. Instead I've been doing school stuff, organizing a Locks of Love donation event, and painting. LOTS of painting. I've now painted every room in my house (some more than once) and every piece of trim in the house. If I don't get this thing back on the market soon it's going to kill me.

But I wanted to take a minute to tell you to go check out my very talented friend Sanna's blog. She's doing a giveaway this month that you don't want to miss.

Okay, now on to TCAPs...

Monday, April 6, 2009

God--the Cosmic Comic

Dear God,

I have long held the belief that you have a sense of humor. A wicked one, too, if the word wicked might be used to describe a characteristic of the savior of the universe. And after today, I believe that it can.

The reason I contend that you have a sense of humor, dear Lord, is that it must get a little boring up there in heaven sometimes. I mean, you can't read a book or watch a movie because, with that whole omniscient thing you have going, it must spoil the ending. You can't even play poker or anything, because you know the other players' cards even before they're dealt. And who would play with you? Jesus and the Holy Spirit? How does that work, anyway? Can you play poker with people who are, well, YOU? That whole God in three persons, blessed trinity idea gets confusing for us mortals, you know? There are some Bible-thumping Southerners who might argue that the Great I Am would never play poker because that's a sinners game, but I disagree. I think you just don't play anymore because you get a royal straight flush every time, so no one will play with you more than once.

So, I think that when you're bored you have a little fun messing with us humans down here on Earth. Like today, for example. Sleet and freezing rain on spring break? Yeah, Father, that was a good one. Even better was when my heater broke when the high was only supposed to be about 43 degrees. Yeah, that was rich. Especially since we're trying to sell the house. Good work. Really hilarious.

But, because you are King of Kings and Lord of Lords, you couldn't leave it at that, could you? I'm sure that Gabriel and Michael were egging you on, saying that you could make it even funnier, weren't they? Because then you sent that smell of smoke wafting through the house when the heat cut on again. Yeah, who doesn't love a good Hey, my house is on fire joke, right?

But, since you're the Prince of Peace, you couldn't just leave it at fear of fire, could you? I mean, anybody could get a laugh with that joke. No, you had to step it up a notch and wait for me to get all lathered up in the shower and THEN send the smoke. Yeah, that was a riot. I was laughing my head off. Once I, you know, rinsed off, grabbed a towel, and went racing out of the bathroom to make sure the house wasn't in flames. That was a knee-slapping good time.

So was the $750 bill to fix the furnace. What a great punchline. Almost as funny as the latex paint that wouldn't stick to the walls of my bedroom because of the oil-based paint underneath it. Or the vacuum cleaner that broke just when I thought I was almost finished with all the paint-related work and I could finally clean up and sleep in my bedroom again. Ha! Good day, Big Guy in the Sky. Awesome.

Now, if you're finished drying your tears of laughter at my expense, do you think maybe you could throw a little spring my way? No offense, sir, but this winter stuff is getting old. It was funny at first, but now...not so much. Maybe you could just tape a Kick Me sign to Saint Peter's back or something to amuse yourself. Just a thought.

But, of course, you knew what I was thinking before I typed it. Sigh.

Friday, April 3, 2009

Songwriter Contest

Tuesday Mom, the kids, and I drove out to Franklin to hear Dan play in a songwriting contest. He didn't win, but he sounded fabulous. Although the announcer instructed the audience to judge the songs only on music and lyrics, not performance, I think Dan's performance was great. The announcer reminded people that it's not a singing contest or a guitar playing contest, but a SONG contest.

Here's the link to make clicky to hear the video of "So Far From Home (The Baseball Song)."

When you watch this one, the other one that he posted, Hard Headed Woman, should appear on the right. Check that one out too. I like it because I know who inspired him to write it.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Some Really Great News

Okay, so I got some good news this week that I would be remiss if I didn't mention at once and with utmost speediness for all of you who were sitting on the edges of your seats waiting to hear. What? That was just me? Right.

I remain employed.

I had my summative assessment today and my principal invited me to continue working there in the 2009-2010 school year. This means I can continue to feed my family the high-quality generic mac and cheese to which they've become accustomed. YAY!

It was a great review and I'm pleased. I'm also a tiny bit terrified that my life next year will be just as chaotic and busy as it was this year. But, hey, at least they're paying me.

In other great news...I get a FREE trip to Washington D.C. in June to tour our nation's capitol to help me be a better history teacher. I'll also get 3 free hours of graduate credit for the trip after I do some paper or other when I get back. And did I mention the trip is free? And so is the graduate credit.

I've never been to D.C. so I'm really excited. Of course, because I'm slightly mental, I've already started worrying about terrorist attacks, plane crashes, and Dupont Circle traffic. Yes, I realize how insane that makes me sound. Thanks for asking.