11/3/10

OMG, it’s been forever since I wrote!
Let me see…..going back in time here…..

So I’m at home doing random stuff while munchkin is at school on the first day. Around 12:15, I got a call from the school asking where Angela was !!!! WTF !!! I panicked! She didn’t want me to drive her to school, but I know she was at the bus stop with Amanda & a bunch of other kids!!! The moron at the office said they’d go check and she was there. Seems to me that they should have done that FIRST – before giving me a heart attack !!! Apparently there was a glitch in the new attendance system & she found it. Neat. Had to email her first our teacher & finally get that fixed, since she was marked absent!

1st day of 8th grade

Angel & Amanda on School Spirit Day

Oh, neighborhood drama!  The people who live behind us, Ron & Tina, their house caught on fire!  I dont know the whole situation, but they seem to have partial custody of their nephew James, who's Angel's age.  Apparently he had a half day of school on the first day & when he got home he lit a candle in his room - I'm still not even sure WHY a 13 year old boy would want a candle in a nice hurricane shade in his room, but I digress.  But it was really breezy that day and he had the window open.  The wind blew the curtain into the candle & away it went.  As I said, I was home & smelled the smoke, but I thought some moron was burning trash or something.  Then I caught a glimpse of smoke out the window, but I couldn't tell where it was coming from.  I grabbed the phone & went out in the yard.  I was going to call 9-1-1 but saw the FD was already over there.  I still wasn't sure where it was until I saw a fireman on their roof.   That was crazy!  It had been really dry, so if there had been sparks, they probably would have caught our pine trees on fire, and then probably OUR house, too!   We got a chance to talk with Tina that afternoon & she said the house was a total loss.  They probably won't be back home until at least February.  She's so funny that she was concerned about us, because we had to have our back yard tore up for the septic field to be replaced.  Hello!  Ours was nothing - the field failed because it was original to the house.  A minor annoyance compared to what just happened to them!! 

Wednesday 9/8 was Open House. Randy & I went and followed a modified day of her classes, meeting each teacher, etc. I was amazed at how young her teachers are! Math looked like she may have been around for a while, but History & French have both taught for 11 years and English, Life Skills & Science (who all strangely resemble each other – being thin & petite with long straight dark hair) and have all taught maybe 3-4 years each. Crazy !!

I was rather miffed that Pnut went & tried out for the cheer team again without letting me know. I was pissed, since she tried out for & made the competition dance team at the studio so that was going to keep her plenty busy. But it worked out – lucky for her. Cheer is over for the season now. The Eppler Chieftains need to change their name to the Lions, since they were 0-6 again.

Cheering at the last game.

So anyway. The bathroom is done. YAY!!! The floor is still a problem, but one to deal with another time. And don’t get me started on the “master” bath. Pppft.

On October 3, we volunteered at the Brooksie Way Half Marathon http://www.thebrooksieway.com/ Randy was Net Control along with Ted and Angel needed to do some community service thing for a project in school, so there we were - freezing our butts off!

Posing at Mile Marker 2.

Me!

I got involved in a Halloween card exchange with a bunch of people on the Halloween Forum. It was awesome. I got like 40 cards. Some handmade, some store-bought. Love them all!  Also got in 2 rounds of Secret Reaper - that's like Secret Santa but it's H'ween stuff!  The second round I got awesome stuff!  I love the original artwork in the frame!

My Secret Reaper Gift

Angel’s birthday party got delayed until 10/1 instead of 9/24 as originally planned. When I went to the parent cheer meeting, we discovered when homecoming was. September 24!! And friend Jazzy’s party was the 25th, so that was out of the question, too. Yeah- sorry party! So I left work early so I could watch the homecoming parade. I have to go on a tangent about Jack. I took him to the parade with me with his new harness. He was such a good boy! I was amazed!! Even with a little yappy dog about 10 feet away, he behaved very nicely. Even when we walked in that mob toward the high school to find Angel, he stayed right next to me. Except I’d just heard 2 girls behind us oohing & ahhing about him - then he stopped to pee. Classy! Anyway, he got 2 treats when we got home. So back to the parade. I had a good laugh at the beginning. I don’t know how many other people saw the irony in the fact the homecoming parade was led by an ambulance with all the lights flashing. Followed by a single fire truck & 2 police K9 SUV units running side by side. But several elementary schools were represented, 3 junior highs plus the Utica Chieftains, of course. Multiple marching bands, scout troops of all ages, floats for the Junior & Senior classes, the entire homecoming court and of course – cheer leaders! I was surprised at how big the parade was. I guess it’s one of the biggest in the area, so channel 4 was there & all. Plus it was voted the game of the week on channel 4, so that helped. We went home for a while, then I took Angel back to meet her friends for the game. Then I went Halloween shopping! BTW, the Chieftains lost. I think the final score was 31 to 23 or something. Angel was supposed to at least tell me the final score, but she called me to come get her before it was over.

That next week was insane. I was up for 3 nights before her party until 12-1 am working on getting the house clean & decorated. Things just kept coming up where I couldn’t get stuff done! I was actually so stressed that I would sit at work in the afternoon & start to feel nauseous when I thought of going home. But it all worked out.

Only 3 girls showed up at the party – which ended up being perfect. She invited 8 all together, but a couple couldn’t make it, one’s mom actually called me in advance that she couldn’t come & the last one called that afternoon that her G’pa had passed & had to go to Kentucky for the funeral. I had her write on the invites to RSVP only if you couldn’t make it. That seemed to work. Anyway, she got home from school with Patricia who lives on the other side of town (I left work at 2 to go to the store, etc) & they frosted cupcakes & put together goody bags. Then I took them to the Salvation Army to get suitable zombie shirts that I didn’t care if they cut them up or whatever. Then Amanda & Jazzy came over & they did their zombie hair & zombie makeup & wandered around the neighborhood for a while. Then we piled in the car & went to Cici’s for pizza and then to Sinister Glow Golf & Haunted House. That was pretty fun. The golf course was small & simple, but it was all painted black & stuff & lit with black lights. Cool. The haunted house was pretty good. We made Randy go in first, then the girls, then I came up the rear. Amanda flat out refused to go, so she waited in the golf course for us. Angel & Jazzy screamed like banshees the whole time, especially when a creepy clown kept stalking Angel. I seriously thought she was going to cry. Randy kept trying to scare them, too. He’d turn around & jumping up & down, screaming at them – Heehee! Then we went back to the house. They wanted to do my belly dance DVD, then they switched to something else, then ended up watching dance recital DVDs & they were all asleep by midnight. Awesome! I didn’t hear them stirring until 8:30 Saturday morning. Guess that’s the secret – have the party on Friday night when they all had to be up early for school that day – then they’re tired sooner! Woohoo!

Zombies Jazzy, Amanda, Angel & Patricia

UGH! How could I forget! The Sunday after Homecoming…Randy was working at the MS150 in Frankenmuth, Pnut and I were going to the orchard for the annual family gathering, etc etc. (stories later) We got in the car & I realized I’d forgotten my camera. I went back in & saw Maggie on the floor moving weirdly. At first I thought she was playing with something under the register behind the water dish, but then I realized she was having a seizure!! I freaked! I kept calling her name and trying to calm her down, and picked her up & held her, it was the most horrible thing! I yelled out the door for Angel to bring my phone in. I had her call our vet – I knew they weren’t there but there was an emergency # on the message there. She got that # & dialed it for me. By then Maggie was just twitching & seemed zoned out. So I took her in & they kept her over night. Monday I took her to our vet & she stayed there for another day. Here’s the Cliff-Notes version: she has kidney issues to begin with, but she had a bladder infection, which caused her blood pressure to rise, which caused her to have 2 Grand Mal seizures (she had one in the exam room). So now she had to take Norvasc, which is people hypertension medicine, probably for the rest of her life. Apparently stress sets them off, too. I took her in the vet for them to get a urine sample to make sure the infection was cleared up and she had a minor seizure then. So I had to go get her. I kept her fuzzy butt locked up in the bathroom all day with an empty littler box and she never peed once. Once I got home, I let her out & she eventually went for the box, so I stuck a bowl under her as she squatted & got a sample for them! It was awful and I never want to see that again – the seizures, not the pee!

So the drama there was Pnut twisted her ankle really good. She hobbled for a good week & had to keep it wrapped. She sat out of dance on Monday, but she still went & did what she could. Terina was mad, she thought she’d done it cheering. Nope. Basically uneven ground at the end of an obstacle course. At least she got to go on the awesome jumpy pillows before that happened!

Alrighty, what else? October 27 was one year since Dad passed away. Can’t believe it’s been so long. Everyone seemed to handle it well. No undue drama from any particular family members.

Halloween has come & gone. Sigh. I’m sad. This was actually the first year I’ve been here, at my house, for Halloween. Every other year I’ve taken Angel over to Mom’s for Trick or Treating. This year she chose to go with her friends in our neighborhood. So I was happy to get to see people’s reactions to my display. My favorite was the little brother of a girl Angel dances with. His Mom brought him up the driveway & he was fascinated with my zombie “Art” tied to the tree. Nikki said he always talked about the man in the tree when they drove by. Randy told the little guy that Art didn’t say Thank You for the candy we gave him, so he got tied to the tree. His eyes got big as saucers & he made sure he yelled “THANK YOU” when he got his treats. My favorite costumes were the little Charlie Brown ghost – a little person around 4 or 5 wearing a sheet with eyes cut out. A girl around 6 or so dressed as a policeman – I told Randy to make sure to give her the good stuff so she didn’t arrest us. She turned & shook her finger at us and said “don’t make me handcuff you!” We cracked up. Another good one was a girl around 10 all dressed in white – wearing an inflatable sprinkle donut on her front and instead of a bag, she carried a Dunkin Donuts munchkin box! Loved it!

Marilyn & Matt 

Ded Fred - decided to move this year.

Tom & the new fence

Some vases I got & updated.

Mine & Randy's Jack o lanterns

On Devil’s Night, we net the fam up in Romeo for dinner, then we went to Tillson Street to check out all the H’ween houses on that street. www.TerrorOnTillson.com There were actually people lined up around the corner to get down the street. Come on, people! You’re walking down a sidewalk, not getting into a nightclub! So we walked around them & went against the crowd. Everything was amazing as usual. Someone even had a live band in their driveway. I saw the BEST costume ever! This person, a guy I assume, was dressed all in black, with the hood up & face covered. He had a blue glow necklace up each leg, on each arm, up his body and one around his face. He was a stick person! It was hysterical, especially when he started to dance at random!! The most original thing I’ve seen!

So anyway, Monday I got most of the front yard taken down, cemetery, fence, zombies, etc. Tuesday I took the spider webs down & put the blow molds away. It doesn’t even look like H’ween happened! Now inside is a different matter! The kitchen table is still covered with the spoils from my after H’ween shopping trips. I went to Spirit by my work on Monday for their 50% off sale. I scored a HUGE freakin’ spider – it was hanging on a display & didn’t have a tag, so I asked a guy there & he looked up the price for me & then folded up the legs so it was under control. I also got a giant latex rat that’s about Chester-sized, 2 white rubber rats to match the black ones I already had & also got some battery op strobe lights. Tuesday there was no school so Angel spent the day with G’ma. On the way home from getting her last night, I stopped at Target & picked up a 6 foot black tree with lights, a 3 foot black glitter skeleton (who says skellies can’t be glamorous??), 2 smaller spiders and a limited edition skeleton nutcracker - #43 out of like 225000. OK, I guess that would be important to someone who cares about stuff like that. I just thought he was cool.

So yesterday was busy. Got out of work, went to a doctor’s appointment (got my knees checked out again – doc thinks I have cartilage tears & referred me to an orthopedic specialist), went to vote. Cleaned up the flowerbeds a bit, went to get the girl, stopped at target, picked up Taco Bell on the way home. And I was DONE! Tonight I packed up some indoor decorations while Angel & Amanda watched 13 Ghosts, took them to go eat, then we watched the Rocky Horror Picture Show. That is so much better live. It’s not the same seeing it on TV, without all the yelling, singing & audience participation.

So the next big event is the Tremaine Dance Convention on the weekend of 11/13 & 14. Yay – I’m really looking forward to that! I am just going to drop her off Saturday, since that’s the Clawson Craft Show, then go back that night to stay at the hotel with her. And then I’ll stay all day Sunday. I think it’s over around 3:30 so I shouldn’t die of boredom. She’s going to be busy, but I’ll just be watching. Wooo. But it’s a requirement for the company dancers to go. But she is not dancing at the Lion’s Thanksgiving halftime show this year. I didn’t ask her if she wanted to, and she never came out & told me she wanted to. I don’t think she cares or even knows that Kid Rock is playing there, but it’s a lot of hassle. She’d have practices Monday & Tuesday nights 5-9 at Ford Field. Wednesday 4-9 or later would be dress rehearsal, Thursday I’d have to have her at the meeting point at 0930. Go home & wait. She’d leave Ford Field after halftime, then I’d have to go get her & then go to Laurie’s for dinner. Then Friday I have to work. No thanks!

11/20 I’m going to go see Rock of Ages with the fam. Woo, my first Broadway show! Laurie saw it in New York & said it was awesome. So this should be fun!

Christmas in Arkansas again this year! Woohoo! Buckstaff here I come!

Oh yeah, I quit Weight Watchers for a while. I’ve been hovering right around the 208 Lbs mark for well over a year & it was just discouraging. It’s funny that I’d never thought of actually quitting before, until one day it popped in my head! I’ll start up again, maybe next summer. I just need to get my motivation & stuff back.

Anyway, I’m waiting for Randy to come home from the County ARPSC meeting that I played hooky from. He should be home any time.

So that’s all the happenings from the Love Shaque for now!



Jack in his Hi-Viz Reflective Vest & Skeeter the photobomber