Tuesday, May 27, 2008

As Promised....

I will now post some more pics of my oldest heathen. After walking 4 miles through downtown Dallas Arts District, she had the energy to primp up and go to the school's Spring Dance. Before posting these pictures, however, I must do some 'splainin'. You see, one might get the impression from the previous posts photos that my oldest child is somewhat, well, normal. Do Not Be Fooled!!!!

She is FAR from normal! But I personally consider this a very good thing - and I think she does, too! This child - in addition to making stellar grades, speaking more intelligently than most adults, reading at an undergraduate level, playing violin and singing in the church choir -plays video on both PC and consoles, listens to classic rock and alternative and punk, adores the fashions of the 80's *slight shudder* and likes Japanese Anime. In this vein, she has chosen a personal style that combines the cute hair fashions of Anime cutsie characters with some sort of mix of 80's/contemporary punk clothing. You've been warned.......


First, so you can see the Whole Outfit:



Now getting up close and personal:



And still beautiful after the dance:



And looking a little Andy Warhol-like:



There she is - my oldest heathen!

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Sorry It's Been So Long

Really, I am. It's been a very busy time, plus I knew exactly what I wanted to blog about next. However, that subject required pictures to be loaded from my phone onto the computer, and then hosted, etc. And that took some time and effort. But, here I am now, with my next post complete with pictures! YAYNESS!

So, last Friday, my oldest heathen's art class went on a walking tour of the Dallas Arts District. My husband and I chaperoned. We walked somewhere around 4 miles that day. And I took pictures (although not enough of them-sorry!). What they did was divide the kids into small groups of around 9. Then each kid had to have their sketch book, a pencil, and this list of questions. The chaperones got a map. The map was numbered, and told exactly what order to do everything in. Then we walked to the numbered areas in order, and at each place the kids had to sketch what they saw, or answer a question about what they saw. There were 36 places in all, but I only got pictures of a handful, and we didn't have time to get all of them.

First stop was the Nasher Sculpture Garden. There they were to decide where they thought these people were going:




Then they were to "peek" inside the center and find a sculpture they liked and write about it.

They then had to note the balance used in the Trammell Crow Fountain:



Next is write what story they thought this sculpture was telling:



Next was to decide what this horse is thinking:



Sadly, my daughter's friend said it was feeling violated - due to the elementary children walking under it and exclaiming over it's anatomically-correctfulnes...... yes I know I just made up a word.......

Then there was the architecture of the Belo Mansion:



and the Cathedral of Guadalupe:



The picture of Guadalupe Cathedral is the first of these pictures that I actually took. I got that from one of the many skywalks connecting the various business buildings downtown. I apologize for the quality - it's a camera phone.....

Next they were to draw a birds eye view from the Sky Lobby in the Chase Tower. First - I took some birds eye pictures:





Then a couple pics of the Sky Lobby itself:




Then they were to find where rainbows begin in the Plaza of the Americas.....

There are a few rainbows on this ice skating rink:



And then I took a pic of the kids in our group inside a rainbow in the walkway:



My heathen is bottom left. What causes the rainbows? There are hundreds of huge prisms hung in front of all the windows high up in the tower ceilings and walls!

There is a sculpture garden themed around cancer survivors. One sculpture that I can't find a picture for is a 5,000 pound (I think) granite ball that sits in a depression with running water. It's too huge for any one person to ever be able to move, but since it "floats" on the constantly moving water, you can turn it, spin it, change it's direction. It's symbolic of man's fight with cancer. Very cool - if you're ever in Dallas you should definitely check it out! Another sculpture in the cancer garden that I DID get a pic of is a maze with people of various ages and conditions entering it - the maze being cancer - and some making it out the other side. Here is my heathen posing with a "survivor":



Next is another sculpture:



Who was the artist and what year was it made? Pretty simple.

*note* I've skipped a lot of things I don't have any pictures for - and will be continuing to do so. So if someone out there is actually counting and later says "there weren't 36 things in your list" - no there aren't I just didn't get pictures/couldn't find pictures of all things. *raspberries*

Moving on...

Next was my favorite thing - Thanksgiving Square. Now, that link will show some of the same pictures I have here - but I want to share the ones *I* took, so there.

Here is the Thanksgiving Chapel:



And the stained glass windows inside the spiral of the chapel:



Absolutely gorgeous! And quite a nice picture to come from a measly cell phone camera.....if I do say so myself.

And then a gorgeous mosaic outside the chapel:



Then on to this mural in a very boring parking lot:




Now for a couple random pics of my beautiful heathen:


sketching outside the Thanksgiving Chapel


sketching beside the mosaic

And here is the whole group at the end of the day outside the DMA



And that's my blog for today! Although it wasn't the end of THAT day. These worn out kids then went on to their Spring Dance that night - I'll be putting up the pics of my heathen decked out for THAT next time!

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Free At Last.....For A Time...

Our church had our kids' Spring Musical last night. I was the Drama Coordinator. It's been a grueling couple of months to get this done, and it's over! The actors did wonderfully -really nailed their lines. The choir snag beautifully, and LOUDLY - which is not always the case. The loud part, not the beautiful part. Overall I was very pleased with the performances. I just wish we'd had about 2 more weeks to practice. The schedule kept getting changed on us. Not anyone's fault, really, this is just turning into the Year of Scheduling Conflicts. Hopefully next year will be better :P

I'm just glad to be done with this one for now, because I'm looking at a couple very busy weeks! It's the last half of the final 6 weeks of school. So, of course, there are field trips that need chaperoned, school dances, graduation parties, award ceremonies, the list goes on and on. And of course I'm somewhat in the thick of things. Why? Because I guess I really believe that playing an active role in my kids' lives will have an impact on their present and their future. At least I really hope so. See, my kids are special. Special to me, like I would hope everyone's kids are special to them. But a bit more than that, my kids are just plain smart. I don't know why. I don't think I'm all THAT much above average, the same for the Cyberchaun. We get our kids teachers coming to us saying things like "I don't know what it is you're feeding kids - but keeping feeding them because they are just amazing!" This from their 1st grade teacher (they all somehow managed to have the exact same 1st grade teacher....poor woman ought to qualify for some kind of state aid for that at least......) And my response is "I feed them junk and fast food, so I should continue with that, then?" She thought I was kidding......... (of course, they get less junk since The Pioneer Woman changed my life, but still.......) Now, my oldest heathen is scary-smart. I'm serious. I mean, she's not quite Ender, and she doesn't make straight 100% grades or anything. But anyone just talking to her is amazed at her intelligence, intellect, wit and wisdom. She's 12 - soon to be 13, and was offered the opportunity to take either the SAT or ACT this year with the high school kids. She chose the ACT - and made a 22 out of 36 - placing her in the 95th percentile with the high schoolers taking the exact same test - 98th percentile with other 7th graders taking it. She's just amazing. That would be so cool in and of itself, but add in that she's an amazing artist - already winning medals and awards at art competitions.

I get to bragging on her and people might think my other 2 heathens are getting slighted. Don't go there - I'm just getting started :P. They'll get their turns another day. Today was for heathen number 1 - why? Who knows. I often tend to go in age order on things that include all of them. Not always oldest down, sometimes youngest up. Which always leave the poor boy right in the middle.........Ree will have to clue me in on how to handle this dreaded middle-child syndrome.........

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

I Worked Today!

I don't suppose a lot of people get excited over that. But, you see, I work part time in retail. And the economy sucks atm. So that means people aren't shopping, so the stores not making money, so the bosses cut down on hours - which leaves me without work. So I got called this morning when someone couldn't make it, and yay - another 4 hours of work. Most likely the only hours I'll have this whole week.

I enjoy my work. I was surprised by that. Much like my issues with cleaning, I don't usually like anything that qualifies as work. I worked a little when The Cyberchaun (name to be explained later) and I were first married. But when I became pregnant with our first heathen almost 13 years ago, I stopped working. And haven't really worked since. No, we weren't so wealthy that we could afford to live on one salary. We just live in something very close to abject poverty because I believe that in the long run it'll be more important to my children that I was THERE than that they got to have STUFF. So, anyway, when the youngest heathen started Kindergarten, I filled out this one lonely application on a lark. I wasn't actually looking for a job. But lo and behold - I was hired! Hadn't been a member of the workforce in, oh 11 years give or take. Had NEVER worked in retail. But here I am - working retail for about a year and a half now, and I actually really enjoy it - who'd-a-thunk? Not me, that's who.

Monday, May 12, 2008

A Twofer

Hmmm.......two posts in one day. Likely to be followed by a dearth of posts for a few days or so. Did I clean today? Yes I Did - quite a bit. Got a little delayed by running out of laundry detergent and having to run to the store. Also by Guild Wars, Guitar Hero III (the good news is that I unlocked another achievement - Axe Grinder, for 5-starring all the songs on easy...... ) and Oblivion. But even so I managed to get 3 loads of laundry, the living room and office cleaned. Not too very bad......

So thing I failed to mention earlier is that - yesterday was my baby's birthday! My youngest heathen turned 7 years old this year on Mother's Day - my very special and precious Mother's Day gift. I have a special relationship with each of my kids, based on their own unique personalities and how they relate to mine. But my special connection to this one started much earlier - in the womb. See, when I was in my first trimester with her, I had some bad spotting with cramping. It being my third child I was enough of a pregnancy veteran to not fall into complete panic, but I was concerned enough to go see my doctor. The doctor (a new one that hadn't delivered my previous children) made all the usual noises about sexual activity sometimes causing mild spotting, and that all looked "fine." Well, two days later the cramping was worse and the spotting wasn't letting up. I wasn't feeling "fine" so I went to the ER. Good thing, because they quickly found that the fetus was trying to abort. So, I was put on strict bed rest for the rest of the trimester. I spent many days lying in bed begging God not to take this precious child away from me. She wasn't planned, but she was definitely wanted! I firmly believe that those months of living every day in fear of losing her created an unusual bond between us. When she was a newborn she'd stare into my eyes, and I'd swear she had a knowledge of what we'd endured together.

Now she's 7 years old, smart as a whip - particularly gifted in math, although she reads very well, too. And she's beautiful! I'll have to post a picture of her soon - maybe some from her birthday party.....that no one came to :( But that might be something for another blog....or not - who knows ;)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BANSHEE!!!!!!!


Cutie-Patootie

This is about a year old - I'll have some newer ones next time!

I'd rather be playing Guild Wars.......

Okay, so it's Monday. And the heathens have spent the weekend wrecking the house as usual. So I get to spend the majority of the day cleaning up. I hate cleaning. I know everyone says that they dislike cleaning - but I hate it so much that I really sometimes can't even force myself to do it. I know it needs done. I know I should have better willpower. But cleaning is brutal and boring and no fun and never lasts anyway. If I manage to complete a quest or mission in Guild Wars, or close an Oblivion Gate in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - those things will remain done tomorrow, and next week, etc..... But, I'll be cleaning instead. Sigh. Or I'll be trying to.

So, here's the thing. If any random person should stumble upon this blog (notice the lack of Capital letters - I'm not marking my own page to be Stumbled Upon - at least not yet!), I'd like to hear from you! What would you rather be doing instead of cleaning/working/schoolwork?

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Welcome to the Insanity!

Okay, so I've been hopelessly addicted to The Pioneer Woman's blog, and now have been inspired, I suppose, to do some blogging myself. To be completely up front, though....I'm not anywhere NEAR as interesting, and neither is my life. I'm nowhere NEAR so good a cook either, or a photographer. And I'm just not that funny. So why bother to blog, you ask? I have NO FREAKIN' IDEA! Mostly because I just love to talk. I tried a blog a couple years ago based on my love of movies (and boy do I spend LOTS of time watching movies!) However, I found that I didn't always want to TALK about the movies. So I only posted sporadically, then sporadically quickly became not at all....... So I gave up on blogging. But Ree recently posted about how/why she started her blog. And I thought, "You know, maybe if I didn't try to limit myself to just one subject. Maybe if I just talked about whatever was on my mind that day, whether it be work, movies, games or one of my three Heathens (Ree has Punks - I have Heathens......I'm pretty sure they're of a similar breed, though......) And here I am talking about Ree (the Pioneer Woman) as if we were best buds. Indeed - she has no freakin' clue who I am! But, ever since the wonderful StumbleUpon tool linked me up to her site (and a scrumptious recipe for the Marlboro Man's Second Favorite Sandwich that my family begs me to make at least twice a month) she has been a major part of MY life. Now, she wouldn't know that because, alas, I am but a lurker, rarely if ever actually posting comments on her site. I know - how weird is it that I love to talk and am obnoxiously vocal in RL, but never really speak up on internet boards? But weird is my life, really.....

So anyway, I decided to give blogging another chance - keeping myself limit-free when it comes to topics. That said, I'll apologize now for the stream-of-consciousness insanity that will henceforth pour from my fingertips. Don't worry if it often makes no sense - it confuses me too.....

For now, it's late. I've spent a day working, delivering goodies to Safety Patrol kiddos at the elementary school (only to have some 6th grade heathens pilfer more than their share.....grrrrr). And then frying in the heat of my A/C-less van (with windows that don't roll down.......in freakin' TEXAS!!!!) Top that off with dealing with an almost 7-year old heathen with a dual ear infection. Needless to say I'm tired, and am heading to bed. But be it known that before I close my eyes and rest I WILL be kicking the husband off the XBox and playing some Oblivion before bed - because nothing brings sweeter dreams than closing another Oblivion Gate.......and then I'll probably read some more Enders Game........

(And in case it wasn't obvious, today's blog was brought to you by the word FREAKIN'!!!!!)