Cardboard Cutouts

I really wish I had a picture to share with you. Maybe if the technology guru of the house gets tired of manual labor and heavy lifting next week, he'll escape to whichever room the computer is going into and get my internet going. Who knows, he may even find a cable with which to download a pic or two.

Lately, Lillee Grace and Baxter have been little chameleons. They are almost blending with the boxes there are so many. Mary and I have taken full advantage of LG being at church camp this week. We've gotten babies organized, purses and jewelry in one place. Because who, when they are running out the door for a dinner party, wants to be looking in the Elmo toy box for their semi precious jewels and crown. Not LG! It's quite a shocker to her that I no longer want her pots and pans and wooden sushi set in my underwear drawer and I am tired of stepping on magic wands when emerging from the shower. I've also gotten the bright idea to pack up some toys. That way, next week when I'm needing a break, I'll let the kids unpack a box of "new" toys. That should take up at least 30 mins!!!

Edsell the 300-lb. mover came over to survey the place yesterday. He'll be here at 7 a.m. Monday. I think that's when it hit me. Very exciting. I mean I've been excited but now it's for real.

MOVING DAY

Yes, it's officially been a month since the last post. The reason for the absenteeism (sp.?) is of course, Scott's fault. He has not shown me how to post pics. He lost the cord for the camera hookup. He redeemed with the new cord but now it will not allow the downloading of pics. Hence, I don't like to type sans pics.

For those of you still reading, we've sold and bought a new house. The first house we looked at and we're truly excited. I have been packing for a week. This will probably be my last post for a month since bellsouth.net I'm sure will not be cooperative in transit. However, I know that Scott cannot sleep without the broadband connection so I can always hook-up to his. He can probably even post pics.

Both kids are taking the moving/packing process pretty well. I have not packed toys as they are forbidden to be in those boxes LG says. Baxter actually enjoys crawling on them. I tried to explain to him my chigger situation. Yes, I believe I contracted chiggers from the boxes. I've pinpointed the chigger origin being the Rose's parking lot boxes.

I will try to keep you abreast on the moving. The big day I believe will be Monday. That way we can have our watermelon iced down for the 4th! Grandmother is failing so my parents are not coming??? Maybe my dad but as long as Betty needs a full-time sitter, Dennis will have to stay in Brunswick.

Will try to post again before the Clampett's move to the street over.

dreams

2:30 a.m. creeping on the creaky floors, I hear Lillee Grace coming in our bedroom. In a quivering little voice I hear, "Get those caterpillars out of my bedroom." I grabbed her and put her in between me and Scott. I lay there and thought maybe there was a spider or something in her bed so I commanded our protector to go check it out. When he left the bedroom she whispered, "Make him get that kitty cat, too."

Winding Down

This past weekend was our tiny dancer's recital. After three L O N G hours of rehearsal, we headed off to Relay for Life where Scott and Baxter caught up with us. Saturday was the big recital and Scott's stepdad came to see her. It was the cutest thing. Of course, the anal retentive teacher in me couldn't help but analyze the dancers. The other class which is the same age as LG's was too cute. One child turned around and did her dance backwards while two other girls fought with each other onstage. In the same class, other girls were waving to parents during the performance. Not our little militant class. Yes sir, those girls went onstage, took their places and did the dance routine just as practiced without missing a beat. They were all extremely cute, just very different which leads me to believe teaching styles really do shine through.

When I went to pick LG up after her ballet and tap routines were over, I discovered my little Jon Benet with petunia pink lipstick on. Not that I minded, just amusing. Patsy Ramsey I am not but Lillee Grace had a blast and I assume after she takes her shin guards off from soccer practice this fall, we'll still let her take dance.

Baxter stayed with Mary this past weekend. His favorite words are now "flower","bye-bye","night-night" and "ball." He is getting much better at walking. It is just now taking him to new heights. I mean climbing to new heights. He really likes to climb up in chairs and have a seat. We'll find him all over the house in different chairs, just sitting and taking it all in.

Last week of school. My students are extremely excited and as much as I'm glad school is almost out, it scares me a bit to not have something to do.

Father of the Year

Have not posted in awhile due to problems with the site. I'm thinking it may require some Bill Gates type person to intervene with blogger (or my brain). A busy couple of weeks around here. I feel like this is what I'm constantly saying. However, 7 1/2 more days of school. The 1/2 part is because I'm taking this a.m. off to go to "Wheels Day" with Lillee Grace. We've been practicing for the past few weeks on her bike and today is her last day of school. She will officially, as I've heard several times recently, graduate to the 3 year-old class. What a day! I have to say I'm really excited to be out of school and feast at Subway before making it back at 12:00! Another exciting, drama-filled event: her dance recital! What dance recital you ask? The one that is on Saturday that we found out Tuesday she will be performing, I mean standing onstage with her finger in her belly button in. It must have been the two sun-ripened raspberry giftsets that we gave her teachers. She is busting at the mini-mouse costume seams to get into the costume and parade down the sidewalk. She is also promising not to get it dirty and be extra careful in case of "accidents". My mom has suggested hanging it in the top part of the closet along with the new church dresses in case the red Sharpie rears it's ugly head again like it did with the other two destroyed articles of clothing.
Mother's Day was great! I mean awesome. Must get a thesaurus soon. Last Fri. a.m. before leaving for school I did tell the loving husband how much I appreciated the massage he got me (ok, I called and scheduled/then told him) from a place in McDonough. It was to be Friday afternoon. He made me stop the car as I pulled out for school and brought me a small box. It was in fact from the man I speak of so often at the supper table. David Yurman. BEAUTIFUL yellow citron stone, round with diamonds around it and an intertwined band. Very simple yet classy. The caps lock key cannot describe how much I adore it. The fact that he has heard my quiet pleas as I subconciously throw the name out in the middle of mashed potatoes and meatloaf is the best part. It was a complete surprise! Baxter is now walking all over the place (an entirely separate blog).

Beach Blanket Bingo

Notice by the look on Scott's face the temp of the water!

One of my favorite pics of LG - she still looks like a baby to me.

Riding the bus that dreadful night

across the street to Graffiti. Mmmm

Picture
worth 1,000
words!

Thankfully, the blog is back up and running. Megan, "backblogged" has to be the funniest thing I've read in awhile. You truly need the patent on it. Since blogger has banned us from posting recently, I have a few pics to share. Other than that, I must get to the website to download pics for my Mother's Day project for the kiddies. Fun Fun! I just ordered myself a nice massage for Mother's Day and it will be well worth it after my week filled with a field trip to Macon then meetings Wed. and Thurs. night. It will be well deserved. Thought the pics of Destin completed the entire catastrophe story. Will work on getting the pictures of my mom that Scott and I took with our cell phones as she lay bedridden at the clinic.

National Lampoon's Beach Vacation

As I write from another time zone sipping a relaxing beverage, it's hard to believe that today's events included a six-hour drive, intensive medical attention that included an IV drip, a power outage at the drugstore, and my husband’s near arrest.

I woke at 5:30 a.m. to look for my walking friends. They were nowhere to be found; I realized this as I noticed that I was about to hit a pedestrian in my car. Ordinarily, plowing someone down would be the most exciting part of my day. Not so today.

Scott and I were showered, dressed for the beach and packed by 6:30. Lillee Grace got dressed and rolled her suitcase into the den where she asked when would be leaving for the beach. We were wondering the same thing as we looked to find nana sleeping in the den staring at the wall. We looked closer, noticing her face a ghastly white. She truly was, in the words of the song, "a lighter shade of pale." Of course, that song didn't mention sweating profusely, coughing, and chest pains. She wasn’t “skipping the light fandango” or “turning cartwheels cross the floor.” She was definitely “feeling kind of seasick.”

My mom doesn’t get sick and call the doctor. She gets sick, diagnoses herself, and calls in her prescription. She was so sick yesterday that she called in a “consult.” Her doctor at home was stumped. He told her to seek a third opinion. I sent her to the urgent care Center, also known as "Doc in a box."

I sent Scott to run some errands and generally do my bidding. He returned. Some time passed. No sign of mom. We played with Baxter. We played with Lillee Grace. Still no sign of mom. We then decided it was time for the big guns. We called in Miss Mary to hang out with children while we went in search of her. We arrived at Doc in the box to find her lying flat on the examining table, covered from head to toe with a hospital blanket, with IV antibiotics dripping into her arm. It was pneumonia.

Things had been frustrating; so frustrating, in fact, that I had offloaded my luggage, ordered Scott to his car, and suggested he go to the beach without me. He refused and sat out in the waiting room at Doc of the box as I watched the steady drip of the clear antibiotics flowing into my mother's arm each drop representing another hour ticking off the clock.

The doctor walked into the room and told me that my mother was extremely ill. He announced this with a tone of voice much like one would imagine that the veterinarian used to diagnose old yeller. My emotions were a virtual potpourri including anger, concern, sadness, and the usual annoyance with Scott.

Miss Mary was in surprisingly a good mood given that she had been called to our house on what she believed would be a day off. Why was she in such a good mood? Scott held the answer to that question. It turns out that a truck driver had delivered a very large metal building to her. Somehow, this metal building was made possible through the United States government. The building was hers to keep even if she one day moves to a new home. She has that little building. This made her happy and very agreeable to our pleas for help. She agreed to come back tomorrow. My newly-married friend Amy agreed to keep Baxter tonight. April, our realtor, agreed to keep Baxter tomorrow night. Of course, her commission just went from 6% to 20%.

Everything was worked out. I sent Scott to get prescriptions filled and to purchase BBQ for us along with dessert. He dropped off the prescription, was told to come back in approximately half an hour. He came home with BBQ and what he thought was chocolate cobbler. It turns out that the BBQ place forgot the cobbler. 2^nd worst part of the day.

He then went to the drugstore to get the prescription only to find that they had plenty of Lortab but not any antibiotic. A new truck had been unloaded, and he was told that several hours would pass before they could fill the prescription. He went to another drug store where they told him the prescription would be filled in five minutes. Scott went to the magazines. Five minutes and twenty pages of Maxim later (he confessed that he saw Fergie on the cover), the prescription was ready. However, just as he was about to pay, the power went out and the register would not work. When the power finally turned back on, he paid and came home.

I loaded the refrigerator with lemonade and water, gave my mother enough Lortab to choke a horse, and finally we were on the road, hours after Lillee Grace first rolled her suitcase into the den.

This was already a blog-worthy story. Scott jokingly told people at his office about it and was warned that, should something else happened, like a traffic ticket or a flat tire, he should take that as a sign and immediately go home. This trip was not meant to be. If this were a novel, that conversation would be foreshadowing.

Hours later, things seemed to be finally on the right track. We stopped for photographs at the Florida State line and enjoyed our free orange juice.

Then came Cottonwood, Florida. Cottonwood, it turns out, is an old Seminole name meaning speed trap. Suddenly, the speed limit dropped from 65 to 35. Suddenly, we're being followed by a police car with his blue lights on. After giving the officer several expired insurance cards, we found the right one. In addition to learning where are our insurance card was, we also learned that the month had fallen off the tag. We also learned what it costs to get ticketed for driving 20 mph for over the speed limit in Cottonwood, Florida. In case you're interested, it's close to $200.

Finally, we were on the road. Of course, the Check fuel light came on approximately 7 miles from the hotel. We coasted in surprisingly without running out of gas.

It was almost completely worth it to see Lillee Grace's reaction to the cool hotel room, hotel, the beach, the shuttle ride over to the restaurants, the macaroni and cheese she had, and our eventual return to her room. We’re here with the car safely tucked away in the garage. And we are hoping that tomorrow will not bring with it any further contact with law enforcement, any more IV fluids, and anymore bizarre power outages.