Tales of a Shoebox Princess

I am still here, people. I'm just popping in to tell you that I saw a headline of a blog post on a blog I occasionally pop over to read. The title was, "Who cares about the Periodontal Ligament?" I want to go on record by saying: I care! I care deeply about the periodontal ligament! There. I said it. Thank you for listening (reading). Back to everyone's regularly scheduled evenings.

I'm up again at an unholy hour of the morning, although sleeping until 5:19 was technically sleeping in. Thank you, seminary, for skewing my perception of time.  If I had told my college age self there would come a time in my life when sleeping until 6 a.m. would be enjoyed and even considered heavenly, I probably would have shot myself for thinking future me was an alien in disguise. As a teen, I never could understand how in the world my mother could get up at these weird morning hours (when technically it wasn't even MORNING yet because, hello, there was no SUN peeping over the horizon) and do housework (and really all I can see now is getting up early isn't so bad; the actual doing of housework I still don't understand. How can I do housework when I have to catch up on emails, cute kittens, and people of walmart? I'd be willing to bet if facebook existed when my mother was in her 40s, she'd have been parked in front of her Apple 2e instead of downstairs grin...

This year I get two Thanksgivings. Yesterday we ate with friends. Today we eat with family. No, I don't celebrate Black Friday.  All the pushing and shoving by the thick angry crowds repel any thought of even setting foot in a non-food related store on the Friday after Thanksgiving. EJ got home from his shift at Boxmart and said it was a people-filled night shift. The customers were cranky, and he is used to working in a quiet store. The sales started at 10 p.m. last night, and customers getting to the store at 10 had already missed out on the deals they were there to cash in on. We drove home from the friends' house at around 10 last night and saw the long line of cars waiting to get into the parking lot. When 10 p.m. driving is more backed up than rush hour, I'm not participating. Anyway, we had a good time with the friends. The husband is a friend of Jim's since high school and he and his family moved to MN almost two years ago. They have children roughly the s...

Ten things I am grateful for (and I'm gonna try to be honest and serious, instead of being silly, like being thankful for children who misbehave because then I can meet the recommended daily allowance of yelling for 10 minutes at 110 decibels, which allows a parent to operate under the illusion that they are really in charge) 1.  ........... It's hard to be serious. Really. Everything I come up with devolves into some sort of joke. Either that or what I'm thankful for sounds trite. Of course I'm thankful for my family. Most everybody is. They bring happiness and joy and (and here I start to think "and blah blah blah, it's all been said before, even though it's true")... I'm grateful that the big boys got up and went to play football. Why? Because they are doing something they will remember as "having had a good time" for the rest of their lives. They are practicing being adults, living without their parents. And I am practicing ...

There were no board games on our anniversary overnight because we forgot to pack them. But Friday morning, I saw a link on one of my favorite websites ( Satellite News --which is a fan site for MST3K). The site announced that two of the guys from MST3K would be appearing on a radio show on MPR (Minnesota Public Radio) called Wits and that John Hodgman (the PC guy from the Mac commercials) would be there too. The link said "If you happen to be in St. Paul this evening..." and I thought WHOA. I'm going to be in St Paul this evening! (That's where we stayed overnight) We had nothing planned but board games and movies. I got to thinking about going to this show, and then obsessing about it. When Jim came home, I cautiously presented the idea, not knowing what his reaction would be. I didn't know if he would really care to go to a live performance of a radio program that had little to do with music, which he loves, and focused so much on personalities that I liked. ...

Hey, Paul just came home in the middle of school. He says this quarter he has an open period and lunch right together AND a hybrid class that meets only three times a week. So on Mondays and Fridays, he has classes until 11:30 and then not again until 2. Lucky dog. He came home with a big old smile on his face, saying, "It feels really good to not have class for a few hours. I'm gonna go for a run." And yes, as I have been typing this, he has put on his running gear and has just left the house. Strange child. If I were off school for a few hours, I surely would NOT go out and run around. On to my plans for the weekend: Tonight is DATE NIGHT! Jim took the night off of his pizza job.We're going to spend the night not going to a dance club. (sad face. I want to go dancing) Because Jim won't go dancing with me tonight, I'm making him go walk underground with me tomorrow to look at geological formations.  We are going to a place that I have always wanted to go...

...and counting. It's almost anniversary time here in the shoebox castle. On this Saturday, Jim and I will have been married 23 years. In 23 years, we've: Lived in 5 states Lived at 13 different addresses Had almost as many landline phone numbers Raised 5 children Bought three mattresses Had 4 dining room tables (all used, by the way. We don't go buying new dining room tables left and right) Owned 8 vehicles (all used. All of them. Two we drove to death. One almost to death. Another back on to the lot for a trade-in and got $200. Three are still with us and one is with Kate. Kate's and one of ours are nigh unto sleeping in the vehicle junkyard) Bought 3 new couches (and had 4 used ones). We're tough on furniture. Owned three electric skillets (I still miss the first one) Repainted the bathroom of our current living space once Taken many many road trips together. Cleaned up 12 feet of vomit at 2 a.m. on New Years Day once (thank you EJ for giving us t...

I was feeling curmudgeonly this morning, if not downright cranky. But Hayley has the ability to turn a phrase just right to make me laugh and forget that I was feeling mean and poor and lowly of spirit. Taken out of context, the words she uttered seem so preposterous, which is why I laughed. She said: "When I talk to him, I talk to him facing the chickens." and most recently, she said: "Let's keep the breath clouds outside the house." Thanks Hayley for making me laugh.

I'm behind with the blogging. Again I have to blog about events from last weekend. The kids participated in a church activity called "Saints on Broadway." Each group did 1-4 dances to songs from a Broadway musical. Our ward picked "West Side Story." The 12-13 year old boys got to do a dance all by themselves to the prologue and I found it very entertaining to watch Matt "dancing." Paul and Hayley participated also, but that video is much longer and I didn't get good views of either one. So you only get to see Matt. My favorite part is where the four "bad boys" hassle and bully two much older and much tougher guys. In real life, those two "pushovers" would have pounded these four little punks into the ground without even breaking a sweat. All the kids had a great time, including those, like Paul, who have never ever desired to be on stage.

Let's get in the ol' time machine and travel back to last Sunday. Why? Because that's what I'm gonna blog about today. Nevermind that I did not actually witness what I'm blogging about. The reason I was not in attendance at this particular event was that I went and signed myself for a work-related conference the next day without consulting my calendar. When I realized that I would be traveling to attend the conference when Paul's Cross Country end-of-the-year banquet was scheduled, verily, I was distraught. Jim went to the banquet with Paul, under strict orders to take photographs and keep me posted on all goings on so that I could feel like I wasn't such a loser mom. I also knew that one of the other parents would be taking pictures so in case Jim forgot or couldn't figure out how to use my camera, I could still be assured of seeing some form of printed evidence of Paul at a banquet. So to pictures. Here is the CC senior boys table. One of the guy...

I have two lasts to post about: Paul's last high school cross country race, and his last first high school band concert of the year.  The start of the last race. I like watching the start of these races.  All the boys are in one mass, like migrating birds. It's cool to watch them undulate across the golf course. Then they spread out a bit as they move through the course. This is Paul at the end of his last CC race. I am proud of this kid. Four years of running a lot is not something most kids find enjoyable, but he did. He was good enough to be named captain, and smart enough to remain captain (three boys lost their captaincy because of poor choices on their part). And here he is two seconds away from the finish line of his last race. He completed the course in 17:50, not too bad of a time. He's had better twice, but considering the previous two races, he ran over 18, he was glad to go sub 18 for his last race. It's time to hang up his spikes. *sniff...