This is my Army son at my brother's this past weekend with my nephew. It seems as if they really hit it off. Tommy got up at 5 with the baby and changed and fed him. Surprised my brother alright! It seems like Tommy spent a good portion of his leave helping everyone get stuff done. He helped my brother trim his trees and haul stuff to the curb,then he trimmed around all their flower beds after that, he painted my mother's kitchen ceiling and put in her air conditioners then he went to see my other brother and his wife for a bit. His reward was a trip to Joe's Crab Shack (that was second choice first was Candella's but they were closed on Memorial Day).

My SIL has just gotten home from the hospital from her second (and hopefully last)round of surgery for rectal cancer. She seems to be doing well. She still has some chemo to do but they are feeling very good about the whole thing and she is keeping a positive outlook and looking forward to getting her life back!

Long, long work weekend so I will skip over that. I got home late on Saturday night to find my younger son in the yard with this new kid who had moved in down the street. They asked if they could camp out in the woods and I couldn't think of any reason why not so I agreed. Well at about midnight, the dog starts going ballistic and I figure they guys are wanting to come in so I go downstairs to see what was going on and here is my neighbor who just happens to be a county cop. He wants to know if Mark has a friend staying over. Apparently they were coming home and 2 boys hurled a chunk of wood at their car and took off running. Not much actual damage had been done but obviously it couldn't be ignored because there could have been a LOT of damage done. Well, I come in and get dressed and take off after the boys. They aren't coming when I call and I don't even have flash light! I pulled my car down the hill and put my high beams on...still can't see them and they aren't coming. I start calling Mark's cell phone thinking I could hear it ring but about this time, the neighbor comes back with his big flashlight and we head down into the woods. We get down there and here are 2 boys with Mark (I didn't know about the other one), they have a fire going in our drought stricken woods...and everyone is acting innocent. Mark claims he knows nothing, he was asleep...this I doubt but I am sure he wouldn't be a part of anything that stupid. Finally the other 2 confess. Well we made them call their mom and made their mom come get them and the neighbor took down all the information about how to contact them etc. I made Mark carry water down the hill and put the fire out and everyone was gone a little after 1. Mark has been forbidden to see or talk to these kids at all. A little hard to do since they ride the bus together but I am keeping an eye out. For the life of me I cannot figure out what they thought they were doing or why they did it. Mark isn't talking either. What a mess! The end result for me was no sleep that night and then a full shift at work. *groan*

I am looking forward to Wednesday and Thursday off. School is finished so I don't even have to go and do that. As soon as I finish here, I am heading downstairs to see if I can get some stitching done before I have to go to work today. It is hot and steamy here so I suspect I will stay inside to do it though!

That's today's quote from Jules Renard. Sometimes I feel like I can move mountains and sometimes I just feel like I have already moved mountains.

I got Chris safely sent off to his drill weekend with instructions to get a letter from his CO about when he leaves for camp so we can take that to the court and get things straightened out with them. He won't be able to get into the classes until July so we have to see what we need to do now.

I am working all through this weekend but at least today I only have to go in from 1-6. I was planning on going to Movie Gallery this morning to pick up some of the DVD's they have on sale but I realized it is just limited titles so I figure it probably isn't worth making the drive in. Especially with gas at about $3.40 a gallon.

I put some chicken breasts in the crock pot this morning with taco seasoning so I will have some great shredded chicken when I get home. Tacos tonight If I remember to pick up the salsa and cheese before I leave work. I imagine that my 5 hours today will feel like 10. I went to get groceries yesterday and stood in line forever and it was only about 11 am!

Tommy should be at my brother's by now. I hope he enjoyed his trip and didn't have any problems. I know he was excited about going and I am sure my family will be glad to have him there. I wish I was there! I miss my boy.

Some more quotes from Jules Renard:

Everything you want is out there waiting for you to ask. Everything you want also wants you. But you have to take action to get it.

Failure is not our only punishment for laziness; there is also the success of others.

It doesn't pay to say too much when you are mad enough to choke. For the word that stings the deepest is the word that is never spoke, Let the other fellow wrangle till the storm has blown away, then he'll do a heap of thinking about the things you didn't say.

On earth there is no heaven, but there are pieces of it.

I need to save this one.

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.George S. Patton

I love it. We all need to think out of the box every now and then.

Other great Patton quotes...

Always do everything you ask of those you command.

Better to fight for something than live for nothing.

Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.

I don't measure a man's success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom.

We herd sheep, we drive cattle, we lead people. Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.

Yesterday was my last day of exams at National and I was looking forward to being off early and running some long neglected errands before I had to go to Sam's for the evening. Well you know what they say about plans. I was on my way to school when I got a call from My son's friend Chris' roommate (see the May 15 blog) that Chris had been arrested again the night before. Apparently they had a bench warrant out for him for failure to appear since he had missed his followup court date from when his ^&(*&%^ mother had him arrested back in early April. He had been out riding around with the aforementioned roommate in the idiot roommate's unregistered, uninsured car. Not for nothing but I had seen them out around 9:30 and warned them to get back and get the car off the road. They however don't need a "mother" since they are grown men and therefore it was totally unexpected that they were stopped at 2 AM, James ticketed, the car impounded and Chris sent to jail.

SO, I set off on what I am now calling Chris and Maria's Great Adventure. Somehow, in spite of having 2 younger brothers, numerous friends (several who are or aspire to race car drivers and tons who are musicians), and having obtained my college degree ending with considerably less naivete' than I started with; I never have been in jail nor have I had to bail anyone OUT of jail. Heck, I have never even had a parking ticket! (Although I have "talked" my way out of a couple of speeding tickets, those racers are a bad influence LOL) In any case, my adventure through the legal system yesterday left me with a lot of doubt about the effectiveness of the system, not to mention where the HECK do they find these people who are supposed to be doing this work... and notice I said supposed to be doing the work.

First, as any good law abiding citizen would do, I hit the Internet as soon as my class was over to find out what I needed to do and where I needed to go. Then I called my friend Becky who has 2 of the dumbest daughters I have ever met and have repeatedly been through the system. After that, I called to find out that he either had to pay a fine, not bail! ($126.50) or spend 5 days in jail. OK, I thought, not bad, I had $145.00 in cash on me (unusual but I did have errands to run...)so off I went. First I had to find the circuit court clerks office...oops, after I get there they told me I was in the wrong place, I needed pretrial services. OK, back down a floor to pretrial...surprise, they have no record of him or his arrest. *sigh* supervisor please! Amazingly enough the supervisor found the paperwork (on the desk of the man who couldn't find it even though he was the one I had talked to 30 minutes earlier. But...The fine isn't $126.50 it is $156.50 because when they arrested him, they served the warrant. *sigh* $145.00 and change in the wallet, sorry no credit/debit cards or checks. *sigh again* back downstairs, without the paperwork, to find a bank to cash a check. Cash in hand, I go back to pretrial and get the paperwork and discover that I can't pay there I have to go back to the Circuit Court Clerks office. (they couldn't have told me that?) Up another floor to the C3's office and surprise, they take ATM cards, credit cards AND checks! Clerk treats me like I am an idiot and like I am scum of the earth in spite of the fact that I am well dressed, articulate and polite to the nth degree because I just want this over and don't want to piss anyone off. OK, Pay the fine, get the release form and receipt. Jail is 2 blocks over, go to the 8th floor.

Now is when the real fun starts, First I have to find an open parking meter and now it is lunch time in beautiful downtown Covington. Couple of times around the block and I finally find one that my car will fit into. I don't have a large car but people feel they can take up their space and maybe part of another one since they are paying for it...*sigh* I get out, walk the block and go to the 8th floor. Lucky, lucky me it is visiting day at the zoo and the doors just opened. I rode up in a tightly packed elevator...tightly packed with people who on a normal day I would cross the street to avoid. I stand in line for a while before I realize that this is NOT where I need to be so I leave the line and go to the window where you can leave money for your incarcerated loved one and she laughs at me and tells me I am in the wrong spot. Imagine that! So I am now going back down to the ground floor, (thankfully in an empty elevator since no one was leaving yet) back outside, around the building and down another block to ring the bell on the door to what passes for the "reception" area. I am surprised yet again when I am told that I am in the wrong place, I am to take 4 steps to my right and ring the other buzzer. While I am taking the 4 steps to my right, the lady who wouldn't talk to me at the door was taking 4 steps to her left. Amazingly enough, there she was at the window (after I had followed the proper buzzing procedure). I passed her the release form and now she wants the receipt that I actually paid cash for the fine (how did she think I got the release form, mug the circuit court clerk??????????) and another $5 for the jail fee. LONG *sigh* Back to my car a block over, get the receipt and the $5 and BACK to the window directly this time (see, I can learn!) She takes everything, passes back my receipt and informs me it will take 1- 1 1/2 hours to get him released! What the heck, where are they holding him?? SO, in my innocence, I ask her where I should wait, is there a waiting room where when he comes out he will see me and I can find him? (oh man, the visions I had of that place) No, I am to wait either at the top of the driveway or I can wait in my car. Hey! Somewhere along the line I have failed to mention that it is 90+ degrees and we are under a smog alert... by now, with all my back and forth running, I am totally soaked in my good "school clothes", thirsty and yes, I know it is hard to imagine but I am pissed. Just to add to the mix, the jailhouse dumpsters are there at the bottom of the driveway and they were shall we say "ripe"? My car is a block away so if I am there, I know he will never find me. I can go back up to the jail, try to get a visitor pass and see him and tell him where I am (oh please not a chance of me going back there!) or I can wait. So, I head down the block to have lunch (excellent homemade Mexican food at Fontova), drink one bottle of water while I am there and grab another to go and back I go to wait Chris. It's another 1/2 hour before he appears. When he comes out he informs me that they took his class ring and dog tags and he has to go get them...on the 8th floor with the dregs of society. *sigh again* Back I go. Fortunately by now, visiting hours are about over so the waiting room is empty but it still takes them, even with no one else there nearly half an hour to return his possessions. Free at last!!

Now I had already called Chris in to work at 8:30 and told our manager what was going on. Once I picked Chris up, after the obilgatory "mothering" (and don't mistake that with comforting right away), I made him call work and talk to our manager and then I made him go to work for the rest of the night with me. After our Great Adventure. the rest of the day was pretty mundane. Jake brought Chris and I home after a pit stop at Wendy's so they could refuel and I could have a rootbeer float. By the time I got home, it was nearly 11 and I was so keyed up I couldn't get to sleep. Then I was up at 4, because I drank a rootbeer float at 10 at night! Geez, when did I get this old? I finally get back to sleep at 5 and at 6 I wake up with a huge charley horse in my right leg. Needless to say, this is going to be a long day.

I think I am taking my sewing out to the patio for a while this morning before it gets too hot. I may however just find a pillow for the lounge chair and see how quiet I can be! :-) zzzzzzzzzzzz I just may be too old for all this fun!

Off for the entire day again today, no Sam's, no national. My final exam is ready to be copied for next week so my time at National is rapidly winding down. After my class yesterday I went food shopping and treated myself to some snow crab legs (which I cooked in tomato sauce and served with linguine last night as a late birthday dinner) and a beautiful strawberry cheese cake from the bakery at Sam's. Today will be left overs. With Tommy gone, that cake will last a week or better if I can keep Mark from cutting his own size pieces.

Tom leaves tomorrow afternoon for his Taekwondo instructors camp in Evansville, IN. He will be gone until some time on Sunday. I am seriously thinking about going to an auction on Saturday with Mark since I don't have to be at work until 3.

Today I am doing laundry and working in Sweetheart Tree's Irish Blessing sampler that I am making as a wedding gift for friends of ours who are getting married in a couple of weeks. It won't be done by then but I don't think they will mind. It will work off quickly but I won't be able to have the mats cut and the framing done in time.

OK, back to my stitching and enjoying our somewhat gloomy day. It looks like the sun may come out but it is still very cool! Later folks!

Well I paid for not doing anything last Friday with a grueling weekend at work and then working at Sam's yesterday morning and having to teach last night. In between (including lunch yesterday) I had to get things ready for this week's classes! The day at work was emotionally over the edge for me. One of my managers came in and brought her son with her. He is as young as mine, serving in the army in South Korea. He was home on leave but came in dressed in his ACU's. I turned around and caught the ACU's out of the corner of my eye and for a minute, thought it was my son. I think I finally realized how much I miss him and how much I want to see him. It would have been the BEST birthday and mother's day present. After that, the tears just kept leaking.

My son's friend Chris works with me and he is in the army reserve as well, leaving for Iraq in the fall. He knew what was going on and tired to jolly me out of it but no go. Then to make the day even worse, there has been a problem with Chris' cash drawer over the weekend and I had to tell him. He took it very badly pretty much feeling like he was being accused of stealing. I have known this kid since he was 5. I know he did not steal this money, but even going over his transaction reports, I could not figure out how he could make such mistakes. This kid has been having such a rough time I just don't know how much more he can take. I have been accused of being too much of a giver (and being taken advantage of) and of collecting "strays" people who need someone to care for them and occasionally give them a hand. (In my opinion if that's the definition then we are ALL strays!) in any case, Chris has had a pretty rotten life in some ways and I do try and look out for him. I look at him as another son. So, by the time I got out of Sam's I was raw and then I had class, (my last class of the year and my last one at National so that was a little emotional). I am more than a little weepy right now and I still have to go to work tonight. Fortunately I am off except for my Wednesday class tomorrow.

I started in on the process of starting my Master's classes and if I don't get a handle on it I am going to be quickly overwhelmed. I have to take the Praxis tests no later than the end of the first semester and if I can. I should probably take them over the summer. I also have to take one undergrad course, which of course has to be a 4 credit hour, 5 week class which meets every day with 2 days also containing labs. I have no clue how I an do that and continue to work. I can't not work because then there is no money! What a vicious circle!

OK, enough of this, I have grades to post and then I need to get ready for another great evenings at Sam's Club! ROF...

Woo Hoo. An entire day and I am proud to say I didn't do a lick of work....well other than making dinner. I stitched on my Iris piece and have the leaves, stem and bud done, the flower itself is all I have left but that's more than half the piece though! :-)

I called my friend Jack and talked to him for 1/2 an hour. We have been friends for a million years it seems but rarely have time to talk. I managed to catch him at the shop and since he was just putzing with one of his cars, he had time to chat. After that I finally caught up with my mother. I need to make time and find the money to go home. I cannot believe little James is nearly 5 months old and I still haven't seen him. Liliana is nearly a month old and my little Gracie just a wee one. I need my baby fix darn it!

Well since I have spent most of the day outside, I need to go get my shower and get settled. I should probably correct the tests for my Wednesday class and put the final grades on the projects for Monday's class. I don't go to work until 1 tomorrow so I think it may have to wait until morning. After all, why spoil a nice day with work?

Got moving early this morning but I didn't move far. I took my dog and my stitching and headed for the patio where I started working on the companion piece to the just finished Orchid. For such simple looking pieces they are amazingly complicated to stitch in some places...well not hard, just a lot of color and strand # changes. That takes up a lot of "stitching" time LOL It's a gorgeous day out there and not to hot right now so I think that is my place until I have to get ready for work.

Yesterday was my mom's and my SIL's birthdays. I tried calling my mom but she must have been out celebrating. I need to call my SIL this morning. She is recovering from surgery for colon cancer so I have been trying to not bug her so she can get her rest. She is doing ok but we are still praying for things to come to a happy conclusion.

I bought Josh Turner's "Your Man" album yesterday http://www.joshturner.com/ I have been enjoying that. I love his voice! Right now playing on his site is "Me and God" with Ralph Stanley. Check it out! I was looking for Alison Krauss' "A Hundred Miles or More", I can't believe that Sam's has sold out of it so quickly but it was gone. My music collection is eclectic to say the least. I buy what I happen to feel like listening to...mood changes so does the music. Right now I need mellow so these guys are it.

Well the dog is voicing her disapproval at being left outside by herself. Crazy thing doesn't really pay attention to me when I am there but she wants to know where I am at all times!

I think I have mentioned somewhere in these blogs that in addition to my position at Sam's Club, I also teach Microbiology at National College. Mostly, I have returning students...what I mean by that is for the most part, these are not kids right out of HS. I would be guessing but the median age is probably about 35 years old.

One of my term assignments, which they get the very first day of class is a paper. This paper and its subsequent presentation to the class is worth 25% of their grade. They are given a specific rubric, a style sheet and a list of topics to choose from. This semester the topics were all nosocomial diseases. They have 3 weeks in which to research the choices and pick one and a total of 8 weeks to write a 4 page paper or produce a scrapbook on their chose topic. To me, it is not a daunting assignment. They are told precisely what I want to see covered in the paper!

If you could see what I received you would be appalled. Most of the papers my middle schooler could correct and do better. Out of 23 papers only 3 might have been freshman college level. I spent 12 hours yesterday correcting these and all I wanted to do was give them back and say try again... or just throw them out and say "forget whatever this and start over"! What a disappointment.

I know these are people with families and jobs but they chose to take these courses. They are paying to take these courses. You would think they would put a little more effort into what they produce.

I am starting a Master's program in the fall that will qualify me to teach 6-9th graders. I am making it a priority right now that each of my classes will have a minimum of one day a week dedicated to writing and researching a paper. NO student should graduate without being a competent writer!

That being said, I am off to spend the morning stitching. It has to be better than thinking about these papers!

Here's an article I noticed in a couple of different places today.


What's a mom worth?
According to one new report, $138,095 a year.
That's the figure in a report by Salary.com, which calculates the wages that would have been paid a stay-at-home mom in 2007 if she were compensated for all the elements of her "job." That total is up 3% from 2006's salary of $134,121.
Moms who have jobs outside the house would earn another $85,939 for their mothering work, beyond what they bring home in existing salary.

The job descriptions that Salary.com used to determine a mom's salary includes 10 jobs that moms do on an average day: housekeeper, day care center teacher, cook, computer operator, laundry machine operator, janitor, facilities manager, van driver, CEO and psychologist.
Plenty of overtime In calculating a mom's wages, Salary.com looked at the "overtime" that both working and stay-at-home moms put in each week.
"Mom works multiple jobs and rarely gets a break from the action, working an average of 52 hours of overtime," said Bill Coleman, senior vice president at Salary.com, in a statement.According to the Salary.com survey, stay-at-home moms work a 92-hour week, with more than half the workweek spent in overtime.
Working moms, meanwhile, logged more than nine hours of "overtime," with an average 49-hour "mom" work week -- on top of their full-time paying jobs.
For the Salary.com survey, more than 40,000 moms quantified their hours per job description; Salary.com benchmarked the median salaries for each job to the national median salary for each position as reported by employers.
The final salary was calculated by weighting the salaries and hours worked in each role.

Well no wonder I am tired! Now if I could just get that paycheck!

Well yesterday (other than the obligatory conference call) was very relaxing. Doggie and I spent most of the day out in the yard making sure my new anti-gravity chair worked, finishing my Nancy Martin book and doing laundry. OK, so the dog didn't really help with laundry or reading the book but she did decide that the shade under the back of the chair was a good resting spot while I read. That's teamwork huh? LOL

Today I had class this morning and I let them go early since they have a ton of work due next week. Now I have 23 term papers to read before next week. Just as I was letting class out, my stylist called and she had a cancellation so I was able to get in for a much needed "shearing" every time I go she takes off more. It is full of layers and so much lighter now it feels wonderful. She works wonders. After that I picked Tom up from the house he was working on, went to pick up Frontline for Abby and hit Wal-Mart for new clothes line and a new frying pan among other goodies Which included some of the new FritoLay Flat Earth fruit crisps. http://flatearth.cachefly.net/main.html I bought the berry ones and the apple cinnamon ones. They are really yummy.

I needed to replace my clothes line because it was falling apart and yesterday I only had enough to hang one set of sheets out. I love drying my sheets outside. They always smell so good and I feel like I am sleeping outside. Clothes line was a definite necessity.

After I got home today I started reading the Widow of the South by Robert Hicks. http://www.widowofthesouth.com/ I am an amateur genealogist and Civil War nut so this book is right up my alley. What this woman did is so remarkable.

Tomorrow should be spend perusing the term papers and I am planning on stitching. I probably need to pay some bills as well as they just won't go away much to my chagrin. LOL Can't imagine why! It's supposed to be a rainy day tomorrow so it will be good to stay put and be cozy.

Finally, a day off. I worked 6 straight at Sam's and now I am off from there for 3. I do have a conference call today at 2 since they were planning a COS meeting and I don't have a car to get there and quite frankly, I don't think I should have to be there on my day off. It is bad enough that I have to be available for this call.

So far this morning I have been out in my yard trying out my new anti-gravity lounge chair. Works good for reading (and I suspect for napping!). I also washed my sheets and I have them outside on the line is the sun, whipping in the breeze. They will be lovely to crawl into tonight. I finished the 4th one of Nancy Martin's http://www.nancymartinmysteries.com/ Blackbird Sisters Mysteries. These take place near where I grew up and I am enjoying the lightheartedness of them. That is about all I have accomplished so far. No one will be home until late tonight since it is TKD day. That gives me an entire 14 hours of just me and the Dooble dog. Abb's likes it that way!

I think I am going to head back outside and try and get some stitching done before they call this afternoon. After that, who knows!