I Love You the Purplest

I bought this sweet little book for Jacquie for Christmas. We always laugh about how I'm Pete's second-favorite daughter-in-law -- quite the achievement, considering there are two of us!!! But seriously, this book was great for Jacquie -- and almost seemed like it was written about her. Two sons. Fishing. A cabin. A really neat book.

Next on the Girls' Wish List

Those American Girl dolls have really taken over our house, and now Chrissa is next on the girls' wish list. If you're not familiar with the marketing prowess surrounding these dolls, you should check it out. It definitely works on Abbie & Kait.

Monday night, we went over to some friends' to watch Chrissa's movie on HBO. It was the premier, and I'd seen enough about it on the website to know I really wanted the girls to see it.

The movie directly addresses bullying in schools -- an age-old practice that never seems to end. I really think it's a perfect movie for young girls to see. In fact, there is a school-based program built around the movie. And if you didn't know there was a doll attached, you wouldn't learn that from the movie.

On the way home, the girls and I had a very frank discussion about bullying. This was a hard conversation for me, because I had to admit to having been on both ends of the bullying spectrum.

When I was in school, I remember being referred to as "Dorky D'Lyn" more than a few times. And when we had our 10th year reunion, some of my classmates enjoyed the walk down memory lane that included a "newsletter" that had been produced, making fun of me, when we were in high school.

I had never known about the newsletter, but even as an adult, it hurt me to know about it -- so much so that I spent the bulk of the evening visiting with my brother-in-law and vowed not to go back for my 20th reunion. It's not so much that it hurt then -- when I was an adult. But it broke my heart to think of how that would have hurt me had I known about it way back when. And it really did hurt to see how much they enjoyed the memory of making it.

The successful part of me that has a wonderful husband and two beautiful children still remembers those awkward years where I couldn't score a basketball goal if my life depended on it and could have never made the cheerleading squad.

But don't think I was the only one that faced bullying. It's kind of ironic that both the 4th and 5th graders studied the food chain today. Bullying takes place at all levels in the pecking order. If there was a way I could find Billy and Betty Welch and apologize to them for any pain I caused, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Those two children needed friendship and kindness and they got anything but that.

If you have young girls, I really recommend they watch this movie. It'll be on HBO again this Saturday at 1:30 Eastern. It's also available at http://www.americangirl.com/. They not only need to know that bullying is wrong. They also need to know that if they are the ones being bullied, they can do something about it.

It Takes a Village....

Today was a rather crazy day. I subbed in 5th grade this morning and 4th grade this afternoon -- not my comfort zone by any stretch of the imagination. By the time the day was over, I was more than a bit frazzled. The buses were late; things weren't going as they were supposed to.

My class was one of the last to walk out to the buses, and then I lingered in the cafeteria in case they needed help with the last two busloads. I was later than usual getting over to where the girls sit in the "staff" section of the cafeteria.

When I got there, Abbie immediately got my attention with a, "Mom, where's Kaitlyn?"

She wasn't there. The girls in the office said we needed to ask Mrs. Windle if she'd accidentally gotten on the bus. There was a flurry of trying to find Kaitlyn that's honestly quite the blur at this point. I was trying to fight that panic that comes when you don't quite know where your child is -- even though you know she's okay.

About that time, Kait was on the bus, realizing she wasn't supposed to be there. Our bus driver reassured Kait that she would bring her back to school -- and then radioed the school to let us know. Thank goodness Miss Julia is so on top of things.

In the middle of this, I got paged because one of my students ended up on the bus when he was supposed to stay after. What a mess!

They brought Kait to school, and of course she had a good cry. She was a bit scared, but I told her that situations like this are exactly why we live where we do and have her in the school that we have her in. I can't imagine a more supportive place. Everyone there truly cares about the students and goes the extra mile -- every time. There are so many people watching out for Kaitlyn. And that means the world to me.

Supermom Needs Help

Or maybe cloning is a better possibility??

Could the world possibly handle more than one of me??

I have 5 days of subbing lined up between now and next Friday.

I have a wedding ring that desperately needs to be fixed. Not a single prong on it is pointed in the right direction. Twelve years of constant wear can be tough on a ring.

I also have a house full of Christmas decorations that haven't been put up yet. Some have been "packed" up, but not put up. It seriously looks like we're the ones that just moved here -- not our new neighbors across the street.

AND we have a huge fundraiser for the 3-Day coming up next month. I had a post on here about that for a short time, but there's still some fluctuation in the details, so I took it down until things became more concrete. But here's the scoop....

Studio Movie Grill is launching an incredible ground-up location at City Center in Houston. They're going to give us two theaters' worth of tickets to sell to raise money for the Breast Cancer 3-Day. Exact details on the date are pending, but if we wait until it's all nailed down, I'm really going to be in panic mode. So we're running with it.

To help increase attendance and our profits, we're going to have a raffle / silent auction. And what do people want?? Electronics. So I've spent the last couple of days trying to get someone to donate a Wii, TomTom, iPod.... Something.... And while we don't have that Golden Ticket Item yet, we have gotten a ton of support from the community.

Here is the list of what we have so far. All of these businesses are off of 290, between Beltway 8 & Mason Road. If you're in the area, please support these businesses. We have several other donations "pending" but I wanted to give you a "sneak peek" at what we will be raffling / auctioning at our event.

Starbucks -- 1 lb. coffee -- $14 value
Firestone -- Free alignment ($75 value) plus five discount cards offering up to $250 worth of discounts on each card.
LA Fitness -- Two months free membership and goodies.
Academy -- $25 Gift Card
Carl's BBQ -- $25 Gift Card
Newks -- $25 Gift Card
EJ's -- Five "Family Packs" for a Free Large Pizza & 4 Soft Drinks
Randall's -- $25 Gift Card
Cypress Academy of Gymnastics -- Two months of free lessons ($65/month value)
Charlotte Byrne -- 15 1-hour sessions of personal training and a gym bag with goodies ($640 value)
Sharon Vaughn, Pristine Memories Photography -- Free Sitting and 11x14 portrait ($220 value)
Kristin Duncan -- Tastefully Simple Gift Basket
Cissa Newberry -- $150 Mary Kay Gift Certificate

Many of these will be "packaged" together but we'll leave that till the end.

(Note: I won't mention that I was turned down by a local grocery store where I spend way too much money. A grocery store that I prefer over any other because of their oh-so-fresh produce and yummy samples and the fact that they have introduced me to some of my favorite cheeses -- and Honeycrisp apples. And it wasn't so much that the manager said "no" to a donation to the 3-Day. It was that the conversation went something like this....

Her: Our donations are handled from Corporate, but I can tell you we already support your organization.
Me: The 3-Day? Really? (Blank look.) Komen?? (Blank look.) Breast Cancer in General??? (Blank look.) Ummm.... Okay.

What is it with me and salespeople, anyway??)

So, going back to my title.... Supermom Needs Help.

If you own a business, know someone who owns a business, work at a business, promote a business or simply utilize a business and can help us collect silent auction items, that would be great.

Some ideas:
Gift baskets from Arbonne, Homemade Gourmet, Southern Living, etc.
Sessions with a photographer
Spa certificates
Home Depot / Lowe's Gift Certificates
Restaurant Gift Certificates
iPod
Wii
TomTom
Hotel Stays
Sports Tickets -- Stros, Rockets, etc.
A golf outing somewhere.
Tennis lessons
Jewelry
Personal Trainer
Houston Rodeo Tickets
Florist Gift Certificates or Free Roses for Mother's Day or something creative

I'm always seeing where blogs give away great prizes. The other day, one blog gave away a ton of computer equipment from HP. And I'm always seeing that one charity or another has a hugely successful silent auction with an autographed Craig Biggio jersey or whatever.

I'm just not sure how you pull that kind of thing off.

Supermom Needs Help.

What I Did on Christmas Vacation....

Hat-tip to Biggsy for this one!

Note: You probably don't want to have to explain this link to small children. You'll be too busy laughing so hard you pee in your pants, anyway!!!

Our Cable is Out Tonight!!!

Good thing I'm anything but a t.u. fan!!!

Scientists Find Gene that Makes Breast Cancer Spread

Check it out.

Now they just need to figure out how to block it!!!

Getting Real -- Sort of....

Okay. I'm not really into New Year's resolutions -- who wouldn't want to lose weight, travel more, etc?

But I am into positive change, and I'm really into prayer -- and I could use your help with both. I have got to change my spending habits this year. As in, have GOT to. But I can't do it alone. I've tried.

Will you please pray for me this year? That I will stay "on-budget" for 12 whole months? And I mean, continue to pray for that all year? I'll put a little reminder for you on my sidebar.

Thanks for loving me enough to help with this!!!

Hugs,
d.

We're Home!!!

We're Home!!! I wish I could say we'd had the best fishing weekend ever, but well.... I'd be lying. The weekend really started with such promise! We headed to the Creek about noon on Friday -- getting down there with plenty of time for fishing.

Friday was such a bright, sunny day. And we knew we needed to get some serious fishing in because storms were forecast for Saturday.

One minor problem. There wasn't a bait shrimp to be found at any of the four bait shops we frequent. Not a single one. No shrimp means we have to fish with plastics, like "Gulp."

Now... as cute as these things are, I just don't like fishing with them. I mean, I'm kind of a "foodie" and there isn't a part of me can fathom why a fish would take a big, old chomp of plastic. And stink!!! Oh my goodness, these things stink. This spring I accidentally spilled Gulp juice in the hallway of the Fishin' Hut. I was afraid I might get disowned over that one. (If you ever spill Gulp juice on your indoor/outdoor carpet, don't panic -- just pour a bottle of vinegar on it and then spray with Lysol. Worked for me!)

Oops. I digress. Nothing new, right?

With no shrimp for bait, we headed out into the Bay to fish with the stinky plastic stuff. Now.... this stuff comes in just about every size, shape and color you could ever imagine. So it's kind of a crapshoot as to just which plastic thingy the fish are going to like -- assuming they like one.

I switch off every so often and pretty much tried every color we had.

None worked.

Biggs caught a little red on Friday and that was it. Nothing else. We fished several spots in the Bay. No luck. Headed back to the Creek to our favorite fishing spots. No luck.

Friday night A'Lise drove in. She'd never been to the Creek before, so it was time to get her indoctrinated. Biggs did catch a couple of sand trout off the pier.

Kaitlyn's cough was still quite worrisome. She's been coughing since December 17. That's a loooooong time. We had a humidifier running in her bedroom here, but forgot to take it with us. In fact, about the time we cruised through Lake Jackson, I realized I'd forgotten to unplug the freaking thing.

My OCD set in immediately.

I stewed and stewed and finally called Mary and Greg and asked them to shut off the breaker switch to Kait's room. Note to self: I've got to get them a key to our house!!!

A'Lise got to the Fishin' Hut about 12:15, and I crashed as soon as she hit the door safely!

Saturday morning, bright and early, we got up to search for shrimp. None to be had. So we cruised the Bay with bouts of fishing -- Biggsy got a good-sized trout, but it got off the hook before we could get it in the net. Luck was not with us.

Where the water had been beautiful on Friday, yesterday was a mess!! Really rough in spots. But even though the Weather Channel said we were dealing with strong storms, we had an abundance of sunshine. In fact, I'm the only one without a sunburn!!!

The kids aren't up for spending entire days on the Bay, so we headed in about lunchtime. A'Lise and I ran the girls to Lake Jackson then came back for fajitas.

But the evening was JUST getting started.

For one, I've discovered the perfect thing for Kait's cough. Humidity was not a problem this weekend. No humidifier could have produced the 125% humidity we experienced -- especially since the AC is broken and we left all the windows open. But she still needed that extra boost the VapoRub gives her. And I found this:

It's perfect!!! You get the vapors without having a bulky humidifier spitting water everywhere. And you can't trip over it since it plugs into the wall!!! And it's SO easy to use!!! AND it has a nightlight!!!

Before we could put the girls down for the night, though, they had to do a little fishing under the lights with Aunt A'Lise. And look what she caught!!!

This nice little sand trout wasn't her first keeper. I seem to recall a trip to Red River where she was the only one of us that caught any fish. (That was the "camping" trip where she threw up all over the tent AND our sleeping bags, and we got to spend the rest of the trip in a HOTEL!!!)

We did throw this one back -- so he's waiting for you the next time you come to the Creek!!!

Not one to let Aunt A'Lise steal all the thunder, Kait chose about that moment to fall in the Creek. In the dark. I wasn't on the pier -- I was back upstairs. But it was cold, and she was drenched, and she swallowed some water, and I just knew she was going to end up with pneaumonia. But it actually seems to have helped her cough because it isn't as bad today.... Hmmmm.... Was it the salt water??

Oh! And for those who have been bewildered by the lack of TV at the Creek, that's no longer a problem. We have a truly Redneck solution that gives us the best reception we've ever had. Yes, it looks as bad in real life as it does in this picture. But we were able to watch the game clearly last night!!!

The girls go back to school tomorrow. I'm sure Kait will be writing about falling in the Creek and will try to milk it for all it's worth.

Oh, but the coolest gift this Christmas!!! New Neighbors!!! Who are nice!! And "Regular People!" They have a 5th grader and a 5-year-old. So Kait finally has a playmate right on the street who's her age! We're so glad!!!

Gone Fishin'

Happy 2009!!!

Don't forget to eat your Black Eyed Peas!!!