Didn't see that one coming...

I love Clay Aiken, but come on. We've known this for 6 years!! Must be a slow week at People.

Ever heard of...

Today I called Maxim Healthcare in Memphis to try and schedule some flu clinics to work in October and November. This is part of the "make your own work schedule" that Dean and I are trying for me so that I can be here when the girls are here.
I went to a training session in August at Maxim Healthcare and they called this week to schedule me. I was talking to the staffing person at Maxim and she says "Have you ever heard of Starkville, MS? We have a few flu clinics there in October." I said, "Why yes, I've heard of Starkville. I lived there for 18 years!" I am hoping to work at least one of them so I can go to Strange Brew and get an iced mocha. Lordy, I miss those! I've got to figure out if it is worth the travel. At least they pay milage.
Then she says, "Well, I know you've never heard of this town....Indianola, MS." Imagine her surprise that I lived there for 18+ years too! I think she was excited to know someone had actually heard of these places! The clinics are from 10:00am to 2:00pm. That would put me home after 4:00pm. I am not sure if I can work these or not. The girls get off the bus at around 4:00pm.
I may have to stay in the North MS area for now. Stay tuned. I'll let you know how it turns out.

By the way, there are several clinics in Oxford too. Should I put on a brave face and march into he**? Good question.

Kitty ER

I have been letting Molly out at night to chase bugs, etc... Last Thursday night I went out to get her and couldn't find her anywhere. I even had the treats out to try to entice her. I gave up after about 20 minutes of looking and came inside. Then I heard meowing at the door so I let her in. She was limping. I was kind of concerned and noticed a drop of blood on her shoulder. No big deal I thought. I picked her up and looked at her abdomen. LOTS of blood there. Being a nurse, I started to investigate further. She had several punture wounds, mild abrasions and one huge 2 inch laceration. This was 10:30pm. There is no 24 hour kitty ER that I know of so it would have to wait until tomorrow. I cleaned the wounds as best as I could and put her to bed.

Friday morning I woke up and went into the kitchen to fix my coffee. No meowing from Molly. This is unusual. She usually meows as soon as she hears me in the kitchen. My heart dropped. I went to her room and opened the door. She was still laying in her bed. As soon as I opened the door she stood up and stretched. Thank goodness!

I called the vet and took her in at 8:00am. (Carlyn even rode the bus that morning so I could take Molly in ASAP) The vet was GREAT. I asked if he was a Mississippi State guy. His response was "Is there any other school?" I thought, "you are the vet for me!" He shaved Molly's abdomen and looked her over and decided he needed to suture that large laceration. I picked her up after lunch and she did great. She is on clindamycin and has already licked 2 of her stitches out but the wounds look good.

I think one of the tom cats next door got her. He really tore her up. Now I won't let her out of my sight when we are outside. I hate that she can't go out on her own anymore. But I am scared of what that animal might do to her next. I can't afford too many vet bills or losing my Molly Mac.

Lemonade anyone?

Yesterday morning and afternoon the neighborhood kids had a lemonade stand in the cul de sac in front of our house. They had a ball and were occupied pretty much the entire day. They had several customers (mostly parents and neighbors) and made about $12. Of course with 5 of them working the cut turned out to be about $2.50 a piece. Well, it kept them happy anyway. They are already talking about having one next weekend. Fine with me!

6th grade

This was the first year I started to get kind of boy crazy. There was all the "who likes who" drama going on and everybody wrote those notes:

Do you like me? Circle yes or no.


This was also the time that all my friends were starting to wear bras and starting to develop into teenagers. I was not one of the first ones. I was somewhere in the middle. All of us girls talked about who was wearing a bra. All of the boys would go around and pop the bra of any girl who was wearing one.

Sixth grade was still considered elementary school back in 1980. We were the top of the elementary school. The big dogs of IA elementary. On May Day (IA's end of the year celebration) the sixth graders got to crown the May Queen and dance around the May Pole. We had a sixth grade chorus and even performed our own musical "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" (I was the Little Red-Headed Girl).

We would listen to Casey Kasem's Top 40 Countdown on Sunday afternoons and have our tape recorder on hand just in case we heard a song we liked. When a good song came on we would hit record and hold the tape recorder up to the stereo to record the song.

Sometimes on Sunday afternoons in the fall, the boys would all get together and play football in the vacant lot by the Fletcher's house (Josh Fletcher, Ann Wyndham's cousin). A lot of the girls would go over there to watch the game. We were the "cheerleaders".

I also remember wearing yellow ribbons for the hostages in Iran. I remember wearing those barrettes that you braided a ribbon into. Shoelaces with designs on them. Velour sweat suits. We played Pac Man and Donkey Kong when we went to RollerWorld in Greenville. We played tennis on the Commodore 64 at home. We listened to Leif Garrett and had posters of Sean Cassidy.

Fast forward 28 years. I have a daughter in the 6th grade. Oh. My. Gosh!

She is in Middle School.
She has her own locker.
She switches classes (7 periods a day).
She wants a cellphone.
She wants to go to the tanning bed.
She wants to get highlights in her hair.
She wants her ears pierced. (Thank goodness it's only ears!)
She probably needs to wear a bra. (I am trying to hold out on this one!!)
She downloads music from the Internet.
She is crazy about the Jonas Brothers.
She has posters of teen stars all over her walls.

How did I get here so fast?? Wasn't it yesterday that I was in 6th grade??

One week and 5 days...

That's how much summer we have left. The girls start back to school on August 7th. Don't you think that is a little early? I remember starting around August 16th and getting out around May 19th. What ever happened to that school year?

Also, why must we have "early" and "late" schools? Early schools start around 7:20am and late schools after 8:00am. Thank goodness we are a "late" school. Carlyn starts at 8:15am and Noelle at 8:30am. What ever happened to 8:00-3:00? We all went to school that way and did fine I might add. Why do we have to change things that work? I don't get it.
So I drop Carlyn off at 8:15 and yell "See you at 3:35." I drop Noelle off at 8:30 and yell "See you at 3:15." It just doesn't sound right to me.

Does this mean I am getting old and set in my ways?

The 'guest" in our garage

Dean and I were outside tonight trying to clean out and straighten up the garage. I had the shop-vac out vacuuming up spider webs and dead bugs. Dean was moving boxes around and called out to me to come look. This is what I saw:

That's right a black widow! Making herself at home in our garage. Getting ready to have many, many more black widow babies!

This is a shot right before Dean squashed her and her eggsack. Her web was very sticky and hard to get off the wall.

I just hope she didn't have any friends shacking up with her!