Math

When I was a child, I was very good at math. I liked math - partly because I understood it but mostly because there was always a right answer. Math didn't have any of the subjectiveness of, say, a book report or a history lesson. You either figured out the right answer or not.

Fast forward to now and my 10 year old isn't a math person. That's ok - when she's older she can help me with my spelling.

But I got myself into trouble last week. See, in her school they compete against other schools in academic competitions. My daughter's teacher asked me if I would like to coach the Language Arts team.

No! I told her I was never an English person, math was my thing.

Oh, well we need a math coach, too. Want to do that?

*groan*

Me and my big mouth. Now I'm teaching the math team. Or will be, come tomorrow. Wish me luck! Because I forgot to mention to her that one other thing I am not is: a teacher!

Dogs and In Laws

Another holiday down.

It went ok. My brother did show, so that made it better. In the end, my family was in one room and my father's wife's family were in another.

The dogs didn't get along any better.

We brought our dog with us because we had to. It's a 2 hour drive to his house and we were planning on staying for a few hours. She had to come with us. Now, she's a friendly dog but excitable. We know this, so we always bring her crate in case things get crazy.

However, my step in-laws live in the same town. There is no reason for them to have to bring their dogs over. But they did. Two little fuzzy dogs - not sure what breed. One of them was mean. He growled at everyone, tried to bite our dog, and peed all over the house. And yet they wanted us to keep our dog away because their dog was barking and biting.

See why I hate these gatherings?

In the end I discovered there was a baby gate in the house and we used that to keep the dogs separated. It kept the two families apart as well.

Another Holiday Without Mom

Thanksgiving.

My childhood memories of Thanksgiving were of my great-aunts and my uncle coming over for dinner. The good china was used, the formal dining room elegantly set, and there was wine for the adults.

As an adult, Thanksgiving was usually spent at my in-laws. My MIL cooked a nice meal and we visited for the long weekend.

Since they have moved 1000 miles away we have had Thanksgiving at my dad's. You would think that I would like spending this holiday with my own family again. That might be true if my mom was still alive. But no, aside from my dad - and maybe my brother if he shows - everyone else there is on my dad's wife's side of the family.

It's torture.

I barely know these people and don't mind keeping it that way. We have nothing in common and little to talk about. I spend most of my time in the kitchen with my dad (and brother) or keeping my daughter busy. It's worse on her since there are no kids at all to be with.

So tomorrow I'll endure several hours of boredom, watching the clock and wishing I could just stay at home.

I miss my mom.

Sometimes I resent her for having smoked herself to death before age 60. Most of her family are now in their 80's - she could have lived a long life if she hadn't taken up smoking at 16. She would be 77 this year.

Black Screen of Death

The time came for me to get a new computer. My old one was having problems crashing and there were other issues. We decided that a new computer would be my Christmas gift this year. And I thought I would rather have a laptop than a desktop since I often borrow his laptop for school committee projects.

So he ordered me an HP laptop - not sure which model but it has an 18" screen. It came in a couple of weeks ago and we got it set up, configured and running.

For two weeks.

Friday it locked up on me and no keys would respond. I had to 'hot button' it - hold down the power key - to turn it off. A reboot brought it back up - 5 minutes later it locked up again.

Worrying that I had a virus or something, I rebooted it one more time and tried to run a scan - only got another 5 minutes.

My husband is far more technical with computers than I am, so I waited until he got home to let him look at it.

2 hours later, the computer died for good. He never discovered what exactly happened, but he did find out the phrase "black screen of death" was something that happens to HPs.

Consider this your warning.

After School

One of the important decisions we made as parents was that no matter how many kids we had it was important for one of us to be at home with them while they were little.

As it turned out, we only had the one child, and I was the one to stay at home with her. Both my husband and I had stay-at-home moms and we felt that was what we wanted to give our daughter.

Fast forward 10 years and now my little girl is a 4th grader with her own life to live. Right now she's staying after school for a 4H meeting. Monday it was practice for the Future Problem Solving team. Next week it will be Governor's Cup practice.

Seems like I'm out of work again. I see my future rushing at me - mom is not needed so much anymore - unless driving or food is involved.

So for the first time I'm really considering going back to work. I've dabbled with the idea from time to time, putting in an application or a resume here and there, but no real effort. But I'm seeing that I'm going to be less involved in her life and need to get back to my own.

Now, where did I put it?

Home Alone

There are times that I wish I could be happily married with a wonderful child, yet live alone.

Every Monday I go through the same thing - spending most of my day doing damage control on the house after the weekend.

By the time I am done there is always a stack of my daughter's things - from papers to books to toys - that have been abandoned around the house.

And she's often followed closely to the amount of items my husband leaves behind. His stuff ranges from empty drinking glasses to mail to electronics of all sorts.

I'm not the neatest person in the world but I just can't cope with this kind of clutter. I've considered simply not cleaning it up - but since I'm the one at home all day I have to look at it or move it around when it's in my way I figure not cleaning would drive me mad.

And the shoes. Right now there are 4 pairs of my husband's shoes out and 3 of my daughter's. Is it really so hard to just walk them to your closet and *then* take them off?

So I found myself wishing - very hard - that I lived alone in my own home and just had a second home to live in when the nights and weekends came around. That way I could just walk away come Monday morning to my own neat and organized home.

Miley Cyrus: A Review

Last night daughter and I saw Miley Cyrus in concert. My daughter is a fan - not a huge fan - but she enjoys her music and the TV show "Hannah Montana".

Not being 'star struck' as she was, I have a more objective eye about the concert. My daughters review is "Awesome!". In my own opinion, Miley isn't quite awesome, but she's pretty close for a 16 year old.

I have to give her 100% credit for actually singing the whole concert. Yes, she had moments of being off key. Yes, she had moments where her voice failed her. And yes, there were times you could tell that, even at 16, it takes a lot out of her to be on stage.

But this young lady - and she's not a child anymore for sure - has got some talent that's still raw but has potential. She's not just a pretty face - she knows her way around a song, has a decent rapport with the audience, and is growing up within her talent.

That said, there was still a lot to be desired out of this concert. Maybe I'm spoiled by Madonna and her shows, but Miley needs some talent behind her to work on choreography (hint: bending over and letting your hair fall over your face while you sing is *not* a dance move), theme (there was no flow from one section to another) and costuming. I think she changed clothes about 8 times during the show, but only a couple of outfits were stage worthy - the rest looked like she was ready to hit the mall for some power shopping. Someone needs to tell her that black outfits can be ok if they have some style to them, otherwise it just makes you look like a smudge.

I'll look forward to her next concert to see if and how she has improved.

Almost Halloween

Another Halloween is almost upon us. I'm glad it falls on a weekend night. It's never as much fun on a weekday when the kids have to go back to school the next day.

I think when we were younger, if Halloween fell on a weekday, the Saturday before was Trick-or-Treat night. But now, Halloween is whenever the 31st is and that's that. I blame it on the uptight religious people who would gladly see the whole holiday fade away forever.

News for you: Christmas is actually a pagan holiday co opted by the Christian church to get more converts. So if Halloween offends you, stop celebrating Christmas, too.

But no matter - we enjoy Halloween in all it's pagan splendor. Hope you have a nice Halloween.

Miss Me?

Thanks to Lena from My Personal Lense for missing me while I was gone.

So, a quick summary.

My daughter was very surprised at our Disney trip. We had a lot of fun, stayed in a nice hotel, and did just about everything we wanted to. It was too short of a time, but we made the most out of the days we had.

We spent the rest of the summer just doing what you do in the summer - enjoying the time off.

School started back up in August - she's in 4th grade now. I like her teacher and the number of classmates is smaller this year - only 14 of them - which I think is a good size.

In early October we took her fall break vacation time and went to the Smoky Mountains. We brought the dog, rented a cabin, and did some fun activities.

Now we're up to Halloween - always fun in our home.

Little side issues - I got to see Bobby Flay when he was in Lexington. On Sunday coming up is the Miley Cyrus concert we got tickets for ages ago. I've been doing some more updating/redecorating on the home. And Alton Brown is my new hero - I've learned more watching his cooking show than any other.

Burn Out

Ok - so I went into Blogging Burnout. Seemed like I had many things to do at home and yet when I sat at the computer I had no idea what to write about. Trivial, important, funny - didn't matter. I couldn't put it into words.

So here I am, months later, trying again.

As a family, all is well. It was a good summer. School is well under way and my daughter is doing fine. Husband is happily employed and looking at a promotion. I'm still keeping house and home and have gained a small interest in cooking.

Is that news? Not really. I just have an average life with little battles and triumphs, but mostly SSDD.