Happy Birthday Matthew!

Only slightly better than last year's birthday. Matthew was so sick last year that even his new drum set showing up only slightly perked him up. This year's birthday found him dragging his feet all day through his homework, groaning that one shouldn't have to do school on his birthday. As much as all kids might agree, I'm quite sure it just can't work that way!

Anyhoo... Happy Birthday Matman!!

Anita knows...

So when it comes to everything about me, Anita understands. She says most problems don't start until somewhere around age 40, so I should be good for another several years since I'm a perpetual 29. But ... she knows...

It's kinda funny, too, that her show was on Valentine's Day. Michael got tickets and tried to make all this a really nice surprise for me. The only problem with that is that "nice" and "surprise" hardly ever go together for me. Especially when it involves huge crowds of people. Well, this was at a church that was very familiar to me, so the anxieties were somewhat under control. But anyway, he really wanted to surprise me with this little date night, but I just wasn't going along with it. I made him tell me and he did. He said he got tickets for US to go. I said, "Well... good for ME..." Never thought men would go see Anita by choice! I didn't want to say much because it was a plan that he put together all by himself, so there are points to be had there. Through the course of time, he decided that my mom and I just might have a better time at this show than he and I would have. I politely agreed. So anyhoo... there we were and it was a really great time. But I was really surprised by the number of men who braved all the estrogen and escorted their wives there! You go guys!! I still stand by her famous phrase, "It's a girl thing!!"

Primary Focus

The Primary Focus kids came by our church Sunday night. They are favorites of my kids, so we came to see them, but they only did the grown-up program, not the kids' one. We got to talk to them afterwards and found that they were going to be at a nearby school the next day, so we thought that was a great day for a field trip!! We took Grandma with us and went to see them. We were a little early, so we got to spend quite a bit of time getting to know all of them. Two of the girls were homeschooled, too, so we had fun talking with them. They were doing two performances, so we stayed for both!

I was wrong...

I guess Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo saw the problem with the gopher and the shadow and devised a new plan, however it didn't involve making a groundhog braver or a shadow less frightening:

Khuntami, a 16-year-old male that has been with the Henry Doorly Zoo since he was a cub, exited his living quarters and went into an exhibit holding two boxes of identical meat -- one box labeled spring and one labeled winter.

Zoo officials said that whichever box he chose would determine the forecast for Nebraska.

Khuntami paced between the two choices before pawing at the snow-colored box, an unpopular choice. A crowd moaned as he licked his lips and prepared to devour Winter.

"We'll see if this translates to the rest of the country," said zoo director Dr. Lee Simmons. "Or, we'll see if he's wrong."

We'll have to come up with something else for next winter. Until then I guess we just keep freezing our b-b-b-b-beaks off.

Darn Gopher

Why is it we leave such a crucial decision to such a funny creature? If someone is so skittish that he's terrified of his own shadow, why don't we pick an animal with a little more gusto? Now I'm not offering any of my beloved critters, no, no, neither are they the epitome of strength or courage. Well now, that's not completely true... Patrick might just take a chunk out of his shadow, but seriously, we should be more prepared for this. February 2, no matter what the forecast, always seems to be the most beautiful day of the year. We could be watching that horrific mountain snowstorm come in from the Rockies barreling on toward Chicago, but guaranteed at midnight it will break up. Of course he's going to see his shadow. Let's get a rhino or an elk or something more accustomed to a frightening shadow. Give us all a fighting chance.

I guess I didn't actually see or find out how the whole shadow revealing went. I usually just wake up to a gorgeous day and get discouraged from the git go.

Oh, well. I guess it's pretty cool if your birthday is February 2. You're pretty much guaranteed a nice day! Happy Birthday Uncle Denny!!

A slow beginning...

And yet, I'm already behind!! Business came to a screeching halt, which freed me up to do some other things. I've jumped back into some school with the kids and discovered Mallory was up to Earthquakes and Volcanoes in her Science book. I had some lapbooking supplies purchased from In The Hands of a Child and briefly showed them to Michael and he was good with it, so I started printing them off. He's now in there cutting things out for her! I think they're going to have a lot of fun! I know I love the stuff! By the way, this new Safety Law coming up may drastically injure a lot of small businesses, so this is one company trying to sell off some extra inventory at some super great discounts. Be sure to check out their site, In the Hands of a Child, and get started! If you've never done a lapbook, this is really the place to go. They have a freebie on the site that you can download as an ebook and get started. Your only necessary supplies are a file folder, colored paper, and some scissors, glue stick, maybe some brads.... stuff you'll have on hand!!

Anyway, I've also been catching up on our website, practically pampered. It's been fun updating that and really being able to wrap my head around it. We're also adding a couple new webstores and such, so it truly is keeping me busy. It's just that our outgoing packages have gone from 15-20 a day before Christmas to now about 3-5 a day. Can make ya nervous!! Ok, back to work. Everyone else has gone back to school.

Inspirational

I've been struggling with a low-key cold for a long time and have, particularly the last couple days, become quite lazy. As I was blog-perusing this morning, I found that one of my friends has a name for this!! I am decompressing!! I may not be doing it as well as she, but that must be what I'm doing!! My cold isn't really bad enough to keep me in bed, but it does keep me stuffed up and very slow moving. Our shipping has gone down from about 15 or more packages to just 3 or 4, so there may be a bit of depression and anxiety there, too! I normally attribute my late nights to the fun stuff on the computer: writing ads and newsletters or designing my store or website, but lately, it's just been really bad reruns of Seinfeld. I can't even tell you why I watch that! Those people are just wrong!! Talk about the darker side of humanity... But anyway, school will start on Monday, so it's time to start thinking about getting lives and schedules back in order. That will be good for the soul. One can only take so much time off. Mine's been a little over the limit. My brother is coming this week, so Christmas isn't quite over in our neck of the woods. It took a while for them to decide when they were coming, but Michael and I could have told you the minute Michael got a catering job. Troy only comes when we have catering going on!! But I don't get to see much of him anymore, so I'll take what I can get.
Ok, I'm going to get back to my decompressing. I better take it a little more seriously since I only have a day or two more of it!