Thursday, June 24, 2010

A Time for Quiet...

...literally.

Hubby and son are in the wilds of central Texas manning our fireworks store. No outdoor stand for us any longer. We graduated to a building, indoors with air conditioning and living quarters. Woo hoo!

But I digress.

One daughter moved out a couple of weeks ago and the other was whisked off as a counselor at our church's children's camp for the week.

I have been at home blessedly alone with only the dogs for company since Sunday night. I kid you not, this is probably the first time I have really been alone in that house for any length of time since we moved in nine years ago this month!

It's very quiet. And odd. Even when my daughter's home, she's usually holed up in her room doing her own thing or sleeping, so it's not as if we spend a lot of time in the same room. But to know she's not even in there is just...well, odd.

Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly enjoying this vacation of sorts. I've gotten into a little routine and I like it. It's going to suck to have to go back to old routines when everyone starts coming back home.

Well, back to work. I'm leaving early today so I've got some things to get done. Shh...

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Happy Birthday--

Today would have been my daddy's 63rd birthday.

Sadly, he died last November.

Happy Birthday, Dad.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

A Time to Step Up...

For my son.

We went to a meeting for the band last evening. It was little overwhelming, even for me. But what a great experience for the boy. The teacher has been teaching at that school seventeen years and at one of feeder middle schools for several years prior to that. She knows what she's about. It's apparent that she loves music and she loves kids. She hosts extra band camps in June and July that she doesn't get paid for in order to ensure the band has a leg up in learning the music and routines.

He won't get to slide in his school work any longer--there will be weekly grade checks in order to play at football games. Band practice every morning and on Tuesday evenings.

The Band Booster raises/spends close to $30K a year. Wow! But they provide everything from instrument lube oil, the sheet music, reeds for the woodwinds, drum sticks, etc... I guess I'll be a busy band mom this year. I think it's going to be an awesome experience for him (and me). This is a fairly protected group, for which I'm glad. It sounds terrible, but he'll have little time for the two friends I don't care for that are a grade ahead of him.

Plus he wants to play baseball in the spring and we've convinced him to take JROTC, as well, as he wants to join the Marines. He's going to be a busy, exhausted boy. He'll have little time to get into trouble.

So I dropped $100 last night to get him up and running with a uniform and marching shoes and other band paraphernalia. Of course, now I have to buy him an instrument. Yikes! Keep your fingers crossed we can find a good used one for a reasonable price.

The cool, but curious thing was that the teacher has made him first trumpet already. She knows him from last year as she spent some time with his middle school band and she is familiar with his ability, but he's a freshman. What happened to all the other trumpet players? Did they ALL graduate? Interesting. A good opportunity, to be sure, but odd.

Look out high school, here he comes!

Monday, June 14, 2010

A Time for Birthdays

I just celebrated my birthday this past Saturday. It started off a little in question. Not a standard birthday, to be sure, but it turned out just fine.

First of all, hubby and son were out of town at a paintball event. So the house was quiet since Wednesday. We'll celebrate together this week--maybe another hamburger at the sports bar. It was pretty tasty.

Oldest daughter moved out on Wednesday evening as well. Not under the best circumstances, but not unexpected or even necessarily unwanted. I was more sad and relieved than upset.

Younger daughter gave me a $50 iTunes gift card, a bag of my favorite gummi bears, and Band Hero. We played Band Hero for awhile then went out for a nice juicy hamburger and took a stroll around Target where I bought myself a dvd set of one of my favorite TV shows.

Aside from that, I spent the weekend writing (@ 3000+ words since Wednesday!) and watching a few other miscellaneous TV shows. Overall, an enjoyable and productive weekend.