Love/Hate Relationship

I HATE Santa Ana winds. I just HATE them. I hate how they keep me up at night, or even wake me up from a sound sleep. I hate how they make my already flat hair flatter. I hate how they blow little dust particles in my eyes which stick to my contacts and make me cry until I can take my contacts out and clean them. I hate how they make my dog (and kids) hyper. I hate how they make my allergies worse.

But yesterday, I was quite appreciative of the Santa Ana winds. As another huge fire was burning near Porter Ranch, I couldn't figure out why it looked so pretty out my window, when they skies should be filled with smoke. I went outside to check out where all the smoke was when I realized that the Santa Ana winds that I hate so much were blowing the smoke directly away from me and leaving my house in a little blue sky bubble--I couldn't even smell smoke!

The kids were hoping for a "Fire Day" (kinda like a Snow Day), but the fire's not quite close enough to us, so they had to go to school. At least they cancelled outside practices for Kelsie and Trevor due to the poor air quality.

Mr. President

This year, Branden had the option to stay at his elementary school for sixth grade or to go to middle school. Our elementary school has a excellent sixth grade program, so I was hoping he would choose to stay without me having to negotiate with him. He really wanted to stay because all of his friends were staying, but also so that he could run for President and so he could be in Junior Olympics.

Last week was the student body elections. He (and I) had to make a poster, make stickers for people to wear and give a speech. His speech was all about name recognition as he said "Branden O." twenty-five times in his speech. (There are two other Brandon's, a Braden, and a Brenden in 6th grade with him.) I thought I would be such a good mom so I brought the video camera to tape him. I was SO nervous as he was giving his speech in front of 450 people that I couldn't hold the camera still. The footage is completely bouncing around and I even have one of those anti-bounce cameras. Oh, well. I tried.

His motto was "All you need to know is to vote for Branden O." Not as memorable as Trevor's "If you're clever, vote for Trevor. And even if you're not clever, you should still vote for Trevor," His worked anyway, and he won! Congratulations, Branden O.

Ouch!

Kelsie was so proud of her latest basketball injury she actually brought me my camera and asked me to take pictures of it to put on the blog (probably since I didn't post her black eye last month). As you can see, her lip is a little swollen. She was elbowed in the mouth which split her skin just below her lip. The doctor superglued it back together, so she was happy she didn't have to have stitches. The worst part is the inside of her mouth.

When she was elbowed, she somehow managed to bite the inside of her lip. It's like one gigantic canker sore. It hurts for her to move her mouth in any way, so she doesn't talk, eat, or smile much. She even had to have someone give her talk for her in church on Sunday. Poor Kelsie. I know it hurts, but I can't help from laughing at her when she's trying to not laugh or smile at something and only half her lip moves. But I'm being very nice and buying her lots of Jamba Juice--her current diet staple.

FREE ICE CREAM

On Thursday from 5-8 PM don't forget to go to Coldstone to get your FREE 3 oz sample of their special Make-a-Wish flavors.
You can pick either
Jack's Creation - Marshmallow ice cream with OREO® Cookies, Chocolate Chips and Fudge OR
Emily's Creation - Nutter Butter® ice cream with White Chocolate Chips, Kit Kat® and Yellow Cake
I think I'm going to go for Emily's creation....I'm not a real marshmallow fan...but feel free to choose for yourself.
Any donations they receive go to the Make-a-Wish Foundation, so it's all good.

Paint

Time to paint Trevor's room. He said he wanted one wall to be blue and the rest to be white. Fine. I don't care. It's paint. I kinda like to paint because it's cheap and it's easy and if you don't like it it's easy to fix. I wanted him to go to the paint store with me to get the little paint swatches to see what shade of blue he actually wanted. He said he didn't want to go with me and for me to get a blue "like this"--as he handed me a blue Blockbuster coupon that was in the car.

I bring home about 20 different shades of blue for him to pick one. We tape them up all over the one wall that he wants painted blue and he stares at the colors for a few days. Each day he takes down a few colors he doesn't like until he's narrowed it down to four. Peek-a-boo-blue, Suddenly Sapphire, Rainbow Bright and Teenie Bikini. No "Blockbuster Blue" at the store.

Who names paint? Teenie Bikini is the darkest blue of them all. It has nothing to do with a teenie bikini. I would at least think teenie bikini would be a tropical beach color, but it's not. And Peek-a-boo blue? What does that mean? Think what a fun job it would be to stare at a color and think of all the names you could call it. I really think that would be fun. But, I also think it would be fun to think of street names for new housing developments. You know, Lori Lane, Kelise Court, etc.

Anyway, he had decided on Peek-a-boo-blue so I went and bought the little half a pint sample that they sell. After looking at it for a day he decided he wanted to go a little darker, so Suddenly Sapphire it is! Now I have to decide between twenty different colors of white for the other walls.

September 11th

It doesn't seem like "September 11th" was really seven years ago. It seems like it was much more recent. I clearly remember the morning when the alarm went off and the people on the radio were talking about a plane hitting the World Trade Center. I was very confused and thought I had missed the beginning of a story or a joke. All of the sudden reality hit Chris and he jumped out of bed and turned the TV on and we stared at the TV in shock and horror for a while not really knowing what we were supposed to do. Chris realized he probably needed to get to work and I started getting Kelsie and Trevor ready for school. It was a very eerie feeling taking them to school. I didn't know if there was going to be school or if I should keep them home, but I decided to keep their usual routine for them.

My in-laws were on the way to LAX that morning when they heard the news. They were trying to head back to Washington Dulles (DC) after spending a week visiting us. Of course all the flights were cancelled and stayed cancelled for a few days. There was such a quietness around town for those few days without any flights overhead.

The tragedy really hit me when we visited New York three years ago. We were in NYC for a couple of days and toured around the city and saw all the sights and we decided to go to Ground Zero. There in the middle of all these skyscrapers and hustle and bustle of city life was a gigantic hole in the ground. It was fenced off, and there was still debris that wasn't completely cleared out. But there was a tribute to the people that had died on 9/11. I was most surprised by the size of the hole, by the immensity of the destruction. It was a memory and an emotion that I hope I never forget.

Weekend Warrior

I always get so jealous when I watch some of those home improvement shows on HGTV. You know, the ones where they build a whole room addition in one weekend. My weekend projects tend to average at least a month. I always blame it on only have one weekend day (Saturday) rather than two, or not getting up at the crack of dawn to start my weekend project, like they do on HGTV. But last weekend I actually started and finished (almost) my weekend project. Perhaps it was because it was a three day weekend so I actually had two days to finish my task.


The job was to tear out the closet shelving in Trevor's room (aka "the office") and put in a "real closet." My goal was to go Lowe's to buy the closet stuff, tear out the shelving, patch the holes, paint the closet, put in some wood flooring we happened to have left over from our kitchen, and then put in the new closet. Sounded like a feasible weekend project to me.

With Chris's help we were able to actually get it down over the weekend--and that even included an extra trip to Lowe's again to return the closet unit we had bought and buy a different one. It's not competely done--still needs some moulding, a few shelves, and closet doors--but it is soooo close to be done all in one weekend! I even was able to take a quick shower and make it to my fantasy football draft at 6:00 pm. I'm even thinking of keeping the closet doors off for a while, because I think the closet might stay cleaner that way.


We even got Trevor a bed over the weekend so he no longer has to sleep on an air mattress, although he is so tired from seminary he really doesn't care where he sleeps right now. The plan for Trevor's room this week is....painting the bedroom walls.