Thank you Peaches for #5 on your list. That was sweet.
Thank you Sugar for the advice. That was sweet too.
Thank you Kiwi, for comparing us to the Osbournes. Seriously. That family is so screwy, and their language is foul, and they allow some questionable things to go on under their roof, but one thing I have to say for them is that you can tell they love each other and they know how to laugh.
You will all be pleased to know that our "extra" boy spent yesterday out putting in applications for work.
Bagzie, I've seen pictures of your house. If they really drive me round the bend, I want to move in with you. You wouldn't really mind, would you???? I'd help you work in the garden.
Lush, you could be next. I'd love a place with a pool.
You're giving yourself t-shirts when you gain weight? What an interesting, contrarian approach...
I forget, where is DS working this summer? All of DD's summer job opportunities have fallen through or fizzled so far. The only really good prospect is helping her guitar teacher, teaching guitar to beginning students. Unfortunately that would involve me driving her 90 miles round trip. That doesn't make the slightest sense. When she gets her license (next month sometime) she could drive herself, but it would still cost about $10/roundtrip at current gas prices. This is one problem with living in a depressed area; traditional teenager jobs have been snapped up by older unemployed people.
School's finally out! You wouldn't believe the collection of lackadaisical final exams DD took. Her English final was a game of Jeopardy where you had to get 5 questions right to pass. Her French final was pretty hard, but in the last 20 minutes the teacher said they could open their books to check their work. Her history final consisted of a two-part matching test, one was a timeline which they'd been given verbatim to study, the other was a collection of questions so disparate that you'd have had to have been illiterate to get them wrong. The algebra2 final might have been somewhat challenging, and biology was difficult but they were allowed to use their books. There was no final in Honors Writing, mostly because there were only 2 underclassmen (seniors graduate before finals, how do you like that?)
Ta, can't think of anything else to complain about at the moment
Oh hi Wabby! For some reason I missed your post. Let's all move in with Bagz.
You know when I said the other day that I had to round up my cats to go to the vet and at least I'd get something done? Never happened. What a bloody (literally) awful day that was. DD and I spent half an hour trying to get one stupid cat out of my bedroom, and totally failed. She caught the other one and we got her into a crate, not before scratching DD up a bit. And meanwhile I was trying to call the vet to say we'd be late, but their line was constantly busy. When I finally got hold of them, it was already way too late to get there, they were too busy to fit us in later (and I only had one cat to bring anyway), so I had to reschedule my appt. The stupid cat showed up right after I cancelled the appt. (well, maybe not so stupid after all!) so I picked her up by the scruff of the neck and tossed her outside. Later I cut my finger in such a way that it wouldn't stop bleeding for about half an hour. Yesterday I burned my other hand while I was cooking. And today, one of my hands is aching like crazy (arthritis), and I have a toothache. I am not having a good week. I think I'm becoming accident prone.
Oh well. Maybe it'll get better. Because I'm such a bright-eyed optimist
DS15 just got his report card. It was okay... he had to take "exit exams" in some of his classes (the ones where the subjects are taught by more than one teacher.) In history, which has been taught by a sub since the history teacher got deployed to Iraq In January, no one got higher than an 85, including the kid who gets straight As. So Chris's history grade looks like this: A A B A A D with a final grade of C.
I just finished Cub Scout day camp this week. I was the leader for the kids from our pack. I think we have some of the best kids in the council. I hope they had fun. I know I did. However, some of the adults there acted like they had no idea how to deal with boys age 7 to 10. They seemed to think these boys were Boy Scouts, not Cub Scouts. Oh well.
Sugar, one of my friends and her husband both had LASIK recently and they like it.
It's panic central here. My BIL is here from Texas. His daughter and 2 grandchildren are here also, I have bunco tomorrow, and my mom and aunt who is visiting from out of town will be visiting Saturday (in the middle of my bunco cooking and cleaning marathon) and on Sunday my SIL and her husband, my BIL from Texas and daughter and grandchildren and DH's other brother and wife and children will be at our house for ham dinner. Not to mention all the usual suspects who hang out at our house. Oh, and did I mention I have to cook dinner for the Texas BIL and his daughter and grandchildren tonight???? I think I will go to Costco and buy a chicken pot pie, for tonight, and a ham for Sunday dinner. There goes my food budget for the month.
I'm slightly stressed.
How is WW going for you this week, Cherry? Congrats for you moms with kids getting out of school this week. You made it through another year.
Yeah, Cherry, I can imagine you'd be great at cub scout day camp! There's always some clueless parents; hope the kids didn't bear the brunt of that too much. DD's experience with girl scout camp was that they tended to treat them as too little -- too many restrictions and lectures about safety, etc., not enough challenges.
Big Brag: DD's recital this morning was unbelievable. Gorgeous. She did a Celtic guitar and voice piece with her guitar teacher playing accompaniment (Cymbeline by Lorena McKennit). Very nice job. Then for her voice solo she sang an Italian aria that just blew me away. I hadn't heard the whole thing before -- full of trills and other musical ornaments and it ranged high and low. Very difficult, but she was absolutely spot on, not a flaw. And she smiled!
i LOVE hearing about all the dd's and ds's----whatever you have to say about any of them it is endlessly entertaining!!!!----my dd FINALLY finished her exams---you would LOVE her school Kiwonkers---She is finished Grade Twelve and all the "Seniors" as you Yanks call them DO have to write final exams as well as AP {advanced placement} exams--She has been writing exams on and off for a month!!!----She is in a dead heat with two other students for Valedictorian here but she thinks the new girl who came into the School for her last year will beat her {needless to say her classmates for the last four years would like her to deliver the speech to the grad class,but in this school the VAL is 'marks only'---not elected} ANYway,she did get a four thousand a year scholarship to her university of choice so we can't complain----considering tuition is five thousand and residence is another eight thousand ----don't want to think about it { we have her stepsister starting university with no scholarship so that will be another FIFTEEN --shared by her mother thank God}ENOUGH WHINING!!!---- we just got back from BOSTON where we picked up the girls for the summer----LET THE LAUNDRY BEGIN!!!----- the tickets from denver to boston----119 each RETURN---the tickets to MY town from Denver---around eight hundred to a thousand----think it was worth the seven hour drive {14 hour round trip!!!}------KIWI I WOULD SO LOVE TO HEAR YOUR DAUGHTER SING!!! CAN'T YOU MAKE A CD OR TAPE OR SOMETHING!!!!! WE WOULD ALL LOVE TO HEAR IT!!!!------------ WABBY YOU ARE MORE THAN WELCOME TO BRING YOUR GARDENING PROWESS TO THE RANCH HERE----THE LILACS MAY FINALLY BLOOM THIS WEEK!!!! IMAGINE THAT!!!!!!---- I SEE THEY ARE OUT IN MAINE!!!!-----THIS week is PROM and GRADUATION so i think i should just take the ADIVAN or whatever you call it NOW!!!! XOXOXOXOX
Naturally.
Wow, I didn't realize you were behind us, lilac-wise, Bagz! Lilacs here are almost gone now.
Maybe I'll make you a videotape, if you really wouldn't be like "there goes Kiwi bragging again". She does have stuff on CD, but not the vocal stuff from her recitals. The videos have the drawback that I took them -- even after about 16 years of videotaping, I'm not all that good. I have gotten to the point that I usually bring a tripod, so that's an improvement over the shaky video of years past, but I look at the results and find I've totally neglected the fact that there's a giant window smack in the middle of the picture (makes your subject all dark), or haven't zoomed in close enough to see who the heck that is on stage! They're not all bad, I just wish I'd bring along my brain when I do them. Last night when I video'd the dance recital, I had 2 batteries all charged up, I had a seat on the aisle, I had my tripod, I had about 5 numbers in mind that I wanted to tape, with DD's at the end. So I sat there filming, all fat dumb and happy, when I realized that I had 5 minutes of tape left and I had 3 more things to tape! And I'd forgotten to bring an extra. So I spent the intermissions scanning the tape for places to squeeze in some extra footage, leaving the 5 minutes at the end for DD's number. Dumb Dumb Dumb! Oh well, it turned out okay.
One of DD's friends is a really good dancer; and she's been on pointe for a couple of years now. They did a ballet number with her and I think 3 others who are on pointe, plus about 6 other good ballet students, and it was absolutely wonderful. Believe it or not, it was done to Rock and Roll Beethoven, if you remember all that Switched On Classics stuff. It was really incredible, not what expect when you think "ballet", had a kind of 60s feel to it.
Well, gotta go shower. We've been invited to a bbq at one of our closest neighbor's house -- only 2 miles down the road. I'm so excited! Social activities! Woowee
Location: the Loralai district in Pakistan's Baluchistan Province
Posts: 273
DD had finals this week. They were scheduled throughout the week. She only had to go for her specific exams. Seniors who have an A in the class may skip the exam and AP exams were given at the local public school the week before.
I wanna come to Bunco.....
Kiwi, you dd smiled!?! I have to sit in the back of the room so that mine will raise her eyes...we never get a smile. The recital sounds wonderful. DS refuses to play in the recitals. DD no longer has recitals...the other ds won't play an instrument...so I guess my recital days are over. sob. I love celtic music.
Bagzie, last year a local girl in your DD's situation file a lawsuit regarding a new student getting Valedictorian...it never went to court..the school settled by letting the girls share the spot. It is unfair for someone to walk in and take an honor like that when there is no consistent measure of the difficulty of HS courses.
On the money and college front: DD will get some money for being so smart...but she'll qualify for nothing based on need. So...I was looking. Some things she qualifies for are based on past generations of the illustrious band of sociopaths that make up my family tree. I started digging through and got completely absorbed by it. The internet has so much info.
I'm going to go force myself to work in the yard today. I don't get what is so much fun about this.
I would LOVE to have a copy of your" best of DD's dancing and singing!!!!"-----That would be fun---we could send around videos of our kids performing and receiving awards----how dorky and fun!!! BEATS TRYING to looose weight!!! If i think that MY singing and dancing is better however THAT is the tape i will send-----MAYBE I CAN PUT PEACHER'S TEABAGS IN WITH THE PACKAGE!!!AHAHAHAHAHAHA-----I AM A LOOSER-----LUSH-----IMAGINE!!! causing a scene in a court over highschool valedictory!!!---i would rather whine and yang for years about the "injustice" than put myself in that limelight!!!!!
Wish I could sing and dance. *sigh* Oh well. At least I can cook.
Exercised three times last week and actually lost half a pound. Someday I'll conquer this gut. Watched "Analyze This" on DVD while I was on the elliptical. Hilarious. I love Billy Crystal. Now I have to watch "Analyze That".
7:48 a.m. (Sugar is barely conscious) Must go shower and then head out to the supermarket to get hot deals on fatty German food. Last night we had roast duck with braised red cabbage, broccoli and potato dumplings. Is it any wonder I'm a tank? Actually, only the duck was fatty.
If you read Painty's journal you'll know that she's recovering from knee surgery and searching for her core. Come back, Painty! We wanna know how you are!
There was no final in Honors Writing, mostly because there were only 2 underclassmen (seniors graduate before finals, how do you like that?) 
Because I'm such a bright-eyed optimist 
Cooooooooooooooool
So I spent the intermissions scanning the tape for places to squeeze in some extra footage, leaving the 5 minutes at the end for DD's number. Dumb Dumb Dumb! Oh well, it turned out okay.
Boring old me
