Friday Again

I woke up this morning to Kaylee's school being cancelled for the day. The weather wasn't really all that bad, since the ice storm lost a good amount of its punch, but schools were on a 2-hour delay, and her day was out at 1 pm anyway, so the administrator just decided to cancel the whole day rather than make everybody come in from 10:30-1 and then go back home. Worked for me. I crawled back in bed slept until Steve insisted on talking to me before he left for work. He kept talking to me, then he finished and I was still lying there eyes closed and unmoving, and he said "you're going to have to give me some indication that you heard me." I said "I got it." and he went away but by then I was awake. I'd been in such a heavy sleep, too. Ahhhh.

Kaylee and I went out to Glenndale and spent most of the day, until it was time to go run the usual errands and come home. It's a quiet day, nothing new or interesting, and it ends with Kaylee hiding Deenie the Elf and me trying to find her so I can move her again to prove she's still coming alive at night. Oh, that does remind me. Today Kaylee came up to me upset, holding the bottle of "snowflakes" that you sprinkle on Deenie at night so she'll go do mischief. She said "This bottle has a LABEL on it. It was BOUGHT. It's not REAL. Somebody BOUGHT this." Then she flat out asked me if Deenie was real. I told her Deenie was as real as she made her, and Kaylee let it go at that. She's so sad at the thought of it not being real. *sniff*

She is looking forward to seeing her grandparents though. :)

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"A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself."

~Alexandre Dumas

Hum Drum

This time of year, my daily trips to the post office become "when I have to go" trips to the post office, because the lines of people waiting are literally backed past the doors. Today I had a package slip, so I stood in the line for almost 20 minutes to pick it up. The cars are usually backed out of the driveway/parking lot too, but I just park at the bank next door and walk up the snowy bank and get in long before the people waiting in their cars for a spot to open up do. Waiting in line is such a waste of time. If I'm going to waste time, I at least want to enjoy it. :)

I left the post office and went to the Verizon store in order to pick up a screen protector for my new phone. I walked in the door, was met by a saleslady to whom I said "Hi, I need screen protectors for my LG", and heard immediately back "I'm sorry, our computers are down and we can't do anything right now." They couldn't sell me a $9 package of plastic because their computer was down. I would complain about it, but I already did over lunch, so I won't make Steve read it again. ;) Anyway, after lunch I went back and their magic electronic boxes made it possible for them to figure out how to sell me what I needed after all, and we were both happy. My phone touch screen will hopefully remain pristine a bit longer, too.

A more enjoyable thing from today was actually my gas stop where I filled up my car for $20 again for the first time in a VERY long time. $1.45 a gallon is just almost downright exciting!

Not much going on today, it was just...Monday!

Chattering

My teeth, that is. I woke up this morning to something like 18 degrees. It is currently 19 degrees as I type this. Yuck. I took Kaylee to school in my pajamas and a coat (never going inside, of course), came home, laid back down on the couch, asked Steve for a blanket, and took a 45 minute nap. While not exactly my usual operating mode, it worked today.

Speaking of going inside, you know I'm not exactly overly worried about what I wear, but I DO see moms who walk their kids inside the school while dressed in pink cloud saggy flannel pajama bottoms, hair uncombed, no make-up on, etc. Maybe I'm more old school than I thought, but if I appear dressed like that, I'm staying in my car with my sunglasses on regardless of weather and not chatting with anyone. I think it was Chuck who reminded me not to get in an accident on my way home then if I do that. Uh, I would be really embarrassed. Anyway...

Ah, just a typical day of getting stuff done. Errands, lunch, work around the house, pick up child and take to the afternoon function, home to make her do her chores, dinner and a bath (for her, that is), and so forth. Not much of note in there. Well, I stopped at Walgreens to drop off some film (yes, FILM) and pick up some makeup. Today I picked up what I thought was a lipgloss, because as winter sets in, my skin gets dry, like most people's, and that helps. I put it on, and suddenly my lips were tingling like crazy. Apparently I got a "lip plumper" on accident. I looked in the mirror, but I still didn't have Loretta Switt or Angelia Jolie lips even after the application of the stuff. I don't know if I'm supposed to like that tingly thing or not, but I vote 'not'.

Oh, that's about it for the day. I was going to talk about somebody's stinky feet (NOT mine), but decided nobody needed to read about that. ;) Tomorrow is Friday and then on to what is probably going to be a "putting up the Christmas stuff" weekend. I think I just heard a groan from my other half...

Barney Stamps Past Quotes

(Yes, I know that makes no sense. I am not feeling creative!)

I love it when what goes around comes around! Apparently the teachers all got together at the end of the day and put all the kids in the whole school into one room and put on a movie for them to watch while the teachers decorated a tree and a room for a Christmas party. So Kaylee hops in the car and tells me this, and then said "It was a Barney movie, Mom! It was terrible! The snowman was a guy in white clothes and a plastic costume and his lips didn't move. I had to watch that for two hours! I would rather rub up against a tree and lose all my clothes than have to watch Barney!" HAhaha! I told her she used to like Barney, and she said "Yeah, when I was TWO." I said that with all the kids together, they had to watch something everybody could watch, not just the older kids, and she responded that it was terrible at her age to have to watch Barney. So I got her by saying "Imagine how I feel! I was 33 years old and I had to watch Barney with YOU!" That gave her the giggles the rest of the way home. ;)

Me? I just worked today. Read up on some instrument stuff for flying. Picked up a few things around the house. Ran errands. Stuffed all the envelopes for the end of the month billing, and now that our bulk mail place is out of business, went to the post office with a box of ready-to-go envelopes so I could buy stamps and stick them on one at a time. Oh well...at least I got little Christmas stamps to give people a little Christmas Cheer when they open their flight school bill for the month. ;)

We had a lovely lunch with 8 of us at Half Moon today, and I had been there a good 30 seconds before I realized that the guy across the table was someone we knew way back when I first came to Kokomo. I'd flown with him several times and we had a couple of adventures, but I hadn't seen him in years. It's always kind of strange running into people you knew way back when!

Kaylee has Awanas, Steve & I have dinner, then it's time to hunker in and stay warm for the evening with a bit of hot chocolate and cool whip. Sounds good to me, anyway!

A few quotes from the last week...
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"I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it."
~Thomas Jefferson

"Some people think only intellect counts: knowing how to solve problems, knowing how to get by, knowing how to identify an advantage and seize it. But the functions of intellect are insufficient without courage, love, friendship, compassion and empathy."
~Dean Koontz (one of my guilty pleasure authors)

"It is worth a thousand dollars a year to have the habit of looking on the bright side of things." ~Samuel Johnson

"Man must be arched and buttressed from within, else the temple wavers to dust."
~Marcus Aurelius

And in the winter motif:

Black Saturday

Man, what a pretty day. I was up pretty late last night, and was planning on sleeping in this morning until someone texted me bright and early and woke me up. This made me a little cranky, actually, as they interrupted a dream I actually was in the middle of and interested in on one of my few days to sleep in. Oh well, once I was awake I went ahead and got up and got ready so I could run to the store.

I was prepared. It was Saturday morning, the biggest shopping weekend of the year, and I fully expected it to be a nightmare to be in public. I even brought my iPod along for meditation/sound dampening purposes. My first hint that things might not be what I thought was when I drove past the mall, and Target's parking lot was half deserted. I haven't seen Target's parking lot that empty on a normal Saturday, let alone this Saturday each year. So I pull into Meijer to find a mostly empty parking lot. I was really shocked. Again, Meijer's parking lot isn't that empty on any given Saturday that I've driven past. I looked across the street to Wal-Mart and it wasn't much better. This is not good news for retailers, that's for sure. The only good news is that if you want to go shopping, there are a lot of deals right now, and almost no traffic, so have at it.

This afternoon Kaylee went to a friend's birthday party and made a lovely bracelet, and she always likes having somewhere to go and something fun to do. :) Steve enjoyed spending the day hanging out and relaxing, and I spent the beautiful warm day twitchy again, particularly since our weather is supposed to go downhill tonight and turn into snow and cold. But alas, twas not meant to be today, and I am now instead attempting to relax to the sounds of Tinkerbelle's DS game music, "Mythbusters", and running water (as Steve messes with a tube in our waterbed), while smelling a lovely new Vanilla and Sandalwood candle and thinking about dinner plans...

Black Friday

Ah, it was good to sleep in an hour past normal this morning. I kind of like it when Kaylee is out of school. ;)

We ran a few errands, but not many. The post office is now packed out with cars backed out of the driveway again-my least favorite time of year. If I have to go inside for any reason, it is awful, and the line to get any boxes or stamps is out the door a lot of times. That is just not fun. I almost made the mistake of going to Wal-Mart style store today for something innocuous until I was reminded that today is Black Friday and I would have to be crazy to attempt it. I already saw a news report where a man was trampled to death at a Wal-Mart in NY and a pregnant woman was trampled and miscarried her baby because of it, all because of super eager shoppers. That's just...pathetic. And so sad for the families of the people hurt and killed.

Glenndale's lunch was quieter today than last year at this time, but there were still folks hanging out. It was pretty outside so there was even some decent flying going on. It was a kind of twitchy day though, and I wasn't the only one. One of those days where you don't want to do anything, but you want to do something, but nothing sounds good, and productivity isn't good and neither is boredom.

I combated mine by taking a little nap, Kaylee by playing her DS and the Wii, and Steve by munching on our leftover veggie tray and puttering around. I do have a couple of new books to read that may get some of my attention this weekend. :)

Wii Haw

This morning was cold and windy, but at least it looked nice. Nathan was taking the Cheyenne to Muncie, and I was behind him in the Baron with my iPod plugged into the panel. He took off while I was sitting on the ramp singing to myself (I hope!) waiting for my engines to warm up so I could do my run-up, and I had to grin. He was light on fuel, had only himself on board, on a cold day with a lot of wind, and that thing took to the sky like a homesick angel. It was at 4,500' as he got to the end of the runway. Gotta love that.

Steve decided we should go to Applebees for lunch today, so he texted us all to be there at noon. Around ten after, he called me to let me know he was going to be there, but first he had to leave Culvers, where he was standing around on the phone waiting for the rest of us to show. Never mind that it was his idea to go to Applebees and he was the one who went to the wrong place. HA ha. I mean, it could happen to any of us! *cough*

Kaylee had a Thanksgiving Day party at school today, and she was out of school at 1:30 p.m. until next Monday. So after I picked her up I took her to Target to get a birthday present for a party tomorrow, which pleased her highly. She was choosing a little Tinkerbelle doll toy for herself, she had four characters to choose from, and there was only one of each for some reason. She had narrowed it down to a gold one and a blue one, when a little girl behind her said "I want the blue one Mommy! I want the blue one!" The mom told her daughter that she had to wait until Kaylee chose which one she wanted, because she was there first. Kaylee looked them both over for awhile, then she turned around and handed the blue one to the girl and said "You can have her if you want. It's okay." She told me later she'd wanted the blue one, but she felt bad taking it away from the other girl, because she did like the gold one too.

At Target, I also picked up a new Wii game-Wii Carnival. There are lots of games on there instead of just the four in the sports package, so that will give Kaylee something new to practice on and play. She liked several of them already, and a couple of them have already frustrated her. She doesn't like being told she's a "loser". I don't either, so I don't blame her. ;)

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"If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins."
~Benjamin Franklin

Making Airplane Noises

It was nice to see the sunshine again today. The temps were in the 40s, and it was finally a decent day to go aviating.

Steve, Kaylee and I went out to Kokomo, and I took up my first helpless passengers in the T-6. I flew around Kokomo just a little bit, flew over Glenndale, did a landing back at Kokomo to get warmed up, which went just fine, and then took Steve down to Sheridan for a flight lesson he had. Irritatingly, I whiffed that landing, and I have to say, if you're going to whiff a landing, the time to do that is naturally going to be on a skinny 50' runway in a crosswind in the T-6 with six old-timers sitting inside the building watching riveted at the view, and your spouse as a passenger on board to watch up close and personal. ;) Well, it wasn't pretty, but it worked; and hey, I got to log two landings on one approach...

I left Sheridan with Kaylee in the back seat of the T-6, and we flew back to Kokomo where I did a couple more landings, which were of course beautiful when I had no witness but a 7-year-old. ;) I was on final for the runway, and Kaylee piped up and said "You know what, Mommy? I really like the T-6. I think this is the coolest plane I've ever ridden in." I told her that she is in fact correct, it IS the coolest plane she's ever ridden in. :) She looked adorable back there-I wish I could have gotten a photo of the two of us together in the plane. Maybe another day.

The plan was that Steve would get a ride home from the pilot he was meeting at Sheridan, and I would take Kaylee home. That plan was foiled when I got back to Kokomo, got everything put away and cleaned up, and realized that I didn't have the keys to the Jeep-Steve did. I tried texting him out of a hope that they'd stop in at Kokomo during the flight, but he never got my messages. So Kaylee and I basically got to hang out at Kokomo for a long time. She had her Nintendo DS with her new Tinkerbelle game at least. When Steve arrived with the keys, we all stopped at Steak -N- Shake for my first food of the day. We had decided not to stop and get lunch on our way in at 12:30, so by dinner time I was starving!

Now I've got a full stomach, had three cups of coffee so I'm good and warm inside and out, and it's good to be home and comfy after a day of getting to gain a little more fun and experience in an amazing airplane...

Languid

I slept in this morning, until Kaylee couldn't stand it any more and came in to wake me up. When we were ready to go to bed, Steve got Kaylee up and they slept on the couch. She took great pride in telling me that she just Could Not fall asleep, and she stayed awake until 5:37 a.m. She must have looked at a clock then. Crazy girl. She was up and at it all day, too, wound up tight and chatting and bouncing around non-stop. She's in her room now, and I hope she's crashed and fallen asleep!

We met up with Chuck for lunch, well, breakfast at lunch time actually, then Steve went out to Kokomo for a little while as Kaylee and I went home for the day. I was on the couch and Kaylee was talking to Steve on the phone, and suddenly she is dancing up and down in front of me. I said "What?" She said "I can't tell you but Daddy's bringing me a surprise!" She almost couldn't contain herself-told me it started with a "T" and than ran out of the room so she wouldn't say any more. Steve had told her not to tell me so I wouldn't tell him not to get it. So, one of Kaylee's Christmas presents arrived a little early, and she's been playing with her Nintendo DS most of the evening with her new "Tinkerbelle" game. ;)

The rest of the evening has passed with a little clean-up, a little movie action, a little laughing at Purdue killing IU in football today, and a lot of lounging...

Satisfaction

Well, it didn't quite go according to plan, but days rarely do, and this was a good one regardless. :) I was supposed to sign off a student for a solo cross-country today, but the winds were too strong for them. So I thought I'd go flying this morning myself in the Baron or T-6, but by the time I got done with all my errands, I was too short on time prior to Glenndale's lunch hour, so I went ahead and went out to the airport. Afterwards, Steve and I tried to arrange a time to go. Kaylee decided she just did NOT want to go out to the airport, so Steve agreed to hang with her at home instead of being my first helpless passenger in a T-6, much to her high appreciation, but he didn't get home until after 5 pm, and by that time I had a whole 22 minutes prior to sunset. It takes 20 minutes to get to the airport, and a cold dark night flight wasn't quite what I had in mind for the T-6. Sunday looks like a good day though. A little warmer, sunny, a little bit of wind to play with. :)

I love those moments when your child does something that shows that she "gets" it, probably better than most adults, including you. Kaylee's shoes had come apart on her, so I got her a new pair of tennies as a surprise. They have Tinkerbelle on them, because she still likes Tinkerbelle. Miss M at school had told her that Tinkerbelle was for "stupid babies", but Kaylee was still resisting that, because she said that there's nothing wrong with liking Tinkerbelle. So I warned her that Miss M might have something negative to say about her new shoes, and to not let it get to her-that if she liked them, that's what is important. Kaylee looked at me and said "Oh, Mommy, I think we solved that." "You solved what?" "M saying mean things. I sat down and talked to her about it and I think we solved it." "You did??" She looks at me with a duh look and says "Well, yes. I told her that I didn't appreciate it when she said mean things, and that if she kept it up she wouldn't have any friends because none of us like it when she is mean to us, and she told me that she already doesn't have friends really and that she'd like it if we could start fresh. I said okay. So I think we solved it." So matter-of-factly.

I'd told Kaylee to try talking to M several times in the past, but Kaylee always said "She won't listen, Mom". So we moved on to "try to ignore it", which is hard for anybody. Then it went to "I talked to the teacher but she doesn't hear any of it." I'm glad that instead of escalating to the next level, the kids took it into their own hands properly. I had honestly given up on M being nice, but the kids hadn't. Kaylee was willing to talk to M and tell her what her problem with M was and what the consequences were, and M was willing to listen and try to change and do better. And the girls run off to recess together playing "Spy Kids" like nothing ever happened. Oh, if only adults could still be like-or at least learn from-7 year olds sometimes. I'm proud of her. She danced on that fine line of "standing up for yourself" and "turn the other cheek". Who knows if M can maintain niceness or not, but regardless, she is trying, and Kaylee did it right, and I'm proud of both of them. :)

Thankful Thursday

I've started parking my car in the garage now that the temps have dropped, which means Kaylee and I get to hop in a warm-ish car first thing in the morning. This is good. :)

I had a morning to myself to do stuff around the house, which was also nice.

Kaylee got an A+ on her spelling test today, and it had some pretty tough words this week.

On the way home from school today, Kaylee told me that one of the boys in her class was talking about "taking down" the "mean girl", M. Kaylee said "She keeps being mean and being mean and I ignore her and ignore her and ignore her, but I'm about to get physical." I said "Get physical? Kaylee, I'm okay with you defending yourself if someone is hurting you or trying to hurt you, but if someone is just talking, it isn't appropriate to get violent." She said "Violent? I'm not going to get violent!" So my next question was "Well, what do you mean by 'get physical'?" Her response was "Well, you know, stand up for myself!" I said "How?" She said "By not letting her talk to me that way!" And then she got distracted by something else and I never did hear how she was planning on accomplishing that. I did get the idea that she didn't realize what the phrase "Get physical" actually means. ;)

I was sitting in the gymnastics foyer while waiting through Kaylee's private lesson and class, and I put my head back on the wall and closed my eyes. Suddenly my arms and legs and head jerked like I'd been hit with some serious voltage. I'd done one of those "startle" things. Fortunately I was in the back of the room so I think I just scared myself, not those around me too.

Thus concludes another exciting episode of Three Princesses or something like that. Tune back in tomorrow for more fascinating material. Perhaps something like "Kaylee finally masters flushing the toilet EVEN in the middle of the night when the noise scares her!" Thank you.

Some Whine With That Cheese

I have figured out why I don't like winter. It's not just because it's cold, which I don't like. It's not even just the gray days, which I really don't like. It's not just the icy back roads on the way to all three airports in a nice newly leased car which has the traction of a big sled and the accompanying "oh please don't let me dent this I can't afford it and I'd never hear the end of it" thought process. It's not just the fact that every time I get into and out of my car, I get shocked painfully after sliding on or off the cloth seat. Or that my hair turns into a static monster that increases my desire to chop it short every year, sticking to my back, my shirt, and everything around it. It's not just the short days and long periods of cold darkness, although that's probably way up there on the list. Even the slow down on flying isn't quite the ticket, although it's a part of it. No, I was sitting here at my desk, looking out the window at the bright, sunny day, the blue skies, and I realized that the truth of the matter is that I simply don't like being teased. It looks lovely out there right now, but it's lying. I've been out there. I know. It's cold and unpleasant and any thoughts I have of doing something fun are torn away by the icy wind the second I step outside the door. I need to get instrument current (or more accurately, proficient) in the Baron. I don't need to, but I'd like to keep building experience and proficiency in the T-6. I need to work on some aerobatics in the Decathlon for some upcoming lessons. Those things sound good and productive and even fun right now, looking out my window at that blue sky, but this morning on my one morning off, I stepped outside, wrapped my jacket more tightly around my shoulders, and said "naaaaaah". Winter is a tease. The bad days are bad enough that you know you're not going anywhere but the fuzzy blanket, a good book and a cup of hot chocolate. But the good days get your hopes up...all the way up to the frozen locks, the shaking hands while starting the engine, the attempts to get an airplane out of a hangar with ice on the ground and no traction on the tug. It's not even that cold yet, "just" around freezing. But it's cold enough. Bah Humbug. ;)

Despair, Inc.

I can't help it. These amuse me in a "that is so wrong" kind of way. So I'm going to stick one at the end of about every post until I run out of them. Those of you with "wrong" senses of humor, enjoy. Those of you with "normal" senses of humor, just ignore. :)