Mama On The Move

Emily’s 23rd birthday has arrived!  Since she’s off in Texas and not here for us to celebrate with her, we have to find ways to make an impact on her far, far away. Last year we sang a song in a Hamilton style.  This year Katie picked another song she knows Emily loves - City Escape -and wrote lyrics to go with it.  Kerry and I found the song to be very fast paced and we despaired of learning it in time (we only had an hour).   After practicing while making dinner and trying about five separate times to record ourselves (at least one of us would flub it somehow).  We usually find the mess ups to be hilarious and try to include a few in the finished project.   We may not be the most talented singers on the planet but we sing with gusto and that's more important!

Katie’s been mixing her metaphors again.  This one popped out of her this week. Kerry was making a new recipe he had found for chicken.  He mentioned that he was only supposed to cook the chicken for 20 minutes.  I was skeptical.  “That doesn’t seem long enough,” I said.  “I don’t want to eat undercooked chicken.” Katie joined in,”Yeah, I think you’d better cook it an extra 10 minutes.” Kerry insisted the recipe called for 20 minutes in the oven and that’s what he was going to do. Katie responded, “Well, we’ll find out if it’s done soon enough.  And if it’s not, he made his bed, he can eat it!” 😂 The chicken was delicious by the way.

This morning Katie was standing in the middle of the living room looking like she was deep in thought. She sighed, “I’m going to be twenty years old in three months.  I’m not sure I’m okay with that.” “I’m going to be fifty-five in two months,” I responded dryly. “Yeah, I’m okay with that ,” she chirped.

Because school has been cancelled for the entire rest of the academic year, the school where I work has decided to post pictures of the teachers on the school website. Each of us will be holding a sign with one word on it.  When all of our pictures are in order, the words will form one long paragraph of encouragement to the students. Representing my importance to the school, my word is "the".  I'm only a part time teacher, and I'm new.  I certainly wasn't going to be given the word "didaskaleinophobia". So here it is: Give me a little word - I'm going to make it in BIG letters!

I had bought a bag of small fingerling potatoes recently.  It was a "medley" of several different colors of potatoes - red, yellow, white, even purple!  They looked interesting and since we are having to stay home all day, every day right now, even something as minor as a new potato can add interest to an otherwise long dull day. I was getting the chicken ready for dinner when Kerry came into the kitchen and said, "Can I do anything to help?" I told him, "Grab that little bag of potatoes and start cutting the big ones in half for roasting.  The smaller ones will be fine as they are." When he cut one of them in half and discovered it was purple in the middle, he held it out towards me and said, "What kind of potatoes are these?" "I don't know," I responded.  "What does the bag say?" "She said to cut up the potatoes." He may not survive this quarantine......

Masks are the latest thing in fashion today! We had a lovely lady from our church offer us masks that she had made out of scrap material in her house.  Thank goodness, because I never have been able to sew well.  A button.  I can sew on a button.  I've always wanted to be able to sew.  I've just never enjoyed lessons.  So I want the ability to sew without having to do that whole learning process. Unfortunately, God hasn't granted me the magical ability to sew without slogging through the basics so I have to depend upon the kindness of others to provide me with life saving masks.    When I took this picture, I told Katie she looked like she was stalking me. So she did this for the next photo, because that's so much better.

Katie and I were going to the store and I started to pull into a parking space before I realized it had a sign that said it was reserved for Expectant Mothers. As I backed out of the space I said, "Dang, I can't park here." Katie responded, "Why not?  You're a mother.  You have expectations."  😆

Something is blooming that is kicking my allergies into high gear.  It's odd because with all the rain, you'd think any pollen would be washed out of the air and I'd be able to breathe through my nose. I was sitting around with my red nose and puffy eyes, complaining, "Ugh!  My allergies are making me feel terrible!" Katie just pointed at her booted foot. I get no sympathy from the booted one.

While we were in Georgia, we toured the Andersonville Civil War Cemetery.  I grew up going there at least once a year and I always forget that other people in America don't always know the story of the most notorious prison of the Civil War. I once had a friend in Alaska ask me, "What was the Civil War even about?  Didn't some of the states try to become their own country or something?"  I can't imagine what the expression on my face was at the time.  I hope I had good control of my features. Anyway, Katie is covering American History this year and I wanted her to see this so when we cover the Civil War she will have some personal knowledge of what was going on there. I don't really want to write about everything there but here are some pictures and if you want to go google it to learn more, feel free.

Katie had her birthday party the Saturday after her actual birthday. With a delicious purple cake no less! Her party was at Joann Fabrics where the girls learned to take strips of scrapbooking paper... And turn them into beautiful shiny beads! I was very impressed.  The beads looked like they were made out of ceramic! The guests had a great time picking out colors to use. They each made enough beads to make a bracelet to take home. And sixteen year old Katie is here!

If you're any sort of a Harry Potter fan at all, you know that J.K. Rowling wrote another book which follows Harry and Ginny's son at Hogwarts.  The book was released on Saturday and Barnes & Noble had a big party from 8:00 to midnight to celebrate the release of the book - although it's not actually a book, it's a play script.  It would make a wonderful book - I've already finished it.  It's a slightly more difficult read because it doesn't tell you how anyone speaks or what they are doing.  In a book, you might read something like,  "Hermione snatched the book out of his hands, marched over to the desk and slammed it down, scattering papers and pencils which rolled off the desk and noisily bounced around on the floor.  She glared at the mess and then back at Ron and snapped, 'Thanks!'" In a script, that same bit would look something like this: Hermione:  Thanks! Movements, expressions, inflections, etc are not in a script...

So, it all came down this way: Kerry called me back in March and said, "Don't kill me.  They want me to go to a conference in Hawaii from May 10th to the 12th." "Aw man!  You get to go to Hawaii?  That is so not fair!"  I pulled out my calendar to write down the dates.  It wasn't until I was actually looking at the calendar that it hit me.  "You're going to be in Hawaii on May 11th?  Our 25th anniversary?  Are you kidding me??" Neither of us had even realized it!  We both heard "10th" and "12th" but didn't make the connection of it also including the 11th which is our anniversary.  When Kerry first left for Korea, he had planned to save his R&R to come home for our anniversary.  Then Ben set his wedding date for June and we realized Kerry would have to save his R&R for that.  We would miss spending our anniversary together.   It's definitely not the first time that's happened but we had ...