I Survived.....

I hosted Thanksgiving for the first time ever and the first time at my new house this year. So there were lots of firsts.

First time:
a. I cooked a Turkey
b. I had 17 people in my house
c. I had 12 of those stay the night
d. Buying 45 bolts of fabric
e. I got everything I wanted (with 1 rain check) the day after Thanksgiving
f. I froze to death on Thanksgiving (well the first time I can remember.....I miss Las Vegas!)

Here's my table setting. I picked leaves from the neighbors apple tree and dried them. Then wrapped the silverware in the napkin and tied the leaf on with raffia. A lot of work? Not as bad as you think. Worth it? Yes.

Here's all the grandkids. Mine are the crazy haired girl in the back (the Little Lady) and the front row dear caught in the headlights blue shirt boy (the Babe). You wanna try getting 7 kids to sit still for .5 seconds and smile? Good luck. This was the best of a series of pictures. At least most of them are looking at the camera...right?

Overall, I had a really good time and I'd have them all over again. It was a lot of fun! But someone brought a cold and my dad left feeling sick. I now have a sore throat too. Yucky. Today.....the Christmas Tree went up!!!!!

I Shouldn't Be Allowed to Cook

Business Adventure

Today I bought fabric at the day after Thanksgiving price. The nice people let me do it early so to help with the stress of that day. I wanted to buy fabric for the whole year because it is just a great price ($1 a yard compared to $6 regularly and $3 with a coupon). So I had to stay within the budge of $300-$500 and I did really well! I bought only stuff I thought was really cute and tons of backs (for the back of the blanket). I bought 43 bolts of fabric with 8 yards on each which makes 344 yards. It was really fun! Have you ever bought and entire bolt of fabric? It's weird. No cutting. They just give it to you with the cardboard and all. Here's a picture of it all lined up in my house.

Guilt Parties

I have never hosted a "party" before and I got roped into my first one recently. I HATE these kind of parties. I don't go to them because I feel guilty and end up buying something I don't need/want. So I got roped into doing this one and I hated everything minute of it.

The kicker is this. I did everything they asked. They told me to send out X number of invitations and I did. They told me to call and remind people about it and we did. I even made cookies for them to eat. Well after the party was over, the lady explained to me that my party sales had to total $175. This is the part where I choked. The 2 people that ordered spend $40 combined (they both bought out of guilt). She said to get any of the benefits that were explained you would get if you hosted a party then you have to come up with $135 in sales by next week. She encouraged me with the fact that it could include my order. What order?!!?! I was banking off the fact that I didn't have to order anything because I got all these benefits of hosting the party! NOPE! I didn't get one thing from hosting the party. Park Lane Jewelry stinks! Don't buy from them and especially don't get roped into hosting a party with them.

This brings me to my point. Why do people sign up to sell things like jewelry, or stamps. Do they really make money off it? Does anyone really buy the stuff without just buying because they feel guilty? I don't understand what the big deal is. The lady who roped me into doing the party also does some stamp thing. It confuses me why they do that. I might spend the initial money to get all the free stuff and pose as a seller. But to host parties.....I'd just feel like I was making my friends feel guilty enough to buy stuff from me all the time. I guess they really believe in their products like I believe in I Hemstitch's products. Yes, I believe in my products but I don't shove them down people's throats all the time. I'm really upset at these Park Lane people. They don't know how to keep customers. I'll never host another party.

Name Confusion

I was in the car with the Babe and he asked me what his other name is. Being confused, I asked what he was talking about. He said well like your other name is Kendra (the first obviously being mom). I was quite surprised that he knew my first name but not completely shocked because lots of people call me that. If there is anything about being a parent that I have learned, it's that children absorb everything! Then they'll typically bring it up when it's the most embarrassing. So I knew he had figured out his name, the Babe, already but what trying to figure out his name where he fit into the family (like my being called mom). So I struggled on what to tell him. The hubby came to the rescue and told him his other name was brother. That satisfied him.

This brings me to my other story. The hubby and I were talking. I told him how comfortable I am with my maiden name and how proud I am to be associated with my family. Then I said that I am very happy that I married him and I loved taking his name to be associated with him. But that I didn't have the same feelings of gratitude about being associated with his extended family. Not that I don't like them! They are just different than I am. Which is ok! It's ok to be different. Perhaps it was just that I don't know then ALL very well (extended family and so on). I guess the conversation was going no where and I really didn't have a point. I was just thinking about how when I'm 39 how I'll have been with my married name longer than my maiden name. I realize that I naturally am drawn to my own family. It's just weird automatically being a part of a family I didn't grow up with. And it's completely weird when someone I met casually says, "oh do you know so and so (with my married name)." Since I married into this family, I don't know all their distant relatives or really their not so distant relatives. Please, don't get me wrong. I love my in-laws. They are the nicest people ever and I enjoy how they've accepted me into their family so willingly. It's just hard mixing two different families.

When it Rains, It Pours...

The hubby is now banned from driving any of our vehicles.....forever. Today he broke our only working car. Well I guess it wasn't entirely his fault but man, it's still broke. I guess he was driving back to work and once he got there, he noticed that 1 of the tires is flat. Must be a bad week for us car wise.

Yesterday, we met a guy from Germany who helped us push our 1st broken car out of the busy road. He missed his bus because he was helping us so we gave him a ride home. He told us that him and his wife share 1 car (been there, done that, am currently doing it) and it was broken down so he took an hour and a half bus ride to and from work. I thought man that would be awful. But tomorrow the hubby is going to have to experience it because he's banned from driving our vehicles.

Even as I write this, more trouble is happening. The Little Lady fell down the stairs again. She's fine, just accident prone. lol.


P.S. There is a new poll down there so check it out. Well it's been there a few days but nobody is voting so.....check it out.

Life's Semi-Emergencies

So you're driving down a busy road (down a hill) and all of the sudden you notice your car is not running. And it won't start. What do you do? Tonight, the hubby's car broke down on his way home from work. He pulled over to one side then coasted off to a side road when there was a break in traffic. He called me and said to come get him. We got the car safely to the hubby's office and met some interesting people in the process.

For some reason, I have this problem with reacting the wrong way to semi-emergencies. When I was in high school, I was rear-ended on my way to school. Instead of doing what normal people would do and stop, I took off. I'm not sure why except that maybe I got scared. Once when I was 8 months pregnant, my car broke down in the middle of the road. I got scared again and walked home. I didn't know what else to do. When I go to get my children out of bed in the morning and they have had a bloody nose during the night, I freak out. I don't know what to do so I leave them until the hubby can take care of them. I'm sure someone would tell me this all has to do with my childhood or something crazy. But for some reason, I freak out in those little semi-emergency situations. I'd hate to see myself in a real emergency.

Anyway we are down 1 car again. And perhaps we will let it rest in peace. We'll see what the diagnosis is later.

Voting

Today is voting day. We're not voting for anything exciting but we're voting. The hubby and I usually vote opposite of each other and cancel each other out too. But we're voting. I have a huge pet peeve with people who don't vote then complain about the leaders. If I vote, then I get complaining rights. Yes I think Pres. Bush is a bozo because no I did not vote for him. Since this year the President is not up for election, we are stuck with him another year.

The only things we get to vote for are like city council and local stuff. There is only 1 real thing I am interested to see what happens to locally. They put a referendum on our ballot. For those of you who aren't from Utah, I'll explain. They want to pass a bill or whatever for school vouchers so children can go to private school and we as tax payers can help their parents by giving them a voucher for X amount for their private school tuition. I hope that made sense.

A couple of days ago I was fairly set upon which way I was going to vote even to the point of not understanding why anyone would vote the other way. I don't think I knew anyone who was voting the other way. Then I talked with my dad, uncle and aunt on a conference call. Most of them said they were voting the opposite way! I was shocked! What is wrong with them? Then it dawned on me. I had no idea what the people on the opposite side were even saying. I was so stuck in my mindset that I hadn't even taken time to look at it from both sides.

So that's my voting advice today. Really look at things from both perspectives. Even if you're sure the way you are voting is correct. After thinking about this referendum from the other side, it didn't change the way I'm going to vote. I still have the same strong opinions as I did before. Now I am much more open minded about how other people are going to vote and how they feel.

The Future Generation

I am worried about our future generation. The hubby is teaching a class here at the local college. He rather enjoys doing this in addition to his regular job. This is the first class that he has taught that is a general education class though. So of course he has hired forced asked me to do his grading for him. I of course said no yes.

He has given one test so far. After grading that, I thought perhaps the hubby wasn't teaching the concepts very well so they did poorly. This may very well be the case but it really doesn't make a whole lot of since because they missed concepts that I know he taught thoroughly. Now I am grading a 3 page paper he had then write on a famous scientist.

What is wrong with these kids?!?!!

They can't write. They can't form complete sentences. I know most of them did not proof read their papers before handing them in. I am fairly sure a few of them just made up tons of stuff that was untrue about the person. One guy spelled his scientists name wrong! Helloooo? Earth to students. *Hint* You should probably spell the guys name correctly if you want to get any credit whatsoever for this paper. I have seen a paper that was completely plagiarized (that's the kind of doctor I want take care of me...one that cheats). I have seen papers where they completely misunderstood the assignment and wrote about the scientist's personal life when they were supposed to write about their contribution to science. I don't know how many grammar errors I found. And I didn't even count the missed commas or numbers not being written out completely. Do they not teach English in schools anymore?

I will give them the benefit of the doubt and say maybe most of them are freshman. But how do I grade a paper that has the scientist's name spelled wrong? How do I deal with plagiarizing? What should the hubby tell these kids to help them understand how poor their writing skills are?

Crusty Bread

A few days ago, the Baby and the Little Lady were playing outside together. The Babe came in and told me the Little Lady was hungry. I'm sure he knew that through telepathy. So I gave him a piece of bread and told him he could eat half and he should give half to his little sister. He took off and I watched from the window to make sure he was sharing. It was so funny. He went out and sat next to her and carefully took the crust of the bread off and gave it to her. Then he ate the good part of the bread. I laughed so hard!

The sad part came when I called the hubby to tell him this story. He said, "Well that's what little sisters are for." It's sad but true. I'm sure my big brothers gave me the crust too. The hubby's poor little sister for sure got the crust.