Schools...

Mellisa is looking for another school. Long story short - her coach at Lincoln was a total ass and had ZIPPO idea what he was doing. It took every ounce of strength in my body not to hurt that man and tell him what I thought of his skills...

It's scary to think that Mellisa was the more mature one when she told him that she would not be back next year... Need an example - he took her picture off of the school's website... Grow up...

So - looking for a school. I wasn't sure if she would want to continue to play volleyball or not (he was that bad). She thought long and hard over the holiday break and thinks she still has some gusto left in her!

We drove to Eureka College on Saturday. Wow - very, very small. I am sure it is gorgeous in the fall though. All of the buildings are brick - and old. This was Reagan's Alma mater. There is nothing going on in the town however. So we are still looking. She sent an email to University of Chicago - so maybe they will be interested. I know she would love to be in Chicago!!!!

Alyx's room

Back in 2000 when we were building the house, we thought it would be cute if the girls had a 'fish' decorated room. So, the walls were bright blue - and we added a cute fish border along with fish light switch plates, fish accessories, etc.

Riley moved out of that room and took over Kiel's 'monkey' room when Kiel moved to the basement. Riley was not a monkey fan. So - the old messy border came down but we left the dark green paint. It is gorgeous paint - soothing and den-like. I found the coolest landscape stuff - and now she has one wall that is covered with a giant waterfall in a beautiful forest. Yes, I am that good...

So poor Alyx is now in the fish room alone. And hated it. Lord knows she complained about it every time she cleaned it. So, in order to appease the princess, Mellisa and I brainstormed. Mellisa wanted to do something like the walls in Toy Story 3 - you know - bright blue with clouds. Mellisa wanted to paint white fluffy clouds all over the existing bright blue walls. I spent one day getting the fish off the walls - which was a mess but I lived thru it. Although the paint was a fun idea - I didn't want to have to cover that up in 3 years when Alyx changed her mind again. Thank goodness for the Internet. I found very cute clouds, butterflies and an inspiring quote that were wall-art (which means SUPER simple to apply).

Alyx had a sleep over one night. Mellisa, Riley and mom spend a few hours applying all of these 'stickers'. It turned out so cute and Alyx was so happy and very surprised!

I also spent some quality times with some damn beads and made two butterfly mobiles to hang in her room. I bought the butterflies about five Christmas's ago when they were on clearance (they were ornaments). I knew one day they would come in handy...

Long story short - pics to follow!!!

Meetings...

Normally, I don't ever miss a meeting. I pride myself on attendance at all of the volunteering events that I have. Last night, a CAC meeting - which is part of the school board. Yea, I skipped it.

Instead, Chris, the girls and myself crawled into jammies. We popped popcorn. We all snuggled and watched 'Blindside'.

What a perfect evening! I need to skip more meetings... Twenty years from now, I won't care about CAC but I sure will love remembering movie nights...

And - 'Blindside' was wonderful. Made me laugh, made me cry - and what a message....

Virtualization

Technology is good. Change is good. Losing one's job - not good.

The place that I work is catching up with technology and is actually going to implement virtual desktops to the field offices. Now - what we don't know yet is how that affects my department.

I work in Assets and Deployment. Our department buys, installs, moves, ships all the hardware and everything that makes an office 'go' (like networks and phones). We might not be in the hardware business any longer after this implements - we might partially be in the hardware business - or nothing may change at all.... They are in Pilot stage right now...

We find out soon what will become of us - we have been told that we will have jobs regardless.... Time will tell...

She's back...

New year... already blew that blog daily resolution!

Of course, tons has happened since my last installment. One day at a time - and I might get everyone up to speed!

Let's start with resolutions. My big one for this year was to stop bouncing. At some point, I developed bouncy legs. You know - some people click their pens - I bounce. I guess I might click my pen as well but I don't buy clicky pens as that sound is annoying to me. My coworkers give me grief about my leg bouncing. I can even get a table moving. One of my friends will put her had on my leg to draw my attention to it. I blamed it on my crazy medication. Unfortunately at my December checkup, the doctor said nope - it's just a bad habit.

Great... I can blame no one but myself....

So far so good - no bouncing this year. I do squeeze my toes in my shoes once in awhile when I start to bounce but I have almost made that 21-day habit milestone.

My other resolutions? The blogging is still an ongoing effort. I am drinking only water at work now. That is about to kill me - but I am saving money on soda and it is better for me. Plus it flushes the kidneys that are full of alcohol. Yea - that 'cut down on drinking' resolution failed on day three....