Comments (0) Gwen has picked out a mask for Halloween. She has her eye on a costume, too. We just can’t get over how spooky this clear mask looks on her with the painted make-up. She could rob a bank with this thing…..but she won’t.
After six days of checking the www.aapc.com website, tonight I learned that I passed the certification exam that I sat for last Saturday.
I’m officially a Certified Professional Coder. I’m thrilled that I won’t have to sit for a retake in November, right in the middle of the holidays. I took three practice exams and there were still some rules I was cloudy on but I managed to answer enough correct questions to pass the test.
Sigh….
Emma was hard at work this afternoon making a stepping stone to go in Grandma and Grandpa’s garden in Florida. The last time we made stones for them, Emma wasn’t yet born. As expected, her stone is decorated in a symmetrical fashion.
This year the Pinwheels For Peace event that the Girl Scout troops usually do somewhere in the community was executed at the elementary school. The Principal asked the art teachers to assist the students in creating the pinwheels. During a mass assembly this morning all the students placed their pinwheels by the road in the front of the school for everyone in the community to enjoy.
My scouts will all get a patch for their participation. For some, this was their fourth year in a row.
It’s been a while since the last post. I’ve been busy getting my hormones straight, losing weight and studying for the Medical Coding exam.
The hot flashes have stopped and I’m sleeping through the night. The girls get on the bus at 7am and I’m ready to walk once they leave. I’ve managed to log between 11 and 14 miles a week and even walk on weekends when Caveman is home from the firehall.
The weight loss total is up to 11 pounds now, just having crossed that threshold on Sunday morning. It’s not easy making friends with my new, slower metabolism but Caveman and I are coming to terms with portion control.
The coding exam was six hours and I answered all the questions. I only hope I pass and don’t have to do a re-take in November. The suspense will keep me wondering for a couple of weeks until the results come back.
Gwen has had some challenges in school and I’m reaching back to my elementary years for a teaching/learning tool that worked for me. So today I received this DVD in the mail that I ordered from eBay.
She needs to memorize the Preamble to the constitution and the song is on here to help her do that. There’s math, science, language and other educational songs she and Emma will get a lot of use from. I still hold “I’m Just A Bill” as my favorite.
But what a shock it was to see this banner at the top declare it’s the 30th Anniversary Edition. The original release date was 2002 so if my math is correct it’s been 38 years since this animation originally aired.
Gwen will never believe that.
Today was the first day of school for the girls. It’s actually just two hours, but it counts for attendance and it counts towards my sanity.
Rising early was difficult for all of us. Caveman was at the firehall today so he had to get up early. Last night I asked him to wake me before he left this morning so that I didn’t oversleep. Little did I know that I would be wide awake at 3:30 in the morning with a congested cough and inability to get back to sleep. I did get back to sleep, about 4:30, when he was fighting with the alarm clock buzzer. Next thing I know it’s 5:30 and he’s waking me up telling me he has to go. And because he knows me so well, he stands there next to the bed thinking I might ease back down into the pillow. “Honey…..” he starts. “Don’t lay back down there and oversleep.”
I rolled out of bed at 6 to wake Emma and Gwen. Surprisingly they were willing to rise and attempt to shine. Putting on new clothes seems to do that to them but I know it won’t last too much longer. Mornings will get back to the grouchiness we know they will adopt.
Caveman’s Chief was agreeable to him coming back home to be with the girls for their first day of school so we waited for him to return before driving the half mile up the street to the school. Each year we have to bring our family donation of Kleenex, quart and gallon size bags and sanitizing wipes. In both classes I noticed the majority of families didn’t make their donations. Gwen’s teacher (and Gwen) made it clear we didn’t need to stay so Emma had the pleasure of both parents in her classroom this morning.
As expected she took right to her teacher and her classroom. She’s done this before. There is a little boy in the class with our same last name, but we aren’t twins as the teacher presumed before meeting us. Emma made a friend right off the bat and chatted up a storm about backpacks and school supplies and new clothes and how hot the weather is and what bus they each ride and their shoes and their classmates and their parents and twelve other topics.
This was my moment to take the annual photo. The photo that I was not able to take in Gwen’s room because she was giving me that look, the one where she was threatening me with her eyes if I were to dare reach for that camera in my purse.
Caveman stands in the background here in his cute fire department issued shorts to wear whilst fighting fires in the 110 degree heat index August. After a few minutes Emma made it clear we needed to leave her be. She intended on staying the entire two hours and hitching a ride on the big yellow bus with the big sister and the neighborhood kids she knows.
The baby in the family is in the first grade. Five years until we can sleep until 7am and still make it to school on time. Eight years until we can sleep until 8am. Twelve years until we move her into a college dorm.
Not that I’m counting.
I was playing the Wii with Emma this afternoon while Caveman did some not so pleasant chores around the house. Like emptying the dead bug carcassas from the front porch light fixture. Like unclogging the drains of both of the upstairs baths and showers.
“Honey.” he says to me as he walks down the hall towards me. “I want you to come see what I just pulled out of the drain in our shower.”
The worst part of this whole scene is that it was not the first clump or the second ball of hair he pulled out of the drain. This was the bonus clumps after he crafted his own tool out of a wire coat hanger to reach further down the drain.
“Whose hair is that?” Gwen asked.
“Both of ours.” I said quickly, immediately before Caveman objected with a grunt. “But mostly mine.” I added.
Caveman agreed.
Since my hair has been falling out like mad I’m going to blame this one on Menopause but in reality, we’ve been here seven years. I don’t recall us ever cleaning the drains before so…
Hayden was out of the country on my birthday back in June. So he and Amy sent my birthday gift a few days ago. Along with a darling photo of Jacob (including a frame) there was a $25 Visa gift card. Thank you very much!
I’ve been searching my mind for what I wanted to use the gift card on. They suggested digital scrapbooking elements or some new books for the Nook.
The past month the movie Julie & Julia has been on Starz. We got the movie channels a couple months back when Comcast called me talking all nice as soon as I answered the phone. That’s when you know you’re about to be taken. It was time to renew our deal with the devil if we wanted to keep cable, internet and phone. In exchange for a $25 increase, they would give us HBO and STARZ and some 70 more digital channels.
Little did I know then that I would be spending most of the summer wrestling menopause symptoms and fighting every day to have the energy to keep up with my girls. I have watched that movie about eight times and it never gets old. Meryl Streep plays Julia Child to a tee. But if you watch the movie over and over there are little tidbits of information that you miss the first time you see the movie.
I seem to recall seeing Julia Child on public television when I was a kid but I didn’t care about cooking back then. I never heard of her books until I was an adult but even so, I grew up with Emeril, Paula and Bobby Flay. I have their books. Well, that’s not the whole truth. I don’t have Bobby Flay’s books. I don’t care for him too much but he’s a judge on the Food Network reality show ‘Next Food Network Star’.
I digress.
While fanning myself through a hot flash last night the movie was on again and it dawned on me that I should get that book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
I covered the fact that I like to cook and Caveman likes to eat last week. So I took the girls to the Barnes and Noble today to get that book, armed with the gift card and my membership card. That being said, it should have worked out that B&N owed me money. Well, not really. They just would have sold me the book at a discount and I would have ended up with something crazy like $1.18 left on the card.
But I had two kids with me.
Like bloodhounds on the trail of an escaped convict.
And I had to pay more.
And OH MY GOD I’ve been making the sauce for chicken ALL WRONG all this time. Wait until Caveman sits down for a meal that I cook with the corrected recipe.
Today Gwen settled that disagreement she had Wednesday with the bow and arrow at the Shooting Sports camp that she completed today.
Being only one of two girls that showed up for the final day of camp she appeared to be completely comfortable with all the testosterone in the air. It helped that she was as tall as most of the boys in the camp.
Spectators had to wear protective eye wear for the spectating, even the little ones. So Emma rocked it in her plastic glasses.
In between events Emma played a game on Caveman’s phone. She’s getting very skilled at navigating her way through a Blackberry.
Then it was time for the bow and the showing of the bow who is boss. In the three arrow warm up, Gwen has two of her arrows go in the second ring from the bullseye.
She didn’t have the high score but that wasn’t really the point of the camp. She did earn her hunting license, the one she will never use. But she also learned how to use a gun, gun safety, hunting safety and how to use a bow and arrow. She gained a little bit of confidence, even if she doesn’t realize it right now.
Gwen has one day left in her 4-H Archery/Sharpshooting class. Tomorrow is the competition and awards. Today she received her hunting license from the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Association. All week these men and women have been instructing the class on gun safety and what to do whilst hunting critters. They are universally referred to as TWRA Officers but Gwen just calls them all ‘cops’.
She’s one of only three girls in the class but she’s holding her own. She had an argument with the large bow yesterday and came home discouraged. After a pep talk and wiping a few tears we decided between the two of us that she would approach today with revenge against that bow in mind. I told her not to take any crap from the bow. Get mad at it and show it who is boss, I told her.
She did.
She got to shoot a .22 rifle today and a beebee gun, too. I don’t know what she intends on doing with the hunting license since she hates going in the woods, and hey, it’s hot as hell here so who wants to be outside for that long?
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