mother nature's mess

After the baseball game last night I texted my friend, who happens to be the team manager's (as in the high school girl who assists with various team related needs) mom (yeah, we're friends), to let them know the final outcome of the game...which wasn't pretty. We ended up falling, 8-0, and you could see the heartbreak in each of our player's eyes as they exited the school to depart with us, their parents. My friend let me know that on their way down to NC for a cheer competition that they had come within a half mile of a tornado. Friends of theirs, who were about a mile ahead caught it on video.

During the game one of the moms, who hails from North Dakota, and with whom I have a small bond with because of her hometown, (since we'd been stationed there and LB was born there), informed me that her brother was notified to evacuate (within ten minutes of notification) from Fargo, to get away from the flooding.

Another friend put up her Facebook status as something to the effect of preparing for the blizzard they were about to be faced with, in Oklahoma of all places.

Floods in ND, blizzards in OK...?

I have family in Colorado who was snowed in the other day due to blizzard conditions, and a friend up in Winnipeg, Canada who told me, via Facebook that they'd had something like 25 inches.

Here in Virginia we've only had brief encounters with the sun.

In fact we were supposed to be going to a baseball game today, but it was cancelled because of wet fields from the rain that poured down throughout the night last night. You don't find me complaining because I have gotten a little bit behind this past week, with the new schedule, in my reading. That's what I've been doing today, and am now taking a bit of a break to ponder how depressing the weather has been lately.

Tonight Big B and I are going to a dance that the high school booster club is putting on as a fund raiser. We got our tickets free being that we're both American Legion members and the AL supports the boosters, so they'd bought a block of tickets from which members were able to take from and go to the dance on behalf of the AL. The dance should be interesting. It's being held at some building in our local fairgrounds. The fairgrounds are surrounded by dirt....and in rain that means mud. Oh joy. It's a casual event though, as in jeans, so at least there's that!

I better get back to the books since I did make some pretty good headway earlier!

If you're reading this I hope you're staying warm and dry!!

spring anyone?

Here it is my Spring Break and it's cold, dreary and wet outside. It's just as well since I should be inside reading and studying and working on my drug cards anyway. But phooey on Mother Nature! She needs to make up her mind. Cold, hot, rainy, sunny, one day-you blink and it's a differnet climate! I do need to head out in a bit and mail off my package for one of my externships. It came together quite nicely after spending a couple of hours getting everything together on Saturday.

Well I can hardly contain my excitement any longer. I did it. I finally got what I've been wanting for what seems like eons. My Blackberry. Smiles, grins....I thanked the guy at the AT&T store when we left yesterday, and called him Santa Claus. That's how it felt, like Christmas morning. The boys got new phones also. Big B chose not to at this point. He's not into all the gadgetry or anything and is happy with his Samsung. We all had the same phones at one point, up until I broke LB's. Nevermind why or how. I did replace it with a GoPhone, and he's been itching ever since to upgrade and get back to having a camera and multimedia capabilities. The boys couldn't have made it any easier either. Of course I knew what I wanted walking in to the place, since I've not only given my phone/pda some thought, but I'd also stopped by the store last week. Since Big B is the primary person on the account he had to go, and the boys wanted to finally get their new phones. They had them picked out in less than fifteen minutes, if it was even ten! They both chose the Pantech Matrix, one in blue and one in black. Betcha can't guess who got the black one? Yep, AW and all his emo-ness. Yesterday evening was spent playing with our new phones, adding ringtones, and just revelling in the novelty.


Speaking of "emo-ness", I've pretty much decided to let AW get what he wants. One of the best pieces of advice I've received as parent is to pick my battles. AW has been dying to dye his hair black. When he first asked I laughed and said "Not only no, but hell no!" I informed him that there are tons of people out there who try to attain the beautiful blond hair that he grows out of his head naturally. As time has worn on I've come to realize it is his hair and although there are boundaries we will not cross while the boys are under ther age of 18, things that can be replaced, repaired, what have you, tend to be the battles that I choose not to fight to the death over. Tattoo requests, for instance, will be met with an emphatic NO, and there won't be any budging. He has pretty much come around to not dying his whole head of hair black, but maybe some chunks of it, but he also wants purple chunks. (???) One thing is for sure, when your kids make requests like this it's high time to write up behavior contracts. If you are allowed to have your hair dyed...you will do such and such... The best part about this is the haircut! He wants to get his haircut!! He'll be subjected to having pictures taken along this whole process. You know, I'd never have thought I'd have a son that was more into his hair than I am into mine! To be continued...