Bible Verse of the Day

Friday, September 28, 2007

Whew!

I'm thinking I need to rename this blog to something like "will I ever get enough rest?" This is truly a working mother-related tale of yesterday. If I start rambling, please forgive me. I'm working on 3-1/2 hours of sleep. I worked from 8:30 AM until 3:45 AM, except for riding the bus home from work. I had to drive back into work after I got home because of a recalcitrant computer.

It was a fairly normal day up until about noon. I had to open a service call for a computer that had a disk drive going bad. It would have been better if it was an all-out failure, but it was just faking most of the time. Unfortunately, the vendor didn't ever call me back. I decided the best course might be to take the bad disk out, but that wasn't working either. Then I thought that rebooting the system would let me take the disk out until it could be replaced. I started that after I picked DS#2 up from school.

I planned on making supper and was all prepared to do so when the stupid computer wouldn't come back up. It's not very often that I let work interfere with home, but it's the nature of my work that when a system is down, it takes priority over everything. I really was a working mother last night.

So, I finally got a hold of the vendor and it turns out that they never did anything with my ticket for 10 hours! 10 HOURS! Okay, this will put it in perspective: we're supposed to have 2 hour response for that system.

I had to drive back to the office and wait for the technician to arrive with the new part. No big deal. It wasn't even midnight, yet. After the part was replaced, it looked like we would be out of there in less than an hour with the cleanup, but thanks to the help line for this vendor, I ended up having to reload the entire operating system. If it were a PC, it would have been easy, but this is UNIX. And not a small UNIX system either. We call it "big iron."

Fortunately, once I was able to get things started rebuilding, I could go home and finish the process from there. Unfortunately, the restore from backup took waaaaay longer than I expected. Fortunately, I planned on taking the day off. Unfortunately, it's a day off with exhaustion.

One of these days I'll be able start a weekend without a huge sleep deficit. I would sleep more today, but I have to get my chaperones ready for the out-of-town football trip this afternoon. I have to buy snacks, supplies, make sure I've got things ready for the marching festival tomorrow, etc. We won't be home again until 1:00 AM and then have to get up tomorrow to do it all again, except the going out of town part.

Check out the patch I designed for the marching festival:


Okay, I didn't design the logo, but the over patch is my idea. Normally, for our school district logo, that bass drummer would be a student sitting at a desk, but for the marching festival, they did this little guy. All I did was make him bigger so that the detail would show up in the embroidery.

Well, I'm off to clear some fuzz out of the brain. I know I need to sleep, but I have so much other stuff to do, too. I'll let you know how the weekend turns out later. Hope you all have a good one.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Where Do I Find Inspiration?

On other people's blogs for one place. Lately, every time I go out the front door of my house, there's some kind of interesting creature hanging around the door. I'm not squeamish about bugs as long as they stay over there and not over here. Some of them are kind of cool looking. Some of them are just out of place. The praying mantis should be in a tree,






the grasshopper should be in a field.






The moth, well, it's near the light so I guess that's where it belongs.







But all of these things attract the little gecko-like lizards.






Rach and Cori both had bugs on their blogs recently and I thought they were beautiful pictures. Except for the splat later on Cori's blog. Now while their pictures are more artistic, mine are just pictures. But I was inspired to create a digi page with them:


Credits here

Another ispiration, of a different type, is church. Today was our fall cantata at church and DH and I were the readers between all the anthems. It went very well. Only missed a couple of notes, came away thoroughly exhausted and completely humbled. This year is the 300th anniversary of the birth of Charles Wesley, considered to be the poet of Methodism. Methodism was founded and governed by his brother John. Anyway, Charles wrote over 6000 hymns, which as our director told the congregation today, are his conversations with God. You may remember "Jesus Lover of My Soul," "O For A Thousand Tongues to Sing," and many others. That's Charles. The music was arranged by Joseph Martin, one of the most popular current Christian composers/arrangers. Absolutely gorgeous music and I think we did it well, IMHO.

My father, his sister, and my brother and niece came all the way from Austin to listen. Afterwards, we went to lunch at El Chapparal in Helotes, TX. (If you're ever in San Antonio, this is one of the best places to go for Mexican food.) Then we all went to the house for conversation, downloading pictures from my Dad's computer for making some special gifts for Christmas. And I got to show some of my scrapbook pages to my almost 4 year old niece. She was thrilled to see the pages with her pictures on them. That's the second highlight of the day. It was a good day, all in all. Praise the Lord!


Y'all take care now.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Crazy Optical Illusion

Check out this video of an optical illusion. It's way cool!



Crazy Optical Illusion - More amazing video clips are a click away

Monday, September 17, 2007

I'm Tired of Sweating

Thursday was a very warm day, even though the evening before we had our first cool front of the season. A co-worker and I were unpacking crates of computer cabinets for our new data center, which is still being built. The building is three months behind because of the rain we had this summer. Interestingly, in construction, you have to have fairly dry ground to pour concrete, so ever time it rained, we had to wait 5-10 days for the ground to dry enough to pour more concrete. And also, because of the rain delays, the building doesn't have electricity, yet, which translates into no air conditioning. Because the building is late, we've got equipment arriving with no place to put it. So there we were, unpacking in the heat of the day. I drank a whole quart of Gatorade in about 10 minutes. I think that's a record for me!

Friday was another football game. When we were loading up for the game, the sun was out, the clouds were somewhere else, and I locked my keys in the car. Again. I really think there's something wrong in my brain because I'm not thinking too clearly these days. I had to wait in the hot sun for the Pop-A-Lock guy to show up while I was also trying to get the chaperones in order for the buses. Of course, I was sweaty before it was all over. Then we got on the buses and had to wait for the directors to finish their business before we could leave. I tell you, those big yellow buses were sweltering! The only A/C on them is 40x50 (40 windows, 50 mph). It doesn't work when you're not moving. Smilies

So we get to the stadium, get ready to start the pre-game music and it starts raining. Not just a little bit of rain, but a downpour, gully-washer, frog strangler. Imagine about 800 people underneath the concrete stands of a stadium, about a third of them screaming girls from the pep squad. It was loud. When the rain finally stopped, it got even more humid and it didn't get cooler. I came away from that game with chafing in spots I didn't know you could chafe due to all the sweating.

Saturday we had concession stand duty at the football game. We needed to have 26 people to open up and by the time we opened, we had 42. Our booster club members really don't want to be fined for showing up late or not at all. The concession stand is in a cinderblock room under the stands and there were only fans, no A/C to cool us off. I happened to get the window that had the sun shining directly into it. Another evening of sweating!

I'm hoping the sweaty work is over for a while. We have no game this week and we travel in charter buses to the next game, which is about a three-hour drive away. And if we get anymore equipment in before the building is air conditioned, it's going to sit in a storeroom nearby.

Y'all have a great week!

Friday, September 14, 2007

Go Warriors!

I'm so proud of my son's high school band. If you've been following this blog, you'll probably have guessed that already. One of the local TV stations does a feature weekly called High School Cribs and Warren High School was featured. Since we don't watch that station's news, we didn't see it, but we knew it was coming. We learned about it when the Band Director and DS both told us about the TV station coming out to film the band in full uniform during rehearsal. Well, that rehearsal took the whole morning! Anyway, I've been checking their website periodically to see if they post it and they did! It's so cool seeing these kids I know, including my own, on a news feature that's so positive. If you want to watch, check out "High School Cribs: Warren"

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Stinkin' Composition Books

DS#2 is a senior in high school this year so I've been doing the school supply thing for more than 12 years. DS#1 is three years older, so I feel like a pro at school supplies. Until tonight.


School started here on August 27, almost three weeks ago. During the first week, he got each teachers' requirements for class supplies. The English teacher, as one would imagine, requested a composition notebook. The day we went to the store to get supplies, they were out of them. He got a regular spiral-bound and hoped that would be okay. I've been back to the store several times and they were always out. Since he didn't remind me, it got pushed to the bottom of the mental stack of things to do. Well, he reminded me on Tuesday night at bedtime. I asked him if the spiral-bound wasn't working out and he said no, she required a composition book.


Wouldn't you know that the day before he told me he needed one the first time, I had one laying around the house that I altered into a journal for the Harvesting Your Thoughts class at 123-scrap.com. Obviously he wouldn't use that one!


Well, tonight I went on a quest. (We had choir practice last night.) I went to the usual grocery store that had been out, then went home to make supper. I had an exhausting day at work today, so I laid down and promptly forgot everything. DH reminded me at 9 PM. Up I jumped to go to Wally-World. They were out. The clerk said that they got a shipment for back-to-school, but back-to-school was over. And besides, there were teachers that would come in and buy the whole lot of them.


Then I went to Walgreen's on the way to see if Office Depot was open. All they had was a little 4x6 Composition Book. Not what I was looking for. So I swung by O.D., but they were closed. There was another grocery store of the same chain nearby, so I stopped in there, but no joy. The Super Target was across the street with an Office Max next door, but O.M. was closed, too. I went to Target hoping to find anything at this point. I went to the aisle that was labeled Composition Books and they had, not the type I was looking for, but all kinds of others. The store was about to close, so I got one that I thought a senior young man wouldn't be embarassed to be seen with.
On the way home I happened to pass another Walgreen's, so I swung in on the off chance they'd have one, but they had the same stock as the other one I'd been to. So for an hour, between 9 and 10 PM, I went to seven places, two of which were closed, to searching in vain for something that should be as ubiquitous as Kleenex.
I'll probably laugh about this in the morning. I told DS that if the English teacher gave him any flack about not having the right book, to call me. I'll be only too happy to tell her this story...
'Night, All!

Monday, September 10, 2007

The Weekly Rundown

I've been busy since I last posted here. Here's a simple table of contents:

  • Air Conditioner
  • Football Game
  • Joe Scruggs
  • Scrapbooking
When the a/c went out a couple of weeks ago, DH didn't call anyone, probably because of the fear of the cost, which on top of a huge IRS bill, we just can't afford. Well, we had company last week and I guess he felt so bad about our guest sleeping and sweating in the living room, he finally called. Yes, Murphy has moved in with us, but he was thwarted this time because it was only the fan motor. The a/c repairman replaced it and now our house is pleasantly cool again. Yeah!!!

We had a football game on Saturday. Warren High School played in an invitational called the Toyota Tundra Texas Football Classic.


Now, I'm not a huge football fan, but I like going to the games because I'm with the band. This invitational was being advertised on the radio as games among the 10 best teams in Texas. In reality, they were all from South Texas, but no matter. Ours was the last game of the weekend. Last year, when we played La Jolla (la hoy-ah), we wiped the field with them, but the way we started the game this year, I figured they were out to try to shellac us. Our guys had so many fumbles in the first five minutes, I figured it was all over, but they got it together to win 41-0. It was fun to watch because I got to stand near the sidelines (as head chaperone with the band) with my camera and caught one of our touchdowns.


This young man won the MVP plaque after the game, presented by the U.S. Army.


We all know that the definition of a football field is a place which football players use while waiting for the band to march. Therefore, here are some feature photos of The Band.


Above: the band just finished its halftime show and has returned to the stands. Notice they're still at attention. Below: DS is self-conscious of having his photo taken, but if I hang around long enough, he forgets I'm there.


How often do you get to catch a photo of your own child on the Jumbotron?


I got to watch the half-time show from the press box, although it was through the viewfinder of a video camera. Our school district videotapes the halftime shows for the band directors, but the Alamodome wouldn't do it it for us, so I was asked to do it. The funny part was that after it was over, I had to go back to the other side of the field and I decided to walk through the tunnel instead of through the other team's fans, like we did going over. Well, as I walked past the locker room, the team started walking out, so I walked with them. Then, we all came out of the tunnel at the same time. Yeah, not so impressive to hear, but you should see how big these high school football boys are! It was fun nonetheless.

We got home about 11:30 that night because of the previous games during the day running behind. Not too far from normal.

Sunday, we had a special guest at church. Joe Scruggs is a nationally known children's entertainer. His most famous concert is The Nanny Nanny Boo Boo Revue. I remember taking my kids to see it over 10 years ago and they loved it. Joe performed a concert at our church yesterday afternoon, but before that he present the children's time during the service. He sang "Bringing in the Sheets." It's quite funny because he talks about being a little kid and hearing words of the songs wrong and what he thought he was hearing. The point is that even if we get the words wrong, as long as we're praising God, that's all that matters.

We gave away 500 tickets to the community in hopes that they would enjoy a free concert by Joe Scruggs. Well, only about 200 tickets came back and we had a few show up without tickets. It was a ministry experiment that didn't quite meet expectations, but the folks that came really enjoyed it. I was working the sales table (CD's, T-Shirts, etc.) and saw one family leaving during the last song and one of the little guys was crying because he didn't want to leave early. I'm not sure why the parents couldn't wait five more minutes, but it wasn't my call to make. I was completely overwhelmed by the crush of people wanting to buy stuff as soon as it was over! By the time the crowd finally left, we had sold a decent amount of product for such a few number of people.

Then, when I got home from that, I did a little scrapbooking. Tammy at 123-scrap.com is teaching a journaling class called "Harvesting Your Thoughts." One of the assignments was to answer the questions "Why do I find scrapbooking important to me? And what do I hope to accomplish?" I answered the questions and then for the extra credit, made a layout of it.



If you want to hone your journaling skills, be sure to sign up for the class. There are prizes and lots of fun.

Until next time, thanks for looking.

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Out of Town Company

We have an out of town visitor this week. Devlon used to be our church choir director and he and my husband are best friends. Devlon's wife is a pastor who was appointed to a church down in the valley, so Randy and Devlon usually only get to see each other when Devlon's wife comes up here and Randy goes down there or we go to a conference-wide event, like Adult Choir Workshop. Anyway, Devlon had a meeting to go to today up here and his wife suggested that he stay a few extra days. We haven't had an overnight guest in our home in many years, other than the boys' best friends spending a night or two.

It's great to have him visiting because he's a lot of fun. I just hope the dog didn't try to sleep with him on his air mattress last night. Or the cats! We kept our door closed for privacy, so the animals didn't get to sleep with us. I guess I know why we don't invite people to stay very often!

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Not a Happy Labor Day

Do you ever wish you could forget you had kids? This weekend was one of those times. 20 years ago, I was about to be a mom for the first time. I was excited, I was scared. It's been rewarding for the most part, but there have been struggles. I think I know why God makes kids cute when they're born and difficult as they approach adulthood. It's so you don't kill them as babies and it's easy for them to leave the nest later. I never thought I'd be looking forward to the day my son moves out of the house.

I admit I'm not a good housekeeper. My house is always in C.H.A.O.S. (can't have anyone over syndrome). I've tried following FlyLady, but I fell off the wagon so many times that I can't take another bruise right now. I've tried to teach the kids to at least clean up after themselves, if not everyone else, but it hasn't always worked out. Consequently anytime we want to have someone over, it's a monumental cleaning effort, usually all on my part. The younger son helped a little bit, but the older one wouldn't clean even parts of the bathroom that he's the only one that uses, taking dishes to the kitchen.

My Labor Day was spent cleaning the living room. It sure looks great now, but when I walked in this morning, the older son's shoes were laying in the middle of the room. AUGGHHH! It's like pulling teeth to get the kids to do anything and I'm glad I'm back at work so I'm not yelling at them. And they'll live another day...

At least I got to do a little scrapping this weekend, thanks to Andrea's Challenges. I actually got all three done: Altered Item - Composition Notebook,

Ad Challenge,

and San Antonio.

I even made a card: Friend

So even if the house didn't get clean enough, at least I felt productive.