Memorial Weekend 5QF

It’s been forever since I participated in Mama M.’s Five Question Friday! Today is pretty emotional for me, so I think it’s a good day to play along and not have to think hard, or cry much.

(It’s not a bad emotional. It’s a good one. Jeep finished 6th grade today, and will move on to middle school in August. I’m just struggling with the whole “Where did the time go!?” aspect of all that.)

If you aren’t familiar with 5QF, it’s an easy-peasy game to play along with. If you join us, be sure to click to today’s 5QF post and link up!

1. Do you wake before the alarm or stay in bed until the last possible second?
2. Who should get a baby shower? Is it just the first baby or all babies?
3. How will you spend Memorial Day?
4. Do you have a Storm/Hurricane/Tornado/Fire plan for your kids, house..?
5. What is your favorite morning drink?

1. Do you wake before the alarm or stay in bed until the last possible second?         Sleep! I’m a HUGE fan of my snooze button. I then run through the house like a mad woman trying to  make sure we’re really all ready to leave, but I’m not a morning person AT ALL.

2. Who should get a baby shower? Is it just the first baby or all babies?   I think it’s situational. I ended up with showers for both boys, but part of that was because a friend knew that because the boys were so close in age and so off in seasons that I wasn’t going to be able to reuse a lot of Jeep’s stuff for Eli. She wanted to do it, and I didn’t fight her on it. (I did, however, get to bring Eli with me, since he showed up early. They all claimed it was their favorite shower ever since they got to pass the baby around while we were there!)

3. How will you spend Memorial Day?      I’m actually meeting a client for a little bit tomorrow, but after that, it’s going to be a nice, relaxing weekend. We’re joining some friends for a cookout for a bit tomorrow, and we are hoping to do some pretty serious clearing out of stuff it’s time to get rid of, and maybe even get our new TV (that we got for Christmas.. sigh..) out of the box and mounted!

4. Do you have a Storm/Hurricane/Tornado/Fire plan for your kids, house…?    Mostly. Everyone knows where to go in the event of severe weather or a fire. The part I’m working on now is “jump kits” for each member of the family. The kids are now old enough that  they can have a role in our preparedness. I have a bag with essentials, but a true jump kit for our family of 5 plus 3 pets would require more than one person could carry or be responsible for. I’d like to have smaller kits of essentials for each of the kids, so that if we were separated (God forbid) they would be able to take care of themselves and their immediate needs easily until we could be reunited.

5. What is your favorite morning drink?     Coffee. Lots of it. Black, strong and hot. I don’t function well before I have a good cup or two in me!

Ok! Just a few minutes left and my crew will be home from school, so I’m off to get things ready for tonight’s completion ceremonies! Have a fantastic holiday weekend.

Love the Thunder!

It’s a little late in the day, but I’m jumping in here with Mama M’s 5 Question Friday!

Since I’m so late getting started tonight (it’s already 7pm – how did that happen!?) I’m going to just get right down to it. You can play too, just hit up Mama’s blog for all the deets!

1. Thunderstorms – love them or hate them?

LOVE! Love love love a good storm. I love the beauty of the clouds as they come together, the stunning displays of lightning, the wild energy that courses through the atmosphere. I love them.

I do NOT love that they are usually a migraine trigger for both me and Jeep.

2. Do your kids get back to school clothes?

Sometimes. We tend to be more of a shop based on need family, and Indiana doesn’t do the “tax free weekend” or anything, so I watch for good sales on things we like, and just roll with it. I’ve found that if I do things like buy long pants for back to school, it stays hot until late October, and everyone outgrows them in that 2 month window. So, if the price is right, sure, but if we don’t need to yet, we’ll wait.

3. Do you golf? Do you watch it?

It’s worth watching me golf, because it is hands down one of the funniest things you’ll ever see. My dad and brothers golf. I’ve tried. I laugh so hard at myself, I’m glad they put Porta-pots along the course, because seriously? PIMPL.*

Because I do have golfers in my family, I’m not unfamiliar with the game, and I’ve been known to watch on occasion, but it’s not a go-to sport for me.

*PIMPL – Pee In My Pants Laughing

4. Showers or baths?

I love indulging in a good, steamy hot bubble bath with a great book and a glass of wine. However, real life dictates that it’s mostly showers for me.

5. What’s the strangest meal you ever ate?

I was served fried pig brain once. I didn’t know that was what it was when I ate it, and I wouldn’t intentionally hunt it out anytime soon, but it wasn’t awful. Tasted like chicken nuggets, honestly.

So there you are!  My 5QF! If you are a blogger, play along & be sure to link up over at Mama’s. If not, but you want to play, just post your answers in the comments! 

School’s Out for Summer!

Today was (finally!) our last day of school!

I am anticipating the standard “Mom? I’m bored.” by around 2 tomorrow.

Nah, not really, but I’m suddenly looking around and thinking about all of the things we need and want to do with our summer, and feeling a little overwhelmed. To go along with our Bucket List, I have some key housekeeping things I’d like to accomplish. I’m in the midst of some serious purging around here, but there is a TON more to get rid of. E has decided he’d like to move into his own bedroom, which is fine, but his room has become a storage unit over the years, so there’s some serious work to do there. Finally, I’d LOVE to park ONE vehicle in our 2-car garage for the first time ever.

Don’t judge. Please? I’m not a good housekeeper. I know that this is my cross to bear, and the mess that I’m dealing with here is of my own accord, so I’ll get there. My goal is to do it without being overwhelmed by it. (I’m working with some guidance from the FlyLady, and already it’s helpful. Now to work harder on the new routines.)

Did I mention that in all of that, I have to still work? I’m already feeling like a slacker this week, because with end of the year events at school, I’ve not been in the office in 2 days. My guess is when I check voicemail tomorrow, it’s gonna be a nightmare.

I also hope to find an opportunity to join one of the groups going out searching for the missing college student, Lauren Spierer. My heart simply breaks for her family, and the truth is, this could have been me, or any one of my friends. We’ve walked that same street, late at night, in groups or alone. We just never know what tomorrow may bring.

Bringing this back around full circle, if you will, the kids had a great school year. J had fantastic ISTEP scores (our state’s standardized test – I don’t love it, but I can’t be upset that he did well, right?) E won a slew of awards today, as did M. I’m so proud of my kids, at least for now – report cards are still coming, so there’s time for that to change, I guess!

Ok, I’m off to put 5 minutes into the hot spot that is our table before I head to bed. Please, pray for Lauren & her family, and for the hundreds of volunteers searching for her. We’ve been caught up in this heat wave, with heat indexes over 100 degrees, and because of the terrain they are searching, many are wearing (wisely) long pants and long sleeved shirts, etc. If you’re reading this and are part of the search crews, thank you, and be safe.

Be blessed,

Do you have an emergency kit?

I’ve started probably 25 posts.

I hope to finish at least this one.

Forgive me, though, we’ve had a hell of a week.

As I write this, it’s Saturday. This past Monday, we had some serious storms roll through – lots of trees down, power out, that kind of thing.

Then, it was Wednesday.

And we were just getting started.

If you follow me on Twitter, thank you again for bearing with me as I spent all of Wednesday tweeting about our weather conditions. I was our community’s geographical “front line” and information I was sharing was being passed on by several of our local paper’s reporters and others.

And then, of course, there was our tornado. The one that passed between my house and my mom’s house. The one that took the homes of my children’s classmates, and my mother’s students. The one that flipped the semi’s at our Wal*Mart, and ripped off part of the roof of our Sam’s Club.

It’s not anything like Joplin here, or Tuscaloosa. Our tornado was just an EF1, with no fatalities, and only 17 people even injured, none seriously. Believe me, we recognize how lucky we are. But when it happens in your neighborhood? To people you know? It’s still terrifying. And a little humbling.

Thursday I already had an appointment to donate blood. (That didn’t go as well as usual, and they had to pull the needle part way through the donation. I’m sporting a beautiful bruise on my right arm, and can’t try again until July. But I tried. And I know that THAT lady and I don’t mesh well.) After I finished up at the Red Cross, I headed over to Big Lots, where I picked up toiletries. Soap. Tissues. Razors. Toothbrushes and toothpaste. Things I knew that people who had lost so much might need just to feel human again.

I assembled toiletry kits and dropped them off at our AmVets post, which was cooking food and collecting supplies for those displaced and those working on the recovery effort. It wasn’t much, but I hope, in the end, it was helpful for someone.

The damage is amazing – we’ve lost hundreds of old, majestic trees throughout our city. Several homes have been damaged, and a small mobile home community was completely destroyed.

So many things to think about, much of which was already on my mind after the devastation across our country – emergency kits, making sure insurance is current, good contact numbers for people, just being prepared.

People? You don’t know what tomorrow may hold. Floods, fires, natural disasters. Please, take a few minutes and put together a bag that you can grab and go. Check out the thoughts of Cassie, who I’ve just met through twitter and this experience, who HAD a bag and was displaced by our tornado. See what she had, what she wished she had, and how comforting it was for her and her husband. Then?

Pack yours.

Polarity

Perspective.

Focus.

Priorities.

I know people hate negativity, I get it. No one wants to think about the bad when there is good to see as well, but sometimes you need to KNOW about the bad to create the good.

My twitter feed this morning is a mish-mosh of conversation – not unusual. I follow a variety of tweeters. Tax people, other moms, sports people. That always generates tangential stuff in my TweetDeck.

Today, though, it’s hitting harder.

Today, some are talking about the devastation in the south. The tornadoes and other severe storms that ravaged a huge section of our country over the last few days, and specifically yesterday. The storms that have, SO FAR, generated a death toll in excess of 200 people.

The others? They’re talking about a wedding. Between 2 people they will likely never meet, in another country. Discussing the hours put into making clothes and cakes.

Maybe they need that. Maybe they need to distance themselves from the death, destruction and devastation. The heartbreak. The families who have lost everything. Who are standing at the end of their street, wondering where the pieces of their lives have been blown to.

For me, though? I look at the images, and am grateful. I am continually humbled by the power of nature, and how quickly she can turn on us. How a few rainy days can result in floods that wipe out entire communities. How a summer thundershower can spawn a tornado that rips apart cities. How a snowy day can turn to tree-crushing and power line-snapping ice storms.

So, you all enjoy your royal wedding. Me? I’m working on clearing a couple hours in my schedule to run over to the Red Cross to give blood.