Tuesday

Baylee and I came up with a plan, because we both hate Algebra 2:  Do the course over this year and next.  That way she'd still get in her required three years of high school math (she's already taken Algebra 1 and Geometry), but the last year would be fairly low-pressure.  It was a genius idea if I do say so myself, and we enjoyed implementing it all the way up until I got around to emailing the school to ask permission.  They said no.  As it turns out, the law in Ohio (where the school is) just changed, making it so that all high schoolers must have four years of math.  That means that not only do we have to catch up to where we should be in Algebra 2, but she has to go on to Precalc next year.  [tears]

I'm not sure why this came to mind, but today I remembered what my grandpa did to celebrate his 70th birthday.  Without letting anybody know about it beforehand, he jumped off a fairly high bridge in his little town in order to challenge himself.  It was kind of dangerous, not to mention against the law, but he succeeded.  He did say later, though, that he sunk so far down in the water that he started to get a little worried he'd run out of air before he could swim back to the surface.  I still remember what my grandma said when she found out:  "Andy, you jackass!"  

Monday

All my news today has to do with Drew.  Let's see...

• I took this picture of him and the cat the other day.  It's grainy because I was pretty far away, using zoom, and the house was dim.

• He and a few other students in the music department (a singer, a piano player, a drummer, a bass player, and Drew, a guitarist) formed a jazz/funk band, mainly because they wanted to enter the school's talent show.  On the bright side:  Everybody loved their two songs.  They were by far the crowd favorite.  On the not-so-bright side:  They didn't win because they didn't fulfill all the criteria and they ran a bit over on time.  Drew said that 3 different people, two of the judges from the competition and his advisor, told him how much they loved it and how they wished their group could've won. 
• Today Drew signed up for classes for next quarter.  He'll be taking:  Theory 5, Funk Ensemble, and Yoga.  (He needs a PE credit.)
•  Also, he's thinking ahead to what he wants to do next and starting to work on audition pieces for music schools.  Right now he's looking at Cornish, which is a visual and performance arts college here in Seattle.

Sunday

I was messing around with the Clever Deck app, and I discovered that it has lots more decks than just languages.  Yay!  I check marked a few more of them, so now, besides learning French, I'm learning all the countries of the world by location on a map, essential paintings, human bones, and US capitals.

I'm not going to say much about this, because I've finally figured out that, for me, silence is better (in other words I'm trying out "Just shut up and do it!" for a change) but as of this morning I've lost 10 pounds.  10.6 to be exact.  I'll let you know when I get to 20.

Hell has officially frozen over:  We're letting Baylee take the bus by herself now and then.  I changed my mind because 1) she finally wore me down 2) it's convenient and 3) literally every other teen in this city does it.  It's considered par for the course.  This whole stage of life is hard for me.  She's asking for more freedom, and my first instinct is always "Absolutely not!"  I find myself in a bad mood over it sometimes, because I feel like the bad guy, and I don't want to be.  I feel...I don't know...set up, almost.  I know this is normal, and, in fact, I went through it with both boys.  That doesn't make it easier.

Saturday

Yesterday we put the Christmas decorations up.

It turned out nice, but to get to that point there was a lot of this:

Also yesterday Baylee wrote a cool drum solo for a new TMA song.  She's been struggling with this for a couple weeks now, not knowing exactly how she wanted to go about it, because the tempo of the song made it tricky.  I like what she finally came up with, though.

Happy Thanksgiving! (1 day late)

We had a good time yesterday celebrating Thanksgiving at Patty's.  It was us, Patty, and Mike's cousin James.  (Mike and James practically grew up together, at least during the high school years.  Mike lived with his mom and dad, and James lived right next door with their grandparents.  Because of that Mike and James have tons of good memories together.)

Patty made a stuffed pork loin this year and it was amazing.

Mike and James

After meal stupor 

Drew does brush his hair, I promise.  It's just that he brushes it while it's still wet, and then he lets it dry and doesn't give it another thought.  Sigh.  Suffice it to say that every once in awhile we have this conversation...

Him:  Mom, look at this knot in my hair.  Is there any way to get it out?
Me [looking]:  Nope.  It's the beginning of a dread lock.  It'll have to be cut out.

(And then it is.)

It was a fun day!

Wednesday

Have you guys ever read Boy, by Roald Dahl?  (He's the guy who wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and several other well-known children's books.  Fun fact, though:  He was also an English flying ace and intelligence officer in WW 2.)  It's the story of his own childhood, and it's pretty dang good!  (I'm actually listening to it, which I think makes it even better.)  Really early on in the book he tells about a time when he was 8 years old, and he and some of his little pals played a prank on a mean candy shop owner.  Then he describes how this owner, a horrible old woman, came to their school to track them down.  It's crazy and hilarious and more than a little terrifying.  Anyway, go out and get Boy.  I think you'll like it.

This morning Mike and I made almost all the food that we're supposed to take to Patty's tomorrow for Thanksgiving.  Mike made two pumpkin pies (one for us, one for the guys at work)...

...and then together we made the sweet potato casserole that I take every year.  "Thanks for helping me make this," I told him.  "It's so much work and I kinda hate doing it, but I know everyone likes it."

"Yeah, this is one of those things that people will always want you to make on holidays for the rest of your life."

"I'll be a grandma and my grandchildren will say, 'Grandma, can I get the recipe for sweet potato casserole?' and I'll say, 'Oh, it's just a little of this and a little of that...'"

Mike laughed because, for one thing, we both know that's totally untrue.  I follow a written recipe to the letter.  He also laughed because that was how my own grandma was.  Any time you tried to pin her down on a recipe, she'd hedge and give you the "little of this, little of that" line.  She just didn't trust younger people to be able to cook or bake with any kind of success at all.  One time Mike asked her how she made pie crust and she said, "Oh, honey, don't even try.  Just buy pre-made crust at the grocery store."  No matter how hard Mike pressed, that's all she'd give him in the way of information.  And neither she nor my aunts would let me bring food to big family gatherings, even after I was a married woman.  Instead they'd trust me bring the ice.  Don't get me wrong, though.  I saw that for what it was:  a blessing.

A Few Recent Pics

I seem to be taking a weird number of "Mike on the couch" pictures lately, but he always looks so comfortable.  It draws me.  lol

I swiped this from her Instagram page.  She looks pretty and that's nice, but actually one of the first things I noticed about it was that roundish scar on her temple.  It's funny, because I could've sworn I talked about how she got it back when it happened 7 years ago, but it turns out I never mentioned it.  Here's the story:  Right before we had to leave for our trip to the Bahamas, Mike and I were rushing around, making last minute preparations to be gone for 10 days.  Patty was over, too, since she was going to watch the kids, and we were giving her some instructions.  Meanwhile, Drew and Baylee were playing in the living room.  When I say "playing," though, I don't mean that they were doing something nice like bonding over checkers.  No, Drew was whirling Baylee around in a circle by one arm and one leg, airplane-style.  Of course he lost control of it, and she crashed into the corner of a piece of furniture.  It was horrible.  She was crying and had a bleeding hole in her face, and we were supposed to walk away and get on a plane.  I could barely do it.  Patty assured me that she'd keep a close eye on her though, and we left.  Long story short, everything turned out to be fine.    

And Baylee took this a few nights ago in the car.  Well, actually, she took a little video of us singing together, and this is a still shot from that.

A Memory

Baylee and I are on Thanksgiving break!  We get this whole week off, and it's awesome.  I was thinking about how much of a "Woo hoo! We're free!" feeling it is, when I remembered something that I haven't thought of in a long time.

When I was in college I spent my first 3 years planning to be missionary, and so for that reason I was in the 5-year Bachelor of Theology with an emphasis in Missions program.*  I had some really wonderful missions teachers, but I also had a couple duds.  One of the latter was a woman who was...well...just plain grouchy and mean.  Plus, she was boring.  One day I was supposed to have her class, and in fact I showed up along with the other 4 or 5 students (it was a small class), but the teacher was late for some reason.  That never happened!  We waited and waited, until probably 15 or 20 minutes went by, and still we sat there waiting.  Finally into the silence I hummed the first few bars of "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead."  Everyone giggled, the guy a couple rows over started singing it, and then we all laughed outright, gathered up our stuff, and left.      

*Halfway through my 3rd year...I think?...I decided to switch to a Bachelor of Religious Education degree, which took only 4 years to get.

Friday

"Did I or did I not buy the worst toilet paper ever made?"  ~me, upon exiting the bathroom this morning

I didn't really expect an answer, by the way, but people piped up from all corners of the house telling me how bad it is.  They said it's not even good enough to be called 1-ply; it's more like half a ply.  Lesson learned:  When it comes to tp, don't try to save a buck.

A couple days ago Baylee had a check-up at the orthodontist.  They always ask the patient to bring their retainer with them in case the doctor wants to make adjustments, so Baylee grabbed it on the way out.  When we got there, though, she realized the retainer was gone.  It had fallen out of its case (which was broken and wouldn't latch correctly) somewhere between point A and point B.  It could've been anywhere:  our living room carpet, the counter of the bathroom sink, Gibbs' gullet, the floor of the parking garage under the orthodontist office, etc.  I wasn't happy, let me tell you.  In fact, I whisper-yelled at her in the waiting room.  Sigh.  What is it with kids and retainers???  Is there one kid in the history of straight teeth who has managed to hang on to his original retainer?  I doubt it.  And now Baylee's was gone, too.

We ended up not being able to find it anywhere, so we went back to the orthodontist this morning in order to have impressions made for a new one.  On the way there Baylee happened to start talking about something she feels passionate about.  (It was nothing personal.  It was more along the lines of a social/ethical issue.)  We discussed it while I found a parking spot, and we continued talking about it even as we got out of the car, walked through the parking garage, and stood waiting for the elevator.  Finally, as we were riding up to the third floor, she said something that made me realize she was getting choked up and teary over the topic.  I was alarmed.  "Baylee!  Stop crying!"

"Okay," she said and started wiping her face.  Still, her eyes were red-rimmed and her face was blotchy.

"Oh, that's just great."

"What?"

"They're going to think I abused you over the lost retainer!"

We both burst into laughter, but do you know what?  They did seem extra nice to her in there, and I think they were giving me side-eye. 

Thursday

Today I ran across something I wrote on a family forum 11 years ago but never posted here on my own blog.  I know why I didn't, too.  It's because I thought it might put me in a bad light as a mom.  Now I don't care as much, because I burned that bridge a long time ago.  lol  Here it is:

When Drew was 8 years old he let me know that if he was ever approached by a stranger and the stranger asked his name, he planned to say, "None of your business!"

Only half listening, I replied, Oh good, buddy."

A few days later he went over to the neighbors' house, where an elderly, somewhat infirm man and woman lived and took care of their two grandchildren.  Drew knocked on the door and the grandma answered.  "Yes?" she asked.

"Can Jerrold come out and play?"

"He's not here right now, but if you tell me your name I'll let him know you were looking for him."

Now there are two possibilities for what happened next.  Either A) Drew saw it as an opportunity to thwart a real, live stranger or B) Drew decided to amuse the heck out of himself.  (I still don't know which it was, but I have my suspicions.)  "None of your business!" he announced.

"What did you say?"

"None of your business!"

All things considered it took a surprisingly short time for the grandma to make her way over to our house with Drew in tow.  After she explained in no uncertain terms how my son had disrespected her, I apologized profusely and had him apologize, too, and by the time she left I think she was more or less satisfied.  Then I had a Come-to-Jesus talk with the boy about who was a stranger and who wasn't.

The End  

Tuesday

Today Baylee and I had this conversation in the car after noticing all the windows were fogged up...again.

Me:  You know, this only happens when I'm with you.  When I'm by myself or with someone else the windows stay clear.

Baylee:  What if I'm about to discover that it's my superpower?  I'm a superhero who puts out heat!  I can go stand next to homeless people!

Me:  Yeah, that's probably what it is.

Baylee:  For real, though, why do you think I fog up the windows?

Me:  I don't know.  Hormones?

Seriously, though, riding with her is a hazard in this cold weather! 

Monday

I discovered a show on Netflix that I really like:  NCIS.  Talk about being late to the party, though!  I'm just getting into it, but its first season aired way back when George W. Bush was president.  (They even have a Bush impersonator in the first episode, because it takes place on Air Force One.)  Also, everyone uses flip phones.  Since it's such an old show, and since it went on for so long, there are, like, 3000 episodes, so I'm set for awhile.

PS:  Our dog came to us already named, and he's named after the main character of NCIS.

Yesterday Mike and I got into a conversation about all the times down through the years that he's gone to the store to buy me feminine items of one sort or another.  He said the worst was when I used to ask him to buy me nylons, because that was the one thing the cashier might conceivably think he was buying for himself.

I was thinking recently about marriage...not my marriage specifically, but marriage in general...and I came to the conclusion that one of its biggest benefits is it gives us a system of checks and balances.  If one person has a terrible idea, for example, the other can veto it.  Or if one person has a tendency to allow a negative personality trait to get the best of them (I'm talking about stuff like a victim mentality or an anger issue or even just a bent toward grouchiness), the other can help them realize it and get some perspective.  Of course, nobody's perfect, so this sort of thing happens all the time in little ways and big.  The problem is that sometimes people who get married are too alike... either they start out that way or they become that way...and so neither person checks or balances the other.  Then you've got a situation where there's a built-in enabler for every bad idea or destructive emotion that comes along.

Friday

Well, I zeroed out my flashcards and started over, because I skipped several days and was about 600 cards in the hole (30 new ones every day and many, many review cards).  Oh well.  The good news is that I know about 1500 of them, so it's a breeze this second time through.  And to be honest I'm not even beating myself up over it.  I've figured out over the last few years that my motivation to learn French goes in fits and starts.  I'll care for awhile, then not care at all for awhile.  Somehow it still works pretty well.

This has been a week of "No good deed goes unpunished" on a couple different fronts.  When I found out about one of them I actually felt myself getting hot...literally my body temperature rose...I was so upset.  Sigh.  What are you going do, though?  Life's not always fair.

And here are a few pictures.  This first one is the textbook for one of Mike's classes this quarter.  Does that or does that not look like the worst class on the face of the earth?  lol

Yesterday Mike said he'd contribute smoked ribs to a work potluck, so he woke up early and got them in the smoker.  I saw them when they were finished, and they looked delicious.

 
And here's a picture of Zach and I reading the other night at 10:30.  He was finishing a book for English and I was enjoying Miss Read.

Going Native

A couple days ago Baylee and I went through the Starbucks drive-through, and I placed our order.  I said that I wanted a mocha (for me) and a eggnog latte (for her).  The thing is, I didn't say /egg nahg/ like any self-respecting Michigander.  No, without thinking about it I said /egg nawg/ like a Washingtonian.  Ack!  I've managed to hang on to my accent for 10 years now, even though every other person in my family speaks like they were born here.  What does this mean???

(To be honest, I haven't purposely kept my Michigan accent.  I just haven't been able to get rid of it.  lol  Mike says it's not as bad as it once was, but that it gets more pronounced when I'm angry or excited.)

Pet Peeve

I'm going to tell you a Facebook pet peeve today.  It's this:  If you've got pictures of some sort of event...a birthday, a trip to the zoo, a vacation, whatever...then by all means, post them.  Most people, myself included, love to look at that stuff.  Here's the thing, though:  CULL THEM FIRST.  Don't show us 37 identical pictures of your kid sitting on a pumpkin, for instance.   In fact, the whole trip to the pumpkin patch should be expressed in no more than 5 or 6 pictures, tops.  And for crying out loud, take out the blurry ones!

Incidentally, today a friend of mine on FB posted something like, "Here are the pictures of our recent trip!  Enjoy!"  (God's honest truth, she said "Enjoy!")  There were...hold on to your hat...over 1,400 photos in the set.  Words fail me.

Tuesday

This morning Baylee was doing American history, and she said, "You know, Dad reminds me a lot of John Locke.  They're both simple guys who think the government is mostly an inconvenience."  I told Mike about that later and he got a kick out of it.

Today I thought I'd do a photo dump of some pictures that are building up on my phone.  This first one is a gratuitous Cooper shot, of course.

And this is of Drew.  He was so tired one day that he laid down on my bedroom floor.  Gibbs flopped down next to him in solidarity.

Can you believe it already snowed here a couple different times in the last week?

Baylee had a dog-sitting job the other day, but she accidentally locked herself out of the person's house along with this little guy.  There was nothing she could do about it, so she brought him home and he spent the afternoon with us.  He's old and super cuddly, and he absolutely adores Baylee.

I took this one this morning. I thought he looked cozy all bundled up like that, but it turns out he was cold because our furnace broke.  Of course, we didn't realize it right away.  Mike got up really early, as he often does in order to study in a quiet house, and he turned the heat on.  Later, when everyone else was up and getting ready for the day, he realized it was still freezing in the house and something must be wrong.  He did some trouble-shooting, checked out this and that, and had a conversation with the landlord, but ultimately he fixed the furnace with a signature move from my Grandpa Visser's school of thought on repairs:  He pounded on it a couple times.  lol  That did the trick.  It kicked right on.

And here's one that I stole from Baylee's Instagram page.

Friday

One of my favorite apps on my phone is Overdrive.  It connects you to your local library system and allows you to download both e-books and audiobooks.  If what you want to read isn't instantly available, you can put it on hold.  It's the best thing since sliced bread to this girl who loves to read.  In fact, I never go to the brick-and-mortar library anymore.  There's no need.  (Well, except to get books in the Miss Read series.  Those haven't been made into e-books yet.)

That said, I happened to download two different audiobooks lately that had the WORST readers ever.  (This is no fault of Overdrive, by the way.)  I mean, do they even audition these people???  Why would you ever choose someone who makes the characters sound like idiots?  Ugh.  I've got a nervous tic now.

TMA rehearsed here yesterday and it went well.  They're such nice people, and they thanked me several times for the use of the space.  They also have a smart way of handling their rehearsal time:  They warm up with one or two of their songs, but after that they don't play the old stuff that they already know.  Instead, they spend their time writing and working on new stuff.  That means that it's not a constant barrage of sound.  It was also kind of heartwarming to hear how much they all like each other. There was a lot of laughter coming out of that room.

Baylee had a neat thing happen the other day.  She was recognized in Guitar Center by a stranger.  One of the employees, a woman in her 20's, came up to Baylee (who was there buying drumsticks) and asked if she's the new drummer for The Morning After.  Baylee said she is, and they talked for awhile.  

I'm thinking about making potato cheese soup and rolls for supper tonight.  It's a cold day (It snowed early this morning!) and that sounds like the perfect comfort food.

Recently, I think it was a couple Saturdays ago, a friend of mine posted, "Show me a picture of your view right now" on Facebook.  That was an interesting thread.  It was fun to see what people were looking at/doing in that exact moment.  Here's what I submitted:

Thursday

One of the hardest parts of having kids in college living at home is that I've got a front row seat to their procrastination.  I know it's normal for people that age to put studying, writing papers, and doing projects off until the last minute, and, in fact, I was the worst about that when I was in school, but it's still hard to watch.

Last night Zach thought he only had a bit of math to do and a final draft of an English paper to put some finishing touches on.  He figured that together those would take a couple hours...maybe less...so he didn't start working on them until about 7 at night.  At 8:30 he wrapped up, then he thought he'd take a quick look at Canvas to make sure he was on top of everything.  It turns out he really, really wasn't.  Yes, those two things were due the next day, but in English he also had to watch Good Morning, Vietnam, write the rough draft of a 3-page paper on it, and read several chapters of a book called The Things They Carried.  Ack!  Needless to say, he freaked out.  At about 9:00 he finished panicking, pulled himself together, and started watching the movie.  It's weirdly long (of course), so it was about 2 1/2 hours before he was done with it.  By this time it was 11:30, so I told him that, since I'm a much faster typist than he is, I'd type his paper for him while he dictated it to me off the top of his head.  It took him a few minutes to come around to the idea...it's a weirder way to go about it than you might think...but ultimately he settled in out of desperation.  It took us two hours to finish the thing, him thinking and talking and me typing and drinking coffee, and I finally collapsed into bed at 1:30am.  Zach, on the other hand, still had to read that book, poor guy.  Long story short, though, he got it all done.

Earlier this week Drew's midterm in his Career Development class was due.  It was to interview somebody who earns their living in the music industry, and then write it up.  Drew put the assignment off and put it off, until finally, a couple days before it was due, he sent out emails to a few different possibilities.  On the night before it was due, he heard back from the man who owns the recording studio that did Morrow's album.  Not only did that man agree to the interview, but he took a ton of time and care with the questions, meaning that Drew was able to turn in something good.  I was happy for him, but I did say, "You know, you probably should've started on that much sooner.  You were really lucky that it worked out."

"It always works out," he responded.  "And when it doesn't, I pick myself up and keep going!"

lol  Sigh.

As of today TMA is rehearsing over here at our house, since the barn where they usually rehearse is too cold now that the weather is turning.  It's going to be a loud afternoon.