-Started the day with a 9 a.m. business meeting with John Solomon, John Mark, and our newest business apprentice, Leah.
-Then off to Zac’s school to meet with the nurse and principal about various aspects of Zac’s life at school and how to keep him on track with his studies.  That requires a meeting with me and all the teachers on Monday.
-Then back across town to Walmart to get some food and make myself something to eat.  Put a movie on to watch while I ate and fell asleep shortly after I was done eating.
-Woke.
-Went to my kids house to meet the bus when Zac got home to speak with the driver about the possiblity of him eating one of his snacks, fruit, on his way home.  Which he’s now going to do.
-Then off to get Caleb from Extended Day, but not Dan because he went home with his friend Brent.
-Then to the computer at my kids house to research what type of an LLC we were going to be:  a partnership, a S corp or a corp.  Finally made the decision of which of the three, this enabled me to go to the IRS site and get our Tax ID number.  Two and a half hours later I has holding the paper work that contained said number.
-Then to make dinner for Zac.  Everyone else had pizza their father brought home from the Friday night pizza special from Wholefoods.
-Then upstairs to my girl’s room, Grace and Sarah’s, to announce that the “Alice in Wonderland” movie released and we need to go.  Tonight.  To the next showing.  They didn’t agree that they needed to go.  They weren’t very interested.  However, if bribed: have me pay for half their ticket or buy popcorn and soda, they would overcome their disinterest and go with me.  Hummmm, that wasn’t happening for two girls who earn their own money and don’t have bills to pay and aren’t losing work/money due to the health of their brother.  So it was decided that I would go with Zac, who gets in free at our local Carmike theater, on another day.  I had a gift to wrap for a friend’s birthday and Grace decided that the fun thing would be to use her colorful word stickers rather than use tape to secure the edges, so she overtook the wrapping task while I lounged on her bed growing sleepy.
-Went home with a few of my kids, but not Dan, he’s sleeping over at Brent’s. 
-We watched “Cast Away” together.
-At 11 p.m. I had a business meeting…again, because we needed to cover more information from the meeting earlier and the most available time we all had was then.
-Got home at 1 a.m., Caleb was still awake although is older sisters, one being 17, were sound asleep.
-Now I’m blogging 
-Then I’m going to bed.

Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane
-who is craving a toasted marshmellow

SILLY BANDZ!!! I have to share these.  They’re so FUN and if you haven’t seen them you should know about them.  They’re called Silly Bandz and  I understand that it’s really only here in Birmingham and in Nashville,Tenn, that they’re all the rage with the kids.  It must be true because I asked a friend with a 9 year old daughter if she knew about them and she hadn’t and she only lives an hour away.  But that’s not the case around here, stores sell out within hours when new stock comes in. Think Beenie Baby…

WHAT DO KIDS-young and teens-DO WITH THEM?? They wear them on their wrists and trade them, some kids glue them into drawings, a little girl even blogs about them.  They’re totally fun!!  Make terrific inexpensive, unique Christmas gifts for kids and adults.  They could sure brighten the doldrums of the office setting.  Imagine getting something from a co-worker, undoing it, laying the rubber band down on the desk and seeing that it’s a shape!  The possibilities are endless for offices.

WHERE DO YOU GET THEM? We got these at Office Max.  They’re also in specialty toy store shops, or online, key word: Silly Bandz.  They come in packs of 24 and there’s a variety of other shapes.  Letters, dinosaurs, monuments…
Just wanted to share the fun!
Theresa Jane

While I was writing Caleb took pictures so you could see how they look when worn.

I know I always go to the dollar theater.  However there are moments when I go to the “regular theater”.  You know, where there’s the newest released movies that charges nine times more?  When I go here I typically just take Zach–whose free due to his wheel chair-thank you Carmike!– or Sarah–she pays for her own ticket.  I have a logic behind choosing full priced movies over waiting till their release at the dollar theater: when I take four children to the dollar movie, that’s $4, Zach is free here too.  BUT.  WAIT.  I’m not the type of mom who takes her kids to a movie and shakes her head no to popcorn and soda.  Come on this is the m..o..v..i..e..s.  This costs roughly $11.  Ending total $15.  Pretty good for taking out four of my kids.

Okay.  Now.  When I go to the “regular theater” I have ah la, popcorn bucket.  A one time purchase that is fillable for, drum roll- $1.  That’s right.  Totally huge bucket of warm, delicious popcorn for a buck.  K.  Add to that soda.  $4ish. Then the ticket. $9ish.  Total-$14.  Dollar cheaper than the dollar theater.  Soooo, I actually save money going to the full priced, recently released, don’t have to wait, and wait, and wait for said movie to go to el’cheapo theater. Perfect.

But guess what?  We got there too late.  They wouldn’t sell me a ticket.  I attempted to point out that the previews would have ended about 5 min. ago, I wouldn’t have missed much but, no go.  I guess we’re now required to watch previews!  Well were there.  And after what I went through to get us there…  Picture me zooming to get Zach. Picture wheel chair.  No wheelchair accessible vehicle.  No Dan who always handles this for me.  So just me to get that thing, which I’m thankful for, lifted in the back of my truck. Picture zooming up the highway to get there on time.  Now picture us leaving.  Right.  Wasn’t about to do that. We chose 2012.

When we left.  I innocently took note of the times for Pirate Radio.  Only 15 minutes till the next show.  We got into my truck.  Put key in ignition.  I reasoned… we’re here, this is the cheap time to go to a movie, $6, soda refill FREE, popcorn leftover… I said to Zach, “If we go to this movie you have to be willing to go to Saturday school tomorrow.”  For some bizarre reason the school gives kids the choice?!  And he was refusing to go.  Doesn’t care that he’s behind.  Doesn’t like school during the week, why would he go on the weekend.  Hard to argue really.  Well he agreed!!!  So there.  Taking Zach to another movie actually created a solution for me, his parent, who needed to get him to go, to go, without a war!  The angels in the heavens were singing.

So, out came the wheel chair and in we went to watch another terrific movie.  Except this one required my fast acting hand to zip in front of Zach’s eyes.  Goodness didn’t expect some of the scenes that came up.  Should have reviewed the movie more I guess.

One day, two fabulous theater movies.  Unusual.  But worth it.

Wish I could say that getting Dan, Cal, and Grace was as pleasant.  They were Friday grouchy for an hour plus: “Stop it Cal!  Knock it off Dan!  What’s your problem Grace…”  Rubbing my temples.  Trying to be cheery.  Heard myself harshly snap, “Okay, Dan that’s enough!”   Reel in my snappiness.  Turn their attention to a movie.  The drug of choice    Peace settled in, sleepiness took over.  They were alseep by  11.

Night, Love Ya,
Theresa Jane
-who wants you to know this post started out at like 1125 words and I kept at it forever till what it is now: 652 w/o the closing 

Coldness is setting in so I bought a new blanket today.  At?  Where else Wal-mart.  It’s brilliant white.  I laundered it and when I opened the dryer it was like freshly falling Christmas snow.  I felt like a kid as I laughed, cupped my hands and scooped mountains of it from the lint catcher, gathered it from around the door, and chased it through the air.  Much funner than the real thing!  Too bad snow wasn’t like that.

Tags, located on side bars with random words scattered throughout.
Tags, the list of words that appear above my posts.
Tags, give search engines a way to find sites.

Well!  These seemingly boring, do nothing, I thought they were just there for search engines to use and wondered why they even needed to be on a site, do more than that.  Today I:
1) Learned: You can click on them to search the for information pertaining to the word on a web site/blog. Who knew?!
2) Put this together: They’re totally handy to scan when you’re checking out someone’s blog/web site. Besides reading a couple posts, scan the tags this will help you know if you’re interested in them because they tell you the topics they discuss.
3) Discovered: Tagul.com.  Tagul is very similar to Wordle but with distinct differences.  They’re designed to be used on blogs and web pages as a replacement of ordinary tag clouds. And each word/tag is “clickable”so visitors can use it for navigation.  Meaning… we just upgraded our eye candy to practical:  click the word and bam, you get a list of posts related to the word!  This is where I learned that the tags in side bars are clickable!  And, it gets better… this site allows you to customize the clouds into shapes such as: hearts, triangles…and multiple fonts can be used in one cloud.  TOOOOOOO, FUN~

The kids had Veterans Day off today.  Sarah and Grace went shopping.  Zach and Ben slept till probably the time they would have gotten off the bus had they gone to school, and Dan and Cal came with me.  I was second choice for Dan as his plans with a friend fell through.  We went to the grocery store on the way home because Dan, my gotta have milk kid remembered, “Mom, you need milk.”  Right!  While in said store what does Dan’s eyes land on??  A mini cake in the shape of a hot cocoa mug with marshmallows on top.  What is Dan’s favorite thing?  Marshmellows.  NEVER let him hold the bag when the fam is making Smores.  Well, his eyes were googling, and his breath gasping, his fingers stabbing glass, other hand was tapping Caleb’s shoulder to get his attention, never taking his eyes off the case.  Two faces turned up to look at me and in unison they said, you guessed it, “Oh mom, please!”  With such delight the Devil himself couldn’t have said no.  I walked out of that store, muttering to myself and making a mental note: keep those boys out of the bakery section from now on!  And creating excuses… Dan loves marshmallows, and they both love hot cocoa, I never buy such wild extravaganzas, why, I’m making a memory, and this will be our celebration cake for my deciding not to move.

Yummm!

Night, Love ya,
Theresa Jane,
-oh and that’s not all marshmallows, most is frosting.  And yeah it was as good as it looked!

Saturday, was a super day.  I spent it largely with my Sarah.  I don’t get to see a lot of her due to her schedule.  Wait!  I’m just realizing when I introduced her on the Halloween post I completely forgot to give a little bio.  Well, Sarah is my ballerina/dancer. (Picture taken Halloween night, need to get a better one)  She has loved to dance since she was teeny tiny.  She had books, and a video and she “practiced” all the time.  We moved so much, lived in the country a lot, and had so many other ones to handle that I wasn’t able to get her into dance till she was…  How old was she?  Have to think… 8, maybe 9.  When I put her in her first class the teacher was blown away at her skill and leaped her up several levels.  All that “practice” really paid off.  And in a real way.  What we want and strive for as people/humans we can create.  She was on point in no time and totally excited.   When she hit seventh grade she was excepted into the The Alabama School of Fine Arts after auditioning with 150 other girls from around the state.  Now dance is a part of her daily curriculum.  School for her starts at 8:00 ends at 4:30.  The days there are longer because the kids do their academics and their… their… oh nuts there’s a word for this annnddd it’s gone.  It’s used to represent what they’re there for: dance, art, math, science, drama, music.  The 4:30 time slot is for everyone but the dance department, is always there till 6:30-7:30-8 depending on upcoming performances.  Then the half hour drive home, homework, and a busy social life.  So I don’t see much of her.

Yesterday however we went to brunch and then shopping before and after a movie.  She needs a pair of shoes for homecoming dance.  Then to the Dollar Theater see: “My One and Only”.   Terrific movie.  We both loved it.  I was totally lost in the dream!  And I completely related to the woman in the movie.  Rent this movie! FUN!  Before we ended our time together we sat and talked for a long while outside her house. Wonderful.

Then I took Dan and Cal back with me to my place and we snuggled up together on the couch and watched Beverly Hills Chihuahua.  I wasn’t so sure what I was going to think of this movie.  I went through every single one of my On Demand Movie channels and every single listed movie in search of something else, anything else.  But I was out voted.  And them’s the rules ’round here.   Thankfully it was cute.  I liked it.  However, and this was the why behind no post yesterday.  I fell asleep right at the last probably 15-20 minutes.  When I woke I was too zonked.  I crawled into bed and told the boys, “It’s 11:20 you need to go to bed too.”  So lights went out.  And I slept till 9:30!

Sunday:
I have to admit that a lot of work didn’t get done today either. It’s been a laid back, sleepy day.  Dan took off to, you guessed it be with his friends.  Cal and I watched Fly Away Home then I worked a little, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, with Jim Carrey.  I fell asleep through most of The Grinch. :/

Had a real test to my mother’s patience today.  I let my kids use my laptop when they’re here.  Typically they have it on this: picture to left.  Well today Dan had it on his lap.  Then it switched to Caleb’s.  Well, twice, not once, twice it hit the floor.  Grrrrrrrr.  I started to get upset.  Just started.  And stopped, spoke as nicely as I could muster and on the second, took some deep breaths and made a new rule, “The laptop is to be on the “desk” at all times.  Not excuses.  No exceptions.”  I’ve really been working on not flipping out or getting angry and I’m finally getting there in major ways.  I amazed myself.  I mean, that was my lap top.   And I have to say I feel good about it.  I have nothing to regret and my son didn’t experience me slicing him into pieces and making him feel small over something that I myself could have done.

Night all, love ya,
Theresa Jane
-who is sleepy and going to read for a bit and then lights out!

In the vain of “business woman”. I took pictures today of my Inspiration Board (I named this board something else, but do you think I can come up with that title right now) that I’ve been working on creating. It’s not finished and for good reason. I look for just the right person to add. And just the right picture. Here’s the picture I took, I wish it turned out better, it’s washed out, probably too much light. I even took it outside so their wouldn’t be a flash reflecting off the pictures:

I made this board in order to have business people, mainly woman, that I admire always before me. If they could do what they did. I know I can do what I have a vision to create. Having this board in front of me keeps me inspired and motivated. I’ve either read their life stories or watched movies on their lives and often both, and to say the least they have each been very impressive. I have a few more that I want to add very badly. Julia Child’s being one. However, trying to find the picture is a bugger. I didn’t start this project with the intent to finish it right away. I wanted to have it be a very thoughtful process created with visual beauty. It really is very nice to look at when it’s not all washed out
Tomorrow I will list the woman and why I have picked them.

Now, it’s sleep time,
Love ya,
Theresa Jane
-psyched that tomorrow is Halloween, or today really since by the clock “tomorrow” is already here. Trick or Treat!! And please, don’t smell any feet!