We're off...

Tomorrow John and I leave on a 4 day cruise to celebrate our 20th anniversary. John's mom and dad have come down to watch the kids, good luck to them on that. Of course I've left a plenty of instructions and tried to put the "fear of mom" into the kids, but who knows what will happen. You know... when the cat's away the mice will play...

I'm excited and not. I don't do "pre-trip" well. Once I'm actually there I'll be fine, but I'm not good in the days that lead up to a trip. Too much imagining fiery plane crashes, pirates or what's that cruise ship diarrhea bug... yeah imagining that too. Visions of children breaking arms, having sex when Grandma and Grandpa let down their guard etc... just too much imagining in general.

We are cruising to Key West, Nassau in the Bahamas and Cococay also in the Bahamas. It will be nice to get away from the snow and cold for a little. I'm not as convinced it will be nice to put this pasty white body in a bathing suit, but what are you gonna do? Drink a lot maybe?

Anyway, I do find it a little creepy (not creepy bad, creepy good) to think that John and I have been married for 20 years. It really doesn't seem possible... 20 years really?

Where has January gone?

Does it seem to anyone else the older we get the faster time goes? That just doesn't seem fair. I can't believe the month of January is almost over. Frankly, I can't believe that January is here at all! So, since I just started re-blogging and for the sake of consistency let's do a January recap. The trick I've discovered as I sit down to write is knowing what I should and shouldn't include. What I might think is funny, my kids very likely will not agree about or want shared. Do I or don't I? And since my kids are no longer little, the funny "firsts" aren't so funny anymore.

When you have an 18 year-old getting ready to head off to college, the firsts you are looking at are...first kegger, first frat party, first broken heart, first hangover none of which I want to think about, acknowledge or even consider. With a 13 year old boy, on the horizon I have... first school fight, first suspension, first angry girlfriend, first "body" hair, all of which can go on the "don't want to know about it" list. So... what's left?

January - Brenna was accepted into Radford University and Old Dominion University, both of which she promptly informed us she didn't want to go to! But at least she can go somewhere. :0) Her first choice is James Madison University - we won't hear from them until April, so we'll keep our fingers crossed for that. I think she has a good chance of getting in there, but you just never know, it all depends on the group of applicants that come in at the same time. She also applied to Virginia Tech, but on that front unless a blind man is reviewing her application I don't think we'll become Hokies. But, you never know. Also on the Brenna front... got fired (no details provided), almost got suspended from school for 5 days (not sharing those details, but in my opinion it was totally bogus and since it didn't end up happening we're moving on) and celebrating her 8 month anniversary with her love Zack-Zack. We call him Zack-Zack to differentiate him from our Zack. Since he's twice as big - he's Zack-Zack.

Our Zack - Doing great in 7th grade. All A's including in high school Spanish 1. He had his 7th grade chorus concert in which he didn't sing. :o) Mainly made faces at me and goofed off. Frankly I think requiring these kids to either take chorus or band is stupid! They should have other options, but the middle school is a whole other post in itself.

He is a Call of Duty master, known as the duct tape kid at school due to the fact that everything he owns is covered with duct tape. If you go into his room right now there are at least 25 different rolls of colored and patterned duct tape. I find bits of it draped all over the house.

Halloween - Duct tape man!

Otherwise, Dogs are good. Snakes are good. John and I...good. January....good.

Lala Simpson - a saint and now an angel

On January 19th our dear, sweet Lala died. She was John's grandma, his mom's mom, and she was amazing. She lived 95 wonderful years and there is a sad empty space now that she is gone. I can only hope that she has found her Papa Ross and they along with Grandma and Grandpa Hyzy and sweet Shania are all having fun watching the rest of us make our way through this life. I hope with a beer in hand or a Tom and Jerry or slurpee (for Shania) and chicken wings; more importantly I hope they are saving a spot for me. We flew home for the funeral last weekend and in the funny way of funerals it was a very nice visit. We saw lots of people we never usually get to see and laughed and talked and remembered and it was good.

The grandkids and spouses The "old" cousins

Lala's children and spouses

Zack and the ladies!

Can you say "We're getting old"

So I'm watching American Idol again, even though I SWORE I wasn't gonna do it. Last year was LAME and BORING (even though my favorite one), the judges all left and they replaced them with Jennifer Lopes (Yuck) and Steven Tyler (love him but, not enough to watch) and I really hate all "stuff" that they make you watch to actually see the singing, but my TiVo recorded it and it sat there taunting me and then my enabling friend Debbie goaded me into watching and here I am trapped again! Last night our satellite was out due to the snow storm so in a panic I called Debbie and begged to be allowed to crash her American Idol party.

The cold hard truth... I love me some Steven Tyler, I love everything about him - his clothes, his hair, his attitude, his jokes, his screaming every 15 minutes... everything. J-Lo has been a pleasant surprise, so I must admit I'm enjoying it so far.

But, here's what I realized last night... Debbie was surprised that Steven was 63 years old. Duh.. he's only been around forever, but she pointed out, you know your getting old when the 63 year old guy on the TV "doesn't look so bad, in fact he looks great!" My 17-year old daughter probably thinks he looks like a zombie, but Debbie and I were thinking he looks pretty good.

The nail in the "You're Old" coffin... you think he's even cuter when he puts on his reading glasses.

Really??? Again???

I know, I know what you are thinking... she's doing this again? I decided to try blogging again for a couple of reasons.

#1 - I love reading all my "friends" blogs every morning and I'm sick of seeing the same pictures and blog entry on my blog when I link to their blogs. I love reading my "friends" blogs no matter what they write. Funny, not funny, touching, not touching. So, I thought I'd try again.

#2 - I was talking to my real friend Char who said I should blog and not worry about being funny or anything, even if I just did a monthly wrap up. That put it in perspective. I didn't have to blog everyday, even if I just did it once a month that would be better than nothing. Once a month, I can do that.

C. I found a website called http://www.sharedbook.com/. They take your blog and turn it into a book. A BOOK!!! It was mind bogglingly easy. You put in your blog link, select the dates you want printed, make a few design choices, pay and Voila! within about a week you have a BOOK! I am a published author, in my own mind at least. But if I can blog and each year at the end order a book.... Score! I can include them in my scrapbooks and you'd have a visual and written record of the year. That really appealed to my anally compulsive neat freak organizational soul!

So, here we go again. I hope this time I'll be able to stick to my guns and not bore everyone too much! Stay tuned...