Ode to Broccoli

Why I don't Like Brocolie

Reprint permission by author: Madison Sinclair

Kleenex Mountain

No eye candy on this blog... but I'm anxious to try the photo layout tips that John sent me!

I had a good visit with my Dad who was in town from MN a couple weeks ago. He continues to stay busy in retirement. He sings in a du-wop band that I'm looking forward to hearing this summer.

I took Reece to the doctor a couple weeks ago and he had double ear infections. She said both tubes had fallen out. After getting through his antibiotics, he was tugging at his ears earlier this week so I took him back in yesterday. His left ear is still infected. So he gets another checkup in 2 weeks, and if he gets another infection, he gets tubes put back in. If I was a bettin' woman, I'd bet the farm we'll be back in getting tubes in the near future. Ear infections are on the inside of the ear drum, so he should be able to continue with swimming lessons. Water in the ear does create pressure which would make a sore ear hurt worse. So if he says his ear hurts, then no swimming until it's better.

My past week has been one big blur of cold medicine. I have a whopper of a cold! I think it's getting better, finally. I have insurance that covers hospital stay only ($111/mo just for that!), so I'm doing everything I can to avoid another sinus infection which would mean a doctor visit.

My car is back and steering great! The power steering belt needed to be tightened and there was no charge since Diversified Auto were the guys who replaced my belts last fall. I've had really good luck at that place... If an honest auto shop exists, this one is it. This gave me a great opportunity to take a bus and learn about public transportation.

Vacations are being planned and I'm so excited to get away! A trip to TX Apr. 8 - Apr. 11 is in the works with Mike and the kids... but it will entail going to bed really early, then being on the road at 1am on the 8th. We're hoping the kiddos (mainly Reece) will sleep and we can make it in one day. Then we'd head back mid-afternoon and get home late so the kids can sleep after sunset. The girls will be scrunched in my car with the carseat in the middle which means a car rental is probably inevitable.

My cousin, Tom, is getting married late June, so we're planning a quick weekend trip. I'm excited Mike will be coming to meet my Mom's side of my extended family. The girls are with their Mom that week, so they'll be catching the next trip to MN. And that will be in July for the Miller family reunion - Dad's side. Hopefully I can talk Mike into a boat at Bass Lake and he'll find the fisherman in him he never knew existed!

Mike and I are planning a bike trip... date unknown at this time. It'll be my first so I'm really excited. I'm a little nervous about my backside holding up, but maybe I can find some memory foam for cushion. :)

My prayers are continuing for my Uncle Mick who is fighting cancer. I'm looking forward to seeing him in June at his son's wedding and not losing hope that the latest surgery and chemo will really work for him. I'm also sending prayers up for my 88-year-old neighbors/landlords in my duplex who got into a car accident a couple weeks ago. I believe another car was involved and they ended up hitting the brick wall/deer fountain at The Legacy on 56th & Pioneer. I walked up there to take a look at the damage last week... they had to get over a few boulders to get at the wall. I haven't been able to visit with my cold, but hopefully this week. My neighbors to the east said they will probably go into an assisted living home since Betty won't be able to walk for 3 months from the damage to her leg. Willard has 7 broken ribs and a broken sternum. Full healing is unlikely at his age. They are two tough cookies.

I had a nice girl-time with Mike's daughter's last night while he caught up with some college buddies in town. Maddie wanted to see My Sister's Keeper (highly recommended). I'm a big baby with movies and had been warned to have Kleenex on hand. Maddie asked me last night after watching the movie how we can prevent cancer and I don't think we can. It's one of those things in life we can't control. It's one of those movies that makes you think, "What would I do?"

My first term is coming to a close next week. I'm pre-registered for 5 classes next term: Pre-calc, Managerial Accounting, Religion in American Life, Theory of Lifetime Fitness, and a physical workout class. It'll be an expensive term so I'm counting on a little help from tax returns. March bills are paid! One month at a time.

Reece's daycare schedule changes starting next week to Tuesday - Thursday, 8 - 3:30 through the end of March. Then April on, it's Monday - Wednesday, 8 - 2:15 and Thursday, 8 - 11. This will be very different from his full-time daycare schedule now. It'll be nice to have more time with him and very challenging to get homework done.

Until next time...

Naughty Fishy

Reece's first day of swimming lessons were this evening. It started at 5:30 and ended at 6:20. Reece was really pumped up today after daycare when I told him he was going to go to swimming lessons. We talked about how he was going to listen to his teachers and follow directions and he readily agreed.

He was fine up until the point we had to walk through the shower areas to get to the pool (this is at Union College). I didn't realize they don't have parents in the pool with their kids until a couple hours before starting time when I called to ask. I thought, "Oh, boy..." We all know how quickly Reece warms up to people...

So he cried the first 15 minutes which was very hard for me to watch upstairs in the observation room. I thought for sure they would ask us not to come back. And I also knew they just needed to get in the water (they were meeting outside of the pool at first) for Reece to calm down. Reece was definitely the youngest... the rest were well into age 3 and some 4 year olds in his group. There were several groups meeting including a few advanced older kids. After they got him into the deep area, he started his swimming moves and showing off. They were finally able to get him with his group, but he was not going to listen. I saw them taking him out of the pool about three times.

Lesson learned. He's a fish in water but the maturity level just isn't there yet. We are going to stick it out as long as they let us in. Hopefully he'll start to listen a little better!

* * *

On another note, I heard from the Sargeant/supervisor of the police officer who ticketed me. She broke it down into the rules they are supposed to follow. If they don't know where the driver is, they have to tow a car. They have to issue a ticket in order to place the order to tow and there's no getting around that. They weren't able to place a tag on my car to remove it in so many hours because they can only do that when a car is off the road, such as the shoulder of an interstate or highway. She said I can argue the ticket with the city/county attorney but I already paid it. I'm letting it go... and I have a shovel in my car now, thanks to Mom. I let her know that I did appreciate how well this same officer handled the car accident my Mom and Dan were in a few months back.

* * *

And finally, the sketches that Michael requested. As mentioned earlier, I took a look at it after I was done and realized it looks like the Fallbrook office building. I have much to learn! These sketches didn't upload at the same scales but you'll get the idea. These are the north and east facades.

It's been an exhausting day. I'm off to bed early!

Catchy Title

Hello! As promised, I am doing my weekly post. In reading most blogs, people seem to choose a nice topic and it's usually set up neatly with photos. This is going to be the random junk in my head purged out... a sort of therapy, I suppose? I'm having problems figuring out how to format this so bear with me... it seems to have a mind of it's own!

I've received some responses that some of you are having issues commenting on this blog. For some, it wouldn't accept the entry you typed for the numbers/letters security image and for others you'd get an error. I've noticed that on Blogspot when I've commented on other's blogs. Sometimes I'd have to try a few times for each problem before my comment was accepted. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe you'll have to create a Gmail account if you want your name posted, otherwise you can comment as 'Anonymous' and just add your name in the message.

Story behind the Miller truck. Every Tuesday (I think), a bright white Miller beer truck would pull in and park right in front of the west exterior wall that's full of mostly window openings at my old work. It was hard to miss because of the reflection it brought into the building. On the side and rear of the truck, there is a large logo saying "It's Miller Time", so the joke between Mike and I was him letting me know that, "[My] ride is here" when the truck pulled in. Can someone let them know that they need to pick me up on 52nd & Prescott now?

After getting stuck in the snow and ice in my neighborhood last Friday morning, and getting a ticket for blocking 54th St. and abandoning my car to fetch a shovel, I have composed and sent off a letter (yes, politely written) to Chief Casady to get the scoop on this policy. The letter was sent on Monday and so far I've heard nothing back. I would be pleasantly surprised if the letter even makes it to him and I do hear something... anything. I'll keep you posted.

Michael, Madison, Breanna, and I went to the performance, STOMP, on Tuesday evening. It was like Tap Dance Meets Percussion. Eight performers danced and used everyday objects, like brooms, aluminum garbage cans, paint cans, match boxes, tubes, oil drums, etc. to create fantastic beats. They had the audience participate with different clapping rhythms, so that was nice to get involved. The girls seemed to enjoy it, too. Maddie could probably relate to the dance, and Breanna to the drumming.

My 5-minute presentation using PowerPoint went well on Wednesday. Mike and I scouted out a building with the help of Google Earth and we found the tiny building on 21st & 'O' to be perfect for my fictitious project, Coffee Bean. I have discovered I still have Fallbrook on the brain with what came out on paper and I also know I will definitely benefit from design school in a couple of years to get more of a variety in design styles.

Reece starts swimming lessons at Union College on Monday! It'll be interesting to see if he's as much of a fish in water as he was last summer. Wow, I had never seen a toddler take to water like he did. He says he's excited, so I hope it's a good fit for him. I'm not looking forward to fitting into a swimming suit so soon in the season, but it's well worth it!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Reflection and an Update

I wonder if my Grandma Marie would've been a blogger had computers been mainstream in her day. Ever since I was a little girl, whenever I've thought of journaling or when I have kept diaries, I would always be reminded of her. Grandma journaled every single evening at her desk in the TV room of our family's century old farmhouse. Reading her journal after she passed away, it was very full of facts and not much emotion. She was a strong German woman and a hard worker. You would have to be, giving birth to 14 children and raising 13, one of which has disabilities. My aunts once calculated the amount of time she was pregnant; 10 1/2 years, if my calculations are right. She was an active member of the little Catholic Church in Lake Henry, MN, right next to the small cemetary where she and many of my relatives lay at rest.

I dedicate this blog to her.

Switching gears, a little update:

I am now in my fourth week in my first term at Doane College. Doane has five terms per year so each term ends up being 8 weeks long. The first four weeks has flown by so fast; I think it's a sign of how fast the next five years will go.

I am truly enjoying school, even the homework! Accounting class is from 6 - 10:30 at night each Thursday. I'd have to say of all my classes, this has been the most challenging and what I have to study the most. It's also very challenging clearing the cobwebs in my head that late in the evening to crunch numbers.

Business Writing is my class from 8 - 12:30 every Wednesday. I am just now being challenged in this class now that we have to give a 5-minute presentation using Power Point - something I've never done before! The only times I've opened Power Point is to view slideshow attachments in email forwards.

I already have all of my work for the term handed in for my online class, Information Retrieval Skills. As you can probably gather from the name...not so challenging.

I'm finishing up one last class at SCC on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. After trying to test out of beginning math courses twice, I ended up having to start from the bottom. Some of it is coming back to me from high school, but it's amazing how fuzzy it is. I'm getting through it alright and only have one more class to take before Calculus.

It's been so wonderful to set my own schedule and work on homework as I'm able to. Reece's days in daycare are shorter and my time with him is longer. His days will be even shorter starting March 1st. I'll only be able to afford daycare from 8am - 1pm Monday - Thursday. I was hoping to take four classes next term, but I don't think my student loans, living expenses, and homework time allowed with Reece's new daycare schedule will let me. So three classes it is, and I'll enjoy my time with him while I can.

(Garding Farm photo taken by my cousin, Aaron Laib)