Really?

Our washing machine is on it's last leg. On Tuesday it took me 3 1/2 hours to wash one load of jeans. The regular cycle won't completely fill, and so the sensor to agitate won't turn on, and so the machine just keeps filling and filling and filling, wasting water and time. Fortunately, the casual cycle will fill, but it doesn't agitate as well, so I have to run clothes through multiple rinse cycles in order to get them clean. And then, it also doesn't spin as fast, leaving the clothes sopping wet when they come out of the washer. Therefore, the poor dryer, which was never very efficient to begin with, has to work way to hard for it's little electric engine. Thus, 3 1/2 hours after I started, I had clean jeans.

David and I decided it was time to purchase the washer/dryer for our future new home. (That future is coming soon!) We did our research online, traveled to many stores and checked our deals, and finally settled on a great front loading set from Home Depot. It was $200 cheaper per piece than anywhere else we had seen.

We make our decision, find a sales person to help us, and start the check our process.

Guess what?! They can't deliver my washer for 2 weeks!

AUGH!!!!! REALLY?

I almost wish I had gone with Lowe's. They guarantee next day delivery.

Ouch

Did you know substitute teaching in a choir class the first day back from Christmas break is a painful experience?

The teacher hasn't had time to put new music in the folder. The kids really aren't ready to be back yet. And in the case of one choir, they don't get new music anyway, the class ends in two weeks. And with no final except a Christmas concert, they have no motivation to be there.

At least the kids all came. And came back after they used the bathroom.

I did have one student tell me, "I'm glad it's you today. I wish it could always be you here."

Hand Wash Only

Most of my hand wash clothing is winter wear.

This means I'm sticking my hands in freezing cold water (straight from frozen pipes) in order to wash the clothing that's supposed to keep me warm.

Does anyone else see the irony?

Fashion

Hot pink tights keep your legs warm.

Thoughts

I haven't been a good blogger this last year.

I'd like to say that I've been spending all my time writing in my journal, but that isn't the case either. I think that this last year was so full of painful things that I just didn't want to remember them. I'm sure I'll regret that later (much, much later), but for now, I'm grateful that I survived 2009 and am looking forward to a brand new year.

Happy New Year!

Giggles

Our trip to Las Vegas is over. It was so short that it was hardly a vacation at all, trip or even jaunt would be a much better word to describe it.

We left on Friday after school, stopped in Cedar City for dinner, and continued on to Vegas, arriving right around bedtime. My thoughts on Cedar City? Don't eat at the IHOP for dinner. The waiter was pleasant enough, but nearly as dumb as a rock. And when your waiter is that dumb, service tends to be bad.

Saturday a portion of the adults went to Food 4 Less and picked up junk food for breakfast. I like to stay at hotels that have free continental breakfast, and I thought this one did, but I was mistaken about that. And since the continental breakfast was $8.99 w/o eggs and $9.99 w/, we decided junk food from Food 4 Less was a good option. The kids certainly enjoyed it.

After breakfast we took the kids to Ceasar's Palace to go shopping at FAO Schwarz, or as Ella calls it, "FAO Shorts". My kids have been saving their chore money for a while, and were all hoping to get something really cool. Sarah bought mismatched pajamas, Ben bought a remote control car, Josh bought a sword and the sorting hat, and Ella bought a baby doll. Life is good for my children. And truthfully, I'm rather pleased myself with their purchases. I think they chose wisely.

Ceasar's Palace has a huge shopping mall attached to it, and we spent some time wandering around. We didn't buy anything else, but we did watch the Atlantis show. You think it's just a fountain with some cool statues and a really great fish tank, then suddenly, the statues disappear and there are animatronic figures in their place shooting water and fire and heating up the joint. My boys thought that was pretty cool.

We didn't want to spend much more time on the strip than we had to, so we headed back to the hotel to swim. When I was checking out hotels, I looked for two things: free continental breakfast and a pool. The continental breakfast thing might have been a bust, but the pool was great. All the kids had a good time, they didn't play Marco Polo, but they did play Shark. I swam for a while, and then I read my book and took pictures.

Finding dinner was a joke. We ended up at Marie Callendar's with a snotty waitress. Once again we suffered through poor service. At least we got to eat, I can be grateful for that.

Rachael, Esther, Sarah and I had tickets to see "Jersey Boys" at the Palazzo theatre. We left 60 minutes before the show started, figuring that would be plenty of time to drive maybe 3 miles, park, and find the theatre. We were very nearly wrong. It took us just over 30 minutes to even get to the Venetian, which is where we needed to park. Traffic on the strip is ridiculous! Then we walked/ran through the Venetian, through the Shoppes at the Palazzo, through the Casino, and finally found the theatre. We picked up our tickets at will call, found our seats, and had 8 minutes to get our heart rates back to normal before the show started.

Once again, the show was amazing! Esther and I had seen it in New York, but even after seeing a second time would love to see it again. I knew Sarah would love this show, and she did! Toward the end of the second act, Franki Valli sings "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You", and he does it concert style, facing straight out to the audience. When he finished, Sarah and I cheered and clapped really loud. Rachael and Esther cheered and clapped, too, but apparently not as loud. Franki Valli bows to the audience a couple of times, and then blew a kiss up to the balcony! Yep! That was us! He looked right at us as he did it, and three of us knew it was meant for us. (Esther caught on a bit later.)

After the show, the four of us stood in the theatre and listened to the band finish up, giggling like school girls, which only one of us really is, and watching the old people leave the theatre. It's probably a good thing we were there, otherwise, it would have been a dead audience (literally).

The Hard Rock Cafe is a really cool place, and we want to be really cool people, so we decided to go there before heading back to the hotel. We asked a lady at the Palazzo how far down the strip the Hard Rock was, and she informed us that there is no Hard Rock on the strip. We had all seen the big guitar, with the words "Hard Rock Cafe" that morning on our way to Ceasar's, so we were a little confused. She told us it must have been the Harley Davidson or even Planet Hollywood. We didn't want to cause problems, so we accepted that, took the directions to the Hard Rock and left.

As we were driving back down the strip we saw the fountain show at the Bellagio, lots of drunk people who were probably going to be married in the morning and didn't know it yet, and yes, we saw the Hard Rock Cafe. There is one on the strip. But, we had directions to one that wasn't, and since we were tired of dealing with the traffic on the strip, we went to the other one.

I'm glad we went to the other one. Our waiter was Toad, and he was the best waiter we had the entire trip. He was also the curator for the memorabilia in that Hard Rock, and answered lots of questions for us. Questions like: "Where is Frank Sinatra's suit?" and "Why does no one seem to realize there is a Hard Rock Cafe on the strip?" The suit was through the archway and the HRC on the strip will have it's official grand opening on Thursday. ("She'll see it in the paper and think, "Oh no! I lied to those people!")

The four of us laughed and laughed, flared nostrils, held knives, poked each other (verbally and literally) and had much more fun than the table of "drunk girls" behind us. We don't know for certain that they were drunk, but we could see that they weren't having any fun.

Well, Vegas may not be my favorite place, but I had a great time. My kids all say that they had fun, too. So, Friday down Sunday back nearly killed me off, but...it was worth it. I had one good meal, lots of laughs, time with my kids, and a kiss blown from Franki Valli.

Ego Boost

I saw Kelly at Hale last night.

I've been a little concerned:
what if the kids hated me?
what if I didn't accomplish anything?
what if he decided I wasn't the substitute he hoped I would be?

He told me:
the kids loved you!
they learned so much from you!
the Concert Choir was less chatty for you than they are for me!

*contentment*