Ride the Wave!!!

Sager at riding camp!

     It's a 105 degrees... o.k. it just feels like it's 105... actually it's 102.  I'm outside with Sager while he plays in the "illegal" pool.  Actually it's not illegal... we filled it up with well water.  Our town is on water restriction and there are lunatics who cruise around looking for people using water illegally and then turn them in... it's almost like Mad Max around here... anyway I'm sitting outside while Sager swims and I am contemplating my surroundings.  Scout just got back in from working on a road crew,  Shaw's fresh from a basketball mini camp and Sager... he's in the water where he stays most days.  As I'm watching him, he's swirling the water and hollering... RIDE THE WAVE!!!  JUST RIDE THE WAVE!!! and it hits me that that phrase is clearly a metaphor for where I am at in our lives... I'm riding the waves as Scout gets ready to leave for McMurry University, Shaw is in his last year at Jr high and Sager is just starting his Jr high career. Oh mercy...
.....here's some pics for the record...

I placed second in my age division...
that would be the old division! ha!

Where did the time go???
Baccalaureate...

Scout getting ready to run at the State Track Meet...
he placed second in the 400 m. run!!

Shaw won second place over all and first for his age group
at a 5K... Look there's Lindsey!!)

Senior blues...

Well, I've so been meaning to post more and more what with this being Scout's last year but I just can't find time to sit down and compose myself long enough to type something up!! We are in the midst of a very busy cross country season with Scout and Shaw running! It really has been AWESOME!!! Although Sager might not think so! (He's been hauled hither and yon and is ready for some sport that has a concession stand! He loves a good concession stand!)

We've picked out pigs for Scout and Shaw, we've ordered chickens and rabbits.... so many things that we always do but this year is different because this is the last of so many things.... I'll start crying if I go any further.... can you feel my pain??? Senior year... blech! ;)

Here's some pictures until the next post of the boy who refuses to stop growing up!!

Where is the little boy that I dropped off at daycare??? HE'S ALL GROWN UP!!!!

I know, I know - it's been a long time...

Well I know it's been a really long time since I last posted... geesh where did the time go?? It was a loooonnnnggg year.  We got through it and now it's summer, so it's good.  This summer is a big transition time.  Scout will be a SENIOR!!  Process that with me will you??  Shaw will be a seventh grader and he will officially start to travel with the teams to various places and even wearing braces - we did that today! He's growing up.... *sob, hic up, sob! and Sager oh Sager... Sager will be a fifth grader.  He will OFFICIALLY be on his own at school - no Shaw to double check with, or to remind or to help out and no Nana - his grandmother retired this year... so, I'm thinking Sager will need a phone in order to facilliate his neurotic tendencies.  I wonder if the principal will allow that..... hmmmm... probably not!  Well he's gonna have to handle it.  That reminds me of a story... we were dropping off Shaw the other day at baseball practice and Sager is watching the 9-10 year old boys who were practicing baseball.  He says - I don't think it's fair that all my friends get to play baseball and I don't.  So instead of me explaining to him oh so gently about how he's a special little boy who hasn't found his niche yet I tell him of story of when I was a  young girl.....

      Picture this - high school roughly 1988, 89 whatever - all my friends rodeoed.  Heck even my sister's boyfriend rodeoed.  I had ridden all my life - literally - all my life - when I was in the fourth grade I even got bucked off in a horrible accident but that's a whole other story....  I wanted to rodeo desperately, I mean after all, I had a saddle, a hat, skin tight rockie jeans, many different colors of ropers, horribly big and permed hair, and I had a dead beat boyfriend.  All of these things are prerequisites for a rodeo darling.  There was only one problem. One teeny tiny problem.... my dad wouldn't buy me a horse, heck - he wouldn't hardly let me ride horses, because - that's right - he's a mule man... Do you know how embarrassing it is to try to explain that you only ride mules??? It's very embarrassing.  Do you know why? Forget all that crap about them being sure footed and dependable, forget that they can haul twice their weight up a sheer cliff... forget about hybrid vigor.... forget that... imagine you pull up to the Dairy Queen in a pickup and trailor as your helping your dad build fence... do you know what mules do in front of Dairy Queen? They BRAY and BRAY and BRAY!!! It's horrible - people stare - ALOT of people stare.  There is nothing cool about a braying donkey.... there isn't... anyway - I tried to tell Sager of my desire to be a rodeo star and how my heart's desires were thwarted by my mule man father but clearly he didn't understand.... he's never experienced the mule experience.  So I tell him - sometimes Sager, you must be open to dream new dreams, bigger dreams... What about tennis??  He's contemplating it.... here's some pictures of the brothers...

Scout in Odessa

MVP Cross Country

Shaw end of 6th grade

Sager with a big fish!

Have a GREAT Summer!!

STAAR time baby!!

This is March and for most of the kids in Texas this means the dreaded STAAR test.  My kids at school have practiced and practiced and we have worked on so many things, I worry that they'll be overloaded when the day finally comes to test.  We'll just have to see how they do... I want them to do well, not perfection just a score that they can be proud of!  


Sager and Shaw are no exception to this... Sager has been working on writing during tutorials two days a week. (He has tutorials for Math and Reading the other two days a week.) (which makes for a very long week)  He's been bringing home some funny stuff that he has written.  You just never know what he's going to say.  This morning, I was griping at him a little about doing all the strategies he's supposed to do, that he better do this and that... basically being a hag because I know the pressure that he is under and I don't want him to fail... he know's how that feels and it sucks.  Sorry it does.  So I'm griping and going through his folder and I come across this practice page of writing where he wrote about a best friend.... this is what he wrote:


     Brandon goes and watches tv on the big brown couch.  I come and sit by Brandon and watch tv with him every single day.  I love him so much because I learn from him.  Brandon raised me well.  So I will be a good son to him.  He is strong, helpful, and amazing.  He does everything perfect.  He is one of the best dad's in the world.  My dad does alot of good stuff.  He loves me and I love him.  He is just so great.  He is so happy when he sees me after school.  He is trustworthy to me and my brothers and my mom.  He does not lie at all to anyone that he sees.  I love him with all my heart.  He makes me feel so special.  He makes me proud to be his son.  He keeps me safe and protects me from danger.  He takes me to far away places.  My dad and me help each other out doing hard work.


So there you go, State of Texas... what's more important a perfect score or a pretty close to perfect son.... I know which one I'll take!

So I hope everyone's STAAR test goes well but I hope everyone remembers what's really important.... Sager! no not really that one's just for me!! ha!!

Do you remember Rockies??

I was reading some of my old posts just for laughs and I encountered the post about my love of skin damage...and  in the comment section one of my friends talked about trying to lose weight, really - thin thighs is what I think she was after ;) and she talked about wrapping her thighs in saran wrap so she could get into her tight jeans ! Now as everyone who knows me knows, I am a child of the late 70's and 80's and Kim's comment about tight jeans brought me right back to my glory days and tight jeans... not just any tight jeans mind you... Rockies... you know the kind, those garish colored jeans/pants that you wore with equally hideous tops of various materials (maybe even a half shirt... only on thin days!) and your boots - ropers that is... and the jeans were so high-wasted you practically tucked your bra into it - and you wore them really long and bunched up... (I am 5 foot 6 and have been since 5th grade... ok maybe not 5th but for sure 6th!! and I wore 36 length!!!) Rockies were worn tight - the tighter the better... now my dad is probably reading this thinking - I don't know what she's talking about - did I buy those?  Let me set the record straight - no Dad you didn't because Rockies were the bomb back in the day and clearly you would have never bought me anything so awesomely frivolous!!  I can't really remember but I remember them being pretty expensive - like $45... gasp!!!

 My sister had all kinds of Rockies because she worked at my Dad's office and liked the finer things in life ya know - like Coach purses... (she knows what I'm talking about!!) and so she would take her paycheck and go to town!! she would buy Rockies and Mobetta shirts - do you remember those??? (the shirts that you have to custom order... and everything was a different color - let's just say Garth Brooks pioneered Mobetta shirts... and you KNOW what a style icon Garth Brooks is... just saying...)  You should have seen her and Shawn, Shawn is her high school sweetheart now husband of like 40 years... no... not really but a LONG time... him with a mullet, her with a big Texas perm and their matching Mobetta shirts!!!

I'm pretty sure Shawn had this shirt...

and if he didn't I'm sure he had this one...

He was jazzy like that...

Here they are in their engagement pictures... notice the Rockies on her...

Kidding...I'm just kidding.... this was their high school prom....

No I'm kidding - my sister doesn't look anything like that...

This is what she looks like with her son, Jackson (Mobetta) Uselding..he..he..he..

Now I had several pairs of Rockies but my favorite were some button up ones that if I was lucky and saved some of my paycheck I would have them starched - heavy starched where you would have to stick your hand in them or a broom stick to unstick them... that sound is delightful when you first unstick them.... magical!!!  because everyone knows that you looked thinner in tight jeans and even thinner if they were starched!! and you would have to use a wire hanger to pull the zipper up and at the end of the night when you took off the jeans you have crease marks from them being so tight... Oh if only Sarah and I had known how really good we looked in those jeans - we could have probably ruled the world... just saying...

Be sure to comment and tell me your favorite late 70's and 80's favorite fashion!!

P.S. Shawn - don't feel bad - Brandon had a mullet too....

Show time baby...

This past week has been a doozy..... let's recap:

1. I'm a special education teacher and each and every one of my kids has a special plan that rules their world!!! It's called an IEP and every student needs a meeting about their schedule and classes and modifications, every year, and all those meetings have begun!! and so has the stress and the fever blisters!!! yikes...

2. Scout has turned 17.... soak that up people... I have a seventeen year old!!!

(where did the time go???)

3. The annual Childress County Livestock show and sale was this past weekend... and as Sager so eloquently put it - "Total domination baby..." (We're currently working on the idea of humility and humbleness... Sager hasn't quite mastered that yet....) Sager and his chickens did very well... Grand and Reserve!!

(Look at that sharp dressed man!!)

4. Shaw has mastered the humble and humility lesson as his lame show pig "pimp" walked into third place...(that would be an ever so slight shuffle and drag...)

(look at his skills... maybe next year he'll get showmanship....)

5. I lost my cell phone - don't try calling it - clearly it's dead.... I have looked high and low.... I feel so lost with out it....

6. Scout didn't even spend his birthday with us - he went to Spearman to visit his "friend" while I washed chickens... nothing says happy birthday like wet chickens....

(here they are at the Rudolph run in Amarillo...) I guess 17 year olds don't want to spend their birthday with their mom? Can that be true?  I don't know if I believe that??? Do you??? I'm going to need some independent research...

7. Brandon is down in Huntsville for training... he left literally hours after the stock show sale... who am I going to iron clothes for? who will I have to find underwear and socks for??  who's going to eat at Arby's with me??? I don't know... you mean I have to sleep in the bed and NOT listen to snoring?  wait a minute.... I might just like this... kidding..kidding... I already miss him terribly...

Well I hope everyone's week goes good and I look forward to hearing from you, subscribers and stalkers alike!!!

Readers, Followers and Stalkers...

This blog is a funny thing.... usually when I write I have specific stories in mind and then when you, the reader, reads it, you get another story.  Speaking of readers... if you're reading this blog, please make sure you subscribe to it, that way I know who all is reading it, and not just stalking it! ;)