<p>Still fighting the crud and coughing up a lung! Will get out to shop for Valentine’s Day today and send something to D1. D2 will be home for a follow-up appt with the oral surgeon…she doesn’t think one of the graft worked. 
The surgeon said it would be very rare if it didn’t. Tommorrow is D1’s 22nd birthday. Already sent a card but will be bearing gifts next weekend when I see her.</p>
<p>missypie – great idea, except H & I didn’t exchange Christmas gifts this year, ie. 2009. </p>
<p>Oh, it’s finally snowing here – after all the schools canceled starting last night. Now we’ll see if they’re right about the amount – about a foot.</p>
<p>Our anniversary is on the 16th…which is a drag as everything is always booked/used up for Valentines day. We switched celebrating to April 16th and lo and behold many of the places we are looking at to stay are booked up! I thought everyone had college tuition to pay but evidently people are still treating themselves.</p>
<p>I went into S’s room after he left in Jan. and picked up the food wrappers/gum wrappers and general junk from the desk and floor. Found the $25 Itunes card he got in his stocking buried. Thought I would send it for V day.</p>
<p>Veteran of more cookie sales than I care to think about! I was disappointed that nobody knocked on my door. When my daughter was little, the Girl Scouts in our neighborhood divided up the territory to be fair.</p>
<p>Worst experience was when my senior troop had their last booth ever. An older woman went up to them (didn’t talk to me) and told them that only little girls were supposed to sell cookies. Boy, did I want to tell her off!</p>
<p>I’m in a happy place - going to see “Wait Wait - Don’t Tell Me” tomorrow night!</p>
<p>I got a flyer in my mailbox announcing that cookie sales were coming up. I thought it mean to expect a knock at the door. When that never came I pulled out the flyer to look for an email, phone number or something. Nothing. Great marketing campaign, but no follow through. Since my kids do not attend the local public school (and never have), I really don’t know most of my neighbors with kids younger than mine (only know those the kids play(ed) with). Anyway… no girl scout cookies and probs just as well.</p>
<p>I want to move. Kids want to move. H wants to, but doesn’t want to do the work it will take. I need to refinish my floors and update the master bath before I can put this place on the market and that doesn’t include cleaning out the closets and organizing and purging the garage. I really need to hire someone to keep my butt in gear and be ruthless with me. Thing is, while we’d surely be moving to smaller digs (since who needs five bathrooms for three people with one leaving in two years), I am thinking my costs will go up, not down. Still, it’s a great time to buy even if it’s not a great time to sell. We’ve lived here almost 17 years and so… I am do over this place and the cleaning of it.</p>
<p>If you don’t have HBO can you rent that movie on pay per view? going to check now. Could be my afternoon’s activity. I just finished writing a review for my sisters house that will be on a home tour this summer. It was painful to be honest. I would KILL to have a house where hers is and well… she’s generous in all ways except for having company. :)</p>
<p>Just thinking about Downtoearth. How are you feeling DTE?</p>
<p>I was also a cookie mom as was my mom - I gave fond memories of the front hall of my childhood home stacked high with cookies.</p>
<p>I started watching the Temple Grandin movie before I left home, will finish it when I get home. I was hoping to watch the end here in my hotel room, but I would have to skip a meeting to do so - prob not a good idea 
Anyway I was in tears and thinking of you missypie at the graduation scene. </p>
<p>Fireflyscout - going to see WWDTM is one of my life goals! Have fun!</p>
<p>I’m also wondering about you, DTE. Hope all is well.</p>
<p>For some reason I can bring it up and it says it’s free, but when I order it then it tells me it’s part of some package and I don’t have it. Seriously? For $170 a month? How is it that my cable/internet bill is so much and I get absolutely no HBO etc???</p>
<p>That is utterly outrageous!!^^</p>
<p>DH and I STILL have <em>our</em> SAT score reports, etc. Sad, but true.</p>
<p>CountingDown, I have mine as well. You are not alone!</p>
<p>Was a GS leader, cookie mom, service unit mgr. Now, I don’t miss it. Had a great time doing that. This year I bought cookies from every girl that came to the house and every booth sale we stopped by. Even DD ordered some from a girl in her dorm whose sister is selling cookies. </p>
<p>I’m taking my DD her valentine’s gift. Her car broke down and we are going to see her this weekend.</p>
<p>I put all her acceptance letters in drop leaf plastic and into a folder. I guess more for me than for her. I showed them to her grandparents and they really liked looking at them and reviewing them. They had never seen so many together. lol. DD did not chose to go to any of the Ivy’s she was accepted to, and since she was a National Merit Hispanic finalist, she got lots of “pretty letters”. I guess SAT scores and all that she keeps somewhere, I really don’t know what she has done with all of that nor her report cards. I still have all of mine. (oh yeah pack rat)</p>
<p>DD did think she was going to have a hard time going back to school after winter break, but she did confess she got used to it faster than she thought she would. She explained it as having the best home, and the best college situation and each had their place in her life. Dang, that was mature of her.</p>
<p>Waiting for snow tonight in AZ.</p>
<p>If there are certificates involved, I have kept it - Right down to the one that noted his completion of DARE when he was in 5th and 6th grade. With older D and then again with son, I bought file folder boxes to keep all their stuff in during the college process. Basically, all letters etc from all colleges are in there, including rejections. This started as a file for all colleges, their info, timelines etc. Weeded out once applications went out and then have added random papers at times like an English paper I found etc.</p>
<p>D got a job!!! She found out from a friend last night that there was an opening at the credit union on campus. She emailed the person in charge last night at 11pm. She had an interview at 3:45 today and by 4:30 she had a job. She starts tomorrow. 10 hours a week at $15 per hour. She is a student rep (read sales job). She is sooooo excited. The only parental help she asked for was for proof-reading her resume. She is so independent. Her response is always “I got this”. I can hear it now. “Yes I can start tomorrow but I do need the weekend off to go snow boarding”. Those poor people at the credit union. They have no idea what they are in for. I did remind her that they are the ones that gave her her student loan.</p>
<p>Throughout the school years, my system was simple: a big box of plastic page protectors and binders. Drawings, early writings, report cards, awards… on up to PSAT and college admissions. Whenever I got my hands on it, I put it in plastic and added to a folder. (Yes sometimes I raided the backpack.)</p>
<p>Scouts, sports, music, academics… we have close to a dozen binders. DS and DH stopped making fun of me when it was college app time and we had everything right at hand.</p>
<p>After DS left, I started a folder with DH’s many adult scout certificates, awards, photos… I just can’t help myself.</p>
<p>Emgamac- congrats to your D!!!</p>
<p>Endicott and Zetesis:
</p>
<p>I observed a significant amount of anxiety. ShawSon didn’t sleep well before returning. He had good classes and is making friends, but I worry that he puts such pressure on himself to perform that his stress level is too high. </p>
<p>Well, the good news is that we had a doctor’s appointment to review his sleep study one year after his surgery. The surgery completely eliminated one of the two problems he had (obstructive sleep apnea) and seems to have reduced the other (central sleep apnea). There are probably some other things going on. Given that his sleep doc said he’d never seen a success from that surgery, it was interesting to see how he and his intern dealt with a complete success. You almost wouldn’t have known it from their descriptions of the current situation.</p>
<p>Engamac, congrats as well.</p>
<p>For Valentine’s Day, I was way ahead of things: My assistant, who unlike me does remember and wants to make sure my wife gets treated like a Princess, made sure to put in an order for very expensive flowers before she left on her maternity leave. Then my wife asked me if it was OK if she went to NY for some art thing – she was thinking it might bother me to miss celebrating Valentine’s Day on the exact day (which, if you know me, is a laughable thought since I probably wouldn’t remember the day without external prompts). I told her only if we could rearrange the delivery of her flowers, which was not hard. </p>
<p>One other funny thing. My wife wanted to buy me a present. I’m hard to buy presents for because I’ve got what I want. But, in the last 3 years, my eyes adjust less well and my watch is hard to read unless I’m wearing glasses and is impossible to read at night. Although I love it – titanium that is very light and nice looking – function beats out form. I’ve been looking like a digital watch that didn’t scream “I’m a nerd.” Found one. So I show it to her and she says, Can you order that because you are much better at internet shopping (she’s correct here) and use my credit card (which incidentally gets paid from the same bank account). There’s something funny about all this, but I’m not sure what it is.</p>
<p>And those of you savers amaze me. I can’t save anything because if I do, I’ll never find it. ShawWife saves the kids’ artwork. Other than that, we’re lucky to be able to find medical forms. Anything that really needs saving goes to my office.</p>
<p>Engamac, congratulations on your D’s job.</p>
<p>DTE, hope all is well.</p>
<p>shawbridge - Do you think your wife’s unusual desire to but you a gift for V-day is a subtle hint that she would like a gift from you?? Aside from the assistant-ordered flowers??
Get crackin’, boy!</p>
<p>em, congrats on the job. That is great news.</p>
<p>We don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day–just not card/gift/holiday types I guess. We don’t do anything for annniversaries either, which neither of us would know the date on anyway without going through the files, and as folks remember minimal Christmas. Interestingly, H likes to get a birthday present but is hard to buy for. He really hates accumulating “things.” I cook great meals every night, so a special dinner isn’t that special and neither of us likes to eat out. I have until October on the birthday, but just hearing this discussion of gifts is stressing me out. </p>
<p>We have a three day week-end since Monday is a holiday for H and for the first time are feeling empty in our empty nest. H was saying last night that this time last year we would have three days of basketball games this week-end (and he was the coach). We normally go hiking when time permits but this deep snow is a turnoff–too muddy and slushy. A lot of our favorite trails have some serious water crossings that just wouldn’t be passable right now. I was thinking of heading up to DC for some museums but am afraid that city is still too buried for it to be pleasant so I don’t know what we will do.</p>