Sunday night ramblings . . . .

After my last pathetic post, were you wondering if I did NOT survive last week??!?

Okay, probably not.  But the good news is that I did survive.  I'm alive and kicking with a to-do list the size of a yardstick.  But I survived!

While the end of last week was insanely crazy, it was fun.   On Thursday and Friday I served as a parent volunteer for Gracie's field trip to JA BizTown, where she was CEO of the bank.  Meanwhile, I was "across town" serving as the parent volunteer in the Memorial Foundation (philanthropy) with a foursome of highly distracted, but very enthusiastic boys.

 The two parent volunteers in the bank reported Gracie did well in her post.  One also said she looks like an American Girl doll.  I wasn't entirely sure what to make of that one, but I'm pretty sure it was a compliment, so I smiled and said, "Thank you!"

As soon as I got back to from BizTown it was on to my Girl Scout meeting.  As the last part of the aMUse leadership journey, they had a talent show and invited parents and other special guests to see them perform.   There were dancers, singers, joke tellers, piano players, a girl who showed art and a baton twirler.

Guess who that last one was?

All the girls did fantastic and although sometimes being a scout leader stresses me out, it was a nice reminder of why I do it.  They are an awesome group of girls!

While Gracie twirled, Matt was off at a math competition over at Ravenwood.  He managed to snag third place on the Algebra test and helped his team finish first overall.  Proud mama!

Friday was the second day of BizTown, plus the end of book fair at the middle school. The second day of BizTown was as crazy as the first, but still a lot of fun.  The kids had the hang of what they were doing and so did I.  When I got back, I packed up the library at Woodland and thanked my lucky stars that book fair season had come to a close.

Then that evening, Matt was back at school for the holiday dance. He went with his pal, Sam, and a few other boys. I was thankful he a had a crew, because there's no way he would have gone otherwise.  Details from the dance were sketchy at best, but he came home sweaty, so I know he danced for at least part of the evening.

On Saturday, Gracie was off to her own math competition.   You might be wondering if these kids are a "chip off the old block" in terms of these math skills.  They might be.  But be assured, the "old block" in question is not me.   No one ever asked me to compete in a math competition and if they had, I certainly wouldn't have won anything.

G, on the other hand, came home with both a 14th and 12th place medal, which was pretty nifty considering here were around 200 students at each level.

We finally got our Christmas tree up today.   We bought it on Home Depot and I swear we somehow came home with a different tree then we picked out.  Okay, not really, but when we looked at it Friday night none of us noticed the big gaping spots with no branches that were incredibly apparent when we put it up at home.

It's bad, y'all.

Regardless, we decided to decorate the tree tonight after my concert.  Unfortunately, Bassam was on the phone a large portion of the time dealing with stuff at the hospital, so it was just me and the kids.   I sat on the floor putting on hooks and the kids put them on the tree.  As a result, it's a hot mess with 75% of the ornaments taking up residence on 25% of the the tree.   I want to rearrange them, but quite frankly, I'm too tired.   Maybe tomorrow.

Or maybe never.