The Schmidt House

AE and I were asked to join a mother/daughter book club last summer. The members are old friends from Weaver Lake and her new friends from Rush Creek. It has been a great experience for both of us, she has her friends and I have met some new friends, really great women. However, each month I have to hold my breath a little for fear of what might come out of my child's mouth. We have raised her to speak her mind for which I am very grateful, however we need to now work with her on filtering what she says/doesn't say. AE has no filter. Example: We read "When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit" and were having a discussion about how the family in the book had to flee Germany since the father (a newspaper writer) had opposed Hitler and the family went to Switzerland leaving her beloved pink rabbit behind. One of the mothers asked, "Is there anyone in the world today you girls would compare to Hitler?" (looking for maybe Saddam Hussein...) AE raises her hand enthusiastical...

one of life's hard lessons summed up by one of my faves Ben Folds. Love this song. I have been trying to explain this concept to my kids (except hopefully the part about mom f'ed you up)...it is life. **btw I so love Ben Folds and his music, however feel that the world has not embraced him enough, therefore I am going to share Ben with you all on a weekly basis.

AE is 11 today - yikes!!! Happy birthday honey!

This is going to be one of those "purging" posts - getting it all out on the table. The Schmidts went to Rochester this weekend for a tournament, here it goes in plusses (+) and minuses (-) in chronological order... + we were going to Rochester + we had a hotel - with one king bed for 4 people + the Newskis had inflatable mattresses + we got on the road - traffic stunk (thanks to SNOW, when will it end????) + we made it to Rochester - in 3.5 hours (normally takes us 2) + everyone was having fun at the pool, saw Amy, Brad, and kids - time for bed + kids went to sleep - Dan went to bar - Susan woke up @ 2:45 a.m. NO DAN + Susan found Dan - - Dan had partaken in a bit too much fun + Dan found the room - Dan only got 2.5 hours sleep + Dan made it to car for 8:00 a.m. game + MG5A won (barely) + Dan and Joe went to let Justin (my sister's dog out) - Justin ran away + Justin came back + MG5A won 2nd game (barely) - Dan thought he had the flu (self-inflicted kind) + went to mall ...

So here is Dan's first production, a highlight film from the trip we took to Iowa last month with AE's AAU team. I had to laugh at Dan's music selection, the girls listened to Beyonce when we were down there, however he never listened to the lyrics. Technically all of the girls are single ladies since they ARE 9, 10, and 11. It is pretty amazing to watch this team, they had four practices and like I mentioned all of them are 11 and under. Wow. It is going to be a lot of fun watching them this year. AE is #34.

This life is getting pretty hectic. Therefore, I am going to start adopting the "Ostrich approach". I am just going to bury my head in the sand and hopefully when I pull it out of the hole in a few months the world will be normal again... I know that this isn't facing my problems head on, however I need to cocoon for a bit and come out swinging... Trust me on this, this too shall pass...

The kids didn't have school today, why? Can't remember, must be Workshop #41 for the school district. AE spent the night at a friend's house, so I was looking forward to no fighting from the get-go this a.m. JG woke up at the crack of dawn and was in rare form - he wanted to call a friend to play at 8:00 a.m. Finally at 10:00 I gave in and thought it might not be a bad idea, had to better than JG antagonizing Mia and making her bark which seriously resulted in me doing a conference call from my closet at one point because I had the phone where the mute button doesn't work and didn't think my co-workers wanted to hear me "lose it" on the phone. Little man's buddy JV came over and the world was right. Until... I heard the water running, in the bathroom, with the door locked. The six year olds decided to have a boat race in the kids' bathroom and forgot to turn off the sink... of course while I was on another call. Cleaned up the mess. To find the b...

I don't know what it is about January, but 'round about January 15th I go into a complete and utter funk - hence no blogging. It is as if I need to cocoon for a bit, metamorphosize, and re-enter the world in February. This year has been especially bad due to our chaotic schedules with the kids, plus I have been working almost 60 hours per week as it is budget time and we are determining what exactly does "hunkering down" look like. Don't worry, work is still fun, challenging might be a better word. I truly love my new job, actually it was a promotion - didn't officially know until this week, so that jump starts the old engine as well. Other than that I have also realized in the last week my body is really, really mad at me. Things are just not working as they should and finally made the decision to go see the doctor who helped with the torn ligament a few years ago. Bottom line, just haven't been taking care of myself and he cracked me around a bit so can ...