And the winner is....

Deborah Henry for yet another "A", making this three in a row out of four!

If she keeps up this pace, she'll give a certain Olympic swimmer a run for his money and may even appear on a podium somewhere - possibly in her living room with her adoring fans, all three of them, looking on while Aerosmith rocks out in the background rather than the National Anthem.

She's available for public appearances at a very reasonable rate.

Um, did you forget about me???

Seriously.

I know I'm a big nerd, but my grade STILL isn't posted. Usually they are up within a day or two. I'm not happy and I won't be happy until I get that grade! The longer it takes, the more nervous I get - am I on the cusp and they can't decide what grade to give me? Am I going to ruin my run of "A's" and my chances of getting A's for the remainder of my grad school classes? (I still get angry at the B+ I got that first semester)

I just want my grade so that I can "move on" - one way or another. I can't even begin to start gearing up for the next two classes (Finance and Urban Land Economics - how fun will that be? Blech!) until I know how I did in this one.

I just wish they'd put me out of my misery...

The Henry Girls

So here they are hamming it up for the camera before the bus comes...

Olivia - the third grader!

Sydney - the Kindergartner!

The girls - new bookbags, new lunchboxes and new clothes - all decked out!

Where's the BUS???

Who Cares - what's in my lunchbox???

I love this picture - so beautiful......

And finally, one with mommy -

Poor Pookie!!

Today was the first day of school for the girls - Third grade for Liv, Kindergarten (full day!) for Sydney. Pictures to come tonight.

Have you ever had that feeling that something is just not right? I was very apprehensive on the way to work, and worried about the girls first day. Something just felt a little "off" and I tried to shake it off.

Until I got out of a meeting and realized that there was a message waiting on my cell phone. I took one look at the number and my heart just dropped. I called for messages and listened to the school nurse tell me that Olivia had been stung by a wasp or bee on the playground. I called the school and the nurse told me that she got stung on her hand and on her neck (what?) I told the nurse that she has never been stung by anything - ever - and to PLEASE keep a close eye on her.

She's evidently fine, and didn't even cry and feels just peachy. But my poor little Pookie - what a rotten first day of school!

One more down...

...nine to go!! Took my final last night for my last summer class. I have now completed four classes. Yay Me!!

Luckily my final wasn't too bad, since it's about Regulation (zoning, subdivision, etc.) and I do that everyday, so what I lack in academic knowledge, I can make up for in practical knowledge (and a little bullshitting, I confess). The exam started at 5:30, we were allowed two hours to complete it, and by 6:25 I was sitting at Mick O'Sheas (local bar we always congregate to after an exam) having my first beer with several of my classmates. Not bad!

I left at about 8:00 and apparently missed all the commotion - from what my classmates tell me and from what I've read in the newspapers, as I was walking down the street back to the parking garage, some poor gentlemen about 20 stories above me was throwing himself off a balcony onto the sidewalk below (where I happened to be walking - Yeesh!). I left at 8:00 - he jumped at 8:00. I'm very thankful I didn't see it (or feel it for that matter) and can only imagine what hell someone has to be going through to hurl themselves from a twenty story balcony. Makes my heart hurt....=(

Now I'm anxiously awaiting my grade. I got a 99 on the mid-term, with very little studying, and my final group project went very well, so I'm hopeful that I'll get an A in the class.

My two week break (from school anyway) starts today, so I have no studying that needs to be done for the next three weekends. I can't tell you how happy I am about that!

There I was, driving along, minding my own business....

It was such a beautiful day yesterday. I was driving home, about 5:30 along some country roads in a pretty little farming community. I had the radio up loud, singing my heart out and scaring the cows, enjoying the sunshine, the 80 degree/low humidity/nice breeze weather with all my front windows down and the sun roof open all the way, when all of a sudden......

I see something come flying in the sunroof - I duck and then I hear

smack, buzz, buzz, smack, smack, buzz, smack

and some distant screaming (which, it turns out, was me).

Something smacked me in the head and all I know is that it was the size of a very large hummingbird, with big wings and some big protruding pointy thing that looked like it would hurt if it touched you and it was buzzing around my car smacking into everything, getting more pissed off by the second, and making very angry buzzing noises. At this point I was screaming my lungs out and driving like a maniac in my attempts to avoid this thing flying around my car since I'm sure it would have eaten me - or at the very least maimed me for life - had it gotten close and I couldn't pull over (two lane country road - no shoulder, very hilly). Rather than taking a deep breath, opening all the car windows and slowing down so it could find it's way out, I decided that the best course of action was to drive as fast as possible and just keep ducking my head whenever it got close to me. I also decided that screaming was completely acceptable and that I should continue with that as well.

Probably, the gentleman in the car behind me thought I was having a seizure. Probably, he should have called the police to come get me off the road as I was a danger not only to myself, but also to every man, woman and cow in the immediate area. But, I'm thinking he didn't want to get involved with some deranged lunatic driving like a mad woman down the road, so he just sat back and enjoyed the show.

The gigantic bug from hell somehow made its way back out of the sunroof and I was able to stop screaming, and start driving like a semi-normal person again. Until the empty Doritos bag in the back seat began making some noise flapping around in the wind. It's a good thing I have leather seats. They clean up nicely.

Summer...

I think I missed summer.

Somehow, some way, summer is almost over, the girls start school on Monday and I have absolutely no memory of any lazy summertime pool/beach days. I don't think I even got into mom and dad's pool but three times! How crazy is that? I LOVE the beach. And we only made it there for one little weekend trip. I'm not sure that I can handle another summer without a week at the beach, watching the girls build sand castles, play in the waves and generally run wild while I relax on the beach with a book, have a few (OK, several) cocktails while soaking up the sun.

Sorry I've been absent, but school has really given me a run for my money (literally) this summer. Taking two six week classes, two nights a week was quite overwhelming. And we had a lot going on at work and we tried to get away for a few weekends, had my class reunion, had some out of town guests, etc., etc. The girls and I went to Judi and Ted's this weekend and had such a great time! We walked around Philadelphia and got to take a carriage ride through the town - it was SO COOL! I love that kind of stuff. Of course I didn't take pictures (DUH!) But Judi did, so I'll try to get some of those posted when she sends them to me (hint, hint ;)

Judi and Ted haven't seen the girls in almost a year, so they had a lot of catching up to do - which meant that Sydney and Mister had to "play cars" - a lot - and even Gamma Judi joined in the car fun! And Olivia had to fill them in on all the things that are happening in her life. And, of course, they had to ride the elevator that Judi and Ted have in their house over, and over, and over again. They were amazed that people actually have ELEVATORS in their houses!! And of course, now they think we need one. I'll try to talk Brian into that. Ha!

The girls just adore Judi and Ted and, for the most part, were very well behaved. On the way home they wanted to know when we were going back. I think we'll let Gamma Judi and Mister recover from this visit first =)

Final exam tomorrow night and then.....

TWO WHOLE WEEKS OFF!

Oh, I have plans, people, BIG plans! So much to do, so little time. And I'll probably end up squandering this precious time reading books and relaxing rather than getting all my little projects done. Oh well!

Wood, scissors, valium - in that order

No, I'm not just making up random titles for the blog, I have invented a new game, like "rock, scissors, paper". Let's see if you can guess why I chose those three words....

We had a very eventful weekend planned, so I took Friday off to catch up on the mountains of laundry to be washed and the bazillion dust bunnies that seem to be invading the house. So, Thursday night as I drove back from class, I made a long, mental list of the things I needed to accomplish on Friday.

1. Get up
2. Get coffee
3. Get my butt in gear and start laundry
4. Get more coffee
5. While laundry is going, dust downstairs
6. More coffee
7. More laundry
8. Vacuum
9. More laundry
10. Straighten up
11. Prepare and clean guest bedroom for weekend guests
12. Fold clean laundry and put away (this is my downfall - it's washed, it's dried, it's even folded. It's taking it out of the laundry and actually inserting it into the appropriate drawer or closet that gets me every time)
13. Clean bathrooms (blech - I HATE cleaning bathrooms. I don't care how clean it looks. People pee in there. Gross.)

And so on, and so forth. It's an hour drive. I can plan alot in that time.

I walk through the door that evening to a frantic husband, a 5 year old who's running to me trying to tell me something, and an 8 year old screaming in the bathroom.

I already know that my Friday has been shot to hell. I just don't know why yet.

Brian tells me as he's running a towel under water and grabbing an assortment of peroxide, bandages, tweezers and a razor blade (a what???) that Olivia has the biggest splinter he's ever seen and he can't get it out of her big toe.

That's what this is about? A splinter?

I now know why my daughter is screaming hysterically, since she's one of those kids who freaks out when she gets a splinter and we have to take it out. It's Oscar time in the Henry house when that happens. You'd think we were pulling out her teeth with pliers. My little drama queen.

So I go into the bathroom to see what all the commotion is about and to "take care of it". I walk over and look at Liv's big toe.

The rest is a blur. Pretty sure I blacked out for a few minutes.

There, embedded in her toe was a chuck of wood the size of a Popsicle stick and she was bleeding like a stuck pig. I don't do blood. Nor was I all that crazy about the 2 x 4 sticking out of her foot.

After I got myself together so she wouldn't see how freaked out I was, we went to work. For about 45 minutes. And we couldn't get the damn thing out. We got a few big pieces, but it was so big, and so deep, that there was no way anyone but a doctor was getting that thing out. So we bandaged her foot, gave her some ibuprofen and put her to bed.

The next morning, her toe was red, puffy and oozing. Not good. I made a doctor appointment (I'm pretty sure they were laughing at me when I told them she had a splinter the size of Manhattan in her toe and I couldn't get it out).

I frantically tried to get some of the things done on my list before going to the doctor. When we got there, the nurse took one look at Liv's toe and moved us to the "procedure" room. Gulp. Two different doctors looked at her toe and they both decided that the splinter was so deep, the only way for them to get it out was cut her toe open, dig around, pull out the remaining peices and stitch it back up. The other alternative was to put her on antibiotics since it was getting infected, soak her foot in Epsom salt water 5 times a day, keep it bandaged and let nature take its course. I chose that option. Especially when Doc told me he wouldn't put his kids through that sort of pain when the body will eventually work out the foreign objects its own.

So off we go to the pharmacy to get the medicine and Epsom salts. And did I mention that it was Friday and dance camp started on Monday? Yup. Great.

We get back home, it's now 5:30, I'm a quarter of the way through my list, have guests arriving the next morning, a full day of picnics and parties the next afternoon and evening, have no idea what I'm going to do for dinner and quite frankly am wondering if the tree really will make it out of her foot on it's own.

And that's when my adorable little 5 year old, who finally got all of her hair to one length, which was cut into a cute little bob, skips by me saying "Hi Mommy!"

With bangs.

In her hair.

SHE HAS BANGS!

And they are scraggly, uneven and now extend part of the way around her head.

Have you figured out where the "Valium" comes in?