Nugget, It is definitely good that he surrendered quietly. A neighbor of the family he held hostage for a while happened to be awake and see him break into their house and called 911. It is lucky because that happened at about 6:45 or so in the morning and she happened to be looking out the window at just the right moment and led to the police being able to catch him.
It was really stressful and everyone was on edge. Thankfully it ended peacefully. My biggest concern is for his kids, though. His oldest son passed away, but he still has three younger kids who all go to school here and this has to have been pretty traumatic for them. Their mom is amazing and has a good head on her shoulders and an amazing support system and that will go a long way in helping them get whatever support they need. It all makes me so sad for them having to go through this. They are good kids and have already endured so much.
I am happy that everything is getting back to normal for the rest of us and seeing the town come together to support the ex-wife and kids has been really inspiring to watch.
This would normally be a good thing, but today it is a whine. Quin had the last parade of competition parade season today, which also happens to be the last parade they will march in for the school year. They did an amazing job and sounded awesome and looked fantastic. But, it's a whine because it makes me so sad. This was Quin's very last parade of her high school years. She has been in band since 5th grade (or maybe 4th grade, it's been a while) and most of the kids in band have been in band with her from the very beginning. As a band mom, I've gotten close to quite a few of the kids and watched them grow up with Quin.
So, this was another of the "lasts" that Quin will experience as a high schooler. She may join band in college, it will depend on her course load. This just feels very bittersweet. They will have more concerts and band events throughout the year, so it isn't over completely, just the marching and competition part. But it is still sad to know that this was the last one.
Glencairn,I felt the same way....it felt so final that last year. If I had known what great memories were yet to be made with my soon-to-be adult children I wouldn't have been feeling much sadness. I found it to be a huge adjustment when the last child left home. and it took a lot of effort and a couple of years to build a new 'normal' life. I think having our granddaughter every weekend for the past eleven years is what really saved me; I'd probably have a thousand cats if it wasn't for that.
Nugget, I am looking forward to all the memories that we will make in the future from her achievements at college to her time growing into adulthood. I just need to work to keep that in mind to help me keep perspective on all of the high school last times for things. We got a start on that by working more tonight on getting her FAFSA application finished as well as looking over some of the info for applying to her current first choice college. If she can get her application finished before the 15th of this month the school waives the application fee. Not that we won't pay it if she can't, but I would prefer not to have to pay it if possible since there are a couple of others she is looking at also applying for.
Oh my goodness! Who knew that applying to college would generate so much email! Quin gave at least one of the schools my email address (they requested it on the application) and I don''t know if the other school requested just hers or hers and a parent email (I haven't gotten anything from them), but wow! The one school has sent a ton of emails. Some for important information and some just extolling the virtues and praises for the school. They have been neat to read, but I wouldn't complain if they slowed down on some of the email.
Ugh! Everyone here is feeling kinda ick today. Not full out sick, but like it might be heading that direction. That is NOT okay. We got work schedules juggled around so that both Russ and I are able to go with Quin for the college visit on Saturday and I don't want everyone getting sick and having to reschedule it. If we do end up with some bug or whatever, we can't in good conscience just go anyway and risk getting everyone else there for the visit day sick, it makes me really upset when people do that to me, so I sure wouldn't be willing to do it to others. Now I cross my fingers and hope it isn't anything and we just had an "off day".
Last night was not the best night for the furnace to decide to go toes up. It was the first seriously cold night of fall, it got down to 28* outside Nobody knew until early morning & Spyder was ultimately the one to realize the furnace wasn't kicking in at all when it should have been. I did go down at the buttcrack of dawn to use the ice throne -- I mean the toilet, and did notice it was chilly downstairs, but I assumed it was because I'd just rolled out from under a heavy comforter in a room with a heater going to supplement the mediocre heat the furnace pushes upstairs. It's usually always cooler downstairs, furnace or no furnace. Hindsight being what it is, it was definitely a good idea to make the rabbit's bedding much thicker than normal for warmth when I cleaned the cage last night.
The landlord's got a new furnace coming over the weekend, the whole thing's getting replaced. This one's pretty old, the parts needed to fix it were going to be pretty expensive (hard to find, and very specific to this furnace only) so they're just going to replace the whole thing instead. Definitely one of those times I'd happier with the prospect of being a renter than a homeowner! Other times being when the sewer line needs the tree roots snaked out EVERY year like clockwork or the basement gets gross when the blocked line floods down there.
The added bonus is that the one he's getting is going to be much more gas efficient than this one is, so maybe we'll get lucky and NOT have a $300 monthly gas bill this winter. Or maybe I just jinxed us and MI will go sub-zero make it happen anyway, I don't know.
Queen of English Language Mangling, Master of the Edit button
Nyiah, Ugh! Ours went out two winters ago and it was miserable and expensive. I definitely wished that I was a renter at that point. The only saving grace was that we have a little fireplace in the living room and the living room has pocket doors. The living room has a double pocket door that opens into the dining room and a small single door that goes into the entryway and rest of the house. We were able to bring in a ton of firewood and get a fire going, close both sets of doors and keep the heat in the living room and then set up camp and live in just that one room until we got the furnace replaced. Exceptions being bathroom trips and the occasional trip to the kitchen to cook and then bring the meal back into the living room.
The furnace (heating and A/C) company was able to get out that same day, but we also found that the furnace needed to be replaced entirely and they didn't have one that we needed in stock and couldn't get it until the day (or two, I forget) after the furnace went out. So we were incredibly glad that we had the fireplace to help keep us warm.
Glencairn, I can completely understand that fireplace appreciation -- even the more ornamental ones like ours help quite a bit when you get a good, hot fire going & keep it fed. I had a nearly continuous one going once for a few days, the resulting coal pile alone without an active fire churned out a buttload of heat for over half a day into the living room.
I'm getting real tired of filing the dehydrator with a variety of stuff for the rabbit for treats/training rewards, only to have the kids eat it all instead. I prepped a pineapple in rabbit-sized portions (this was more time-consuming than I expected, lol) the other day, got a good amount out of it for the rabbit with some set aside for human munching. The kids ate almost ALL of it in the time it took to sort & start a load of laundry. Boy was I pissed, that sucker took 10 hours to dry out enough for storing. This time, I sliced up a couple of oranges, some strawberries, a pear and some grape tomatoes into bunny portions and dried them out today. They're banned from touching them even to give him a treat. They'll be handed a treat from me to give him from here out because they just cant keep their mitts off his stuff. I'm glad they prefer the dried fruits over junkier stuff, but dammit, quit eating the rabbit's snacks, they take a lot of time to dry!
Queen of English Language Mangling, Master of the Edit button
Nyiah, LOL! After taking that much time to dry on top of all of the prep time, I would have lost my damn chickens if Quin pulled something like that. She has in the past when she was little, though not something that took so long to prepare for the bunny, but ate all of something that was intended for a meal dish that was being taken to a relatives house for either Thanksgiving or Christmas. In our case, it was some ingredients that were easily replaced with a trip to the store, but it was also stuff that we had washed and prepped and was ready to be used in the recipe that had to be done again. Grrr...some peoples kids, eh?
Like you said, though, at least it is nice that it is healthy treats (intended for them or not) rather than only wanting junk foods and sweets. So there is that as an upside.
Apparently I am the village idiot. I usually have Halloween decorations up about 2 weeks ago, but this year we've just been so busy that I haven't gotten around to it. Yesterday I decided that I was going to get it taken care of. I go to the attic where I store all of the holiday decorations and there is no Halloween bin. I keep them all in their own plastic tubs, like the big ones with the snap close lids to keep everything protected and they are all labeled. So I see everything else, but no Halloween. Thinking that Quin might have brought it down intending to work on decorating, I ask if she knows where it is. She didn't bring it down and has no idea. She thought it was up with the other holiday stuff. Russ is asked and also has no idea.
So, it seems that for some reason, I must not have put the tub back in the attic after I got everything packed away. I have no idea why I wouldn't have, but apparently I didn't. I have no idea what I did do with the tub and after looking for it all day and not finding it anywhere, I am kind of at a loss. I always keep the holiday stuff in their individual bins and keep them together in the attic and it bothers me that I did something else with the Halloween stuff for no apparent reason (that I can remember, anyway) and now I can't remember what I did with it. I haven't looked out in the garage attic, and I don't know why it would be there, but I am going to check out there tomorrow. Fingers crossed that I find it or I'll have the boring house on the block and Quin will be disappointed that we didn't get to decorate for her last Halloween at home.
Did you find the Halloween box, Glencairn? I've done that MIA items thing myself, albeit with general stuff and not holiday boxes, though. I know damn well I had an iron and an ironing board when we moved up here, I remember carefully packing the iron with the rest of my laundry items, and stuffing the board in one of the last skinny spaces available in the U-haul. Haven't seen them since, it's like they ninja-poofed right out of there somewhere along I-75
Most of the time, Little Kid loses nothing. She's a pretty orderly kid, especially when it comes to her clothes. Tonight, she managed to lose an importance piece of her Halloween costume -- her thermal fleece-lined leggings she was going to wear under the white tights for her costume to keep her legs warm (she's Little Red Riding Hood this year) Go to do a practice run of the clothing layers under he kids' costumes tonight to make sure they're sufficiently warm under their stuff, and I can't find these things no matter what, and neither can she. Big Kid has 2 pairs of these lined leggings in other colors, so she may have to borrow one of them. It's driving me up the wall because I JUST washed them the other day and put them on their dresser. Where the hell could they have possibly gone?? Nobody wore them...
Also, it's supposed to be drizzly and around freeing during ToTing. That's upsetting Little Kid because she begged Spyder for Mary Janes to wear to complete this LRRH look, and he did oblige (she needed new shoes anyway) They definitely won't cut it if it's raining, she'll need to wear her rain boots, or more likely her snow boots in those temps, even if we take the car to minimize walking in borderline literal freeing rain.
Queen of English Language Mangling, Master of the Edit button
Well, I found the leggings behind Big Kid's clothes in their closet. I don't know how they ended up in there, but I have a sneaking feeling Big Kid thought she was being funny riling up her sister by misplacing them
And now that I've found that, I can't find the nail polish Little Kid wants to match to her costume. I know fully well that I have it, it was a tester I trialed some months ago, and it's a very nice, very slightly orange-y leaning, rich red. I can understand why Little Kid wants to use it, it's pretty, but OMFG, enough with the lost stuff at the last minute already
Queen of English Language Mangling, Master of the Edit button
Nyiah, I'm glad you found the leggings! It was around 40 degrees here and dropped as the evening wore on. I don't know how cold you guys got, but I can't imagine that it was much more pleasant for you, either. Did the nail polish turn up?
I never did find my Halloween decorations box. It will show up when I am looking for something else, probably in a few days, now that Halloween is over. Quin did go to the store and find some neat cheap decorations that she got with some of her own money, and she did find a few random candle holder decorations that had never been in the box and we made it work. I keep the little electronic tea lights and pumpkin lights in a different place, in a drawer with other similar things, and we used the candle holders with some votives and put the flashing pumpkin lights and tea lights and scattered them on our porch and it ended up looking just as good.
We sat outside on the porch and visited with some of the parents we know and a handful of Quin's friends were out and came by to visit and had a nice set up for that. We used the porch table for the pumpkin and some painted jar candles and put up a TV tray for the other candles and tea lights. We had a little space heater going next to my chair to keep me warm and some of the kids liked that part the most and came over to warm their hands and feet for a minute. Quin stayed home to dress up and hand out candy which was nice. She and her friends who were originally planning to go out together decided that the weather was too miserable to go ToT'ing so they all decided to dress up and stay home to man the door.
Overall, it turned out really great, even without the decorations bin. This was Quin's last Halloween before going off to college and we were really happy that she enjoyed it so much.
We had a class parents meeting tonight to discuss the senior class trip that the kids take at the end of the year. It was friendly and nice seeing some of the other parents again who I don't see very often, but then the frustration came. We started talking financial details and it sounded like we were discussing money in a big pot to cover the expenses. So I asked if that was the case or if there were individual accounts for each student like there is for band for that trip. For band, when the kids do a fundraiser, each kid has whatever they earn go into their own account (the money all goes into just one bank account, but each child's amount is accounted for individually) and then whatever they haven't raised to cover the cost, the parents cover the balance. That is not the case for the class trip account, it is all just one big pot with no individual amounts.
Quin was ridiculously frustrated because she has bent over backwards and busted her butt to sell and fundraise and she knows that there are a number of kids who haven't sold a single thing and haven't spent time manning the concessions booth at sports events and now they are as equally funded as she is and all that work she did that would have come close to covering her whole amount needed is nowhere near close enough because the kids who are hustling just found out that their hard work is benefiting the kids who won't bother lifting a finger. To be fair, I agree with Quin and the other frustrated kids. This isn't a matter of "being nice and sharing" this is busting ass just to have it handed to someone else. And if the worker kids don't raise enough to cover the kids who aren't trying, I still have to come up with the balance that Quin will need. She was so proud of how hard she has worked to cover this trip by her own effort and now that isn't the case any more.
It just bothered me a lot to see that disappointment in Quin and some of the other kids when they found out.