Heading out

Tomorrow morning, Monday, I am heading to Camp Storer for 6th grade camp with Jourdyn. I am one of the four parent chaperones. I haven't been to Storer since 6th grade myself, so I am excited! I don't know if I am thrilled to spend five days with about 200 tweens with raging hormones - the one I have at home has me at wit's end on her own - but alas, I will survive! I am woman! Hear me roar! (and lately, it's a lot so there's good chance you'll hear me!)

I'll be posting pics through my phone on here throughout the week. So keep checking back!

Signs of the Times

Rob and I went to Franklin Park Mall today. We went just for a bit and really only hit Dick's (for some snow pants for Jourdyn for camp - all the other stores have gotten rid of them already - she usually wears mine, however I am going with her as a counselor so I will need mine) and just to walk around. I noticed something while there. I thought at first it was just in Wet Seal but then realized later, as I began to watch, that Motherhood Maternity, Gap, Lane Bryant, Express and many others were doing the same thing.

Now I notice weird things usually. This one jumped out at me because it would be of great help to me now that they are doing this!

Usually when you go into a mall retailer merchandise is hanging on the walls from floor to ceiling. You know, they put things all the way up, where even Shaq couldn't reach them. I'm sure it's to pack in as much as possible, but I more likely believe it's so that we are forced to ask for help. Once help is asked for we are only left to feel guilty if we don't actually purchase something.

Well, today, this was not the case. Again I noticed it first in one store, and thought perhaps they were just going out of business or something, but no such signs of that. No closing signs. No big sales. So I began watching the stores on our walk through the mall. And it wasn't just Wet Seal, it was numerous stores. Tons of the stores have lowered there racks. They were reachable by tall people. Not me, but tall people! They were low enough that Rob would have been able to reach up and remove something from the rack, which wasn't the case before.

Now of course, my mind pondered these things and when my wheels are turnin', it's usually quite obvious. So Rob asked me what I was doing, thinking maybe I was trying to scope out any sign of clearance racks. So I told him what I had noticed and that I was trying to figure out why that would be. Because I know they didn't all of the sudden decide to cater to short people (that's evident in the lack of my ability to find petite sizes anywhere but JCPenny's). I suggested that perhaps the mall had made some type of ruling or something. But duh! He had it to T!

If clothes are reachable and I don't need to ask for an employees help. That's one less employee they have to pay! Not only that, Wet Seal is a store that you cannot walk through really. It is usually so jammed packed with stuff that you just can't make it through without bumping something or someone. Not so today. The merchandise is just scaled back drastically. I'm sure the same could have been said about the other stores, but I was just too busy trying to figure out why they have empty walls up top!

And on a side note: Dillard had a HUGE shoe sale. A sidewalk one! Hundred's of shoes! Adorable shoes! and I just walked by! Well, okay I stopped at touched two pairs, but that's it! I didn't try them on! I didn't ask for any! I just touched a couple and moved on!!! Yeah, Me!!!!

Winter Artwork

Nadine was very proud and excited when she got in the car to come home today! "Mommy, you have to look in my backpack today, I have lots of stuff for you! There's something in it! you have to look!" This is what I found! A penguin puppet, a paper plate walrus, a tall snowman with buttons, a glitter snowflake and a warm purple mitten with circles!

It is always so neat to see the kids expressions when they have created something!

A long weekend...

My employer reopened this weekend! And what we thought might be a slow start turned into one major butt-kickin'! I went for what seemed the whole weekend without any sleep between working Friday night, arriving home to do homework and find a kidsitter fiasco and not going to bed till 3 am at least to waking up Saturday to having to find a new sitter for the day and having to be out the door at 10 am for a double shift.

Jourdyn is coming into the whole pre-teen. And like the month she was born (March), she is definitely roaring in like a lion. I can only pray that she go out like lamb because I am not going to be able to take much more of this!!! Her giftedness and strongwilled tendencies (of which she comes by naturally) really are a force to be reckoned with on their own, add puberty, change and emotions to the whole mess and you have one perfect storm waiting to pounce!

I spent most of Saturday, with little rest over night, an emotional basketcase at work! And boy, apparently you could tell! Because many people stopped me to ask if I was okay. This continued well into Sunday. I just had a rough weekend!

I found this online at a site about gifted children. And it has helped me understand Jourdyn's world tremendously! Maybe it will help others as well.

"The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this:
A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive.

To her...
a touch is a blow,
a sound is a noise,
a misfortune is a tragedy,
a joy is an ecstasy,
a friend is a lover,
a lover is a god,

and failure is death.

Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create - - - so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, her very breath is cut off from her. She must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency she is not really alive unless she is creating."
-Pearl Buck-