$#*! my British Friend Says

Posted in $#*! my British Friend Says by

After a particularly, ehem, gut wrenching lunch, the following instant message conversation took place between me and The Brit:

  • The Brit [3:36 PM]: oh god my guts
  • Me [3:36 PM]: rut ro
  • The Brit  [3:37 PM]: HAHAHAHA
  • Me [3:38 PM]: and let me guess, you’re here til like 8 tonight
  • The Brit [3:38 PM]: no i am going to leave any minute and propel myself home with wind power
  • Me [3:39 PM]: lol…in more ways than one…
  • The Brit [3:39 PM]: oh no just one way, via methane
  • The Brit [3:40 PM]: or oil slick
  • Me [3:40 PM]: remind me to leave before you…
  • The Brit [3:40 PM]: heheheh

Reflections on a Tragedy

Posted in Family by

If you’re looking for a funny or silly post today, you’ve come to the wrong place. My usual cheer and humor has been replaced with sadness as a result of yesterday’s high school shooting. See, I found out last night that the assistant principal, who was shot and killed, is married to my uncle’s cousin. So, while I didn’t know her personally, I do know her family and am filled with sorrow for their loss and this senseless act of violence. Even if she wasn’t someone in the family, the whole situation is really horrible.

Omaha is a relatively small community. While we are a thriving, bustling, growing city of about 800,000 people, it still feels like a small town for those of us who grew up here. People say all the time that “we never thought it would happen to us.” Sounds cliché but it really is true.

Then it does happen, as it did back in 2007, and the community feels it. There is a feeling of fear and sadness in the air across the city. You see prayer vigils on the news. You see flowers on the sidewalks outside the mall. But eventually, while you will never forget, you move on. You think, ok, we’ve had our turn; we’ve experienced our tragedy; our time is done. It won’t happen here again.

But it does, only 3 years later. And this time it involves people you know, or that your family knows. And the air fills with sorrow once again.

As I said, I didn’t know Dr. Kaspar but I’ve heard a lot about her and I did meet her once. Way back in 1991, when I was trying to decide on a high school to attend, I visited with her at Millard South. I grew up in Millard and that was the high school I was supposed to attend. But my family is Catholic and my parents were encouraging me to look at the Catholic schools too. So I visited them all. I  won’t lie – Millard South intimidated the hell out of me. It was huge and scary for the shy girl that I was. But Dr. Kaspar was nice and friendly. Ultimately, I chose Marian, a Catholic school, so I don’t have a history with Millard South like my friends do. They’ve all said what an amazing teacher, leader and person she was.

My parents know her too, of course, being that she was married to my uncle’s cousin. My mom told me this morning what a compassionate person Vicki was and that she probably tried to talk to the young man who shot her. But he either didn’t give her that chance or wouldn’t listen. Instead, he shot her multiple times at point-blank range.

Vicki’s son Ronnie also worked at the school, as a Chemistry teacher. She had talked to him that morning and told him that she had to suspend a student and was nervous about it. I’m sure that was an unpleasant part of her job, regardless of who the student was or why. As an educator, you never want to tell a kid they are suspended from school. But it was her job and she did it. And got killed for it.  As her son was taking care of his classroom, locking it down and making sure his students were ok, Ronnie got a call to come to the office immediately. He knew why. He got there too late though.  His mom had already been transported to the hospital. Her heart stopped several times on the way and on the operating table but all times she fought back, except for the last one. She was tough but no one can survive what her body was put through. She is now gone and can now join her mother and daughter, who are already in heaven.

Driving to work this morning, I was listening to the radio and the show was dedicated to the shooting. They basically opened up the phone lines to allow anyone to call in and talk about their feelings, view-point, etc. Hearing the callers talk really brought up a lot of emotions. I can’t imagine being a parent with a child at that school and not knowing if they are alive or dead. Or being one of the students, who are told there is a Code Red, but have no idea why or what’s going on. I shudder at the thought.

As with the Westroads shooting, life will go on and the events of yesterday will become a distant memory for most. I’m sure we will all wonder when the next time will be. Seems like more and more these days, people are resorting to violence to solve their problems so stories like this are bound to pop up more often. But we can’t live in fear. That gives power to those who don’t deserve power. We have to live our lives fully, as a way of honoring those who no longer can.

My thoughts and prayers are with my family, Dr. Kaspar’s, Dr. Case’s, the shooters and all the others affected by yesterday’s tragedy. May God be with all of you.

Rest in Peace Vicki. You were loved by many and will never be forgotten.

Note: the details on the shooting itself are based on heresay and news stories and may not reflect actual events.

 

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Random Thought Wednesday, 2

Posted in Friends and Fun, Miscellaneous, Samson by

Happy Hump Day!

Not much going on today so I thought I’d give updates on a few things and share other random thoughts I have.

For those of you who were wondering (all 2 of you), Samson and Willow are back together. He was at Doggie Day Camp yesterday and the report is that he and Willow played together all day. I guess he forgave her for two-timing him. That or it was a nasty rumor started by Karen just so she could get her poop-eating paws on him. Either way, all seems to be right in the dog world again.

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If anyone has been dying to know how I fared in Fantasy Football, I finished in 3rd place. [gulp] It pained me to lose in the semi’s, but I did. Ironically enough, the first and second place teams going in to the playoffs finished 4th and 3rd, respectively, and the 3rd and 4th place teams finished 1st and 2nd! I’m kind of glad it’s over. It was getting to be too stressful for me. And hey, all that matters is that the Steelers won their division and are headed into the real playoffs.

——

On, a more somber note, there was a shooting at Millard South High School today. Apparently the shooter was a student who had been suspended. He shot the principal and assistant principal. Scary stuff. Millard South is where I’d have gone to high school had I not chosen to go the private route and head to an all girl’s catholic school (that’s a whole other post). But all my junior high and grade school friends went there. My parents still live in the neighborhood. 

3 years ago, there was another shooting in Omaha, at the Westroads Mall. That was the first really major incident like that we’d had here and I was in Pittsburgh working at Del Monte. One of my friends sent me an instant message telling me about it. It was very surreal to be in another city and see your local mall on the National news.

Makes me so sad that violence seems to be the first thought these days when one is angry or upset or lonely or whatever. Columbine…Westroads…school board meeting in Florida…Virginia Tech. Can’t people talk things out anymore? It seems cliché to say it but, can’t we all just get along? I mean, I’ve been angry at bosses or co-workers but I would never think to get a gun and start shooting! Makes me sad at the world that I’m raising my daughter in. Prayers go out to both victims and all the families.

—

Ended the day having drinks out with some girls from work. It was what I needed – a good old-fashioned bitch session fueled by Mexican food and alcohol. Can’t beat that! Seriously though, I enjoy socializing with co-workers, whether it be a lunch, happy hour or whatever. We spend more time with them than with our families it seems so why not get to know them better? I hope for more of those outings soon!

Came home to spend some time, though not enough, with Isabella before she was off to bed. She started to fuss and I had flashbacks to Sunday night. Fortunately, she calmed herself down after a few minutes so it was all good. Going to sit down and pay bills now, then head to bed, and dream of spreadsheets and budgets.

Happy Hump Day!

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A Day in the Life of TTM…

Posted in Blog Stuff, Photography by

I am totally going to do this. I found this idea on SimplyRebekah.com and it sounds like a fun, interesting thing to do that is right up my alley. Here’s how it works – basically, you pick a day, any day, and take one photo every hour, starting when you wake up and stopping when you go to bed. It is meant to chronicle any random day. I imagine mine will be full of photos of me sitting at my desk since my day job is not all that exciting (visually anyway). But, this will give me a good opportunity to get creative with  my photography skills!

Feel free to join me in this experiment. All you have to do is pick a day and start shooting (photos, not guns. I don’t want to be accused of starting some violent shooting spree…)! I would love to see them if you do decide to join in!

Now to pick a day…for the sake of randomness, I’ll just pick January 12th, which is one week from today. Come back next week to see all the pics of that day!

Obligatory Resolutions Post

Posted in Finances, Goals, Health and Weightloss, House and Home by

I’ve noticed a theme this year when it comes to resolutions. Seems like everyone I’ve talked to (or read) has said the same thing – they don’t normally do resolutions but this year is different. Why is this year so different for everyone? While I can’t speak for humanity as a whole, I can tell you my position. For me, I’m making resolutions because I feel stronger this year than I ever have about setting and hitting certain goals. In previous years I had some vague notions of what I wanted in my life, but nothing specific. This year, I’m getting down to brass tacks and making things happen!

One thing I’ve learned is that it’s just as important to plan out how you are going to meet a goal as it is to define it.

So, here are my resolutions for this year (BTW, it makes it way more fun if I put catchy names to them so, bear with me and my cheesiness):

Project T&T (Tone and Tighten)

What: Lose the 3 pounds I put on over the holidays and then tone up all over. I REALLY want to get rid of this muffin top and I’d love to have more definition in my arms, legs, and abs. I’m already seeing more tone from doing the one hundred push ups program. Hoping to see even more progress as I continue. But the goal here is to maintain my weight loss so that all the work I did last year doesn’t go to waste.

How: By doing what I already know works – watching calories (I’ve found that 1400 calories a day works for my body when trying to lose weight) and steady workouts. You may have noticed that a couple of weeks ago I added a section to the right sidebar called “Today’s Workout”. In here, I will record what exercises I’ve done each day. This holds me accountable and call also give you ideas if you’re in a workout rut.

Operation Dream Home

What: Sell our current house and buy our forever home (then I can cross that off the bucket list!). To do that, we have to make sure our house is in tip-top shape so that we can sell it quickly and at our asking price (or close).

How: First off, I’m planning to go through each room and de-clutter. We’ve accumulated too much “stuff” and it needs to go. Once the extra junk is gone, I want to re-organize the remaining items. This will help keep me sane and it will present the house in a neat and tidy way. We also have various things around the house that need fixing or updating: scratched baseboards, repainting the walls, getting new sinks, etc. We have some good friends who are realtors so I want to invite them over and do a walk through of our house as it exists today. They can then tell us what we need to invest time and money into and what we can leave as is.

Here’s one project I’ve already finished – the “catch all” kitchen counter. We have an area to the left of the stove that is where we keep files, stamps, papers to shred, my purse, etc. It is always so messy and I am constantly losing stuff.

Here’s the before:

Notice the files in the back are all crammed in together, there is stuff scattered on the counter, and my purse and lunch bag are eating up a lot of space. So, I put hanging file holders on the wall and labeled them “To Shred” and “To File”. This got rid of one filing system on the counter and freed up some space there.

Here’s the after:

Doesn’t that look so much better? It was a simple fix that went a long way.

Mission Debt Diet

What: To pay off all credit card debt and pay down loans, while also creating a nest egg. To be honest, we really don’t have that bad of credit card debt when compared to the national average. But it’s still more than I’m comfortable with so this year it will be paid off. I also want to pay down as much of our mortgage and car payments as possible so that we’re in a better spot come Spring/Summer when we buy a new house.  

How: Budget, budget, budget! I created a spreadsheet that lays out our fixed expenses (bills) versus variable expenses (shopping, groceries, eating out, etc) and our income. Our bank has a neat feature that shows us our spending report for 2010 (how much we spent in various categories throughout the year). So, I took that and figured out what our monthly spending was in each area.  Then we came up with our new budget goals. Here’s an example:

I then created an expenses worksheet that will help us track our spending. I broke out sections for each area and included our dollar allotment at the top. As we spend, we’ll write it on the worksheet and can then see how close we’re getting to our budgeted goal. We’ll have to use it for a while and make adjustments as we go but I think it will help.

Ihave posted it in the kitchen so we remember to record our expenses:

(inside our pantry door)

(Sidenote – see the wall sconce in the background? That’s the one Isabella’s woobie got lost in way back when. Yeah.)

This one will really challenge us to get creative. We’ll have to shop smart, plan meals, and say “no”. It will definitely be an adjustment but it’s necessary and after a while, we’ll get used to it and it won’t feel so restrictive.

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There you have it!  Those are my 3 resolutions for 2011. I think they are all doable and I’m really gung-ho about them right now. By posting them here, I’m hoping this will help me stay accountable. The competitive side of me will not want to admit public defeat!!

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