Posting

 Mr. C and Mr. Socks came up with a new game this week.

There wasn't much to post about last week. I am so tired of living in an apartment. We are stepping up efforts to find a house and do what we can to get out of here. It will mean a stiff fee to get out of our lease but...
 
One of the reasons I want to move is the huge dent in our van that one of the other tenants put there on Friday. I try to park on the end of the row so I only have one side exposed to other cars. My theory in the past has also been to park next to really nice cars, because they will be less likely to want to mess up their own car. Well I got dinged by a white Lexus SUV, so forget that theory. I will not be asking them to fix it. When one of our other neighbors tried to get someone to fixed her car after the same thing, her car ended up severely keyed.

Speaking of driving, M got her Tennessee license on Friday. I took her to the DMV and it only took 2 hours. Have I posted of our awful DMV experiences? This was my 7th trip there (to get my license and M's). The longest I have waited is from 9:45am to 1:15pm, so that is why it didn't seem like that long on this final trip.

Hopefully this will be a better week with lots of pretty fall pictures to post!

Back to School--Again

Three lanes in, three lanes out of the school driveway

Well the kiddos are back to school this morning. The traffic was pretty light, so I'm not sure if everyone else remembered to get up and go today. I thought I would treat you to an artsy photo of their school. "Artsy" is the nice way of saying "crappy". If I had a good camera then I would be able to take awesome photos, even in the dark. As it is, I get blurry light blobs. I also probably shouldn't be taking pictures while driving, but we were stopped at the time.

Back to the topic of school. The school website has a scrolling list of information about upcoming events, and it is pretty long and detailed. It contains things like when there are sports try-outs, which clubs are selling t-shirts or candy, and various college rep visits. However, when they don't get something on the list they do the robocalling thing. These are usually things that parents have to do, like come to a meeting at school at a specific time in a specific room and you better have a pen and paper ready when they call because this is the only warning you will get. With that being said, I think I have a conference on Thursday, but I'm not sure. Oh, well.

The Joys of Parenthood

I wonder if everyone else's kids embarrass them in public. I thought once the kids got to be a certain age the parents were supposed to do all the embarrassing.

Yesterday M was on a kick about "spankin's". She thought everyone and everything deserved a spankin'. She especially enjoyed telling her brother he was going to get one. When I finally told her to cut it out she came up with an acronym for "You're about to get a spankin'"--Yatgas. Now, when you say "yatgas" it sounds like "Ya had gas." So we walked around Target while the kids repeatedly told each other "yatgas."

When I had enough of that and told them to stop, Mr. C informed me that everyone has their secret words they say. He used his dad's favorite expression--scheize*--to illustrate his point. M and I immediately told him not to use that word so loudly in public, since we have a pretty big German population here. Right then an adorable mom and dad with two little preschoolers came around the aisle speaking German. Ugg--I could only hope they hadn't heard Mr. C's explicative. We hurried and left.

Only two more days until the kids go back to school.

*German for sh*t

Fall Break

The weather for the beginning of the kids' fall break has been wonderful. Unfortunately, last night a rainy cold front moved through and we are stuck inside today. It has been nice to be able to sleep in. Marvelous has been studying for the ACT (under lots of parental pressure) which is this Saturday. Mr. C has been watching as much Doctor Who as he can. We've also been able to go to the park and skip stones. Mr. C's discovery this week is that when you plop a stone into the rapids it creates a circular ripple pattern that travels downstream with the current. I really think he has a future in physics.

Dear Son

You are purposely responsible for all the gray hair I hide beneath layers of color. You make me crazy when you argue that the cereal says "Crackle, Snap, Pop" instead of "Snap, Crackle, Pop." You make me want to scream (and if we weren't living in an apartment right now I probably would) when it is 9:42pm and you are still up fiddling with magnets even though you were put to bed at 9. You make my heart stop when I look out our second story window and see you in the tree outside. You make me so tired when I am repeating myself for the umpteenth time and you swear you never heard me.

In short, you are you and I wouldn't change that for anything in the whole world!

A Step Toward the Edge of the Nest

I'm strong, I'm confident, I can do this!

M will be leaving after school today to drive herself back to Alabama. She is going to visit friends this weekend and come home Sunday. We have practiced driving through town every day for the last week. She should know how and when to change lanes to get on the right interstates.

She has to go through the 75/24 split, then be careful as 24N merges onto her road, then make sure she is in the left lanes so she doesn't get dumped into downtown, and finally after rounding Lookout Mountain she will have to split off of 24 to catch 59S to Alabama. Leaving town is easier than coming home. When she comes back on Sunday she will have to make a quick two lane move to the right to get off at our exit. We practiced going up to another exit in case she can't get over in time. You have to be a little aggressive to make it and she is not aggressive at all.

Most 16 year olds would be completely ready for this by now. Unfortunately, M still hates to drive and only does it when forced. So I am understandably apprehensive about her taking this huge step.

Wherever you are, please be patient with all the other drivers on the road today.

Video of the Light Show (I can't type next to the video. Hope you enjoy!)

A Brilliant Burn

To wrap up the River Rocks Festival there was an artistic burn. The guy standing next to us was from California and said it was like the Burning Man, but it wasn't quite that big. They just burned one sculpture. We had a great view from the bridge overlooking the park, but the picture doesn't do it justice. Watch this video if you want to see the whole thing, including the juggler-people with all their cool fire props. I think you can see us at the beginning of the video: we are up on the bridge directly over those white tents. The disappointing thing about my picture and the video is that you can't see the different colors of the flames. At intervals the fire would glow purple, blue, or green. Very nice.

Weekend Entertainment

We went downtown to a concert and light show on Friday. I used my phone to take videos of both, but now I can't get them onto the computer. So just use your imagination. The light show was cool. It was displayed on the Hunter Art Museum. My favorite part was when it looked like the whole museum filled up with water and fish started swimming past all the windows.

The Chattanooga Head Race is going on all day Saturday. We went down to see them. There are teams from all the area schools. When I say area I mean the Southeast. We saw Clemson, Georgia, Auburn, Vanderbilt, Tennessee, as well as some high school groups. There are supposed to be 1200 participants. Lots of people! M is going to go to the summer camp next year and try to get on the local club team. At least that is the plan for now. She has wanted to try rowing for a long time, but this is the first time we've lived somewhere that she could try it out.

Another Awesome VW Commercial

Remember the Darth Vader VW Passat commercial during the Super Bowl this year? I think this one is just as good.
Hubby has told me all the numbers, but of course I can't remember them. I do know that Volkswagen is now the number two auto manufacturer. Yeah! And they aren't far off from becoming number one. We'll see what happens between now and next year. So far the Passat sales numbers are higher than the projections. All good news for those of us who depend on it to put food on our table.

Weekend Visit

M's best friend, New Orleans, came to visit this weekend. She and her mom drove up on Saturday morning and we spent the day shopping and looking around downtown.

N found a formal dress for the Coronation dance in December. Both girls had fun trying on lots of dresses at the mall. They really liked these $200 hats--for fun anyway.

We went downtown to get some ice cream at The Ice Cream Show. Afterward we walked along the bridge where they were having Wine Over Water, but we didn't sample any. We did watch the paddle board race on the river below. The River Rocks Festival is going on all this week and the race and wine tasting were part of the events. We looked for the hot air balloons Saturday, but I guess it was too windy for them.