J. Jill

After receiving (several times) the widely-circulated email list of store closings which included - to my horror - J. Jill, the only place I buy my clothes, I worried that I might have to start wearing a hefty bag or a loincloth depending on the weather. Friday night I was at the mall (yes, I've completely lost my senses) and I stopped at J.Jill (with Adlani and Aliya - further proof of my insanity) to see what I should buy with my birthday gift card before it lost all of its value. One of the salesladies struck up a conversation with Aliya and Adlani to keep them from playing in the water feature, and mentioned that she worked as a substitute teacher in addition to working at J.Jill part time. I said that it was too bad she wouldn't be able to work at J.Jill any more because of the store closing. She adamantly denied that the store would be closing. She said that they were being sold by Talbots and had a letter from the president of J.Jill that discussed the rumours being spread on the internet. I am so thrilled! I could get away with the hefty bag for the next few months, but eventually I'd have to break out the loincloth and that would just add a whole new spin to the annual Easter egg hunt.
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Poster Child

Since I'm always the one taking the pictures, I never end up with any pictures of myself...we all hate those anyway, right? Aliya's school asked for a picture of us to use in brochure about the school, so I "did" the front half of my hair, put on make-up, clean clothes, and Ben took this picture of us. I think it came out pretty nice. I'm not sure how we became the poster family from school but just this week someone recognized me from the video the school made last year. I guess I'm a local access channel celeb.

I have one more tough week before things get back to "normal". This week our national convention is in Boston so I have a fully-packed schedule of classes, trade show, dinners, seminars, parties, etc. I'm teaching a class on Friday for about 100 architects so that has been weighing heavily and taking up every spare moment, leaving me no time to post any news on the blog. Expect a flood of posts next week.
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Happy 7th Birthday Aliya!!!

Aliya chose Samba for her birthday dinner and it was delicious as always. A few days later we took Aliya and 8 friends to see High School Musical 3 after lunch at Uno's. Aliya had requested donations for Heifer International instead of gifts, and she received enough money to buy a water buffalo (not a moose!). She has a lot of questions about how the water buffalo gets to Africa or wherever its new home will be, what they feed it, etc., so I told her to write them down and we'll send the list of questions with the check. Hopefully she'll get a response from Heifer International - that would be cool.


http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.2663611/

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Happy Halloween!!!

In our annual quest to get as much wear as possible out of the Halloween costumes, we wore them to Baby Billy's birthday party, the YMCA Halloween party, Pam & Ted's spooky soiree (Brutus and Popeye only), preschool & day care, and trick-or-treating with some friends. Adlani missed out on the T-or-T'ing because he was sent home for unecessary roughness, and Norah stole the show by blowing kisses at each house. We got lucky with the weather and it was a great night to beg for chocolate.

Here's an assortment of pics (Email me if you'd like copies of the spooky soiree photos that are inappropriate for a family blog.).

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"I want my present now!!"

I spent 3 days this week in Indianapolis, preparing for and teaching a 2-day class on building code requirements for doors (Woohoo!!). Even though it took me HOURS to create the presentation, something similar to an NFL playbook to keep the household running while I was gone, and a refill on my public speaking / flying prescription, it was almost like a mini-vacation for me. None of my students needed to be wiped, force-fed, or repeatedly told to do anything. My coteacher dressed himself, made it to breakfast on time without bribery or threats, and packed his own backpack without going to time-out. I only had 6 cubic feet of stuff with me so my room was always neat, and nobody left poop in the toilet or toothpaste in the sink. I went to bed between 10 and 11 p.m. instead of 2 and 3 a.m., with no feet in my face and nobody wetting my bed. I can't remember the last time I had an hour to dress myself and get to breakfast. I did my hair, put on makeup, and wore clothes that nobody had wiped their nose on. And several times a day I heard how wonderful I was and people actually THANKED me for my time and effort.

I did miss my peeps but it was a nice change of pace.


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"Shanie! I'm open!!"

Adlani and Aliya both had soccer games today. Aliya has improved sooo much this year. Ben has decided that he'd like to be a technical advisor to her team and he's been working with her quite a bit. Adlani has stopped whining that "nobody will let me get a goal" and is responding to Coach Ted's bribery (promises of chocolate for focusing on the ball). Today Coach Roger told the team to call to each other when they're open so they can start to pass the ball more. Karen told me that Adlani was calling, "Shanie! I'm open!!" They were on opposing teams but at least he's listening to the coach's advice.
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Ice Skating!

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Aliya started ice skating lessons today with the Park & Rec Department (a bargain at $30 for 6 lessons!). I wasn't sure how it was going to go since she had never been on skates before and had a steep learning curve. She looked so cute out there on her skinny legs. She LOVED skating and was really proud of herself for improving so much in one lesson.


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