I'm making an effort to blog every Sunday for my college freshmen audience who may be feeling a teensy bit homesick. I know all of you are struggling with your new independence, and hopefully are enjoying it. We miss all of you and hope that when you're home you'll remember to visit ALL your "moms" and "dads" and "sisters" and "brothers".

Bryn made it to her ortho appointment this Monday (8th). No big deal after her trial run last Friday. :)

Paige and I had the house to ourselves Tuesday (9th) night as Jeff went to the 11-inning Brewers game with his work and Bryn had her first UWAY rehearsal of the season. After Paige finished her homework, I decided to get in my weekly Tuesday evening power walk. It's getting darker so much earlier, that for me to walk for my hour, I now have to leave the house by 6:30pm. Anyways, off I go and as usual I never go the same way. I like to explore the neighborhoods and new construction. Unfortunately this route led me to a dead end so I had to retrace my route and ended up walking way further than I wanted. And my dumb shoes game me a huge blister on the back of my right heel! I was walking so fast to get home, against it getting dark and wanting to take my stupid shoes off!!! Abby called and talked to Paige while I was gone. When I got back, Paige of course is so excited to visit Abby, she had me checking the train schedule online. All of a sudden, Paige is talking to Jeff at the Brewers game telling him she's going to UWL to visit Abby! Wait a minute! Bryn came home from UWAY later and announces she's last chair! She dropped 3 chairs from last year. Weird. I told her to go talk to the conductor and ask what the determining factors were. We'll see where that goes.

I had to cancel the 3rd trombone lesson I had scheduled for Bryn for this week on Wed (10th). Bryn came home from Cross Country practice and notified us of Jazz Band practice also that night. Don't know how she fits it all in.

Friday (12th) I was off again (as it should be). I was able to further clean out Abby's new room, iron, and pay bills. My friend, Carrie, invited me to Target with her but I answered that I needed to stay away as it's a non-paycheck week and there's a few items there I want to buy... Paige didn't come home on the bus after school, but then I remembered that at dinner last night she had mentioned a "waffle party" at a boy's house. When I had no contact from her at 7pm, I called the boy's house. His mom answered and everything was cool. This boy had it made hosting 6 girls! They had a lot of fun making waffles, and playing basketball and RockBand.


Bryn had a Cross Country meet scheduled for Saturday (13th) morning. She was up early to prepare, only to receive a text about a half hour before: "cancelled." She was mildly relieved. It was rainy and the course would've been a mess. I rearranged my morning and went out to grocery shop deciding to drive by the park (the meet was held here in the Falls) to see how bad the conditions/possible flooding was. I noticed runners from faraway schools walking the course (Sheboygan Falls, Appleton East), feeling sorry those teams didn't get the cancellation notice early enough in the morning. As I drove further, there was our Falls concession stand... families I knew... and our runners!!! It's not cancelled!!! I called home immediately and told Bryn. Luckily it was still 20 minutes before the meet started. I made a U-turn to go home to pick up Jeff so we could watch. We met up with Bryn under the girls' tent and she was not happy. Because she thought she wasn't running, she ate more than her typical pre-race menu. Together with her pre-race jitters, her tummy wasn't feeling good. By the time the girls varsity was up to run, she had convinced her coach that she couldn't run today. Jeff and I both had individual pep talks with her to urge her to be there for the team and give it her best try. The light rain was refreshing and if she didn't do well, she could always blame it on the poor course conditions! Her coach ended up pushing her to run and she did great. She didn't talk to us the rest of the day though so we don't know exactly what place she finished in. Understandable. But I'm proud of her efforts. We finally figured that the text message she received that morning must've been about the Student Council car wash, but we still don't know the source.

Today (14th) was Paige's first day of Sunday School. Jeff is still watching the Packers game (what the heck was that!), Paige is baking chocolate chip cookies and Bryn's doing homework. I had go down a list of La Crosse hotels today to figure out where I made reservations for UWL Parents Weekend in October. Not like me, but I must not have printed out my reservation confirmations. I remembered making 2 reservations, because my choices were so limited. The hotel clerks were entertained at my forgetfulness and I did locate the hotels. Now we just have to decided between the two and cancel one. I fiddled around on the computer and came up with 4 new options for new Band logos for the school district. I emailed them off this morning to one of the teachers. No one really asked for them, so I'm not sure how they'll be received.