What a week! Mostly, what a day!

Well it's been a week like no other. Let's start where I left off!

I had planned last Sunday night/Monday morning to be one of the first 100 customers at the new Buffalo Wild Wings here in McKinney. I was going to stand in line starting at whatever time it took, with our friends Kim and Chris. Well, as it turns out, Kim and Chris are big wimps. We ended up not doing it because they didn't really want to have to wait any more than a couple of hours for free wings for a year. Personally, I was ready to sleep in a lawn chair... but not alone. So, it was a no-go, and I am sans wings, and truth be told, it's probably for the best.

So, instead, on Monday, I kicked my ChaCha habit... into gear! Ha! I have probably spent a good four or five hours each day this week online, answering questions from people all over the US, and getting $0.20 per fabulous answer. I've made just over $200. I know it's not a great hourly wage, but it's fun and easy... and hey, even five bucks an hour is more than I normally make sitting on my butt. And the great benefit of ChaCha is that I can do it when I want, and not do it when I don't want. No reporting availability to a snotty retail store manager and "hoping to get off" for things that are genuinely important to my Real Life. So, yes, I recommend ChaCha. And hey, if you decide to try to be a Guide, just make sure to put me as your referral!

The rest of last week was mostly uneventful, I think. A lot of ChaCha, Andrew in Summer School (which really facilitates the ChaCha), housecleaning, organizing type stuff.

Sunday I got a haircut, and that was the next most eventful thing that happened to me.

And then along came today.

First, I decided to color my hair. Andrew expressed a liking for red. I went and bought a reddish brownish bottle at CVS and went to work! I have done this haircolor thing many times and thought I was very good at it. Well.... I missed a spot! Several spots! I still don't know how I did it, but my hair came out this bright reddy color with streaks of my natural mousy (or as my mother calls it, golden) brown. It was not exactly the look I was going for. So, I sulked for a few hours, and then when Andrew left for class, I headed out to figure out what my next step in the hair color situation would be.

I was driving along, mindin' my own business.... when a little white Sentra driven by a teenage girl (who I genuinely feel bad for, poor thing) didn't see me in her blind spot and WHAMMO tore into the side of my car. Check the pictures.


The good news is, I wasn't hurt, she wasn't hurt, and it wasn't my fault. They've already filed the claim, so I'll call and talk to the insurance folk tomorrow. Right after Jury Duty. That's right, Jury Duty. Stay tuned for that awesomeness.

PS - the hair is fixed. Very red... my hair takes red like crazy... but at least it's not streaky. And maybe the slightly far-out hair color will make me a less attractive juror? Let's hope!

Restful Saturday

Today was a lovely day, a lovely stay at home most of the day kind of day, my favorite kind.  It felt restful, even though I actually accomplished a lot: went grocery shopping, did several loads of laundry, finished unwrapping wedding gifts (I know, I know) and putting them away, baked a batch of brownie/cookie hybrid things, made lunch and dinner, did some straightening, organized wedding photos, wrote a few more thank you cards, and did some cross-stitching.

This past week was Kids Arts and Music Camp at church, which was fun in a gotta-keep-reminding-myself-I'm-not-in-charge kind of way.  ha

The coming week is largely not spoken for.  Sunday night/Monday morning I anticipate sleeping outside in line at the new Buffalo Wild Wings that's opening on Monday.  They're giving free wings for a year to the first 100 customers, so Kim and Chris and I plan to be there.  I'm still working on talking Andrew into it.  We'll see how that goes.

That's about all I've got right now!

Prayer, prayer, everywhere

I find myself with not a lot of news tonight, but rather prayer requests.  I preface this list with the fact that while I anticipate that most readers know me well enough to know where I teach, I am forbidden by The District to mention The District by name, the school I teach, and of course the names of any students (that last bit I consider a "duh").  So, in this case, while I won't name the students, I'll give you initials to guide your prayers.

1. I have a former student who is very near and dear to my heart, a sweet girl who was in 9th grade this year.  When in my program, this girl was a frequent soloist, an active member of my top groups, pop choir, etc. and even served as my student assistant as an 8th grader.  She's gorgeous and recently turned 15.  In April she was diagnosed with bone cancer in her knee.  She was been in chemo for three months now and is due for limb salvage surgery to remove any remaining cancer, give her a titanium knee, and replace the affected tendons, ligaments, etc.  After the surgery, she'll have another 9-12 months of chemo.  The problem now is that the necessary tendons and ligaments must come from donors and must match certain exact measurements, and the doctors are having a more difficult time than expected finding the right donors.  The surgery is tentatively scheduled for the 28th while we all keep our fingers crossed than when the date rolls around the donors will be in place.  So please keep B.A.S. and her family in your prayers.
2. I have another former student, also very near and dear to my heart, the same age and grade as the girl listed above.  This student made me her confidant, often told me she considered me her best friend (whether that's a good or bad thing for a teacher to hear, I still haven't figured out for sure), and excelled in my program.  All that being said, this student did not exactly have a reputation for making incredibly smart and mature decisions.  Today, I learned that this talented girl made another "sad choice".  On her way home from lunch at Wendy's with friends, this child decided that it would be fun to ride home in the back of her friend's pickup truck.  Did I mention that her friend had a cover on the bed of the truck at the time?  So, yes... this child decided to ride home, sitting on the cover on the bed of the pickup truck.  When her friend made a turn, this child was thrown from the truck and broke her chin and jaw.  Surgery is scheduled for Thursday.  I spoke with her today (and chastised her a little, ok a lot, let's be honest) but she's in good spirits and seemed to realize the error of her ways, at least a little.  Please pray for the surgery and the future choices of T.C.
   

ChaCha, anyone?

I have discovered something I have been looking for all my life, it seems: a legitimate excuse to spend a truly ridiculous amount of time online.

ChaCha!

Never heard of ChaCha?  Well, it's a free query service, where the user texts his or her question to ChaCha (242-242) and a few minutes later gets an answer back, as well as a link to a website with more info (for users of fancy Smart Phones).  Where does the answer come from?  A real live person sits at their computer, the question pops up on their screen, they look up the answer, type it out, include the link, and voila!

Who are these magical internet searchers?  ChaCha Guides!  Bored people who want an excuse to sit at the computer and watch TV, answer the occasional question, and oh yeah, get paid!  It's not a lot... but you get $0.20 per answer, and the questions come fairly quickly depending on the time of day.  So, I say this will at least make up for my lack of a part time job a little bit.  Right?

It does come in handy now that Andrew is officially in a summer school night class for 4 hours a night, 4 nights a week.  I've been sitting here watching TV and answering such questions as "what number president was Martin Van Buren" and "what oscar did Tom Hanks win in 1995" and "who did courteney cox play on friends".  Um, without looking, 8th (1837-1841), Best Actor in a Leading Role for Forrest Gump, and Monica (Geller) Bing.  Duh!  60 cents, baby!

I'll keep you posted on how this new venture goes.

Spare Change Date Night

Tonight, I asked my husband on a date.

Since we arrived home for good after much traveling in early June, we have spent most of our at-home time together as follows: I watch TV and play games on the computer in the living room while Andrew reads theology books in the office (fka the dining room).  The result being that while, yes, we are "together" a lot, we're really not "together" all that much.

Add to this the fact that we're on something of a tight budget this month and don't really feel like we should be going out to dinner and movies... and you've got something of a boring, stay at home situation.

So tonight, I asked my husband on a date, and we funded our date night on our spare change.

For dinner, the frozen pizza we already had in the freezer and the bottle of wine I found in the trunk of my car (don't ask).  For dessert, Albertson's brand chocolate chip cookies we bought with our spare change.  For entertainment, a DVD rented using one of those fancy schmancy "redbox" things.  They cost a dollar normally, but a quick internet search before leaving the house and we found a coupon code that gave us the rental for free.

So, we had our pizza, wine, movie, and cookie dessert for the cost of a package of house brand cookies: $1.94.  We rock.

That is all.  Good night.

Happy Birthday, Kelly!

Hello all!  A few things today...

First of all, an update on the brake situation.  The mechanics called this morning and gave us the news that it's just a hose issue.  So, they're replacing any number of leaky hoses, flushing out the system, and then we're good to go.  And again, I just can't sing the praises of Dave Ramsey enough!  We are paying cash, and I have never felt so good writing a check in all my days!

The big thing today is that it's Andrew's sister Kelly's birthday!  The big twenty-one!  So, we are headed out tonight to celebrate with the family.  Dinner out, followed by drinking in.  ha!  Andrew and I have been talking this up for a while, how we're looking forward to family intoxication.  In real life, I think it'll be pretty tame.

This is the shortest blog post so far, but I've got to go.... pick up the cake for tonight, do some laundry, dishes, etc.  And oh yeah, fill out my brand new little jury summons form I got today.  Yippee.  Look forward to July 29th.

Give me a brake!

Today's blog post will take the form of family update, rather than funny story.

Last night, Andrew and I visited our friends Kim and Chris, who also live in McKinney.  We fawned over Kim's new engagement ring, talked wedding plans, and watched Sliding Doors, a pretty terrible Gwenyth Paltrow-as-British-woman movie.

Anyway, on the way over, Andrew noted that he has having to put more pressure than usual on the brake pedal of the Camry to get the desired effect.  Not being a person who enjoys careening through stop lights, this made me a bit nervous.  The nervousness didn't deter my husband, who commented on the status of the brakes at every opportunity, both on our way there and on the way back: "see, right now I'm pressing it down as hard as I can..." etc.

Needless to say, we decided to take the car into a car-fixin place today.  We headed to Kwik Kar, where just two weeks ago we had the oil change and inspection done on this very car.  In a way, this was probably not the smartest place to go, because it's pretty much just a lube-and-tune kind of a place.  But they looked at the car and told us there was a pretty heavy-duty brake fluid leak happening, and in fact we should go somewhere to buy brake fluid in order to get us from Kwik Kar to the mechanic of our choice.

For the record, it threw me a little bit when the Kwik Kar people told us to see a mechanic.  I mean, the guy telling us this is wearing a jumpsuit thing and has grease on him... but now I know the difference.  So anyway...

Andrew started backing out of the bay and down the incline into a parking spot, when it became apparent that the brakes were GONE.  He slammed on the emergency brake a few feet short of a 3 foot drop and a fence.  The Kwik Kar guys helped us get the car backed up properly in the space, and we headed home to find a mechanic.

Long story short, we got the Camry towed to the mechanic, where the car sits even as I type.  We'll know more about the full diagnosis tomorrow.

Without going into a lot of personal detail, I will finish this entry by saying we are really glad we saved our cash wedding gifts (in addition to the money I already had in savings) and have an emergency fund going already.  There's something to be said for the fact that in the midst of all of the decisions we had to make today and suddenly becoming a one-car couple, we didn't have to go into financial crisis mode. So, yay for that!  Thanks, Dave Ramsey!

Car update (and more birthday wishes) tomorrow!

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Today's blog begins with birthday wishes for my dad who is turning 60 today.  He's off working a contract in North Carolina while my mom is still galavanting about with my grandma in West Virginia, so no celebration today.  I imagine that weekend celebrations are in order.

I called him today at work and he answered with his standard "Terry Worley" to which I responded my standard "Hi Terry Worley, this is Terri Worley!" and then had to correct myself: "oh wait, Hamilton... I'm not Terri Worley!"  ha!  I am unused to this whole name change situation.

My dad and I have shared more than just a name over the years, and I knew I wanted to use this new forum to tell one or two fun stories about Dad today.  In thinking about stories I might tell about my dad, I called my brother Chuck last night to brainstorm.  You see, stories about my mom are easy (although you'll have to wait until September for her birthday tribute) due in large part to our famously turbulent relationship.  Most of my mom stories feature me as the supposed victim while mom does any number of nice things for me against my teenage will, and being a fabulous storyteller, I can usually play it up and make us both come out pretty hilarious.  No such stories for dad though.  Chuck reminded me that while I may not have as many hilarious tales about our dad, I did have a lot of significant time spent with him growing up.  Maybe I benefitted from being the only daughter, or maybe it has more to do with being an "only child" from 3rd grade on after Wayne and Chuck went to college.  Either way, Chuck is way right.  I am SUCH a Daddy's Girl.

My parents and I moved to a condo in downtown Lexington when I was going into 3rd grade, and this began four years of special morning time with my dad.  For work-related reasons that I don't specifically remember now, my dad was responsible for getting me up in the morning, taking care of breakfast, and getting me to the bus stop (or in 6th grade, the school) each day.  I don't think I realized at the time how great that was, and how big a part of our relationship that was, but thinking about that now...  I hope my students have that kind of care starting out each day!  Somehow I doubt they all do.

My dad would get me up each morning with a little song.  This was our compromise after discovering how very much I am NOT a morning person.  The deal was this: he sang "Good morning, good morning, and how do you do?" and I was to respond, singing "Good morning, good morning, I'm fine, how are you?"  Over the years that we used this system, I think my response may have more often been "Good morning, good morning, get out of my room" but he took it.  I'm guessing that at this point I got dressed and whatnot, but I do know that breakfast was on the agenda every morning, along with a steady diet of Oldies 103.3!

I could ramble on about this for pages, but the practical upshot is this:  Thanks Dad!  Thanks for all the waking up and the breakfasts (even the oatmeal).  Thanks for the oldies station and for calling in to win contests.  Thanks for walking me to the bus stop and waiting with me.  Thanks for driving me to school in sixth grade, even if you did crank "Duke of Earl" way too loud that one time.  Thanks for all kinds of things since then, but thanks especially for those mornings.

The Hamilton Herald!

Extra!  Extra!  First edition!

Welcome to our new little Hamilton family (well, Hamilton couple, lets be honest) blog.  We're hoping this will help keep friends and family both near and far updated, even if we may sometimes lose track of who we've called with what news.

Right now, there's not a LOT going on, but a few things worth mentioning.

1. We have successfully recovered from our May 24th wedding... at least mostly.  I am in Thank-You-Card mode (finally), so if you haven't gotten a note from us yet, hopefully you'll see one appearing in your mailbox soon.  That being said, I still live in fear that there are gifts that we received but forgot to write down and may therefore forget to give the proper thanks for.  Hopefully I've got it under control.  However, if you shipped us a Fiesta stovetop set (S&P shakers and a spoonrest) via JC Penney, they did not do us the favor of telling us who it was from.  So, Mystery Giver, whoever you are, please know that the stovetop set is greatly appreciated and seeing daily use!
2. I (Terri) am off for the summer, and am really truly OFF for the summer for the first time in a number of years.  I have normally gotten a part time job to keep me occupied when not actively teaching school, but this year I'm home playing wife.  Good thing, too!  There's a lot of stuff to do around here, and I find myself wondering how we will manage to keep laundry done and food cooked and the house cleaned when I'm back at school 40+ hours per week.  In addition to the thank you card project, I have also painted our bedroom, sold several pieces of furniture on craigslist, baked about 8 batches of brownies, changed my name with everyone I can think of, changed/updated our insurance, banking, etc. and other things like that.  More time consuming than one might think.  Hm.
3. Andrew is "working" at our church this summer.  The quotes are not to imply that he's not doing productive things... rather, that he's not being paid for any of them.  He's planning to attend seminary come fall of 2009, and has basically been shadowing our adult education guy, talking a lot of theology, seeing the workings of the church, etc.  He's really enjoying it!  An opportunity to apply for a full time paid position at the church has presented itself, and Andrew has applied.  We're keeping our fingers crossed, but we have also heard that the church may not be to keen on hiring a church member for this particular position.  Time will tell.

And finally, to end this first entry, a story:

Sunday night, Andrew and I joined in a family gathering at his Uncle Teddy and Aunt LuAnn's new place in Lucas, and were just heading back to our house in McKinney from Jim and Anita's house in Plano (confused yet?) when we saw a driver acting a little nuts.  The driver, in a Jag, was going about 15 mph on a street where the speed limit is 40, and was hitting the brakes randomly as well.  I thought... elderly driver?  lost driver?  But as we passed the car, it looked like a young lady, our age or maybe a little younger, not in any kind of obvious distress.  So, we passed her by, heading on through a green light.  We then noticed that when the Jag (let's just call her "Jag", shall we?) reached the same green light, she stopped for several seconds before deciding to make a right turn and head north.

That was enough for us, we made a U-turn and then a left turn to head north after Jag.  Jag had apparently picked up her speed quite a bit, because we passed several other cars while trying to catch up with her, before realizing that -- there she went, making another U-turn!

So, we made a U-turn a little ways up the road, going south now, and had a much easier time catching up with her, as she was back to good ole 15 mph.  We stopped behind her at a red light, intending to follow her for a little while to see if she was alright, and figured we would call the authorities if necessary.  It didn't take us long to make our decision.

When the light turned green, Jag waited.  And waited.  And finally.... proceeded at 15 mph, through the light.  We continued to follow her and noticed that she was swerving quite a bit within her lane.  Our decision had been made for us: I called 911 while Andrew drove and continued to follow Jag.  Let's call her Drunk Jag, shall we?  DJ for short?

So, I called 911 and gave the dispatcher our location, DJ's plates, and continued to describe her driving behavior and our location.  Always the safety nut, DJ continued to stop and look both ways for several seconds after a light turned green, swerving all the way.  She would occasionally work her way up to the speed limit, but feeling reckless I'm sure, she'd slam on the brakes and we were back to familiar 15 mph in no time.

We kept heading south for several miles, all the time talking to 911, all the time hoping they'd get an officer out to us ASAP!  DJ finally turned left into an office park.  (Just in time, actually... very much farther and we'd have been in another city, 911 would have had to transfer us to a new dispatcher, and we would've started the process all over again!)  The road she selected ended with a stop sign where she had to choose right or left.  Stumped by this, the eternal decision, DJ waited for longer than usual, and to be totally honest, I started to get a little nervous.  What do we do now?

Luckily, we saw headlights behind us and sure enough, it was the cavalry!  Well, a squad car.  They pulled her over just as she had finally reached a decision (left, for the curious) and we watched from our car as DJ proved herself worthy of the title.

DJ was eventually cuffed and driven away in the back of the squad car, and we wrote down our statements.  (Mine was not nearly so entertaining as what you've just read... I do have some sense of timing.)  We headed home safe and secure with one less drunk driver on the roads!  Go Team Hamilton!

So, there's you have it.  A family update AND a story!  What more can you wish for?