"Slow down; you move too fast..."

Would you like to know what happened to me today? Sure you would!

I came home from school and found something interesting in the mailbox: a letter telling me IN ALL CAPS that my license was SUSPENDED for "failure to comply" with a speeding ticket I got on October 15, 2007. I remember that awful week, just after Sophie got her cochlear implants and started going to school (emotional rollercoaster) and I was trying to figure out how to get all the people to their schools across town from each other at the same time. I got two speeding tickets in one week. Bad, bad, bad. However, I DID pay them!

So, I got on the phone with the municipal court and find out that the 'system' says I never paid the ticket. Luckily, I had done my research, and I informed the lady that I wrote check number 1621 on October 18, 2007, for $188, and it cleared my account on October 25. I kind of yelled at her in a stressed-out voice ... WHERE THE HECK DID MY MONEY GO?!?!

She promptly transferred me to someone else, who was a very nice lady named Sandra. Sandra informed me that, although the original ticket was $188, I owed them $263. Guess what for?? You'll never guess. Late fees, of course, and a WARRANT FEE! Now, I only know of two kinds of warrants, and I'm pretty sure that they didn't want to search my house... And here I insert a note of gratitude to Heavenly Father: THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for not letting me get pulled over and arrested when I had no idea this was happening!!!!!

I'll make the rest of this short: After calling our wonderful bank manager, Drew (my hero), and having him locate the scanned image of both sides of the check, and having him fax it to the lovely Sandra ... it turned out that my money had been applied to someone else's ticket because someone at the police department had transposed two of the numbers in the ticket number. And for THAT ... they wanted to arrest me!

It has a happy ending, though: After a trip downtown to JPD (Wes drove, of course!) to meet Sandra and get my paperwork -- and a trip to midtown to drop off the paperwork, my license is now reinstated! What a lot of work (and gas) for something that wasn't even my fault. What a day!

Things to be thankful for:
-- Wes was off today, so he was able to drive us all to Harlan's gymnastics class and to the places to clear up the stuff.
-- Drew McIntyre, Premier Banking, BancorpSouth. He is my hero of the day.
-- Sandra really was very nice, which, if you've ever had dealings with people in Jackson, MS who work for the government, you know is EXTREMELY RARE. No, really. The term "Southern hospitality" does not normally apply to these people.
-- I really did pass a policeman this morning on the way to take Sophie to school, and I really was speeding. And I went through a yellow light. (He was going the other way. He stopped at the light.) And even then, before I knew there was a warrant out for me, I said a quiet prayer in my head to thank Heavenly Father for helping me out. And then I slowed it down a bit.
-- It's a gentle reminder to drive more carefully ... without having to pay for a ticket this time.

So, even with such an annoying situation today, I am looking for the lessons that the Lord would have me to learn. And for those lessons, I am grateful for this experience.

Oh, yeah, one other thing...

The residency app is DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wes was taking his own sweet time about it, so I did it!! I started getting frustrated with him a couple of weeks ago, when he wasn't filling it out, so I took matters into my own hands. Within a couple of hours' time, I had completed all TWELVE online pages, including personal info such as address/phone number; research/work/volunteer experience (I just had to type in what he had on his CV); awards recieved; results of step 1 and step 2 certification exams ... you name it, it was on there. I even pasted his personal statement (which HE wrote, and I edited a million times). Then I turned it over to him.
During the past two weeks since that wonderful evening, he has researched and narrowed down the list of places to apply (with much discussion between the two of us) but was still taking tooooooo long for my liking. So, with his permission and blessing, I (re-edited and) submitted his application and sent it to the seven programs he had selected. Best $120 I ever spent!
Wes had already gone to bed. He was too stressed out about it to stick around, so I captured the moment to share with him later. Please take a second to celebrate with me!

Now we need PRAYERS!!!!! Not that I didn't say a few before clicking SUBMIT ... but ... OHMYGOSH ... I am so nervous now!!

Oh, baby!!

So ... the receptionist at Sophie's school (Velma) and I were chatting recently as I waited for my little one to come down the hall. Another mom had just left with her son, who is a new student there. I had tried to start a friendly conversation with her, and she was totally grumpy with me and rude. Thank heavens I didn't ask when her baby was due, although she was obviously pregnant.
On this day, Velma had noted the strange conversation that had occurred, and when the woman left, she commented to me on her grumpiness and said that the woman looked pregnant (very) and I agreed. The strange thing, said Velma, was that someone else had come in and asked her how many kids she had, and she said just one. We were wondering why she didn't mention the baby on the way. But we let it go, and I didn't initiate any more conversations with her.
Today I went to pick up Sophie. Velma leaned over her desk and said that she had something to tell me. Evidently, the woman gave birth to a baby girl on Sunday. I was not surprised. The strange thing: The woman was!! She had no idea that she was pregnant! (I told Velma that now I feel bad ... maybe I should have told her myself!) Her husband came in and put a picture of a baby girl down on Velma's desk, and when Velma inquired about it, he replied, "THAT is what happened to us on Sunday!"

playing with photoshop

Recently, I took this great picture of Harlan. He was not posing; he was just standing by Wes's truck, being himself. I happened to have the camera in hand (surprise, surprise!) so I snapped a picture. After looking at it, I decided it was begging to be messed with. I opened it for editing in Picasa, and then I went a little crazy. Finding pictures, photoshopping ... hours of entertainment! ...Um, literally. So here are the pictures!

Harlan as James Dean (I LOVE THIS PICTURE!!)

This one of Lillie is several months old, but it was fun to play with.

Sophie needs HUGS on the go!

Sophie Bella Cinderella

Update on life / random stuff

So I have a few random thoughts ... Very random ...

--Wes took a course last month called "Review of Histology," which consisted primarily of editing the histology lab manual. One of the best sentences I have read is in this lab manual, and here it is for your enjoyment: "Ovaries lead a rather tempestuous life, so it should not be surprising that the specimens in the slide set felt no obligation to conform entirely to textbook descriptions." Feel free to comment on that one ... or just on how nerdy I am to think this is funny!
--Teaching preschool is interesting, to say the least. Ohmygosh. Aside from dealing with kids doing weird, disturbing things in the bathroom and beating each other up for cutting in line, last Friday I was puked on, spat at, and called a monkey ... all before 9:30 a.m. Good times.
--John McCain is annoying and creepy, and I don't agree with him at all, and his arms are too short. And his running mate scares me. Blah. (Wes has the RNC on right now and I'm sick of listening to it.)
--Wes is getting ready to send off his residency applications this week, which is unbelievably exciting. I'm ready to get this thing done!! In a few months, we could be moving to Texas, Missouri, Colorado, Massachussetts ... it's all very thrilling! And his essay is amazing. And he wrote it all by himself! I just polished it a little here and there. Yay, Wes!!
--My mom started chemotherapy yesterday. She will go in again in 3 weeks. She has to have it four times, for 12 weeks total. We're all ready to get it over with. Prayers are welcome. Please.

I guess that's about it for now. I'm too tired to think of anything else to write.

A work update ... and a small rant ...

I guess it's been a month since I posted anything. Oops. We started school this week at Beth Israel Preschool. So far, the short days don't seem too bad ... the kiddos get a free lunch, Lillie gets her Spanish lessons for free, and I got paid on Thursday, which made things a little easier. But the long day -- which is every Friday, when I get to work from 7:30am - 6:00pm -- is going to be grueling. At least, it was this week. And although, at 5:30, there were FIVE teachers there, and only one kid waiting to be picked up (6 kids in all, 5 of whom were teachers kids and 3 of whom were MINE), the teacher in charge would NOT LET ME LEAVE. She said that "if something happened (she didn't specify what, exactly), we would all need to be here." Nevermind the fact that if I left, I would take half of the children with me, and also improve the ratio (4 teachers : 3 kiddos instead of 5:6) ... nevermind the fact that most of the problems were stemming from Harlan's frequent meltdowns because he didn't get a nap ... nevermind the fact that another teacher's kid (he's wonderful and affectionate...he's five but looks like he's at least 7 and probably weighs at least 85 pounds and doesn't have any younger siblings, so he doesn't know how to be careful) kept loving Sophie and accidentally knocking her head into the floor and she kept screaming her head off ... I couldn't leave "in case something happened." How ridiculous is that! I am still fuming. The worst part is I can't even talk to anyone about it because the director of the preschool seems to never listen seriously to my concerns.

Sorry for the rant. In good news, I got some interesting compliments from the kids at school ("Your hair is fluffy!"), Harlan and Lillie are perfectly happy in their classes and their teachers love them, and I haven't had to drop Sophie off early because Wes has been around to take her to school. These are all nice things. I just have to focus on those, I guess.

There goes another decade

I realized yesterday that it has been 10 years this week since Wes proposed to me! TEN years!! It seems like such a long time! I don't remember the exact day ... it was the 20-something of July 1998. I just think that's cool.