Found in Fishers

As seen on TV

A couple weekends ago, I spent some time with my dear friends in the region. We have been friends for 21 years! The group of us girls taught together. There are 8 of us. And, none at the original school any longer. Pat O, Karen, and Sharon are retired and have relocated. Pat in Motteville, Michigan, Karen in Huntley, IL, Sharon is Celastine, IN. Nancy and Ellen both work at Bibich in Dyer. Pat and Corrine at the same parochial school in Hammond. And, me in Fishers. Funny though that two of Corinne's kids live in Fishers. Sharon's son lives in Fishers, and Ellen's godson lives in Fishers. Small world.

Each month in alphabetical order, just like good teachers, someone hosts club at their house. It use to be that the hostess would have this delightful spread of goodies and have an activity or game for the evening. It did not take long before it was just the goodies. Now, not even goodies are necessary because most don't eat them. There is only rule that has remained the same since 1988: Clean house not necessary but clean bathroom a must. As you can imagine with half of us living out of town, it has been more difficult for all of us to be together at once. The gals have been to FIshers and I have hosted club at my sister's house which I will do again soon. I am so glad after all these years that we still keep in touch. Of course if you know Nancy, you cannot miss her great stories! This time everyone but Pat O and Sharon were able to attend. Nancy had March club. It so happened that I was up north for Liam's birthday.

At some point in the evening no matter whose house we are at, most of us are looking for blankets. It was no different at Nancy's but when Ellen got a blanket, guess what she really got out of Nancy's cabinet, the SNUGGIE!
We all started rolling in laughter as Ellen modeled the Snuggie looking a lot like a Star Wars character or monk. There was more as Nancy explained a funny story about a mouse that came in the day before through the garage door and how her husband tried to hit it with the newspaper. Needless to say, Nancy scrubbed the room down, washed all the blankets, and was even asked by her sister if she was canceling club due to a mouse sighting. That was so funny!

Special shout-outs:  To Corrine who will have another Fisher's grandchild in a couple weeks. Keep HSE populated! Get well soon Pat O, I hear you are having trouble with some mouth pain. Hey Sharon, how are your goats doing on the farm? Who would've thought a city girl would retire in the country.

Birthday weekend

I had a great weekend celebrating the 7th anniversary of Sarah's 29th birthday and Liam's birthday as well. With their birthdays only 1 day apart, Sarah has not received a birthday cake from Pat since Liam was born so she is determined that those years no longer count. And guess what, no cake again!

The weekend started with a birthday party for Liam. Being into Star Wars, it was a no-brainer to put action figures on and around his cake. He was surprised. And the cake tasted great thanks to Aunt Betty, that is Betty Crocker. It was also nice to see Sarah's friend Dawn and Pat's brother and sister. I don't get to see them much. At night it was absolutely hilarious when we decided to have a Wii Fit and Wii adventureland competition. I laughed so hard my side was hurting and I was crying.

I don't know if it was watching people's butts when they were hula hooping or if it was just funny to see everyone's style. Liam did not participate. He sat in the corner putting together a new 400 piece Lego set he got for his birthday. All was fun.

The gang is coming to Fisher's this weekend. I will take a picture of Deagan, their dog, you will be amazed at how big he got.

Time to make the big decision

We have been spending quite a bit of time the last few weeks exploring college decisions with Mark. There are a few things he knows. He wants to continue to live at home. He claims so he can work but honestly it is probably because he would never do his own laundry or clean his dorm room or anything like that. And, where else can he play computer games most of the day! Just kidding, he is my home body kinda kid. I told him he had to live on campus his junior and senior years.

Looks like he wants to be a Jag! He was very excited about the campus tour and meeting the Computer Information Technology people at IUPUI. That is, Indiana University, Purdue University Indianapolis. What a great place for a kid with a father who graduated from IU and a mother from PU. But, the School of Technology is Purdue University! Yippie. We have looked at numerous options including Marian College, Indiana Wesleyan, University of Indianapolis, and Indiana Business College, but in the end he really liked the technology department at IUPUI. We have a couple more appointments to finish but we are leaning toward Mark being a student on two different campuses called the 2+2 program. It is a collaborative initiative between IUPUI and Ivy Tech. And, actually recommended by IUPUI and some techies I know at work. I spoke already with both admissions departments and there is actually a person who we are working with that is employed at both IUPUI and Ivy Tech. Basically Mark will take some classes at IUPUI and some at Ivy tech in the first couple years. The advantage is that Ivy Tech is a small campus in downtown Indy with strong technology classes but more importantly smaller class sizes for subjects like English, Algebra, Calculus, etc. Mark can also get all the computer certifications he needs to start working in the IT world through Ivy Tech, a local community college. At the same time he will start taking some of the IT classes he will need for his Bachelor's degree from IUPUI because you cannot go beyond an associate's at Ivy Tech. Right now Mark wants to take all of his classes at IUPUI so we are not ruling that out yet. We will however need to apply for housing soon because there is a long waiting list to get housing on campus. I hear 2 years to wait. We might change our mind about some of these things like housing though due to the current economic situation.

What we would do without Benny?

When I turned 40 a couple years ago, ok more than a couple years, I never thought much of it. However, during the last 2 weeks I have found one part of growing older that has been a MAJOR pain. My vision.

I have been wearing contacts since high school. I lived through hard contacts, extended wear contacts, and now my latest, bifocal contacts. For the past couple of years I have been wearing two different kinds of contacts. In my right eye I wear a bifocal contact for distance and reading. In my left eye I wear a contact for only distance and it is weighted because of my astigmatism. These contacts are perfect for me. However, because at one time I was prescribed a contact to wear for extended wear that should not have been, I have some scars. Nothing serious any longer but the doctor does not want me to sleep in my contacts now. My new routine is to take off my contacts and put my glasses on at night. The problem has been that the glasses are about 4 prescriptions old. I decided to update the glasses this year and have bifocals put in them so that I did not have to wear cheater glasses on top of my glasses to read the paper in the morning or when I read at night.

Got the new glasses. Can't walk downstairs without holding the railing. Can't walk on my treadmill without losing my footing. Can't watch TV in the Lazy Boy or in bed at night. I went back to the eye doctor today to see if they could adjust them. They said that I needed to spend some time getting use to them. Shoot, how do I get use to these goofy glasses. Didn't Ben Franklin fall on the cobblestone roads, for goodness sake! I am working on practicing using the bifocals but I hate glasses on my nose. If you happen to see me with my new glasses on, beware, I might trip or run into a wall. I guess I should be thankful to Ben Franklin for inventing bifocals that at least evolved into bifocal contacts or I would really suffer.