I'm directing a play. The big show is tomorrow.

I've been the drama teacher at my school for the past 4 years, but this year it's different.

We're actually selling tickets and refreshments and having a late evening performance. It's kind of a big deal.

And I'm kind of freaking out about it. Because two of the main characters keep messing up their lines in practice. And it's not remotely cute or amusing.

They kind of got their acts together today, so I didn't have to be the Wicked Witch of the West the day before the play. But I'm still totally freaked.

I just have to keep telling myself that I'm always freaked before and they always mess up before but they always come through in the end.

So I'm crossing my fingers, saying about a thousand Hail Marys, and hoping for the very best.

My Brand New Baby Nephew

My sister had her baby! He was born on a pretty awesome day: January 11. January 11 this year just so happened to also be our brother's 30th birthday and our grandparents' (if they were still alive) 67th wedding anniversary.

Suffice to say, I will not have trouble remembering his birthday and thanks to his year of birth it will always be really easy to calculate his age.

He is absolutely gorgeous. Or, at least, he appears to be gorgeous in all of the pictures I've seen, and everyone says he is, so it must be so.

I haven't actually seen him in person. Nor have I been able to hold him. I have, however, heard him make baby noises into the phone. That was pretty cool.

When his brother was born, I was one of the first people to see and hold him. It's odd that this time around, I will be the very last person to meet my nephew.

I'm okay with it, though. Because I have figured out that when I visit him in April he will be a super cool age where he will be smiling and making all kinds of awesome noises at me. I'm excited for that.

In the meantime, I'm crazy about the shirt I ordered for his big brother. It's a personalized "I'm the big brother" shirt. It has his name on it. And a little stick figure kid. It should provide some incredibly adorable picture moments. I can't wait.

And that's about all for now, folks.

Emergency!

I encountered quite an emergency this weekend! My whole life was thrown upside down. It was quite dreadful!

What happened, you ask? Why... my cell phone died... kind of.

It was AWFUL. In fact, yesterday I had some errands to run, and I was actually worried to leave the house without a working cell phone because what if something happened? I wouldn't be able to make a phone call! GAH!

Seriously. I wanted to go to Target and to the grocery store and I stood in my living room for a good 10 minutes with my purse on my shoulder and my car keys in my hand mentally battling myself as to whether it would be safe for me to leave my house and venture out into the big bad world without a working cell phone.

Thanks to this weekend's crisis, I am now fully aware of how desperately I depend on my cell phone... and it isn't pretty folks... not pretty at all.

And so Reality Sets In...

Michael has finally received what seems to be a pretty solid departure-for-Afghanistan date.

Also, it's sounding more and more written in stone that this deployment will be of the year-long variety.

*sigh.

I know. I know. I signed up for this shit. But that doesn't make it any less shitty.

On my way to work yesterday morning, my mind was a-racing. Reality has set in. And... I have a to-do list for Michael that is nearly a mile long. Not much on the list will be accomplished until the end of January, though. Because he is currently in the midst of a practice for Afghanistan exercise that lasts disgusting amounts of hours, 7 days a week.

Now that Michael's future is confirmed, I find that the wishy-washiness of my own plans is rather off-putting. Since my most recent post about the up-in-the-air-ness of my future, I have changed my mind a couple (hundred) times about my future possibilities. In consideration now is actually *GASP* staying in California for the duration of the deployment, *GASP* continuing to work at that bloated, blasted, maniacal place I call a school, and (not so gasp) recruiting my good friend to come and live with me when the lease is up on her apartment.

But that is all very hypothetical, and I am not yet quite ready to make any definite decisions. I have some more mulling around of ideas to do before I'm ready to do that. Don't you worry, though. I'll be sure to keep you posted.

In the meantime, send happy thoughts my way as I prepare (this is my third time around, and I still haven't quite figured out how exactly one is supposed to go about preparing for such a thing) for the year-long loss of my husband.

blah-bitty-blah-blah-blah

Today Part II of doing the right thing commenced. Part II, as it turns out, was much more official than Part I...With people taking notes about what I had to say and asking a lot of questions. It was scary.

And, true to my character, I have mentally dissected everything I said about 100 times since then.

I'm pleased with my part in it all though. The difficult things aren't quite as difficult when you know it's to benefit the kids. And that's all I have to say about that.
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On an oh-my-God-this-makes-me-sick-to-my-stomach-with-sadness note, here is a tidbit for you.

The new teacher at my school? She's 22, the oldest child of 3. Her mom? Diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer that has metastasized to her bones. She has been given a year to live.

She told me this morning, and when I returned to my classroom after talking to her it took me a while to get my wits about me and actually be "present" in my classes.

I don't really even have anything intelligible to say. All I know is she's on the top of my prayer list, and I am extremely thankful for all of the blessings in my life.

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Also? I'm totally addicted to Rockband. Have you ever played it? It's awesome. And I am not a video game player. It's an incredible stress reliever, too. It was for me, anyway... tonight when I had a lot of yuckiness I wanted to shake off of my shoulders and out of my head.

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On a bright note, I spoke with my lovely sister tonight. She should be gracing the world with another incredibly gorgeous and charming little boy any time now. She told me she's ready for him to arrive; because she feels like she's walking around with a bowling ball between her legs. For some reason, I keep getting a mental image of this... and grinning from ear to ear.

Thanks for the smiles, Sis. I owe you one!

Why my husband is, in fact, the luckiest person in the world...

Something you should know about my husband is that he likes to drive... fast.

In fact, before he left for his last deployment he was commuting about 50 minutes each way for a few months and got himself 2 shiny tickets. For one of those tickets he was going fast enough to get his license suspended for a month. Nice. He also got enough points on his license that if he gets even 1 more he's going to lose his license for good (or, actually, a year... but for good just sounds so much more foreboding).

And, I remind him of this fact... All. The. Time.

Imagine my dismay a few days ago when I checked the mail and just inside was one of California's greatest gifts, a red light ticket.

Or... what appeared to be a red light ticket.

Let me paint this scene for you:
Me: (totally pissed off) If you think I'm going to drive your butt around for the next several months b/c you don't have a license you have another thing coming
Mike: (totally depressed) I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life.

After wallowing in his self-pity for a bit, he looked up the video of his red-light ticket online - you can do that, you know.

Here's the thing, though... he got a red-light ticket for turning RIGHT at a red-light. WHAT? He got the ticket b/c he didn't make a complete STOP at the red-light, but rather, did one of those tap the breaks and go kind of things that I think we can all agree we've done once or twice before.

Hmm..

Also, there was no information about what amount he should pay or to whom he should pay it. In fact, in bold print the notice said, "Do not contact the court about this ticket." And, the document was actually asking him to indicate whether or not he was the person driving the car. If it wasn't him, the document was asking him to indicate the name of the person who actually was driving the car.

Odd. Especially considering the fact that I had received a red-light ticket about a year ago and though the ticket looked much the same I didn't need to indicate that I was the driver, I was allowed to contact the court about my ticket, and it did give me payment information.

So he decided to do some internet research and he stumbled upon something mighty interesting indeed.

According to a very reliable website source (ok so who knows if it's actually reliable but it has a ton of what appears to be well-researched information and it all rings true to what Michael received in the mail, so I feel validated in describing it as reliable) the ticket Michael received in the mail was not a ticket at all. It was a fake ticket or a "snitch ticket".

You see, apparently, the picture that they nabbed of Michael was too blurry for it to hold up in a court of law. So, our local police department sent him this very official looking paper telling him that he needed to confirm that it is, in fact, a picture of him driving the car and running that red-light. And, if it's not him, they are asking him to supply them with the name of the person who is, in fact, driving the car.

Sounds a bit sneaky, eh?

According to this reliable website, legally Michael does not have to respond to this notice. Because, the vast majority of people look at this official looking notice from the police department, believe that they must SNITCH on themselves, and send the paper back confirming that is in fact them driving the car the police department then has enough evidence to send that picture to the court and turn it into a real bonafide ticket.

However, if you never write back and say, "yes, officer, that is indeed me running that red-light" they can't actually do anything about it. BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO EVIDENCE. (or, at least, the evidence that they have will not stand up in court which is why they didn't send a real ticket in the first place!)

According to the website, the police do not have any legal follow-up on the "snitch" tickets because they are so effective. I mean, if you get a letter from the police department you pay attention. Am I right or am I right?

Interesting, wouldn't you say?

Interesting indeed.

Yes... so my husband is officially the luckiest person in the world. And, the next time I feel like running a red-light I'm just going to put my hand up over my face so they can't get a good picture of me.

Just kidding.
Maybe. ;)

Question Marks

Something I have thought about a couple of times but have failed to mention both outloud and in my blog is how grateful I am to be spending this holiday season.... with my hubby.

I wasn't really expecting it, but Christmas without him last year was rather hard on me.

And since all signs seem to be pointing to a year-long upcoming deployment, it appears as though we are going to have to endure another holiday season apart next year.

I've been putting all thought about said upcoming deployment out of my mind for as long as possible, but with all the downtime I've had lately it keeps pushing its way into my brain.

Once again, my future is a mystery.

The questions that have been plaguing me lately are as follows:
*Will Michael leave in March or April?
*When will we be able to schedule a trip East to visit my soon-to-be nephew?
*Will he deploy for a year or 6 months?
*If he deploys for a year will I stay in San Diego or head East?
*If I head East who will watch over our house while I'm gone?
*If I head East who will take the roadtrip with me?
*Should I pursue my Masters Degree while he's gone or get some temporary job?
and last but certainly not least,
*Am I Ever going to get PREGNANT?!
**And.. if I do get pregnant before he leaves that just leads me to an entirely different and more complex list of questions to ponder.

The thing about all of these questions/dilemmas is that I simply have to wait to find out. It's impossible to know when the Marine Corps will give Michael his departure date. And nothing has been written in stone about the length of the deployment, but Michael just keeps telling me to plan for a year b/c then 6 months will be a pleasant surprise.

If I get pregnant I get pregnant; if I don't I don't. I've already pretty much just decided it's not going to happen. I mean working with a time limit is certainly not the best circumstances for this kind of thing. And I figure that as far as that goes, things are going to happen how they're meant to. If it doesn't happen in the next couple of months then it wasn't meant to be. period.

And, as far as the rest of my questions are concerned, these are not things that need to be figured out today... or even before he deploys. I can't go anywhere or do anything before the end of the school year anyway... and I've pretty much decided that I want to stick around here until the end of the summer no matter what so as not to put a good pool restoration to waste.

Everything else will happen as it will; I know this. Most of the time I'm okay with it, too. It's just that every now and then I get to thinking about all of the question marks hanging in the air and it starts to drive me a bit mad.

One thing I know for sure, though, is that all of my current question marks will be answered one way or another in the year 2010.

So now I feel I must apologize b/c I set out to attempt an upbeat/happy/thankful post and ended up burdening you all with my anxieties about the coming year.

Despite appearances, I am very excited about the new year. I swear! I am! I have always loved the anticipation of the new year... all of the mystery that a new year brings. There's no way of telling what will happen this year - what I will be able to look back on a year from now. It's intriguing, the mystery of it all.


In case I don't have a chance to stop in again between now and January 1, I wish you all an incredible 2010. Thanks for stopping by every now and then and withstanding my random ranting and rambling.

In closing, I will leave you with my absolute favorite and totally appropriate for this post quote:

Blessed are the flexible for they will not be broken.

Amen.