Keeping in Teutsch

Merry belated Christmas everyone! I hope you all had a great day with your families. I'll tell you all about our Christmas in just a minute, but first I want to show you Juliette's "Polar Express train ride" at school and our Christmas decorations.

Each year the kindergarteners at Juliette's school have a Polar Express Day where they wear their pajamas, watch the movie, eat popcorn and drink hot chocolate, and then take a train ride. They also had their Christmas party in the middle of all of this, so Matt and I went last Tuesday to help. Matt and I were in charge of helping the kids put together their reindeer food bags. The kids were crazy! Once they got on the "train" they squealed the entire time they rode it. It didn't even bother them that it wasn't an actual train! They had a lot of fun.


Here are our Christmas decorations this year. Pretty much the same as last year except I added two Pinterest-inspired projects: the rag garland and the clothespin card display.




On Saturday, everyone showed up at my parents around Noon and we had our Christmas gathering. Matt and I had decided to not leave town until after we went to Christmas Eve services with my parents at their church. It was a candlelight service and was very nice (Juliette even lit and held her own candle). After that we swung by McDonalds and picked up dinner and Juliette was asleep as soon as she ate. We got home about 10:30 or so because we had to stop a few times for Juliette to throw up...yep, you read that right. Thankfully, it wasn't much and she was fine once I gave her a bath...we think it might have been because of sinus drainage.

Here's what the tree looked like Christmas morning. (The unwrapped stuff is what Santa bought. It looks kinda pitiful, but it's because she got little things that were more expensive, like the Crayola stylus for the Ipad and the Disneyland game for the Xbox.)

Running in to see what Santa bought her.

Matt checking out his stocking.

Juliette digging into her stocking.

Matt being way too excited over slippers.

Juliette showing off her pile o' stuff, which included a Justin Bieber toothbrush that the Tooth Fairy sent via Santa (he left a note saying so).

Juliette modeling her new owl purse. Isn't it so cute?

Juliette, later Christmas morning, playing with the Barbie pool that she got from my sister and her family.

This was the first Christmas that we spent by ourselves and it felt kinda strange (and somewhat unlike Christmas) to be at home. It was kinda nice too, though. Juliette played with all her toys and I cooked lunch (a chicken stuffed with broccoli cheese and rice--from a meat market in town--hashbrown casserole, green bean casserole, and rolls; we brought sweets back from my parents' house) and we just hung out at home all day. Most years on Christmas day, Matt and I have gone to the movies, but we didn't do anything this year. Juliette kept asking why we weren't going anywhere!

Matt's parents were in Florida this year for Christmas so we'll be going back up to North Louisiana this weekend to have Christmas with his family.

Check back later for a 2011 recap and this year, I'm making some New Year's Resolutions and I'm going to share them with you too!

I told you it was going to be busy around here for the rest of the year, so now, I'm going to try to play catch-up.

First things first...Juliette's dance observation. I didn't get any good pictures from it, you know because they are constantly on the move. They spent a lot of time working on basic moves and didn't really do a dance for us. Juliette's cartwheels have gotten a lot better, but she still has trouble getting one of her legs straight. They are doing things differently this year and aren't letting the parents stay in the lobby during lessons (like we could last year; we couldn't see them, but we could hear what was going on) so I have no idea what she is learning and the only thing she constantly wants to practice is her cartwheels. I did get to see what the costumes will look like for her revue this year, and one of them is a bell hop costume and it's so cute! 

Next up was Thanksgiving. We spent it this year with Matt's parents (and then Matt and I left Thanksgiving afternoon for a little trip to Dallas for our 11th anniversary). We tried to take pictures of the grand kids and great grand kids all together for Matt's grandma, but as you can see that didn't really work out. (The babies belong to his cousin Thomas in case you are wondering. His sister Tiersten is sitting in the middle, holding the baby boy. They are ADORABLE!)
 As I said, that afternoon Matt and I went to Dallas for a little anniversary trip that mainly involved shopping. (We usually don't do much shopping on our anniversary trips, and although we had fun, I still prefer going to small towns, staying in a bed and breakfast, and just sightseeing.) We stayed across from the Galleria, so we spent most of Friday morning there. When we first got there that morning, there weren't many people and it was super nice, but by lunch it had gotten packed. We also went to a used book store called Half Price Books (it's a chain) and came back with huge stack of books...like we needed more in this apartment! And we also found this super nice Wal-mart (I didn't think I'd ever say that about a Wal-mart) and, of course, I had to go check out a Target.

(On a side note, I LOVED our hotel room. We stayed at Le Meridien and the hotel room was a junior suite. You can't really see the curtains in this picture but they are white with a black floral design that is repeated all over. They match the wallpaper that was in the bathroom and although I've never been crazy about wallpaper, I loved it. Very modern room, but I didn't feel uncomfortable in it.)

On Saturday, I had two places I wanted to go: 1) IKEA (to get supplies to set up an art corner in Juliette's room) and 2) the Coach Outlet store to pick out my birthday gift. We started out heading to IKEA and once we got there, we started looking for a restaurant close by to eat lunch. That's when we stumbled upon a super nice mall that had a Cheesecake Factory and a Dave and Busters. I wanted Cheesecake Factory; Matt wanted Dave and Busters. If you don't know what Dave and Busters is, it's like a Chuck-E-Cheese for adults. I caved (mainly because I didn't want a huge lunch) and we went to Dave and Busters. A lot of the games were the same thing you'd find at Chuck-E-Cheese, but required a lot more tokens. I wasn't that impressed, but now we can say we've been there. We walked around that mall for a little bit and I was happy to see that they had a Disney store (we don't have one here), so I was able to find the Flynn Rider doll (from Tangled) that we saw one time in Target and have never seen again. (It's been on Juliette's wish list ever since then.) After that, we headed to IKEA (which Matt had been dreading!) and took forever to figure out what I wanted (and then to locate it). By the time we made it to the long checkout line, Matt was not a happy camper! (We may or may not have had a little bit of an argument in there in regards to what section we would find something in.) The final stop was the outlet mall where Coach Outlet is located and it was extremely crowded. It took forever just to get into the parking lot and then when I went in the store, it was packed. They were handing out coupons for an extra 30 percent off your purchase, so I was happy about that, because I'm not so sure I would have bought a purse without the extra discount. It was definitely a splurge, but I had to keep reminding myself that it was a birthday gift and I had the money set aside for it. After that, we drove back (stopping for Mexican along the way) and made it back to Shreveport around 8:30 that night.

I'll stop with the replay of November here, as this is getting long. I'll put up another post with our Christmas card pictures and Christmas decorations, so check back for it.

Remember when I said if UL was chosen to go to a bowl game, Matt said we were going and I said, "We'll see about that." Well, UL is playing at 8 pm tonight in the R+L Carrier Bowl in New Orleans, and we are going. I got us a hotel room for $50 through the name your own price feature on Priceline.com (super excited about that deal), so we'll be staying in NOLA tonight since the game won't be over until at least 11 pm or later. I know people are tailgating there all day today, but we don't know anyone and since we have Juliette with us, we're not leaving until this afternoon. (If we took her tailgating all day, she'd want to crash before we even made it to the game.) It's on TV tonight...hopefully, you won't be seeing me. (I'll be trying my best to avoid the camera!) Geaux Cajuns!

What day is it? Seriously...not kidding...it's been CRAZY busy around here and I blinked and now it's November. What happened to October? October, though, is always the month that flies by because it never fails to be one of the busiest months we have. This year, I have a feeling October thru December is going to end up being a blur.

Since I haven't been blogging much, I'll just make this post even longer and give a little recap of what we've been up to. For the most part for the past few months, Matt has had his nose stuck in a book and we've grown accustomed to him being holed up in the bedroom, but the light at the end of the tunnel FINALLY appeared and he is done taking his comps (short for comprehensive exams)! Yay! Now we're praying that he passed them so he can move on to the final step in this four-year gig. (Even Juliette is praying that "Daddy passes his tests" at every meal time and bed time!) Matt will find out in a week or two if he passed.

I'm in the middle of a busy work season. Last weekend I worked the UL Press booth at the Louisiana Book Festival and tomorrow I'm headed to New Orleans until late Saturday to make sales calls and work our table at the New Orleans Book Fair. I'm looking forward to having my weekends back!

Now, on to the main attraction: Halloween! First up, Juliette's Pumpkin Patch field trip. Comically, Matt and I actually fought over who was going to chaperone it. He wanted to; I wanted to; and I have issues and thought it would look "overbearing" for both of us to go. In the end, I won out. One of the kids' in Juliette's class had both of their parents there, and it didn't seem awkward or weird (or like they were hovering over their child), so I suppose next time we can both go.


On Monday, for Halloween, students were allowed to dress up as something they wanted to be when they grow up. Juliette has not one, but FIVE, future professions she would like to have: mommy, teacher, checker-out (her words; i.e. cashier), food-er (i.e. waitress), and doctor. I saw this doctor's vest in the dollar section at Target, and so that is what she went as. Easy, peasy to put together, since doctors usually just wear khakis and whatever top!

And then, of course, on Halloween night, we took her trick-or-treating. The Housing Department at UL provided candy to the students in the student apartments who wanted to "host" the kids from the family housing apartments for trick-or-treating, so we went over there and literally racked up. Not a lot of the kids from family housing went over there, so they were giving Juliette huge handfuls (or two) of candy and it was all the really good stuff. Her bag got so heavy that we had to carry it home for her. She decided, though, that it just wasn't going to be "right" if we didn't go to some actual houses, so we took her over to our old neighborhood and went to a few houses over there.

We've now made the rounds when it comes to the Toy Story characters, however, Juliette says she wants to be Bullseye next year. Since those aren't sold in stores, I think it's safe to say that won't happen. It was good run, though! :)

We've been quite the UL football fans lately. Yes, this IS the third football season that we have been here, so it's about time we got with the program, bought ourselves some UL shirts, and attended some games! It doesn't hurt either that we're cheering for a team that is 6-1 right now! (Matt says that if UL gets to go to a bowl game, we're going on a road trip to see them. We'll have to see about that!)

The first game we attended this season was against FAU. We went over to the tailgating area and hung out with Matt's cousin and family for a little bit, so we were late getting into the stadium and all the front row seats were taken (which is Juliette's preferred seat since she gets a good view of the cheerleaders and the mascot).

We sat down in one area while Matt went to scout out seats elsewhere and then he texted me to tell me that he found some front row ones. I didn't realize until we got to him WHY there were empty front row seats!
It's because it was right smack in front of FAU's cheerleaders and their owl mascot. (Juliette couldn't resist getting a picture made with him...he was cute!) I have to say I felt conflicted for a little bit there about who I should cheer for because in one ear I was hearing, "Ragin' Cajuns!" and in the other ear I was hearing, "Go Owls!"

We went back this past weekend to another game and this time, we got to sit in the "right" area, and Juliette got a picture with Cayenne.

There is only one more home game, but I will be in New Orleans for work that day so I won't be able to go. Matt and Juliette have plans to attend, though, and to tailgate with Matt's cousin as well. We're having fun cheering for the Ragin' Cajuns, and we are excited to see how their season turns out!

GEAUX CAJUNS!!!

Have you ever gotten in an argument with your doctor and just up and walked out of the exam room? Me either...until yesterday. I've been swinging between being completely embarrassed and appalled at how I reacted (and about clearly not having my emotions under control) and ticked off at the doctor and his extreme lack of professionalism during my office visit. I thought about not sharing this on my blog, but I feel strongly that if someone is doctor shopping and Googles "Dr. Cardinale with Acadiana Women's Group in Lafayette, LA," they need to see this.

It's no secret that we are starting to try for baby #2. (Sorry for the the nitty gritty details of why I was at the doctor, but it's kinda difficult to tell this story without sharing them.) I had my last period on the Pill in early July and saw Dr. Cardinale in mid-July for my yearly check-up. At that time, I told him (like I had the year before when I first saw him) about my medical history and the problems we had getting pregnant with Juliette (and the medicine I took to get pregnant). I told him that based on my past more than likely I wouldn't get my period on my own and asked when I should come back and get the medicine I needed. He told me to give it a couple of months and then come back then. He seemed very laid back about it and never acted like prescribing me the medication would be a problem.

In early August, I got my period on my own, but I haven't had one since then. I decided, since it had been two months, to go ahead and go back to the doctor now since I'm going to be super busy with work over the next few weeks and probably wouldn't be able to get away for a doctor's appointment again until mid-November.

My appointment was for 10:45 am yesterday, and I had to sit in the waiting room until Noon before they called my name. (For the last 15-20 minutes, I was in there by myself...making me wonder if they completely forgot me since I knew they would be closing shortly.) Thankfully, once I got into a room, I didn't have to wait very long at all for the doctor to come in.

I'm not the type to get offended or upset if a doctor doesn't remember me (or remember that he told me to come back) because I know they see a lot of people every day and that it's standard to ask why you are there or what the problem is. It annoyed me a little bit that I had to go back through my entire medical history again (for the third time) when I knew it was there in my chart from the last two times I was there, but I still kept my cool.

I told him that I knew what I needed--a combination of clomid and metformin--but that he was the doctor.... (I just trailed off like that because I didn't want him to think I was trying to tell him what to do.) At first, things were fine, but then after going through my history and typing all the information into the laptop he uses (and me reiterating that clomid by itself didn't work and the only thing that worked last time was taking clomid and metformin together), he looks at me and in a very rude tone says, "I'll give you clomid, but I'm not giving you metformin."

I'd been sitting there for over an hour waiting on my appointment, I had to go back through my entire history (that had already been documented by him twice before), and I had just conveyed to him the horrible experience I had when one doctor prescribed me Clomid for a year straight and it did nothing but leave cysts on my ovaries and one ovary swollen way larger than the other one, so his rude tone and talk of just prescribing clomid set me off. (If you get rude with me, I'm probably going to get rude right back...it's hard for me not to.) So, I asked (in a rude tone), "Why won't you give me the metformin?" I can't remember exactly what he said, but it was basically that he didn't see a reason to and that he didn't know if I had PCOS (in a rude tone; he pretty much never stopped the rude tone after that point). I said, basically, that I had just told him all my history and that I had it, and then he said he needed to see my medical records. I said, "Are you kidding me?" (because shouldn't that have been something he told me almost three months ago when we discussed this...also I was kinda ticked at myself for not thinking forward and just going ahead and getting them myself). The thing is, my prior doctor diagnosed the PCOS and prescribed the metformin in my very first visit, so I'm sitting there both baffled at his reluctance to prescribe it (it's not like I was doctor-shopping for pain pills or something addictive like that) and almost shocked at how incredibly rude he was being. I said, "Fine...we can get the medical records, but I'm telling you already everything that is in them." I asked him how my prior doctor was able to prescribe me metformin so easily and he said, "I'm not going to do something illegal." WHAT? Since when did prescribing metformin and clomid (the standard medications used for those with PCOS to achieve pregnancy) become illegal? I said, "I'm not asking you to do anything illegal...I'm just asking you how my old doctor was able to do that without it being a big deal!"

The order that the remainder of the conversation took place fails me, because I was getting so upset with him and at the same time, I was completely shocked at what was transpiring, but at one point, I know he said something along the lines of "You can't just come in here and tell me what to do. I'm the doctor." I in turn, replied by telling him, (in a much calmer, nicer voice) that I know he is the doctor and that I haven't told him what to do...I was just sharing my history and what worked in the past. At no time did I ever say "you need to do this or give me this"...again, I just said "this worked last time...this didn't work last time." It was quite obvious that he did not appreciate me having an opinion--or a history of successful medicating from a previous doctor--nor did he seem to appreciate me questioning his decision to only prescribe clomid, which I did say I refused to take my itself because of what happened in the past. At one point he said, "You just need to go see a reproductive endocrinologist" and I said, "My insurance doesn't cover infertility." Not until we were both angry at each other did he even say that he would consider prescribing metformin after doing an ultrasound and an infertility work-up. He also at this point pretty much said that he didn't "trust me about my history." When he said that, I told him that if he didn't trust me to tell him the truth that he wouldn't be my doctor. (And I pretty much decided at that point that this doctor-patient relationship was over!) He seemed to chill out for about a minute after that (although I can see how angry that would have made him) to say, "You need an ultrasound and a infertility work-up." I asked, "Will that be covered by my insurance?" (because I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to get stuck with a huge bill, although at this point I didn't see him following through with doing them and I was ready to leave and never come back because it was clear he didn't see this as a doctor-patient relationship in which a real conversation could take place and a patient could have a say-so in their treatment). That's when he said, and I quote, "I DON'T KNOW, AND FRANKLY I DON'T CARE." I got up, grabbed my purse, and as I was opening the door, the only thing I could think to say was, "There is a little thing called social media, and I'm about to blast you on it." (Yeah, I'm SO cool with my comebacks...the absolute dorkiest comeback, I know...I'm embarrassed to attribute it to myself, but it's important that I tell the full story, even the embarrassing parts.)

I walked out of the doctor's office not even stopping to pay my co-pay. (No one was at the window...not sure if I would have stopped, though, if they were. They know where to find me.) I got to my car, and I was shaking and SO mad. I went straight to Target because I had planned to go grocery shopping after the appointment and sat in my car in the parking lot, trying to keep it together (I was NOT going to cry over this jerk) and calm myself down. After about 10 minutes, I was calmer, so I went and did my grocery shopping and came home and told Matt about it. (He mostly sided with me.) On the way home from Target, I did stop by the health food store and get a natural herb that I had been thinking about trying (and that I had already researched extensively). A lot of women with PCOS take it and it has regulated their cycles and enabled them to get pregnant. I usually go more with traditional medicine, but I'm a little turned off by doctors at the moment! (I did eventually calm down enough yesterday to research doctors and have decided to take this herb until after the end of the year for now, and if I need to see the doctor, I'll go in January. The new one I found is a woman, a few years older than me, and I've read some great reviews about her in terms of her relationship with her patients.)

My first thought, before even making it to the car yesterday, was that God was literally slamming shut the door on us in regards to having another child. Is He trying to tell me this isn't the time? Or is He trying to tell me that I need to bite my tongue and keep my emotions in check ? (Don't answer that one!) There might be some of you reading this that think we are absolutely crazy for attempting to bring another child into the world while Matt is in grad school and we are living in a 2-bedroom apartment, but here's the deal: it's now or never. Once Matt graduates and we get settled somewhere (and I find a job and get settled in that job), I will be heading close to 35, and it will have been almost 10 years since Juliette was born, so that's why we want to try and have another one before Matt graduates. (I know I don't owe anyone this explanation, but I thought I'd share why we have come to this decision.)

Although I had a little pity party in the Target parking lot and for that brief time thought we were never going to have another child, now that I'm NOT thinking with my emotions, I really don't think God is trying to close the door on having another child. If he is, it's not going to happen regardless of what we do...and if Juliette is our only child, we'll be okay. I'LL be okay. I'm beyond thankful that we have her.

So, I really want to hear your thoughts on this. Did I overreact? Was I out of line by questioning him? Do you think he was out of line? How would you have reacted?

Matt (nonchalantly): "I hit a person this morning."


Matt: "A person...on a bike."

The company My Memories contacted me recently about doing a giveaway, and I thought it would be great to give this software/program away to one of you guys who doesn't have access to expensive programs like InDesign and Photoshop (and desperately wish you did)! If you aren't a graphic designer and/or trained in those programs, design software can usually be intimidating, but this one is super simple and pretty much allows you to make the things you've always dreamed of being able to create (or is that just me that wishes I knew my way around InDesign and Photoshop better?).

First things first, this program was created for digital scrapbooking, BUT if you aren't a scrapbooker or prefer the good-ol'-fashion style of paper scrapbooking, it still holds an abundance of creative worth for you. If you can think it up, you can probably do it on here...mostly.

Now for some examples of what I threw together using the freebies that came with the program. (There are also freebies on their website that I found after the fact. And I'm itching to buy some of their kits they have for sale. If you aren't familiar with digital scrapbooking, a kit typically includes a variety of paper backgrounds and embellishments--like ribbon, buttons, photo mats, etc--and sometimes an alphabet. Basically everything you would buy if you were doing it by hand, but at a MUCH cheaper price!)

Here we have the "this is a digital scrapbooking program so I kinda need to show a scrapbook layout" example. (I made this the first night I downloaded the program and have learned a lot since then about how to use it, but this giveaway would never take place if I kept tweaking things, so I just left it as it was in its simplistic nature. There is definitely room for improvement, and when I get around to digitally scrapbooking Juliette's first day of kindergarten, I'll be purchasing one of the adorable school kits they have on their site.)




Now, on to the "other" stuff you can design with this, which I'm guessing is what most of you are interested in. Like I said, the ideas are endless and these are just a few:

-- I made Bacon Cheeseburger Roll-up recently. I loved it! Matt said it needed some Tony’s (he says that about everything!) and Juliette, in true fashion, barely touched it. Since I’m the one that cooks, I’ve deemed this recipe a keeper!

-- The Tuesday night before last we went to Buck & Johnny’s for kids’ night (and to use our daily deal voucher). Juliette got to make her own pizza. They brought her the dough, marinara sauce, cheese, and pepperonis to decorate it. They had some kids playing violins and guitar and singing Zydeco music. Juliette was not impressed with them. She took one look and then said, “I can do that. I know how to play violin.” (She thinks this because she has been in the “strings” class at school for these first three weeks.)

-- We finally finished the first book in the Boxcar Children series. Am I the only one that didn’t remember that ending? I seriously thought all this time that they lived in the boxcar forever and ever. We just started the second book last night and the kids are going to spend the summer living in a barn, sleeping on hay, for the summer! Craziness!

-- The Wednesday night before last we had to pick-up our packets and order our shoes for dance. When we got to the studio, a little girl from Juliette’s kindergarten class was walking out. Juliette was so excited to find out that the little girl is going to be in the same dance class as her!

-- Matt finally fixed his shark the Thursday night before last. I was so glad I was going to Bible study that night (my leader cooks for us)! The apartment, though, STILL smelled like fish four days later. Not cool!

-- The housing department put fliers on our doors the Friday of Labor Day weekend about the “tropical activity,” as in Tropical Storm Lee. Their advice: move stuff away from the windows and pick stuff off the floor. Both of which were incredibly unnecessary. Of course, we didn’t do that, but it made me wonder if anyone actually did what they said.

-- Over Labor Day weekend, Juliette and I went to my parents. Matt and I have a “garden party” reception to go to soon for a friend who is getting married in Florida, so Mom, Juliette, and I went dress shopping. I ended up trying on around 15 dresses and getting two that scream “garden party” for $10 each on clearance. I told my mom that I felt like a little girl on Easter Sunday putting them on. (They are white and have flowers on them; I’ve settled on the more floral one now because I couldn’t find shoes to match the other one.) Do you know how hard it is to find summer dresses right now?

-- While trying on dresses, Juliette picked one out for me to try on that she “loved.” It was green and ugly…really ugly. I tried it on just to pacify her and it made me look pregnant. (You know...the type of dress that only pregnant women or super skinny women can wear!) Juliette almost started crying when I put it back…she was not happy that I didn’t like her choice!

-- We have celebrated Juliette’s birthday about four times now. It’s bordering on ridiculous. I sent cupcakes to school on her birthday. That night we took her to Chuck-E-Cheese’s (which is now an annual tradition) and had cookie cake. Over the Labor Day weekend, my sister brought an ice cream cake to my parents for Juliette, and then Saturday we finally had her birthday party. At this point, it felt like it had been ages since her birthday!

-- Matt is studying for his comps (big, big tests) that start two weeks from today. He'll take one a week for four weeks and they are basically comprehensive, meaning he has to know pretty much everything about the areas he is testing in, which are Renaissance Literature, Rhetoric, Early American Literature, and African American Literature. He has not been in a good mood because he is so stressed. (He HAS to pass these tests or he can't proceed any further.) Anyway, yesterday he was in a bad mood and Juliette was jumping around (you know, being a 5-year-old) and he was trying to do something on the computer and he told her to stop and she came over to me and said in a low voice, with her hand over her mouth (almost like she was afraid to say it), "Tell Daddy to chill out!" My thoughts exactly! :)

n

It’s the question everyone is asking today: Where were you? So, I decided to share my story.

Matt and I were living in Englewood, Florida, at the time. He had just quit his job as a youth minister at a church there and we were preparing to move back to Louisiana the next week. I was still attending classes at Florida Gulf Coast University in Ft. Myers (over an hour drive from Englewood), reluctant to resign until we were certain another job wasn’t going to come through for Matt that would allow us to stay until the end of the semester. I was driving to school that morning on I-75, when I heard on the radio station that a plane had flown into the one of the towers of the World Trade Center. The radio DJ didn’t know much, wasn’t sure whether it was an accident or not, and didn’t really have any concrete information. Florida Gulf Coast University was a brand new school and already had smart classrooms back in 2001, so when I walked into my first class that morning the news was turned on and being projected onto the enormous screen at the front of the room. The teacher said she had family in New York, that she didn’t know what the school was doing, but that she was cancelling her classes and she ran out of the room with her phone in her hand. It didn’t take long to figure out from sitting there watching the news what had happened, and knowing that I was more than likely going to be resigning that next week, I went ahead and went home, figuring classes would probably be cancelled. (And they were, like most universities did.) Like everyone else, I spent the rest of that day (and many weeks after it) glued to the TV. It was unbelievable and incredibly sad and a little scary…but being so far removed from the tragedy (in distance and in not knowing anyone involved), it was easy to go about living life. On that day, I never thought my life would intersect with anyone involved in the tragedy.

Ironically, three years later to the day, I was standing in LaGuardia airport in New York City, waiting on my flight out. I had just wrapped up my first media tour with an author that had left me emotionally exhausted more than anything else. (In those three years since 9/11, Matt and I had moved back to Louisiana, I had graduated with my bachelors degree, Matt had just graduated with his masters, and we were living in West Monroe, where I was working as a publicist for Howard Books and Matt was teaching at ULM.) The author was the grieving widow of the co-pilot of the first plane that was flown into the World Trade Center. (He was probably, when you think about it—and I don’t like to—one of the very first victims on 9/11.) While traveling with the author in the week leading up to the third anniversary of 9/11, I found myself having mixed emotions…empathy and sadness for her loss (and the fact that she was still very much in the grieving process); uneasiness over the fact that my job was profiting from her loss (since she wrote a book about it; although, technically, she was profiting to, but you get my point…not trying to make the author sound bad here—the book was part of her grieving process and allowed her to share her story and her strong faith); and frustration over working with someone who wasn’t sure some days if she wanted to talk to the media about her loss. (Which was understandable, but as a book publicist I was very much torn between doing my job and pushing her to finish what she started and as a caring individual protecting her from the media. I didn’t like being in that situation! There were still a lot of raw emotions, and I felt like a degree in psychology would have been helpful to get through that time.)

I was glad to have the experience behind me when it was over (and it helped me immensely in dealing with future authors who wrote books about their losses). As uncomfortable as I was with the situation, though, working with that author put a face on 9/11. I needed that! Although I was saddened by the situation and would cry sometimes when watching some of the heartbreaking stories on TV, it was still easy to push those temporary emotions aside because I didn’t know the people affected. My day-to-day life didn’t change, and aside from stricter airport security, it still hasn’t, but having a face on 9/11 helps give me a little more sympathy and compassion, helps me to not so quickly “forget” when national tragedies happen.

Every 9/11, I think about that author, and I probably always will. That book promotion was the toughest one I’ve ever done, but I need to remember the emotions, the author and her courage to tell her story…I need to remember that there are nearly 3,000 other families just like hers. I need to remember 9/11.

This past Wednesday was Juliette's 5th birthday. We celebrated by going to Chuck-E-Cheese's, as we have for the past two birthdays as well. (We'll be having a birthday party for her after Labor Day down here.) She was so excited to turn 5!

I can't believe how fast the years are going by and I'd now like to stop time!
Hopefully the next five years will go by much slower!

With Juliette starting kindergarten, the problem/question of what to pack for her school lunch on the days when the cafeteria is serving food she doesn't eat has been on my mind a lot. I'm all about being organized. I love lists, charts, planners, any organizational tools. So I was over-the-top excited when I ran across these printable charts on Martha Stewart's website to put together a magnetic lunch chart.
First, though, I had to brainstorm some ideas on what to pack (especially since Juliette doesn't really eat sandwiches) and I used Martha's chart to guide me by making a list based off the symbols she used: sandwiches (or in our case, main dish); fruits; side items; and desserts.

In case you are looking for ideas, here's what we'll be packing this year:
--The Orange Row (main dishes): cheese quesadillas, mac & cheese in her new Hello Kitty thermos, turkey roll-ups (turkey rolled up), diced ham, grilled cheese sandwich, grilled chicken (she would eat that cold/lukewarm), yogurt, and diced cheese to go with the cold meats
--The Green Row (fruit): apple slices, strawberries, grapes, applesauce squeezer, raisins, peaches, mandarin oranges, banana
--The Blue Row (side items): pretzels, chips, granola bar, cereal bar, goldfish, crackers
--The Red Row (dessert/snack item): cookie, chocolate chips, yogurt covered raisins, granola bar (if not eating as side item), muffin

I also made magnets to use when she is going to buy her lunch at school. If you want to use these print outs, just go to the link above, print out the chart, and then open the page with the colored squares, type right on the squares, and print them out. Then buy some magnetic paper or magnetic strips, cut out your squares, and affix them to the sticky side of the magnets. I made ours smaller so that we could fit multiple things on one day. (For instance, Juliette doesn't like any raw vegetables, but if you child does, you could put those on the fruit row as well, so you'd need to cut your squares smaller so you could have room for both a fruit and a veggie in that square.) We taped our chart to the front of our fridge and are storing our extra magnets on the side. If you have a stainless steel refrigerator and don't have access to the sides of it, then I suggest making a magnetic board (or buying one) to hang in your kitchen (or inside your pantry or a cabinet door). You can Google how to make those.
Hope this little organizational chart helps take the headache out of fixing school lunches! Too bad it can't help me teach Juliette to eat faster...she only had time to eat her cheese quesadilla today and ate the rest of her lunch when she got home. I'm sure she'll learn!