Thursday, August 26, 2010

The Start of a New Chapter

My sister and I are 7 1/2 years apart. We each had our "only child" moments, and have just recently started getting along and seeing "eye to eye" on things. She is not shy about her struggle with finding a balanced mental health. It seems that mental health issues run in our family and unfortunately, she battles them. I have known for a long time that she needed a change. Not just a little change, but a HUGE change.

Her change has come. She has accepted a job at University of South Carolina (Beaufort). She begins her new job September 7, and while I couldn't be happier for her, part of me is sad. Do you know how far it is from my house to Beaufort, South Carolina? 850+ miles. I am truly happy for her. It also eases my mind to know that she will be in the same city as our Dad and he can help her get acclimated to her new town. Maybe part of my sadness is jealousy.

She has always been a bit of a free spirit, not afraid to move around. Heck, I bought a house 2 miles from where I grew up! Heck, my house is laid out just like my childhood home. Guess I don't do change well. She has lived in California, Indiana, and Michigan. I wish I could be as independent as she is.

I started wondering if Ayron and I could just up and move. He thinks we could, I think it would be a struggle! I would miss too many "silly" things about Auburn.

1.) Pizza King (Tyler and Nat, start drooling now).

2.) DeBrands (Although it is a Ft. Wayne thing, it's still delicious).

3.) Casa Salad (I recently got Nat hooked on it....wait, why are my first 3 things food related?)

4.) Sledding down the big hill at Smith Acres.

5.) Seeing all the classic cars rolling through Auburn around Labor Day.

6.) Seeing Santa's "Chalet" parked by the Auburn Pool during the "off season."

7.) DeKalb County Free Fall Fair

8.) Cricket Burgers

9.) Bread Basket

10.) Running into former teachers who still remember my name

11.) Martha's Popcorn (While it is good the next morning, I'm pretty sure it would get really soggy during shipping.

12.) Hearing the "dueling" church bells on a Sunday morning (I live between the Methodist and Catholic churches).

13.) Screaming at the idiots that can't navigate the "mound" in Angola (yes, I really would miss this).

14.) Silly "Mid-West" festivals (Picklefest, Marshmallow Days, etc).

15.) Snow days (as a teacher, they mean a paid day off! You don't get too many snow days in SC).

Our hometown is "small" in the eyes of most people. Perhaps a bit to conservative for some. I still think I'd miss it if I had the ambition to move away. I wish her the best of luck and hope she gets an apartment big enough for all of us to stay when we come down for vacations!

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

First Assignment

So I just got an email from my professor (I am taking an online Lit. course) concerning my first assignment. We were to read one of his papers about murder and then list 5 facts. I assumed that the wanted some thought put into our 5 things. I was wrong.

I was scolded for putting too much effort into my assignment and for using examples. The two examples I used were cited straight from the paper he had us read. He told me that while I over thought the assignment, he will give me full credit anyways. Really? Well thanks for giving me credit for actually putting some thought into my work!

I find it hard to believe that he really only wanted me to list five random facts from his paper. Really? I know I am taking the class at an "undergrad" level, but I thought most college professors enjoyed when students put some thought into their work. If I listed five facts back to him, what does that show? My ability to skim his 10 page paper and pick random things to regurgitate back to him? God forbid I respond like the college educated student that I am!

I was not looking forward to interpreting next weeks Poe assignments, but apparently I shouldn't think too hard about it!

Come See Chad Beach

Do you know who Chad Beach is? Ever wondered if a blind person could be an auctioneer? The answer is YES!

Classical Event Auctions is proud to announce that Chad Beach will be one of our auctioneers. As far as we know, Chad is the only blind licensed auctioneer. His is awesome at what he does and entertaining as well. Here are two videos put together by Repperts School of Auctioneering from their Spring 2010 class (the class that Ayron graduated with). Check Chad out, and if you look carefully, you will spot Ayron!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3S8pCjP6PY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuhfuey5-sU

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Classical Event Auctions

That's right folks, another Labor Day Weekend in Auburn Indiana is fast approaching. We invite you to come check out Classical Events "Auburn Classic" auction on September 3, 4, and 5th. We will be located across from DeKalb High School at the CCC. Auburn's very own locally owned and operated AND family friendly auction! Kids get in free (with paid adult admission). Not sure if you want to be a bidder? Sign up anyway, our bidder registration is FREE! We have also partnered with a financial company to insure prompt payment to all our consignors!

In this years auction we have some rare memorabilia as well as rare and classic cars. We have several rare animal mounts and have buyers from all over the United States coming to place their bid on such items like our full body mounted polar bear and Jonas Brothers (no, not the boy band) Cape Buffalo head mount. We also have several rare Jade sculptures and rare paintings up for auction as well.

Our list of cars will please the young and old alike. With such rare cars as the 1970 Plymouth Hemi Cuda or the 1951 Studebaker Champion. We also have several other Cudas rolling across our auction block. Are you a Corvette lover? We have those too.

Are fast cars more your thing? How about 4 Ferrari's, with 3 of them selling at "no reserve" and the other 2 valued over a million dollars? We will also have an original Duesenberg up for auction.

Duesenberg lovers listen up! Classical Event Auctions is a proud sponsor of the Dusenberg Drag Races. We have worked with the ACD board from the start to arrange this awesome and record breaking one of a kind event. All of the participating Duesenbergs will roll across our block on Friday afternoon. After we inspect and number the cars, our coloring contest winners will be escorted to their Duesenbergs and we will send them on their way to a once in a life time ride in a classic car. Our contest winners, along with Mayor Norm Yoder and Mayor Suzanne Handshoe, will ride in the Duesenberg "Parade" from our auction site to the Kendallville Airport. The Airport will be shut down for the 1st running of the Duesenberg Drag Races. Classical Event Auctions is a proud sponsor of the races and sponsors of a lane! We are closing down our auction on Friday afternoon so that ALL can enjoy this once in a lifetime event.

Check out our website (please keep in mind it is a work in progress). New consignments are being added daily. We are constantly working to update our website and have several cars consigned that are not on the website yet. If you are looking to consign, our website allows you to do it all yourself, or just simply call Ayron Reeves and he can enter it all for you!

Come out and support Auburn's very own locally owned, customer focused, and family friendly auction!!!

Friday, August 20, 2010

10 Years

This fall ABC will be premiering a show called "My Generation." I saw a preview for the show last night and this is what I pulled off of ABC's website.

"What a difference ten years can make. In 2000, a documentary crew follows a disparate group of high schoolers from Greenbelt High School in Austin, TX as they prepare for graduation, then revisits these former classmates ten years later as they return home to rediscover that just because they're not where they planned doesn't mean they're not right where they need to be.

These students couldn't wait to graduate and head out into the real world. But the world they were entering got very real very fast. As these classmates return home to revisit their old hopes for their future, they'll discover that, even if you don't get exactly what you thought you wanted out of life, it's not too late to get what you need."
I know that it wasn't really a true "documentary." Heck, the site has the cast (there's the magic word) listed with their real names next to the character's (another magic word) names.
It got me thinking. This summer I will have been out of school for 10 years. I can't help but wonder where we all ended up. Sure we are all on each other's facebook "friends list." I think most of us "friend" each other out of curiosity. I know that I am not where I thought I'd be 10 years after graduation! Heck, up until January of my senior year I was planning on NROTC at Purdue. Thought the Navy would give me a chance to see the world. Then I thought I would just travel and see where life took me. I certainly didn't expect to be married, living 1 mile from where I grew up, getting ready for child #2. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my life. I just never thought it would actually happen for me.
The other day I was driving past a cemetery where a classmate was recently buried. I saw another classmate wandering the cemetery obviously looking for our passed classmates grave. I thought to myself, "Odd. I never saw those two ever hang out in high school." 10 years ago, neither one of those people would have predicted that they are where they are now. The one classmate certainly didn't plan to die. I am pretty sure the other one hadn't planned on scouring the cemetery for a dead classmates grave.
10 years seems like such a long and short amount of time. I think a lot of my classmates grew up (by that I mean "matured). But I know that several haven't. I have to wonder when that group will realize that staying out till all hours of the night getting drunk in dark bars is not the true sign of adulthood. Will they ever grow up, who knows. All I know is that I never pictured myself where I am now.

Adventures in Sleepwalking

For the past couple months, TJ has been having nightmares. He will randomly wake up crying and screaming and we have to fight to get him back to sleep.

Last night opened a new chapter in our bedtime drama....sleepwalking. I woke Ayron up at 2:30 because I could hear TJ talking in his room. Ayron went into TJ's bedroom and found him wandering around the room looking lost. Ayron picked him up, and tried to understand what TJ was saying, but couldn't figure it out. TJ began to whimper, so Ayron brought him into our room. When Ayron put him on the bed and told him to crawl over by me, TJ proceeded to crawl into the wall, at least 3 times. Progressively harder each time. He hit his head every time and seemed to grow more frustrated. The last "head met wall" incident caused the dog to stir and bark (he thought someone was outside) and it rattled the pictures hung on the other side of the wall. We had to fight with the sleeping TJ to get him to lay down. I ended up wrapping him in his blanket and then pinning him in between Ayron and I. We kept him in our bed until we realized that he had finally truly woken up and realized he was safe. He easily went back to his bed at that point and slept until 9 this morning.

I am not surprised that he is a sleepwalker. Ayron was, I was too. Heck my sister once left the house and attempted to climb the front tree in her sleep. I always remember my mom asking me if I had to go potty. She would take me into the bathroom, make me sit on the toilet. Then she would tell me to go to bed. They finally linked mine back to caffeine consumption late in the day. Once they stopped that, my sleepwalking diminished. I once read that sleepwalkers are often looking for the bathroom. Seeing as how TJ hates his potty chair, I am assuming that theory doesn't hold true for last nights events.

Ayron once "awoke" in the middle of the night, grabbed my arms and pinned me to the bed and screamed, "WHAT IS YOUR LOT NUMBER?!" This was during a stressful auction at Kruse. I was terrified. What the heck was I gonna do against a sleeping (yet partially awake) man who is a foot taller than me and weighs 340lbs? I quickly said a random number. That seemed to appease the dreaming Ayron and he rolled over and went back to bed. He doesn't remember this incident. I have caught him auctioning in his sleep a couple of times too.

So what do I do with TJ? Isn't there some old rule about "Never waking a sleepwalker"? He was just so determined and it took both of us to pin him down and prevent him from actually denting the wall with his head. I have to wonder if he woke up with a headache this morning. As I think about last evening, he didn't witness anything scary. We had dinner with friends, walked around a car show, had some more friends over, and he went to bed.

What's the best way to handle a sleepwalker who is only 2 1/2 years old?

Working Mom

I have been asked a couple of times now, "Since you are pregnant with number 2, are you going to quit your job?" Um, no! Why should I? I am tired of be made to feel like crap because I have chosen to be a working mom.

What is wrong with being a working mom? My husband is a stay at home father (his current job allows him to work from home 75% of the time), so it's not like my children will be spending 12 hours a day in daycare. When we do need a sitter, it is usually a grandparent or my best friend who will watch them. I grew up in a household with a working Mother. So did my mother. Millions of kids have grown in in homes where the mother worked outside of the homes. Those people are no more "worse off."

If we could financially afford it, I might chose to stay home for awhile, but I like having my own identity aside from being TJ's "Mommy." I was Carma long before TJ came along and I will be Carma long after TJ moves out of the house. I shouldn't have to give up my passion and dreams simply because we chose to start a family.

Don't get me wrong, I love my children dearly. I would do anything for them. That being said, it doesn't mean that I don't need a break from TJ/them (come March) periodically. It is nice to come to work for 8 hours a day and not have to worry about changing diapers or hiding "blankie." After work, I love going home and walking into the house and hearing TJ squeal, "MOOOOMMMMYYYY!"

I appreciate the fact that Ayron is currently able to work from home. That he is so patient and kind with TJ. I also can realize that when I get home, Ayron needs a break from being "TJ's Daddy" so he can just be Ayron.

Do I wish at times that I could stay at home, sure. Think of all the little things I could cross off my "to do" list. The office might finally get cleaned. The closet would get organized. I could scrapbook some of TJ's pictures. We could have more play dates with TJ's friends. But I like having my "adult time" at work. Even if I do work with juvenile delinquents, at least I don't have to change their diaper.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

What Were They Thinking?

Every looked at a child's artwork and wondered what the heck it was? Ever done it to an adult's craft project? This link was posted on my facebook wall by my sister. It's especially entertaining for me because my Mom is an avid knitter, and yet I can NEVER see her attempting this project.

Check this out! Ok, really? Whose idea was this? Why does the "baby" look like a starving monkey? Who is going to pay $225 for this? I didn't know yarn needed to have a fleshy feel.

This is what really got me: "This uterus has a drawstring cervix to demonstrate dilation, also perfect to show the head crowning and baby passing through." Ok, what child needs to see a demonstration of crowning? My youngest niece was accidentally let into my delivery room as I was crowing and she saw it and ran out of the room traumatized. I am not sure that using this knitted contraption would have lessened her trauma.

The comments left by people are both humorous and crude. It just blows my mind that someone thought to create this pattern AND actually follow through with knitting it. Really? Did you have nothing better to do than stand in the yarn store asking the associate, "Which one of these will look the most like a real fleshy placenta?"

Thursday, August 05, 2010

Toddler Truths

If you are a parent of a toddler, check this blog out. It had me laughing out loud. Make sure you read the comments too!!!



http://www.suburbansnapshots.com/2010/06/10-reasons-having-toddler-is-like-being.html