Hit and run

Brittanie stopped at the Burger King in Gaston on her way to class last night and while waiting for a car to pass so she could back out, she felt her car move. The car she was waiting on to drive past her hit her and hit the gas and tore out of the parking lot. Luckily he wasn't going too fast so there is only a long scratch on her bumper but it is still annoying because that is a new car!! Brittanie was afraid to be late for class so she left and called me. I told her to get her butt back to Burger King and file a police report. I went and met her up there. It took a long time for county to show up and all he did was hand her a blank form to fill out and he left. All that waiting for a blank form that she doesn't even turn into the police. Basically the guy who did it gets off scott free! grrrr

On a brighter note, I got an email from my father-in-law with pictures that he took the weekend after Thanksgiving. Katie spent the weekend with them and they took her to Hollywild. The pictures were cute but there was one that I really loved. Katie hates birds as much as I do...even the fake one. Check out the look on her face!

I got permission!

Instead of putting them in the other post, I decided to just create a whole new post.

Jessica was lip syncing while Red was singing and she was texting at the same time. She was making me laugh.

Finally back to normal

Last week was something else! Everybody was home because of the MLK holiday. Tuesday, Katie didn't have school because of the dusting of snow. Wednesday, she went back to school. Thursday, she came down with a stomach virus and didn't go to school Thursday or Friday. We thought by Friday night she was back to normal but it started again Saturday morning. Zofran is awesome though and was able to stop it from being worse than it was.

Friday night, my friend, Jenn, invited me to a seafood restaurant in Irmo named Catch 22 to see her husband, Red, sing and play the guitar. So Jessica, Brittanie, and Randy went with me. We had a great time. I had never eaten there before. I had the gulf shrimp platter and there were ALOT of shrimp on that plate. I didn't count but I bet there were 2 dozen! I brought half of them home. They were delicious! As for the entertainment, I always knew Red was talented but when he sang Johnny Cash, I was amazed!! He sounded just like him. Jessica went outside to take a phone call and she heard people that were leaving say "That guy sounds just like the people he is imitating!" They are right. He is awesome. He performs there every Thursday night. So if you want good food and good entertainment, check out Catch 22 on Thursday nights. Here are some pictures I took that night. (I have pictures and a video of Red but I'm waiting to get permission from Jenn before I post them.) Saturday, Tom installed Jessica's satellite receiver upstairs and moved our receiver into Brittanie's room. We don't watch TV in our room. I like to have it on for the light and a little bit of noise. This house creeks at night and gives me the heebie jeebies. The TV drowns out that creeking sound. So Tom set it up so that our TV will run off of Katie's tuner and we can still change channels on her receiver from our room. Well after he finished the install, he took a shower and didn't feel so hot. We thought he was getting the virus too. He went to bed at 7pm! Everything was back to normal on Sunday. Tom played Madden 09 on his PS3 then went outside with Katie to let her fly the jet Jonathan bought her for Christmas. Katie evidently had messed with the jet after we told her millions of times to leave it alone. Tom had put it charging and she removed it from the charger without us knowing. So when Tom said he would take her out to fly it because it should be fully charged, she paniced. She knew that she had removed it from the charger. So she insisted on putting it charging. Tom told her to leave it alone because it was charged. But she was like a child possessed! She HAD to get that thing charged so she wouldn't get in trouble. Well in her haste to plug in the charger, she broke the end of the wire that goes into the jet to charge it. That's when she had a meltdown! She was sobbing. Her body was shaking and everything. She was so upset that she broke her jet. Tom told her that they could go outside and use the charge that was in the jet and that would be it because she broke it. So they went outside and within a minute were back in the house. The jet was dead. She had removed the charger before it got any charge in it. So she came running back in the house sobbing again and told me that Jonathan wasn't going to like her anymore because she broke her jet and she loved him and her jet. I have to admit that I teared up seeing her so upset. I assured her Jonathan loved her and he wouldn't be mad at her and will always love her. But she was unconsolable. Tom (who was nicknamed MacGyver when we lived in Louisiana) did something and was able to do something to the wire to get it to hold a charge. So they went outside to fly it and Tom underestimated the wind speed and the jet ended up across the street in our neighbor's tree....way up high. Tom went over and asked the neighbor if he could try to get it. He tried but it is too high. So it is still in the neighbor's tree. Katie didn't cry about that. We are hoping it will come loose soon and fall, if not on the ground, at least lower in the tree so we can get it.

Oh! And for the record, despite what former councilman Dowd says, most Gaston people are smart enough to push a button on a voting machine. His comment really angered me when I read it on Wach.com.

Thankfully my mom has satellite or this would be her!

Please pray for my family

Saturday night, my cousin, Jim, lost his wife, Yvonne. They were all at the camp and Yvonne decided she wanted to go home instead of spending the night. She was supposed to call Jim and let him know when she made it home. He never heard from her so he tried calling her and got no answer. He was at the camp with his brother, Jr. and his wife and their son, Brian. When they couldn't reach Yvonne by phone, they all hopped in the car and went looking for her. They didn't have to go far and they found her Jeep crashed into a tree, after having flipped at least once. The paramedics were able to resuscitate her on the scene but she died shortly after getting her to the hospital. Jim and Yvonne lost their youngest daughter, Sadie, a couple of years ago the same way. She was 22.

Jim is the son of my godmother (we call them Nanny), who is also my daddy's sister. She is 81 years old and didn't handle Sadie's death well. This is not going to be easy for her or anyone either. Everyone loved Yvonne.

Please pray for them during this extremely difficult time.

Classes in full swing

Brittanie has now gone to all 5 of her classes. Her first impression of her political government professor was positive but we looked him up on www.rateyourprofessors.com and the consensus is that he is very liberal and you have to be a hardcore democrat to like him. That's definitely going to be a problem. I told her to just keep quiet and do her classwork and keep her opinions to herself. But this is our child. I'm not holding out much hope on that.

Her macroeconomics class seems like it will be more interesting than her econ class in high school, which she HATED. She likes her psychology professor. She wasn't impressed with the lack of structure and discipline in her computer class. Basically he told the class that if they only took this class as an easy A class and they know all of what he is going to teach, then he doesn't care if they leave early and play on myspace and facebook during class. He also told them they can take calls on their cell phone during class as long as they walk out. They are allowed to text and even bring their children to class if need be. Brittanie doesn't like kids so this isn't going to fly with her. She told me if someone brings a kid to class and he allows it, she is reporting it. She said she paid tuition to take that class and she doesn't want it interrupted by little kids. I have to admit, I'm with her on that one. I can't imagine having Katie in a class with me for an hour and a half and getting anything out of it. I had been picking at her before she went to class about that class being full of old people. She didn't believe me. I was right. She texted me in class and told me she was the youngest person there. I told her that younger people could teach that class. Last night they learned how to click a mouse. hahaha

ya just have to laugh

Brittanie was well into her English II class and the electricity went off. So she is going to pick up Katie from school for me and come home. She said "Will anything go right at this place?" Guess we will see! She is going to get Randy and his little brother to go back to campus with her this afternoon to get her books. Hopefully the electricity will be back on by then. But they don't allow you to bring a bag in the bookstore and she doesn't think she can carry all of those books alone. So Randy and his brother will help her get them to her car.

I took a look at her schedule online and she doesn't have a class before 11am ever! She is lucky. I had 8am classes every semester. At LC, I even had a 7am history class. Try staying awake during that boring class, especially at 7am!

FINALLY!!

Brittanie waited till today, like Tech told her to, and her classes were still not reinstated. So she had to go up there and try to register. Records told her they couldn't help her. Advisement told her they couldn't help her. She went back to Records and they told her to go to the Robinson building. So she went to the Robinson building and they told her they couldn't help her because they were only doing Drop/Add to existing schedules. While she was on her way to Robinson, I called up there and wanted to talk to someone I could chew out about this situation. I was sent to voice mail. So I started thinking and remembered the team mom of one of Brittanie's 8 and under all star softball team works there. So I looked her up and asked her if she could help. She went to Advisement to see what she could find out. Brittanie called me to tell me that Robinson was a bust so I told her to head to the student center and meet Mrs. Ginger at Advisement. Before she got there, Ginger called her to tell her the woman in Advisement didn't know what to tell her so she needed to go back to Records. About this time, I got a call back from the woman for whom I left a voice mail. She told me she was at the Beltline campus and couldn't help me but gave me the name of a woman at Brittanie's campus that could help. So I looked up her number and called her. By this time, I was NOT happy. It should NOT be this hard to transfer!!! The woman told me to tell Brittanie to come see her and gave me her room number. So that's what I did. The woman looked up classes that Brittanie could take that would transfer to USC in the fall and had openings, gave her a paper with the information she needed to register for these classes and sent her somewhere else. When she got there, there were 30 people in line and only 2 attendants helping them. But after 2 1/2 hours of running all over creation, she FINALLY got a schedule! It was 10:30am and her first class started at 11. So she ran in the bookstore to get books for her class. The bookstore was packed out! So she went to a vending machine to get something to eat because she has two classes back to back from 11:00 to 2:10 and she was already hungry and knew she would be starving by 2:10.

Her first class was Political Science. She has an East Indian teacher, who thankfully doesn't have an accent. She was very impressed. The way he disciplines is by handing out absences. If you are late, you don't get a tardy, you get an absence. If he sees your cell phone in class, you get an absence. If you miss a day....no matter what the reason....that is an absence. After 4 absences, you are kicked out of the class. He told them that last semester he started with a class of 30 and only 7 finished. Brittanie will be fine. She thrives on discipline. Even as a kid, she used to make up rules for herself. She was quite excited listening to him discuss current political issues. Her teacher gives extra credit for attending functions outside of class. He gave them a list of events and the first one is on the 27th of this month. It is a rally outside the statehouse to protest Mark Sanford cutting funding to colleges and lottery scholarships in South Carolina. She said unless she is working by then, she will be there.

So hopefully this will be a matter of a bad beginning being a great ending. She is in English II right now. I hope she has the same good experience in the rest of her classes that she had in Political Science.

Think the economy is bad?

If you think our economy is bad, you should take a peek at our future leaders. I have been watching a show on TruTV called "The Principal's Office" and while I find it very funny, it is also scary to think this generation is going to be in charge one day! If you haven't seen it, you should really check it out. I don't know what they are paid but it can't possibly be enough to put up with these kids!

It comes on at 10 and 10:30pm Eastern time on TruTV. Check it if you need a good laugh.

update

Brittanie went to Financial Aid and they told her that her scholarship was there so they don't know why her schedule was dropped. They called Records to ask that the schedule she created yesterday be reinstated. She was told that they will try to get to it within the next couple of days. If they don't, she will have to register on Monday. MONDAY! She is supposed to start classes on Monday! This is ridiculous. They are going to see one angry woman if they mess around and she can't take classes next semester because they dropped the ball.

How hard is your job?

There is a line from one of our favorite movies that hits close to home today. "How hard is your job???" Brittanie made 4 trips to Tech yesterday to register for classes. This morning I got up and checked her class schedule to see what books she will need for those classes and guess what! The schedule was gone. Tom told me last night that his boss told him that there will be classes opening up today because if your bill isn't paid by midnight last night, they drop your schedule. That's what they did to Brittanie....dropped her schedule. The problem is that we don't have a bill to pay. Her LIFE scholarship covers everything....with money to spare even! I called Tech to find out what was going on. They told me they aren't showing her credit hours from USC Sumter or her LIFE Scholarship in their system. Well they have her high school transcript, which shows she was awarded the LIFE scholarship. Brittanie hand delivered the official transcript from USC Sumter, which shows she made the grades to keep that scholarship. So all they had to do was key it in. How hard is that??? But it wasn't done so all of those trips to Tech yesterday was for nothing.

I talked to someone in Financial Aid at Tech and she told me that the person that handles the LIFE Scholarship isn't in and won't be in till between 8:30 and 9 but she will email her about Brittanie and I can call her back at noon to check on the status. HELLO???? She starts classes Monday!!!! We don't have time to do this at a leisurely pace. She has to get her schedule redone and her books bought. So I sent Brittanie back to Tech and told her not to leave until she has a piece of paper in her hand that says she has credits from Sumter, a LIFE Scholarship, and a class schedule!

What I want to know is are they not used to getting transfer students?? How hard is this? We are totally frustrated and annoyed with all of this. USC couldn't send her transcript until her final grades were in and an official transcript created. So they didn't send her transcript until December 23rd. Tech was closed for 2 weeks during Christmas. So I called on their first day back, January 5th to make sure they received that transcript. They told me they did not receive it. USC said they sent it so I had to pay to get another one and hand deliver it. What was the point of hand delivering it if they weren't going to put it in the system?

It has been one thing after another in Brittanie's freshman year. I hope her last three years of college go smoother than this one! grrrrr

playing catch up

My mom is still here so I can't update very often because she pouts when I open my laptop. But she is in bed right now, so I'm taking this opportunity to update my blog.

Mom has been here since December 7th and there is never a dull moment. Take four control freaks and add another older and more set in her ways control freak and that is what our house has been like. Tom and I raised our girls to be independent and do things for themselves. My mom is not used to that at all. The problem is that Brittanie was 6 when we moved to SC and Katie only goes there twice a year. So to my mom, time stands still and she still compares Brittanie to the 6-year-old she once was and thinks Katie is a baby. Neither is true and both of my girls resent being babied. They consider it a personal insult. My mom can't understand that. Brittanie has learned to do the teenaged thing and roll her eyes and leave the room. Katie on the other hand has my mouth and doesn't hold anything back. She has called my mom, who is hard of hearing, "deafness." Today mom asked her a question and Katie looked at me and said "Does she know ANYTHING???" I have told her numerous times that she is being rude and that she needs to stop that. So now when she says something rude, she always follows her statement with "Not to be rude or anything." There is never a dull moment when Miss Mouth is home from school.

As for Brittanie, she paid $8.00 to USC Sumter to have her transcript sent to Midlands Tech at the beginning of December. Tech said they never recieved it. So she had to go to USC in Columbia and get a copy of her transcript to hand deliver to tech and pay an additional $8.00. That was annoying. Before the employee at USC put it in the sealed envelope, she let Brittanie look it over first and she loved seeing "Honor Dean's List" on it! Brittanie went to Tech today for advisement and register for classes. Her "advisor" asked her what classes she wanted to take and didn't know what classes went with her major. Brittanie's USC Sumter advisor luckily knew her job and had already told Brittanie what she needed to take. It is a good thing since the Tech guy was clueless. The line to register on the Tech computers was very long but her advisor told her she could register online. So she came home....ending trip #1 to Tech. When she got here, we picked her classes and hit "Submit" to register and it told her that she couldn't register online. We called Tech and they told her that she can't register without being advised. Brittanie told her that she was advised but couldn't read the guy's handwriting to tell her who it was. Evidently he didn't update the computer that she had been advised and thus it wouldn't let her register for classes. So she had to drive back to Tech and register for classes there. By then, most of the classes she wanted were full and she ended up having to take College Algebra, which she didn't need, but it was one of the very few that would transfer and had an opening. She came home and was VERY upset and scared that her GPA would suffer. (I don't understand that since she was very good in algebra in high school and at USC Sumter but whatever!) That ended trip #2 to Tech today. So I went online and found a computer class that she could take after her karate class at night. I once again tried to register for it online but once again it told me I wasn't allowed to register online. Her advisor had told her they would be there for registration from 1-5. So at 1:30 she headed back to Tech to drop that Algebra class and take the computer class. When she got there, the room where you register was locked. So she went to Admissions to ask them why it was locked and the line was out of the door! She called me, very frustrated, and told me what was going on. So I called Tech, trying to save her from standing in the long line and they told me that registration reopens at 5:30. Thus ending trip #3 to Tech today. She picked up Katie for me and headed home. She was antsy all afternoon because she was scared that other students were able to register online and her computer class would fill up before she would get there. She went back at 5:30 and was able to drop algebra and sign up for her computer class. Ending trip #4 to Tech today. So she is feeling better about her schedule now. She is taking English Composition II, Macroeconomics, General Psychology, Politics and Government, and Intro to Computers. Her classes start January 12th. She has to go back up there tomorrow or Friday to buy her books but other than that, she is ready to start. Her LIFE scholarship has transferred and we are good to go!

On Monday, January 5th, she started taking Karate and kickboxing classes. Without ROTC, she was worried about gaining weight and getting out of shape. So she signed up for a year of classes. She is sore already. She wasn't happy that they made her start all over from a white belt when she was about to be a purple belt when she quit to do cheerleading in 7th grade. But she will just have to work her way back up. She is loving being back in it. Her kickboxing class is to get out some of her stress and frustration. It worked so well that she busted their heavy bag that she was kicking. She kicks like a mule!

Grace is having homecoming this week and have declared this week as "Spirit Week." Katie LOVES Spirit Week! Monday was hat day. Tuesday was nerd day. Wednesday was calorie day (you can bring a snack to school and eat it in class). Tomorrow is the day you wear your favorite team shirt to school. Of course Katie will be in a USC shirt. All she has are short sleeved T-shirts so we will put a black long sleeved shirt under her garnet Gamecock shirt! Friday she will be in school colors and gets to go to the pep rally. She LOVES pep rallies. But she says she doesn't want to be a cheerleader. She wants to take karate so she can kick someone's butt if they hit her. Maybe when she is older. hehehe

We are taking mom home January 16th. We are hoping to have a family crawfish boil on the 17th to celebrate her 78th birthday (which will be the 18th). It is very early in the season for crawfish so we are having to cross our fingers.

One funny thing about having mom here is her amazement at everything Tom does/has. One thing in particular has been a constant source of amusement for us and that is his Madden 09 game on his PS3 played on our high definition big screen TV. She can't tell the difference between the Madden game and a real football game. She also can't understand the techology of it at all....which is really hilarious. She thought that those were real people playing football and Tom was calling the plays for them to run. She thought the people in the stands were real too. I told her that I love Tom and he is a big deal to me, but nobody would assemble a team and organize a game, selling tickets for tons of people to come watch Tom call plays from home (or anywhere else for that matter!). It just wouldn't happen. Tom tried explaining to her that they were programmed players and that everything is computer generated. A few days later, she asked again what the temperature was on the game because it was raining and the players could get sick playing in the rain when it is cold. I told her, once again, that the players weren't real. She said "Ok but the people in the stands are real." "Ummm no mom. Those aren't real either." She said "Ok so just the rain is real." Tom and I both started laughing then and told her no the rain is fake too. She didn't believe us. She thought we were messing with her. I called Brittanie into the living room and asked her if the rain on Tom's game was real. She said "Ummm NO," in a tone like she thought I was a retard. I don't know if we ever convinced mom that the rain was NOT real. But hats off to the Madden programmers for making such a realistic looking game!