Chela

Tomorrow is my Brother's Chess tournament. Last Chess tournament Hector Won first place and Ruben won second place.Tomorrow I am getting new shoes and a new backpack. My brother Ruben is getting a pair of new shoes and backpack and a folder.In sixteen more days I am getting my glasses. I am farsighted. In our family everybody except Ruben has glasses.My two big teeth in the front and the one close to the two bottom front are wiggling. I wonder when they will come out . One is already out. When I woke up I looked under my pillow and I found one dollar.My class is turning our class room into a jungle.My mom is making spaghettit. Today was the best Day ever but I got a bruise when I touch it , it hurts.


Marisela

Cold going 'round

This is the second day Ruben and I have been sick. I think Chela is coming down with it too. She was soo depressed because today was the day her church group was going to chuck-e-cheese, that and the fact i couldn't give her attention kinda made her a little sad. I have been resting and watching TV all weekend, and Luis had to cook for himself last nite, and Mom is definetly being neglected. Oh well, I guess one can't help being sick. Did anyone here about the big protest Marches yesterday, the ones against new immigration reform? My sister-in-law went. It gives me hope that maybe people will fight to defeat this bill, and maybe they will come up with a more moderate immigration bill that includes an amnesty. I am not going to Lie, I am biased.But still, I think they can toughen the laws to affect terrorism and strengthen the border whil being fair to the millions already here and giving them amnesty. I have been praying for those members of my family who are without papers,and I wish people could see life on a more personal scale. I wish they would have let Lupe, my other sister in law, come here for medical treatments.(She now has terminal liver cancer)I wish they would let my mother -in-law visit, for she is like wonder woman and mother Teresa combined. But, the immigration sees to many cases of too many Mexicans coming over.In order to come over you have to have alot of money in the bank, which nobody has. It is sad. Anyway, I am going to lie down again and get some rest. I send my love out to everyone and hope everyone is well.

G.E.D--->Ghouls Eating Dirt

YAY! I passed my GED! Not that I didn't know I would, of course... But seeing my scores on paper was just so effin' gnarly!

My highest score was on the essay and science (which is funny 'cause the only science I like is biology and there weren't a lot of questions about that). I got over 600 on both of those... My lowest (as expected) was math at 470. BUT WHO CARES?! I PASSED!!!

Tomorrow, when I go back to school, I'll be doing G.E.DPlus(to get my HS diploma) and starting business tech.

YAY!

Love,
Jazzy

G.E.D--->Gross European Dingle-berrys

"s" is for "suck"

I guess my interviewers body language said it all- he just didn't like me. He said if I got the job, they would let me know by Friday, and now it's Sunday and I haven't heard anything. So much for my ticket out of Ruby Tuesday hell...for now.

Go, Sara, Go!

Sara at Southeastern Greyhound Club's inaugural annual coursing event. More pictures of her run here.

She took second place out of eight or ten dogs. Not bad for her first-ever try. If you look at the pictures you will see more than a couple of her with a big ol' smile on her face 'cause she just loved chasing the "bunnies." BTW, the "bunnies" they chase are three white plastic garbage bags tied to a line. The dogs do know they're bags because they're allowed to attack them after the run. They couldn't care less that the bunnies are made by Glad!

jet plane part 2

I had my second interview to be a flight attendant yesterday. The guy didn't seem very impressed with my work history, which really bothered me since all of my previous jobs were when I was a teenager. Just try making your career choices from 17 to 19 years of age sound good. Doesn't the fact that I've had my current job for almost five years count for anything? On the up side, he asked me a series of questions about how I've handled various situations at my job. I noticed that every question he asked was written on the paper he had in front of him, and following every question were the letters SGFP, and he kept circling 'S'. Maybe that means 'satisfactory' and I did good. As long as it doesn't mean 'sucks'.

Little Four Eyes

After Daniel arguing with me for a week that he sees just fine after failing two eye tests at school, I took him to an optometrist Thursday. Of course being a typical young boy he tried to cheat on the exam by spreading his fingers just a bit on the covered eye and straining way forward to read the eye charts. It obviously didn't work. He is wearing glasses now (almost by force) and he looks so cute in them. Thanks goodness eyeware has come a long way since we were kids. Back in the day what little choice you had was between ugly and uglier.

I took the kids to yesterday to visit Manskers Station, a reproduction of a fort from the 1800s. It's pretty close to the original settlement. Only the location varies slightly from the original, and it has less of the individual cabins of the original. It was so cool just seeing how they lived back then. The re-enactors were in historical costumes, and the cabins were accurately furnished in the period. The kids were fascinated by the blacksmith (okay, I was too. I admit it), and of all things a tiny little spring in the fort where they get their water from. I didn't get to chat with the re-enactors much. Daniel did all the talking for me. Even with all the neat stuff to look at, I think the highlight of Lea Anna's day was all the rocks and sticks to pick up.

Lea-vin on a jet plane

Wish me luck...
On Saturday I went to a group interview for flight attendants, and today they called me back for a second interview. I've really come to dislike my job-my coworkers are incredibly lazy, 2/3 of my management staff is incompetent, and my fun job has gone so corporate it's ridiculous. It was so nice to hear the recruiting supervisor talk about his job with a smile on his face. He started out as a flight attendant, so he told us everything we could expect. Aside from the fact that I won't be collecting pay for the first month (which means I will be broke for two) this job seems awesome. I'm praying for this job, and hopefully I'll be flying soon...

Luis' Birthday

So tomorrow Luis is turning forty. I am not sure what we are going to do , but it's going to be low key,especially since he said he didnt really want a big deal being made about it. Ican't beleive we are getting older together. It's been about eight years almost since we have been together. He was the age I am now when we met.Gosh. Time flies

Transmission From My Brain!!!

Hello, Loving Family!

Have you missed me?

Of course you have...

Atlast, I've returned to update you all on the historic events that are my life...

Job Corp is cool and has proven to be beneficial. I have 3 roommates, whom I get along with (despite the fact that they play hip-hop all the time)... At one point one of them waas on my sh** list, but we're now civil to each other, so yeah...

The food doesn't totally suck either. They have good fried fish and even serve tartar sauce with it (even though it looks...ODD it's really tasty). Lately I've been spending time in the Huddle (recreation area). I mostly play air-hockey and watch movies though... Since I know those'll get boring I decided to learn pool... I've only won one game (in the 3 times I've played), but I'm pretty sure it was beginners luck, so I still gotta practice.

I'm still in orientation classes, or "Social Skills Training." I think that I'll be starting Business Tech in a couple of weeks though, which is awesome because I already have social skills...I don't them to teach them to me...

I finished my GED testing this past Thursday... The test was pretty easy. The only hard part was falling asleep afterwards! They gave us soooo much time to finish the test sections that I'd always finish 20 minutes or so ahead of time! It wouldn't have been so bad if they let us READ or SOMETHING, but we COULDN'T!!! The only thing there was to do, was shut up, sit, and stare...at something. Since THAT was boring as hell I'd try to go to sleep (you know, pass the time away...), but it usually took me awhile. By the time I'd fall asleep, I'd only get in about 10 minutes of nap-time and I'd wake up with a pain in my neck.

Even though quite a bit of time has passed, that's pretty much all that's happened. I get my first (sadly, small) check on Monday, so that's something to look forward to I guess...

I love you all!

--Jazzy

PS: Sorry i haven't posted lately... My laptop has no more internet...for now...

Lea Anna's Birthday Pics

The girl in the middle is my niece Jill.

Sick Baby

Lea Anna caught a nasty stomach virus over the weekend. After spending half of Tuesday night in the ER, a trip to the doctors office yesterday, and 11+ hours in the ER again last night into this morning she has finally stopped tossing her cookies and is tearing up her popsicle (pink, of course). The poor little thing was dehydrated and had to get an IV on top of all the usual poking and probing so she was not a happy camper. She also tried a few times in the ER to con Da Da into taking her home and cooking her a "big" egg and toast. This was one time the daddy pleases didn't work. The ER nurse was really nice. After lending Daniel some video games and getting conned out of a roll of medical tape & a few other goodies he made a friend for life. Daniel said he was really cool and wanted him to come home and live with us. I nixed that idea, but at least he latched onto someone who has a job. I can't figure out why he holds a roll of medical tape so near and dear to his heart, but he was frantic this morning when he could not find it.

Sister Louisa

Sister Louisa is "channeled" through a gentleman by the name of Grant Henry, who I first learned of in Hollis Gillespie's columns and books. If there ever was an encouraging example of a life lived humanly, not perfectly, it's Hollis. She's been an Atlanta girl for some time now, but she actually grew up around the South Bay area. I'll tell you right now that her book titles are so irreverent and inappropriate that some of you couldn't bring them in the house because your children would repeat them at school and you'd get a call from the principal. But you will probably find a lot you can identify with in them. To get a taste of Hollis's style, read her column about her outing with her friends, including Grant "Sister Louisa" Henry.

I was pleasantly surprised a week or so ago when I finished my lunch at Octane, my favorite coffee place, and looked up to realize that I was surrounded by "Sister Louisa," who was the artist of the month. I really love that Tony, Octane's owner, does this, because there's always something new to look at and it's usually really good, plus he's giving exposure to local artists that could really use it. I took my laptop and escaped from the office yesterday afternoon so that I could work on a document for a project that - I swear - is trying to drain the life from me. And lo and behold I discovered that Grant Henry was setting up for an opening there that night, and Hollis Gillespie was to be there as well. I met Grant and chatted with him for a few minutes, and he was warm and gracious.

So they had an opening party and everything last night, and I went home and took care of the dogs, then drove back to Atlanta so I could get Grant and Hollis to sign my copy of her first book. Grant did the jacket design for it, as well as for her latest book, which is why I wanted them both to sign it. At the end of the month when the art comes down off of Octane's walls, I'm buying a Sister Louisa painting of Jesus that has the same saying painted on it as the window in the picture above. Sister Louisa might seem sacreligious on the surface but if you think about the stuff for more than two seconds it makes sense, I believe.

P.S.

I just came back from getting all my hair chopped off. Hector says now I look like Teresa.My hair is real short. Anyway Adrian is over here and all the children (including chela ) are playing poker. Not much to do today. Maybe I'll have them go to a movie later. I am still looking for another church. This one I want to got starts at 9:00am on a Sunday Morning (that's tooo brutal for me!!) so we will see if I can get up that early. I'll probably end up going to a church that starts later. It's hard though. I am trying to find one with a better youth program, with teachers who can control the class. I know it is time to go back though. The kids are getting mad at me for not taking them. What else is new? I just bought myself new clothes so I feel pretty good. I never buy anything for myself and my pants were falling apart. I bought these cute capris and a few tops that are embellished. I didn't buy new underwear, so I have to be carefull not to get in an accident!I have Sunday undies, holy, holey......... Luis used his grant money to buy a new laptop He needed a new one cuz he gave the other one he had to his mother... Luis is like that. Anyway our old computers we have now won't hold his Autocad program that he needs for school. Luis has six more classes before he transfers to the university. I can't imagine how we are going to make it , but I know deep down inside we will. I'll probably work after I graduate. I probably won't go to the university, but never say never. The kids are well. bad grades, messy room but I love them. And miraculously they love me too. I just had some Ruben and Hector time yesterday, while Luis took Chela somewhere. It was really nice because usually Chela occcupies all of my free time. Well, we like to do girl stuff together so the boys get left out. I gave serious thought to having another child (yes, it is possible via scientific methods) but I tallyied up the cost of diapers, clothes, etc and it was just too much. They have a calculator on some website I saw that helps you figure out how much per year it would cost, it was really neat. It helps you be more responsible in your choice to have a child. Anyway,I guess I have to wait for the Grandkids to come.