The World According to Leslie

Yesterday was Father's Day. I spent 90% of the day with my Daddy!  I spent 100% of the day with Tony! I even got to spend about 10% of the day with my brother!  (Even though she's not a dad, I got to spend a lot of time with my sister yesterday too!) It was a good Father's Day! Tony, the Princess, and I  took him and Mom to my Papaw's church yesterday morning.  It was awesome! I sang, which I don't get to do often any more. Best of all, my Daddy sang. I haven't heard him do that in a long time. It's one of my favorite things to do.... listen to him sing.  After church, we "kidnapped" (not really) Papaw and took him to lunch. We went to this awesome Mom and Pop home-cooking place in Maiden. There wasn't even a sign out front to tell you the name. So... I don't even know the name of the place we ate, but I hope we go back again! After lunch, we came home (about an hour's drive) and we did some laundry and rested before going b...

First, if you are a telemarketer, please don't call me. If I need your services, I will call you. Second, if you ARE going to ignore the "first," please be courteous. This morning at 5:30am, YES AM!!!, my phone rang. Because it was before my alarm went off, I didn't look at the time or the caller ID. I just assumed that someone needed help! I'm not a morning person so my family doesn't call me until after they KNOW I will be awake.... unless it is an emergency. "Hello." "Good morning! This is ADT/Honeywell Security." CLICK! SERIOUSLY!??!?!?!???!?!?!?!??!?!?!  It's 5:30am! If you are calling from a computer generated program in another country, please set the clocks so they do NOT wake people up! This was a robo-call. It wasn't even a human.  But... it's probably the best because I would have been YELLING at a human! I know...that's not the best attitude to have, but still..... DO NOT CALL ME at 5:30am! ...

After a couple years of my knees hurting, I finally went back to the doctor today. It's official. I have arthritis in my knees. THANKS MOM! My mom has this also.  Apparently, this is hereditary. I have two (yes TWO) siblings.... she could have passed this to one of them.  NOPE... She passed it to me. Her, my Grandma, had it. She had her knees replaced. Mom has it. She NEEDS her knees replaced, but she keeps putting it off. She wants to wait until she retires, but we all know she's NEVER going to retire.  So, I'm not sure when she's going to have it done! I have it. It's early. No knee replacement talk for me. (BUT... I'm guess I'm going to REALY get old one day and they will start talking about it!) Anyways, today, I got Cortisone shots! Do you know how bad those hurt????  REALLY BAD! I cried. After the doc finished my right knee, she asked if I still wanted the left one done. The RIGHT one, is the good one.  The LEFT one is the worst one....

Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try . Author Unknown It doesn't matter what I have tried to do in my life, I had at some point to make a decision to try it. I'm sitting here today thinking of all the things I've tried and some I've accomplished. When I was younger, I wanted to be a writer. I guess that since I'm posting here, I have (somewhat) accomplished that. I am writing on a (somewhat) regular basis. One day, I still hope to write a book, I just haven't made the decision for the correct topic yet. When I was in high school, I decided to become a teacher. I accomplished that. I taught in high schools for four years. I still teach, at a daycare. I made that decision and accomplished it. Everyone who has ever done anything, has decided to do it. I'm not saying that the decision was conscious. It could have been that they just decided NOT to do something else and the accomplishment was from that decision.  For example, I h...

I know I keep posting about the countdown for the Princess to finish 8th grade. We have had some trials and struggles this year, but who hasn't? It really is going to be bittersweet. She's finishing 8th grade. It was like this when she finished 5th grade too. (Our transition years, 5th and 8th) have been struggles.  :(  But, she always does really well with it. She's going to be in high school in the fall. How did that happen?  Before long, she's going to be taking Driver's Ed and wanting to drive the car.  (Please note I said WANTING TO.... no guarantees we're letting her drive!! That might be more than I can handle!) This year, I've seen her change from the kid who didn't want to go back to school because she was being bullied last year to the kid who can't wait for this year to be finished because she's ready to go to high school. She's taking 3 high school classes. She's already ahead of the game, in that department. We ar...

Yesterday, I posted about all the tests that the Princess has to take over the next 6 school days. You can read that here . When I picked her up yesterday, she said she felt good about her Math test.  She should be fine with the English test today. She usually does well on it. However.... This morning, when I dropped her off at school, she looked at me and asked me if she has to keep going to school. Seriously? I didn't want to make her get out of the car and go in for another day of testing! It's only going to get worse, I figure. So, as I sit here with tears in my eyes, I have to force myself to force my kid to go to school for tests. I'm just hoping that for the next 6 mornings she doesn't ask me to keep her at home.  It will only get harder for me to say "Go to school" every day. What heart-breaking questions have your kids asked you?