Call 9-1-1!

This was what Kevin said to me on Monday night as I looked out our bedroom sliding glass door and saw flames coming from the alley. Let me back up a tad. We had just come back from Dillan's strings concert, had just gotten Olivia and Blake out of the bath tub, and was in my bathroom getting a bandaid for Olivia's big toenail that had been ripped in half the day before in a door incident (side note-that one got me a little queasy. I had to take a moment to regroup when I saw the toenail bent back on itself and flesh from the toenail bed. I did rise to the occasion though), when I noticed that our room was glowing. Looked in the back yard and saw the flames shooting in the air. The recycling dumpster was on fire. I told Kevin there was a fire, he ran into the closet, and then leapt over the treadmill out the door, dragged the hose across the pool, then yelled for Dillan to get the shovel. Chloe ran outside and started crying telling Kevin not to get hurt. She may need to work on her emergency preparedness skills. I called the fire department, then got Olivia and Blake dressed (didn't want to seem WT with the kids in the nekked outside) then stood on the corner outside our house to wait for the fire dept. The excitement brought out the neighbors and gave us a chance to discuss each families emergency preparedness including: if the house is on fire and you are nekked, it's ok to run outside. No one will point and laugh. This is actually the reason why I always wear pajamas. I am scared to run outside in an emergency in my garments. Here in AZ, they will at least stare at my funny underwear, if not point and laugh. Anyway, the FD FINALLY got there after Kevin and Dillan had it mostly out. Interestingly enough, one of our kiddie corner back door neighbors brought out his fire extinguisher, pulled the pin, aimed, then discharged it into his face and shoulder. He did not stick around to provide any more "assistance". The FD did not have to fill out a report. I found that surprising since there was another dumpster fire two weeks before. Pattern? Kevin saw a couple of hooligans leaving the alley when he was pulling up from after the concert, so he went to go track them down. He didn't find them, but he has always amazed me how he is so aware of what is going on and his quick thinking skills. Speaking of quick thinking, when he ran back into the closet, it was to get his firearm, in case there was a bad guy out there trying to lure someone out with the fire. Man, he's good. Dillan is so lucky to have such an awesome dad to teach him important manly things like this. Olivia's response to the fire was that she couldn't wait to tell Daniel S. at school the next day. I hope he's not a budding pyromaniac.

A Day of Rejection

It's actually been longer than a day, but it all came to fruition on the same day.


REJECTION #1


We decided that Dillan would do better in a different setting than the public school, so I have been looking into private schools, and the Paradise Valley Christian Preparatory Academy is less than a mile away from us and has very good scores, small class sizes, etc, and since we are Christian, I thought that this would be an excellent fit. Kevin and I took the tour of the facilities and filled out an information card, including which church we went to. All seemed well, and that it would be our decision until I was called by an administrator and asked if I had had a chance to look over their statement of faith. I said I hadn't, to which she said that it was a contradiction to what we believed and therefore would not be able to attend. I didn't quite know what to say. I thought that with "Christian" in the title of the school, that we would be okay. I knew that the doctrine that they were teaching was not the same as ours, but should they be worried about confusing Dillan? I would think that they would want to convert him to their team, if anything. Kevin thinks that they are more worried about what Dillan would be teaching the other kids. Funny thing is, some of our friends that have kids there are less than model citizens of the Christian faith and I highly doubt that they are regular attenders. Oh well. They aren't the only fish in the sea.


REJECTION #2


I have been strong armed out of the PTG. For the past year, I have been serving as the secretary, which I was told meant that I would take the minutes for the PTG meetings. I also got the responsibility of sending out a weekly email with the PTG goings on. I knew that it would be tough squeezing in all of my other obligations plus this, however, since I have three children at the school, I felt like it was my duty to run for office. I ran unopposed by the way. At the very last second before the elections began, I threw my hat in to the ring, so really, it was me or nothing. I thought that things were going well, even though I knew I wasn't putting forth my best effort because #1 it was a volunteer position and #2 I'd never been the secretary of anything before, so there was a huge learning curve as I tried to figure things out, but I was told by many reputable sources than the weekly emails I sent out were funny and interesting. So, I was caught off guard the weekend before the marathon, I received information from the fund raising VP, I'll call her "Kassie", for a mass email that I was to send out for Bingo night to plead for volunteers to help out. I sent her an email back letting her know that I was getting ready for the marathon, that all of my sisters were in town, and the earliest that I could do it was Monday, and if she wanted, I would give her the email account info so that she could do it. Well, she was pretty upset that I had the nerve to run a marathon instead of perform my PTG duties because she had done a hundred things for the school that week, so hearing that I was running a marathon was "a little hard to take." Well, apparently, this was the beginning of my demise, because after that point, I knew something was up. I was asked three times by the president of I was going to continue on for next year. I knew it was still a big time commitment, but I felt like I knew what I was doing. So when the president asked me a FOURTH time, in a not so nice way indicating that I had an easy PTG job and the others had been doing more than their fair share, I said "You can take this job and shove it!" All right. I didn't say that exactly, but the meaning was the same. Then I proceeded to "tattle" on them to the principal. I know. Childish. But I told her that if she was ever having a hard time finding parent volunteers, it was because of this kind of behavior from other parents. The principal sided with me and was HORRIFIED to find out that I would not be continuing on as secretary. Shortly after was the annual Spring Fling, which is a huge fundraiser for the PTG. I was responsible for the announcement of the event. I sent out an "Ode to Spring (Fling)" which, I must say, was clever and cute and I got a the most responses from any email I sent out. It was kind of like when a boyfriend dumps you (not that I know what that experience is like) and you get super hot and he realizes what he is missing, that was the effect the "Ode" had. I was invited to the Appreciation Dinner for the PTG board which I respectfully declined. Twice. I knew if I went, it would turn into a "Real Housewives of Phoenix" moment with name calling, finger pointing, and table flipping.

REJECTION #3

I wasn't picked to run the NYC marathon. Talk about adding insult to injury.