Not Gonna Do It

Yesterday morning, upon waking, Blake announced that he would not be participating in the Soapstone Preschool Christmas pageant.  His class was to play the role of angels.  He wasn't going to wear white, he certainly was not wearing the halo (him wearing a halo is worthy of a blog of it's own!) and under no circumstances was he going to sing in front of the audeince.  Blake is not a child who's resolve wavers so I told him that was perfectly fine and that he could take it up with his teacher Miss Peg when he got school.  We packed his white "angel clothes" in his school bag just in case.

When I arrived for the performance, I was surprised to see him in his white outfit.  No halo but he was marching in line with his class towards the stage looking around for me....all good signs.  Here's how he "performed" during the singing part of the show  : )

He kept his ears plugged with his fingers and his eyes closed the entire performance, smiling all the while.  He opened them twice to see if i was watching, which, of course I was : )

The Birthday Boy

Devlyn was so proud to tell me that Mrs. Montgomery (his teacher) asked for his size today to order his school spelling bee t-shirt. He'll be representing his 1st grade class in the first annual Sycamore Creek school spelling bee! The invite/informational sheet we received today spells out the rules. He'll be competing against 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th graders!!! I'm a nervous wreck already. I still remember the word I lost on in my elementary school spelling bee!! It was "phase", I went too quickly and blurted out "f" as the first letter :(. We're so proud of him already for representing his class - my heart swells thinking about watching him compete in the school spelling bee! His birthday presents are all laid out at his spot on the breakfast table for tomorrow morning :). I let them choose what they'd like to eat for the day on their birthdays (within reason). Devlyn has requested donuts for breakfast, a lunchables to pack for lunch and an early dinner at sushi blues for his birthday supper. Sounds like fun to me! I'm going to meet his class at the cafeteria tomorrow with cupcakes during lunch :). 7 years old - what a great age - his whole world is just starting to open up!

Halloween 2012

Best Halloween yet for the Raleigh Upchurch's! It was pretty cold here so it felt really Halloweeny.  The boys had long underwear on under their costumes : )   Of course, Weebsie was complaining of being hot half way through - human heater that he is.  Started the evening out with a stop at our neighbors Carmen and Daniel's house.  They have a great tradition of handing out candy for the kids and adult beverages for the parents!  Usually it's beers but this year they stepped it up and had shots in test tubes - something called "Birthday Cake" vodka...hello!  As we headed down the street to the Hilburn section of the neighborhood 5 houses on Sprague Rd. had pooled their resources.  They were having a street party and met all the little kids at the curb with massive bags of candy for each one.  Talk about spoiled - the kids didn't even have to walk up to the houses.  Then it was on to "Corky's Lounge".  It only took us 10 years but we finally sniffed out and got in good with the fun people in the neighborhood.  One family's garage is always the party lounge - refills, appetizers, a roaring fire, a million kids and plenty of candy.  Got a few pictures of the neighborhood ladies while were were there.  None of the pics came out too well but I was thinking of all the Mom's names and listen to this, Kari, Kristy, Corky(not sure what her real name is!), Christina and Kristin.  Kkkkkkkkkccrazy.  Noone else with a "K" name is allowed to move in!  Devlyn was Sonic the Hedgehog and Blake was Luke Skywalker.  Blake opted to bring his gun rather than his lightsaber and he took great pride in explaining to me that Luke Skywalker has both.  He had that look in his eye that said, "If you don't believe me, I'll pull out the Star Wars book and show you right here and now."  That kid is a Star Wars encyclopedia right now - he and Devlyn know the minute details of characters I've never even heard of before.

HBD Weebsie

The weather held off :). Great birthday for Blake! Hope Sandy takes it easy on you Northerners!

Don't Get Screwed

1. Just another reason to do your best to pay attention to every single thing your doctor recommends in all situations.  I hope they are required to notify patients of the use of this when it's at all possible.  Things like this make me realize that I need to get serious about having a medical alert bracelet made for myself and wear it all the time.  This looks like something that could come into play in an emergency surgery situation - car accident, etc.  Nothing like a medical alert bracelet to make you feel young and vibrant ; )  Oh and nothing like screwing poison laden (in my case) hardware directly into your joints! 

My First Real Photo Shoot

This is good for a laugh, I promise you.  A co-worker and I had a professional shoot done Tuesday afternoon.  Our company recently finished renovations on expanded office space on the first floor and we're snazzing it up with a group photo of the executive team here.  A woman is leaving so they're taking her out of the pic and adding Tricia and me in.  I was surprised at how uncomfortable I was standing there by myself but we ended up getting enough good shots to choose from.  I'll post the final product when they finish editing.  Here's a link to proofs from the shoot and a copy of a page that was on my desk this morning that made me laugh pretty hard.  Some co-workers picked a particularly funny shot of me and penciled in their thoughts on what I should be saying - ha ha!

http://www.raybarbourphotography.com/cl.php?id=148&val=e03ede556bdac2b1

Shoulda Coulda Woulda

Every time I tackle a home improvement project, I get this nagging feeling that I missed my true calling. And today, hanging out with the HVAC guy while he fixed our gas heat unit, I finally fully connected with those feelings.  I am so totally supposed to be a tradeswoman (is that a word?).  I'm not even sure  which kind, although probably not a plumber - that has the potential to get too gross.  I just know I would be SO HAPPY working like that.  If I could go back and be 19 or 20 again, I would pick a trade, apprentice with someone and have the time of my life fixing, building...whatever.  I hung out with Mr. Tuck (HVAC guy) for 45 minutes, watching exactly what he did.  I was with him when he pinpointed the problem - he was excited, I was excited - IT WAS AWESOME.  We talked about HVAC units, we had lemonade, talked swimming (his granddaughter swam in the junior olympics in charlotte this summer).  I could have talked to him all day listening to everything he knew.  I almost missed the bus I was so into our HVAC unit.  And don't even get me started on Mr. Tuck - coolest person ever.  That's a whole 'nother story in itself.  Seriously though, I need to figure out how to retire so I can start my second career as a fixer/builder.  I have got to make this happen.

Weird - I just typed in "Mrs. Fixit" to grab an image to post with this blog and this website came up:

http://www.devinncampbellphotography.com/mrsfixit/

Granted, it's not devlyncampbellphotography.com BUT let's just say it's a fun coincidence at the very least : )

Redemption Is Coming

http://www.forbes.com/sites/melaniehaiken/2012/09/30/antibiotic-alert-the-drug-the-doctor-ordered-could-cause-deadly-side-effects/


Lots of press lately.  This article is SO much better than almost all the others.  It tells the truth, it lists the true consequences by name and it addresses the fact that all of this is far more common than anyone wants to believe.  I'm in tears having read this article.  Thanks to lots of hard work, the tide has finally turned and is flowing in all survivors' favor right now.  I hope with everything that I am that this will lead to true change, legally and within the medical community.

I HAVE experienced toxic psychosis
MY tendons ache every single day of my life
MY muscles don't work right anymore
I struggle constantly with the debilitating effects of massive neuropathy.
MY vision is scarred.

This COULD happen to you, this DOES happen to unsuspecting, innocent people including CHILDREN every single day.  If you feel comfortable sharing this link on your Facebook page, please do.  Real change is coming but it needs help to get here.  Feel free to make a personal connection tagging me or referring to me in your share.  As with any word of mouth, personal connections boost acceptance.  Thanks.

Marbles turns 5!

We have an awesome children's museum here called Marbles. We're there right now celebrating their 5th birthday. Here we are playing marbles at Marbles :). Ha! We've lost our marbles! Ok that's enough.

The School Board From Another Planet

Many of you have heard me go on and on about the ridiculousness our local school system (Wake County) has put this community and our children through in the last three years.  I registered Devlyn for kindergarten as a first time parent in the middle of an educational shit-storm.  Noone could tell us where our child was going to go to school and they changed the rules on us 3 times in the 6 months between registration and Devlyn's first day of kindergarten.  At that time, our school board was in the throws of an epic partisan battle, was being sued by the NAACP, our high schools were (and still are) in danger of losing accreditation and our county made national headlines repeatedly for everything from civil rights violations to outright asinine stupidity.  Luckily for us, we made some good, albeit scary, decisions at just the right time and got Devlyn into the school we wanted, an absolutely awesome school where he's thriving.  The county got a new superintendent of schools and things were looking up.  He brought about a lot of good change, made decisions to cut in places other than the classroom and took the heat like a man when some of those decisions backfired.  And THEN the board fired him in a closed session this past Tuesday for reasons unbeknownst to anyone!  I don't even know what to say at this point except what the fuck?!?  People (including me) are outraged, we're screaming about it at the supermarket, launching social media firestorms, picketing outside the school board offices, etc.  And at the end of the day, the only losers here are the kids.  Our schools will take a HUGE hit b/c of this.  A brand new year-round middle school right up the road we were hoping was to be built by the time Devlyn finishes elementary probably won't be built now along with several others...and the list goes on.  Here's an article from the News & Observer today that puts a nice dent in chronicling the complete insanity that is the Wake County School Board at this point.  Politics have no place in our public education system.  These people are CRAZY.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/09/27/2373617/wheeler-the-school-board-from.html

Morning hike with momma

He probably won't call me that for very much longer :(

Side by side desks done!

Yay :)

Speaking on a Molecular Level Of Course

Quick story here from a recent meeting I had at a large, successful, global bio-pharma company here in RTP.  We're helping them to evolve their brand imagery.  They were presenting a powerpoint deck to possible investors recently.  Their opening slide had a big, beautiful, colorful, high def photo of a cell at the molecular level.  They fielded questions as to what kind of cell it was - they had no idea - the point of it was to demonstrate their domination of the bio-pharma space.  One of the scientists in the meeting took great delight in pointing out that the image was that of a testicular cell.  Not sure I would have been able to keep a straight face through the rest of that presentation!  Ha ha!  I'll be telling this story for awhile : )

The Destroyer

Caught living up to his name...

Confidence

Tonight during bedtime I used the word confident in a sentence. Blake immediately asked me what it meant. After I was done answering, Devlyn proudly said, "That's the way I feel in the morning on the bus or in carpool. I love school.". Boy does that make me smile. Loved hearing that and it makes me feel so good about the school he goes to - Sycamore Creek Elementary. They're obviously doing something right :)

Office Space

Lately, I'd been noticing that Devlyn needs a little bit of his own space.  Poor guy has schoolwork, shares a room with Blake (God help him) and until this weekend did not have a one square foot of our home, other than his mattress, to call his own.  So with some paint and wood we picked up at Lowes, we transformed one of the closets into his room into a nice sized desk area for him.  Next weekend we'll get around to adding some shelving, lighting and sprucing it up a bit but right now he is one happy camper with his new space.  Mission accomplished.