Refrigerator Magnets

Is it bad form to blog twice in a day? Or is it worse to brag about your husband on your blog?

Sammie mentioned that he took the GMAT. He didn't mention how well he did. We are very excited with the result! We're also humbly grateful for help from above as he prepared for and took the exam. While I won't disclose the actual score here, let's just say that the score has opened new doors rather than closed others.

Anyway. Sammie posted the printout of his score on the fridge. He used a very apt refrigerator magnet - "Lives! Get one." (Other Mary Engelbreit fans will recognize the saying.) This week, I added another magnet that I thought equally appropriate, also from Mary Engelbreit - "Don't let success go to your head."

Babbit!!

Last night we learned that Sammie's brother's wife, Carolyn, and her 4 kids are visiting from Houston. We drove to Springfield with Corinne to see them. (Great to see you guys, by the way!) Carolyn was staying with her parents, as was her sister and kids. Her cousin and kids were also visiting. The place overflowed with kids and was one huge, teeming party! Sammie and I don't get enough time with kids, so when we do, we kind of go crazy. Let's just say that by the time we left, the kids were so hyper I hate to think how long it took poor Carolyn to get them to bed.

Carolyn's youngest boy, Jacob, is just over a year old and terribly scared of women. Whenever Corinne or I talked to him, he hid his face in his mom's shoulder. But he LOVED Sammie! He wouldn't leave him alone the entire evening. At one point, he pulled out a book and started to read to Sammie. Actually, the "reading" initially conisisted of Jacob interrupting Sammie and Carolyn's conversation with repeated pats on Sammie's shoulder to get his attention. When Sammie would finally turn his head, Jacob would point to a picture of a rabbit on the page (always the same rabbit on the same page) and enthusiastically yell "Babbit!" After a few iterations of this exercise, Sammie informed Jacob, "I know! Babbit." But this information did not dampen Jacob's enthusiasm for pointing out the rabbit to Sammie.

Finally Sammie caught on.

He pointed to the picture of the rabbit and yelled, "Babbit!" with the same one-year-old enthusiasm as Jacob's (in a thirty-year-old, it has a different effect, though). He repeated this action until Jacob looked up at him and said, "I know! Babbit."

Carolyn and Dave's kids are wonderful. Sammie has been trying hard to convince me to move to Houston. Driving me to Springfield last night to visit his nieces and nephews may be his strongest argument yet.

Superheroes

Superheroes have not played a large part in my life thus far. I didn't read comic books as a kid. (They would have taken me away from Little House on the prairie.) I never fell over Niagara Falls and had Superman save me. As a matter of fact, I was too big of a wimp to do anything that Superman would have needed to save me from. (Now my sister Eliza is a different story...)

However, recently, superheroes have begun to enter my life. The Batman movie with Michael Keaton was pretty good. I really liked the two Spiderman movies. I refused to go see Fab Four and, instead, sent Sammie with a friend to go see it. Sammie already blogged about how much I loved X-men. Our most complicated scheduling issue this week is when to go see Superman. So--mostly through Hollywood--I'm starting to be a superhero fan.

But today, I found the superhero to end all superheroes. Watch out Super-, Bat-, Spider- and all you other "men" out there!

http://www.rescuerick.com/

OK, I've never posted twice in one day, but this post makes a grand total of 3 for the month of June, so I don't think I'm over-doing it here.

Last week I was filling in for a Facility Manger who was on vacation. Oh, were the people there ever demanding and needy and bossy and rude and childish and I almost had to take one guy to HR because he was such a pain. Needless to say, I came home with headaches daily. Well today I couldn't help but chuckle when their building got struck by lightning. Looks like I wasn't the only one displeased with their behavior...

Yes, it has been a while since the last post. Life has been busy. GMAT is done (YEAH!!!) and now we can move onto the fun of filling out applications.

Below I have copied and pasted what was sent to me in 2 emails from my mom. It may make you cry, but it has a happy ending. Not everyone has a brother who doubles as a real-life super hero-

Jeff and Laura and their girls leave today. We've had a fun visit. Thursday we were at the pool where we are moving, and a little girl was found face down. Jeff's brother in law, Chris, is a border patrol agent in Montana. He got to her first and pulled her out. He and Jeff did CPR for five minutes before they got a pulse and got her breathing on her own. (She had aspirated some stuff, so there were problems.) We think it's a miracle that those two, both very experienced with CPR, were at the pool at that time. (Private pool, no lifeguard.) Last night we got word that the little girl is out of intensive care, sitting up and eating macaroni and cheese on her own, recognizing everyone.

(I then asked where the parents were when all of this happened.)

The mother was with a friend and between them they had several children. They were getting everyone out of the pool when Jeff, his brother-in-law Chris, and three of Laura's sisters and their kids arrived. So, it was mayhem. I guess this little girl Abby, who turned 3 on Friday, decided she wasn't ready to leave, and she snuck away. Mandy saw her floating face down. Laura called for Jeff, and they all have said, independently, that Chris stood up and ran across the water to get to her. Jeff, being mortal, had to climb out of the pool and run around. Anyway, it was traumatic. Jeff said he's done CPR lots and lots of times, but it was to people with gunshot wounds to their chests or something like that, and this is the first time he's done CPR and the patient survived. Neither he nor Chris slept Thursday night. We could tell they were traumatized...
Ben and I were actually at the new house and we arrived just as Amy was taking all the kids from the pool. I basically sat on the grass and held crying kids and cried. No help in a crisis. But at that point we thought the little girl was dead. Ben was trying to console Abby's 5 year old brother. The fire engine and paramedics arrived within 5 minutes of the call, but Jeff and Chris had Abby breathing on her own by then.
Ok, enough of that. NO MORE DROWNINGS, OK?!!

Melba and I went to see X-Men 3 this past weekend. I don’t know how in the world I got her to come with me – but she did come willingly. About half way through the movie she gave me the ‘I’m really embarrassed with myself’ look and said, “Sammie, I really like this film. I think I like it better than The Da Vinci Code.” By the end of the film her face had lit up and she was making clear to everyone that she loved the film.

“Sammie, we’ve been married for 9 months now – how come you didn’t introduce me to the X-Men earlier?”

After the film, we went to dinner and Melba couldn’t stop talking about the X-Men – who they are, what powers they have, the history between Magnito and Xavier, etc, etc... Melba then proceeded to borrow a collection of X-Men comics from my friend Mark (we saw the film with him and his wife and daughter and had dinner with them also.)

Now I know what you’re thinking – how much did Melba really get into the X-Men? After all, she has a Master’s Degree in Humanities, she loves reading the classics and watching musicals. But X-Men? Really?

That night Melba dreamed she was a super hero. After a triumphant victory, she stretched out her fist. Although dreaming, she really did stretch out her fist and in so doing punched me right in the forehead. “Oh Sammie, did I just punch you in the forehead?”

“Yup.”

“I’m sorry.”

Melba’s sister Anna commented on this ‘test of strength’ our marriage has now been through (I don’t think she realized the pun) and put it best by saying, “No more Taebo workouts for Melba!”