Hey All! It has been an exciting month here. With the upcoming high school graduation for Kaylie, and all of the planning that goes with college acceptance, it has been pretty hectic! Kaylie graduated from the Navy Sea Cadets this past Sunday. The pictures here represent that. It was a tearful, happy experience for me.

Jayson and Kevin are all done with school, except for some reason I think Jayson has to go back for one more test on the 22nd of June. I have not had to wake up any kiddo's for school at all this week and let me tell you, it has been wonderful!! Kevin has already been up at Grandpa Keith's house since Sunday evening. He says we are mean, and he lives there now. Guess that teaches me for making him help clean the house! Jayson has his cousin Marshal over and a friend Travis. They are outside riding bikes and hanging out until after midnight most nights. So, it's just me and Billy here. Bet your asking where Kaylie is...Who knows!! She is either at Nate's shopping or Candice's or shopping or working or at the beach or out playing volleyball(she is on a league on Monday evenings) or shopping or getting her nails done or shopping............See a common thread here?! LOL!!

Thats about all that is going on here, hope to see you all soon!

Love and Hugs!

Jo

It's been a while since I updated, so here goes.

I called in sick to work today. Not feeling so well-May have a touch of a stomach bug? Thought about going to work, and decided that, no, I don't call in a lot, so I will take the day off.

Sitting here reading about the Tsunami in Japan. Feel really badly for them. Cannot even imagine what they are going through. Thoughts and prayers are with them.

Well, today the creek is up to the top of the bank. I am a little nervous that it will come over and water will come into the house. Poppy now lives downstairs. We are upstairs. That does not seem to decrease my anxiety over water coming in, though. We lived downstairs for years, and lived through many floods. At one point, the water was up to my thighs, and running in the back door, through the house and out the front door. The creek is behind the house, and normally is ankle deep. But, with all the snow melting and running down the mountain on the other side of the creek, it is rising fast! It sounds like a freight train coming, but it is just the water running fast down through.

Kaylie is almost done with high school and has been accepted to Morrisville State College and to Onondaga Community College. She has applied to SUNY Plattsburgh and Albany as well, but has not heard from them as of yet. She is excited to get on with the next adventure in her life! Somehow she seems to think that 18 is the magic number when you don't have to listen to your parents any longer. We keep trying to tell her that she still has years to listen to us and that she should be thankful that we care so much! Ahhh, the life of a teenager, with no worries.

Jayson is doing good in school. I thank God every day that he is enjoying this school. I had pulled him out of the local school and enrolled him in the BOCES program. He is in his 3rd year there, and really likes it.

Kevin is also doing good. He seems to like his school, but dreads the long bus ride everyday twice a day. He gets bussed to LaFayette, then takes another bus to Cortland to his school. It is a long ride, but so worth it for him to have the education he deserves. At least once a week, he says he wants to go back to his old school. When I ask him why, he says it is because of the bus ride.

Nothing special going on here. It's just another day in the neighborhood, except for the creek being so high. I am thinking a nap is in order. Hope you all have a good day!

Hey All!

It's been a busy couple of months! The kids are back to school, Kaylie is a senior, Jayson is a freshman, and Kevin is in the 7th grade. It is hard juggling them all, as they go to three different schools. Not sure how I am going to split myself into two, when Kaylie and Kevin have games on the same days at different schools. Kaylie will be starting volleyball soon, tryouts are next week, and Kevin is currently playing modified basketball. He had his first scrimmage this past Saturday, and he made a couple of baskets. He is pretty good at this sport, if I do say so myself!

Jayson chooses not to play sports, he is more of a homebody than the other two. If there is something to join, Kaylie and Kevin are all over it, where Jayson would rather come home after school and go hunting or ride his bike.

I ran away from home Friday night. Went up and saw Jennie for a bit, and then traveled over to my father's house to see what was up. Julie was there, and finangled me into helping her cut up a bunch of garlic, as she was cooking two pigs that night to donate for a benefit to help out someone she works with that has been diagnosed with breast cancer. So we sat there for about an hour cutting up garlic. That stuff is STICKY! After that, she told me to get my coat on, so I did, and off to Walmart we went. Apparently she had bought pepper for the spices to go on the pigs, but left it in the house. When she went outside, Jay grabbed the pepper and promptly filled up all the pepper shakers in the house with it. So, we had to go and get some more. Julie and I both thought that was kind of funny! While I was at Walmart with her, I decided to pick up the meat for groceries for the week. So it worked out good that I had stopped over at Dad's to visit.

Hunting season (for guns) starts down here on Saturday, November 20. Forgive me for this, but I am so sick of hearing about hunting, that I could hurl. Both boys and my husband are going hunting this year. Kevin has a basketball game at 9 a.m. on Saturday, so I will take him to catch up with the other two after it is over. I hope and pray that they all three get a deer on opening morning, so they will be happy!! But, then there is the downside to that too....That will be all they talk about afterwards...........Insert BIG SIGH here.

I remember as a kid, when Uncle Fred and Donnie were down one year for opening day. They got a deer, and Fred cooked up the liver and dared me to eat some. Never being one to back away from a dare, I did it! I ate every piece of liver on my plate, with a swig of grape juice with each and every bite I took. I think there was more grape juice than meat in my mouth. He laughed at me the whole time I was eating, and I was never so happy to finish a meal as I was that one!!! I miss Uncle Fred. He was such a character, always smiling and happy.

As always, I will put a picture on here. This is my girlfriend Sammicat. She is the only one in the house who doesn't talk back, or make a mess. She loves to see me coming, and always has a kiss for me. She is pretty good at smiling too, sometimes she gives smiles with an open mouth. She is quite a unique cat.

Life is BUSY!!

Ok, So I was just reminded in a not so subtle way that my blog is pretty old. It has been a very long time since I have updated, so here goes.

The first week of August, my cousin Kandi and I packed up the boys and headed to Buffalo to pick up Kaylie from staffing a boot camp on the Little Rock and Sullivan ships for Navy Sea Cadets. We stayed for the graduation, packed her into the car with us, and headed for Michigan for an awesome visit with Aunt Dawn and Uncle Butch (my Dad's sister and brother-in-law). What a great time we had! We made the pact that we were on vacation, and were not going to be pressed for time. What should have been an eight hour trip turned into 14. By the time we went to Buffalo and saw the graduation ceremony, and then got something to eat(we met Uncle Larry in Buffalo at Duff's Wing House in Buffalo, it was just about 3pm before we got on the road to Michigan. We made frequent stops and finally made it to destination Clark house around 11pm.

Aunt Dawn got up early every day and made us a great breakfast. Boy, could a person get used that! At night, the kids, and the adults, minus me, played a cut-throat game of Phase10. I don't know what it is all about, I had quiet time while they were playing every night...lol, I made a good choice!! Dawn and Butch took us to the Hudson Car Museum, to the Henry Ford Museum, to the Ford Rausch Factory(they make Ford 150's there) and to Greenfield Village(an early 1900's living museum where the people dress and live like they did back then). Kandi and I tried two or three times to take them out to eat, and lo and behold, they picked up the check each time. Finally, we told them that WE were going to treat them to dinner, so we could thank them for putting up with us! I cannot thank them enough for giving us a vacation that I am sure my kids, Kandi and myself will remember forever!

The kids loved it, and before we even left their house, they had already said that next year, we need to make it a whole week long. They had such a great time and really got to know their Great Aunt and Uncle, which pleased me, as they had not really gotten to spend that much time with them over the years.

We got back, and back to work I went. I work for an eye surgeon out in Liverpool. He specializes in cataracts and glaucoma, plus we also have another optician there. It is a very busy practice and so fast paced that it sometimes makes my head spin. My job is to check out the patients as they are finishing up, collect the moolah, schedule their next appointment and post their charges in the computer. Also have to put their charts back together and put them on the cart to file later(which the others and I share) A new demension has been added to my job in the last three weeks or so. I now have the responsibility of making sure that the patients who are scheduled for surgery have their preop appt, and make sure they are cleared. It is in no way, shape or form that simple. Sometimes it takes ten tries to get another office to get the needed information to me, and then if the pt was not cleared, I have to figure out why and try to fix it, or move them along to my boss who ultimately decides who will be cancelled or rescheduled for another day.

That, my friends is why I love my job so much! Some days more than others, but normally, it is a very nice place to work. When I first started there, I hated it, so much so, that after being there for a month, I put in my notice. The day before my last day, my boss and I had a very long conversation, and I ended up staying there. I have not regretted staying for a minute! I really like the people I work with, and my work days speed right by!

The kiddo's have gone back to their schools. Kaylie is a senior at Chittenango, Jayson is a freshman at Boces in the Career Academy, and Kevin is a seventh grader at Boces in a program at Cortland Alternative High School. Three kids, three different school districts...I do not like the high school in town, so have come up with alternatives for my children to get the best education that they deserve. All three will graduate with regents diplomas, and have skills that they need to either further their education or in the boy's case, have a trade that they can start a career with. Jayson's school, has the opportunity in the junior/senior year to shadow four different job paths, such as carpentry, mechanics, medical and landscaping. Whichever he chooses to follow in his later years in high school, he will come out with that trade already in place, and be able to find a job in that profession at that time. Kaylie has gone from wanting to go to law school, to wanting to go to school for a history major to wanting to go to school for general studies and then to pursue nursing. She cannot make up her mind. She has until December to make it up, then she needs to know what she wants to do, so she can get her college applications out and in the mail! Kevin is loving his new school. It is a small class, where he can get the individual attention that he needs to retain the information put in front of him.

Jayson rides to work with me in the mornings and then rides his bike the mile or so to his school, then bikes back to my work and hangs out either in the waiting room at work, or in the car. Not sure what we will do when winter comes, will have to figure that one out soon!! The days are getting shorter and colder.

I have added a couple of pictures of our vacation. I think I took about six hundred pictures, truth be told. The kids were packed pretty tight in the back seat of the SUV we took, but still had fun. The others are us at the sights I mentioned earlier.

Ok, ya'all, I have typed enough for one night. I will try to get updates a little closer than two to three months apart..hee hee, Aunt Lori! P.S.. Jayson's eye is better, actually took him to see my eye Dr. the bruise is still there, much lighter now, but we were told by the Dr, that it was bruised into the bone, so it may take a very long time to heal. He is doing much better!

Ok, off I go, LIVIN MY LIFE~

Love and hugs!

Joanna

Life

Hey! To all of you that have graduated this week, Congratulations! What an accomplishment! I am very proud of you all!

This has been an interesting week, to say the least. It was my last week at my job, I am starting a new job tomorrow. Going to an eye surgeon's office. I have worked for so long in primary care, that it is foreign to me to be able to work in a specialty office. Have no fear though, I am not afraid to learn new things. The pay at a specialty office sure does beat the crap out of primary care pay! That is about the only reason I am going to the new place. I really loved my job at the office in Manlius. But, I am sure that I will love this one just as much.

So, Friday was my last day, and it was an amazing day to say the least. Until I got the call that every mother dreads getting. It could have been much worse, but it was bad enough to make the goose bumps come out instantly. Kaylie called me, yelling into the phone that Jayson had been beat up, was bleeding, and his eye was swollen shut and he was dizzy. "You gotta call 911, Mom!" (Note to self...have conversation with daughter about calling 911 first, and then calling Mom....) I had to tell her to calm down, and tell me what happened. Apparently, Jayson had gotten a call from a supposed friend who wanted to buy his IPOD Touch and said he had the money for it. So, Jayson jumps on his bike, goes down the road, to sell his IPOD. The kid punches him in the face twice, shoves him over a guardrail, and leaves him there. I cannot tell you what this does to the mother in me. So anyways, he gets up, calls his father, and rides his bike back to the house. Billy called the police, and they come, and lo and behold, the kid plays the race card. It had nothing to do with race, it had to do with Jay talking to a girl, who ended up being this kids girlfriend. As soon as the policeman heard race, he turned on Jayson, until my husband told him to knock it off. What a way to let a victim know that the police are on their side. So, I am posting a picture of what Jayson's eye looks like right afterwards. It actually looks worse now that it did, with all the color that has collected in it. I gotta tell you, my son is a lover, not a fighter. He had no time to block his face before this kid came at him....Didn't even cross his mind that this would happen.

So, that is my story for the week...Hopefully, next week is much better.

This handsome guy is my middle child, Jayson. Jay, as he likes to be called, will be fifteen at the end of July. Jayson is named after my brother Jay and my Dad, Keith.

Jay has a passion for the outdoors. He loves hunting, biking, four-wheeling and just plain being outdoors. He would spend every waking hour outdoors if we let him. Just the other night, Jay and his cousin Aric spent the night in the old Jeep parked out back. Bad Mom that I am, didn't even know if until the next morning when they came inside. His sense of humor is great.

Jayson can look at me with a grin on his face and I just start laughing. His smile is contagious. I think the only drawback to Jayson being Jayson, is that I have to yell and holler every morning to get his butt up for school. Jayson is the kid that couldn't care less if he ever stepped foot in a school building again. He goes to a program at BOCES that is a different learning atmosphere for kids that dont care for school. He really likes it. The problem is just getting him up in the morning to get him to go there. Next year, he will be enrolled in the Career Academy at BOCES. This will show him four different career paths that he could choose. Carpentry, mechanics, floral design, and I am not positive on what the 4th one is... He would like to follow carpentry or mechanics. He will know after he takes the classes which one he will be doing in his Junior year of high school.

With all the things going on with Kaylie and Kevin lately, I felt like I had slighted Jayson. So now I feel better, hope you all get to meet this amazing kid someday! I sure do love that boy!