FREEDOM!

Brad and I stood and waved to Keldon as he drove off to school this morning - all by himself. I've entered a new phase of life as of today - my baby got his driver's license and is now driving himself to seminary, school and soccer practice! What will I do with all that extra time??? I'm sure I will figure it out. Let's see, I started driving kids to seminary the year this son was born, over 16 years ago. We only had one year break. Incredible. I'm now:

• free from getting up before the sun to drive to seminary, and the return trip to retrieve the student;
  
• free from the 35 minute drive to school every morning that should only take 12 minutes;
  
• free from all those people that force their way into the lane in front of you at the last minute (where is a cop when you need him?);
• free from the 4 minute plus time waiting on the ramp to get onto the freeway to school;
  
• free from picking up from after-school sports and waiting an extra 45 minutes because the coach decided to run them that day;
• free from driving to and from Santa Luz every weekend during the school year and many times during the summer to take Keldon to his friend's house;
• free from retrieving Keldon from said friend's house at 11pm at night;
• did I say free?
  

Okay, I'm trying not to let this euphoria get out of hand... Let me tell you about yesterday. I picked Keldon up at school a little before 1pm yesterday and we headed up to the Escondido DMV office (they had the earliest appointment available). Of course, we stood in line for 10 minutes and were then told we were in the wrong line and to go stand in another line (so like the DMV), but we made it on time. Keldon had a pretty unfriendly tester, and she only marked him down for going TOO SLOW and for not knowing his arm signals well enough (oh, darn!). Now, how often do you think I will tell this teenager that he is going too slow??? How ironic. And how often do we all use those arm signals? Sure glad they still test that one. So, he passed and is now an official driver in the state of California. I must say I am not sad to not have to deal with the horrific traffic coming out of our area and drive to the high school every morning. He can deal with that now.
After the drive test, we headed over to his soccer game, which also happened to be in Escondido that day (couldn't have planned that better!). He was quite early, so I had a couple of hours to kill at the local quilt store. After I was done in there, I remembered that there was a 99Cent Only Store that I wanted to go to. Nicole always finds the best bargains there. So, I found the store, but what a dive! Yuck. I found what I was looking for and got out of there fast. Don't think I will be returning there any time soon.
Keldon's team won their soccer game, so all in all, it was a pretty good day for Keldon. How well I remember the day I got my driver's license, and on the day I turned 16. It is definitely a step towards adulthood and independence. One of the perks of being the youngest in a family of 5 children is that there is a car for him to drive. No cool car here, just the old family Astro van, but it is still in good shape and he is happy to have it. That only worked out because his brother, who was driving the van, bought his own car last month - good timing. Thanks, Ethan!

Christmas decorations

This has got to be a first! Here it is December and I have no Christmas decorations or lights up! Having a bad cold will do that to you, I've decided. I did get all my fall decorations put into new plastic storage bins, which is an accomplishment at this point. I did buy some poinsettias for my outdoor pots - they look so festive!

Brad and Keldon are at the BYU vs San Diego State football game here in San Diego, where it is a little chilly tonight. I bought those tickets over two months ago and was really looking forward to going to watch them play. It was first scheduled for October 27, the week of the fires here in San Diego. They had to reschedule it and now I am too sick to attend - is there no justice in this world???

We have had some good rain the past two days, which of course, means mud slides after fires. People around here have been trying to prepare for this rain by placing sand bags in strategic places. I sure hope it helps. We certainly do not need another disaster!

Yay - music!

I spent a bit of time the other day (like a several hours!) trying to add a music playlist to my blog. Every time I put the html code in an error would come back saying it could not complete the action. I searched all the help lists - which is time-consuming in itself - and tried everything I could think of. Today, I tried again, and it worked first time - go figure! So, if you want some music to listen to while perusing my blog, you can click on my playlist. Now I want to redesign my page and am trying to figure that one out...

Still sick today. This is getting o l d . . . It should be outlawed for mothers to get sick the 2 months before Christmas!

Sick day...

How can you NOT get sick when 3 others in your family/household are sick? My husband has even been sleeping in another room for the past week, trying not to get me sick. Didn't work. I succumbed last night. It hit hard and fast. I went to bed at 9pm and am glad I did. It's a virus I am sure, that comes with the lovely headache and congestion. I will live...

Took down all the Thanksgiving decorations yesterday. I have been storing most of my holiday decorations in Xerox boxes for years and wanted to switch over to plastic storage containers, so went on the hunt to Target, Walmart, Home Depot and Lowes. Finally found some Rubbermaid containers and made the switch of all my Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations - yay! Glad to have that done. Then the husband informed me that the only way those containers will fit on the overhead storage shelves in the garage are to slide them in from the side/end... oh, bother! Such is life - you plan one thing and it ends up another thing!

What I wish...

I wish that blogs were available 30 years ago!  Even 20 years ago.  Think of all the fun that I have missed out on.  In reading others' blogs, I believe that this process is a bit therapeutic - what do you think?  There are times I want to write things that I don't necessarily want everyone to be able to read.  Guess I will keep handy the ol' journal for those sessions.

I've got one daughter, Amanda, that has a blog.  The other 2 daughters are working on it.  I wish all my friends would blog!  This could be lots of fun - but also very time-consuming...

Toodles!