I took Mon through Wed off work this week, to spend a few days of this last week of summer vacation with my kids.

Yesterday, I had to take my daughter to get two fillings, and during that process, two more baby-teeth molars fell right out in her mouth! And yesterday afternoon, I had to take her to minute clinic at CVS pharmacy to get a tetanus shot she was missing, for school. So yesterday was not a good day for her.

Today was her open house for her middle-school. She and I went, she got her new schedule, and enjoyed taking me all over both floors of the school so she could see where each of her classes would be held. We found her new locker, and put a lot of her school supplies in it, in advance, so she won't have to carry it all with her on her first day. In one of her classrooms, we met her teacher. She had to do all the talking, because I choked up again. My baby is starting the 7th grade.

She also had her picture taken, in the gym. Seh wanted to be sure to wear her new Green Day tee shirt that we bought at Target while we were buying her school supplies, I convinced her to let me put some liquid foundation on her face, to cover her acne, and she physically fought with me in the picture line, when I kept trying to brush her hair so that it would at least look groomed. Then she barely smiled for the picture. I have no idea how it is going to turn out.

Tomorrow afternoon, we take her brother to his elementary school open house, so he can meet his new 2nd grade teacher, and bring some of his school supplies in advance.

My husband seems to really like his new job. It seems to be a good fit for him. I wish I had the rest of the week off. I'm really enjoying sleeping in and playing with my kids.

It's really been the most amazing last couple of weeks.

Two weeks ago, my husband was offered his dream job. They wanted him so badly that they actually raised the pay , and threw in an extra week of vacation per year, other than what he was told at the interview, before offering it to him! He starts in 3 days. He's out right now, as I write this, at his own going away party his current co-workers are having for him, out in a bar somewhere.

Last week on Wednesday, my friend Debi came back from Madison and we went to see Riverboat Gamblers, Rollins Band and X at the Fine Line Music cafe in downtown Minneapolis. We really went to see Rollins, of course. But the opening band River Boat Gamblers were awesome! We loved them. Then Rollins band came on and we stood very near the front of the stage. It was a small club, so that put us extremely close to the band. We stood just a few people removed from bassist Melvin Gibbs' feet. Of course it was a great show. Of course I never wear ear plugs, so I heard more of the band than I did of the vocals, but that's how it always is.

When X came on, we found ourselves at the very front, and right at the feet of guitarist Billy Zoom. I knew he was known for retaining this manic smile throughout all his performances, but I did not know he's also known for demanding personal eye contact with the nearest audience members. I'm completely not imagining that I got special attention from him for that entire hour. Sometimes I'd look away at other musicians or the mosh pit behind me and turn around to see him craning his neck trying to make me turn my head back to him personally. I also saw him do this same behavior with others near me a few times, but he always came back to me. Another Rollins fan on his message board told me that X fans near her noticed it and asked each other, "I wonder who's getting Zoomed tonght?" Well it was me! And I'm psyched ! Billy Zoom from X is really adorable, and is my new favorite person right now. Why didn't I pay more attention to him before?

Thursday night, my 7 year old son had to ride on a Boy Scouts float in the New Brighton Stockyard Days parade. It was really a flatbed trailer, pulled behind a pickup truck. I dropped him off, and then realized I had no plan how I was going to pick him up afterward! The leader asked for parents to walk along side the float, so I volunteered. Unfortunatly for my 12 year old daughter, this doomed her to riding in a float full of Boy Scouts. She said she was just going to hide behind the trailer wall. But when friends from school started recognizing her along the parade route, calling her name, waving, and running along side the float for a few yards to talk to her, by mid route she was standing tall, waving to the crowd, and searching out familiar faces in the crowd. It was pretty funny.

Tuesday night, I was invited to a dinner of managers and visiting managers. We went to the Loring Pasta Bar in Minneapolis. The company paid for it. I don't normally get included in those kinds of events. And now I've been asked by that same group of managers to come entertain clients at another company dinner next Tuesday. I'm really surprised and honored by that request. Remember when I always used to get fired ?

I run 3K almost every night. Some nights it goes ok, and some I just barely limp home. I haven't figured out the pattern why some nights the running is easy and some nights it's hard. The 5K event is in one month, on Sept 16.

Two days ago, Wednesday, a co worker who sits right next to me had the afternoon off to go be sworn in as an American citizen . He was really discreet about it, but the rest of us were so excited! Thursday morning , yesterday, before he came in , my other co worker brought in a whole box of USA decorations ; red, white and blue ribbons, wall hangings of national monuments, even a big US flag-themed balloon and a "congratulations" banner to hang from the ceiling over his cube. You could see it from almost everywhere ! I brought in a cake for us to have that afternoon. I think he was really surprised. In fact I told my other co-workers, we might embarrass him so badly he might change his mind and go back ! People from all over the company came over to congratulate him, and he was very popular yesterday. If you think about it, it's really awsome that he took the citizenship test and passed it, and now he's a legal citizen. It was realy exciting. Plus, we really have no privacy in our office. It was a good day.

Tomorrow night my old college friend Mary is coming to town and we're having a party at my other friend's house. And Sunday is Mounds View Tower Days, and my husband is in charge of the Lions Club hamburger stand, and will be working at it from 8 am until 8 pm. And I agreed to let my kids ride on the Sons of Norway float, so they can make the futile point that they're not just for old people, even though yes, they are, which means I have to go on it with them, and I just found out it'll just be us and two other people. How awkward , since yes, I am in Sons of Norway, but some things about them are really starting to bug me, and I sort of don't feel like being on their float just now.

It's 8:00 pm . If I don't go run now, then I won't. So I have to go now. Ever since that racoon chased us in to our house a few weeks ago, now when I run with my dog, every shadow looks like a racoon to me. And the sun goes down much earlier than it used to. So it's dark at 8 now. Time to go face the racoons.

My husband's dream job called this afternoon. He wasn't home. She left me her number and asked that he call as soon as possible tomorrow morning, because she has "good news," for him. I'm so afraid to get my hopes up. Do you know how awsome it would be if he really did get the job ?!

Today starts week 3 of running. I only missed the two nights of my husband's grandpa's wake and funeral. I ran 3 K tonight (according to mapquest) instead of my usual two.

My 12 year old daughter lost a tooth today while sitting in the dentist chair preparing to get a filling in a different tooth. She's trying to pull out another loose one right now. I can't watch.

We forgot to put out the garbage last night, so it didn't get picked up today. Now we have to wait another week.

Thursday morning, the morning of my husband's big interview, he went to use the computer in our basement...and saw a mouse! He set some traps, and went to his interview. He did inform our 12 year old daughter of the mouse, but she got bored and decided to use the computer that afternoon, and after about an hour of tranquility, the mouse ran right under the desk, right under her feet! She continues to refer to it as "The Rat!"

I came home that afternoon, and the traps had not caught anything. I let our shephard mix dog in to our basement, and she ran right to a crack between two book cases, pointed, barked and frantically reached her paws in . I left her to it and trusted she's flush it out and break its little neck. About 10 minutes later I checked back on her. She had scraped up part of one of the book cases and entirely shredded apart a big chunk of the carpet! And she didn't even get the mouse!

Later that night when my husband came home, he checked the traps again, and one of them had a mouse! So of course he threw it out. Friday morning I checked the remaining traps we'd left out and found one of them was set off, but had not caught anything! So there may be more. I've let the dog back in to the basement though, and she doesn't seem to sense anything. We'll just have to keep setting, and checking, the traps. And put some kind of carpet remnant over the shredded part of the carpet in the corner of our basement family room!

Yesterday I picked up my 7 year old son from day care. He used the phrase "Dog crap" in conversation, in the car, on the drive home, and I corrected him and informed him that "crap" is not a word we use in our family. I told him I'm aware that he's learned a lot of inapproprate words over the course of the summer. And he replied "Naked Lady. Nekkid Leddeeee. Naked Lady!' Then he thought for a moment and very deliberatly added, "Butt-Tox. Buttox. Buddux." I guess if "Naked Lady," and "Buttox" is the worst he can come up with we're still Ok for now.

I did have to convince him to stop displaying "the finger," earlier this summer though. I told him it was a mean Sign Language word. He told me he would only say it to President "Cheater" W. Bush. I told him it was not appropriate not even then, because it hurts people's feelings. He cried. He hates Geroge Bush with a venom I don't remember passing along to him. He alternately calls him "Cheater W. Bush" or "George W. Cheater." He still believes George W. Bush and Dick Chaney drove to our house almost 2 years ago and stole our "Kerry/Edwards" campaign sign out of our yard, themselves.

Tuesday morning we drove to Green Bay, Wisconsin for my husband's grandpa's late afternoon wake. He had to work until 11 am that morning, to make best use of the few hours off he has accrued in the last 6 months he's worked there. They really are a bunch of petty micromanagers over there. I dressed us all for the extreme heat we've been experiencing over the last few weeks. Instead of the sun, however, we were followed all the way, the entire 5 hours, there by low, black wall clouds, and rain so hard it was sometimes almost impossible to see out the windshield. Other drivers were pulling over, along highway 29. But we didn't have that kind of time, so we just kept going. Some of those clouds seriously looked like they were trying to develop funnels, but luckly none of them ever did.

We arrived, at Blaney's funeral home. We'd been here about a year and a half earlier, for my husband's grandma, on the other side of his family. Grandpa Buck was laying in his coffin. Really he looked really good. They'd put his glasses on him, for show, and he was wearing a suit with a tie with little cows on the tie. My son was disturbed that only the top half of the coffin lid was up. The half of the lid that covered Buck's legs was closed. My son asked me , "Did they cut off his legs?"

Everyone there, approached my husband and wished him luck for his big job interview the next day. They all knew about it!! It was because right there at Buck's deathbed, in the nursing home, while they were planning his funeral , Paul's parents requested an early morning funeral, so Paul would have time to make it back for his Thursday morning interview! It was big news in the family!

Then in spite of the fact that they had a Catholic Church funeral scheduled for him the next morning, they really did set out chairs there at the funeral home and have a memorial service for him there, too . Just as I did a year and a half earlier, I took my son in to an adjoining room, where he coudn't sit still, rolled around on the floor, obsessed over the many kleenex boxes until I put them up, and just generally acted like A.D.D. Hyper Boy. I always feel completely set up for failure in situations like that. There was a couple in there, with chairs right in the doorway between our room and the memorial service, they looked a little familiar to me , but I couldn't place them. They re-introduced themselves to me later, they were our friend Dave's parents!

The next morning we all drove to their church that their family has attended for generations, St. John the Baptist Church of Howard , Wisconsin. The place was packed! Grandpa Buck was very popular ! Just as with the memorial the day before, at the funeral home, also in attendence was Buck's very elderly one remaining brother, Jim. They came from a large family with a lot of children. Now Jim is the only one left. He's had to go to all his brothers' and sisters' funerals.

Again my son was hard to watch, there in our pew. My husband delivered the eulogy , at the request of his father. He told a lot of the anecdotes that his granfather had told him during all his interviews with him, and everyone laughed. A lot of people came up to my husband later to say how much they appreciated his speech. I bought 3 kleenexes with me in my purse, and I used them all up. We all really did look up to Buck. He really never did dislike anyone, or say anything negative. It was really refreshing to be around him.

I didn't know this, but my husband's Uncle Nick told us all that just before Buck's 99th birthday, Nick asked Buck, "Where do you want to have your party this year." Buck answered, "Call Mike." Nick asked, "Who's Mike?" Buck answered, "He owns Blaney's Funeral Home, let's have it there this year!"

After the funeral there was a luncheon, and after the luncheon we attended his burial. All the children were fascinated by the machinery that lowered the coffin in to the open grave, and placed a second lid on top of the casket.

After that we really did have to stop by my in-laws to pack , and leave. We drove the 5 hours home Wednesday afternoon , and made it home around 9 pm. We did hit rain at first, but most of the way was good weather. We needed to come home right away, because my husband really did have a Thursday morning interview.

Thursday noon, my husband called me to say the interview was over, and that he felt he'd interviewed well, but that the people interviewing him really didn't give him very much feed back. It was hard for him to tell if they were impressed or not. But Thursday afternoon, one of the interviewers called our house to ask permission to check one of his references. My husband wasn't home, because he had to drive straight from that interview to work, and work 1:30 pm to 9 pm to make up the hours he'd missed going to his grandpa's funeral. At least we *told* them we had to drive back Thursday morning, so he could make it to that interview. I told the interviewer to go ahead and check that reference. So they must at least be interested enough to check his references.