Employment

Both kids are on the path of fiscal responsibility. Hannah went to Eastern Market at 6:30 a.m. today with our neighbor Amber. She is going to sell fruit and vegetables from Amber's family stand until she has to leave for her game at around 2:30. It'll be good for her. Hannah was outside too long in the sun yesterday during the school's Pitch, Hit and Run contest and has one heck of a sunburn. Hope she doesn't whine too much at work.

Jackson (and Denzel) are going to try out on May 1 for the Greening of Detroit's Green Corps. It is a group of 80 high schoolers who maintain the trees and gardens that the Greening's volunteers have planted over the years. It pays minimum wage and gives the kids 40 hours of time Monday through Friday during the summer. It is a three-step interview process that will be good for the boys. They have to run certain drills, participate in a Saturday planting and go through a formal interview. Cross your fingers!

We went and saw "Hairspray" at Cass last night. What a beautiful theater. The production was fabulous. Man, could those kids sing and dance. It was kind of odd seeing a nearly 100% African-American school do "Hairspray." Even the white kids in the story were black. Mama Turnblad was played by one of the big guys from the Cass football team. Hilarious. Nathan and Lynn went with us. Nathan is going to go to Cass next year with Jackson. He's an amazing actor so it was good for him to see that Cass will help support his acting "chops."

I'm home alone this morning which is so weird. Jackson is at an ROTC tournament, Hannah is working at the Market and Ro went to work after he dropped Jackson off. I leave in an hour for weaving but I am enjoying this peace and quiet quite a bit. (I stayed up past midnight last night dying some yarn for class this morning and it looks like crap! Should have gone to bed.)

Here fishy, fishy

I knew it had to arrive...but reality is here. We've lost all the men in our house until Fall. The boat is in the water. The guys were up and out by 6:30 this morning with Rick and his boys in pursuit of walleye.

Baby Dawson is being baptized today. You should have seen the look of glee in Ro's eyes when his Mom let it slip that the Mass is at noon, but the baptism didn't happen until after Mass around 1:30. "Is it OK if we skip the Mass and join you at 1:30?" More fishing time, you know.

Hannah has a softball game today so she's going to skip the baptism. Sure hope they win because she's feeling guilty.

Jackson and I did a 5K run yeterday morning at Belle Isle. For the first time in a long time, I felt pretty good. Still slow as molasses, but I felt good. Guess I'm getting my running Mojo back now that the weather is good. I skipped weaving yesterday (heavy sigh!) because I had a church budget meeting at 11. Three hours on a beautiful Saturday! Ugh...but we got it done.

My Chuckle of the Day!

Hannah Got a Scholarship

Hats off to the girl child! She is the recepient of the Gushee Language Arts scholarship at Liggett. Hannah had to submit a bunch of her writing samples and she won! I'm glad, not only for the bucks but for the self esteem it helps her build.

This is play week. Hannah is a mime in the St. Clare rendition of Godspell. Most of her buds are leads in the play but Hannah stuck it out in the background. She hates everything about the play this year but I'm really proud of her. It would have been easier to quit. When all of her friends go on and on about how hard it is to be on stage the whole time or how they don't like their costume or how they keep messing up their lines, I know it grinds her because she would give her eye teeth to be in their shoes. She has to wear all black and has no lines. She performs tonight, Friday and Saturday. It will be fun. Tim is coming down tomorrow and the Robars will be here on Saturday.

How do you reach a 16 year old?

Ugh....my fabulous son who is so good in so many ways is becoming a flake about school. He is missing assignments and getting weak grades on tests. All of this at the same time he tells you to your face that he wants to buckle down so he can go to West Point! I've never seen Ro so angry and disappointed. Do you take away things like girlfriends, baseball and drill team that he loves?....or do you ignore it and let him mistakes?...or do you lock him in the Grosse Pointe Library everynight for a few hours with only his books?