It’s My Imagination

Lazy Day

With all the stress of the last week and the Destination Imagination tournament yesterday, I feel fried.  I slept for roughly 8 hours last night, the longest I’ve slept in one night in several weeks, and got up this morning just wanting to do nothing.  That’s pretty much what I’ve done.

Yes, I’m getting laundry caught up and I even cleaned our bathroom, but other than that, I’ve been sitting, watching t.v. and reading blogs.

The tournament yesterday didn’t turn out to be successful for my team.  They are disappointed, but I think they learned a lot, especially for it being the first year to do DI for 4 of the 6 team members.  I believe they want to do it again next year because they did have fun working together.  If I can muster up the energy, I’ll volunteer for another year.

They are all moving on to 7th grade next fall which means they’ll be going to the junior high.  I’ll have to meet with that principal to see if she’s willing to have the school sponsor the team.  With all of the fees, it’s several hundred dollars to send a team to even the regional level, even more if they end up going on to State.

We shall have to wait & see what next year brings. 

Today’s The Big Day!

Today’s the day, the day my six 6th graders have been working towards since October.  Today is the NeXT Region Destination Imagination Tournament.

These 6 girls (as well as hundreds of other kids in the area) have been working so very hard together as a team.  They began by choosing their Team Challenge and then coming up with a plan of how to solve it.  They created a skit, put together costumes from items that found at The Salvation Army and The Dollar Store, built sets out of old cardboard moving boxes and paint and colored with crayons like there was no tomorrow!

Today is the day that the get to present it to the world.  To say they are excited would be putting it mildly.  I’m drinking my coffee (my first of many cups today) and then we’re off.  A quick rehearsal this morning before going to the even site and then we just have to try to stay relaxed.

I am very proud of these 6 girls.  They worked hard, came together as a team and have, what I think, is an excellent presentation.  Wish them luck!

Insomnia

I had been doing really well, I’d actually been sleeping, for the most part.  This week, unfortunately, has been a different story.  I think it stems from the fact that I’ve been unusually busy and there are so many upcoming events that are stressing me out.  If you’re not interested, you may want to skip ahead, but I thought if I were to write a list, to organize my thoughts, perhaps it would enable me to relax a bit and be able to sleep.  I’m so tired right now that my imagination is running on empty.

Here’s my list, in chronological order.

• Clean house in preparation for daughter’s sleepover party
• Make restaurant reservations for tomorrow night’s birthday celebration
• Saturday - spend the day at the mall with daughter and her friends as part of her birthday party
• Saturday night - sleepover party (hoping to lock myself away in my room)
• Sunday - take girls to IHOP for breakfast (late)
• Create embroidery design for Destination Imagination team shirts
• Create team shirts by next Friday (one week)
• Monday - Meet with guitar instructor about job, hopefully set a schedule
• Monday - DI meeting
• Tuesday - guitar lesson and probably do some work while we’re there
• Tuesday - daughter’s actual birthday so we will go out to dinner at the restaurant of her choice
• Wednesday -work at guitar studio (A.M.), DI meeting, (afternoon), software class (evening)
• Thursday - work at guitar studio (A.M) DI meeting (afternoon)
• Friday - possible DI meeting
• Saturday - Destination Imagination Regional Tournament (all day and into the evening)
• Sunday - stay in pajamas all day (I wish) or, if team does well enough to be selected to go to State, attend State meeting in the afternoon
• Monday - work at guitar studio, DI meeting, softball practice
• etc., etc., etc.,

This list could keep going and these are only the major things.  This is not my to do list which is quite full at the moment.  I need my husband to go to work and my daughter to go to school just so I can get busy!

Super Saturday

Saturday was the busiest day I’ve had in a long time. By the end of the day, I was completely exhausted and collapsed into bed. Busy, but productive, just the way I like it.

My Destination Imagination team of six 6th graders attended an Instant Challenge Festival first thing yesterday morning. The team was able to watch other teams solve instant challenges and also solve 4 of their own, each time receiving feedback from appraisers (judges). We all learned quite a bit and I feel we are all more confident about what we need to do to be ready for the Regional tournament in March.

An Instant Challenge is basically improvisation. The team is given a challenge, sometimes they are given items to create props, sometimes not, and then have to solve some sort of problem. The problem can be anything from moving plastic animals from one island (poster board taped to floor) to another island, or creating a rhyming answering machine message incorporating nursery rhyme characters. They typically have 5 minutes to create and plan and then 2 minutes to present their solution. It is all very fast pace. These instant challenges are designed to demonstrate how well a team works together and how creative they are. This is where they score the most points.

It was a really great experience and I am ever so glad that we attended, thanks to our school’s PTA who paid the entry fee.

Following the festival, we came home for lunch and I was able to get a load of laundry done before my daughter and I headed out to do some shopping. I will talk more about the shopping at my other site, The Sewing Mom but I will say, I can’t wait to work on the projects I bought supplies for!

We met my husband for dinner at a little Mexican restaurant and I had a huge strawberry margarita that pretty much did me in for the night, as if I wasn’t all ready wiped out! I came home, organized the stuff I had purchased on our shopping trip, got my pajamas on and went to bed. That’s it, that’s all, a very full day.

What a Whirlwind of a Week!

It’s been so busy over the past week, I feel like I need a day (or two) to catch up.  I’m way behind in my blog visiting, I feel like I’ve missed visiting my friends.  It was a good week though, even if it did mean less time on the computer.

My mom & sister made it to my house last Friday night and stayed until Tuesday.  We had so much fun while they were here, I definitely didn’t want them to leave.  We made a trip to a local quilt shop and we all bought fabrics, patterns and kits of all kinds.  Having them here got me motivated to sew again and you can see some of what I accomplished this week at Sewingmom.com my other site.

After they left I found myself trying to finish up the holiday shopping. I did quite a bit of it online, but I also had to go out to the stores. One night I took my daughter with me to buy the gifts for my husband That was a lot of fun because it’s really the first year that she’s been interested and given me her input on what to buy. Today she’s even going to wrap all the gifts that we bought him.

Yesterday I found myself drawn back to the quilt store we had visited earlier in the week. They were having their annual year-end sale and I just couldn’t resist. I bought so much fabric and fat quarters, mainly to make gifts, so I better get busy! I have to make a trip to another fabric store this afternoon to buy threads and zippers and I hope to spend the next few days sewing. I’m going to attempt to make a cute little over the shoulder bag for each of the 6 girls on my Destination Imagination team. Our last meeting before the holidays is this Thursday though, so I have to get busy if I’m going to get them all done.

Today I’m cleaning house and getting organized for what promises to be another busy week. My husband is returning tonight from his trip to Europe and I’m sure we’ll be staying home tomorrow which will give me a chance to sew. I’m actually looking forward to it!

My mother-in-law flies in next Saturday to spend the holidays with us, so I have to make sure I get all her gifts wrapped before she arrives.  I just finished putting the guest room back together, so that’s ready for her.  I have a feeling the next couple of weeks are going to fly by just as quickly as this last one did.

I’ll keep you posted on my sewing progress!