A Friday Full of Memes

Rather than inundate with post after post of memes, I'm going to combine all the Friday memes into one post.  I hope the hosts don't mind me doing so.  It just saves me a lot of time!

First up is

• This week started out strong, but somewhere along the middle of the week, I lost my way.  I've been letting things slide again, but that is something I'm hoping to change today.  Right now, I'm being Laundry Diva, getting as much laundry done as I can.  It's a start, right?
• I had to go Mom Voice on a kid that's not my own today.  I'd driven Teddy to the bus stop, partly because of the colder weather and partly because I needed to go to the grocery store afterward.  I was sitting in the van, futzing on my kindle when one of Teddy's friends ran to the door of the car.  He was being chased by another boy that is older than Teddy's friend.  I rolled the window down and asked L if everything was ok.  "Sorta," was his reply.  When I asked if they were just playing around or if he was being bullied, he told me in a small voice, "Bullied."  I looked right at the other kid and told him to leave L. alone.  The kid just stared at me, balling his hand into a fist.  I refused to back down.  Finally he and L. both left.  My only worry with this is that he'll take it out on Teddy later.  I'm hoping it's just over-exuberance on the part of that kid, because if this continues, and/or Teddy becomes the victim, I WILL find out where in this complex he lives and speak to his folks.
• I've become addicted to NCIS.  I started watching it on CLOO and then, flipped over to USA.  Now I'm even catching the new eps.  The only bad thing about this is I'm watching it more than Arrow.  And I want to watch Arrow, I just can't seem to turn away from NCIS.
• We thought that the kids were going to have a snow day one day this week, but our school system didn't call it off.  All the surrounding counties did - we were under an ice storm warning for awhile.  Teddy has been very disappointed.  However, he does have Monday off for MLK day.  That should make him slightly happy.
• Speaking of Teddy, he got his report card yesterday.  They don't do letter grades in 1st grade (I'm not even sure when they start), but he did do very well.  He's meeting or exceeding everything they're giving him, and he's got Excels in all of his subjects except for Art and PE.  But even in PE he's getting an E for effort.  If he keeps up these grades, I may need to think of something nice to do for him when school is over.
• On the Pete front, you may have read my Pour Your Heart Out post about what's been going on with him in Parents Day Out.  (Briefly, for those who haven't and don't want to, he's been having a lot of behavior problems in school and it's killing me).  Well, yesterday was a million times better than Tuesday.  There were a couple incidents - not paying attention during story time, that kind of thing - but for the most part, he did really well.  And he was so proud of himself.  He threw his arms around me when I came in and said, "Mommy, I had a really great day today!"  I need to think of some way to reward him for his good days at PDO until the good becomes a habit.
• Rich is finished with this class at University of Phoenix, which will mean some income for us.  I can't wait.  This month has been really tight, thanks to the unexpected tire purchase.  His next class doesn't start up until the last Monday of January, giving us a week of breathing time.  Can't complain about that!
• I had to put my brace on today for the first time in about a week.  I didn't want to put it on, because I'd been doing so well without it.  But I think the ankle exercises, combined with the walking exercise I've been trying to get, is putting the pain back in it.  It should help me get some things done around here.
• I've gotten a lot of wonderful comments on my blog recently.  And I promise, I'm not ignoring you all. I've been in a bit of a depressive funk and that's made it hard for me to deal with these kinds of things.  But I'm planning on coming back to my blog later today (after I get the cleaning done I need to do) and answer those fantastic replies.  Thank you, everyone, for stopping by.

Now it's time for the next meme

This week, Joy is asking us to share a bit about ourselves , letting people that may be new to our blog get to know us a little better.  She doesn't know what she's getting into, asking me this one!  I could talk for hours! But, I'll try to keep it down to some facts so you can get on to other awesome blogs as well.
Here goes:
I grew up in a small town in upstate New York.  It was a place where you could leave your doors unlocked if you needed to run somewhere, and where everyone knew everyone else.  Secrets didn't stay secret and rumors took on a life of their own.  My school was very small - 400 kids, Kindergarten through 12th grade.  If I'd stayed there, I would have been in a graduating class of about 30.
"If you'd stayed there?" I'm hearing you ask yourself.  Yep.  My mom and dad separated when I was in 6th grade.  My dad eventually moved to Florida and, after a few years of visiting him in the summers, I decided that I needed to get out as well.  My mom and I didn't get along well at all, and that was a large impetus for my move.  So my younger sister stayed with my mom and I moved to Florida with my dad.
The new school took a lot of getting used to.  I went from 30 kids in my class to over 400.  I had a wider variety of classes that I could take.  And I didn't know 3/4s of the people I graduated with.  But I did make a lot of friends, had fun in chorus, took several AP classes and graduated in the top 10% of my class. (Barely.)  From there, I went to college at Florida Southern College in Lakeland, FL.
College was both everything I needed and too much for me at the same time.  I did well enough in my classes.  Not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, but well enough.  And I had a lot of friends, a few activities.  The biggest problem was that I started too far along in my college career.  I entered college as a junior, thanks to AP classes, Dual Enrollment classes and CLEP exams, and I thought I knew what I wanted to do.  I didn't get a chance to really try much out, outside of the bubble of Math Education that I'd put myself in.  When I realized that I didn't want to teach, I was floundering a bit.  I took some computer classes because it seemed like the next, best option.  I took theater classes because I enjoyed them - even though I wasn't very good at it.  And then, because of poor money management and a boyfriend that wasn't good for me, I ended up leaving with one semester left to go.
I lived in the St. Pete/Tampa area for the next several years, doing customer service jobs to pay the rent.  And when I finally realized I needed to get out of my bad relationship and I was at loose ends job-wise, I moved back home to live with my dad and step-mom.  When I met someone else, I moved to NYC and lived there for about a year and a half.  I was in NYC on 9/11 and it was the scariest day of my life.  
I met my husband through an online message board and we'd been friends online for awhile before we started dating.  He lived in Philly, so there was a lot of travel back and forth before we got engaged.  After our engagement, I moved to Philly to be closer to him.  We got married in Cherry Hill, NJ, at the church his family had been going to for years.  He was getting his doctorate in molecular biology and I was working as a secretary.  After he got his degree, we moved to Nashville for his post-doc.  And we've been here for 7 years.
Both my boys were born here.  I was pregnant with my eldest, Teddy, when we moved.  I worked part time for a background check company for a few years, but now I'm fully a stay-at-home mom.  And while we don't get the snow that I'd love to have, I don't mind living in TN.  My kids have friends here, my husband and I have friends here, and it's a good place to be.  Someday, though, I'm hoping that we'll end up back in the Northeast.  For all that my dad is now in the area (he and my step-mom moved here about a year after we did), there's a lot of family and friends in the NE that I miss a lot.  But whatever will be will be.  It's all an adventure, after all.
Thanks for listening to my chatter!  And if you have any questions about me, feel free to ask!
Joy also has a bonus question. 
If you could read the life story of anyone – Who’s Autobiography would you like to read and why?
No question.  Neil Gaiman's.  The ideas that come from this man's head are completely fascinating, and I'd love to read about the life he lead.
Next up, we have

1. I am a complicated person.
2. Sometimes I don’t know when to stop, pushing myself to pain.
3. My two favorite words lately are goofball and sleep.
4. I would like Pete being at school if his anger fits didn’t happen.

And finally, I'm linking up my one word. Melanie, at Only a Breath, made me two wonderful buttons for my one word.

I chose my word for 2013 to be Focus because it's something I need to do to reach my goals.  I so often have hundreds of things that I want to do and I try to get them all finished at once.  I've even been doing it this year, when I'm supposed to focus on one thing at a time.  So I'm rebooting myself to focus on the individual things rather than the big picture.  Because when the little things become habit, then the larger things will be too.

Thanks for stopping by my page full of memes!  I hope you've enjoyed what you've read.