Yellow Wallpaper

Now that my show has aired I can finally talk all about my trip and the taping. Despite the fact that I did not win, I still had a fabulous experience. I wish I could do it again just because it was so much fun (and I'd love another shot at some money, of course). Alas, it is a once-in-a-lifetime gig so I guess I'll just have to write it all down here so I can relive the memories any time I want to. I tried out back in March and knew that I would be in the contestant pool for about a year. Since this was my fourth tryout (and the third that landed me in the contestant pool), I really was not holding my breath waiting for a call. When my mom was here in July we decided to take the kids to Thanksgiving Point one morning. As we walked back in the house after lunch the phone was ringing; I checked the caller ID and nearly peed my pants when it said "Sony Pictures" with a California number. They invited me to come down to Los Angeles for a taping on August 30th. That was ...

Today was one of those rare, perfect days. It was a gift and a blessing, and I want to write it down so that I can remember it. The older kids have Fall Break from school for two days; I took the evening off from work and decided to just focus on having a fun day together as a family. The morning started out well with Little Dude waking up in a good mood and S-Boogie sleeping in enough to catch up on lost sleep. We hung around the house for a while and they actually helped me clean up the family room in the basement. I also made some yummy gingerbread muffins. As it got closer to lunch time I was having a debate with myself about the fact that I had told the kids earlier this week that we would go hiking today. I haven't gone hiking in years, but the weather is beautiful and the leaves are gorgeous. Both kids have some kind of hiking/nature walk thing on their 'champions club' goals from school and they have been wanting to hike. So I packed us a picnic lunch and we headed ...

I really want to get back in to blogging more regularly. Despite the fact that people seem to regularly declare blogging dead these days, I like it. I still have a lot of post ideas in my head. However, I worry about the fact that my posting this year has been about half of what it used to be, and most of those posts are declarations similar to this one. So now I'll stop dithering and dump some random crap on you (isn't that what blogging is all about?) This weekend really kicked my butt. I should be in bed catching up on sleep since I still haven't made up for losing so much over the weekend. I'm teaching two classes that meet Monday and Wednesday. Last Monday my students turned in papers. Due to the fact that I'm working two part-time jobs, I didn't even get to the papers until Thursday. That gave me four days to grade 40 papers, which doesn't account for the fact that I also have a life. By Sunday morning I still had 20 papers to go. So I stayed up ver...

I didn't post about it right away, but about two weeks ago I tried out for Jeopardy! Again. This is the third time, and I hope that it does the trick. I've already blogged about my other two tryouts ( here and here ) and this was pretty much the same. I'm not supposed to talk about it so I don't give anyone else a leg up. The bottom line is that I'm back in their contestant pool for next season and so for the next year I get to hope for a phone call inviting me to LA for a taping. One of the things they ask everyone in the interview part of the tryout is what you would do with the money if you won big on the show. Of course the chances of my getting on the show are slim enough that I have tried not to even think about the possibility of winning. On the other hand, I'd love to have some extra money and I'm only human so of course I've thought about what I would do. I would be responsible and pay off my one student loan and pay off our car, since they are...

If I had been blogging at 10 this morning I would have told you that my day so far had been fantastic. I got up and rode the exercise bike for a while, then helped the kids with breakfast, and started cleaning. I vacuumed the entire upstairs, did some laundry, cleaned the kitchen, and then swept and mopped the kitchen floor after the baby went to bed. Oh, and I make bread this morning. If I had been blogging at 2 this afternoon I would have told you about whiny the baby was. And I would have told you about how I gave in to Little Dude's pleading to make a volcano like the one in the Super Science Book . It's an extra special volcano where you add some red Jell-O powder to make it look cool. It was a lot of fun until I foolishly left the room for a few minutes to change the baby's diaper and came back to a giant puddle of sticky red gelatin-infused vinegar dripping all over my cabinets and freshly washed floor. If I had been blogging at 4 I would have shared my excitement ab...

When we left for Portland on Friday afternoon I was having serious doubts about our decision to get away for a weekend. It was snowing, Little Dude spent most of the car ride picking off his band-aids and complaining about owie fingers, and what should have been a three hour trip turned into six thanks to a major traffic jam and a very slow waitress at Shari's . But our usage of a Shari's coupon paid off after we got to our friends' home and broke out our free marionberry pie. It gave us the fuel we needed to stay up until two thirty in the morning talking. Yes, four responsible adults who knew that there were six kids in the house all primed and ready to wake up at seven threw caution to the wind and stayed up insanely late. Then we spent all of Saturday in our pajamas ignoring the kids and talking some more. We even ate the rest of our pie while they were in the other room watching a movie. It was a blast. I'm glad we took this little break since I'm heading off t...

OK, not really. But if you look at this article about the tryouts, you can see me in the picture. My face is just above the top corner of the computer screen, and I've got my hands over my mouth (naturally). Actually, I'm glad that they didn't use one of the pictures they took with me in it. That would have been a little more embarrassing. And the caption is wrong--the picture was actually taken yesterday, not Monday, and it was at the Sheraton hotel where we had the big test and interviews.

Anyone who has known me for a while knows that one of my life ambitions has always been to get on Jeopardy!. I actually tried out for the teen tournament when I was in high school, and though I got to go take the initial test in the studio, I did not make it. My dad and I still spent a fun day in LA and he even treated me to a yummy dinner at a nice restaurant in Malibu. Over the last few years I have sporadically watched the show, and I started to get more into it last summer when my friend Ken was on and we actually got cable so we got the right channel. S-Boogie enjoys watching "Jeppy" as part of our nightly routine, so my interesting in appearing on the show has been renewed as of late. Like any other rabid fan, I had been watching the website to see if auditions will be held anywhere within a reasonable distance of my home. Well, on Sunday morning I was reading the Tribune online and I noticed a little item stating that the Jeopardy! " Brain Bus" would be comi...