I PASSED!!!!!!

I am reminded of the scene in Legally Blonde when El Woods was walking up to the posted list of those who were chosen for the prestigious legal internship. Upon seeing her name on that very small list of names she shouted,


"ME!"


That is the way I felt yesterday after finding out I passed the teachers exam. I wish I could say I knew I would pass it or it was easy and stuff. The truth is I was shocked. I had no business passing that exam. I wasn't positive I had one answer right until I reached a question somewhere in the 80's. Prior to the exam I had asked/told Heavenly Father that if this was the way I was supposed to go in life then please help me pass this test. I know without a doubt, without His help I would have never passed this test. I can now start looking for a teaching job and go to all of the job fairs. I broke down in tears when I saw that I has passed I think for a couple of reasons. Those who know me know I have struggled with the decision of what I should do professionally for that last 11 years. It was a decision that haunted me daily and I never could seem to get a confirmation from above on the matter. It has been a constant source of frustration for me. So getting such a straight up confirmation of my direction and as I see it purpose for my career was special to me. The other reason was because it was semi-miraculous. I am not humble when it comes to taking tests. I am not the smartest person in the world and and I am not the dumbest. But I am good at taking tests and I like taking them. I like analyzing them and seeing if I can break them down. I did do some deduction while taking the teaching test but honestly felt I had no chance of passing it because the material I studied did not help with a single question. I just wanted to let everyone know the good news.

Happy 5th Anniversary!!!

After waiting for many, many months for my divorce from a completely miserable, nightmarish marriage to come to an end I decided to attend the local institute in McKinney. My sister Sarah had been going to it and I had asked her on a few occasions about the local "talent" at the female position. I remember her telling me about this one girl that was cute and sweet. Sarah never officially introduced me to her so I never knew which girl she was referring to when I attended institute. There were a few cute girls at institute, three for sure that had some interest in me but known of those three I had any interest in. One evening I decided to attend a young singles activity in Frisco at a sand volleyball court. I attended with a couple of friends who were girls. During that evening I got to throw the football for a few minutes with a delightful young woman named Tina. I had seen her around and I knew she was dating someone. I found her personality appealing and she was cute. Over the next several months I watched her and talked with her when I could. I went with my friends and her and her boyfriend to the Renaissance Fair where I watched her some more (I have pictures with my spy equipment to prove it! J/K). I watched her at the dances. Over that period of time I had spoken with my friends about her on several occasions. They were good friends with Tina so they knew a little about her. They and others had given me the impression that Tina and her boyfriend were for sure going to get married, it was just a matter of time. I don't remember the exact moment I knew Tina and I would be a perfect couple, but it was not very long after I first met her. After a few months passed since I first met her and knowing she and I would be absolutely perfect for each other, I decided I better let her know I was out there and interested in her when/if she became available. So one day after an activity I told her exactly that. I wanted to plant a seed. I wanted to let her know there was a better option out there. I think it was only a few weeks after I told her I was interested in her that she and her boyfriend broke up. The underlying story of all of this stuff going on was my two friends who were girls, who were part of the 3 girls that liked me in the beginning wanted me for themselves. So they were feeding me bad information. When Tina and her boyfriend broke up they kept it from me because they knew I liked her. They pressured Tina not to date me because they liked me. I on several occasions made it clear to my two friends that we were only that and nothing ever more, but they still schemed and planned all the while. My first "date" with Tina was a trip to the local golf driving range. It was on the eve of my sister Angela's wedding reception. We had a real good time hitting golf balls, neither of us was very good at it though, but we had nice, natural conversation and I think an instant comfort level. We had never been alone before, so we never really had the freedom to speak freely together. At each table for Ang's reception there was a vase that had a beta fish in it. I remembered from our first date her telling me she liked animals and stuff. So I grabbed one of them and took it out to her house the next day. After that I asked her on a real official date and I think we went ice skating at the Frisco mall where we both fell on our butt's once or twice. A day or so after that I received a voice message from Tina saying she couldn't date me because her friend (and my friend) liked me and didn't want her to date me. Well we got through all that soap opera bs and the rest is history. I just thought I would tell the story for those of you who have never heard it before. I knew Tina and I were perfect for each other shortly after we met. I then spent the next 4 months trying to convince Tina of that fact. The truth is Heavenly Father answered my prayers and blessed me with the sweet after going through so very very much of the bitter in my previous marriage. She is a blessing and we will be together for ever. After knowing each other for 6 years and being married for 5 of those we have still never raised our voices to each other. We are truly happy and blessed to be together. I love her very much.

In other news I am still working at Market Street and really loving every minute of it. I like this job more than any job I have ever had. I am happier with this company than any company I can ever imagine. I will get the results of my school teacher test I think in one week. I don't think I am going to pass the test, but who knows. I do know I enjoy this job and have a lot of opportunities with this company.

Tina is getting better from her sickness. We are going out tomorrow to celebrate our anniversary since I work this evening. Ayden and Asher are doing well. I think maybe for the first time I can remember, it snowed twice in Texas in one Winter where I live. Asher and I played out in the snow last night for about 30 minutes. We were having a snow ball fight, then we made a little snow man. There was probably 6 inches of snow in our backyard which is a lot for Texas. I have included all those pictures either on this blog or on the photo album. It was a lot of fun and really cool to see.

For those of you who took the poll question on the blog from the last post that answered Manchego, you were correct. Manchego is a Spanish cheese made from Ewe's milk.

Greetings

Man I enjoy watching SpongeBob with Asher. I just heard a vocal exchange between SpongeBob and Plankton. SpongeBob said, "You can't have that crabby patty Plankton, its for the customer." To which Plankton replied, "Customer? Why I'll boil the customer in hot oil..." Plankton is truly funny on that show. The Scott family for the past few days have all been added to the disabled list (for my women readers this is a sports term). Tina is out with a cold/flu. She has had a sore throat, body ache, cough, etc... Asher has had a cough for the past couple of days. I woke up with a headache and Ayden is teething. Other than that we are doing great.

Ayden's front teeth are coming in now. You can just see her right front tooth about to poke through the gum. We think it has been contributing to her evening grumpiness. She continues to struggle trying to pull herself up. She usually ends up busting her face on something. She is almost totally of the boob now. I think she only boob feeds once or maybe twice a day now. It is fun to watch her crawl all over the place. Thank heaven for little girls.

Asher continues to do well in school. His highest grade right now is in science which is also his favorite subject. He went to a kids b-day party the other night at a game center and had lots of fun. He has met some of the other neighbor kids and has started to play basketball with them next door. Baseball is coming up in April and he is getting excited for that.

Tina is sick as I mentioned above. But other than that she is doing well.

Meanwhile, the store has opened. Last you heard from me I had 3 job possibilities. It turns out I chose the one I had from the very beginning. I was offered the library job at CCCCD. I was invited to interview for a library job with the City of Little Elm, o I could substitute teach. After weighing all of my present options I decided to keep the full time Market Street job and the benefits that come with it. The store opened this past Friday to a abundant crowd. I got to the store at 8am. After placing some grated Grana Pandana on a display section I was returning to my cheese section when I looked up and saw a person that looked familiar. This was a person I have seen on TV hundreds of times. This person was the great, 3 time Super Bowl champion and Hall of Famer, Troy Aikman. He was talking to someone but as I walked by him I said, "Holy smokes its Troy Aikman" and I patted him on the back as I walked by. Needless to say we are now best buddies. I worked a 10 hour day that day, hard work but lots of fun. The store was packed to the max. I got to meet one of the co-owners of the company. He seems like a very good person and I can tell that the feel of family that permeates throughout the company comes from him. I am learning my cheeses these days, so if any of you have any questions about cheese then holler at me. We have 300 different cheeses in the store. I have tried many of them and have learned a lot about them so far. I am currently reading a book about cheese to better familiarize myself with the many, many cheeses of the world. It is really quite interesting. I won't get the results of my teaching social studies test until the 14th of March. I don't expect it will be a good result. I studies a good amount but evidently didn't study the right stuff because I guessed on almost every answer choice. So if HF wants me to teach he would have to have blessed me with a lot of help. I will let you know when I know. Please, take the poll to the right.

"F is for fire that burns down the whole town, U is for uranium, bomb, N is for no survivors."

- Plankton

Happy Valentines Day to you and yours.

All is well in the Scott domicile these days. Asher is doing well in school. He recently got an award at school called the Rucker Rocks award. It goes to students who help make the school a better place by treating people nice and making good grades. Asher is making friends church and school and is a very good boy. We got to see the Chipmunk movie the other day. Asher liked it and so did Tina and I. It was a pretty good movie. We have been watching some of the old Star Trek movies since Asher is so interested in Astronomy. He is enjoying them. So far he has only seen "Star Trek:Insurrection" but he wants to see some of the others. Baseball season is coming up in April and he is excited to play.

Ayden is crawling all over the place now. She has pretty much got the crawling thing down and is ready to start pulling herself up on objects and walking. She tries to pull herself up but hasn't quite mastered the technique. She usually ends up slipping and hitting her face on something. I just laugh and laugh. J/K! She is nearly weaned off the boob now (sorry I am not a p.c. guy). She can say "Momma" and "Dadda" now and that is about it, but that doesn't stop her from gibber jabbering nonstop. I tell Tina she gets that from her, but we all know it is from me.

In other news I was very sad to hear the news that Postum is no longer in production. After many decades it has been discontinued due to lack of demand. So I have made the shift to really the only other naturally decaffeinated coffee like drink, Pero. It was hard to find. I like it, but Postum is my preference.

It is kind of weird. I went about 27 years of my life really never reading a book except church books. In fact the only book I remember reading growing up was a few Jack London books. My favorite was "White Fang". I had trouble finding books that could hold my attention. After getting into the Harry Potter books a few years ago it has really opened up a love of reading for me. Since then my brother and dad have introduced me to several Fantasy writers and I have really enjoyed them. I now have a line of about 10 books I am looking forward to reading. If any of you have any suggestions for books you have read please let me know about them in the comments section. In job news, I didn't get the Tech job but that was good because I have been there and done that and I didn't want to go back to it. I did get the part time Library job at Collin College so that was nice. I was also hired at Market Street a few weeks back and have done some training with them over the past couple of weeks. Market Street is really the first company I have experienced that did things right in my opinion. They treat people right, they promote from within and are friendly and kind. I am going to try and work there part time in addition to the library. Also I have been trying to substitute teach in a very large district and couldn't figure out why there was no jobs. Well after talking to the district they had messed up my login so I couldn't see any jobs. Well they fixed it, so now there are tons of jobs out there. So I am going to try and do all 3 of these jobs in addition to my 6 credit online graduate hours. I take my Social Studies exam one week from tomorrow. If I pass it I will be qualified to teach Economics, Government, History, Civics, etc.. in grades 7 -12. If I don't pass it my plans might possibly be delayed by quite a bit. So I need to pass it the first time. My knee is still screwed up. I have had an X-ray, I have had it checked out by a orthopedic surgeon and tonight I am getting an MRI on it. Problem is I don't have insurance so if surgery is required I might have to wait a while to get it fixed. It has been jacked up now for almost 2 months. It is a little depressing because I would like to be playing softball and basketball for the church and the city. Also I can't go out and play with Asher very much.

Tina is doing great as always. She is loving being a mom and is very good at it. She and I went to Red Lobster for Valentines day. I don't really know what else to say about Tina. She always makes fun of me because I never write much about her. But I don't know what to say about her, she is just great.

I should be cained for my neglect of this blog.

Hello again fans and media to The Usual Scott's blog. I wanted to pose the following question: Isn't it curious sometimes, how we don't see the signs that are right in front of our eyes? No I mean literally right in front of your eyes. Seriously, right in front of our eyes. Look at the picture at the bottom of this post and you will see what I mean. This morning for the second time Ayden and I were awakened to the sound of our intruder alarm. Did we have a break-in you ask? Maybe. But as it turned out Tina just forgot to disable the alarm before she opened the back door to let Homer (our dog) outside. Hey it happens. You know what we should do; we should put up a sign on the back door reminding everyone to check the alarm before opening the door. Oh wait, we did. Of course I say this tongue-in-cheek, I very much love my little wolf crier. Another deep question for you: How come canned soup never tastes the same as the real thing? (Tina just asked me this question as I was writing this blog, so I wanted to give you a peak at our deep, intellectual conversations. This is the type of stuff you can't get anywhere else. Thought provoking questions, hard hitting news, sports talk, job grumbling. This blog is gold. If it is not one of your links or bookmarks then you are missing out on my random, infrequent, sporadic posts of grandeur).

Ayden has begun her movement. I use the word movement because she can get from one side of the room to the other, but it is not always crawling. She likes to roll over and then do her little lean pose to check things out. I tell Tina that Ayden is just lazy. If there is something on the floor she wants, she will legitimately crawl to it and get it. If not, she is content with just leaning and rolling around. So she can crawl, she just chooses to do it sparingly. Her second bottom tooth has broken through the gum. I have taught her how to make noises with her mouth by saying "ahhh" and then she puts her fist back and forth to her mouth.

Asher is doing well. He has been making a lot of parachutes with paper towels and yarn the last couple of days. He also likes making a variety of things out of paper; as a result I need to buy more printer paper. Asher won a little experiment at school in his science class, so that was cool. He is excited to play baseball but that doesn't start until April. Meanwhile we are going to try and get him in the Chess club that goes on after school. He likes Chess and does pretty well in it. He has been a pleasure to have in our home.

Meanwhile last and deservedly so is me. I am doing well. I am taking two graduate courses online. I have come to the conclusion that as much as I enjoy school, I can't stand night school and I am burnt out of going to classes in person. Maybe some day that will change but for the time being that is the way it is. That being said I am enjoying taking my classes in my own home at my own leisure. I was hired at a specialty grocery store a week ago called Market Street. I would be working in the cheese and deli section. My plan to work as a sub teacher didn't work because teachers decided not to miss any work, so there was no work for me. While I did accept this job, I still continue to look for one that is better for the family and our future. I had two interviews this week. One was a library position with Collin College. The other was a Technical Specialist position with a local software security company. I think I will get them both and will thus have a decision to make. Don't know what it would be. As far as my weight loss effort is concerned it is coming along. It hit a little bump during the holidays but I am back on regular track toward the sexiest man alive award. I will inform you of the statistical progress in the near future. Peace out.

Winds of change

Well a lot has transpired since my last blog. For those of you who haven't heard we are trying to get full custody of Asher after learning some of the things he had been going through over the years. We won emergency custody over the Christmas holidays so Asher did not have to go back to Oregon and started school with us here in Prosper. He is doing well. We have been playing baseball and football almost every day. I am going to try and get him into a basketball league starting pretty soon. He seems to be enjoying his school here so far. He is getting used to his new home here and we are getting used to having a 7 year old boy in our house. The decibel level changed when he arrived but it has been great, just takes some time to get used to it. The whole situation could be resolved in a week or two or might drag on for months depending on what the other side does.

In other news we had a nice Christmas and New Years spending and visiting with a lot of family. I took Microeconomics over the Christmas holiday since it was a class I needed for teacher certification. I am going to take the Social Studies composite test for 7-12 grades in February. That way I will be ready to get a job during the heavy teacher job fairs in March and April. I have interviewed for a computer tech job with the local school district hoping to get to know some people. I am set up to sub for Frisco ISD.

Ayden is doing well. She has been a bit crankier of late. Her one tooth is coming up and the other one is on the way and I think that has got her grumpy. She gets in the crawling position all the time but still hasn't figured out how to coordinate her movements to crawl yet.

Tina is doing fine as always.

In weight loss news, I let go during the holidays and probably gained about 13lb's. But the other day when I got on the scale I was back to 230lb's so I am only about 7lb's heavier than I was before the holidays. I am back to normal eating again and the weight is coming of again. The goal is still the same and I will get there but I am going to have to start doing some exercise. My playing with my brothers over the holidays has really hosed up my knee so I am unable to exercise at the moment, but Asher is keeping me active (which is probably also not allowing my knee to heal).

The Scott's are doing well, we are grateful for what we have and each other.

Back again

Well I haven't written for quite some time now. Nor I have updated the photo album lately. Well I have done both now. Having a little kid sometimes allows for interesting and tense situations. Much like the time Asher saw a black person when he was a little boy visiting in Texas. He loudly said, pointing to the black man, "look a brown person". Then even more recently then that, I had the privilege of taking Ayden out to the hall because she was being loud in Stake Conference. We went over to a quite area over by some of the bishops office to sit down. There were two chairs, one was being occupied by a gentleman who was sitting there with his eyes closed appearing to be in heavy meditation. The other was available, so Ayden and I sat there. It was nice and quite, we were all just sitting there relaxed when Ayden suddenly let one rip. She followed that one promptly with another one. I was unsure what to say or do. I didn't look at the man on my right to see his reaction, I just hoped he didn't think it was me. Good times. Other than that things are going alright. We have a good deal of our Christmas shopping done so we are happy about that. We went to the Frisco Mall today and oddly enough the power was out in every single store except for the department stores. All the stores were closed, no one could buy anything because the credit card machines were all down.

I started running this week. I started the first time on Tuesday trying to run a 5k on the treadmill. But only made it about 3.5k. Today I ran the whole 5k and did alright all things considered. I ran it in 34 minutes and 30 seconds which is not real fast but not to bad for me at this time. It is about a 11 minute and 30 second pace per mile. I continue to do push-ups 3 days a week, 3 sets of 40 per day. So I am doing 360 push-ups a week and over 1200 per month. I know I am going to be eating more than I usually would during the holidays so hopefully the exercise will help eat up some of the additional calories. Ayden is rolling over all over the place now. She wants to crawl but hasn't figured it out yet. She can scoot herself a foot or two here and there but nothing with proper form yet. She talks constantly (she gets that from Tina :)) and she screams a very high pitch squeal quite often. We think we saw the first sign of teeth today in Ayden. Ayden is eating quite a bit of physical food now. She eats a lot of rice cereal, sweet potatoes, green beens, carrots and has just recently started eating fruit.

Asher seems to be doing alright. He is doing well in school. I recently got his report card from his teacher in Oregon and he is doing well, especially in Math and Science. When he visited for Thanksgiving, I asked him what he would like to be when he grew up. He told me he wants to be a Scientist. I was surprised and happy about that desire. He is a smart little boy, who is fascinated about ocean life and the titanic. It is one of his favorite things. He can tell you a lot of information about it. He has about 5 books on the subject and is looking for more. He learned to play chess while he was in the hospital in about a day and was playing me and others for about 20 minutes at a time before we beat him. He is competitive like me, he doesn't like to lose, but no one should.

Tina is enjoying being a mother. She is so good at it. She has a routine with Ayden that makes things so easy for everyone. Ayden eats at certain times and sleeps at certain times. Tina has one more day of work at the dental office she is working at. After that she will only have her Saturday morning job to do. She is the best mother and wife any child or man could ever hope for. Ayden and I are so lucky to have her.