Jessica on 'Nancy Grace'

*click for larger view*
Jessica Birge is STILL missing. This is her vehicle. A lot of her friends are working to keep her face and vehicle in circulation online and on printed posters until she is found.
Her story will be covered on 'Nancy Grace' airing Tonight (7pm in DFW)
Here's the link to Nancy Grace's site

Please contact authorities if you have any info.
Comal County Sheriff's Dept.: 830-620-3400
Heidi Search Center: 1-800-547-4435 OR 210-650-0428
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I applied online for myself to work at Walmart, Dillards, sears and office max. Mardel's online application kept giving me an error message, so I'm gonna try applying on the other computer. Who ever gets a job first doesn't have to clean house, lol.

Our women's pastor at church, Tina, gave us a gift certificate to a hotel in Denton for our anniversary. She and her hubby received the gift certificate and were going to use it for their own anniversary, then they ended up with different plans.
So now it's ours and we have to use it before the end of September. I called and got a reservation for next Friday (after a few days of phone hassle). Tina also gave us a gift certificate for a restaurant in Flower Mound, Christina's. My church buddy, Sheryl, is coming over to stay with the kids over night. It sounds like it's gonna be a nice break. The hotel has a pool and gym and we'll get a free breakfast with the room. I'm ready to de-stress.

In other happy news: Our friends CK & Brandon are getting married tomorrow and the four of us our invited. :) We are friends with both the bride and groom independently, so it'll be interesting deciding where to sit. Brandon was our (free) pianist at our wedding 5 years ago (August 25th for anyone keeping track).

Elaine update

Today (Thursday)
She said that today she made a "rope as big as the world but my friends broke it." I kept asking questions and figured that she made a long chain out of chain things that snap together. She was sad the kids broke her chain. She did some coloring pages to identify the color yellow. She wrote "mommy" on it, because it was for me. Elaine also told me they don't have playdoh at school and she saw a dragonfly at recess.

Yesterday (Wednesday)
She made a "present" for me. It was a piece of 6"x8" pink construction paper with her handprint and a heart on it. She said she is friends with Cora, the little girl we met day one.

Jessica Birge STILL Missing!

Jessica has been missing since August 11th!
Here is a Video about her disappearance. NEWS REPORT

If anyone has any information, please contact the Comal Sheriff or the Heidi Search Center.
COMAL COUNTY SHERIFFHEIDI SEARCH CENTER
(830) 620-3400
1-800 547-4435
(210) 650-0428"

FIRST DAY of PRE-K

On the first day of School, Tuesday, we left a few minutes early. It was probably a good thing, since the parking was crazy. We had to park down the block from the school and walk the rest of the way. We met another mom with a daughter in Elaine's class walking to the school. She's a scrapbooker (hmmm...).

Elaine didn't care that we left her at school. There were other moms and grandmas crying in the hallway. *Seriously* I had about an hour break then I had to get to class, myself.
Hope and Jim picked her up at 10:50am and took her to lunch at What-a-burger. She was hungry and sleepy and NOT talkative. Later I heard from Elaine that they played outside and played "with shapes. With block shapes." She also said that Mrs. Wallace didn't teach them their alphabet yet, so she sang the alphabet song quietly to herself. lol.

Before Elementary School Started

Hope has been in town since Friday. She stayed with Dave one night but otherwise stayed with us. On Friday she paid for my summer tuition at UNT, so my fall financial aid wouldn't be held up. Then terror of terrors!!! On Monday I found from UNT that my renewal FAFSA wasn't sent to the school yet. So NO fall aide was impending yet. Hope took me up to campus because my home internet had been shut off. I went to the FAFSA website and sure enough, I had updated some information on the website in the last 6 months, but NOT completed a renewal FAFSA yet. So I was essentially starting from scratch and it will be 5 weeks before my fall aid is all worked out. *Scary* I got a short-term loan from UNT to pay for the first payment for my fall tuition. Then Hope went online and paid for my tuition at Midland College for my Spanish class. Our church paid our electric bill. Our friends Allan & Fumie loaned us $ for our lot and trailer rents. (They rounded up on their check, so we were also able to get the internet turned back on). My FAFSA has been processed at the state level and now we are just waiting on UNT.Elaine and Hope at UNT

Jim was very sick Saturday night and Sunday morning, so Hope took the kids and I to church. Jim had chest pains, and stomach flu symptoms. We're gonna try to get him on Medicaid like the kids so we can make sure the chest pains are nothing to worry about.
Elaine got new shoes and socks. She pushed up her pants so everyone could see her Dora socks.

At Meet the Teacher Night on Monday, Elaine and Allan played dress-up with some kids while we met the teacher, Mrs.Wallace. We live so close to the school, that we didn't leave until 5 minutes before the event. Elaine walked in to Mrs. Wallace and her first words were "I'm sorry we're late", even though we were right on time. Mrs. Wallace laughed. She sent us home with a family project for the night. I'll get back to that later.




Hope drove us out to Garland to meet Dave and our family friend Katie for dinner. We had Mexican food at El Chico. Then we drove by a friend's house, who is loaning us money.








The "Family Project" Elaine received for homework ended up being fun for Elaine and I, after Hope and Allan had gone to bed. We were supposed to decorate this paper doll child (20" tall) to look like Elaine and put photos of our family on the doll. It's to help her feel comfortable at school. I drew the face and helped Elaine make clothes. Elaine went wild with stickers all over the doll. Mrs. Wallace thought it was cute and put Elaine's on the center of the wall display at the school.

What's up with me.

This is a scrapbook layout that I began back in June. I finally got around to completing it. I needed an example of using an Arrow on a layout for the yahoo group. Did I tell yall, that I've been bumped up from Moderator to co-owner? It's really just a difference of title, but nice compliment. Elaine drew herself in her pirate skirt, outside a blue house with her wagon. I think the wagon is impressive. Allan has had about 10 "wet" accidents in the last three days. It's so frustrating. He was doing so well with potty training. I don't know why he's suddenly having trouble. He'll pee on his floor and then come to me complaining that his shorts are "Twet". Sunday night I cleaned their room and hand washed all their foam floor tiles. I have to do it again, because it smells like pet odor in Allan's room. I think I'll have to mix up some of my handy dandy pet odor neutralizer and sprits it later today.
Pet odor Neutralizer: 1 cup hot water, 1 lemon's juice, 2 tablespoons baking soda + a spray bottle. The spray bottle will clog if you don't rinse out the spritzer after each use.

Al pal was playing last night in his room, tripped and hit his forehead on the metal edge of their bunkbed's lower bunk. He has a scrape on his forehead (no surprise). I had to wear a band-aid on MY forehead all night, so he would leave the bandaid on his own forehead. It worked. *shrug* I know where his hands go, so the last thing I want is for Allan to touch his scrape and get it infected. I'm annoyed that Allan has this scrape on his face right as Hope is coming to visit. I know we are gonna take a million pictures and his new scratch will be in all of them. Here's some good news for thought: Steven B. mailed us a new router for our home computer network. My laptop is back on the internet. YAY!! Jim and I were starting to step on each other's toes sharing his computer. I like being able to work in my office/craft room again. More good news is that I am still registered for all my classes at both colleges. I thought that my class enrollments might get dropped since I didn't pay (with my fall financial aid) the same day as I registered for classes, but sure enough, they are still there. *Phew*

Jim didn't get the job as Kitchen Help at the bar. He's decided that driving to Lake Dallas every day would have tired him and the van out pretty quick, so it was probably not meant to be.

I was told not to worry about cleaning before Hope's visit, but I am cleaning anyways. The house got kinda gross while I was at the theatre until midnight for that week. And projects were all over my office, so it was the worst of all. My brain feels less stressed when my house is clean. :)

Scary news: A college classmate of mine at UNT has been missing. It's a long shot, but if you know anything about this please contact the numbers at the bottom of this message.
"Jessica Birge was last about 10:00 PM on Saturday, August 11, 2007 at the
Gruene Outpost River Lodge in New Braunfels, Texas. Jessica had been tubing on the Comal River and then went to the Lodge. She was dressed in a pink bikini when last seen.She has a unique scroll tattoo on back of her neck. Her hair is medium length now and very curly.
She was driving 2001 dark green Suzuki Grand Vitara, license plate Texas plate, K99-RNX. If anyone has any information, please contact the Comal Sheriff or the Heidi Search Center.
COMAL COUNTY SHERIFFHEIDI SEARCH CENTER
(830) 620-3400
1-800 547-4435
(210) 650-0428"

Sewing Spurt

After "Alice in Wonderland's" strike, Jessica, Kelsey and I saved some fabric scraps from their way to the costume shop trash can. I cleaned part of my office last night and sorted some fabric scraps into boxes. I thought I had enough patterned scraps to make Elaine a pirate dress-up skirt (maybe for 'Happy Hallelujah' this October).

I made her a simple grey A-line skirt from leftover grey fabric from my 50's skirt. Then started sewing ruffles to the simple skirt.

Next I made her a tube top that looks kinda like a corset. She can wear it over a striped or white T-shirt.

Super Productive Day

This afternoon, we went and bought a copy of Elaine's birth certificate at the county clerk's office, then turned in the paperwork to register her for pre-k. I was turned off by the lack of info on-paper at the school.
I asked about the school's dress code. And the lady at the desk said "whatever is fine". I tried to get specific answers like, Can Elaine wear tank tops? Can she wear flip flop shoes? The lady didn't have a strong 'yes' or 'no' on those. Just that non-flip flop shoes are "preferred" by teachers so the kids can run. I assumed they'd have a info sheet printed up for parents.
Then the lady asked if we'd prefer mornings or afternoons for Elaine to be in school. I was like, "Oh it's a half day?" I wasn't sure about if it's be a full or half day. The lady assumed I already knew that. Excuse me, but this is our oldest child and she hasn't been in school before. How would we know this without the school telling us? I said mornings will be better and had to ask what the specific half-day schedule is. Like, "she should be dropped off and picked up at what time?" Shouldn't they have a single handout for all the kids registering for preschool with the times, teacher's name, room number, typical routine, etc?? Am I nuts for assuming other parents would have 20 questions too? I had to ask to get the list of necessary school supplies. Ugg. Frustration. Anywho... the lady said Elaine has to have her paperwork approved by someone else to make sure we meet the financial requirements for Pre-K. But that someone else isn't in the office today. From here, we just show up at Meet the Teacher night next Monday. And School starts 7:50am Tuesday morning.

Tonight I registered for my college classes. I registered for Theatre History to 1700, and Introduction to Communication. Those are two of my required classes. For my electives (to get financial aide), I registered for Sociology of Religion, and Personal Finance. Personal Finance was an impulse registration. It is at the right time of day and claims to teach steps to home ownership, establishing credit, handling banking, etc. Seems like it'll be time well spent.

Church today

Jim and I worked in the nursery today at church. While Jim watched Allan and Gracie, I updated the bulletin board with a Autumn theme. It turned out cute.
The painting was hanging up in the front of the sanctuary at church today. If you click on any of these pics, you'll see a larger view.

Micah said good-bye to everyone at Shiloh.



I thought at least a handful of my loyal readers would want to see these pics. :)

p.s. Elaine is a genius. She was counting triangles and writing numbers. This is '16'

Update

We have ANTS!!!! They started coming into the house last night when the storms began. They've settled in the kids' room where I see they are finding crumbs under the bed. I just vacuumed yesterday afternoon, but the ants are finding food nonetheless.

Jimmy parents are gonna help me cover summer school's tuition.

Jimmy went on a job interview today. It was for 'Kitchen help' at a bar in Lake Dallas. They said they call him on Monday.

Micah's staying with us tonight and going to church with us tomorrow. It'll be his last visit to Shiloh before he leaves for Kentucky this week. He recorded some of his songs onto a CD for us, so he was letting Elaine hear them. His singing voice has matured... sounds like he's channeling Matt Hittle. lol.

GRADUATION IN SIGHT

In the meeting with Ms. Martinez this afternoon, I only heard good news. Here's the breakdown:

I only need 8 more classes to meet graduation requirements. This is 100% for sure.

• I need to take World Theatre to 1700 again, since I didn't finish the class in 2002. I'm trying to register for it this fall. I still need a new secret registration code from my Theatre adviser, Teresa. I early registered for this class, but was dropped when I couldn't pay for EARLY registration. Today I walked over to Teresa's office for the registration code; she's out of town until Monday.
• I need to take Senior Seminar. It's my last class with the theatre department and meant to help me with interviewing and portfolio skills, to help me find theatre jobs after college.
  
• I expected they'd require me to take 'Costume Design' or 'Stage Managing' class. But because I am graduating under the rules from 2001 (when I began at UNT), I don't have to take another upper-level class to finish my degree. So that's one LESS class that I need.
• Because the Theatre department is in the College of Arts and Sciences, I have to take a single 'Communication' class, that I wasn't aware of. So that's ADDING one class I didn't know about.
• My Spanish classes at Midland College will transfer completely to UNT. I need Spanish 3 and Spanish 4 still. I'll take them this fall and spring.
  
• I need to take Statistics at another college (like Midland College or NCTC), so the credits will transfer back like I took both College Algebra and Statistics. This will save me some money.
  
• I can take classes at another school up until my last semester. That semester has to be only at UNT, if I want to graduate from UNT.
• I need to take Art Appreciation for Majors. I took Art Appreciation (for non-majors) 3 years ago, but evidently Drawing Minors have to take the same class as the Art Majors. *shrug*
  
• I need to prepare a portfolio for the Art Department and have it reviewed at the Portfolio Reviews next spring. These sessions are only held in the spring. I can't take the final class for my Drawing minor until after my portfolio has been approved.
• My last class at UNT will be in the Summer of 2008, after I've had the Art Portfolio Review. It will be Drawing Studio.
• I'll graduate during the Summer of 2008.
• There are scheduling conflicts between the classes I need. Most of them are Tuesday/Thursday afternoons this fall. I'll have to space them out between fall and spring. Spacing 8 classes out between two colleges and a few semesters means I will have to take 1-2 filler classes at UNT this fall and maybe one filler class next spring to have the minimum 12 hours each semester to get my financial aide at UNT.
  

If I don't find a way to pay for the summer semester that just ended, I wont get my fall financial aide at all. My expected fall financial aide will be enough to pay for my UNT fall tuition, Midland College tuition and a few months of rent & utilities. So paying this bill takes care of our financial emergency for the near future. Jim was supposed to fix computers at the church to pay part of my summer tuition, but the church postponed that computer repair due to tight funds on their end. Jim said today that he is gonna apply to cook part time at this church in Denton that had a Want Ad online today. I know that God will work everything out, but I'm praying for continued peace while everything is still up in the air.

Excited. Anxious.

My meeting with the adviser is later today. I'm eager, excited and anxious. With that said, here's pics of the kiddos.


Can't Hug now... eating.





















Elaine made this huge triangle today when she was supposed to be cleaning their room. Hard to get mad when she's being so creative.






Elaine and Jacob Weds. Night.

SCARY RECALLS

Backyardigan, Seasame Street, Diego and Dora the Explorer toys have been recalled recently, due to lead paint. I heard about it through the grapevine. Here is the link that details WHICH ones are recalled. Fisher Price
Elaine has many of them. Well... that is to say she HAD many of them.
She HAD three of the Dora figurine and one of the chef Doras. One of the figurines was on Elaine's last Birthday cake. Scary.

Framed Painting

Jim cooked dinner at the church tonight. He had good reviews. Jim would like to do it again.

My painting is framed, but just sitting on some chairs at the church until someone hangs it.

I heard back from the adviser lady, Ana Martinez. I have an appointment to meet with her to discuss my degree plan Friday at 3pm. By the way, I got a 'B' in Costume.

NEWS: Hope is coming to visit so she can see Elaine off to her first day of school.

Before Jim woke up, the kids and I walked down to the elementary school to pick up the paperwork to get Elaine enrolled in Pre-K. There is an approval process, because we have to meet the income requirements to have Elaine in Pre-K. Having a form that says we receive Food Stamps will be enough to prove our income. I could have registered her today, since I took her shot record and food stamps form with me to the school. But we don't have a copy of her birth certificate. We've never needed it. It costs $23 to order a copy. I have until the 27th to get her registered at the latest. The lady behind the desk said there is plenty of room for her in the Pre-K class but I should do all the paperwork as soon as I can.
There is a 'Meet the Teacher Night' on August 27th and August 28th is Elaine's first day of school.Her school colors are Red and Black. And their "school-wide theme" this year is the Wizard of Oz.On our way back to the trailer park, I let Elaine and Allan play at the school's playground. Since I was already sweaty when I got home, I mowed the yard and took a long nap.

Black out in Wonderland

Me with my Costume Crew

Me and my buddy Natalie, the Stage Manager

Costume Design by Jessica Salinas

Today was the last day of 'Alice in Wonderland'. Jim took the kids to church without me, so they dropped me on campus at 10:30am. I was supposed to be in the theatre at Noon. So I was gonna kill time in the computer lab. I tried to get into 4 different buildings and everything was locked, including the 24 hour computer lab. This was very odd.
So I sat in front of the theatre building in the shade listening to some music and writing to-do lists. One of the guys from my crew showed up around 11am. He said that the power went out at his apartment on the other side of Denton and he decided to come early to the play. Sure enough, the power was out on campus and that's why all the buildings were locked. Chris said that all the traffic lights were out between the mall and campus. We didn't know if we'd still get to do the play today or not. The stage manager arrived and let us into the building. The power had been off since 10:30am, so some cool air was trapped in the building and it felt MUCH cooler than outside.
There were emergency lights on because the theatre has back up generators, but that was it. The cast and crew followed "normal" procedure, checking out garments to actors and getting the actors into full makeup, in case the lights came back on in time for the performance. All the clothing racks were in the hallway and my crew drug some mirrors into the lit hallway, so the actors could prepare. We hand sewed half a dozen repairs, since we had no power for the sewing machine. We did everything we could to help the actors.
The play was to start at 2:30pm and the electricity was restored at 2:29pm... seriously. The audience was allowed to buy tickets once the lights came on and they filled most of the seats. The play started 10 minutes late, but otherwise, it went like any other performance.
Following the performance, we had strike. My crew had to check in all the garments, move them upstairs, wash everything, fold or hang everything, put away items that go upstairs and write our self-evaluations. I had to write an evaluation for myself and each person on my crew, since I was the crew head. It ended up being 8 or 9 pages long. *phew* Jim could finally pick me up around 7:45pm. I was so salty feeling, from being in my blacks in the heat for a lot of the day. A shower made me feel so much better.
Tada! Summer school is complete! *visualize my happy dance* Now, I just gotta figure out how we're gonna pay for summer school. One hurdle at a time... tomorrow I want to go to campus to talk with my academic adviser about why I haven't' received my degree plan in the mail, and what I need to take to graduate asap. I'll let yall know how it goes.