Saturday Review

What was predicted to be a rainy Saturday has turned into a warm, humid, pleasant day. It rained south of Greece very early in the morning, but nothing like what was forecasted. 

I was up early to go rowing and it was a beautiful time on the river. It was a hot row because of the high humidity and still air, but it wasn't raining, or worse, thundering, so it was a good row. Jim got his run in while I was rowing. 

We went to the Art Gallery's Clothesline Art Show this morning (see photo). We were there by 10:30 AM, before it got really crowded. I had hoped to find a painting to go in the dining room, but nothing jumped out as a "must have." The good news is that Jim and I seem to have the same idea of what we might like on that dining room wall. We were able to walk right by several artists' booths because we both agreed that those particular paintings were not to our liking. I did buy one gift, but I won't say any more about that. There were a lot of people selling handmade jewelry, some of it very lovely. I need to think in advance about an outfit or two that might benefit from one of these lovely necklaces, but so far I've never done that thinking so I haven't bought anything yet. We bought some lunch and watched some of the entertainment while we ate and were on our way home by noon. A pretty pitiful performance compared to some people who will spend their whole day at the Art Show, but enough for us.

An update on school - Friday was a much quieter day with most teachers back, but a couple of new ones out with the illness. We have still not figured out the common factor for all the teachers who got sick. 

Correction: In an earlier entry, I wished Zach good luck in middle school. Well, he called the other night for another reason, but did tell me that this was his 2nd year in middle school, he is now an 8th grader. Sorry 'bout that Zach. You are growing up too fast! Good Luck with the soccer try-outs and let me know how it goes so I can report it in the blog.

I was reading the Alumni magazine from Slippery Rock and saw an article about the razing of a dorm that I stayed in when I was there. Talk about feeling old! That dorm was new when I lived in it!

I found an interesting book at the library this week and it is a dictionary of new "buzzwords". One that I found interesting was "affluenza", which means the affliction of being too focused on buying material things, working too much (and still not having enough money), and stressing out about all of it. I know people like that, do you?

Corey is hosting a recruit at SU this weekend. We'll look forward to hearing about that. 

Jim spent a big chunk of time today cleaning out the garage side of the basement. Lots of things were thrown away and other things were organized. It is now easier, or maybe less life-threatening, to get to the garage! 

Tucker and Corey - Can I throw away the large light brown round pillow that is on the floor in the basement? 

We may go to the Macedon Lumberjack Festival tomorrow, weather permitting. I have to deacon at church (I was asked to sub) so we would go after that. Check back to see if it happened.

Hope you are all having a good weekend. If you have anything you'd like me to share with a larger audience, either leave me a comment or zip me an e-mail.

Crazy Opening Day!

Well, we had an Opening Day at LR that we don't really want to repeat in the near future! I arrived at 7:00 AM and at 7:05 one of my colleagues called me to say she was very sick and had to call a sub. She woke up in the middle of the night absolutely freezing. She added some blankets and went back to bed only to have to get up to deal with vomiting. This continued  into the morning. So, we have a sub coming in on the first day of school - not an ideal situation, but unavoidable sometimes. Around 8:15AM the principal stopped in our office area and asked how we all were feeling and wanted to see how we looked. She said that 6 other teachers had called in sick with the same symptoms and she was sending 4 more teachers home who were sick here at school! So 10 subs in our 36 classrooms, on the first day of school!

Hang on the excitement continues. Mid-morning, my friend and colleague, Patti P., a second grade teacher, took a sip from her water bottle and aspirated some of the water into her lungs. She coughed a couple of times and then couldn't breathe! With her new students looking on, she got herself to her door where she flagged down a cafeteria worker who called the office. Three administrators and the nurse attended to her and decided she needed to go to the hospital because of her family medical history. So, on the first day of school the ambulance is called and a teacher is taken away! I spoke to Patti this afternoon and she is fine. The doctors cannot definitively explain what happened, but Patti will be back in her classroom tomorrow.

The rest of the staff has spent the day washing our hands and carefully drinking our water and wishing our colleagues a speedy return to school. 

Let the School Year Begin

I guess I'm ready for the kids to arrive at school tomorrow morning, although there were a lot of kids in the building today as they found where their classroom was located. My student teacher, Mike, was a big help today, hanging posters and signs in the gym, putting away equipment that was delivered over the summer, and putting up a bulletin board of my design. As we were working in the gym, he told me that he was really nervous about dealing with the children and I assured him that he will be one of the most popular people in the school after the first week! Just in time for the start of school, the temperatures are forecasted to soar into the high eighties tomorrow and the nineties on Friday! 

As I mentioned in a previous blog, Jim has started to hang 

the  laundry outside to dry. He put a load in the washer last night and then hung it out before going to work this morning. Today's wash got an extra rinse as a brief rain shower blew through. The clothes were all dry by the time we got home. 

A note to Corey and Tucker - next time you come home you may notice that the soap dispenser on the kitchen sink now has dishwashing soap in it. I have reasons for doing this, which I won't go into now, but I wanted you to know so you don't freak out!

Jim and I are now eating breakfast in the dining room which adds a fancy start to our day! We both enjoy reading the paper with our breakfast and our schedules used to off-set our eating times, but we now seem to be eating at the same time and the kitchen table is not big enough for each of us to have the paper spread out. So, we tried eating at the dining room table and that allows us both to have the news right in front of us. We are even using placemats!

Jim was reading Traveller magazine and came across a small article that he found interesting, regarding the airlines. According to this article, the IRS has a greater customer satisfaction rating than the airline industry! 

I was supposed to have Bell Choir rehearsal tonight, the first of the season, but it was cancelled because about half of the ringers had to be absent. So, I have a free evening. I think we are going to the library and then do some knitting on my cable sweater. Pretty exciting, huh?

Labor Day

Happy Labor Day to one and all! Hope you are not laboring too  much!

Last night we went mini-golfing with Liz and Sally at Whispering Pines, the course in Sea

 Breeze. Now you may have read about the upset of the weekend being Appalacian State beating Michigan in football, but the real upset happened on the mini-links as I won this round of mini-golf! I never win at mini-

golf. Jim had disastrous first and last holes which allowed me to come out victorious. Both Liz and Sally had moments of greatness,

 unfortunately followed by moments of not so quiet desperation! It was fun all around (at least I think it was) and it was good to see Liz once more before she heads back to DC.  

This morning Jim and I went canoeing on Black Creek and we have never seen so many

 people on the water. We saw people in 5 kayaks, 2 single canoes and one small motor boat. The turtles were the main source of entertainment as they jumped off their sunny logs into the water as we paddled past. We

 paddled for almost 2 hours, enjoying the unofficial end to summer. 

I (we) have been spending a fair amount of time looking at some selected Iceland photos, trying to decide which ones to have printed to hang in our living room. The challenge is three-fold. First, we have to agree on which pictures we want to use. Second, what size should the prints be made, and last, what arrangement should the prints be in. I want to order the prints in the next day or so because Kodak Gallery is having a 25% off sale on prints and I could save myself a few bucks if I can make all these decisions. Kodak has sales fairly frequently, but not usually on prints, so I need and want to act now. 

Jim has been trying to be more eco-friendly and has been hanging the clothes out to dry. I love to use a towel that has been dried outside, all nice and scratchy. The weather has been great for this drying technique as rain has not been a concern lately. As a matter of fact, about the only day it rained in the past month or so was the day I planned a bike ride with my friends! That's some kind of Murphy's law  I guess.

Take care and have a terrific Tuesday.

Empty Nest for Real

We are empty nesters again, now that Tucker has flown back to Utah. As you can see from the photos, life is terribly exciting. I got Jim to help me "Swift" some of my recent yarn purchases. He really is quite good at managing the yarn -  it must come from years of untangling fishing line! 

Since there is no rain in the forecast for a week ,

I decided to wash the Beetle and get the plastered bugs off the front end of the car. The Beetle is all clean and shiny and ready for the first day of school later this week! Speaking of school, staff has to report on Tuesday and the kids arrive on Thursday. 

Tucker left yesterday to go back to Bluff, Utah. He was scheduled to fly from here to Chicago, to Denver, to Durango. He got to Chicago OK, (early, to be exact) and as they were boarding his flight to Denver, a mechanical problem was discovered which delayed their departure. By the time he got to Denver he missed his connection to Durango, but not without a valiant effort on his part. He ran to the Durango gate, which was about 50 gates from his arrival gate, only to discover that the plane had left on time (that too is unusual!). Since he missed his flight due to mechanical problems, as opposed to weather problems, United Airlines put him up in a nice hotel for the night and gave him some meal vouchers. Tucker has some friends in Denver, so he called them up and they came to his hotel and had an impromptu party! He called this afternoon to say that he got into Durango this morning and was driving back to Bluff. He is already dreading trying to fly home at Christmas!

We had an interesting e-mail from Corey and I will include part of his message so you can hear his story in his own words:

Played an EPIC game of whiffle ball yesterday afternoon.  It was a beautiful day so we went over to the Lacrosse practice fields where there is great artificial turf and set up a diamond  in the corner so we had the giant fence that divided the Lacrosse fields and football fields as a Home Run fence. It was very exciting, every inning you have to rotate the pitcher and it gets to be the top of the 9th, we are up 8-6 and I have to pitch.  So naturally I get up and walk the first three batters.  Pretty high pressure at this point.  So then I start throwing some good heat.  I struck out the next batter.  Then the next person up hits a pretty good ball down the first base line, one run scores and another runner starts to run home, I go to cover the plate because there were teams of 5 so no catcher, and in a great pitch and catch move I got the guy out at home.  So now we are looking at 9th inning, 8-7 2 outs runners on the corners.  Then Martina comes up, who coincidently was on FIRE today in whiffle ball.  I was able to put a full count on him.  So we are talking, 9th inning, 2 outs, up by one, full count, HIGH pressure situation.  Well, after a few more foul balls I ended up striking him out for the W.  It was VERY exciting.

That's all for now. We may go canoeing tomorrow, so check back in the near future.