Bits of Our Lives

Licensed At Last

2011-12-29T13:12:00.002-05:00

Since Alex was 14, I’ve been harassing him about getting his learner’s permit. He put it off, and put it off, and put it off. He didn’t see the need, he didn’t want one, etc. For Christmas this year, I bought him a wallet. I included a few gift cards to some of his favorite places (2 for food, 2 for desserts), but the place for the driver license is front and center. Still no interest. Grrr.

Florida used to allow the learner’s test to be taken online. In January, they discontinued it. I got him to take that drug and alcohol education class online a few months ago, but we had to go to the DMV for the test. Finally, last night, he went to the site to get his certificate completion number for testing reference. We were surprised to discover that apparently right after he took the class, Florida reinstated the online test. I paid for it, he sat down, and took the test. Finally! In addition, I was happy to discover that the rule stating you must have the learner's permit for 12 months before you may test for the full license only applies to those under 18. That means I will not have to still be driving with him when he goes to post-graduate classes next year. Assuming we can afford whatever an 18-year old male driver does to insurance rates, of course!

There are two parts to the test: road signs and road rules. There are 20 questions in each part, and you must get 15 right to pass. You are not told how many you get right/wrong, only if you pass. Which he did. We expected the signs test to be easy. I’ve been pointing them out and explaining them since he was little, and most of them are pretty self-explanatory anyway. We did not expect the rules test to be so simplistic. I read those questions while he did it (no, I did not tell him the answers), and I just have to say that we both now understand why people drive like they do!

An hour at the office today for paperwork and processing, and now we finally have the license. Merry Christmas to me!

The line forms where?

2011-12-08T09:42:00.004-05:00

Alex wonders if they will figure out why business has been a little slow lately.

Bathroom facelift

2011-12-03T18:29:00.005-05:00

I’ve wanted to change out one of the bathrooms for quite a while. It was an orange wallpaper nastiness when I first moved in. We promptly ripped all that out and made it pretty. We painted it a light beige top, green bottom, and a shimmery flower wallpaper border in the middle. I loved it when we did it. 15 years later, I was tired of it.

I specifically made sure to take photos of what it looked like before I started tearing stuff out, but I apparently misfiled it and cannot find the picture right now. You can see sort of what it looked like here, when I had taken off the border and had various paint chips taped to the wall:

Also notice the disfigured wall by the light. There had been large wooden beams making a frame up there. They were attached the wall, and then had plastic across it so you could not see the ugly utility light that was the main bathroom light. That was a challenge to take down! And then, of course, the wall looked nasty where the beams had been.

When I took down the fluorescent light, I discovered the light box was not in the center as we had expected. It was all the way over at the left end of the light. In fact, the “light box” was merely a hole in the wall with the wires coming out. There was no box at all, nor was it located anywhere near the beams that could support holding a box. As the new light was designed to attach to the light when it was installed, this was a problem.

Messing with electrics is not at all my forte, and it makes me very nervous. Having a bathroom with no light at all was even less appealing, however. So, I checked the wires, and discovered they could just barely reach to the middle of the wall where I wanted to put the new light. I punched a big hole into the wall and used this pvc light box that has clamps that expand to hold it into place without having to attach to beams. Alex and I stretched out an old wire coat hanger (good thing I still had one in the closet!) and used it like a shepherd’s hook to wrap the wires around the hook and drag it through the wall to the new hole. That was quite a challenge!

After patching up the original hole, I painted the bathroom and then installed this new light. Doesn’t it look so much nicer?

I still need to either replace the mirror or do something to cover where it is eroding along the edges, but I’ve got to do it as I have the time and funds. The visual difference of just the paint and light change is really amazing and cheers me up immensely. Now I’ve got to do the same thing to the other bathroom! At least I will be prepared for the level of difficulty in changing the light fixture for this round.

Thanksgiving 2011

2011-11-30T12:30:00.009-05:00

It did not work out to celebrate Thanksgiving with "blood family", so we spent the day with "heart family". We've done this before, and it is always a nice time. There were 8 people total: Valerie, her two kids, her mom Doris, her boyfriend Michael, her friend Katherine, and the two of us. As usual, we had more food than necessary, but it provided wonderful leftovers. Due to some paperwork snafu (on their end, not mine), the jobs I had planned to do on Monday got pushed to Wednesday, so all the prep work I’d intended to do got scrubbed and I ended up doing it all Thursday morning. Thankfully, Alex was very helpful getting it all done, and at least I got the grocery shopping done on Monday before the stores got crazy.

Our menu:

Turkey – Valerie baked hers for Thursday, but I also bought one and baked it on Friday. It’s good, filling, and so very inexpensive this time of year! Some of it got frozen for later use. I also made a big stockpot of broth from the bones.

Ham – I got a spiral-sliced ham from Costco. Those come pre-cooked, but I had to heat it and make the glaze.

Stuffing – Doris made this. It was good, but I’ve realized that I’m not a big stuffing/dressing eater. It’s nice, but I don’t get overly excited about it.

Green beans – Valerie did not make it into the loved/reviled green bean casserole, just served green beans.

Baby Carrots –boiled until tender. I don’t think I actually tried any of these, so I don’t know what seasonings Valerie used.

Mashed potatoes – Doris made some for the meal, but I also made some at home. I’d bought them planning to make them before I knew she was going to do it, and didn’t want them rotting. Besides, I love mashed taters!

Sweet potatoes – Valerie makes a casserole that I don’t want the recipe for. I love to eat it, but I’m quite sure I do not want to know the butter and sugar content. The potatoes are creamed, then topped with a brown sugar and pecan topping. It’s like a candy. No marshmallows are involved.

Mac & Cheese – This was Alex’s request, and he grated the block of cheddar for it. I used mostly cheddar, but added some pepper jack for a little kick, and threw in some smoked gouda I had that was a bit old and rather crumbly. I was amazed how the little bit of that I used infused the whole pan with the smoked flavor. It was quite yummy.

Marinated Asparagus – I generally don’t enjoy asparagus as I find it tough, sometimes stringy, and not all that flavorful. Apparently I normally get served the thicker stuff. Doris used little thin stalks (about the same thickness as the green beans, maybe even thinner) that she roasted then marinated in a vinegar and oil sauce. This stuff was fantastic. I will probably get some asparagus myself to make this again, and that’s not something I ever thought I’d say!

Caramelized onions – I saw this, thought it sounded good, and figured this was a good time to try it since even if I didn’t care for it, someone else might. Nice to use everyone as a guinea pig, huh? The pearl onions were $3/lb and the yellow onions were $1/lb, so I opted to just use the smallest yellow onions I could find. I can see how the pearl ones would have been a little easier for eating, but what I used came out just fine. I also substituted dried cranberries for the raisins since that’s what I had.

Salad – I used a spring lettuce mix, spinach leaves, and romaine lettuce. I grated some carrots, diced green peppers, and used grape tomatoes. I figured we had enough other veggies in the rest of the meal. The leftovers made a perfect light lunch the next day with some of the olives, cheese squares, and shredded turkey.

Cranberry sauce – For someone not that fond of cranberry sauce, I surprised myself by deciding to make some this year. I made a double portion of this recipe, but used two cinnamon sticks instead of ground cinnamon, reduced the sugar by 1/3, and added a finely diced apple. I also zested the orange that I juiced. Apparently I like “real” cranberry sauce, just not the canned jelly stuff, and it was so easy to make. It firmed up a little after it was refrigerated for a while, but it was noticeably soupy at first. I think I would cut back the liquid just a little bit next time.

Baguettes – I got them from Costco and just cooked them up in the oven right before we ate. They are fabulous, and we had enough made-from-scratch food.

Beverages – Katherine brought some wine and tea, plus we had a couple soda options.

Pecan and Pumpkin pie – Valerie purchased from a local diner. Both were delicious.

Death by Chocolate – This was Alex’s request for dessert. It is layers of chocolate cake, brownies, chocolate pudding/mousse, and whipped cream. You can also pour Kahlua or Baileys on the cake for additional flavor, and can put chopped up bits of candy in it. I’ve done it all those varieties, but we left out the alcohol and candy this time. I made the pudding on Tuesday and ended up making the whipped cream, but Alex did pretty much the entire rest of it, including assembly. It unfortunately escaped the photo of the feast as desserts were intended to do separately and then were forgotten.

Since dinner never ends up being served when we expect it will, I made a little platter with four kinds of olives and three types of cubed cheeses to use for munchies. Lo and behold, Valerie had made a tray of sliced cheese, sausage, and crackers! We’ve never included an “appetizer” before, so for us to both do one the same year without mentioning it to the other was pretty funny.

Hopefully I didn’t leave anything out. It was clearly a smorgasbord of food! Even with portion sizes of literally 2-3 bites to basically just taste test each item, it still filled the plate and the tummy. It was a great time, though!

Keep On Truckin'

2011-09-12T11:44:00.004-04:00

My car hit the 100,000 mile mark this weekend. I don't recall now what the mileage was when I drove it off the lot in 2003, but it was in the double digits. Now there are six! She's still running well, though, and here's hoping she stays that way.

The Final Countdown

2011-08-23T09:48:00.002-04:00

The senior year schedule looks like this:
1st: Database Programming
2nd: Networking III
3rd: AP Statistics
4th: Economics / AP Government (each is only a semester)
5th: Web Design II
6th: AP English Literature Composition
7th: IT Internship

They don't technically offer a 7th period this year, thanks to budget cuts, but the internship option was still available and will count as an extra class. The internship is working 2 days, 5 hours a week, with the school's IT director, helping to fix things around the school once classes have let out for the day. They also have internships working with area businesses, so I'm not sure how Alex ended up staying at the school. Luck of the draw, I suppose. It still should be interesting and good experience.

We were a little disappointed that he still didn't get the AP Psychology class. It didn't work out with his schedule either this year or last year. He's otherwise pleased with his classes this year, which is good. It was sad to think this was his last "first day of school" as a "child".

No, I haven't been boxing

2011-07-27T11:21:00.002-04:00

Did you know that while poison ivy reactions on your regular skin (arms, legs, etc) creates the little bumps and itchy rash, getting it on the bridge of your nose and corner of your eye also causes the area under your eye to swell up? I feel like Rocky Balboa.

Okay, that's a slight exaggeration, but it is quite disconcerting to be looking straight ahead and have your face within your line of vision. Especially when it is just on one side.

Particularly annoying is that I knew I was pulling out the ivy, I've tangled with it several times already this spring and summer, and thus I was being crazy cautious about handling it. I was almost successful, too. I have only one little dot of outbreak on my right arm near my birthmark, about half the size of a dime, and it didn't even get me enough to be itchy. Except for my eye. I wear glasses, so how in the world did it get under my glasses to get near my eye yet didn't touch me anywhere else? Inquiring minds want to know!

The Senior Year Has Begun

2011-07-21T16:55:00.002-04:00

Alex had his senior photos taken today. Oh dear, I think I'm in for an emotionally tough year! I'll get the previews in about two weeks so I can select the ones for purchase. I think most of them came out pretty good, so it will be a tough choice. We got them to take one of the head shot photos of Alex with a laptop. He's got it open, appears to be looking at something on the screen, but has his head turned toward the camera like he's trying to look at you but just can't tear himself away from the screen. It pretty much sums him up perfectly!

Recent Activities

2011-07-11T11:15:00.005-04:00

I keep thinking of things that would be fun to post, but have been so busy that by the time I get to it, I've forgotten what I wanted to share. I'm sure I'll regret that later, since it is fun to look back over some of the previous posts to see what we were up to.

I've been really busy with my contract work. It's not great gobs of money, but it is enough to keep the bills paid. Thank you, Lord! It also means a lot of driving to get from job to job. That means a lot of time away from computer, email, etc, so my communication habits have deteriorated. Sorry. It's not that I don't think of my friends, just that I don't think typing and driving are a good mix.

The "road warrior" lifestyle is not conducive to good exercise habits, so my weight loss hit a plateau six weeks ago and had firmly stayed there. I really need to find more time to work on it. The first 25 pounds were wonderful to lose, but I really want to lose at least 30 more.

With school being out, I've dragged Alex along with me on a few of these trips. Thankfully, I've been able to find hotel evaluations to accompany some of my jobs, so we've done overnight trips that allowed us to do some sightseeing along the way.

We went to Panama City Beach, FL. We mostly just enjoyed the beach and some fantastic waves, although we found a few touristy things we would like to do if I can swing another trip over there.
I dragged him to Albany, GA to visit the Flint Riverquarium. Alex didn't think he wanted to go to this, but then I think he ended up enjoying it more than I did. I did get a few great photos from it that I'll try to post later. We also learned a bit of history of the area. It turns out Mr. Tift started the city, and he was the uncle of the Tift that founded the city of Tifton, which is in Tift county. They were shippers from Connecticut, moved to the Florida Keys, then went back up into Georgia to pursue agricultural interests.
Tifton, GA provided some historical education at the Georgia Museum of Agriculture, also known as Agrirama. They have recovered all sorts of old buildings and stores from places throughout Georgia and have moved them all to create a little village. There's the home of the Tifts, the subsistence farmer, the progressive farmer, the drugstore, the general store, the doctor's office, the schoolhouse, the Mason's lodge, a sawmill, a printing press, a turpentine still, a miller's workhouse, a blacksmith, etc. That would have been a lot more fun if it hadn't been upper 90's and really high humidity. I did buy some grits that I watched being milled. They don't get much fresher than that!

Anyway, that's what we've been up to. Hope you are all enjoying your summers, and I certainly hope your temperatures are a lot lower than what we are enduring. I truly do not know how people existed in this weather prior to air conditioning.

Egg Nog, second try

2011-01-03T14:00:00.001-05:00

Last year, we attempted to make our own egg nog. It was ok, but really thin. Alex really wanted to make some again over the Christmas break, but we didn't want to use that same recipe this year. Which one should we try? The cooked ones deliver a thicker product, and that's what we wanted. Since there were so many options, we decided to make two different recipes and compare.

This Cooked Egg Nog from About.com was one choice. My sister offered this Homemade Eggnog recipe from Food & Wine for another option.

While the Cooked Egg Nog was better than last year's attempt, the Homemade Eggnog was the clear and definite winner. We even made it again the next day, adding a splash of vanilla. With or without the alcohol, this is quite a tasty treat. Just make sure you keep the temperature really low, especially if you choose to skip the double boiler part and just cook it directly like I did. Otherwise, the egg could start to solidify, and nobody likes chunky egg nog.

It's Cookie Time

2010-12-30T18:00:00.005-05:00

I love cooking. And baking. And eating. I haven't done a big Christmas cookie smash for several years, though, and I decided it was time. There were some hits and some duds, so I thought I'd share.

Peanut butter cookies - with only 3 ingredients, it seemed a great idea. I don't know what I could have done wrong, but even the dog didn't want to eat them. The reviews sounded good...

Snickerdoodles- Alex likes this kind of cookie but I've never made it before. This recipe seemed reasonable, so I tried it. Rolling them in the sugar becomes a little tedious, but the end result was very tasty. He was pleased, so mission accomplished.

White chocolate chip Oatmeal Cranberry cookies - Alex had a friend visiting who requested macadamia and white chocolate cookies. I didn't have macadamia nuts, so this was the compromise. Even slightly overbaked, these were really good.

Hello Dollies - I don't know about the name, but these will make you sit up and take notice! Golly, these are good. I used cinnamon graham crackers, and added a handful of white chocolate chips (left over from previous recipe) plus some dried cranberries. I would have added some peanuts or pistachios for some non-sweet items, but we'd eaten them all. I definitely recommend using the 8x8 pan rather than the 9x13.

Potato Candy - I don't know about this one. There are a bunch of recipes for it, the one I started with said to use two small potatoes. You can feed the US army with as much candy as that makes! This link uses a smaller portion of potatoes. Don't worry, there's no potato flavor after all that sugar is added. I unfortunately didn't have as much peanut butter as I thought As soon as I get more peanut butter, I will try smashing out the remaining candies, layer additional peanut butter, and re-roll it. I think the peanut butter does cut the sweetness factor, so hopefully adding more will make this a nice idea. Even the kids didn't eat much of this because it was just too sweet.

Butter Toffee - How easy is this? Put it in a pan, boil it until it is the color of peanut butter, then pour it out and let it cool. It's really yummy. I did not melt the chocolate in a separate bowl, but rather just put the Ghirardelli chocolate chips directly onto the hot toffee. They melted right away, and it worked out great. This really makes a lot; I used two sheet pans. I did not coat both sides, and it was sufficiently chocolate. I also only needed 1/3 of the crushed peppermint quantities she listed. Next time I need something different to take for a party or gift, I know what to make!

Thanksgiving 2010

2010-11-26T09:00:00.001-05:00

We stayed home and cooked and celebrated with just the two of us this year. Alex helped with the chopping – he minced ½ cup of garlic – and had him help cook some other things. He half-heartedly complained about it as he was doing it but turned out the things he helped with were the things he liked the best!

Our menu:

Turkey – baked with rosemary and garlic

Ham – a Honey Baked Ham that was given to me

Stuffing – used a Stove Top package and added sauteed onions, mushrooms, celery, and grated carrots. Per Alex’s request, we actually stuffed the turkey this year rather than cooking it on the side.

Green bean casserole from Pioneer Woman – added mushrooms, subbed red pepper for the nasty pimento things. I did have some bread crumbs taking up space in the cabinet, so tried using them. If I ever do that again, it would be with ½ cup, not a full cup of crumbs. Chances are good I’ll simply leave it off completely. I did not think it added anything except to make it grainy.

Corn casserole – recipe from high school Home Ec class, but added onions, green and red bell peppers for color. It uses creamed corn and cornmeal. I used to love it, I haven’t made it in a while, and it was still ok but not as exciting as I’d remembered.

Mashed potatoes – cooked them the day before, then mashed and baked again.

Sweet potatoes – I baked some sweet potatoes to make the peanut yams recipe, but decided I had plenty of carbs and yellow items on the table so saved them for later.

Mini Cornbread loaves – came from Boston Market and were leftovers from a food distribution at church

Pumpkin pie – came from Walmart and was a leftover from a food distribution at church

Cranberry Cheesecake pie – the result was visually odd, but the taste was good

Nutella Cream Cheese Pudding – Alex requested something chocolate. I was looking through my printed recipes to find my corn casserole directions, and came across this recipe that I’ve had for eons and had never tried. It has a nutella custard that gets layered with a nutella glaze. I made the custard on Wed and made Alex do the glaze and then create the layers. There’s something that gives a strange taste, I think it is the honey in the glaze, but he was very pleased with it.

We certainly have plenty of leftovers to stuff ourselves with over the next few days. We have so much to be thankful for!

How to feel like an idiot

2010-10-22T22:58:00.003-04:00

Ever since my disastrous problems with the previous laptop constantly crashing hard drives, I've been trying really hard to make sure I have relatively recent backups of my current system. Yesterday, I realized it was a month since I'd backed up my email, and figured I should update that. I plugged in the backup drive... and promptly copied the old version onto the laptop, rather than the other way around.

Intelligence is highly overrated.

If you've sent me anything in the past month that I had not responded to, you probably aren't going to get an answer now. So sorry! I've now learned to change the name of the backup file so it is more obvious which one is which. I did look at the path names, but the string is so long I couldn't see the beginning of it, which is what included the drive designation. I did realize the error as soon as it started copying, but the "cancel" option wasn't as helpful as I'd hoped; the transfer stopped, but apparently Windows deletes the original file before moving the new one over and the delete had already taken place.

I would try to blame the head cold/sinus infection for my befuddlement, but sadly, I really don't think that had anything to do with this particular act of genius.

Growing Up

2010-09-27T09:00:00.000-04:00

Alex is getting older.

I acknowledge the calendar says he's 16.
I know he is a junior in high school.
I realize he's taking classes with titles like physics and trigonometry.

It just doesn't truly sink in. Maybe his behavior contributes to that...

I'll tell you what smacks it in your face, though. Two weeks ago, he ordered his class ring. Ouch.

Last week, his first college recruitment pamphlet arrived in the mail. Gulp.

Watch out, world. Ready or not, here he comes.

Junior Year Schedule

2010-09-25T20:20:00.000-04:00

The junior year schedule looks like this:
1st: Physics
2nd: Latin II
3rd: American History
4th: Trigonometry / Calculus (one semester each)
5th: English
6th: Network Infrastructure

He liked the Latin teacher he started with last year. Halfway through, she joined the Peace Corp and left. His new teacher was ok, but not as much fun, and he did not learn it as easily. Unfortunately, now there is no local teacher at all. To avoid having to restart with Spanish and do another two years, we are doing the Virtual School option for his Latin II class. He has a teacher, and she will be in contact with us periodically. He can also contact her with any questions. Otherwise, it is primarily a work at your own pace as you teach yourself sort of thing. Not our preference, but better than starting over.

Hello, everyone

2010-09-25T18:03:00.002-04:00

I knew it had been a while since I’d posted anything, I just hadn’t realized it was quite so long as it has been. I was extremely busy with the census for those months in between, and just did not have time for sleep, never mind blog posts.

However, my employment with them ended a couple weeks ago, so I’m trying to get life back into some semblance of routine and normalcy. Not to mention looking for a job!

Here’s a recent funny moment: We were driving past a company with GTO in big letters on their sign, with smaller letters underneath. I was driving, so that’s all I saw. Alex read the whole sign, which said Gates That Open. His comment? “Gates that do NOT open are called fences.”

I think he has a point.

World Nutella Day

2010-02-05T08:09:00.006-05:00

Today is World Nutella Day. I invite you to join me in celebrating this tasty, chocolately confection. If you need some ideas, there are plenty of recipes for you to try. Yum!

MS certifications - Vista

2010-01-13T13:32:00.004-05:00

His computer runs XP, and my replacement laptop will be Windows 7, so I'm not sure where he might need to use this anytime soon, but the physical confirmation of the test taken back in December has arrived:

New Computer

2010-01-11T21:50:00.004-05:00

The HP manager called me back and offered two choices: I could get an off-the-shelf model of a computer with some newer features than my original one but without a few things I have on this one, or I could have my computer rebuilt again to my original specs.

After thinking about it, and reviewing the details with the computer people in my family, I decided to go with the newer model. I should have it within a week at the most. (They won't ship it until I send them a tracking number for this one being returned.) Now, I'll get to learn how to use Windows 7.

Assuming this new one works properly, I can take HP laptops back off the Never.Ever.Purchase.Again.Ever list...

Did you notice?

2010-01-11T21:43:00.003-05:00

It was fun to write the date today. Well, assuming you write it in the US format of MM/DD/YY.

01-11-10.

Yes, little things like palindromic dates make me smile.

At which point, the patience runs out

2010-01-06T08:31:00.002-05:00

The last couple of days, I've had some interesting quirks with the computer. Notably, the unexpected Blue Screen Of Death with weird error messages about missing a disk in a device. Huh?

The first time was on New Year's Eve. Well, ok, who knows what happened, but it seemed a good time to make sure my backup was as up-to-date as physically possible. You may recall I do not have a good history with hard drives on this laptop.

It crashed once again over the weekend, and then I got a BSOD again Tuesday. Three times in less than a week is no longer a "no worries" affair. I went to the diagnostic screen and had it check the hard drive. Once again, I got an error that the disc is bad and needs to be replaced. I both expected it and yet couldn't believe it at the same time.

I promptly found the records of all my other calls, and gave the HP support people a chat. I said apparently they are great fun people that I should put on my speed dial! I explained the problem and the tech recorded all the data error messages I've gotten (I took a picture with my cell phone so I could read him what it said).

I then politely but firmly said I've had absolutely enough of this and something needed to be done besides simply replacing the drive yet again. He informed me that he was submitting a case report to a supervisor, listing the many service calls on record for the same problem with the same machine, and I should get a call in the next 24-48 hours from a manager who can review options with me. At this point, I'm thinking my options need to include starting over from scratch with a brand new computer at no additional cost to me. Replacing the hard drive every 3 months is simply ludicrous.

I really do feel I've been fairly patient with all this up to this point, but that patience has run out. Meanwhile, anything I save on the computer now will also be saved to the backup. Who knows when this thing might go completely kaput? Argh!

Egg Nog

2010-01-05T18:20:00.003-05:00

So many times I've been doing something and thought about posting it, but I've just never remembered to do it by the time I got around to a computer. Then I'd either forgotten or it didn't seem worth it. That probably means you wouldn't have cared anyway...

However, for my digital scrapbook, I'd like to note that after 3 years of saying we were going to make our own eggnog, we finally did it. I use "we" in a general sense, as I found the recipe but I made Alex do it himself. He's been really excited about it, so I figured he should be the one to get the praise when it finally got made.

There are so many eggnog recipes out there, I wasn't sure which to do. We finally opted to try this easy eggnog for the first one. As promised, it was easy! Either it calls for much too much vanilla, or we used the wrong amount, because it was quite vanilla-y. Otherwise, it tasted great.

It came out a lot thinner than I'd expected. My sister had warned me that self-made tends to be thinner than store bought, and apparently I didn't take her advice under as much advisement as I thought. We typically use skim milk, and since this was made with the thicker whole milk, I figured it would balance out even with the other ingredients. Turns out, not so much.

There are other recipes that call for beating the egg white separately and then folding it in, which would theoretically thicken it a little. Or we could try one of the cooked recipes, which probably thickens it a bit as well. As much fun as Alex had making this batch, we'll probably try it again. If not, at least that's one of those "bucket list" items now checked off!

Computer problems again!

2009-10-09T08:43:00.004-04:00

Unbelievable as it may sound, my hard drive has died again. Yes, the one that I just got 3 weeks ago after the last one died. Yes, this is now the 4th one since I got the machine in summer 2008. I was in a distinctly unpleasant mood when I phoned the HP tech line to complain.

This time, instead of simply sending me a replacement hard drive, I'm going to send in the laptop for them to check the motherboard and anything/everything else to see if they can determine what might be causing the drives to repeatedly "poop out" (quote from the tech).

While this will hopefully fix my problems, it also means I'll be without my laptop for probably a good two weeks between shipping and repair time. We do have Alex's desktop, so I can still log on thru webmail to check email, but I find that screen difficult to use, so will probably not be checking it much. I'll still read everything when I can download it properly, of course, but might not have much contact in between.

So if you don't hear from me for a while, you know why. Not that I've been particularly chatty the past few weeks anyway, but... that's because I've been working 60-hour weeks and that's left me a little too tired to deal with a computer!

Census, part 2

2009-08-31T18:48:00.003-04:00

The Census office called me today for the next round of work. Yippee! I start training next Tuesday.

When we finished the last round, all the crew leaders I talked to figured training would only be about a day, maybe two, since we couldn't imagine there would be that much extra to learn. Well, it turns out training is actually a whole 5 days. Since they told me to bring my I-9 information again, I'm guessing the majority of the first day will be completing all the paperwork stuff again that I did before.

When I talked to someone at the office last week, they estimated this round would last about 4 weeks. The recruiting guy that called me today said 10 weeks. Guess we'll see which one is more accurate. Either way, some employment is better than none!

Beautiful Ice

2009-08-12T08:34:00.001-04:00

On our way home from my parents' house, our flight plan took us across the tip of Canada. As far as we could tell, these are just small icebergs floating in the northern Atlantic. Our neighbors in the aisle seats were leaning over our shoulders to watch the view for a while. Isn't it gorgeous?

Facelift at last

2009-08-10T20:02:00.008-04:00

To the creator of wallpaper:
I really don't like you. It seems like such a good idea, until you have to take the stuff down because you just cannot stand the print any longer. Then, it is an enormously tedious job that makes me think very unkind thoughts...

That said, I'm pleased to report that I am finally removing the last vestiges of wallpaper from my house. The front bathroom was the first to go, immediately after I moved in. Later, the master bathroom got stripped. A few years ago, I ripped out the wallpaper in the foyer. Thankfully, these were small areas. (That's about the only time I've been thankful for how small those areas were!)

Knowing how tedious even those little areas were, I've put off the kitchen long past when I wanted to change the look. Once I got started, it took even longer than I'd expected. Apparently the installers wanted to make sure that the heat, condensation, humidity, what-have-you of a kitchen didn't cause the paper to come loose, and so they applied copious quantities of glue. Gallons of the stuff. What a mess! It was applied directly to the drywall, too, so much effort was required to soak and scrape without damaging the wall itself.

Here is what the wallpaper looked like:

Say goodbye:

Now it is a lovely, lightly orange color. Orange? In MY house? Yes, oddly enough, this is the color that Alex and I both decided we liked best. It's called Fall Straw by Behr. I think of a yellow color for straw, but such is not the case in paint. The color has really lightened and opened up the kitchen quite a bit. I'm very pleased with it. And should I get tired of it and want to change it in the future, I can just slap on some paint and have a new look in just a few hours. Unlike the week of scraping it took to get that nasty wallpaper off!

Unfortunately, I'm not quite done. My kitchen is rectangular, with counters, sink, and cabinets on one side, and the stove and fridge on the other side of the walkway. The cabinets side is done, but I still have to pull out the fridge and stove to get the wallpaper back in that area.

*sigh*

At least I have the beautiful other side to look at when I need encouragement to keep scraping and scrubbing and rinsing...

I'll post a picture when everything is put back together again.

40th anniversary

2009-06-30T11:40:00.021-04:00

The reason for our trip to France was to celebrate my parents' 40th anniversary. I'm posting a recap from my mother for your enjoyment.
________________________________________________

A CELEBRATION OF 40 YEARS OF MARRIAGE
June 6, 2009

I’d like to thank those who shared their photos with me or used my own camera for me during our anniversary party so that I can have a wonderful pictorial memory. Unfortunately, we only got photos of half the crew working; we don’t seem to have anything showing the hard work Diana and Chip ended up doing, which is too bad as the driveway looked really nice.

Although the day started out beautiful, thunderstorms were called for all day, which was distressing for trying to prepare and decorate. We did get just one small storm in the late afternoon, but the rest of the evening stayed completely dry.

One of the first things we did was move our tables around. Romea, the cat, has a habit of sleeping under a particular table, and she wasn’t perturbed in the slightest when her table got moved. She simply rode the whole way up. Here you can see 14-year old Alex moving the table with his Papy Craig, while his mother Sandi is trying to decorate the gazebo.

Our colors were ruby for the American 40th (apparently the French use emerald) and turquoise, as that’s been our main color since our actual wedding (my favorite color, of course). The girls brought over red tulle and some turquoise "40" items (napkins, plates, and metallic decorations. Sandi, Diana, and Alex got quite creative trying to fulfill their decorating ideas. Our previous neighbors from Paris came early to visit with the kids, but as the weather had put us behind, they very artistically helped us to decorate our food tent. They did a fantastic job!

We’d managed to make our party clothes match our 25th anniversary colors really nicely, so we tried to recreate that effect this time. What we came up with wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind, but I couldn’t find what I had in mind, so we did the best we could. I designed my own outfit, and Craig got a new shirt out of the deal. He also got a new red item to wear for every red occasion (Christmas, for example) to replace the red socks he’s previously worn. It was time to replace them with something else to make the kids groan in future photos.

We started the party with a new cooler for cold water and a red punch for those who didn’t want wine. Several guests brought flowers.

We took a gastronomic tour of four Mediterranean countries. I set up a table with cookbooks and artifacts from each of those countries. For the centerpiece, I used the wine bottle we’d been given and then served at our 25th, which we’ve since turned into a lamp.

As our property is on multiple levels, with each level not being very large, it was often easier to take pictures from up above. The first picture really shows our party tent. To prevent it being too cramped for the 40 guests we were having, I made a canopy with the end flap, thus opening up the end without just exposing everything. I rigged up an umbrella to cover the beverage table and yet keep it out of the way. We set up a reception/gift table in the passageway behind the house from one side yard to the other, using an old drape for a table cover (just happened to be the right color!) and Diana hooked up old curtains for a backdrop. I think the ambiance was pretty classy for such an unclassy area!

Not only is the primary seating area not all that big, but there’s a 300 year old olive tree right smack in the middle of it. I’ve never been able to get grass to grow there, so last year I put down patio blocks. We managed to fit everybody in, just barely! You can see the effect of the Provençal tablecloths. We borrowed tables and chairs from the town hall, and a friend loaned us her party dishes and silverware, avoiding the need for plastic and paper products. You can see the main seating area from the upper level, which leads to the gazebo.

I could seat everybody below except our family, so we just created a special area for us. A bit strange, but you do what you have to do. As we’d run out of tablecloths and dishes used below, we ended up capitalizing on the red and turquoise theme here and used our own dishes. This was all actually set up by the kids, so I didn’t even see it until I sat down to eat. Didn’t they do a really classy job?

This the best I ended up with of my sister and me. She came all the way from CA, this is the first time she’s been able to visit me, so I hope she felt like the end result of our party was worth it. I know she had a great vacation trip otherwise, and the weather was ideal her whole visit.

Ambiance photos: These represent how blessed I am to have had so many friends able to come share our special event. The number I had was quite hectic enough, but there were probably double that number who weren’t able to come. Most of these new friends down here are French, as we haven’t gotten involved with expat groups like we did in Paris. I discovered is that somehow it’s a whole lot easier throwing a large party in a rented hall with lots of space than it is at your own home if said home only contains lots of little spaces. It doesn’t look like anybody minded that, though.

As the theme of the party was foods from multiple countries, I created a complete menu for each one, from soup to nuts (actually, from aperitifs to dessert). We decorated the serving area into four sections with the appropriate colors, and an artistic friend made me some beautiful menu boards. I’ve been to three of the countries represented, so I had some clue as to what was authentic. Many guests brought a dish, having been told exactly what I wanted. I asked for each dish to serve about ten. I think they felt they needed to feed an army single-handedly. We certainly had no fear of running out of anything to eat! A Moroccan friend offered to provide the entire menu for her country, which was the one I hadn’t ever been to personally. Whatever you see is just one course being served at that moment!

Despite not having been together for three years, this is going to be the best family photo we ended up with on this visit. It’s actually quite nice of everybody, just not what one would typically frame up for posterity. Oh, well, my family all prefers candid stuff anyway. This completely represents what we Fearings have created in 40 years. It’s been a good life.

Although I found the main seating area really pretty by day, I think it’s just beautiful by night. I’ve never seen it look like this before (all my dinner parties have been during the day, even in this area). This type of evening is what I envisioned having when we first bought this house seven years ago, but it’s taken this long to actually achieve the dream.

One of the things we did at our 25th anniversary party was to present a large gift bottle of wine and personally serve it with the cheese course. As we also had another large gift bottle (even already red-ribboned) this time around, we thought we’d continue the tradition.

I think the reception area looked really pretty at night. We had some family-through-the-years photos, plus our original wedding pictures and old anniversary photos from back when I used to pose in my wedding dress each year (for the first 30 years). The French seemed to have really gotten a kick out of looking through everything.

This is one of our largest olive trees lighted up for the first time. We definitely plan permanent uplights when we get the area more refined!

When one has a party for oneself, one has to pose. So I made a token cake for a centerpiece, then we did the wedding tradition of cutting the cake and serving it and the champagne toast to each other. It’s a romantic thing at a wedding, it’s a riot forty years later! But the whole idea was to have fun with all our friends, and I think we managed to pull that off. Both the flowers on the cake and the one in my hair came from my own garden, while the 40 topper is leftover scraps from our party clothes.

The next day, we finally had a moment to appreciate the various gifts we’d gotten. They included several flower bouquets, a couple potted plants, special wine and champagne, various miscellaneous items, money from my family for a tree for our property, and our first iPods each from our kids (mine is even turquoise). We were very touched to be so remembered.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my little recap of a wonderful event. Perhaps you’ll be able to join us in ten years when we celebrate the big 5-0. Gold will abound!

Barbara & Craig

Safe Arrival

2009-06-04T14:32:00.005-04:00

After quite a long day of travel, we are safely here in Nice. My parents are having their 40th wedding anniversary on Saturday, so we are here for the big party. We flew to Atlanta, then to JFK in New York, then to France. We were blessed with safe, mostly uneventful travel the whole way. Unlike my sister, who was delayed 2 hours due to bad weather, and thus missed her connecting flight.

I did feel quite sorry for the girl next to me on the trip to NY, who was incredibly airsick. Three times.

And the overhead "bong" that malfunctioned and kept bonging excessively during the overseas flight to Nice was rather annoying. Especially since it started during the middle of the night when we were trying to sleep. When Alex asked our attendant what it was, he replied that it was the "mysterious cowbell" and they didn't know what was causing it. "More cowbell" was NOT our opinion!

But there were only a couple of crying babies. Miraculously, all our flights left on time. And we were on them at the time! We had friendly people at the check-in, nice flight attendants, not too much turbulence, and our luggage arrived with us. Good trip!

MS Office certifications - Word

2009-05-29T13:46:00.002-04:00

As of today, Alex is a certified user of Microsoft Word 2007. He is working toward the Microsoft Certified Application Specialist certification, and he'll earn the ability to test for parts of the certification each school year as part of his I.T. program. Congrats on his good work!

Happiness for my sister

2009-05-27T23:33:00.002-04:00

Congratulations to my sister! She took the big - and somewhat frightening - step of closing on her first house today. She's now joined the millions of people who have signed their lives away for 30 years.... Yippee!

IC3 certification test results

2009-05-26T23:26:00.003-04:00

He started his test last week as planned. He finished part one, and had 3 questions left on part two, when the power went out at the school. (It's been lovely weather lately.) He had to be rescheduled to finish it today, since the electricity issue was not resolved in time for him to resume the test before the end of the school day. But now... the results are in...

The scoring is apparently not based solely on the answers provided, but also on how much clicking around you do on the example situations, how long it takes you to reply, etc. He needed a score of 800 to pass. The highest possible score is 1000.

Test 1 = 956
Test 2 = 956
Test 3 = 911

If only the class grades were this good!

IC3 certification test

2009-05-20T19:00:00.002-04:00

"The Internet and Computing Core Certification (IC3) is a series of three exams in the following areas - Computing Fundamentals, Key Applications and Living Online. Each exam has a 45 or 50 minute time limit."

Alex is taking this test tomorrow. He did very well on the practice exam today, so here's hoping he does even better on the real one!

He has an online video he was told to review tonight to make sure he is prepared. We are having fun pointing out all the grammar mistakes the narrator is making...

You Just Never Know

2009-05-18T10:31:00.004-04:00

You just never know what to expect around here these days. When I was first hired by the Census, I was told it was a 4-month position.

They miscalculated.

We were done in 6 weeks.

That time frame was based on previous years of doing the same type of work. Except this year, they had hand-held computers for us to use instead of just paper and pencil. And this year, the economy is so poor that people who normally would have quit and dropped out decided to stick it out because they really needed the paycheck.

Fortunately for me, I had favor with the office. They kept finding things for me to do to extend my time a little longer. I got to help the groups in Georgia who were behind the groups in Florida. I helped with paperwork in the office, since the 160 or so people that were hired had to then be terminated when the work was done, and that included the other FL crew leaders who didn't get those extra days. I picked up people's computers when they finished their last assignments. And generally did any little bit-or-piece needed. Thankfully, that extended my employment a full 12 days. Sadly, Saturday was the last day.

They will have another round of work coming up in July, although we know going into it that it will be only a couple of weeks. I've begun looking for a new job again, but chances are good that I'll still be available when the July stuff starts. As much as they liked me, I'm pretty sure they would find a way to rehire me. They said they hoped to see me again in July, anyway...

These last two weeks have been a really big lesson in just taking life one day at a time. Each day, I had no idea if it was my last day to work. At the end of the day, I'd ask if I should come back the next day. Oh yes, come in. Ok... and I ended up with a couple of hours of overtime both of those weeks! What a blessing.

I filed for unemployment this morning, and am now off to look for a job. And do some laundry. And be thankful that the rain pouring down is a) finally here and b) I'm not driving in it. Cheers!

Goodbye, Uncle Fred

2009-05-11T08:53:00.003-04:00

Fred C. Starke
1952 - 2009

To a good man and fabulous father... rest in peace.

Thanks for the happy wishes

2009-05-10T08:45:00.001-04:00

Thank you to everyone who sent me cards, emails, phone messages, and texts to wish me a happy birthday on Friday.

It was a very stressful week. Between missing Alex's field trip - which really bummed me - and working some crazy hours that further messed up my sleep schedule, and plans for my birthday not working out ~~quite~~ at all as expected, and having trouble with the laptop again, and the lawnmower acting up again, and... I am near my wit's end.

So today, I'm spending time with my son. I'm sorry if I'm not talking to you, please do not feel slighted, I'll be happy to call people back later. I just really, seriously, need some down time.

Happy Mother's Day to my mother, my husband's mother, and every other mother out there. You are special!

And they're off!

2009-05-05T05:10:00.006-04:00

Why does it seem habitually acceptable for school field trips to be scheduled at a certain time, only to find the buses do not arrive promptly to pick up the students?

The kids are going on a trip today to Orlando. They have a behind-the-scenes tour at Universal Studios today, and one at Magic Kingdom tomorrow. They'll get to have fun in the parks as well, but they are also getting information about the technologies behind the park, etc. It ties in with the program's IT emphasis. It sounds like a lot of fun, and I'm beyond disappointed that I don't get to go. It's the first field trip he's ever had that I have not attended. Boo hoo for me...

But anyway, they were supposed to be there at 4am. Yes, four o'clock in the morning. Crazy, isn't it? That gave them time to review basic rules, take attendance, load the bus, and be ready to leave at 5am. I dutifully dragged my sleepy self out of bed at 3am so that I could wake him up, get him into the shower (I suggested numerous times that a shower the night before might be more prudent, but so much for that idea), feed him breakfast, make sure he didn't forget anything direly urgent, and get him to school on time. Although we constantly fight the 5-minutes-late-syndrome, we were actually there at the school right at 4am on the dot. Yippee for us.

We were the fourth vehicle.

We found the parking lot still gated closed.

The first teacher didn't arrive until 4:30, and that irritated me. One parent didn't show up with her child until 4:45, and commented that she could have slept in a little more since the buses were late. I confess, my thoughts were less than charitable about her loss of sleep. I'm sure those there before 4am weren't too sympathetic, either.

At 4:56am, the first bus pulled into the lot. At this point, the teachers went ahead and pulled everyone in to start their speeches, etc. Once the teachers actually started doing something, I left.

Seriously, can someone explain why this seems to happen a good 80% of the time? I have a hard time convincing myself that it really matters if I'm there at the designated time when I know good and well that everyone is just going to hang out in the parking lot for an hour anyway. That time of morning, I could have used another 45 minutes of sleep.

Now, please excuse me. I'm going to see if my friend Mr. Sandman is still in the vicinity and can return to spend a little more time with me this morning.

Yep, I'm still alive

2009-04-20T23:08:00.005-04:00

To my many friends and family members that have been woefully ignored over the past 6 weeks, I offer my utmost apologies. This job has ended up being substantially more time consuming than expected. I do manage to read my email every couple of days, but I'm so tired and mentally worn out that I haven't the energy to respond most of the time. Here's hoping that subsides a little bit soon!

Once we completed training, we were assigned to various districts, and had crews assigned to us. By "us", I mean those that completed crew leader (CL) training that our boss thought would actually make good crew leaders, and that meant not everyone in the class actually ended up with the job they thought they were going to have. To some extent, that even included me...

My boss designated me as the floating crew leader. This means that I don't actually have my own crew of people to manage. When the other crew leaders have employees that need a little hands-on assistance in the field to shore up areas that they may not have fully grasped in the original training class, they call me. If other CLs need help doing employee observations - everyone gets observed whether they need additional training or not - they call me. When enough people either quit or are terminated, the office will schedule new training classes, and I teach them. Those new employees are then assigned out to join existing crews. Should another CL need time off for some reason (got sick, taking vacation, etc) then I am the 'substitute' leader for their crew until they can return. And my phone number has been passed out to everyone's crews so that if they run into a problem while they are working and need help, they can call me if their CL is not able to answer their own phone for whatever reason.

At first, I was a little disappointed that I would not have a crew myself. My boss told me that he gave me this job because he thought I had such a good grasp of the material and thus would be a good fit for it, but I was still a little bummed. I've quickly come to realize, however, that I think I have one of the best jobs.

I get to bounce all over the place, meeting lots of people instead of dealing with the same people over and over.
I like to help people, so being a "help desk" for hundreds of people makes me feel good.
I enjoy coaching people who are struggling so they can do their jobs better. Many times, they just need some reassurance that what they are doing is correct, and then they are off and running.
Anyone who knows me should understand that teaching new hires is a rewarding job for me. Meeting people that have been out of work for a while and are almost in tears at the opportunity to be gainfully employed is special too, even if I didn't have anything to do with the hiring process.
I don't have to deal with personnel issues like finding out why so-and-so didn't report any work this week, or verifying timesheets to make sure they were entered properly and sound reasonable, or terminating people for whatever reason.
Not having direct reports means my trip to France this summer for my parents' 40th wedding anniversary will not cause any problems for my boss. The office just won't schedule a training class during that time, and other CLs will have to deal on their own for a bit.

The downsides?

I am fairly attached to my phone from 7:30am-9pm because I never know when it might ring. If it's a call from someone in the field who is unsure of a situation, you can't really make them leave a message for a time that is more convenient for you. If they are stuck, then they need an answer or they'll have to stop working and go home. That's bad. (Think how many calls the regular CLs get since their people generally call them before they try me!)
"Don't work more than 40 hours per week except for the rare occasions when overtime is approved." That was drilled into our heads during my training class. BUT... there's only been one week so far that I've been able to keep it under 40 hours. Every other week has been in the 50 range. (Some CLs have closer to 60, depending on the size of their crews and how many problems they've had to handle.) That's not only tiring, but it's killing my desire to do my own cooking and to eat only healthy foods. After I've been working for 11 straight hours, "picking up something on the way home" sounds much more appealing than the prospect of getting home and cooking. Thankfully I have a number of meals frozen from when I was prolifically cooking during my period of unemployment, but it's still a challenge. Which is not to say that the extra money is not welcomed and being pushed into savings for when this job is over and I don't know if/where I'll work!
The lack of ability to plan times to take care of personal business is a little frustrating. Even on days where I think nothing is planned so I should be able to do my own thing, I never know if I'll get a call that a computer in Panama City has died and the office needs me to come pick up a new one to drive down there to exchange so that person can keep working. It's a 2-hour drive each way... Depending on the situation, I can sometimes tell the people that they'll have to wait, but sometimes I have to drop everything and go handle the problem, which means any plans are thereby rescheduled. It's disconcerting to have your whole life in a constant state of flux.

So, I hope this catches up everyone who asks how my job is going. It's time consuming, it's sometimes challenging to figure out how to work around all the quirks in this software, but I'm working with some great people and having a lot of fun with it. I'm getting a distinctive farmer's tan going, too, so I'm trying to find some shorter-sleeved shirts to combat that!

Hope all is well in your assorted areas of the world!

Life was boring

2009-03-24T10:37:00.005-04:00

As he walked into his backyard, he watched his neighbor in surprise. Whatever was she doing in her backyard, fully dressed, washing her hair with the garden hose?

Actually, I don't think any of the neighbors saw me. But I'm sure they would have been perplexed if they had. Sometimes, though, drastic measures are necessary.

I mentioned that I was exhausted by Friday, so I skipped washing my hair. I wasn't going anywhere, I was just cleaning up the house, etc., so I didn't think it really necessary. In the afternoon, I started washing some laundry. I glanced out the window and saw the water that was draining out of the washer running down the hill of my driveway, rather than disappearing down the sewage pipes like it should.

Uh oh.

We've twice had problems with the enormous tree in my yard growing into the pipes and blocking the passage of the dirty water. Both times, the problem thankfully ended up on the city's part of the yard. They brought out the machinery, dug up the yard, cut out the roots, and replaced the pipes. Since then, I've tried to put root-killer stuff down the drains every so often, just to make sure they don't grow back. It's a real pain, because it takes them about two days to do everything, and I meanwhile have no drainage. Think of how often the drain is used, even just for flushing a potty... and what would you do if said drainage was not available? Those are not fun times.

Seeing the water running down the driveway - times like this, I'm very happy about the enormous incline of my yard, since the flat yard I would like would have let the water come back up to the house - gave me a slight panic attack. I don't recall the last time I put the tree stuff in the drain, and I knew all the pipes in the house were working just fine. It was definitely a problem with the outside pipes. So I went out to check them. Sure enough, the water was completely backed up. I started to realize that a couple of times I've seen the driveway wet when I didn't think it had been raining, but I hadn't consciously thought about it. My only consolation: when the problem was the trees, it was a gradual problem, and this seemed to have popped up pretty quickly.

Off to Home Depot to look for a drain cleaner. I bought some of the root killer, but that needs running water to work. What I had was definitely NOT running water. The only running part was the overflow that ran down the hill... The one I found said to dump it in and give it 7-8 hours to work in slow or standing water, preferably without using any additional water during that time. Normally, I would have poured it in at bedtime, but since we couldn't use any water anyway, what was the point of waiting? Glug glug glug.

8 hours later, we took a flashlight outside to check it. Nope, still looked just the same. Bummer. Maybe it needs a little longer. Checked it Saturday morning when we got up. Nope. 18 hours after application, and it still looked the same. This was not good news. I now had places to go, and needed to look decent. If the water was just dirty water, maybe it wouldn't matter if it overflowed, but I'd seen some... other waste... bobbing along in the pipe opening and was not keen on having that floating down my driveway! So what to do?

Thus I took my shampoo and a towel out to the backyard to wash my hair with the hose. The water was surprisingly warm from the sun, which was nice as I'd been expecting it to be freezing. I felt rather like I was camping or something, except it was in my yard. In an odd kind of way, it was sort of fun. To do once.

While I was at the meeting, I kept praying about the drainage problem. I truly did not want to call a plumber on the weekend. They are expensive enough during regular hours, I didn't want to pay the emergency call fee. I was trying to figure out if we could survive until Monday. I was also claiming God's promise to be a father to the fatherless and a husband to widows. France is a little far for my dad to just to stop over to help out, so I was effectively fatherless. Didn't that count?

When I got home, it was about 22 hours after we first poured the cleaner into the pipes. At 18 hours, the stuff had not moved even an inch. At 22, however, the whole thing was cleaned out and operating properly. No more blockage! We flushed the toilet to make sure the water was not still stopped up just out of sight. Nope, washed out like it was supposed to do. I did a load of laundry, no problem. Ran the dishwasher, no problem. All better! PRAISE THE LORD!

Life can be interesting sometimes, no? I guess I'd been on a streak of humdrum activities, so I got a little surprise to spice it up for a bit.

And yes, I've applied the root killer now, too, just in case. I'll be fine with boredom again for a little while, thankyouverymuch.

My training experience

2009-03-20T12:40:00.008-04:00

45 hours of work in 4 days... my brain is very, very tired. And thanks to some technical difficulties with some of our training equipment, we didn't even completely finish the course. We will be finishing our workbooks ourselves over the weekend. Theoretically, we will be teaching our crews this material starting next Friday, so we don't have a whole lot of time to make sure we truly understand everything.

Thankfully, I didn't find most of it to be too difficult, it was just a lot of information. Some of my classmates were struggling, which makes me a little hesitant about how quickly our team members will catch on. As I mentioned before, I took a [required] test in December to basically see if my intelligence level was high enough to do this job. There were 28 questions on the test, they had practice tests available for you to take prior to the exam itself, and most of them were fairly common sense questions in the first place. There was no reason someone couldn't pass this test. Some of the fellow test takers at the time made my eyes expand a little, when they couldn't even figure out how to fill in the answer on the answer key. (Clue: color in the bubble in front of the answer you think is correct) Two of the crew leaders in my training class had been recruiters and said you only had to answer 9 of the 28 to be considered passing. 9?!?! Oh.... dear.... I would have thought 20 to be a more reasonable number. Hopefully, their first selections are from the pool of higher-scoring people!

So anyway, I'm sorry I didn't give better updates along the way. I was not expecting to have quite so much work time this week, with the occasional homework assignment as well. My poor supervisor is from Georgia and so has an extra hour of driving at the beginning and ending of his day, plus additional paperwork to do to make sure we get our work assignments and get paid. I do not envy him in the slightest. I was literally dreaming of streets and houses by Wednesday night, but he was so tired that he was nodding off while doing some followup work and actually asked his wife what her address was to make sure it was properly recorded. I might be too tired to proof this post properly, but at least I still know where I live!

The first day

2009-03-14T21:04:00.006-04:00

We started in the morning, and it took 4 hours to fill out all the paperwork and be fingerprinted. We were all starving by the time we got a lunch break at 1:15. When we came back from lunch – only a 30 minute break so I was really glad I'd brought a lunch instead of having to go find one – we starting the training part. Turns out that was just more bureaucratic CYA, since we were told how to wear our seat belts, drive safely, call the cops if we get into an accident, etc. Not a bit of it covered stuff that any common sense person who drives wouldn’t already know. We covered extensive amounts of EEO, non-discrimination, and avoidance of harassment of various types. It was again nothing that people wouldn’t already know if they’ve worked any length of time, especially if they have ever been a supervisor. And all of us there had been, so we were fairly bored as the teacher went through it all.

There are 6 of us in this training class. We come from various parts of the panhandle, so the training class is in a central location for all of us. That means a 45-60 minute drive for all of us, converging on this one place in the middle. I feel a little sorry for the people coming from Central time, as they have leave really early to get to the class by 9am Eastern. (The training area is about 10 minutes into the Eastern time zone.) Thankfully, the timing worked out well for me; I dropped Alex off for school, drove, and got there a few minutes before the start time.

On Monday, we will start learning how to use handheld computers, more information about what our job actually entails, and I’m not sure what else. I know they gave us enough manuals to use 3 trees per person! It’s literally a whole box of stuff. Part of it includes the manual that we will use to train our crews. They have the entire thing written out so we just have to stand there and read it verbatim while trying to make it sound a little interesting. Which is exactly what our teacher was doing for us. While on the one hand, that makes training rather boring, on the other hand it does speed up the training process since you don’t have to actually learn what you are teaching. Considering how many nationwide training groups will be done, I can see how that could be beneficial, even if it will feel silly to just read aloud.

It appears that this “first phase” is actually going out to all the streets in an area and making sure there is a record of every residence. “If someone is living in a tent but has a mailbox up, that counts as a residence.” Some of the newly built homes and streets might not be on existing maps, for instance. A “production” group will be doing the majority of that work, it seems, with my team doing a quality control spot check of various areas. How the areas are chosen, I have no idea, but I’ll get a list of areas to check and I’ll assign people to do it. As that part is only supposed to take the 4 months, I’m not sure what will be done after that.

The census count itself doesn’t start until 2010. Since it was starting so early, I had first thought that possibly we took the census in 2009 to publish in 2010, but it appears that is not the case. There are apparently numerous positions involved, and people sometimes get shuffled to different jobs even mid-contract, so I might or might not actually be doing this position the whole 4 months I was originally quoted. Then again, they might have additional positions once this one is done, so I might be working with them longer than I’d thought. There’s still a lot of unknowns there, and our teacher can’t really tell us much because there’s the possibility of someone assuming something that isn’t true and it causing a problem. Better to just not say anything at all. See my previous comment about bureaucracy…

So Square

2009-03-03T13:23:00.002-05:00

Apparently, today is “Square Root Day” courtesy of the date: 03/03/09. I don’t think I’ll be cutting my veggies into squares today as suggested, but… whoo hoo… yippee... hoorah...

There. That's probably the extent of my celebration for the day.

Oh wait, the bell peppers on my lunch salad were in squares. So there you go. What a party.

Recipe: Mediterranean Stew

2009-02-24T09:00:00.003-05:00

Last January, my brother introduced me to the MediterrAsian website. I tried a few things, liked them, and then promptly forgot about it. A couple of months ago, I went back and started trying a few dishes.

Thai fish curry - This recipe surprised me. It was very light, a little sweet, and really good. There's no curry powder in it, though, and my brain was still expecting that type of flavor because of the name. I thought there was quite a bit of liquid for the quantity of solids, so you could easily increase the fish and veggies if you were serving more people. Or break up the fish pieces, stir the rice in, and serve as a soup.

Salmon risotto - not a dish I particularly recommend. I had a 14 oz can of salmon, so I doubled the recipe. According to their idea, that should have been 4 servings. We ended up with 6 ample portions, and were really wishing it was only the original two.
Side note: That was the first time I'd used canned salmon. Did you know it still has the fish bones in it? I was expecting bone-free like canned tuna.

Dhal with carrots and cauliflower - I couldn't find the red lentils at the regular grocery store, but the health food store had them. The coconut milk in it gives it a slightly sweet flavor. I'm not a big fan of cauliflower, so I found this an easy way to work it into my diet without having to suffer through the normal taste of it. In fact, I really didn't even notice the cauliflower at all. I found the Indian bread at the grocery store, and I did like it, but it was a little pricey to be using in one meal. Next time, we'll probably just use a baguette. Or skip the bread altogether. As with the salmon risotto, I found their 4 servings to expand to about 6 at my house. Except for the bread, this is a reasonably inexpensive dish.

Mediterranean Stew - This recipe is the reason for this post. This stuff is fantastic. Alex doesn't like olives, so I leave them out, and it is still an excellent recipe. They offer a number of variations on it, and we've tried all but the Italian one. It amazes me how the overall flavor really changes based on the protein and seasonings you add. My hands-down favorite is the Moroccan version. I've tried it with both fish and chickpeas, and I prefer the chickpeas. That's convenient, since it's cheaper as well!

When I make it, I double the ingredients for the basic stew, then divide that up into 3 portions. I then add the variant's protein and seasonings into one of the portions. Either refrigerate or freeze the other two until you need another quick meal.

I really have issues with the portion sizes they suggest. They must eat a lot more than we do. I still have 4 servings per portion, and we don't feel the servings are all that small. Sometimes I serve a salad with it, and then we are really full.

Summary: Unless you are really big eaters, their serving portions are going to be more generous than you probably need. The recipes themselves, however, are pretty good. If you don't try anything else except the stew, you should at least give that one a try. I think I'm probably going to make another batch soon because I'm getting hungry just thinking about it!

Right on time

2009-02-23T23:45:00.004-05:00

I accepted a job today. I applied for it back in December, and it just took them this long to call. It's a full-time but temporary job, only lasting about 4 months. I'll be working with the US Census Bureau, doing crew training and quality assurance. I liked doing training at PATLive, but I'll admit that our hiring standards were probably slightly higher than the level of the average census worker. I could be wrong... I rather hope I'm wrong. We'll have to see. Hopefully when this is over, the economy will be picking up again and people will start hiring for decent permanent jobs and wages.

I'll know a little more after I start training. When is that, you ask? March 13. Which just so happens to be the same day that I receive my last payment from PATLive. How's that for timing?

Yankee Candle sale

2009-02-19T07:26:00.001-05:00

If you like Yankee Candles, you might like this Buy 2 Get 1 Free coupon. It's only good through Sunday, but is good at the store or their online sales.

Not Smarter Than A 5th Grader

2009-02-18T18:37:00.006-05:00

As you know, I lost my job in November. I'm still looking for a replacement position. When job hunting this week, I saw the following listing:

FL - Job located in Fresno, California
(Nearby)

I realize my geography knowledge is weak. Very weak. Embarrassingly weak. But even I know that California is not nearby Florida. If that is considered close enough for a commute, how far away does the job have to be to be considered notably distant?

Perhaps CareerBuilder should invest in Google Maps or MapQuest services?

Recipe: Coq au Vin

2009-02-17T09:00:00.000-05:00

It's otherwise known as "chicken cooked in red wine". This recipe started as a compilation of my mom's research into various recipes, and I've then made a few adjustments myself. It's been very popular with others when I've made it, so I'll pass it along.

If you aren't serving a large number of people, package it up into smaller portions and freeze for when you need something quickly.

COQ AU VIN

Ingredients

4 chicken legs
4 chicken thighs
¼ lb. bacon or salt pork
1 head celery, chopped
3-4 carrots, chopped or julienned
3 onions, quartered
3 shallots, chopped
4 garlic cloves, chopped or minced
1 pint mushrooms, washed
1 can diced tomatoes OR dice 3-4 medium fresh tomatoes
750 ml red wine
Bay leaf
Herbs for seasoning

Preparation
Step One

Brown chicken pieces in olive oil. Sprinkle with flour, then remove from pan.
Cook the bacon in the chicken grease. Remove from the pan.

Saute the celery, onion, shallots, carrots, and garlic in the chicken and bacon grease. Cook until the onions are translucent. Pour ¼ bottle of red wine into the pan to loosen any of “the bits” in the pan. If you’ve used a non-stick pan, you’re basically just rinsing the pan.

Step Two
I put it in the oven, mom has successfully put a smaller portion in the crockpot, so finish cooking with whatever method works for your schedule and size of cooking vessel.

Put browned chicken in lasagna pan, Dutch Oven, or crock pot. Crumble the bacon over the chicken. Add your sautéed vegetables. Add mushrooms, tomatoes, bay leaf, and herbs. Use fresh rosemary, sage, and thyme if you have it. Otherwise, dried herbs are just fine. I tend to just use a few tablespoons of Herbes de Provence.

Pour ½ bottle of red wine over the whole dish. That leaves enough for 2 glasses of wine to go with the meal. If you don’t want to drink the wine, pour it into the pan.
Bake at 300 degrees for 1 ½-2 hours until chicken pulls easily from the bone. (3-4 hours if using a modern crockpot)

Step Three
Remove bay leaf and fresh herbs. Serve with mashed potatoes, salad, and baguette.

Notes
It doesn’t seem to matter what quality of wine you use. I’ve found it as cheaply as $3/bottle on a sale.

I enjoy deboning the chicken and shredding it into the vegetables rather than serving it with the bones. This is generally easier to do when putting away leftovers, however, as it is not so hot.

The finished product might have a lot of liquid. Either thicken it up with a little cornstarch, or just enjoy the juice. It also makes a nice stew if you’ve removed the bones.

Lofty Aspirations

2009-02-15T19:35:00.005-05:00

One starts to contemplate the meaning of life when one realizes that one's burning desire is to simply outsmart one's dog.

I've had this dog for 9 years. She's a very intelligent animal, which normally pleases me. She has this horrible habit of digging herself out of the backyard, however, and nothing I can do seems to be able to stop it. She'll go for a few weeks, and I'll think I've won, and then poof! She's out again. She can squeeze herself out of the tiniest spaces, too. I'd gotten to the point where I never let them outside unless I was standing there watching them. You can imagine how tedious that can be, but we did it for a few years.

A few months ago, we installed a doggie door. She's getting older (she was at least 2 when I got her from the pound in 2000) and she was having a hard time holding it all day while we were at work/school. I figured she could go out to relieve herself, and stop peeing in the house. Yeah... she promptly started testing her Houdini skills again, so the doggie door got closed up. That rather defeated the purpose of installing it.

Now that I've been home more in the daytime and able to see her favored area of mischief, I've been trying my hand at foiling her escapes again. I thought I had it figured out; we went almost 2 weeks with her having free access to come and go and she never got out. Success! But no. One day I was gone for the day again, and came home to find her sitting on the front porch, waiting for us.

This time, it's been a week. She's tried several times to get out, including two straight days of nobody being home, but it appears to be working. I really hope so... please send thoughts of "containment" our way!

National Pancake Day

2009-02-12T10:56:00.002-05:00

In case this is of interest to you, February 24 - Fat Tuesday - is National Pancake Day. You really can learn something new every day...

In celebration, IHOP will be serving a free short stack of pancakes to visitors throughout the day. They do request that you make a donation to a children's hospital, preferably the Children's Miracle Network since that is their charity of choice.

If you have an IHOP near you and like pancakes, you might want to stop in on the 24th.

Recipe: Spicy Peanut Yams

2009-02-10T09:00:00.001-05:00

This recipe came courtesy of my sister. She sent it by email, I couldn't find it online, so I posted it in recipezaar. I took it to a Christmas party and the only person who didn't like it said it was because she can't eat spicy foods. It was otherwise extremely popular.

The spicy peanut yam casserole dish is pretty flexible. Reduce or even eliminate the hot pepper flakes to adjust for your level of spicy tolerance.

A tip for the peanuts: put them in a Ziploc bag and mash with a rolling pin.

One friend made the recipe using canned yams. She used a can of Ro-tel instead of the peppers and tomatoes, and sauteed the onions in the sauce from the Ro-tel. She reported it was very popular with her family, and saved her a lot of prep time.

The first time I made it, I was at someone else's house and had neither peanut oil nor curry powder nor hot pepper flakes. I used regular vegetable oil, cinnamon, and a couple shakes of tabasco sauce instead. We all thought it came out great, even though it was nothing like the recipe's intended flavor. Maybe that's another option you could try.

If you try it, be sure to let me know how you liked it!

300 degrees

2009-02-03T21:37:00.001-05:00

When one puts the entire skillet into the oven to bake dinner, one should not then grab the bare handle willy-nilly when scooping out the food.

Just sayin'.

Ouch. This hurts.

Recipe: Crustless Pizza Dip

2009-02-03T16:00:00.003-05:00

I love to cook, and I love finding recipes that I can share with people. My favorite online recipe place is www.recipezaar.com. I can pretty much always find something on there to fit what I'm looking for, and the user reviews are usually helpful.

This dip recipe is just as advertised: it takes just like a pizza. I made it for a SuperBowl party for Sunday, and it was scarfed up. Actually, to be honest, I found the recipe but Alex made it while I was cooking other items. Rather than using a pre-packaged jar of sauce, I made this pizza sauce.

I bought a package of pizza crust (never done that before) that I sliced into breadsticks and baked. We used those and a whole veggie tray as dippers. The cucumbers were a little odd, but the other items were fine. The broccoli and carrots probably worked the best.

If you need a dip for something, this one is definitely different but delicious. Don't expect leftovers!

Crystal Diaper award

2009-02-03T10:55:00.005-05:00

I've volunteered in the nursery since before I had Alex. I started with the little babies, but I was asked to help out in the 2yo room a couple of times and decided I liked it there. So for the last 8 years, I've spent the first Sunday of every month helping out in the 2yo room. Since last June, Alex has also been helping me out with the kids. We go to the first service, then volunteer for the second one.

Our church recently held a volunteer recognition service to thank all the volunteers that keep the church running. They gave a description of the various areas people serve - some I never even knew we had - and everyone that worked in that area stood up to be recognized and receive a certificate of thanks.

Pastor Ledford's comments when discussing each area were amusing. Clearly, he has no secret longing to ever work in the nursery with not-yet-potty-trained kids. Absolutely.None.What.So.Ever. Much like my desire to stand up and preach to the church.

Then came the surprise... the staff members that run each area had selected a Volunteer of the Year for their area. Their names were called out, 'the winner is' music was played just like at some entertainment awards show, and the person went to the front of the church to be specially recognized for their efforts. You'd think they might want to warn people of such a thing, but no...

And so I suddenly found myself in front of the church, getting a hug from the pastor and receiving this beautiful plaque. How cool is that? When awarding my plaque, he said they really should have a Crystal Diaper award to present, but I'd have to settle for the plaque. I was so surprised in the first place, I thought this was just fine!

Swiss Drum Corp

2009-01-24T09:13:00.001-05:00

If you enjoy a nice drum corp presentation, you'll want to watch this display of Swiss drumming skills. Impressive and entertaining even though it goes on for almost 6 minutes. I loved the sword fighting part that was about halfway through.

Pleasant Surprises

2009-01-23T17:03:00.002-05:00

I had two lovely surprises yesterday:

I normally have a difficult time getting Alex up in the morning. It takes a good 20-30 minutes usually to rouse him out of bed. Neither one of us are morning people, and it shows very clearly on weekday mornings. Yesterday, I woke up when the alarm went off, only to find him just getting out of the shower. He'd woken up a little early on his own, and decided to just go ahead and get ready for school. Shock!
I had participated in a local survey about something or other, and they said they were putting together a focus group and would I be interested. I filled out the information, they called me back to review the screening questions, then scheduled me to be part of the group. They were paying $50 for each participant. Yes, I'd love to be part of your study! I arrived at the meeting time, only to be told that they needed X number of people and they had scheduled a few extra just to make sure they had the correct number actually show up. The X number had already arrived, so they handed me the $50 check and told me I was free to go home. Seriously? Please let me know if you are ever doing another one...

Both my morning and my evening contained pleasant surprises. Ah, for more days like that!

2008 BCS Bowl

2009-01-09T00:29:00.003-05:00

As a diehard FSU Seminole, I cheer for the Noles and for whomever is playing against the Florida Gators... unless it is a National Championship game. For the #1 spot, loyalty to my state kicks in. I'm not pleased that they've tested me on that for the 2nd time in 3 years! I suppose it is a small consolation that at least the Oklahoma Sooners put up a good fight and made them really work for tonight's win. *sigh*

Go Gators.

Random Bits

2009-01-08T08:20:00.001-05:00

Jenni posted this at One Thing and suggested that we might want to put our own versions up. This reminds me of all those “let’s get to know each other” emails that go around. Most of you know I hate those things and rarely do them. I figured I’ll post this one and then won’t feel the slightest bit guilty about not responding to those emails for the rest of the year. (I do still read them, though) *smile* Feel free to do your own versions if you like.

Items I HAVE done are in bold. I was only supposed to mark what I've done or not done, but you know me, I have to comment...

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii - some day, I hope to do this
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity - I don’t know how to answer this one. Really, how does one define “too much”?
7. Been to Disneyland/world
8. Climbed a mountain - not like Mount Everest or anything crazy, though!
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo - I'm guessing singing by myself when nobody can hear me doesn't really count. I've played instrumental solos, though, does that count?
11. Bungee jumped - I can't imagine I will ever, ever make this one bold.
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty - I know I saw it when I was very young, but I don't know if we went up the inside. I'm not marking it since I can't remember it even if I did it.
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train - I was unfortunately not in a sleeping compartment, though, just a regular seat. It's similar to sleeping in a car or on an airplane... not very comfortable!
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill - we had "paid time off" that encompassed both sick and vacation time. You earned the time off, you could use it as you felt like. So I did take off a day on extremely short notice a time or two, but it was "legal" to do so even if not a practice they encouraged.
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run - yeah, right. I'd just pleased if I can actually hit the ball, never mind if it goes anywhere.
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors - what a generic question. My parents are ancestors, so how far back does this mean? Been to some reasonably far back, so I'm marking it, but really, more specifics would have been nice.
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language - if I had teachers but I still had to learn the language, does that count? Didn't learn it exceptionally well, granted, but I can read it to some extent...
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt - not yet, but it's on my list of things I'd really like to do
43. Bought a stranger a meal in a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater - assuming this means when a movie is actually playing and not just to see an empty theater...
55. Been in a movie - my college roommate was a film major. I mostly helped out with work behind the camera, but I was in brief flashes of some of their films.
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business - my contract work and my Stampin' Up! membership are technically businesses even though they aren't what most people envision as a business
58. Taken a martial arts class - only took one class myself, although I certainly watched enough classes when Alex was studying for his TaeKwonDo black belt.
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen - wanted to do this and volunteered at one once only to be told they had enough help so thanks anyway
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Gotten flowers for no reason - "gotten" is vague. "Purchased for myself", yes. "Received", no.
64. Donated blood, platelets, or plasma - in fact, should have done it again last month. Need to see where the drives are now. I used to organize them at PATLive, so I just did it when the bloodmobile came to us.
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check - not my proudest moment and thankfully a long time ago
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London - been to London, but I don't think we saw the guard change while we were there
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle - and the even more fun "fell asleep while a passenger on a motorcycle" that scared the daylights out of my poor father and he wouldn't let me ride behind him for quite some time after that. To clarify, I wasn't aware of speeding when I rode with my dad, only when I rode with my husband. I still wish I'd kept my MC license when I had it, and frequently think about getting it again. Not having a motorcycle to ride is a bit of a damper on that, though.
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible - working on it again
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating - my husband caught some fish and I helped clean them, so I think that counts, unless seafood doesn't count as an animal. Depends on who you ask, I guess.
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury - only received a summons for jury duty once and didn't even have to report
91. Met someone famous - maybe someone I've met will be famous in the future
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one - horrible, horrible experience
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a lawsuit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee

Handsome Man

2009-01-07T09:37:00.008-05:00

It has come to my attention that not everyone got the photo of Alex that I was including in the Christmas cards. I'm very sorry if you didn't get one; I thought I put them in!

This is one of his 2 favorite shirts, so I wasn't suprised he wanted to wear it for the picture. I was amused at how nicely the blue in the shirt matched with the photog's standard background color. We planned it like that... yeah...

Just Chillin'

2009-01-07T08:48:00.004-05:00

I realize I haven't said much in the past few weeks. We've been amazingly busy but yet not. Christmas time and activities always take up more time than one expects, but we still managed to keep it fairly calm and controlled. Both Alex & I thought of some foods we'd like to try, so I looked up recipes and made something new, different, or out of the norm almost every day. Some of them turned out better than others, but it was fun to try new things.

As was not a surprise, video-game-aholic Alex spent as much time as possible on various games over the break. I did force him to read a book, too, just to break it up a little. I also forced him to play some games that I could play as well. I'm an old-school gamer who likes the basic arcade game type things. The adventure games that take hours and hours... not so much. I understand other people like them, and I enjoy watching others play them, but they are too much for me. They go too long, and generally I have a hard time with the 3D depth-perception images. But we played some 2-player games I could handle for some fun bonding time. Then, since he was kept whomping me on the video games, we got out some "old-fashioned" games one day. We played Battleship (I won both games) and Racko (I won 3 in a row) and then he wasn't quite so smug! Unfortunately, most board games play better with more than 2 people. We do have some computerized 'board games' that he suggested, but I was electronic'd out by then.

Christmas Day was fun. When he was little, I started a tradition of making him hunt for a present. It is usually a 'big' present. That might be size, or it might just be of importance. But when he opens one gift, he gets a clue. When he was little, it just told him to go look in place X for the next clue, whereby he would be told to go to place Y, etc. As he got older, the clues started to be actual clues he had to figure out. This year, they were almost riddles. Some he got much too quickly, but some took him a little while to figure out. All told, it took him almost an hour to find the Guitar Hero World Tour set. Then it took about 90 seconds to rip it open, pull out the drum set, and start playing it!

New Years continued our laid-back approach. We just stayed home and chilled by ourselves. There was a dessert I made for a party last year that Alex remembered and wanted again. I'll post that recipe later. We had the special dessert, jumped from Fox to NBC to ABC for various New York coverage, and just welcomed the new year quietly. It was different from how we normally do things, but it was nice.

I hope you had a great end of the year yourselves!

Strays welcome

2008-12-14T22:10:00.006-05:00

"Mom, who's the guy sleeping on the couch?"

That is a sure way to wake up in a hurry when you know there was nobody on the couch last night when you went to bed.

I usually leave my bedroom door open, but the door had swung closed last night. The dogs were in the room with me, and started barking up a storm around 4am this morning. I got up, checked the house, but everything was quiet and dark so I figured it must have been a neighbor setting them off. There are college kids next door who sometimes have parties, and I just assumed they were having another one last night and people were probably making noise as they went home. I let the dogs outside to go potty and to reassure themselves of nobody prowling around the yard, and thought I caught a whiff of cigarette smoke. That seemed silly since even smoking friends don't smoke in my house, so I figured a neighbor must have had a fire burning. I brought the dogs back into my bedroom, went ahead and pushed the door closed again, and went back to bed. One of my dogs kept looking at me like she was expecting me to do something else, but again, it was 4am and I was sleepy...

Then Alex's question this morning. Sure enough, an unknown guy was sleeping on my couch. We kind of stared at him, not sure what to do. He looked early to mid 20's, was in "going out" clothes, and seemed like a normal person. Except I've never met the guy before. Finally I shook him a little bit and he opened his eyes. He looked around and was clearly very confused. I asked him if he'd slept well and if perhaps he wanted to go home. He asked where he was, and finally woke up enough to realize he had somehow wandered into a complete stranger's house and gone to sleep. And then he started to freak out a little bit. He kept assuring me that he was an honest guy, he had a job and paid his bills, he had no idea what had happened but he was so sorry, etc. He wasn't driving, he had been at a party somewhere and gone with someone from there out to another party, and had no idea where he'd last been or how he'd gotten here. He seemed to have lost his cell phone, so I loaned him my phone so he could call home but he got no answer. He put his shoes back on and prepared to leave immediately, but he was going about 3 miles away so I offered to drive him home. Alex took the guy's picture because he said nobody would believe him if he didn't.

The front door was locked and closed, so I'm not sure how Chris got in. The door sometimes sticks, so it is possible it wasn't completely closed last night even though it looked it. And that bothers me. I do live in a neighborhood that has had very little trouble the entire time I've lived here, so I'm still not excessively worried about security. I do believe I'll be triple-checking the doors tonight, though. I'm also enormously surprised that apparently my dogs bark loud enough to hear a mile away if someone dares to step onto the property, but they didn't have much to say about someone actually coming into the house. I guess they figured they'd warned me; I got up right when the dogs started making noise, but the house was dark. So how did this guy enter an unknown house, find his way to the couch in the dark, take off his shoes, and get comfy and go to sleep in the moments it took me to put on slippers and come out of my room?

We've had a number of stray animals gravitate to our house over the years, but this is the first time a human stray has shown up. I guess if you are in the neighborhood, feel free to nap on my couch! Just make sure to close the door behind you.

*********************************************************
I debated whether to post this, since I'm sure some of you won't find this nearly as funny as Alex & I did. Yes, it's a bit discombobulating. Yes, I'll make sure the dogs have free reign of the house tonight. Yes, the front door situation will be getting fixed very quickly. But no, I'm really not afraid. Either I have great faith in my guardian angels and God's timing, or I'm foolish and naive, but we were more bemused than scared. It occurred to me that this could be an interesting premise for a story line should I ever decide to write a book.

Laptop Withdrawal

2008-12-10T13:58:00.001-05:00

Tuesday before Thanksgiving, my laptop died. Yes, I mean the laptop that was only purchased in July. It was working in the morning, I left to run errands, and came home to a non-functioning machine.

After spending over an hour on the phone with tech support (thank you God for Daniel in Indiana or something answering and speaking English!), it was determined that the hard drive had met an untimely death. Yippee... as it is clearly still under warranty, they sent me a new hard drive along with recovery disks to get the machine going. Those arrived after Thanksgiving, and then the new hard drive wouldn’t work either. It would start to load the recovery disks, then give a fatal error, then reboot itself. Over and over and over. This phone call to tech support landed in India to someone who didn't listen to the problem and merely assumed the recovery disks were bad and sent new ones. That’s not what online research was suggesting, and sure enough, 3 days later when the new disks arrived, I still had the same issue. Again, India answered the Help! call. *sigh* They sent a specific shipping box for me to send in the laptop so they can figure out where the problem is, and gave a 2 week estimate of when I'll get it back. The machine was sent in on Monday, so here’s hoping I can at least have it back by Christmas!

Ok, enough whining. Here’s a funny for you: A case manager – from America – called me after the 2^nd India experience. He apologized for troubling me, but said he was having difficulty understanding the case notes on my account and could I please give him a synopsis of the problem. Nice. How much money are they really saving by outsourcing?? Not as much as they think, if they have to call people back anyway...

Warm in the South? Not always.

2008-12-06T11:00:00.001-05:00

I really do enjoy fall's cooler temps and pretty scenery. It doesn't get as colorful here as it does further up north, but it's a little more color than typically seen down where I grew up. (Let's just forget about all the leaf-raking that accompanies this glorious display. No, this isn't my yard, it's just in the area; my trees just turn brown. *pout*)

Although it can get remarkably cold here, it very rarely snows and when it does, you have to see it while it comes down because it melts within seconds of landing. Imagine our surprise this week to see the school's practice field one morning. We saw a few residential yards with a similar "decoration". We are thinking it was probably ice rather than snow, but still... it was fun to see! And it wasn't on the roads to worry about driving in it.

Out of the mouth of babes

2008-12-05T23:24:00.002-05:00

For Alex's graduation last year, he had to write an essay about a hero in his life. He said most people were just writing something quick about a close family member, but he wanted to really put some thought into it. When Alex turned his essay in, his teacher actually contacted me to verify he'd written it himself! They read the essays out loud at graduation, and there were some real winners. The "My mom is my hero because she buys me stuff" was quite a thoughtful response, don't you think?

Apparently, the thought he put into it must have stuck with him, because this is his current tagline on one of his online games' chat boards:

"The best heroes are the people who don't even try to be one."

This caused me to look up his essay. They read it last, and it made half the auditorium cry. I publish it here with much maternal pride.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My hero is…. Everyone.

You may ask, “What exactly is a hero?” You may think a hero is “someone who does great things.” My mom says it is someone who makes a positive difference in another person’s life. I think it’s more along the lines of “Someone who does good things, big or small.” You have one version and I have another, and I’ll bet someone else has another.

Why, you ask? You may not be “this” and you may not be “that”… But then again…is someone else? You may be one thing another isn’t. They may be one thing you aren’t. Can you say you are better then someone? Maybe at one particular thing…but overall we are all equals. Everyone can be a hero in one way or another. It may shock you but even you can be a hero. Whether one person is better in one sport and you are better in another, to someone you are a hero. You can be anyone, but still be a hero. Teacher, policeman, grocer, pharmacist, farmer, even a child, to someone someday you are a hero. You may be unnoticed, you may seem invisible, but you will be a hero.

Know this: There is no such thing as an ordinary person. You cannot be ordinary, you shall always be unique. Whether it is today or tomorrow, you make a difference. As long as you are doing good, you are a hero, however seemingly insignificant. Tall or short, thin or wide, homeless or CEO for a big company, you reader, can be a hero.

Be the hero you can be.

I am thankful for...

2008-11-24T22:27:00.003-05:00

faith... family... health... a place to call home... and the vacation time I didn't take this summer that will supplement the severance package I received when I got laid off on Friday.

Yep, after 13 years of PATLive, I find myself free of the telephony business. I was really quite tired of telephone services, so there are some advantages of being forced to find a new line of work. Too bad I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up!

I know this is a terrible time to be trying to find a job, both being so close to the end of the year and in our current economy. I also know that God is bigger than a bad economy and will provide. I'm not looking for work this week, I'm on vacation. I'd really like to spend next week doing some projects around my house that have been put off for much too long. After that, though, I'll need to start looking. Please pray that the right job will come my way.

Meanwhile, I'm off to keep counting my blessings. Food in the fridge... pets everywhere... friendships...

Election Day

2008-11-04T12:51:00.004-05:00

Maybe I'm just weird, but I like actually going to the poll to vote. Thankfully we have a lot of precincts around here, and I try to go during off-hours of the day, so I rarely have to wait more than a few minutes to vote. Yes, I can do it by absentee, or early voting locations, but I like going to my own precinct on election day. For some reason, it feels more patriotic than dropping the ballot in the mail. (More secure, too, since I don't have to worry about misdirected or delayed or lost mail.) I like using the felt markers to color in the bubbles on the ballot. I like feeding it into the machine to be counted. No hanging chads around here! And I get to wear a sticker like this all day long. Whee!

Regardless of your method of choice, I hope you exercise your right and responsibility to vote. You can even get some of these treats if these stores are in your area.

It's Wacky Tacky Day

2008-11-04T09:31:00.002-05:00

Intro note: This is spirit week at Alex's school, leading up to homecoming this weekend.

As we were getting ready for school this morning, I asked Alex if he had any preference for what I would serve for breakfast this morning. He asked if we had any eggs left from yesterday. I said we did have some scrambled eggs and some hash browns left from yesterday, but it wasn't enough and I'd think of something to serve with it. He asked if we still had the leftover fish from Sunday that he had really liked. I replied with an affirmative, but said fish for breakfast was a little strange. (it's perfectly normal in some places, though, isn't it? just not what we are used to here in the US)

His response?

"It's Wacky Tacky Day!"

So we had fish, eggs, hash browns, and yogurt for breakfast today. Why not? Maybe we'll try green eggs and ham tomorrow.

VisionWalk success

2008-11-03T16:01:00.004-05:00

Thank you to everyone that supported the VisionWalk with us. Thank you cards are almost done and will be mailed out tonight.

We'd had a penny war at work, and Alex spent Friday afternoon sorting, counting, and rolling the change for the VisionWalk. It took almost 3 hours to determine he'd rolled:
$14.88 in pennies
$11.50 in nickels
$9.00 in dimes
$13.75 in quarters

That was really quite tedious. I don't believe we'll be doing another change-collecting fundraiser for a while!

We were blessed with a gorgeous day for the walk. Some may have said it was chilly, but I thought it was great. Even my fellow walkers who believe living in Florida means it should be hot all year round agreed that by the end of the 5K walk, they had warmed right up. We didn't end up getting our t-shirts until we arrived, so we just pulled them over the clothes we were wearing. I really wasn't looking like such a slob when I arrived...

Field Day Fun

2008-11-03T15:57:00.003-05:00

What a blast! There were a variety of team games for the kids to play, followed by a pizza party. Parents were serving the food, to make sure kids didn't go crazy and eat it all before the other kids got a chance. I'd made that huge platter of cookies, plus 2 pans of brownies, but they disappeared quickly when attacked by 160 kids.

They also had some Best Buy gift cards donated that were awarded to the top GPA grades for the first 9 weeks. I thought that was cool.

The game I was leading involved listening as your partner gave audible directions to guide you to a goal post. You couldn't see it, since you were blindfolded. The opposing teams can shout out other directions to try to mess you up. It was hilarious both watching the kids, and listening to how the directions were given. Some used the more traditional "Turn to the right." or "Move a few steps to the left." But then I heard several that went more like this: "Take 3 steps forward then make a 38 degree turn to your left."

I heart my KitchenAid mixer

2008-10-30T22:35:00.003-04:00

After many years of limping by with a wimpy little mixer, I was very blessed to receive this Kitchen Aid professional mixer for Christmas from my parents last year. I've used it numerous times during the year, but it seems I only had somewhat small batches of things to make.

But wait... here comes the fall! This is the time of heavy-duty usage. Bake sales for school, bake sales at work (we had one this week to raise money for the VisionWalk that it coming up this Saturday), holiday cooking... ah! Cooking and baking heaven!

I gave it quite a workout tonight, making these pumpkin cookies for tomorrow's field day. I made a double-batch, and this thing powered right through it like it was nothing. It was fantastic! I love this thing. Thank you again to my parents for such a great gift.

It had to happen sometime

2008-10-30T22:26:00.003-04:00

Although it has been hard, I've always tried my best to participate in the special days at school, field trips, events, etc. I missed a couple during 7th grade - mostly because I didn't find out about them until the day before - but have otherwise always been there. Alex has been fine with that. If it's a field trip, he usually chose to sit with me on the bus instead of with friends. Sometimes that even bothered me a little bit.

Tomorrow is a field day at school, and we got an email asking for parent volunteers. My boss was ok with me taking the day off, so I said I'd be there. When I told Alex last night, he got a very stricken look on his face. Apparently, mom-is-not-so-cool-anymore has finally set in. "But this is high school, mom."

yeah, noticed that, did you?

So tomorrow I get to make him squirm while he tries to be cool and yet watches me from the sides of his eyes to make sure I'm not embarrassing him. Let the fun begin!

The prettiest art

2008-10-27T09:12:00.000-04:00

comes from the Master Artist. Look at the gorgeous sunset we had on Saturday.

Ahh, marching band

2008-10-27T09:09:00.000-04:00

I love marching band. I marched for 7 years myself, then was a proud band mama for Alex's 2 years of middle school marching band. Unfortunately, he decided he didn't want to pursue it in high school. What a bummer for me! I was hoping he would do it for at least one year, just to see how high school is different than middle school. Nope, he was not even remotely interested. I was very disappointed, but had to remind myself that while he might be my child, he is an individual person with different interests. Ah well, at least his best friend chose to march. It gives me a good excuse to go to the county bandmasters association evaluations without feeling weird. (I've gone several years when I didn't know anyone there and it was a little strange having nobody to cheer.)

Congratulations, Blake, on your superior rating!

The effects of technology

2008-10-22T10:28:00.003-04:00

Me: Alex, wake up! Your alarm has been beeping for over 20 minutes.

Him: mphrgmesph

Me: Would you repeat that, please?

Him: [in agitated tone] I said, CHECK.YOUR.PHONE. I sent you a text!

Me: Uh huh. While you were sleeping?

... long pause ...

Him: Stupid dreams...

Whiter than snow

2008-10-20T12:29:00.010-04:00

“Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” Psalm 51:7

Ok, so maybe it isn't quite snow level, but it is still amazing. (and now I have that hymn stuck in my head) It's been quite some time since the concrete at my house has been cleaned. I have done it in the time I've lived there, but probably not for about 6-7 years or so. I knew it was dirty, I just didn't realize to what extent. Until I had it cleaned this past weekend. Wow. The difference is unbelievable. I am absolutely NOT exaggerating when I say it is now so white, you can see it 2 blocks down the hill from my house. (we live on a curve)

turned into

(from this angle, I realize that we only cleaned the tops of the stairs, not the sides of them. ooops! shows the stark contrast pretty nicely, though)

As well as the Biblical reference posted above, this also reminds me of the Casting Crowns song Slow Fade:

It's a slow fade when you give yourself away
It's a slow fade when black and white have turned to gray
Thoughts invade, choices are made, a price will be paid
When you give yourself away
People never crumble in a day
It's a slow fade, it's a slow fade

Happy Birthday, Sis!

2008-10-16T09:42:00.003-04:00

A great big birthday hug is flying through the air from Florida up to Pennsylvania to wish my sister a very happy birthday. She's probably celebrating by riding her bike 20 miles or some crazy thing. Maybe she won't check the mail for a few days and thus won't realize that even though I saw her birthday on the calendar, knew it was coming up, and even thought about the card I wanted to make her, I never actually got it into the mailbox. ahem.

I'm fantastic about remembering the birthdays of my friends and family, even those from high school and people I haven't seen in 10+ years, and usually don't even need to see them on the calendar. (Jan 20, Aug 23, Sept 20, Dec 24, Dec 31, you know who you are) For some reason, though, some part of my brain always neglects to compute that one needs time for the cards to travel through the mail in order to get there on time. I usually end up mailing it the day of the birthday, instead of having it arrive that day.

I don't know why my brain has this mental block. I can't even blame it on the instanteousness of email, since I had this problem long before email was popular. I've even tried putting reminders on the paper calendar as well as the electronic calendar, telling myself to get them mailed a few days early. It never works. So, if you end up with a card a little after your birthday, please know that I really was thinking about you. If you're one of the lucky few that gets it on time... congratulations!

Tech support, please pick my bathroom lock?

2008-10-10T11:22:00.005-04:00

This is something Alex found and it tickled him so much, he's been sharing it with everyone he can find. I'm posting it for him so you can share in the hilarity. Unless, of course, you're the one that called in one of these particular questions...

Weird requests push buttons of IT pros

(CNN) -- Forgive your tech support staffers if they sometimes take a snarky tone. You should see the unending stream of oddball requests they field. Robert Half Technology, a California-based staffing company that provides information technology professionals, asked 1,400 chief information officers nationwide about the strangest queries their help desks had ever received. You've probably heard about the person who confused a CD-ROM drive for a cup holder, but some of the other survey answers, released Wednesday, were baffling.

Katherine Spencer Lee, the executive director of Robert Half Technology, said in a statement it's helpful to review the odd questions. "These unusual requests highlight the need for technical support personnel to also demonstrate patience, empathy and a sense of humor," she said.

Here's a look at some of the oddest questions that IT executives reported receiving:

"My computer is telling me to press any key to continue. Where is the 'any' key?"
"Can you reset the Internet for me?"
"Can you rearrange the keyboard alphabetically?"
"My laptop was run over by a truck. What should I do?"

Some people wanted answers to make their lives a little less stressful. They asked:

"How can I block e-mail from my manager?"
"Can I open the bank safe using my computer?"
"Can you install cable TV on my PC?"
"I'd like to stop receiving e-mail on Fridays."

And some demanded entirely too much:

"I'd like wireless computer access in my motor home."
"How long does it take to bake a potato in a microwave?"
"My daughter is locked in the bathroom. Can you pick the lock?"
"Where can I get software to track UFOs?"

Tallahassee VisionWalk 2008

2008-10-09T12:48:00.006-04:00

Glen and Sharyn Davidson have employed me for 12 years. They are great people, and do a lot to help others. When approached with the idea of PATCares - our employee organization that holds fundraisers to benefit our community - Glen supported the idea so thoroughly that for several years, he personally matched all the funds that collected. (it now comes from company funds)

Unfortunately, Sharyn and at least 2 of her brothers inherited a macular degeneration disease from her mother and grandmother. Over time, her field of vision has shrunk smaller and smaller, and her ancestors have gone completely blind. The Davidsons have 4 children, one just a year older than Alex. One of them also carries the gene.

Amazing research breakthroughs have been made in the last few years, and there is hope for a cure. For a number of years, the Davidsons have held a big party at their farm to raise money for research. This year, they have decided to hold a VisionWalk. Much like the March of Dimes or Relay for Life or any of those others, each of us try to collect sponsorships for the walk, and then we show up that morning in solidarity and support for the cause. Alex & I are trying to raise $100 each. I realize times are tough and money is scarce. If you can find an extra $10 or $20 (or more), we would appreciate it. A little bit from several people would really help us reach our goal quickly!

To donate online, you can click here or on the VisionWalk logo on the right. If you prefer to send a check, mail it to me but make it payable to the Foundation Fighting Blindness. All donations are tax-deductible.

Thank you for considering it.

Customer Service Week

2008-10-08T12:04:00.001-04:00

I love Customer Service Week. It's a national event, held the first week of October, although I know a lot of places don't celebrate it. Thankfully, PATLive does. Each year, a theme is picked for each day. There are decorations, special treats, and a video from the Answering Center supervisors and trainers to go along with the theme of the day. Each day is "sponsored" by a different department, providing recognition to the cs reps of the work they do, and includes an email from that department head usually written to conform to the theme.

Those actually in customer service get the treats, the free foods, the themed games played throughout the day, etc. You know, the things that cost the company money. The rest of us still get to dress up and participate in other "free" things. It's like a week of Halloween, when nobody else outside the company is dressing up. It's absolutely hilarious to be in costume and then go shopping, or get gasoline, or whatever else after work. You get the strangest looks from people who have no idea how to react. Those of us that have done it a few times used to feel self-conscious and would explain ourselves, but now we find it funnier to just let the people wonder what planet we call home. Maybe it gives them something to talk about at dinner that night. "Honey, you'll never guess what I saw at the grocery store today…"

So here are this year's themes. Would you participate?
Monday – Bed and Breakfast. Wear your PJs to work and be ready to be pampered!
Tuesday – Finding Nemo. Bring your luau gear and think tropical!
Wednesday – Dr. Seuss. Wear your wackiest, tackiest outfit ever. We'll also have a crazy sock competition.
Thursday – Viva Las Vegas! Use your imagination, anything goes in Vegas. (Please keep work appropriateness in mind)
Friday – PATLympics. Wear your sportiest and most patriotic outfits today.

TV trivia

2008-10-07T14:15:00.002-04:00

I did… poorly… on the TV show theme song quiz that was sent to me. ahem. Trying to redeem myself, I took the game show quiz, achieving a 9 out of 10. yeah, me. I didn't realize I had so much game show knowledge.

how do you do?

Mystery Man

2008-10-07T12:17:00.001-04:00

Our church has a small café area that serves food on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings. It used to be run by someone at the church, and then a few months ago, the job was taken over by a local bagel company. Ever since the bagel place moved in, I've seen a guy in there that looked really familiar. Every Sunday morning, it would bother me as I tried to figure out where/how I knew him. I kept trying to convince myself that he must have been someone from children's church when Alex was little or something, but that just didn't seem right. The place gets a lot of business between services, though, so I didn't want to take the time to disturb him to ask.

The first Sunday of each month, Alex and I volunteer in the 2 year old room during the second service. We'd been in a hurry to get to church on time ourselves for first service (we made it!) so we only grabbed a quick breakfast instead of the heartier meal I usually try to prepare on "First Sunday". I was a little bit hungry after our service, and Alex was starving. To avoid the temptation to eat all the cheez-it crackers we are supposed to serve the tots, we decided to get a bagel and split it, figuring that would tide us over until lunch when church was over. Sure enough, the mystery man was there. Ah ha! Now I can maybe figure it out….

When we reached the counter, he looked at Alex and said, "Wow, Alex, you've grown a little bit!" Ok, he obviously recognized us, and even knew Alex's name, so I wasn't imagining anything. Unfortunately, I still couldn't place him, and I was forced to ask. It turns out, he was the Assistant Principle at the school Alex attended for 5K-4th grade. He left after Alex's 2nd or 3rd grade year to join his father-in-law's bagel business. Obviously it worked out for him.

I was very relieved to finally connect those dots. It seriously bugged me every week when I saw him, and now I know. But that leaves me to wonder… he hasn't seen Alex in 6 years, yet there was no hesitation on his part at all. Does he really have a phenomenal memory for every one of the hundreds of kids he worked with, not to mention however many regular customers he's met since then, or did Alex just spend that much time in his office for not being able to sit still in class??

Where have all the parents gone?

2008-10-02T08:55:00.001-04:00

A while ago, Mindy asked if a lack of parental involvement is a cause or effect of children doing poorly in school. I don't honestly know the answer to that question. I used to think it was primarily a cause, with of course exceptions for individual kids. Now, I'm almost starting to wonder if it has any effect at all. My brain says surely it must, but my recent experiences seem to contradict that thought.

When we were growing up, our elementary school classes were segregrated by honors kids, average kids, and those who needed extra help. On open house nights, the majority of the parents of the honors kids would show up, and they usually ended up borrowing chairs from the extra help kids' rooms. Why? Because the one group showed up and the other one didn't. Either the parents didn't care, or just were afraid of hearing bad news about their kid, or I don't know what. You might expect parents to be there especially for the kids that struggled with school, so they could find out how to help their kid at home, but such was not the case. It was a private school, the parents were paying a decent amount of money to send their kids to the school, so it wasn't like they were completely disinterested in the child's education.

Then I became a parent, and started attending the open house night myself. My son was in a school very similar to that which I had attended, except the class rooms were no longer sorted by "ability". It seemed like there were usually a lot of parents there, but as the kids were all mixed together, it was difficult to know which segments of parents bothered to come. You would think that with the cost of tuition being what it was, a parent would want to keep tabs on how their child was doing.

Then we joined the ranks of public school kids. Not only public school, but we were zoned for what is very close to a ghetto school. Most of the kids are from very low income families, live in rough neighborhoods, and it's a D-rated school. The first time they had open house, there were so few parents there that I honestly thought they'd changed the date and I just missed the notification. Seriously. It was a very sad commentary.

This year, Alex is in high school, in an advanced honors magnet program. There were something like 250 kids that applied for the 100 positions open (which is already double the 50 spots they had last year), so you know it was rigorous admission. Kids had to prove they were ready to excel in this group. Tuesday night, we had open house. Of the 180 kids in the entire program, there were maybe 50 parents that attended. I realize that some parents have more than one child, and there were possibly some scheduling conflicts. Maybe some of them have to work nights. I cannot believe that applied to 2/3 of the group, however. So where was everybody? Do they not care? I don’t understand, I really don't.

On the bright side, Alex was awarded a Skip Homework Tonight pass yesterday because I attended the open house. That was a nice surprise for him!

A Tale of Two Experiences

2008-09-14T13:47:00.002-04:00

This whole wisdom teeth removal experience has been... interesting. Not fun, mind you, but interesting. The two teeth on the left side of my face came out, were sore for 2 days, and then poof! All better. No big deal, let's move on with life. And that is honestly about how I expected it to go. Somehow, though, the right side of my face missed the memo.

The upper right molar was basically sideways in my mouth, and so it was nearly impossible to keep it clean, never mind how frequently I ended up biting my cheek. This was the tooth that I knew needed to come out. The bottom right tooth is the one that only came in last year. While I wanted it to grow in before it was removed, it apparently had not really come through enough for them to get a good grip on it, and so it had to be cut out after all. What a major bummer. That side of my face is still swollen, and I definitely notice when the pain pills wear off. I rarely take medications, so to be regularly taking these pain pills every 4 hours or so is quite out of character for me. Dumb tooth is even waking me up in the middle of the night in horrible pain because the pills have worn off. The pain pills tend to make me sleepy, though, so I’m really not sure how I’m going to last at work tomorrow.

Because this bottom right tooth is taking soooo long to heal, I still can't eat properly. I'm starving! I was pretty good at first, eating yogurt and applesauce and making fruit smoothies and generally keeping it reasonably healthy after all. I splurged on some Kozy Shack chocolate pudding. Tried the rice pudding, but the rice was too lumpy for now, so I stuck with the chocolate. When I finally tired of the fruit, I pureed a can of chicken noodle soup. Since the surgery was Wed morning, by yesterday I should have been able to start trying to eat soft foods. Lump-free potatoes were edible. The mushy green beans were still too much chewing and I had to give up. Today, I've so far stuck with the fruit smoothie and going to have some more mashed potatoes again. Yippee, how exciting. I want some real food! *pout*

I also did more talking yesterday than I've been doing. It honestly just hurt too much to move my jaw before. Too much of a good thing... by the evening, I knew I had over done it. Now I'm back to not talking much, because it just is uncomfortable. I did manage to keep myself out of bed for a couple of hours yesterday to clean the bathroom cabinets and do some more throwing away. Alex doesn’t really need squirty foam soap spray cans any more, for instance. But then back to bed for the rest of the day.

So anyway, that’s my update thus far. On one side, quick and easy. On the other side, misery. Guess now I can empathize with anyone else’s experience, since I’ll have had it both ways!

Wise... or not so much?

2008-09-08T16:14:00.004-04:00

Wednesday morning at 8am, I'll be having all 4 wisdom teeth removed. Yes, I'm a little old to be just getting this done, but the last one only grew in within the last year. I'm not that keen on doing this in the first place, so I certainly didn't want to have to have them slice open my gums to get out the teeth that hadn't come in. That excuse is now finally invalid, and the dentist complains every time he sees me, so my oral surgery is going to be this week. At least they will knock me out, so I won't have to listen to the teeth being ripped out of my head. Whee!

This of course puts me on a cold-food, liquid diet for the rest of the week. I have a sneaking suspicion the calorie-watching activities will be conspicuously absent for the next little bit...

Labor Day weekend

2008-09-05T15:09:00.003-04:00

I have all this stuff everywhere that is there from ages past and nobody uses it anymore but still it sits there cluttering up the place… and I'm tired of it. We spent most of our weekend cleaning out and throwing away. We even got up into the garage attic a little bit, and I can't even hazard a guess at the last time I was up there.

Our big outside trash can was literally overflowing, and we had more trash to go that just didn't fit into it. After they picked up the trash this week, Alex hauled the rest of the stuff out to the can and promptly took it right back down to the street since it was full again! I probably could have just stacked it up next to the can, but I know they have an arm on the truck to pick up the can itself and I figured the guys would have enough manual work to do this week with everyone cleaning out the stuff that got wet from the tropical storm, so I waited. The same thing happened for the recycling. I have a huge collection of clothing that I still need to sort into little boys, bigger boys, and ladies clothes so I can take them to our women's shelter. We also have a large collection of books to take to the library. And that's just a fraction of the junk in the house that needs to be removed. Maybe there's hope for some uncluttered space in this house after all!

Coming from such a packrat family, actually getting rid of some stuff was a challenge. It's funny, though, how I would be chucking this and tossing that and then come across some silly little thing that I suddenly wanted to keep for no good reason except that I have it and I might want it some day… Alex - an even bigger hoarder than I am - would look at me like I was crazy and tell me to throw it away. aaahh, the power of teamwork. *laugh* He even finally conceded that some of the stuff in his room wasn't really necessary to keep any more. We didn't get to his room yet, so I hope that attitude is still in place when the trash bags show up!

On a side note, I had Alex replace the toilet seat in the hallway bathroom. It's not a difficult job, but I thought he should learn how to do it. Instead of just a plain white seat, it's now an oak seat. It's truly amazing how that picked up the gold streaks in the counter and really brightened up the room. I never realized what an impact a toilet seat could make to one's décor.

beach photos

2008-09-05T14:04:00.010-04:00

After promising pictures, I was then quite remiss in not actually posting them. Sorry!

Here comes the storm...

Best.Jumping.Waves.Ever.

Rain bouncing off neighbor's roof:

After the storm:

Starfish found by Morgan and Valerie:

Full moon reflected off the water:

We found this jellyfish on the beach when someone accidentally stepped on it (and was thankfully not stung). It was too dark to even see it so I literally "took a shot in the dark". It came out pretty nicely, I think.

Generators finally powered the island:

The ducks are swimming in the street

2008-08-28T13:37:00.009-04:00

I had a chance to go by one of our downtown park areas on Monday afternoon. It's normally this pretty little lake with a gazebo, a walking path around it, and some charming little cottages that house some small, local businesses. Unfortunately, that's not quite how it looks now.

When I drove by, I first noticed that the water was inches away from running into a major downtown street. I pulled off the road to get a better look, and was amazed. You can hardly even see the park benches peeking out of the water.

I really did have to laugh, though, when I saw the ducks swimming in the water that had flooded a side street. What an excellent example of how to deal with the difficult twists and turns that sometimes pop up in life. The ducks weren't complaining that their home had changed, or that things weren't how the ducks thought they should be. No sirree, they just swam around to see what was different and to joyfully explore their changed circumstances. Matthew 6:26 came to mind: Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

Fay's all gone

2008-08-25T09:53:00.004-04:00

Well, we got a ton of much-needed rain, but she's moved on now. In my neighborhood, it wasn't all that big a deal. The power flickered a few times, but never even went out, which is quite unusual for my area. (I'm starting to think that them clearing out all those trees in the woods behind my house in order to build new houses might have removed whatever used to cause our electrical problems every time the wind would blow.) There are a few branches down here and there, but nothing of much notice. It was just a heavy rain storm with a little extra wind. We had fun watching the rain during the spurts of torrential pours.

I have seen and heard of quite a bit of flooding in other areas of town, however. It took my boss almost 2 hours to get to work today instead of the usual 30 minutes because he kept having to take detours around flooded areas and downed trees. So I guess I should be thankful! The paper reported an electrican was killed while trying to restore power to other homes, which was sad. But everything's otherwise back to normal again now. Thanks for keeping us in your prayers!

Tropical Storm Fay

2008-08-21T14:18:00.004-04:00

Apparently the next 48 hours are going to bring some interesting weather. We've been told to expect 6-12" of rain. School is cancelled for tomorrow: "All information available at this time indicates the possibility of heavy rainfall and wind gusts for our area, which can provide great difficulty in transporting our students safely. Safety is our district's number one priority; this decision is made in the best interest of our students and employees." Even that year we had the marathon of hurricanes, our schools didn't close.

Personally, I'm not expecting any problems, I'm just letting you know the potential for loss of electricity. If you try to reach me and I'm unavailable, then I'm probably outside, playing in the puddles!

It's my baby and I'll cry if I want to

2008-08-19T22:46:00.002-04:00

As mind-boggling as this sounds, today is Alex's 14th birthday. wow. How is this possible? When did he become 5'10", 170 lbs? *sigh* At least the years have been fun. Here's to the next 14!

PE? really?

2008-08-18T22:28:00.003-04:00

Yes, indeed, we've now started high school. Hard to believe, but true nonetheless... 9th grade has arrived. It should be a fun ride!

Because he's in the Academy of Information Technology magnet program of his school, there will be a lot of the IT stuff incorporated into his non-IT classes. It also means that his first year only allows for one elective. He was able to select between some different types of math and science classes, but they still had to be math and science. Only one class period was a "what do YOU want to do?" allowance. He requested Guitar for his elective class this year, with the PE class as a second choice. (He's required to have 1 year of PE in order to graduate. I seem to recall having it every single year, so what's up with that?) Unfortunately, upon arriving at school this morning, he discovered he did not get the guitar class after all. His friend, whose last name starts with Gem, did get the class. Gos is soooo close... but not enough. Ok, so get PE over with and not have to worry about it again, right? Would you believe it is his very first class of the day? PE is bad enough anyway, but at 7:45 in the morning? You've got to be kidding me.

It being the first day of school, with all the kids running around and trying to figure out where they are going and what they are doing, we understandably did not get much info about what to expect from this class. I'm wondering if he can just go to school in his gym clothes and take regular school clothes for after that. But I'm still left wondering: do I bother having him take a shower in the morning?

The rest of the schedule looks like this:
1st: PE
2nd: Algebra II honors (did Alg I in 8th grade for high school credit)
3rd: English I honors
4th: Networking & Geographic Information Systems
5th: Biology I honors
6th: Intro to Information Technology
7th: World History honors

unbelievable trip

2008-08-15T10:43:00.004-04:00

Remember I said it was raining? That apparently turned into some horrific galestorm that tore up the island but good. We went out to the beach to ride the crazy waves (I kept looking for that hurricane tracker guy to show up with his TV crew to record the stupid people out in the ridiculous weather) and when we came back in, we discovered the power was out. Ok, no big deal, this can be fun for a little while. After a few hours, it got dark, and then it was not quite so fun. Board games by candle light can be amusing. After 2 days of having no dry towels, half our clothes filthy, and cooking all our food on the itty bitty charcoal grill downstairs, the "fun" had definitely passed. This morning, we finally got some power back, and we are so excited. The laptops, the cameras, our cell phones, and the handheld video games - everything is plugged in to recharge. The things you take for granted... I was thanking God for giving me the foresight to bring some candles and flashlights to the beach! Those were our saving grace at night.

After the fix-it crews showed up, I asked them what was going on. Apparently the transmitter lines that connect us to the substations came crashing down into the ocean. They brought crews from Pensacola and somewhere down S Fl to come rebuild the lines to connect us to generators. I don't know how long it will take them to correctly fix the situation, but for now the island is running on several humongous generators.

I did manage to pick up some fun photos of the situation before the camera battery ran out. I wish I'd gotten one of me cooking tacos in a frying pan on the grill, but I didn't think about it in time and the bugs were just feasting on me and I couldn't take it any more. I'll post them later. Meanwhile, it's sunny now so we are going out to the beach!

on vacation

2008-08-12T11:13:00.005-04:00

I think I told most people that I was on vacation this week. (if I missed you, then sorry) School starts next week, so we are at the beach this week. Like last year, we rented a house that we are sharing with some friends for the week. My friend couldn't come down on Sunday, so I brought her kids down with me. The first day had the kids trying to do this:

I got to rain on their parade by insisting that they get off the computers and go outside to go swimming with me. They complained the whole time until they actually got in the water. The next 2 hours flew by as we had fun with the noodles and water fights and wave jumping. Amazing, it really is possible to have fun without a power outlet around!

Valerie arrived Monday afternoon, so around 5pm we all went back out again. The waves were much calmer, so we just lazed around. Valerie's dogs also came down. (mine get carsick, so it's just easier to leave them at home) This was the first time the black dog had ever experienced the beach, so it was fun watching the dog adjust. It didn't take her long!

and then today.... it's pouring down rain. yippee. :)

yum yum

2008-08-07T14:46:00.002-04:00

I asked Alex yesterday what he'd had for lunch. He said he made a sandwich with "the meat that looked sort of like bacon". It took me a little bit to figure out what he'd done, then asked if he meant the package of turkey bacon. He supposed so. I asked if he'd cooked it first, and was rewarded with a look of stupefaction. "Maybe that's why my tummy hasn't been feeling so great this afternoon."

Yeah, I bet that would do it. Raw bacon probably doesn't sit that well on the tummy, even if it is made from turkey instead of pig. Can you tell we don't have bacon in our house very often?

What $700 of school supplies looks like

2008-08-05T17:23:00.003-04:00

Last week, PATCares held its 6th annual Italian Café lunch to raise money for school supplies. In case you don't remember, we do a school supply drive every year for the Tallahassee Foster Parent Association. The FPA sets up all the supplies in a room and lets the kids "go shopping" to pick out what they like and need for school. We had about $100 worth of supplies donated to us at work (and from some of my friends - thanks!), and we bought the rest. PATLive matches all the money we collect, so Alex and I went shopping last night to purchase $600 of supplies. It took us almost 3 hours!

It's an ordeal, since we have to try to think of what kids from 5K all the way through high school might need, and pick things in colors and designs for both boys and girls. We know they have a real need for backpacks, so we usually start with those. Understandably, a foster parent finds it easier to buy the $0.25 pack of crayons and the $1 pack of pens than the $30 backpack. I've noticed that some backpacks might be cute, but they don't even last until Christmas at our house, and I'm sure these kids have the same problem. The association chairwoman confirmed they would rather have a fewer number of good quality backpacks than a plethora of the cheap junk ones. So, we bought 12 bags that ended up almost $400. That left $200 for everything else. As you can see, we ended up with quite a number of things! We have notebooks, dividers, paper, duotangs, spiral notebooks, pencils, pens, erasable pens, highlighters, protractors, scientific calculators, erasers, crayons, report covers, glue, pencil pouches, and other assorted goodies.

Exhausting? Yes. Worth every moment of it? Absolutely.

It was a little scary

2008-08-04T08:57:00.003-04:00

I did something this weekend that I've never done before. I put a political bumper sticker on my car. Crazy, I know. I think I've only ever put one sticker on my car in my life, and it was my "Class of '90" sticker in high school (on the car that ended up a little crunched). I know I've never put on a political sticker. I don't even put the my-kid-is-on-the-honor-roll thing on my car.*

Life continues to change, and "tomorrow is the next day" as my dad likes to quote. (quick, 5 points, what movie does that come from?) My friend's husband is running for the Florida House. As he played football at FSU and then in the pros for several years, he's quite good at running. and winning. The political arena is a little different, however. He's not even in my voting district, so I can't support him with my vote. I did decide to advertise for him, though, by putting a sticker on my car. I investigated quite thoroughly, and have been assured it should not be a problem to get the thing back off the car after the election. I hope so, since I don't want this on my car for the rest of my life. Just in case, though, I hedged my bets a little: I put it on the plastic tire cover on the back of the car, rather than on the car itself. We'll see in a few months if it really does come off ~~or if they lied to me~~. Scraping it off the tire cover doesn't bother so much as scraping it off a painted car.

* I have taped it up in the window for a 9-week period. I told him he had to continue to earn it each grading period in order for it to stay up. It did stay up as long as he was in that school; subsequent schools haven't had the stickers for me to have to worry about. I didn't actually peel the backing off and stick it onto the car, though, I just taped it from the inside of the window. Peter's sticker is truly applied as it was intended to be stuck.

Happy Birthday

2008-08-02T19:32:00.003-04:00

to my mom! Hope you are having a great day. We love you!

Alex the repairman

2008-08-02T13:20:00.004-04:00

I noticed the other day that there was a compacted napkin and a big ol' wad of chewing gum in the bottom drain part of the dishwasher. This made me a little irritated, since I know I wouldn't have had such a big glob of gum on my plate… I managed to pick out the napkin bits, but when I tried to get the gum out, it slipped further down into the drain. great. I took out the bottom shelf in hopes of better accessibility, but simply taking the drawer out apparently turned it into a "manly" project. Alex was suddenly very interested in helping out!

He got the screwdriver and started taking things apart to get to where the gum was. After much exertion on his part, he had the thing half disassembled and the main part of the drain separated from the water line, etc. He probably would have taken more of it apart except mean mom put the kibosh on all that. I was slightly afraid he wouldn't remember how to put it all back together!

Unfortunately, after all his great attempt, it turned out we couldn't remove the little piece blocking access to where the gum had slipped. I got a straw, stabbed it into the hole, and pulled the gum out. Solved in 30 seconds… but the project was an entertaining bit of evening. He decided that being at such an odd angle and without being able to support himself by balancing his weight on the door (didn't want to damage the door) was challenging and not something he really liked to do. I pointed out that while plumbers have important jobs, he should remember the discomfort when he doesn't feel like applying himself in school…