Full speed ahead

This week is going to be a long one. I am required to be at school from 7:45 until 3:45 daily. Often I go early or stay late to accomodate make-up work or meetings. Tonight we had a band concert. Tomorrow is the Tuesday marathon; I stay in town, two older go to play practice, younger I meet at library, do shopping and errands until two back-to-back dance classes, then home about 7:30. Wednesday I work my "real" job 4-9. Thursday is a choir concert. Friday I work again, as well as Saturday and Sunday. Whoda thunk a Monday would look so good?

We started Thing 1's debutante training last weekend. One of the really cool things about a small town is cheap, accessible space. The town hall here can be rented for $35. T1 had asked if her dad would set up his DJ equipment in the basement for her birthday. For $35, he could set up the DJ stuff and I wouldn't have to clean my house. Bonus is that Kyle knows his music and clientele, and won't play filth for the kids. So my daughter got to throw herself a dance for her birthday. I came out cheaper than taking the 7-year old bowling with her friends. I'm thinking this will be the plan from now on.

Hubby and I went to see The Gaithers in concert Friday night. We got our money's worth. Four hours of gospel music. Wow. It was a great variety: some family singing groups, a few southern gospel soloists, a bluegrass group, and a couple of men's quartets, along with some awesome CC soloists. Well worth the cost of admission. I shake my head at our eclectic music tastes, though. Among the concerts I have seen in my life: Rick Springfield, Michael W. Smith, Quiet Riot, Alice Cooper, Blues Traveler, Ronnie Milsap, and now the Gaithers. My husband saw Deep Purple, Ozzy and the Scorpions at an outdoor festival. We've been to REO Speedwagon, REM, ZZ Topp, and stood in awe of BB King. We watched Kansas blow Lynrd Skynrd off the stage. What a long strange trip it has been, indeed.

I'll just shut up now

So I get another call today from work. This time, things worked in my favor. If I work nights, I get to weasel out of my evening shift today and half of it tomorrow. Athough the vampire schedule is awkward, the night shift is also quiet enough to allow me time to get some of my paperwork done for school. I also got to stay for my grandma's birthday party today. She was surprised, and a good time was had by all. I left my 3 oldest swimming with their cousins and aunties, and I will return to pick them up tomorrow. So, after all my bitching and bitterness, things actually worked out fairly well for me. I think I'll go sit quietly in the corner and count my blessings. I do need to get about taking a nap if I'm going to work, tho. Nite!

What weekend?

The trouble with student teaching at 36 instead of 22 is that when I come home from school, rather than having an empty house to correct papers and work on lesson plans, I have a family to feed, children to not neglect, a husband who needs varying levels of attention depending on his pain these days, and sometimes a part-time job to go to. Where do I find the time?
Tomorrow I am missing my grandma's surprise 80th birthday party. I will make it for the family dinner. I made arrangements back in December for someone to cover my shift at work, We have a very informal system; no slips to fill out or requests. Unless we are working with vacation or something, we handle it ourselves. Unfortunately, the co-worker in question forgot and offered to work for someone else. I have called every other person on our payroll, and no-one can do it. This past semester I have had more conflicts on my scheduled weekend than I can ever remember. I have made all my plans for the upcoming summer according to my scheduled weekend. Last week, the gal incharge of the schedule for the time being called up and asked if I would switch weekends. Argh. I said no. I just made arrangements to take my kids to the family party tomorrow, and dump them off on my mom and sister so they don't have to miss the fun. Then I got a call from someone asking if I could pick up a night shift tonnight. The poor soul got an earful she probably didn't deserve. Nine more weeks and I can start job hunting.

Bleargh.

That about sums it up.

Ramble on

Busy round here. The school district gave us an oddly long president's day break. Thursday I succeeded at nothing beyond frustrating myself with the housework. Did a little bit of minvan shopping on Friday, while Kyle had his appointment with an orthopedist. After that, we left for the Cities and stayed with Kyle's auntie for the duration of the Scottish Ramble in Saint Paul. She joined us for Saturday, then we split the kids Sunday after church. It was a lovely time. The Folks from our clan and the Twin Cities Scottish community in general are a fun bunch. Came home Sunday night ands rolled straight into bed, then rose Monday to another day of household frustration. It seems like the more I do, the less it shows. I'm tired of being unable to walk accross my own floor without tripping.
The orthopedist told Kyle to start PT. Well, duh. The MD wrote a PT order as well, where the heck did that go? The therapist told him that his back injury so many years ago wasn't as serious as the fact that he's been walking for 38 years on one leg shorter than the other. It's knocked him way out of alignment. He's got lifts in his shoe and exercises. He rested much better last night, so its a start, anyway.
I am swamped with backlog correcting. I just got a batch of really fun papers from the 10th graders, though, so it's not so much like work. Better get at it.

Frustration

Well, I've lost this blasted thing twice in messy drive-by clicking accidents. Screw it. I'm busy. I'm tired. Here's the quick-n-dirty as opposed to the well-thought and witty: Student teaching is fun and challenging. We got a new bed. Its great. Kyle aggravated an old back injury moving out the old bed and had an ambulance ride to the hospital after keeling over from pain at 1:30 am. He's at home on serious drugs and had an MRI. No news yet. We're going to the Twin Cities all weekend for various charity events and Scottish Ramble. It should be fun. Now I'm going to bed. More later.

Back to blogger

Was not planning on this, but wound up here trying to leave comments for someone. We'll see how it goes.

Weeee're back! Hooray and hoopla! Let's see what's happened around here lately...

Thanksgiving was nice. I worked, but that was actually kinda fun, spending the day with the residents who chose not to go home for the holiday. Then I met my family at the in-laws, and we had a nice visit. Friday we left to have the first Christmas gathering of the year, with my side of the family. We took family pictures Saturday morning, so I look forward to getting those sent out. Later in the afternoon was presents and feasting. Check my homepage for pictures of sis and I in our Christmas thongs. We have such progressive parents! (these pics disappeared in a server dump. We had them on over our jeans. Ha ha, aren't we clever...)

For those of you who haven't heard, the first snowstorm of the season (not blizzard, you need more cold and higher winds to create actual "blizzard" conditions) dumped nearly 30" of snow on us. Luckily, I had the day off, so we spent the day digging out of the gunk the snowplow dumped in front of the cars, and doing some major house cleaning and plastic hanging. We also got to battle the basement floor drain. One of the joys of potty training is teaching the kid how much paper to use. Thing 3 still needs a little work in this area, as she clogged the main sewer line with paper. Yeeks.

Well, off to feed the brood. Take care.

I am sick to death of our domain being down!!! Argh! We're registered with Network Solutions and they haven't solved the (%&*& problem their tech guy caused in the first place!!! The idjit looked up the wrong name server IP numbers for our ISP. Because of the wrong numbers, our email is down, so they can't send us a confirmation email for the correction order. AAAAAAAAAH. Bloody nincompoops. Think we'll be paying register.com a little visit.

Last night we set the alarm and woke the kids about 4:30 to view the meteor showers. It was well worth it. The kids actually got up without much grumbling once we told them what was up. We had a nice time. We snuggled against the house on our third floor rug porch and looked skyward. It was a clear moonless night, out here in a tiny town with few streetlights, we had a perfect view. God really knows what he's doing.

OK, I have to try posting again. Crap.

Last night I stood in line for the first time in my life to see a movie. We packed the kids in to see Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. It was worth the wait. They condensed it just a bit, but it was very true to the book and amazingly well done. The only complaint I have is that they condensed a bit too much on the kids' learning at Hogwarts. Harry Potter is a typical kids' book in that the kids solve dilemmas that the grown-ups apparently can't handle themselves, a common theme in children's lit. However, in the Harry Potter books, the author does a fairly nice job of building the characters up over the course of the novel so you can see how they learned the skills they use to solve the problems. They don't cover that aspect as well in the movie. Henson's Creature Shop does its' usual bang-up job on it's costuming and puppetry. Only gripe there is that the Goblins' hands were obviously gloves in that they could barely function, and were featured in rather close camera angles. It was a pleasant surprise to see ST:TNG's Rob Legato featured so prominently in the credits. Nice to know the crew is still working :). Anyway, highly recommended by me and my family. It does help to live in a town where you can take 4 kids and 3 adults to a movie for $24. And, wonder of wonders, our little bohunk theatre opened the movie, and will also be opening The Lord of the Rings. I am so pumped.

So that began our first family consumer night in a long time. I almost missed it. I was scheduled to work my last night at the hunting camp, but when I got there she said it was looking to be a very slow night, so I went home again and got to join my family at the movie. Anyway, the cinema is in the same congregate entertainment facility (ie: strip mall that houses less retail) as the bowling alley, so I wandered in to see if they had any lanes left for Rolling Thunder (bowling with disco lights and loudly thumping music), and, b'golly, they did for once, so we went right from Harry Potter to the Bowling Alley, and didn't get to bed 'til late. Thing 2 had a friend sleep over, and while she and the friend behaved fairly well, her sisters were obnoxious, and drew the wrath of the father on more than one occasion. I fear (?) we will have no sleepovers at our house for a while.

We used the nice weather today to move some of the Deadbeats' stuff out of the old house. I have come to the conclusion that these guys were just idiots. While packing today, hubby comes across a fannypack with Deadbeat #2's papers, bat pipe, scale, and stash holder, and his identification. *Blink* "Here, Officer, it'll be easier to book me for all this contraband if you just check my driver's license and fishing license there. The spelling's correct." I shake my head. No wonder he's divorced.

I am getting irritated without my email. We are in the process of moving our domain to the new ISP. Thought we could get by keeping our old mailboxes for a small fee, but the nice folks at the corporate office of our old ISP didn't agree with the prices set by the local dudes, who appreciate the business generated by Firestorm writing sites to be hosted on their servers, so we said "Thanks, no." and moved. However, Hubs had typed in some wrong numbers at the domain registration doohickey, and by the time he changed it, the old email was down, and therefore there was no valid email for the registry people to respond to, so they couldn't verify the change. Argh. So we had to FAX an internet company. Yikes. What's wrong with this picture? Anyway, email should be up again soon. *sigh*

Bruno has a friend here tonight from Finland, and they are having far too much fun with the new Karaoke CD-G machine (my early x-mas present--earns hubby back any points lost on that Harry Potter thing earlier) so I'd better go supervise...
G'nite!

I actually have come here a couple times over the past few days to update, only to discover I haven't much to say. Bummer.

Locally, the news we're paying most attention to is that of MLB threatening to contract two teams. If terrorism wasn't what it is at this point, I'd refer to it as such. Corporate terrorism. MLB saying "Give us what we want (new ballpark) or we'll take your team." A rough translation: "I'll take my ball and go home!" Friend John (as found in the Daynotes link thingy over on the side there) had a couple good posts on this issue in last week's blog, go check it out if you want some intelligent insight and interesting theory on the whole mess.

My biggest argument against building a publicly funded stadium is: we already done did that. It's called the Metrodome. If you don't like it, you should have planned it better 20 years ago, you twits!. Right now it's a perfectly functional building that doesn't rake in the revenues at the rate The Twins and Vikings want to see. Well, boo-farking-hoo. I'm still pissed about Met Center. The building was less than 25 years old, and they ripped it down after losing a hockey team because it didn't have enough LUXURY boxes, and would be more profitable as a parking lot and future development for Mall of America. Arrrgh! Then, the very next season, after women's hockey became "official " in the state of Minnesota educational system, they're bitching there's not enough Ice space in the metro area for college and HS kids to play hockey. Well, you just ripped down a major league hockey arena you idiots!!! There was so much more use left in that building. It just sickens me. I am not into waste. I am a fanatic about making sure my kids don't put too much food on their plate and wind up wasting it. Waste on that scale irritates me, and waste on the scale of Met Center just drives me up a tree. And I see it all happening again.

Well, got that rant out of my system. :) Now what? Almost done with job#2, and then we'll be spending lots of time cleaning here to make room for all the stuff that needs to be moved here from the old house as we finally sold it!!! Closing, God willing, Dec 19th. Woohoo! Didn't make what I wanted on it, but got it out of my hair, and one less payment! Yay! Maybe two. Gonna use any extra to pay down the furnace loan. Don't think there'll be enough to clean it up entirely, but will get it down to 2 or 3 payments left.

Well, off to get ready for the day. Educational inservice for work, so I didn't have to go in so early, but gotta get rolling now. TTFN

I have just written an utterly boring website for Glacier's Edge. I'm going to wait to post it until we get all settled in with the new ISP. I'm not sure yet if we're transferring the domain over or leaving it where it is. It seems as if Hubs may have more knowledge than the ISP guy. Oh well, one gets what one gets out here in the boonies.
I took a couple of images into photoshop to play with for the site, but wasn't getting the results I was looking for. Oh well, practice makes perfect, I guess. Just gotta keep practicing. Let's just say photoshop tennis is not for me just yet.

Back at it today. Trying to plug along on housework and make some lifestyle decisions as well. All while enjoying a nifty new cable modem! We've got some more coffeehouse shows in the works for Glacier's Edge. I'd like to bring them over to the town hall here, but until they get their repairs made, I'm not making any major plans. We had a little fire at Watson Town Hall that didn't do much structural damage, but it brought the need for asbestos abatement to the fore, then there'll be some cleanup and repair to do as well.



We really need to put some marketing and sales effort into Firestorm, but we can't find the time around getting the bills paid. Yikes.



Oh well, guess I'll qvit kvetching and get to work! :)

I've been reading through my posts of late. Boring. I'm feeling a bit inferior, as I have been reading some very witty and insightful blogs. *sigh* Guess we can't all wax philosophical all the time. I am pumped that the spellcheck thingy is back up and running, tho. Woohoo!

I grow weary of burning the candle at both ends, but it is allowing us to see a faint glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. I've gotten caught up on a couple of bills, and managed to stay afloat on the rest. Christmas should be a little less stressful as well. Now that deadbeat #2 has resurfaced, I may not be able to sell off his stuff, but we will still auction the real estate as planned, and that should clean up a couple of bills. Once we've gotten that done, we can take a few months to pay some other stuff down, then try for a refi after the tax refund comes. Hopefully the interest rates will stay down where they are for awhile.

I've been wondering if I'm just worn out because I'm working a lot, or wearing down from all the information overload. I'm so tired of hearing about anthrax I could scream. More people were actually affected by the e. coli outbreak last year. People are so wont to panic, and it's not entirely unjustified, but I've been trying to look at it from a fatalistic point of view. I could be struck by lightning or hit by a bus tomorrow. Or I could contract anthrax. Until then, I'll try to keep a positive outlook, hug my kids a lot, and protect them as much as I can without obsessing about the things that are out of my control. Right now they are gleefully chasing each other around the bottom floor of the house. It's loud and obnoxious, and I'll let them go at it for a while.

I wonder how all of this will affect them as they grow up. The Viet Nam War did not actually end until I was 7 years old or so, and I don't ever remember seeing it on TV or hearing anything about it. My brother was in the Air Force, and saw overseas action, but all I remember about his service career was when we'd visit him on base stateside. Now I know we have 24 hour news service that was unheard of back then, but you'd think I'd remember something about an event that was so socially and politically significant. But all I know is what I learned years later, in history class, from a social studies teacher who was a VN combat vet. My kids are bombarded with images of the new conflict. They have asked occasional questions, but seem to be fairly oblivious to what's going on. It probably helps that we live in a very rural setting, not likely to be ground zero for anything short of a grain elevator fire (which can be nasty, fermenting grain and dust can ignite in a rather colorful and destructive manner, I've seen it).

On an entirely different tangent, while browsing through a "Ripley's Believe it or Not" book at grandma's today, hubs showed me some interesting pics taken of spiderwebs. Some researcher somewhere wanted to find out how spiders' ability to spin webs was affected by exposure to controlled substances. Out of hash, LSD, and caffeine, guess which screwed up their webs more. Good ol' Jolt. I'll have to see if someone out there has posted those pics to the web. Funny. There was also a chicken pulling a baby carriage, but that's another story.

The first day of standard time is screwing me up. I hate when it gets dark so early. I'd probably also hate the Sun rising at 4 am in May, but I haven't yet figured out which would be the lesser of two evils.

Well, what I lack in substance, I may have made up for slightly in volume, so I'll log off and let hubby have the Mac back to tend to some auctions. Got a cool one up for a buddy's HO train layout. Fun. Lotsa neato details.

Getting my act together a bit. Got a surprise day off today, hauled my fanny into town to discover I didn't need to be there. So I've wasted most of it on a grant application. It really needed to be done, so I guess it wasn't really a waste, but I didn't get much done by way of housework. Oh well. I did get a nap, which is an unexpected luxury.

Finally heard from one of the renters, who apparently didn't realize the other one had skipped off Four weeks ago. Hello? Where the hell have you been? I haven't much sympathy, as this one is the one the realtors told me was being bucky about showing the home. As in he told them he'd had the place condemned. What a twit.

Well, off to walk to the pop machine for a breath of fresh air and a bit of caffeine before job #2. Nice to only burn the candle on one end for a day.

Wow, internet withdrawl. I have been hopping online only sporadically as I am only home between jobs for an hour and a quarter or so each weekday. Then Hubs decided to do some sorting of "work" and "home" Macs, so I have just plugged in and fired up the new machine for home, and sifted thru 78 emails. I am hoping to stay up for a bit online, soforth to sleep in a while in the morning.

I need to get my act together for Girl Scouts. It is going to have to take a back burner until November 14, when hunting season is over and so is the job. I won't have a full day off until October 28. Pew.

Well, the deadbeat renters left us with a houseful of abandoned property, so we plan to auction the whole kit and kaboodle as soon as it's legal. We found the property to be abandoned on September 27, so ASAP after November 27 we plan to have an auction. I wish I'd been able to do it this summer, but we'll hope for the best. We can have it at the armory where the weather is always good. I hope to make enough off the stuff in the house to pay off the unpaid utility bills and pay the fees for the auction. We'll be doing the real estate as well, as I am just sick of it and want to unload it.

We had a foster dog for a few days, but I am pleased to say that Orca the enormous drooling Saint Bernard has found a home. She was a very pleasant, well-mannered dog, but she is huge, and I have too many pets already. She was also abandoned by deadbeats in a different rental in town. She was trapped in the house for about 2 weeks until she finally broke a window to get out. Her head was bigger than her waist, she was so thin. A gentleman up the road has a farm with 2 St. Bernard's, so he is able to take on a third. Hooray!
Well, I am losing my stamina, and have a couple of other sites I want to check before I nod off into the keyboard. G'nite!

Whee! Half a day off. I don't have to work in town until tomorrow evening, so I get a little time to myself until I go out to the hunting camp tonight. Hubs has been the laundry king around here, so I hope to keep up with that stuff today. There's some dishes to do and some general picking up, but with a good head start I should be able to accomplish great things. I also have to get my girl scout schedule figured out. Yikes.

Now that I finally have a minute to post, I find myself woefully uninspired. I should get going on the housework thing. I'll be back tomorrow!

Wow, been a while, let's see what's up.
I have taken a second job at the Lac Qui Parle Hunting Camp. It's seasonal, 40 days until the end of hunting, but it should make Christmas a little more comfortable around here. Nice folks, decent food, a good time.

Last weekend we spent Friday night and Saturday mooching off my folks. Nothing like a weekend at home letting Mom take care of things. We went because the AFS exchange student there is from Brazil, too, so we hooked up for Saturday afternoon Pizza and small talk.

Well, I gotta fly out the door to sell potato klub at the Camp, but I wanted at least a token post so both of you out there who give a damn would know we're still alive. Hubs has a gaggle of pictures for his blog, but hasn't got them up yet either.