Back to School

I went back to work today.  I wasn't really supposed to, according to the calendar with the number of days the union contract says that I work.

However, we're in a new room, in a different school, in a different district, and there's a whole room to get ready.  Also, we service grades K-8, so all that information has to be available as well, even though we're starting the year with only four kids.  Two of those should be transitioning out of our room pretty soon, but then we should also have some transition in.

So all week it's unloading, moving, sorting, and setting up in the classroom.  There's also all the meetings to get to know who we're working with, as well as the families, and then all the paperwork meetings.  We are working with the Mental Health dept., and the classroom will run with their staff working in conjunction with us.

There are five to six adults who are supposed to be working with these kids - but that stays constant whether we have 2 kids or 12.  The teacher, other assistant & I are responsible for the education component, while the mental health people are supposed to work on teaching the skills necessary to help the students move back to regular school.  Theoretically, this takes about six weeks...

Hopefully everyone will work together to achieve this goal - that's the plan, anyway...

As to my extra work days that are not contracted, I'll probably have to take comp time later.  Most likely when we're low on kids so I don't need a sub.  Fun & Games.

Happy Anniversary, Lee - Happy 20th Birthday, Diana!

And it's also the birthday of our nephew, Jonathon.  Party Day!!

Three days with Connie & family

How to comfort Connor

This morning, Connor had a bit of a cough.  He's a little congested, and I don't know if it's allergies or a cold.  He can get a little hyped up when he's not feeling great, so I asked him if he wanted to stay home this morning with Diana, or come to church.  Twice he answered, "Go to church."

Anyway - Connor had been pretty good all through Mass.  Our church uses communal chalices for receiving the Blood of Christ.  Even though it's alcohol and they wipe the surfaces which come into contact with everyone, I still don't like to have us take it if we're sick.  You still get the Body of Christ anyway - it's not necessary to take both, we just prefer to do it that way.

So Connor watched us all drink and stood aside like I'd asked him to do, and then patiently got into his spot in our pew.  Then he started to cry.  Not really loud or anything, just whimpering and wiping his eyes a lot.  Diana tried to calm him down and so did I.  I asked why he was sad, and he answered, "No Blood of Christ for Connor."  So I asked if he wanted to get some root beer instead.

Connor hadn't yet been to visit Lee at work, and I'd noticed they had a 24-case of Thomas Kemper root beer there.  So I told Connor after church, we'd go visit Daddy and get a BIG box of bottles of root beer.

He was able to calm himself and smile again, and we made it through the rest of Mass just fine.

I'm not sure how he liked Costco.  He liked seeing his dad & giving him a hug.  He also liked looking at the big TV's.  He wasn't so interested in the samples, surprisingly.  He liked the big refrigerated cooler though.  The only sample he really liked were the fruit snacks, which I wasn't sure he'd care for anyway.  Since he did, I got some for his school lunches & picnic snacking :)  He was ready to go though, once we put the case of root beer in the cart.

Hopefully next week he'll be fine again and he'll get both Body & Blood of Christ again :)

Hey Carolyn!

Look what I found on Ebay!  What a difference between old & new though, huh?  Lee really wore that shirt to death!

You can barely even see the outlined Beaker on the old one.  Once the new one is washed, the old one will become wash rags :)

Anyway - thought you'd appreciate it!  Oh, it was about $14.00 with shipping for the new one :)

Doing the job he was hired for!

Lee started working in July, but today Costco opened it's doors to the members, and he was actually talking to customers & doing his actual job for the first time.  Up until today, it was all moving, building, packing, unpacking, organizing & LOTS of lifting!  We went shopping for shorts to wear at work, and he's down a pants size to a 34 now!

He is really in his element, and it was great seeing him helping the customers today :)  Trevor, Diana & I actually had to wait to say hi when we arrived, and then I wanted to show him what we were getting before I checked out, in case I was missing something, and we waited again - people seemed very interested and had a lot of questions for him, so I guess that's all good :)

The store looks great, there were lots of samples to try, and I didn't go crazy shopping - mostly just the things we'd waited to get because we knew the store was opening soon - peanut butter, toilet paper, Stacy's chips, etc.  Obviously there's a lot more, but I kept a tight watch on the total today :)  I did get some snow gloves for when Connor & I go skiing because I needed a pair, they were inexpensive, and by the time we actually go skiing, they'll be long gone.

Good job, Lee!!  Day One of many, many more working for this great company!!

Getting excited for Hockey!

A friend from my old neighborhood is now a friend on Facebook.  She is a really, really big Anaheim Ducks fan.   She's met all the players and attends the muckity-muck events.  I never knew she was such a hockey fan.  Her whole family is way into hockey & the Ducks.

She posted her excitement about Teemu Selanne signing with the Ducks again (we all thought he was going to retire for sure), and that there are talks that Paul Kariya (my favorite player) might come back to Anaheim.  Teemu & Paul played extremely well together, but the Ducks didn't do great, so they moved on to other teams.

They were able to stick together in the beginning, but eventually different teams called on them and they split.  Teemu wound up back at the Ducks, and was with them when they won the Stanley cup in 2007.

With the new season coming up and free agents being signed, Paul is once more available.  I really hope he decides to join up with the Ducks again.  He has a big fan base with the people he started his NHL career who really want to see him come 'home' again.  His career has been okay, but not near the potential and promise he showed in the Ducks.

If he does sign, I'm going to have to look into either getting a hockey package on our DirecTV or else figuring out which sports bar around town will let me watch Ducks that aren't playing football :P  Between drinks & appetizers, it's probably less expensive to just get the satellite package, huh?  :)

Yay Hockey!!

It got me!

Well, that's the first time in 15 years up here that that's ever happened.  When the weather is warm, we drive around town with the windows down most of the time.  We'll use the A/C if it gets really hot out, but we usually only have a week or so of the really hot weather.  The rest of the summer is mostly 85-92 degree range.

So just before we reach our house, maybe a two houses down, a wasp ends up in my shirt!  I feel it buzz, and then bite my chest on the sternum - I look down the front, see a wasp, and immediately flip up my shirt to get it the heck out of there!  That's what I get for wearing a loose t-shirt instead of the current fashion of snug!

Anyway, Lee was driving, and slowed down enough to wave at the wasp when it flew up a bit, and it first went up into my bangs (I scream again) and then out the window.

We got into the driveway, out of the car and I went straight for the medicine cabinet, while Lee went online to tell me the best things to use to treat a wasp bite or sting.  First I took an anti-histamine, to reduce swelling.

I swabbed down the area with bactine, and he got a paper towel and put vinegar on it - apparently the acid in vinegar or lemon juice neutralizes the venom.  Then he got a cold pack and put that on top of the paper towel.  I held it there a good 20 minutes, and then put cortisone cream on the area.

By the time I went to bed last night, there was no evidence of a bite or sting.  It only hurt until it got frozen, and then I didn't feel anything there at all.

The photo above is the only way I like wasps.  On a board with a big pin thru them!  Ugh!

As for the neighbors & me flashing them - at least I was wearing my new VS bra!

Billy F. Idol

Billy Idol came to play at our fair last night.  He tied the record for last year, with Huey Lewis & the News, but the Scorpions were here the night before, and they broke last year's record for attendance.

It was a fun concert.  The kids had "sung for their supper" at the fair food booth that will feed you if you do a song (isn't that great?), but we got curly fries for the concert anyway.

Billy actually did a good, two-hour concert.  He did almost all the songs I knew - only missing two I could recall.  White Wedding was his encore, and he did a great job with it.

His band was spot-on for everything, but ol' Billy started off a few songs with the wrong lyrics here & there.  He also did a chunk that sounded very punk, and I'm thinking it was Generation X stuff (before he went solo), but as I didn't follow him then, I'm not sure.  The paying audience seemed to recognize it, though.

He is still in fantastic shape.  For all the bare-chested stuff, we could see his abs & pecs from waaaay back.  The photo from the newspaper article has a close-up of his face - his age is much more apparent there - lucky for us, we were too far back to see that!

I did have to wonder about some of the people attending the concert.  When someone like Billy Idol or the Scorpions comes to town, you probably shouldn't be bringing in strollers with toddlers.  Our ears were ringing from the bass & there were people sitting a lot closer to the speakers that had very small children.  Not only that, both Billy & his drummer were rather liberal with the use of the F word.  "I'm Billy F***ing Idol!" (hence the F. as the middle initial on all his equipment).

Maybe I'm just a little prudish in my old age, but it just seems wrong to me to have small children attend something like that :/  Ah well.  According to Diana, the skunky smell that wafted over us once night fell was 'skunk pot.'  Low quality marijuana that has a skunky smell.  Lovely.

It was a great concert, but I preferred Huey Lewis last year by far.  Not only did he not swear, he knew all his songs, and he played everything that made it to the radio.  Still, for a free concert, it was a great show last night :)

Newspaper article - click Billy's image to see up close :)

Little River Band concert

Last night I went to the fair for the concert.

They were doing $2.00 admission from 10:00 to 1:00, and I intended to put down a blanket to save a spot on the grass anyway, so that's what I did.  The hand stamp allowed me to get back in for the evening concert (when admission was $9.00).

I went with my friend, Rose, who likes to do the concerts in the park with me too.  This year they started doing opening acts.  They do a few songs before the concert, and then they move to a different stage after the concert.

The Little River Band came on about 7:30.  They were a mix of younger and older guys.  I don't know the band well enough to recognize any members, but I did recognize and sing along to about eight songs they played.  They started with "Take It Easy On Me" and played Cool Change, Reminiscing, Night Owls, Lady (let me take a look at you now), and ended with "Lonesome Loser."  Lots of fun & they had a good sense of humor too.  "We're going to play our latest hit for you now.... from 1983..."  hee.

I looked them up on Wikipedia after I got home (because I like to do that) and discovered the guys I saw in concert are like the fifth incarnation of the band.  The actual original members still perform, but they lost the rights to their band's name!  Little River Band

Some of the guys I saw were involved with some of the hits, but only a few.  They were still very good and a lot of fun!

After the show, there was also an exhibition on a different stage (on the way back to the fair bus) with Chinese Acrobats.  They were pretty awesome :)  I hope they are still there on Saturday so the kids can see them after we do the Billy Idol concert!!  Acrobats of Hebei, China