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Archive for July, 2011

Less than a week! (This & That)

July 28th, 2011 at 02:28 am

Hi all,

Sorry I haven't been posting lately (or keeping up with the blogs ...) I thought surely I'd have more than enough time - but most of my time seems to be taken up with searching for resources for teaching library/computer and getting the last minute stuff done before moving. Smile

This past Sunday afternoon my church threw me a goodbye party. It was *awesome*! The theme of it was card and board games. People came and went, but overall I think there were about 20 people who showed up. I played dominoes (where we kept score - never did that before), and Rook!! LOVED IT!!

Last Monday I went out with my good friend T. She treated me to a 30 minute chair massage (in the mall) and lunch at the Chessecake Factory. Then my landlady and I saw Larry Crowne (with Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks.) LOVED!!!! One of those rare (very rare) movies with no language, no sexual overtones, and an overall theme of personal empowerment and the importance of education. And it was funny (with Tom, how could it NOT be funny???)

I wasn't going to do any more tutoring this week, but one of my parents begged me to do one more session. She and her son had gone to Kenya for a few weeks, and I guess when they got back they found/found out that he had to read the whole Lightning Thief series and write an essay on one of the books discussing the hero/myth theme. This was very interesting considering how much I know about mythology/Greek gods. (You could fit it on the end of a pin.)

I've received a good number of emails/contacts from my fellow coworkers. Several of them sound like they are very interested in collaborating. Big Grin Big Grin I just hope I can pull off some good collaboration. Smile

I received my health and dental insurance cards in the mail yesterday. No information yet about what the plans cover ... but I've got my cards!! Woohoo! First time I've been insured since March 1, 2009.

I've hired three unemployed men from my church to help me load my truck on Sunday. Then I'll be parking it in front of my ex stepdad's house until we leave. My brother will be flying in around midnight on Monday, and then we'll be heading off down the road on Tuesday morning. Wednesday we'll unload the truck (I've been promised that there'll be people to help), and then Thursday I'll take my brother to catch a flight back home. About that same time I'll pick my mom up from the airport, and we'll head off to a teacher store and to Costco, then to my home. She'll help me get my place settled, and then I'll take her to the airport on Sunday.

Then .... I'll have a house ALL TO MYSELF!!! This is something that hasn't happened since September, 2009 (other than short vacations my mom and stepdad went on - but it wasn't my house.)

I meant to write about this a long time ago, but kept forgetting. About the second week I was here in my current home, the toilet stopped flushing. After investigating, my landlady and I realized the (get ready for the technical language!) thingy that connects the flush handle to the thingy that controls the water flow had broken. In fact, the little thing that made a place to hook something on it, had come completely off. My landlady at first was thinking that we'd need to go to Wal-mart and get a new contraption. But I suggested that we could use rubber bands or twisty ties to connect (this was before we realized the connecty thing was completely off.) She agreed to try. In the process, she ended up getting her drill and drilling a hole on the top of the plugy thing. Then we used the twisty ties to connect everything back up. Still works like a charm, and didn't cost a penny. Smile

I got some sad news Sunday night. The dad of a good friend of mine had a heart attack and died. He and his wife were in Loma Linda where he was getting Proton treatments for his prostate cancer. (Loma Linda University is pretty famous for this, as well as for being the place where the first heart transplant occurred - a chimp/baboon heart.) He was just about clear of the cancer, so his dying of a heart attack was pretty shocking. I'd forgotten until my friend called me Sunday night that they were in LL. So I called my dad right away - he was their pastor in the early 90's. He called the mom and arranged lunch with her on Monday (along with my grandma, twice widowed.) I'm not sure of what all went on, but when I called him Wed night for an update, he was in the middle of moving my friends mom out of the house where she and her late husband had been renting a room. Apparently the landlady had backed into my dad's car earlier and put up a real fuss about exchanging information?? Also, she had gone into their (friend's mom and late dad) room while he lay dying - with a pair of rubber gloves and carpet cleaner. She informed my friend's mom that she (meaning my friend's mom) needed to clean the carpet. Later she also told my friend's mom that the mattress had to be replaced (since the husband died in it.) Sounds like a real class act.

Anyway, my dad moved my friend's mom into the extra bedroom at his and grandma's house. Her oldest daughter will be getting in on Friday, and then they'll be driving together to Minnesota for the funeral.

I kind of think that my dad was put in that area partly just for this.



30 days till blast off!

July 3rd, 2011 at 06:07 am

I was supposed to work tonight and tomorrow (insurance processing) but all the jobs I could do were already finished, and no more will be indexed til Tuesday. Not totally bummed about that. Smile

I have 3 guys from my church lined up to pack my truck for me on the 31st - my brother should arrive on the first, and then we're off!

I found out that I will be in charge of the newspaper and the yearbook - both starting in October. Yikes! I was the editor of our high-school paper my senior year and basically had no direction and did a lot of it myself. When I did my student teaching, I put together a very simple cut and paste type yearbook for the small school (25 kids and 2 teachers) I was at. I had no real training for either one. So ... this should be interesting. Smile

I'll be having a partly fixed and partly flexible schedule. Really ... if I can run with this and make things fly ... I might just end up staying longer than two years ... I already have ideas for what I'd like to do for summer school in computers ... Big Grin

I really need to get back in touch with my finances ... been way too loosey goosey with them lately. Even though I have this real job to look forward to, I don't have the first paycheck til Aug 17, and even then I really hope to SAVE more of it than SPEND!!

For example - I finally got my $20 Amazon gift card from Zoombucks which I ordered towards the beginning of June. I had it spent within five minutes - 4 books for classroom ideas ...

One awesome thing though showcasing how much better two heads can be than one. I was looking at these flipcard management system holders - green for "doing fine" yellow for "need help but can keep working" and red for "Help ASAP!" They wanted $10 each. Not!! So I showed them to JJ (my landlady) and we came up with the idea of tri-folding a piece of cardboard and three-hole punching laminated colored index cards with some kind of ring attached. We figured that we could make 20 of them for the price of one!

It's 12:01 on Sunday morning now, so I probably ought to catch some ZZzz's - will try to catch up with everyone later today. Big Grin