Friday, April 23, 2010

A voice for many

Another building meeting was today. This one featured the little troll of a man that is a part of the school board. I tell you, he is just a nasty, mean old guy.

The meeting went on, as usual, with the architect discussing the few bones that they changed slightly to basically meet halfway with our needs.

Parents and teachers brought up the additional space in the kitchen. It is a warming kitchen. Gone are the days of the "lunch ladies" actually assembling food products, cooking them and serving. What our school system sees fit is heat and eat food. The Librarian brought up our need for Jamie Oliver and to that I said, "Amen!" (I'm a good Baptist, what can I say?) I said that we could defend all of the additional space allotted to the kitchen by giving them food that didn't make my child vomit, I would be thrilled. (The lunch women told the visiting parents and teachers that the new school kitchens were equipped with extra freezers and garbage disposals that they don't need since they don't actually assemble food.) I told them considering that we have 75 extra children than what the plans allow for, go ahead and allot some of the space to the learning. Many people said several different things regarding the stated size of the new school. In the end, Mr. School Board Troll said, "Well, we could always put the project on hold."

WHAT?! All the librarian could do was yell, "That's a real nice threat!"

Instead of trying to work with us, which is the reason for these community meetings anyhow, he wants us to conform, shut up, have them tell us how it is to go and we are to say, "Oh thank you kind sir."

During the hub-bub, a note was slipped to me by one of the teachers.

"Would you consider writing a letter to the editor of the paper?"

"Oh, yes."

So there you have it. I'm the voice for the teachers, staff and principal of the school. People who can't speak up for themselves for fear of losing their jobs. I've given my e-mail address to be passed around. The principal will be meeting with me and writing me notes, as all e-mail from his box is tracked.

All my husband could do was laugh.

Smiles in my day:
- Two loads of laundry dried on the line.
- A bathroom scrubbed, shower liner changed, floors swept, and kitchen and bathroom mopped.
- The back beds have been cleared. They are not completely weed-free. They may never be completely weed-free. I have piles of yard waste to scoop up tomorrow. I just didn't have the energy tonight. K- and I spent our walking time in the back yard tonight as opposed to our typical bike walk. I didn't have it in me to do both.
- I'll be transplanting my seedlings tomorrow. Long ago and far away they grew out of their holding cells.
- Knowing that I'm going to bed this evening feeling very satisfied with my accomplishments today.

Tired. Have a wonderful weekend!

Thursday, April 22, 2010

A few Earth Day deals

Target:
Enter to win a 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid
Recycle = Reward. Rewards for turning in old electronics, a 5 cent per bag credit on your bill when you use reusable bags and they will send you a $1.00 coupon toward a reusable bag worth $1.49 or more when you mail 5 Target bags in to them using the post paid page from your Sunday circular. They advertised free bags on Sunday, but they ran out of them by the time I got there. :(

Ace Hardware:
My local Ace Hardware will be giving 5 packages of free seeds with any purchase on Earth Day. I might add that they have wonderful rebate deals through April 26. I plan on buying tree spikes (tree food), organic plant food, evergreen food and work gloves (gloves completely free on rebate.)

Because I Said So:
Earth Day Disney Giveaway. Just leave a comment to be entered to win.

Seventh Generation coupon for $1.00 off.

Yahoo Earth Day deals. Offers for some places not in my area, but perhaps they are in yours!

I admit that I was having a hard time finding Earth Day promotions. If you know of one, feel free to post it in the comments. I reserve the right to ditch any spam or anything that is inappropriate or unrelated.

Smiles in my day:
- I got all of my display duties done today. I plan on giving my house a deep clean tomorrow, as it has been getting the short end of the stick for the last few weeks.
- My brother got his driver's license today! He is legal for the first time in YEARS! Hooray!
- Our evening bike walk. We have some great conversations while we walk.

Have a great day!

ETA:
When I was at Ace earlier, I found that my wonderful heavy-duty and brightly colored tomato cages went on sale. Instead of 6.99 each, which I realize is a lot of money for a tomato cage, but they are heavy duty, painted with heavy glossy baked-on paint so that they'll last, they were 4.99 each. I returned the two cages and bought an extra. (The green one that K- wanted.) The extra cage only cost me 1.00 more and now I can put some of my tomato cages out of their misery. I will recycle the really beat up ones.

Since I made two separate trips and bought things both times, I ended up getting 10 packages of seeds for free! I have:
Sweet William
Dianthus
Hollyhocks
Alyssum x 2
Shirley Poppy
Portulaca
Zinnia
Oregon Sugar Pod
Nasturtium

I'm so excited! Many of the seeds I selected will come back again, and the extra peas can be planted for a second sowing in late August.

:)!

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Wordless Wednesday: The Horse That Needs a Hair Cut


Smiles in my day:
- I just got a call that my brother's job is going very well. That would be my brother, Billy.
- I had a productive day at work and made money to boot.
- Though I have a co-worker "stuck" in Switzerland, she is with a previous co-worker, so lodging isn't an issue. She'll be well fed and taken care of until she gets back to the states. Sadly, she is to demo leaded glass at the opening on Saturday. Maybe she'll be back in time!

Have a great day!

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Tales from the Trenches: A realization

My niece went through an evaluation for ADD the other day. The results are that she has ADD. She's functional, but they need to tweak a bit with her learning here and there.

This child is basically me. She looks like me. She acts like me. She is functioning in school like me.

I've tossed it around for a while, but I seriously think that I can say with certainty that I believe that I would be diagnosed with ADD, as well.

My mother and my co-workers agree. In fact, it's been suggested that I probably have the H portion, as well. I don't know about that. I can be manicky from time to time, but it isn't a constant thing.

My mind has and always runs in 12 directions. There is not just one thing on my mind. There have always been several different processes running all at once. Like a computer that you can layer screens of different applications running-- that is my brain.

There are days, like today, that I know that I'm a goofball. At the end of today, I apologized to my co-worker for my manicky behavior today.

I dropped things all day long.

I believe that my volume was overly loud, though she did bring that to my attention.

I accidentally ripped an earring out of her ear.

Folks, I'm not generally that much of a pile, but I was one hot mess.

When on our evening walk tonight, I was discussing my possible revelation with my husband. "Um, honey? Of course you are ADD. Did you consider it is perhaps ADHD? If I only had 1/4 of your energy, I'd be good."

There are days when I literally feel the swing kick in. I know it, I can tell it and there are days that I can't control it. I do the best that I can do, but I'm probably considered to be that spazed-out Mommy.

I know that I'm only 36, but the ADD thing wasn't as much of a thing when I was little as it is now. My mom said that my brother, Dumpy, tested borderline. She said that without a doubt, I would most definitely be.

It would have been a helpful thing to know about myself a long time ago. My mother, just as my sister, wouldn't have gone the medication route. A diet tweaking seems to be helping my niece. Since my day was so out of whack, I may consider doing a bit of a dietary tweak myself. We'll see how it changes things.

Smiles in my day:
- Rachael at Life with Hannah and Lily welcomed the arrival of her daughter, Ellie, today! 6 lbs 9 oz and 19 1/2" long. Gorgeous with a head full of hair! So happy for Rachael, Lily and Brien!
- K- had her Kindergarten Writing Assessment today. She said that the subject was "A Rainy Day." They didn't know the subject prior to the test, but we've written about rainy days, so she seemed to feel as if she nailed it. They also had to draw a picture to go with the writing. (4 sentence paragraph with introductory sentence, 2 supporting sentences and an ending sentence with appropriate capitalization, end punctuation, writing from left to right, top to bottom and though correct spelling wasn't mandatory, the correct beginning and ending consonants were required, as well as the correct number of syllables presented.) She was nervous this morning and had a belly ache. She didn't want to go to school, but I pressed on and she pulled through. She ate Cheerios on the way, but not many. "I'm listening to my body mommy, and it says no thank you." All the other parents that I talked with today reported the same belly ache problem with their children this morning. Seems as though our pool of 6 year olds were an absolute bundle of nerves. Poor kids!
- Mom's testing today seems to have gone well. There was some thickening found after some bleeding that she experienced, but apparently it is just her body being fine. The doctor still did a biopsy just in case, but he said that everything looks great and seems well. Because there were no cancer or pre-cancerous cells present, he kind of had to carve out a bit more than he originally suspected. She also found out that the fibroids that she has are about the size of a pea and he said that he believes that they will never cause her a problem. Still, she was on my mind a lot today. I prayed much for Mama Mia.
- K-'s reading level has been raised. It's always a little more difficult for the first few weeks of an increase in reader level, but she gets it figured out. Bless her heart, the child has a hard time with "what." She wants to sound it out as w-at.

With that, I'm going to take me and my overly running brain, wind down and settle into bed. K- had a rather long day which resulted in her turning into an absolute pile this evening. She hasn't done that since school started but she totally fell apart. I had to use my whispering voice, but we assured her that we love her and she just needs to sleep.

I'm there with her. 'Night! Have a great day!

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Weekend things

I've come to the conclusion that I have no more tips to share on Works for Me Wednesday. I'll be switching to Wordless Wednesday through 5 Minutes for Mom. I'm plum out of good stuff to share. If something good comes along, I'll hop the fence to the WFMW side, but basically, I'll be sticking with WW.

I'm sure that you really needed to know that.

Anyhow, I'm glad to say that the unstitched finger is healing amazingly fast. The Exacto'd finger is healing much faster than the scissored finger of a few weeks ago. That one left me with a deep 'v' cut in my finger for about a week and a half. Apparently, nearly lopping a hunk off is better than slicing deep into a finger. All that aside, I can say that I heal quickly from cuts. Bruises are a different situation. My crazy blood clotting disorders say, "Let's continue to bruise and get bigger for days!" Y'all should have seen my leg after ACL surgery (AKA Hamstring Endo-button Reconstruction.) For about 6-7 weeks, it looked like a semi ran over my leg.

We went to the Lowe's building clinic on Saturday. K- made a planter box that they filled with soil and placed some cherry tomato seeds in. When she went to show her creation to the project coordinator (they need to do that to get their patch), they gave her a reusable shopping bag, too. They had some nice Earth Day materials for the kids, too.

After Lowe's, we ran next door to Super Wal. I was in desperate need of new make-up. I was scraping the edges of my Aquasmoothers and my blush is just the wrong color. While on our quick run through, we found some packs of socks for her that were marked down from 6.00 to 1.00/4 pk. I purchased three and I'm putting them up for fall for her.

We dashed out of the Wal and went on to the Spring Fling ladies luncheon at church. It ended up being spa-themed and a wonderful time. We had a great soup and salad lunch, with strawberry shortcake for dessert. They did a nice spa-themed devotion and we were just able to hang out and enjoy each other. That's something that is kind of hard to do on Sunday, particularly since swim lessons were moved to Sundays, giving us only 50 minutes to run home, have lunch and leave.

A happy thing is that I was able to take home a nice, big leftover salad for K- and me to have for dinner. Since it didn't already have dressing on it, I knew that it would hold for dinner. Yum.

After the ladies lunch, we went to the library. We cruised for DVD's and found a few that K- wanted to borrow.

Following the library fly-by, we visited with my grandmother and aunt. I admit that while there, K- hit a bit of a crabby appleskin moment, but a quick walk into the hall straightened her out and gave her a nice attitude adjustment. She was tired from having run with the girls at the lunch while I helped to clean up. Still, no excuse to be rude. She's not normally a rude child, so it took me by surprise. I believe that I made it crystal clear that the rudeness, even if mild, will not be tolerated. Period.

So, we ended up at home with my project to free the kitchen table from whatever tornadic mass of familyness that ate it. Argh! Where the heck did all that crap come from? I admit that I had a stack of coupon sections to go through, a vase of tulips had tipped two days ago and I thought I had gotten everything. Apparently the water seeped up under the coupons and I ditched those. I freed the table, it is all tidy and the world is now a happier place.

Does anyone else have a nearly permanent pile of papers somewhere in the kitchen? I tell you, no matter how hard I try . . .

Our family time on Saturday night was my smearing both of them in Wii bowling, then watching Storm Chasers until K- feel asleep - snoring - on Hubs' lap and I feel asleep later.

Sunday morning K- and I were up and out in time enough for Sunday School. We were typical attenders, but they've changed the Sunday morning line-up, so now we don't have regular classes anymore. The classes are themed and switch teachers every 8 - 12 weeks. Frankly, I find it annoying. I was just saying tonight about how I miss seeing our typical crowd and how I haven't seen this one and that one for a while. Sadly, the sermon didn't hold my attention as much as Pastor's Sunday School lesson did, so I found my brain wondering to a Sam's Club shopping list and ideas for more things to do in the kitchen regarding the spiff that will happen soon.

No, it wasn't listed in Leviticus where the sermon actually was. At least throw me a bone. I remember that we were in Leviticus!

Since Pastor was a hair long-winded (AKA ran at least 15 minutes over), I flew by Wendy's for a burger for K- and me. She was asking for more and I told her two burgers were it. (My cholesterol didn't need that.) We ran on home, had the burgers, got K- changed for swimming lessons and off and away we went.

Swimming lessons are going so well. I cannot believe how much she has progressed this year! Swimming lessons wrap up next week, which I'm thankful for because the 8 weeks of lessons have had a week out here, a week out there (because of Easter, school schedules, swim meets) so it seems like we've been there for months. Oh wait! We have been!

We hadn't been to Sam's a dear beloved forever, so we stopped by there after swimming. Since we haven't been stopping in as often (Sam's, your prices have gone way up!), we stocked up on some things that we need eventually, but not right. this. second. We bought another case of toilet paper because let's face it, having someone in the house with digestive issues, you just don't want to run low. Hubs loaded our basement freezer with cases of Boca Burgers, a case of turkey burgers, I bought a bag of cheese raviolis and pierogies for K- and me. We're going to give a new cat litter a spin. It claims to be 99% dust-free, which is what Hubs is looking for. K- wanted Gogurt. I bought her lunch meat (in a 3 pk bundle), so she is good for lunch meat for lunches for 3 weeks. There was the Laffy Taffy that Hubs decided to buy to get him through the crazy weeks of April and May. I treated myself to a 10 pack of 5 Berry gum. I bought a snack for K- to share with her class on her next assigned day. We left with a cart full. That's okay. We won't need to go back for a few months.

Since Target was right down the street, I had some coupons that I figured that I would go and use. Besides, Target was advertising a free reusable bag with purchase today. Of course, they ran out. (Thanks, Target.) I'll see if I can get 4 more Target store bags from my mother-in-law and I'll be able to send in for a coupon for a free bag. (I love free reusable bags!) I found lots of good deals, though. They sent a coupon book to my MIL, who passed it on to me. I was able to get a bunch of toiletry items for pretty cheap.

Rachael-- did you know that the Up and Up brand of Claritin is 5.84 for a 4 oz bottle? I paid 11.99 for a different generic version just a few weeks ago! 5.84 was a steal!

We got home, restocked our home grocery (with the amount we bought at Sam's -- yes, we will use it) I made up some dinner with part of our purchases and had to go off to my VBS meeting.

So, I sit here tonight. Hubs and I sat with K- while she wrote her final 4 sentence practice page for her big Kindergarten Writing Assessment tomorrow. Am I nervous? Sure. We told her that if she takes her time, concentrates and does a good job, she'll get two sweet treats tomorrow instead of just her "one only" and daddy sweetened the deal by telling her that he would drop a buck in her Polly Pocket savings jar.

I should explain the jar. When we went to Target, K- wanted this Polly Pocket Pop Up Camper so bad that she couldn't even see straight. She cried and soaked the box in tears. (She was tired from swimming and hungry.) The thing is 19.99. I told her that she needed to save money. Now, she does have probably enough in her pig. We specifically wanted her to save for it. Hubs told her about how his parents would have him save for particular things that he wanted. When I went for my meeting, Hubs recycled a peanut butter jar and helped her to decorate it as a Polly Pocket savings bank.

If you'll pardon me, I'm going to shove off. I have a reading date with a particular 6 year old in our house. We need to see what Junie B. is up to.

Smiles:
- Sprinkled in above.

Have a great day!

--Rachael, today seems like a perfect day to have a baby, doesn't it?!