Blah blah blah

It's been a blah kind of week. I'm not babysitting this week....Kara took the day off on Tuesday and Doug is taking the day off on Friday. I'm having Emily withdrawals! I told the lady who calls for subs I could work Tuesday and Friday this week, so she gave me a two-day assignment today and yesterday. I'm a SPED teacher in the middle school. This SPED teacher has a full schedule....classes every period all day. I have 3-8 kids each class and we do math, science, ss, LA and reading. Yikes! This teacher has to know a little bit about everything! Thankfully there's an aide in the room who knows what the heck is going on. I think it's kind of silly to have a sub come in when there's an aide, since she knows more about what the kids are doing than I do. But apparently the aides are not supposed to do "the teacher's work". If I were an aide, I'd agree to do it if they'd give me a little extra and forget about the sub! Save a few bucks in the school system. Hubby's car wouldn't start yesterday morning. I was having nightmares in my head about having to let him take my car and I'd have to walk home from work. But we jumpstarted it, then he drove to Walmart, bought a new battery ($78) and put it into the car right there in the parking lot. He's good to go now. We haven't gotten our "economic stimulus" check yet from the government, but somehow we've already spent it six different ways. Including the new battery. My birthday is in June and hubby has set up some kind of surprise for me. On my calendar he wrote "Karen 6pm" on every Tuesday night for the whole month of June and the first two weeks of July. I have no idea what it is, and he won't give me any hints. I"m very excited to find out what it might be. Any ideas????

My Aching Back!

Today was our first scheduled "clean up" day at camp. So fun and exciting to actually be back at the camp and to see some of my friends from last summer. Sadly, a lot of the staff has moved on....their college years are over and they have to get "real" jobs. It just makes me feel even older! Luckily for us, the camp is able to get a landscaper in to do a lot of the heavy raking. There was still lots to do though. While most of the kids went and did even more raking, I opened up my Art room. In Hebrew it's "UMUNUT". Pronounced oominooot. But I say "I'm a nut". It fits. As always, the art room needed some serious sweeping. We get little furry visitors all winter long who leave their "deposits" everywhere, as well as many, many chewed up acorns. The room is lined with shelves which all have to be swept. It took me about two hours to sweep them off then sweep off the floor. I finished just in time for lunch, but didn't finish my first slice of pizza before families started arriving for open house and we began giving tours. I ended out taking about four families around. We saw the waterfront, the boat house, the nurse's office, the Moadon (Rec Hall), the Art room, playground, tennis courts, basketball courts, dodgeball court and ball field. Also the bathrooms and bunks. It's a day camp, so they don't sleep in the bunks...they just change in them and leave their stuff there. It was fun to talk to new families and see the excitement on the kids' faces when they saw the camp and I talked about all the fun they would have. When the families were all gone, it was time to put in the docks...the most dreaded duty at camp simply because they weigh a ton. They're in sections, and each section needs to be carried down the beach and into the water. Usually I avoid this task, since I"m the "old lady" of the camp and there are usually many fine strapping young people to do the job. But this year, all our strapping young people have been replaced by .....shall we say.....less robust people (think 98 pound weakling). So this year I decided to help and finally realized just how horribly out of shape I am. I helped with two and literally thought I was having a heart attack. I gave in and went back up on the beach and raked the leaves that were left after all the young folk had moved each section of dock. Sigh.......... We finished just as it started raining. As soon as I got home I got in a hot tub of water and took some Ibuprofen. But I know I'll be moaning and groaning getting out of bed tomorrow morning.

Scary Moments

We went today to watch daughter Jamie play her football game. It was fun and exciting as usual....and they won. But there was a moment, as there have been several times in the past, when the game became scary rather than fun. The quarterback threw a beautiful pass to Jamie, and as she reached out to grab it, she got clobbered. She usually bounces back up but this time, she stayed down. It's eerie the hush that falls over the stands when a player stays lying on the field while the rest of her team is running back to the huddle. I stayed standing - I had jumped up to applaud what I thought was going to be an outstanding catch - with my eyes trained on my daughter as coaches ran out on the field to check her. The moments got longer and scarier when she didn't get up right away. My heart stayed in my throat while the coach leaned over her, assessing the problem. Eventually, she sat up, then stood and moved to the sidelines. I was able to breath again. The funny part is...she knows me. As soon as she could talk she asked one of her team-mates to locate me in the stands and make sure I was still sitting in my seat and wasn't sprinting out onto the field. I've learned however, to keep my cool. I've watched Jamie play sports for over 20 years...every season, year round....soccer, basketball, softball and now football....hundreds and maybe thousands of games. And I've learned that it's not cool for "mom" to run out until she knows for sure she's needed. I realized this when she was about 9, playing soccer and she got hit straight in the face with a kicked ball that knocked her right off her feet. I ran over and was greeted with an indignant "mooo-oom!!!" She actually had the ball mark on her face, but didn't want me to fuss ....she just didn't want to be embarrassed in front of her friends. So I stayed in my seat....Jamie went back into the game...and they won. The scariest part however, was later in the fourth quarter, when a girl from the other team went down, did not get up, and was carted away in an ambulance. I hope that's something I never see happening to my own daughter.

Pepere Babysits

Last night was babysitting night for Memere and Pepere. Unfortunately we did not have the camera, which was a shame because there would have been some priceless pictures! It was son Doug's 30th birthday yesterday (30!!!! WHAT???) so he and his brothers and sisters went out to a minor league ball game and then out to eat. Tag and I have been wanting to go over and babysit because Tag really gets no time with Emily. So we volunteered and went over about 4 o'clock to spend some time with her before she went to bed. Emily put on quite a show for her Pepere. He hadn't really seen her crawl too much yet, and hadn't seen her pull herself up to stand. She not only did all that, but she showed him how she can climb all the way up the stairs.....over and over and over again! Pepere said he was quite tired by the end of that! Tag brought his guitar and Emily just loves it. Of course, it's more fun to bang on it and listen to the hollow wooden sound it makes than it is to play it....it's hard to strum the strings when you're only 9 months old. But she watched in fascination while he played. He gave her a little background music while she was eating and there were several times when I had to call her attention back to her food....which is pretty unusual for Emily! She really kept us entertained and we hated to put her to bed. She only went in a little late....but that's what Memere and Pepere are for!

Just Stuff

Today is Thursday......which means it's almost Friday...thank God! It's been kind of a blah week. Monday I subbed for special ed at the middle school. It was fine.....three or four kids in each period and doing math and Language Arts. Unfortunately, the math was too hard for me but I went to a math teacher down the hall and she helped me! Does anyone know how to find the volume of a cylinder? I do! Tuesday I babysat in the morning...always a pleasure! In the afternoon, though, I had to go to the dentist. It was the second visit for him to do work to put in three crowns. Last time he did two teeth in 45 minutes, so I figured for the one final tooth, maybe 30 minutes? It was well over an hour. I thought the drilling would never end. That's a long time to stay white-knuckled. It always wipes me out so I kind of vegged for the rest of the afternoon. Wednesday I did not get called in to sub. I was kind of mad because I found out today that a secretary was out and they'd called in another sub. Her name is Maryann and I worked with her last week and she's a very nice lady but she pisses me off because she's taking the secretarial sub jobs I like to do! Not fair to dislike her because of that....but I do. So I spent the day cleaning, cross-stitching and shopping...which I can ill afford to do. I only bought some plastic chairs to sit outside with. I live in a condo building but it has nice grassy grounds and we've been using them. In fact, we had a BBQ supper last night to break in the new chairs. Hubby is nervous they'll get stolen......if they do, it'll be an $18 lesson for me. But I made him a bet they'd still be there by the end of the summer. Today subbing in special ed again. And tonight hubby and I are babysitting. He doesn't get to see the baby very often and misses her tremendously, so we told son and DIL that we'd be happy to babysit any time. We'll get there early enough to have about 2 hours before she goes to bed. And tomorrow I babysit in the morning. I love babysitting on Fridays. It makes me think my week ends on Thursday.

Two Things I Learned

I learned two things this weekend. #1 - My dad is a square dance caller. He's done it for over 30 years. For about 10 or 12 years he and my mom ran Square Dance Weekends. They'd rent out a little bed and breakfast and 20 or 30 couples would go for a weekend of good food, square dancing and fun. One of their favorite things at these weekends were skits. After the dance on Saturday night they'd all get into their jammies and be comfy and meet back in the dance hall where anyone who wanted to could put on a skit. For years my Dad wanted all the skits put onto one video so they could be watched in one sitting. For his 70th birthday we decided to do it. We got all his videotapes and converted them to DVD. Then I spent hours editing the DVDs, finally making four DVDs of skits. I made nice labels and jewel cases for them and gave them to him for his birthday. I was delighted to have given him such a personal gift.

Sunday night he called and said the DVDs wouldn't play on his player. I couldn't figure out the problem since they played on my player. We told him we'd come up Monday night to look at it with no idea whatsoever what the problem could be. For no reason I can think of except for desperation, I called Best Buy, thinking maybe there was some kind of setting on my Dad's DVD player that could be changed to allow the DVD to play. When I called, I got the "Geek Squad"....you know those guys who drive around in the little Volkswagon Bugs? He asked me what kind of "media" I had used....huh? Turns out he meant what kind of DVD, and I had to go look but I told him I used a DVD -R. He said most DVD players will play only on kind of DVD...either -R or +R. I had no idea there were two different kinds. I ran over to Staples, picked up a box of +R DVDs and quickly burned one of the movies. We went up to my parents' house and voila! It worked!

So now the only problem is I have to re-burn all those DVDs! Hubby can do them at work in about 5 minutes per copy, so...not a big deal!

#2 - Daughter Jamie sent me a picture message on my phone showing a picture of her making a touchdown from her game on Saturday that was published in the Manchester Union Leader. Hubby was kind enough to go out and try to buy a copy...but after going to every convenience store and supermarket in town, he was not able to find a copy. So Monday we decided to try the library, figuring we could photocopy the picture. We went to the rack labeled "Manchester Union Leader" and they had Monday, Saturday, Friday, Thursday, etc. No Sunday! I thought maybe they kept them behind the desk for some reason so I went up and asked the librarian. Turns out the Manchester Union Leader is called the "New Hamphsire News" on Sundays! WHY????? Hubby saw that newspaper at each store he went to but had no idea it was the same paper. The Librarian did have it, we got the photocopy and we're happy.

Busy Weekend

We had a wonderful, but very busy, weekend. Friday night we went to an open mic called Five Star Friday. We enjoy going to these and hearing new people. Often there are the "regulars" but there are always new people. Tag and I sang "The Circle Game" by Joanie Mitchell, and "Grandma's Feather Bed" by John Denver. Tag accompanied both on his ukulele. His friend Don has come with us the last two times and he sang while Tag accompanied him on guitar. It was an enjoyable evening. Saturday was a crazy day. We got up early and made food for my Dad's birthday party. I made stuffed mushrooms and Tag made sushi...his first attempt. Both came out pretty well. We had to run around a bit before we got to my parents' house.....we picked up a cake at Market Basket and my father's chicken wings at Walmart. We got there around noon and had a really fun day with all my family. Poor little Emily though....her Mom couldn't be there so she came with just my son. She's just started getting some stranger anxiety and she got really upset at the houseful of strange people. It took her a little while to calm down, but she did finally settle in and we all had fun with her. My dad enjoyed his party...his brother was here from Arizona so that made it more special. After the party we went up to Manchester to watch Jamie play football. It was another blowout game 68-0. It's fun to have a blowout when you're on the winning side! Jamie caught a phenomenal pass and ran it in for a touchdown. She also kicked about 5 extra points. My son Nicholas and his girlfriend Kelly were there, which made it that much more fun. Sunday was Mother's Day, but since we'd seen the whole family Saturday, it was decided that that would "count" for our Mother's Day visit. So hubby Tag indulged me the whole day and made my Mother's Day very special. It was so gorgeous out we decided to go out, so he went online and found Winnekinni Castle in Haverhill which had hiking trails. We went there and hiked for over two hours! It was the perfect weather...sunny but cool. There's a lake in the middle - Kenoza Lake - and we walked all the way around it. After that we were going to visit his mother, who lives in Westford, which just happens to be the town where the best ice cream place is...Kimball's. So we HAD to go there! Then we visited his mother and then went home to watch the Survivor finale. At my request, Tag made my favorite fried chicken for supper, and I had an enjoyable three hours watching my favorite show. I was very disappointed at the outcome though! I'd like to know exactly who voted for Parvati and why! I was rooting for Cerie, and when she got voted out I was sure it would be Amanda who would win. Oh well.