How I Spend My Time

Being home full-time affords me the time to do things I never had time to do before. Like, keep my house cleaner. Like, scoop the litter box every morning. Like, keep all my clocks that strike the hour within a minute of each other.

Trivial? I think not! Surely not as trivial as searching through computer code for the one missing period that is causing the program to loop endlessly, causing the computer to crash. (This is one of things I used to do.)

Surely not as trivial as sitting in management meeting for two hours, discussing whether computer operators should be required to wear a tie, complying with company dress code. (They should not. Lots powerful rolling things in computer equipment. Ties are a safety hazard.)

So, when LO mentioned her favorite sneakers were looking a little rough, (and they surely were, I hadn't noticed) I was pleased to refer her to her B pair so I could clean these up. When we bought new sneaks for school, the local shoe store had "buy one, get the second half off," and I thought we got 2 pair that were nearly identical. Not nearly enough, I learned, as one pair quickly became her favorites and the other languished in her closet as the B pair, as in, A - I like these best and B- wear in emergencies.

Several years ago we toured Fontana Dam with the inlaws. (This really does pertain to the shoes, bear with me.) We were in the glass elevator going down like a zillion feet to underneath the dam (I don't think they do this anymore, $$ cutbacks) and a family in the same elevator had a son with these blindingly white shoes on. I remarked about his new shoes and his mom said, "Oh, these are quite old. I clean them with Soft Scrub with Bleach." BING! Mental Note.

So I, too, have been using SSWB on shoes, ever since.

On another tangent, my father used to LOOOVE to shine shoes. You'd think he'd hate it, if his stories were true, that he HAD to shine shoes on the street corner when he was a little boy to earn money for his mother to buy food. But, he loved it. About twice a year he'd pull all his shoes out of his closet (wingtips and brogans, not sneaks), line them up in front of the TV, and sit on the floor in his boxers and polish them all. The phrase "in his boxers" is somewhat redundant as, if Daddy were home, he WAS in his boxers. Didn't matter who was visiting. He never seemed to mind. He wore big white baggy boxers, a skinny ribbed undershirt with little strappy shoulders, like a tank top, and black socks almost up to his knees. Anyway, he'd shine all these shoes and leave them on the floor to dry. Mother would finally gather them up and put them away, til the next time.

Maybe this is where I get it, maybe not, but I love to clean our shoes up (fully dressed, tyvm) and I always clean one before I start the other, so I have a full "before" and "after." Very gratifying.

The Omnipresent Project

Little One is making the ever-present Science Project: a functional volcano. I was so pleased that she had the idea to make hers a cutaway version so the viewer can see what the inside of a volcano looks like. She wants to label the parts.

In 1964 when I had to make mine, it was an amorphous lump of brown paper mache with a tomato paste can in the top. I believe her idea is much more creative and educational, although the science teacher did not request this level of detail.

Fortunately Jody purloined a cigar tube from one of his co-workers a while back, thinking I would like it for holding beads or some other craft items. We cut it to size, and voila, the volcano has its vent.

Got to run for now, will post a few more pics later.

1st Quarter Report Card

Scanned this in and cropped off all the personal information. I have supersized it so much that it is a little blurry; hope you can read it. That last grade appears here to be a D but it is not. It is a P as the class is Pass/Fail.

Best part is at the bottom. :)

Her math teacher did not post a comment to the report card but instead, wrote a personal note to each student in her classes. She stapled them shut and asked the students not to read them til they had picked up their report cards.

Here's hers:
You make teaching and learning fun! I have really enjoyed getting to know you this 1st quarter. You participate well, ask very good questions and take responsibility for your assignments. Excellent!

My Favorite Freebies

Life affords us all some freebies -- those things we just get, we don't deserve, but make our day. I have been noticing some of them in my life lately. Here are a few that come to mind.

1. The sign language "ILY" my granddaughter flashes to me as she gets out of the car at school in the mornings.

2. The warm and lovely fabric softener smell that comes from the new laundromat that is right next to the YMCA. Go for a workout, get a nice smell.

3. The way DH thoughtfully builds a fire whenEVER it might be cold enough. If it's really cold outside, I just hate to go out for more firewood. He's a guy, though, so he never whines like I do. He just does it.

4. The total love and adoration our little white dog gives me (even when I'm bad company.)

5. The precious kiss our orange cat gives the dog when we come in from our walk.

6. The little clues left to us by the lady who had our house built 70+ years ago. We have found many little treasures, newspaper clippings with cleaning tips, hairpins, Royal Crown Cola caps, a poison antidote chart. We feel like victorious archeologists when we find one.

7. The cheerful songs the birds give me when they have their breakfast at the bird feeder. They know I can hear them, they really do.

I think that's it for today. There are a million more, but these are the ones I've noticed in the last day or two.

Normal Clock

Years ago, I bought quite the snazzy clock from Hammacher Schlemmer. (sp?) It plays CD's, makes sounds of nature, has adjustable brightness, and will wake you with your choice of church chimes, alarm, radio, or CD. If you choose to go to sleep with sounds of nature going on, they get quieter and quieter as the time begins to run out. There are 25 choices for the sounds of nature. My own personal favorites are Summer Night (complete with crickets) and Wind Chimes.

The thing is, earlier this year, the snazzy clock became completely unreliable. Sometimes it would remember to wake me up, sometimes it would not. It's the set-and-forget kind of clock, so it was not a matter of my having forgotten to set it -- IT forgot to wake me up.

With all these bells & whistles, the one main quality an alarm clock really needs is reliability. It really needs to remember to wake you up.

KNOWING I would take quite a deal of **** from DH, I began to study clocks online to make another purchase. Target has a whole line of Westclox retro clocks that are quite dandy to the eye. I studied them over a few weeks and was finally ready to make my purchase. Here is the one I selected:

Before ordering it from Target, I ran one of the comparison shoppers and was surprised to find it was actually cheaper -- quite a bit -- from LL Bean. So I ordered it from them.

The clock arrived early this week. Needless to say, the very night I plugged it up, DH noticed it, eagle eye that he is, and was quick to say, "What kind of sounds does this clock make?"

Being somewhat defensive, well, pretty darn defensive, about the whole gadget thing, I retorted that it's just a normal clock, thank you, and it rings.

This was a teensy lie. The clock is called the "Moonbeam" because it wakes you with a flashing light and if you don't go on and get up, it finally resorts to a bell. Supposedly the light is a gentler way to wake up; no harsh rings or buzzes.

Inevitably we had to sleep together, quite the novelty with his rotating schedule, but yes, we did sleep together last night. This morning at 6am, I was somewhat rudely awakened by DH's screaming in the bed next to me.

"WHAT'S THAT?" he yelled. "WHAT'S THAT?!" I opened my eyes to see the bright blinking, illuminating the whole room. Quickly, somewhat ashamedly, I turned off the alarm and got out of bed. He went back to sleep, for a while longer.

Well, the firewood man was coming this morning at 8:30 and DH had said he wanted to clean up the wood stand before he got here. So, at 7:15, I reminded him that if wanted to get it done, he might want to get up. Rolling over, he took me into his arms and sweetly said, "Tell me about this normal clock." I had to laugh. In his dreams he had thought the flickering lights were the house ablaze.

I wish I had never called him Mr. Gadget. Actually my words were, "You're the gadgetinest man I ever met. " It was like TEN years ago, when he got the remote control ceiling fan for the front porch, which btw I love. Very convenient.

I will never live those words down.

Halloween in the Neighborhood

Halloween night afforded us perfect weather. Cool, not too cool, and clear. At 4:00 it was 65 degrees and by 7:00 it was 45.

Our neighborhood holds an annual Halloween parade with costume contests, pumpkin contest, police car, hot dog vendor, face painting and photographs. The kids dress up, some adults dress up, heck -- even some dogs dress up. This year a family brought their pony!! We also have a float contest, meaning, kids can decorate their wagons, bikes, sister's stroller, and these are judged as well.
Here are two of the costume winners. Our little gf with the umbrella won the prize in the middle school category. In case you can't tell, she was a jellyfish.











We took third place this year with our pumpkins. I am proud to be one of the last holdouts who still carves by hand, without a purchased stencil. We tied for third with our NDN's, who, btw, did use stencils. I used a linoleum cutter to give my large punkin spectacles, large round ones, and I gave our smaller punkin curly hair and eyelashes, also using the lino cutter. Unfortunately we forgot to take pics of the punkins before discarding them on Wednesday. The mayor and a councilman drove through the neighborhood on Monday, the night before Halloween, and picked their winners, and then made a brief appearance at the parade to announce the winners.

Little One had her BGFs over for a Halloween get-together before and after the parade and trick-or-treating. I believe 6 girls came in addition to LO. This was the first time ever she chose to be something scary, also the first time she wore a purchased costume. I have always sewn them in the past: last year she was Pocahantas, the year prior, Laura Ingalls, the year prior, Queen Isabella. She has been a jester in teal and purple lame', Glenda the Good Witch of the North, a pumpkin, and her first costume ever was the infamous Cow Costume, made of spotted flannel, with feet and a pink tummy. (Used it for jammies afterward.)

The girls arrived at 4pm and we had hotdogs here at the house before heading up the street at 5. After the festivities, the girls trick-or-treated the entire neighborhood, all 24 blocks, then returned back to the house at 7:50. Moms were due to pick them up at 8:30 so they spent the last half hour or so, trading their take. It was great to hear them: "I've got Snickers up for offer: I don't like Snickers." "Ooh, I love Snickers! I'll give you 2 Tootsie Pops for a Snickers..." and on it went.

Here are more pics:

What IS it?

Years ago, I ~very unwisely~ kiddingly called DH Mr. Gadget. I believe this may have even been before I realized he is Mr. Sensitive. Boy, have I paid for it ever since. Every time I find some cool gadget, he reminds me that I called him Mr. Gadget.

This thing is so cool. Fortunately it only cost $3.59. Most of the gadgets I fall in love with (read IPod here) cost way, way more.

So, what is it?












Bing! Bing! Bing! You are absolutely correct. It's a bias tape maker. To make your own color-coordinated bias tape, you have to cut the fabric on the 45, stitch all the pieces together at right angles, and then fold over 1/4" sides to the middle and iron the thing.

I'm quite sure all of you have done this before, and so you are aware that the heat from the iron sort of channels through the folded fabric, scalding your fingers as you feebly hold the sides down to iron them down.

This gadget folds and holds for you and you just chase it down the flat tape with the iron. Out behind the iron, voila (or walla as some are spelling it now--) is the folded, pressed, bias tape. My DDIL2 told me about this amazing gadget a couple years ago. I'm slow, but I do catch on.







Here are the yards of bias tape I made in about 10 minutes. The ironing part, that is. The measuring, cutting, sewing at right angles, and trimming took an hour or so. Ppl don't seem to understand for a very few of us, this is actually FUN.

Zzzzz

The past 2 weeks have really been frenetic for me. I have been in the position of attending one meeting only to have to rush out and run to the next meeting. I believe this has been exacerbated by my recent work at the computer place for kids. They want to hire me; don't have the money; are trying to raise the money to hire me; so I am donating some time there as an incentive for them to make it happen. I am only technically involved with two organizations, church and PTA, but serve on several committees at each, and have been running like a madwoman. The Smalltown Zoning Board of Appeals, where I also serve, has not met lately.
Neighborhood Association met last week, which also took some planning, but following that meeting, we had our annual election of officers, and the very capable vice-president was elected president. I truly enjoyed the 2 years of serving as president, but I was ready to step down and thankful he was willing to take it on. He will do a fine job. In fact, he has organized an investment group that met last night to discuss buying some of the slummy houses on the edge of our n'hood, improving them, and renting to families rather than crack dealers, who has them now. I can't wait to hear how the meeting went.

Little One's first band concert was Monday night. She had a solo and several of her friends did, too. Her dearest and oldest gf sits in first chair and LO told DH, "No offense to my friend, but I'm TAKING that first chair." Good for her. Go for it. The concert was great -- the eight graders sounded better than ANY high school band I've ever heard -- and the others said the sixth graders sounded better than sixth graders usually sound at this point in the year. Having only had band class for 8 weeks, with many of the kids never have learned notes before, it's got to be a challenge to have them ready for any concert.

She swims in a meet next weekend; there is one this weekend but she is attending a regional Student Council Conference instead. She was selected as the 6th grade representative based on her outgoing and friendly nature. The day she got the information, she got into the car and breathlessly told me all about it. "I don't know a soul!! I can't wait to go!" she said. She's pretty amazing.

Today my calendar is CLEAR so I am thankfully cleaning house. DH even offered to drive LO to school this morning, so I am luxuriating in the pleasure of being HOME. Time to go fire up the vacuum......

Bobcats Game

I haven't blogged in a while -- life here has been quite busy.

On Monday, LO got a free day off school! Her name was "in the hat" for making good grades on her tests on library books -- and the school drew 75 names to go to an exhibition NBA game in Charlotte, Bobcats v. Washington Wizards.

Meanwhile, the school called and asked if I would chaperone.

We arrived at school bright and early Monday morning and clambered onto buses. What would normally take about 50 minutes, somehow took over 1.5 hours. I guess it was the combination of a school bus' slower speed, plus idling in line with a bunch of other schoolbuses as we neared the new arena.

We parked about 4 blocks away from the arena and filed in with other middle schoolers from all over this side of the state. Police were at every intersection, stopping traffic for us. Door people greeted us and scanned the adults' handbags (kids were not allowed to take anything inside). The order and organization were amazing.

Once we were all seated, they passed out "Lunchables" to all the children. Fortunately, our seats were pretty low, at an end of the court. Seats were packed, all the way to the nosebleed section. Yet, there was not a bad seat in the house due to the giant screen TV with 4 sides, hanging over the center of the court. As good as our seats were, sometimes it was clearer to see the play on the huge screen. This felt pretty silly to choose to look at TV rather than the live action right in front of us!

Each student was given a little tote bag with a program and puzzles inside. Occasionally, the announcer would hold quizzes on the info and students got to compete for prizes.

Between periods, the mascots came out and did funny stunts. The cheerleaders were lovely and scantily clad. I was not sitting near LO but I could imagine her saying what she usually says: "Their clothing is unappropriate." Sometimes I repeat after her, "Inappropriate," and she just says, "Whatever," and next time says the same thing: "Unappropriate." My thought: whatever.

As students needed RR breaks, we accompanied them for safety. The bb game was punctuated by handouts and prizes for the students. What a treat, all for reading your library books and answering questions correctly!!

At the end of the game, we trooped back to the buses and rode to a mall that lies about halfway between Charlotte and our small town. Each chaperone was assigned 8 to 10 students to shepherd to the food court for another lunch, and brief shopping. We had just over an hour before we had to head back to school for dismissal.

My group of kids were well-behaved, well, all the kids, all day, were well-behaved. I am pretty sure we did not have an incident all day long. It was a pleasure to go and help. Amazingly, we arrived back at the middle school with all the kids on board -- and in time for them to catch the bus back home.

The Bobcats' program was amazing. What an incentive for the kids!

Our Cats

DH built a deck onto our shed this week and was taking pics of it when he decided to snap one of our DC2, Daniel. I try not to share realactual names on the blog, but after all, he is (just) a cat. Just don't tell him.

Daniel came to live with us 3 years ago. He was so tiny and afraid. He found an antique lowboy here in the house and climbed up through the bottom into the bottom drawer. We could not find him for a day or two -- were panicstricken -- when DH unearthed him.

Nowadays he is neither tiny nor afraid. He owns this end of the block and our house inside as well. At a hefty 12.5 pounds, he outweighs our DD Tucker.

Daniel and Tucker are best of friends. At night when I take Tuck out for her last peeps of the evening, Dan is waiting inside the door for our return. As Tucker walks in, Daniel rubs noses with her and off they go to play.

In the winter when we have a fire going in the fireplace, the two can be found sacked out in front of it, sleeping like spoons.

Dear old Francie has been with us about 22 years -- no one is quite sure, but DS2 brought her home when he was 8 or 9 and he turns 30 in a week. The pic is not very clear as Little One had the hiccups when I asked her to take a picture of her!

This is where Francie comes 2 or 3 times a day when she needs a little drink. She used to drink out of the sink with the water running, but now it's a little too hard on her back or something, so we fill a disposable cup for her and she takes her drink. She likes her water fresh and has never partaken of "pet water" standing in a bowl near the food bowls.

We have many, many stories about Francie and I may share some soon. Her health seems quite good, although she has definitely gotten a little crotchety in her old age. She likes to sleep with us, and in the old days she slept near the foot of the bed. As she has aged, she has crept up so that now she wants to sleep near my chest and shoulders. When I pick her up to move her to the foot of the bed, she loudly protests and sometimes gets so perturbed she leaves altogether and goes to see if LO will let her sleep where she wants, on her bed.

She weighs less than 6 pounds and when you rub her back, you can feel each individual backbone. She has been blind since the day we got her, or at least visually impaired, we're not sure as she can't read the eye chart, and nowadays she surely seems to be deaf as well. She used to run from the vacuum cleaner and now she doesn't even know when it's running.

She used to leap to the sink from floor level, but now heaves herself up to the tub and then with her front paws on the sink, pulls herself up from the tub. Likewise, she used to jump onto the bed, but now climbs onto the footboard and scrambles up the quilt from there.

I said above that ol'Dan is king of this end of the block and the house as well. He may be king, but Francie is Empress of this house, and Dan really respects her loud opinions when they are in the same vicinity.

Francie's days are surely numbered, but hey, I've been saying that for about 10 years now, so who knows? Maybe she'll outlive us all.