We’re all good. No major catastrophes that I can think of. No car
accidents, no illness, no water main breaks or forest fires. Hahaha.
Sarah is busy at work, three 13-hour shifts per week, and is
liking her nursing classes a lot. She has simulation lab every Thursday,
with super high-tech mannequins that have heartbeats and breathe and
bleed. They practice IVs and catheters and stuff on them. She has a
lecture class every Friday. Both of those go from 8-5. Then,
periodically on Wednesday, she has ‘clinicals’ where she shadows a nurse for
the day in a different type of facility, depending on what they’re studying at
the time. Last time and tomorrow are at a nursing home. She
really likes that. Comes home with all kinds of funny, sad, and
interesting stories. She has a new horse to ride (not to own) at the barn named
Canella (sp?). He's huge, especially next to that tiny girl, but is a gentle
giant and aims to please.
Brian hates his job but loves his paycheck. A few months ago
he took a series of classes to get certified as a swim instructor, so he may
try to do more of that. He loves his film class, likes math (“because he
wants to know how to do it”), and isn’t too excited about history or English
(“because he already knows it”). He’s doing really well, so that’s
good. Can’t figure out how to get him to quit leaving his homework until
the night before. Then he’s asking me at 10:00 at night, when I’m ready for bed
and wiped out, to help him figure out how to multiply and reduce a mixed
fraction with two variables. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Funny kid. A few weeks ago we went to a local
theater for a marathon movie night, watching all three Back to the Future
movies in a row. I guess 10/21/15 was the day the character travelled
‘back to the future”. Man were our butts sore! Hahaha.
Mom and Dad are doing well. Brian and I took mom to dinner and to see ‘The Intern’ with Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway for her birthday. It was really cute. I would recommend it. She could really relate (and so could I!) to being “older” in the workforce and trying to keep up with these young whippersnappers. Dad and I had a lot of fun
on our date to the art show. He tired quickly, and we only got
through 3 of the 7 very crowded floors. I bet there were 1,000+
people there. Many of the artists were with their work to talk to
fans and potential customers, but you could hardly get to them through the
crowds. He still enjoyed it, and seemed to get a little second wind
recognizing, in his words, how good he was and what a great life he has had.
A funny thing happened before Halloween. We went to the
pumpkin patch – probably the last time my kids will want to go, mind you – took
forever to pick out the perfect pumpkins, did the apple grenades, took pictures
of them in the hay maze (it was like 8” tall), saw the tiny piglets at the
petting zoo, and then went into the little farm market to pay. When we came
out, someone had taken our wheelbarrow full of pumpkins! AHHHH! We
were so sad! I’ve got to stop after work now and get new ones.
Drat. They were so lovingly selected. The sad thing is, whoever took it,
ended up with the wrong ones, too! I hope they didn’t have a little one
who was so sad that their special pumpkin wasn’t in the bunch.
We put out a ‘teal pumpkin’. Have you heard of that? You put one up
outside (a real one or a photo) if you have a non-food option for kids with
allergies. There’s a kid in our neighborhood who does, and his mom has
asked people to participate. I got glow-stuff – necklaces, bracelets,
sabers, butterfly wands. It was cute. There were quite a few kids
who opted for the non-food option.
John Thomas’ service was very nice. We all drove out
Wednesday after Sarah got done with her clinicals, staying ½ way and arriving around 1 p.m. on Thursday. It’s always good to see the family. It was heart
wrenching, though. Shannon had a lovely memorial with photo boards and lots of
his favorite things, along with all the flowers and cards from
well-wishers. There was a great board with all of the stuff from
when they adopted him. We cried a lot and drank too much. Sarah
flew home Friday morning to get to school, and Dave, Brian and I drove home
Saturday. All in all, it worked out okay.
One of Sarah’s friend’s, Kesler, stayed at the house for us and watched the dogs. That was a relief, and much cheaper than a kennel.
It’s sooooooo quiet at work. I don’t know if I told you (I think I
did??) that my responsibilities were changed after I got back from my surgery
leave, and I lost a lot of the really fun things I did – teaching the classes,
leading the administrative support team, overseeing our peer mentoring program.
So, I’ve been relegated to being a task-doer, having to wait until my boss
hands me the next thing to do. Nothing of my own to handle. Plus
I’m being heavily scrutinized about overtime, punching in and out, and tracking
whether or not I get stuff done on time. It’s pretty much like fifth
grade. I know. First-world problem. I am truly grateful to have a job, and it is a great company to work for. It sucks that I’m so slow that I could just about fall asleep at
my desk most of the time, but it’s low stress and fairly temporary. Now
that school is ramping up as I get closer to graduation, it’s not so bad having
less stress at work. But, alas, that makes me sit here thinking of everything I
could be doing if I weren’t sitting here! I just started my new
term. While I was on a “term break”, meaning I was done with my
classes for the last term but my new one hadn’t started yet, I worked on
getting assignments ready to turn in when the new term started, which I have
been doing this week. I’ve passed off 6 of my 12 credits in 5
days. J I’ve also finished a bunch of prep work for my
student teaching – background check, fingerprints, photo “student-teacher” ID,
licensure testing, liability insurance, etc. Besides the assignments this
term, I’ll be conducting 60 observation hours in a classroom. I’ll
split it into four-hour chunks, and split the time between three local elementary
schools. My first one is tomorrow. I can’t believe I’ll be in
a classroom student teaching in 10 months! Of course, that’s just
temporary, 12 weeks, but it’s still exciting. Then I’ll have a really
good idea of whether I want to be in a classroom, or if I want to do corporate
training or something like that.
I was listening to ‘The Testament’ by John Grisham during my
commute. Couldn’t get into the narrator’s voice. It does seems like it
would be a good one to read, though. Very interesting premise about a rich old
man who writes a last-minute will just before he jumps off a balcony, leaving
all of his $11 billion fortune to an unknown child from a long-ago affair who
is a missionary in a remote village in Africa. I just finished ‘The Longest
Ride’ by Nicholas Sparks, which I LOVED. It switched between a college
senior girl and a 91-year old man. There was a delicious twist at the
end. I highly recommend it. Now I’ve just begun listening
to ‘The Girl on the Train.’ One disc in and I’m hooked.
And, I'll close with this:
"It's not a homeless life for me, it's just I'm
home less than I'd like to be." ~ Ed Sheeran