I've Been Tagged

It's a Meme, an online game of tag. Answer the questions, tag someone else, that is how the game is played. LivingbyLearning was kind enough to tag me, so here goes.

Here are the questions and they pertain to the past week:

1. What did you accomplish?
2. Did anything not go as expected?
3. What was the highlight of your week?
4. Did anything exciting happen you did not expect?

1. What did you accomplish?

I accomplished NaNo, National Novel Writing Month. Wrote 50+K words. Major accomplishment!

2. Did anything not go as expected?

My van is STILL not running right. I took it back to the shop again this morning after picking it up Saturday afternoon. Check engine light keeps coming on, even when the shop says they have "repaired" the problem. First time they repaired a vacuum hose. Second time they replaced a sensor of some sort. Let's see what they come up with for the third time around!

3. What was the highlight of your week?

Completing NaNo! Definitely the highlight.

4. Did anything exciting happen you did not expect?

My daughter told me about their plans for the coming year. That was exciting and totally unexpected. I am not sure that her plans are quite set yet, so I will not post them here yet.

I am tagging:

1. Molly at Dark Oak Woman
2. Amy at Living, Learn, Knit
3. Teri at Martinis, Motherhood and Mayhem
4. Sam at Bunchberry Cottage
5. Diane at Popcorn and Sushi

Tut's Message

How does Tut know the correct message to send me? I received this one Tuesday morning and it pretty aptly summed up how I felt that morning.

Remember long, long ago, when you were considering living the "Potential Adventures of Karen Gibson," among an infinite array of other choices, how you suddenly turned to me and asked deadpan, "How much trouble could I get into, anyway?"

Do you?

Do you remember my reply, Karen?

I told you it would depend on a good number of factors, not the least of which would include climate change, geological pressures, celestial weather patterns, the star you're born under, political friction on the street, worthiness, luck, fate, or the mood I'm in.

At which point we both burst out laughing so hard we almost needed stitches.

Like a hyena,
The Universe

From www.tut.com

Day Twelve

I did not write quite as much yesterday. I only managed 4235 words, which brought my total to 44,934. So I still have a little better than 5K to write sometime today and/or tomorrow. The biggest problem is that my story is done. I wrote the Epilogue. Even wrote The End at the end. I have no more to add to it. Some suggestions given to me by fellow NaNo'ers is to write a prologue, have my character write some emails to her children and include them the story line somewhere, maybe even write my Christmas Letter from the viewpoint of the MC (Main Character). I am not sure what I will write. At this point I am tired of the story, tired of the whole thing. Maybe that is because I still am not feeling 100% healthy. Which leads me to the next paragraph …

This post could have just as easily been titled "It's Your Sinuses, Stupid!" Yeah, I know I said earlier in the week that I did not think my vertigo was related to sinuses, but now I think I was wrong. By yesterday afternoon my head was hurting and there was that telltale pressure behind the eyes. When I finally fell to around five in the afternoon that my head was hurting due to sinuses, I broke down and took a sinus tablet. Today the head is better, although the dizzy still feels there a little bit, mainly when I am sitting motionless. Very odd.

Plus, my eyes are tired from my marathon days on the laptop Monday and Tuesday. And now I am tired from sitting at the car dealership all morning, waiting for them to diagnose why my check engine light is on when they supposedly fixed it last week. It did not take even a day for the light to come back on last week after they "fixed" the problem. After sitting there all morning, they found the problem (under warranty, thank goodness), but it will take most of the afternoon to fix. So they gave me a ride home and when the problem is fixed, they will send their shuttle van back out to pick me up. Ugh. Making chit chat with the van driver all the way back in to the dealership again, oh goody. Have I ever publicly stated here how much I hate making chit chat, social pleasantries, with someone I do not know? Well, I do. Hate it, that is.

So I am home, catching up my blog and trying to figure out what I shall write to use up 5+K more words! Tomorrow is the last possible day to finish. Check back and see if I make it!

Oh! And a shout out to my friend Lisa … hey knitbits! Happy Birthday!!! And yes, she's a knitter. Whatever gave that away?

NaNo Eve

This may be Halloween for most people, but for over 100,000 crazy souls, it is NaNo Eve. The night before NaNo begins. Am I ready? No way! We somehow acquired a Miss Munchkin on Saturday afternoon for an extended stay. She went home this morning. So I am exhausted from lack of sleep (she does not sleep through the night when she stays at Grandma's), shell-shocked from her continual (and improving) efforts at talking, and hurting from being pummeled by a 20 month-old toddler climbing all over, up and around me. Somehow, until I saw the announcement in my e-mail box this morning, I had forgotten that November 1st was just around the corner. I mean, I had almost a whole week right before Miss Munchkin arrived … but time seems to have slipped away.

One good thing about time slipping away is that I have not spent hours and hours contemplating my plot and characters. In fact, I have the barest of outlines and only a slim idea of my main character. Last year I had so much planned ahead that I felt burnt out by the whole thing before I even began writing. We will see whether not knowing everything in advance (or thinking I know everything) will work better.

Another good thing is that Penelope is home! She was home again for a couple of days last week, but then her check engine light came on, so she had to go back to the shop. But it was just a vacuum hose or some such thing easily taken care of, so she is back home today. That means that David can take himself to class and I no longer have to drive people everywhere. More time for writing!

The goal for NaNo is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. That breaks down to 1,666 words per day. And since I already know of a few days here and there where I will not be able to do any writing, I figure I need to do at least 2000 words per day, and it would be way better to do 2500 words per day. Wish me luck! I'll try to keep my count updated here, but if you don't hear from me for a few days, hopefully it is because I am busy writing the Great American Novel!

Penelope's Home, For The Moment

Today's entry will be a short one, as it is race day! The NEXTEL Cup night race at Charlotte. It should be exciting! Hopefully Jeff (Gordon) will do well and keep his points lead. Only five more races in the Chase after tonight's race! I have enjoyed this race season … it's the first where I've been able to watch all the races on television (the perks of cable!).

We picked up Penelope yesterday. After a month of driving the Neon, driving Penelope sure does feel odd. It's hard to decide whether what I'm feeling in the steering is simply the difference between the Neon and the Town & Country or if it is something more. But definitely Penelope is not feeling 100% well. She makes this very disturbing moaning sound when you turn the wheels either right or left while driving. And she badly needs a front-end alignment.

So Monday I will have to make an appointment with the Chrysler dealership so they can check her out and verify that the noise was not present before the accident. Then the insurance company will approve whatever further repairs are needed. Or so they say. We shall see!

Penelope Update

Penelope is still at the shop and we do not have a clue when she'll be done. Her bodywork was finished last week, but there was a noise the shop couldn't pinpoint. She went to another shop and had her front end aligned, but that didn't end the noise. Now the diagnosis seems to be a new steering box, but since that is over a certain dollar amount, the shop has to go back to the insurance company for approval of additional expenditures. So there Penelope sits, waiting for approval. And here I don't sit, because while we're down to one vehicle I get to be the chauffeur, driving Bill to work, driving David to college, picking them up, taking people here and there to appointments, etc. David has taken the bus a few times to college, but for an 11:15 class he has to leave here at 9:30, and it only takes 20 minutes to drive there. So most days I drive him there.

There is an upside to all this driving, though; listening to the local NPR radio station. For some reason I do not remember to turn the radio on at home, preferring to listen to Folk Alley. I get more accomplished at home when I listen to music. But I love NPR for all the great interviews, book reviews and talk shows they offer daily and it's great company in the car.

Of course, there is also a downside to NPR; it spurs on my reading habit. After listening to interviews of authors who have new books coming out and listening to book reviews, I now have more books that I want to read. I have to keep a pad of paper handy in the car so I can jot down author names and book titles of those that sound really interesting. And when I get home, I head to PaperbackSwap to see if I can acquire a copy. If reading is my habit of choice, PaperbackSwap is my enabler. Most of the books I have read this past year have come from PaperbackSwap, and when I am done with them, I relist them and swap them back for more! If you like to read, check out PaperbackSwap. And if you decide to join, I would greatly appreciate it if you would use my email address ( wdkmg@pipeline.com ) as your "sponsor." That will gain me a book credit! Thanks!

NPR and PaperbackSwap are the reasons for no blog post yesterday. I was engrossed in The Dive From Clausen's Pier by Ann Packer, an author I listened to a couple of weeks ago on NPR. But more about that tomorrow, when I post my review!

A Note from the Universe

Daily I receive my own personal "Note from the Universe" email and today's was so good I wanted to share:

Actually, Karen, it's not that you want stuff that you don't have, but that you want stuff that you think you don't have.

And the best way to change this is to begin thinking that you have it.

"Oh, there's my electric, fully loaded, 2008 Habitron cloud maker!!" -
The Universe

To subscribe to your own personal note from the universe, visit www.tut.com.

Our Morning Walk

I have never been a morning person. You would think that after forty-eight years of practice, the whole morning thing would be easier, but it's not. I really do not have anything against morning per se, it just would be so much more enjoyable if it would come later in the day! We could begin the day with afternoon (or even midday) and maybe then I would wake up with energy and the ability to speak in more than monosyllables. My husband says that will never happen, the waking up with energy and speaking coherently part. At least he has slowly learned not to ask me questions in the morning or tell me anything important and expect me to remember the conversations. Instead, he waits an hour or so and then e-mails me from work.

In the past, mornings have meant that I get up while Bill shaved, made my way to the kitchen, cooked his egg, packed whatever food he was taking with him that day, and gave him a kiss as he headed out the door to work. And then I would lock the door, turn the kitchen light back off and crawl back in to bed. I might just lay there, listening to the news, dozing off and on for half an hour or so and then get back up and head for the shower. Or I might have actually fallen back to sleep for an hour and then woke up feeling refreshed and ready to go. That extra hour of sleep always seemed to help bring coherent thought to my brain.

That was the routine most mornings, until we moved here to Tallahassee. Here we live in an apartment and cannot just open the door and let our dog go out to the yard. Instead, the dog needs walking in the morning. Ugh. Even though a boy walked her just a few hours earlier, she seems to think she needs a walk at 7 a.m. And since I don't really want to clean up any dog messes inside, it's up to me to walk her. So, I do all the same routine, except now when Bill goes out the door, Penny (the dog) and I go with him, walk him to his car, and then continue on our morning constitutional.

Now if Penny could just get her business done in the first five minutes, I could easily find my way back into bed. But no, that does not seem possible. Instead, we walk and we walk some more, all while she sniffs here and there. I am never quite sure if she is still sniffing the armadillo she tried to chase the night before, or sniffing where other dogs have been, or just trying to find THE spot that suits her to get her business done. But by the time she finds that spot, I am noticing the freshness of the air, the blueness of the sky, the flower I didn't see yesterday. In short, I am waking up. Oh no!

This week, since the vet said that Penny needs to lose at least ten pounds (and we won't talk about how many I need to lose), I have been taking Penny on a longer walk in the mornings. Instead of turning around and heading back to the apartment when she is done with her business, we continue on our walk. We head down to the pond to see if the alligator (or is it a crocodile) is visible in the water. We walk up the steps by the pond, admiring the blooms on the crepe myrtle. We walk around by the pool to see if anyone is there this early in the morning (not usually). And eventually, after about twenty minutes or so, we make our way back home. Penny is ready for her breakfast and I am ready to begin my day. It is really quite pleasant, our morning walk, if only it didn't come so early in the day!

The pond and one of the buildings in our apartment complex.

One of the weeping willows around the pond.

Part of the pathway around the pond. There are always cobwebs across the stairs in the mornings when I go up them!

The fountain comes on about 7:45 a.m. and is on till very late in the evening. It's very lit up at night and makes for a very peaceful and relaxing walk.

Mr. Alligator. Charles had told me there was one in the pond, but I had not seen him until my early morning walks this week. The pond area is fenced in, so he should not pose a danger to anyone.

A close-up of the crepe myrtle near the steps coming from the pond area.

One of the very large trees that grow between our building and the main road. This is the view from the stairs next to our door.

Cosmic Joke?

Bill's last day of employment at his previous employer was May 15th. We finally received the COBRA package today, July 11th. The very same day we received our new health insurance cards and plan information from his new employer. Good timing, eh? I guess we don't need to worry about the COBRA coverage after all! Now I can spend more time figuring out how to deal with the 401k funds! Will the paperwork that goes along with a move and job change never end? Tomorrow David and I have appointments to get our new Florida driver's license. Yup, that is what I said, appointments. Made online! I wonder if that will speed up the process any at the office? I'll report back tomorrow on that.

Twenty-eight Years!

Hard to believe that twenty-eight years ago today we were in the midst of our wedding celebrations. It was a day much like today, blue sky, fluffy white clouds, although not quite as hot, thank goodness! It was a perfect July New York summer day. I wish I had a picture to post of our wedding day, but they are all still packed away.

How are we celebrating today, you ask? Well, so far we have watched a race (the rain-delayed Busch race) and walked the dog a couple of times, Bill has worked on a computer and I have done several loads of laundry … it's an exciting life we lead! And since the Daytona race events begin around 5 p.m., I doubt we will even go out to dinner today. Maybe we will do something more exciting tomorrow, if Bill gets done with the computer he's working on!

Smoke Alarm Test

Charles decided to test the smoke alarm system in our apartment last night. Not intentionally, mind you, but the end result was the same. They work very well. Guaranteed to wake you up from a dead sleep at 1:45 a.m. I promise!

It would seem that cooking hot dogs directly on the burners of an electric stove causes a lot of smoke! Can you imagine? Bill was dumbfounded that anyone would even try! But Charles assured us that you can cook them on the burners of a gas stove! Oh my. I think that maybe we need to invest in a small, electric hot dog grill!

Driver's Edge Review

Here is David's description of his participation in the Driver's Edge program last Saturday:

So, Saturday I got to attend Drivers Edge in Atlanta. If you're not familiar with it, Drivers Edge is a non-profit driver's education program based in Las Vegas that travels around the country, run by professional race car drivers. It holds that in America today, people are not truly taught how to drive, but merely how to pass the driver's license test, and it therefore seeks to teach new drivers the skills needed to actually drive safely.

All the participants were given a short test on their knowledge of driving and car care in general, and then we were divided up into four groups, to move through the four different portions of the program. I first attended a talk given by a local police officer on traffic laws and safety, and his personal advice. It was mildly interesting, but the highlight was one of the fathers asking the officer if he should teach his daughter to obey the speed limit or follow the flow of traffic. I'm sure you can guess what the answer was.

Then we moved on to the oversteer portion, where I got to drive a very nice BMW vehicle through a wet portion of the parking lot and learn what it feels like to spin out a car, and how to prevent it. That was fun, and the cars were air-conditioned, which, considering the 95 degree heat, was quite nice. The primary lesson here is to look where you want to go, not at what you want to avoid. After that we moved on to the driving posture, safety, and car care lecture/comedy act. The speaker did an excellent job of making a somewhat dull subject more interesting, and taught me to Wash BOATS.

Finally it was back to the cars for the braking and avoidance course. The idea here was to experience what ABS feels like when it activates, and it does kick a bit. The second portion was a small jink in the track meant to simulate a rapid lane change on a highway. I got a bit of a lecture here on proper steering, and how to keep a firm grip on the wheel at all times.

Finally, there was a post-test to be compared to the pre-test, and some awards were handed out. I got one for scoring in the top two of the group on the pre-test, and there were awards for the driving portions for best driver and most improved. Then they handed out various, free, merchandise, and certificates of completion, and then we were done.

Since taking the course, I've done a bit of driving, and have noticed myself paying more attention to the road, particularly farther ahead, and keeping a better grip on the steering wheel. Overall, I'd say it was a worthwhile experience, though the day and a half on the road there and back might have been a bit much.

Life Is Good

Fresh sweet corn that tastes like actual corn. Tomatoes that smell and taste like tomatoes. And an afternoon walk on the beach. What more could one desire?!

The Universe speaking …

Today's quote from www.tut.com

Actually, there's really no such thing as "maybe," Karen.

There's just indecision.

Peace out-
The Universe

Technology and Rain Delays

Today is the first NASCAR race broadcast of the season that we have not been able to watch on TV, since we do not have cable ... yet! Cable is scheduled to be hooked up tomorrow! In the meantime, we signed up for a 14-day trial version of NASCAR.com's RaceTrack so that we can watch the race live on the computer. And Bill has hooked the computer's display into our 42-inch television and the sound into our stereo. All so that we can watch a live-web cam of the pit as the cars sit covered, waiting out the rain. Such excitement! Hopefully, though, the race will begin sometime today and then we can watch it through streaming video.

Yesterday we got more things settled around the apartment. I discovered there are some hooks outside on the screened-in balcony, so I can hang a couple of my plants. I am going to have to find some outdoor plant stands, as I really only have room for a few plants indoors. And I'm more than a bit worried about how the cat (and Miss Munchkin) are going to deal with the three plant stands that I have for inside.

We moved my computer around a bit in the bedroom to ease up the bottleneck. I can now sit at my desk and still have room for someone to walk past me to the bed! And today I unpacked the bathroom boxes. That leaves just my office stuff (three boxes) to settle and Bill's computer corner in the dining room. We need some shelves for there, I think, or a desk with shelves above it. And a couple of more small bookcases to hold the books I brought. Really, small ones will work as I only brought a few books! Honest! Some to sell on e-bay, some to use this last year of homeschooling, and some I just wanted to read. But right now they are all in boxes in the hallway closet and it will be a lot easier to use them if we can actually see them!

All in all, we're getting quite settled in here and adjusting nicely!

Am I Home Yet?

I know I have not made an entry here in over a month, but I've been busy! It sure would be nice to be able to stay at home for a few days and begin to settle in here in Tallahassee. Here is a brief recount of the past couple of months:

April 5th - Drove to Evansville to pick David up for Easter weekend.

April 9th - Drove back to Evansville to take David back to college.

April 11th - Drove to Tallahassee, Florida

April 12th - Bill's job interview in Tallahassee

April 13th - Drove to Jacksonville and St. Augustine, Florida

April 14th - Home again to north Alabama

April 18th - Bill received the job offer, but had to wait for all forms to be processed before giving notice.

April 19th - Bill accepted the job offer in Tallahassee.

April 30th - I drove to Tallahassee, looked at a lot of houses and apartments to rent, settled on one apartment complex and came home on May 3rd.

May 1st - Bill gave two weeks notice at his current job.

May 5th - Drove to Evansville to bring David home for the summer.

May 10th - Son-in-law (Shawn) received a promotion and notice that his new job was in Albany , Georgia.

May 11th - David went to Kat's to help her pack up her apartment.

May 13th - Shawn left for Albany, Georgia, to begin his new job the next day.

May 14th - Kat arrived, with Miss Munchkin and their cat in tow, to stay with us until we go to Tallahassee.

May 15th - Bill's last day at work.

May 17th - Picked up the moving truck.

May 18th - Loaded the moving truck. Discovered that the a/c system on my van was not working properly. Left it at the dealer so they could order the parts and fix it. Picked up a rental van to drive for the duration.

May 19th - Finished loading the truck. Went to the Hobo Dance and stayed up way too late considering how early we had to leave in the morning.

May 20th - Drove to Tallahassee. Shawn arrived in the evening to pick up Kat & Miss Munchkin. We kept their cat.

May 21st - Unloaded the truck.

May 23rd - Bill began his new job.

May 25th - I drove back to north AL to return the rental van and pick up my van. Drove back that same day (arriving in the wee hours of the next morning). Saw my dad, who had just gotten back from vacation, a vacation he cut short because he wasn't feeling well.

May 26th - Drove to Albany, Georgia to pick up Kat and Miss Munchkin. Life in a motel was not working out so well with a fifteen-month-old!

May 27th - Received a phone call from my dad that he had had a heart attack and was in the hospital, scheduled for a catheterization on Monday and possible installation of a stint.

May 28th - They were unable to do the stint on my dad as he had too many blockages. By-pass surgery was scheduled for Wednesday.

May 29th - Drove to north Alabama to see my dad before his surgery.

May 30th - Dad's surgery.

May 31st - Dad moved in to a private room less than 24 hours after the completion of his by-pass surgery. They did a triple by-pass. I visited with him there before heading back to Tallahassee; he was doing great.

June 2nd - Took Kat to Albany, Georgia, so she and Shawn could go back to north Alabama to move their stuff. Kept Miss Munchkin with us for a few days. Dad called to tell me he was back home, having been released several days early due to how well he was progressing.

June 5th - Drove to Albany to take Miss Munchkin back to her Mommy and Daddy and also to help unload their truck. A long and exhausting day.

June 6th - Today! Slept late. Have done little to nothing. Hopefully I will have more energy tomorrow. There are still boxes to unpack! And things to do! A new life in Tallahassee to begin!

Catching Up

I can see I should have set a goal for writing daily in April! Goals. Must have goals! And deadlines! All procrastinators work better when there is a deadline looming.

Here are some pics of Miss Munchkin from Easter Sunday. She had fun gathering Easter eggs at my dad's, even though she did not have a clue what was going on. Once she got one egg in each hand, she just grinned and watched all the other kids running about, picking up eggs.

And here's a pic of the handbag I crocheted for Miss Munchkin. I had troubles with the handle and will probably have to redo it, but she seemed to like it.

It's been a busy April. On the 5th I drove to Evansville to bring David home for Easter break. And on the 9th I drove him back. And then on the 11th we (Bill, Charles and I) drove to Tallahassee. Bill had an interview there on the 12th (his birthday!), which we are still waiting to hear the final verdict on. Hopefully we will get word soon.

Friday the 13th we drove to Jacksonville, just to see. There are more job opportunities there, but none of us felt at all comfortable there. It is just too big of a city. Way too many people. Way too much traffic. We drove right on through and headed for St. Augustine, spending Friday night there. On Saturday morning (the 14th) we visited Castillo de San Marcos and walked the beach long enough to get the beginnings of a nice tan. It was lovely. Saturday afternoon we headed back to Tallahassee and then for home, driving through some very nasty storms but arriving safe and sound in the wee hours of Sunday morning. It was very nice to be home. And it was a good thing we came home earlier than planned. Bill had turned off the power strip to my fish tank before we left. I had some very cold, hungry fish in dire need of some oxygen! The tank was down to 62 degrees and most of the fish were just lying on the bottom, slowly fluttering their fins / tails. But I did not see any dead ones. I think they must have been practically hibernating from the cold and lack of oxygen. By Sunday morning they were looking much improved, swimming around the top, waiting for their breakfast!

Dogwood Winter Sucks!

I hate dogwood winter. Just when you think that warm weather is here to stay, old man winter blows his icy breath and we get several days of cold weather. I know you all in the north country are thinking that fifty degrees and a north wind is not cold. It is, though, when it has been in the eighties for two or three weeks. It is not nice to have to turn the heat back on and bring all the plants back inside so they don't freeze.

Yesterday I drove to Evansville and brought David home for a few days. Two days driving (yesterday and Monday) so that he can be home three days. Crazy. But it is nice to have him home, even for that short a time.

I haven't posted here this week because I have been trying to concentrate on writing a couple of articles for my website. Almost done and then I have to convert them to HTML and get them all linked up to the site. I will post here when they are up.

Next Thursday is Bill's birthday and also, coincidentally, the day he is scheduled for a face-to-face interview for a job in Tallahassee. So he is going to use a couple of vacation days and we will spend Thursday through Sunday in Florida. Most of that time will be in Tallahassee, but I think we will try to get in at least one day in Jacksonville. There seem to be many more job possibilities in Jacksonville, so we would like to see the area before we decide whether to submit a resume to any of those opportunities. Hopefully this interview on Thursday will work out and we can get under motion, begin to get out from the limbo of waiting and actually begin moving and living again.

Today was pay day and I should be paying bills instead of updating blogs! Bill paying is always so much fun. NOT! Wouldn't it be a blast if just once there was a huge surplus of funds left over after ALL the bills were paid?! I am sure that is just around the corner for us!

Job Opportunity

Yesterday Bill was offered a job opportunity that really bears some looking at. We spent all day yesterday talking about it and today I am making a list of pros and cons so that we can make an attempt at coming to a decision.

Basically, this is a year-long contract to upgrade and maintain computers and networks of an online gaming business. Everything they need, Bill can do with no problem. And everything that Bill asked about, such as budget control, etc., did not seem to be an issue with the contractor. So the job is very doable.

The pay is excellent. Heck, the pay is beyond excellent. We could pay off all our existing bills, pay David's college tuition for the next three years, and still put away a sizeable chunk into our retirement savings. And living expenses for the full length of the year-long contract are totally covered by the contractor.

Sound too good to be true? That is because the job is in Canada. Not just Canada, but some small Inuit Nation town in north Canada. I mean, really north Canada. So small it does not even appear on any maps that I can find. The recruiter sent us a .pdf map that shows where the town is. I did not realize people lived that far north!

So, here is my list:

Pros

• The salary. It's huge. Five times what Bill normally makes in one year. Since we do not have much of a retirement fund, this money would be really welcome.
• Living in an Inuit village, learn the customs of the natives.
• Charles likes cold weather and wants to learn to ski.
• All living expenses paid for the entire family while living there.
• No cooking for the entire year (they have a communal cafeteria)
• David's college would be paid for, with no outstanding loans when he graduated.

Cons

• A year away from Miss Munchkin, Kat and David. We would not be able to come and go. Once you are there, you are there for the duration.
• We would only be allowed a set weight amount of items to take with us (everything is flown in), so I would have to really plan ahead for books and such. But we would have Internet, so we could read whatever we could find online. And e-books are available from the town's cyber-library.
• The darkness. The job begins July 1 and we would be there until June 30, 2008. The summer months of sunshine are fine. It's the winter months that worry me, as both Bill and I need sunshine. We've been assured they have sunlight-replacement bulbs and such for those people that are affected by lack of sunlight, which is both Bill and I.
• The cold. Both Bill and I have seen enough snow to last a lifetime. But it's a dry snow up there, right? So our joints wouldn't ache so much?

Can anyone else think of any other pros and/or cons? Things we should consider while thinking over this job offer? Anyone have any experience living where it's so cold for long periods of time? And if you really think that we would seriously consider such a thing, you have obviously never heard of april fool's day!

It's Friday

No time for long chatty entries today. Friday morning is always my homeschool chat. From 8 a.m. (CT) to whenever, often until afternoon.

http://www.leapingfromthebox.com/hs/chat.html

But today I will have to leave early, as we (Charles and I) are driving to Birmingham to visit friends for the afternoon. And then we have to leave by 4 so that I can get home in time to get ready for dancing. Friday night is always square dancing night.

http://www.brindleemountainsquares.com

So a hectic day! But fun.

Technology, Love it or Hate it?

Charles got an iPod for his birthday Tuesday. He had an mp3 player already, but it was about wore out and he had requested something bigger and better for his birthday. Of course, bigger and better also means more complicated! Charles does not deal well with most computerized technology. He has a difficult time reading something and translating that into action. If he can see it done, he is fine. But he has inherited my technology-blindness, if you will. I have tried to help him, and we are finally making progress in understanding how to convert his existing songs into the proper format, but man, has it been a struggle. It's like learning a new language, reading some of the technical jargon. I'll read something to myself, then read it aloud to Charles, and the two of us try to decipher what I just read. But, like I said, we are finally making progress.

Now, if you were to show Charles a new karate form, he would get it right away. Or if you were to put him in charge of a class of karate students, he would have no problem with that. The class would continue calmly and smoothly. But show him something that needs tools to work on, like a car, or something with technological jargon and pop-up warnings, like a computer, and he is lost. He has had to learn to deal with more of that, though, this year with David away to college. No more can he just throw his arms up in defeat and cajole his brother into helping him.

And what is Charles doing now? While his iTunes is finally converting all the files the way he has been trying to get it to since late last night? He is out squirrel hunting. I am not sure if he took his blow gun or his bow. I do know the squirrels are not in any danger, though. The cats trailing after Charles will successfully warn away any squirrel silly enough to get within shooting range.

March Update

Well, I have failed at my goal of daily writing for the month of March. I know March still has a few days left, but as regular readers have likely noticed, there is a huge gap in entries, from March 17th to today, March 28th. My excuse? Life. In all it's wonder and glory!

Sunday (the 18th) was race day and also was the beginning of two days of watching Miss Munchkin while her mommy and daddy got all of her belongings moved to their new apartment. They did take Charles with them, but I am not certain it was a fair trade. Charles is pretty quiet these days, sleeping late and not keeping me very busy. Miss Munchkin not only does not sleep late, but she does not take very long naps and she is not quiet when she is awake! She kept me very, very busy those two days.

I did have Tuesday to myself and I do not remember why I didn't write that day, other than possibly I was trying to catch up on every thing I did not get done while Miss Munchkin was here! And then Wednesday morning I got a phone call from my daughter asking if I would come and help clean and paint their house, which consumed the next four days. I know their house was not that clean when they moved in to it! But it does look nice now and hopefully they will be able to sell it quickly.

So that took care of Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Sunday? Race day again, and a resting day as I tried to recover from four days of manual labor. I'm soft, I know! And also hunt the job boards for possible positions in Tallahassee for Bill. That has been my normal Sunday occupation for many months now.

Monday? Tuesday? I do not know where those days went. I was busy, but not too busy to write. So no excuses there. But today I have written twice to (hopefully) make up for lost days. And who knows? Maybe during these last remaining days of March I will be as prolific as I have been today! And be able to create whole entries that say absolutely nothing, as this one does!

Spring Fever

Spring has sprung here in north Alabama. The sun is shining, it's mid-seventies in temperature, the flowers are blooming, and the humidity is still relatively low. All that, combined with Daylight Savings Time, has given me a bad case of spring fever. I do not want to sit and write today. I want to be out digging in the dirt, playing in the leaves, planting something. I know from past experience, though, that if I go out and rake last fall's leaves or whatever other thing might need doing outside right now, my sinuses will flair up and I will be miserable for days. So instead I have expended all this spring fever on house cleaning. Don't panic! I do not mean any real serious house cleaning, just some sweeping and vacuuming and laundry.

If we were not in the middle of these trees, my sinuses would not have such a problem with outside activities. But here, with all the leaves and dampness and lack of any real circulation, we have mold spores and mushrooms and all sorts of lovely things practically year round. It is one reason we have considered clearing out all of the big trees, but could never quite bring ourselves to do so. And one reason I am looking forward to moving to an established yard rather than trying to carve some sort of yard out of a forest.

Another reason I would love to be in an established yard is due to all the poison ivy and poison oak here. For several years I had a nasty outbreak of what, I did not have a clue. But it itched and spread all over my arms and legs. After about the third year I finally discovered it was a poison oak reaction. I had never reacted to poison ivy before, so this was new to me.

Another new item that we discovered our first summer here was chiggers. It seems that chiggers love pine straw, and we certainly have a lot of that here with all these huge pine trees. Chiggers are most lovely. NOT!

So, spring fever I may have, but I will do my best to limit my energy to the indoors and hope that next year we are in a place that is more conducive to outdoors activities.

Spring Break Over

Tomorrow we take David back to college, which means another long day of traveling. It is really an easy trip, with the only really heavy traffic going through Nashville. And even then, we are usually making the trek on either a Saturday or Sunday, so the traffic is not all that bad. But it is still a long drive. And with tomorrow being the beginning of Daylight Savings Time, that means we will lose an hour's sleep tonight. I love Daylight Savings Time and am very happy that it is starting earlier this year and lasting longer, but I hate losing that hour's sleep!

I spent most of today working on creating a list of all the math and science books that I sorted off the shelves on Thursday. All day, but I have only about 1/4 of them on the list. That means a lot more work next week before I am ready to post the list to any group. After I get the list made, then I have to go back through the list, looking up comparable books on e-bay and/or Amazon and see what the used price should be for each one.

This evening we met Kat and Miss Munchkin in Cullman for dinner. Steak! Yummy! Miss Munchkin ate a fair share of my green beans, along with some french fries and a small bit of cheesecake. She definitely prefers to feed herself now, although with only two teeth, you have to really watch what she tries to eat.

It was a nice dinner out, with all three of our children there. But every time the past few months that we have been able to all be together, I cannot help but wonder how long it will be before we are all able to be together again. Life is changing. David in college. Kat with a family. Us looking to move further south. So many changes. And no way of being able to look ahead to know whether they will be good changes or not. No guarantees in this life! Just sight your course and hope for smooth waters and good times ahead.

Time for bed … I am going to have to arise much too early for a Sunday morning!

All Tired Out!

I know I did not write yesterday. I will have to make up for that by writing two entries another day. Miss Munchkin and her family have been visiting for the last 48 hours, from Saturday night just after we arrived home with David until tonight. So yesterday was a busy day with all of our children home. We played on the Wii, watched movies, and were generally entertained by Miss Munchkin. I was so busy that I just plain forgot to write!

Today I have been babysitting, from 7:30 a.m. till 6:15 p.m. I am barely coherent at 7:30 in the morning, let alone capable of taking care of a one-year-old! Miss Munchkin was good most of the time, but she sure is busy and she jabbers almost continually. She took only one nap, which lasting little more than an hour. Grandma is one tired gal tonight!

I have gotten very accustomed to a quiet house, with morning all my own, and just generally not having to think about a wee child every waking and sleeping moment. There is a reason why older women do not conceive as easily as younger women. Little children are just plain exhausting and best left for the young of mind and body to raise. And this particular old body is going to go soak in the tub and go to bed!

Names on the Road

We made the trek to Evansville and back home today to bring David home for Spring Break, a 600-mile round trip. We are getting the trip down pretty good, this time only taking 11.5 hours and that included two gas stops, one meal, picking up David at the college, and four potty stops at rest areas! Boy, am I sore, though. I cannot ride nearly as well for long periods of time as I could in my younger days. I remember a time, not all that long ago, when going non-stop from NY to AL was fun, only 18 hours! Not anymore!

I do like traveling, though. I always have. There is something about hitting the road with a long trip planned that is just very exciting and also relaxing at the same time. One of the things I enjoy most about traveling is seeing all the different place names and trying to figure out why they were given that particular name. Some are named for people, some are Indian names, some are named to remind immigrants of places in their homeland, and some seem to be descriptive names, but it is not always clear which is which. For instance the Elk River in Tennessee. Now I am pretty sure there are no elk in southern Tennessee and that there were no elk there two hundred years ago when the river was named. So did someone think they saw an elk? Or was that someone's last name? Or did Elk just sound similar to what the Indians called that river and so the settlers called it Elk?

Then there is the Cumberland River that runs through Nashville. Why is it called Cumberland and just what is the origin of the word cumberland? I am going to have to look that one up because it has intrigued me all day long.

Clarksville (Tennessee) is an easy one. It was named for General George Rogers Clark, a frontier fighter and Revolutionary War hero. He was also the older brother of William Clark, of Lewis & Clark fame.

Now Paducah (Kentucky) is another one that I will have to look up. I imagine it is an Indian derivation, but I would love to know for sure.

Just a few of the thoughts that absorbed my mind today as we drove the many miles. And best of all, David is now home and we all get to enjoy his company for a week! And then next Sunday make the same trek all over again!

Change

I subscribe to a daily e-mail service from www.tut.com . Today's message was this:

The great thing about change, Karen, is that it absolutely, positively, always means things are going to get even better.

Even when you don't know how.

The Universe

Sounds good to me!

I cleaned out more books yesterday. There are 24 grocery bags full of books to take to the used bookstore at the public library. It was time to get really ruthless about how many books I have versus how many I need and how many I want to pack and move. And those were only from my fiction shelves! The shelves look a lot neater, though. Time to tackle some of the non-fiction shelves again and all those that are stored in the office building. Most of those can go to the library too!

When I finished carrying all those grocery bags to the van, I then tackled the four containers of cassette tapes. Who listens to them anymore? I saved out the comedy ones that would be difficult to replace with CDs and the rest I am going to give away. What's the saying, if you haven't used it in 6 months, you don't need it? Maybe today's the day to tackle my closet again. It seems like I'm on a decluttering roll!

December update

I just checked when I last wrote here and can't believe it was so long ago. Where did December go? It's been a month of ups and downs and not one I'd like to repeat for a long time to come.

Mr. Algae-Eater seems to have recovered nicely. I bought some sort of aloe juice medicine that was supposed to be for sores on fish and added it each day for a week. It seemed to do the trick. He's back to his old self.

We did take a trip to Tallahassee last week and Bill interviewed for a position with a company there. He liked the company, so now we are just waiting to see if they liked him enough to hire him. Or if they thought they needed his experience enough to hire him, as they have a huge mess to clean up. Hopefully we'll hear soon. Bill and I really liked it there. The sunshine, the warmth, the beach, the seafood. It was very nice.

Christmas was a quiet day. Several of us have colds, others have been stressed and working too many hours. So we just watched movies and played with Miss Munchkin and tried to keep the wrapping paper out of her mouth. The best gift seemed to be the Flexible Flyer horse we got her. It didn't take long for her to figure out how she could move to get the horse moving. It is going to be a while, though, before she'll be able to ride it herself.

And I bought her a stocking that had the head of a cat at the top of it. I was going to make her a stocking. I got all of 4 rows done on it. I'll have to finish it next year. But the cat stocking was a big hit. Miss Munchkin loves "fluffies" and all day long she'd carry that stocking around and put her face right down into the cat's face and make her "kitty cat" noise, which is sort of a cross between a meow and a purr and a dinosaur growl. Very cute. That's what she's doing in these pictures, in addition to trying to eat the nose of the cat!

Fish update

Well, Mr. Algae-Eater is not looking very well. Sunday he has what appeared to be open sores on his skin. I bought some stuff to put in the water that is supposed to help. Maybe it is; I don't know. The sores do not look as red, but today his tail does not stick out behind him like normal. It curls and definitely looks shorter, like he has lost some of it. But this afternoon he did scoot around quickly into the weeds when I turned the light on, which was the fastest I had seen him move in several days. Maybe there's hope?

Kat says that Miss Munchkin walked across the kitchen on her own this afternoon and then stood there longer squealing about it. I need to take some more pictures. I haven't taken any since early November and they are still on the camera. Tomorrow she will be 9 months! I'll have to remember to take the camera with us dancing Friday night and get some pictures of Miss Munchkin and I doing Cotton-Eyed Joe.

I talked with David for a short bit today. Today was a "reading / studying" day in preparations for exams, which begin tomorrow. Next Wednesday he will be ready to come home for semester break.

I continue to declutter, cleaning out more books and videos. Some I am selling; many more are just being given away to the public library or being Freecycled (new verb there, like Googling!). I do not want to have to box all these up and move them with me! The more I get rid of now, the less I have to move.

Speaking of moving, it sounds likely that we will have to soon take a trip to Tallahassee, scout the area. Kat & Shawn announced Sunday that it is 90% likely they will be moving to Pensacola by the first of March and that Shawn will be manager of a store there. We had already been looking in that direction, in addition to the Nashville area, but now being further south takes on new meaning. Plus, after the cold weather this week, Bill and I are both looking at each other and saying "and we want to move to Nashville? Further north?"

How Long Can You Go …

… without oxygen and water? If you are an algae-eater, that is? Obviously, quite some time!

This morning, while making Bill's breakfast at about 7:00, I notice that the algae eater (a plecostomus) was not in the fish tank. Or, at least, I could not see him anywhere. I walk around on all sides of the tank to see if he is "hiding" somewhere. It's not like he's easy to hide; he's much too big. Usually he's down in the plastic "weeds" in one corner. But nope, not there! So where is he? All I can figure is maybe something happened to him during the night and Charles took care of the carcass, but really, the likelihood of that happening is pretty slim. Not of something happening to the fish, but of Charles taking care of it!

So, I finish breakfast and then forget about the fish. I know, I know … neglect of fish. So sue me!

I shower, check e-mail and start my regular Friday morning homeschool chat at 8. At 9:00, I suddenly remember about the fish. I mention to my fellow chatters that my fish was missing this morning and that I had better go look for him again. Which I did (go look for him). Nope, still not there! So where is he? I report back to the chat group and they suggest that maybe he jumped out. Well, maybe … So I go back to look around and . Oh my gawd … there it is, on the living room carpet! How did I not step on him earlier? And how long has he been out of the tank? Obviously since before 7!

I go to pick him up with a paper towel, being sure he is dead, but his tail moves when I touch him. He's still alive! So I scoop him up and dump him back in the water, where he promptly sinks to the bottom with a small tail wiggle.

Now I receive all sorts of advice from my fellow chatters. One suggests I go "move him around the water," sort of a fish CPR, I think. Right. Well, okay, so he is a cool fish and it would be nice if he survived. So I go try to hold him and "move" him in the water, but he is not going to have any part of that, quickly moving away when I touch him. Okay, so he it appears that he is healthy enough to move about on his own.

I go and report this back to my chatters, who by this time are rolling on the floor with laughter, thinking of me "moving my fish through the water."

Now I am receiving suggestions of throwing frozen peas into the water and broccoli and hanging a "worm basket" full of kale or something. This is getting complicated! A "worm basket?"

So now my algae eater has three peas in the tank and he is not paying any attention to them.

One helpful suggestion, from someone who had past experiences with jumping algae eaters was to cover the area around the filter so that he can not jump out again. Now that makes sense! Tin foil is now in place.

Upon doing some research online, I have come up with several interesting tidbits of information on algae eaters. First and foremost, that in the wild they can go without water for long periods of time, burrowing down in the mud and extracting oxygen from the air they gulp. They do not have to rely totally upon oxygen through their gills.

Second, it appears that they actually need a lot of movement of water and a large tank. They can grow to be up to a foot long and live ten years or more. Our algae eater is about 8 inches long. I know lately he has not moved around the tank as much as normal and that has concerned me. Possibly, if the tank is not large enough or the current of water is not strong enough, he is not getting enough oxygen?

Third, they often gulp air at the top of the tank, which I have seen them do. They also like to jump out of the water, which I have seen this one do also, although not recently. And obviously his jumping did not make enough of an impression on me to worry about him actually jumping out of the tank, but that possibility was also mentioned online.

Fourth, it would appear that I am not feeding him enough. I thought he would have enough algae in the tank to suit him, but my reading indicates that I should be feeding him daily, or rather, nightly, since he is nocturnal. And that maybe he is not getting enough darkness, as our tank remains lit often from 7 a.m. to around 3 a.m. So I have thrown in a couple of algae wafers into the water, which the guppies are enjoying!

I've just finished relating my fish tale to Charles, and he tells me that that fish was going crazy last night around midnight. Jumping up in the water, splashing water out of the tank, hitting the tank lid with his body. So, maybe he jumped out some time after midnight? That algae eater is darned awful lucky that no cats spent the night inside!

Now that I think about it, I have noticed that, whenever I refill the tank (which is about every 4 weeks), the algae eater acts differently for a few days. About once a month the water level evaporates down far enough that the noise of the water falling from the filter drives us all batty. So I empty out more of the tank, maybe about 1/4 of the water total (it is a 30 gallon tank) and then refill till it's full. I would think the new water would have more oxygen in it and make the fish happier, but it tends to slow up his activity level for a few days. Maybe because the water from the filter doesn't fall so far to hit the tank water that it actually circulates less oxygen into the tank? Or maybe the new water isn't to his liking? I think I need to do more research!

So, can anyone answer the original question … how long can an algae-eater go without water and oxygen?

Weather changes

Looks like November is going to go out with a roar … and December come in with a brrr! We've been enjoying some lovely warm days this past week or more; 70s in the day, 50s at night, lots of sunshine and gentle breezes. But from the weather forecast, that is all going to end tomorrow. Lots of wind and rain, possibly some thunder and lightning (but hopefully no tornadoes) going through tomorrow afternoon and evening. And then turning much colder on Friday, with temps down in the 30s and 20s at night and not much warmer during the day. So far no forecast for any of that white stuff, at least not this far south, and let's hope it stays that way!

Thanksgiving was a nice quiet day. And then on Friday Kat and Miss Munchkin and Shawn came to spend a few days, going home on Monday. It is nice to have them all here, but nice when they leave also! The house seems to much bigger after they leave!

Miss Munchkin is trying to walk. She actually took a couple of steps on her own while she was here. She will be nine months in another week. Nine months! That's too young to be walking!!

Bill and I took David back to college on Sunday. We had a nice visit, but I think he was ready to go back. We have to pick him back up on December 13. On our way to Evansville Sunday we spent some time driving around Nashville, getting the lay of the land, scouting out some possible areas for housing, just in case that is the area we end up moving to.

I've been working hard on my website and it is beginning to pay off! I've also been trying to clean up some of the piles of books around here. Putting more on auction at e-bay rather than on my e-bay store. And either they sell or I donate them to the library. Too many piles, too many bookshelves. If we are going to move … no, when we move I do not want to have to move all these books!!

Needless to say, from the word count showing here on my blog, I will not be completing my NaNoWriMo Novel this month. I did get over the hump I was in last week and had a great writing day on Thanksgiving. But with all the additional company and taking David home on Sunday and everything else, I have not had the time to write. Today I have gotten a little bit done. But I am going to continue working on this novel, as I like the premise and I love the main character. So maybe by this time next year I will have two completed novels - the one I am working on now and one for next year's NaNoWriMo.

David's Home!

Guess who brought home every piece of clothing he owns, dirty!!! LOL!

David's last class was out by noon on Tuesday, so Bill picked him up after noon and they were home by about 9:30 last night. He is in dire need of a hair cut, his last one being in August before he left for college! And he made the statement that he had to do some laundry before he went to bed, as he had nothing clean left to wear. He brought home a huge laundry bag of dirty clothes and his backpack full of books. No pillows, nothing else. Good thing I have some extra blankets and pillows around.

I'm sorry I missed out on the trip, as Bill said that David talked non-stop for about the first three hours of the trip home, so I missed out on all the good stuff! Maybe he'll repeat some of it today.

We have two invites out for Thanksgiving Dinner, but David wants to stay home, so it looks like I need to buy a turkey today! Although David did say he'd just as soon have Bar-B-Que Potatoes from Big Bob Gibson's in Decatur. Wonder if they are open tomorrow?

Charles plans to "double-dip" tomorrow for Thanksgiving. He's been invited to go with his girl friend to both of her grandparent's houses for two Thanksgiving Dinners! And Kat is having her in-laws to her place, so it looks like we'll be a quiet threesome tomorrow. Suits me fine!

Crazy Day

Well, Bill ended up going to Evansville by himself to pick up David. Charles was sick enough yesterday that I didn't feel comfortable leaving him alone today. He was much improved by bedtime, but still had a pretty rough day yesterday. And after his improvement on Sunday and then relapse on Monday, I wasn't going to leave him alone. So Bill went by himself.

He had two appointments in Nashville, but the directions to the first one were not very good and he got lost. By the time her found the place, did what he had to do there (which took longer than it was supposed to), his second appointment time had come and gone. Unfortunately, the second appointment's time was booked up for the afternoon, so I guess he'll have to make another trip to Nashville to meet some other time.

In the meantime, David is calling at 11 a.m. to let us know that he is ready! I told him he better get some lunch, because it's going to be around 3 p.m. before Bill gets to Evansville.

It's been a quiet morning and I've updated two more e-mail lists pages on my website and fine-tuned some other pages. Also washed some dishes and done some laundry. And now it's time to go begin cleaning a path to David's bed! Actually, what I wanted to do was make room here in my office for Miss Munchkin's port-a-crib so that Kat could spend the night Friday if she wanted to, provided we're not all sick with the bug by then. Shawn's work schedule becomes pretty hectic for the next month or so, so I thought she might like to stay here one night while David is here to spend more time with her brother. To do that, I've got to remove a huge amount of stuff that is piled on the floor in my office and then move Miss Munchkin's things from David's room to here. And then maybe there will actually be room for David in David's room!

Guess I better get started!

November update

I checked my blog yesterday because I could not remember when I had last written. November 1st! Imagine that. What a busy month November has been. As you can see by my NaNo count, though, I have not been busy writing my novel.

So what have I been doing? Mainly updating my website. Rewording some pages. Making better intros. Checking links. Adding ads. Trying to make my website pay me back something other than just the satisfaction of knowing I have helped other homeschoolers.

I did write a small amount (500 words) yesterday on my novel. And actually got another 500 words written early this morning. Charles woke me up at 6 a.m., sick again. So after Bill went to work, I stayed up and worked in my office, which is right next to Charles's bedroom. He was quiet for about an hour, resting, but not sleeping. So I was able to write then. But since about 8 a.m. he has kept me busy: needing drinks, vomit pails emptied, covers on, covers off, baths drawn. I am not accomplishing much today!

Charles came down with this nasty stomach bug on Saturday. He was sick, sick, sick on Saturday. Stomach cramps, vomited, diarrhea, fever. He was better yesterday. Slept most of the day and woke up hungry. Announced he was going to karate on Monday. But this morning he is worse again. Not as bad as Saturday, but still sick. The one good thing seems to be that Charles has not had a violent recurrence of his post-tetanus vaccination reactions. He has had a couple of mild reactions, which were quickly squashed with some antihistamine, so hopefully the after-effects of that vaccination are slowly receding.

Tomorrow we are supposed to go to Evansville to pick up David. Bill took the day off and we were both going to go, but with Charles still sick I am not sure whether I'll be going or not. It will be a long day for just one driver. Of course, David does have his driver's license, but it's been a few months since he's driven. Penelope is a nice easy car to drive, so maybe he could help out some with the driving back home. He'll be home until Sunday, when we have to take him back to college.

So I guess that's all the news today! I need to try to get David's room cleaned out a bit. We have been using it for the "catch-all" room since he went away to college in August. I'm sure he would appreciate begin able to actually get to his bed, let alone lie down on it!

Vacation Observations

Our recent trip to New York was a memorable one in many ways.

Penelope turned out to be a great van to travel in, providing a comfortable riding experience.

I had forgotten how vivid the fall colors are in the north. While the tress do change colors here in north Alabama, we do not get the multitude of vivid oranges, yellows and reds. And the leaves smell so different in the north. Here, when they fall, it's a moldy smell and they don't crunch as you walk on them. In the north, the leaves have a pungent smell to them and make a stirring, rustling sound when you walk through them. Altogether a more enjoyable experience!

I was struck anew by the number of roadside markets. It seemed like every third or fourth house either was an organized market or had a few winter squash, some Indian corn, bright orange and red mums, and/or pumpkins set out by the roadside to sell. That is not a common sight here in north Alabama. Bill and I have often talked about the reasons why this might be, but for whatever the reason, I do miss the ready availability of fresh produce. And New York apples are still THE BEST!

Charles still does not enjoy traveling. He tolerates it better than he used to when he was younger, but that's only because he's figured out his coping mechanisms. Stay up as late as you possibly can during the night so that you can sleep all day while on the road. And earbuds with music playing help a lot too!

It was nice spending long periods of time with Kat and Miss Munchkin. Kat is such a patient mommy. Several of my cousins remarked to me during the party how at ease Kat seemed to be with motherhood.

Miss Munckin has the most beautiful smile!

Watching Miss Munchkin and her second cousin Steven play together was amusing. I have never seen a three-year-old so intent upon sharing his playthings with another baby. And such fun to listen to him sing! It's a good thing his grandparents on the Gibson side are not spoiling him any!

It had been several years since I had seen any of my cousins. None of them have changed, and yet we've all changed. Linda looked healthier than the last time I saw her. We didn't get enough time to spend together and I was very sorry to miss that last evening's get-together at Jeff's.

My cousins' children are all growing. Nathan has become such a self-aware young man since I last saw him. I had never met Justin or Leah before and didn't really get to know them this trip, they stuck so tight to their daddy! It was interesting to note that Reb's boy was interested in his grandfather's iron pile and the building possibilities therein, while Becky's children were much enamored with their grandmother's horsies! I am always intrigued by how individuals inherit certain family traits in each generation!

It was enjoyable to see all my extended family on my dad's side all in one place, celebrating. I sometimes envy the Pendleton's, still all living close by and able to organize a dinner together in a day or so, rather than having to consult calendars and vacation schedules. I do miss that part of living in New York, the closeness of extended family. Then again, I well remember that there are some drawbacks to having extended family so close too!

And finally, this vacation reminded me anew how much I really do love traveling. Driving. Seeing new places. Pouring over maps and planning routes. There must be a wagon-train traveler in my blood a few generations back! Or maybe it was an Irish lass, leaving Ireland and emigrating to the new country. Or maybe further back, a Viking warrior raiding the coasts of Ireland.

Vacation Trip - Part Three

We planned to spend Thursday night with a friend who lives just south of Youngstown, Ohio. Thursday morning we were still debating just what route to take to get there, until I heard the weather report on the radio! Lake-effect snow flurries were forecasted for Wyoming County, New York. The snow wasn't supposed to stick, just flurries. A flurry was more than I wanted to see, so we headed south on 15 into Pennsylvania, taking 220 west and picking up I-80 across to Youngstown. The area around Lock Haven and further west as you join onto I-80 was real pretty. I've often thought Pennsylvania was a pretty place to visit, in the summertime or early fall, but not somewhere I'd like to live. As we got closer to Youngstown, we ran into some brief snow flurries. Ack!

As for the "non-sticking lake-effect snow" in western New York? Seven days later they are still talking about it on the national news, reporting that there are still large populations without power. My aunt said that the Thruway was closed for over 24 hours on Thursday / Friday. It seems some places west of Leroy received up to 24 inches. That's a lot of snow for early October and a lot of sticking!

Our stay with our friend's in Youngstown was very pleasant. She has a beautiful house and certainly pleased Charles with her mashed potatoes and gravy! We met several members of her family and just had a nice visit. Friday morning we were on our way bright and early (7:30 a.m. Central), as we had a long day of traveling ahead of us if we were to get all the way to Evansville, Indiana, by nightfall. By two in the afternoon it seemed like we were making good time, so we decided to take the scenic route across Indiana rather than staying on the Interstates. Wrong decision. Lovely countryside, but a bit longer trip than necessary, especially when we hit a traffic jam the first few miles and only drove about 10 miles in 45 minutes! It was 7:30 p.m. (Central) when we rolled into Evansville, meaning we spent twelve hours on the road.

Poor Miss Munchkin, she was getting so tired of her car seat (as were we all!). After darkness fell, she really began to fuss. She would only be quiet if Kat learned over and stroked her or talked to her. Finally the kids turned on the DVD player and she quieted down. We don't think it was the DVD, just the light from it enabling her to see people around her again. She did the same thing Saturday night after it got dark, fussing until Kat turned on one of the inside back lights. Then Miss Munchkin seemed happier.

Friday night we picked up David and his friend Ashley and all went out to supper. It was nice to visit with David, although I think he was more interested in food than seeing us! Miss Munchkin seemed to remember him, even though it had been about two months since she'd seen him. At least she didn't fuss any when David held her.

Saturday morning David gave Kat (and the rest of us) a tour of the campus. He needs a bit more practice with that! "Here's a building. I think they do art classes in here. I never come to this building, so I don't really know." Very informative! After lunch and winter coat shopping for David, we loaded up and headed for home. We dropped Kat off at the mall so she could ride home with Shawn when he got off from work. Then we dropped Charles off at karate so he could be a part of the last bit of graduation. And we got home about 8 p.m., in time to watch the last half of the Nextel race and see Gordon suffer another late race DNF.

Nine days of vacation, six of them on the road, traveling 2370 miles. Are we crazy or what? Everyone did really well until Friday. By then we'd had enough togetherness. It's a good thing Charles was able to sleep at David's dorm Friday night. Another night of sharing a motel room with Charles and there's no telling what Kat might have done to him with the TV remote as he channel surfed!

Free Time?

So what happened to all this free time I was going to have after David went to college? Obviously, I was delusional. There is no such thing as "free time." The universe expands to absorb all free time. Anyone with free time is living in another dimension. They are certainly not living in the same dimension that I am living in!

Last year my mornings were spent on the road and sitting at college, waiting while David took his college classes. I was able to read and crochet while David was in class and converse with David while on the road. Now my mornings seem to disappear into laundry, dishes, e-mail and phone calls, with occasional hours here and there working on my website and listing books on e-bay. And I don't feel like I am accomplishing any more than I was last year. At least last year I was able to tangibly see and feel results. Afghans crocheted. Book titles added to my "books read" list. How do you tangibly see and feel the dishes done or e-mail sent?

My mornings are also being absorbed by another hour of sleep and sometimes by some morning exercises. So I am feeling more rested, I am less cranky, and might possibly be slightly more fit (but only very slightly!). And I have exchanged my "getting David to college" project with "finding hubby a new job" project. So I guess I should not reasonably expect to have more free time. But it sure was a nice dream! Maybe free time will appear when all the children have left home? But then, the eldest child and the grandchild seem to be absorbing a fair bit of my time also, so maybe I should just resign myself to the fact that I will NEVER HAVE FREE TIME!

Looking for homes

I listed the kittens on FreeCycle this morning. They are so adorable, I am sure they will find new homes quickly! There's one or two that I'd love to keep, but with six already, I guess I can't be picky if someone wants to give a home to any of them!

Here's a link to some pics, which will probably only work for a few weeks:
www.leapingfromthebox.com/kittens.html

I am slowly getting used to having it quieter here, although it doesn't seem like I've been home long enough to have to worry about it. I'd like a couple of more days like last Monday where I had four or five hours at home alone! I accomplished quite a bit that day!

I've just about completed updating my church school listings on my website:
www.leapingfromthebox.com/hs/alhschurchcover.html

There are only two or three listed that I do not have updated for this year. If I don't hear from them soon, I'll have to remove them from the listing. And I have some more to try to locate contact info for, but those are not listed on the site. Mainly I just wanted those on the site to have current information. And then it will be time to get working on the other sections of my website. Websites always need more work!

Busy Days

Has it really been a week since I last posted here? Wow! I've been so busy with office duties and running kids here and there. My desk is a lot cleaner! And the bills are all current! So some things have been accomplished! Unfortunately, updating my website was not included in that list of accomplishments. That was July's agenda, but somehow here it is the 25th and I've not even begun. And boy, do I have a lot of updates.

Yesterday Charles met with Dr. Debra Gilliam from Alternative Medicine Associates. She seemed pretty sure she would be able to help Charles and I sure hope so! It was an expensive visit and none of it covered by our medical insurance. He now has several supplements and homeopathic remedies to take over the next 12 weeks, along with some dietary changes to make. And then on October 16 he return to see if all this has helped any. She also suggested that Charles keep a food diary, but I don't see that happening! The most difficult dietary change is no gluten, no wheat. I bought some oat flour and some spelt flour, both of which the naturopath suggested would be better for Charles than wheat.

David has his college physical tomorrow. Which reminds me, I still need to double check with the college that a letter from his doctor will be all that is needed for a medical waiver on the tetanus shot. My mom wrote me last week to tell me that she had suffered from an allergic reaction to a tetanus shot about fifteen years ago and her doctor told her then not to ever have another tetanus shot or it might be fatal. She thought she had told me that before, but mentioned it again after reading my blog entry about Charles' latest "episode." I sure don’t' remember hearing about that before, but I'm glad to know it now. Perhaps it will provide added incentive for the doctor tomorrow to provide that medical waiver.

The kittens are getting cuter every day! Today the one's here in my office finally got brave enough to escape from their box, or at least I discovered one of them out this morning when I came in to check my e-mail. I think it's just about time to move them outside, as I do not want to have a litter box in here. The other kittens in the living room just have their eyes open, but I may have to find another spot for them. The mama kitty seems to be disrupting the wires back there that are hooked to the TV and receiver and our TV reception has been disappearing. Somewhere there's a cord loose!

Well, time to wake up some boys and begin working on the website updates. People are e-mailing me asking me when I'm going to make the changes that they sent me weeks ago!

To sleep, perchance to dream

Another night of interrupted sleep, another day of hiding yawns and thinking of a nap! Normally the cause is the occasional bout of night sweats or the more frequent waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to get back to sleep. But not last night, or rather, early this morning. This morning at 3:45 my cell phone rings and I know instantly that it has to be Charles. Which means that he's having troubles again with his "funny feelings" in his head that preclude full blown episodes of violence. Luckily this time he woke up before it had reached the full-blown stage, so a dose of antihistamine, some talk about how he was feeling, how long he had been awake and how long he had been asleep prior to awakening, and then he went back to sleep. But I didn't! I was wide-awake from then until Bill's alarm went off at 6. And only then did I begin to doze off for a few minutes before I had to get up and made Bill's breakfast.

I had been worried about the possibility of Charles having another episode. Sunday we went over to Kat's and mowed her lawn. Bill got into the kudzu on the edge of the property with the weedeater and had Charles go behind him with the push mower. Unfortunately, Charles found a bee's nest and got stung on his legs several times. He seemed fine yesterday, but still, I wasn't surprised when that phone rang this morning. The episodes seem to hit when his immune system is working hard to overcome illness and so I thought bee stings have the same effect as a fever.

May 26th was the last time Charles needed the antihistamine to ward of an episode, so it's been less than two months. Prior to that he went just about three months. I had hoped that the time between would have lengthened, not shortened. That would have fed my hope that this whole nightmare would just eventually fade away, that his body would recover on his own from the tetanus vaccination. But it doesn't appear as though that is happening. Time to make that appointment with the naturopath, since both his pediatrician and the neurologist he was referred to were not able to find anything wrong. And I'm hoping that the pediatrician will agree with me that David doesn't need a tetanus vaccination for his college physical. The college indicated that they might accept a letter of medical waiver from the doctor. I've got to double check next week when the person in charge at the college's health department is back from vacation. But I am very leery of unnecessarily exposing another child to that vaccination! It certainly has wreaked havoc upon Charles' body.

Crossing Things Off My Lists

The last several days have been busy around here! Bill and the boys built new steps to the entrance off our living room over the July Fourth holiday. We rarely use that entrance and haven't been able to for quite a while now due to the steps having rotted out. But it's good to have it fixed and be able to use it, just in case we have an emergency and need another exit. That project has been on the "to do" list for quite some time now. At one time we had planned to greatly expand that small deck entrance area, turning it into a screened-in covered porch, but whenever funds get set aside for the project, they get diverted for some emergency expense. Probably it'll be one of those things we do just to fix it up around here when we finally get ready to move and sell the place.

I finally finished David's high school transcript over the long weekend and yesterday mailed it to our church school administrator. It was already mostly done, since he had to have one in January for college applications, so all I really had to do was add this last half of his senior year to it and get it in the proper format. But I had to wait for his last grades at Calhoun Community College to get posted, which was done mid-May. By then I had gotten out of the "school" mode and just never quite found the time to sit down and finish the transcript. Now it is done. The last thing I needed to do for David as homeschool mom and teacher. Now I can just be college mom!

And yesterday I set up a brokerage account with E*Trade. We knew we were going to have to cash in some stocks for David's college tuition and the first payment is due August 1. Somehow I didn't think it would be a huge deal to set up an account and get the stocks traded and cash into a money market fund. I also didn't think doing it locally with a broker would be as expensive as it turned out to be when I called for quotes. So instead of going the easy way with lots of hand holding and someone else doing the grunt work, we went the cheaper route and I will get plenty of new learning experiences! Isn't that what you get when you don't get what you wanted? Experience?!

So three things done off my lists . . . and hundreds more to go, or so it seems. Last weekend I had David set up FreeMind on my computer. It's a mindmapping program I discovered last winter and showed to David. He took right to it and uses it all the time. I am not so sure it will be as helpful to me, but I'm willing to try it. One good thing about it is that I am much better organized on my computer than I am on my desk or with my filing cabinets. So instead of many paper lists floating around and never where I remember putting them, I simply have to open FreeMind and there my lists are, ready to be shortened or ignored, whichever the case may be!

Here's the link to FreeMind: http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Cooperation

Just when you begin to despair that your children will ever be able to work together, they surprise you! I told David and Charles (our two teenage boys) Monday that the gutters needed cleaning this week and that the weather would be better for it (cooler, less humid) the first part of the week. Amazingly, yesterday afternoon they just got at it and did it without me reminding them a gazillion times. Not only that, but they worked together without much disagreement and got the job done rather quickly. Of course, I did discover last night that there's some clean up that they seemed to have missed, so they'll have to do a bit of cleaning of the deck today. But all in all it was nice to see them working together, getting the job done without me having to do a lot of supervising.

That said, I have given up on having them wash the dishes. For the last several years it has been their job to do the daily dishes and clean up the table, stovetop, counters and sinks. They have done it well at times, so I know they are capable. But I've decided that the stress incurred while having them do this job is not worth it. I get too annoyed knowing that they are saving all the dishes up till 2 in the morning. And then I come out in the morning and see glasses stacked on top of all the other dishes in the drainer. Gravity put to the test each night! It's just too much. I can't take it anymore. I know they can do the job, so it's time to teach them something else, I think! And I'll do the dishes my way, washing a few several times a day, washing the glasses first and the pans last!

So what will they do instead? David will be doing his own laundry this summer so that I am sure he knows how to do it when he goes to college. He has washed things before, on occasion, so I think all he'll need is just a refresher on how to separate the loads and what temperature water to use, etc. Even so, it won't hurt him to do his own all summer and get used to figuring out how often he needs to wash. At Evansville last weekend, the Dean of Student Living told us a story about a freshman (male) who never washed his clothes. It got so bad that, after several weeks, his roommate complained to the RA in the dorm. So the RA talked to the student about the laundry situation and the student agreed to take care of it. So what did he do? Shipped all his dirty laundry to his mom in Colorado via UPS! Can you imagine the look on her face when she opened those packages?! The Dean said that the mom just repacked them up, dirty, and shipped them back to her son at college. I guess he finally got the message that he needed to wash them himself.

Doing your laundry at Evansville would be almost fun. You can go on a website to see how many washers and dryers are being used in your dorm's laundry room and how many minutes before they will be done. Not only that, but when you put a load of wash in the washing machine or the drier, you can set it so that the machine either sends you an e-mail or a text message to your phone to let you know when the load is done! Can you imagine?! For a computer science student, it seems like that would make laundry almost like a game!

So David will be doing his laundry this summer. And he's already gotten pretty good at vacuuming the floors daily, which we have to do in the summer because Penny (our dog) sheds so much. When he goes off to Evansville, Charles will have to take over that job.

Perhaps the boys should learn to clean their bathroom! That sounds like a good trade off, cleaning the bathroom once a week for washing dishes daily. And, of course, there's always the outside reclamation project with the push mower and weed eater! We didn't have a lawn mower for all of last year and so the woods has tried to work its way back towards our mobile home. It's beginning to look better since we got that push mower last month, but there's still a lot to do. I think a half an hour for each of them several days a week should do the trick.

Know Home Schooling, history, and Harry Potter

I received an e-mail this morning from a friend, telling me about a new site, Know Home Schooling. It's a homeschooling wiki. I added my blog listing to it this morning. Looks like it might be a real help to new homeschoolers as more veterans add their info to it. Check it out. http://knowhomeschooling.com

Yesterday we actually got back to reading our world history book, "The Outline of History" by H. G. Wells. It seems like we've been working on the final chapter for months! I read for about an hour yesterday and we're down to the last three pages. Hopefully we can finish it today. Then we can pick back up the Richard Maybury book(s) I want to cover this summer before David goes off to Evansville.

Darn J. K. Rowling and her announcement yesterday about her next (and final) Harry Potter book. Here she hasn't even gotten it all written and she's already telling us that two characters (main characters!) will die in the final book. And her wording was such that it certainly seems possible that Harry could be one of those. Something to the effect that no one else can write more books in the future about Harry if he dies in the last book. So whom will she kill off? My boys speculate that it will be Ron and Hermoine. Surely she wouldn't kill them off? More likely Hagrid and maybe … maybe … oh, I can't even begin to guess! I only know that I'll be extremely saddened when the series ends. And hopeful that Rowling will write more. Although topping the HP series would likely not be possible. And certainly she doesn't need the income! It would just be interesting to see what other areas her writing brain might find appealing to write about.

Shopping

God, I hate grocery shopping! Let me list some of reasons why I hate shopping for groceries:

1. Prices. You can't even buy a decent loaf of bread anymore for under $2.00.
2. Meat. After living on the farm and raising our own meat, I always feel like I'm gambling when I buy meat. And the prices! It used to be I could buy something fairly decent and edible for under $2 a pound. Not anymore! Who can afford $8 a pound steak?!
3. Sales. Again, I feel like I'm gambling whenever I pick up something on sale. The last time I bought frozen fish on sale it was all dried out and tasted terrible. I had to feed it to the cats.
4. Choices. Too many of them! The cereal aisle alone is like buying a new car. A new make and model out every time your turn around.
5. Coupons. I never find coupons for the items I prefer to purchase. And the coupons I do find are for items full of corn syrup. Which brings me to my next reason…
6. Corn Syrup! It's in everything! Everywhere! It takes two and three times as long to shop just because you have to look at every item's ingredient list.
7. And just when you find a brand or item you like, the store quits carrying it.

But, it was payday, so grocery shopping was the item of the day. Let's see … I spent $175. Think that will last us very long? I'll guarantee we'll be out of yogurt, bread and juice within three days!

And, as if grocery shopping wasn't going to be painful enough, what do I do but decide I'll pop into the clothing store next door first and see if I can find a new top. Hah! Who was I kidding?! Nothing like trying on clothes to make one think they should buy less food! Hey! Maybe I just found a good way to save on the grocery bill! Somehow, though, I don't think my teens will approve of my economy. They seem to like to eat. What's up with that, anyway?!

A New Beginning...

Today, while I was reading another blog, my daughter told me I should begin my own blog. I've thought of it. I even began one a couple of years ago on my own website, but it was a lot of work to write something, put it in html format, and then upload it to my website. I enjoyed the freeform writing and it did spur me to write other things, but the mechanics slowed me down and it's been too long since I even looked at that first blog.

I named my first blog "The Writing Well" and I almost named this one the same. Here's the very first entry from "The Writing Well:"

March 1, 2003

Why "The Writing Well" you ask? Because I am a well of writing that needs priming. I know I have writing ideas and material just waiting to be brought to the surface, waiting to be put on paper, but for some reason they are just not coming to the surface.

When I was a young girl, my grandmother's home was the most magical place. Even though it has been over fifteen years since I was last there, I can still smell and almost taste the unique perfume of Grammy's house: molasses cookies, fresh wildflowers, and that musty, damp smell that comes from a house that is closed up all winter. Outside her flowerbeds were in colorful bloom, the grass always needed mowing, the maple trees spun their helicopter seeds, and the profusion of lilacs scented the air for weeks.

What I remember the most, though, was the water well and its pump, an area conversely fraught with danger and delight, fear and fulfillment. The well pump was on a small shady knoll. As I would walk up the path to the well, I had to be careful not to slip on the moss covered stones that surrounded the well's wooden platform. Even more dangerous to me, though, was the possibility of snakes. On any day there could be several snakes enjoying the cool shade and dampness of the well platform. They were nothing more than green garter snakes, but for a child petrified of any snake they might as well have been boa constrictors or rattlesnakes. The mere sight of them would cause me to freeze with fright, back away slowly, and run for the house. And the next time around I would be doubly apprehensive about going to the well. And yet, go I would, because there was nothing better on a hot summer day than a drink of cold well water!

Some days, though, the water didn't come simply by moving the pump handle up and down. It needed priming, which meant that I had to go back down the slippery stone path, keeping an eagle eye out for snakes, get a glass of water from Grammy's house, make my way back to the well, and then pour the water down the pump while moving the pump handle up and down. If I was lucky, one glass of water would do the trick and I'd cup my hands to catch the cool, sweet water. If not, I would have to run back inside and get another glass of water and prime it again!

You might wonder why I didn't just drink the water from the house instead of going through all that effort to get the well water. After all, it was the very same water! As a child, though, I knew there was a difference. The well water from the pump was sweeter and colder, more refreshing. Or maybe it was just that the danger and excitement, the sense of accomplishment, made the water taste sweeter and feel colder.

My writing needs priming … a few common words trickling down the well to get the steady flow of cool, sweet words flowing again. Ahhh …how welcome that would be!

We'll see if this blog fulfills it's purpose better than my first effort. Quite honestly, I've not written much in the past couple of years other than lots of e-mails. Maybe I should spend less of my energy on the homeschool e-mail lists and more on my own writing!