Hank says "HI!" and "Mom needs to blog more often."

Sure, I haven't blogged over here in about six months, but it's summertime, so I have a LITTLE more time on my hands, and we've just got THIS GUY!

This is our new kitten, Hank. Those of you who know Gracie know that he is basically her mini-me. He's about 11 or 12 weeks old, and we adopted him from No More Homeless Pets KC, which is an organization that fosters kittens so that they won't be left in shelters where they might not make it.

A few things about him:

• He's cute as hell.
• He's got a TON of energy.
• He's starting to teethe, which is a little problematic.
• He, um, has a lot of gas! (This is not something I remember with Gracie when she was little.)
• He's getting braver by the day.

Gracie and Hank are at least now able to be in the same room with each other, after a little bit of hissing on Gracie's part. Hopefully, they'll be fast friends soon.

Hank was a surprise birthday present from Hubs. We went to pick him out the Saturday after my birthday, so we've had him for about three weeks now.

I've done a few other things lately that should get a little blog love, so hopefully they'll be a few more posts on here soon. For now, though, I'm tired. It's way past my bedtime.

Good and good for you

I haven't written very much about the garden this summer. Last summer I posted about it all the time. I guess it's not "new and exciting" in this year two, so I don't really think about it.

The tomatoes are finally starting to come in, too, but they were so good we ate them before I took the photo above.

Last night, Adam made tilapia with zucchini, tomatoes and jalapenos, with quinoa. It's awesome to cook something when more than half of the ingredients came out of our own ground. It was delicious.

For the fourth of July, I made Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread. The consistency was more like cake than bread, and it is really good with milk. Zucchini seems to be the one thing we always have a million pounds of, so it's nice to have different options for cooking it up.

I'd like to go see what's out there this morning, but since it rained heavily yesterday, I'd be up to my knees in mud, I think. I'll let it dry out today then head out tonight to harvest a little more.

We're using grass clippings between rows to keep the weeds down. It really does seems to be helping. There are a few things popping up here and there, but they are easy to pull. It's not like weedy grass is growing between the rows.

Last week, Adam made two different green beans dishes, and we froze a couple of bags. It took me about 90 minutes to pick beans from the entire row, and I had two full plastic grocery bags of beans. They are very tasty, and they freeze easily.

Lucky to Love My Job

I've talked about the myth of summer vacation before on this blog, so I won't bore you to death about that.

Though we do get "three months off" I usually feel busier/more frazzled during the summer than during the school year. This summer, I'm working at five workshops and I attended one other with three students this last week.

There might be a few journalism teachers reading this blog who are thinking "FIVE? That's nothing, I do eight or 10!"

I try to limit myself a little bit - I would, after all, like to have some time to pool it with Betsy and Mitzi, visit my friends in Wichita, go to movies with the Hubs, and work in the yard. This summer I'm extra busy because I'm taking grad classes. Somehow, I also have to leave time for prep for next year's classes.

Dang. I said I wasn't going to bore you with that myth stuff, and there I went and did it.

This post is supposed to be about how lucky I am to have a job I love. I don't love it because I get all this time off.

I love it because of the school where I teach. I love it because of the kids I get to work with. I love it because it's fun (most days).

Earlier this week, I took three students to a Creativity Workshop in Minneapolis. It was a quick trip - fly up Sunday, start the workshop as soon as we got there, work all day Monday, visit Mall of America, work Tuesday morning, fly back Tuesday night. A whirlwind.

But, the students who went were just great. I know they were tired from traveling, but they worked so hard, and they soaked up all the expertise the workshop offered. The girls were nice to me the whole week, and more importantly, they were nice to the workshop staff. I've taught at many a workshop with students who just didn't seem too interested in the workshop offerings, and the attitude shows it.

Being able to trust students who are traveling with you is half the battle on out-of-town trips. I have always been very lucky on convention and camp trips traveling with students.

We giggled, we groused, we walked four blocks in a surprise rainstorm (after I said "Oh, I think we can walk..."), we ate a lot and we shopped.

Though we were drained after flight delays and just wanting to get back home, I think it's safe to say a good time was had by all.

Your Big Backyard

Way back when I was in elementary school, one of my favorite activities involved reading the "Your Big Backyard" and "Ranger Rick" magazines. Maybe they came once a month or so, but I loved them. I've chosen to title today's post about things growing in my yard as an homage to one of those favorite reading memories.


I'm a big fan of perennials - it's just too hard to try to plant annual beds. The end of the school year is so hectic that I don't have time to baby new plants like you really need to. I'd plant them, then I'd have crazy weekends and they'd die. So, lately, I've been transplanting perennials from my dad's yard and from my friend Betsy's sister Molly's house. The great thing about this is: IT'S FREE.

I don't have to spend a ton of money at the garden center and then cross my fingers that the plants will survive. Plus, I think that plants raised in similar areas/soils just do better than something purchased that was probably trucked in from a nursery miles away.

Mostly the plants I've transplanted have been hostas, lilies and iris. The iris have bloomed and are done for the year. But, some of my lilies are blooming, and I've got one patch that will look amazing next week. It's full of buds that haven't opened yet.

These are hostas and a shasta daisy that I got from Dad. The daisies are starting to bloom. I wasn't sure if they would since I just planted them this year.

Readers who are family members might be interested to know where some of this stuff is planted, since we live in what was my grandma's house (and honestly, it's probably still considered grandma's house - I know we still call the back bedroom "Julie's room").

The plants above are just under the Julie bedroom window and the bathroom window (in the front yard, but behind the giant ornamental grass thing).

The plants below are planted in front of the playhouse which is now our garden implements storage shed. I would have posted an overall photo of it, but there's nothing except peeling paint on the wall, so the photo wasn't that great.


This year, I got the bright idea to try and reclaim the sideyard between our driveway and the chainlink fence. Adam tilled it a couple of times, and I planted some random stuff. Some of the lilies and irises I was talking about, some lamb's ear. (All of this will come back with a vengeance and spread, spread, spread.)

You see, that's why perennials are so great - low cost, low maintenance...

Aunt Alice sent me some seeds for other flowers this year, so along the sideyard, I also planted this morning glory in a couple of places. I can't wait for it to bloom and see what color the flowers are. It's doing really well, but I've got it in a couple of other places that aren't quite as robust.


Alice also sent pumpkin, gourd and giant pumpkin seeds. I planted those in the sideyard because I know they'll soon grow crazy and take up lots of space.

I'm pretty sure these two are the giant pumpkins. The photo on the package is a 5-year-old boy standing next to the pumpkin and it's almost as tall as he is. So, we'll see what happens with that.


Below is one of the mammoth sunflowers. There are about six of these growing out there. Again, can't wait for them to bloom.

The worst part of the sideyard reclamation project is that it's super weedy since this is the first summer we tilled it up from grass. The past two weeks I've spent a lot of time out there cleaning it out. But, now that that's done, I think I can mostly Garden Weasel it to keep it clean.

Avid readers will probably remember garden posts from last summer. The photo below is just so you can see how large the garden is. You're looking over various lettuce, onions, potatoes, cabbage from this angle.


Over on the other side, there are a few herbs, like this basil. SO. MUCH. BETTER when it comes straight out of the garden.


I'm not sure when the cabbage will be ready, but it sure is growing. Probably won't catch me making sauerkraut any time soon - I remember the smell from Aunt Fronie's cellar when I was a kid. Love the taste of it, hate the smell!


We've got a bunch of green tomatoes growing too. That's what I'm really waiting for.


A quick photo of the front of the house. This bed is the one I started when we moved in three years ago. It's shady all the time, so it's just hostas and ferns.


Technically, those are in the front yard, so I guess they don't really match the title of the post. You'll just have to deal.

I'm off to have a salad with garden greens and peas.

You are (dead) everybody. You are (dead) everyone.

(Don't worry - that title is not some scary call to action. If you watch LOST, you'll get it, if you don't, you won't.)

I'm still not sure what to think about last night's LOST series finale. All I know is that I went to sleep thinking about it, and I woke up this morning thinking about it, still trying to decide what I know and what I don't.

That show has been with me since I started teaching - it premiered in September of 2004, just after I left the newspaper business.

Adam and I watched the first season in the basement TV room at our first house in Valley Center.

I watched seasons 2-3 at our little pink house on Holyoke in Wichita. Betsy and Mitzi and Adam and I watched season 4 (with great premiere parties at a certain principal's house). The girls gave up on it because they got behind, but Hubs and I stuck with it.

At one point during season 3, our DVR quit working, so I watched most of the shows on ABC.com in our back computer room. It was FREEZING in that room, and I spent the winter huddled under a blanket watching people on a desert island on my iMac screen.

I loved those characters. Each was flawed in some way, but all they were trying to do was make their way in the world and do the right thing. I'm not ready to talk about what actually happened in the finale just yet. I think I still need some processing time, and I'm interested to see what all the TV gurus out there have to say.

Did you watch? What did you think?

Spring Fever

One of my seniors went to the restroom today during editors' hour. When she came back, she said "There seems to be an unnaturally high number of people in the halls right now."

The newspaper editor in the room said "It's almost 7th hour, on a Friday, and it's April 2."

Nail on the head. Nail on the head.

It's getting to be that time - senioritis is setting in for seniors (and everyone else for that matter), and the weather is finally nice. The wandering ways and drifting minds make it tough to get through the week.

I suppose having a classroom with no windows has one benefit: I tend to forgot what the weather is like when I'm there the entire day. So, I am able to resist the call of beautiful weather a bit. That is, until I need to go up to the office, and I pass the wall of windows.

Usually, at that point, I'll quickly decide it's time for team-building activities that can be done outside on the back field. That gets us out and energized for a little while.

However, for today's reminder of what the weather was like I didn't even need to leave the friendly confines of room 450. About 9:30, the rain began pelting the roof. It was quick, but it was fierce. We heard a little thunder, but mostly just constant heavy rain. Even though they can't SEE it, that rain always gets the kids riled up.

On the home front, this time of year means it's time to get out and clean the partially decomposed leaves out of the flower beds, and start thinking about the garden. I'm hoping to plant a couple of blueberry bushes, some strawberries, and even some asparagus this year, in addition to all the stuff I'm sure Jeanne is planning on putting in the ground.

It's supposed to be a project progress shot, but it's more like a snapshot of me

or, at least my life and environment. I really just meant to post a quick photo to Twitter so the knitting followers could see what I've been up to.

But, when I stopped to look at it again, I realized that to a close observer, this photo says a lot about me.

You'll notice the ABC logo on the TV in the background. While we watched LOST, I worked on my knitting project. I have to multitask to get anything accomplished, and I think watching TV and knitting certainly counts. The only problem is, with a show like LOST, I have to give a little more mental energy to the show, so it's slow going on the knitting projects.

Kansas City-area readers will spot the remote that goes with our Time Warner digital cable box on the TV tray. The TV tray basically serves as my desk. I keep my laptop there, and it's where I eat breakfast each morning.

Adam and I aren't sit-down-to-the-table-and-eat-dinner types. We eat in front of the TV, hence the trays. I would like to think that if we ever have kids, we'll be the eat-around-the-table types, but since it's just the two of us at this point, we're usually just catching up on DVR'ed stuff.

Eagle-eyed observers will see the Rock Band equipment and the Wii. That reminds me, we haven't had a good Wii party in quite a while. Might be time to rustle one up over spring break.

The Snuggie and the clothes in the laundry basket next to my foot echoes the color on the TV screen. Weird.

We don't have a purple polka-dotted curtain. That's the back of a KSU quilt Mom made for me a long time ago. It's finally warm enough that we can take down our extra window insulation. Maybe Adam can do that on his day off tomorrow. With the sub-zero temps and snow for so long this winter, we needed a little help in the heating department.

In the bottom corner of the photo is our little tropical plant that we've managed to keep alive throughout the late summer and fall. We got some nice plants on sale at the De-Pot just before fall. They're all thriving at this point, despite the dark and cold wintry conditions in our house. When you've got all the windows covered with blankets, it's a little tough to get the required amount of sunlight for houseplants.

I'm sure most people who saw this photo noticed the sock and moved on. And that's fine. It is, after all, supposed to be a photo of a sock. But, like I said, I just thought it was interesting when I saw all of the other things in the photo.

Hope you've enjoyed this brief tour of a Thursday night at Casa de Chittum. I've got to sign off for a few days. One more day of school this week, and then I'll be working furiously to complete graduate school homework between Friday night and Tuesday night.

Wish me luck. I'll need it.

I heart the Olympics

Adam, Joshua and I watched all four-and-a-half hours of the Olympics Opening Ceremonies last night. Sure, some of it got a little tired after that much time, but it was pretty damn cool.

From an outside observer's point of view, the only hitch came at the end during the torch ceremony when the fourth of the pillars didn't come up. Okay, it still looked good.

This morning, on Roger Ebert post this: @ebertchicago: U.S. tweeters being snarky about Canadian Olympics ceremony. Canuck reply: If you're so smart, why don't you have health care? I get the joke, but unfortunately, I think Americans would be snarky about ANYONE's opening ceremony. It's not just because of our history of thumbing our noses at the neighbors to the north.

I don't think I posted anything too snarky last night. Here's mine:

The cauldron kind of looks like it came from Superman's home planet.

Jeez, they could have at least given The Great One a rain coat or something to cover his head in the rain.

This has been keeping me busy during the opening ceremonies. Started a new sock. Excuse the bad photo. http://yfrog.com/3i6t0tj

Swedes have the best hats!

Wait! What? Thanks, NBC. Your commercial break totally screwed the athletes of my motherland. We're still rooting for you, Croatia.

Granted, I was knitting during the telecast, so I had something keeping me from becoming bored, but all in all, I thought it was a good show. Loved the Tom Sawyer-like prairie segment.

I would like to know, though, if NBC would have shown the footage of the luger if he would have been an American athlete. As we watched the news intro to the ceremonies, they showed him flying off the track, and I asked Adam and Joshua if they thought an American would be showed like that. The man died. Cover the story, but we don't need to see the footage over and over again.

We're talking about ethics in J1 this week. I think we can use that scenario as an example for the students to discuss in class. What would they do if they were the TV news producers?

Snow is falling again

When I woke up this morning, small flakes were flying. I headed out to the chiropractor, and then the large, wet flakes began. Right now, there's about six inches of fluffy snow on everything. The city hasn't been by to plow the road yet.

I'm heading out to the gym. Normally, weather like this would keep me from getting out on the road just to go to the treadmill. But, since it was conference week this week, and I haven't gotten to run AT ALL since Sunday, I've got to get out and do something before my nine miler this Sunday.

The chiropractor said I needed to wait until about 3 p.m., so that I wouldn't undue my adjustments or cause more trauma to my back. Unfortunately, during all of that waiting time, it's been snowing heavily.

If I see any other great photos, I'll post them later. These two were shot from my covered front porch when I got back from the chiropractor.

Safe travels, everybody!

A knitting progress report

One of my goals for 2010, as reported at the first of the year:

Keep knitting. And trying new and different patterns. Work through the yarn stash. Knit up what I already have, and then I can get new fun yarn. Maybe I'll start knitting things and randomly sending them to people I know...Who knows.

Since then, I've worked on a handful of projects. I completed a hat for Adam and below, you can see the matching scarf I'm working on. I've made a lot of progress, but it's just ribbing, and requires lots of weaving in ends because of the striping. Because of all that, I've taken small breaks from the scarf for other projects.


I'm participating in a sock KAL (knit along) that my mom told me about. I've knit A sock before, so this helps me meet the goal of trying something different. I've never done a KAL before, and I'm hoping that because I'm doing it with a bunch of other people, I'll actually get a PAIR of socks knit by the end of this project.

It's fun because we get new instructions on Friday afternoons. I get an easily digestible knitting assignment for each weekend.

In other KAL news, I also tried this dishcloth KAL from Rachel's Knitting Corner. She gives a washcloth knit along on the third week of each month, and you knit just a few rows a day. Again, a good excuse to sit down and do just a little bit of knitting each night.

I just finished it tonight. Needs to be blocked, as you can probably see. I used two colors of Sugar and Cream 100 percent cotton yarn. It's my go-to dishcloth yarn. I don't usually use more than one color of yarn, so again I was able to work on my goal of trying new knitting techniques. It was actually pretty easy to carry the two colors along the edge.

I've got a few more rows to do on the sock in the next few days, then I need to get back to work on Adam's scarf. I'd like to finish it within the next week or so.

What a 180.

I won't go into too much detail about winter break and then winter break 2.0 (the three snow days last week) because I'm sure you're tired of hearing about "all the extra time off" teachers get.

This week has been a complete turnaround from last week's life of leisure.

First of all, we're back to regularly scheduled programming at school.

Second, yearbook is trying to complete a deadline that was due last Friday. We didn't finish because of the snow days. Plus, we had proofs to return on Monday night.

Third, newspaper's deadline is next Monday (which we have off for Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday), so they had worknight this week.

Fourth, my grad class was Tuesday night from 5-9.

Fifth, AFTER newspaper worknight, we had 8th grade round up, where they come in and learn about all of the possible activities they can get involved in. That didn't get over until 8:30.

So, Monday, got home about 6:30.

Tuesday: 9 p.m. (prof let us out a tiny bit early, thankfully).

Wednesday: 9 p.m.

Tonight: 5:40 (left fairly early, just had heavy traffic heading home).

Tomorrow is finally Friday. I think last week's unexpected vacation left me seriously unprepared for a full work week. I had psyched myself up to return on the day after Christmas break, and having the snow days was a real motivation killer!

There's good news and bad news at the end of this tunnel: Since it's MLK day on Monday, newspaper won't have a day at school to work on deadline. So, we're working on Saturday during the day. Good news is, WHEN we get done on Saturday (when, not IF), we won't have to work on Saturday, so I'll still get to have a "weekend" - two days off.

When you think of me this week, visualize a hamster on a wheel, trying in vain to keep up. I'm going to do a quick Biggest Loser Wii workout right now, before 30 Rock, since I have had ZERO time to exercise this week. There's a 7-mile run staring at me this weekend. It won't be pretty.

Cabin Fever - It's set in

And, we are off AGAIN tomorrow.

I would be much more excited at this prospect if it wasn't 100 below outside, and if I didn't feel crappy. I must have a cold or bronchitis or something, because I've got an awful wheezy cough, and my body aches.

Good news is - it shouldn't be H1N1 or the seasonal flu, since I've been vaccinated for both this year (first time I've ever gotten a flu shot, at least as an adult). I'm not really sure how I got sick, since it was winter break and I was only around a few of my friends, my husband and my parents, and none of them are sick.

Maybe one of the other teachers got me sick on the first day back, or maybe someone at the gym didn't wipe off/sanitize the treadmill when they were done and I got their germs. Jerks.

So, today I knit some, watched a little TV, and read a book - "Olive Kitteridge." It's good. I'll read it some more tonight, but first I need to do a little work on my grad school assignments. I'll be reading those for the next few hours, and possibly doing a little writing. The more I do tonight, the less I have to do this weekend.

I just wish I felt like going somewhere, but I don't want to leave the house. Good thing we've got plenty of food! Adam is working tonight, so I'll do my work while he's AT work.

Cabin Fever Countdown

Welp, today was a snow day (we knew last night). And, we got word by 4 p.m. today that tomorrow will be a snow day, too.

I'm betting we'll be out of school on Friday, as well. Why not just go for the trifecta?

The snow didn't start until this afternoon, so I did get up and go to the gym. I thought a 3-mile run was scheduled for today, so that's what I did. When I got home to check the schedule for tomorrow, I realized I read it off by one day.

Having graduate classes on Tuesday nights messes me up. Class is from 5-9 p.m., so I don't work out on those days. I was supposed to do some interval training today, and then the 3-mile run tomorrow. Based on the view outside my window at this point, looks like I'll be relegated to a Biggest Loser Wii workout tomorrow.

Teachers went back to school on Monday, for a half-day of meetings and then time to work in our rooms in the afternoon. That time is vital for me - helps me clear the docket and get mentally prepared to greet students on their first day back. We had one day back with the kids on Tuesday, and then this mini-vacation.

I'm guessing that my trip to the gym today will be the only time I get outside in the next couple of days. I don't want to shovel the drive, and if I don't need to be on the road with idiots, I won't be.

Besides, my snow day kind of turned into a sick day - Monday night's nagging cough turned into joint aches, sore throat and cough after school yesterday and right on through my class last night. I guess the good news is if I'm sick on our days off, I don't have to write sub plans because everyone's at home!

So far today, after the gym, we watched a movie (Away We Go, with Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski), I've knit and read a couple of magazines. I might be a tiny bit crazy after a couple more days like this. I'll keep you posted.

Finally got the forecast right

I don't think I've ever seen this much snow in my life. And, it's STILL falling at our house.

After dinner, Adam and I took Malachi out so he could play in the snow for a little while. I pulled him up and down the street on his little sled, and Adam helped him make snowballs. The snow wasn't the greatest for snowballs or snowman making - too dry.



These photos were on Christmas Day - when we thought this was all the snow we were going to get. Little did we know.

After we finished shoveling, Adam made a snow angel in the neighbor's yard.
Thankfully, Dad brought his snowblower over and helped us clean the driveway. It would have taken forever for us to do it with shovels. Even just the touch-ups and extra we did with the shovels took about two and half hours.

It's pretty and all, but enough. We don't need any more of this stuff.

Birthday Boy's Wishes

When this little guy asks nicely, how can you say no to that face?

Mom and Dad said Malachi called and said "Aunt Susie, can I come over and swim?" Since Aunt Susie's the landlord (and she bought the pool) we can't say no...

Not that we would have, of course.

Julie got him all geared up in his matching Spiderman water wings, goggles, trunks and innertube, and he hopped right in. Sorta.

It took a few minutes of hemming and hawing around the ladder before he finally got in, but once we convinced him there weren't any sharks in the water, he dove in. He's pretty tough, considering we had all gotten out a few hours earlier because we were getting "cold."

I suppose when you've just turned four, getting to go swimming outweighs being cold.

Malachi did manage to find the few sunny spots left in the pool. After about 5 p.m., most of the pool is in the shade, so unless it's still 100 outside, it can get chilly.

Adam showed him how to blow water out the end of the pool noodles, and Malachi thought that was pretty funny.

I'm glad Malachi and Julie got to come over. We love to have visitors, and we missed his birthday pizza party on Sunday since we were still in Seattle.

Happy Birthday, little Dude!

How does your garden grow?

So, if you follow me on Twitter, or if we're friends on Facebook, you've seen photos of our garden bounty recently. For tonight's dinner, we had peas, carrots, onions and zucchini straight out of the garden with our turkey dogs. It was YUMMY, even though as we were shelling the peas, Adam said "This is a lot of work."

Yeah, but it's worth it when you taste it.

This is what it looked like just after it was tilled in the early, early spring. Mom and Dad and Mom's friend Jeannie planted a bunch of stuff. Jeannie has been working it a lot, weeding and taking care of it.




This is what it looks like today. If anyone wants to remake the Stephen King horror classic "Children of the Corn" we've got the prime location for you.


Here's another view where you can see the corn, green beas, peas, zucchini, cucumbers, etc. Tomatoes are in there somewhere, too. As you can see, all the rainy and cool weather we've had this summer has lent itself to a bountiful green garden.

This is what we used out of the garden for dinner tonight, except the jalapenos and green beans. Saving the jalapenos for a little homemade salsa (we hope) and I took the green beans over to dad. He said he'd been craving some of those.

We'll probably be making some zucchini bread soon...


•••

Thanks for hanging in and continuing to check the blog. I'm a little overextended in cyberspace, and the blog has definitely suffered. I would still like to use it to keep in contact and to generate a little Google Ad revenue, so hopefully I can get it back up and running...

Summer time, where did you go?

Looks nice and warm in those photos, doesn't it? It WAS nice and warm on the days we set up and filled the pool, but since then, it's only been warm enough to get in it twice.

Twice!

Now, I can't be totally angry about this - the weather has been good for the garden (post and photos of that to come later this week), but we haven't done any lazing around in the sun and pool. Boo!

Hopefully, by the end of this week, I'll actually have photos of us IN the pool, instead of hanging out by the side of it.

Last night, we did eat dinner on the front porch, sitting on the swing. It was quite nice. I'm conflicted - usually I love hot summer weather, but being able to sit outside without breaking out in insta-sweat has been nice.

Summer vacay offiially starts tomorrow, so what the hell!

Look what one little trip to Wal-Mart can do for you:

Make you work your ass off. Mom decided to get an inflatable pool for the yard - improving and upgrading the rental property - so we set out to install it this afternoon while Adam was at work.

He missed out on all the fun.

As you can see above, Jayne had the easy job - supervisor/project manager.

Luckily, I had the airbed inflator, so we used it to inflate the upper ring. That made it go fairly fast. I can't imagine using a manual air pump (like a bicycle pump) to do it, which is what the introductory how-to DVD suggested.

The worst part was having to smooth out the bottom and try to get out as many wrinkles as possible. The box said READY FOR WATER IN 15 MINUTES. Heh. Maybe if you've done it a half-million times before.

By the time we were ready to stop and just watch it fill, two hours had passed. Those of you who have done this before - where did we go wrong?!

At least when I look at these two photos, I can see a definite difference in the "Before smoothing" and "After smoothing."

The water is still running. We'll be checking on it tonight, turning it off before bed, and starting up again tomorrow.

Hopefully the next post you'll see will have Jill relaxing on a floaty in the pool.

Chalk up one more reason to despise PCs

The plan was to post a bunch of photos from the family vacay tonight, but when I attempted to burn a CD on mom's laptop so that I could put them on my laptop, all hell broke loose.

Thought the CD burned. Brought it home. It's unreadable by my Mac. PC people? Anybody? Help here?

I think I'll just take my jump drive over there tomorrow and copy them on to that - no burning required.

I won't post too much about the trip yet - the photos will make that better. We got back around 3:30 this afternoon. Adam and I helped Mom and Dad unload the RV, then we grabbed dinner at Ruby Tuesday's (Adam was craving salad, and they have the best salad bar). We were going to go to a movie, but decided to come home and watched "Close Encounters." Then, Mom called Adam's phone to inform us that I had left my purse and phone at their house, so I had to run over there to pick it up. Good thing they're only two minutes away by car...

I did come home to find one baby bird egg in one of the hanging plant baskets on the porch, so we'll have to keep an eye on that to see what happens. It rained on us all the way home from Arkansas, but none here, I guess. I really need it to rain, since SOMEBODY was "too busy" to water my plants while I was out of town.

•••

We have one half day with students tomorrow, and then again on Wednesday. I've got grading and work to do in the afternoons, hopefully all goes well.

Summer vacation - oh so close!

Spring Break

Wow, I really thought I would have written a few blog posts during break. Not working on school stuff, not on newspaper or yearbook deadlines, time to blog, right?

Well, not so much.

I've been doing lots of work around the house - general organizing and spring cleaning, cleaning up the yard (raked a lot today). Mitzi and I hit the Shawnee St. Pat's parade and the KC St. Pat's parade to sell beads for Team in Training. We did pretty well at both - sold all the beads she ordered, and didn't have to deal with drunk a$$holes, so that was nice.

Betsy came over Monday night and we shot some photos of stuff to put on eBay. I've got three items out there right now - hopefully they'll sell so I'll have some more donation money for Team in Training.

I got to have lunch with two out of town friends - Candice and her boyfriend on Monday, and Sharon on Wednesday. It's nice to a.) be able to see friends from out of town, and b.) get to go out to lunch!

Mitzi and I will be having a benefit garage sale on April 3 and 4, here at the homestead. If you're here in town, and you've done a little spring cleaning, we'd happily take your cast-offs off your hands! Consider it de-cluttering for a great cause...

I can't believe it's already Friday night of break. This week FLEW by. We didn't do anything special, just tons of little tasks and catching up on home stuff that gets sloughed off during school days.

Our group training is tomorrow morning at Longview Lake. Eight miles. Then, we've got our Silent Auction/Benefit Dinner at Red Robin on 95th and Metcalf. Hopefully tons of people can be there, and we'll get some good traffic. I'll be there a little early, handing out flyers to diners so we can get the 10 percent donation from Red Robin for their food bills.

I'm headed to Wichita tomorrow right after training - it's L's birthday party time again. The trip was supposed to be longer, but I couldn't get everything done before today. So, it'll be a quick down and backer.

I probably have no blog readers left since I'm not regularly updating, but if you're out there:

Ask me some questions. I need some writing prompts so I can get back in the blogging state of mind. You ask, I'll answer...