Hickman2000

Oh yes, it has been nearly two months since I last posted.  Time has certainly gotten away from me!  Since the last post, of course we’ve had Christmas and all that it entails - shopping, wrapping, decorating, extra activities at school, visitors, and the enjoyment of the holiday.  Then, the day the girls started back to school after Christmas break, guess what I did?

I got a job.

I find it ironic that my last post was about how much my time is employed, without having employment - and then suddenly I had that on my list too.

So anyway, Rob is currently superintendent on a construction job at ORNL.  When he went to work on that site, it was already underway, and well past schedule.  When the Project Manager left the job mid-December, it was discovered that the necessary paper trail of approvals for materials and other boring stuff was disorganized, incomplete, and generally a mess.  And that’s where I come in….  Rob decided I was the one for the job, and hired me.  Even though I wasn’t looking for a job.  Hmmmm….  Anyway, it was supposed to be a part-time, on-call, temporary job, estimated to last about three weeks.  This coming Monday starts the beginning of week six.  The more I get done, the more they find for me to do!  I can’t complain much though, as the schedule is working out.  I take the girls to school, get to work before 8:30, and I’ve discovered I can leave as late as 2:25 and still make it to school in time to pick up the girls.  It’s inadvisable though - better to leave by 2:10 and not risk a speeding ticket!  I’m also doing some house cleaning for a friend, but that isn’t on a scheduled basis right now. 

There is talk of trying to get me on a full-time schedule to assist with  during the commissioning nad start-up phase.  Rob and I have talked about this at length, and while we can put the girls into after-school care at the school, we are both reluctant to do that.  We’ll see what happens. 

I’m trying to put the money from all this aside, so that Rob can go with us up north this summer.  Normally we can’t afford for him to take the time off to go with us when we make our visit to Maine, because he doesn’t get any paid time off.  I would soooo love for us to all be able to go this summer though, take the camper and make a real vacation out of it. 

Someone asked me today, “do you work?”  By that point in the day, I had:

• Made breakfast for the girls
• Packed lunches for the girls
• Taken the girls to school
• Baked blondies, made buckeyes, and made white peppermint bars - and packaged it all for the bake sale
• Made a 45 minute round-trip to the bank to deposit Rob’s check
• Washed two sinks full of breakfast and baking dishes
• Cleaned the kitchen floor
• Worked over an hour at the second grade bake sale
• Helped 17 second graders do the snowman bulb craft (which I had fully prepped last night)

Do I work?  Hell yes I work!  I just don’t “work” in the traditional sense of the word - as in, performing services in expectation of being rewarded in a monetary fashion. 

The job I do is strictly a labor of love. I perform housework because I love my family, and I enjoy doing things for them that contribute to their comfort.  I am a Girl Scout leader because I believe in the philosophy of scouting, and want to be a positive female influence for my daughters and the girls of our community…and for some of the girls, they don’t have that positive influence in their home.  I work at the school because I feel it’s important to contribute to my daughter’s education in that way, and to get to know and support their teachers.

Yes, I work. 

Emily’s teacher asked me if I could help her with a class craft.  The second graders need to make ornaments to hang on the tree in downtown Philadelphia (I say with a smile)…indoor ornaments I can do all year long, but I had to do some poking around for an outdoor ornament.

I emailed her four options, but one was far and above my favorite.  I’m glad she chose that one!  Here’s the one I made as a demonstration:

Isn’t he CUTE?!  The challenge started when I went to get the plastic bulbs with which to make him.  I knew that I had seen them in the craft store, and I was going to be in the neighborhood of the largest one in our area on Friday - so surely I’d find them there, right? 

Wrong.

No clear plastic bulbs.  No clear glass bulbs.  Totally s.o.l.

I was so disappointed, that I went to Wal-Mart.  Nothing in their craft or Christmas sections were anything like what I needed.  Totally bummed out, I went to the grocery side to find a pizza for dinner.  It was there that I saw the Coke display.  Coke.  In clear plastic BULB SHAPED bottles!

I bought one to make sure it would work out - who knew, underneath that ugly red label, they may have printed on the bottle?  But no, I actually scored - the bottles were perfect for my project!

Now, to drink 20 bottles of Coke….  I did my best - I drank two today.  I haven’t had that much caffeine in one day in decades.  Literally.  So then I decided that it wasn’t worth an ulcer and rotted teeth, and I poured the rest of them down the drain, and rinsed the bottles for our project. 

I filled the inside with shredded white paper that I had laying around, but you could use cotton balls, cotton batting, or even that spray ’snow’ in a can.  Half of a pipe cleaner (but not the glitter kind, which is all I had - I know the solid color will look better), two coordinating pom-poms, acrylic paint, and a ribbon for a bow and voila!  Cute snowman!

I’m going to see if I can use black craft foam to make the cap look like a top hat, but if not that’s ok too.  All I have to do after that is drill a small hole in the top, insert a ribbon loop, and seal around the ribbon with glue so it doesn’t fill with water if it rains. 

I’ll let you know how the craft goes over with the class!

I cannot believe the number of spam comments posted lately!  I have the comment settings such that anything from a new commenter (commentator?  common tater?) must be approved before his/her comment will post.  Over the past two weeks, I’ve deleted 557 spam comments on one post I added about 18 months ago.  I thought they’d quit after a few days, but it was unrelenting….I finally made that single post private last night.  It’s mildly irritating to continue to delete comments dealing with erectile dysfunction drugs, so frequently!

Anyway, as you can see I’m still alive!  I survived the swine, ‘09.  Since then of course we’ve had a wonderful Thanksgiving, I did lots of shopping on Black Friday - which I’ve never really participated in before.  I did not however join in the early morning fray in the stores; I shopped very early on-line, went back to bed, then hit the stores later in the day.  It was a good plan, because by then the hard-core shoppers were too tired to be mean. 

Earlier this week, the girls rode the school’s ‘train’ in a local Christmas parade.  So cute! 

Yesterday I attended the first annual Volunteer Appreciation Breakfast at school.  It was a wonderful spread!  A wide variety of baked goods, fruit, egg dishes…yummeh!  From there I went and spent the rest of the day helping to distribute a massive truck-load of citrus to those that had ordered.  Yeah…lure me there with promises of FOOD, and put me to work!  ;)  Good times though - I thoroughly enjoy helping out at the school. 

Today, I’m off to deliver oranges and grapefruit to those that ordered from us, and make yet another stop at a craft store.  I need to get some supplies for an ornament project for Emily’s class - it’s a super cute idea, I just hope I can find the right items for it!

UPDATE:  Oh good - while I was posting this, the spammers started commenting on a more recent post.  Well, I guess they showed me, eh?!  LOL…as if their comments will ever show.  Ever! 

Yesterday morning I felt a little sniffly, a little unwell.  I went walking anyways but I had trouble…four laps in, I knew I couldn’t do six; mid-way through the fifth lap Kayla offered to cut it short, because I was having a hard time.  I promised her I wouldn’t die, and we finished the fifth lap.  I did manage to keep my promise!

From there, I did better until around 2:00, when I started feeling really tired.  I had been out running errands, so I didn’t think much of it.  By the time I picked the girls up from school, all I wanted to do was lie down.  So when we got home, that’s what I did.  I stretched out and dozed on the upstairs couch for a while, then moved downstairs to bed; Rob got home around 4:30, and that’s when I fell asleep for real.

When I woke up around 6:30, my throat hurt something fierce, and I felt horrible.  I thought it was probably strep, so I went to the Walgreen’s walk-in clinic.  Thank heavens for their late hours!  The strep swab was negative, but she said the flu was positive.  Luckily, it took no time at all for the pharmacy to fill my prescriptions, and I was headed home.  When I looked at the paperwork, it said that the flu swab was negative, and it was suspected swine flu (ok, it didn’t say swine flu but I still call it what they called it when it came out). 

I’ve spent the day downstairs for the most part, napping off and on, watching season two of Touched by an Angel when I’ve been awake.  Soon I’ll take my third dose of Tamiflu, and I’m actually starting to feel better.  My sore throat is gone, and I’m way less congested.  I’m hoping that tomorrow I’ll be feeling a LOT better.  I’ve been planning to cook our Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, since we’re planning to be at JP and Nellie’s for Thanksgiving.  Planning….hoping.

Making an effort!  Yay, me! 

Recap of my day:  Usual morning hub-bub; took girls to school; met Kayla, Pam and Tonya at the park for a morning walk - we did 2.4 miles at a good pace; came home and made breakfast (I was ravenous - made myself a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich on toast); tidied up the house; swept the kitchen; washed the dishes; showered; went to school and volunteered in Kindergarten for about four hours; came home and caught up on my Facebook; started dinner - homemade macaroni and cheese, grilled chicken, green beans.  Kayla will be here at 6:00 to pick me up for a Girl Scout Service Unit meeting, and I’ll probably be home around 8:30.

At school, I got to prep a class book, and work on the student’s scrapbooks.  I LOVED it!  I had a great time, the day passed quickly, and I felt very productive when I got everything caught up!

Gotta go and check on the chicken…I’m really not good at grilling, but with Rob working extended hours it’s become a necessity!

Today was the school’s annual Thanksgiving lunch.  They invite parents and family members to dine with their students, and serve a traditional Thanksgiving meal: turkey, ham, dressing, etc.  Last year, I went and it was horrible.  The food was ok, but I waited in line with the girls for about an hour, then by the time we got up to the serving area in the cafeteria, Abby was so hungry (over an hour past her lunch time) she had a total meltdown.  Did I mention it was awful?

This year, I offered the girls the option to skip lunch at school, and I’d take them to McD’s.  They jumped at it!  It was a special treat for them (both because it was McD’s, and because they were out to lunch on a school day), and it was way less stress for all of us.  I rock! 

Emily cracked me up yesterday.  I was wearing a very pretty pink fleece pullover that I hadn’t worn before, and as we were walking into school Emily rubbed my sleeve and said “Is this new Mom?”  I told her it was.  She said with a knowing smile and wink “Let me guess…eBay?!”  I was laughing so hard I could barely get out “nope - yard sale!”  That kid knows me! 

I haven’t had time - so what else is new, right?!  I meant to do better…but I didn’t.  Ah well, what can I say that you haven’t heard before?!

Rob’s been working long hours the past several weeks.  Makes for a nice pay check, but we do miss him around the house.  And he’s bummed because he’s missed out on a lot of hunting.  He actually had this past Saturday off (worked on Sunday tho), and spent the morning in the woods.  He called me just before 10:00 to say that he had shot two deer - one was a ‘button buck’ meaning no antlers (thus actually counting as a doe) and one an eight point buck.  The eight pointer had run off and he couldn’t find it.  The girls and I (after a talk about what they might see) went to help look.  Emily spotted the blood which Rob had missed his first two passes along that way!  We followed it all over the place, lost it, then Sara found it again!  Long story slightly shorter: three and half hours hiking through the woods, and still unable to locate the deer.  I think he ran off, had a good laugh, and is living out his buck-dreams in the woods today.

I’ve stayed extremely busy with volunteering at the school, doing Girl Scout crafts, house, kids, etc.  I prepped some good crafts for the Brownies and Daisies for last week.  They made ornaments for the GS council’s tree in the next week’s Fantasy of Trees display.  Also, we made a bunch of origami cranes for the school’s display in the same festival!  It’ll be neat to see our handiwork on display there.  I looked back over my calendar yesterday and discovered that I’ve volunteered at the school a total of 55 hours thus far this school year.  That’s pretty cool!  I like keeping track of that, just so I can feel like I’ve accomplished something. 

The girls are doing great!  They’ve had two semesters of excellent report cards, we really couldn’t ask for much more in that department.  The big thing for me is that they enjoy school so much!  This morning when Emily was coughing and sounding horribly congested I suggested that she may need to stay home today…and she agreed.  That’s how I know she really wasn’t feeling well. 

So here’s the deal:  I’m going to try to do better about posting…again! 

I know, I know…I have been so neglectful - AGAIN!  It’s just that things have been so incredibly busy around here.  It seems like either there’s nothing going on, so I have nothing to write about - or there’s so much happening that I haven’t time to write about it!

Sara:  She’s wonderful!  Sara has been doing well in school, and enjoying every minute of it.  She is sad, however, that she hasn’t got a loose tooth yet.  Sara got to go on her first camping trip to the Girl Scout camp last weekend, and she loved it!  She did wonderfully, and had a great time playing with her scouting friends.

Sara with a Walking Stick (bug), Jason and Joseph looking on:

Abby:  Abby lost her first tooth on September 30, and her second tooth on October 7th!  The tooth fairy left her a little gift of two new Littlest Pet Shop toys and two dollars for her first tooth, and money for her second.  But she took EVERY toy off her bed the morning after her second tooth, just to make sure she didn’t overlook a gift!  Abby also went on her first trip to Girl Scout camp, and it was so fun to see her playing with all the girls!

Abby’s new smile:

Emily:  Emily had her first real tooth extraction this past week.  She’s had a permanent tooth come in behind a baby tooth, that has been up for about three months.  The baby tooth wasn’t even loose.  So, we finally bit the bullet and took her in to have that pulled.  Our dentist is just fantastic with kids - she was fully awake, but wasn’t even aware that she got three shots of Novacaine (and don’t you tell her!!).  That night she left a note for the tooth fairy, so her tooth fairy (who goes by the name of Carmela, by the way) was obliged to write her back.  Emily also loved her most recent trip to Girl Scout camp!  This past Friday, Emily turned in her first diorama assignment at school - she chose the ocean habitat, and I thought she did a fantastic job!  I bought some modelling clay at WM, that can be baked to the consistency of pencil erasers. 

Emily with her diorama:

Rob:  He got home yesterday after a four day/three night hunting/camping trip at the Catoosa WMA that he’s planned on since he was there last year.  That’s where he got the wild boar that was sooo delicious!  It wasn’t been a fruitful trip, but he had a good time.  It got pretty cold though! Also, he started a new job for the same company, and we’re very grateful for that.  For a bit there, things were looking shaky on the work front.

Rob in a tree stand:

Me:  Busy busy busy!  Between helping out at school, working with the Girl Scouts, supervising the girls homework and school projects, and (trying) to keep up with the house, I have just been incredibly busy.  Which I totally love, except for not staying in touch with friends and family as I normally would!  Facebook is a good outlet, because I can update it in just a few seconds, or add pictures very quickly from the camera or even from my phone while on the go - but I feel disconnected from so many people.  I’ll try to do better!

One very cool thing is that Emily and I completed the Hobbies badge with the letterboxing project we had planned.  We planted four letterboxes around our area, with the custom stamps that Emily designed and I carved.  While we were up at Girl Scout camp, I planted two boxes up there.  Then I gave the girls the clues, they found the location on the map, then located a second set of clues to the actual location of the box.  The girls loved it!  I told them that Emily and I had planted boxes here, and that we’d share the details at the next meeting.  That really got them interested!  So last Tuesday, Emily talked about letterboxing to her troop (several girls didn’t go on the camping trip, so that was the first they’d heard of it), and we gave out the information on the four local boxes.  And I offered special incentive prizes for the first eight finders of all four boxes.  Woot!  This week I’ll provide the camp office with the information on the location of the two boxes up there, then troops/campers will have that as an activity if they wish.

Oh routine, how I have missed thee! 

I did spend all day last Thursday and Friday at the school - I helped with the health screenings until about 2:00, then went to Abby and Sara’s classroom to help out for the last hour.  No sense in coming home for 45 minutes, then going back to school to get the girls, yanno?  Very busy, but very worthwhile.  The goal each year is to do screenings on the even-numbered grades (K, 2nd, 4th, etc up through 8th); then if there’s time, to do as much of the odd-numbered grades.  These screenings include height, weight (to calculate BMI), blood pressure, hearing, and vision.  The local Lions Club does the vision, and for kindergartners they take a high resolution photo of the eyeballs which is checked by an opthamologist for abnormalities.  All of this is done on a volunteer basis, at no cost to parents.  Another parent that volunteered this year said that two years ago, her son’s vision problem was discovered by the health screening - prior to that, she didn’t realize he was having trouble seeing. 

ANYWAY, we got every kid in attendance those two days, except for two of the 7th grade classes.  That’s somewhere around 550 kids - which is pretty darn awesome! 

When I got home with the girls on Friday, Rob was trying to run the weed eater in the yard.  I say trying, because our yard was severely overgrown….we haven’t been able to cut the grass in about a month.  We went up to our GREAT neighbor’s (not the ones directly behind us, and not the ones with the race track) and borrowed their mower.  I ran the weed eater, and Rob mowed the hay down.  It looks a lot better out there!

Saturday, hunting season opened up here - which means that Rob was out in the woods for most of the weekend.  No luck for him - but lots of luck for the local deer population. 

We had to do some shopping for him on Saturday, for some decent clothes for work.  He started a job with a new contractor yesterday, as a construction superintendent.  This job should hopefully last until around February.  He looks good in his slacks and button-down shirts…he does clean up well! 

Last night, I had to turn the heat on for the first time this season.  It got down to 48!  It is just gorgeous outside today, near 70 I would say.  It was quite brisk for my walking this morning (2.4 miles - yay!) and I loved it.  I hope it stays like this for a while yet.