I'm putting on my shoes and blogging at the same time...that's not news, but it is interesting. I have to hurry and leave for preschool in 7 minutes.
Mike has been on the road for over 4 hours now on his way to pick up Indie at Mercer around noon when she gets out of her last class of the day before Thanksgiving break. They should arrive home in time for dinner. Hmmm, wonder who's night it is to cook? Oh, wait! It's Tuesday, which means it's Fend For Yourself Night so there isn't going to BE any dinner. Maybe I will make an exception and try to scrounge something up.
Great news from Indie this week. She was one of NINE students from the entire university's honors group selected to go on the Mercer On Mission trip to Kenya this summer! I think she was the only Freshman who made it on the team. They will be working really hard - and it was her understanding of this and willingness to do anything except eat "Survivor Bugs" which I heard helped cinch her spot on the team! Check out the details at www.mercer.edu/mom and click on Kenya.
Out of time - whatever else I remember I didn't have time for I'll blog about later!
2023
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Strength in Numbers
Fun times at preschool. Ms. Jane is back!! She is our P.E. teacher, for want of a better description, from November through February, one day a week. She comes up with all these wild games and movement to exercise the phlegm right out of those coughing munchkins!! Last week she had just about half of Pre-K hacking their lungs out and then she said time to stop coughing, and guess what?! They did!! Wow, the power of Ms. Jane!! We played alot of freeze tag games today. One version was where the teachers were the only ones who could unfreeze the kids who had been tagged by one of two giant neon green carwash mitt wielding kiddos. We have one little gal who just turned 4 - she is Japanese and English is her 2nd language. She's doing good with it, but speaks rarely. I think we wild Americans sometimes freak her out. Ms. Jane's P.E. class is way outside her comfort zone. She sits there and won't participate unless I hold her hand or carry her. For a little shorty, she has serious heft, lemme tell ya. Wow, she's heavier than you'd think from looking at her. After one back-breaking round of carrying her I decided she'd better run alongside me. Once we tagged a couple kids she got right into it and started giggling. Man is that the cutest - she is sooo yummy! Next thing I knew we snagged another little gal who was intimidated by the "run fast or be run over" momentum of the game. Then another gal hooked up to our chain of little girls. At one point I think I had about 5. Now, imagine trying to stay away from the giant neon green mitt freeze-tagging kids and all the running wild children while not tripping over the wave of tiny little girls holding your hands and maneuvering under and around your legs, in front of you, behind you (at the same time!), pulling you to the left, to the right and the screaming....my gosh, my ears still hurt!! Amazingly, we never did get tagged. I think the taggers were afraid of our chain gang! I decided my strategy was going to be to sacrifice the gals on the end of the chain gang and risk a hernia swooping up my little one and running like crazy while everyone else got frozen if a tagger got too close, but it never came to that! Of course, as long as she was attached to my side, my little friend kept merrily tagging everyone regardless of whether or not we were allowed to do so no matter how many times I told her it wasn't our turn to freeze people, so I had to keep saying, "you're not really frozen! RUN!" Ah, good times.
Then tonight was the protest/get to know your School Board members in the "special session" held at the high school where we could "voice our concerns" and see a map (whoo-freakin'-hoo)before they, in the infamous (and oh, so true) words of a German neighbor uttered, no shouted more like, (no lie) at an HOA meeting (you have to say it in the heavist German accent you have ever heard -hardly understandable) - "dis ees jus an twick...dey have an agenda and dey will scweeeew us!!!" I turned to my neighbor sitting beside me, gave her my blandest look, and I asked, "did he just say...'they will screw us?'" and she replied ever so dryly, "yes, yes he did. Gotta love the Germans." (They were kinda taking over the HOA meeting).
Anyways, tons of people showed up tonight at the special session. Mike, Gib, Mariah & I went. Let's hope our message to the Board swayed enough of them to at least table the discussion and not vote on it the day before the new School Superintendent takes office. Talk about trying to pull a fast one. From all accounts he wants it reviewed further and to have his own input rather than just inheriting the fall out.
Then tonight was the protest/get to know your School Board members in the "special session" held at the high school where we could "voice our concerns" and see a map (whoo-freakin'-hoo)before they, in the infamous (and oh, so true) words of a German neighbor uttered, no shouted more like, (no lie) at an HOA meeting (you have to say it in the heavist German accent you have ever heard -hardly understandable) - "dis ees jus an twick...dey have an agenda and dey will scweeeew us!!!" I turned to my neighbor sitting beside me, gave her my blandest look, and I asked, "did he just say...'they will screw us?'" and she replied ever so dryly, "yes, yes he did. Gotta love the Germans." (They were kinda taking over the HOA meeting).
Anyways, tons of people showed up tonight at the special session. Mike, Gib, Mariah & I went. Let's hope our message to the Board swayed enough of them to at least table the discussion and not vote on it the day before the new School Superintendent takes office. Talk about trying to pull a fast one. From all accounts he wants it reviewed further and to have his own input rather than just inheriting the fall out.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Finding Time
I thought I'd grab a moment to provide a blog update to those who still bother to check back once and awhile to see if there's anything new here.
Mariah had a wonderful Veteran's Day choir performance. I will have to upload the Battle Hymn of the Republic and blog it this week. It was very good. The ceremony was also good, but very long. I think the whole thing was about 2 hrs. Oh, my aching back. I hate school bleachers. It was a real tear jerker too. As if the whole spiel about veterans wasn't enough to get me going...and I realized that we have family on all sides who are veterans or who served in the military: my dad, my cousin, Mike's dad Fred, a brother-in-law, his uncle and cousin on the Guth side, my paternal & maternal grandfathers, my great uncles, and a bunch of great-great's in historic battles that forged our Nation. I'm probably forgetting a couple, and I'm not at all familiar with the Coombs history of military service. So I was feeling very nostalgic as the band was playing the songs for the Navy, Air Force, Army and Marines. Then the speaker had his turn. He returned recently from Dubai. While he was overseas for 6 months, his Ididarod husky Maverick, who went with him to visit elderly in retirement homes, sick kids in hospitals, kids in schools, etc., passed away. He had slide show and everything. It was a total "Old Yeller" moment. But in all respects, it was a wonderful Veteran's Day ceremony and I hope next year maybe we might have a Veteran join us....then we can sit in the comfy chairs!
On the heels of the Old Yeller morning, I had a little scare with Chino that night. When I got home from work, he was acting very "off" and I realized he hadn't been himself for a day or so. After watching him for a few minutes, I called the vet. They were closing. So I watched Chino some more and then thought I'd brush him for a bit and see if there were any injuries once I was able to poke around. He yowled and almost bit me. I've never been bit and Chino is the most laid back of any cat I've ever had, so for him to do that I was super concerned. So we headed to the emergency vet. My guess was an injury or kidney stones/crystals like he had about 5 yrs ago which require immediate treatment. They couldn't find anything, but he yowled when they touched him in the hindquarter too, so they thought probable injury. X-rays showed only that he was "backed up" and the vet figured he wasn't going because it hurt too much with the muscle injury. The next day I took Chino to our regular vet. After a thorough check, it was determined there weren't any other problems. After 2 days of giving him a meds - which had the consistency of tree sap and of course it got all over his fur - he still hadn't gone & was in pain so back to the vet we went and he got the L.A. Treatment - colonics. Chino feels sooo much better now. I know many of you didn't want to know this but there are some of you who would know just how scary that was for me. When a cat starts acting "off" it's usually bad news and you can flip a quarter whether or not you come home with him. I'm very thankful this wasn't that day.
Between the vet bills and mega car repairs to get the van into "everyday transportation" shape, we don't feel better at all!!!!
Thanksgiving is right around the corner. As a matter of fact, I just got done cooking my turkey! For Preschool!! It's tradition that the teacher brings in the turkey and parents sign up for the rest of the menu that the Pre-K comes up with. Our class added mac & cheese and chicken nuggets to the turkey as main dishes. Parents will come join us for the feast. We made Indian ponchos today and will make pasta necklaces - one to keep and one to give away to a loved one. Mariah helped dye the pasta for me.
Our Thanksgiving will be the usual Surf & Turf and my grandpa will join us. This year I got Stone Crab Claws and Lobster Claw and ribeye steaks. Yum! We will be celebrating Grandpa's 90th birthday as well. Mike will leave on Tuesday to go get Indie and I think Grandpa arrives on Wednesday. It will be nice to have everyone around.
Indie's been doing great. She was chosen to be on a joint chemistry/psychology research team. As I understand it - and this is very rudimentary - she will create a molecule and then it will be reproduced (this will take about a semester) and in the second phase of the research they will study the effects of the chemical/molecule on the lab rats (another semester) which is the psychology part of the research and I imagine a paper will be written up and perhaps there is a chance Indie might get some research credit!
The big news that has been occupying our thoughts and time is a potential rezoning of Gib's high school. I have been participating in the neighborhood HOA push to organize a sound protest movement and flood the School Board with letters & facts, and logical arguments against their proposal. Whether or not this does any good is a complete 50-50; I've seen this happen many times and usually once its in the works, your chances are minimal. But still, you have to try or you will definitely fail. In the 10 years we've been here, I've seen 14 rezonings in our neighborhoods alone, and we've attended 9 schools. That's basically 3 schools more that we attended than we should have had to, not counting the move that added 3 schools to our tally.
Besides Preschool which is keeping me really busy, and my civic responsibilities, I've also been wrapping up college applications for Taryn. Top 5 colleges are: Missouri Sci & Tech; UAH; Tenn Tech; Colo School of Mines; UTC. Now for the scholarship applications - most are due somewhere between 12/1 and 1/15.
I'm also quite pleased to report that my Fantasy Football team is in 2nd place! So much to be thankful for, eh?! Mike has Poker Night here this Friday night. We'll have to see if he ends up with another win to be thankful for or not. If he does, I think the guys will stop coming here to play!
Mariah had a wonderful Veteran's Day choir performance. I will have to upload the Battle Hymn of the Republic and blog it this week. It was very good. The ceremony was also good, but very long. I think the whole thing was about 2 hrs. Oh, my aching back. I hate school bleachers. It was a real tear jerker too. As if the whole spiel about veterans wasn't enough to get me going...and I realized that we have family on all sides who are veterans or who served in the military: my dad, my cousin, Mike's dad Fred, a brother-in-law, his uncle and cousin on the Guth side, my paternal & maternal grandfathers, my great uncles, and a bunch of great-great's in historic battles that forged our Nation. I'm probably forgetting a couple, and I'm not at all familiar with the Coombs history of military service. So I was feeling very nostalgic as the band was playing the songs for the Navy, Air Force, Army and Marines. Then the speaker had his turn. He returned recently from Dubai. While he was overseas for 6 months, his Ididarod husky Maverick, who went with him to visit elderly in retirement homes, sick kids in hospitals, kids in schools, etc., passed away. He had slide show and everything. It was a total "Old Yeller" moment. But in all respects, it was a wonderful Veteran's Day ceremony and I hope next year maybe we might have a Veteran join us....then we can sit in the comfy chairs!
On the heels of the Old Yeller morning, I had a little scare with Chino that night. When I got home from work, he was acting very "off" and I realized he hadn't been himself for a day or so. After watching him for a few minutes, I called the vet. They were closing. So I watched Chino some more and then thought I'd brush him for a bit and see if there were any injuries once I was able to poke around. He yowled and almost bit me. I've never been bit and Chino is the most laid back of any cat I've ever had, so for him to do that I was super concerned. So we headed to the emergency vet. My guess was an injury or kidney stones/crystals like he had about 5 yrs ago which require immediate treatment. They couldn't find anything, but he yowled when they touched him in the hindquarter too, so they thought probable injury. X-rays showed only that he was "backed up" and the vet figured he wasn't going because it hurt too much with the muscle injury. The next day I took Chino to our regular vet. After a thorough check, it was determined there weren't any other problems. After 2 days of giving him a meds - which had the consistency of tree sap and of course it got all over his fur - he still hadn't gone & was in pain so back to the vet we went and he got the L.A. Treatment - colonics. Chino feels sooo much better now. I know many of you didn't want to know this but there are some of you who would know just how scary that was for me. When a cat starts acting "off" it's usually bad news and you can flip a quarter whether or not you come home with him. I'm very thankful this wasn't that day.
Between the vet bills and mega car repairs to get the van into "everyday transportation" shape, we don't feel better at all!!!!
Thanksgiving is right around the corner. As a matter of fact, I just got done cooking my turkey! For Preschool!! It's tradition that the teacher brings in the turkey and parents sign up for the rest of the menu that the Pre-K comes up with. Our class added mac & cheese and chicken nuggets to the turkey as main dishes. Parents will come join us for the feast. We made Indian ponchos today and will make pasta necklaces - one to keep and one to give away to a loved one. Mariah helped dye the pasta for me.
Our Thanksgiving will be the usual Surf & Turf and my grandpa will join us. This year I got Stone Crab Claws and Lobster Claw and ribeye steaks. Yum! We will be celebrating Grandpa's 90th birthday as well. Mike will leave on Tuesday to go get Indie and I think Grandpa arrives on Wednesday. It will be nice to have everyone around.
Indie's been doing great. She was chosen to be on a joint chemistry/psychology research team. As I understand it - and this is very rudimentary - she will create a molecule and then it will be reproduced (this will take about a semester) and in the second phase of the research they will study the effects of the chemical/molecule on the lab rats (another semester) which is the psychology part of the research and I imagine a paper will be written up and perhaps there is a chance Indie might get some research credit!
The big news that has been occupying our thoughts and time is a potential rezoning of Gib's high school. I have been participating in the neighborhood HOA push to organize a sound protest movement and flood the School Board with letters & facts, and logical arguments against their proposal. Whether or not this does any good is a complete 50-50; I've seen this happen many times and usually once its in the works, your chances are minimal. But still, you have to try or you will definitely fail. In the 10 years we've been here, I've seen 14 rezonings in our neighborhoods alone, and we've attended 9 schools. That's basically 3 schools more that we attended than we should have had to, not counting the move that added 3 schools to our tally.
Besides Preschool which is keeping me really busy, and my civic responsibilities, I've also been wrapping up college applications for Taryn. Top 5 colleges are: Missouri Sci & Tech; UAH; Tenn Tech; Colo School of Mines; UTC. Now for the scholarship applications - most are due somewhere between 12/1 and 1/15.
I'm also quite pleased to report that my Fantasy Football team is in 2nd place! So much to be thankful for, eh?! Mike has Poker Night here this Friday night. We'll have to see if he ends up with another win to be thankful for or not. If he does, I think the guys will stop coming here to play!
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Blessings Day
The "big" blessings day at preschool went over...well, kinda in big way, depending on how you measure it! Actually, for some it went right over the kiddo's heads, but we start with a tiny mustard seed in preschool and it grows!
Besides the blessing theme, this month we are making something every week out of pumpkin since the kids made yucky faces and ewww noises during stories about pumpkins in October. Last week we made cupcakes. No pumpkin last week as the theme was Halloween and I used candy corn in our creative curriculum and we frosted and decorated our cupcakes at the end of the day with them. But this week we made vanilla pumpkin pudding. The making of it was much better received than the actual tasting of it according to 80% of the class. And, oh my gosh, making something with 10 children all wanting a turn simutaneously stirring, opening, pouring, sniffing, helping, helping, helping!!!! "Wow, that's about all I can say about that...WOW!" Back to the pudding, I personally thought it was delicious. But one little girl summed it up succintly "It's DISGUSTING!!!" I even gave them chocolate sprinkles to help them choke it down, to no avail.
At story time I read "What Mommies/Daddies Do Best". It's a cute story that tells the same story twice, once as what mommy does best, and then you flip the book over and re-read it as what daddy does best. Different illustrations but the story line is the same. Very fun and cute. We brought the discussion around to blessings and being thankful for blessings, how we have lots of different blessings, how our families are all different but similar, just like the book, etc. Then I conducted the interviews to find out what great and small blessings the kiddo's were thankful for, explaining that a big blessing is one that is very important to you and the smaller blessings might be ones that still matter to you but they might be lots of little everyday blessings that you are happy to have in your life. And no matter how you count them, they all add up to the fact that God loves us so much He gives us lots of blessings in just the size you need. Here are the ones that made me smile, minus the repetitive ones (great blessings followed by the small):
This one little boy was sooo sweet, I asked 2 or 3 times for an answer I could use for a small blessing but he really wouldn't give me one, finally he said "I don't have one, this is enuf". How sweet is that?!
Besides the blessing theme, this month we are making something every week out of pumpkin since the kids made yucky faces and ewww noises during stories about pumpkins in October. Last week we made cupcakes. No pumpkin last week as the theme was Halloween and I used candy corn in our creative curriculum and we frosted and decorated our cupcakes at the end of the day with them. But this week we made vanilla pumpkin pudding. The making of it was much better received than the actual tasting of it according to 80% of the class. And, oh my gosh, making something with 10 children all wanting a turn simutaneously stirring, opening, pouring, sniffing, helping, helping, helping!!!! "Wow, that's about all I can say about that...WOW!" Back to the pudding, I personally thought it was delicious. But one little girl summed it up succintly "It's DISGUSTING!!!" I even gave them chocolate sprinkles to help them choke it down, to no avail.
At story time I read "What Mommies/Daddies Do Best". It's a cute story that tells the same story twice, once as what mommy does best, and then you flip the book over and re-read it as what daddy does best. Different illustrations but the story line is the same. Very fun and cute. We brought the discussion around to blessings and being thankful for blessings, how we have lots of different blessings, how our families are all different but similar, just like the book, etc. Then I conducted the interviews to find out what great and small blessings the kiddo's were thankful for, explaining that a big blessing is one that is very important to you and the smaller blessings might be ones that still matter to you but they might be lots of little everyday blessings that you are happy to have in your life. And no matter how you count them, they all add up to the fact that God loves us so much He gives us lots of blessings in just the size you need. Here are the ones that made me smile, minus the repetitive ones (great blessings followed by the small):
We Are Blessed In Ways
Both Great & Small
But We're Thankful For Them ALL!
"A big, big, big, big, BIG house is a blessing!"
"All my little toys"
"My mom and dad"
"I have a cat Tiger"
"Playing Baseball"
"I'm thankful for my dog Boomer"
"My bedtime story at night"
"Our little house"
"I'm thankful that I'm going to get a new pet!"
"I'm thankful that when my dad got hurt shaving on his cheek it got better"
"The trees are a big blessing and my heart diamond at home. The flowers are a medium blessing. The ladybugs are a small blessing"
This one little boy was sooo sweet, I asked 2 or 3 times for an answer I could use for a small blessing but he really wouldn't give me one, finally he said "I don't have one, this is enuf". How sweet is that?!
"Playing with my dad"
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Quick!
I have just a couple minutes for a brief update...so I'll talk all about ME. That won't take long!
I'm feeling much better; just slower than usual and not alot of energy. Hopefully it will improve day by day. My first two Wednesdays of teaching went very well. Last week the theme was Predictions and we had a prediction chart about whether or not the kids liked candy corn, did some candy corn math/visual art project and made cupcakes, decorated with...you guessed it! Candy corn!
Tomorrow, my curriculum theme is Blessings: Great & Small going off the theme of the month which is Being Thankful. It's also the 30th day of preschool. So I am taking in 3 different sizes of plastic cups in stacks of 30 each. I need to see which kids can count to 30 anyway, so we will have a comparison/contrasting day of size and volume with the cups. We will build pyramids with them and pour liquids from one to another comparing volume and appearance and finally we will tie it all into blessings and how God gives us many different kinds of blessings that may seems great and some may seem small, but no matter how you stack them, they all add up to the same thing: Heavenly Father loves us (to inifinity and beyond!). I think I will do a blessings poster too because I love kid quotes, and have them identify one Great Blessing in their life and one Small Blessing in their life and write down their quotes side by side. That's always hilarious. I can just see it now. Great: My Mommy, my teddy bear, and my trick or treat candy. Small: My baby sister.
Tonight will be a busy night too. It's the part two of Activity Nights. It's my 3rd in a row planning and I'm ready for a break after this and hope my partner will do the Daddy Daughter Christmas Caroling and Cookie Exchange on her own. We are finishing up an Intro into budgeting and going on a field trip to the grocery store as a quasi-service project to shop for canned food for the Cub Scout food drive. The girls were all given 2 weeks to do odd jobs and earn money for tonight. I really hope everyone comes prepared or it will be a giant flop. I've been emailing reminders, and sent home fridge magnets from the budgeting night so they wouldn't forget. We will divvy up the earnings into equal amounts for each team and when we get to the store, the kids will be assigned an aisle number and they can only buy what is in their budget and only in that aisle. This is an idea I morphed from Kay or Linda - thanks! It's alot of fun. My kids enjoyed it a time or two so I hope it translates OK for the Activity Girls.
Well, I gotta get off to preschool!
I'm feeling much better; just slower than usual and not alot of energy. Hopefully it will improve day by day. My first two Wednesdays of teaching went very well. Last week the theme was Predictions and we had a prediction chart about whether or not the kids liked candy corn, did some candy corn math/visual art project and made cupcakes, decorated with...you guessed it! Candy corn!
Tomorrow, my curriculum theme is Blessings: Great & Small going off the theme of the month which is Being Thankful. It's also the 30th day of preschool. So I am taking in 3 different sizes of plastic cups in stacks of 30 each. I need to see which kids can count to 30 anyway, so we will have a comparison/contrasting day of size and volume with the cups. We will build pyramids with them and pour liquids from one to another comparing volume and appearance and finally we will tie it all into blessings and how God gives us many different kinds of blessings that may seems great and some may seem small, but no matter how you stack them, they all add up to the same thing: Heavenly Father loves us (to inifinity and beyond!). I think I will do a blessings poster too because I love kid quotes, and have them identify one Great Blessing in their life and one Small Blessing in their life and write down their quotes side by side. That's always hilarious. I can just see it now. Great: My Mommy, my teddy bear, and my trick or treat candy. Small: My baby sister.
Tonight will be a busy night too. It's the part two of Activity Nights. It's my 3rd in a row planning and I'm ready for a break after this and hope my partner will do the Daddy Daughter Christmas Caroling and Cookie Exchange on her own. We are finishing up an Intro into budgeting and going on a field trip to the grocery store as a quasi-service project to shop for canned food for the Cub Scout food drive. The girls were all given 2 weeks to do odd jobs and earn money for tonight. I really hope everyone comes prepared or it will be a giant flop. I've been emailing reminders, and sent home fridge magnets from the budgeting night so they wouldn't forget. We will divvy up the earnings into equal amounts for each team and when we get to the store, the kids will be assigned an aisle number and they can only buy what is in their budget and only in that aisle. This is an idea I morphed from Kay or Linda - thanks! It's alot of fun. My kids enjoyed it a time or two so I hope it translates OK for the Activity Girls.
Well, I gotta get off to preschool!
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