Things are finally settling into a decent routine around here. Nothing too exciting (or hilarious) to report.
The kids are doing great. The chickens are still laying eggs. And shopping for the new TV has begun. LED, LCD or Plasma? 60Hz or 120 Hz? 720 or 1080? 1080p or 1080i? 42" or 50"?
These are the questions that are currently filling my off time and emptying our checking account.
The kids ride the bus from their campus to mine each afternoon. The timing couldn't work out better most of the time. They arrive at the high school right as my work is finishing up and I am ready to head homeward.
Most days they see the last of the high school students hanging around as we are walking to the car. And for the record, these high school kids are a good group, so I have no worries about walking my little ones around campus. All of that is simply background info.
The kids and I were headed to the car this afternoon. The kids saw one of the high school boys making "the move". He was going in to kiss his girlfriend, but his hair is so shaggy that he had to push it out of his face to finish the smooch. I laughed and told the Talker that "If you have to move your hair out of your face to kiss a girl, then you might need to be named "Hairy McScary".
The Talker responded, "No. Maybe he should be called Hairy McRick Perry" - which as far as I can tell, was a direct slam against our Governor Goodhair, Rick Perry.
The Princess chimed in "Maybe we should call him Hairy Stinky Face McHairy." I'll leave it to you to decide if that one counts as a political joke or not...
It is only Tuesday, but it has been one heck of a week already. I haven't seen much of the family lately, so if you know anything about how they are doing, drop me a line, OK?
In the rest of the AtHomeFam news, the chickens are fine, the yard looks like hell and the inside of the house does not look much better. As for me, I have adjusted to the new family schedule worse than anyone. And like my yard, my outsides look like hell and I am sure my insides look even worse.
Now you know. Sorry.
to give into the dark, soul-sucking, hateful little things.
No, I am not talking about the kids, they have been around for a while and they really aren't THAT bad.
Today The Boss Lady bought the kids their first Silly Bandz, the brightly colored, little, shaped rubber bands that evidently kids all over the country have gone nuts for this past year (maybe longer).
Why are we so late to the fad? Have you seen the cost of those things? $4 a dozen? Yeah, uh, No! And us late adopters of all things cool seem to give in when the fad drops to about 1/4 the original price. $1 a dozen is a little more like it.
Wish us luck. I am just hoping now that we haven't accidentally unleashed a whole new Pok-e-mon/Bakugan/Disney Princess-ish 0bsession to collect 'em all.
I was at a meeting this evening and they were insistent that help was needed TOMORROW evening. I tried to decline politely (by not volunteering). But I got called out. Then I was quizzed about why I didn't jump at the chance to help. Still, I didn't offer up any assistance.
'Cause I gots stuff to do tomorrow evening. You know, it being a Thursday and all...
Actually tomorrow is a big day. The wife and I will be celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary.
It would be staggering enough to think that this woman has put up with me for 15 years. But, that would discount the fact that she had more than 3 years under her belt before we got married, thanks to the longest engagement in the history of the universe.
To tell the truth, we have a real busy weekend planned, so we are not actually doing anything exciting tomorrow night. We will save that for the weekend.
CBH baby and thanks for all the cheeseburgers.
Work has officially and totally kicked my butt. My legs and feet (and hips and back and arms and neck and toes) hurt like I have been working in a coal mine for decades. I think most of that is due to the fact that I managed to go 8 years with little more than flip-flops for my every day footwear. Shoes is heavy!
Everything is going as smoothly as I hoped (and much more smoothly than I expected.) The students are getting used to me and I am quickly hitting my stride and getting back into the game. We have had no major problems. Yet. I am sure things will settle in and trouble will pop up. But the tone for any decent class is set early in the year and I think that we have things going pretty well for now.
This past Friday the AtHomeFam hit the road right after work. We headed up to a summer camp where I worked and The Boss Lady volunteered while we were in college. This was a weekend dedicated to celebrating the 20th anniversary of the opening of Camp John Marc, a camp for chronically ill and severely physically disabled kids. The weekend was great fun.
Those of us who were lucky enough to have been on camp staff for the first couple of years haven't had the chance to spend much time together since we left. 18 years is a long time to go without seeing some of your closest friends. But as soon as we got together the laughs and smiles came easily and quickly.
I am now convinced that it is possible to pull a muscle from laughing too hard!
We told stories and we swapped a few lies. We shared a lot of hugs, a few tears and we poured over old photos. And each of us got to introduce our own families to the other crew members.
I planned to pull out all of my old camp treasures, from t-shirts to arts and crafts projects, so that I could show them off again. Last week was so busy at work that I didn't get that done. Sitting around, checking out all of the treasures that the others had dug up made me really wish I had taken the time to haul my own things out of storage.
And finally, in one of those "I must really be getting older AND wiser" type moments, Kath and I, the first two people to ever make a camp golf cart fly - and subsequently the first two to ever endure a LIFETIME camp vehicle driving ban, found an unattended John Deere Gator. With the keys sitting in it!
The two of us laughed like crazy about how those keys must have been a divine sign that our driving privileges have been miraculously restored after 19 years. And we laughed more about the look the camp director would have on his face if we were to drive that Gator around camp. Then we decided that it looked like a lot of hassle to climb up on that big ol' thing. And besides, neither of us were totally sure that WE would survive making that thing fly, much less having to suffer the embarrassment of losing our driving privileges for all eternity twice in the same lifetime.
So we walked across camp, laughing the whole way. Just like old times.
The first day of school was a success for the entire AtHomeFam, even though we were spread across an entire school district. The kids go to an elementary school about 2 miles from the high school where I work. The Boss Lady works a few miles further out.
So for the first time ever we car-pooled to school. Drop off at the elementary went without a hitch. The Boss dropped me at the high school after a minimum amount of crying and whining. Then she got her day started at the office.
I spent my first day on the go. I think we are off to a good start and with this much running around the campus, I bet the extra 20 pounds I picked up as a professional couch surfer/ AtHomer will be gone by Thanksgiving.
The only hiccups in our day came late. The kid's bus dropped them off at my school about 30 minutes later than scheduled. In the end it was OK. That was 30 minutes that I did not have to entertain the kiddos after school and we left for home just a few minutes after they arrived. Also, somewhere along the way The Talker managed to lose his first lunchbox of the school year.
All in all, this was not a bad day.
Luckily it was a 4 work-day week. Otherwise the outcome might have been different. The kids and I are doing our usual thing today. Messiness, sloth and arguing with siblings seem to be very high on the agenda for our last summer day. That and getting the oil changed in my car.
Anyways, things at the new job will finally start to settle into a routine soon. The kids show up at 8am on Monday. The week leading up to the first day of school has been about what I expected. Lots of being busy and a lot of wondering what to do next.
I have gotten a crash course in what I shall kindly call "workplace personalities". One example, Farmville, is a co-worker. Want to guess what she spends 3 hours a day doing? Yeah. It kind of goes on like that. The biggest change from working in this role and my pre-AtHomer days, is that I have no supervisory role in this gig. So Farmville (and the rest) will be a problem for someone else to handle.
The reality is that my job becomes much more important when the students show up. So now I sit here and watch my own kids play like this is the last day of summer break, and for the first time ever I am saying "Bring on the school year!"
substantive and insightful about my 8 years as a stay-at-home dad, seeing as tomorrow begins the next chapter in our family's story. Tomorrow is the day I head back into the workforce for real.
I don't really know what I think about it all yet. Maybe soon.
I know I should not be laughing at The Princess while she is happily singing and cleaning her Palace. But the combination of cleaning, dancing and song writing is just too good to ignore so I am sitting outside her closed door, listening to the chaos. I tried to record, but for once she is not being loud enough and if I walk in with the video camera she will stop instantly.
"Break. Break. Break the law.
I don't care what you do but I'll come see you
After I break the law.
Break the law. Break the law. I don't know what I'll do
But I'll break the law."
Naming. I meant that it is all over but the NAMING.
I finished the new chicken coop. Roof, side walls, wire. The whole deal. The hens and chicks even slept in it last night.
Finished!
Detail of the metal roof
The 2 month-olds are not too sure about the new coop.
The big hens are right at home.
Still need to paint the inside.The full-court press is on to get the new coop finished up. I have less than one week before the new job starts and I hope to have the birds in the roomier coop by then. I may shortcut the roof and install a tarp to keep the rain off of the birds for a while.
Today The Boss Lady and I escaped to the hardware store while the kids were at a play date. I am now about $75 into the coop and I think it looks pretty awesome. I still have 15 more feet of wire to stretch on the sides and I need to build a gate and figure out the best latch to use.
Finally a coop I can stand up inside!
The corner roost. I'll add a couple of other roosts later.
The view from the garden. The siding was already stained green when I pulled it out of the neighbor's junk pile. I think it looks awesome like this.A few months ago I hauled home a ton (maybe more) of lumber from a neighbor's deck project that was torn down and rebuilt. My great plans included building a chicken coop with most of the found lumber.
The baby birds we have been raising all summer are getting big and it is about time for them to move out of my storage shed and into the much-too-small-for-7-birds coop that is out in the yard. So yesterday I started framing Coop 2.0. Also because of the new job, the birds are not going to be free ranging on school days, so they all need more room in the coop.
Coop 2.0 is going to have a solid roof and side walls to keep the rain off of them. It is quite an upgrade from the modified dog kennel that has served as my main coop for a couple of years.
The skeleton of Coop 2.0I accepted a job offer this afternoon so AtHomeFam will soon go through a big transition. I'll be starting a new job and the kids will be switching to a new school, out in the school district where The Boss Lady and I will both be working.
The wife has less than a 15 mile drive to get to work. The kids new school is several miles closer to our house and the high school where I will be working is smack in between those two. It looks like we will be able to car pool frequently.
In the end this is not my dream job, but it is certainly a step in the right direction. Hopefully next school year I'll be ready to handle a class of my own.
This afternoon I have a couple of different job interviews lined up. The first is a little outside of my experience, but the school year is looming and this may be my best opportunity to get a foot (slammed) in the door.
This interview is for a middle school (grades 6-8) English Language Arts teacher. It is a Special Education position because it would have me working with students who are not reading or writing on an appropriate grade level. The ultimate goal is to bring the kids a little closer to grade level (and to get the 8th graders to pass their state writing tests).
There is a lot to do in that position for an experienced teacher and I am not yet convinced that it is even possible for a first year teacher.
Later (but not much later) I have an interview for a high school special education teacher's assistant. This would not put me in charge of a class. Instead I would be an assistant teacher, working with the students at the direction of a (hopefully) more experienced teacher.
The biggest problem is that the two interviews are at schools 30 minutes apart. And they interviews are scheduled for about 2 hours time difference. So there is just enough time to finish the first before I rush over to the second interview.
This is a continuation of the post I wrote a few days ago, sharing the story of how I lucked into spending a few days with Father of Five (and his much, much better half).
Father and Mother of Five (The of Fives?) and walked up to me at Torchy's Tacos and surprised the heck out of me. I was speechless. Which anyone who has met me in person will tell you that is something that does not happen easily.
FoF and MoF (Mother of Five) laughed at the kids while we were all waiting in line to order lunch. The Talker and the Princess showed their ninja-like table stalking skills when they spotted an open table inside the restaurant, in the air conditioning. The kids were off like a shot, away from the table they had been holding for us all out on the patio (far away from the air conditioning). The fact that they jumped to the better table without a word from me or The Boss Lady was pretty funny. FoF and I looked away for a second and the kids were instantly sitting at inside, with all the cool kids!
We sat at Torchy's for an hour or more, chatting and getting to know each other a little better. And drinking Dublin Dr Pepper of course!
After lunch we headed down to Zilker Park to see some Austin sights. We checked out the pool and the spillway below the pool, where the cheap people swim and where the shade is at. The kids and The Boss splashed around a bit, while FoF and I chatted some more.
I cruised back to the house with Minnesotans, giving them the nickle driving tour of Austin on the way home. We drove past the capitol and the UT Tower and I pointed out the Artist's Market on The Drag, but there was a surprising lack of freaky people out on the streets in the 100 degree heat.
There was more hanging out and talking when we got back to the house. I am pretty sure that David and I could sit for days and not run out of things to talk about. We hung out for a while at the house before the guests of honor headed to their hotel to check in and to rest a little bit (I hope), since they had been up waaay to late for an old guy like Father of Five on the previous night.
We met up again for dinner at another of my favorites. Pok-e-Jo's Bar B Q is always easy to get into, the food is decent and it is a pretty good representation of Texas (meaning Correct!) BBQ. I knew that we would be able to sit and yuck it up for a while too, so we passed on the other BBQ places around here.
The night wasn't over after dinner. We headed over to Amy's Ice Cream next. The kids ate theirs quickly so that they could climb on the nearby cow statues. And The Fives, The Boss and I sat and talked while we ate ice cream. (Big Surprise there, huh?)
While we were watching the kids I was tempted to run off with FoF to the nearby Cigar store. But I assumed that we were all due for an early night, so I passed on that opportunity. We went our separate ways after 9 o'clock. It was almost the end of a great day.
When we got home the Talker and The Princess got the bum's rush to bed and I went out to pick up the lawn equipment. Right then I realized that the lights I had strung across the yard for the party would make it real easy to finish up mowing the yard, even though it was closing in on 9:30. But it was also about 85 degrees. So I mowed by the light of a couple of hundred twinkling Christmas lights.
After all of that day's excitement I really didn't sleep very well. I watched a few old movies and tried to finish up plans for the party.
There is more to this story. But the laptop battery is dead and I am at the end of my cigar. So you'll have to wait for it.
The scores are just in from my last state exam. I passed and am now certified to teach your children in High School English Language Arts and Reading. (Along with all-grades of Special Education and the Elementary graded classes.)
I am officially finished with my teacher-training program. I registered for the program on March 1 and less than 5 months later I am ready to jump into a classroom full of students who are hanging on my every word and waiting for me to fill their minds with knowledge.
Hopefully a job offer will follow soon.
This will probably end up being the first in a multi-part post. That is the sure sign of a good weekend, right?
The Boss Lady was at work on my birthday, and we were both real busy getting ready for the biggest party we have ever thrown at our house, so my actual birthday was a real low key event. Which was fine with me. It is too hot to get too excited about anything right now.
Unknown to me, the wife had made big plans for a couple of days later. REALLY big plans. Been working on getting everything arranged for a couple of months big. I mean to say, big plans.
Friday, while I was getting the backyard ready for the party, The Boss Lady came out and told me "Go take a shower and get dressed, we are going to lunch." Lunch didn't really fit into my yard work plan, but it is hot out there, so I didn't complain too much. I packed up the yard work and we headed to lunch.
She demanded to drive to lunch, so I was pretty sure something was up. See, I am quick like that.
When we parked at Torchy's Tacos, I reminded The Boss that the kids and I had eaten lunch there two days earlier. She had a very diplomatic response. Something like "Too bad. So sad. This is where we are going to eat." OK then. The line was pretty long, so the kids and I grabbed a table and were settling in for a long wait. Mainly because that is what The Boss Lady told us to do.
I was helping the kids get settled when a guy, a big guy, I mean a REAL big guy, walked up to me and said "Excuse me sir, I've never eaten here before and I was wondering what is good." Actually, that is a paraphrase. I don't remember exactly what was said, because he about 5 words in when I started to figure out what was going on.
The big guy's face sort of looked familiar, but I was not putting a name with the face very easily. At least not until I looked at his T-shirt. Right through the middle of the shirt it said Jordan. And then it hit me. I was in the presence of greatness and legend. The Father of Five and his lovely wife, fresh in from Minnesota, were hanging out, with me, at my favorite restaurant.
I was absolutely speechless. The video likely shows that I cried a little bit.
Standing right in front of me is a guy who I have know for 3 or more years, but I only knew him online. We had never met in person. In the last year or so we have gotten to know each other as well as a couple of guys could through Facebook and a couple of blog sites. We have entertained a couple of ideas to meet up, but those plans always seem to be made for the future, thanks to the 1400 miles that separate our home towns. And now Father of Five was in my town, to hang out with me at my birthday party.
Cool! Beyond cool.
The Boss Lady claims to be no good at planning surprises. After she and David arranged all that it took to pull off this visit without me ever catching a whiff of the plans, I don't think either of them can claim that title again.
There is more to the story and I'll get to it soon, so come back for the rest of the story. And pictures. Loads of pictures.
Follow this link to get to the second post in the series.
Unless you are one of the handful of people who know the background information, you'll just have to wait for the full version of the story. I'll get to it in a few days.
But here is a little glimpse into the party preparations for our shindig this Saturday evening: We have enough people coming that I decided to take down a section of our fence to make it easier for the herd of party-ers to get in and out of our backyard.
While I was working on that this morning, I needed to remove a board that had been nailed onto a post. Evidently it was nailed on by King Kong, too.
If you will please notice, I broke 2 (Two! BOTH!) hammers trying to pry out that #$*& nail. First to go was my 23 oz. framing hammer with the pretty red hickory handle. She gave lost the battle, but not before leaving me enough space that I could go after the board with the smaller hammer and you can see for yourself how that worked out for the little claw hammer.
I was successful. I got the nail pulled and I got the board removed. But what price success? I used Big Red for pretty much every building project around here in the last 11 years. Before Big Red I went through a slew of framing hammers to find one that I really liked.
Now it looks like I'll be back in the hammer hunt before I tackle the chicken coop building project.
I didn't get the job. Bummed but not surprised. I think several more "warm-up interviews" are in my future.
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