It's a life thing. And I can make you understand. Or at least tolerate the truth...

I never have talked a lot about work on this blog. I had a "teacher blog" for a while but it was incredibly impersonal and boring. So like most things, I got bored and deleted it. Don't want to read about a Special Education teacher's view of public education, then you might want to move along. Quickly.

This school year has been a great one, even with lots of changes for our family and especially at my school. The Boss Lady started a new job this year, moving out of district administration and back on to a campus. She is working at a middle school now. Lucky for me, her, and 1900 school kids, we are not on the same campus. In fact, our schools are as far across the school district as they could possible be. (The two schools are in totally different economic environments, too, but that is boring teacher talk). 

I have taught Special Education for 5 years. But every job I have had since Jr. College was centered around working for individuals who are living with developmental, emotional, or physical challenges. The classroom seemed to be the next logical evolution (WAIT! My goodness, this is Texas. A teacher writing about evolution? And logic? Heresy!) of my career.

After a year in the classroom (and a lay-off, and getting rehired a few months later) I realized that I was actually pretty good at this teaching thing. Another year went by, my skills further developed, and at one point I had to really stand up to several administrators. I dropped a now campus-famous couple lines of truth on them. "I know you've never seen me do my job. I've never really seen you do yours either. But let me tell you something. I am REALLY good at what I do. So good luck replacing me on this project."

And in a move fraught with absolutely NO surprise, they never replaced me on that project. And the crew from the administration office have generally left me alone since then. Well, unless they had a big problem on my campus. Then they seem to remember my phone number pretty quickly.

Back then, several of my fellow Special Education teachers and I jokingly coined the term SPEDLIFE. This was a quick, but gritty reminder that everything we do impacts our students for their lifetime. Yeah, it really is that important. But it's also an easy reminder to have some fun while we are solving the problems of our part of the educational universe.

My SPEDLIFE knuckle tats make an occasional appearance 

at staff meetings and going away parties.

This school year I started off working with our most complex students. Several of them have lots of needs related to Autism or Sensory issues. Others have multiple physical and/or developmental disabilities. All are dealing with issues that impact every aspect of learning and home life. This is my crew. I love working with this class but it is tough.

This is the type of class you don't see on the news. Teachers and Instructional Assistants working hands-on with students all day long. Usually with no lunch break or planning time and exactly the same pay as the teachers down the hall who get two planning periods and a lunch away from students (134 minutes total) in an 8 class day. There is supposed to be solace in the smaller class sizes (I shared 10 students with another teacher), but I usually shared a cold hamburger and soda with her hours after lunchtime, too.

Standing up for my own teaching skills and fighting for my students on an empty stomach and full bladder got the best of me. I jumped ship 8 weeks into the school year.

I still rep the SPEDLIFE but my new job is much different. I now work with students who have Autism or some other Sensory Processing challenges. These are kids who rarely stop by to see me. A few of them come in once a day, but for the most part I chase them around campus, meeting them in their grade-level classes, working on appropriate class-taking skills, organization, conversation (my specialty. right Mom?), and all of the things a middle school student needs to succeed. A fact that would be of interest to my own middle school teachers, I help them keep assignments turned in. ON TIME. And... don't faint... keep their lockers (or backpacks) organized. Pretty sure that my old middle school assistant principal, who used to make me clean my locker one a week, by force, just died a second death.

This transition came with a couple of huge caveats. I said 'bye' to 5 and took on 25 students. Biggest of all though, because of a perfectly timed maternity leave (not mine!), I filled in for another team member and took on a large part of her job as the liaison between our team, the campus administration and the district level administrators who I had only told off a few years ago.

Turns out that lots of these people have taken some interest in my ability to juggle lots of different tasks at the same time. And they seem to share my opinion of my teacher-self. Pretty soon some of them may be living the SPEDLIFE, too. I just hope they leave me in my crazy, exciting classroom for a long time.

This thing still on?

Back in October of 2013, I limped away from this blog with a post Summer Blackout Recap. Not a word since then.

You lucky bastards.

Unfortunately for you all I still remember my password and still have access to this blog.

A quick recap. The Talker is almost a teenager (less than 2 weeks to go as a 12 year old). The Princess is about to finish elementary school, and The Boss Lady survived a nasty bout with a viral brain infection last year. I did finish my 3000 mile bike ride challenge last spring, topping it off with a 1 day, 75 miler through the Texas Hill Country.

The last year and a half have included several job changes, one for me, one for The Boss Lady. After a four year detour, she is back in a job that she loves and is having a blast. I gave up a job teaching and working with some of the most physically and developmentally delayed students in our school system. I now teach classes for students who are either Autistic or have other sensory issues.

The Backyard Farm currently consists of one Big White Dog, the black/brown/red/grey short-legged, long-haired, loud-barking Different Dog, The Other Kitty (now 19 years old), 6 chickens and 1 Betta Fish.

There you go. I stayed away of 15 months and you are caught up in 7 minutes. See you in a year or so.

Summer Blackout Recap

We are six weeks into a new school year.  That means we are 1/6 of the way to next summer.  And if most teachers are really honest, THAT is what matters.

I haven't stopped by here in a while.  I thought I had posted a few times over the summer, but I noticed today that my last post was the weekend that school ended in June.  So what did you miss?

An epic trip to Southern and Central California.  We flew into San Diego, by way of San Jose (I fly SWA outta the way sometimes). We lounged in San Clemente for about a week and then went to Sequoia National Park for a few days.  On the way back south we drove along the Pacific Coast Highway.  It was an amazing trip.

This summer I didn't get to ride the new road bike as much as I had hoped.  In the Spring I had to have some skin cancer removed and the doc removed a nice chunk off of one ear.  He repaired it with a skin graft that came off of my chest, right above my clavicle.  The whole thing was much more draining than I had expected and my 6 weeks of recovery really took about twice that long before I felt good again.  At the end of the summer, literally the last day before I had to report back to work in August, I finished my spring/summer goal of pedaling 1000 miles.

The Talker and The Princess are doing great in school this year.  The boy is on campus with me and I see him several times during the day, but we are both lucky that I do not have him in my classes. The Princess is in 4th grade and she seems to have the world by the tail.  I was concerned how she would like school without big brother around, but those worries were for nothing.

The Boss Lady started a new job this school year.  We both still work in the same school district, but she is across town, working in administration at a high school.  It is really the job she was hired to do about three years ago, but the bigwigs had other plans and she worked on a special, super secret, double stupid assignment that she hated for that entire time.  It is great to have her doing the things that she likes and wants to do.

My entire education team fell apart over the summer.  I knew one of the three teachers was leaving, but the other was a complete surprise to me in the early summer.  We also have about 15 assistants that help out in our three classes and only 2 of those staff members returned from last year.  Needless to say, with all new staff, I am a busy little dude this school year.

I am keeping up with one goal for this school year.  I am trying to merge my interests and my obligations.  This school year, even with the craziness of a new staff, I decided that I needed to work fewer hours.  I was routinely working 60 hours a week for a job that pays me for 40, regardless.  This year, to keep myself in check, I decided to bike 1 mile for every hour that I work.  So far I am about 30 miles ahead of my hours.

Hopefully, unlike my blogging that seems to have died a slow, horrible death, I'll be able to keep up with my riding for this entire school year and I'll have ridden almost 3000 miles between March 2013 and June 2014.

Summa!

Tomorrow morning I need to run out to my school for a an hour or so. I was so ready to be gone last Friday that I didn't hang around to turn in my keys. Tomorrow I'll get that little chore out of the way after I make one last pass through my soon-to-be former classroom. Tradition has held true once again and for the third year in a row I'll be trading spaces. Another new school year, another new classroom. The upside to being so transitory with my teaching spaces, I tend to not collect a bunch of "teacher junk". I stored all of my bulletin board and class supplies in one small locking cabinet. I hauled home one small stacking drawer set because it was cheap, light and I am sure easily pilfered when my campus is used for district wide staff training this summer. This summer The AtHomeFam will be busy as always. The Boss is heading out of the country just to get a little peace and quiet. She will really enjoy some quiet time in Central America after we all travel to California for a week earlier in the summer. I am getting a few things checked off of my bucket list when we hit the west coast. I have always wanted to get to Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks. We will be spending a few days out there this trip. Also, I am planning to rent a road bike for a few days so that I can cruise a few dozen miles along the Pacific coast. The wife and kids will be hitting the beaches and I'll be rolling along the side roads. The Talker is officially a Middle School student now. And most lucky for him, he will be on MY campus next year. I guess it will become OUR campus soon enough. The Princess will be a 4th grader in August. Just thinking about the upcoming year is making me tired. Time for some summa!

15 days, give or take

Summer is almost here!  All of the teachers are starting to breathe easier.  We are down to about 15 days around here.

The kids?  Yeah, I guess they are happy, too.  Don't really care.

The summer is full of promise and I am hopeful for an epic time this summer.

Trip to California.  Lots of bike time.  Trips to Dallas and Ft. Worth and Matagorda Bay are in the cards.  Bike time IN California.  Wife is headed to South America.  Without a bike, poor kid.  

It should be an awesome season.  Hopefully I'll get some of it documented over here.

Two GOOD LOOKIN' bald guys (Soon)

The Talker and I are getting ready to get our beauty on. In a couple of weeks we will be participating in a St. Baldrick's head shaving event.  St. Baldrick's funds pediatric cancer research.  This is an issue that has become very personal to our family, thanks to an amazing teen neighbor who has battled aggressive tumors this entire school year.

The Talker has already collected more than $500, eclipsing his current $250 goal.  (He originally hoped to raise $100).  I am almost to my goal of $265. Last year I tried to raise $500.  I fell short by $15.  So this year when I planned to raise $250, The Talker reminded me about the shortfall from last Spring.  Thus, my $265 goal.

I was planning to post a link here to our participant fundraising pages but I decided against that since those pages are all listed under our real names.  I know you are flabbergasted to learn that his name isn't ACTUALLY The Talker.  I feel sorta like a fraud... 

If you would like to donate to The Boy, please contact me and I'll direct you to his collection page.  I'll be sure to post some pictures after we get our melons all bald and beautified.

I don't wanna...

Just haven't wanted to write for a while.  I used to apologize for extended absences.  Nowadays I say "deal with it.  Or don't"  I am just not inclined to worry about it.

A month ago I renewed my love of road biking.  The Boss Lady helped me make the leap and I bought a Specialized road bike (aka a ten speed - though this one technically has 18 gear combinations).  I have had the bike for 3 and a half weeks and have already topped a hundred miles in the saddle.  I still grin like a school boy when the new blue racer and I hit 30 miles per hour on a nice, flat cruise.

The new bike may have been a really well timed purchase, too.  A week after I got the new ride home, the bottom fell out of our household.  And since then it has been nice to have something to keep my mind and body occupied.

Not even a month ago we got some awful news about The Big White Dog.  His chest cavity was full of one giant and fast growing tumor and the cancer was already showing up in his kidneys too.  We knew he was not feeling great, but we were certainly not prepared to hear the worst case scenario was coming true.  Less than a week later our 125 pound, 8 year old puddle of puppy was gone.  After realizing that he was unable to eat or drink, The Boss and I knew that we had to let the vet help Kodak go.

And that sucks.  Again.  And Again.

Long suffering readers may realize that this is indeed the third pet we have lost in less than a year.  Our Spring addition to the family was a 2-3 year old Great Pyrenees girl who had been used up by a lousy backyard breeder.  Something went wrong after her spay surgery and we lost her two weeks later.  The kids were crushed.  The Boss was devastated.  I was wrecked.  It sucked.

A few months ago we had to decide to have our 17 year old kitty cat, P.K., aka Pretty Kitty, put to sleep.  She was ancient and it was no surprise. Still, the kids were crushed.  The Boss Lady was devastated.  I was wrecked.  It sucked. Again.

After losing Kodak, none of us are totally back to ourselves yet.  We have mostly quit crying but it is still horrible to realize that our big ol' albino melon head is not sitting and peeking OVER the fence when we arrive home in the evenings.

The 12 pound puppy we adopted last summer is adjusting well to his role as big dog of the house.  Now I can only hope that the rest of us adjust pretty soon, too.

A follow up to my last post

The wheelchair is funded! One group, that I am not a member of, kicked in half of the money. Two groups of my friends picked up the rest.

My student gets her new wheels in a few weeks.

Another week, another chair

Sometimes I have to work hard to keep up with The Boss Lady. Last week she had us all involved in a wheelchair rehab project.  This week we started the next project.

One of my students needs a new wheelchair. Her family has insurance and they are six months into fighting and working with the company to get this thing paid for. Last month they were told they needed to pay a co-pay of a few hundred dollars. NOW, since the wheelchair was not ordered in the previous calendar year, the family's portion comes up to $1700.

This family is not destitute.  They are going to find a way.  They will save up and shave expenses and the cash will be gathered in a few months.  Maybe a year.  But I decided to speed things along a little if I could.

I am a member of a couple of men's organizations that do charitable work. At a meeting this week I asked about 30 guys to help out simply by reminding them that they would not want their own kids or grand kids to wait six more months, or six more days for needed equipment.

15 minutes later the family was $200 closer to the co-pay.  Several men, like me, usually, mentioned that they had no cash to drop in the hat, but they want to contribute online and another member offered to set up an online giving page once we had the family's permission.

I was honored to give the student's mom the first of our contributions yesterday and the online page is coming up in the next few days.  Next week I'll hit a different group meeting and I bet those guys will try to fill the hat again especially when I tell them that the first group gave so generously this week.  Nothing like a little MORE positive peer pressure to get something good done!

The power of positive peer pressure

When the Holiday season was in high swing, a friend issued a challenge to her friends via facebook post.  Essentially she asked us all to find something you are good at and help someone else by doing that thing.  And then, find someone else that needs help that you can provide.  Repeat as necessary.

Such a simple concept.

The Boss Lady has taken this challenge to heart and she found a project that ended up involving the entire family.

The Boss Lady rounded up a 20+ year old pediatric wheelchair because she knew of a three year old who was needing one.   Once she brought the project home, it turned into a family affair.  The Princess helped disassemble and clean parts.  The Talker helped scrub and clean too.  The Boss provided most of the time and muscle on this project.  I was the wheel man.

After rounding up new tires and cleaning the whole thing up, we had a working wheelchair almost ready to deliver.  Once-upon-a-time the wheels were easily removable so that the wheelchair could fold and slip into the trunk of a small car.  After 20 years of storage the wheels no longer were quick release.

This morning I hauled the little purple rig down to Racecar Man's garage.  After applying heat from a blow torch, penetrating oil, some force, more heat, more oil and a little persuasion from a big ol' hammer, we ended up with axles that are once again easily removable from the wheelchair frame.

While we were making the chair more functional, The Boss Lady was busy sewing up a new seat cushion.  This evening the kids took turns test driving.

Here she is, refurbished and ready to roll.

Wheelchairs are very individualized pieces of equipment.  And the new owner of this ride will soon need one made specifically for her.  That is the next part of The Boss Lady's project.

Insurance companies are often reluctant to pony up the $$$ to buy pediatric wheelchairs.  (The current version of this chair sells for upwards of $2000.)   As you might guess, the paperwork hassles are enormous, especially for parents venturing into the process for the first time.  The Boss Lady is up to the challenge.  She is preparing to take her paperwork skillz out of the office and she is going to help these parents navigate the process so that their daughter can get the equipment she needs.

Getting a new wheelchair approved, fitted, ordered, built and delivered can be a 3-6 month process.  So now, in the meantime, there will be at least one more happy little girl out on a cruise with her family.

We are running seriously low on pets around here

Maybe the Mayans were partially right.  Seems like there are loads of AtHomeFamily pets that are not making it to 2013.  Early in the Spring we had to have our new dog put-down after she got an infection during her spay surgery.  That super sucked.

A couple of times this year we had to finish off wounded or sick chickens.  Not real fun, but part of the deal with our backyard chicken flock.

Today was a totally different level of yuck though.  P.K., our 16+ year old calico cat went over the Rainbow Bridge this afternoon.  Six months ago it seemed like her time was up.  We made a diet change for her and she perked up and fattened up nicely for a little while.  Last week I noticed she was getting skinny again, but I also saw her jump over our 8 foot tall garden gate so I didn't think much of any of it.  

Yesterday she was really wanting to just sleep in one spot.  This morning she was hardly moving and laying flat out on the kitchen floor when we left for church.  A few hours later we were taking the drive to the vet, knowing that she would not be returning with us.  The Talker is a stoic little dude and he sat in the waiting area after saying his goodbyes at home.  The Princess was torn up and waited with PK until the vet came into the room.  The Boss Lady and I stayed with our first pet until she was gone.  

15 years or more ago, PK got hurt real bad in a fall from our oak tree that towered over a concrete driveway.  Her herniated diaphragm required life saving surgery.  Her broken leg required that she live in a crate under my desk for months.  I hauled her to work daily and would sneak her into the office before my 75 year old boss would get to the office.  He would frequently let us know that he "heard a cat" but PK was so pretty and perfect that none of my co-workers ever ratted me out to The Man.

Our family is really into our pets.  That is probably obvious to everyone.  Still, even though there are 8 more animals sharing our house these days, we will surely never have another Pretty Kitty.

PK, you were a perfect first pet.  We will think about you often and I'll take care of your girls. And us boys, too.

Don't let me die in a landromat

Or an old Blockbuster's Video store either, for that matter.

This week, while enjoying our week off of school and the start of allergy season, I made several trips around the neighborhood with the family.  The wife's favorite Target store is 3 miles from our house - the fact that they tore down a Home Depot to build this store still has not fully settled with me.  However, land is at a premium along the major roads, so tear-down/rebuilds are now fairly common.

It was on one of our outings to Target that The Boss Lady pointed out a renovation that has recently started a couple of miles from here.  There once were lots of Blockbuster stores.  Then came Redbox and Netflix. After that, the Blockbusters all went away.  Except one.  This poor little store hung in there until last Spring.  Finally the nearby Blockbuster Video store suffered the same fate as the full service gas stations.

The storefront is finally being renovated.  The Boss told me last week that a minor emergency clinic was coming into that space next year.  At first that sounded like a fine idea.  Our closest Hospital ER is not a terrible place to have to go and wait for healthcare, especially considering the other options closer to downtown.  But a private company trying to relieve the wait time for more serious injuries by treating the coughs and flu symptoms sounded OK to me.

Yesterday I drove by and noticed that this place is not billing itself as a 'Quack Shack, a Doc in the Box, a Band Aid Box' or whatever.  They are highlighting their full ER abilities.  MRI machines and all.

I looked over at The Boss Lady and simple said "Don't let me die at the old Blockbuster's, OK?"  Thinking back I probably should have said 'Please".

Two months. Hope you enjoyed the break...

and there is probably more of the same to come.


Been thinking for a few days, trying to come up with something blog worthy.  Today, driving home from work I hit on a topic.  My total lack of anything interesting to say.  I have already mentioned in the past that I have a lot of 'off-limits' topics.  The kids are getting older and I never actually set out to keep a long list of every embarrassing thing they said. Also it is true that there are the many, many interesting things I see and hear in the hallways at school everyday.  Most that are bloggable make it over to Facebook and go no further.

My classroom is an interesting and exciting place that keeps me on my toes but it is extremely off limits for both Facebook and this blog.  No matter how I try to disguise things, I only have a handful of students and it would be much too easy for the mama tigers to find out that I had mentioned their cubs.  Not worth the hassle!

So today my big revelation:  I am no longer cool enough to write about.  When I was really AtHomeDaddy, I was either interesting or at least different enough from the neighbors that it seemed like a worthwhile thing to document.

Now?  I am just a working schlub.  I  head to work at 7:15 and I come home at 5.  Or 6.  Or 11:35pm.  Whatever it takes.  Just like millions of other medium sized dudes do every day.  I listen to NPR or local country radio or Dale Watson beer drinkin' songs.  And I go to work.

After work we still hang out at home as much as possible, but The Princess plays volleyball and The Talker plays soccer so games and practices keep up busy in the little free time we have.  Add to that, my truck has been packed away for almost two years, my yard looks like it belongs in front of the abandoned house around the corner and we have a few chickens. 

There.  You now have a re-cap and status update of every cool thing I have done in the past half dozen years. 

So there it is.  Nothing.  I still have it.  Or I don't.  I feel confused. 

And judged by the number of schlubs I see on the highway every morning, I may be contagious, too!

the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated

AtHomeDaddy and the whole crew (mostly the whole crew, anyways - more about that later) have indeed survived the summer and we are gearing up to get back to school.

I posted earlier in the summer about our road trip adventures through the central US.  Since getting home from New Orleans we have been busy doing not a whole heck of a lot.  Which really isn't the reason for my lack of blogging.  Let's face it, facebook is easier and the audience is much narrower, so I tend to go there instead.

This blog has been around for 1850 posts and more than 6 years.  WOW! just rechecked my math.  8 years!!!   I just can't put it to bed.  I have gone through periods of posting multiple times a day and times that I posted once a month.  Heck I have a couple of other blogs that get updated quarterly.  If that. 

Anyways,  I feel like a stranger in my own house when I pop back in here. Add to all of that the number of things that are now off limits.  I seldom post about school stuff because I am fairly strong in my opinion that I don't wanna get sued.  At least not for something I write on my blog.  If I get sued because of work, let's make it worthwhile.  I am talking US Air steward jumping out of the plane and sliding away with stolen beers, NUTS!  Of course, it is hard to find an inflatable emergency slide on the first floor of a public  middle school...  Challenge accepted!

Next week I start back for real.  Of course, my first day back this summer will also be my 3rd.  Or my  8th. Or my 12th.  Depends on who is counting.  It works like this.  I am on contract to work 187 days a year.  185 days occur during the school year, between staff training week and the last day of school.  Also, I must attend two full days of specific trainings over the summer months.  But I get to wear shorts and flip flops, so that isn't all bad...

The reality of teaching is that I spend June and part of July denying that school is coming back around.  I generally sign up to take additional classes over the summer, especially if I am changing classes/grades/curriculum areas (which I seem to EVERY year).  I went to about 5 or 6 days of these classes this year.  Still it is better than last year, when I went to 17!  After all of that, I start trying to get my thoughts together and getting my classroom set up ASAP in late July or early August.  Once I get that done, I start planning out my daily schedules and covering the big things.  And I plug all holidays into my calendar! 

Anyways, I mainly work in my classroom because it is easier to stay focused on the upcoming year.  But, by the time teachers MUST return to school, I have been in my room almost daily for almost two weeks.  It shortens my summer, but I can work at my own pace and since I am on my own time, I can pick and choose the important things that get my attention.

Next Monday teachers report to campus at 8am.  It will be a rude awakening for us all.  But, I expect that in a couple of weeks we will all be back in the school routine and  plugging away through the academic year.

Of course, all of this is a lot easier since The Talker and The Princess still really like school.  They get excited at the end of each summer.  But based on the fact that I have given up another half a month of my summer and The Boss Lady has worked almost straight through, it seems that they take after their parents.

An aside - I don't think I ever mentioned the new dog on the blog.  Or the other new dog. The one one that came a month or so after the first new dog died two weeks after we brought her home from the animal shelter.

iLean  hanging out in the big bed, watching TV

In the Spring The Boss Lady let me know that we were prepping for the arrival later that week of a two year old Great Pyrenees girl pound puppy from the city shelter across town.  She had a rough life and was really timid, but we all grew instantly attached to iLean (because she always leaned on whoever happened to be nearest). Anyways, it was obvious in a few days that something was really wrong.  Our best guess is that she picked up an infection during her spay surgery.  So The Boss and I did one of the un-fun parent things and we decided to let our new girl go.  It sucks to have an animal put to sleep but this was one of those "right times".

The Princess was rocked even harder than the rest of us.  It sucks to be 8 and have someone tell you your newest pet is dead.  No doubt.

This summer we paid a visit to an animal shelter down the street from my school.  We went out to look at one Great Pyrenees girl but it was obvious that she was more work than we wanted to deal with.  While we were there, The Boss Lady and I finally told each other that we were individually thinking it was time to look for a small, lap dog that The Princess could really bond with.  Thus, we found Jingles, an 8 pound boy who was tagged as a long haired Chihuahua but we quickly realized was at least partly Papillion.  Best guess, Papillion and Dachshund mixed.  Evidently shaken AND stirred!  This is one crazy looking dog.

Sick in bed with her favorite Squirrel!

Anyways, our nefarious plan has worked almost perfectly.  Jingles was renamed Squirrel! and he is The Princess' best buddy.  This little guy is always just about one shake of a magic wand from being force-dressed in a tutu and tiara.  Lucky boy!

Summer is rolling by

The kids and I still have almost a month until school begins. That rules! We really have not accomplished anything worthwhile in weeks. That rules, too! Nothing much to share. We are hiding inside, 'cause it's hot. That does not rule. Blogging via the new Kindle Fire. The unit rules but typing on it is a hassle. Hassles in summer do not rule.

Road Tripping. Again

The Boss Lady was not able to go on our jaunt to St. Louis and Memphis. Somebody has to keep working to pay for all of this running around, you know!?!  As originally planned, we were going to extend our original trip all the way down the Mississippi River to New Orleans.  Time and the fact that I was driving solo AND keeping the kids entertained finally intervened and I cut the trip off and headed for home as we left Memphis.

Last week The Boss Lady said  she would like to visit New Orleans.  Road trip #2 was on!

My go to trip planning sited this summer have been Costco.com for rental cars and hotels (Best Western). and google maps for routing.  After about 10 minutes on Costco's travel website, I found a hotel that was in walking distance to most sites that we wanted to check out in NOLA and the nearby railcar system's 3 day passes would get us everywhere else.  Even better, the hotel was less than $110 bucks a night.

Turns out we did REAL good on the hotel room.  Because we only stayed in Best Western hotels on our first trip, we had a voucher for a free night.   Since we had never spent more than $75 on the earlier rooms, I was not sure they would comp us the full value of the room, but a discount would be OK, too.  One of the mistakes we made in traveling to new Orleans was under estimating the cost of parking.  Even our hotel charged $25 a night to park a car on site.

When the hotel comp-ed our room for the first night, they also gave us free parking.  So our total stay for two nights and parking was just over $150.  DEAL!

The biggest mistake we made on this trip was our serious underestimation of the cost of eating.  Sicne that is a big reason to go to NOLA, we knew it wouldn't be free.  We estimated about $40 a meal to eat at family friendly (aka CHEAP) places.  We should have upped that by 50%.  We never even ate at the fancy restaurants where dining for 4 could have been $150 or more.  If I had known we were staying so cheap, we might have gone a little higher-end on one meal.

In the end, we had a blast.  We ate great.  We checked out tons of awesome street artists and we heard a lot of incredible music.



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Home Grown

Somewhere near 4 years ago I started using the same egg carton for storing all of our fresh eggs in the 'fridge. It is a nice, sturdy carton but nothing too special.

When starting out with backyard chickens, I was trying to figure out ways to keep the costs manageable while keeping the flock in the best feed for the money. During that time we tried out a brand called Home Grown.

Though we settled on a different brand of feed, my juvenile sense of humor kicked in and I made all sorts of jokes about 'gathering my "home grown" from the backyard'. One pot joke led to another and soon I was carefully dissecting the feed bag.

I used the label to decorate my reliable egg carton. And it has been in constant use ever since. Just like real 'home grown', I giggle a little every time I put some eggs in the fridge.

Sadly, old reliable is getting worn out so I am retiring the carton. No worries, Home Grown gets a place of honor in the kitchen.

Besides, a guy might need a stash box next to the microwave, right?

Road Notes 5 - The final route

Now that we are heading home tomorrow, our route is ALMOST finalized.  This map shows a 1,555 mile route through the central south.  That does not include several hundreds of miles of running around and a few more miles of backtracking while trying to find the hotel driveway,  Twice.

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Road Notes 4 - Upward!

Today was THE big day.  We spent a ton of time at the Arch, checking out all of the exhibits and the IMAX movie about the Lewis and Clark Expedition.  And hanging out with the kids 630 up in the Arch is one of the memories I will cherish.

Still, the Arch may not have been the highlight of the day.  City Museum has got to be one of the coolest things I have ever experienced.  If I were a resident of St Louis, this would be my usual hangout with the kids.  As it was, we spent 3 hours and still did not climb (or see) everything.  The kids were wiped out this afternoon and fell asleep on the car ride back to the hotel, so I know this was a quality experience for them.

Tomorrow we are planning to hit the St Louis Zoo and then we will return to Citygarden with out splash worthy clothes.  Today we were not properly equipped since the Emergency Swim Bag had been left at the hotel room on accident.

After Citygarden, we are heading towards Memphis after a quick detour into Kentucky and Illinois.  Sorry Indiana, you didn't make the cut this trip.  




Tomorrow's proposed escape route:


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Road Notes 3 - Onward!

Today we head into St Louis. We will be visiting Grant's Farm and the St Louis Zoo.

We stayed in Springfield, Missouri, the home of the world's hottest hot tub. Awesome!


Today's escape route:


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