In all of my busyness that has been this summer, I forgot to mention one big happening in the 'hood. New neighbors!
I woke up with a headache this morning. That is nothing unusual and the fact that my headache wasn't too bad, not unusual either. I drove the boy out to day camp at 8am and ran a couple of errands on the way home. I can only force myself into a Wal-mart before 10am and the MINI needed a new license plate frame thingy. Sure I could have bought the $45 one at the dealership. But instead I went with the $10 a pair frames that are made of an entirely less interesting shade of black plastic in a totally different Chinese factory.
The Princess had a fairly big surgery last week. I won’t go into a lot of detail here since The Boss Lady has blogged the surgery elsewhere. Email me if you need the address to that blog. Due to the personal info posted over there, I won’t link to it here. Now, 4 days later, she is doing great. She is currently singing Taylor Swift songs and splashing in a nearly empty bathtub.
Elsewhere in the AtHomeFamily kingdom, it is HOT! 100 plus for something like 12 days in a row. So I have thrown in the towel on the garden. This morning I took down the gate and let the chickens have the parched and burned up leftovers.
This is not the first pampering the birds have gotten this week. It has been so hot out in the back 40, that I bought a misting system to help keep everybody cool in the backyard. If you are sitting right near the mister, you can notice a big difference in the temperature. Not that I want to hang out there anyways. I hung the misters in the trees near the chicken coop and I saw that 6 of the 7 birds (and 1 cat) were hanging out under there during the hottest part of the day yesterday.
The kids bought me a 12 bottle wine cooler for Father’s Day. I am always looking for something new to learn about (previously it was trucks- which I am still working on, boats- that I lost interest in and set sail on craigslist, cigars- which I enjoyed but annoyed everyone else with, guitars-which I still can’t play but somehow now own two and… The Boss Lady can give you the entire list). This year I have been soaking in as much info about wine as I can handle. I still have no vocabulary to describe wines that I like or don’t like, but I am having fun shopping for bargains and reading up on different varietals and vintages.
Cruising the ‘net for wine info, I ran across several sites about bottle trees. Our neighbor used to add all of her empty wine and beer bottles to the limbs of a dead tree in the middle of her yard. You could see it from our kitchen window and it actually was pretty cool when the morning sun hit the bottles. And it was only half as tacky as you might think. Anyways, I started my own bottle tree this morning. I don’t have a dead tree to decorate, but I do have a bunch of wooden trellis surrounding our garden/chicken fun park. So with the addition of some 1/2” dowel rods, we have the start of a spectacular piece of yard art. I’ll post some pictures of the bottle trees soon.
Best of all, it isn’t in your yard. You are welcome.
The Princess will be having surgery in a few hours. Hopefully this will finally correct a lifetime bladder problem. The Boss Lady set up a blog a few weeks ago to mark the progress towards this surgery. I am not posting a link to the blog, since we have used real names and locations over there, Email me if you want the address. But please don't be too mad if I don't get around to responding to the email quickly.
The kids finished up school last Friday at noon. I originally thought that I would finish up after a couple hours this morning but last week's bombshell re-hire announcement changed my summer.
Throughout the Spring I have been planning a great Summer of nothing. The kids and I were planning to go back to our AtHomeFam ways of sleeping late and seriously under-utilizing our time in constructive ways. With one exception, we all have season passes to Six Flags, so trips to Dallas and San Antonio would be plentiful.
I have been in such a weird place, with my new career starting with a bang in January and dying with an explosion that rocked our family in March. All along there has been a slim chance that my job would be restored and all of the drama from the Spring semester would be ended.
The slim chance occurred yesterday afternoon at 4:37pm.
I sneaked out of the skool a few minutes early. Hey, was a short-timer with no prospects for the Fall, remember? I had cleared out my desk a few minutes earlier and the kids had helped me haul my stash of pens and office supplies to the car. It was a surreal walk to the car. Driving away was weird, too. true, we have a few more work days the semester, but the text books are in, the computers are off and this Spring might as well be DONE!
I was only a mile or so from the skool when the Principal called me on my cell phone to let me know that she could re-hire me into my current, ending position. Uh, yes! Would I want to work for her next year? Uh, yes!
The kids and I stopped to buy The Boss Lady (not the Principal, well at least not THAT Principal - stick with me, this is confusing...) some flowers so that I could break the news about my job. Anyways, I spent most of the evening rethinking my summer calendar. There are suddenly lots of trainings and staff development workshops that I will need to attend.
So my permanent gig as AtHomeDaddy V 2.0 is now on hold, hopefully for a long while. (But thanks to the way Texas pays for public education, we might be back in this same type of boat next Spring. Whatever. We will deal with that when it comes around).
It is hard to believe, but summer is almost here. Oh, sure, the calendar rings in the new season some time in mid-June, but anyone who has spent May in Texas knows that REAL summer begins quickly after the last frost.
The academic year is winding down. The kids have 9 daze left and it is showing at the middle skool. There will be no new learning until the fall semester.
Dunring the week of Spring The Princess helped me plant the veggie and flower garden. We haven't had much time to tend to the plants this season but everything is growing nicely. Actually, several crops were utter failures this year. A combination of poor timing at planting time, not enough rain and some "helpful" chickens is going to keep us out of beans, peas and broccoli this season. Also, some of The Princess' flowers did not germinate. But she planted enough other varieties to make up for the weaklings.
This season we planted our garden a little differently. No structured rows of plants all lined up this year. We decided to mix things up a little bit and did more of a "square-foot-garden" thing. Of course we have a few hundred square feet to work with, so we kind of went crazy. I really like the way the garden looks this year. I am sure that we will do more of this type of garden in the future.
A few pictures from our plot:
Our first time growing kohlrabi. Still haven't eaten any of it. You first, OK?
The survivors - onions, corn (another first timer in our garden), watermelon, spinach, eggplant, zinnias, kohlrabi, morning glories, loads of different herbs and marigolds.
A sneak attack form one of the helpers.So I have spent much of the last two days trying to teach the Pythagorean Theorem to classes of 7th grades who are fully aware that there are less than 25 days left in the school year.
Yeah, it's been BIG fun.
Anyways, at some point I had a flashback to my own young teen years when Mr. John Smith (not even an alias - and yes, his wife was Mary) tried to learn me the Pythagorean Theorem while we were fixing a leaking section of his underground sprinkler system. Though I probably didn't fully learn the lesson, I do remember the effort that Mr. S put into the sprinkler fix.
With that in mind, I came across this jewel of geometry. So I shared it with most of my classes. In the end, maybe some kid will remember a little part of the stuff that Lord Vader and I have tried to present. And if nothing else, at least the kids were quiet for 2 minutes and 50 seconds. And at this time of year, that is something...
I started this skool year in a temporary position, knowing that I would have to wait for a teacher's position to open up in the district. But it seemed to make sense to get into the system and let the people who might hire me have a look at me before they decided to hire a newly minted teacher.
And the plan worked. Almost perfectly. Almost.
I assumed I would have the temp job for the entire skool year. I was pretty sure that was going to add up to a long 9 months and i knew it for sure when I saw my first paycheck. The teacher's assistant gig was A LOT of work for garbage pay. When I was offered the full teacher's job in December, I jumped at the chance.
Within a month there were rumors that job cuts would be coming soon and as the last man on the ship, I was pretty sure that I would be one of the first thrown overboard.
And what a splash that was!
I am still not happy to be in this situation. I flip and flop between wanting to show everybody how hard I am willing to work, in order to prove my worth to the skool and not wanting to waste any extra effort before summer break.
It is highly unlikely that I will be re-hired into my current job for the fall. And that super sucks. I was trying to learn my new job and build something great for my soon to be 7th and 8th grade students. We had some good things happening and now I will not be around to see if any of that effort pays off.
Oh yeah, right in the middle of all of this chaos, it started looking like The Boss Lady's job would be gone too. Nice!
The upside is that The Boss' job is going to be fine. She will be around next year to rake in the big bucks while I retire to the couch for my daily nap(s). Also, a few job openings are starting to pop up and I have applied for several Special Education teacher jobs. If I land one of those, then we will be back on track.
And if I don't? Dunno. Maybe I'll go full monty time chicken farmer. Anybody want to buy some eggs?
The Princess turns 7 tomorrow. I'll stop back by Tuesday and make a real post to honor the occasion.
In other Fam news, it looks like AtHomeDaddy will ride again! Thanks to our inept state government officials, public schools are being pillaged to satisfy the vocal minority. My job is one of the thousands that these idiots feel are not worth funding. So looks like I'll be home for Baby Girl's next Birthday, too.
Happy Birthday Princess and kick it to the grass!
I cannot believe that it has been more than a month since I last visited my own blog. Life has been crazy busy around here.
Funding for public education is taking a hit all over the country right now, but it has grown increasingly personal in our house, now that we are both working for the (same) "man". Hopefully the politicians will figure this shit out quickly, because not knowing what the heck is going to happen to our jobs in the next few months sucks royally.
On the other hand, of course I just got back from a three day business trip. It is such a weird set of circumstances. "Here, we think you'll be working for us next school year, so you and 29 other teachers hit the road. And be sure you save your receipts to get reimbursed."
The AtHomeFam is doing OK. Kickball season has started up for The Princess. Her team will be one of the whipping boys younger teams in the league, so I am trying to remind them all that the game should be FUN. Hoping that we have as many laughs as tears this season.
The Talker has discovered a new source of adrenaline. He is now into skateboarding and lacrosse. Turns out his old man likes this stuff too. But it hurts me a lot worse the next day.
Enough of this winter crap!
I live in Texas AND I have a giant fireplace in my house (to go with the central gas-heat system) for lots of reasons. One important one is that I really don't like to be cold. The couple of weeks of cold (read- Minnesota Spring) temps that we endure enjoy are plenty.
Though we haven't had it as bad as those Yankees that live up in Dallas, this week has been crazy cold. School opened a couple of hours late yesterday so that the schools could help with the power service problems around the state. Evidently, even giant power generators in Texas don't like the weather this week.
It hasn't gotten above freezing in three days. Last night the kids finally got some payoff. We have about half an inch of snow on the ground this morning and the schools are closed because of the icy roads.
I will admit, I haven't cared much about school closures since I finally gradumated from college. Suddenly though, Teacher Mike cares A LOT about the fact that I have gotten to sleep late two days in a row.
I worked no less than 65 hours this week. Yeah, me. The Eternal Slacker. Man, thing sure have changed quickly around here. But it is all good.
A quick side note: The Boss lady commented tonight about how quickly she got the house cleaned up tonight. (Yeah, I didn't help clean. I was working. For real. At the dining table, two laptop computers and all!) The point is, we are all gone so much right now, that no one really has time to make a mess at home.
We are settling into our new routine as well as we could expect. The kids come on a bus to my school each afternoon and they love it. For now the are getting to play on the class computers pretty much for the entire time. Eventually I'll break the bad news that homework WILL get done while I finish up my afternoon work. But for now, they are getting some time to settle into the routine.
I spend most of my day in 6th and 7th grade math classes. Those of you who know AtHomeDaddy more than just through the blog can quit laughing now. I sure didn't set out to be a math teacher, but here I am. One more part of the new routine for our family.
At the high school I was in a role that really wasn't right for me. I liked the job, but it was really not the right job for our family. I was working way too many hours for a job that should have been treated (and certainly it paid like) a part-time job.
It has taken me a couple of weeks to get into the groove of our new reality. But I noticed yesterday that it has been about a month since I told The Boss Lady something like 'I miss our old life'. I guess this new chaos is starting to grow on me.
Loads to tell about the craziness that has become our lives since I accepted a new job teaching Middle School.
But for the first time in my life, I am too tired to talk (or type).
Here it is, almost midnight and I start a new job in the morning. Should be in bed, instead I seem to be dwelling on all of the stuff that might go absolutely, horribly wrong on my first day back in a Middle School since 198never (because technically, I went to a Jr. High School not a Middle school. I could give you a definition of the difference between the two, but if you aren't a teacher, then you don't really care and if you ARE a teacher,well, I would hate to show my ignorance by giving out wrong information on my blog...
Anyways, between my Bro hooking me up with a new wardrobe and having a new car to drive, I'll at least be the coolest looking first day teacher at the skool, even if I am the most scared, too.
This afternoon The Boss and I made the final leap into the Internet age. We sold a car through Craig's List.
The VW went quickly. I posted the add at 2pm and by 2:15 I was answering calls. I set up to meet the first of the potential buyers and he test drove the car in a parking lot nearby. Within 15 minutes he was finished looking over the car and the haggling was done.
I probably could have held out for a couple of hundred more bucks with a another buyer, but getting this done in one shot was worth something too.
Of course, I wanted cash. No checks accepted when I sell you a car in the Sporting Goods store parking lot. But as soon as the buyer handed me the cash, I was instantly worried about taking counterfeit bills. The Boss Lady and kids were at the parking lot with another car, so we signed the paperwork and headed straight to the bank to deposit the cash. I think the cashier thought I was nuts when I asked her to check the bills.
So now we are back to being a 2 car family. But of course Marge, the 68 Chevy gets a pass on that count :) We celebrated by washing the Mini Cooper and the Saturn Vue. Then I went and shampooed the seats and carpets in the Saturn. After all, if The Boss Lady is going to let me drive her new car to work, she will be expecting mine to be clean and ready to go.
A few days ago The Boss called me to let me know that she had forgotten to "remind" me that her momma was coming to town AND that The Mother of the Bride would be here in about an hour.
Since we were in the middle of a couple of weeks off from school, and there was a gigantic pile of clean laundry waiting for a grandma's special folding skillz, I decided that this visit sounded like a great plan. (and a chance to make the pile of laundry grow a little bit more).
Skipping over the real highlights of the visit, it seems The Boss Lady had a plan. She announced that we (without Grandma or kids) were going to pack a suitcase, jump into the new car and then see where the road took us.
I started dreaming of some spontaneous road trip scenarios and we decided on a few ground rules. We would not drive on any interstate highways during the entire trip. And we kept to that rule, too.
We used the Garmin GPS to help us find some good back roads to cruise. And we did a little dirt road driving, too.
We stayed overnight in one of the finest 2 star motels in Huntsville, Texas and spent the rest of the time avoiding big cities and heavily traveled, multi-lane roads. We ate beef jerky for lunch and we ran through most of the good stuff on two iPods. This was a successful spontaneous trip!
Thanks to The Mother of the Bride for the folded laundry (and for watching the kids).
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The wife and I are hitting the road to try out the new car. We are swinging by to visit some old friends for lunch and then we have no destination in mind. My only goal for this trip - not a SINGLE mile will be driven on Interstate Highways 35 or 45 (Or 10, 20 or 30).
Taking the iPod, the netbook, the GPS a couple of cell phones and a change of clothes or two. The kids are staying with grandma at our house. Somebody has to babysit the chickens, you know...
It is true. I haven't even started the new job and the car is already in the driveway. But it is also true that I won't be seeing much of this car once skool starts. I'll be too busy and The Boss will manage to keep her foot out of the turbo charger enough that she should get decent gas mileage in her new ride.
Me? Yeah, good gas mileage thing is not gonna happen. I am a dude! This car wants to be driven and he wants to get there in a hurry. So it looks like I'll be sticking with the Saturn Vue. Good thing my car will get me reliably to work. It looks like I'll be needing the paychecks very soon.
A side story about the new car - He already has a name, Randall.
The salesman treated us great. Never been happier to deal with a salesman. Really!
The guy's name is Randall. When The Boss and I got back home, I was joking that Randall had tempted me to really NEED that car. Then I tried out my best John Goodman impersonation, I quoted Scully from Monster's Inc. and said "Randall's your monster."
A day later and the name has stuck. Even the kids are running around saying "Randall's your monster!"
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