Monkey Feet for Christmas

What every well dressed data monkey should be wearing this year.

Betty's Ham Chowder

Back in 1995 the school where I was working decided to sell cookbooks as a fund raiser for the PTA. Everyone was invited to contribute their favorite recipes. The PTA would type them up and send them off to a publisher and we would sell them and make money for the playground or whatever else the PTA deemed worthy. My mom contributed this recipe and I make it every winter. Bon Appetit!

Ham Chowder
4 lg carrots
4 stalks celery
1 sm onion
4 lg potatoes
5 c. water
2-3 c. diced ham
2 T btr
6 T flour
2 1/2 c. milk
Salt & Pepper to taste

Garnish: Paprika, Parsley

In stock pot cook carrots, celery, onion and potatoes in 5 c. water until tender. 20 min. Add ham, butter, salt & pepper. Blend flour into milk smoothly and stir into soup. Heat, stirring constantly until boils. Turn heat down and allow to simmer partially covered 10 -20 min. Sprinkle with paprika and chopped parsley. Serve with hot garlic bread and a tossed green salad for a complete meal.
( I usually serve with corn bread, but you know, whatever is handy)

Wheel of Fortune

Click on the title of this post to find the #1 song in the country on the day you were born. For me it was Wheel of Fortune by Kay Star.

Find yours and leave it as a comment to this post.

Storytime

Here are some books you must read aloud to your children, emphasis on MUST and ALOUD. They are in no particular order and some of them are appropriate for preschoolers and some are not. They are mostly for children of school age since I read them to children in grades K-4 primarly. You may add your own favorites as comments if you like and I will also add more as I remember them. I must confess that it has been at least 8 years since I've read aloud to a group of children on a regular basis, so the new books are not on my list.

* Hester in the Wild by Sandra Boynton - It's funny.
*Max's Chocolate Chicken by Rosemary Wells - It teaches you to not take yourself too seriously by being funny.
*The Talking Eggs by Robert San Souci - you get to say "You got a spirit of "do right in your soul" , "trail train dresses" and "she took her head off to comb her hair." A classic fairy tale set in the deep American South.
* Brave Irene by William Stieg - Irene qualifies for a heroine by any standards and Stieg can make you weep with pathos while he's making you groan at his melodrama.
* Dr. DeSoto by William Steig. The small mouse dentist, out of compasion, treats a fox with a bad toothache. You get to say "mmmmm how good they would be sauted with a dry, white wine" , "permeate the dentine" and "frank u berry mush." Steig's books celebrate the power of the small and powerless to overcome evil by being armed with their innocence and their native wit.
*Sylvester and the Magic Pebble" ditto on the pathos and melodrama. I swear one little boy was near tears over the plight of Sylvester, a donkey who had turned into a rock by wishing on a magic pebble. I had to rush to finish so he would know it had a happy ending. (Stieig's style is simple and eloquent)
*CDB by Willam Steig - read this one as soon as your child learns his/her alphabet so s/he can read a book by him/herself.
*Redwall by Brian Jacques. The first two chapters are a study of style by describing ultimate innocence and ulitmate evil . Also read the chapters about the hero living with the sparras. I can still remember the battle and I haven't read the book for 15 years.
*Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli - Huck Finn channels Ulysses. Afer running away from a loveless foster home, Maniac looks for a home of his own. You get to say " Maniac, Maniac, he's so cool, Maniac Maniac kissed a bull."
*Go, Dog, Go! by P.D. Eastman. I have no idea why the kids liked this book. I hated it. They would listen spellbound, I was internally yawning.
*BFG by Roald Dahl. You get to talk funny because the big, friendly giant says things backwards and he drinks fizzy lifting drinks. The bubbles in the drink go from top to bottom, so instead of making you burp, they make you . . . . .
*Witches by Roald Dahl. You get to talk with a Swedish accent as the grandmother and then do some really nasty, evil accent as the Witch. Plus the little boy in the story is brave and clever and a good role model.

The Night the House Didn't Burn Down

First of all, there was no fire, never was a fire. Relax.

About a week ago, the end of the Thanksgiving Weekend, we were sleeping soundly when an alarm went off in the house. Thinking that it was the alarm clock, I reached up to turn it off. I hit the button that usually turns it off and then hit a few other buttons. My husband finally said, "I think it's the smoke alarm." Then the alarm stopped. I went back to sleep. It had been a long weekend. I was tired. It went off again and again I tried to turn off the alarm clock, hitting buttons in a futile attempt to stop the noise so I could go back to sleep. Once more the noise stopped and I went back to sleep. When it happened again, my husband got up to turn off the smoke alarm. It had happened before, that the alarm went off when there was no reason for it to go off. Before it had been a big bug or dust or something like that. The alarm is plugged into the wall, so there are no batteries to change. When he came back to bed he said, " I unplugged it." "Good. Was there any smoke?" "I didn't check." So he got back up to make sure there wasn't any smoke. There wasn't. We went back to sleep until the "real" alarm went off at 6:00. I turned it off with no problem and I went back to sleep. It had been a long night. I was tired. About 6:30, my husband came in and said, "It's late, 6:30." I groaned and got out of bed, took a shower, got dressed and went to the kitchen to see if I had time for breakfast. My husband took his turn in the shower. I looked at the kitchen clock to see if I had time for breakfast and it was 5:55! What! Don't tell me the battery int he kitchen clock died ! I check several other clocks in the house and they all had variations of 5:55. It seems that in my attempts to turn off the alarm clock I had reset the time. So not only was the night's sleep broken by smoke alarms, but we were up, showered and dressed an hour early!!!!!! It was a long day.

But the house didn't burn down.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Who's bringing the cranberry sauce?

D'oh!

So I get to work about my usual time, 7:45. The clock on the wall says about 5:50 or there abouts. I notice it and say to self, "Huh, the clock must have stopped. Probably the battery died." I go into my office where I have an "atomic" clock and it's about 7:50. I get my computer fired up and check mail, voice messages on the phone and the phone rings.

It's my fellow office worker who lives in Lame Deer. She says, "I'm running late, the power was off last night, my alarm didn't go off and I overslept."

"Oh," I say. "That explains the clock being off." Then I notice that the clock now says 6:oo and there is a cord hanging down the wall. Not dead batteries. Back to my desk I go. Gotta get things done. Phone rings again. It's about 8:00 by now.

"Hi, Ann. I'm trying to log on to READ 180 and it says it can't connect."

"Oh,the power was off. Maybe the server didn't reset yet. I'll get it." D'OH!!!!! None of the servers are on yet! They're all waiting patiently to be turned on, logged on or reset. The phone starts ringing in ernest now. Nothing is working and people are starting to log on.

Moral of the story. Next time I get to work and the clock "died" CHECK THE SERVERS! On the other hand. If no one knew the servers were off, how would they know how clever I was to turn them back on?????

I Earned MY Highschool Diploma

You paid attention during 100% of high school!

85-100% You must be an autodidact, because American high schools don't get scores that high!

Me Three

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
Philadelphia
Boston
The Northeast
The West
The Inland North
The South
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Week's End UPdaTe

I had an interesting weekend. On Saturday I got up and decided that this would be the weekend I finally finish, once and for all, my Lego Star War game I got for Christmas. I had finished quite a bit, but had left the "hard bits" for last. Mostly the racing levels. I stink at racing. Well, today, I finished all the levels at "True Jedi" level, which unlocked the extra level and two new characters. I'd amassed so many gold legos playing the epidsodes over and over to get all the "kits" that I could buy the last two characters. Ta Da! Not many of my games do I get to beat like that. All the levels, all the extras, all the unlockables.

In between playing sessions, to give my hands a break, we went to Colstrip to the annual Christmas Bazaar. Didn't find too much, a lot of the stuff isn't handmade any more, but I did find two new pinky rings. Can't have too many pinky rings. And they are handmade. I also managed to work in the usual weekend house chores, so I can't feel guillty about spending so much time with the video game and pinky rings.

Tomorrow after work, I leave for Billings where I'll spend the night before heading out to a workshop that involves my job training. All in all it was a good week end. I just wish that my hobby didn't involve using the same sore hand I have to use so much for work all week. I keep looking for a "gamer's glove" with built in ice packs. If anyone knows how to get my hand in one, let me know.

Have a great week!

Free Rice

No registering, no signing up, no commitment. Just answer some fact-type, study for your ACT type questions and for every answer you get correct, someone donates 20 grains of rice to the UN World Food Program. Come one, you know you like it. Might as well feel virtuous about sitting at the computer a few minutes longer.

Just click on the title of this post.

Grace in Defeat

I 'm listening to John McCain's concession speech. If this John McCain had been visible during the last months of the campaign instead of the John McCain we DID see, it would have been a closer race.

Daylight Saving Time

I've said it before and I'm saying it again. I'd vote for the candidate whose only promise was to end daylight saving time forever or end the electoral college, two concepts whose time is past.

WeEkenD UPdaTe

Well, I had a busy and rewarding weekend. I went into Billings Friday afternoon and had a delicious dinner with my dad at a dinner following a business meeting he attended. It was good food and good company, what else do you need? The next morning I had breakfast with aunt, uncle, cousins and two very friendly dogs. Then some shopping and a late lunch, more shopping and home again. Trips to Billngs tend to have a lot of family meals and shopping. I enjoy the family meals, but the shopping......not so much. It's just that living as far away from stores as we do, shopping in "big cities" is a neccessity, not a pleasure. I have gotten quite good at online shopping, but sometimes you just have to try something on, and as yet, they don't deliver cat food and toothpaste online. Maybe someday soon some one, somewhere will invent one of those replicator thingys like on Star Trek and I won't have to shop in Billings at all, just spend time with family!

Experiments in Telecomuting

This summer when gasoline prices starting spiraling upwards, those of us who commute to work started talking about ways to save gas$$$. One of the ideas was to continue working 4/10 hour days as we did in the summer. I liked the idea of 4/10 but the reality was that I was worn out on Friday and didn't get much done at all. The other idea was to stay home and to my work from there. After all one "data monkey cage" is much like another. It turns out that all I've done this week is data entry and fact checking for our state report called "fall count." All my programs are web-based so that's not an issue. Today was a perfect time to give it a try. It was actually not much difference for me. It was just as tiresome and boring as it was when I drive 25 miles to work. The difference was that I didn't have to shower if I didn't want to, (I didn't) and I could putz around a little before "going to work." When the quitting bell sounded. I could just log off my school program and start blogging. No 25 mile drive home with all the stops in town to get mail or milk. As far as I"m concerned I could stay home a couple of days a month and get as much done as I would at work and gain the above mentioned benefits. With winter approaching, another advantage would be to avoid the nasty, icy, slippery roads and the snow drifts that make my drive up the hill an "adventure in sliding." Of course I don't know if the people at work even noticed that I was gone. If not.....it may not be such a good thing.

Maverick

Did I hear right? A TEAM of Mavericks? What part of Maverick doesn't she understand? A Maverick is a LONE dissenter who takes an independent stand apart from his or her associates. If you are in a group you can't, by definition, be a maverick. Who wants a Maverick in the White House anyway? I should think that we'd want a leader in the White House. Someone who is going to work with others to achieve a common destination, not someone who is going to go off on his own at cost of the rest of the us. Suppose the maverick values his "maverickness" so much that he appoints a lot of "mavericks" to his cabinet. He picked one as his "sidekick." What do we have then? A lot of people going their own way to prove that they are independent and refusing to work with any one, or a stampede to get to the head of the line to prove that he/she is a leader. No, I don't think we need a "maverick" in the Whitehouse. He is not going to convience me with that argument.

Banned Books Week.

It's Banned Books WeeK! Hurry, don't miss it! Read a book that was challenged or banned. Click on the title above for a list of books if you don't have a favorite banned book to read. Or just do a search for banned books, there are, unfortunately hundreds of banned books to choose from.

Can You Guess Where I'm From?

I found this link on the JWalk Blog. It's a game where a bunch of people from all over are speaking English with accents from there own country. Not all of the countries are English speaking countries though. I got 21 measly points. What's your score?


http://www.languagetrainersgroup.com/accent_game.html

Take 2

Meet Trixie

Meet Trixie, a data monkey like me. She was put together this week and accessorized today. She has the requisite two hands for typing and cutting/pasting from one database or spreadsheet to another. Like me she has highlights in her hair and is addicted to costume jewelry. She is going to join me in the office tomorrow to remind me how to have fun at work.

Self Portrait

How many times has this happened to you, ladies? You go to the salon and spend a few hours getting a new hair doo and then the next day, you cannot make it look like it did when you walked out of the salon?

Vacation Day?

I had yesterday off, but I'm not sure it was a vacation day or a medical leave. I guess it was both. I had to go to the dentist yesterday to get an impression made so I can get a removeable appliance to keep me from clenching my teeth together in my sleep. It's gotten so bad my ears buzz and wake me up. Anyway the procedure at the dentist made me gag horribly so I needed the rest of the day to decompress.

I had an early lunch with a good friend of mine and we talked about other old freinds, not gossip, I swear, just catching up. We talked about politics and agreed on just about everything so that wasn't a long conversation. Then I went to my hair appointment to get a "new doo" , but no one has noticed yet, so I could have saved my $$$$, but then it does feel better to me, so I guess it was worth it. Not much of a vacation, but it was a break from the routine.

Are You Being Served?

We're EVIDENTLY NOT being served. Let me explain. At our school we have used a database program designed for schools. It lets us store all kinds of data about our staff and students. It also lets us schedule classes and take attendance. It keeps a grade book that does all the calculations and comes out with a grade. It's WONDERFUL... when it works. When it doesn't. . . it's less than NOT wonderful.
Our state has begun implementing a new SIS (Student Information System) for state reports. We could just export our data to them or we could purchase the district verson of their program and the exports would happen "automatically." Since our old system was being phased out at the end of this year, our district decided to go with the same system the state uses so we could "synchronize" with their server and automatically export our data for state reports. It sounds great on paper. But when we finally got converted to the new system, they converted us to a version of the program newer than the version the state uses. Newer is better, right? NO it's not better, it's worse. The newer version won't synchronize with the older version and we had no way to assign state ID numbers to our new students. Bummer!
Well, after a couple of days of panic to get the new students enrolled, scheduled, graded and attendended, we got a "walk around" to fix it temporarily until we could sync. We spent Friday in a marathon work session entering in new data. Whew!!

Then Friday afternoon, somewhere in Minnesota. . . a server crashed. Guess whose server it was? Good guess. It was our server and we're back to where we were a week ago. I hope it's not longer than a week ago. I can't contact anyone until Monday to know for sure. I'm just hoping that we've already had our share of bad luck for the year.

If you're wondering why I should care about any of this it's because as of last spring I'm the head "data monkey."

Lucky, lucky me.

New chairs for old!

I remember blogging a looooooong time ago about wanting a new sofa. Well a few weeks ago, after a delay or two, it finally got delivered. When they delivered this they took away our old sofa and an old recliner chair that was looking a little worse for the wear and tear. Now we have a much less cluttered living room. We don't have a sleeper sofa any more, but we've plenty of room for one of those inflatable beds.



That's my new philosophy, if I'm replacing something then I have to get rid of the old something I'm replacing or I really don't need the new someting after all. That goes for sofas, shoes, books, and tires, but never people. You can't replace old friends or family for new. You can never have enough of either.

DATA MONKEY

From the Urban Dictionary

2.data monkey
22 up, 1 down
An employee whos job it is to take data from one source (eg SQL Server) and stick it in another source. A bit like a DBA (Database Administrator) but without the job prospects.
"Hey Jim, do you have that Excel spreadsheet yet?" "No Ann, the Data Monkey has only had the jobsheet for 6 days, I'll have it for Christmas...I think."

I thought I had invented the name Data Monkey to describe my new job. But when I Googled it to make sure it didn't mean something different, I found my job description. Who knew? I must have seen it somewhere and it just stuck in the back of my head until it leaped out one day when some student asked my what I did if I wasn't the librarian anymore. "I'm a Data Monkey!"

Belle Weather

As I was driving home after work I saw the most beautiful clouds ahead of me. The closer I got to home the more of the lower clouds I could see. About 30 minutes after I got home we had some hail, later measured at approx. 1" in diameter. So of course I had to take some pictures.

Christmas in July

Hubby got a new camera last weekend and has been taking pictures of our local flora and fauna(fauna to follow). This reminds me of Christmas because of the bright red berries. I've never seen so many berries on the bushes, but we've never had such a mild, rainy spring before either. It's called a Skunk Bush, also a Fragrant Sumac, Lemon Sumac, Polecat Bush, Rhus trilobata, take your pick. You'll probably be seeing the picture again in late December along with wishes for a Merry Christmas.

It Works Again

I changed a setting in our browser's security setting and it works now. Not sure if it was something I did or a coincidence. Thanks.

Now I can't think of anything to write.

This coming Friday is the last day of my online summer school class. It's getting harder and harder to complete the assignments. The assignments are harder, my attention is wandering to stuff at my new job and because it's summer and I'm usually doing some heavy duty housecleaning this time of year and it's not getting done and there are video games not being played and books not being read.

Anyhoo, I'm sure glad I aced the easy stuff cause I ain't acing anything now. Just counting down the days 'til "School's OUT for SUMMER!"

Top 100 Books

Stole this right off of Philipa's blog.

What books have you read? Bold the ones you have read, italicize the ones you are planning on reading and underline the ones you loved: Some of the children's books I read over the summer when I worked with the Missoula Library Summer Bookmobile program. The quality of the books is part of why I became a chilren's librarian. Other of the children's books I read to my son when he was little. I think he enjoyed most of them or at least knew that a good book would delay bedtime!

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen –
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling - Read 1 1/2 of the books. Does that count?
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee - Read many, many times.
6. The Bible -Bits and pieces, but not the whole thing.
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell-
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman -Loved the first two of the series. I was reading these when everyone else was reading Harry Potter.
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott - Of course!
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy –
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller- Don't remember too much. Read it in college.
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare – Most of them anyway.
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier – I think so. Read some of her books, probably read this one.
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien – Read aloud to my young son. Probably to delay bedtime.
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks –
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger –
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot –
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell - Hated the movie!
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald - Read recently to teach to high school students. Yuck, didn't waste their time.
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens- Read in college. Remember that at the end of one chapter the heroine was blinded and the next time we read about her, a few chapters later, she was sighted and no mention was made of her blindness. I figured that it was a serialized novel and he just forgot because he had to make a deadline.
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy- I remember being confused by all the names. Everyone had 4 or 5 names. Yesh!
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams – LOL
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh -
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky -
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck -
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy-.
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen Probably. I never cared for Austen, but my English teacher assured me the author was great so a read a bunch of them to see if I could figure out why. Never did.
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini-
37. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres –
38. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden-
39. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne-
40. Animal Farm - George Orwell
41. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
42. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
43. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
44. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins - Terrific Victorian Mystery
45. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
46. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
47. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
48. Lord of the Flies - William Golding-
49. Atonement - Ian McEwan
50. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
51. Dune - Frank Herbert
52. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
53. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen-
54. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
55. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
56. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
57. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley-
58. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
59. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez-
60. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck-
61. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
62. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
63. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold -
64. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
65. On The Road - Jack Kerouac -
66. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
67. Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding
68. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
69. Moby Dick - Herman Melville - Tried to read several times. Never could.
70. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
71. Dracula - Bram Stoker
72. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
73. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
74. Ulysses - James Joyce
75. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath-
76. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
77. Germinal - Emile Zola
78. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
79. Possession - AS Byatt -
80. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
81. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
82. The Color Purple - Alice Walker-
83. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
84. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
85. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
86. Charlotte’s Web - EB White
87. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
88. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - REad the complete collection while in junior high.
89. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
90. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
91. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery -
92. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
93. Watership Down - Richard Adams
94. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
95. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute-
96. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
97. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
98. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
99. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain - I taught this to 8th graders.

Sailing in a sea of grass

So at the beginning of spring, late Friday afternoon, a guy drives down our road towing a boat. He parks it in the field across from our house and leaves it. The next weekend it's the same thing and the following weekend it's an old truck. It seems a guy who lives in Billings owns the lot and just figured it would be a good place to park his junk. I'm guessing it's junk because he's never been out to get the boats to take them to a lake or resevoir. Of course he's not allowed to park junk on the streets of Billings. They have laws against doing things like that. But those of us out here in the country don't mind at all, do we? Just bring your old dogs, cats, kids , trucks, anything that doesn't fit in a city will look better and act better in the country, right? Of course if he'd take care of his property and mow the grass to keep it from drying out and becoming a fire hazard, it wouldn't look like they were floating in a sea of grass. Isn't that nice?

Week End Visit

I had a great visit in Billings this weekend. I arrived just in time to get to visit with cousins who were also visiting dad and bro and then spent a relaxing day that ended in a father / daughter dinner. Sunday morning I got the pleasure of going to church with dad and bro and getting to hear a sermon delivered by said dad. I remember being a little kid and seeing my dad in the pulpit. It made me feel kinda special. It still does. After church I finished up some shopping and enjoyed a grilled salmon steak and some homemade pasta salad and yummy salsa.


The Wimbleton tennis finals were on TV and was called to a halt because of rain. I jokingly said I'd better hit the road before I ran into a storm myself. I shoulda left sooner. I drove into a horrible storm complete with hail and blinding sheets of rain. The hill on the way home was a stream of red water as it poured down and washed the dirt away. I made it home safely and it continued to rain for 2 more hours. 2 inches of rain in less than 3 hours. Anywhere else and we'd have a flood, but in SE Montana, where 2 inches of rain in a season is a lot, it just soaked up the water and the next day was bright and green again.

If it means anything to you at all, you know who won the tennis match. If it doesn't, why should I tell you?

Happy 4th of July

Click on the title and answer some of the questions from the new "Citizenship Test."

Rise & Shine!

It has been a weird weather spring. It has rained almost every day since May. Not all day and not buckets and buckets, but rain in SE Montana used to be rare. So it wasn't a big surprise when we had a thunder & lightning storm at bedtime last night. It rained and we went to sleep to the steady sound of rain on our tin roof. The surprise was this morning when we woke to the unmistakable sound of hail on our roof at 5:00 in the morning. What next? Raining toads?

To All You Fathers Out There

. . . and fathers to be. . .
Be Careful What You Preach.

The Power of the Greystache

So we stopped at Pizza Hut on the way home since we figure it will be a long while before we get to go anywhere what with work, price of gas and price of everything and I go to pay the bill of $17.35. I give the guy a $20.00 and he gives me $6.00 +change back. What????? I'm not any good at math but I realize the guy is givng me back too much change. "I think you've given me too much change back," I say. "I gave you the senior citizen discount," he said. I was almost insulted by being taken for a senior citizen until I realized he must have been taking into account my husband's grey beard and mustache. I know I would NEVER be mistaken for a senior citizen:)

Get out and VOTE!

Ooops! I guess it's not election day for everyone. Those of us in Montana are in the spotlight today with our primaries making the news since they are the end of a very long, much too long primary season. Voting was a pleasant endeavor. After handing my driver's license to my neighbor down the road to identify myself so I could sign in, I voted on a paper ballot and listened to all the other neighbors catching up on news they haven't heard until the last election, wedding or funeral that put them all in the same room together. Then home to cook a fast dinner and join my first online chatroom for my online class.

Spring's Back

I realize it has been a while since my last post, but I still can't think of much to write about. Spring appears to have returned as I sit here beside the open window watching the neighbors out in the yard whilst I sit inside tied to the computer. I'm actually taking a study break or you'd probably never hear from me again.

School's out and I'm almost finished being a librarian for a while. I just have to run off an inventory and I'll be through. I got moved into my new office on Saturday morning and got my email set up; my first email was from our new program vendor sending be a bunch of spread sheets which I'm suppose to use to export our student / school data so they can do what they need to do to import it into our new program. By a startling coincidence, my assignment this week is "How to import data from a spreadsheet into a database." Couldn't have come a moment too soon. Maybe I can get extra credit from my teacher for doing my job?? I feel like I'm surrounded by databases, maybe drowning in spreadsheets.

My new motto: WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS, MANIPULATE THE DATA

TAG I'M IT!

Got tagged by dad on this one.

4 Jobs I've Held:
Dishwasher
Laundress at Motel
Librarian
Stage Manager

4 Places I've lived:
Davenport, Iowa
Woodville, MA
Jersey City, NJ
Bilings, MT

4 Movies I've Watched Over and Over Again:
5th Element
Stardust
Star Trek
Groundhog's Day

4 Places I've Been:
Chicago
Los Altos,CA
Newport, OR

4 TV Shows I watch regularly:
Bones
Burn Notice
Keen Eddie
Blackadder

4 Radio Shows I Listen to:
NPR MOrning Edition
Car Talk

4 Things to look forward to:
Being a Great Aunt
A New JOb
Fridays
End of Summer School
One more family reunion

4 People I email regularly:
Dad
Son
Family
Friends from Colstrip/Medicine Lake (HINT)

Weakend

It's been a busy yet somehow serene week. We've had several events planned for the students and not one of them went off as planned. Not unusual at all, yet the main topic in the teachers' lounge is about how things should be planned better. They were planned just fine, it's just that everyone wasn't given the same plan. Somedays I feel as if I'm living out a novel by Vonengut, was he part Native American? It was a beautiful day, we were outside walking around, the kids were happy, we all got back to school in time for lunch and only had two schedule changes when we got back. Where's the problem?

I had a lot of "lasts" this week since I'll be moving out of the classroom next month and into the nether regions of "administration." One of my colleagues jokingly called me a defector, and he wasn't entirely joking. I had my last "clean up the rez day," my last "march against meth day," last class of graduating seniors, and last time to start my inventory and nine days to finish. I'm not nostalgic or gloomy about any of it so I guess I made the right decision. Just think of all the "firsts" I'll be experiencing.

I started a new online class on Access databases. It looks to be a lot more comprehensive(harder) than the class on Excel but so far I think I'm holding my own. My strategy is to work hard on the easy stuff and get a high grade so when the hard stuff comes at the end of the quarter I won't flunk. Hey it's worked for one of my seniors who got a B 3rd quarter and an F 4th quarter, he squeaked by with a passing grade, so can I.

To all the other students out there, I have a new respect for you! Just be sure to Ace the easy stuff.

Happy Mother's Day

Aftermath

So after being called at 4:30 to be told that school was called off for the day the sun came out and it was a beautiful day to stay home and nap, read, play FFX, do a few household chores and read blogs. Now I'm ready for the weekend.

Dos de Mayo

At 4:30 this morning the telephone rang. A telephone ringing at 4:30 in the morning usually doesn't bode well. It probably didn't bode well for someone, but for me it was good news. SChool was called OFF due to a storm system hitting us last night. I'd much rather be awakened at 4:30 in the morning than head out to work and then find out that the roads are closed. Anyway, I intend to be a sloth today and just read, nap, play video games, and catch up on my blog reading until the power goes off and then snack on Vanilla Wafers and milk.

Finals Week !

I just finished my final test for my online Excel class. I only got a 90% on it, but there was one question that I think wasn't fairly written..... whatever. I have all my assignments handed in, but they aren't all graded yet, so I don't know what my final grade is, but at least I passed and I'm finished. I'm taking an online course on databases during summer session. I expect it to be a little easier because I was anxious about spreadsheets and formulas and whatnot, but maybe the databases will be harder since it's a 300 level course and the Excel course was a 100 level.

School's Out !

New Job!

I finally got an actual contract and not just the promise of one. So for the first time in 28 years I won't be a librarian or a classroom teacher. It will make the last few weeks of this year a lot easier to put up with. I start on July 1st so I'll get June off. What shall I do?

Fishcake Anyone?

Happy Birthday to ME!

JOb NeWs

Incredibly, I'm still waiting to decide which job I'll have next year. The school board voted to renew my teaching contract and also voted to offer me a contract with the tech dept and Student Information Systems coordinator. I've yet to see either one and the superintendant won't be back in the office until next Tuesday, so I guess I'll just have to wait a little longer. I'm not complaining, mind you. Some people didn't get offered even one contract and I've got two!

Caption Contest

Create a caption for this picture.

The Taxman Cometh

Ask not for whom the taxman cometh, he comes for thee!! I know you're out there, you lazy slacker, someone out there hasn't filed his/her tax return yet. HaH! I mailed my today! That's right, in the mailbox, not efiled ! Call me a luddite if you will, but that's the way I do it.

Actually, I had a productive, yet relaxing 4 day weekend. I went to Billings and visted family, finished a difficult Excel chapter, started a great book called "The Thirteeth Tale," watched some movies, and worked on the taxes.

Job Apps.

Well, I submitted an application for the job I've been "fillng in " for since October. Someone more qualified may yet apply, more power to them. The job would mean a cut in pay and longer work year, but I'm ready for something new. Just sort of coasting the past couple of years. I won't know for at least a month and then the school board is very slow about some decisions. I hope this isn't one of them.

March ON

March is here at last! What is more, there are only 9 days left in 3rd quarter, which means to anyone who is counting, there is one quarter left until the end of the school year. I have lived my whole life thus far by an academic calendar. I think I always will. Time is marked by quarters, semesters, graduations and vacations. Right now I am both a teacher and a student as I come home from work and hit the comptuer to study Excel 2007, in which class I am now showing a 97% thank you very much. I suspect that even when I retire, I will tell time, not by the calendar that starts in January, but the calendar that starts in August.

Bloomin' Tulips

Happy Birthday to YOU!

Happy Birthday Big Brother !

School Assemblies

I was expecting an assembly this afternoon because our Lady Stars are going to Red Lodge tomorrow to play in the regional basketball tournement. So when the announcement came down at 2:30 for everyone to go to the gym, I thought, "That's way too long for a pep assembly. "( We're dismissed at 3:45) But we had a surprise guest. Matt Light, the aforementioned football player had come back on his way home to stop by and speak to the kids about a football camp his foundation is sponsoring in June. The listened well until he started his stay in school and off drugs and out of trouble speach. How was he to know we've already heard that speach about 10 times this year. Well, he cut his loses when they got restless and went to a Q & A. One of the kids asked how far he could throw a football. "Oh, I can't throw a football at all. I never go near the football," he said. Another kid asked if he cried when they lost the SuperBowl. "No, I didn't, " he said. "I didn't cry. I bawled." He seemed like a genuinly nice guy and it was a nice break from classes. He may even have inspired our basketball crazy guys to try out for football next year.

But the real fun started after he left and we got our promised pep assembly complete with skits that embarrass the teachers. I got wrapped up in toilet paper which wasn't bad compared to the teachers who got their faces covered in peanut butter and then had popcorn thrown at them. Somehow the coach made it all tie into the big game, but it was really about humiliating the teachers.

GO LADY STARS!!!

I almost forgot.

OK? By the time I got home I had almost forgotten what had happened this morning. Not that it was a bad day; it was rather ordinary. But this morning started with the coach asking me if he could use the library, 3rd period, for a meeting of local coaches. OK. He neglected to tell me that the meeting was about a football camp this summer. OK. He also neglected to tell me that a celebrity would be there. Anybody ever heard of Matt Light? Well, I never did before today. I googled him when I got home. He's football player for the New England Patriots. OK. He wasn't the only one who showed up. There was a video cameraman, a microphone carrier, and a still shot camera woman. There were a few other people standing around, a couple of vans worth of people at least. They were all VERY polite and friendly. At one point a guy returned a pen he had borrowed from my desk and said, "I hope you don't mind?" I pretended like it was a big deal and then said, " No problem." So he walked away and came back with a Tshirt and said I could have the Tshirt since I'd let him use my pen. OK. So I now have a white Tshirt that says New England Patriots and has a signature scribbled under it. It looks like it says BEN? But who can tell? I'll ask coach tomorrow who BEN is.

Any PAT fans out there?

Semester Wrap Up! Maybe this time?

Last week we had a 2 hour long poweroutage. We were 15 minutes from sending the kids home for the day when they power was restored to the elementary school, the admin building, the tech building and hopfully the rest of the town, but we still had no power out at our jr/sr high school. But the other school didn't know we were without power and they turned on the servers for our SIS(student information system). When the rest of the power was restored, the server got zapped and we lost 2 weeks worth of data. It took an entire day to get it straightened out with our tech support. We got the end of the semester grades restored, but I still have to re enter all the corrections I'd already done. I'm hoping to get it fixed by the end of Q3 in the middle of March so I can then concentrate on whatever mistakes I'll be making then.

In another note, I fell a nasty fall on my left knee yesterday when some ice appeared out of no where. It was a beautiful sunny day; it felt like spring in fact. I was thinking I'd wake up this morning to a stiff, painful knee but it wasn't any worse than yesterday. No better, but not worse.

Montana. . . it's not for wimps.

The day started out to be a real bad day. Not 100 yards from home I got stuck in a liliputian snow drift. Really, it was barely a curbsized drift, but my Honda is a wimpy car. After my husband pulled me out of the drift, I made it to work just as the first bell for class was sounding. Then I was trying to get caught up from the crash last week which resulted in us losing the last 13 days of data. It was an "early out day" so the students left at 1:45 and we had a guest speaker who talked about suicide prevention. Not quite the most cheerful topic on a good day, and it wasn't a good day. In between classes I had been dismantling the hallway bulletin board which was still decorated for Valentine's Day. For some reason I find holiday decorations left up past the holiday really depressing, so I felt that if I could get it changed for spring I would feel a little better, and it worked a bit.

Then I made it home without getting stuck and the day was looking up. After dinner I crammed for my online course test. It was the first test of the semester and I didn't know what to expect. I took the test and it was automatically graded and I got a 95%. I'll take it. And now I'm going to post this and take a look at the end of the lunar eclipse. It has actually been a clear sky so we could enjoy it. HOpe you all got at least a glimpse.

Welcome to the Family

I just looked at some of the pictures of the wedding. I don't think I've ever seen a happier groom or a more radiant bride. One of the great things about my great brothers is the wonderful new sisters they've brought into the family. Another great thing is all the great nephews and nieces they've delivered, and another great thing is what fathers and uncles they all are.

So welcome to the family, Suzanne.

Semester Wrap Up! (I hope)

So our first semester ended on Jan. 17, 2008. Today is February 8, 2008. I may have just finished wrapping up all the problems I caused when I wrapped up the end of the semester. The software program we use at our school (Student Information System) is a mine field in hell. One wrong step and the whole thing blows up in your face and you spend the next two weeks wondering why you thought you had figured out how it works.

Of course I though I had it all fixed two days ago when the school counselor who brought a transcript into me and showed me a student who had been dropped at the beginning of the second quarter and was still showing a credit for English class, and an A to boot. Ooooops!

On the plus side, the Excel 2007 class I'm taking online, makes the job infintesimally easier.

Winter Blahs

I was going to write that not much has been happening to write about so I have ignored my blog for a while. Then I got to thinking and there's been a lot of little things. Our first semester ended and the second began. That's ordinarily a busy time, but now that I'm involved with the the Student Information System and have to help with report cards and course changes, it's been even busier. And to add to the stress, we had a snowfall just at the transition between semesters. It really wasn't a bad snow, but the wind made the drifts bad, so I missed a day of work. My little Honda is a great road car and I put 250-300 miles on it a week, so I need good mileage and it delivers. But it just doesn't handle the snow the way the old Subaru with AWD. We talked briefly about trading in the Honda for a Subaru. The Impreza looks good, but I don't know if I'm ready to sacrifice the outstanding mileage of my Honda.

I've started taking an online course on Excel 2007 from MSU-Billings and so far it's pretty easy, but I'm thinking it will get complicated real soon. I'm not as comfortable working with numbers and formulas as I am around letters and words.