Candidate for School Board

I decided a while ago that I should put my name on the ballot for the next school board election at Ashland Public School. We live in the district and for the first time in a while neither one of us is employed there. Since the election is coming up soon, on May 8th, I put a few flyers up around town announcing that I was in the running, and I just finished sending off some emails to the local newspapers to place an ad in the two newspapers that serve the two counties that make up our elementary school district. I think that there is someone else running for the one open seat, so I'll let you know on May 9th how things turned out.

55!

I finally got to open my birthday presents from my husband when we got back from a visit in Billings. Dad cooked us a great birthday dinner and we had Birthday Blackberry Pie and sang "Happy Birthday to Me!" Anyway, when I opened my presents, I knew immediatly why he picked them out for me. This is one of a pair of shiny aluminium bookends with my name all over it, my initials at any rate. I just was wondering though, how many people are there with my initials?

Spring Spruce Up

We wandered into Miles City yesterday to get some information about what we can do to "upgrade" our house. First we stopped by the local heating place to find out if we can put in a new heater and central air conditioner. The guy who does the work was out on call yesterday, so he's going to call this morning to get some information from us so he can make an estimate. Then we went to a couple of lumber stores to price new windows, no point in getting a new heater/cooler if we're going to loose all the inside air to the great outdoors, right? Then if we can afford it, we might improve the roof, maybe just an inspection and repairs if needed.
Retirement is closer with every year, so we're thinking to get the house in shape while we still have paychecks coming in.

Speaking of retirement, we're taking off for Billings today to visit and to celebrate my 55th birthday tomorrow. What does that have to do with retirement? Well, now that I am getting closer to retirement, the next time things at work get too stressed out. . . I may be able to relax and tell myself, "I don't have to do this! I could retire!"

D'oh a deer

This is the same deer pictured in an earlier post. She was attracted to the grass in the paths that had been shoveled. She's been grazing here most of the afternoon.

Weekend Update

30 March 2007

It snowed heavily this morning, but when it stopped, the sun came out and the temperature climbed and snow melted. Bill got out the shovel and cleared some of it away so the sun would dry out the ground. We decided to try to bring my car in from town where it had spent the night. Late yesterday afternoon, a neighbor had plowed our road, so it might work. Of course it snowed all night and half the day. Since we wouldn't know until we tried we took the Jeep into town to retrive my car. My little Honda is a great road car as long as the road is paved and plowed. I figured that if we didn't bring it home soon, we'd be churning up mud instead of snow. I asked Bill if he wanted to tow me out of the mud or out of the snow. My car got stuck and the first turn, but I was pointed downhill, having missed the turn, so Bill gave me a push and I drove around to try it again. Again I got stuck, so this time after a push downhill I kept going back to town.
We've done it before and we'll do it again. We leave my car in town and Bill drives me down in the morning and I drive to work. After work he comes back to get me. This continues until the ground dries up.
Sometimes it's good to have two cars; a road car and an off-road car.

The March Wind Doth Blow. . .

. . . and we shall have snow, and what will the robin do then? Poor thing.

The winter storm warning was out (why they don't call it a spring storm warning is beyond me) so all morning at work people were quoting weather reports from the radio, news programs and www.weather.com . But mostly I ignored them. These are the people who are routinely absent and look for any excuse to miss work.

I was pleasantly surprised when the announcement came from the lady in the ceiling at 1:30 that the busses were waiting and we should dismiss our students. I shut down my computers, stacked my chairs, took one last visit to the restroom and headed out the door. Every one who saw me told me to drive carefully. They always do that, one flake of snow and it's, "Drive careful Ms. Taylor. Take it slow and careful." "It'll be fine," I said. "I'll be right behind the bus."

So I drove out of town thinking that the roads in town are always worse than the highway. They weren't. It wasn't that the roads were particularly icy. It was the combination of wind and snow that made it hard to see where the road was, come to think of it, maybe it was icy. I couldn't really see it. I made it to the top of the divide that separates where I live and where I work. Just at the top was the bus!!! It was turning around and heading back to Lame Deer and and the highway patrol guys told me I would have to do the same. The road was closed. So I turned and drove back on the nasty roads. At the intersection in Lame Deer they were turning traffic back BEFORE they made it to the top. Since they couldn't go east everyone was turning north on Hwy 39 towards Colstrip so I followed the crowd.

I ended up staying the night in Colstrip until the road opened agian this morning. I got to Ashland around 11:oo and stopped for mail. The post office lady said that our neighbor had stopped in and said that he "had no road to his house." I had suspected as much and had already called Bill. (I never used my cell phone except to call home, so glad I have one) He drove his Jeep to town and told me that he thought my car would be stuck if I tried to drive my car up the hill. So we just put all my stuff in his car and came home. It's been snowing off and on all day, but who cares? I'm home.

What Me Worry?

You Are 74% Non Conformist

You are a pretty serious non conformist. You live a life hardly anyone understands. And while some may call you a freak, you're happy with who you are.

Are You a Nonconformist?

Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month ! Celebrate poetry by clicking on the title of the post above and find the Magnetic Poetry page. Select one of the magnet sets and play around with the words a little and write your poem as a comment to this post.Here's mine.

I used the Shakespeare set. Can you tell?

Methinks perchance
Bawdy discontent shall
Wanton art speak. .


PS. Just write your favorite poem, whether you wrote it or not.

Read Across America

Our school library recently recieved a very generous gift of books from a school in New Jersey that was participating in the program called READ ACROSS AMERICA. The kids in New Jersey did a lot of fund raising and bought books for their library and then shared some with kids "Across America." The books were chosen with jr. high kids in mind and they were perfect choices for our students.

PS. I picked up the paperwork to declare as a candidate for the Ashland Public School Board. I just need 5 signatures. I can probably do that on a quick run to town for mail and groceries.

I AM A DUCK

I like to hang out in libraries and when I get a little "peckish" I like to nibble on some shamrocks.

Guess???

I recieved this in the mail as a gift from one of my brothers. A friend of his wife's makes them herself. Can you guess what it is? You might try clicking on the picture to get a larger image, but it's not the best picture so that might not help a lot.

In other news, I've been working on a federal grant at work. So far it adds up to $190,000.00. I'm not holding my breath or any thing, federal grants have a lot of federalise I don't speak, so I'm sure to forget to cross all the Ts and dot all the Is, but if I do get it , it will be almost as good as winning the lottery, and I'll get to spend it all in MY LIBRARY!

Pony Express?

I just realized that the email I sent to everyone to tell them about my new email program didn't get sent!! I get an error message that says something about needing authentication. I had to get a new email program because the Microsoft Outlook trial subscription ran out. I got one cheap called Eudora. I'll call the Eudora helpline and see what's up. But for now just know that I seem to be recieving email, I just don't seem to be able to send it, and I did try to keep in touch this weekend, mostly to tell you all what a pain it was to get the new email program.

I titled this post Pony Express because I was thinking that sometimes the convience of email and all things computer seems very frustrating. But now that I think of it, it would be a great name for an email program, wouldn't it? So I looked it up . . . and it is!

Bill's Deer

This deer has been a frequent visitor to our yard this winter. In fact it has been here so often that Bill says, "My deer is back." It does come closer to the house, but not today. This week has been colder than it has been, almost like a real winter. But the snow has stayed to a minimum so I've made it to work every day this week.

OFFLINE

Finally, we're back online. We lost our DSL connection about 5:00 Friday afternoon and we didn't get it back until midafternoon today. I talked to the support line off and on for at least an hour before they said that they couldn't help us. We were snowed/iced in and I didn't go to work again on Friday because of the forecast. I was listening on the radio for cancelled school or bus routes and never heard any, but I still made the call to stay home because of the dangerous weather that was forecast. I found out today that the out of town school buses weren't running and attendance was way down. The announcement wasn't made on the radios until almost time for school to start. Not a good thing. Anyway, I don't feel guilty about staying home anymore.

Needless to say, I was starting to get some cabin fever, especially with no Internet or email. I started to get carpal tunnel pains from playing my Playstation and I finished one or two books. I'd run out of flour last week and never got a chance to buy any, so there was no baking of any kind. I did listen to our basketball games on the radio. Our girls lost their second game and were out of the tournement but our boys won all of theirs and are district champs again. GO STARS ! Anyway, it's great to get back ONLINE.

Ultimate Bible Quiz

I got an 87% , which isn't bad consdering its been a long time since I've read the Bible. Click on the words Ultimate Bible Quiz if you want to best my score.

Snow Day

I tried to go to work today, honest I did. I got up and showered, dressed for work, started the car and got all the way to town and a little beyond before turning back. I made it OK through the drifts on our road down to the highway and stopped at the highway to call Bill and tell him that I'd made it that far when I realized I had forgotten my glasses. I couldn't see the phone display very well. But I kept going. I drove through Ashland and it didn't seem too bad. Then I got past Ashland and the highway itself was drifted badly on the shoulder and somewhat drifted on the driving lane itself. Then I saw the hill leading out of town and lost my nerve. I probably could have made it to work, but the forecast was for continued snow and blow and I wasn't so sure about the way home. Our road was already pretty bad and another day of snow would not make it better, so I turned around and drove home, only the second time in my life that I've ever done that.

I'd already scheduled to take tomorrow off. I had delusions of taking a trip to Miles City or even Billings and just shopping around for a new spring outfit or something. So I guess tomorrow is as good a time as any to fire up Turbo Tax and get started on the taxes.

ps. It is a pretty view from inside at least.

DareDevils of Niagra Falls

October 24th 1901
Annie Taylor was the first person to conquer the falls in a barrel. After climbing inside her airtight wooden barrel, the air pressure was compressed to 30 p.s.i. with a bicycle pump.


ps for more on the story and pictures, click on the title.

T.G.I.N.F.

Thank Goodness It's Not Friday. . . it's Saturday and the sun is shinning for the first time all week. Friday started out to be a good day. I'd gotten up early enough to play my video game for a little while and time to throw some leftovers in the bag for lunch. My car started without any trouble and then I looked at the gag gauge and remembered that I was supposed to get gas before going to work. I'd been avoiding stopping for gas because the weather had been so nasty. I decided that I'd better get gas in Ashland rather than wait until I got to Lame Deer even though the price is $.12 more. So I pull into the gas station and pull the lever to open the door to the gas cap. It didn't open. I got out to examine it and it was frozen over and sealed shut. I called work and told the secretary that I would be late and went home to get my hair dryer and melt the ice. It didn't take to long, but I haven't used my hair dryer to dry my hair yet, I hope it still works. I filled up with gas and made it to work only 45 minutes late. Then I was getting ready to leave at the end of an otherwise uneventful day and I was called into an administrative meeting where a colleague was getting suspended for a week. I was just a witness, but it wasn't a good way to start the weekend. But the sun is shining today and maybe we'll just get out and enjoy it a little bit.

Shhhh!

This little action figure sits on my workdesk just above my keyboard. She's Nancy Pearl a famous librarian. She's the one who said that after you turn 50 you're no longer obligated to finish a book you don't like, even if some one you do like gave it to you.

PS Click on the title to learn more about Ms. Pearl

Condiment? or Veg?

I'm referring of course to ketchup. I used to have one day at the end of the quarter that I called condiment day, to give the students a day to "catchup." I doubt that any of them understood the weak pun, but I enjoyed it. It has been a while since I've blogged, mostly because there's nothing very much to say. The big news from my library is the "genrefication" of the fiction section. My student assistants and I separated the fiction into general fiction, mystery, sci/fi-fantasy, and horror-suspense. I decided to give it a try since that's how most students ask for books. "Where are all of your scary books?" is what they ask. Usually by the time I would dig out a few from the stacks, the students were saying, "Never mind." I hope it makes it easier for the patrons to find what they want. I'll let you know.

We had a nice visit with David, Ken, Pete and of course Dad. David was in town for a family visit and Ken came down from Helena and Bill and I drove in on Saturday. Of course I forgot my camera, but the guys had theirs, so I'm counting on them for pictures. It was the end of the coldest week all winter, so I wasn't sure of the travel conditions, but they turned out to be really good, for any season. One day this week it was down to -22 and today it was +43.

The begining of February brings fresh memories of Jimmy, since it is his birthday Saturday. I remember his boundless energy at family gatherings and how he always made time to play with the kids when they were little. I miss him.