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.

World Wide Words

Woot! I've seen a couple of family bloggers use this term so when I saw it on one of the nonfamily blogs I read from time to time, it caught my eye. If you click on the title of the post, it will lead you to that site, if you like to read about words.


W00t is spelled with a couple of zeroes in the middle but it’s said as “woot”. It’s a small cry of joy, perhaps after completing a task, after besting an opponent, or for no reason at all. Merriam-Webster says, “It became popular in online gaming as part of what is known as l33t (‘leet’, or ‘elite’) speak, an esoteric computer hacker language in which numbers and symbols are put together to look like letters.”

Its origins are disputed. Some say it’s a blend from the cry Wow! Loot!, one that might be uttered when a Dungeons & Dragons player came across treasure; Merriam-Webster notes that it has been said to be an acronym for we owned the other team (meaning that our team bested them utterly); others argue that it derives from the Scots hoot!, which really is a bit of a hoot, since the Oxford English Dictionary describes that as an “ejaculation expressing dissatisfaction with, or impatient and somewhat contemptuous dismissal of, a statement or notion”, which hardly fits the context.

Weather UPdate

I read the weather report for today and it said "80% chance of winter precipitation." What???? Not snow, not sleet, not rain or hail, just WINTER PRECIPITATION?" I found out what that meant today. It started raining, then turned to pouring slush, then snow, hail and sleet and ending up with snow again. That about covers it for precip as far as I can tell. What's missing?

What are the Odds?

So this week has been something of a challenge. Maybe a better word would be my worst nightmare come true. I have an English class for high school seniors called Fundamentals of English. I'm suppose to teach reading and writing for practical, day to day uses. Someone, not me, decided that the students need to learn how to balance a checkbook. "So do I," I thought. "But I've got the teacher's manual, so I can struggle through, maybe, if I really have to, and I guess if the students need it; I really have to." So we do the first entry together and I tell them to do the rest on their own. How hard can it be?

"Mark writes check 101 to Lacey's Department store $39.56 for sheets. Write the check and put it in the outgoing mailbox. Write the amount in the check register and calculate the balance. Get form 202 from the back of the documents and forms section of the work book and find Mark's paycheck from Antwan's Car Parts and endorse the check and fill out the deposit slip and put it in the outgoing mailbox; be sure to record the transaction in the check register. Mark needs dishes and writes check 102 to . . .. . . "

I was busy helping one of the students and didn't realized that none of them really knew what do to until they had already messed up their check registers until they looked like mine. Time for part deux of the nightmare. I haul out the whiteboard so that I can demonstrate for the whole class as we try to make sense of the checkbook register. I hate writing on the board in front of the class, the memory of a brave sixth grader's voice saying, "Ms. Taylor, we can't read your writing," is always in my ear when I write on the board, even though I have made a conscious effort to improve my handwriting. Chalkboards were bad enough. The dust was everywhere and your hands and clothes got covered with it. But whiteboards are worse. The markers have an odor that leaves me literaly speechless. It causes my throat to close up and if I have to write too long, I lose my voice altogether. Today wasn't too long so I had enough voice to say, "Good Job, Guys."

Thankfully, we all got our checkbook registers straighted out, looking nothing like the teacher's manual, but miraculously all balanced.

One of the students spoke the truth when she said, " I hate this. Debit cards are so much easier!"

Braided Rug

I went to the Christmas crafts fair in Colstrip yesterday and got to spend some time with a few friends while starting my Christmas shopping. To tell the truth, the main reason for making the trip was to see my friends. I didn't find too many Christams gifts, and if I did I could hardly mention it here, could I? I did find a new braided rug for the kitchen. I want to make it clear that I'm not replacing an old rug, it's just that I finally found a rug I like at a time when I remembered that I wanted a rug to put in front of the kitchen sink to stand on when washing the dishes. It's got the right colors for the kitchen and it really is cushy to stand on.

It was a nice winter day to drive somewhere. It was snowing just enough to look wintry but not enough to make the roads slick. Today is clear again and with a dusting of snow it is starting to get me in the holiday spirit. Putting up the Christmas tree helped a little too. Things will start getting hectic at work, not because of the holiday season, but because of the basketball season. Basketball is taken very seriously where I work and students who normally don't care about their grades will suddenly care about little else, except for the aforementioned basketball of course.

The Truth of "Old Sayings"

Remember the old saying that doctors make the worst patients? Or how about a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client? A car repairman who fixes his own car gets it right the first time? A psychiatrist who analyzes himself is always schizophrenic? I don't know how much truth there is in these old sayings, but I can say unequivocally after having spent the whole day in a classroom with a bunch of teachers in a training session that TEACHERS MAKE LOUSY STUDENTS! or maybe THOSE WHO CAN DO, DO and THOSE WHO CAN'T DO, TEACH!

Stress Reliever??

Click on the words "Stress Reliever" above and see if it works for you. Be sure to have the sound turned way up.

Autumn Cactus

I repotted this cactus earlier this fall and it's bloomed for the first time in years. I'm not even sure if they are supposed to bloom every year so I don't know if it's a coincidence or because I repotted it, but it is pretty.

Movies

39% Movie Freak? Must be a movie geek. I thought I was more of a movie freak than this. I guess I'm either watching the wrong movies or just not paying attention.


39% Movie Freak

Lucy in the Sky. . . . with diamonds

I've just had the most surreal day. I had an appointment to see an optometrist in Billings at 1:00. I had the day off work and I could have slept in, but knowing that I wouldn't be able to, I left the house at the usual time of 7:00 am. I had Morning Edition on the radio, my usual morning routine, and they were talking about a transportation strike in France and then about fact that there are members of the black race who aren't black anymore? It seems that members of the poor black race are disowning the rich members of the black race? Anyway, at 9:00 the news ended and classic music came on. Now I like classic music well enough, but not when I'm driving so I started pushing buttons on the radio to see what programs were on. I had one hand on the wheel and both eyes on the road, just pushing buttons. A talk radio show came on. It was Sean Hannity. Talk about surreal. He has no facts at all on his show, just his loud mouthed opinions. And when people call in to talk, he cuts them off and rants. One guy who was disagreeing with him started "breaking up.", but "thanks for calling." He ranted about how all media is controlled by the liberals. He doesn't seem to realize that he's media as well. He said over and over how slanted and bias the media is. If he's not media, is he smallia? Around noon I met my dad and brother for a delightful lunch and the only non surreal part of the day.

Anyway I got into see the eye doc and he wrote me a prescription for a new pair of "computer" glasses so I can sit at the computer and not have to either tilt my head up to see through the bottom of my bifocals or take my glasses of all together and squint like I am now. The very last thing he did was dilate my pupils for a look at the back of my eyeball. After the exam, I picked out a new pair of "outrageous" frames and finished my shopping. I figured that I would walk around the store and let my pupils get back to normal. But when I finally left the store and stepped out into the bright, sunny afternoon, I could hardly see my way to the car and my lovely, wraparound sunglasses. The sunglasses did the trick though and I felt confident that I could drive safely. I stopped in Hardin to fill up for gas, it is $.34 cheaper in Hardin than in Ashland. By that time it was dusky and people were turning on their headlights and surreality took on another dimension. All the headlights, reflectors and traffic signs looked as if they had been special effected by a Disney cartoonist on LSD. Huge, spiky halos surrounded every light. The halos were so broad that they covered both lanes of traffic and so bright that I couldn't figure out how many cars were lined up in the other lane. I eventually figured out that if I squinted really hard, I could focus much better. I made it home OK, but I will never do that again.
Moral:
Always take someone with you when you go to the eye doc. Or don't let him dilate your eyes.

Famous Last Words

Add to the famous last words, "The check is in the mail, " Everything is set up for the rest of the year. " I started taking over the duties of the Powerschool coordinator last week, just when report cards had to be printed. It felt like jumping into the pot of boiling water to get away from the flames. But it really wasn't that bad, it just felt like it because I realized that I know next to nothing compared to the people who've been working with the program for so many years. I had to set up some classes for grades and attendance for a new teacher and the report card template was misplaced for a few minutes, and then there was the honor roll panic, but actually, after some reflection, I didn't do that much. I emailed and called the lady who resigned and talked to the various other people in the district who work with the program and things ultimatly got done.

Maybe this week will feel a little more relaxing, at least after my formal job evaluation is done on Monday! Monday!!! What a perfect day for a job eval! What could go wrong on a Monday???

Check in Tuesday to find out.

Remember the 5th of November!

Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin van-guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.

Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V."