Friday's Fave Five, 10/30/15

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1. Monday - the pool is finally, completely gone.  Still hard to believe.  Mike is a happy man.  We may not get anything else done to it before spring, but that will be OK.

2. I came home from work yesterday to discover that Andrew had rented a Rug Doctor and steam cleaned all the carpets.  They look great!!

3. Went to get something to eat the other night, and our good friend Dawn, who manages the restaurant, brought me a free piece of pumpkin cheesecake, on an Oreo crust with a caramel drizzle.  Definitely NOT on the diet.  But hey - you can't offend someone who does something like that for you!  It was absolutely worth the splurge.  I'm still thinking about it.

4. Good homecoming last Sunday at church.  Got home at 2:00, took a 2 1/2 hour nap, and had the entire evening to relax.  It was great.

5. And finally, a dose of sweetness overload.  My adorable great-nephew, in a picture his mother has titled "His first deer."  Precious.

Crazy Monday

Pool as of last week

Pool as of Saturday afternoon

Yesterday morning about this time, Mike was in a "stew."  It was his only day off this week.  The man who was supposed to fill in the pool was expected any time, but the arrangements for dirt delivery were still not certain.  The rain, that wasn't supposed to arrive until Tuesday, was now forecast to come that day, and the sky was already misting when we got up..  The only truck available to haul the dirt was so large that it was probably going to break our driveway.

He fretted.  He prayed.  I was kinda glad I had to go off to work.  

Fast forward to the end of the day.  The dirt arrived on time.  The driveway did not break.  The rain stopped.  The man was able to successfully fill in the pool.  (It took all day and was too dark to get a good picture when he got done.)  As Mike handed the man his check. . .the rain started again.  But the pool was filled in, and the best thing for the whole area now is for some rain to pack it down.

The good turn of events was probably not due to the fretting.  :-)

Friday's Fave Five, 10/23/15

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1. Progress is being made on the pool.  Not sure if that is a "favorite" or not, but if it has to be done, at least progress is being made.  Very weird to see the fence torn down.

2. New fall dish towels.  The men around here laugh at me because I get excited about dish towels.  They were only $1.98 apiece at Wal-Mart.  I love seasonal dish towels.  Life's simple pleasures are the best.

3. A fresh haircut, and I was unexpectedly able to get an appointment at a very convenient time for me, due to a cancellation.

4. The Cubbies lost.  Okay, that is NOT a favorite.  But we had some nice times watching baseball this past week, both with my folks and here at home.

5. A half-day teacher's workday today means that I got a lot done at school, got some painting done in a room that needed it badly, and got home in time to get ahead on the weekend work here.  Plus, the men have gone hunting and I have been instructed to stay home because of a FedEx package that must be signed for.  Therefore I cannot go to the gym.  Now that's a Friday's Fave Five!!!  :-)  

Quite a Day

Well.  I can't take too many days like yesterday!!

For starters, Wednesdays are already the longest day of the week; at least they seem like it.  I don't have any breaks, because chapel is during 2nd period, my planning period.  Students are in the room, or with me in some capacity, from 7:45 a.m. until 3:15 p.m.  And Wednesday is my day to do car line dismissal.

Yesterday the schedule called for teaching hard all day - it was one of those days with no breaks such as giving tests or showing DVDs.  About 2:00 we got a call from the administration that we were on lock-down.  There was a shooting a couple of miles from here, and two men escaped into the woods.  Three public schools and two private ones were put on lock-down.  Per the sheriff's office, we weren't even allowed to dismiss on time.

At 3:45 we finally got permission from the sheriff's office to release the students, but all teachers were outside making sure students got to cars safely.  Yes, that even has to be done with high schoolers under such circumstances.

I got home about 4:30 and immediately started frying the packages of deer steak which had been thawing all day.  I had no choice but to cook - there was absolutely nothing to eat in the house, and nothing ready for Mike's work plates for Thursday and Friday.

Had to be back to church for nursery duty.  That turned out to be the high point of the day - there was only one little girl, about eight months old, sweet as could be, who napped for about twenty minutes on my lap.  That was a treat.

Then there was practice for a quartet that is singing on Sunday morning.

And then home to watch a little of the Cubs losing.  That was a disappointment, though not a surprise.

Mike got home from work too late to go to church.  So that led to the best part of the day: By the time I got home, he had completely cleaned up the kitchen and made his plates for the next couple of days.  He can clean up a hundred times better than I can.  The kitchen was beautiful.

I fell into bed exhausted.  That was one long day.

Friday's Fave Five, 10/16/15

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I've been gone so long - a lot has happened - but here are at least the last couple of weeks, if not just this one.

1. I am finally about over a month's worth of illness - I think.  Two head colds, back to back, with a sinus infection and bronchitis thrown in.  Still have an occasional cough, but for the most part it's over with.

The pool in better days

2. It is the end of an era at our house.  The pool is going to be gone.  (How do you say that?  The pool is being torn down?  Demolished?)  "Filled in" will do.  Mike has wanted to get rid of it for a long time, and I finally signed on.  It was great when the kids were at home, and younger, and would have their friends over.  But it has gotten very little use in the past few years.  It needed a lot of work.  Even though the liner was newer, the edging was cracking, the fence needed replacing. . .it was just in bad shape.  The fence will be torn down and all the cement heaved into the pool next week.  

The pool after Mike tore the lining out this week

We will cover it with a patio, eventually, with a fire pit, and it will be a nice place.  And an added bonus is that we will be able to see all the way to the back of the property.

This evening Mike started tearing down the fence.  I don't have a pic of that.  Still hard to believe it is coming down.  And it makes me a little sad--just because of memories.

3. A couple of Sundays ago, the Calvary Quartet came to sing at our church.  We are a little bit partial to the first tenor, who is standing on the right.  :-)  They did a good job and it was a very nice evening.  I tried to get a video to post on here, but it's too large.  And the last time I tried to change the number of megabytes on a video, it ended up being larger than before.  

4. Yesterday I came home from work to find a box with four of these gems in it, from my dear aunt in Illinois who knows I love them.  They are from a store in her area that makes the. best. caramel. apples. you've. ever. eaten.  Thank you Aunt Ada!!

5. I had a great workout at the gym today.  Plenty of energy, and I got in four miles on the piece of equipment that really strengthens my bad knee.  I need to keep going regularly.

P.S. - Go Cubs!!!

School Days

   SCHOOL DAYS

   by Maltbie D. Babcock

Lord, let me make this rule:
To think of life as school, 
  And try my best
  To stand each test,
  And do my work
  And nothing shirk.

If weary with my book
I cast a wistful look
  Where posies grow,

  Oh, let me know
  That flowers within
  Are best to win.

These lessons thou dost give
To teach me how to live,
  To do, to bear,
  To get and share,
  To work and play
  And trust alway.

Someday the bell will sound,
Some day my heart will bound,
  As with a shout,
  That school is out,
  And, lessons done,
  I homeward run.

Monday Misc.

Well--if I have any readers left--it's been awhile.  It has been a combination of first-of-the-school year busy-ness, family illness, and my own bouts with back-to-back colds and bronchitis.  Been coughing for a month, but it's getting better, slowly, now.

So for a little Monday Misc.:

--The pool is about to be a thing of the past.  After years of trying to get me to sign on, Mike has finally been victorious.  It is a 20+ year old pool.  It hasn't been used much in the last few years.  It needs a lot of work, and not opening it last summer (when I went to China and had knee surgery) meant that the algae was about too much to overcome this year.  Even though we finally got rid of all the algae, the liner took the effects.  The flashing around the edges is cracking.  The fence is on its last legs.  And without the pool and fence there, we will have a much clearer view to the back of the property.  We're talking about making a nice patio/fire pit out there.  I can sign on to that.

--About ten minutes ago, Steve Spurrier just announced his retirement, effective immediately, of the Gamecocks.  Wow.  Hard to believe he's leaving in the middle of the season.  Even if it is time, he still did a lot for the team and the university, and I hope all that is not overshadowed.

--I finally got some rest this weekend.  Several weeks of sleeping while loaded up on decongestant, with Benadryl or Lortab to counteract the decongestant and keep me from coughing all night, have not led to the best rest.  I got three 9-hour nights of sleep as well as a good nap, and feel like a new woman.

--Been to the gym again, twice.  It is amazing the difference that doing three miles on a recumbent elliptical,  on a regular basis, does for my knee.

Maybe I can be a little more faithful on here again.