Workshop and Grandparent Visit

I got up at 6 again yesterday. The early wake up is working so far. I was able to relax more in the morning, because the workshop didn't start until 8:30. I had planned to leave around 7:30 to ensure that I would get there in plenty of time. I wish I always had the opportunity to relax in the morning before school, but that would involve getting up a half-hour early. Plus, I probably shouldn't get used to relaxing in the morning, as I imagine it will be quite hectic soon with the baby coming. But anyway...

I left around 7:30, heading up to the school where the workshop was. It is in a neighboring district, I'd say about 5 miles north of where I work. I found the school, and got there about 10 minutes early. I walked into the building, and followed the directions on the registration paperwork to room A107--only to find it locked, dark, and empty. I headed over to the main office, and they informed me the workshop was moved to the media center. I found the media center upstairs, went in, and took a seat. Around me there were about 20 other teachers, all pulling out and setting up their own little white Mac iBook. Here I sit with a pen and a pad of paper. I didn't know laptops were needed for this workshop. Even if I had brought my laptop, it would have done me no good, because I don't have the software they were using.

I had already felt very out-of-place, and it got worse when the next thing happened... a union meeting! Apparently, I was the only one there who didn't work for this district. The union leader was passing around salary guides, and the members voted on them. I just blended into the background. I had no idea this workshop was for members of this district only, all who were given a laptop by the district. I also learned that this workshop was for people who already had an ActivBoard, and have been using it regularly in their classes. I had never actually used and ActivBoard before today; I had just seen other people use it.

At this point, I was feeling alone and out of place, and almost had the urge to just sneak out. But I decided to stick it out. After the union meeting, the presenters began the workshop with a "getting to know you" game, which I thought was ironic, since all of these people work for the same district (but I guess in different buildings--this is a new concept to me, since my district is so small). There were four stations, and we had to brainstorm answers to questions at three of the stations. The first station was, "What ActivBoard lessons do your students enjoy the most?" Whoops, I've never taught an ActivBoard lesson. I admitted this to my group, and suggested a lesson I would do (music composition). The next two stations questions were easy enough to fake. On the last station, you had to come up to the ActivBoard, and copy and drag either a red, yellow, or green dot to an area of the board to indicate your comfort level with the ActivBoard. I watched a few people do it, so I was able to do it without a problem (I probably should've picked red, but I chose yellow instead).

The workshop continued on with tips such as inserting links and images from the web. I was bored at this point, because everyone is trying this on their laptops, and because this is something I could've figured out on my own. Eventually, he gave everyone some time to work this out on their own, in which I texted Meg about how boring this was.

I learned a few other useful tips as the workshop continued, and things started looking better. I was worried about the last hour of the workshop, because the agenda listed individual work-time on creating your own presentation using the techniques learned in the workshop. Since I didn't have a laptop, I wasn't sure what I would be doing. When the time came though, the presenter let me use his laptop. I created a listening map in which students would drag and copy various animals to represent the tempo changes in Brahms' "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 5". I figured out how to use the program pretty quickly, because it was basically like using any other program where you place objects and draw, like PowerPoint, or Adobe InDesign, or even Word for that matter. At the end, we were able to present our flipcharts (that is what they are called in this program). Everyone seemed impressed with what I came up with. I e-mailed the file to myself so I could use it when I do get an ActivBoard. And I also got 5 PD hours for the workshop too!

After the workshop, I came home, and finished editing my band handbook, so I could submit it to my principal for review. Then we got ready to go to my Grandmom and Grandpop's house.

The whole family was coming: Meg and I, my parents, Nick, Laura, and Sean. My grandparents live in a rather small apartment, so things were a little tight. My mom brought baked ziti, meatballs, salad, and bread for dinner. As things usually go with my family, there was much laughing and craziness involved. Nick and I took Grandpop's digital camera, and took pictures of odd things and from odd places, to name one. You'd probably have to be there to get the full experience. Here are some pictures though:


Sean and Laura


Meg and I


My Dad (doing a Rocky impression)


Grandmom, Mom , and Grandpop

Apparently my brother is camera shy, because there were no pictures of him.

We came home at about 10 and went to bed. I slept very well, but woke up at about 3:30 from the sound of dead silence. The power had gone out. I figured there was a storm coming, and it had knocked out the power. Since I didn't really have to be anywhere today, I just ignored it, and tried to go back to sleep. Then I noticed the sound of running water--the pool filter was still on. Meg also noticed that the candles in the front windows were still on. I checked the breaker, and apparently the one for our room had tripped. I can't figure out why. All that was on was the ceiling fan, the window fan, and our alarm clocks. I reset the breaker, then went back to sleep.

I added an extra snooze this morning, getting up at 6:09. I had breakfast, and am now blogging. Max is in the family room whining because no one is paying attention to him. So I'll play with him for a while, and then we have our annual termite inspection at 10. I plan on going to church and switching the handbell closets today, and then working on school work and money stuff the rest of the day.

More Grocery Experiments

After blogging yesterday, I woke up Meggie, and we got ready to go to Wal-Mart to make our list of prices.

We worked it just like we did yesterday at Sam's Club. I took our list, and we went through every aisle, writing down the prices of everything we bought.

Then, after we got home, I sat down, put everything into a spreadsheet, and then discovered that, yes, we did do the right thing. Most of the products that we compared led towards Sam's Club. Now, it's good, but not as good as it looks on paper, because a lot of the stuff in the Sam's Club list are things that you only buy once every couple of months, or maybe even once a year (like the 3-gallon pack of bleach). However, I think the meat prices alone made the card very worth it.

After comparing prices, I toyed around with the spreadsheet some more, and gave it the same functionality it had before. I put in what we need, it tells us how much it will cost. My goal this morning is to put in our Sam's Club order for the month. Hopefully it is not too much. It could take a few months to tweak this new shopping system to make it work, but I have faith that it will work in the long-run.

I worked on this all afternoon, so when I finished, we got ready to go to my parents. Dinner was fun, and as usual, I laughed a lot. I usually laugh a lot at my parents. My sister is crazy funny sometimes, and usually the combination of her, with my brother, can be very funny. Probably the moment I laughed the most was when we somehow all started chanting, "Ohmmmm..." at Scamp to calm him down. While we were in the middle of doing it, I burst out laughing when I realized how ridiculous it was. I guess you had to be there. Anyway...

Some other news I forgot.

Our new camera came in. I don't like it as much as the old camera, but it will work. Apparently they don't sell the old version anymore, and this was the next best thing they had. It goes up to 5MP, (the old only went up to 4MP), and it has a few other features that the old one didn't have. My biggest complaint right now, is that it takes really dark videos, and I can't find any way to adjust the darkness. Guess I'll have to turn on a light or something.

Sorry there haven't been pictures in a while--there hasn't been a whole lot to take pictures of. Next Sunday is "Crab Day," an annual celebration held at my Mommom and Poppop's house, so I'll definitely have some pictures from that.

After my parents, I went to bed right away, because my plan was to get up at 6 AM. Well, it didn't happen. I heard my first snooze go off at 5:33, and don't remember anything after that. I love my alarm clock because it has a gentle-wake feature (the alarm starts soft, then gradually gets louder), but they put the 'Off' button right next to the 'Snooze," button. Bad idea, because I think I keep hitting the wrong button in my sleepy state. Maybe I should look for a new alarm clock. Give up snoozing, you say? Never. I'm addicted to the snooze button!

So, I'm blogging now. I'm gonna plug the Sam's Club order into the grocery spreadsheet, and then get cracking on schoolwork.

Dad's Visit

Wow, I've had a lot of coffee today...

Wednesday, August 23

I actually got up at 7 yesterday morning, although I had to be very quiet, as Cait was sleeping in the living room. Eventually, the sunlight coming in through our front window, and the dog licking her sent her downstairs to the family room.

I went downstairs and got to work on some schoolwork. Meg, Dad, and Cait were all still asleep.

My first task was to make a list. I am a major list-maker. I usually make very long, detailed to-do lists, breaking larger tasks down into smaller ones. I do this because it allows me to check items off of the list more often. This checking-off process is very satisfying to a whacky list-maker like myself.

So, I made this list of all of the materials, handouts, letters, etc. that I need to make for school. I included pretty much anything I could think of up until the end of the 1st marking period. Now, I obviously can't do everything on the list before school starts, so I also indicated the date that I would like to have these done. My goal is to get as much done as possible before the beginning of the school year, but since I have everything so organized, if I don't get to finish what I want, it won't be that big of a deal.

Eventually Meg got up, and we had breakfast out on the deck. Then, we both sat out on the deck with our laptops, and I started tackling some of the items on my list: welcome letters to parents for each grade. Cait woke up soon after and went swimming in the pool. Dad got up around 11, which seems late, until you realize that it was 8 AM in California time.

After Dad got up, we had the Tommy's Pizza we had gotten in Gettysburg for lunch. During lunch, we vaguely planned out the day. This was a very relaxing visit, as we didn't have any general plans, but kind of played things by ear.

After Cait left for Gettysburg, we made a visit to my parents house, mainly so I could sign the loan papers for my sister. We also wanted to give Dad a tour of the house and show off the Tiki hut and all. It was a very pleasant visit, and dad enjoyed the house. I also signed the loan papers, and set up my parents computer for faxing, which they didn't know was even possible. I helped Laura fax off the papers, while Meg, Dad and Mom got caught up.

When we came home, I realized that I had accidentally left the hose running in the pool, overfilling it more than I ever have before. I always thought it was impossible to overflow our pool, because excess water usually just runs out of the skimmer. The cover on the top of the skimmer has a hole in it to allow this to happen. Well, apparently water comes out of the garden hose faster than it can come out of this hole. By the time we got home, the water was well above the top of the skimmer, and was kinda squirting out of the hole like a fountain. I took the lid off of the skimmer, and water started rushing out of the top. I figured it would rush out for a few seconds and then stop, but there was so much water in the pool that it just kept on going. So I put the lid back on because I didn't want to flood the area around the filter. I ended up backwashing the filter just to get the excess water out of the pool. This, of course, flooded the rest of the yard and Max's "bathroom." Max ended up being covered with mud, because he saw a large muddy puddle and decided to play in it. Pools--it never ends!

After all of this watery fun, we decided to go swimming. This also helped to get rid of some excess water, as a lot got splashed out. It was warmer, so the water felt very nice and refreshing. Meg did a great job vacuuming it too, so it was nice and clean. After the pool, I grilled some peppers and chicken on the grill, and we made chicken fajitas for dinner. Dad is a fan of Mexican food, and he really enjoyed the dinner.

After dinner, we took him to the WIF (Water Ice Factory). He had never even heard of water ice, because it is just a Philly thing. The WIF is a great place to go for dessert. They have tons of flavors, and it is really cheap. A large water ice, which is really a lot, is only $1.75. My standard flavor is blueberry. I always get this, and if I decide to try something else, I am always disappointed that I did not get blueberry. Meg and Dad got mint chocolate chip, and Dad liked it so much, that he decided to go back and try another flavor.

When we got home, I gave Dad a tutorial in LimeWire. He is a huge music fan, and has a lot of stuff on vinyl and tape. He wants to convert all of his stuff to CD (or perhaps digital), and has been looking for a way to easily do this without having to buy a whole lot of new equipment. Meg suggested just downloading the music, to which he replied, "that will cost me thousands of dollars," not realizing that you can still download stuff illegally for free. He seemed as if he might have ethical problems with it, but justified the fact that he already owns the record, and in many cases, the tape and the CD. The record company got its money more than once from him. So, I gave him a primer on how to search for and download music. He was very excited by all of this, and couldn't wait to get started when he got home.

We discussed what the plan was for the morning. Dad's flight was scheduled for 8:40. You're supposed to get to the airport 2 hours before your departure time = 6:40. So, we planned to leave the house at 5:45, in order to have time stop at Wawa and get there in time. The meant getting up at 4:45, and that meant going to bed NOW, as it was already close to 11.

Thursday, August 24
I was the first to get up, right on the nose at 4:45. I got a shower, then Dad, and then Meg. I had my 1st pot of coffee for the day, and had breakfast. The fun started when I went online to see if the flight was on time, and I couldn't find the flight number. Dad called the Philly Airport, and got a recording. The recording said the same thing, no record of the flight number. So Dad called back again, and got a real person, who was very suspicious of Dad, and refused to give him an explanation of why the flight was not listed. He told him it was a security issue, but to arrive for the flight anyway. This had us worried that something bad was going on with that flight, and that he would not be able to fly. Dad called his wife, Heidi in California (it is about 3 AM in CA at this time). She has more experience flying, and explained that it was probably just a computer error, and that the guy on the phone was probably not allowed to give out flight information, since security is so tight anyway.

So, we left the house, feeling better about things. We stopped at Wawa so Dad could get breakfast and lunch, and then headed into Philly. Traffic wasn't too bad, as rush hour doesn't officially start till 7 or so. We dropped Dad off, said our goodbyes, and headed home.

I made another pot of coffee, as I did not want to go back to bed, but was still very sleepy. Meg and I were both kind of bummed, as we hardly get to see Dad, and we had a very enjoyable visit. He will be coming out again after Christmas, this time with Heidi. But, the holiday's are stressful as it is, and will be even more interesting this year, as we will have a 4 week old baby at the time. Not that I am complaining, but it will be a very different visit.

Meg and I are outside enjoying another beautiful day on the deck. I am going to focus on my schoolwork and relaxing now. The summer is winding down. All of our visits are over. There are no more guests coming here. The fun money supply has run dry. There are no more house projects to work on. The air has that 'school' feeling. Cool at night and in the morning; hot in the afternoon. The school year is approaching quickly. Only this time, I am not dreading it. I am looking forward to my third year there--looking forward to a fresh start. The 'Monday' of summer is approaching, and I plan to make the best of it.