Bicycles

You know what makes me mad? People who ride bicycles. Not all of course, but the ones who "share the road". I'll explain. If you are riding a bike on the road like you are supposed to, you are to follow the rules of the road right? Right. But unfortunately, I have seen very, very few people on bikes who actually do this. They don't stop at lights, stop signs, for pedestrians, anything. What drives me completely up the wall is the dude (be it a male or female dude) on the bike who at a red light will pass all the cars and make his way up to the front of the light, and sometimes even run the light. So now I've had to go around bike guy once, which I don't mind at all. If he's riding safely and I can pass him safely, great. If though, I pass him, stop at a light, and then he passes me because he doesn't feel like stopping for the light, and then I have to pass him again, then I'm mad. I've passed the same person on a bike 4 times on one stretch of road. So frustrating. So for those of you who ride bikes, especially for exercise or environmental reasons, more power to you. For those of you who I have to pass time and time again because you are picking and choosing which laws you follow and which you don't, to you I say grrrrrrrrrr. If you are one and the same, sorry, but grrrrrrrr will apply to you too.

School approaches!

So I am officially done work! Yesterday was a reasonably relaxing day and my kid went home early which was nice. I didn't get to leave as early as she did but I did still make it home over an hour before I normally do which was nice. I had a pretty relaxing evening playing cards with Rich, but I was so tired I almost passed out at the table, and didn't kick his butt the way I normally do. I was in bed I think before 10, although I'm not sure what time it was really. As a result, I was up by 7am this morning. I didn't mind too much - I need to stay used to getting up early. It's nice to be done and get back to prepping. I've done a pretty good job at procrastinating from that all day today. Some days I am really into it - I sat for 10 hours one day last week and did prep. Some days, like today, I feel much less motivated, so I tried to do some other productive things on my computer - reorganizing things to make them more efficient to hopefully make my job easier in the fall. We'll see.

Rich and I are slowly getting our little home together. We have inherited some great furniture from friends and family lately which has helped. Each week we seem to make some sort of progress getting organized, largely thanks to Rich being off. He gets spurts of energy sometimes and reorganizes something. Today is a bad day for him. Some are better than others. Right now he's scheduled to go back to work on the 30th and sees the doctor again Monday. I don't see that happening to be honest. The meds he's on are really helping, but he can't really do his job on them, so I'm not sure what will happen. We'll see!

I was thinking I would need to be in the school every day next week but I wasn't exactly sure what I'd be doing. Being new, there is still so much I don't know. There is a fine line between asking questions that will help me, and looking like an idiot for asking too much. Luckily I do know one of the other new teachers so we can help each other out hopefully. Anyway I got a letter from the new Principal this week saying due to the asbestos removal being behind schedule we can only get into the school on Thursday next week. This solved my problem completely. I have Monday/Tuesday to prep, Wednesday I'm in Welland at the New Teacher Induction Orientation, Thursday at the school, and then the weekend to prep. I'm looking forward to the 4th but I'm also very nervous. I'm worrying about everything from getting stuck in traffic, to screwing something up, to wearing the wrong thing, to getting there and having someone say "oh we were wrong....we don't need you to teach this year". Silly irrational worries, yet I have them. Oh well. It will be an adventure!

Well I'm off to try to do something productive! Tomorrow is full of things so I won't get anything done. It's our last official Sunday at Freeway, and although I'm sure we'll still see people and be back there, it will be weird not to go every Sunday. Like I said though, on to new adventures!

Goodbyes

This definitely seems to be the week of goodbyes. Lots of my friends have been at funerals this week to say goodbye to loved ones. It's odd that they say deaths usually come in threes but I think I've heard of 5 within the last 2 weeks. Rich and I just got home from a funeral. One of Rich's very good friends and former work partner's Mom passed away very suddenly on Monday, at the age of 58. She was healthy and spunky, a very sweet woman who although Rich and I didn't know her well, we both really liked her. It came as a shock and Darren was one of the medics who responded to the 911 call which would have been more difficult than I can imagine. Please keep their family in your prayers. The funeral was a good one as far as funerals go. The funeral home set up a nice power point presentation of Janet and her life. There was some singing, praying, reading, and then I was on to sing. I surprisingly made it through without crying, and I only choked up on one note which was nice. I didn't want my screw ups to take away from the hopefully comforting words of the song. Darren gave a great tribute to his Mom, and his sister Melissa wrote one that the pastor read. A friend gave another one, and finally Darren's mother in law also gave a great tribute. Darren sang O Danny Boy, and after a short word from the pastor it was all done. It was a pretty emotionally draining experience. I'm glad to be home for the evening spending some time with Rich.

On a funny side note, Darren's sister is named Melissa. Darren's wife is named Melissa. Darren's wife's brother is named Darren. Very confusing.

Another sad thing we had to do today was say goodbye to a good friend. Kevin has been living with us for the last 6 or 7 weeks and it's been a joy to have him in our home. I really feel like I am losing a brother. It's not always easy living with 2 boys, but it has been fun. We had a great evening with him and another good friend last night - Rich whipped up some meatloaf and mashed potatoes (because really, who needs vegetables when you have meat?) and garlic bread of course, and I made a lemon meringue pie and a sour cream apple pie for dessert which turned out pretty well if I do say so myself. We played a video game and then when it was just the three of us we played Phase 10 which Rich is now hooked on (thanks Kaelyn and Adrian). I of course kicked the boys butts and then we headed off to bed. Rich and Kevin had pie for breakfast this morning and then I had to say goodbye to Kevin again. I think every day I've seen him this past week I've cried. Needless to say Kev, you are loved and will be missed and are welcome here anytime. You may have to share the bed with Gary, but you are welcome just the same.

Summer Chops

So I haven't done a ton this week off but I had plans last night that the closer they got the more nervous I got. I was invited by a couple different people to attend the "Summer Chops" jam session at Meadowlands Corps. I figured this would be good to do for a few reasons:
1) I really love playing and have really missed it.
2) If I'm going to teach music I'd like to actually practice what I preach and encourage kids to play as much as possible.
3) I have to go to Kitchener in a couple weeks and do the same type of thing - a read through session - where I play through some new music from a music store and then I let the dept head know what I like and he buys that for the fall (which by the way is so cool to me - it actually feels like I have a grown up job!) and I wanted to be at least warmed up for that.

So I dropped of Rich at his Mom's for a visit and I headed over to the church to play. There were around 50 people there - it was one large band. I didn't realize in advance what kinds of people were going to be there. There were some great musicians that I was fully embarrassed would be hearing me after my ummm "break" from playing over the last while. It was on the way there Rich and I figured out my "break" lasted 4 years. I was completely out of shape. I did do a bit of practicing in the week leading up to it but nothing too heavy, just making sure I remembered how to play! They pulled out some crazy hard music. It was great. The worst part was lots of it was still in manuscript form (handwritten instead of computer generated - stuff scratched out all over the place - so hard to read at times) and that was challenging.

At every new section in a band piece there is often a letter. This makes it easier than saying "start at bar 45" and everyone counting - you can just say letter C for example. At one point we had a piece that went all the way up to section Z. We did at least one piece that was 5 pages long, and one piece that the recording is over 7 minutes long. The rehearsal went from 7:30pm till about 10:05 with a 5 minute break or so. I played pitifully but my lips actually held up until about 9:58 which wasn't too bad for my first night out.

I had a lot of fun. In band situations I'd rather be one of the worst people in the band than the best. If you are the best in the band it usually means you're bored, so I am fully ok with being the worst for now. Hopefully I'll end up improving with some much needed practice, but as long as I always enjoy playing that's what's important. It was a nice night to see some old friends and family and just enjoy the music that God has blessed us with...even the crappy sounds coming out of my cornet.

Long Weekend and Chewie

I have to say I really missed reading everyone's blogs over the weekend. I kept checking my little bloglines page to see what was new and there was almost nothing all weekend! I'm glad everyone is back and blogging again! I'm also glad there was such great weather for all of you who were away. We really missed everyone and hope to come another year.

Both of us are going a bit stir crazy now. I feel bad for Rich as I have been able to sneak out and see a few good friends who have helped my sanity some, but Rich is still going nuts. We have watched some of the weirdest movies lately. We did have company last night when my aunt and uncle came over which was super nice. They are incredibly generous and have given us some fabulous things over the years, books, meals, furniture they are replacing, but the most generous thing in my opinion is Chewie.

Most of you know I love my Chewie. She's nuts, but I love her. She turned two on Saturday and my aunt and uncle brought her a birthday present in the form of a squeaky toy with a rope in it. She promptly tore a hole in it within two minutes. Now she is a big dog, but she is sweet. She has her moments where she isn't and we are working on that, but for the most part she is a good dog.

She had one of these moments where she isn't so sweet a few weeks ago. Rich was sitting on the floor brushing her. I don't know if she enjoys that, but she lets us do it. She tries to bite the brush periodically but doesn't wiggle or go for our hands or anything. So she's on the floor, Rich is in on the floor, and I think Kevin was in the chair. Chewie was gazing out the sliding doors when she spotted it: a squirrel. She loves them. She does not love them in her yard. As she usually does when she sees one, she launches herself into the sliding doors and hits the door with her front paws while standing upright on her back legs. This time though, she launched herself OFF of Rich's leg. Below are two pictures. One is Chewie just as she woke up from sleeping in the hallway, legs in the air, sprawled out, looking totally sweet and vulnerable. The other is a picture of what she did to him a few days after it happened, with my hand so you can see how big it is.

Hope everyone is having a great summer. I'm off to prep for a while as I still have a TON to do before Sept and school starts in less than a month!

More Summer Fun....

I should be getting ready for work but there are way too many things to check online first. Thank you to everyone who has been so understanding about us pulling out of the camping trip this weekend. We are really bummed to not be going. This is the first year we've both had the weekend off, had someone to watch Chewie, weren't moving, etc. so this sucks! I'll hopefully make it up there for a bit on Sunday.

I am really looking forward to my time off this coming week! Rich was only supposed to be around the Wed/Thurs but because he's off sick I'll have company a lot more. We are both going a bit stir crazy looking at the walls all the time - him a lot more than me obviously.

This week work has been up and down. The kid I am working with is a good kid, but she's demanding. I am super helpful and accommodating, but I get so frustrated with the lack of manners and respect I see from a lot of the kids. We went to Wild Water Kingdom on Wednesday with them and it was pretty fun. I've never been there and I only went on one slide but I forgot how fun they were. The frustrating part of the day was my camper wanted to be carried everywhere. She's 16 and very small, and has had knee surgery I think several months ago, and wears braces normally. She had them off for the day and I knew carrying would be a possibility as her knees would get tired a lot faster. My frustration came in when she wanted to be carried the moment we got off the bus, for no other reason than she didn't like the feel of the grass on her feet. I had a lot of help from other counselors who know how bad my back is, but even carrying her the short time I did has made my back quite tight. Hopefully it'll loosen up in the pool today.

Rich gets bursts of energy in the morning and he cleans or reorganizes something and then he's exhausted and coughs more. Silly boy. On the upside, the kitchen looks great! Thanks schnooks!

Finally, Chewie will be 2 on Saturday. I have a couple pics of her I want to put up. Super cute. Also I want to put up a pic of something she did to Rich. Because of the heat it's a lot harder to walk her - both of us and her - so we try to find ways to exercise her in the house. I discovered a great one: Hide and Seek. She lies at the top of the stairs by our bedroom and I tel her to stay. Then I go hide, and yell "Chewie come!" She flies down the stairs and hunts around till she finds me, gives me a lick and jumps around all excited. If I hide in the basement that's two flights of stairs down and up. After about 4 or 5 "hides" the other night she was exhausted. It was great.

Off to get ready for work. Hope everyone has a fantastic time camping this weekend. If you aren't camping, let us know and come visit!