Catching Up - Around the House

Let's see, when I left off in Jan I think the furnace, washer, dryer, stove, and oven were not working. Two weeks after I started teaching the hot water heater went out and in midMarch the well died plus I am down to just 3 working electrical outlets in the entire mobile home. All of them are in my bedroom. I am wondering how long before my computer crashes because of the substandard electric. I have an extension cord run to the kitchen which I use for the fridge and then unplug it to plug in the hot plate or other appliances. I tried using a power strip but everything was running at half power. My friends are filling water jugs for me and I have bunches of buckets outside to collect water for flushing the toilet.

Oh and let's not forget the old van. It has now decided to start completely giving out. I got a new battery for it, with help from friends at the church, but it was dead 3 days later. It seems that there is a short in the van and it is draining the battery. I have been able to get rides to work so far but I hate to have to keep calling. Also I was lucky the last few times, I knew ahead of time and could schedule a ride. However, most times I get called about 30 minutes before school starts. By then all my rides are long gone and I still have to get dressed.

As expected, I didn't get any calls to sub this week so I mostly rested and worked on the yard. It takes a long time for me to recover from any yard work so I planned to make that my priority since I would not have to get up and go to school the next day. I stretched 2-3 hours work over 6-8 hours each day by working a few minutes then sitting under my umbrella and petting the the dogs for 20-30 minutes at a time. It was nice enjoying the birds, beautiful weather and the fur babies, plus I did a little sewing/mending, washing a bucket of underwear and reading the mail. I was able to get a good deal of the brush cleared, some of it burned (only pit burning allowed right now because of the wind), and got some planters ready to start planting next week.

Nothing is planted yet but we have freezing weather coming in over the weekend, even expecting snow Mon so I am glad I hadn't put anything out yet. No I didn't get the knitting machine set up yet. I know Berda it wondering what happened to me. I joined this great group and they are sharing some things I am dying to try but I just can't get to it yet.

Catching Up - Substitute Teaching

I got my first call to teach on Jan 22 and have been averaging 2 days a week ever since. The bad part of it, the super virus was raging through the schools and after a year of being secluded from the public, I was ripe for the picking. Every week I went in and worked a couple of days then came home and fell in the bed so sick I could barely raise my head for 3-4 days. Just as I started to feel a little better I would get a call to teach another class and off I would go.

I have taught pre-k, k, 1st, 2nd, 6th, 7th, music, special ed, library covering all grades k-8, and several days of high school. Sometimes the younger ones can be little brats and I almost want to strangle them but really they are cute and usually tickle me. Sometimes it is tough trying to look mean while I am dying to fall over laughing at how naive they are.

Probably won't get any calls next week, the county is running TCAP's (testing for grade levels) and the teachers are required to be there except for dire emergencies. I will try to catch up a few things around here including getting a few plants started and getting my knitting machine up and running.

Sorry, I've been sick

I caught that nasty flu while teaching in Jan and kept having relapses. I promise to try to catch up over the next week. No school next week. They are giving TCAPs and no substitutes unless it is a dire emergency.