Cousin's Party '07

We had the annual cousin's party at our house this year and had so much fun. We had a football party and we painted a football field in our side yard, complete with goal posts. The kids are all getting older and we can do lot more organized activities with them now. We had a football game, with Grandpa as our referee, and then had an obstacle course....boy, are these kids getting competitive in their old age!

That Monday we all hit Cedar Point and had such a blast! The kids all love the coasters and they have fun taking turns riding with each other! The weather was perfect for the entire weekend and we really enjoyed hanging out. Tracking 18 people at Cedar Point is quite a task, but we really managed to have a fun and uneventful day!

It's a bad day....by 8:00!

I knew the hardest part of taking over as Director of the Preschool was going to be dealing with parents. I have had my fair share of trouble parents this year, and another joined that list this morning, before 8 am.

First off, I don't mind parents calling me at home, but not at 7:45 in the morning.

So, background first. Our preschool schedule normally follows the school calendar of the district our school is in. Not all of our kids are from that district, but that is just how they have done it. Well, my boys are in a different district and when I was hired, one of the deal breakers was that we now follow my boys' schedule so that when they were off, so was the preschool. So, with Spring Break coming up, my boys are off next week and the other district is off the following week. This dates was in the handbook and has been in our newsletters the last two months.

So, this mom calls me this morning, asking when our Spring Break was? Hello, do you read the newsletter and handbook? She was iirate that her preschooler was not off the same week as her school-aged kids. Like this was a lightning bolt of information that I just let loose on her. I explained why it was done this way, and she yells at me that preschool decisions should not be made based on my children. Well honey, I am in charge, I don't make squat, so that was the one thing the board could give me in compensation. I will never apologize for choosing to spend time with my kids over work.

I am really thinking I can't do this job long term, just too much stress for not enough money!

Spring is slowly creeping in!

Ah, 70 degrees and a little sun! We are so ready for spring around here. It has been a crazy weeks....who am I kidding....a crazy few months. The boys have both been sick the last two weeks, but I think are turning the corner. The nice weather is wonderful, but have probably let them both out more than they should be since they are still recovering. Strep is making its presence known at both schools, so I am glad they are both on antibiotics. It hasn't hit preschool yet, but we do have a lot of snotty, runny noses (nice visual, I know!)

DH took the boys to the park tonight and they loved it. They even helped clean the front room and JM dusted just to help their cause. SIL and BIL then showed up with my niece, extending their outdoor playtime a little more than I had planned. JC got the game Othello for his b-day last week and they played a game of that before bed. It is a good one for them to do alone. JM actually beat his big bro!

I am chaperoning a field trip with JC's class tomorrow. Twenty minutes on a bus with a bunch of 4th graders....better take my Excedrin Migraine before I leave! We are seeing some science show? I am then scheduled to volunteer in his room in the afternoon but am hoping they can do without me since I have some freelance to work on. My Buckeyes play at 10pm tomorrow night too....might actually need a nap tomorrow afternoon so I can last through the game and still function at work Friday morning!

Winter fun...

I finally uploaded some pics of the kids making an igloo with their cousins. It was after we had freezing rain on top of tons of snow. They picked up sheets of the ice and used them to build their igloo. The dads helped too. It was "T" shaped and was big enough for all 4 kids, one uncle and a dog!

Such a long week!

I started last weekend with a back ache and blood in my urine, and found out Tuesday that I had a kidney stone. By Friday I am now on the mend. Still having some pain, but not as bad. It was not as bad as I thought, I think I got off pretty lucky. I have a fairly high tolerance for pain!

I am buried in freelance...what's new. I so wish we would hit the lottery. I would love to focus more on preschool stuff. But, I am glad I have the opportunity to bring in the extra money, we would not be in a good place without it. They originally gave me 6 grades to do in a week...I could not even do one! The sickness did not help, but they sorely underestimated how long this job would take and what it entailed. It has been a real nightmare for everyone.

We have a busy Saturday ahead. JM has a birthday party from 12-3 and then an awards ceremony for basketball. I really wanted to skip the basketball thing, we did it with Jordan and it was kind of lame. There are no "awards" per say, but he really wants to go. They do have a great magician that comes in, so that is fun for the kids. It just lasts way to long and they start it at 4...making for grumpy kids when it goes way past their dinner time!

Such is life in our household. DH is extremely late getting home for dinner. He did call and the kids voted to wait until he got home to eat. Pancakes was their vote for dinner since it is a Lenten Friday! I hate Friday's in Lent...not the right attitude I know!!

Why...Why....Why are people messing with me today?

I am so tired of dealing with incompetence....well, more like stupidity!

First, the church calls me yesterday saying that they have a propane leak and don't know if we will have heat. I went to their board meeting last night and insisted that they get someone out to fix it....luckily we had enough heat today to have school.

The fog here was horrible this morning, could not see the mailbox in front of the house or our neighbor's barn....our measuring sticks that it is bad. Plus is was a freezing fog so the road and sidewalks were covered with ice. Do you think we had a delay this morning....NO! Our bus driver was looking at me like "I can't believe I am driving this bus in these conditions..." Yeah, just what I want as my children slip down the walk to board her bus! My SIL called from school (she is subbing) and said buses were over an hour late and kids were sliding under the bus from the ice. Tons fell in the parking lot too. They make dumb decisions and close/delay when it isn't necessary and then don't when the conditions are horrible!

Then, to top the morning off...one of my parents came in this morning yelling at me because I did not call her and tell her we were having our Valentine's party today.....Well, I didn't call ANYONE and they all figured it out. PLUS....I told everyone last week that if school was canceled on our party day we would have it on our next day of school. Geesh, is it too much to ask that you listen and retain information for more than 20 minutes. (No wonder her child is my most difficult one!)

Okay....I'm done. Just had to get that off my chest....maybe I will go exercise instead of hitting the bottle!! LOL!

Friday ramblings!

We have finally recovered from our snow/ice storm from earlier in the week. Still cold as heck, I think it only got to about 15 today, but it is winter! Another storm is coming and they think we will get another 2-3" tonight, not too bad though. The boys went out to play today and had fun despite the frigid temps. Now it seems JM has a bit of a fever, so will keep an eye on that...he has a b-ball game tomorrow, so we'll see!

The idiots that I work for are at it again. They sent me a rush job last week....that initially was to have been given to me the end of January. I worked my tail off to finish two days early and they screwed something up. Now it has to be redone.....all of it...all 6 grades! Uggh! Since it was their mistake, I will get paid for the rework, but I was literally just pulling out my scrapbooking supplies to work on my Cedar Point album when the e-mail came in....so frustrating. We need the $$ so that is the silver lining! I am hoping to finish by the end of the weekend....once they figure out what it is I am actually supposed to do......then we'll see!

Do you ever get tired of dealing with stupidity?? I sure do!

White Death is heading our way!

I just can't handle winter here in Ohio. They have been talking about this darn storm since the weekend. It is barely in the state and everyone is just carrying on like the world is going to come to an end if we get 8 inches of snow. Now, the newest is ice....and okay, my world may briefly become a very miserable place if we get ice...flashback to December 2004. An ice storm knocked out our power for 5 days....and it was during Christmas. The most miserable week ever, and my worst Christmas ever!

So, if we lose power, things could get ugly! If we lose power, we have no water and that is the worse part. No flushing of the toilet unless you manually fill the tank, no water for washing, brushing your teeth...it's like camping in your house! So it will either be 8-12 inches of snow, or 6 inches of snow topped with a few inches of ice.....praying for the snow!

We will see what tomorrow brings!

Lost another preschool day today!

I am so fed up with that darn building. The heat had been running I think all week, set at 70 and the thermostat read 54 this morning. (It read that yesterday when I went in too) My thermostat though read only 49. I turned the heaters off and left, called my co-teacher and had her call parents. We now have two days to make up. We are off next Friday and Monday and I know the parents are calling for us to make up days then, but I want to just wait until it is warmer so I know we can open. The lows next week are still going to be in the single digits, so why drive everyone crazy with the heat thing. I know they just want their kids ot of the house...I totally know how they are feeling...my kids were too home three days this week! But, this is a major stress for me to go in, try and heat things up, DH wants to go in at night and add insulation....I really don't get paid enough to go in on my days off and deal with this.

So, that is the update from Central Ohio....where it is the coming of the second Ice Age!

The only silver lining is I got a huge freelance job last night that is on a ridiculous deadline, so at least I can work on that this morning before heading to volunteer in Jacob's class this afternoon!

Is it only Thursday?

Man, these days off are just brutal to the schedule! The boys were off Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. They should have probably been on delay this morning seeing that it was as cold and the previous three days....but at least they were out of the house! I had to close preschool of course Monday and Wednesday, and am not holding out any hope that we can open tomorrow! I went in today and although the heat was set at 70, it was a whopping 54 in there! Geesh! These folks need to get that darn thing fixed, I can't imagine what their propane bill is going to be!

I have enjoyed not having any freelance for a week, actually got my 2006 scrapbook finished! I am working on adding our summer 06 pics to my Cedar Point album now. Got a few pages done this week, but then freelance came a calling.

They have had this gosh darn job since January 30th and are just giving it to me now.....is is due the 15th. 6 grades worth of correlations in 6 days....yeah....right! Not gonna happen! I am not killing myself, staying up all hours, just because someone dropped the ball along the way! Not sure if anyone is listening at this point, but that is just the way it's going to be! People just stress me out sometimes. I have another job and, oh yeah, a family! Oiy!

Bone chilling cold

It has hit rock bottom here in Central Ohio. Below zero temps and -20 wind chills. The boys were off today and I suspect they will be again tomorrow. JM was not happy school was canceled, but JC was thrilled! When I told them to be prepared to be off again tomorrow, JM cried because that meant he would miss gym! And I thought it was because he loved school so much!

I only hope the schools decide before I go to bed...no sense getting up if I don't need to....is that too much to ask. I think they are all waiting for the Big Kahuna (Columbus Public) to close! Then they all fall like dominoes! At least there is already no preschool scheduled for tomorrow, so I don't have to bother with that until Wednesday. We are now at our 3 days and will have to make up days after today....yeah!!

Trying to add some pics...

Calgon.....(you know the rest!)

What a crazy few days it has been here in our household. It started when I lost 6 hours of my work on Saturday, causing me to have to stay up until 3:30 Saturday night and 2:30 Sunday night to meet my Monday morning deadline. Lack of sleep and PMS....not a good combination!

Then, we have had to close preschool two days this week due to lack of heat. Parents are getting a little testy, and my board members are less than understanding. The state requires we have the room at 65.....it was barely 55. They will shut us down if we have kids there and the temps are that low....not much choice in the matter!

I need a hot bath, a drink, and a nap....not necessarily in that order!

Winter has arrived

Snow....no, but the winter temperatures are here at last. Not that I missed them, the 50's were fine. If it is going to be cold, it might as well snow though. (Remind me I said that when we get a blizzard in April!) The boys got new sleds for Christmas and some cool snowball makers so they are anxious for some of the white stuff. I did not miss having to scrape my windows in the morning and would much rather take my preschool gang outside to play instead of being stuck indoors. Makes those quick trips to the bank and store much more unpleasant too!

Rain, rain...go away!

We have had 4 inched of rain over the last 4 days. Way too much for the creek to handle and our yard now has a river running through it. Thankfully, the basement didn't flood this time....a little water, but nothing major. They just said that had it been snow we would have had 36+ inches! I would settle for 3-4! The boys have new sleds they are wanting to try.....just no snow!

Looks like we will finally get some winter temperatures this week....just none of the white stuff!

Work....work....work!

I have a freelance deadline in a few weeks and I so can not get myself motivated to work on it. I started out by dividing up the lessons so I knew how many I had to do a night to be done on time, and now......5 days later I have yet to complete 2 days worth of lessons. Man, this stuff is so boring!

Preschool work is mounding too. Registration time is upon us and there is much to do. We are attending a Preschool fair and I have to get together pamphlets and registration packets by the 20th. And of course my deadline is the 25th. So, instead of working that Saturday I will be at the Fair and at basketball games. I must be nuts! Why can't I say no! I really need to learn to delegate more responsibility to my board members if I am going to keep my sanity through the rest of the school year!

Sad day in Buckeye Country

Wow, that was a miserable way to spend a Monday night! We got absolutely embarassed by Florida. Not sure who that team was, but it surely was not the same Buckeye team I watched all season. The only good that came of it was I got the 9-year old to bed earlier since there was no chance of a come back!

I feel so badly that the seniors left on this note. They are a great group and just blew it last night. They handled defeat well and did not complain or offer excuses.....all class like their coach! I am still forever a Buckeye fan and we don't rebuild....we reload!

Buckeyes Big Game

I am having a hard time concentrating on work....my Bucks play in the big game tomorrow and I am getting a little nervous. My friend Heidi is coming to watch with us....like she has for all of their big games. She was here when we won in 2003, when we beat Michigan more than once....so our track record is pretty good! Should be a great one and I am looking for at least a 7 point win!

Go Bucks!

Blog Beginning

Well, I am joining the blogging revolution. I am on the computer a lot for work, so figured....why not! I often lay in bed at night with mumblings in my head, and maybe this will get them out of my head so I can get more sleep. And with two active boys, there are always stories to tell and rants to list!