I am a hamster and life is the wheel...!

I didn't even realize how much time had passed since my last blog! I just go and go and go at work then come home and die! I average about 3 miles of walking a day with my little carts and the days are flying by, which is a good thing. And finally, things are slowing down in the computer issue department. I have learned much in the past week about how to trouble shoot password issues and keeping it all running and communicating. My brain has been on overload and still, there is so much more I don't know. I am trying to organize the ink order which means getting a handle on what printers are in all the rooms and what cartridges they require. Most cost about 80$ each!! Then I have to figure out how to get them into the crazy printers!! Wheeee! Luckily, my classes are good and the kids are pretty well behaved and nobody has complained when I come rolling in late. I would probably roll over them if they did. hahaha
Dennis and I made a flyin' trip to Columbus on Tuesday evening to buy a mountain bike off some guy. The bike was great but that was a very loooong day after working all day. I stayed in the car, told Dennis to throw him the money, grab the bike, and then get the heck on home! No tales of the glory days! Of course, you can never deal that fast. When we finally did get going, I suggested we put the Garmin on "fastest" and follow the suggested route. We ended up on a road with no lines in the middle of a bunch of cornfields. Projected arrival time : midnight. WHAT!? I unplugged that sucker and said "head for a main road and get us home!" We arrived at 10:30pm and I died - again.
My allergies are doing really good right now. If only my body could process oxygen through my eyeballs cause the nose is certainly not cutting it. Ragweed and goldenrod- my new best enemies...........Boy, am I glad tomorrow is Thursday and the weekend is a long one! 'til next time!

Saturday in the park......

Dennis and I started the day going for a mountain bike ride at Barboursville Park. I wasn't real keen on the idea at first, knowing how previous rides usually involved steep, rock and root filled paths that promised to break your leg before you were done, but this one was actually pretty enjoyable. It ran parallel to the river there by the park and had just enough challenges to keep it interesting but didn't make you feel like you needed a medic along for the ride. Then it started to pour the rain. We just kept on going, getting enough shelter from the leaves overhead that we didn't get completely soaked. My backside did sport a nice brown stripe up the back though before we were finished. CUTE!

After that, we stopped by Taco Bell then headed home to shower and rest. Dennis then decided he should return the bicycle he took from his nephews about a couple weeks ago. The bike had a flat tire and needed some TLC and he thought it would be good to get it going again. I told him he should take it back or they were going to think he was like the Grinch taking the Christmas tree. "There's a bulb on the tree that won't light up, dear Cindy Lou".....hahaha We stopped for some marshmallows on the way home and roasted them on our little campfire in the side yard. Yumm. I also took a short hike in the woods with Cookie to see what the trails were like. Cookie loves to go hiking with me. Always on the lookout for something to chase. However, this time out, Cookie, a short dog, could only be tracked by the movement of the tall weeds ahead of me! I turned around and headed back home, much to her relief ! Hikes in the woods will have to wait til Fall, I'm afraid. It was great to be able to put work worries behind me and just enjoy being outside! 'til next time!

I survived the first week. Can I retire now?

Well, I survived the first week back and three of those days were with kids. The kids and the classes are fine, actually, it's just keeping up with all those darn computers that's giving me fits! I am seriously hoping that things will calm down after a few weeks or I am going to start putting a paper bag on my head when I go down the hallway. That way no one can yell at me that this isn't doing than and Johnny can't remember his password and their computer doesn't "recognize the tree". (I told her to hold it up to the window and point one out to it - I am so bad.) It's trail by fire and I hope I don't permanently destroy anything during my learning process. sigh
Being on a cart is not so bad. The kiddies don't get all hyped up like they used to coming down the hallway to my room and there's no more "he cutted" when it's time to line up! I am also able to help teachers with their computers since I am in their rooms every three days - though now it's seems more like every three minutes for some of them. I do miss my pretty room with the plants and having a chair. It's the little things that make life comfortable. I am getting lots of exercise and the days just fly by. I come home pretty tired at the end of the day but I have the best schedule I have had in years and that's good! Every cloud and all that!
I stopped by Dick's 'Sporting Goods and bought another pair of tennis shoes because at the rate I'm going, my other ones will have holes in the soles before mid September!!
Looking forward to the weekend and sleeping in til 7:00 again! Woooo hooooo!

What a beautiful day!

(Tooo bad it has to end!) I wish the weather could be like today every day of the year. Is that too much to ask? Dennis and I were watching that show that comes on Sunday mornings - the one with a big sunshine and all the cool stories. They were doing a bit on picnics and how they originated in Europe in the 1600's. They would dress up and eat all day, visit with friends, etc. It was called a piqui-nique which meant something trivial but it looked very enjoyable and so we decided to go outside and roast weenies for lunch! Of course, we didn't dress up but we ate dogs, chips with onion dip, cheese and chocolate. There were ants. It was all good.
Double weenie roaster!

That's banana and pineapple Fuze I'm drinking -really!

Relaxin' in the shade in our side yard....

After that, we dropped by Mom and Dad's on our way to Beech Fork for some kayaking. We did about 4 miles I think and saw blue herons, green herons, a kingfisher, and really fat woman in a bikini sprawled out on the bow of a pontoon boat. eeeeeuuuuw......Anyway, it was a great day to get out on the lake. We came home and then I did my 3 mile walk. I started out with just Cookie. She is the neighbor's terrier who often went woods hiking with me in the fall and winter and I guess she was bored this evening. Dennis was cleaning the boats and caught up with us later on his bike. Two little neighbor boys who live out the road were playing in their yard and Cookie thought they looked like fun. She took off after them and they ran screaming "DOG! DOG!" She is only about a foot tall and she was wagging her tail! I yelled that she just wanted to play but still felt like the mean lady who sics her dog on small children. They started shooting their water pistols at her but she was already on the scent of some small wildlife she could chase, boys long forgotten. Dennis had to go retrieve her. (sigh) So we made it back home with no one and nothing getting injured. And tomorrow is Monday already! Yikes!

Survived the first day....barely!

You know it's going to be a tough year when your on a cart. It's really going to be a tough year when the "powers that be" forgot to order said cart. (sigh) Luckily, I kept an old metal cart for just such an emergency. Experience has taught me well. Hopefully, the new one will arrive ASAP but again, I won't hold my breath. It was nice seeing everyone again but my gosh, there is so much to do and not enough time to do it!! My new job of sys op is proving to be quite a time filler as well. It was almost time to leave and one teacher said she needed the computer lab on Monday morning. Great. All the computers had been unplugged from the power and the internet so they could mop and wax the floor!! About 30 computers!! Luckily, my old student teacher had stopped by to get some lesson ideas and offered to help. I said, " if you see a plug hangin', stick it in a hole somewhere! I don't care where, just hook em up!" That wasn't very professional , I know, but hey, time was of the essence. So hopefully, those suckers will work come Monday. Then, after having the best schedule made out ,ever, for us, at 3:00 we get word that we just "have to go to Milton for one class!! Work it out!" We wanted to just cry. We reworked the schedule to squeeze it in one morning but it was awful. No planning time and classes back to back. We took it into our principal, and he wadded it up and threw it out! He said "I'm just going to tell him we can't work it out!!" Here's hoping he'll cowboy up and actually do that this year. He said to just act like we weren't going to Milton. I said call that dude up and tell him to find another sucker! We're tired of always being the ones to have to change our schedule! So we shall see what comes about on Monday. Pray, pray, pray. Cross your fingers. Throw massive amounts of salt over your shoulders. Rub a budda belly. Pick every four leaf clover within a 5 mile radias... I will do them all to stay out of Milton!!!! Other than all that, the rest of the day was pretty good!

Last day of freedom...........

Well......here we are. My last day of the good life has arrived. (sigh) No more sleeping in til 7:00, which isn't all that late but when you have to get up at 5:30 for work, it's a virtual sleepfest! I guess I'll get used to it. For today, I am doing some house things that I won't have to do during all the craziness that the start of school brings. I cleaned the outside pond filter and the fish just looked at me and wondered where the food was. You think they could at least muster up a backflip in gratitude, but no. Then I decided to dust, vacuum, and mop. I scrubbed the shower/bathroom this morning - woo hoo. Time keeps ticking away. At least they started us on a Friday which gives us a couple of days to regain our sanity before a full week next week! yikes

(Me tomorrow morning)

Another weekend is gone!

Boy, where did the weekend go??! Yesterday was a crazy day! We went to the "Chicken Run ll Geocaching Event" at Barboursville Park hosted by buddies Mike Smith and Bobby Wintz. It was fun but at 1:00 in the afternoon, it felt like we were walking on the surface of the sun! They had hidden 5 caches around the park and of course, Dennis wanted to take the shortest route which meant going through fields of waist high weeds! Crown Vetch is now my new worst enemy. We got off to a bad start because some dude wanted to chat and tell us how much he enjoyed our caching adventures when we were trying to put in the coord's on our GPS's. He even wanted us to pose for a picture! So we got all confused and Dennis ended up putting in some wrong numbers, etc. and we had to stop and figure out that mess. It wasn't really a race though because you drew cards after you found all five caches and the best hand won. You also got bonus points if you were first to find, which we never were....sigh.....And the heat made everyone really weary. At least there was no obvious poison ivy but I did get some nice arm scratches which look pretty good today. Alot of people asked us when we were doing our fall event again and now we are thinking it's time to resurrect the "Wonder Run"! Everybody really loved our crazy, funny hides and we enjoyed hosting it. So maybe in October...........! We ended the event with a few meatballs, a bag of chips, one cookie and then headed to McD's for an ice cream cone. Nice dinner, huh!?

The start of the event and already we were sweating!

After the countdown to start, everyone took off to try to be the first to find on a cache.

Then when I got home, I started in to the mow routine and push mowed for an hour out front! Dennis came out after I was done and said "I didn't hear you out here!" to which I replied, "OH, there's PLENTY more grass to do!!" So he hopped on the mower and did the rest of it! ;-) We were pretty done at that point and just laid on the couch like dead bodies after that!