Busy Day

It's been an extra-busy day - the first of several I think.
I went to work at the regular time, shortly after 8; which meant that I'd been doing my regular bustle about the house since sometime between 6 and 7. Went home for lunch at noon; taught my afternoon classes, as usual.

At 4 pm I came home and made supper. I had the Steiners invited for supper, as I hadn't had them over for a while. Had a very nice visit. They had to eat and leave early as Daryl had a regular Bible study on Thursday nights. However, while they were there, I got a call from my realtor saying that my final offer on the four-plex had been accepted. I phoned a few people before I ran out the door a little before seven to go to quizzing practice.

Normally, we only have quizzing practice on Sunday nights, but this weekend is the final tournament, and we all agreed we needed to practice some more. Things went much better at the practice than they had earlier this week, so that was good. Finished shortly after 9.

Walked home, met my realtor who had been waiting outside my apartment for me so that I could sign the amended agreement to purchase. (Their amendments were very minor things).

Then, I loaded the dishwasher (hadn't had time after supper), tidied the kitchen and dashed out to the grocery store (God bless stores open past 9 pm) because I've got people billeted with me for the quiz tournament and have to be able to feed them.

So this weekend will be the final quiz tournament for the year; hosted at Western. I'll likely be busy with that before school lets out. It will run Friday night, all day Saturday (usually from about 8 am to 10 pm) and then most of the day Sunday. In the midst of all that, I'm hopeful that I'll be able to get word about a time to view the rest of the fourplex, as I've only seen one suite. Busy is good, right?

Name them one by one

I thought that "count your blessings" weather was over until next winter, but no... woke up this morning to heavy wet slushy snow. I had to drive in the snowfall to my piano lesson and clean off the windshield to drive back to work. However, I'm sure spring will be here at some point - just not today.

I'm still having trouble with my arms so have switched from working on piano to working on theory with the hopes that I can write my Grade 3 theory exam in August. Hopefully giving my arms a total break from playing will allow them to heal as well.

Baby steps

Well, it's been an exciting weekend. I've been looking at houses for the past week and my parents were up on the weekend for the College grad. Congratulations to Ryan! Anyway, we went through a four-plex just down the street from the one they own with Ruth and I put an offer on it this afternoon.

I continue to be dependent on everyone's grace as I don't have any money for the downpayment and likely won't have any until I get a separation agreement in place. It's a good thing I've got a lot of family. It's both exciting and scary to be doing this. I'll keep you posted.

One week later

Rose has been on Easter break for a full week now. I actually had inservice last Thursday, so I've had a little less than a week. What have we done with our time?

• Done lots of laundry
• Gone on a trip (with the Vance's) to Great Falls, Montana for a youth rally. (It was fun).
• Got the oil changed on my van (which took three trips to Walmart; seeing as they really don't believe in customer service).
• Made at least four trips to various bookstores (at Rose's instigation).
• Read several books (I'm trying to read books that are recommended for the Gr. 9 curriculum so that I know what I want to teach with next year).
• Tidied up (it's amazing how much more clutter is added by one more person in the apartment).
• Bought groceries.
• Practiced piano and had a piano lesson.
• Currently I'm helping Joe with homework.

What do I still want to do?

• Quilt and bind a quilt for the Friesen's new baby.
• Finish the binding on another quilt.
• Read some more books.
• Do some more laundry.

Doesn't it sound like a really exciting life?

What's up with Hotmail?

Rose just tried to get onto hotmail because she's expecting a letter - and it told her that she didn't have an in-box yet. Go figure. So, we logged out of her profile and into my profile and I tried to get onto hotmail first. It won't let me log in; each time I log in, it gives me the same log-in screen again. Really weird.

Spring Break

I drove the half a block to school yesterday to load up Rose so she could come back to the apartment for spring break. She filled her biggest suitcase with her bedding (wanting to wash all of it), and also brought her laundry bag full. We did all the laundry except for the bedding yesterday.

Last night Rose convinced me that we really needed to go to Chapters. She bought herself a Chinese/English dictionary (she's taking Mandarin at school). She also bought a book on writing Japanese kanji and kana (she's been studying Japanese with her cousin, Alex). I bought an 8 CD set on learning Spanish in preparation for our summer mission trip to Mexico. So, we bought three different items on learning three different languages. Kind of interesting.

By the way, did I mention that, Lord willing, we're planning on going on a summer mission trip to Mexico? The youth group here is going and I'm going as a chaperone. Hopefully both of my kids will be going too. More about that on another blog.

Old Fartitis

I had my first piano lesson in three weeks today. My teacher had a week off as she was doing student examinations. I had to take last week off because my arms had been giving me grief and I was wearing splints (the joy of repetitive strain injury). I was able to manage the one hour lesson today because I took ibuprofen before I started and my teacher was very careful to have me do exercises and work on pieces that involved no stretches or difficulty. At least I didn't have laryngitis.

I've taught my library assistant how to catalogue fiction books (because they're the very easiest) so that I'll be typing less, so that my arms and hands can heal.

Frankly, having my body break down isn't much fun. I'd rather trade it in for a newer model.

Glad that's over

The funeral for the student who died last week was today. They held it at school in the auditorium - and I'm sure there was over 800 people in attendance because the auditorium only holds 1000 and the lower floor was completely full and there were some people up in the balconies. Hopefully this will provide some closure for our students and we can go on from here.

Looking ahead; looking back

It is Homecoming at Western this weekend. Now, last year was my honoured year and I was a little disgruntled because I couldn't fly in until Saturday morning, so I missed visiting Friday night and I had to leave Sunday morning in order to get back to teach on Monday. This year I live across the street from school, so I have registered, but it's not really my class. (It is my honoured year for college, and of course Western was such a community that I do know everyone).

It's also a little awkward. I had one person ask me, so are you still in Saskatoon? My response was that I'd lived the past 20 years in Yellowknife but was now living in Regina and working at the school. I know that it'll come up, well what is my husband doing. He's still in Yellowknife; we're separated; he's involved with another woman.

There's only three days of school next week. We have professional development on Thursday and it's Good Friday the next day - followed by the week off. Monday won't be much of a school day either as the funeral will be at the school Monday morning and I expect that most of the student body (and staff) will be attending. We will have to have classes (or another option) for those that don't want to attend; and I expect that even after the funeral the students won't be able to attend to much or do much. It's a good day to have a work period. That only leaves two teaching days next week. I can handle that too, except that I'd really like to be able to teach more. It'll have to wait I guess.

A difficult day

It's been a long and difficult day. One of the students at Western committed suicide yesterday evening. She was in Grade 9; I taught her English. None of us had any warning, but because the school is small, it has affected everyone. We sort of had classes today; students were excused if they didn't feel like attending, but classes kind of limped along. We started with a general assembly and didn't resume classes until about 10:30. Kids (and adults) were crying in the chapel, in the hallways, pretty much everywhere. Please keep her family and the other kids in your prayers. Unfortunately suicide can be contageous and that's one thing we really don't want to happen. (Apparently several of her extended family had already died this year and it was already contageous).