Wednesday night

We had The Party last night. I heard the week before was really crazy. It was our first week back after the Christmas break, we had 36 kids, and it was a zoo. I wasn't there. I was at school helping students write essays. Last night was much better though. The kids listened, and were well behaved. However, three kids left early - and we have a rule that if you leave early you can't come back in. However they were at the door, banging, trying to get us to let them back in. When we wouldn't pay them any attention, two of them beat up the third one. That wasn't good and I'm glad that Kevin gets to deal with it instead of me. However we can say that aside from that, things went really well.

I have the Pradzynski's over tonight for supper, however supper is going to be late. I had to run to the library downtown before 5 pm to get a resource, and that made me late starting supper. It'll be ready shortly though. I made cannelloni because I needed to use up the left over spinach/cottage cheese mixture we mixed up for lasagne Saturday and then didn't use.

TGIF

Bram came over right after school and started spaghetti sauce. He's supposed to start pizza too, but he had to run back to the dorm because he'd only signed out until 5 pm. I told him to wear boots when he came back as I'm going to get him to shovel some snow for me. After all, what's the point of having a teenaged son if you can't take advantage of it.

There's only one more week left in the first semester. Then a week of exams. There's a Bible Quiz tournament in Nipawin the last weekend of January, then the second semester wills start. I spent part of today prepping and planning for second semester. It's been confirmed what I'm teaching, so I can do some planning.

I'm happy for the weekend. My parents are on their way to Regina and should arrive shortly. (I guess that means I should clean up the living room?) Maybe I should log off and do that now.

Thursday evening

Bram's making supper - one of his recipes for his foods class, while I supervise. The past two evenings I helped with studyhall, helping students write essays, or providing other help with homework. Last night I had a student ask me what topic should she choose to write about for her biology essay which was due today. We picked a topic and I provided her with resources, but told her there was no way she'd have her essay done for today.

The weather was incredibly bad last night. Walking back home from school it was blizzard conditions. There's lots of snow to get rid of now. I think I'll phone my brother in law (who has a snow blower) and see if he can rescue my driveway. Also my tenant who looks after the snow shovelling at the 4-plex has phoned to say there's no place to put all the snow from the driveway, so we need to do something there anyway. It's time to get on my knees (metaphorically anyway) and see if he can rescue me.

Piano lessons started today; the first time since Christmas break. I practiced a lot - I need to work on it a lot more. (Such is life). I don't know how much practice I can get done tonight because I need to work with Bram on cooking, and I really need to write a letter to my mother in law and get it mailed. I can't visit every week, but I can write weekly. I'm tired though; I think I may need to have a short nap before I do much more.

Semester's End

You can tell we're winding down to the end of the semester because so many of the teachers have essays due. I just want to point out here that although my students do have assignments that are due, none of them are essays. Bram's got at least two essays due this week - one of them tomorrow; plus he still has to finish four modules in his foods course. He's going to be pulling some long stretches of homework coming up.

Anyway, I had Bram over this evening working on his first ever research-style essay for Chemistry. He's writing on electrolysis. It's a good thing I don't have to understand what he's writing, I just have to help him put it in the correct form. He's actually a pretty good writer. It would also be better if he started writing his essay before the day it's due - but how can I quibble about that? I always started my essays the morning they were due! Betty is also working on an assignment for History. My job with her is to talk it over and explain it several times so that she can have an idea of what she is supposed to do; and then give her several ideas about how to do it. Finally, I read her work and correct her English. I was supposed to be practicing piano this evening - and I did get a bit done; but I did a whole lot more of helping people with homework.

I've volunteered to spend tomorrow evening at school in the library helping students work on their essays. If we have enough students turn out, I'll stay for Wednesday as well. Unfortunately this means that I won't be able to help with The Party this week, but Rose will be able to take my place, so it'll all work out I think.

I know, I know, it's been awhile

We're well into a new year and I haven't posted for quite some time. Sorry about that.

We had a really good Christmas. Some of the highlights were going to Robin's wedding Christmas eve and sharing Christmas with my siblings and their families. I'd post pictures but... this is my blog and I hardly ever do pictures. Besides, my printer/scanner has decided it doesn't really want to scan for me today.

School resumed on Thursday, but I really enjoyed the time off until then. I didn't do a whole lot but take it easy, but it was very nice to do that. We're now getting ready for finals which are only two weeks away.

Bram has been over for the weekend; he spent last night here. That's because it's cleaning weekend at Old Navy and we needed to be there for 6 am. He started on windows and finished on floors with the rest of us. The floors were really bad. Rose wasn't happy about getting up at 5:30 am, "the only reason anyone should get up at this time is to go to the airport" - but we were happy to have her help. I've been getting Bram to get some homework done this afternoon (in between playing games on the computer). I gave him free choice as to which homework to work on and he chose, of course, Calculus.

Yesterday Rose, Bram and drove to Moose Jaw to see Mom Thiessen in the nursing home there. Bram and I had gone once before to see her but they had closed down her wing of the nursing home and we were unable to see her. Then we were unable to go back before now because we all had colds. This time she was in a different home. We visited for a little over an hour. I'm sure they do their best there, but it was difficult nevertheless. Her room mate spent a fair bit of the time questioning Bram as wasn't he a little too young to be my boyfriend; and about ten minutes before we finally did leave she started demanding why were we still here and didn't we know that it was time for us to leave? There was the constant background noise of a woman wailing, which Mom said goes on all day and much of the night.

Ruth and I have been exploring the idea of doing a full day's cooking and getting a month's worth of meals out of it. I have a cookbook like that that I've tried, but I didn't really like the meals in it because they were so meat heavy and not the way I generally cook. In addition, because Ruth is diabetic, we need meals that have a lot of whole grains and low fat, with low or no sugar. So Ruth and I are making up our own menu - then we'll do up the shopping list and go to it. This just takes our joint salad making one step further. We'll likely try it out next weekend. I'll let you know how it goes.