No job today. No calls last night, and zero this morning. I had to call and make sure I was still listed as available and that I hadn't accidentally taken a job I'd forgotten about.
Nope.
Even Minneapolis has nothing, and they are always short subs. I guess it is time to find more jobs to apply for.
I'm posting this to give myself a little public shame if I don't work hard today
These are the schools/districts I've applied to today:
Robbinsdale
New millennium (charter school)
Austin Public schools (Peder asked me to. Why the heck not?)
St Paul Academy librarian
Roseville Schools
And finally gathered up a bunch of tax stuff
I'll update through the day, and we'll see how much farther I get.
I am sitting here in my snow covered sorrels, 2 layers of pants, and three layers of shirts. We just got in from digging out of our lovely 9-12 inches and I could not be happier. This is winter in Minnesota!
I spent the evening at my parents last night. We sat and talked in the dark by the fire, while watching the snow fall outside. It was so cozy, I didn't want to leave. The drive home was tricky, but I took it slowly and made it home without incident.
Now the plan is to rest for a bit and then take a walk over to McDonalds for lunch. I love that we decided walking is better than driving. It reminds me of when we were little and my parents putting us on inner tubes for a walk to the store after one storm.
Back from the McD's trek. It was a lot more fun going there, that going back, but we took a different and easier, snowdrift-wise, route home.
I stopped by my old school this afternoon. They were having conferences and since parents in Minneapolis don't seem to attend those pesky little things anymore, there isn't much to do but sit around and chat. I stopped by my freind Roberta's room because I heard my thin mints were in (yum!) and that she had a ton of maternity clothes for me. Yaaay! Just in time too. I'm starting to have some trouble wearing my pants and all of my shirts, which once seemed to be a decent length, are slowly creeping up my torso.
I got home and immediately put on my own pillow stuffed fashion show. (actually I used the turtle. It really is the pefect shape & size) About a third of the stuff was not my style, but most of it will work. I made four piles: Wear now, wear in the not to distant future (too big or too summer-y), wear at the last possible moment (really big), wear over my dead body. Ozzie liked everything, and Sana liked nothing. I was left to rely on my own judgement as to what really looked good on me.
It is so nice to have so many friends who are so willing to share.
I had a bit of a sore throat on Thursday, which scared me into getting a flu shot at the doctor's on Friday. My cold has gotten worse and I feel icky, but not deathly.
And now Peder has something (though it seems to be different than what I have). Ugh. Nothing worse than being sick, and having your partner sick too. (well, having your kids sick too has got to be 400 times worse, but this is the worst we can do at the moment)
So we are relegated to the bedroom watching movies for the rest of the weekend.
For those interested in these things (aka: G-parents), I brought my digital recorder to the doctor with us today:
It wasn't as thrilling as the first time, but still pretty cool to know that everything looks good, and the little one really is still pluggin' away in there!
So when I asked the other third grade teachers what I should expect/plan for the "Valentine's Party", they insisted that there would be a ton of parents there that would handle the whole thing.
This is very hard for me to get my head around.
I have never had more than one parent show up to help with an event in my class, and usually, I couldn't trust them to "handle" anything. These are the moms & dads (aunties, uncles, 17 year old cousins, etc.) who don't have jobs (welfare), treat their kids like crap, and wouldn't know an educational activity if it came up and bit them. They always try to put up a good front, but to them, that means acting like the kids are their new best friends. There were some wonderful parents, but most of them were more work than they were worth. But I try not to judge ;o)
On one field trip, I had a parent offer another teacher a beer from the back of his pick-up. I kid you not.
Anyway, I have a completely lame activity planned just in case.
Update: It went exactly like they said it would. 6 parents showed up, started a craft project, while others set up three game stations. My only job was to call out when it was time to switch stations. It totally rocked!
It is for an awful reason, but it works out nicely for me.
The teacher I subbed for today is out because her husband is in the hospital. I feel bad for her, but her 3rd graders are nice, and she left good plans. So now I don't have to think about where/whether I will work tomorrow, and I don't have to wake up at 5:30AM to answer the phone. I also get to do Valentine's Day, whch will probably stress me out way more than teaching cursive, but it is fun for the kids and, let's focus on what is important here, I will most likely get candy.
At least the kids will have the same sub for the week.
I have been having a lot of sleepless nights lately, well, I go to sleep, then I wake up a few hours later, and can't get back to sleep until another few hours later. It is maddening. To mkae myself a bit more comfy, I have been sleeping with the new pillow I got for Christmas. Today, Sana discovered that when laid out right, it is the perfect nest for her. She spent the entire day right here.
Ozzie, on the other hand, has found his new favorite spot on top of the fridge. We tried to get him to stop, but then he learned that we can't easily get to him if he goes up on the bookshelf above the fridge. I give up.
I shot a wedding today. The bride booked me on my demo DVD alone. I never met the couple. I had shot many weddings at their venue -Nazereth Chapel at Northwestern College, so at least I knew what I was in for there.
When Ry and I arrived, I discovered that the photographer was my all-time favorite in the whole wide world. If I ever were to get married to Peder again, I would hire Joe. He is so much fun, gets amazing shots, and works with me.
After the thrill of seeing Joe again, I got to meet the couple, Jen & Brian, they are a super cute, increidbly nice, and so much fun to shoot. Truly happy to be together even through the stress of the wedding day, and not self conscious at all.
After the simple, sweet ceremony, we stopped in Rice park for some amazing pics (I'm thinking this may go on the new demo) then headed to the reception, where the people at our table asked me if I had been there to shoot the ceremony. They said they didn't even notice us! Something I strive for as a wedding videographer.
It was just a wonderful day to work.
Apparently blogger is choosing random people and making them move to the "new" blogger. I guess I'm okay with that, but I would have liked some warning. Their notice about it basically said "we've been hinting at this for months, so you should have seen it coming" Yeah. Why not just come out an say: A few of you will have to move. Be ready. ?
It hasn't been a terribly traumatic move. I am kind of liking the fact that since I am logged into gmail all the time anyway, I don't have to log into bloger when I want to post. My fears that my beloved template would disappear were unfounded. I managed to make our pregnancy journal private, so now I can freely rcord all of the strange happenings occuring inside of me. ;o)
Once I realized that the squirrels had chewed through the heating vent I knew I had to shut off the heat to the third floor, what little we had. It took me a few days to get around to it, but when I went to find the vent shut off in the basement this afternoon, I couldn't find it. That is, until I followed it all the way back to the furnace. That particular off-shoot's shut off is right by the furnace, and to my surprise, it was already in the "off" position. Three years I've been in this house, and I had just chalked up the lack of third floor heat/cooling to it being so far from the furnace. (duh Sarah, heat rises)
So as an experiment, I opened the vent and a few hours later the temp on the 3rd floor rose from around 38 to 54 degrees. I wish I'd realized that before we had Hans staying up there in December. Sorry Hans.
So for say as long as I've had the house, there have been squirrels in the walls of the third floor. I thought we had the one hole plugged up, but when we moved into our current bedroom (formerly known as the "stinky room" aparently this house has been host to all sorts of woodland creatures) I began hearing the little buggers running around over our heads early in the morning.
I have been loathe to cut a big hole in the wall to get at them and see what damage they have done. But in trying to do a nice thing for my hubby, I cut a small hole in the wall to run a cable line and realized that 1) they had chewed through the heating duct and most of the warm air was being blown into the crawl space under the roof. 2)I can see daylight where they are getting in and out. 3) There is an already dead one near their squirrely entrance. Ugh! Another few weeks go by, and with some help from my dad, I finally get the nerve up to get a live trap, and a me-sized piece of plywood, and cut a me-size hole in the wall.
I now want to rip out all of the terribly done drywall and redo the whole third floor.
-There are no access panels to the areas under the roof on either side, or above
-There are squirrels in the walls.
-They insulated the 4' kneeboards about 2 and a half feet down.
-Several four-gang electric recepticles only have two working plugs.
-It is darn cold/hot up there in winter/summer
-I have never found a circuit breaker for the third floor. Seriously, I have mapped every other outlet in our house trying to figure it out.
I'm sitting here listening to the Prairie Home Companion joke show. I love this show, even the ones they do every year (so there are two penguins sitting on an ice berg...)
This morning, my mom took me shopping. The original intention was to buy some fabric to make a belly band. Yes, I'm beginning to pop out of some of my jeans. But we thought we'd go take a look at some of the commercial ones first. No luck at Target or Kohl's, Babes'R'us wasn't close enough to brave the cold, so, we wound up getting me a couple of pairs of GASP! early maternity pants at Target that I can wear for work, and a nice top for $3 at Savers. along with the top, I found a little decoration for Godot's room for 2 bucks:
At one point Peder and I had discussed painting stars on the ceiling. Having painted a ceiling mural once, I will not be doing it again, especially not while pregnant. This little guy projects stars all over the room in blue or white (also green, but it isn't working) It makes such a cool night light!
I'm definitely going to have to hit the thrift shops more often so I can find some cheap tops. After a yummy long lunch at Panera, we did get the fabric after ohhing and ahhing at the cute chenilles they had. Now I have to ask my brother if he'll teach me how to use his serger so I can sew the lycra I bought. It can't be that hard to make a tube of fabric. Right?
Words of advice from Garrison: If you can't be kind, at least be vague.
Knock knock. Who's there? dyslexic. Dyslexic how?
