Some Time & School Tidbits

Well, I've been quite far "out of the loop" (the "active blogger" loop that is) for quite awhile. Haven't had much time, and really wasn't getting enough sleep to care. The kids are all (obviously) older now, my wife & I are "tag-team" teaching, and (amazingly) I do have a bit more time on my hands since school started!

As I thought about it, am fairly certain this is the only time since I first boarded a school bus (with my multiple cow-licks slicked down and my lunch box clutched in my grubby little hand) that I've been able to say "more time since school started." Pretty amazing actually. I'm sure someone just might be thinking, "How on earth could he possibly remember every year so far back into ancient history? He's over 40; surely he must be exaggerating." (Thank you, BTW for relegating me from "cool" and "young" to "fogy," but I was hoping no one would notice for another 10-30 years.) While I do not have a photographic memory, there still is quite a bit in this old belfry that's not so thickly "coated with cobwebs" that it can't be brushed off and drug out into the light of day...

For example, remembering back to a small USAF base in central Illinois, there was a messy little boy that was quite enthused about starting school… but that only lasted about 2 weeks. Once I realized school was not a place to learn about all the "cool stuff" in the world, but was actually just a place to coop up a bunch of rambunctious little kids all day, and that all of us were only allowed to learn as slowly as the least motivated student in the class, then I wasn't all that interested in school anymore.

I did want so badly to learn to read... yet Miss Fry would only teach us one letter each day! (FWIW, I thought it was funny that "Miss Fry" became "Mrs. Brown" later that year.) When we weren't practicing our measly one letter, the rest of the time we had to "color." At least we had our big boxes of 64 Crayolas with the pencil sharpener on the back, but I knew my 3-year old sister was doing the same thing at home... so the "fun factor" was totally not there. Coloring at school was completely boring.

There wouldn't have been anything at all to look forward to at school if it hadn't been for my best friend (& neighbor) Tori and the cute little red-haired girl that rode the bus with us. Every day I'd look forward to holding her hand as we walked all the way through the "big kids' end" of "bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, Pleasant Acres" Elementary to where the Kindergarten classes were on the far end... and then repeating the process after school to get back on the bus. (Neither one of us cared that the big kids thought we were "so cute.") Can still remember the daily disappointment of leaving my two best friends at the door of the "other K-5" class before trudging across the hall to my slave-driving teacher and then trying to sit still… for those never-ending hours… every day… bored, and completely unmotivated to color. (It got worse after the little red-haired girl moved away part way through kindergarten. One of the greatest travesties of my lack of education in K-5: they hadn't taught us to read… so I couldn't get her address to write to her!)

When first grades' Mrs. Dupree showed us how to put all those single letters together to make words… and I was finally able to read on my own I was SO excited! Of course, from then on I was still in trouble quite often, but rather than being scolded for talking to my neighbors, I was sent to the principal's office for reading my books… for "not following along" with all the slow kids (never mind that I would read every textbook from cover to cover in the first 3 weeks of every school year). Needless to say, school remained pretty boring, but at least with a few books secreted in my backpack I knew there would be something interesting to do in school each day.

Suffice it to say, as I'm teaching now I try very hard to exclude dull, "busy work" from my classes, include as many interesting things as can be crammed into each class, and still pay attention to which ever student(s) may be love-struck over their little neighbor. It is too bad I don't need to test them on all the interesting stuff, they seem to remember it much better than the things we're required to teach them.

Anyway, about that extra time I've found: the baby (who's now 2, has decided she's too big to soil her diaper, and and has been speaking in complete sentences for several months now) needs to be put down for a nap every day after lunch. Since my wife is teaching English during nap time & my classes are over by then, I get to come home and hang out for a few hours. Have lesson plans and quite a few projects around the house that still need to be completed (as well as mounds of laundry to fold… but what man in his right mind wants to fold laundry?), but several of those projects can be done quietly, so I'm not planning to be blogging daily, but still have high hopes for the life of "ye olde blog" this school year.

Working On....... Life

In addition to my "normal" everyday work (I do realize that my version of "normal" -- isn't), I've been doing some reading and extensive research in the last few days. (See my personal blog for a better explanation; check my FaceBook links or drop me an email if you've lost the link to it -- I removed the direct link from this blog.)

Am tentatively planning to be finished redoing my (moved) personal blog and getting this slightly redesigned one up to the level of activity I want within the next one or two weeks (that's at the very earliest, if everything comes together nicely). I think one month is a more realistic estimate tho. (Perhaps two months, if one of the offline projects I'm looking at materializes, but if more than one happens, well, don't hold your breath, because I won't.)

The Crash -- and Other Happenings

Just found this post (October 16) was still in unpublished draft form... publishing now, and updating (again) in the next post.

I thought I'd take a few minutes and catch up for the month. First of all, I've been assisting with a martial arts class once a week (Tuesday nights from 6.30-8.00pm EST). If I were young, dumb, and single (no offense intended if you fit into any of those categories) I'd prefer to go 3 to 5 times a week, but I do have a wife, children, a life, and an aging body that doesn't recover in 12 hours anymore... so... once a week is "enough."

On the last Tuesday of August, while I was teaching our self defense class (around 7pm), my parents were told of a live webcast. (I'd known of it, but after looking at the ominous clouds in the sky and watching lightning strike nearby several times, I'd forgone telling anyone else in the house about the webcast.) Unbeknownst to me, my neighbor (helpful soul that he is) came over and spread the word (just after I'd left).

We lost our power several times in a row that night; only for a few minutes each time, but the last was a brown-out -- which "affected my computer negatively" -- it fried an important chip ("southbridge") on the motherboard. On my system, the southbridge runs all of the things that plug into the computer -- which means, everything I plugged in did not work properly (the monitor and floppy disk drive), or did not work at all (everything else). Found it rather difficult to use a system that didn't work properly, and that couldn't have information added to it except in 1.4M pieces.

The computer was built around 2001, so the motherboard is old, but it's been upgraded pretty-well and is sufficient for my needs. I tried, but couldn't replace the motherboard with a new one (my wife wanted to buy a whole new system, until I explained we'd have to repurchase several thousand dollars worth of software to make "new computer" = "old computer").

I was able to locate some used motherboards in a Canadian computer shop and purchased two of them via eBay (1 for backup). That was wonderful, but I didn't have them yet. On a side note: I despise Canadian shipping; it is unimaginably slow (if I ever produce an illustrated Canadian/USA dictionary, the Canada Post logo will be the only thing listed under the word "slow").

After 15 days, I finally got my new motherboards and installed one. No problems with the motherboard, however, when I updated the operating system, the system glitched (of course). Something with Windows XP service pack 2 doesn't like my system -- so now I'm slowly working thru the re-update problems. Hopefully this won't take long...

Missions Trip

Amidst the general busy-ness and difficulties of the past few weeks, I've been remiss in my blogging. I'll attempt to rectify that this month, but if you know me even a little, you know I'm so chock-full of good intentions that I tend to run a little bit light on round-to-its.

The trip my Dad and I took to Puerto Rico (July 20-25) went well. We traveled to Ceiba, to work at a small Baptist church. This was my very first trip to the island, and I enjoyed it immensely.

Fixing a leaky (concrete) roof over the fellowship hall/school lunchroom took much of our week, but we were also able to move an air conditioner, organize some of their tools, hang chalk boards, change ballasts, build a cover for the kitchen water heater, and teach the Pastor how to not only preserve his tools in that high-humidity climate (I live in south Florida, we have a similar climate), but also how to do some of the easier maintenance around the property. (Some maintenance we were able to start, like the ballasts, but other things we had to explain and leave for him to do when he had more time.)

The weather was absolutely gorgeous; breezy all of the time. The daytime temps were on the warm side, but still cooler than S. FL (the beating sun was quite a bit more intense though), while the night-time temps were in the 60s and 70s, and we only had 2 light showers run through the entire week. The missionaries live very close to the top of a small mountain. Their balcony overlooks the city and the bay (and that helps keep the breeze from being blocked by other homes). If I lived there, I'd have a hammock and sleep outside often (being on top of the mountain, they had few mosquitoes and no-see-ems). One other bonus, it was mango season, and they have three different types of mangoes in their yard! I had 1 to 3 mangoes every day!

My only regret was not being able to stay longer and do more. Bright-Eyes was only a week old when I left, and I didn't like leaving my wife and the Varmints 4. (I wouldn't have gone if my M-in-law hadn't been down to help her.) Plus, not being there "leaves a hole" at church: I teach the Teen/College & Career Sunday School, run the Wednesday night kids' club (ages 3 to 12) go on the church van route (every service), sing quite a bit of the special music on Sunday mornings, keep up the grounds, and quite a bit more of the day-to-day behind-the-scenes stuff around church. Not to mention, I still need to work to keep food on our table. =) Going to Puerto Rico was quite a bit of work, but in some ways, it was also a vacation!! =)

If you get the chance, a missions trip to anywhere in the Caribbean would be a plus for you. (Provided, of course, rain doesn't pour down on you, the island you're working on doesn't get hit by a hurricane, and you don't stay in an area that the breeze is blocked.)

Another TWO Free Books Are Coming... Soon!!

Last night, for the first time in I don't know how many months, I went to bed before midnight (think it was even before 11.30pm, but not sure). This morning I found a message on my LibraryThing profile that excited me! Here's the text:

Congratulations. You've snagged an Early Reviewers copy of 1,000 Dollars and an Idea: How an Inspired American Entrepreneur Built a Billion-Dollar Fortune by Sam Wyly.You should get your copy in the mail shortly. The publishers ship the books directly--some are speedier than others, so please be patient!

private comment posted by                 at 12:43 pm (EST) on Jul 1, 2008

After I checked LibraryThing, I went and checked my email -- found even MORE good news!

Dear Matt,

You have been selected to review Faster, Better, Stronger by Eric Heiden/Massimo Testa. Your Advanced Readers Edition should arrive at your address within 14 days via U.S. Postal Service.

Thank you for participating in the First Look program.

HarperCollins Publishers
               @harpercollins.com

The only thing I like better than a good book is a good book that's FREE! and the only thing better than that... is TWO free books!! I can hardly wait!!!


In other (church) news, VBS is rapidly approaching (next Monday). This year's theme is on having a "Wild West Witness." Since I wear cowboy boots (to church, with my suit) every week anyway, I have a jump on most of the other people, but I'll still have to dig out my old saddle, my bolo tie, pocket watch, and a lariat. I might have two lariats, but I've never thrown one -- I just like western things. Today (and maybe tomorrow as well) I'm going to try to build a scale that will hold ~200 lbs per side. That's going to be tons of fun. (We need the scale to measure the offerings... which we don't expect to be very large this year, but next year [and after] we hope to grow the church and our outreach.)

Also, Varmint 4 is due 15 July 2008. The only good thing about a C-section is the ability to pick the date of delivery (provided the baby cooperates and doesn't come early). My (74 year old) neighbor thinks we should have stopped with 2 kids (kinda hard when the 2nd pregnancy was with twins) and is constantly giving me a hard time about having a 4th child. (He's even offered to buy us another TV!) Yesterday I told him it was exactly 2 more Tuesdays until our 4th Varmint is due and my wife was somewhat nervous about the upcoming surgery, but excited to finally know if we're having a girl or a boy. His comment was something along the lines of, "Why don't you just ask them to install a zipper so the next one is easier?" It took me a few seconds to see the humor, but my wife thought it was funny too.

Lastly, my favorite (only) sister is going to visiting FL in the next few weeks. She's not sure when she'll be coming over to see us, but if I had to guess I'd think she'll do all she can to make sure it's after the baby is born.

And now I'm going to come up with a few different plans for the VBS scale, then see what I have in the way of parts & supplies, then attempt to build one...

Another (Normal) Busy Day

Time is just flying by; later today (5.30pm) we'll celebrate the twins' 3rd Birthday. (It seems like they were born a few weeks ago.) Before that happens, I need to mow (about 4-6 acres), help clean up the house, watch the kids (wife is teaching a piano lesson @ 10.00am), and set up a bunch of chairs for the aforementioned party.

As the month ends (the next 2 weeks), I know a few people that would like some painting & drywall work done. Then the first full week of July (7-11) is VBS. The 2nd week of July our 4th Varmint is due (Tuesday, 15 July). The 3rd week of July (21-25) I'm scheduled to go to Puerto Rico with my Dad and help put a roof on a Christian School. And the last week of July I'm supposed to help start a Mixed Martial Arts Class -- as the teacher! (Never mind the fact that Thursday night was my second ever self-defense class.) Additionally, our new pastor has asked me to train one of our members to take over my Sunday School class (6yo-12yo boys) so that I can begin teaching the teen/college & career class. At least I'm busy enough to stay out of trouble.

On the home stretch

I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel.

It takes us about 6 working days to "finish" one floor. We have to cover the floors, scrape off the popcorn ceiling, float the (concrete) ceilings in flat, strip the wallpaper, cover the base board and crown molding, texture the walls, paint the walls, and finally, clean up all of our mess. Today we're starting day 2 of the 2nd to the last floor! I'll be spending the morning on stilts: scraping popcorn and sanding ceilings before being able to get down (hopefully by lunch time), when I'll finish by carrying a 20 pound box of timed-dry mud over my head for the next few hours. Hopefully, we'll even have time to paint it before quitting time.-

Abstractions

Wow. Just realized there were only two posts in the entire month of February... talk about "Blog remission" -- I'm infected! So here's the short version since my last post:

My parents brought my last surviving grandparent down from the cold north for a visit. (The Varmints 3 used to refer to her as "Gate GeeMaw" but recently she graduated to "Gwate Gwamma" instead.) They left Chicago after last month's ice-storm to visit my sister in the mountains of N.E. PA... I'm not sure what the logic was there, but Gramma was sure ready to come see me in south Florida after 2 weeks in that inhospitably-cold climate.

Two humorous remarks from the Varmints 3 lately:
1. (To Gwate Gwamma) "It's OK that you sleep in here (my daughter's room), but you can't play with any of the toys."
2. (Another to Gwate Gwamma) "Are you too old to play with toys?"
3. (To each other) "He (or "she") won't let me share!"

Mom & Dad have decided at least one person needs to stay with Gramma from now on -- in addition to poor hearing (even with the hearing aids) she has frequent memory loss, occasional mood swings, and has trouble walking. This will be difficult for them, but is probably "do-able." (Dad will soon be on his way to Germany for another 2 to 3 month remodeling job for BIMI.) My wife and I enjoy having her here, so they may bring her down more often. She doesn't get around much, but she likes to sit on the couch and fold laundry... something we have an over-abundance of.

After a great two-week visit, we all left sunny south Florida last weekend (7th to the 9th of March) and traveled to Clearwater, FL. My parents and Grandma arrived in Clearwater on Saturday, left the Tampa area Sunday afternoon, and arrived in Chicago this (Monday) evening. They travel fast.

I, my wife, and the Varmints 3 left home early Friday, spent 2 days and a night in Clearwater (for the first-ever CCC ensemble reunion), went to some friends' house in Myakka City Saturday evening (WAAAY better than a motel/hotel stay), attended Sunday morning services in Bradenton, then attended Sunday evening services in Naples, before coming back home late Sunday evening. It was a whirlwind weekend for us. The kids were exhausted... unfortunately for us, their behavior showed it.

I've been working quite a bit to attempt to finish remodeling our church's missionary house into our new assistant Pastor's new home. It's mostly done now: the crown molding is up and painted, the knock-down texture is on the walls and ceilings (and has been painted), the tile and carpet are down. Other than touch-up painting, some of the door trim has yet to be painted and caulked as well. This week I'm attempting to finish wiring in the new outlets, lights, and fans in time for the house to be cleaned on Saturday (church work day).

Actually, I should mention that "assistant" Pastor was to be his title prior to the home-going of our current pastor of 34 years. At 5 minutes to midnight on the first of March, he left us. He was ready to go, but it's been difficult for his wife of 51 years. I'm sure it will be a very long year for her.

I've since been juggling church and work responsibilities while attempting to help her (his widow) as much as possible. We're not sure how well (or not) the transition to the new pastor will go, but we're planning to vote him in as Interim Pastor at the end of the month. We're not sure how long he'll be "Interim-ing" before we either vote again, or he changes his mind (doubtful). Hopefully, everything will go smoothly and with minimal problems... I can hope, right?

On a side note, I finally submitted a short story to a local paper for a writing contest. No surprise: I didn't win, but at least the process got my brain working for a few days. In the coming weeks I'd like to editing... well, maybe re-writing is more like it... it and seeing where else I can send it off.

So that's the current version of life in the Matt lane... never slow... rarely organized... and always changing.

In Pursuit of "Busyness"

Up until last week I thought I was busy. Now, I know I'm busy (i.e. don't expect an inundation of blog posts in the near future).

Two of us were splitting the preaching while our Pastor's been sick with lymphoma. Since I already taught the kids' Sunday School, Junior Church (Sunday morning), and King's Kids (Wednesday night), I only preach one service: Sunday Night. Prior to the Pastor getting sick, the other guy was only teaching during Sunday School (teens), so he's been preaching for the Sunday morning and Wednesday night services.

Last Friday afternoon I got a call informing me he had resigned from all church duties (evidently, it was too much work for him). The timing could have been better, but thankfully (after talking with the Pastor) he agreed to continue preaching and teaching until our new assistant Pastor gets here (hopefully later this month, or early in March). However, that still leaves me with my **regular duties**, as well as his duties as treasurer. I have yet to find any deposit slips from 2008, or any record of them, or even any offerings; there's one more place they may be (which I'll check tomorrow). At least I finally did get all of last year's church envelopes and a sample of a yearly giving record (not until Thursday, the 7th of February, though). These were supposed to be completed, mailed, and received on or before January 31st.

Needless to say, I haven't been sleeping much in the last few days, but I think I'll have them all finished by Sunday morning. Just hoping I don't run out of ink in the printer tonight...

And now... back to my irregularly scheduled workload...


**In addition to teaching 3 classes every week, my "regular duties" include running the church van route (before and after all services), keeping the church's 13 cows (long story) fed daily, remodeling the house for the new assistant and his family (+/-40 hrs/week), singing (or playing) a minimum of one "special" every Sunday morning (sometimes Sunday night too)... and trying to help my wife with our own 3 kids. As you can imagine, the "too much for him" explanation of his resignation didn't sit well with me.**

Back to work

Last Saturday, as our vacation was nearing its end, we went to visit my sister's family in Clarks Summit, PA. The weather was nice (clear & dry with light snowfall) albeit somewhat "brisk" compared to south Florida (windy with temperatures in the single digits & low- to mid-teens). I enjoyed our time there; I haven't been sledding in a few years and they have a nice little hill in their backyard (actually, theire entire backyard is a hill). The biggest unexpected highlight was learning to snowboard! I must say -- it's just as fun as it looks. I took a few minor falls, but sustained no serious injuries -- since I broke the 30 mile-marker several years ago, I've come to expect a few overstretched or pulled muscles every once in awhile.

Prior to Saturday, my vacation "exercise regimen" (excluding eating) subsisted mainly of sitting on the couch reading (or while waiting for my email to load on the wonderful dial-up internet connection), with occasional forays into pushing the kids on the swings, pushing (and riding) the merry-go-round, fetching wood & building fires (only in the fireplace), and brushing snow from the car before driving. The sitting and reading portion was approximately 75% of my vacation -- which I enjoyed immensely. Haven't done that in about a year -- since my Pastor got so ill.

After sledding and snowboarding at my sister's house for several hours, I "loosened up the gunk" in my lungs quite well, and started coughing a great deal. Since my sporadic coughing (every 10 - 30 seconds) was driving everyone (myself included) up the wall, I finally consented to going to a local clinic, where my "simple" cough was diagnosed as a highly probable case of "walking pneumonia" -- over $200 in fees and medicine, yet I still don't know for certain what ails me. Whatever it is, the rattling sounds of fluid are primarily in the bottom of my right lung. Based on my current condition and symptoms, it's likely I've contracted mild cases of pneumonia several times in the past. For some reason, the prescribed antibiotic and cough inhibitor have yet to work as well as the Mucinex DM did. I'm going to try supplementing them with it while working tomorrow (Wednesday). [Edit: It did help.]

When we arrived home, was quite disappointed to discover the lack of work completed on our current remodeling project. Prior to our departure for vacation, I worked several long days and late nights (knocking off between 9.30 & 10.30 pm) to be sure everything could continue unimpeded in my absence. I cleaned up all the work areas, put away every unneeded tool, insulated ceilings, ran wiring, and myriad other little things that anyone could do (yet I knew no one else would have the patience to do) then returned to find: only 2 good days of work were completed. During those 2 good days of work (that took one day less than 2 full weeks to accomplish) no trash was removed from the job-site, no needed materials were purchased, and the building supervisor is still refusing to talk to any workers beside me. I'm not sure what his problem was (is), and don't think I'll be asking -- for fear of losing my temper at his continued petty childishness -- perhaps I shouldn't expect so much of a supposed "mature" Believer. So after unpacking, catching up on some overdue web work, and eating lunch, I put in 4 hours of work this afternoon (Tuesday). I'd planned on mowing, buying cow feed, returning some unnecessary work supplies, and buying more, but it started pouring about 3.30pm, so I quit early.

My wife had a board meeting this evening for the local twins' club. Since I'm the webmaster, we're technically both on the board, but I don't go to the meetings: conversations frequently dwell on topics undesirable to me (the other members are all moms). Usually, the Varmints 3 and I have a good time rough-housing in the living room when Mommy is gone, and tonight was no exception. Around 8.30pm, after a dessert of Jello and a book-reading session (to calm them down) I finally put the 2 youngest varmints to bed, then lasted all of about 30 seconds on the couch before succumbing to a much needed nap. I'm not sure when Little Bear crashed on the rug, but I do vaguely remember him trying to cover my feet with the blanket before taking it to sleep on top of. We were still there at 10-something when my wife came home (she carried him to bed before struggling to wake me). Of course, I did forget the exertion of wrestling would cause me to cough more, so now I can't sleep. While "the gunk" settles, I decided updating the blog would be a good way to keep from disturbing anyone else's rest.