Friday Fragments

Time for another edition of Friday Fragments hosted by Mrs. 4444.  And, today is a special day.  It is the 100th Edition of Friday Fragments.  Not my 100th edition, but hers.  Go on over there, say hey and congrats and let her know that I sent you!  For that matter, join in on this momentous occasion!

-- This is the last Friday of summer school.  I have to come back until about noon on Monday and then will be free to leave.  I am glad to be nearly done.

-- I am in the process of writing a letter to the school board in order to try to save my school nurse position.  Crazy Man thinks I am totally nutso to try to keep a job that has been causing me grief for the past several months.  But I just feel so strongly that all of these kids and the staff too, deserve to have a nurse available to them.  Do I think this will work?  No. I don't think that the district wants to have a nurse badly enough that they are willing to dig into their own pockets to pay for one.  It was fine as long as someone else was paying.

-- My dad is searching for a new job too.  I asked him the other day if he wanted to carpool to the unemployment office with me!  He just laughed.  His plant closure has been on the news because they treated them so dirty about it all.  I really don't know what we are all going to do with two of us out of a job at the same time.  We don't live together, but we try to take care of one another.

-- Next Friday, Crazy Man, The Boy, Little Little Brother and I will be flying to Hawaii for vacation.  I have thought long and hard about canceling this trip.  We have saved for 18 months for this.  And that money would go a long way to getting us all through until we can find new jobs.  But then I have been told that we have been saving for 18 months and it is a once in a lifetime situation.  I am just so uncertain as to what to do.

-- Had to order new checks the other day.  This is something that I knew needed to be done, but knowing that I had at least one book left, I kept putting it off.  Until I opened my checkbook two days ago and realized that I only had one check left.  Evidently I can't count, huh?!  At least that is what I told Crazy Man.  Now I am keeping my fingers crossed that the new checks get here before I have to start paying bills for July!

-- I am still not a reliable source of transportation according to The Boy to get him to a possible job.  And, everytime I go on a job interview and am asked this question, I have to laugh.  Maybe that is the reason I haven't been offered a new job!

-- I have been going to a Zumba class for the past few weeks.  It actually seems to be reshaping my body.  Of course it isn't drastic enough for others to see it, but I can tell how some of my clothes are fitting.  And it isn't the all fancy type of Zumba you see on those infomercials.  It might be except my body doesn't move in those directions!  So I guess I have been going to my version of a Zumba class!

-- Supposedly Boyfriend will be taking some family pictures of us this weekend.  Something my mom asked for.  Something I am not looking forward to.  I hate having my picture made probably as much as The Boy does!

Hope everyone has a good weekend.  Spend it those you love!

Regional Air Show

It is Thursday and I have more pictures that I wanna have people look at.  The only thing that has been done to them is to zoom in a little.  Other than that, no touch ups to be had.

What are they all from?  This past weekend, there was an Air Show at our little regional airport.  It was sooooo hot that day!  And unless you brought your own shade, there was none.  Unfortunately, The Boy didn't get to go with us because it was his weekend to be with the DNA Donor.

Anyway, the Golden Knights parachute team and the Blue Angels were the highlights of the show.  We got to the airfield around 10:30 in the morning and left around 4:30 pm.  It was a lot of fun.

I have been told that this is a Warthog.  Ok...if you say so!

If you notice, there is someone standing on the top wing of this plane.  Her husband is flying the plane in all sorts of directions and she is acting like it is no big deal.  Talk about trusting your spouse!

No, I did not flip this picture.  She is truly upside down.  Outside of the plane.  Like it is no problem.  Yeah.  She can NOT be totally sane.

This is called the Freedom Flight.  Or so I have been told.

This is a Corsair.  Not the best picture of the bunch, but I thought it was kind of cool how it seems as though there is no back ground to it.  Again, I did nothing to this picture except zoom in a little.

This is one of the Golden Knights flying in the flag.

I love this shot!

These are all six of the Blue Angels.

Another angle.

And, one more angle.

 

Don't look like the same planes do they?  I love how the sun has caught them and make them look like some sort of bug!

It is hard enough keeping the camera focused on the group as they blow by at 400 miles an hour.  But when they split like this, not only does the camera have a hard to focusing, but so do I!

I think I was really lucky to have caught these two making a pass at each other.  Sounds kinda dirty when you say it that way.....

They look like they are touching each other, but I have been told that they are about 18 inches apart.  Yeah, well, I will take their word for it because I refuse to be the one to climb up there and measure it!

Flight of Four.

Still not gonna dispute the distance between them!

This next one is my favorite of the bunch.  And I did take a bunch!  Over 1600 shots to be truthful.  I figured that I could get at least a couple good ones, and I think that I did.

If you look really close, you will see two pilots.  See them, one on top of the other?  Or at least that is how it looks, huh?  Yeah, I love this shot.

We had a really good afternoon.

At Least We Don't Have to Set the Alarm

It is official.  Or at least mostly.

My dad is out of a job.

I am out of a job.

Friday night, after having worked all day, my dad got a message on his machine saying that there was no need to return to work on Monday since the locks had already been changed.  He was to call on Monday instead to set up an appointment to come get his personal things.

Fourteen plus years and he is given two weeks severance pay and no notice.  At his scheduled appointment to retrieve his personal items, he was escorted in by an armed guard where he had to sign in with the time.  This armed guard then stood over him watching every move he made.  Once he felt he was done, he had to sign out with the time and the guard signed behind him.

He was so intimidated that after he left, he realized he had forgotten something and had to call back and ask that it be set outside for him to retrieve later.  When he picked that up, he realized there were a couple of other things that he had forgotten.  He is still trying to decide whether he is going to try to get those things or not.

Once he was there, he asked questions like when he would receive his last check and that sort of thing, but was told that at this point the company has no money so they don't know when they are going to pay them.  And, you can't sign up for unemployment until you have received your final check.

As far as my job, I got an e-mail on Friday from the state which I didn't really understand.  One of the other school nurses that I know from another district called me and told me that she didn't understand it either, so she contacted them.  What she was told was that the Governor decided to totally cut the funding for school health.  That means that my job is no longer funded by the state and if the school wants to still have a nurse, they will have to figure out how to pay for one.

The superintendent was out and didn't come back until today.  And, (gleefully I am sure) he came to tell me that he had called the state to ask a couple of questions.  He told me that he was told that all he could do was to contact his legislators and try to get them to change their minds.  He told me that he would contact them and keep me updated.

I asked if what he was saying was that I needed to find a new job, he told me that he would keep me updated since the legislators may change their mind and go ahead and fund it. 

I asked him if I would have a job here come August.  He told me that if the funding was definitely cut then I would not have a job, but he would keep me informed.

I told him that if I were to be honest, then I can't sit around and wait until the day before school starts and then be told that I have no job.  He seriously expected me to do that!  He also expected me to wait a year to see if the funding would be re-instated for the following school year!

This still has to be approved by the school board, but most of the time, whatever he recommends, they go with.  The worst thing is that I will be on vacation when the school board meets, so I can't even fight for my job in person.

At least my dad gets a severance and the vacation that he has saved up.  I don't get anything.  And, I have to finish working my 'volunteer' month.

Anybody have a couple of jobs for me and my dad?

Pictures

I know that I haven't been here in almost a week.  I finally got all of my reports for the state done and I have been working on getting things ready to go for next school year.  Add that to the fact that I am tired and my brain seems to have shut down so I don't know what to talk about....and I haven't been here for nearly a week!

Last week, several of the teachers that I am working with started talking about Zumba.  Have you heard of this?  I hadn't.  They were talking about going to a new class that was getting ready to start in our local community center.  Seems that one of the local news reporters was willing to come teach it to anyone who wanted to learn.

When I got home, I was flipping through channels and discovered a infomercial about Zumba.  I watched it.  And figured that there was absolutely no way that I could keep up with it!  However, it did guarantee that you could lose one dress or pant size in 10 days.  That intrigued me.  And, the more the girls at school talked, the more I thought I may want to at least try it.

So, try it I did.  And discovered that I am so much more uncoordinated than I ever thought!  But, I also discovered that it was kind of fun too.  And even though it was a lot of work, it was exercise and it didn't feel like it took an hour to do it.  In other words, I didn't dread it.

And I still don't.  I have been to four classes and actually am enjoying myself.  I still don't have all of the steps down, but I am still having a good time.  I thought that it would be easier with people that I don't know, but being with folks that I do isn't so bad.

There are six more classes that are scheduled that I will be able to attend before we head off on vacation.  I am keeping my fingers crossed that my body reshapes itself to look better in my summer clothes.  I don't know that I will lose the dress/pant size before leaving, but maybe tone up a little anyway.

Moving on.....

I have taken several pictures that I thought I would share.  They aren't anything special, just shots that I took that appealed to me.

This is Little Little Brother with Nephew's new puppy.

I am rarely able to get a picture of The Boy because he doesn't like to be photographed so he hides behind others or puts his head down.  He thought he was hiding here, but his momma is getting better!

Little Little Brother decided to try the 6 pound Burrito Challenge.  He ate just shy of a pound of it!  It was really fun to watch him.

We were at a military cemetary in Illinois a couple weekends ago.  Most of the headstones there were labled as "Unknown Soldier".  This was a look down the path between two lines of headstones.

I liked how the sun fell on these stones.

This tree is working on overtaking one of the headstones.

Crazy Man pointed out this stone that looked like the sun was shining right through it.

That is all I have for now.  Hopefully I will be better about being here next week!

Friday Fragments

I know that I haven't done this in several weeks, but today is Friday.  And that means that it is Friday Fragments time.  You can head on over to Mrs. 4444 to check out just how fragmented everyone else's week has been....after you finish up here of course!

I started to walk at nine months of age.  And I have known forever that despite walking so early in life I just am not a very coordinated person.  On Wednesday evening I discovered just how uncoordinated I truly am!  I attended a Zumba class with some of the folks I work with.  It was a total train wreck for me!  Evidently angels actually carry me everywhere that I go.  That is the only way I can figure out how I can get somewhere safely instead of tripping over my own feet like I did during Zumba.

Believe it or not, I am planning on going to more of the Zumba classes.  Hang on.  Let me consult a dictionary......  Yep.  I thought so.  Looked up "glutton for punishment" and found my picture there.

It has been really hot and humid here.  About time!  I really am not into being cold.  But this humidity really bites.  Especially when the temps are in the high 80s or low 90s....and the humidity is hovering around the same numbers.

We had our American Legion Riders shin-dig a few weeks ago.  It was a bomb.  Really.  It opened up and poured.  And not only did the rain get us, but another group just up the road planned on top of us.  I think we ended up breaking even, but all in all, it wasn't good.  We are going to plan again for next year though I think.  (Yep.  There is my picture again!)

The Boy is helping with summer school in the Pre-K class.  There are only about 19 young'uns in there.  But with that age, it really feels like there are twice that many in the room!  He is doing well (according to the teacher) and the kids miss him when he isn't in the room.  He usually has nothing to say about the whole experience, so I guess it can't be that bad.

I saw an ad in the newspaper that I dropped off my resume for on Wednesday.  When I got home, there was a message on the machine from them.  I am not sure I was out of their parking lot when they left it, asking me to come in to talk to them.  Not sure if that is a good sign or not.  Supposed to go talk to them around 3pm today.

Still having some issues dealing with the loss of one of "my" kids.  Tears will hit me out of the blue.  The Boy is starting to get used to it.  I am not.  If I am having such a hard time, I can not imagine how his parents are dealing with it.

Boyfriend and Boyfriend's Wife came out to the sticks for Memorial Day.  We grilled and visited.  Then Boyfriend and Crazy Man went out to shoot at targets for a while.  We had a really good time!  After we were done eating, Boyfriend showed me how to do a couple of things on Photoshop.  I am about as good at that as I am at Zumba if that tells you anything!

Crazy Man and Boyfriend are going on an Iron Butt Ride tomorrow.  They are supposed to travel 1000 miles within 24 hours on the motorcycle.  They plan on leaving around 5am I think.  I thought about riding with Crazy Man, but The Boy is with me this weekend, so I didn't want to leave him home alone.  That, plus the fact that I am not sure I would be walking very well (or at all!) after riding 1000 miles on the back of a bike.

We are slowly but surely getting closer to the day we leave for vacation.  Three weeks until we board the plane!  I can't get excited about it yet.  I am still afraid there will be something that will keep us from being able to go.  Or worse, something will happen when we get out there and we will have to head home too early.  I guess I am actually looking more forward to the day the plane lands rather than the day it takes off!  That way I know that we have gone and had a good time.  Crazy, I know.

The Boy had an orthodontist appointment yesterday afternoon.  The girl who is assigned to take care of him looks like she is about to pop.  Her due date is Monday, so she decided that yesterday would be her last day.  That means that one of the orthodontists himself will be working on The Boy.  Took a little convincing of The Boy to get him to agree to it, but hopefully it will only be a maximum of three times.

Have you heard the song "I Pray For You" by Jaron and The Long Road to Love?  If you haven't, you need to go here to see the video and listen to it.  It has made my list of favorites.

And that is the end of what I have to say!  Will see you back here next week.  At least that is what I am hoping for!  Have a safe weekend.  Spend it with someone you love!

I Heart Faces

The theme of the week over at I Heart Faces is "play". When I read that, I knew immediately which picture I wanted to show. It isn't all fancily photoshopped or anything like that. What you see is what I saw as I snapped the shot.

And what I saw was an uncle with his two nephews, all three with a smile.  Getting The Boy and Little Little Brother to smile was feat in and of itself.  But when I whispered to each of them to give Nephew a 'wet willy' on the count of three.....that did it.  Laughter all around!

And it does a body good to see and hear it!

Now, you need to head on over there and see all of the other playing going on!

Guess Who?!

Believe it or not, I have not fallen off the edge of the Earth!  I am still around, just not able to have been online for the past couple of weeks due to the fact that school finally dismissed for the year.  So how am I able to type this out now?  Because, unfortunately, summer school started today.

Many many things have happened in the past couple of weeks.  Nothing majorly important though!  What can I say?  I live a fairly ho-hum kinda life.  Most of the time that is a good thing!

As I said, summer school started today.  I was informed that I am required to be not only the nurse, but also the secretary.  And not receive an extra check like the rest of the staff who is working.  And, I am required to like it.  Yeah, well, that ain't gonna happen!  I may be forced to be here, but I don't have to like it.

The Boy ended up coming with me.  He is too old to actually attend, but I didn't have anywhere else for him to go.  The plan (in my mind) was for him to stay either at home or with Little Little Brother two or three days out of the week.  I was not overly thrilled with this option, but you do what has to be done, ya know?!  He had to come with me today because with an appointment scheduled this afternoon for him, I didn't have time to run home and get him.  But, things have a way of working themselves out I guess.  Our Kindergarten teacher has the class of little ones during the summer that she will be teaching next school year.  And this group is a major handfull it seems!  She asked if The Boy would be willing to come everyday and help her out.  I feel much better about this, even if The Boy does not!

I am in the process of looking for a new job, so if anyone out there reading this has need for me, let me know!  It would be nice if I could make at least what I am making at the moment, but more is always appreciated!  

At this moment in time, I still don't know if I have a job for the next school year.  I have heard a rumor that I was hired back "pending funding" but nothing has been officially told to me yet.  Of course that means that when the state cuts the grant funding that my creates my position, I don't know if the school is going to be willing to dip into their own pocket to keep me working in the district or not.  It will probably be sometime in August before I know.  I just wish they would make a decision since it is really hard to tell a prospective employer when I am able to start a new job.

I am not going to make this very long today.  I have a bunch of reading to catch up on and some reports that are due in a couple of weeks that I am working on.  Just wanted to let anyone who visits here know that I am still around.