Oh what a wonderful day..........

[thinkerlady[$]]

Ahhhhh---the temperature on our little acre of the earth topped 104 today. Ahhh it has been a good day.

Our really creepy neighbors moved today---ahhhhh----some other neighbors had a champaigne party now that they have left. Ahhh i---it has been a good day.

How has everyone else's day been?

My day was the pits!

I got to work at 5:30 this morning because there were some things that had been dumped on my desk yesterday at 2:30 that needed to be done by last Monday.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to work on that stuff because there was a problem with the project that I just finished. Everyone else who had worked on the project was taking the day off so that they could go to the Cubs game today. (I was offered a ticket to the game, but it was done like this: "Do you want to go to the Cubs game with THE GUYS? I don't think you do. I bet you would rather spend the day with your family than go to a baseball game with a bunch of smelly guys who just want to swill beer. You've already spent SO much time with them. I bet everyone that you wouldn't want to go.")

Ahem.....

Anyway, I was left holding the preverbial bag. I didn't get the mess sorted out until 10:30.

At which point, one of the owners of the company decided that he wanted to stop by to chat about how I felt about the previous project.



So finally, at 11:30, I started working on what I was going to work on at 5:30.

About that time, the guy who needed the stuff came in and proceeded to hover over me, asking me every 2 minutes, "Is it done?"

(No... of course not. It's at least a week's worth of work.)

This lasted until about 1:30 until one of the other company owners came in and wanted something totally different. "Oh, I hear your the graphics person now. I need an icon for my project. Can you get that to me immediately?"

(Sound familiar, Erik?)

That took about a half hour. Then the previous guy was back. "I don't understand why this is taking so long."

This from the guy who didn't know what a roll-over was!

About a half hour later, I gave him the first installment and said that I was going to be working on the rest of the stuff and giving it to him in installments. I then reminded him that I wouldn't be in tomorrow because my daughter's Drama Camp performance is tomorrow.

At that point, he said, "Oh no! That's not good! We need this for Monday. We promised the client that we would demo this."

(I looked and didn't see a frog in his pocket. I have no idea who the "we" was, because it sure as heck wasn't me!)

So I continued to work. At 4, I started to pick up the phone to call my hubby to see if he could pick up our daughter at camp at 6. Then I remembered... It's Thursday. Cheerleading practice.

Oh crap!

So I quickly grabbed my things and told the guy that I would be back tomorrow afternoon, even though I had planned on taking the whole day off.

I left at almost 4:30 and drove to the camp. Traffic was bad, so I got there at 5. Then I realized... they weren't AT the camp this afternoon. Because it's the last week of camp, they went to one of the big pools in the area for the afternoon. So I ran back to my car and drove over to the pool to get my daughter.

Then we stopped on the way home to get some ice (for the big cooler that I take to practice with us when it's hot) and bread. (My hubby called as I pulled in the 7-11 parking lot to warn me that our cupboard was bare.) Of course, there was an enormous line there. I've never seen the place so busy!

We finally got home at 5:35. I quickly threw some food together for our daughter. By 5:55, we were back out the door and off to practice.

Fortunately, practice was called early because a storm rolled in.

I got home just in time for the chat.

I am SO tired.

[conradd]

My day was good. The dean of the department I teach in (Business) stopped by my classroom this morning. I was a little apprehensive, since my teaching methods are sometimes unorthodox - today I gave my students a group quiz where part of their grade consisted on how helpful they were to each other. We spent this week going over non-parametric statistical methods and I handed them a bag of Archway Circus Animal cookies and asked them to test whether the pink and white animals were equally distributed and also to analyze whether herbivorous animals (prey) were more likely to have missing body parts than carnivorous animals (predators). He loved the concept, my students were enthusiastic, and he offered me another class winter term.

I got in an hour of walking at a local air conditioned mall and weighed myself at the nutrition store - found I'd gained a pound since last week. I managed to resist consoling myself with ice cream and drank water instead.

This is the first time I haven't had a conflict for an Epinions chat - logged in and actually got a question answered.

Despite the heat, my dog insists on sleeping in my lap - kinda like wearing a fur coat. My big box fan isn't working so I'm using a small hand-held model that redlass gave me last weekend and Harley is not amused - she snaps at it every time she wakes up (which is every time I turn the fan on).

Who's next?

Deb

[hypotenuse]

Where does Shaquille O'Neal buy his tennis shoes??

Did the shoe shopping thing today. Number One son who is only 12 years old and hasn't hit his growth spurt yet received two pair of shoes. Tennis shoes in a size 13, and dress casuals in size 14. That's as high as they go in most stores and I was lucky to find them.

I'm dreading next year already.



Lynne

[conradd]

Two words, Lynne. Outlet Stores. The Nike outlet store in Portland had a small selection of shoes up to size 15 the last time I was up there. The prices were reasonable too.

Size 14? and he's only 12?? You poor dear.

Deb

[ThePirateKing]

I'm about as anti-Nordstrom as you can get, but Nordstrom Rack is a good place to find shoes of unusual sizes.

[jaxmom28]

Shoes = eBay

I've had very good luck with shoes from eBay - all kinds of sizes and brands / designers / styles, and you can get some good deals, too, even on new, never worn stuff.

[taurusmoon]

Eastbay.com has a good selection of large sizes. And, they often have wonderful clearances as well. You can search through their inventory by size instead of by style. Saves a lot of time that way.

Sara
Thankful that her son has stalled at a diminutive size 13.

[jenninca]

Today was not that great of a day. For the past two weeks, I have been almost desperate for a single day without meetings, training sessions, or orientations so I could get work done on my classroom and lesson plans. I have put in 11-hour days every day this week just trying to get things done.

I got there at 7:45 and was supposed to have the entire morning yesterday to work. But then the teacher I took over for "dropped in" to talk to the other reading teacher and I how she managed to get the entire fifth grade to pass the reading TAAS test. It involved her telling us, "When parents tell you that you're pushing the kids too hard, you've got to be a b*tch and tell them 'tough'." (I can't do that. I just can't make myself push kids to the point where parents complain.) It also involved her saying, "This job isn't an eight to four job. Most nights, I was here so late that the police came to check on me. They knew me by name." Uh-uh. I don't think so. When she jokingly asked us, "Are you overwhelmed yet?" we both yelled, "YES!!!" I had little tears percolating in my eyes by that point. She talked for an hour and a half. There went most of the morning.

Then at 12:45, we had a staff meeting. At 4:45, it was finished. We didn't even get any potty breaks! At the meeting, we were informed that new teachers don't have to do the 90 inservice hours in five years that the district requires; we have to do 150 hours in five years. Plus, we have to do 30 hours of gifted & talented training THIS YEAR, which can be done in five "convenient" Saturday sessions! And this 30 hours doesn't count toward our 150! I worked on my classroom until 6:45, when I was too hungry to continue. I had wanted to have the classroom finished and textbooks distributed, but the room's not done and I haven't even gotten the textbooks yet.

Today, I have to finish the room, pass out the textbooks, do my lesson plans for the first week, and put the kids' names on everything (we don't get our class lists until this morning). Plus, I have an Accelerated Reader meeting at 4:30 and a meeting about the teacher assessment system (where we have to document everything good we do as part of our evaluation--oh joy, more to do). This meeting should last "a couple of hours."

At 5:30 tonight we have an open house. EVERYTHING must be completed for Monday by then. Which is why I'm sitting here at 6AM getting ready to leave even though we don't have to be there until 1:00.

To top things off, I went for a walk to de-stress last night and got lost. Wandered around for 20 minutes with no clue where I was.



Please wish me luck today. It's going to take some superhuman effort to get everything done.

Cindy

[taurusmoon]

Originally posted by jenninca

Please wish me luck today. It's going to take some superhuman effort to get everything done.

Cindy

You got it. Good luck Cindy.

Sara
Who had a day yesterday. Not good. Not bad. Just a day.

[pluckyduck]

My day was better than some (Grace! Cindy!) and not as exciting as others (Angie!), thanks for asking.

Biggest problem is my back,which I can't take time to rest adequately....and which is also keeping me from doing my stepping .

Other than that, I'm in the midst of working on some critical mail pieces, which alternates between being really tedious (pouring through data), and rather exciting (finding nuggets and pockets of people I haven't mailed to before and giving them a try).

L-O-N-G workdays. I worked until 9 last night, 8:30 the night before. Don swears that is fine with him, but he was so damn cranky when I got home last night, I wanted to hit him with a frying pan, just to put me out of my misery.

Thank God Grandma is taking the kids this weekend. Don is just spending too much time with them, and it's starting to take its toll. Next year we have to do summer camp.

Andrea
looking for the Motrin and the ice packs

[thinkerlady[$]]

Well folks, My head is still recovering from our champaign toast last night, but remember the creepy neighbors???

He came back to spraypaint a rather foul word on another neighbor's driveway. The slimey creature wasn't seen, and now technically got away with it.

I was at a workshop all day, my daughter saw the work of art and got very upset. She called another neighbore because the people whose driveway got decorated are out of town. The police were called and a report was filed, but without a specific id, nothing can be done. We are all on the look out that this kook will be back.

I feel badly that the driveway has been defaced. We live in a nice, quiet middle class neighborhood. Most of us act like adults, most of the time. This slaps at all of us.

[jenninca]

I am glad to report that today was MUCH better than yesterday. I got to work at 7:15 and was able to get a lot of work done before others showed up. I met the kids and they seemed like a normal enough bunch, despite some of the horror stories I've been hearing. Best of all, both meetings were cancelled!!!!

Cindy