A Rare Sight

I'm sitting here, annoyed by the sun right in my eyes at this time of day, when I here rain tapping at the window. Sun, rain, there ought to be a rainbow. I step out on the porch and see one of the boldest rainbows I've every seen, with a second, dimmer rainbow above it. The main rainbow arces  from ground to ground; the second rainbow goes about halfway up the sky. It's colors are in reverse order of the main rainbow.

I grabbed my camera and went out in the street to try to get a photo. Normally, I wouldn't have tried, because I know most rainbow photos I've taken haven't turned out. But this one was so brilliant, I think I may have gotten a good picture or two. Once I get my laptop back, I'll try to post one.

Be Prepared

Yesterday I took a CPR/AED/First Aid course at the hospital. It was a foggy morning and I left later than I had hoped. When I got to the hospital, I realized that I had arrived at the old hospital and the class was at the brand new hospital, which I had never been to and, further more, I had no clear idea where it was. I just continued to drive past the old hospital, and soon saw a blue sign with an H on it. I drove on and on, too far I thought, until the big hospital sign loomed up out of the fog. I turned in, parked, and went in the first door I saw. There was a piece of paper hanging up with "CPR" and an arrow on it. I went through one door and there was the classroom. People were inside, but the door was locked. I was early. There was another meeting going on. I still don't know how that happened.

Finally we got in the room. I turned out that my friend Linda and I were the only ones to show up for the class. The instructor was a friend of Linda's and a pretty funny guy. We had to practice with these dummies on the floor. Now I'm no spring chicken and my knees are not that great. I sometimes say that the reason I'm a teacher is that it enables me to have lots of little people around to pick up stuff I've dropped. But Linda is 20 years older than me. We made a pack to help each other up off the floor, so it worked out. I was glad when we got to the baby dummies, which we could do on the tabletop.

Linda and I went out for lunch, then in the afternoon we did the first aid part. Another student joined us for that part, but she must have been even older than Linda! Luckily no more getting down on the floor. But it was hard to stay awake after lunch. When I got home I started to feel all the aches and pains from moving my body in ways it is just not used to moving. And my knees are still sore today.

In two weeks I'll have the card that says I completed this course, which is required for Indiana Certification. One more step down.

I'm trying to get my house cleaned before Mary and Family visits next week. I'm also working on leveling books for my classroom library. In between naps. If you wanted to know how my doctor's appointment went, too bad. It was rescheduled to Monday.

Is the Universe Conspiring Asainst Me?

This morning, after running up to the doctor to get my blood drawn and then having breakfast, I had to get out and mow the lawn. I started on my usual route - street side, backyard, back, then the front - when I notice just how hard it was to push the darn thing. So I did something I never do, I let the mower stop to take a look.

Just as I suspected, the "self-propelled" part of my mower is broken. It is just one small cable that is not connected, but it needs to welded back together, a fix I am unable to make. So I continued mowing, using my own strength to push it. It is amazingly heavy when running.

As I mowed, I thought, "Is the universe conspiring against me?" My summer has not been going gangbusters. I've been sick (more about that tomorrow, after my doctor's visit) and haven't been able to get a good start on all my thousand summer projects, and what with the failure of the levy my future is uncertain, my laptop is out of commission, and now my mower is having issues. Woe is me, I thought.

Even though it is a hot day and you are supposed to let the mower cool down before you put it away, I didn't wait and just loaded the mower back in the shed. I was tired, and took a minute to rest on the back porch, standing with my arms resting on the rail. Seconds later, surprisingly, birds returned to the feeder. It was three common chipping sparrows, like this:

picture credit: http://www.roysephotos.com/ChippingSparrow.html

I stayed as still as possible to watch them. Two, it turned out, were fledglings. The mother, or father, would fly up to the feeder, take a bite, then fly down to the fledglings and feed them. After a while, the father (I can't help think of it as the father) hopped a little further away, gathering wild seeds or insects, or just letting the little ones be on their own a bit. One of the fledglings tried to fly up and land in the Rose-of-Sharon bush, but the Rose-of-Sharon is full and leafy, and has slender, unstable, twiggy limbs; and the little guy couldn't figure it out. So he flew straight at me and landed on a lower step. And still the family stayed around. After a bit, he flew back to the feeder area. The father flew to the middle of the yard and seemed to look right up at me on the porch. The little ones (not that little, really. If I hadn't seen them being fed, I wouldn't have guessed they were juveniles) flew over, one trying to land on the porch rail next to me. That was the point they all realized I was there and took off for the trees.

Somehow, this display of nature at it's finest helped me start to count my blessings. There is less yard to mow since the two houses on either side are empty and management is generous in mowing their yards. They weed-wacked around the fence as well. The nurse found a vein on the first try this morning, which is unusual with my arms. And we'll have the old levy in place this next year, giving me a whole year to get another job. I'm trying not to put myself under too much pressure on this one.

Trying to keep a positive outlook.

Dee

The FBI is on to me . . .

My laptop has a virus. It's the one where a page covers up everything else and tells you the FBI has locked your computer, and if you put in your credit card number, you can have it unlocked. Since I'm not a dork, I knew it to be a bug and took the laptop into the computer wizards at the board office. Poor smucks have to work summers.

I was at school when it happened, printing some resumes and stuff. I thought, I've got the iPad at home, I won't need to bring the other laptop home. Dumb, dumb, dumb. The next day I went back out to school and picked up this, ye olde ThinkPad. (hate the ThinkPad.)  There is just somethings that work better on a laptop - like typing. I posted that last post with the iPad, but I couldn't make it look like I wanted.

So that got me thinking, iPad or Laptop - which is better? First of all, the iPad COMES RIGHT ON. You pick it up or touch it and it is on AND connected. My laptop, I turn it on and walk away. When I come back, I tell it to connect to the network. I could fix this for the summer, but because it usually connects to two wireless networks it won't automatically connect to either.

The ThinkPad, on the other hand, I turn it on and go do a load of laundry, mow the lawn, read several chapters of a good book, then come back. It also needs confirmation to shut down. "Did you want to shut me down? Really? But I've been so awful good . . . " Shut down already!!

The iPad, on the other hand, shuts down if you look away for two seconds. You must keep touching the pad! "Oh, you're done? OK, goodbye." It is only not annoying because it comes back on so quickly. Well, it is a little annoying. The laptop shuts down when I tell it to. Of course, half a minute later I remember something I wanted to look up, and it is too annoying to start the beast back up. With the iPad, no problem. Wake up, answer my question, go back to sleep.

Blup-Bleep! The iPad just called out. Every e-mail, every game update, and the 'sleeping' iPad wakes enough to alert you. I had the iPad in the bedroom the other night, trying to get my riverboat loaded before it left my farm (yeah, way too hooked on Hay Day), and left it beside my bed. I woke frightened from a dream in the middle of the night, I think from the blup-bleep. It's weird to have something else talking in my house. And yes, I know I can turn off this feature.

Despite being called a laptop, I rarely use the laptop on my lap. I find it awkward. Especially when typing. I use it at the desk. The iPad I use wherever, including the bedroom, which is bad. It shows how addicting it can be. And, unless you have the clever folding cover (I don't), you must hold the iPad. I have propped it up on a pillow, but mostly I have to hold it, which can be tiring. (Is this a little petty? yes, I agree with you. After all, I have an iPad - I should be happy. However, this is a comparison post. Go with it.)

I miss my laptop. All my stuff is stored on it - music, photos, resume, links. It has my own special wallpaper. I hope it gets fixed real quick.

What type of devise do you use? What are its failings? good points? If you had your pick, in all the world, what type of devise would you like to have?

Celebrate

I forgot to post yesterday:
Happy Birthday West Virginia! We are 150 years old, the only state born out of the civil war.

And while sending birthday greetings:
Happy Birthday today to Lucy!
And
Happy Birthday tomorrow to Raiden!

For the Birds

I went to Ace Hardware today. Bought a trash can. All the time I've been living here I've just been putting my trash bag, naked as it were, out on the "curb" (no real curb, but you get the idea.) But I'm tired of picking up the mess.

Dogs? you ask. Raccoons? Bears? No. Crows. The crows wait in the trees until I go back into the house, then they fly down and tear open the bottom of the bag and pull stuff out. I've tried spraying the bag with ammonia and bleach, but they've not been discouraged. So, gonna try some durable plastic. It should keep them out.

The other thing I got was bird food. I've stopped using loose seed, and only use seed cakes. It makes less waste, thus attracts fewer rodents. Except squirrels. I've watched a squirrel hang by it's back feet to gnaw at the seed cakes in my feeder.

I saw this seed cake called "Hot Pepper." Most are, you know, "Peanut" or "Song Bird's Favorite" or "Orange." So, I thought, this must be the one that wards off squirrels. I bought one, just to try it.

I have a double feeder, just like this one.

Picture credit: www.birdfoodsdirect.com

 

I put the hot pepper one on the side the birds like to eat first, the side by the pole, and a regular flavor on the other side. I didn't see any squirrels this afternoon, but all the birds I saw actively avoided the hot pepper side. So, another failed experiment.

 

Meanwhile, I applied for a position at New Albany (near Columbus), mostly finished the on-line application for Fort Wayne, planted some flower seeds, and collected about a thousand eggs on my farm game. They still won't let me buy more sheep.



Summertime, Summertime, sum sum Summertime

Last day of school was June 5th, but it wasn't until last Friday, the 14th, that I finally felt that school was truly out. We had the "End of School Ceremony," or whatever they call it, on Thursday. It was rather sad this year, what with the levy failure. When they honored all the people retiring, I was thinking about all the other people who would be leaving within the next year.

Then last week I had Common Core training for two days. Finally, second and third grade is going Common Core. I feel like the last teacher on the planet to be starting with Common Core - "Everyone is doing it!" For those of you not in the know, Common Core are the new nation-wide standards. Most states just started the new standards for everyone all at once, but WV has been rolling them out s-l-o-w-l-y, a few grade levels a year. The reason is that our test isn't changing until 2014-2015, so idea is to continue to prep kids for the test they are going to take. But in trying to get a job in another state, this may count against me.

That left just four days to undo my classroom. Which would be more than enough, except I was going though most everything, deciding what was mine and what was Title 1 or belonged to the school. Just in case I get a job this summer. But last Friday I just quit. There was one whole section of shelves left to do, but I was too tired of the whole thing. And, anyway, I don't imagine I'll get a job this summer. Too little time to get my name out there, ya know?

And I'm finding it hard to focus. I get a couple of good hours in on the job search each morning (except this morning, since I chose to do this instead), then I feel the pull of Naptime. Yesterday I also spent a few hours labeling books for my classroom library, a job that will take weeks, I think. The rest of the time I spend playing Hay Day.

We got new iPads - for school. Yes. For doing school stuff. Like, I don't know. DIBELS. Except we're not using DIBELS next year, the license is too expensive. So we got new iPads for DIBELS just in time for us not to use DIBELS anymore. But with Common Core, there are a lot of performance goals, so I can use the camera feature to record that, I guess. I'll think of some why to use it. I guess.

So, anyway, as Tech Coordinator, I signed the iPad out to myself for the summer. Then I downloaded some games. Well, what do you do with your iPad? One is called Hay Day. It is a build-your-farm type game. I am totally hooked. If you are on Facebook, you can play this game too. Look for me as dmmabc at Twin Oaks Farm.

The game is a little disturbing, however, to one who really knows where food comes from. Bacon, for example. In real life you have to kill the pig to get bacon, not put the pig in a steam chamber. And why does fruit take so much longer to grow than grain? And how do they make a hamburger out of bacon? Plus, who would want a bacon pie? or a carrot pie? Why not apple pie? And why do the apple trees die after just three harvests? And why do you have to mix the grain together for so long to make animal feed? You know, they will eat straight corn or wheat or soybeans if there is no "feed." And why can't I buy more sheep? I want more sheep now!

But it is a fun game anyway. I just hope no kid playing it is getting his whole knowledge of farms from this game. Most farms do not have diamond mines.

Hi, I'm new here . . .

With the closing (maybe) of Xanga, I've come here to continue writing my semi-worthless ramblings. Over there I had the uninspired name of DMMeyer. I wanted a better name here. I tried a lot of names. They were ALL taken. I got out my Mother Goose book for inspiration. I tried a lot of names. They were ALL taken. Until I came up with this one. Hope you like it.

I am a teacher of a combined class of second and third grade in West Virginia. For now. Our levy didn't pass, so now I'm looking for another position. Hopefully back in the Midwest, where I'm from.

I read a lot, mostly children's books. I like to watch the birds outside my window. I have lots of sisters, some brothers too, and a growing number of nieces and nephews. That's my nephew Simon with me in my profile pic. My parents are still in good health even though my Dad is 80. Eighty! Can you believe it?

I like summer because I don't have to get out of bed at any given time; but I hate the heat. I prefer fall and winter. My favorite food is Yes, I'll have some of that. I like most music, except rap and opera and the dogs barking Jingle Bells (if you can call that music.) My favorite constellations are Orion and Cassiopeia. What's you favorite constellation?

Anything else you want to know?