Monday, September 06, 2010

Holiday Weekend

Labor Day was a most-anticipated holiday this year. Two weeks into the school year, ZBoy was READY for a holiday! He's loving school, but it's quite an adjustment after the rather freeform summer he had.

We kicked off Labor Day weekend with the 6th grade dance after school on Friday. Z begged me to come chaperone, and after much hemming and hawing, I agreed. I find chaperoning anything with young kids extremely tiring, noisy and headache-inducing. This, of course, was no different, but Z was thrilled that I agreed to come.



It was held in the school cafeteria - a lovely light and airy place, much different from the cafeteria we had when I was there. The moms set up the tables with decorations, blew up balloons and laid out snacks. The SGA sponsor turned on the music, and cranked it up LOUD. The Guidance Councellor waited until SGA left the board, then surrepticiously turned it back down to a lower level. This went back and forth a few times. When the kids were in there and holding their hands over their ears because it was too loud, SGA finally relented and let the music be turned down a little. It was still loud, though!

It didn't take long for me to figure out that I was ZBoy's safety net. If there was no one there to hang out with that he knew, he could hang with me. Which he did for most of the dance. He mostly stood around, but with about fifteen minutes left to go, he suddenly cut loose and was dancing up a storm. It was kind of funny to watch. He's a bit awkward and unsure of himself, but he worked up a sweat jumping and spinning and waving his arms around. It was great!

Saturday was busy. I finally cleaned up the bedroom and moved the bed back upstairs (by myself!). Decluttering and cleaning and building a new computer desk took pretty much all day. I was quite pleased with the results though, and have a lovely space to retreat to now.


Sunday morning found me waking to my cell phone going off. My friend Kelly had spotted a pair of chairs and an ottoman on the side of the road during her morning walk. Said they were just the kind of thing I'd love. So I grabbed Z and Darling Man's truck and we went to look. She was right! So we loaded them onto the truck and headed for home.

On the way, we stopped for breakfast at Bagel Bagel. We ordered breakfast to go, including breakfast for Darling Man.

Z wasn't totally awake, even after the exercise of loading the truck. I sent him to order some bacon for DM, and was somewhat surprised and taken aback at how big he looked standing in line.

We took our breakfast and our chairs and went home, where after we ate, we unloaded the chairs. I left the cushions out in the sun to air out a bit (they smelled very slightly musty) while I vaccuumed the family room. Then we put the chairs in there and they look great!

Kelly came over later for coffee and was thrilled to see them set up and looking good. Quite chuffed that she thought to call me too!
Dinner was at the inlaw's place. My mother-in-law cooked a leg of lamb because she remembered that I love lamb. It was delicious! We visited a bit, then went home. It was a very full "normal" weekend - but luckily, I had one more day and I could just relax!
So that's kind of what I did on Monday. I spent some time working on our second computer (very old, very slow - it's doing much better now), went grocery shopping and cleaned the pool. Not a terribly busy day, but I felt like I accomplished something.
And if you know anything about me by now, you know that my favorite days are when I actually accomplish some task that's been waiting to be done!
Back to school (and work) tomorrow!



















Sunday, September 05, 2010

Fun Monday - Learning Something New

I'm hosting Fun Monday for the month of September. If you want to look at the various topics, take a gander at the sidebar.

Today's challenge is to show or write about something you want to learn or learn more about.

I grew up speaking only English. In high school, we had a language requirement and for that, I took Latin. No, Latin isn't really spoken, but being the basis for many European languages, it has come in handy time and time again. When I went to see "Eat, Pray, Love" a couple of weeks ago, I actually understood Julia Roberts when she was speaking Italian. I always regretted not taking a language that could be spoken though and always thought I'd get around to it. I wanted to learn Welsh for a lark, thinking that one day I'd get back over there and be able to speak the native language.

As it turns out, I will be going to Korea long before I get back to Wales. My brother Matthew is living there, teaching English at a private school - and is about to marry a Korean girl. I'm going to the wedding.

I've never been to another country that didn't speak English. So I decided that I wanted to learn some Korean before I go.

Let me tell you - an Asian language is VERY different from learning a different European language. You can't even translate into an alphabet that you recognize. It is kind of a daunting task for such a short period of time. But I do have a little help.

First, I got this Korean in 60 minutes CD. I play it in my car. It has words and phrases and I can glean a lot of pronunication from it. The second item is a Rosetta Stone that my cousin Lilith lent to me. I think this may truly get me on my way - but first I have to buy a microphone/headset so that the voice-recognition portion of the program will work. I also bought "Complete Korean", which was put together by someone who actually has a degree in the Korean Language and teaches it now.

I've got my tools and I'm about to plunge into it seriously now that the all-time-consuming dealing with post-surgical husband and house and yard and childcare portion of my month has wound down. I have a little under two months to learn something - and I'm hoping it's enough to at least make a little sense and understand something of what is being said to me! The poor guy at the New Seoul Korean Deli here is going to get an earful of bad Korean for a little bit!

Now go see what the other participants this week want to learn!
Faye
Swampy
Joangee
CynicalGirl
Sandy
Bethany
Jill

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Fun Monday Assignment: September 6th

Hey, ya'll! I'm hosting Fun Monday for the month of September, so check back here each week for the new assignment. I've posted a list of them in my sidebar, but I'll also give you a little more specific information in a post.

This week's assignment is to show/tell about something you'd like to learn.

Fencing, perhaps?

School started again on the 23rd and my son is showing more enthusiasm about school than he has in quite some time. Curious, I asked him why. He said that there was a whole bunch of new stuff to learn now - interesting things like how to build a hot air balloon (shop) or how to play an actual tune on a drum (kettle drums) and about different cultures in the world. I don't know if it's the teachers or the different structure of middle school but he is fired up about going to school and learning!

Which made me wonder what I would learn, given the chance and ability. Think on it, and I'll see you back here on Monday! Sign up in the comments and I'll post a link to your blog.

The players so far:
Faye
Swampy
Joangee
CynicalGirl