Sunday-What's new?
Annette 
Karen C
The new job is similar, still in Corrections, but I've opted for second shift, at least for a while. A lot of my recent dissatisfaction has been due to getting up so early in the AM. I'm definitely not a morning person, and the idea of waking up to NO ALARM clinched the deal for me.
I've worked with my new supervisor before, and I appreciate how she does her job. Not so the case where I currently work.
After a lot of soul-searching I realized that the reason I was so looking forward to retirement was not because I was tired of working, but that I was tired of working at my current facility. So, I'll give it a go, and hopefully will be content enough to work till I can take full retirement in under 3 years, instead of taking a penalty for early retirement. My options are still open, in any case.
I'm still planning on traveling, as I'll still have a lot of vacation coming, that I have to use up or lose prior to my actual retirement date. Never worry about that. I refuse to stop my trips. It's practice for full retirement!
Candy
Hope the showing goes well today, Margo.
We had a lot of wind and rain yesterday. As advertised, I napped a lot, but I did get one batch of blueberry/pineapple muffins made. They are yummy, but they are messy to make, because the blueberries pop in the oven. But so good. I'm going to have one with my coffee in a moment. Today, I'm going to tackle the chocolate zucchini muffins and the turkey rollups. I have so much deli turkey around.
Didn't do much else yesterday. Watched baseball ... the White Sox game was awesome ... they won 14-4. My lift recliner motor seems to be dying. It only goes up halfway. Oh well, it was a gift, and Paulette said it wouldn't last forever. I was just hoping it would last until February when I got my next income tax refund.
It's a strange weekend ... no calls from either my brother Gary or my mom ... they're on a road trip to my mom's family picnic in Iowa. I've been there once ... it's in Little Turkey, Iowa. (I always want to call it Turkey Run for some reason.) It's such a small town ... it's near New Hampton, which is a small town too. These are my mom's cousins from her mother's side. This picnic used to be huge, but most of the family is dying off so it's not as big anymore. Anyway, it's kind of lonely without having my brother to talk to ... my mom doesn't stay on the phone for long anyway.
I need to get coffee too. It's done brewing (Starbucks Casi Cielo ...yummy!) Have a good day.
This morning, I'm grading the last of my students' essays. Granddad and the babies are in the living room and the bigger kids are outside stacking fire wood. So, grading, then doing a little research, but mostly spending time with the grands and the son and dil. They are all going home tomorrow so I will be sad to see them leave but happy to have my routine back. I love, love the kids, but I swear, when they are here, all I do is mop, cook, wash, cook, bathe babies, cook, mop, sweep, fold clothes and it just never ends. I am afraid that when I go for weigh day, that I will not look good on the scales. I made mud cake yesterday for the kids and made it with all sugar free and low fat stuff, thinking, silly me, that I'd be able to eat some, but I dumped on it. Even though there is only a third of cup of powdered sugar in the entire huge bowl of pudding, that was enough for me to dump. Anyway, if I could eat sugar, that would be the thing for me to eat. The kids, by the way, love it. I put gummy worms in it so that when they were eating, they would yell out ewwww, I ate a worm. Okay, really gross but kids love gross.
you all have a good day.
How in the heck did that happen??? So it's my job to teach them how to write and to try to polish their grammar. No wonder I'm so exhausted during the semester.
Margaret
The other big shocker for me when I started teaching in 1971. . . I loved to read and write and thought everyone else did too. Guess what? Not only did some them not "like" it some of them would do absolutely anything to get out of reading or writing.
Pleasures for me, absolute punishment for them. I did manage to lure and reel some of them in. I think when they saw the pleasure that I got from both endeavors some of them gave it a try and found that they liked it. I know that when you don't read well it is hard for it to be pleasurable. And to me the way you become better at both is by doing both.
Convincing kids that a bit of time spent each day reading or writing would pay off big time was hard but at the end of the year most of them considered themselves better readers and writers than at the beginning of the year. Sometimes I couldn't see much difference but what the heck. If they thought they were better that was at least a step in the right direction. They were gaining confidence in themselves and their abilities.
Still want to teach an adult to read *****ally WANTS it. Really need to make time to do that. I'm sure there are some out there just waiting to get the chance.
Karen C
