Werty's Quest: Painting

Werty has been working so hard to get our living room painted before my family comes for the holidays. He comes home from work, we eat dinner, and then he paints. It took three rounds of mudding and sanding to smooth out the texture on the walls. (That was the only step I could help with). Two coats of primer were necessary to cover the mud and dust - two different colors of primer, since we are using one light and one dark color in the room. Last night Werty finished the second and final coat of the lighter color, and I still like the color, so that's good. He will need to paint two coats of the red color. He put one layer of paint on the ceiling already, but he is planning on another coat of white and some touch-ups around the light fixture. I am not sure if the ceiling necessarily needs to be done before Christmas. But once we have the walls done, we can put up our Christmas tree.

BooBear loves the lights of the season, on Sunday he wanted to just drive around and look at them, and kept saying, "Yes, lights," which sounded more like, "ets, ites" but I understood him. So, I know he will be excited to put up our tree. This will be the first year he will really understand that something special is going on.

I still need to go shopping for his Christmas presents - what a horrible parent I am! I have a good idea of what I want to get him, but no time to get to the store. I hope they don't sell out before I get there. One toy set is from IKEA, so that has to be a weekend shopping trip. We have school all the way through the 21st, so my life will stay hectic for a while still. Last night I made the first inroads on getting the basement ready for guests, so that's progress, at least. My parents might have boxes piled up in one corner of the guest room when they get here. My intention was to sort through the boxes of stuff left over from the move, but I don't think there will be enough time. We decided it would be better to have a living room, than to have everything else perfect for the holidays.

Distateful

I can hear some of my former students chuckling...there are certain crude words and phrases which, though perhaps not swear words, are not appropriate in the classroom. One of my classes chose to replace one of the taboo phrases with, "It's distateful." And now I will always think of them whenever I say that something is 'distasteful.'

So, Werty was invited to be part of an octet in the program for the ward Christmas party. One particular song the choir leader chose for them is that I would call distasteful. It's supposed to be humorous, but it's so dated, and it draws it's humor from ethnic stereotypes.

Another member of the group objected when the jist of the song was explained to him. Werty was relieved, because he had the same feeling about it. But the choir director chewed the first guy out and convinced him to look at the music and give it a shot. So, the music was dropped off at our door this week. Werty and I each looked at it. Yup, it's as horrible as he feared. Each verse is sung in a different accent, the worst verse labeled "the mysterious east" instead of an actual country, and the verse consists of menu items from a chinese restaurant instead of actual words or phrases.

Last night, Werty had the chance to voice his concern to the other member who had originally objected. I was proud of him as I heard him explain that we are members of a worldwide church, and "as a worldwide church, I don't think a song like this is appropriate." (Yeah, there's a reason I married him.) Together the two of them are going to talk to the others in the group and get rid of the song. It's a touchy thing, with the choir director having picked it, and we have been in the ward less than a year and don't know very many people.

Everyone seems to know my husband and his voice - they gave him a solo in the primary program this year, they put him down for a solo on Christmas - he just wishes they would ask him instead of putting him down and telling him later...because it's hard to get music and accompaniment together that quickly when you don't know very many people in the ward. No, no one has asked me to do any singing. Let's face it, Werty is the superior singer with more experience, and tenors are more in demand that altos. Have you ever seen a ward that says, we have plenty of men in the choir, but we need more ladies...didn't think so.

Recovering from the Holiday

It was great to see everyone at Thanksgiving. We had a record turnout of 44 people at Bear Lake. It was nice that all the couples with small children were together so we could have quiet nap time everyday. Unfortunately, the room we were in had no actual door, so there was no way to put BooBear to bed, especially with people up cooking with the lights on - lights that shone right into our room. He's old enough to think that if people are awake, he is missing out on the fun. So, BooBear was up running around well into the wee hours both nights we were there. The second night he refused to be in our room, but insisted on being in the living room all night, sometimes snoozing on the couch. We had planned on staying a 3rd night, but after two nights of little or no sleep, we came home. BooBear seemed happy to be home and see his toys again. He even liked having mommy around, instead of just wanting Daddy (ever since Werty started working, BooBear only wants mommy when Daddy's not home, because he misses Daddy so much). Thankfully, by Monday, we were back on schedule for his naps/bedtime.

Saturday we spent the day raking up leaves - eight 39 gallon bags - and that was just the front yard.

Last night, Werty started attacking the living room again. YAY! He wants to get it painted and ready for the Christmas tree by Saturday. Won't that by great? Then we can pick out a new couch and loveseat set. My parents could have someplace to actually sit when they come and stay. BooBear will miss having the empty space to run around in, but he'll adjust.

Food Drive Madness!

Last Friday we had one of the craziest, most successful events I have ever seen at work. Food drives aren't usually "crazy," but this one culminated in teachers hula hooping, break dancing, lip-synching, celebrity impersonations, eating sardines, sumo wrestling in sumo suits, wading in rotten food (poor Dee, she has a thick mane of naturally curly hair, and they poured rotten nastiness on her head for about 3 mins straight), male teachers and administrators dancing in tutus, male coaches cross-dressing as belly dancers in imitation of one of our female asst principals to the tune "Dude looks like a lady," and the final event of one popular math teacher having his beard shaved by the student body president. During the shaving, students poured out of the bleachers to see up close - especially the 7th and 8th graders. I couldn't believe my little GT kids were instigating mayhem! Once the students were back in their seats, they finished the shaving. The assembly ran so long that 6th period was cancelled. The goal was 10,000 cans. Our school collected 14,000 cans - 6 tons of food for the local food bank. Here's a picture on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Provo-High-School-100K-for-100-Years/199825953402878

I heard one story of a student whose family is on church assistance, so didn't have any cans at home she could donate. She went canvassing around her neighborhood instead. The winning teacher had about 2k cans. I told my kids this year I was tired of being the only teacher with zero cans, and this year I turned in 74, half of which were from my ESL kids. Maybe we are a financially disadvantaged school. But our kids proved they could do great things.

Lucky We Didn't Blow Up...

That's what the mechanic told Werty this morning when we picked up our van. The gas line had a major crack in it, possibly caused when the dealership was replacing the fuel pump, since it was brittle with age. So, yes we are very happy the car didn't catch fire and explode on us. Paying tithing really is fire insurance sometimes. :P

Van Folks

We have become one of 'those people.' The van owning kind of people. Already we have moved beyond the 'ooh, look how much space there is in our new van' stage to 'time to take it to the shop to be repaired' stage. I understand this is a common experience when you are one of 'those people.' It worked for, let's see, 4 days, before the inside of the van started smelling like gasoline and one of the tires went flat. When we bought the car they said they had replaced the fuel pump and fuel filter. We didn't think to ask them if they installed it correctly...anyway, we got it pretty cheap, so it's no surprise we will have to put more money in it to make it happy. We are hoping to get the van fixed up, including new tires, to take on the road for Turkey day. But, it was an exciting morning today, what with my forgetfulness, and having to run back home in the middle of 1st period, leaving my class with my Aide, so I could 1. give Werty the only key to the van which was on my keychain 2. grab my parking pass from the van 3. take Boo to the babysitters, all so Werty could 4. drop the van off at the shop. Meanwhile, it's my first day back from having a sub for 2 days, so it's the usual 'where did my stuff get put?' scramble. Tonight Werty and I will relive our first date by watching the same musical we saw 9 years ago, except this time it will be at my school with three of my students performing. How fun!

Why I Feel Like I am Starving...

Went to the Dr. this week. My thyroid numbers were bad last May, well bad for me, but still 'normal.' This time, they were much worse. My TSH is now below normal, meaning the opposite - my thyroid is on overdrive. No wonder I have been feeling so hungry along with feeling sick. I lost 6 pounds in the last month, and I promise I am not dieting. I have to eat every time I get hungry, or my hands start shaking and I worry about fainting -- like this last week when I was passing out papers to my IB class at the beginning of the second period of the day and my hands were shaking so much I starting having trouble with the papers. So, I ate some yogurt, and felt much better. I am packing lots of snacks now to work, trying to eat things that have protein without tree nuts (which can be difficult when most 'protein' bars use oils from nuts as their source of protein) because I am NOT a nice teacher when I am hungry, Ddonn and Werty can vouch for me on that. The only good news is that the actual amount of thyroid in my blood is not at a dangerous level yet, so my Dr. does not recommend taking any medications - blockers - at this time. I will get my numbers checked again next month. Looks like Dec 14th will be a busy day for medical tests. :P