I can officially agree with the saying "I am sick and tired of being sick and tired".
It's something that I suppose has been creeping up for awhile, likely about the past 6 months, but just kind of came to a head about a week and a half ago.
Last Tuesday, I found myself exhausted to the point that simple things like walking up 13 stairs or putting a few plates away left me panting and weak as anything. I also had a headache that had lasted about 2 days, with no relief in sight, despite efforts to stop it. So I grudgingly headed off to the doctor on Wednesday morning.
Anyone who knows me knows that going to the doctor ranks right up there with an enema. I hate going and would do pretty much anything to avoid going. Especially since it seems like every time I go, they find NOTHING wrong with me.
Not this time.
I sat on the little table and told my little tale of woe. He hooked me up to the blood pressure monitor and lo and behold, I had a pressure of 152/100. Not good. At all. I knew in the back of my mind that I should have been watching it better. The last time I went for a basic check up, the doctor said it was high. But I figured I'd do it by myself, just get it down, no problem. Guess not.
So he put me on a prescription and had me go for blood and urine tests. Took the tests Wednesday night. I got a call Saturday afternoon. I needed to come back in to see him about the results. He would be there Sunday afternoon. Great. I had been told the ONLY reason I'd get that call was if they found something. So I had roughly 24 hours to stew over what on earth was wrong with me, what had they found.
Meanwhile I was still not feeling any better, despite my blood pressure decreasing nicely each day. Energy levels were at 5% at best, dizzy as all anything...not nice.
Sunday night, there I sat, back on the little table. My cholesterol is high. This is not only a problem in itself, but of course, that will help cause high blood pressure and do I want to die of a heart attack. Of course not. I'm 34. Anyway.
Also, my iron is practically non-existent. Have I been having any issues with you-know-what? Well...yes...for about 6 months, I guess.
This little meeting lands me three more prescriptions and a referral to a specialist. Meaning I am now having to take a total of 4 prescriptions...5 pills a day, at various different times. Believe me, that was the night I created a checklist chart, to help remember what to take when and to keep track of whether or not I had in fact taken them yet.
Bounce forward to Wednesday morning. I get a call from the specialist's office. Can I come in on Friday morning? You betcha. So I pencil in the appointment.
Today I check out the address on Google maps to make sure I know where I am going, and also check into this specialist's name. Now I am unhappy.
I am finally starting to get some energy back (I'd say I'm at about 25%), so that's good. My issue is with what tomorrow will bring. You see, the doctor is an ob/gyn. And the doctor is a man.
I have a slight inkling of how invasive this appointment will be. We are talking pap, we are talking taking inner flesh samples, possibly ultrasounds and/or little cameras and/or who knows what else. As it is, I am ultra-uncomfortable with the whole concept and will run screaming at every opportunity from most of the above....but the fact that it will be a man performing such personal actions makes it that much worse.
My hubby says I am being silly, that if he were in my situation, he would be just fine because the specialist is qualified and such....but I don't think he has any right to say such a thing unless he is in a similar situation. I know the specialist is qualified. I know there is nothing "wrong" in it....but I really wish it could be a woman, you know, someone who could identify personally with the whole process and all the body parts involved.
I am definitely looking forward to the end of all this...the point when all issues have been identified, everything has been treated to satisfaction, and I have recovered all my energy and well-feeling-ness. But tomorrow will be a toughie.I don't know what is wrong with that part of me.
And I am scared.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Home Renos
We have been under siege the last month or so...thanks to a very kind grandmother, we have had a pile of renovations done to our house.
It has been, to put it mildly, a nuthouse.
But we are very, very pleased with the results. We started out with the driveway looking like this:
Then we had rubber paving done, which took about a week, maybe a day or two more. So our house and driveway looked like this:
Very nice, but the siding was wood, the paint was peeling, and we needed new gutters and soffits, as well as windows. That was another week and a half. They worked very, very hard and did an amazing job, as you can see in these progressive pictures:
I really like the colour I chose for the house. :)
Isn't it beautiful?
Once that was all done, we had our living room, hallway, and one bedroom floors redone. The carpet was a medium grey, short pile. Original one, I suspect, so it would have been my age...and was FULL of stains that would not come out. The bedroom was a nice green, but a cat was accidentally shut in there and not only soiled it all over but he dug a hole right through it, trying to get out while we were away. I don't have photos yet, but it is now a beautiful dark brown wood laminate.
The poor animals don't know what to think. It's like watching curling some days, they come roaring up the stairs, hit the floor, and sliiiiiiiiiiiide all the way across the room. :-D
When we can afford it, I think our next big project will be the back fence. It needs a makeover. Badly.
It has been, to put it mildly, a nuthouse.
But we are very, very pleased with the results. We started out with the driveway looking like this:
Then we had rubber paving done, which took about a week, maybe a day or two more. So our house and driveway looked like this:
Very nice, but the siding was wood, the paint was peeling, and we needed new gutters and soffits, as well as windows. That was another week and a half. They worked very, very hard and did an amazing job, as you can see in these progressive pictures:
I really like the colour I chose for the house. :)
Isn't it beautiful?
Once that was all done, we had our living room, hallway, and one bedroom floors redone. The carpet was a medium grey, short pile. Original one, I suspect, so it would have been my age...and was FULL of stains that would not come out. The bedroom was a nice green, but a cat was accidentally shut in there and not only soiled it all over but he dug a hole right through it, trying to get out while we were away. I don't have photos yet, but it is now a beautiful dark brown wood laminate.
The poor animals don't know what to think. It's like watching curling some days, they come roaring up the stairs, hit the floor, and sliiiiiiiiiiiide all the way across the room. :-D
When we can afford it, I think our next big project will be the back fence. It needs a makeover. Badly.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Hoarders
Has anyone else seen the show on TLC, called Hoarders?
I started watching this a few months ago, and had to come to a few tough realizations about myself.
Hello, my name is Deborah, and I am a hoarder.
Thankfully I have not reached the level that the people on this show reach by the time they are on camera, but I must admit, looking around, and watching the show, not only could I see that I had become one of THEM, but, boy, could I empathize with them. I knew exactly how they felt as they dug through their piles of belongings, trying desperately to figure out what to keep, and what to let go of.
A few months ago, my husband convinced me to essentially take a dare...if I could fill up a dumpster that he would arrange to have dropped off in our driveway for a week...a 14 foot one..he would get plane tickets for myself and the kids to go on a flight to visit a dear friend of mine.
It was a painful week, in some ways, but also a good week. We did manage to fill up the dumpster, and, to my shock and horror, even after getting rid of (no joke) a literal tonne of stuff, we still have a LOT of stuff in the house that I am constantly having to clean up, sort, or hide away. I am trying hard to keep at it, to learn to let go of things....but it's really hard when everything either has a use, a memory, or an emotional attachment.
I have several rooms that I have managed to keep somewhat under control lately, but there are a lot of rooms that, well, still need a lot of work.
That week was painful in shock waves, too...there was the initial getting-rid-of-useful-stuff painfulness, then the pain of Son realizing he had mistakenly put a favourite book in there, moments after they had hauled it away...and then several weeks later, the realization that in getting rid of a bunch of old VHS tapes that had stuff we had recorded on them, I had accidentally gotten rid of the one that had Daughter's baby videos on it. That one still hurts, but I know in the big picture, the main thing is that I have Daughter...and the memories are there in my head. I just wish I could have shown HER the videos.
In any case...that is my current challenge...to finish what I started and not get discouraged. Bit by bit, I'm hoping to sort through the entire house, including those scary spots that have ended up being danger zones...you know...the walk-in closet where everything gets shoved just before company arrives, the little cupboard where all the stuff goes "until I find a proper place for it"...places like that.
Wish me luck. Eventually, I will get a handle on this, and then maybe I won't have to clean for 4 hours a day, just to turn around and find it's all messed up again.
I started watching this a few months ago, and had to come to a few tough realizations about myself.
Hello, my name is Deborah, and I am a hoarder.
Thankfully I have not reached the level that the people on this show reach by the time they are on camera, but I must admit, looking around, and watching the show, not only could I see that I had become one of THEM, but, boy, could I empathize with them. I knew exactly how they felt as they dug through their piles of belongings, trying desperately to figure out what to keep, and what to let go of.
A few months ago, my husband convinced me to essentially take a dare...if I could fill up a dumpster that he would arrange to have dropped off in our driveway for a week...a 14 foot one..he would get plane tickets for myself and the kids to go on a flight to visit a dear friend of mine.
It was a painful week, in some ways, but also a good week. We did manage to fill up the dumpster, and, to my shock and horror, even after getting rid of (no joke) a literal tonne of stuff, we still have a LOT of stuff in the house that I am constantly having to clean up, sort, or hide away. I am trying hard to keep at it, to learn to let go of things....but it's really hard when everything either has a use, a memory, or an emotional attachment.
I have several rooms that I have managed to keep somewhat under control lately, but there are a lot of rooms that, well, still need a lot of work.
That week was painful in shock waves, too...there was the initial getting-rid-of-useful-stuff painfulness, then the pain of Son realizing he had mistakenly put a favourite book in there, moments after they had hauled it away...and then several weeks later, the realization that in getting rid of a bunch of old VHS tapes that had stuff we had recorded on them, I had accidentally gotten rid of the one that had Daughter's baby videos on it. That one still hurts, but I know in the big picture, the main thing is that I have Daughter...and the memories are there in my head. I just wish I could have shown HER the videos.
In any case...that is my current challenge...to finish what I started and not get discouraged. Bit by bit, I'm hoping to sort through the entire house, including those scary spots that have ended up being danger zones...you know...the walk-in closet where everything gets shoved just before company arrives, the little cupboard where all the stuff goes "until I find a proper place for it"...places like that.
Wish me luck. Eventually, I will get a handle on this, and then maybe I won't have to clean for 4 hours a day, just to turn around and find it's all messed up again.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Springtime Fun
I realize I have an on-again-off-again relationship with my blog. Part of it, I suppose, is that there are so many things that go on in life, that time just passes by in a blur sometimes, and you find yourself, months later, going "ohhhh yeaaahhhh....I have a BLOG!"
In any case....here I am once again.
Last month, Daughter and I once again ran the 5km I Love Regina Run. Or I suppose I should say, she ran it, I kind of chugged along behind. I figure she finished at least 5 minutes ahead of me, and I clocked in at about the same as last year....about 45 minutes, though I can't prove it because their timer was broken....I was just going by what my clock said, not knowing for sure exactly what moment the run began (9:00...9:05...8:55...). She did really well, considering we really didn't train at all this spring, with it being cold and snowy and rainy pretty much the whole time preceding the run. I, on the other hand, am proud of myself for finishing, and for never stopping my slow jog at all, except to retie a shoe. On the downside, I know full well that I jog r-e-a-l-l-y slowly...I was passed by a few walkers (as in, people who were walking....I am at least faster than people using the equipment by that name). Ah well. Next year we will attempt it once more, and hopefully I will be a good deal lighter and much more in shape, so will have less luggage to haul along with me, and be able to step things up a bit.
Now that spring is FINALLY in the air, and things are growing (such as my strawberry plants, raspberry bush, crabapples, and more dandelions than the mind can imagine), we have been able to get out and have some fun. For example, this weekend, we loaded up the van with a multitude of camping gear and the dog, and took the kids down to Carnduff for a geocaching event. It was raining on the drive down, so we were somewhat nervous about the weather we would be out in, but it turned out to probably be the best possible weather....cloudy, but not rainy, and not hot and sunny.
We set up our three tents, looking for all the world like a new version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears (we had a small tent, a medium tent, and a large tent) in the smallest campground I have ever seen. It actually worked out really well because there was a larger one down the road, which was therefore more appealing to others and which meant we more or less had the place to ourselves. There were 12 plots, and we took up about 1 1/4. There were two campers and one other tent the entire time we were there....and as far as I could figure, one camper and one tent belonged to the guys who were renovating the bathrooms (kudos to them for timing their work during the day so there was at least one toilet available and getting done before bedtime), and the other camper belonged to someone who worked at the convenience store on the other side of the trees. In that sense, it was a nice, quiet time on the campground. I must admit nighttime was not all THAT quiet, being close to the main road and having one night where some drunken revellers parked their truck just on the other side of the trees by the convenience store...but at dusk and dawn you could hear the birds singing and with so few campers it was a peaceful, non-crowded time. No frills, but didn't really need them.
Anyway...geocaching...it was a great weekend. We picked the kids up from school and headed straight out, with food that required no prep or refrigeration (except that night's supper, which had been removed from the fridge and was consumed very quickly during the drive....one of those Superstore chicken meals, split up into individual containers so I could just hand them out). I think it was about a 3 1/2 hour trip down there. We set up our tents around 8PM or so and just relaxed for the night.
Saturday morning, we were up early. About 6AM, though Son and I were up around 5. Breakfast was cinnamon buns and juice (and kibble for the dog). At 7:45AM, we met at someone's house for a Flash Mob, and to get the coordinates for all the caches that had been released that morning (I think there were 12). 8AM and we were off. We had also loaded the coordinates of all the old caches, since we had never been to Carnduff before. We raced all around the area, to farms, through fields, into parks, up the highways, and had a blast. Our first cache of the day, two other teams had beaten us there, but our second attempt netted us an FTF (First To Find), and we were thrilled. Our next two attempts at caches, we arrived at about the same time as another team (same team, both times). We searched and searched for the first of the two, with no success, until one of the other team almost accidentally shifted something....and found it. We were so close, but they got the FTF. The second one was hilarious...we took different dirt roads, and we got there moments before they did. They went roaring down their road about 100 metres too far, reversed and roared to the spot, while we parked, jumped out, and absolutely RACED through a grassy field (like, knee high grass), laughing so hard we could hardly breathe, squealing, trying to get there first. Both teams searched like mad, but in the end, they got that FTF as well...I must have touched it with my hand but not realized it because they found it in a spot I had checked. Oh well.
We found one cache where we ended up off-roading in a minivan, bumping through a field, next to a herd of cows (they were fenced separately), and through a section of grass later on in the off-roading that was up to the hood of the van. We had a blast!!!
Yes, we did end up with a few passengers during the day...I think I had the worst of it, with 4 or 5 ticks at last count..but we found them and evicted them before they really latched on.
We started caching, as I said, about 8AM. We took about an hour break for lunch (amazing what you can find to pack for meals that doesn't need refrigeration)...individual tuna and cracker packs, juice, strawberries...and had a bit of a rest, then headed out again, caching until about 4:30PM. We managed to log 20 caches for the day...a best for us, in terms of being out as a family unit. Hubby logged something like 25 once, when he was out all by himself in a fairly cache-dense area of Ontario.
At 5PM, all the cachers who came for the event returned to the location of the Flash Mob for a potluck BBQ. Prizes were handed out for FTFs (we got a new cache container), and lots of door prizes were given out. Caching stories were exchanged and suggestions for people to attend other caching events were given (there are some pretty cool places and events apparently in Manitoba and in the south (like Arizona) that would be interesting to attend one year).
We returned to our tents around 6:30PM and relaxed for the rest of the evening. Slept like the dead and then got up at 6 this morning, tore down our camp, ate muffins and juice, and left the campsite around 7:15AM. We arrived home at around 11AM. It was sunny when we woke up, so it was really nice for taking the tents down.
In other news, I did manage to get myself onto a School Board sub list....not the one where I live, but an outlying one, so although I have to drive 30-60 minutes each way to sub, at least in time it should give me enough experience to make my local board happy and get them to hire me...maybe by early 2011. I've only subbed a grand total of 1.5 days so far, (I need 2 months' worth, full time, to be considered by the local Board) but in the Fall, I will be able to sub full days, which will help not only increase the time I will be in the schools with each call, but increase the calls as well.
And my parents got a new dog. Her name is Polar. Isn't she cute? :)
In any case....here I am once again.
Last month, Daughter and I once again ran the 5km I Love Regina Run. Or I suppose I should say, she ran it, I kind of chugged along behind. I figure she finished at least 5 minutes ahead of me, and I clocked in at about the same as last year....about 45 minutes, though I can't prove it because their timer was broken....I was just going by what my clock said, not knowing for sure exactly what moment the run began (9:00...9:05...8:55...). She did really well, considering we really didn't train at all this spring, with it being cold and snowy and rainy pretty much the whole time preceding the run. I, on the other hand, am proud of myself for finishing, and for never stopping my slow jog at all, except to retie a shoe. On the downside, I know full well that I jog r-e-a-l-l-y slowly...I was passed by a few walkers (as in, people who were walking....I am at least faster than people using the equipment by that name). Ah well. Next year we will attempt it once more, and hopefully I will be a good deal lighter and much more in shape, so will have less luggage to haul along with me, and be able to step things up a bit.
Now that spring is FINALLY in the air, and things are growing (such as my strawberry plants, raspberry bush, crabapples, and more dandelions than the mind can imagine), we have been able to get out and have some fun. For example, this weekend, we loaded up the van with a multitude of camping gear and the dog, and took the kids down to Carnduff for a geocaching event. It was raining on the drive down, so we were somewhat nervous about the weather we would be out in, but it turned out to probably be the best possible weather....cloudy, but not rainy, and not hot and sunny.
We set up our three tents, looking for all the world like a new version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears (we had a small tent, a medium tent, and a large tent) in the smallest campground I have ever seen. It actually worked out really well because there was a larger one down the road, which was therefore more appealing to others and which meant we more or less had the place to ourselves. There were 12 plots, and we took up about 1 1/4. There were two campers and one other tent the entire time we were there....and as far as I could figure, one camper and one tent belonged to the guys who were renovating the bathrooms (kudos to them for timing their work during the day so there was at least one toilet available and getting done before bedtime), and the other camper belonged to someone who worked at the convenience store on the other side of the trees. In that sense, it was a nice, quiet time on the campground. I must admit nighttime was not all THAT quiet, being close to the main road and having one night where some drunken revellers parked their truck just on the other side of the trees by the convenience store...but at dusk and dawn you could hear the birds singing and with so few campers it was a peaceful, non-crowded time. No frills, but didn't really need them.
Anyway...geocaching...it was a great weekend. We picked the kids up from school and headed straight out, with food that required no prep or refrigeration (except that night's supper, which had been removed from the fridge and was consumed very quickly during the drive....one of those Superstore chicken meals, split up into individual containers so I could just hand them out). I think it was about a 3 1/2 hour trip down there. We set up our tents around 8PM or so and just relaxed for the night.
Saturday morning, we were up early. About 6AM, though Son and I were up around 5. Breakfast was cinnamon buns and juice (and kibble for the dog). At 7:45AM, we met at someone's house for a Flash Mob, and to get the coordinates for all the caches that had been released that morning (I think there were 12). 8AM and we were off. We had also loaded the coordinates of all the old caches, since we had never been to Carnduff before. We raced all around the area, to farms, through fields, into parks, up the highways, and had a blast. Our first cache of the day, two other teams had beaten us there, but our second attempt netted us an FTF (First To Find), and we were thrilled. Our next two attempts at caches, we arrived at about the same time as another team (same team, both times). We searched and searched for the first of the two, with no success, until one of the other team almost accidentally shifted something....and found it. We were so close, but they got the FTF. The second one was hilarious...we took different dirt roads, and we got there moments before they did. They went roaring down their road about 100 metres too far, reversed and roared to the spot, while we parked, jumped out, and absolutely RACED through a grassy field (like, knee high grass), laughing so hard we could hardly breathe, squealing, trying to get there first. Both teams searched like mad, but in the end, they got that FTF as well...I must have touched it with my hand but not realized it because they found it in a spot I had checked. Oh well.
We found one cache where we ended up off-roading in a minivan, bumping through a field, next to a herd of cows (they were fenced separately), and through a section of grass later on in the off-roading that was up to the hood of the van. We had a blast!!!
Yes, we did end up with a few passengers during the day...I think I had the worst of it, with 4 or 5 ticks at last count..but we found them and evicted them before they really latched on.
We started caching, as I said, about 8AM. We took about an hour break for lunch (amazing what you can find to pack for meals that doesn't need refrigeration)...individual tuna and cracker packs, juice, strawberries...and had a bit of a rest, then headed out again, caching until about 4:30PM. We managed to log 20 caches for the day...a best for us, in terms of being out as a family unit. Hubby logged something like 25 once, when he was out all by himself in a fairly cache-dense area of Ontario.
At 5PM, all the cachers who came for the event returned to the location of the Flash Mob for a potluck BBQ. Prizes were handed out for FTFs (we got a new cache container), and lots of door prizes were given out. Caching stories were exchanged and suggestions for people to attend other caching events were given (there are some pretty cool places and events apparently in Manitoba and in the south (like Arizona) that would be interesting to attend one year).
We returned to our tents around 6:30PM and relaxed for the rest of the evening. Slept like the dead and then got up at 6 this morning, tore down our camp, ate muffins and juice, and left the campsite around 7:15AM. We arrived home at around 11AM. It was sunny when we woke up, so it was really nice for taking the tents down.
In other news, I did manage to get myself onto a School Board sub list....not the one where I live, but an outlying one, so although I have to drive 30-60 minutes each way to sub, at least in time it should give me enough experience to make my local board happy and get them to hire me...maybe by early 2011. I've only subbed a grand total of 1.5 days so far, (I need 2 months' worth, full time, to be considered by the local Board) but in the Fall, I will be able to sub full days, which will help not only increase the time I will be in the schools with each call, but increase the calls as well.
And my parents got a new dog. Her name is Polar. Isn't she cute? :)
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Busy-ness and Business
It has once again been quite awhile since I posted. I have this terrible habit of thinking to myself "I really should share that on my blog", and then completely forgetting.
In expectation of returning to work in the fall, I contacted my children's school, to see if I could volunteer, you know, kind of get my name known, my foot in the door, since it has been awhile since I was last a teacher. The principal was thrilled but suggested I try applying right away to become a substitute, as they are DESPERATE for French Immersion subs. So I figured, hey, why not, and contacted the head honcho of subbing (not her actual title, but you know what I mean). I was told that I would not be considered for the sub list unless I got more experience, since I have been a stay-at-home mom for 9 years. Talk about your catch-22 situation...I can't get the job because I need more recent experience, but I can't get that experience if I can't get the JOB!!! So I have begun volunteering at the school. I have a feeling it will not do me any good, as the teachers don't really have me doing much rigorous teaching. Mostly just reading with the kids, evaluating their reading, and in some cases helping them learn their alphabet and letter sounds. But I will do it to the end of the school year, just in case. And I have also applied to a school board for the schools in the outlying communities. They sounded like they would consider me, but I find myself in a holding pattern at the moment, as I have not heard back from them in about a week.
In my frustration with the fact that it seemed that all doors were being slammed in my face (there was a period of about a month where everything went wrong as far as my attempts to get paperwork together and such went for teaching applications...references moved or deceased, school divisions who have no record of me "because our records don't go back that far", the whole "get more experience, but we won't hire you" issue...things like that), I had decided that maybe teaching was not where I am supposed to be. I still reserve the right to that opinion, though now that things seem to be moving a little bit (with the school board that MIGHT hire me as a sub), I am willing to give it another chance, if they will give that chance to me.
But if they don't, I decided to try another path. I wanted to do something where my job would be something I LIKED to do, pay or not. So I have started my own business.
I call it Fruits and Flours. I make Montreal style bagels, buns, bread, jams, and jellies. I'm having a blast, and have some neat bread pans, so I can make smaller loaves, or even baby loaves. It isn't making money yet, but then, it's only been open about 3 weeks. I've had 9 orders so far, and only one negative response, and even then, it was more of a preference thing. So I continue to get everyone hooked, one bagel at a time. LOL (Shameless plug: www.fruitsandflours.webs.com)
So now, I am trying desperately to squeak in some time to exercise, especially since the annual Fun Run is coming up at the end of May, and I promised Daughter we would do the 5K again. It's not working so well yet...I get up, read my e-mail, weigh in, have breakfast, dress, clean, bake, eat lunch, volunteer, bake, cook, eat supper, clean, crash. Occasionally have an evening event or have to shuttle kids to an evening thing. So with my business and my attempts to get back into teaching, I'm finding BUSY-ness is taking over my life.
Given a choice, I'd be happy to drop the volunteering and cleaning and just eat, sleep, bake, and sing. :) Ah well. That's what retirement is for, I guess!
In expectation of returning to work in the fall, I contacted my children's school, to see if I could volunteer, you know, kind of get my name known, my foot in the door, since it has been awhile since I was last a teacher. The principal was thrilled but suggested I try applying right away to become a substitute, as they are DESPERATE for French Immersion subs. So I figured, hey, why not, and contacted the head honcho of subbing (not her actual title, but you know what I mean). I was told that I would not be considered for the sub list unless I got more experience, since I have been a stay-at-home mom for 9 years. Talk about your catch-22 situation...I can't get the job because I need more recent experience, but I can't get that experience if I can't get the JOB!!! So I have begun volunteering at the school. I have a feeling it will not do me any good, as the teachers don't really have me doing much rigorous teaching. Mostly just reading with the kids, evaluating their reading, and in some cases helping them learn their alphabet and letter sounds. But I will do it to the end of the school year, just in case. And I have also applied to a school board for the schools in the outlying communities. They sounded like they would consider me, but I find myself in a holding pattern at the moment, as I have not heard back from them in about a week.
In my frustration with the fact that it seemed that all doors were being slammed in my face (there was a period of about a month where everything went wrong as far as my attempts to get paperwork together and such went for teaching applications...references moved or deceased, school divisions who have no record of me "because our records don't go back that far", the whole "get more experience, but we won't hire you" issue...things like that), I had decided that maybe teaching was not where I am supposed to be. I still reserve the right to that opinion, though now that things seem to be moving a little bit (with the school board that MIGHT hire me as a sub), I am willing to give it another chance, if they will give that chance to me.
But if they don't, I decided to try another path. I wanted to do something where my job would be something I LIKED to do, pay or not. So I have started my own business.
I call it Fruits and Flours. I make Montreal style bagels, buns, bread, jams, and jellies. I'm having a blast, and have some neat bread pans, so I can make smaller loaves, or even baby loaves. It isn't making money yet, but then, it's only been open about 3 weeks. I've had 9 orders so far, and only one negative response, and even then, it was more of a preference thing. So I continue to get everyone hooked, one bagel at a time. LOL (Shameless plug: www.fruitsandflours.webs.com)
So now, I am trying desperately to squeak in some time to exercise, especially since the annual Fun Run is coming up at the end of May, and I promised Daughter we would do the 5K again. It's not working so well yet...I get up, read my e-mail, weigh in, have breakfast, dress, clean, bake, eat lunch, volunteer, bake, cook, eat supper, clean, crash. Occasionally have an evening event or have to shuttle kids to an evening thing. So with my business and my attempts to get back into teaching, I'm finding BUSY-ness is taking over my life.
Given a choice, I'd be happy to drop the volunteering and cleaning and just eat, sleep, bake, and sing. :) Ah well. That's what retirement is for, I guess!
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