Friday Snippets.......

I was into the second paragraph of tonight's blog post when it started sounding familiar. I had to go back and research it, but I finally discovered I had written about the same topic on July 27, 2009. It wasn't really worth reading once, much less twice. Even more disturbing is the fact that I was using some of the exact same phrases. Have I become that predictable?

Sweet Girl missed two days of work this week because her car suddenly lost power on the Matthews Bridge and she had to have it towed in and repaired. I hate her working at nights for that very reason! Ten o'clock at night, and she's stranded on a bridge over the St. Johns River. Or some body of water. Whatever. Today she had Safety Stand Down (whatever that is, but it must be important), and afterward one of her leaders who has a bunch of letters in front of his name asked for five volunteers. Sweet Girl didn't want to volunteer for anything on a Friday afternoon, but she felt guilty about missing two days of work, so she raised her hand. The letters-before-his-name guy picked out everyone who raised his or her hand and told all of them to go home. That's what they volunteered for! I think that rocks. There's a saying in the military (other places in life too, I guess) that you should never volunteer for anything. There goes that theory.

You may remember the photo below from a blog post last summer (or the summer before). It's one of my favorite places on earth, Fort Yargo State Park, just about half a mile from our house. It's where Hubby and I take the dogs to walk, and it's where I take my kayak for some serene paddling. It is a fabulous park with camping facilities, 12 miles of mountain biking paths, several miles of walking paths, and of course the lake for fishing and swimming.

The picture below is the same lake, taken yesterday when we went for our walk. They have drained the lake (AGAIN!) to make some repairs on the bridge. I realize they can't exactly work on the bridge WITHOUT draining the lake, but I find it quite depressing. As I emailed to my principal today, the fish are all huddled up in a corner next to the dam going, "WTF?" Hubby claims he saw a couple of the fish walking up the beach with their coolers of beer, but I think he might be exaggerating.

It is the little things that make me happy. Do not laugh at me for what I am about to tell you. At school we use Outlook for our email, and of course it has an electronic calendar. I really like the calendar, because we can "invite" each other to things like parent conferences, and we know that everyone will get the same reminder. If we could only train one certain person who may or may not be in a position of authority to use this fabulous feature, it would be even more marvelous. For my personal use, I have used the Google calendar feature in the past. I like it because it sends me an email every morning letting me know anything that is on my calendar for that day. I stopped using it because I grew weary of having to update two different calendars, and I certainly wasn't going to CHECK both of them every day. For several months now I have received a daily email telling me, "You have no events scheduled for today." I was beginning to feel like quite the loser, with no daily events planned. Ever. 

Today I decided to go back to the Google calendar so my morning emails might have some substance. You know, like "Haircut at 4:00." "Gus to groomer." "Dr. appointment at 9:00." "Bicycle ride in ________." After I updated all my events through next July (because I use an academic year calendar, of course), I was about to close out of the calendar when I noticed there was a "Sync to Outlook" button. I was able to download the thingamajiggie and sync both my calendars together. (Is that redundant? I think so. Surely you wouldn't sync two things SEPARATELY.) I kept going back and forth between my two calendars, tickled pink that they showed both my personal appointments and the school ones. Perhaps I am in desperate need of a life; it's possible.

I had another technological moment of discovery last weekend when I was on my bike. Bear with me, because I have to back up just a little bit. I use a website called Bikely to create bicycling routes. I can click, click, click on a route, and the path will follow the road and calculate the mileage. It's incredibly accurate. I can then go back to the map and create a "cue sheet," indicating each turn and at what mileage, and print it out to take on a route, particularly if it's one I haven't ridden before. I only recently learned that just as I can download a route that I've already ridden FROM my GPS unit to the computer (that's where I get all those cute little maps that I torture you guys with after a bike ride), I can also upload a route INTO the GPS. That's cool enough, but last weekend I discovered an additional feature. If I go to the trouble to create a cue sheet, when I upload the map into the GPS, it shows the directions right on the screen. I was riding along last weekend when I looked down at the GPS and it said, "R on Hwy 23 sort of." I wouldn't have known those were my very words except for the words "sort of." Because who else indicates on a map that it is "sort of" a turn?

I have named my new bike Jezebel. I don't know why. I was typing an email to Rozmo (who names everything) and the letters just jumped out there. Rozmo is the one who insisted that the members of Team Chi-Chis name their private parts. (Is that TMI? Sorry.) I named mine Gladys. Because whenever we finish a bike ride, that particular part of my anatomy is "Gladys" over. Get it? Gladys? Glad it's over? Sorry.

I have mentioned Lawanda the Warrior Princess before, a co-worker and one of my bestest friends. We have known each other only 6 years, but we have so much in common that we could be related. She is an incredible cook, a wonderful writer, and she can decorate beautifully for any occasion with a piece of tin foil and a shoelace. LWP isn't working with us anymore, and it kills my soul. We are trying to think of a way to get her back, but for now she has taken a job as a parapro in an elementary school. She makes copies all day long and listens to elementary school kids throwing tantrums and kicking the walls of the office next door. Her talents are so being wasted.

I have written a post before about her daughter, a sweet girl with a wicked sense of humor even if she IS smack dab in the middle of her middle-school years and everyone would like to pinch her head off sometimes. I'll be so glad when she is out of middle school and turns normal again. Even in her current state she is one of the neatest, most lovable kids I know.

LWP's other child is a senior in high school and has been playing baseball since he could walk. He is so not representative of MOST of the teenagers I deal with on a daily basis. He is intelligent, ambitious, talented, good looking, sincere, humble, athletic, honest, and ethical. He finished up his math courses last year but insisted on taking one this year as an elective to prepare him for college. He chose calculus. Not statistics. Calculus. As an elective. He has been offered a full ride scholarship to play baseball for one of the 4-year colleges in our state, not UGA, but another one with an excellent baseball program. He has also been contacted by 16 (so far) of the 32 major league baseball teams. MLB. He's a high school senior. You may very well see this young man on your television someday. Assuming you watch baseball, that is. Is it any wonder I refer to him as my godson? They didn't pick me; I picked them. LWP said if I took him as my godson I had to take his sister too, and I said "gladly."

I don't know when I've been happier for a weekend. Not to mention an entire week off from school next week.