The days are long and the years are short

I hadn't updated on LiveJournal for a bit.

The biggest new thing in my life is that I am entering a teacher training program. The orientation is Apr. 26th and the first day of classes is May 8th. I have a fair amount to do to prepare for that. I will be finger-printed on Monday, Apr. 24. I plan to apply for a scholarship, so I have to finish two essays and fill out a FAFSA form by May 1rst. I have a ton of books about teaching to read before and during the program, but it is fast-paced and the more I read ahead of time, the better.

My work as a Girl Scout leader has been in hyperdrive since our service unit decided to have an encampment. An encampment is a multi-troop camping (in this case limited to the service unit). So about 300 Girl Scouts and leaders are coming and I wound up on the committee. And since I am a leader for "older girls", my Scouts and I are taking more responsibility. And a bunch of other opportunities have come up for scouts in our area, such as a lunch with our Congressional Representative, an archery day, and a night hike. Plus, Cadettes have more going on already!

My old entries have made it over, but the software is still chewing on the comments to get them over. Once that is successfully done, I'll delete the LiveJournal. It has taken two days so far, and there is clearly quite a backlog.

After giving up on a (fairly simple) Entrelac dishcloth, I am going to take a class in the method. Sunday, Feb. 8th. at the yarn store near my neighborhood. I am looking forward to it, but I have to choose a yarn for it. Entrelac usually looks nice in long varient colors.

Long summer days. With children.

Mrmoosie's family is visiting, so we are having a lot of fun, but getting totally off schedule.

I spent three hours today on a practice test for chemistry. I actually did quite well, so I am feeling more confident. It was long and exhausting, however.

Not really sure how to take logarithms without a table of them or a calculator. Is this something I learned in math, or never learned? I do remember using the tables of logarithms.

Only 3 more hours to go! The 2011-2012 school year (3rd grade for Emily) will end tomorrow with a half-day. So much has been happening.

I intend never to be on quite as many PTA committees ever again. Some days (weeks), it seemed like I was in the school all day, every day.

I am turning over the foreign language committee to someone else. It will be advertised many many times probably before someone picks it up. But, as long as someone picks it up early in the school year, it will still work out. Emily is unlikely to do Spanish next year (grade 4) and it seems she will have a built-in conflict in grade 5.

Emily is being advanced far and fast in math, and she is enjoying it a huge amount. Fourth grade, she will be taking Math 6 with a group of 5th graders. In fifth grade, she will go over to the local middle school for math before the day begins at her elementary school (this would conflict with Spanish if it continues to be offered at the same time at the elementary school).

Emily and I are going to do a lot of Spanish work over the summer.

It's raining, it's pouring. It's been a long time since we have had a long steady rain like this. The pollen is being forced down out of the air and many of the flowers are falling off the bushes. Everything bloomed pretty early this year: the azaleas, and the cherry trees.

All the surviving trees have leaved out. The county planted a large number of trees in the medians of the big roads nearby. Survival rates are correlated with the nearby trees, so you will find one median with all surviving trees and a nearby median with all dead trees (you will not find as often a mixture of living and dead trees in the same median). I suspect that the county will remove the dead trees sometime this year. They may not remove the branches of the ones that are alive low down and dead higher up. It is pretty difficult to work on those trees, just because the roads surrounding them are so busy.

I have planted a mixture of a type of beans, peas and corn. The peas came up first, then the corn is starting to come up fairly well now, and I can just see the beginnings of the beans. I took the easy way out, I spread the seeds and then added more soil on top, instead of digging them in. I also let them be planted fairly close together, so I may (or may not) thin them to get closer to the ideal spacing. I am planning to grow some morning glories around the corn, once it is well established (and I have done any thinning I wish to do).

I haven't mowed my yard yet this year (and it will probably be harder now that the grass is taller). I have weeded out quite a few things. I tend to recognize one type of weed, pull it anywhere I see it, and then move on to another type of weed. One of the weeds that I haven't messed with yet is a very spiky weed. Another one is the poison ivy.

My compost bin/heap is full of decomposable bags of kitchen refuse and weeds. I am completely out of leaves from last year. I've turned the top layers a few times, but I have not dug deep or moved the bin. I can definitely see that the bags from the earliest times are composting fine. I got the bags as a Christmas gift, so they are only 4.5 months old. It is still not enough material for hot composting; in a small house like ours, there will never be enough material for hot composting. I do worry that the weeds will go to seed, even though I try to get them in there early enough that there aren't seeds yet. The heap is very near a pile of sticks from a branch that we had to take down.

We still need to get those sticks out front for yard waste pickup. We also have a tree to take down in the front of the house. It's been leaning at a angle since Snowmegeddon. We need to finish the branch in the back; we were working under a time constraint to get it down before Hurricane Irene came through.

Our fence could use repair or replacement. One of the gates will not close. I don't really know how to fix that myself. The ground has come up under it. On the side of our back yard, we have the ground sloping rapidly away into the fence. It would be nice to add more soil there and flatten it out and use the fence for terracing.

Multiple days below freezing or close to it. Winter has decided to show up, but not wintry precipitation (yet).

Travel. The whole family enjoyed taking a weekend away.

School. A large project suffered from neglect while we were away, and also while we were here. Basically, the child wants to do it all in school and put it off until the last minute. It is not a good situation. Also, Valentine's Day is the day before the project is due. Not wonderful timing. I am pretty much solely responsible for the Valentine's Day cards at this point.

Car. My car is not a happy camper, and must visit the experts. However, I never have large tracts of time where I don't need it.

Work. Well, this is what is making sure that my car doesn't have vast amounts of idle time. Plus volunteering.

Volunteering. Still a large amount to do. Keeping me busy and occupied.

Spanish. Only getting a tiny amount of Rosetta Stone done per week.

Garden. Thanks to the multiple days below freezing, I am not thinking about it at all.

I have been reading (or re-reading).
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Before the Dawn by Nicholas Wade
Ghost Story by Jim Butcher


It is amazing that I have been able to make time to read all this.

mrmoosie helped me upgrade my phone. I am now addressing thousands of issues, some that existed before and some that are "all new mistakes".

The most annoying issue is definitely the error in my work schedule. I had entered it as every Saturday with a ton of exceptions. The Saturdays stayed but all the exceptions have disappeared!!!!

We have the day off from school, due to a planned teacher-work day.

I'm planning to get a bunch of paperwork done for PTA. I have two children in the house and they are watching TV, specifically Avatar: The Last Airbender TV show.

I missed the deadline for the DELE exam in November. The next time it is offered will be May. So I will have plenty of time to prepare. I still need to make contact with the correct person at the Embassy of Spain to make sure it will be offered in Washington DC. If it won't be offered here, the next closest location is NYC.