Iowan's where are you???? (2)

[ShannonB]

I'm in the NE corner. About an hour from Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

 

[Phoebe]

Happy Birthday Susan! My mom's birthday is tomorrow- thanks for the reminder. I'll say a pray about your job situation.

I can't believe that I haven't visited for a month. How the time flies.

Felicia, I'll pray that things work out in the best interest of the child. Hopefully, that will be with you.

I may as well say it. Mikki is getting a divorce. We found out on mother's day. We haven't heard from Mikki or Jeremy since father's day.

We only have two and a half weeks left of summer PACES. Multicultural week is two weeks away. We're studying Israel and Germany. (my first graders) They'll get to learn some Hebrew and German. Today was "water play day." I had several buckets of cold water dumped on me. I got my hands on the hose and had some sweet revenge. Aound the time that I was leaving, some of the staff was getting in on the "mud slide." We had a nice muddy patch where you could belly slide. Glad I missed out.

 

[PegasusOnFire]

sounds like fun Kim.

Welcome Shannon.

Sorry to hear about Mikki's situation, my brother in law and his wife are just about to that point.

 

[Flipper]

Thanks. No, not doing anything special. I'm kinda depressed. My work situation sucks, now I'm stressing out about the interview, and my family was supposed to come spend tomorrow with me through the weekend, but they cancelled today. So I'm not doing anything tomorrow.

I treated myself to Harry Potter on Sunday, and a pedicure on Saturday, though. So I guess I did celebrate in some way.

Well, your in my prayers. Harry Potter and a Pedicure always sounds like a good time.

My mom's birthday is tomorrow

I may as well say it. Mikki is getting a divorce. We found out on mother's day. We haven't heard from Mikki or Jeremy since father's day.

Happy Birthday Mom!!! I'm so sorry about Mikki - isn't she pregnant? Pray you can at least see the grandkids soon.

Mudslide sounds like fun too.

I'm new here and am also quite happy to see so many Iowans posting. So often when I'm on forums, I'm the only one!

Hi! I'm a red headed stepchild from Missouri. The Iowans are so kind to grant me the pleasure to post here. Had never been to Iowa until I went up to the state fair and met Phoebe. Been back once since to meet Pegasus and Lighthearted. They are a fun bunch of people, hope you stick around.

 

[LightHearted]

Happy Birthday Susan! My mom's birthday is tomorrow- thanks for the reminder. I'll say a pray about your job situation.

Thanks Kim.

I may as well say it. Mikki is getting a divorce. We found out on mother's day. We haven't heard from Mikki or Jeremy since father's day.

Bummer. My sister and her hubby are going through a divorce, too. My sister is devastated.

Well, your in my prayers. Harry Potter and a Pedicure always sounds like a good time.

Thanks. I went to look at my first house this morning. It looked so cute on the outside, and well-kept. On the inside it left a lot to be desired. I think I'll have to increase the amount that I'm willing to pay by about $20k.

 

[Flipper]

We met with the lawyer. We basically don't have much of leg to stand on, but there are some things we can do. We can talk to her mother, and grandmother, and we got advice on how to handle that. We can have family members hotline Children's Services, but we were told that they are difficult at best to deal with and chances are they wouldn't believe us.

So, we are brainstorming on how we can get together with her mom and grandmother to talk to them, and I guess we'll go from there.

Susan - didn't know you were looking for a house, how exciting! Any news on the interview?

 

[LightHearted]

We met with the lawyer. We basically don't have much of leg to stand on, but there are some things we can do. We can talk to her mother, and grandmother, and we got advice on how to handle that. We can have family members hotline Children's Services, but we were told that they are difficult at best to deal with and chances are they wouldn't believe us.

So, we are brainstorming on how we can get together with her mom and grandmother to talk to them, and I guess we'll go from there.

Sorry to hear that the lawyer didn't have better news for you.

I wonder if there would be any repercussions for you if you called the school to let them know of your concerns... not so that they could act on it, but so that they could perhaps be a little more attentive when it comes to your cousin.

Susan - didn't know you were looking for a house, how exciting! Any news on the interview?

With my job instability, I'm not sure if it's a wise idea for me to be considering it, but I've heard that it's often cheaper to pay a mortgage than it is rent, so I thought I'd kinda test the waters.

I have an appointment on Monday to look at several condos with a realtor friend of mine from church.

Regarding the interview... I talked my priest this evening at Mass, and he said that I'm one of only two people being considered for the position. My understanding was that at least three (possibly more) people had been interviewed, so it sounds like I made it past the first cut. I expect to hear from someone from the parish office on Tuesday regarding a second interview.

 

[Phoebe]

I made a call, got to see the girls on Thursday.

I need to hunt down some kosher flour, spring water, and halva. I want to make some Passover Matzo Layer Cake. I'll probably have to make a visit to Maccabees store in DSM. It will be interesting trying to get the kids to make proper matzah/ matzot.

 

[Phoebe]

Oh yeah. Mark has quit smoking. He's on that pill that makes cigarettes taste really bad. I think it's been a month or five weeks now.

 

[Flipper]

Oh yeah. Mark has quit smoking. He's on that pill that makes cigarettes taste really bad. I think it's been a month or five weeks now.

Good for him! You have my prayers for that.

How crabby has he been?

 

[LightHearted]

Congratulations to Mark. Has he tried quitting before?

 

[PegasusOnFire]

well I did is Susan, I gave up staff. My girls need me right now, and I need sleep.

MAry will be 10 weeks old tomorrow and is rolling over now. She is trying to sit up, but isn't quite there yet and gets really frustrated when she can't do it. I think I have another strong willed child.

 

[LightHearted]

I did it, I did it! I got the job!

well I did is Susan, I gave up staff. My girls need me right now, and I need sleep.

Good for you! Mary must be progressing at a good rate... my four month old niece just started rolling within the past two weeks. Once she rolls over though, she doesn't know how to get back to the other position - so she cries.

 

[Flipper]

I did it, I did it! I got the job!

 

[StarryEyes]

 

[PegasusOnFire]

I am so happy for you Susan.

Both girls are pretty fast learners, Christian rolled over at 2 weeks.

 

[Phoebe]

Congratulations Suzy Q.!!!!

My sense of time is off. Mark quit smoking back in May. He hasn't been too grumpy. He had quit once before, then started again on the day of his mom's funeral.

My students are learning some German and Hebrew. They're doing pretty well, and some even seem to enjoy it. Half of the Israel "specialists" attend St. Patrick's. They get to enroll in our program because theirs doesn't run through the summer. The others were picked because I've heard them talk about church. This should help solidify what they learn there. I do find it interesting that these same children say they have never heard of Jerusalem or the Dead Sea, Sea of Galilee, etc...
The more secular children get to focus/ present on Germany. Of course, for historical perspective, the Protestant Reformation is mentioned. They are getting an overview of the religions practiced in the two countries and a tiny bit of history surrounding them.
It will be interesting to see how it all turns out. I'm hoping they will retain some of this information.

 

[Flipper]

That just sounds fascinating. Being kids, they also retain the stuff a lot more than we do.

Susan, this position you got, is it a full time paid job, or a volunteer position?

 

[LightHearted]

Thanks girls.

Susan, this position you got, is it a full time paid job, or a volunteer position?

Neither, acually. It's a part-time paid position. I'll be continuing (for the time being) part-time at the airport, as well. Eventually I'll be looking for something to take the place of the airport. The church may also decide that they need me full time.

I'll be very busy with the new job. I'm not sure if/when it will let up. Between the two jobs I'll be working about 55 hours per week.

 

[Flipper]

I hope you don't overextend yourself.

Lots going on.

We spent all day today getting the back bedroom all cleaned out in case it gets to become a kids' bedroom. Had a friend come over and keep us on task, which did the trick. It had been a junk room the last 7 years. Also got the dresser drawers and closet cleaned out. A lot of stuff got thrown away today.

Earlier this week, another aunt told me that Serena's grandmother called her to see if she could watch her. She told her to call me. She never did. I tried calling over there and never was able to reach anyone. I don't know if she has any suspicions. The "intervention" is next Saturday. I'm getting things organized at work so I can take a couple weeks off if it happens. Both my boss and his boss are being very supportive. If we can get her next weekend, we can both theoretically take off until school starts with pay.

Also, we're working on getting a benefit together for my nephew to get his communicator that's going to happen in October. One of the churches in the area (Lutheran church actually) does benefits for people with varying needs as their ministry. They seem to know what they are doing - a bank account has already been set up, and they even have Thrivent matching donations - whatever they get over the cost of the communicator ($15K) will go towards his therapy, which is also up there. The benefit is going to include a raffle, silent auction, spaghetti dinner, cake walk, and turkey shoot. My job has been to hit up businesses and friends for donations for the silent auction, so I've been doing a lot of that. I'm also making some baskets with stuff.

We're getting pretty pumped about it. I had no idea how many people I knew in such interesting fields until the last couple of weeks. For example, my best girlfriend runs that county's cable access station and is going to put something in the community calendar. I've been going to happy hour at a pretty nice restaurant downtown ($2 beer) and gotten to know the owner, so I'm hoping he can donate some dinners. Co-worker's boyfriend is the manager at a photography studio, and he's going to donate a session package.

This has actually been so much fun, I'm going to talk to the organizers about how they do their ministry, and maybe see if we can start something like that at our church.