Meanwhile, on Wednesday

[Harriet]

Started a new "Recalls and Alerts" thread for 2013 in Across the Cafe Table forum.

Posted the US FDA announcement that Ambien and similar sleep aids must lower their dosage for women.

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helia, isn't that funny! I was seeing it as finding out how well your dd17 needed to do on the exam in order to assure an "A"! I missed the concern that she could be seeing how little she had to study! Yes, block scheduling here, I suppose, with 5 periods - I know the semester courses are almost 90 minutes each, not sure of others. 2 of the periods are year-long (for freshmen almost always phys ed/health and their music class), and 3 are made up of 6 semester courses. In successive years, foreign language usually replaces phys ed/health. Also the hope for freshmen at this high school, to the best of my understanding, is concentration only on academics in the semester classes by offering more academics beyond the core with more teachers and in more classrooms - 6 total. They have a series of further engineering courses, for instance, that could last all 4 years if students were so inclined. The majority of the school day then (3 out of 5 periods), are semesters of academic subjects for freshmen, at least. Obviously, this doesn't stick with many of the juniors and seniors, who see their way clear to graduation without additional academics and decide instead on specialty elective classes or even choose early dismissal or early graduation.

Kathryn, what warm drink can you enjoy? You know, hunters/hikers have warming thingies they can crush and it causes them to warm up, for mittens or tootsies. If you happen to have vermiculite, iron powder and pulverized activated charcoal just lying around the house you could make this one. I'm also thinking today of our friends even more to the north of you like bittersweet (where is she!!?!) and atlantic flyer.

Yesterday someone mentioned Master Gardener program - OKay? I remembered that bittersweet went through that a couple years ago and is a Master Gardener now. I remember her talking about vermiculture and vermicomposting! (worms)

Twins' Mom, I think HRH's experience at his sleep study was positive with very nice people helping him through the odd night. All best wishes!

[Emptynester]

I didn't cuop with what everyone else wrote this morning as I have a unique "meanwhile". We are sitting in the MH in a dusty parking lot/repair shop watching the sun come up while a cute young man is working on our compressor.

We are sitting next to that big tent I've told you about. Outside the tent (in the dirt) are the repair people who support the salesmen in the tent. Our particular ones that are working on our MH this morning are the towing people. But there are many other setups near us.

We also have the Shipping and Receiving right out the front window. So we are watching vendors with golf carts and fork lifts come out to get merchandise for their booths. Lots of people hurrying around.

It is about 51 outside and not much warmer inside. The repair men are in shorts as it is supposed to be 77 this afternoon.

In about an hour we will go shopping - but the tent is not open yet. One of the flea market areas has some great buys on painting supplies so we will pick up some rollers and brushes for painting the house next week.

[Twins' Mom]

Chiming in regarding Helia and Harriet's discussion about Helia's dd17 - but OTOH....prioritizing and being able to stop at "good enough" instead of excessive perfectionism are also skills to develop, if she is using her time well otherwise. And if she receives an "A" which counts at 4 pts on a scale, whether she's at 100% or 96% doesn't matter in the big picture.

(The morbid accountants' joke about the CPA exam when I took it, is that if you received anything higher than the required 75 on one part, you had overstudied. There were four parts then, taken all together. Anything that scored between 70 and 75 on the first round of scoring then was rescored to either pass at 75% or fail at 69%, I think. The CPA certificate doesn't reflect whether your score was 75 or 90.)

Another round, and now I must get the ddogs out. I'm sipping an iced coffee, even tho it's cold, because I'm not supposed to have caffeine after 12 p.m. today, so I'll take my chance now.
-reboot laundry
-change clothes, clean up, brush teeth
-walk the ddogs
-deal with 10 more pieces of paper (file, recycle, pay a bill, scan into Evernote, whatever!)
-responses to 3 more temple emails

[OKay]

Good morning!

Yes!!! I am going to take the Master Gardening Program! It's something that I've wanted to do forever. I am THRILLED that I am able to make my schedule fit it in this year. Tomorrow is my first class (10-3pm) with 2 hours of travel (1 hour each way). I will leave for my class after taking LO to school in the morning. DH will pick up LO from school for me. Meals will need to be prep'd today to make them almost effortless tomorrow.

Meanwhile -
** Throughout the day, I frequently walk through the kitchen & laundry room to make sure they stay in progress. Just a few seconds/minutes of effort to keep them going reap big benefits later.
** Phone calls while doing mindless tasks.... washing dishes by hand, doing picking up/put away, ironing .....or driving. I KNOW driving and talking on the phone isn't ideal I only talk on phone when I am driving roads I know like the back of my hand. There is very little traffic (see another car ever 2-5 miles). no matter.....it is still a bad habit I need to change!!
** Listening to daily Bible reading while doing hair, teeth, hair.
** Keeping hip card & pen with me at all times to capture important thoughts that go flitting through my mind AS SOON AS THEY HAPPEN. if I try to wait even a minute the thought/idea is gone.
** Reviewing the upcoming week activities/meal plan with DH as we are driving to church Sunday AM. LO is quick to remind me to do this if I forget. I think he likes to know what is coming up too.
** Daily Bible stories study during family meals. We rotate through 100 Bible story cards and LO is starting to surprise me how much he remembers from hearing them previously.
** LO does his homework during my supper prep time. His table is set up near the kitchen so i can be near him to answer questions and monitor him.

There is more but I gotta stop and get my feet in motion. Daylight is burning.

[Norma]

Good Morning! My once-in-awhile check in. It has been super busy here as dd was with us for 3 days. We loved it. She got to meet all of our friends here - Cowinkie and Sweetie, D and G my school friends, and the Monday Lunch Bunch. She enjoyed everyone and especially liked Cowinkie. Who wouldn't? We had a beautiful weekend while she was here and now it is going to start down hill again. Oh well!

I have started my list of things we want to accomplish back home. I think the list is longer this year than last. When it is time to come back here I love to see what I got done at home. We still talk about coming down here permanently,but couldn't bear to leave Carson Valley where we love everything about it.

Hope you all have a really nice day.

[Nancy]

Yea the weather says it's 32* outside here now I'm not seeing any melting yet. Rain/snow is in the forecast but so far nothing so I'm glad about that.
I had to scrape the windows on the car. I'm grateful for the window scraper I got at the thrift shop yesterday it sure came in handy this morning.

I got Dgson up earlier today to s2s for school he complained a bit but got to the bus on time. It is easier with just one child so that is good. H. had to go in earlier today and he complained a bit too. Bb practice tonight at least we got the shoes and clothes here for that and a spare change of cloths I'll wash them up so they can be used. Finally got dgson to wear his heavy coat no easy feat!

Okay I'm so happy you are going to take the master gardening program that is some thing I've considered they have one here but I've not been able to work in the meetings with my schedule!

[blessedw2]

Goooooood Morning!

Hi d harriet love the idea of seeing what you love and making time for it. (making the most of your day)
hi d helia... my dd17 also goes through that too and you can see when she is doing her least. dd older talked to her about how important junior year is/ dd younger has picked up her pace after that chat. My d nephew did the same and it drove his d mom crazy.
Hi d dee enjoy some rest after all that epcot walking (so frustrating about meds and $ for meds
hi d scattered have a good day
hi d nancy wishing you a good day too
hi d mt. sounds so busy there
hi d okay - master gardening class sounds wonderful. so jealous
hi d norma waving at you
hi d kathryn... sending some more heat waves to your home.
Hi d twins (good luck again on your sleep study)

[blessedw2]

hi off to do some work.. dailies make dinner for tonight as we have activities after school

first cabbage soup and sausage recipe (new one)
also making carrot salad with bacon (I have left over)
radish salad for munching, and cucumber salad as I have to use it up.

[Harmony]

OKay, I would love to go to a gardening class. I hope you enjoy it.

Dee, Med Co again? Nobody can say you don't have patience, that's for sure.

(Elizabeth) I read your posts last night. Remember, you are in charge, not your DD. Just reading your post made me think she is spoiled, to think she must get her own way all the time. But I'm sure that's not the case and there must be other stuff going on in her thinking. She should be old enough to understand reasoning. Good luck finding your answers to all this.

Twins, 60% chance of S A? Wow. Dr. thought I might have that too, but it turned out just the thyroid symptoms. Thank goodness. I don't relish the thought of sleeping with a noisy machine nearby.

It's 71° here and colder than that back in this part of the house. My legs are freezing. I will warm up when I go out, it is 75° outside now.

Finished that insurance packet. They gave me a self-addressed #10 business envelope to send it back in. Yeah, it ended up being at least 25 sheets. So I'm off to the post office to get it weighed and mailed. It was the dumbest packet I ever tried to work with and I made notes all over the pages, like what does this mean, I don't have that coverage, we don't lease cars, etc etc.

And I finished the rest of the bills to take with me, wrote down the copier/fax/scaner model as I need to find a new drum for it; and I need to buy 1 bin for the bathroom.

I multi-task all the time. Wash/paperwork/housekeeping together; phone with paperwork or housekeeping (love the speaker phone) and I consolidate all my errand trips to include anything I need to do while on the way. Today I will call the cpa while I'm out an see if he's ready to take my information.

Alright I'm off on my travels.

[Twins' Mom]

I am still not out of pajamas and dogs not walked. Rec'd email from dsis' xdh w bills not forwarded to me previously, one to pay and another that I paid last month so that statement appears to be in error. Wrote notes to change mailing address and note with documentation of prior payment and have that stuff ready to mail as well. I had held on the phone for over 15 minutes to get to a live person re the payment not recorded.

Next up:
-change clothes, clean up, brush teeth
-walk the ddogs
-get grocery list and dry cleaning for errand runs
-email dsis' xdh re bill payment and his statement that "she's not getting any better" - perhaps he should have dealt with that a long time ago
-make errand list (mall to look for dress, alternations, cleaners, groc and gas, anything else) and head out