Sistah Pat

I’ll be working with the eMentors today.  We’re a group of teachers who have been involved with new technology for several years.  Our job is to spread the word and assist teachers in learning to using technology in the classroom.  Most of the time it’s volunteer kind of stuff but we have four workdays this summer when we’re getting paid a stipend to do some work with the Jefferson County Public Schools websites.  JCPS uses a program called Angel to host our on-line services.  This includes the ability for teachers to post lessons on-line, create classes on-line, etc.  I wrote an on-line geometry course complete with interactive lessons, quizzes and tests and became an eMentor way back when.  We kind of pick areas we’d like to work on when we get together and I’m not sure what I want to do today.  Actually, I’d like to work on the blogs and wikis.  They don’t work as well as we’d like within the Angel Program.  Imagine how much teachers could do with those tools if we could figure out the best way to use them.  Kids could work together on on-line projects, they could post written items on blogs and other kids could review and edit them, etc.  Sistahs Jana  and Pam are also eMentors so it should be a pleasant working environment.  In fact, Pam wants me to go over to her house at lunch and give her some ideas on landscaping.  I’m not an expert but I do know a little bit about the subject and she swears she has a brown thumb.

I didn’t get everything done yesterday and I probably won’t get a lot done today on the RV or the yard.  I’ll be working from 8:30 to 3:30 with the mentors.  That “way down the road” vacation trip is looming.  It just dawned on me yesterday that it’s only a week and a half until we head out.  I have so much to do before then.  I’m going to ask David to stay here at the house while we’re gone.  It’s a lot closer to work for him and he and the kids can enjoy the pool and spa.  Stacy’s visit with the kids went okay on Saturday.  She always fills the kids heads with a bunch of crap but I think Jake is finally getting old enough to understand a few things.  She was really mean and nasty with David but that’s par for the course when she’s in this frame of mind.  He didn’t rise to the bait and just let her rant and rave and get some of her clothes and stuff while she was there.

DH started his summer schedule last week.  He’s on four day work weeks all summer.  That means he’ll be here at the house to take care of things while I’m working today.  He promised to plant some moonflower seeds that I have soaking in water.  I know it’s really late but I didn’t get them out earlier and they grow so fast I’ll still get a lot of enjoyment out of them.  I usually plant a lot of them on the fence next to the spa.  It’s fun to sit out there in the evening and watch the flowers open up and they’re so fragrant!

DS, Darryl, doesn’t have a passport and he’s off today so I hope he’ll get that taken care of.  It’s way to late to get a passport but he can go over the border into Mexico with just a drivers license and birth certificate.  It’s an hour and a half drive to the state capitol where he can pick up a copy of his birth certificate.

Weight is sitting at 179.5 again this morning.  Ementors starts in an hour.  Later!

3:20 - I’m done.  I know we have ten more minutes but I’m at a good stopping place so I quit.  I wrote tutorials today and matching quizzes on how to use an HTML editor.  Subheadings were for using the hyperlink tools, inserting graphics, movies, and tables.  Pretty basic stuff but it seems like it takes forever to write the lessons and quizzes.

4:00 - Home again.  DH baked a ham with a splenda, pineapple juice and mustard glaze, made cornbread, green beans with potatoes, and potato salad.  Crap!  I have two choices here–hit the pool for an hour of jogging (boring) or hit the treadmill for an hour and a half of heat stroke.  Guess it’ll be heatstroke.

4:45 - Sometimes, it’s just karma.  or whatever…I’m not working out today.  I went upstairs and it was like an oven.  Got a fan, got my water, hopped on the treadmill for 2 minutes and the battery went dead on my MP3.  Ran downstairs and grabbed another battery out of the charger and went back up.  Two minutes later, the battery goes dead.  Ran downstairs and grabbed another one.  Back upstairs, the battery goes dead.  I don’t know who keeps tossing batteries into the charger without connecting them.  It’s full of dead batteries!  The window unit AC is not installed upstairs because DH told the boys Saturday morning that he’s not putting it in until they get their room clean and it’s still not done.  I went on the warpath, told them not to come downstairs until it’s done.  I don’t care if it takes all night.  Then I came down here and discovered Scout crapped all over himself.  I supervised him cleaning up and told DH I was going to jog in the pool but he told me he just shocked it a couple of hours ago and the chlorine is through the roof so I can’t do that either.   I’m NOT in a good mood.

6:45 - Oh Ye of Little Faith…

Things are better now.  I really don’t like it when things interfere with my exercise or diet.  I went out to the pool and jogged for an hour.  If I were blond, my hair would be green but I’m not, so I’ll survive.  I have tons of honeysuckle growing on the back fence and it was really fragrant.  Add the cool water, beautiful blue sky, and soothing breeze and I’m much better now.

Did pretty good with dinner.  Ate a good sized chunk of ham (the sodium will probably have me retaining water for a week), skipped the cornbread and potato salad, ate green beans and one small potato.