The Worst Shopping Trip Ever or My Stupid Back

I am currently sitting by myself in my SiL's van outside the discount grocery store. Why? Because my back went out on me. When we shop we each take a kid and I had my niece. I went to put her in the shopping cart and almost dropped her when a searing pain ripped theough my back. It's been bothering me the last few days and was pretty bad this morning, but I've learned to live with it and just keep moving. Now I'm begging for pain killers and muscle relaxers. I'm just hoping that I can drive the 2 miles from my Mom's house to my house.

Oh how I hate my back!!!
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It's Hay Season!

Hay season is now in full swing around here. Everywhere you go you will see hay fields in some state of the haying process: newly cut, teddered, raked, baled or growing for the next cutting. My parents have spent all their time the last week or so working in the hay fields...mom especially.

I love driving down the road and seeing all the fields dotted with round bales. It's such a wonderful part of summer, human ingenuity and God's creation. I just love it.

This last week it has been too hot to drive around with your windows down, but normally I love doing that when driving by fields where people are out there cutting, teddering, raking and baling the hay...the smell is WONDERFUL!!! It's the smell of summer, of the country, of my childhood bulding forts in the hay barn among the square bales.

I just wanted to share with you a small portion of the small world around me. I'm hoping to be able to get out and get pictures of the various stages of the haying process during the next cutting. If I do, I will be sure to post them with explanations of each stage.

So Far This Summer

The summer is finally here for me and I find myself staying away from the computer more and more...hence the long absence. I thought I would give a glimpse into what I've been doing the last few weeks.

• I finally finished summer school! I am so glad about that. It's good money, but it's a long 12 days.
• So far I've been out at high school camp and Intermediate camp (5th and 6th grade). I was out at hs camp every day after school, but didn't go out to intermediate camp but a few days.
• It rained and rained and rained until everyone was sick of it, now it is unnaturally hot with no real rain in sight. I warned people they would be begging for rain, but that's how it always is in the Ozarks! Now it has been in the 90s all week with heat indexes of well over a 100 degrees!
• I spent two days this week getting together the fireworks stand for our church youth group. It's a fundraiser they are trying for the first time. It was hot and miserable. There was too much work for the few people we had there, as well as being a disorganized mess. Needless to say, I will not be having anything to do with one next year (if they decide to do it again).
• Last week I took my (almost 5-year-old) niece out on a "date", just the two of us. We had fun going out to eat and shop. Today I took my 3-year-old nephew out on a "date". We went to McDonalds, the farm store, the western store and most importantly, John Deere. He got to pick out a toy tractor. He had a blast, and so did I.
• This was my first real week off, even though I did have stuff I was committed to doing (fireworks mostly) a few days. I managed to get a bunch of stuff done around the house, but at a leisurely pace that allowed me to read and watch movies as well.
• I haven't had internet access for the last few days because I exceeded my allowable bandwidth. I hate that I have to pay twice what the average person pays for internet access and then I am limited to how much I can use. It's ridiculous. My access was only supposed to slow down because of my overage, but I lost all signal. I called a little over an hour ago and upgraded my service package so I could have more bandwidth and higher speeds as well. Hopefully, that will help. I really only need the extra bandwidth during the summer and winter breaks when I am home more and thus on the computer more, but...

Anyway, that's about all I can think of right now. Nothing too exciting happening here. I will try to be a little bit more on top of things, but it is the summer and I promise nothing!

Head Sweat - or - Why I look like the Wicked Witch of the West

Update (9/13/10) -   I found a great cure: Maxim  It is a roll-on deodorant that clogs your pores and stops the sweating! Check it out. Seriously!

Man do I hate to sweat. Which is really unfortunate considering I have a genetic defect that means my head sweats all the time. I affectionately call it head-sweat. All it takes is a one degree shift in temperature or being anxious, frustrated, or upset in any way and I end up looking like the Wicked Witch of the West after Dorthy throws that bucket of water on her.



It's really unfair because I know people look at me like it's somehow my fault that my hair is soaking wet with sweat. I would do something about it if I could. Unfortunately they don't make antiperspirant for your head. Maybe I should invent shampoo and conditioner with antiperspirant in it...

Today was especially bad because of the humidity. It was around 100% today, and it made me feel like I was swimming through the air instead of walking through it. The thermometer said it was in the lower 90s, but the humidity makes it feel like it's over 100 outside. You should have seen me when I was outside re-potting plants; 10 minutes and I had sweat dripping in my eyes. Never mind...I'm glad no one saw me like that!

This Town is Closed

Okay...so the town isn't really closed, but sometimes it feels like it is slowly closing up shop one store at a time. I decided to do a little pictorial layout of some of the closed stores in town. It's amazing how many businesses go in and out every year. Of course, every once and a while, there is a new business that manages to make it past the first year or so. Ironically, someone built a new strip mall (with only four shopping spaces) on the outskirts of town and Subway moved right in. I'm hoping it will stick around...Blimpie didn't. I'm not sure why a store would move in to the new buildings when no one wants to set up shop in the other buildings.

By the way...I took these pictures as I was driving down main street, so they aren't the best quality, but you get the picture.

A guy I went to high school with tried to sell used cars here, but nobody bought them.

Yet another old gas station/auto garage. Every once in awhile there will be someone new open this place up, but it never lasts.

This corner store has been a lot of things. Video store (moved to new location), coffee house (failed), pizza parlor (moved to new location) and most recently a bakery that didn't make it through the first year.

I can't even remember what business this building most recently held.

This is a clothing store that just went out of business last winter after being around for as long as I can remember. I only went in there once, and I don't think many people shopped there. They are using it for storage right now. They still have another store in a neighboring town.

This was a gas station once and has also been an auto garage at various times.

This once was the main convenience store in town. Most people got their gas there and it was the only place to get a soda, etc. It started dying out after a chain convenience store (Casey's) came to town.

This was built to be the offices of the motel behind it, but most recently it was a tanning place. It closed up after the owner was found out to be an embezzler and went to jail. Not sure where I'm going to tan this year...

The space on the left held a barber shop forever, but they moved across the street to a larger building. The space on the right has been several things, but I mostly remember it as a realty place. I don't think anything has been in it for quite some time.

This is what happens to a town when the local business owners won't let a Wal-Mart come into town because they are afraid of it hurting business. As if everyone in town doesn't just drive the 20 miles to the next town that accepted the Wal-Mart. Our town was right off the junction of two major highways, but yet we are one of the smallest towns around due to bad choices by the people who used to be in charge. Our town had the potential to be the large town where everyone went to shop, but now that town is 25 miles down the road. And now look what's happening.

For more small town stories, check out On The Front Porch.

Summer Camp

This is gearing up to be a busy week for me. Not only do I have summer school during the regular work day, but I then go out to our local church camp for high school week as soon as I get off of work. By the time I leave from camp to go home, it could be anywhere from 9:30 to after 11pm.

I absolutely love summer camp. Our church is the host church of our campgrounds because we are one of two churches within 10 miles of the camp. It is officially out in the middle of no where (considering the nearest "town" is 6 miles away and that town has a population of less than 3,000). We have kids from churches all over the Ozarks show up at camp--even kids from a few Arkansas churches manage to make their way up to our camp. We basically have the same faculty there every year (mostly made up of the church youth ministers), and during high school week, most of the campers have been there for years as well. It's a very small town/family environment.

All camps seem to be different, and this one is nothing like the summer camps you see in movies. We don't have individual cabins; instead we have a boys dorm and a girls dorm. The boys dorm is a converted house, so there are individual rooms with multiple bunks in each room. The old girls dorm is the same as the boys, but a new girls dorm has been added to the old house. The new section is a large room with about 20 bunk beds in it (room for around 40 girls). As old and run-down as the house is, most of the girls would still prefer to be in the old dorm because of the more private rooms.

We have a multi-purpose room that acts as a gym and a dining hall. Lots of activities go on in there throughout the day.

There is also a worship pavilion. It's very unique considering it is all open air. They have put tarps on the side where the rain would normally blow in, and there is a wall stage-side, but other than that it's fairly open to the outdoors. Churches have donated old pews for the kids to sit in as well.

Classes are taught in the multiple small pavilions that sprinkle the camp grounds. They are usually found under shade trees, looking picturesque.

There is also a pool, outdoor basketball court, soccer field and sand volleyball for rec time.

I never have a real job at camp. Instead I act as a gopher/secretary/snack sales person/jack-of-all trades. This year I am also taking the camp pictures, which is proving to be a profitable summer side-job.

I hope this causes you to think back to your days at summer camp. Whether camp for you was a week long or all summer long, the memories will last a lifetime.

I may post pictures as the summer progresses, but right now I'm at work and can't really load pictures up for everyone to see the beauty of the camp.

For more small town moments, check out On The Front Porch.

The Highway Department is Trying to Kill Me

I really think that our local highway department is trying to kill me. This is the view out of my car looking down the highway from the direction in which speeding cars may be approaching. Can you see very far down the road? Neither can I. When they mow the right of way, they only mow one mower width from the road. I would hate for them to use any gear on their tractors other than 4th gear. I would hate for them to use something like, oh, let's say...REVERSE!

I used to work for the highway department (in a different town), and I've mowed my fair share of right of ways...you are supposed to mow the grass on either side of an approach so people can actually see if a car is speeding down the road at them or not. The only way my approach gets mowed is if my dad hooks up the brush-hog and does it himself...IT'S NOT HIS JOB!

It's ridiculous. I have to actually pull so far forward that the front of my car is IN THE ROAD if I want to be able to tell if someone is coming or not.

So, I conclude: the highway department is obviously trying to kill me!

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Oil Change

I'm finally getting my oil changed on my car. They recomend you change it ever 3,000 miles, but I think that is based on old standards back when vehicles used more oil. My car has a light that goes off if it's been 5,000 miles since the last change and that's what I go by...but that light had been on for quite some time now!

At least now I don't have to look at that annoying red light on my dash anymore!

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Personal Assistant

I've decided that I need a personal assistant for the following tasks:

1. Pay my bills - I am terrible at paying bills on time. I've actually set almost all my bills to be automatically paid in order to make sure they get paid on time.
2. Do my laundry - Or more specifically, fold and put away said laundry. I don't mind separating, washing and drying it; it's the folding and putting it away that I hate.
3. Take out the trash - This would including burning trash that can be put into the burn barrel as well as loading up the nonburnables into a truck and hauling it to our dump. (yes we burn stuff like paper, and yes we have our own dump).
4. Pick up random items at the store - I don't mind taking big grocery trips, but I hate having to run to the store for just a few items.
5. Help me out at work - I could really use someone to help make copies, enter grades and grade things that wouldn't take a college education to grade (worksheets, etc...not that I really give out too many worksheets because I think they are lame and don't really teach much or require much brain power to assign, grade or complete...but I digress). Technically, during the school year, I do have a student aide that can do a lot of this, but that is only one hour a day.
6. Pick up around the house - I am terrible about just putting things into piles. It would be awesome to have someone who would pick up after me and make sure things ended up where they belong.
   

If I actually thought I could find someone to come over and do stuff like this once a week, I would tighten my belt and find the money somewhere. You can hire someone to clean your house, but finding someone to do a bunch of menial jobs...that may only exist in the big cities. Also, I'm not sure I could find someone to do it just one day a week. Also, there is the problem that I don't need all those things done on the same day, but maybe I could figure something out if I knew someone was coming over to help out.

If you have any suggestions (other than me being less lazy)...send them my way!

Not Quite as Planned

So summer school is not quite going as planned.

The plan: Spend 12 days with about 8-12 kids in a low-key, low-stress environment. The kids would do a lot of work on their own while I spent a good portion of the day working on my lesson plans for the next school year. All of this while making in 12 days almost as much money as I do in an entire month.

The reality: I am spending 12 days with 23 kids in a moderately stressful environment. The kids may be working on their own, but I am spending WAY too much time grading papers and preparing for the next lesson. I am still making good money though.

What is up with that? Summer school was supposed to be easy? I should not be this stressed! I spent an hour after work just getting copies made. AND...I'm getting virtually nothing done towards being prepared for next fall. I was hoping to do a major overhaul on my lesson plans.

AARRGGG!

This may have been my own fault because I sent out around 30 letters to the parents of students who were eligible to go to summer school recommending that they come to one of the two sessions...it appears that they all came to the first session! That was not part of the plan!