Seven Quick Takes are hosted at Conversion Diary.
1) Kelson is a HS graduate! His commencement was short, sweet, and seemly -- the most riotous moment was when all the grads threw their caps into the air -- but it is kept that way by teachers and administrators galore, and a pat-down of all the grads before they process in. Arwen's graduation was disrupted by smoke bombs, and Branwen's by beach balls (brought in and then inflated) so I see the necessity but deplore the cultural attitude that makes it so.
2) Of course, the thing I remember most about my graduation (In 1969! I'm OLD!) is the two guys on either side of me playing cards across me during the speeches. I remember the name of one of the school board members who spoke, but that is only because he was the step-father of one of my classmates, and step-fathers in those days were rare (and somewhat scandalous) creatures. Now, probably half the graduating class has one. Sigh.
3) This includes our "spare kid', who I haven't mentioned here before - and won't ever again - and whom I will refer to only as X. X has lived with us for much of the school year. He and Kelson have been friends since middle school, and one day last fall I noticed that Kelson offered X the chance to take a shower at our house. A little delicate prying disclosed that X's mom and stepfather (!) were divorcing, and for reasons that I still don't understand after a talk with his mom, X had been thrown out of his home and was living on the streets. After a little discussion and the aforesaid chat with X's mom we offered him a bed at our house. So two members of our household graduated on Tuesday. Congratulations, X! You did it!
4) This is the first graduation we've had with no younger kids still in school. So it's a little disorienting to me to see the school buses still running, and find the mall still empty on a Wednesday afternoon. Isn't it summer?? School's out! But for non-seniors there's still a week and a half to go.
5) Tomorrow will be a massive day of cooking and organizing, because the graduation Open House is Sunday afternoon. Since this is the sixth one I've done, I have lots of supplies and lots of experience, and since Kelson didn't care about the menu, I chose things that are easy for me: queso and chips and soft taco fixings. Tirienne (who is studying cake decoration at culinary school) offered to make the cake, but discovered she has a conflicting commitment. But she has made decorations that I can just place on a base of white frosting, so I don't mind. I LOVE having talented children!
6) Of course, the other side of getting the last child graduated is the upcoming empty nest. I know I will love no longer being tied to the school calendar. No more conflicts between Right to Life meetings and band concerts, or choir practice and Quiz Bowl meets. And no restriction on when we have to come home from visiting grandchildren. But also no new-to-me music blaring in the dining room (who would have thought I'd like Romeo and Juliet by The Killers!!) and no late night conversations about faith and morality. As with any new stage of life, I guess I will just have to get used to it.
7) And we still have a couple of college graduations to look forward to. And grandchildren graduating from kindergarten. And middle school. And High School. And college! But for those I won't have to do the Open Houses, just show up with a card and a kiss and a gift or two. I think I'm going to like this new stage of dealing with graduation. Bring it on!
Showing posts with label Kelson/Tommy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kelson/Tommy. Show all posts
Friday, June 11, 2010
Friday, June 04, 2010
Seven Quick Takes -- About my week
Seven Quick Takes is hosted by Jen.
This has been a different sort of week for me, so each take is going to be related to that theme.
1) We had our Memorial Day cookout on Sunday, since some of the kids who were in town needed to leave mid-day Monday. One thing that didn't move to the new house with us was our old and battered picnic tables, which have not yet been replaced. I miss them. It's easier to eat in the dining room, but ribs just taste better outdoors. SIgh.
2) Monday after everybody left we had a new experience. We could stay up as late as we wanted, because nobody had to go to school the next day. (The last day for seniors, including Kelson, was last Friday.) The last time that happened, Arwen was four, Branwen was a toddler, and Miriel was a baby. Not that we DID stay up late, you understand, but we could have.
3) Tuesday morning I woke up and "called in sick" to my much-loved Bible study because my right shoulder hurt so badly. It hurt to try to move, and although I could get my arm above waist height, I had to lift it with my left hand. It felt like my shoulder was dislocated, and I couldn't get it back in. (I've never actually been diagnosed with a dislocated shoulder, but I have very loose joints -- probably BJHS -- and have been able to pop my shoulder in and out at will for as long as I can remember.) No matter how much I twisted and turned and stretched (and moaned and groaned and whined...) the shoulder still hurt. A lot. So I resorted to the "Mike prescription."
Mike is a Physician's Assistant we know, and his recommendation for anything musculo-skeletal (and not obviously broken/bleeding/urgent ) is "three ibuprofen three times a day for three days." And you know what -- it worked. Wednesday was better than Tuesday, Thursday better than Wednesday, and several times today I noticed myself doing things that would have been impossible on Tuesday. But I certainly hope this whatever-it-was doesn't happen again.
4) Wednesday, sore shoulder or no sore shoulder, I participated in PAC interviews. As I've mentioned before, I'm very involved with our local Right to Life chapter. One of the things we do in election years is interview candidates for various local offices and evaluate their credibility and electablity as candidates. (Their pro-life credentials are evaluated by their answers to a questionnaire mailed out by the state PAC.) By law only the state PAC can endorse candidates, but we can do interviews locally and recommend for or against endorsement. We interviewed five candidates for four different offices, and on Monday I get to drive to another town and help interview five more. I'm an active participant in the political process!
5) Also on Wednesday, we got a call that Miriel had been offered the job she was hoping for. It's a terrific fit for her interests and abilities, and she will love it. Unfortunately she'll be almost 600 miles away, but with the internet she'll be much more in contact than I was when I went 75 miles from home for college. "It's a new world, Golde." (Name that quotation.)
6) On Thursday (assisted by Roger for the heavy lifting), I did MAJOR grocery shopping. In our area it's the custom for HS graduates to have open house type parties, and Kelson's is on the 13th. (This date was arrived at by checking his Google calendar and eliminating the dates on which his friends had already scheduled parties. And most of the invitations went out on Facebook. See quote above.) We're expecting probably 100 people, and although not all of them will eat much -- since they will be jumping from open house to open house -- that's still a lot of food. The non-perishable ingredients are all stowed away -- I'll pick up the perishables next Thursday -- and after graduation on Tuesday the preparations will begin. If you're in the area, come on over on the 13th between 3 and 7!
7) On Friday I blogged. That is all.
This has been a different sort of week for me, so each take is going to be related to that theme.
1) We had our Memorial Day cookout on Sunday, since some of the kids who were in town needed to leave mid-day Monday. One thing that didn't move to the new house with us was our old and battered picnic tables, which have not yet been replaced. I miss them. It's easier to eat in the dining room, but ribs just taste better outdoors. SIgh.
2) Monday after everybody left we had a new experience. We could stay up as late as we wanted, because nobody had to go to school the next day. (The last day for seniors, including Kelson, was last Friday.) The last time that happened, Arwen was four, Branwen was a toddler, and Miriel was a baby. Not that we DID stay up late, you understand, but we could have.
3) Tuesday morning I woke up and "called in sick" to my much-loved Bible study because my right shoulder hurt so badly. It hurt to try to move, and although I could get my arm above waist height, I had to lift it with my left hand. It felt like my shoulder was dislocated, and I couldn't get it back in. (I've never actually been diagnosed with a dislocated shoulder, but I have very loose joints -- probably BJHS -- and have been able to pop my shoulder in and out at will for as long as I can remember.) No matter how much I twisted and turned and stretched (and moaned and groaned and whined...) the shoulder still hurt. A lot. So I resorted to the "Mike prescription."
Mike is a Physician's Assistant we know, and his recommendation for anything musculo-skeletal (and not obviously broken/bleeding/urgent ) is "three ibuprofen three times a day for three days." And you know what -- it worked. Wednesday was better than Tuesday, Thursday better than Wednesday, and several times today I noticed myself doing things that would have been impossible on Tuesday. But I certainly hope this whatever-it-was doesn't happen again.
4) Wednesday, sore shoulder or no sore shoulder, I participated in PAC interviews. As I've mentioned before, I'm very involved with our local Right to Life chapter. One of the things we do in election years is interview candidates for various local offices and evaluate their credibility and electablity as candidates. (Their pro-life credentials are evaluated by their answers to a questionnaire mailed out by the state PAC.) By law only the state PAC can endorse candidates, but we can do interviews locally and recommend for or against endorsement. We interviewed five candidates for four different offices, and on Monday I get to drive to another town and help interview five more. I'm an active participant in the political process!
5) Also on Wednesday, we got a call that Miriel had been offered the job she was hoping for. It's a terrific fit for her interests and abilities, and she will love it. Unfortunately she'll be almost 600 miles away, but with the internet she'll be much more in contact than I was when I went 75 miles from home for college. "It's a new world, Golde." (Name that quotation.)
6) On Thursday (assisted by Roger for the heavy lifting), I did MAJOR grocery shopping. In our area it's the custom for HS graduates to have open house type parties, and Kelson's is on the 13th. (This date was arrived at by checking his Google calendar and eliminating the dates on which his friends had already scheduled parties. And most of the invitations went out on Facebook. See quote above.) We're expecting probably 100 people, and although not all of them will eat much -- since they will be jumping from open house to open house -- that's still a lot of food. The non-perishable ingredients are all stowed away -- I'll pick up the perishables next Thursday -- and after graduation on Tuesday the preparations will begin. If you're in the area, come on over on the 13th between 3 and 7!
7) On Friday I blogged. That is all.
Friday, March 05, 2010
Seven Quick Takes -- Wow, Two weeks Goes Fast!
1) As I updated my last post, our friend Fr. Paul died on Saturday the 20th. Since Roger is his executor, that swept us into a whirlwind of funeral arrangements usually dealt with by the family. (His niece was here, and two of his nephews were able to make it for the funeral, but we were the "local people" and had all the paperwork.) Archbishop Vigneron was able to come and say the funeral mass. There were another bishop and twelve priests concelebrating, plus a deacon to read the Gospel, and combined choirs from local parishes sang. At first I was disappointed at the size of the congregation, which looked about like 8AM mass on a Sunday. But the archbishop assured us that for a priest who had been officially retired for almost 20 years, the turnout was huge. I don't think anyone who knew Fr. Paul could help but love him, and as many as possible came out to demonstrate that.
2) The tiring part of dealing with Fr. Paul's death was not the visitation or the funeral. It was cleaning out his "apartment" at the senior care facility. The St. Vincent dePaul folks came and hauled away much of his furniture and any clothes and linens that were worth donating, but somebody (us plus his niece, nephew, and the nephew's wife) had to sort it, decide what to donate, what was trash, and what somebody might want. The nephew and his wife left with a van packed full of audio classes on CD and assorted decorative and sentimental items, some of which they were going to pass along to the other nephew, who couldn't stay that long. The niece took as much as she could cram into her suitcase for the flight. WE still have several boxes of photos and such which we are planning to distribute to local friends of Fr. Paul.
3) Cleaning out his apartment meant that I had no time to spend on organizing all the "stuff" in OUR basement, which I have determined to do by Easter. On the upside, I now have two more bookcases to fill. On the downside, I now have five more boxes of books to sort. I am hoping to donate a number of books to the Friends of the Library ( mostly Roger's collection of "airport books"), but all of Fr. Paul's books that nobody wanted have already been donated. I'm going to need those bookcases!
4) On a related note, I'm actually wistfully hoping to be able to BUY two bookcases to set in our living room corner. We have a couple that would do for the space, but I found some assemble-it-yourself ones for a great price, and I'd love to have something matching and new. We'll see! To this end I have measured all the shelves of our current bookcases, and when I sort the books I intend to measure the linear feet they will take up. If I need the new bookcases I will buy them..... somehow.
5) I do have a little bit of money toward a bookcase, a birthday gift from my mother-in-law. I turned 59 (!) last Saturday. I'm not a big fan of cake, although Roger offered to make one, but I did get to celebrate. A local musical group played for a contra dance in a parish gym in town, and for only the second or third time in our marriage, Roger and I went dancing! Full disclaimer: neither one of us really cares for "regular" dancing, and we've gone every time we were free if there was square or contra dancing. When I was single and lived in Ohio, a bunch of us used to go to square dances almost every weekend in some Grange hall or other, and just like riding a bicycle, lots of it came back quickly. There was some talk of repeating the dance on a quarterly basis or so, and if they do, we'll be there. (There is a video on the link to the band. Roger and I are at the right end of the gym; I'm wearing a green skirt. We show up at about 1:53 into it.)
6) Since our son-in-law Bryan had to make a business trip, Arwen and Camilla and Blaise came to visit from Monday through Wednesday. Blaise has apparently inherited Roger's "morning person" personality, since he seems to think that 5:30AM is a perfectly reasonable time for a one-year-old to start the day. Arwen was very glad to hand him off to Grandpa and go back to sleep! Camilla at the same age used to sleep until 9, so Blaise has been kind of a shock. ;-D I'm always glad to see them, but this time I heaved a tiny sigh. Arwen has been decluttering her house for Lent (40 Bags in 40 Days), and she brought back a great big plastic bin of books they have borrowed from us. (The first time I typed the last sentence, I inadvertently hit Caps Lock, and everything from "brought" came out in caps. I considered leaving it that way........)
7) Yesterday was our LAST EVER Quiz Bowl league tournament. Arwen started playing in 6th grade in 1994 (our town has a middle school league), and one or more kids have been involved at some level ever since. We know which teams have the buzzer system that makes that annoying "Brrrzat" noise, we know most of the coaches by sight, and we know how to find the restrooms in every school in the league. We also know a lot about how the league trophy looks, since it spends most of its time at our school!
Yesterday was no exception. Kelson's team had already come in first in the league (19 wins, 2 losses) and won a tournament sponsored by the local community college. They won the league tournament as well! I must admit I wish they didn't have a penchant for winning double-elimination competitions by working their way up the losers bracket. We could have been home an hour sooner if they hadn't had to beat the last team twice.
Now it's on to states, where they will do an acceptable job and come home in the middle of the second day. Many schools in the more urban areas make Quiz Bowl a regular class, where the teams study assorted topics and get graded on their performance. In our league it's strictly extra-curricular, and the kids play with the knowledge they bring to it just from pursuing their own interests. I like the perspective Arwen had when she played in her first state tournament -- "I think we had more fun losing than they had winning!" That's the way I want my kids to view knowledge and study; as a game, not a chore. I think they get it.
Seven Quick Takes are hosted at Conversion Diary.
2) The tiring part of dealing with Fr. Paul's death was not the visitation or the funeral. It was cleaning out his "apartment" at the senior care facility. The St. Vincent dePaul folks came and hauled away much of his furniture and any clothes and linens that were worth donating, but somebody (us plus his niece, nephew, and the nephew's wife) had to sort it, decide what to donate, what was trash, and what somebody might want. The nephew and his wife left with a van packed full of audio classes on CD and assorted decorative and sentimental items, some of which they were going to pass along to the other nephew, who couldn't stay that long. The niece took as much as she could cram into her suitcase for the flight. WE still have several boxes of photos and such which we are planning to distribute to local friends of Fr. Paul.
3) Cleaning out his apartment meant that I had no time to spend on organizing all the "stuff" in OUR basement, which I have determined to do by Easter. On the upside, I now have two more bookcases to fill. On the downside, I now have five more boxes of books to sort. I am hoping to donate a number of books to the Friends of the Library ( mostly Roger's collection of "airport books"), but all of Fr. Paul's books that nobody wanted have already been donated. I'm going to need those bookcases!
4) On a related note, I'm actually wistfully hoping to be able to BUY two bookcases to set in our living room corner. We have a couple that would do for the space, but I found some assemble-it-yourself ones for a great price, and I'd love to have something matching and new. We'll see! To this end I have measured all the shelves of our current bookcases, and when I sort the books I intend to measure the linear feet they will take up. If I need the new bookcases I will buy them..... somehow.
5) I do have a little bit of money toward a bookcase, a birthday gift from my mother-in-law. I turned 59 (!) last Saturday. I'm not a big fan of cake, although Roger offered to make one, but I did get to celebrate. A local musical group played for a contra dance in a parish gym in town, and for only the second or third time in our marriage, Roger and I went dancing! Full disclaimer: neither one of us really cares for "regular" dancing, and we've gone every time we were free if there was square or contra dancing. When I was single and lived in Ohio, a bunch of us used to go to square dances almost every weekend in some Grange hall or other, and just like riding a bicycle, lots of it came back quickly. There was some talk of repeating the dance on a quarterly basis or so, and if they do, we'll be there. (There is a video on the link to the band. Roger and I are at the right end of the gym; I'm wearing a green skirt. We show up at about 1:53 into it.)
6) Since our son-in-law Bryan had to make a business trip, Arwen and Camilla and Blaise came to visit from Monday through Wednesday. Blaise has apparently inherited Roger's "morning person" personality, since he seems to think that 5:30AM is a perfectly reasonable time for a one-year-old to start the day. Arwen was very glad to hand him off to Grandpa and go back to sleep! Camilla at the same age used to sleep until 9, so Blaise has been kind of a shock. ;-D I'm always glad to see them, but this time I heaved a tiny sigh. Arwen has been decluttering her house for Lent (40 Bags in 40 Days), and she brought back a great big plastic bin of books they have borrowed from us. (The first time I typed the last sentence, I inadvertently hit Caps Lock, and everything from "brought" came out in caps. I considered leaving it that way........)
7) Yesterday was our LAST EVER Quiz Bowl league tournament. Arwen started playing in 6th grade in 1994 (our town has a middle school league), and one or more kids have been involved at some level ever since. We know which teams have the buzzer system that makes that annoying "Brrrzat" noise, we know most of the coaches by sight, and we know how to find the restrooms in every school in the league. We also know a lot about how the league trophy looks, since it spends most of its time at our school!
Yesterday was no exception. Kelson's team had already come in first in the league (19 wins, 2 losses) and won a tournament sponsored by the local community college. They won the league tournament as well! I must admit I wish they didn't have a penchant for winning double-elimination competitions by working their way up the losers bracket. We could have been home an hour sooner if they hadn't had to beat the last team twice.
Now it's on to states, where they will do an acceptable job and come home in the middle of the second day. Many schools in the more urban areas make Quiz Bowl a regular class, where the teams study assorted topics and get graded on their performance. In our league it's strictly extra-curricular, and the kids play with the knowledge they bring to it just from pursuing their own interests. I like the perspective Arwen had when she played in her first state tournament -- "I think we had more fun losing than they had winning!" That's the way I want my kids to view knowledge and study; as a game, not a chore. I think they get it.
Seven Quick Takes are hosted at Conversion Diary.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
