Happy Thanksgiving! School Pics

Thanksgiving is here - and for those of you who know all about Zek, you will be glad to know that we've already had to clean up some vomit today. Ahh, the holidays!

Anyway, been meaning to post the kids' school pics for a while now - absolutely amazing how well they ALL turned out. Even Hannah is smiling, though she looks trademark Hannah-weird.

Here they are:






And lastly, about the funniest thing you're likely to see today. On Tuesday, Faith had to go with Steph to get a background check for a tutoring job she's starting. Of course this meant Steph had to explain to Faith what a background check is. So, in Faith's wonderful yet odd imagination, later that night, she was pretending and offered to do a background check on Steph. Here is the result:






Happy Thanksgiving all! Enjoy the holiday!

Storm Clouds

Trouble is afoot in our world.

The Three Letters of Doom have now been officially dropped into the mix at work. RIFs are on the table.

And in this economic climate...you can bet that Music at the elementary level is not going to be considered a high priority. Just out of curiosity, I did a google search to this effect this morning and found no shortage of stories about elementary music, art, and PE programs being cut all across the country.

We'll have a chance to meet with the powers that be after Thanksgiving break. While nothing official is likely any time soon, I don't expect it to be good news.

As many of you who read this thing know, I had a fairly serious bout with depression the last time I found myself out of work.

However, I do NOT expect that to happen again. Steph and I talked about it this morning, and we agree - things have changed a LOT since then, we are both different people now - stronger, wiser, more confident and...with more serenity. I will hopefully have a chance to elaborate on that whole area in the coming days.

I will of course keep everyone informed as I know more. Thoughts and prayers always appreciated, and of course, be thankful for what you have.

Matt

More sickness

Been a long time. Sorry as usual.

We have been passing around various ear infections, stomach bugs, and strep during the last couple weeks. Luckily none of it ever reached dramatic proportions but the systematic way we have passed things from one to another and then immediately been smacked with a new virus has been rather comical of late. The medical fund which we had built up pretty well evaporated in a puff of smoke yesterday. When co-pays are $30 and 2 kids go in, and both end up needing a $20 prescription...well...do the math. Meanwhile, at our house, antibiotics have become their own food group.

And of course, blogging becomes a luxury, so that's why nothing has been posted for so long.

Halloween (the real one) was great - kids were good, had fun, and we got some great pics and video. My most recent work-related endeavors were successes as well.

We are on the long slow march to the desperately needed but always short lived Thanksgiving break. And we are frantically trying to figure out how to stretch our gift dollar this holiday season.

It deserves saying again. We are doing a phenomenal job with our current budget. We are living with pretty much ZERO discrectionary income. Every dollar has to go somewhere to keep us afloat. We are paying every day for our past financial mistakes. But I don't dwell on it. We made our mistakes, the past is the past, I'm simply proud of how well we're managing right now. But we are beyond the idea of 'no wiggle room' - we are in a form-fitting box right now.

It's tough. It's sometimes a little scary. And some people who don't know us very well might raise an eyebrow at some current choices, but I can only state with sincerity that everything we do financially now is weighed and is done for a reason. We have a very concrete set of priorities and we stick to it...it might be different from someone else's priority set, but it's true to us and we believe in it. And I do believe that we will come out of this morass somehow. And again - I am proud of the way we are doing things now. Subtract our past foolishness from our current spreadsheets and we'd be living the good life 5 times over.

Anyway, didn't expect this post to go THAT direction, but I feel better having laid that one all out there.

Peace all, enjoy everything around you!

Matt

Pre-Halloween

Spent last weekend at the Dayton Tall Timbers KOA for one of their Halloween-themed weekends. We have been doing this the last few years at the Cross Creek Camping Resort north of Columbus, but for various reasons couldn't make their weekend. We had stayed at the Dayton KOA before, so we knew it was very nice. We had a really good weekend.

The twins were really cute trick-or-treating for the first time - although Hannah had some trouble with the idea. You see, Hannah's favorite thing in the world to do right now is to take things out of one container and put them in another. She will sit and do this for an hour if we let her. So, here she is, walking around with a brightly colored pumpkin-shaped container, and she goes up to someone holding a bowl full of candy. So...of course she wants to put ALL that candy into her container. Which...looks really bad if you don't know the whole backstory. So we had to keep telling her to only take one, and man did she look offended. Never got upset, because there was always another bowl right ahead, but she definitely was confused why we were killing her fun. I mean, she would have put them all back eventually! Anyway, they both did fine, although Robby did get pretty scared by some of the more gruesomely decorated sites.

It was of course the anniversary of the last RV Halloween weekend, which ended at Columbus Children's Hospital with Robby's epic croup case. But no major illness this year. I did get laryngitis again just like last year, but this is simply an annoyance. (I still don't have my voice completely back, for the record. I can talk fine, but I still can't demonstrate singing voice for my students.)

When we got back, plop, right into the stress pan. (I know that's not a real expression but I just made it up and I like it a lot) It's been said that the human mind can only think about a certain number of things at once, without something dropping out. I can feel this when there is so much going on in my life that I get overwhelmed...and then I just take care of ONE thing, and all of a sudden everything seems clear. Well, this week I got a different end of this. I had about 7 things to think about and worry about and then I got an additional really big dose of bad news...and I discovered that I had absolutely no where else to put it. So it sat there, piled on top of my worries, but not really being dealt with.

The bad news actually went away very quickly on its own, so all is fine now...but it was an odd sensation.

The next 2-3 weeks are a grind. I'll check in when I can. Stay sane (or just sane enough)...

Matt

Wearing down

It's been a busy stretch lately. Not bad, not overly stressful, just busy. Something has to take a back seat, and the blog has suffered. The recent news:

Hard at work on a surprisingly complicated mess of a 4th grade program. Just got done assigning the parts - way too many - if kids don't show it will be a nightmare. Luckily I feel like I've managed to instill in most of my students the sense that actually showing up for something that you've worked hard at and that other people are counting on you for is a good thing.

Just got done with a Brass Fellowship peformance with the Cincinnati October Festival Choir - played, among other things, Hindemith's Apparebit Repentina Dies (think I typed that right). Truthfully, one of the most difficult things I have ever had to perform. Not necessarily the most technically challenging but the most mentally demanding from start to finish. Felt totally drained by the end of it. Very thankful to have been a part of that.

Kids are well - although Hannah this morning threw us all for a loop with an exploded diaper. Faith had an ear infection recently, which was our first trip to the doctor in months. We know more are coming, but it was nice to have such a good run of health. Mari is adjusting exceptionally well to 5-day preschool. No reports of any trouble yet. Sadly, she's back in the habit of growling at us when we correct her or ask her to do things. But, she's being a good Specter lately...keeps her problems in-house. Faith is also doing well in 1st grade - seems to be doing quite well socially, including claiming to have a boyfriend. We all got quite interested until we realized that it wasn't a big deal because the boy in question is also several other girls' boyfriend. The twins are also doing well, with the exception of when Steph has to take them in to pick up Mari on days when the twins DON'T go to preschool. At which point they proceed to throw textbook tantrums and have to be dragged kicking and screaming out the door. Nice. And, as referenced in an earlier pic, their artistic skills are bordering on special needs.

In the midst of all this I've been doing some pretty good teaching and am feeling more and more comfortable with the flow of the year. I'm trying to new things and most of it is working. The days kind of zip by most of the time.

And at home, movie work slowly progresses. Just about done with Hilton Head 2010. Look for those movies to appear on Youtube soon.

This weekend, last trailer trip of the year, to Dayton Tall Timbers KOA for a Halloween themed weekend. Should be fun. Here's hoping that things don't go like they did last year at our Halloween trailer weekend.

God bless,
Matt

My RedHawk Experience

This is a bit of a tongue-in-cheek reference to Team Towner's latest blog entry. They get to go to Nebraska games - big time college football - one of the premier experiences in the nation.

Today, dad and I took Faith and Mari up to Oxford for the big Miami-Kent State game.

Stand back.

Okay, in fairness, I used to go to Miami games a lot, back when my brother was in college there. It is, at its best, a wonderful football atmosphere, a beautiful location, just on a small scale. Which is a good thing.

But the team has struggled of late and the energy seemed a bit lacking today. Admittedly it was a typical early October day in Ohio - temp in the upper 50s, overcast, steady rain. But after just having read Gina's post, I couldn't help but compare. At any rate, it was a good day, the girls were wonderful, and we got to see cousin Kevin march - very entertaining Queen show, I must say.

Some pics - enjoy, Gina and Cliff...

Dad sprung for some sweatshirts for the girls - and it was a good thing too, they would have been absolutely drenched if he hadn't:



Big crowd for the opening kickoff:



When the rains came, it REALLY emptied out:



We had the whole place to ourselves.



Time to get out of the rain - game over. Miami won, in case you needed to know.

Okay, so I feel bad now. First time I put a pretty negative post on the blog and then it sits there for almost 2 weeks.

Things are better. I'm in a pretty 'routine' stretch right now. Our next big event to look forward to is our pre-Halloween trailer weekend trip in mid-October. That's a ways away at this point, but it's something to work towards. Steph starts her job up again full-speed very soon as well, so everyone is going to be a little busier soon.

The weather has finally broken and I think we're done with the heat. There are starting to be lows in the 40s in the forecast, which after 90+ heat as recently as last week, looks really nice. We are still looking for a decent firepit we can get on the cheap, to be able to go outside and enjoy the cool evenings, but so far no luck.

Kids are all loving school. I will probably have more to say about that coming up soon. But for now, that's all I got.

MS

Reality

Lest anyone get the mistaken impression that we only post the happy feelgood stuff on here...

Boy, these kids are a pain sometimes. Faith and Mari can't be in the same room without fighting over the air molecules. Hannah says "Ouch" now if you touch her at all and screams over everything. Faith, when she knows she's done something wrong, now likes to weepily exaggerate what she's done into truly epic proportions and then tries to command the situation by interrupting us and saying what she thinks we're going to say about WHY it was bad - again usually with a keen sense of hyperbole...and incorrectness. Mari has again taken to slamming doors and shouting unintelligibly at us when she gets in trouble, along with attempting to variously run away, hide her face, or every so often, growling. Hannah doesn't understand that there are necessarily some moments at the dinner table when food isn't actually IN your mouth, nor does she understand that her mouth can't hold 2 hot dogs all at once.

Robby...well, actually he's been pretty okay lately.

It's been a rough week behavior wise. Here's hoping things improve.

Matt

Preschool first day (part 2 - more pics)

Part 1 of this post is below - here are a few more pics.

Robby got right to work on puzzles:

Please, let this be a picture full of symbolism.



All done!




Ugh...Robby and Hannah have a long way to go in the art department...

Preschool first day

The following is an email Steph sent me this morning - I thought it made for as good a blog post as any I could have typed up:

____

Well, all 4 of my children are in school at the moment for the first time!
:-) :-(

Mommy did fine -- I really didn't even tear up too much. It was nice to be able to stay for a few minutes after they got settled in to their classrooms to kinda "sneakily" watch them and snap some more pics while they weren't watching.

Mari, of course, barely even remembered to give me a hug and went right in, found her name tag and got on with playing with My Little Ponies. No problems.

The twins were so cute with putting their bags and lunch boxes in their cubbies. Robby went right in, no problems, all smiles. Found his name tag right away w/ out help (big surprise -- picture him saying, "A B C C's!!!!" then got to work on a puzzle. Hannah went in, but gave Mrs. O'Brien her shy but if you don't know her well it seems nasty kinda look -- classic Hannah! Hannah found her name tag by herself as well. Had to be convinced a little more to start a puzzle. I went to see how Mari was doing (great of course) and then went back to look at the twins and I hear, "Hannah, we're all sitting at the table right now! Hannah! Can you come sit at the table with us? Thank you, great job!" Yeah. I believe Hannah will be the one with the biggest learning curve! :-)

So, all is well! I'll post/send pics later.

____

So, here are some pics:

Good morning!



Ready to go...but where's Hannah?


Grumpy as usual.


Nothing a little tickle can't cure...


More pics coming in a moment...