I keep forgetting to mention that Lilly was in a Spelling Bee several weeks ago, and the group of kids that were in the Bee got their picture put in the paper. You can see Lilly pretty easily because she always wears the warm knit hat that I got her this past Christmas:
Lilly didn't win, and she never would tell me any details at all about the spelling bee, so I have no idea exactly how she did, or even what words that she had to spell (or which word she misspelled that caused her to be "out"). But of course I'm proud that she even made it this far. And after the spelling bee, they took all the kids out to eat at Downtown Pizza, which was nice.
It reminded me of when I was in the same kind of spelling bee (countywide) when I was in 5th grade (Lilly's in the 4th grade). I did OK, but I didn't win either. And they took us to a steakhouse in town to eat lunch afterwards. That was totally awesome! But I'll never forget one spelling bee I was in as a little kid where I totally spelled a word correctly, but they counted me "out". And of course I was too shy to try to correct them. The word was "bizarre". The rules were that if the word had more than one meaning; as long as you spelled it correctly, then it would still be all right. Well, they wouldn't give me the definition of the word. So I spelled it "bazaar", which is totally a word, and they counted me "out". I'll never forget that. It sucked. >:{
Anyway, today I'm just sitting around the house waiting for the heat pump repairman to come fix our heat pump. It won't turn on at all to heat the house. And that sucks, because it's allegedly supposed to snow a little tomorrow. We looked inside the electrical panel of the heat pump this past weekend to see if it was something simple that we could fix ourselves, and discovered that a mouse had nibbled on a blue wire, thereby accidentally electrocuting itself (its skeleton was still in there). Dad taped that chewed wire up with electrical tape, but it still didn't fix the problem. And heat pumps are one of the very few things that Dad doesn't have a whole lot of experience fixing, so I'm having to call in the repairman. The trouble may even be with the thermostat on the wall in the hallway, because when I woke up Saturday morning, all the numbers were lit up (which shouldn't be that way), and all of them said "88". So that was wrong. Anyway, I'm sure the repairman will figure out what the problem is quickly and get it all fixed up. He's fixed our heat pump before, and he's really awesome.
This past weekend was really nice and warm. I'm so glad that spring is just around the corner. The daffodils are coming up, and the crocuses are blooming. I like to be outside as much as possible, especially when it's warm. Lilly has been enjoying playing outside lately, too. We walked down to the lake bottom a weekend or two ago to look around and see what "treasures" we could find, and I snapped a couple of pictures of Lilly:
In the picture above, Lilly actually found a halfway decent (but slightly rusty) pair of scissors near where she was kneeling. I guess they might've fallen out of somebody's fishing tacklebox or something, who knows. We kept them, because who knows when you might need a pair of cruddy scissors to handle some yucky chore, and don't want to ruin your good scissors doing it!
Lilly has also finally begun to enjoy exploring in the woods around our house. I'm glad, because that's one of the most fun things I enjoyed doing when I was a kid, too. And it's safe in the woods around our house, because nobody else lives around us for a long way around.
Anyway, over the weekend, Lilly made an astonishing discovery in the woods just behind our house (well within seeing-distance of the house). Lilly found her piggy bank that someone stole after breaking into our house about 4 or 5 years ago. The piggy bank was busted into several pieces, and of course all of the money was gone, but Lilly was so thrilled to find out what became of it, and at least recover parts of it. The robber obviously took the piggy bank up into the woods maybe about 40 feet away from the house and busted it open with a rock or something. Lilly hasn't found all of the parts of it yet (she still looks when she has time), but she has most of it. If she finds all of the parts, I told her we could glue it back together, and that maybe she could even re-paint it if she wanted to. We're even going to borrow Dad's metal detector to use to sweep the ground in the area of the woods where Lilly found the pieces of her piggy bank, just to see if we can retrieve any of the coins at all. There was a total of around $225 in the piggy bank, mostly in cash (paper money), but of course there were a lot of coins too (including a lot of $1 gold coins that the tooth fairy had given Lilly). So if we can recover even a few cents, then it will be neat.
Here's a picture of the broken pieces of the piggy bank that Lilly found:
It's still completely unfathomable to me that someone would break into a house and steal a child's piggy bank. The bank had the words "Baby Bank" painted on it, and you can see in the picture above of the busted pieces that it had a blue diaper painted on it as well. I mean, really? An innocent little baby's piggy bank that even looks like a baby itself? Only a true evil monster with no heart could possibly do such a thing. They never even unplugged the stopper to see what money was in it before hauling off with it. The stopper is still firmly in place on the piggy bank. They just took it, ran up in the woods with it, and busted it open. What if it was just crammed full of nothing but pennies? I wish it had been. I'll always regret that the thief/thieves got away with over $200 that belonged to my baby. :{ Oh, well. Karma's a b*tch, is all I can say!
Last week in the lunchroom was really rough. As I think I wrote in my previous post, one of the main ladies was out on vacation all last week taking a cruise, so they got another sub to come in to help. But the girl turned out to be not much help. And what was even worse was that her attitude stunk, and she seemed to be lazy. It was pretty dramatic all week with all the dirty looks, whispering, and complaints. I just kept my nose to the grindstone and tried to do the best I could. I don't get involved in drama or politics. I almost began to wonder if all the other ladies thought that I sucked too, but in the end, they all showered me with super-nice compliments about what a hard worker I am and what a good job I do, and how they've put in words to the "big" boss that they want me to be hired on full-time. And they weren't just blowing smoke up my rear-end; they really meant it. So that made me feel good.
Friday in the lunchroom was extra-rough because we had to fix and serve the fancy Valentine's Day lunch that we were supposed to have had back on Valentine's Day, but school was cancelled because of the snow. So among other things, we had 2 different types of pasta (rotini and penne), marinara (with meat) sauce or alfredo sauce, and a fancy romaine lettuce salad with olives, red onions, banana peppers, pepperoncini, and croutons, with a yummy homemade olive oil dressing that had garlic in it, among other neat stuff. I think it was even topped with parmesan cheese. For dessert was a super-yummy homemade brownie with homemade pink frosting. (Surprisingly, they make quite a few things from scratch in the lunchroom).
So that meal was hard enough to prepare and serve as it was, but everything also had to be top-notch, because the School Board members and GEMA (Georgia Emergency Management Agency) also came (they had a meeting in the lunchroom and partook of our fancy Valentine lunch too -- before any of the students came in, of course). The lunchroom manager ended up personally serving the Board members and the people from GEMA in the first serving line (because it's the line that has the sweet and unsweet tea located at the end of it). That's the lunch line that the lazy/bad attitude substitute girl had been serving in all week prior. When she found out that the manager was serving the "fancy" people, she hollered out "Oh, so I'm not GOOD enough to serve them?!?" So that was totally unprofessional and crappy. Earlier in the week, a student found a hair in one of the cookies that me and that girl had panned up and baked the day before (God, I hope it wasn't one of my hairs, but I always take extra-super-careful precautions every single morning to not have any stray hairs about my person, and I wear a cap and secure my hair back in a covered bun). So I think everyone immediately assumed that the hair was off that lazy girl (which, truth be told, it probably was, because her hair net kept flying off and she was kind of sloppy in general). Also, speaking of cookies, they noticed that the sloppy girl ate one of the warm cookies off of the pan after we had taken them out of the oven. One of the other ladies saw it, approached her, and explained that she would need to pay 75 cents for it, since it's extra, and not included with the free food that the lunch ladies are allowed to eat each day. So I don't know what happened with that, but it didn't go over too well. Needless to say, that girl won't be coming back. Not only by her own choice (because she turned out to not like being a lunch lady anyway), but because she won't be asked to come back (at least not to the high school cafeteria). Whew. What a mess.
I worked in the lunchroom yesterday, and without the lazy/bad attitude/hair-in-the-cookie girl, everything went quite a bit smoother. They brought in one of the other more experienced substitutes to help (since the lady that had been on vacation to take a cruise was still out, and wasn't supposed to return 'til the next day). The sub yesterday was the one that I think rolled her eyes at the way I was making and packaging the deli wrap trays the last time she was there (a little too slowly for her Speedy Gonzales tastes). But she was OK. I can get along with anybody. I don't care if anybody rolls their eyes at me or not; I can just ignore it, and focus on what I'm doing. I don't give a crap what anybody thinks or does; I'm there to do my job. I still think I go a little too slow when it comes to cleaning up at the end of the day, but I don't know what to do about it. I go as fast as I can. Nobody has complained to me, so I'm not going to worry about it. And I don't think that I'm cleaning too deeply (I know I have that perfectionist tendency to go a little overboard because I want to make sure that everything is perfect). But I really don't think I'm going overboard. So I guess I'd rather make sure that everything is clean, than not clean enough. All I can do is try to go as fast as I can.
Anyway, yesterday was the only day that I had to work this week, and I'm secretly kind of glad. I'm pretty worn out after the rough week in the lunchroom we had last week. And there's some stuff around the house that needs my attention. For one, I've got to wait for the heat pump repairman to come today (so I'll have to stay home and be ready for when he comes), and I need to finish doing some painting and waterproofing in anticipation for the insurance inspector to arrive (I still don't know when that will be). I hope it's within the next week or so, because Lilly really wants for her trampoline to be put back up (we had to temporarily disassemble and hide it so the insurance inspector wouldn't know we had it)!
I sure hope the insurance inspector doesn't tell us that Lilly's playset is dangerous (and refuse to insure us unless we get rid of it). We've got one of those wooden, tower-type playsets in the yard with two slides (one tall and twisty) and a tire-swing. The bottom level is a sandbox. I mean, if we absolutely have to get rid of it, then I guess we'll just have to get rid of it. But that would suck.
The only other thing I could see that the insurance inspector might frown upon is the fact that we have a retaining wall with no railing. I mean, we've had an inspector with a different insurance company come to our house once before in the past, and we passed that inspection with flying colors. Jamie happened to be at home when the man came, and he said that the man didn't even walk all the way around the house. He was only there for maybe a minute or two, and then left. You never know what to expect. Inspectors can either be 1) House-Hitlers, or 2) Not give a crap. Well, I've already had one inspector that didn't give a crap...I hope I'm not due for a House-Hitler! :/
LOL!
Anyway, in the middle of writing this post, the heat pump repairman has come, fixed the problem, and left. The problem was just what I had suspected -- the thermostat on the wall in the hallway was torn up for some reason. So the repairman replaced it with a better thermostat, and $233 later, we're back in business. So yay, no being cold for us when it's supposed to snow tomorrow! :D
Slightly embarrassingly, however, when the repairman showed up this morning, I was still in my t-shirt (no bra), hoodie, and Spongebob pajama pants (that the rear-end is so worn out of that I think you can see my pink underwear showing through). And I haven't even brushed my hair or teeth yet, and I'm sure I have a horrible mixture of morning/coffee breath. Oh, well. At least it's morning (which I suppose it's slightly more acceptable to have your jammies on at 9:30 AM, and I'm not still dressed that way at like, 3:00 in the afternoon). (Which, I probably secretly will be, but nobody has to know that)! It's like; why bother getting dressed if you're just hanging around at home?
Speaking of physical embarrassments, I discovered a 2-inch-long chest hair on myself a couple of days ago. I just so happened to be standing next to a window in a sunbeam, and the bright light caught the hair just right, and caused me to notice it. It was very light blonde (not white or gray; I promise I'd tell you if it was), and it was so ultra-thin; way thinner than a normal hair. I thought it was just a little strand of fuzz or something, but when I pulled at it (thinking I could flick it off), IT WAS ATTACHED. TO MY CHEST. AND I'M A GIRL. I easily plucked it free with my fingertips, and held it up in the sunlight for inspection. 2 inches long. Freaky, weird, and gross! That kind of thing happens to me (and everybody else, I'm sure) from time to time. I've come across freakishly long, extremely thin, light-colored hairs on different parts of my body several times in the past. Usually I'll find one (never more than one) above my right eyebrow, on my right shoulder, or on the upper part of my right arm. Hmm. And the chest hair was on the right side, too. Maybe the right side of my body has some kind of defective genetics for freakish hair or something. Weird! I'm just glad it only happens once in a blue moon! (Which makes me wonder if I was a werewolf in a past life)...DUN DUN DUNNNNN!
And along the same lines as embarrassing personal bodily afflictions, I am evidently allergic to something, because my eyelids have been swollen, itchy, and flaky lately. They're nowhere near as bad as they were, and I've been trying to figure out what's doing it to me, but I haven't figured out exactly what it is yet. First I thought maybe it was some makeup I was using (even though I don't use any on my eyes). Then I wondered if it was my bath soap. Jamie reinforced this theory because he revealed to me that the soap I bought had "alligatored" his skin in a certain area that I won't mention. :P That soap wasn't a cheapo off-brand, so that was a little unexpected. So I bought some new, mild soap. That seems to have helped, but I still think that my makeup might have something to do with it. I got rid of the old powder-puff and temporarily substituted a cotton ball as an experiment, and it's nowhere near as bad as it was, but it's still affected. So I don't know.
I guess as long as I don't look as bad as Bob Costas did covering the Olympics with pinkeye, then I'll be all right!
LOL!!!
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