Teachers, Schools and Disappointment

I was just over at Poppy's Dream Fields and she was talking about how the school has to be open on a Saturday due to the fact that it was closed on a regular school day. The teachers actually have to teach so many hours of the year in most of Europe! There is a set amount of hours that the school's actually have to be in service so if there is bad weather and the school has to be closed, they actually have to make up for it with either longer hours or on a Saturday!

Wow I wish that were the case here! As it is there are more day's off during the school year now than I can remember from when I went to school. One day a month the school gets closed for "Professional Development", every two months the school is closed for teachers conferences, the last Wednesday of every month is early dismissal and the list goes on. It's sad really, the amount of time that could be spent on teaching the kids that is just flitted away with whatever excuse can be thought of! The less teaching the teachers have to do, the happier they are!

That's all bad enough in and of itself, but what I find to be much worse is the grading of the students. Or should I say, lack thereof!?! Now-a-days you can't even get failed up to and including grade 7 for failing to meet grade standards! You can't read, who cares, the teachers next year can deal with that problem. That's the attitude, or so it seems to me. Kids are graduating from school now barely literate and it really is a shame.

The Kid brought home her report card not that long ago and had received an 80% on one of her subjects, not bad I thought. Then the following week, she comes home with an updated report card with that grade bumped up to 85%. Not because the teacher had mis-graded her, but because one of the students parents was ticked off at his low grade. So in order to please that parent and keep the grade spread somewhat accurate all the students grades were bumped up by 5%. Have to keep that grading curve accurate you know! Really, what is wrong with marking students according to the work they actually do?

In Social Studies she failed on a test of the map of Canada. Well in order to not give her a failing grade, the teacher had her rewrite the test until she got it correct. If memory serves, she labeled that map (which is all the test was) 3 times before she got more that 75% of it correct, and that's when she was graded on it.

Speaking of marking grades, in Math class, The Kid got a mark of 90% on a particular part of the course. Wow I thought, she really has a good concept of percentages! So I asked her, what's 10% of 100? She looked at me with a really dumb expression and proceeded to ask me "How on earth am I supposed to know that?" That's when I found out that the schools idea of teaching percentages to grade 6 students is to give them a paper with circles and squares on it and they are to color in things like 50% of the circle, or 75% of the square or whatever it happens to be.

You know, punctuation, spelling, grammar and neatness used to count towards your marks as well. Now, not so much. It seems I have to take out a deciphering code in order to read that which The Kid writes. wordsarewritten like this with no capitalization or spacing. Paragraphs, what are those? Writing repetitively, who cares you're getting your point across, sort of! Long sentences that don't make sense, ah well, you're just a kid, you'll figure it out eventually!

If this is the attitude of the teaching profession, and this is the way the kids are graded and taught, what is the point of them going to school? It's become nothing more than a daycare!

Don't get me started on discipline, because when I went to school there actually was some in the classroom! It wasn't really needed due to the fact that us kids knew there were consequences for bad behavior. Now there is no real discipline but rather "if you be good, we'll give you a treat" reward system. Trust me, it doesn't work! The Kid is always coming home from school complaining about how disruptive some of the students are!

So what do you think? Time to pull her from the school system and start teaching her at home full time? I'm unofficially teaching her here anyway, may as well do it properly and permanently, don't you think? Not only would she actually learn something constructive, but she'd even have more time to help out around the yard and in the house, thereby learning how food is grown, preserved and eventually cooked. Not to mention how to properly care for a home. To me it's a win-win situation, constant learning!

Raptor's

(Ok, I've been trying to put in a new post for better than a week now and the updated editor version I had been using just didn't work. So, now I've gone back to the old version and voila, I'm able to post again! Hip Hip Hurray! Onto my post that should have come up March 29th, I will post it as I wrote it then and not correct all the day's and such.)

Consider the title. When you read or hear that word, honestly, what is the first thing that comes to mind? For me it is birds. Eagles, Falcons, Buzzard's and Hawks of all description, to be more precise :)

Today the world's largest Raptor migration started with Golden Eagle's right over my front yard. I stopped a 1/4 of a mile from home in order to watch around 12 of them fly over the house in a west-north-westerly direction. Oh my god what a sight to see, and lucky me it is just starting! Too bad I have to spend so much time at work, I would so love to be able to spend every day of the next few weeks laying out on the lawn watching these birds fly towards their summer homes! Man how I envy The Kid, she's got a whole week here to watch them while she's on Spring Break!

Don't get me wrong, those 12 that I had stopped to watch were just the start. Over the next 2 hours I watched 115 more birds fly past. That's a total of 127 Golden Eagle's in the span of 120 minutes! I hadn't been watching the whole time and therefore I must have missed a few, but even still that's a lot of birds at one time! Silv says this is just the beginning, that the next few day's will bring a whole lot more! He also told me the order in which they'll all come back, you know what I mean, Golden's now then the Bald's followed by Turkey Buzzards and so on. But I'm kind of glad that I've forgotten what he said about that. I'm looking forward to "discovering" the order on my own.

The best part is, that with my memory the way it is, next year at this time it will all be new again...hehehe!

Well the migration is just about done, there are just the stragglers left now, but I sure don't mind what I can still watch. The buzzards haven't come in yet, but they will be soon, between the 1st and 5th of May. Now that will be lovely to watch, I can't wait till they get here! There are 7 which stay in this area and can be observed on a very regular basis. Silv call them his Crypt Keepers and they sure are beautiful to watch soaring and riding the thermals! These 7 have been banded by him and their names are Boris, Herman, Eddie, Uncle Festus and then Edgar, Allan and Poe, The Crypt Keepers!

Me so DUMB!!! Second Edition

First off I'm going to remind you about my Me so DUMB!!! post. If you haven't read it yet, let me suggest you read it now. It's not that long of a post so I hope you do read it before continuing on here.

Back already? You must be a speed reader :D

Ok ok, I'll get on to why I'm so DUMB this time! Sheesh, give a gall some time to get there would ya? You're so impatient!

Well, you see, this winter as I've made mention before, we've had a lot of snow here! I love tobogganing and so would go down the slopes occasionally  with The Kid. Yeah I usually end up a bit stiff and sore the next day, but we always would go (weather permitting) on days when I had the following 2 days off work. The weather lately has been quite nice aside from the ridiculous amounts of fog so the snow is seriously melting. Jeez, wouldn't you know it, yesterday I suggested to The Kid that we go for one more run down the slopes before we can't anymore.

Big Mistake, BIG BIG MISTAKE!!!

She goes down on the inner-tube and it looks like great fun! Uh huh, sure it does! Up the hill she came and handed me the tube so that I could take my turn at it! Yep, that's what happened all right! Every time we've gone down before it's been without anything but our butts to sit on or we lay on our backs, now that was FUN! Ok, so admit, I watched her and thought it would be a Good Idea to try this. After all, the snow was pretty soft and wet and tacky, great for snowballs, not so good for sliding.

So saying, I took the tube and proceeded to have fun going down.

What I didn't know, and which The Kid decided not to inform me of, is that she made a jump at the bottom! When she went down while I was watching, she deftly avoided said jump! I however did not! I went over the jump and landed. Guess what!?! Inner-tubes are made of rubber, people are not! The tube decided to stay where we landed, I did not! I bounced right off that infernal thing and proceeded to land on my neck.

Next thing I knew, there was this loud noise rushing in my ears but naught else. After the noise subsided I took inventory. Could I move my fingers? Check. Could I move my toes? Check again. Ok, so far so good. Sure I hurt all over, but I could move bits of this old body. I opened my eyes, there was The Kid standing over me. She asked if I was ok, I told her I'd live but she could help me get into a standing position.

The afternoon wasn't a total waste, The Kid continued to slide down the hill for a bit with some snowball fighting in between runs. That was fun, while she was sliding I got to watch Luke jump into the snow and absolutely disappear at times. Watching him dig his way out of those holes was fun as well!

But the most fun was part of a walk I went on. I tried to get The Kid to come with me, but she didn't like the idea of crab-walking along the side of the hill towards those rolls of snow that Silv has pictures of. I thought it was a great idea and so I went! I got to the first one and realized that I could climb into it. Once inside I realized it wasn't quite big enough for me to stand in, but sitting there was at least another foot of room over my head. I sat there and just looked around at the inside of this formation for awhile letting the snow melt down onto me when I started to hear a low rumble coming from above me. Well I got out of there pretty quickly! The last thing I wanted was all that  snow coming down on my head in an avalanche taking me with it into the trees below!

There really had been nothing to worry about as when I went back there today, the roll of snow was still there as was the cave. It is always better to be safe than sorry though, and it's not something I plan on doing again, well not this winter anyway!

Life In The Fast Lane

I just can't believe some people! It's been ridiculously busy at work lately mainly because of hockey tournaments every weekend. Trouble is the management (henceforth to be known as "Manager") of the place couldn't be bothered to tell the kitchen staff let alone the Chef that all the teams had booked differing times for meals and all wanted buffet's! So now, this last weekend we've had 2 lunch buffet's for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 4 breakfast buffet's each day as well, along with full suppers for these teams. Do you have any clue how hard it is to set up and rip down that many buffet's, not to mention prepare the food for all of them while cooking for the coffee shop, restaurant and bar? No, I didn't think so, but let me tell you it's not easy and makes for a lot of work and hot tempers for everyone involved! And lucky us, this will be going on every weekend for the rest of the month!

The good part is that Chef and Manager gave me some blog fodder today!

I don't know about you, but I find it much easier to cut meat and veggies with a sharp knife as opposed to one no sharper than a butter knife. So saying, I get Silv to sharpen my knife on a regular basis and to just give it a touch up every night. It makes work much quicker and easier and my arms and hands don't get anywhere near so tired as they did when I used dull useless knives.

Now to get to my point. Today I was doing prep work and was busy cutting up a pail of green onions when Chef came into the prep area needing to cut some stuff up. Seeing he didn't have a knife handy and I was just finished with the onions, I offered him the use of my knife. He said "no thanks, I'll use one of S's instead!" and proceeds to take one of her knives out of it's little hiding place behind me. I couldn't believe it! He'd rather use a knife that is disgustingly dull instead of a sharp one! Anyway, I just shrugged my shoulder's and said "Ok". Really, it was no skin of my nose if he wanted to work harder, not smarter.

A few minutes later another one of the cooks came into the back and explained to me exactly why Chef didn't want to use my knife. It also made clear why he wasn't having Silv sharpen his knives anymore. I didn't laugh or say anything about it at the time, but I sure did when I told Silv about it!

What had happened was that Chef was used to using dull knives. Used to being able to take a knife and a raw potato and cut said potato in his hand. This is not something you can do after Silv has gotten a hold of your knife! His knives are sharp enough to shave with and that's how he sharpens knives for everyone who asks him to sharpen theirs. I warned Chef that his knife was scary sharp when I returned it to him, I guess he didn't believe me. Remember how I said he likes to cut things? Well he did that with his knife after Silv got it nice and sharp. NOT a good idea at ALL! He had cut his palm quite badly and almost blacked out from the pain and the site of blood apparently. Of course I don't know that for fact, but that's the story anyway. Now really, who, once warned, takes said warning and throws it out the window and does exactly what he was told not to!?! Someone without two braincells firing, that's who! I don't feel even remotely sorry for him, he knew what my knives were like, it's why he had me get his sharpened, so he knew not to do that which he did.

Now for Manager. Not only is he pathetic at passing on information and keeping doors of communication open so that everyone knows what's going on with good warning, but he doesn't think either!

When you want ice on your sidewalk broken up and removed, what do you do? Do you sprinkle salt and/or sand on it making it easier to walk and help break it up for quicker clean-up? Most people would!

Or would you take 5 gallon buckets of hot water and pour it on the ice in order to melt it? Keep in mind that the sidewalk in question is full of holes, dips and cracks, and that it's the low part of the yard and so has no place for water to flow away from it. Now, is that what you would do? I thought not!

I couldn't believe it when Manager came into the kitchen and to the area where I was working and proceeded to do just exactly that! I started to ask him if he thought that may not be such a good idea, when I decided I should just keep my mouth shut. So, now in an area where we've been fighting to retain our footing all winter long, where the ice was finally starting to break up due to beautiful temperatures, we can rest assured that the ice is there to stay for a while longer! Did Manager honestly think that melting the ice during the heat of the day would be a good idea? Did he not think that once the sun goes down and temperatures go back down to -10 Celsius for night that the water would not re-freeze? I'd wager to guess that he had not, I'd also wager that he won't be too happy when he has to skate his way to the door tomorrow morning. Probably would be even more pissed when I ask him if he enjoyed the slipping and sliding that his ice-melting project created. Somehow I don't think that will go over very well, but I will wager one more thing, and that is that I won't be able to go without saying something!

Sometimes Shopping Can Be Fun!

I went shopping at The Real Canadian Superstore yesterday, something I don't normally enjoy doing. To be honest, I hate shopping at any time in any place. Too many people, too much noise, too many salespeople asking if they can help you because they want the commission, just too much of everything really. But, so saying, food needs to be bought so I went.

While there, I ran into an old acquaintance of mine whom I haven't seen in almost a year. She was handing out samples of a kind of cookie/treat and had a big display depicting the cookie/treat. We started to talk and we got onto the subject of pets. I was telling her about Luke when a guy comes up to the display table, grabs a couple of the cookies and wanders off munching them. Had this guy paid any attention to the conversation or the pictures on the display, he would have noticed that they were "Natural Defense Healthy Snacks for Adult Dogs"! The particular ones she was giving samples of are for the dogs digestive system. (I'd post a picture of the boxes and bags of the dog food, but I can't seem to find any. Perhaps later, I can get Silv to scan a copy of the coupon she gave me and I can post that!)

Oh we laughed! We kept laughing till we were almost ready to cry! Between fits of giggles, she told me how many people actually do that and how many others were slightly smarter and caught on just as they were going for the cookies! That just made us laugh harder and tears were indeed flowing down our faces.

Apparently not paying attention to what is being handed out at the "free sample" tables, is a common problem. These people who just "grab and eat" are the highlight of her day, and there are 2 or 3 of them each day! The good thing is that there is nothing in the dog food/treats that will harm a person and watching someone eating this stuff when they don't know it alleviates what would otherwise be a rather boring day.

Let's Take A Walk!

Well, I got nothin to write about at the moment, so I'm just going to send you on a walk to see more of winter in my new home. Over at The Swallow's Nest, Silv, my other better half has posted some pics. I hope you all enjoy them!

Cell Phones, a Love to Hate Relationship!

Quite some time ago I had to go into Winnipeg for a doctor's appointment. The appointment itself was scheduled for 1 pm so I had left home at 10 am. You see, Winnipeg is an hour and a half drive from my place and then there is always the half hour of city driving to get to the heart of the city where this doctor's office is. So I leave extra early in order to be able to take time for lunch once I get there. I used to go quite frequently and I've always hated it. I hate the city, I'm a country girl through and through! I also hate getting poked, prodded and pilled, no fun in that what-so-ever!

On this particular occasion I had decided to stop at a Tim Horton's (coffee and donut shop for those that don't know about it) and have a bowl of chili, a roll, coffee and a donut for my lunch. There was a long line as per the norm, and in the line was a woman on a cell phone. Now normally that wouldn't bother me and at first it hadn't. I even thought it was pretty decent of her to tell whoever her caller was to hang on a second as it was her turn to order. That's when I started to get annoyed!

You see, she hadn't yet decided what she wanted so she started reading the board above the counter to see what there was available. After about 2 minutes of reading, she got back on her phone and asked the person she had been in conversation with, what she should have. Her convo turned to other topics and just kept going. She should have left the line but she didn't! She just kept talking and talking holding everyone else up with her b.s. Other people in line were starting to make comments about her need to hurry up as they needed to get back to work. The cashier at the till was drumming her fingers and pointing at her watch to get this woman to make a decision. FINALLY she orders, and with that she's back on her cell ignoring the cashier who is trying to tell her how much her order will cost.

This had taken about 20 minutes already and everyone in line was getting pissed. I decided to take matters into my own hands. Literally! There were about 6 people in line ahead of me, but I didn't care. I walked up to the woman, took her cell out of her hands and told the person on the other end that she'd call back as soon as she was done paying for her food so that all the other customers could place their orders and pay up. With that, I hung up the cell and kept it until the woman was completely done and then handed it to her saying "The world does not revolve around you, other people have things to do and places to be. Next time have the common courtesy to get off the phone when you're at a spot where you need to pay attention to others!"

You should have heard the applause throughout the whole place! Even the staff were cheering! The woman in question grabbed her food and coffee and left looking very red and embarrassed, but she did not offer an apology unfortunately. The good part about this whole thing was that the people who had been ahead of me in line let me order first and not only that, but the cashier was told by the manager (who had witnessed the whole thing) that she wasn't to charge me for my order! And even with the half hour delay caused by this woman, I still managed to get to the doctor's office in time for my appointment.

Thanks Deb, You Reminded Me Of This!

Deb reminded me of something (the link will take you to her post that triggered my memory) that happened at work this past fall that I had totally forgotten to blog about! So I'll tell you all about it now!

In case you don't know, or can't tell from my photo, I keep my head shaved down to a 1/8 to 1/4 inch length. It suits me best and is most comfortable. Besides, this way, I never get bed-head or hat-head or any other kind of bad hair day :D

Anyway, on this particular day at work I was cooking breakfast when there was a complaint. Yeah I was just as shocked as you. How much is there to complain about with eggs and hashbrowns? Not much, I agree. I told the waitress to bring me the plate and let me see what the problem was. Low and behold there's a hair on the plate, a 2 inch long black hair at that. So I told the waitress to do the ST. O. P. (STandard Operating Procedure) thing and to give her her breakfast at half-price. Customer was happy, I was annoyed, waitress was confused as to where the hair came from. I told her not to worry about it that these things sometimes happen and so we continued on with our day without further incidents.

Just 2 days later the same customer comes back for breakfast again and gets the same waitress and orders the same breakfast. Yes, you guessed, she had the same complaint as well! The blond waitress comes back with the black hair on the plate and asks me if she should go with the ST. O. P. thing again. I asked her what she meant by "again" as I hadn't realized that it was the same customer as 2 days ago.

So she reminds me of the previous time this happened and I just looked at her and said "No, this time I'll go out and talk to her!" I asked the waitress to point out the customer which she did, and then I took the plate to her table and asked her what the problem was. The Ditz says the cook must have shed a hair in the plate and pointed it out to me. I looked at her, her companion looked at me and then at her and had the brains to be embarrassed. Not only were these people cheap enough to try and get there food half price, but they also shared that one breakfast between them. Still looking at The Ditz I asked her just exactly where that hair came from at which time she reiterated that it must have come from the cook as the waitress was blond. Continuing to look at her and told her "look at me, I'm the cook, now tell me where that hair came from!"

Again, she said that it must have shed from my head! Oh the audacity! A 2 inch long hair fall from a head of hair that is no longer than a 1/4 inch? I don't think so! I was being nice, polite and speaking in a rather quiet voice so as to not let other tables overhear this. She however was being rather loud ensuring others hearing. So saying other customers were starting to giggle and laugh in various levels of amusement.

Finally her friend found her voice and said "I don't think that the hair came from the cook, you better just admit that you put the hair there, because she's not buying your theory!"

The Ditz responded by saying "I would never do such a thing!" and finally actually looked at me and noticed that there is no way that hair could have possibly come from my head! Considering the fact that the only people who handled that plate of food was myself, the waitress and the customer, and she had already stated that it couldn't have come from the waitress, she was at a total loss as to whom to blame next for the hair on her plate. By this time the whole place was in an uproar and I heard one man say "Breakfast and a show, I never expected that this morning!" Which sent everyone into more gales of laughter.

The Ditz was incredibly embarrassed by this time and I was having a very hard time maintaining my straight face. "Ma-am," I said, "perhaps you should just remove your hair from your plate, finish eating and pay-up. I have to get back to work now!" and with that, left the floor to return to the kitchen where I immediately started to laugh. It must have taken me 5 minutes to get myself under some semblance of control in order to continue cooking. To my knowledge The Ditz never walked into the restaurant again, and somehow, I'm quite sure, hasn't pulled that stunt somewhere else without making sure that the cook actually has hair!

I Won, I Won!

I went to visit Me-Me King at The Screaming Me-Me and she had a "Caption This" Contest going on. The very first time I enter a caption, I won The Golden Phallus! I'm so surprised, shocked, awed and happy! I've only every managed to get an Honorable Mention at NoNameDufus' blog as well as at Etta Rose's so yes, I was quite surprised to find out that out of 50 entries, I was chosen the winner! Thank you Me-Me! I may not be Hangin' With The Dufus yet, but I sure plan to eventually :D

And without further rambling and nonsense I give you The Golden Phallus!

Anyway, in Me-Me's post announcing me as the winner, she inadvertently referred to me as male which brought back quite a number of memories of being mistaken thus. I don't know what it is about me that makes people think I'm a guy, but the earliest I can remember that mistake happening, I was 5. Mom, us 4 kids and my Grandmother were taking a walk from Grandma's house to the park and this woman I didn't know stopped us and talked to mom and Grandma for a while. Eventually she came around to saying to mom "Are these your kids? I thought you had 3 girls and only the one boy!" She pointed at me with a questioning look on her face. I, being the smartass I've always been, piped up with "I am a girl, I just have to wear HIS hand-me-downs!" while jerking my thumb at my older brother. I still don't know who that woman was, but you should have seen her embarrassment when I said that. She apologized profusely to mom who in turn scolded me for speaking so rudely to an elder, especially one whom I did not know. I just pouted and muttered "Well I am a girl!"

But that wasn't the memory that was evoked by the post, the one that came to mind happened just last week. I don't know why I hadn't thought to post this before, but for some reason it never crossed my mind that it would be blog fodder. Where was my head at, of course it's excellent blogging material!?!

At any rate, this happened last Tuesday (I believe). I had been at work for a few hours, and, well, you know what happens when you've been drinking coffee all morning! Suffice it to say that I needed to go to the washroom. Well, in case you haven't seen my profile pic, I keep my head shaved pretty short, 1/8 - 1/4 inch in length to be precise, any longer than that is just a nuisance as far as I'm concerned. Add that to the fact that I'm normally wearing jeans and mens jean style work shirts and you get the picture. Oh yeah, can't forget to add the fact that people tease me a lot in regards to the fact that I have a figure like a 12 year old boy, to put it more bluntly, they don't make bra's small enough to fit me short of a pre-teen's training bra...lol!

Now that we're all up to speed on the way I look, I shall return to the story and try to make it short as I've already made it long enough. Tuesday morning I had already had my share of coffee, as I've already mentioned, and therefore took a minute to relieve some pressure. As I was just finishing drying my hands and getting ready to walk out the door, this elderly lady opened it to come into the washroom. She took one look at me and a look of horror came across her face. She took a step back, looked back at the sign saying it was the lady's room and looked like she was about to faint.

Before she had a chance to faint though, I winked at her and said "Sorry Ma-am, I didn't mean to give you a fright, but I am indeed female!" I have to admit, that I was a bit nasty in saying that, as I used my best (and I do mean best) Eeyore voice, making me even sound male. She looked at me even more horrified and hurried off into the bar, presumably to use the washroom there. I managed to keep a straight face till I got back into the kitchen when I started to split a gut. My boss asked me what the matter was and so I told him, including using my voice the way I had with the lady. He looked at me laughing and said "Skye, don't you realize that people who don't know you don't automatically assume you're a woman, not only that, but when you imitate male voices, your face takes on a masculine personality!?!"

Needless to say I hadn't realized that, but I sure will be putting the knowledge to good use! ;)
I'm just a little devil, ain't I?

Winter Pictures

Well, this is my attempt at getting pictures of the hoar frost a couple of weeks ago. They hadn't turned out as nice as I had hoped they would, and yet I am quite satisfied with them. So, without further ado, I give you my way of looking at winter :)

 

Lucifer figures that he needs to follow the Moose tracks pictured above. Can't you just see in his face that he's telling me to stop making so much noise because I'll scare his prey away? Somehow I think he'd be the first to run if he were to actually see the Moose that left those tracks!

 

 

This pic (above) is of the pond and in my profile picture is, in fact, the pond that I am looking at. 

(Below) Can you tell that Luke is getting antsy to get home? You can't really see how steep the hill is here, but Luke sure want's me to pic up the pace and get cracking he just doesn't understand that it's easier to climb hills with 4 legs as opposed to 2! He also seems to think that because the bus will be back with The Kid soon we are supposed to be at the house, don't know why he thinks that, maybe because he likes her as a chew toy :)

Well, I hope you enjoyed the pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them. Till next time :)

You Know Your Brain Is On Overload When...

 ...you do stupid things like I did yesterday!

The day started out normal enough, I got up early and wanted some toast and coffee. I went into the kitchen and low and behold I had to move some electric appliances that were used for supper in order to be able to use the toaster. I figured I'd get coffee started first and then I'd do the clean-up, smart idea right!?! Well, not if you're me in the brain addled mode I was yesterday, let me tell you! I ground up the beans and put that in the machine as is supposed to be done, then I added the water like a person is supposed to do and turn on the coffee maker. So far so good, coffee is brewing. What happens next is where the dumb stuff starts!

Instead of unplugging the food processor and putting it away in it's little cubby space or moving one of the bread machines, I unplugged the coffee-maker in order to haul out the toaster and plug it in. Yes you heard me correctly, the coffee that WAS brewing was canceled by my unplugging it! While my bread was toasting I came here to the land of blogs to do some catching up. I forgot about my toast, forgot about coffee, basically forgot about the world for about half an hour when my stomach started to talk to me. So off into the kitchen I go and there's my toast all nice and cold sticking up out of the toaster, well I can live with cold toast I suppose so I spread some peanut butter and honey on it and went to pour myself some coffee.

WHAT, no coffee!!! Now how on earth did that happen? Hmmmm, did I put in the grounds? Yep! Did I put in water? Check on that as well! How about turn it on? Yep, another check. So why didn't it brew? I stood there munching on my cold toast when it finally hit me! So, in my best Homer Simpson impersonation I slapped my forehead, said "DOH!", plugged in the coffee maker and came back to blogville.

I should have known better then to start any other things or to do anything else that required thinking. I should have known, honest I should have, but I didn't! I thought perhaps it was an isolated idiot moment. I was wrong!

I didn't really feel like doing much of anything yesterday, so that's what I did. Aside from visiting friends in here I basically bummed around, played chess with my kid and got thoroughly beat by her. She doesn't understand the game all that well and never manages to beat me. Yep, she beat me, check-mated me 3 times! Man was she happy about that! I don't know what I kept doing wrong, but she kept managing to capture my Queen and every other piece on the board. The one time I did finally beat her was by getting a pawn across and getting my Queen back. Oh happy day, I had a Rook, 2 more pawns and my Queen and I got her in check-mate.

After a few more games, we decided to go for a walk out in the bush. Brutally cold out but a nice walk with our snowshoes anyway. With the snow as deep as it was, Lucifer was getting sick of sinking and so decided that walking on the backs of my snowshoes would be a good way for him to keep from getting completely buried in the snow. I kept telling him to walk on his own feet and stay off of mine but it didn't help. I kept landing on my knees because I couldn't move my feet with his weight added to mine. The Kid just kept laughing and saying she wished she could video tape the walk because this was too funny.

Before we had gone out for our walk, I had started some laundry. I had washed my work jacket along with Silv's winter jacket and The Kid's school jacket and had already put them in the dryer. When we got back in they were in a laundry hamper sitting by my chair ready to be hung up in their corner. How nice I thought, Silv was helping with the laundry! I grabbed the jackets and realized they weren't fully dry yet and that was the start of my last folly for the day.

The Kid's jacket was indeed dry so she hung it up, in the meantime I brought Silv's and mine back downstairs to put back into the dryer. With jackets in hand I walked up to the wood furnace and was about to open the door when it hit me. You don't dry clothes in a furnace, you dry them in the dryer! "DOH" another Homer moment! Man would we ever have been screwed if my brain hadn't taken hold of itself in time to stop me from burning our jackets! Ever so sheepishly I walked back to the laundry room and placed the jackets on top of the dryer to await the next load's finishing so I could finish drying said jackets.

And that folks is how you know your brain is on overload and that you need a true break from work, housework and anything else involving thinking!

A Bit Of A Rant With A Twist

 In mid December I had been at the local phone center in order to pay my phone and internet bills. I patiently waited for my turn to come as there were 3 people in there before me and only one cashier. So, while waiting and because I had just gotten off of a long hard day of work, I sat in one of the chairs provided for just such situations. Finally my turn came up and I gave the cashier my bills and was starting to pull out the amount of cash I needed in order to pay them.

In walks a man, I recognized him immediately. Even if I hadn't turned to look, I would have known who it was by the sound of his steps and his loud booming voice saying "This new cell phone gave me problems as soon as I got across the border!"

You see, this man was my father. He saw me, walked past me, without touching me managed to get me to back up a few steps so he could do his complaining and get his phone re-set up  so that it would work the way it was supposed to when he traveled into the United States for work. I nonchalantly walked around him and leaned onto the counter turning to look at him. He looked over at me with an expression of "I know this person, but not who she is or why I should", you all know the look.

He continued on with his business which took about 20 perhaps 25 minutes while I stood there watching him waiting to be acknowledged. Not once did he apologize for butting in and cutting off my transaction, nor during all that time did he recognize me.

When he was finally done and walked out, I said "By dad" which he apparently did not hear as he just walked out the door without a further word. The cashier had stepped into a back room at that time and hadn't heard me either, but when he came back out, he was full of apologies for the rudeness of some customers. I looked at him and just said "What can you expect from a trucker? They're always the most important people around."

"How did you know he's a trucker?" The cashier asked me.

"Because he's my father and it's kind of hard not knowing what he does for work." I replied.

"He's your father and he didn't know you?" he asked me, completely incredulous.

"Yep!" I snorted, finished paying up and left.

Two weeks later I went to my parents house for their Christmas gathering. Dad came up to me right away, gave me a hug and welcomed me into his home. I kept my mouth shut at that point, I was waiting for everyone to show up and for just the right moment before I asked him how he recognized me when I walked in his door but he couldn't in a business.

Over the next little while everyone showed up that was coming and we all sat down to eat. While we ate dad brought up the subject of his phone and the fact that he had to get his cell service changed once again. He was relating the story in the shop, but not 100% accurately. I let him continue to tell his story and then I corrected him on a point he was trying to make. He looked at me all confused and asked me how I knew that. I just looked at him and asked him if he remembered the woman in a fleece lined jean jacket and gray toque standing beside him watching him for about 20 minutes. He said that yes, she had made him feel very uncomfortable. I asked if he had the feeling that he should have known her and again he answered in the affirmative still not realizing that I was describing myself. Mom looked at him and I could tell that she knew where I was going with this, everyone else  at the table had very confused expressions.

Finally dad asked again how I already knew all of this. Again, without answering, hoping he'd catch on but also hoping that he wouldn't, I asked him a few more questions which he answered still totally ignorant as to how I would know anything about this transaction of his.

After about half an hour of leaving him hanging I noticed more expressions changing from confusion to dawning understanding and decided to let him off the hook. So I said simply "The reason I know all this is because I was the woman standing beside you who you didn't recognize and whom you still couldn't figure out even with all the info I've been feeding you."

My mother looked horrified and all my siblings and in-laws laughed their fool heads off when they finally understood how the joke was on dad. And still dad didn't quite catch on so I got up from the table, put on my jacket and toque and asked him if he could still recognize me for who I am or if my disguise was too good. I was even wearing black pants like I had been on that day. A look of mortification and understanding came upon his face and he actually said sorry for not having realized that it had been me standing there that whole time. Needless to say he didn't apologize for cutting off my business by insisting that he was dealt with first, but that's part of his religious nature, men always come first and always will, all else are of no consequence.

I am still laughing at his stupidity in not realizing what had been going on with that conversation, and quite frankly, I don't think I'll ever let him forget it!

Bad Weather Means Blogging Time!

Well, I'm supposed to be at work right now, trouble is it's a 20 mile drive and visibility is down to near zero and at absolute zero when the wind gusts. I may be nuts, I may be crazy, but I'm not insane. At least not enough to go driving in this! Ok fine, I tried, I got half a mile, turned around and came home, that one total mile took me a whole 15 minutes and that doesn't even count the amount of time it took me to turn around! Can you imagine how long 20 miles would take at that rate!?! YIKES NOT worth it I tell ya!

The last couple of days there has been a nice Colorado Low moving through, yesterday the weather wasn't too bad and Silv convinced me that the valley would be real beautiful. So I took these pictures with the digital camera for your viewing pleasure.

This past Monday there was some beautiful Hoarfrost and I had the day off so I took a walk down into the valley then as well and took a bunch of pictures, but that was with the regular camera and so I have to wait for the pictures to be developed before I can share them with you. I hope they turned out as nice as these seem to have :)

Well, so much for that!

Well, I had wanted to be around more, in fact I've tried on several occasions. Sometimes Blogger would allow me in, but most of the time not. Most of the problem is with Silv though, he tends to hog the computer  be on the computer so much that I just can't seem to get access to it. To be fair I haven't even tried to get on-line more than once a week, probably not even that often as most of the time I'm just too tired after work.

Here I thought he was sleeping, wouldn't get up for a couple of hours yet, but I was wrong. The poor man needs his computer and so my time on it is once again limited to a very short period. I think he's addicted to this damnable machine! As it is, I no sooner get logged in and he's right there waiting, oh well, what's a girl to do when there is only one computer in the house? The worst part is that The Kid sleeps in the loft over-looking the living-room and so I can't turn on any lights to read or draw or do anything else my little heart desires to do. I can't wait till we get a chance to actually build her bedroom in the basement. Then at least the loft will once again look like something decent! More specifically a library/sitting-room/artists space, yep, it will be nice to have that space without her in it again! No, I'm not the artist, Silv is, but I like to pretend sometimes...lol.

Another reason I haven't been around much is because I went out and bought myself a present. A pair of cross-country ski's, poles, and shoes, and now I have to teach myself how to use them. It's a lot harder than I thought it would be let me tell you! Oh yeah, guess how much I paid for all that!?! Chances are you'll be wrong, but I won't tell you for a little while yet.

Anyway, I'll be off for now, gotta see some other peoples blogs. Hopefully I won't be so long in returning here. Cheers all, and I hope your New Year went well :)