I am happy to report that we have survived the start of school. August is one of the busiest times in my job and I am happy school is underway and we're still standing.
AWANA KICK OFF. With school comes another year of Awana on Wednesday evenings at church. Last week we had a party over at the Graves' house, and this week we had our first club meeting. We had about 50 kids our first night judging by the number of popsicles eaten. I guess once Scouts starts up we'll be in full swing again.
PARTINGS. I've never really reported on my job much here on the Swann Family News. For one thing, that's not what this journal is about. Also, I am really good about being totally and completely disengaged from my work when I'm not there. In spite of that, some of the people I enjoy most in my life are my colleagues at work, so it is fitting that I talk about some partings from my office.
In order of departure, the first to leave us is Nicole Presley. Nicole has been part of out team for three years and left us to become the Assistant Principal at Westside Elementary. Nicole brought a tremendous amount of energy and creativity to her job, but most of all I appreciated her being a true sister in Christ.
The next to go is Casey Landis. He is leaving us to be the Systems Analyst with Noranda Aluminum in Franklin. Casey came to us nine years ago. Very few people realize or possibly even understand what Casey has done for our school system in building our Windows Domain. I have always respected his ability when it comes to making our network work.
Also leaving us is Stephen Hudak. Stephen is our student intern who started with us when he was in high school. He is returning for his second year at Texas A&M and will come back when he has breaks from school.
Nicole and Casey have been replaced (respectively) by Pam Sanders and Bobby Edmunds. Both are very capable people and have jumped right in. The problem is that our jobs are complex enough that would take anyone a full year to get the hang of their responsibilities.
MADE YOU JUMP! Let's face it, when you live in an old farm house, in spite of your best efforts, you going to have the occasional mouse. I heard one in the walls the other morning so I got some fresh poison and set out a couple of traps. One of these traps is near the garbage can in the kitchen.
One morning Jenna opened a Pop Tart. When she threw away the wrapper it fluttered off course and landed right on top of the mousetrap. I happened to be in the kitchen so she asked me if it would be okay to pick up the wrapper. I told her it would be as long as she was careful. Naturally, I couldn't resist clapping my hands just as soon as she touched the wrapper to pick it up. The poor girl just about jumped out of her skin.
THE LITERALIST. Vicki and Jenna went to a wedding shower at church today. There was a wedding at church last night and the decorations from the reception were just kept up for the shower. There was no family connection between these two events which made Vicki comment to Jenna that the reuse of the decorations was "killing two birds with one stone." Jenna pondered this expression for a moment and then replied, "Well, you could do that … eventually."
A QUIET BIRTHDAY. Last Friday I celebrated my forty-fourth birthday. It was a very low key day which suited me just fine. I met Vicki, Mom, and Aunt Mar for lunch at D Squared in Springfield (this is a new restaurant which is a sister to the Depot a few blocks down the street).
That evening we ate barbecue over at Aunt Mar's house. Mom, Aunt Mar, and Jenna also made "the cake" which I think was one of the best of that recipe I've had in a long time.
Joe
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Another Kid in Double Digits
There isn't but one word for our weather right now, HOT. This summer has been very hot and I'll be glad when it's over. I've hardly even needed to mow the yard in the last several weeks.
THURSDAY'S BABY IS TEN! I find it hard to believe my little boy who starred in the Thursday's Baby commercial for Baptist Hospital is now ten years old. His real birthday celebration comes this weekend, but we did go over to Aunt Mar's for peach cobbler. He wanted this instead of a cake so we stuck a candle in the crust and sang to him.
One thing Ben is really proud of is his new bike. While in Georgia Ben got Zachary's old bike since Zachary had outgrown it, and it's the perfect size for Ben. He was so happy to have it he made me take a ride with him Friday as soon as I got home from work.
SCHOOL DAYS. Speaking of summer being over, school has officially started. The kids had a half day of school yesterday and classes start Monday. Where did the time go?
Jenna is starting seventh grade this year. She will get her schedule on Monday. Ben is in Reneé Hooper's fourth grade homeroom, and Nate has Kim Knight for second grade this year. Vicki and Kim used to teach together at Bransford Elementary before Jenna was born. We got to see everyone's classrooms Tuesday evening at open house for both schools.
TREE DOWN. Last time I wrote I mentioned we would be attending the Hancock reunion. Jenna went with Mom and Aunt Mar for a dinner at the Catfish House Friday night. The rest of us opted out. We all went to the dinner in Orlinda Saturday evening. We had a smaller crowd this year, but everyone had fun.
Saturday was nice in that we got about two inches of rain. Part of that rain came in a storm that blew through while we were at the reunion. In Orlinda we watched as lightning flashed all around. Little did we know that we were getting hail and strong wind back home. When we got home we discovered the top of the tree by our mailbox had been broken out by the wind and fallen across our driveway, taking down our mailbox in the process. Fortunately, we have a second driveway connection from the road. This was the same tree that lost a major limb due to ice and fell across the highway in January 2009. Brad Keith, who has recently started a tree trimming business, came and got the top of the tree up for us. He also cut the rest of the tree down so our front yard looks really bald now.
Speaking of Brad trimming trees, I had noticed a few dead trees in Aunt Mar's yard and Brad has been working over there the last two weeks. Turns out he needed to cut down about ten trees. You can hardly tell they're gone. She still has over one hundred trees in the yard.
NEW NEIGHBORS. In cleaning out Pauline's house we've been working toward getting it ready to rent. We didn't get anything accomplished last month because we were so busy, but the goal was to get back to this project this month. Well, our timetable has been accelerated because a family in our community had been on vacation and came home to find their house had completely burned down. They needed a place to stay and we needed tenants so we've got new neighbors now.
OVERHEATED. Vicki called me at work today and told me they'd lost power at the house. In our conversation it comes out that the kids had heard an explosion and seen a flash of light.
When I heard this I told Vicki to go outside and look at the transformer atop the power pole. Sure enough the top was blown off and the sides were black. Between the heat and our house pulling a load to run the A/C and do laundry the transformer overheated and blew up. CEMC had us back up and running quickly.
THURSDAY'S BABY IS TEN! I find it hard to believe my little boy who starred in the Thursday's Baby commercial for Baptist Hospital is now ten years old. His real birthday celebration comes this weekend, but we did go over to Aunt Mar's for peach cobbler. He wanted this instead of a cake so we stuck a candle in the crust and sang to him.
One thing Ben is really proud of is his new bike. While in Georgia Ben got Zachary's old bike since Zachary had outgrown it, and it's the perfect size for Ben. He was so happy to have it he made me take a ride with him Friday as soon as I got home from work.
SCHOOL DAYS. Speaking of summer being over, school has officially started. The kids had a half day of school yesterday and classes start Monday. Where did the time go?
Jenna is starting seventh grade this year. She will get her schedule on Monday. Ben is in Reneé Hooper's fourth grade homeroom, and Nate has Kim Knight for second grade this year. Vicki and Kim used to teach together at Bransford Elementary before Jenna was born. We got to see everyone's classrooms Tuesday evening at open house for both schools.
TREE DOWN. Last time I wrote I mentioned we would be attending the Hancock reunion. Jenna went with Mom and Aunt Mar for a dinner at the Catfish House Friday night. The rest of us opted out. We all went to the dinner in Orlinda Saturday evening. We had a smaller crowd this year, but everyone had fun.
Saturday was nice in that we got about two inches of rain. Part of that rain came in a storm that blew through while we were at the reunion. In Orlinda we watched as lightning flashed all around. Little did we know that we were getting hail and strong wind back home. When we got home we discovered the top of the tree by our mailbox had been broken out by the wind and fallen across our driveway, taking down our mailbox in the process. Fortunately, we have a second driveway connection from the road. This was the same tree that lost a major limb due to ice and fell across the highway in January 2009. Brad Keith, who has recently started a tree trimming business, came and got the top of the tree up for us. He also cut the rest of the tree down so our front yard looks really bald now.
Speaking of Brad trimming trees, I had noticed a few dead trees in Aunt Mar's yard and Brad has been working over there the last two weeks. Turns out he needed to cut down about ten trees. You can hardly tell they're gone. She still has over one hundred trees in the yard.
NEW NEIGHBORS. In cleaning out Pauline's house we've been working toward getting it ready to rent. We didn't get anything accomplished last month because we were so busy, but the goal was to get back to this project this month. Well, our timetable has been accelerated because a family in our community had been on vacation and came home to find their house had completely burned down. They needed a place to stay and we needed tenants so we've got new neighbors now.
OVERHEATED. Vicki called me at work today and told me they'd lost power at the house. In our conversation it comes out that the kids had heard an explosion and seen a flash of light.
When I heard this I told Vicki to go outside and look at the transformer atop the power pole. Sure enough the top was blown off and the sides were black. Between the heat and our house pulling a load to run the A/C and do laundry the transformer overheated and blew up. CEMC had us back up and running quickly.
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