New Routines

August has gotten off to a roaring start for us. With school back in session and new jobs for me and Vicki we’ve all hit the ground running.

BIRTHDAYS. We’ve celebrated two birthdays in the family since I last wrote. Ben’s 15th birthday was a couple of Monday’s ago (the 3rd), though we actually celebrated the Saturday before. We picked up Ben’s friend, Jake, and ran a few errands in West Nashville before driving over to the Holder Family Fun Center in Gallatin where the boys spent about three hours in laser tag heaven. All three were hot and sweaty when we headed home.

My birthday, number 49, was Thursday. I was happy to let it slip quietly by and save any celebrating for this weekend which amounted to dinner over at Mom's house. Vicki and I also went out on a date Wednesday night.

A NEW DRIVER. Ben got his learner’s permit a week ago yesterday and has already gotten quite a bit of experience behind the wheel. He certainly has the opportunity with us commuting 30 miles to school every day. I haven’t let Ben tackle I-65 yet because it’s always rush hour when we’d be on it, but he has made the trip home via Highways 41 and 31W several times. All in all his first week of driving he’s dealt with busy streets, emergency vehicles that seemed to appear out of no where, and a hard rain. Overall he’s doing really well. There’s been a couple of scary moments, but I haven’t had to change my underwear yet.

Ben and I were discussing hydroplaning while he was driving in the rain yesterday and I was pointing out the standing water he needed to look out for in the road. I was reflecting on this and realized that I had an experience as I was learning how to drive that has served me well that my kids will probably never have; that is driving on a gravel road. Thirty years ago many of the back roads around here were gravel and I quickly learned how not to panic and overcorrect when a vehicle begins to slide unexpectedly. Maybe it was because as a teenage driver I was going too fast, but it happened enough that I don’t even think about how to react when I slip a bit on a wet road.

BACK TO SCHOOL. It’s hard to believe that my little girl is beginning her senior year this year. This fall she is taking Dual Enrollment English in place of the standard English IV. She will earn 6 hours of credit for these courses and satisfy the requirement for the freshman English class when she is in college. Fortunately for her this is her first class of the day, and since it follows the college schedule meeting only three days a week she has the opportunity to be part of the yearbook staff the other two days. Next she has Anatomy & Physiology with Mrs. Marcia (Krisle) Lyons. Mrs. Lyons was going to retire in the spring but decided to stick around for one more semester because of Jenna and her classmates. I am tickled because she is an awesome teacher. Also her schedule this semester are PE and Personal Finance. And she ends her day with Service Learning where she get to go to church and help in the office four afternoons a week.

The boys seem to have enjoyed their first week at Davidson Academy. Ben went with the majority of the high school students to the DA retreat this week. They left on Tuesday and returned Thursday. The retreat was held at the Ocoee Retreat Center which is somewhat near Chattanooga. He was full of stories about swimming, muddy obstacle courses, and other fun tales. I think he made a lot of new friends there. Nate had a full week at school since he’s a seventh grader, but he sounded like he has enjoyed every day as we talked on the way home. One thing that really impressed Nate was that when the entire Upper School was assembled in the gym for chapel. In his words, “When [Mr. Sorrell] told everyone to be quiet they did.” He was truly amazed at this.

DA is not on the block schedule like East Robertson is so most of Ben’s classes last the entire year. This year he has English I, Algebra I, World History, Biology, Spanish I, Exploring Computer Science, and a study hall. That last class is actually a semester long elective he has with me so I get an honest critique of my lesson when I ask for it. (I rambled too much yesterday.)

Nate has an interesting course load: Geography, Science, English, Pre-Algbra, Theater, and STEM lab. His Geography class is with Mac Swann whose classroom is next door to mine and the STEM Lab is a semester class with me. STEM, in case you are wondering, is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. We are doing a typing unit this first couple of weeks, but after that we will dive into several projects where we think about how to solve problems with technology. I’m thinking that when the keyboarding unit is over the first project we tackle will be about wind power, but I’m in the early planning stages of this right now.

I’m enjoying my new job. The people there are so very supportive. I actually teach three periods of the day, but only have two subjects (I teach Exploring Computer Science twice). The rest of the time I have a lot of tech support duties. All DA students from the fifth grade up have iPads and most teachers really depend on digital resources. (The fourth grade normally has iPads too, but they are piloting Microsoft Surfaces.) This week has been especially busy getting software and textbooks loaded onto iPads.

One adjustment for me coming from Robertson County has been using different software packages, many of which I’ve never seen before. I’ll admit it’s been a challenge to get up to speed as much as I have in two weeks. Hopefully I’ve been an asset to the technology team there.

INVESTING. If you have money that needs to be put to work the team at Silver Spring Capital are ready to serve you! That’s my pitch for Vicki’s new job.

Vicki is thoroughly enjoying working for Ralph. She has been using words like fun, interesting, and refreshing when I’ve asked her about it. We already had accounts with Ralph for the kids before Vicki signed on, and now Ralph has trained her enough that she is going to move some of our accounts we have elsewhere to him. I think she’s excited about this new direction in her life.

AN UPDATE ON MOM. Overall Mom is doing pretty well. She’s healing, though not nearly as quickly as she’d like. We still have people staying with her almost constantly, though we aren’t worrying too much if there’s an hour or two during the day where she’s alone because of scheduling issues.

The thing to remember here is that it’s been almost five weeks since she fell. Hopefully her shoulder injuries will completely heal in the next three or four weeks, but the compression fracture will probably take longer. We’re hoping she can regain the functionality she had over the next few months. Please keep Mom in your prayers.

Joe