In time for Spring Break!

After the stresses of the last few weeks, it's time for an update.

1) Current job
I got caught up on my grading!  I was sick for a few days and spent them grading like mad.  I got all my grading done two weeks ago (yay) and was able to send home missing work reports.  Then I got to grade all the late work that trickled poured in.  That's usually harder, more irritating, and frustrating, but somehow after all the grading I had done in the previous weeks it seemed like no big deal.  Official grade reports went out last Friday, meaning this week was the start of the new term.  As an added bonus, my students were doing their OAKS (state standardized test) for reading.  This means I got much of the annoying grading done while proctering a test, making that mind-numbing task a bit "interesting" (if you can call grading reading logs interesting).

I did read 1.5 of the two novels for OBOB, only to find the staff battle had to be shortened to 2 questions (due to a tiebreaker between the two student teams).  It was frustrating, but as it turned out there was a question on the one complete book I did read.  As I was the only one on the staff team to read the book (Cracker, the Best Dog in Vietnam by Cynthia Kadohata), my team was pleased that I knew the answer--if only the student team hadn't been faster on the buzzer!  Yep, we lost to the kiddos.

Oh, and I got my leave request submitted.

2)  The house and associated drama
No, I have not faxed the documents to get my credit separated from Nancy's.  Actually, they recommend that we both fax in all kinds of things.  I'll get to it.  As it turns out, we were able to refinance anyway, and we closed on the house last week.  Woohoo!

3)  The horse
The new barn wasn't working.  The lack of turnout was a real problem for my horse, who is older and needs to move around all day.  This is both physically and mentally important to her well being, and it showed in her performance under saddle.  The arena was great, and I love the care Christy takes of the horses, but it wasn't enough.  So I moved the horse.  The new barn is working out well so far (we're at 1.5 weeks), but it is costing a touch more, and I will need to haul in to lessons.  I was supposed to go on Wednesday of last week, but my meeting got changed, so no go.  Over the weekend I had the clinic/compete with Karen, so I was going to haul in again yesterday.  The weather ended that one (more on that in a moment).  So we'll finally get to do that on Saturday.  The clinic went okay--because we hadn't jumped, the clinic day didn't go so well--but I did learn a lot.  The show day I entered the "Novice" division (2'7-2'11") and the Training division (2'11" to 3'3").  These were jumper rounds, just for fun.  Well, the N was actually about 2'6".  I rode both courses as the "optimum time" rider (just to set the time) because she was jumping well.  Then I competed over the first course, but I actually rode it better--meaning it wasn't the same ride and I didn't match the same time and ended up 3rd.  Then came the sleet.  Yep.  The next round was a bit rough.  It was obvious that the lack of recent jumping, the cold, and the rider's increasing stiffness meant we should call it a day.  Hmm--not much of a day when you are dropping rails at 2'6" and quit before they even get up to 3'.  But I enjoyed the company of my eventing friends and enjoyed adding a yellow ribbon to our wall of green/pink/white (6/5/4 place).

I do have a potential buyer who seems VERY enthusiastic and eager.  She wants to come out on Monday, 4/2.  That's the day after I get back from the south, so I will need someone to ride her at least once during that time.  Pray that this showing goes well, as I really do need to find her a good home (and this sounds like a great home) in the near future.  I will cry, though, when I finally part with her.

4) The future job
Not much here.  Apparently we needed to also send copies of our expired teaching licenses, so we did that.  We gave up on my dying scanner/printer and used the ones at the school.  We haven't heard anything much from the school, but we are getting excited all the same!


It's nice to have all of these things falling into place a bit in time for next week's spring break--which has already started for Gus.  As you all know, he doesn't work Fridays, so it would have started this evening regardless, but instead it started early this morning, while I was still in bed basking in the good news of the day.  What is this good news, you ask?  Well, we had a snow day.  Yes, a snow day--the second one.  When I (being the insomniac I sometimes am) went to bed at 12:40 Tuesday night, the weather was cold but dry.  When Gus awoke at 1:40 to toss out a yelping greyhound, it was snowing.  When we awoke for school at 5:30, there were several inches on the ground.  School was cancelled in Eugene, Marcola, and much of the Willamette Valley (not so in the mountains south of us, Portland, and other places in the NW) on Wednesday.  We took the chance to go to the bookstore (later in the day, once the roads had cleared).  Today, Gus awoke to the phone call telling him his school was on a 2 hour delay.  He was kind enough to check my district, see it was closed for the day, and to let me roll over and go back to sleep.  Then he got ready for a late start.  Just as he was resigned to going in to school, the call came for the closure.  He began dancing around the house singing that he didn't have to go to school.  Yes, this woke me up.

The roads cleared today, so I have to go in to a middle school for the day-before-spring-break-after-two-days-of-snow tomorrow.  Doesn't that sound like fun?  We also have a fire drill and a locker cleanout scheduled . . . but for today we enjoyed a walk in the snow, teaching Jimmy to catch snowballs, a trip to REI to spend our dividend money (a new Nalgene to replace the one I lost), and some time on the couch.  I did head to the barn briefly to let Daz out of her stall (no turnout when the pasture is snow and ice) and refill her grain/supplements.  I put up with Gus's "I don't have to go to school" wiggles for the last 2 days, so maybe work won't be so bad tomorrow . . . .

Gus is heading out to go snow camping Sun-Tues.  He and Mike will head up to Willamette Pass and hike up 8 miles on snowshoes to a shelter.  They'll do some day hiking on Monday, then head down on Tuesday.  Originally I was slated to go, but I want to ride my pony, go to the Albany horse expo, and get started on my packing (yes, packing!)  I also head out on Thursday to the ATL for Linda's baby shower.  I'm looking forward to 3 days of alone time (though I always miss Gus when he goes camping without me) and I'll bet he's feeling the same way.  So Spring Break--time to actually update on the dog crates and the move (I hope)!