I was tickled pink this morning to meet three new weekly folder volunteers. That brings our total new volunteers that have helped at least once this semester to five, which is pretty exciting since a few years ago we were really hurting for volunteers. One of them shares my appreciation of American Girls dolls and I am seriously considering making Molly's party pinafore for the little girl in her life. It'll be nice to dig into that stash of clearance rick-rack I bought for my birthday.

It was gently suggested to me that Laurel is getting a bit old to tag along with me to Cub Scouts, so I worked out the route to get to the nearest school with a Girl Scout troop. We can pick up a direct bus route that stops right by that school on the far side of the major intersection west of us. The downside is that said intersection is currently torn up for construction so unless we'd be walking there from her school (or going up and around that way) we would have to cross the torn-up intersection. We crossed it once north-to-south last month and it was a hot mess with the sidewalk torn out and the crosswalk signals/lights removed. I still have to find out how much joining and program materials will cost anyway, so nothing's set yet.

In good financial news, we are finally caught up on everything less some late fees with the apartment complex, who declined to waive the late fees for September accrued during the two weeks between me handing the rent verification form to a staff member and anyone telling me it had been lost so the form had not been completed and returned by fax. I am going to have to bring this up to the regional supervisor, which I really do not want to do, but I am tired of going in circles with the complex staff, who smile, nod and ask what they can do in response to anything I say. Some days I want to go in there and spout gibberish to see if they respond the same way.

In not-so-good financial news, we can't afford for Laurel and I to go to Colorado for winter break. I am a bit bummed about that since I haven't seen most of my family since last Christmas, but them's the breaks when your primary income-maker was out of work for six months. That artificial Christmas tree we haven't used in a few years will come out this year!

Facepalm moments of book fair:
- A lingering browser during class time that thought cents and dollars were interchangeable. (They were old enough to have done the "money math" unit and clearly understood the concept of hundreds, tens and ones.)
- An older student that, after noticing the day before we accepted checks as payment, brought in a cash withdrawal slip for the amount, not including sales tax, of a single title they wanted. They did attempt to fill it out like a check (made out to cash) but there wasn't enough room on the "signature" line so they signed it in the style FirstName LastInitial.

Sweetest moment of book fair:
- A preschool-aged sibling I usually sit and chat with while we wait for school to let out came gave me a sprig of holly-like leaves that were turning a pretty red. I tucked them into my hair and totally forgot about it until I was at the PTA meeting that night and we saw each other again.

In other school-related news, I was treated to breakfast this morning by a fellow weekly folder volunteer, I helped hang lots of bulletin board paper for student snapshot boards (each grade has a themed display; I'm working on "Adventures Through Imagination" with homemade enlargements of some graphic elements of the Reading Rainbow intro animation), and next Tuesday I will be sending two of my favorite dishes from Veganomicon to a fall teacher luncheon.

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Vogon took photos of Laurel and I in our Halloween costumes for the Cub Scout pack meeting earlier this month, I just have to get off my duff and copy them and the PTA meeting pics to my computer so I can do stuff with them.

Laurel's friend that lives in a neighboring complex is now walking home with us in the afternoon and hanging out with Laurel until her older brother gets home from school, which will save her folks on after-school care and gives the girls some quality time together that's a little less overwhelming for me than the sleepover they had last weekend. (I love the kids, I just love sleeping in more.)

I gave Vogon a drive enclosure I wasn't using anymore and he cracked up when he opened it and found a sticky note over the drive label that read "crashed 10/2005 - partition table missing?". (I was able to recover the data from the drive, hence why it was in the enclosure.)

There's probably some other stuff I should post about but it is falling out my head at the moment.

My back-to-school crud turned one month old earlier this week. It is less annoying now, the cough is much less frequent (and finally productive) and the perpetual sore throat has left.

The flight museum's P-51 flew in yesterday while we were walking home from school, but I was not fast enough at grabbing my camera to capture it. Suffice it to say that it was awesome and loud. REALLY loud. Awesome nonetheless.

Laurel has settled into fourth grade and likes it all right, although her teacher is currently on maternity leave. I think it's something in the water as her teacher was the second of four teachers at our school due this semester.

I am unofficially an assistant den leader to help get the Tigers get underway this year. Their den leader is already familiar with the program, it's just her first year as a den leader, so I think she'll do well. Once they're off and running I might see if the Webelos (fourth and fifth graders) could use help since I've been a Webelos den leader before.

One month to my long-awaited meds appointment. I feel like a contestant on Press Your Luck repeating "no whammies", only I'm repeating "40 mg". I'm pretty sure my doctor will agree to return to that dose but the anxiety voice in the back of my head isn't so sure. (For those of you newer here, I have severe recurrent major depressive disorder. On the lower meds dose I've been at since May I've been struggling.)

It's been raining intermittently this week and got chilly today, so to stave off turning on the heat, I'm wearing a wool sweater over a long-sleeve tee and Laurel is wearing my Where the Wild Things Are hoodie over the clothes she wore to school today. Kevin, who is more sensitive to cold than we are, is hanging out in the study since it's always warmer in there from the server and other electronics. (The shelves holding the modem and routers put off palpable heat despite ample ventilation. It's a pain in the summer but welcome today.)

Here are a few photos of what we've seen lately:


The first couple of turning leaves I found for Miss May.


A ding in the sidewalk that looked like a heart.


The only Halloween decoration I've felt up to putting up so far. (Yes, it's beglittered.)

Vogon went to sleep around 0830 so I let him be and went to the ACE portfolio sharing lunch. The kids had made Powerpoint presentations and each had a laptop to share it on, so I watched Laurel's and a couple of her classmates while noshing on school lunch tacos. When we get a copy of her presentation on CD, I will extract the photos so you can see some of the projects she's done this year and the awesome Bessie Coleman puppet from the biography section that was this quarter's project.

Among the requisite paperwork sent home with the parents is a packet on the Duke TIP program, which has a 4th/5th grade program that is wholly new to me. I've been planning to start saving in case she wants to do CTY in middle school, but Duke TIP already? My PEGlets are still so young to me! I'm going to sit in a corner and feel old now.

I told him to go get some sun so he doesn't get rickets from staying inside with the blinds closed, so he's out with Laurel at the pool for a bit.

In late February, I mentioned Laurel's science fair project observing Squeaky's sense of smell and determining his preferred treat flavor. Her project was awarded second place and she brought home the ribbon a few weeks ago, but kept forgetting the display board. It finally came home so I took a photo of it for her to enjoy when she's older.

( Laurel's project 'How Well Can A Cat Smell?', 181 kb .jpg )

Spring book fair has always been the same week as chili dinner fundraiser and teacher appreciation dinner, but this is the first time I've worked book fair open to close every day and done the after-school events all together.

As we were cleaning up after the dinner tonight (Preston Hollow Catering did a great dinner for us again), one of the moms gently teased me to remember to log my volunteer hours (there is apparently a friendly competition among schools in our district for that) and I showed her my visitor sticker timestamped at 7:38 AM today.

Today marked the end of our classroom visits and the start of the few kids that try to cheat testing the water. Things I repeat every year:

1. We only exchange for credit and we only exchange once for "didn't like this" or "this book was too hard". I have read almost every book in stock and am happy to do a reference interview to help you determine whether you might like the book's subject or find it too challenging for pleasure reading before you buy it. If you want to exchange a book for pencils and plastic crap, I want a note or verbal acknowledgment from your adult that they are aware you are doing this.


2. If you claim to have bought an item of negligible value with a large bill and not gotten change, you are welcome to leave a note with your name and homeroom teacher so we can talk with the vice-principal and the other volunteer that was in the room at the time you claimed this happened about it. You tried this last year with me and it didn't work then either.


3. I call reorders in each day by 11 AM. They are delivered around noon the next day if they are in stock. If you want a book that is out of stock, you can pay for it in advance and it will be delivered to your classroom once it arrives. While you spent your entire lunch period circling the room complaining that the book is not in stock but you want to spend your money (and do not want to prepay for the book because you want something now), the friend you insisted stay with you kept repeating "my ice cream is gonna melt!" and I almost laughed while you were still in the room. I thought about texting about it to paradoxymoron, but texting makes my thumbs tired.

Tomorrow should be quiet with busy periods at the beginning and end of the school day, maybe a steady trickle during lunch. Hopefully we will get a box of Spanish picture/early reader books since I requested one today (we usually get half a case of Spanish titles; this time we got ONE title in Spanish -- la octava Capitán Calzoncillos, the eighth Captain Underpants -- not at a reading level appropriate for the bilingual preschool class at our school) and a box of bargain books since the in-case special price titles are the same ones we got in the fall.

We close Monday at noon and pack up the cases and boxes for pickup on Tuesday. Do not ask me if my feet are tired. I am too tired for that crap.

I got my first battle scar of book fair during setup, so the rest of the week should go swimmingly.

In years past, the large rolling cases (which unfold into a hinged pair of shelves) topped with boxes of merchandise and supplies have been delivered to the school's front doors and rolled through the hallways to the room where the fair will be held. This time, for reasons unknown to me, the cases were unloaded from the truck curbside, we pushed the cases down the sidewalk alongside the building and in through an exterior door adjacent to the room we were using.

Once you get a loaded case moving, it's easy to keep going, but with the away-from-the hinge wheels on swivels and pushing from the hinge end, I discovered I list to the right... and so did the knuckles on my right middle and ring fingers. It looks worse than it feels and now I am sporting some awesome camouflage fabric band-aids from my stash.

...

After we got things roughly laid out, I stapled 200+ coloring pages up in the hallway. It looks fine head on, but from a shallow angle to the wall you can see that I have about a 2 cm variance from level on my first 10' run. I was not annoyed enough by it to pull out several dozen staples and rearrange.

During this time, I discovered some of the kids had written messages (other than their name, grade and teacher's name) on the back of their pages. Among the third graders, I found "P.S. I work hard" and "Please pick me, I have been waiting for five years to win this!". Too bad we don't look at the backs in judging or I might have been swayed a little bit.

...

Also I learned that the clock in the classroom that book fair is using gets stuck around 10:30, so I did not realize I had missed Laurel's lunch time until about an hour after the fact.

Random interesting things that have happened in the past few days:

- Laurel's best friend from kindergarten and first grade has moved back to the area and lives in an apartment complex across the street. We had a last-minute play date on Friday afternoon. Kept her until 9 PM with her mother's blessing. Since the VogonDad came by that evening, she joined us for dinner, which leads to the next point...

- Los Lupes has a new Addison location in the former Joe's Crab Shack on Belt Line. They have mariachi night on Fridays; if you go, take earplugs.

- We got Squeaky a soft-sided carrier that's machine washable. The latter attribute was used almost immediately, as he christened it as soon as the car started moving to head home from PetsMart. He was fine riding loose in the car there and happily rode around in the cart, where he enjoyed eyeing little dogs in other carts and watching the birds.

- A second grader 'sang' the Star Wars Imperial March to me in meows yesterday while I was sitting in the school lobby filling out after-school program paperwork. He was waiting for his mom, who picked him up late following car trouble. Kid's probably a smart cookie, he has the same second-grade teacher as Laurel had.

- saarlander got the luv & bass (a bunch of DJ Rap singles, the reissue of A Propa History, podcasts and her free mailing list tracks from this year) I mailed to Iraq and left me the sweetest voicemail message. I think he says "thank you" in it four times in barely 30 seconds. I would be totally envious of his wife if he wasn't my best friend.

I always seem to forget how much time I spent on book fair until it's time for it again and the week blurs into one long day of shelving and reordering, refreshing volunteers on running the register and card reader, and explaining sales tax to elementary school students. I felt like the walking dead after rounding the building to pull staples from the signs, posters and display board, but I think the office ladies laughed when I turned out my pocket full of staples into the trash can.

The weather was so nice yesterday afternoon that Vogon cajoled me into the Lilly Pulitzer sundress I bought last fall and we went to the park to take a few photos. After I copy them to my external drive, I'll put up a set on Flickr.

The cooler weather lately has encouraged the citrus on the patio to finally start looking ripe. I am hopeful we'll have fresh tangerines in December, but I'm not sure how much longer the Meyer lemons will take. I am tickled by how well they're doing outside after having them inside last winter (and no fruit to show for it). Vogon bought another rosemary plant. We'll see how long it lasts since it's one of the two plants where I seem to not have a green thumb.

I haven't written much this week because I forgot to take an acidophilus supplement along with the antibiotics my doctor prescribed on Monday and my digestive tract has let me know how it feels about that. My diagnosis, as usual, is another sinus infection. Laurel's was a minor case of bronchitis. She is feeling much better.

After a lot of discussion, we decided to exit Laurel from our district-level gifted program and see how she does in the school-level gifted program at our neighborhood school. We were advised that the last few girls that exited the program stayed at their neighborhood schools and did not return. Right now we're looking for a happy medium between academic challenge and not being over-frustrated, so I hope the school-level program meets that for her. So far, she is tickled pick to be back at our neighborhood school.

Colonial Day was a trip. With no breaks between groups rotating through station, I was on my feet for three hours straight threading needles, distributing pinned sandwiches of fabric and batting to kids, and chasing after bits that blew away since the wind never settled on a single direction for me to rig up a windbreak. A fifth grader that really enjoyed cooking over the pit fires made a hot dog for me and kept me in platefuls of finger foods while I was handing out corn on the cob during lunch. I helped break down afterward and signed out later than planned so I had to thread through the standing back-up of cars waiting to pick up kids to find Vogon. On Monday I'll call the quilting station coordinator to pick up the basted squares and I'll assemble them into rag quilts for the spring auction that raises funds for field trips and other activities.

Now that I know that's what the fifth grade classes are doing for their class crafts for the auction, I'm thinking about picking up some Jacquard water-based resist so Laurel's class can make batik squares to go together into a quilt. I've already got cold-water dyes and some Bali batiks that would be fabulous for sashing and backing, so I'll bounce it off our class parent.

Next week is Thanksgiving break for Laurel, so we'll be hitting the library for her science fair project research and maybe cooking for Thanksgiving. Won't do much if it's just the three of us, but if the VogonDad is visiting, we'll plan something.

Tomorrow I am going to be volunteering at an all-day fifth grade event at Laurel's school. Don't know a blessed one of the kids, save any I ran into at Cub Camp over the summer and I wouldn't recognize any of them on sight. Hopefully not all of the kids will be taller than me.

Today I learned that cutting out nearly 200 squares of batting is extremely tedious. If Vogon hadn't impulsively bought a cutter & ruler combo (a quilting ruler with a rail-mounted rotary cutter) awhile back, it would have taken a lot longer than 2 1/2 hours to slice up not quite two complete twin-size batts of cotton batting. The Law & Order: CI marathon made it much more bearable. Hopefully tomorrow will be as pleasantly surprising.

Other than the Vonage service ringing through to my cell phone without ringing in the house first, the ARD meeting by phone has been the easiest meeting ever. It helped that I had the binder of IEP/ARD records on hand so I could ask about last year's speech therapy objectives.

Several apartment complexes in North Dallas saw a spate of tire slashings last night. I wonder if our automotive karma (our tires were slashed a few years ago) protected us. I wouldn't be surprised if our upstairs neighbors' teenager was involved, since we already know that "he's only four-TEEN" and therefore cannot be held responsible for his actions. (Parents, please don't use this as an excuse for letting your children run wild. It is not sufficiently effective in culling them from the herd and annoys everyone else.)

The cleaned-out pumpkin we got in return from the kiddo's class (families were asked to donate pumpkins of various sizes for a class project to familiarize the students with science fair projects) went bad before I got around to it, so I bought two larger pumpkins that are awaiting this year's magic. Without spoiling too much, I'll tell you one is inked up for Dewey decimal classification. Photos tomorrow -- later today, whatever.

One thing I don't like: book fair items are sold at cover price unless otherwise marked down, so the value of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is $35 from the percentage of sales we are allowed to pull in product for the school. Our local elementary school has 500 students and one copy of that title in their library.

So, reader participation time: if you have a hardcover copy of any of the Harry Potter books sitting around that you wouldn't mind parting with, call a local school and ask if their library wants it. Odds are you'll get a very friendly reception. Our local school's library could use a few extra copies of Chamber of Secrets, Half-Blood Prince (we donated one a few years ago) and Deathly Hallows if you'd like to pass them along to a school I'm involved with. As usual, I do offer my skilled services in thanks for your donation.

(Next week is book fair at the school Laurel attends but I'm not as involved with their PTA, so I won't write much about it.)

Boobie update: Sonogram negated the need for a mammogram; it's just a cyst. Next time I have to have something scanned or imaged, I am totally asking for that place again. I got to lie on a heated exam table (!) and the lights were dimmed so I didn't go blind staring at the ceiling. It was as nice as could be expected for having my boobs pushed around with an ultrasound wand and a weird pad thing that looked like petri dish medium.

I worked at our neighborhood school's book fair for two hours today. I forgot how much I love the smell of bookbinding glue and helping kids earnestly showing me the three dollars they brought find a sale book (most of the books are sold at cover price, but I'm okay paying that since the profits help the school). The volunteer schedule was a little shorthanded tomorrow, so I'll be there 8 AM - 2 PM. Book straightening and student wish list assistance FTW! Even better? Next week is book fair at Laurel's school.

Also: rain? We have enough. Please go rain somewhere that needs it. Thank you. All this cloudiness makes me want to sleep and carry the cat around in a baby sling.

...

Books purchased today at book fair:
- Clementine, Sara Pennypacker - cute chapter book about a free-spirited third grader, first in a series.
- The Dragon of Lonely Island, Rebecca Rupp - picked it up on sale for $2, if you want me to buy you a copy leave it in the comments.
- Tink, North of Never Land, Kiki Thorpe - another Disney Fairies chapter book, Laurel's wild about them and they have glitter on the cover.
- Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium Magical Movie Novel, Suzanne Weyn - I bought this to get the free poster with purchase because Natalie Portman is cute. If Laurel isn't interested I'll sell it on half.com or something.

Gearing up for birthday week is fun. My latest Amazon.com order arrived yesterday, so I gave Vogon part of his gift early: a copy of Roger Penrose's The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe [review in Physics World].

I'm digging into Richard Lavoie's The Motivation Breakthrough with a pack of post-it flags and a notebook. So far there's a bit of overlap with his It's So Much Work to Be Your Friend, but it's mostly in reiterating that adolescence is a period of trying to avoid embarrassment. Lots of references to Levine and Coloroso, as I expected, and nicely called out suggestions for classroom teachers. I might buy a few more copies to donate to our local gifted and talented association's library.

...

The Unifix cubes arrived and we've already put them to use in drilling for math computation. I'm not sure whether we'll use the Invicta attribute blocks yet, but the lot included a quart-sized bag full of pattern tiles so we have another incentive for completing a sheet of practice work. Unlearning years of Saxon habits is going to be a slow process for me.

One negative to growing up on Saxon math: I have helped Laurel build a great fact base, but she's struggling with explaining the concepts.

We're putting her on a growth plan to deal with this gap in her math skills, the only issue she's had with the district-level program. It's understandable since she went from first-grade math last year to third- and fourth-grade math this year. We need to reinforce some basic concepts that become automatic with repetition: remembering to use tally marks when regrouping and quickly identifying in word problems what operation to do and how to do it.

Laurel really likes the Unifix blocks they use at school so I'm seriously considering buying two 100-packs of blocks, an operational grid and blocks marked with place values. The downside is that will cost about $60 new, so I'm sitting on an eBay auction for ~250 gently used blocks and I'll buy the operational grid and place value blocks later. Think good thoughts for my eBay mojo.

In the meanwhile, I'm going to cut up some of the 35 mil azure blue vinyl I scored from American Science & Surplus earlier this month to make simple manipulative tiles to hold her over until the acquisition of Unifix blocks. The vinyl is a great deal for $3.50 -- it's about 40x24", acid resistant and flame retardant. I suggest you buy some.

Laurel's school is holding its annual fund raiser to support field trips, purchasing library books and other enrichment activities through Kathryn Beich. Compared to the vendor our neighborhood school used last year, there's less home decor and more items with available personalization, kitchen things and scented candles. If you're local to us, we also have a catalog for frozen Otis Spunkmeyer pre-portioned cookie dough (3 lb. tub/36 3" dia. cookies), brownies (2.5 lb tray) and pretzels (12 at 3.5 oz each), all at $14 per tub.

If you'd like to purchase anything after looking through their online catalog, the information required to credit her is student number 103932.

Any purchases through September 26th that provide the student number above will be credited towards Laurel's sales; any purchases made by October 8th will still help her school. If you buy something, I will sew or embroider a small item/design of your choice.

Thanks for your time and consideration.

First impressions of the school Laurel's starting at next week.

The school building is in dire need of updating. It's like the Manning building when D'Evelyn first opened. 2nd-5th graders in the district program Laurel's in will be in portables this year. Yeah, I'm sticking the D'Evelyn experience to her already.

The program is much more ethnically diverse than our neighborhood school. (Not sure about the school demographics overall, can check the school profile brochure online.) Fewer Hispanic kids, very few black kids, lots of Asians. Feels like a caricature. Kids are all friendly and most of the parents look normal, except for one mother that looked like a Plano woman.

Laurel's teacher is exactly what I expected. Short, round, did her grad work in gifted ed. Laughed at the PhD Comics joke I made. Good sign.

The PTA came across as much more laid back than our neighborhood school. Has about equal membership-to-student ratio but definitely draws from a more established, less nouveau riche population area. (Our neighborhood school draws from a mix of apartment/condo communities and newer neighborhoods of $300k+ houses. It only comes across as more mixed because the school is home to an ESL program that serves students from several neighboring elementary schools.)

I dropped $40 to renew my membership in the district gifted & talented association, sign both of us up for the school's PTA, and buy Laurel a school spirit-wear shirt. One of the membership chairs I attended a PTA leadership training course with last year. She remembered me. Also a good sign -- I think?

It was way too hot in the area where the program social was held. Poor noise dampening made it uncomfortably noisy with all the students, siblings and adults who didn't choose to be quiet when a presenter was talking. At one point I heard Vogon mumble "napalm sticks to kids". We're glad to be home now.

MIGRAINE SINCE LAST THURSDAY STOP PLEASE SEND CAFFEINE STOP

That's what I've been thinking all weekend, along with "Laurel, please stop asking me questions like 'Have you ever sucked on cheese?' every five minutes" and "Laurel, please stop antagonizing the cat". School starts next week.

I am officially tired of shopping in brick-and-mortar stores again. We made out well getting Laurel's wardrobe staples at 40-80% off from Kohl's sale racks early on tax-holiday weekend, but we didn't get there until 0930 and the place got steadily more crowded while we shopped. I was surprised we didn't find any children hiding in our not-a-child-seat cart after the swarm of free-range children in the shoe department. I'd normally skip the shoes there, but they were on our way back to the elevator. I found a pair of chocolate brown Mary Jane-style sneakers in Laurel's size that got Vogon's nod on quality and style.

Fry's was positively uncrowded by comparison, although we only went to take a product on the shelf photo of Sam & Max for clearmind. (Hello, Seg!) We picked up some miscellaneous small items there and picked up lunch on the way home.

On Sunday we hit a cluster of big-box office supply stores to pick up a few school supplies that had been specified in colors (so I couldn't pick them out with the majority of the supplies I'd ordered online) and some SD cards. We came home with those plus some miscellaneous office supplies and a 3.2GHz desktop box he spotted on clearance.

Add on a quick grocery trip today where I wasn't on my game and only saved 14% off the bill... and I'm peopled out for a few days. Phew.