I just learned that another Indiana Jones sequel is in the formative stages.  Speculation abounds concerning the macguffin, the casting, direction, writing, etc.  To me, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was fun if a bit far-fetched.  Transporting the intrepid archaeologist to the 1950s and the era of Area 51, nuclear test sites, etc was a good way to age the character.  However, I was not keen on the whole happy family dynamic: even giving the son a canine nickname.  It seemed like a passing of the torch to a new hero and I say NO.  I also do not see it possible to recast Indy.  It may have worked (for better or worse) over the course of the James Bond films but to me no one could capture the essence of Dr. Jones like Harrison Ford.  I think that as long as Ford is willing and (more importantly) able to carry the whip, the franchise should continue but everyone grows old.

As far as the relic, I really don’t think that the religious aspect is all important.  The three original films dealt with religious artifacts but each one had a mystic quality to them.  While reading some comments about a fifth movie, people have mentioned items such as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the lost continent of Atlantis (which was actually bandied around the last time), Excalibur, and other relics.

Ok, tangenteers and other interested lurkers… what say you? More Indy?  Recasting? And what famous device should be the catalyst for the show?  However, they better get cracking, the three masterminds behind the franchise are likely to be in wheelchairs within the next 20 years.

This week has been a bit rough.  It actually started last Saturday when the manager asked me how I thought our newest employee was doing.  Honestly, I thought he had been doing really well for having worked a total of 6 days even coming in on his day off for 90 minutes to learn how to change a ballast in the lights (something I know nothing about).  I have worked the most with him – all but two of those 6 days.  I found it really strange that he had not been learning the register since we are a small store and everyone is trained on it.  Sometime soon, I was told (red flag number one should have gone up).

A week ago Monday, he asked if he could have a day off for family.  The manager agreed to give him the requested day off since there was enough help scheduled.  I do not know if she informed him that it was not a great idea to be asking for a day off so early in his employment especially when the schedule was already posted. The assistant manager approached me and asked if I knew why he needed the day off because he had asked another co-worker to take his hours so he “could go to the movie.”  I knew for a fact that he was not going to the movie and really wanted the day off for a legitimate reason.  Plus if it was really putting a strain on his employment, why give him the day off to begin with?

I was also informed that he was not doing his job appropriately.  Mainly that he really did not like to straighten shelves.  Well… zoning, facing, OH, I think we call it fronting is one of my absolute FAVORITE jobs .  I jokingly told him to suck it up and do it anyway to which he playfully (AND I MEAN PLAYFULLY) told me to “Shut up.”  I know how Nate can be (right Mare?) and I immediately gave him a look and shook my head…. playfully or not it was not a good idea to tell a fellow employee to be quiet even if we know each other well enough to know that it was light-hearted.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but you  (or at least I)  don’t go through three months of rehearsals of a show and not know something about most of the cast mates.  The nights I worked with him, he did everything I asked and a few things I did not that needed done.  I even asked if he had been trained on the register anymore than the basics I showed him the day he started when it was just the two of us in the store for a busier than expected 7 hours.  WOW… something really major must have happened those two days I was not there.

On Monday, I received a phone call.  “What the fudge just happened?” I was beside myself.  I had defended him and stated my position to the boss and for what?!  Why did she even ask my what I thought.  Was I the only one who thought he deserved better than 6 days to acclimate himself?  Anyway,  he was walking to my brother’s house and I told him to wait there and I would be out to talk to him and try to make sense of it.  I told him what I knew and told him in no way did I understand why this happened.  After spending time calming him down, we watched a movie.  The rest of the week at work, I have noticed a heaviness that has not been there before and have been asked if there have been any “repercussions” following his dismissal.  I just say no and let it go at that.  I made my point a week ago… apparently not very well.  Nate told me that he would see me next week as he went to spend a few days with family.  Therapeutic. 

A few months ago I made a post about a mystery painting.  That mystery has not been solved, but on that post I used a graphic with a somewhat suggestive van in it.  In fact, when searching my clip art collection with the key word “mystery” that was one of  the results.  I chuckled when I saw it then proceeded to use it.  Fast forward to last week when on my way to work this little beast turned out in front of me- no not literally in front of me thereby cutting me off, but in the other lane.  If you didn’t get the suggestion last time, you are sure to this time.  All that’s missing is the name on the side and a great dane sticking his head out the window.

Speaking of that mystery painting, I finally got around to taking a picture of the signature.  If you know it, please let me know:

Our dog Beesly (named for the character Pam Beesly on the awesome NBC show The Office, which you should really watch (end of shamelss plug)) can grow to be very fluffy.  From people who have seen her, we’ve had comments  ranging from “That dog is more round than she is tall!” to “there is more fur than dog there” and then there are the people who would just laugh after they saw her.  She is was a very fluffy dog.  Since it’s summertime where Beesly lives, we figured it was time to shear her like a sheep, which ended up being a surprise doggie makeover because she had SO much fur.  Check this out:

BEFORE:
AFTER:

After we sheared Beesly, we looked forward to showing her to our 9-year-old daughter, Taylor, who is Beesly’s main caregiver.  We told the kids we had a surprise for them, and we let Beesly in from the back yard and my daughter’s friend cried out that the surprise was that we got a new dog.  Well, thanks for giving the kids expectations about the surprise (hehe), but she was half-right.  The surprise was a “new” dog.  The kids can now pet Beesly since before the haircut you would only be petting a thick mat of fur.  Beesly herself appreciates this makeover a lot too!  She is much more cool when she lays outside, she is less thirsty, and she even has lots more energy!  She IS like a new dog!  And by the way, the kids all liked the surprise.  Taylor saw Beesly and laughed and laughed; it was adorable.  And as a finale to this blog post, THIS is how much fur we got off of Beesly – the pen is sitting on top of the bag to reference the volume of the fur contained inside:

I know they make clothes out of alpaca fur and sheep’s wool; does anyone know about the harvesting of dog fur?  And I’m not talking about Burlington Coat Factory, YUCK!

And their dad

Check out the bare feet.

Or the knees…

Or the Alligator… Oops can’t see it in this picture.

The newest bride’s favorite tie is not your standard wedding fashion.

No time to upload and there are many more.

In some ways I can’t believe my third daughter was married this weekend. I’m still in a bit of shock when I think of my older daughters being married. Is this the way of it for fathers?

My job was to walk my daughter down the aisle. Her job was to look beautiful. She didn’t trip over my feet, and she was lovely. Both tasks accomplished.

I was able to visit with some family I don’t often see. Some of my daughter’s (and by extension, my) new family. And of course my daughter made me dance. All of my daughters think it is their duty to get dear old dad to shuffle around a dance floor. They never can get it in their heads that dad doesn’t dance. Oh well, I just use it for some time to talk to my daughters before they run off with their new husbands.

After the reception, I was able to meet with some friends from year gone by. My dear daughter’s cake was made by the same people who ran the coffee shop I talk so much about. I enjoyed the cake, and talking to friends when they came to pick up the cake plates afterwards.

I will be posting a picture or two from this wedding as soon as I get them uploaded.

3 down 1 to go… But that one can wait for a while.

Another tangents.org blogger, who is also a very  good friend of mine, blogs about his (mis)adventures concerning substitute teaching.  He has posted a poll or two about what subjects and ages his readers would like to teach if they could choose.  I never really took the questions seriously since I could never picture myself in the situation to teach.  After all, you need a degree to teach most anything these days, and I stopped college short of a degree to get married, which is one of the best decisions I  ever made, no regrets.  So I would answer those polls, and I would say I’d like to teach zoology or animal behavior or something like that because I love animals.  And I guessed that I would like to teach kids younger than high school, because I was a kid once, and I remember how older kids treat their substitute teachers…  But again, until a few weeks ago, I never thought I’d find myself in a position to actually teach a class…

At our family’s church, childcare is provided.  Over the summer,  understandably there  are many childcare volunteers who need a break, so they ask parents to volunteer.  My husband and I quickly signed up – after all, we have 4 kids in childcare there every  week, so it was time to give back.  We didn’t state an age nor gender preference of our students; we just noted that we didn’t want to be in the 4-year-old nor 2-year-old classes since that’s where our two daughters are who would have a chance of being clingy with Mom and Dad volunteering in their class.  Basically, it was the luck  of the draw – and our “luck” dictated that we were to be in the 3rd-5th grade boys class.  Ok, no problem.  I’ve seen the tail-end of those Brownies meetings while waiting to pick up my daughter – 9 or 10 tween girls running around; screaming, giggling, gossiping, sometimes somehow doing all 3 of those things at once…  So um, no thanks, boys will be just fine for Sunday school.  So I thought…

We got our “lesson plans”, and there were not fewer than 10 pages of instructions to follow for our 1 hour and 5 minute class.  Well, add-in the arrival games and we were in charge for about an hour and 15 minutes.  But I haven’t seen  time crawl by that slowly since before I had kids; it was the longest hour I’ve had in a long time!  Not that I wasn’t having fun, because I was –  A LOT of fun, actually.  So anyway, all week, my husband and I have been poring over these lesson plans; I was committed to go in there today knowing exactly what I was doing and determined to keep  control over those boys.

So  we arrive, and the helpful leader tells us to  grab snacks for the kids ahead of their arrival, but we don’t know how many we’ll be expecting, so in her words, “10 should be plenty”.  We get to the classroom, she explains a few things, and kids begin to arrive.  From the beginning, it was clear we were going to have to  keep one eye on a rambunctious and mischievous (though intelligent) little boy named Avery.  In fact, the very minute after I made a mental note to watch Avery very closely, I looked up and he was gone.  I had no choice but to leave my poor defenseless husband in the clutches of the growing number of 8-10 year-old-boys while I literally ran after the wayward Avery.  The Kid’s Kingdom building of our church is still somewhat of a maze to me, so it was pure luck that I got out into the hallway just in time to see the back of Avery disappearing through a set of double doors.  “I’ve got you now, sucker”  I  thought as I ran through the gym after him.  I chased him right up to the kids’ check-in desk, where I, the newbie, had to explain to the staff person why I was chasing a kid who had escaped from my classroom.  Luckily for me, she seemed to know Avery and to be familiar with his escapades, and she was grateful that I had chased him down.  Turns out, he had decided to get himself a name tag (which he is supposed to do before class but evidently did not), so he decided to leave the classroom to do so without telling anyone, which of course is a big no-no.

So I collar Avery, and we return to the classroom, and there are now kids everywhere who all had apparently arrived during the chase scene!  There was one teeny-tiny little girl who stuck out like a sore thumb in a room full of all boys years older than her, so I went over to her and offered to walk her to the girls’ class –  and that’s how I found out that she was a guest of one of the kids in the class, who turned out to be one of the pastor’s sons.  Actually, he was the son of the pastor who was our friend before we chose this church, so seeing him was a bit of a relief – for that moment anyway.  I thought for sure he would be a nice, helpful boy…  but more on that later.  We did a head count, and we discovered in our classroom, we had 14 boys + 1 little girl + 2 freshman teachers with Ø experience = fun times ahead!

We played the activity that was slated for play while the kids were arriving, and it was a worksheet where the kids matched words with the fears they represent, like arachnophobia=the fear of spiders, felinaphobia=the fear of cats, etc.  It went pretty well, despite disappearing pens (one guess – yes, Avery.  Though I countered his pen trick well.  When he said that he ate the pens, I said, well, you won’t be needing snack then, and the pens were automatically recovered).  Finally it was time to line up to go to large group.

Once in the large group room, also known as The Wherehouse, our responsibilities diminished as the leader took over and we relished a break of sorts.  We got to see a few of the kids act things out, which was neat, and we also  got to see our oldest daughter who had come over from her class.  Let me tell you, she was a pro at their songs and dances!  She just performed them without even  giving a glance over to Mom and Dad, which is so the way we wanted it and  exactly what we were afraid of when declining to volunteer in any of our kids’ classrooms.  But her section of the room was also eerily quiet, and I kind of regretted the decision to stay away from teaching our kids’ classrooms as I envied their parent volunteer with her four quiet girls versus our fourteen borderline obnoxious boys (and one little girl).  Large group was uneventful, crisis-wise anyway.  I tried some of the dances and my husband made fun of me…  but the kids don’t want to see some grumpy-looking  adult standing there,  not having fun, right?  My job was to  encourage them to participate, and I figured step one would be to participate myself!

So at 11:30, after Large Group, it was time to go back to the classrooms until 12:05.  And that’s when time began to creep in a way it hasn’t for us since our engagement.  We began class with one of the suggested games; a relay race involving cups of water.  The instructions said it was “great for boys”, so without really giving it thought, we learned the rules of that game and one other.  The relay involved carrying a cup of water on the back of one’s hand down a “balance beam” (tape line on the floor) and back again.  This was fun, but as you can imagine, there were more than a few spills.  And a note: Avery chose to get himself kicked out of this one  – kudos to my husband for putting his foot down!  Of course, by then all the boys were getting really rowdy (the pastor’s son was one of the tricksters; here I thought he’d be a big help), so we shut the door and passed out the snack.  But if you remember, earlier I said that we had only  brought 10 snacks to the classroom, which “should be plenty” but alas, were not nearly enough for 15 hungry kids.  Luckily, there were other snacks leftover from the previous session, and we didn’t bother letting them chose which of the two snacks they would get, so snack time was very peaceful thanks to my husband’s brilliant “you-get-what-you-get” snack tactic.  I maintain from my many observations of kids that the #1 cause of all kid meltdowns is lack of food.  That is free advice 🙂

So then we sat at the table in the classroom, and it was time for a coin tossing game.  Everyone got a partner (including me – a well-behaved boy named Brandon, thank goodness), chose a side and each team flipped the coin –  the person whose side was flipped answered the first question (something relating to the verse lesson and what was shown in the play during large group).  The game continued with  asking questions of each  partner, and the kids began to have some fun with it and come up with silly answers.    It was a fun game, but we finished and there were still at least 10 minutes until dismissal!  Again, my husband saved the day, and rather than trying to look over the instructions for another game and potentially losing control of the classroom whilel we did that, he made up an activity, so we went around the table discussing our fears.  And I’ve complimented him enough so far because he did an awesome job with the kids, but here’s where it gets ugly – my husband chose this moment to share my fear of frogs with 14 little boys.  If I were a regular teacher, I would be terrified and would probably move from my house and my hometown.  But as a one-time substitute Sunday school teacher, I think I’m safe from any horrid pranks involving amphibians.  So back to the game, according to their creativity, one boy’s fear was of “cinderblocks”, while a few of the students answered honestly that they were afraid of the dark.  Quickly looking for our lesson plans to determine the next activity, we found them to be missing…  “Avery” we said simultaneously, and like magic, there were the lesson plans, right in front of Avery’s chair.  But it was finally almost time to line up at the door for dismissal, and again, Hubby saved the day with another game – this one killed two birds with one stone by producing quiet AND spending time.  The boys had to be quiet while my husband counted to 20 or else he would start over.  We only had to reset twice, believe it or not!  Once for (who else) Avery, and once for two other  boys wrestling each other to the floor.  And then it was over.

And then we got our beautiful oldest daughter back, and she is so good and obedient.  And our other three, they were happy to see us as well, and us them, and things were going great until we pulled out of the parking lot and our 5-year-old noticed her older sister’s new ring she had earned at church…  and so began the fighting.  And the making up.  And the familial bonding which involves a beautiful process that also makes me want to tear my hair out at times.

I am looking forward to volunteering in Kid’s Kingdom again.  But maybe next time, changing diapers for an hour would be easier!

I haven’t really lacked the time in the evenings so I guess I must.  At this rate, no one will miss me in a week when I head to Michigan for a week of camp with the tykes who weren’t even born yet when I started working in the kid’s ministry.  So what have I been doing?  Well, as I noted a week ago, I started training for my new job.  For four of the five days this week I was driving out to a number of dealerships north of here, the furthest an hour away because those are the places Rene, the one I am training with works.  After this week I am wondering if I will really earn much more at this job than subbing.  As it stands, I would have to take pictures of 75 cars a week in order to earn the same amount.  If my dealerships are as spread out as hers then I will be on the road for several hours per week.

Here’s what a typical day looks like.  Arrive at the dealership with a printout of all the cars on the lot that the dealer has upped to the web that are still missing pictures.  Search for the cars in the lot, noting that several are being detailed (cleaned) or repaired, or just waiting for one of the two to be done.  Those vehicles will have to wait for another time.  Once that is done, which can take a half hour or more if the dealership is large and has many cars to be done, it is time to get the keys for the ones that can be done.  This is where we find out that some of the cars have their keys already checked out to someone else.  Now we have to talk to those people or get the keys from another source if necessary, like the dealer bags which have the information and second set of keys for each car.  Finally, we can start doing the work for which we’ll be paid.  One (or two since there are two of us for now) at a time we bring the cars up, search the options in them so the right one get marked, print out dealer stickers with said options listed as well as mandatory-by-law warranty stickers.  Next (or first, depending on the person) several photos are taken, skipping or minimizing any major defects- these are 99% used cars after all.  One of the common photos to be skipped is that of the engine if it’s really dirty.  What is up with today’s car engine by the way?  Most of them seem to have a plastic covering whose sole purpose is to make the engine look nice when the hood is opened, usually sporting some model number as well.  Seems like a waste of money if you ask me, but someone somewhere must have determined that this is what people want, otherwise why bother with the added expense?  So with the pictures done, the car has to be returned- I prefer one dealership which insists on doing this themselves as they park them “perfectly” using two people- and a new one retrieved.  When finished we print out a receipt which is signed by the contact in the dealership and one copy given to their department that handles the finances.  Then it’s on to the next dealer.  We do two or three in one day, but I suppose the ones making the bigger bucks are doing more.  I bet theirs are closer together.  As for Rene, she has a personal goal of 100 cars per week which doesn’t earn much more than I make as a sub during the school year.  That goal was not met this week.  Thursday the daily goal of 20 (five days, 20 cars each equals 100- get it?) was met almost all at one dealer, but Friday we only did I think 11 cars.  I don’t remember the other two days I was with her, but I’m pretty sure we didn’t do 20 both days.

This job of course is all outdoors, which for me means the added expense of sunscreen without which I would burn to a crisp.  In fact, after Monday which was mostly cloudy I still was quite red after I didn’t use it.  Monday also had a huge downpour while we were at the third dealer.  There had been some light rain earlier in the day, but at the end it just came down in sheets.  An umbrella didn’t help one bit as it was accompanied by high winds.  Since we were taking photos at the time, we ended up in that vehicle.  Too bad it was a very old vehicle with few options.  The defroster couldn’t keep up with the constantly fogging front window.

Well, I’ll tell you more about the job in another post I’m sure, but for now I am tiring of writing so- until then!

If you think this is a weight-loss  blog post, click again!

Recently, I’ve  noticed a huge bulge appearing in the floor of our downstairs bathroom:

Ok, so it’s difficult to see in the picture – it’s a few inches above that rectangular green carpet, but believe me when I say it’s getting bigger, seemingly by the day – it’s now big enough to trip over!  My husband thinks we’ll be able to see what’s happening by going into our basement and looking at it from below the bathroom floor.  The only problem is that our bathroom is over the crawl space, not the basement.  In the 2½ years that we’ve lived in this house, we’ve never set foot (nor knee) in the crawl space – it’s always scary to think what one may find in a crawl space that hasn’t been disturbed in years, at least for me.  I guess I’ve seen too many horror movies…  or maybe it’s the fact that I grew up only miles away from the most macabrely (not a real word, but fits perfectly here if you ask me – maybe I will coin the term) famous crawl space – that of John Wayne Gacy, where 29 bodies were unearthed in the late ’70’s.

So anyway, someone needs to go into that crawl space to find out what this bulge it expands and takes over the entire house!

And we recently were told that our electric wiring in the house is out of date; here we’ve been spending money to fix up certain things on the house, and other things just keep breaking.  Sometimes I’m not so sure about the joys of home ownership, sigh!

Above is a picture of our second oldest, 5-year-old Sammie and her almost 1-year-old brother Christopher.  He is the only boy in our family, and also the only sibling with which Sammie doesn’t fight.  It seems like the natives (kids) have been restless lately.  Our oldest, Taylor, it back to her snotty tween “I’m-better-than-everyone-else-so-why-do-they-get-more-than-me” attitude, so she is constantly yelling at and fighting with her sisters.  Disney is 2 and has  been really sensitive, demanding, and impatient lately.  Needless to say, our house has been very loud as of late.  But in between  the arguments, the kids still find time to be cute.  Here is a picture of Disney actually sharing the activity table with her baby brother (whose looks seemingly aged months after he got his new haircut):