Why I Am Busy

Being busy does not distress me at all. In fact, I generally enjoy it. And currently I am generally enjoying myself very much. Why are you so busy you may ask? I'm glad you asked.

Because I'm producing and co-hosting a TV Program! I'm also more-or-less the director.

Now doesn't that sound like fun? If you say, "that also sounds like a lot of work," you would be correct.

In addition to preparing for the first program on January 24, which will be broadcast live over the internet, other parts of my life continue moving forward. I am tutoring two evenings a week. (Although last week I did it three evenings--I learned how to do a sudoku puzzle.) This week I had a month meeting on Monday. Sometime this month I'm supposed to speak to a local club at their monthly meeting, but they didn't confirm the date with me so I'm not sure which Thursday morning it is (I have inquired since I found out at last night's meeting that I AM their speaker this month).

Except for staff meeting lunch today, I have spent all my lunches working at my desk. I have taken my little bit of spare time to read my friend's blogs so I can keep up on their lives, not to update mine. But tonight I thought I'd take a couple of minutes to do just that.

And that's all for now folks!

Alive and Well

No I'm not dead. Yes I'm doing fine. Yes I've had a busy December. Yes I had a great Christmas & New Year's vacation. No I'm not going to try to fill you in on ever detail of my life since I last blogged. Yes I'm going to give you a summary and some pictures. Any more questions?

The theme of my Christmas outings this year can be summarized in two words: "The Messiah." This is a concert we went to in Bremerton. It was VERY well done. Standing in the center front row (holding her book very straight) is our very musically talented and gorgeous voiced friend who participated. I attended this concert with my sister and good friend KD.

Next I attended a "The Messiah" sing-along. I had never head of such a thing before! It was tons of fun. I found out about it the day before and hope to attend again next year. If I had had more warning I could have invited some friends along. As it was, I took along the 13 year old I have been tutoring. It was very educational.

For Christmas we went to Grandma's house. This is the best picture ever, because they have torn down all the houses around her house getting ready to put a parking lot there for the Bible school next door. She gets to keep the house till she dies, so she has the biggest yard in town for the rest of her life.

When Grandma opened up her Christmas present (a portable DVD player) she wasn't sure what it was. She was a bit uncertain about it until we showed her how it could play picture slideshows and DVD messages from her family. She can keep it handy next to her bed and it is light enough for her to hold easily. She's pretty alert for 97.5 years old!

And last but not least, here's the small portion of Grandma's family that was there for our official "Christmas." I don't have a group photo of the additional family that showed up later on for a nice visit (sorry Steve & crew--but we were delighted to have you there).

We were very grateful to the Lord for helping the car to run well all during the trip (about 800 miles each way) and for the good roads (very little snow and ice on travel days). We enjoyed our visit and it was one of the most relaxing Christmas vacations we have ever taken.

Christmas Parties Begin in Earnest

Saturday night was my friend's annual Christmas party. We always have a delightful time dressing up and eating lots of good food. After lots of time to eat and chat (and get caught up on the year's activities), we have a Yankee Gift Exchange and play games (Guestures, four-on-a-couch, and psychiatrist this year). It was lots of fun.

Of course, I took the opportunity to get a bit of a "baby fix." Rose was such a sweet little baby. She is 11 months old in case you are wondering. I also enjoyed hearing about people's year and getting to know some friends better. Altogether it was a very successful evening as far as I am concerned. I was sorry my sister couldn't attend (she was recovering from the stomach flu), but everything else went well.

If you have never played psychiatrist, it is lots of fun--especially if there is someone there who has never played it before. And there was. The first round we did the "easy" version. Then we did a good and hard one; many thanks to Kristen who was a great sport in her role as psychiatrist and did finally figure out our problem.

Estimating

It started as spelling lessons and quickly included math. Now we are including science and social studies. Everything as a matter of fact. I must admit that I am enjoying myself tremendously. Not only do I get to review all the stuff I only vaguely remember learning in school, but I get the joy of teaching it to a young lady who goes from being bored to being interested. And seeing her go from a D in math to an A is wonderful.

Then there is the first-hand look into what kids are being taught in our schools...not that I didn't have a clue before. Why take the time and energy to teach kids how to estimate in math when you can teach them how to figure it out for real? It really isn't that much (if any) harder to teach someone that the circumference of a circle is (pie)2r than to teach them to draw a box around the circle and use 2r as both sides. And it would be more accurate.

I hope they (the kids) don't expect to use estimating in business. Sure, estimating is great for getting a rough estimate of your grocery bill as you walk through the store, but you want the "real" number when it comes to paying for it. It seems to me that it would be much easier to teach them to do it right now, and let them figure out how to estimate on their own.

We Get Some Rain

Every once in a while, western Washington lives up to its reputation for lots of rain in a grand style. The past few days, the weather decided to go whole hog to celebrate December.

On Saturday and Sunday it snowed. An unusual thing for us, although common enough in many other parts of the country. The snow did stick, but it stayed very wet. Occasionally it turned from snow to rain, just to keep us guessing. The roads in our area never really got bad.

Then it started to rain in earnest. If you haven't heard about the rain in Washington, you probably aren't watching any news. We set all sorts of records. Record flood levels, record rain fall in 24 hours, etc. Our office parking lot sprouted a couple of large ponds, one large enough to really get wet in if you tried. I took some pictures to document the occasion. (You might be able to guess that we were a little short on parking yesterday.)


Some employees couldn't make it to work because of closed roads. One employee raced home early afternoon yesterday when we heard that they were going to be closing I-5 (the main freeway) between us and his home. He made it safely home before it closed, but he won't be able to come back to work for several days. There was 8 feet of water over the highway in places! (We are talking about a major, 4 lane highway!)

We don't have any real problems at my home, other than general sogginess of the ground, etc. However, one does have to be very careful about branches and trees being down in various places. There were very high winds in some places.

Cabinet Pictures At Last

The kitchen and bathroom cabinet doors and drawer fronts are done, except for the special under-the-sink ones and the ones for the island (which are being done in a different color).

You can just see the top of one of the island doors in the first picture--the one that has the whitewashed look. The rest of the cabinet needs to be done that way before the drawer fronts can be installed.

Blog Readability Test Results

Interesting. I'm not sure what it means, except that I probably use more complicated sentence structures than those suitable for Elementary School. Using longer words I'm sure doesn't help either.

What I'm Thankful For

During this Thanksgiving Season we often (and should) take time to reflect on what we are thankful for. I want to take this opportunity to mention a few of the many things I am thankful for.

1. God - Thank You God for sending Your only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to earth to die for my sins. Thank You for choosing me to be Your daughter. Thank You for writing the Bible so I can learn about You and what You want me to do. Thank You for caring about me as an individual person and for being very patient with me when I fall down. Thank You for all of the other things I am thankful for below...I only have them because of You.

2. Parents - Thank you Dad and Mom for being the best parents in the world. I know you aren't perfect, and neither am I, so we make a great combination. Thank you for raising me up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Thank you for helping me to understand that I need to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and that it is not something passed down from you or anyone else. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for teaching me that material things are not important, but spiritual things are. Thank you for teaching me that a sense of humor can cover a multitude of problems. Thank you for teaching me that we are all equal before God. Thank you for teaching me the importance of actions and attitudes. And thank you for giving me brothers and a sister. I'm so glad you didn't stop with me.

3. Siblings -
a. Thank you R&W for being my big brothers. Even though we are not close in age, I love you very much. Thank you for the great nephews and niece!
b. Thank you J for being such a great little brother. We grow closer the older we get, and I look up to you in more than one way. :-) I am so happy that you found your R! May God bless you and give you many years together serving Him.
c. Thank you E for being the best sister in the world! You are so wonderful that my only regret is that we don't have more sisters to enjoy all the fun we have together. You are my dearest friend and confidant. I don't know what I would do without you.

4. United States of America - Thanks to all of those who worked and gave their lives to raise-up the best country in the world. I realize that if it was not for the sacrifices of many others, both in the past and present, I would not enjoy the freedoms we have in this great country. May God bless America and draw her back to Himself.

Friends (in no particular order):
> CMR - You taught me what it means to be a friend.
> RH - You have encourage me by your willingness to obey God and wait for His leading.
> KD - You are the sweetest young lady I know. Your love for the Lord is an example to me.
> LH - You taught me what it means to listen to others. You also taught me lots about cooking!
> DE - Your learner's spirit and love for learning about God has challenged me in ways you can't imagine.
> CV - You have shown me how to endure tribulations and come away smiling.

Misc. Blessings:
> Health - Generally excellent PTL!
> Job - Meaningful, great co-workers, close to home, challenging, etc. What a blessing!
> Safety - By God's grace I have been protected from many hazardous situations. May I never take this for granted and always ask for and thank God for each day's protection.
> Sense of Humor - I feel so sorry for people who are perpetually sad. The world is a beautiful place and there are numberless things to laugh about. I only have to look at myself in the mirror in the morning to get a good laugh to start off my day.

I could go on...believe me! But this seems like a good place to stop for now.

I hope you have lots of things to be thankful for this Thanksgiving Season.

Now It Doesn't Work, Now it Does

On Monday we had quite a wind and rain storm. We lost power at work twice, for 30 seconds and 10 minutes respectively.

Monday night I went grocery shopping. It was a slightly larger than normal list. While I was on my way from Fred Meyer (where I did the bulk of the shopping) to Costco and Home Depot at the other end of town, my cell phone rang. The power was out at our house.

As it was too late to do anything about it, I finished my shopping and headed home. It was fairly cold out, so I put milk and fish right next to the frozen turkey and hoped they would stay cold.

We do have a generator, and after finding out that the power had been out since around 8:30 a.m. we decided to hook it up to cool down the fridge and warm up the water. We got it running, but after everything was hooked-up there was still no power. I fiddled for a while, but as far as I could tell, there was no power coming out.

The next day we prepared for work in the dark and with little bits of very cold water. Anything perishable in the fridge was a loss.

I checked into getting the generator fixed, and it is expensive just to get someone to come out and check into what might be wrong. Happily, my Dad volunteered to come take a look.

My Dad arrived this morning and fired up the generator. It was putting out the proper voltage. He tested the cord. It worked. He tested the breaker. It worked. Everything worked just like it was supposed to work. There is a possibility that there was some moisture which was dispelled by running it for a while earlier this week. Anyway, now it works fine. And we are going to do something about keeping down the moisture.

In other news, I talked to my young friend's math teacher this week. I am going to begin meeting with her twice a week instead of just once. She has quite a bit of math homework on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. On Wednesdays we only have 1/2 hour, but we put it to good use last night.

Tomorrow night I get to watch the movie "Amazing Grace" at a friend's home. I am really looking forward to it. If you haven't seen it yet, it is now out on DVD. It is the story of William Wilberforce, the man who ended slavery in Britain. I have heard that it is very inspiring.

Last weekend we went to visit my brother who recently moved closer and took him and my other older brother and nephew out for dinner. We celebrated my oldest brother's birthday (which was on Monday). It was a lot of fun to be together with them again.

Onions Again

We had a special request for more French Onion Soup, so last night my young friend and I began peeling and slicing onions. The recipe calls for 8-10 large onions. We cut-up 9. I think the book's definition of "large" and the store's definition are different. I'm not sure just how we got onions that were that much bigger than last time, but we filled the crock pot so full of onions that we could not fit all of the liquid the recipe called for into the pot. Next time we'll do fewer onions.

We also prepared the makings for Hamburger Stew. That is what we will eat tonight. It sounds pretty good.

Along the lines of impromptu lessons, this morning the topic of why heating food up in a crock pot also stirs the ingredients together was discussed. I have known about why things go from solid to liquid to gas for so long, that sometimes I forget that the knowledge is not inherent in everyone. It was fun to talk about how molecules go faster as they are heated and slow down as they get cold. My young friend was quite fascinated by the idea. Hearing that heating water turns it into steam was particularly interesting to her.

Tough Questions

There is a special joy that comes from knowing you have helped someone learn something. Teaching has always been one of my delights in life. Over the years I have had many opportunities to teach a variety of people a variety of things. From coaxing a baby to drink out of a bottle for the first time to teaching an adult how to use their computer, it all has an appeal to me.

Last night when I picked-up my young friend from school she was very excited. She had a surprise test in class and had to compute both the surface area and the volume of a cube. She was confident, based on our lesson the night before, that she had gotten the correct answers.

It seems to me that part of the reason why so many kids don't like school, and don't do well in school, is because they don't understand what they are being taught. It is hard for a teacher with 20-30 children in her class to take the time to explain things to the ones who didn't pick it up when she explained it the first (or second or third) time. Or perhaps they just need to have it explained a different way to suit their learning style.

Along those lines, last night the topic of God and the Bible came up. My young friend had some very tough questions going around in her head. What would you say to a 13-year-old who wondered why God would kill almost everyone on the earth (the flood) or why God would punish everyone for the actions of one person (Eve in the garden)? How would you explain what sin was to someone whose list of sins was a grand total of one: murder? (We did come up with some more BTW.) And what does it mean when people say that Jesus died for our sins?

I am very glad she is thinking about these things and, with the Lord's help, I hope I can adequately answer them. These sorts of questions are the ones that we all need to be prepared to answer when we meet people on our walk though life.

Tough questions are good, because they indicate that a high level of thought and interest has gone into them. Tough questions are also wonderful opportunities to share the truths of God's Word with those around us. I hope you are prepared for that day when you are asked some tough questions. And some day we will all be asked the toughest question of all: "Why should I [God] let you into heaven?" The wrong answer will doom you to an eternity of suffering in hell.

Math Problems

It has been a while since I have had to do mid-level math. That means the math that is more complicated than basic match (which one tends to use regularly) and not as difficult as really hard stuff. In this case, it was the issue of finding the surface area of a cube.

Supervising a 13 year old also involves helping them with homework. Last night most of the homework was math problems. The first set covered graphing. No problem. I have always enjoyed graphing. The second set covered finding either the surface area or the volume of a cube. I easily remembered the formula for finding the volume, but could not remember the formula for finding the surface area.

This is where my problem solving skills came in handy. I figured out the formula, or at least one of them. It involves finding the surface area of each of the three unique sides, adding them together, and multiplying the answer by two (because there are two of each of the three unique sides). It worked, and I think my "student" will be able to remember it for next time. This morning when I quizzed her, she remembered everything very well.

There wasn't time last night for much more than fixing dinner, eating, and doing homework. She has started basketball, which means the time after school previously used for homework is now spent at basketball practice. This means that homework will need to be done at home.

In addition to math, my young friend practiced her part in a play her "group" wrote at school for a project they are doing on the Nile River. I wish that I had seen the play sooner and been able to point out some basic flaws. But since they were putting it on today, there was no chance to make changes.

The story is, unfortunately, very politically correct environmentalism gibberish. The story is about a family with a cow that lives near the Nile River. A power plant is built nearby which pollutes the river and the cow becomes sick. The family goes to the plant owner and asks him to stop polluting the river, which he refuses to do with no regard for what he is doing to the river. They get half of the plant employees on their side and a toy factory is built nearby which takes away all the power plant employees. So the power plant is shut down and the owner goes somewhere else. Oh, and the cow gets well.

Although it was too late to change the story, I was able to share with her that not all power plants pollute rivers. And there are good reasons for having power plants. We also talked about what happens to human waste. I'm not sure just what they are teaching her, but she had the general impression that here in America we dump our raw sewage into our rivers. (Our conversation started when she asked me why people couldn't dump sewage somewhere besides into our rivers.) We talked about waste treatment plants and what comes out after waste is treated properly. It was a good conversation.

I can't help but wonder what other misinformation they are teaching at school. Maybe I really don't want to know. I would be too discouraged. I have a pretty good idea how bad it is without knowing all the specifics.

On a more cheerful note, yesterday's election went pretty well for conservatives. The initiative to make passing tax increases harder passed. The measure to make passing school levies easier failed. And the huge tax increase for transit failed. The one sad note was the passage of the measure to provide triple damages plus attorney fees for health insurance claims. People were voting with their hearts instead of their heads again. They don't understand what the measure really does, and I am sure the trial lawyers are rejoicing all over the state. (I called it the "guarantee attorneys get paid" measure.) I wonder if most people realize they voted themselves health insurance rate increases. I doubt it.

Cars n' More

My car started when I went to pick it up from the garage. They (bless their thorough hearts) kept checking just to make sure they had covered all bases and found that one of the "rods" that connect the battery to the car was worn down so that it did not provide a good connection. They replaced it and everything seems to be running just fine (cost: $44). The lack of a good connection may have contributed to the state of the battery. My mechanic suggested that I see if the problem is fixed before I go in to get a new battery. I cannot tell you how nice it is to know that you have a good, honest mechanic!

On other fronts, the autumn weather is presenting me with office temperature maintenance issues. I have only been in this office since June, so I have not experienced cold weather until now. I am learning how to regulate the temperature. This office has a very large south-facing window which gets the afternoon sun. However, the office starts out cold in the mornings.

To somewhat complicate the temperature regulation issue, the three rooms at this end of the building share a thermostat. There is one office on the north side; a large, windowless room in the middle; and my office on the south side. So my temperature regulation efforts go something like this:
1) Office door open during the night so the morning's automatic heat will flow freely.
2) Close office door when I arrive and turn on my space heater.
3) As the sun gets warmer, turn off space heater and then remove coat. If it is cloudy, I may leave my space heater and coat on all day long.
4) The afternoon sun usually makes my office warm enough so I open my office door for brief (or longer) periods of time to allow heat to escape into the large, windowless room next to mine.

Actually, it is a nice system. Since the windowless room in the middle is generally cooler than my office, I can open the door to quickly cool my office if it becomes too hot. And I am not inflicting my personal (warm) office temperature on anyone else (or wasting heat on a room that is infrequently used).

There are "noises" around the office that we will be hiring more people next year and I may have to share my office with someone else. I hope they like it warm.

On another note, I have had an unusual craving for Tootsie Rolls during the past two days. Happily, eating candy is not frequently part of my diet, so I doubt if eating several pieces of candy two days in a row will hurt me.

Weekend Meetings

On Saturday I had two Young Republican meetings, one for the state and one for the county. Between getting ready, driving to and from, and attending the meetings, my Saturday was more-or-less shot.

I took my car to the shop this morning and they called to let me know that it IS the battery. The battery has "sulphated" which means it doesn't build-up a proper charge and its charge is slowly going down. Happily, it is still under warranty and so I can get it replaced free.

On other fronts, my older brother Will has moved to Lynnwood! I am so excited! It will be so nice to have him closer. He has lived 20-hours away (one-way) since I was around 14 years old, so visits were rare. He came to visit on Sunday afternoon and it was so good to see him again! It was extra exciting to think that we would get to see him more regularly.

I also managed to squeeze in some more work on organizing our DVD collection. Just a few more weekends and I should be all caught-up. Then all I will have to do is keep-up with any new DVDs that are burned each week. My Dad has been working on burning our VHS collection to DVD, so there will be new stuff to enter for several months to come.

Mom and Dad are going on a short vacation to Disneyland in CA this week. It is one of those free trips you get from listening to a presentation on purchasing time-shares or something like that (they did not buy anything). They have never been to Disneyland, so I'm sure they will have fun.

This week I will be staying with one of my co-worker's daughter while he is gone on a business trip. This is the same young lady that I stayed with before. We will continue cooking lessons as well as work on homework. Her latest grades showed some improvement, which is very encouraging.

Done!

Here is my faithful piano, all fixed up, cleaned up, polished up, and ready to be tuned (and played). Now I just need to find a tuner in the area that won't charge an arm and a leg. I also discovered that E2 is missing two strings, so I plan to get those replaced as well.

On other fronts, I donated blood today. The guy who started the needle was pretty new. He started work just 1.5 months ago. I could tell he is still a bit hesitant and he was very careful.

Unfortunately, he was also a bit inexperienced. My veins are big enough, they are just a tad bit awkward to skewer. After he got it going I had to call one of the other workers over (he had gone on to someone else) and have them readjust the needle because the blood was starting to slow down. However, we got it all fixed up and completed the donation in a total of 13 minutes.

Last time I donated I worked to increase my heart rate and managed to finish in 7 minutes. This is still a far cry from my sister's standard (and highly fast) donation time of 4 minutes. I'm not trying to match her, but I am interested to see what techniques can be used to reduce the donation time required.

My car didn't start this morning. I suspected it was a bad battery lead and managed to get it started with my jumper battery. The Schwab Tire guys cleaned the leads up, but they told me they had to bang on the starter to get it running again. I hope I don't have to do that too many times (because I don't know where the starter is). I made an appointment to get the starter replaced, but they didn't have an opening until next Monday morning. I'm praying the Lord will keep it running until then.

On the work front, I'm learning how to use SharePoint Services to design a website. It is looking like this will be a great option for a project I'm working on right now. I am already wishing that I had gone this direction sooner.

White Keys Done

The white keys are done! They are all leveled out and I am fairly pleased with the results. Many thanks to the two piano repair men who took time to explain the process to me.

Now all I have left is the black keys. They are proving to be more difficult in one way and easier in another. They are easier because there are not as many of them and they are not actually next to each other so slight differences don't show up. They are harder because they are not actually next to each other and slight differences don't show up. What should I level them out to? If I level them out to each other, it is hard to do because they are not next to each other. If I level them out to the white keys (with an eye on the other black ones), what spot do I choose as the standard? How far down should they be in relation to the white ones? This and other questions are now swirling around in my head. I will need to make a decision soon.

In other news, work is almost back to normal (whatever that is). That means I have time to blog during lunch (which I have found works best because it helps me take an actual lunch).

Last weekend I attended the semi-annual Board of Director's Meeting for WFRW in Gig Harbor. The meeting went well. My duties were performed efficiently. The checks balanced at the end of the day. What more could I ask for?

I also had a few minutes this weekend to continue organizing our DVD collection. Dad has been organizing the basement and Mom made progress on organizing the house. My sister worked on organizing her room. There seems to be an organizing bug going around in our house. It makes me happy!

Quick Post

At the suggestion of a friend, I am posting a brief message to let all who care know that I am alive and well, just busy.

-The piano keys are now on the piano; about half of them have been leveled at least twice. I can tell multiple sessions will be involved before they are just right.
-I took advantage of the good weather on Tuesday and mowed the lawns (or some of them).
-My brother and sister-in-law were in a car accident on Wednesday, but are doing well. Not so their Ford 350 truck. Better it than them.
-Last night's cooking lesson went well. We covered "browning" hamburger and draining canned beans. She's getting good at chopping onions.
-I'm off to a meeting in Gig Harbor which will keep me busy through tomorrow afternoon.

Chicken Is Not Beef

The cooking lessons from last week have been expanded into a regular feature. My plans now include taking the young lady grocery shopping once a week followed by assisting her with the preparations for the slow-cooker meal to be cooked the following day. We are combining this with spelling lessons.

Last night was the first of these occasions. I carefully explained to the parent that the young lady would need to pick a recipe from the book, have it approved, and then make a shopping list for any ingredients not already in the house. All was duly noted and executed...or so everyone thought.

Here's a summary of our conversation after I picked her up from school. Me: "So, where is the shopping list?" Her: "I have it right here in my school backpack somewhere." The backpack is searched. Her: "I can't find it." Me: "Do you remember what was on the list?" Her: "We need an onion." Me: "What is the recipe you choose?" Her: "Chinese Chicken." Me: "So we need to get some chicken?" Her: "Yes." Me: "Do you remember anything else?" Her: "I think there was a spice we needed." etc.

When we arrived at the grocery store we looked through several cookbooks and, although we didn't find any Chinese Chicken recipes, we did notice that Chinese recipes often included ginger. After another discussion we decided that this was probably the spice they needed. So we got chicken, an onion, and some ginger.

As we carried the groceries into her house I saw the cookbook sitting on the counter open to the page continuing the recipe "Chinese Pot Roast." "Is this the recipe?" I asked. The response came back, "Yes." "It is for pot roast, not chicken." I state. "Can we just use chicken instead?" came the reply.

Ah well, at least it WAS ginger that we needed. A quick trip back to the grocery store produced a pot roast and the chicken has gone into the freezer for a future recipe. The spelling lesson went very well. The cooking lesson also went well. There is a marked improvement in the stick-with-it skills. She didn't leave the kitchen till the whole thing was more-or-less ready to go. She is getting good at chopping up onions (without rubbing her eyes). She is learning very quickly and is very enthusiastic about cooking.

I must admit though, her idea of measuring and my idea of measuring don't quite measure up. I have a precise, chemistry-oriented idea of what measuring means. Her style is more like that of a very good friend of mine (who is also a great cook). That style involves getting lots of dishes and counter tops dirty when preparing a meal. And as long as you measure close to the line, that is just as good as on the line. Right? (Wrong...at least for some things.) I find myself following her around the kitchen not only to give her advice on food preparation, but also to wipe up counters, and wash dishes while she prepares the food. We are also working on the difference between a teaspoon and a tablespoon. (An important difference I might note.)

The skill of estimating also needs to be improved. The recipe called for browning the pot roast in a frying pan. The frying pan she selected didn't hold the roast...at least not without sticking up over the edges in several spot. Ah well, we all learned these things somewhere along the line. We traded frying pans and all was well.

On the home front, I have been getting home at comparatively normal hour and am trying to get the piano keys off the floor and back where they belong. Of course, since I am not one to do things half-way, I am carefully cleaning each key before putting it back into place. It is amazing how long it takes to clean each key. How does dirt get up under the edge of the key anyway? I understand how the sides of the keys get dirty, and this is the best time to remove 50+ years worth of finger grease, but it does take a while to clean all of the edges.

I have about 12 keys to go. Then the "real" fun begins...leveling them out. I tried it just a little bit on Monday night with the keys I already had in place, and immediately saw that it was going to be very tricky. The first thing I have to do is decide which "level" to use as the standard and make all the other keys match by inserting one or more of the various thicknesses of paper spacers. It is not as easy as you might think. I suspect that I will end up taking out just about every single key multiple times before I get it all nice and even.

Cooking Lessons

Cooking lessons are going well. The young lady in question really enjoyed going through the slow-cooker cookbook and selecting the four recipes she would be making this week. Then I showed her how to organize her shopping list into grocery store departments, and we went shopping.

She is also enjoying the cooking itself, although she tends to get distracted. Just about every time she completes a step she walks away from the project and I have to call her back. "What is the next step?" I say. "Oh yea," she says. Then she happily returns and reads the directions for the next step. We need to work on the "stick with it till you are done" skill-set. We also need to work on the "not skipping a part of the step" skill. When you are cooking, every sentence matters.

Our lessons have included such practical matters as: how to handle raw meat (and the cleaning with soap and hot water required afterwards); how to peal and cut-up onions (while avoiding touching your watering eyes); and how to do dishes. Much to my amazement, she acted like she had never done dishes before (except to rinse them and put them in the dishwasher).

We also review her homework every evening and discuss the five food groups at every meal. In our spare time we are working on a puzzle. Because she gets on the school bus so early each day, I have been getting to work early. I also leave work 15 minutes early to pick her up from the after-school program she participates in. Actually, I think it is a good idea (for single-parent families) to have a program where the child stays after school in a supervised environment (or at least much better than some of the alternatives). She gets her homework done, and there is no TV available.

Yesterday a co-worker asked me how I liked "being a parent." I said it was fine, but thought to myself that this was no comparison to the real thing; not to mention that it is a lot less work. I would be deceiving myself if I compared staying with a pretty-much-already-raised 13-year old for 4 days with the real job of parenting!

Activities

Last Thursday evening I squeezed in 1/2 hour on the piano project. I was able to get 20 keys cleaned and put back into place. Once I get the other 68 done, I can begin the not-unsubstantial task of leveling them all out.

On Saturday I continued the huge project of cataloging and organizing our DVD library. I was able to clear-out a section of our VHS collection to make room for the DVDs. Dad is working on burning the best of the VHS collection to DVD before the VHS tapes totally disintegrate.

At YRs on Saturday evening we watched the next section from "Commanding Heights," which was fascinating. We also discussed all of the initiatives and ballot measures on the November ballot. There were a couple that I had not heard about before.

Yesterday I went back to the doctor to get the results from my blood tests. I am happy to report that I am now certifiably healthy. The test results were absolutely normal and healthy. My good cholesterol was a bit high and my bad cholesterol was on the low side. The doctor was very pleased. I also discovered that I have a bit of athlete's foot. So the battle has been engaged.

Last night I managed to get home before 9:00 p.m. for the first time in almost two weeks and was able to get a limited amount of work done. However, I did not make any more progress on the piano. I was way too busy trying to get some essential stuff done like laundry, cleaning, and installing the new mini-blind in the study. I also disinfected the insides of all of my shoes as the doctor recommended.

This morning I got up early so I could be at work early for our annual business park owners association meeting. I typed-up the minutes and distributed an updated business park directory before noon. The meeting went well, and my duties as secretary are pretty much over again until next fall.

This evening I begin staying with a co-worker's 13-year-old daughter while he is gone on a business trip. I will get to pick her up from school and review her homework. I'm looking forward to it. For an evening activity I am going to teach her how to cook. I have decided that crock pot cooking is the most-likely-to-be-used method for their household. This evening we are going to learn how to plan meals and then go grocery shopping for the rest of the week.