This is the beach in FL a few weeks ago…. and exactly what I plan to do for the next 4 days in SC !!

Trying to talk Alli into enjoying the LOUD ocean:

The little ones all ready for shopping in FL:

A collage of the little ones at the ocean:

My beautiful daughters after some pampering at Nana’s:

The only child not pictured is Nicholas – at 10 he’s going through this no photo phase.  I’ve tried to sneak in some but I never even get his face.  I plan to MAKE him this week at the beach.

Ever have one of THOSE days?

My job at the school this summer has basically been a helping out, whatever needs to be done, order books, inventory books, update files, etc.  I’ve worked very closely with one of the schools secretaries and we’ve gotten along great.  She is MADE for this type of work and can come in and get 10 things off a to-do list with what seems like a wave of her hand.  I’ve enjoyed working with her and never had a problem doing a task as long as it was assigned.  I guess I work better as a follower, lol.  Well…. she’s on vacation for 2 weeks!!   And I’m exhausted.   I swear I’ve worked 30 hours this week … even though I’ve only clocked 18.  I never realized how difficult it is to be THE decision maker for things or to be THE one that people call with questions.  Our head master and administrator are on vacation on an island w/o cell towers so I’m really on my own. 

Thankfully, I love my school and I completely support that we are a ministry first and foremost – that makes it easy to talk to potential parents.  This week alone I’ve talked to 3 DADS…(odd to me, these men actually make the schooling decisions in their homes…what a concept!) and 2 out of the 3 came in, toured the school and wrote checks for the full year tuition on the spot.  Guess I’m a good salesman…giggle…  

Today really REALLY wore me out though (and yes, it’s not even 3pm).  Since I’m only supposed to put in 15 hours and I already had over 16 yesterday I decided to sleep in this morning..  My body clock awakens me between 6:30 and 6:45 everyday (usually 6:42 on the dot – I find that creepy sometimes) but instead of getting up this morning I rolled over and went back to sleep.  It was a glorious 8:10 when I looked at the clock again.  I took my time on the computer, did some laundry, played with Alli and finally showered and got out of here.  I made a quick trip to the bank and to get some gas and finally showed up at work around 9:45.  I knew it would be a short day because R and I had a counseling session at 11 there at the church.  That had me a bit on edge of course.  AND, I was a little stressed about the bank thing since online was giving us a balance of $8 … and I was concerned about the auto deduct water bill of around $35 – I had to borrow money to put in and that always makes me edgy.  Anyway – that’s where my mind was. 

There’s been a large stack of books outside our office door all week and I haven’t had time to go through it but every morning I push it back, open the door and don’t think about it again until I lock the door.  The phone was ringing as I was unlocking the door so instead of turning it all the way around and unlocking – I opened the door, took the keys and got the phone.  I then started the morning routine of listening to messages.  The last message was from a potential parent AT THE SCHOOL wanting a tour.  I got his cell # and called him back asking forgiveness for missing him.  The whole family decided to come back for a tour…be there in 10 min.  My mind went back to the unsightly books and I went out to try and find a place to hide them.  Of course – the phone rang again and as I was getting up I bumped the door closed… it was still locked!  So, picture this – VIPs due any minute, no materials to hand them, secretary in CA, administrator in FL, no other keys for this door;   I have no keys to leave, no keys to open classrooms, no telephone to call anyone.  I’ve not eaten all day, I’m starting to sweat from stress and there’s no air running in the building.  I run up all 3 stories of stairs to see if one of the teachers might have a phone, she does but no #’s, I run down all 6 flights again to let the VIPs into the building.  I have to explain my dilema with a smile on my face and then attempt to show them the school through those little door windows.  The last room we stopped at happened to be unlocked and we had a nice chat.  I leave them to talk and go find the church handy-man.  He agrees to attempt to get into the office … and does succed 20 min later (I won’t tell ya how though, lol).  We finally get into the unorganized office, I try to find paperwork and reciept book, the phone is ringing again and I realize it’s 11.  I call the counselor to say I’m running late and have to leave a message, call ralph and have to leave a message all while keeping a smile on my face and pretending that I’m thrilled to be there and accepting this guys $3000 check. 

I finally made it to the counselor and spent the next hour and a half being emotionally drained.

I walked back to at least file the checks and turn off the lights in the office only to find a parent leaving me a note.  I had to hangup with my 14 y/o who was begging for help with the kids at home to which I assured her I would be there soon.  This parent doesn’t speak English very clearly so I had to find it within me to really concentrate on what he needed.  He wanted check #’s from all tuition he paid last year (boy I’m glad we keep good records), he wanted to pay a past due balance and then pay everything for the upcoming year. By the time I finished with him the phone had rang 3 times plus my cell was ringing with my kids needing me.  Then a teacher showed up needing some things – I told her I just couldn’t help her and to come back tomorrow. 

I finally sat down here to eat at 2:30 and I’m completely drained.

I promised 3 people I’d be at work 8-12 tomorrow and have more potential parents coming by plus I have to prepare for the other secretary to come in next week while I am gone on vacation.  She’s not worked at all this summer so I will have to leave extensive notes…

ah well – it’s good money right? 

 

busy much?

Let’s see…

June 23 – last blog

June 24 – Sunday church, time at Granma’s

June 25 – work; VBS began

June 29 – very unorganized trip to FL began….

My brothers were both supposed to come HERE for that weekend and stay through the 4th.  I won’t even begin to tell you about the family drama that took place that week leading up to the trip…we’ll just say that we didn’t know we were going to FL until Thursday night.  My mother didn’t leave work until close to 7pm and we got on the road just after 8pm.  The drive wasn’t TOO bad … the kids were much better behaved than I anticipated and really did sleep the majority of the time.  We’ve definately discovered that 6 hours is pretty much their limit though, so the 3+ hours over that were a bit uncomfortable.  We arrived right at 5am and fell into bed for a few short hours.  My older brother had arrived from Charleston the night before and Saturday was WONDERFUL being all together.  We had a grand time at the ocean and grilling out Sat night, church Sunday morning and a day lounging in Uncle Louie’s pool (uncle L is actually my SIL’s dad that lives next door…we LOVE his pool!!!).   The rest of the trip was so relaxing and VACATIONY that we stayed an extra full day and didn’t start the drive back until 4:30pm on Thurs.  I definately prefer the 8pm start to that long drive and won’t do another drive that involves supper-time again for a LONG time. 

We had a spectacular show of fireworks in the neighborhood and 3 out of the 4 kids I had with me truly enjoyed them.  Jacob (6) really didn’t like the noise and stayed inside with a movie… Alli – who I really worried about – begged for sparkler after sparkler and more boom!  silly girl.

That Friday was spent in a no-sleep daze and catch up on housework, Saturday was catchup, Sunday church and a complete carpet cleaning at my house! and then Monday back to work.  We are still in need of a second grade teacher  (are you SURE you don’t want to work Grace? – you’d be PERFECT for this job!!!!) and the administrator was in for ONE day between vacations.  That monday was crazy and I had to leave early because Ralph had some pre-scheduled overtime (hey, he makes twice my pay/hour..yeah, he can work it!).  Tuesday morning I helped out (ok, ok – I got paid very WELL to watch kids) MOPS.  Wednesday I’m working hard at some new paperwork for the up=coming school year and my computer freezes.  Everyone I talked to for the next 2 days diagnosed it as hard-drive gone bad.  Now… I’ve not worked in an office before.  I don’t think about computers going bad because…well…. Ralph builds all of our computers and can easily just switch out a hard drive when needed.  I keep all my pictures on CD (only because my camera takes them to mini CD) and nothing else of great importance  so I never back-up.  Welllllllllllllllll…. it’s kinda needed in a “business”.  There was VERY VERY VERY (to the nth power) important stuff on that computer.  I actually cried when talking to my boss Wed afternoon …   Anyway, it was a long couple of days worrying about what to do. 

Thursday – Ralph and I went to see a counselor together.  Not a lot of sleep leading up to that….. even less coming out of it …. sigh…..  

Friday morning I dragged that crazy computer back into the office, prayed over it. plugged it up and don’t you know that thing started right up without a problem.  ???

I’ll proclaim and claim a miracle.  That silly thing started up – I sent EVERYTHING to the networked computer first and then started saving files to CD.  The computer did an automatice restart with updates and never came back on.  I took it to the repairman an hour later and that was that.

Saturday morning I made the drive to get my girls.  (  ^*^  that’s me cheering !! ).  We then spent the afternoon lounging, doing laundry, watching kids for a friend and early bed (finally!). 

Today…church at 10, worship at 11:30, friends for lunch, friends for both girls, taking brittney and friends to “play”, then back to help my long-time best friend clean out her attic for her upcoming (just 2 weeks, sniff!) move to Mephis and finally home. 

I just finished off the bag of Sun Chips I opened for lunch (no I didn’t eat them ALL by myself) and I’m heading to bed soon.

This week will be more work, work, work.  Next week will be 4 days in Charleston and the week after that is pre-planning, then school starts again.  WHERE has the summer gone??