I've been thinking a lot about water these days. It is refreshing. It makes the grass grow. It makes up a good percentage of our body. In some cases, we have to pay for it. Most of all it can be destructive.
All summer it seemed that we were living under the threat of flooding. The Missouri river was several feet above flood stage, they called it the 500 year food. What they didn't mention most of the time is that it could have been avoided for the most part. The Army Corp of Engineers were releasing water from a dam in South Dakota that was too full to accept the spring melt off. All that water traveled down the Missouri and flooded north of Council Bluffs and south of Council Bluffs. I-29 closed for all summer and into fall. When it finally opened the land that was underwater for so long looked like the desert. Gray...as far as the eye could see. DEVASTATION!!! You can still see it in the high water marks on the trees and the absence of all grass and vegetation.
In early August we had a tremendous hail and wind storm hit the Omaha/Council Bluffs metro. Every house in our neighborhood had to have roofs, siding and windows replaced. We called our insurance the very next day and got scheduled in for an inspection. They scheduled us for an inspection several months later. In the meantime, everyone in our neighborhood had construction signs going up in their yards and I kept thinking, what are we going to do? We finally had our insurance inspection, sure enough we needed a new roof, some new siding, new windows and a new garage door. OK, now, time to all construction companies, I have a little to say about this...maybe it will be another post. We finally decide on who is going to do our work and others are getting their work done, We get our shingles delivered, they are perched upon our roof and it is getting colder and colder. I feel like we are a day late and a dollar short. UGH, I think we will be the house on the block with the shingles on the roof and a foot of snow on top.
During the storm, my husband was at work so you guessed it, our vehicle got damaged as well. It needs a new roof, new hood and passenger front quarter panel, along with several other dings to be repaired. We took the insurance papers to our dealership (our car is only 3 years old) and made an appointment. Tomorrow is the day we get that fixed!! Can not wait!
People say when you want to lose weigh, you must drink water. The side effects of that is pretty obvious, what goes in...must come out. So, I have been spending a lot of time looking for a bathroom while on the road. Not an easy feat in some parts of my great state of Iowa.
Pretty soon water will be falling from the sky in crystal form. This means snow days, car accidents, windshield scraping and snow blowers. It also used to mean snowmobiling when I was younger, which is the only think I want to be doing when the snow flies. Although I love a good snow day, I hope that we will get the white stuff in moderation this year.
In closing, water is a necessary evil. I just don't like it when it hurts my house and car, when it causes accidents and makes me compromise my ideal of bathroom cleanliness.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Monday, November 14, 2011
"I love to eat, hate to work out, but if you can't count your ribs from a distance you're considered obese" -Jason Isaacs
I have always struggled with my weight. I can't remember when or if I was ever "The Ideal Weight", maybe when I was born, but I think that was the last time. In fact, if you saw my family you would totally understand. My mother, the domestic goddess, is very obese. My father, the farmer, is as skinny as a rail and probably weighs the same at 72 as he did when he was in the Navy. "The bad trait is certain to win" -A New Brain"
About 4 years ago I decided to go to Weight Watchers with a friend and started to loose the troublesome weight. I felt wonderful...I wanted to shout from the rooftops every time I lost a pound! After a year or so, I started to plateau. It became a constant struggle to say no to foods that were my favorites. I also started to forget to go to meetings, indulge into my cravings and started to see the weight go back on.
Well, here I am today starting a new plan. I refuse to eat Subway sandwiches and salads when I'm on the road and I can not trust myself with a packed lunch. I would probably break into what I packed at 10:30 am and then want to stop for lunch around 12:00 or so. What's a girl to do? I haven't solved the problem of eating yet, but I think I have found another way. BEACHBODY.
Last Sunday as my husband and I were vegging on the couch before heading to church we were watching an infomercial on a "10 Minute Workout", by Tony Horton. Yes, he is they guy from PX90, they said you can have a similar workout, but in only 10 minutes. WOW...I can work out for 10 minutes, I was thinking. So, I ordered it. It came in the mail on Saturday and I ripped into it as soon as I got it into the house. Just as advertised, my package contained DVDs, some reading material and a resistance band. I was a little disappointed when the calendar they included to help plan your workouts said..."For maximum results you should do 3, 10 minute work outs a day." WHAT DID THAT JUST SAY? Jeeze, If I wanted to work out for 1/2 hour I would go to the gym, or try any of the other work out videos in my collection.
Tonight we decided to get the DVD player set up downstairs, because I know that would be the safest place for us to workout with out the fear of falling through the floor and into the basement! But before we did that, we had to visit the local big box store to purchase a new Blu-Ray player for our living room to replace the DVD player we had to move downstairs. Logical? I think so! Not to mention all the rest of the stuff we purchased while there, like a wireless printer...whatever. Back to my story....we did it! We actually completed DAY 1 of the work out. We didn't do all 3 segments and it wasn't really pretty what we did do, but we moved, we sweated and we completed a 10 minute work out with 2 minutes warm up and another 2 minutes cool down.
Why am I doing this? We are planning another family vacation with my in-laws. We are thinking a cruise to Alaska, including a plan ride. I need to drop a few pounds before getting on a plane again.
Back to my eating habits...I plan on just cutting down. I also got some meal replacement bars from that evil big box store for breakfast. Hopefully that will stave off starvation so I don't want to overeat for lunch.
Wish me luck. I'll keep you posted.
About 4 years ago I decided to go to Weight Watchers with a friend and started to loose the troublesome weight. I felt wonderful...I wanted to shout from the rooftops every time I lost a pound! After a year or so, I started to plateau. It became a constant struggle to say no to foods that were my favorites. I also started to forget to go to meetings, indulge into my cravings and started to see the weight go back on.
Well, here I am today starting a new plan. I refuse to eat Subway sandwiches and salads when I'm on the road and I can not trust myself with a packed lunch. I would probably break into what I packed at 10:30 am and then want to stop for lunch around 12:00 or so. What's a girl to do? I haven't solved the problem of eating yet, but I think I have found another way. BEACHBODY.
Last Sunday as my husband and I were vegging on the couch before heading to church we were watching an infomercial on a "10 Minute Workout", by Tony Horton. Yes, he is they guy from PX90, they said you can have a similar workout, but in only 10 minutes. WOW...I can work out for 10 minutes, I was thinking. So, I ordered it. It came in the mail on Saturday and I ripped into it as soon as I got it into the house. Just as advertised, my package contained DVDs, some reading material and a resistance band. I was a little disappointed when the calendar they included to help plan your workouts said..."For maximum results you should do 3, 10 minute work outs a day." WHAT DID THAT JUST SAY? Jeeze, If I wanted to work out for 1/2 hour I would go to the gym, or try any of the other work out videos in my collection.
Tonight we decided to get the DVD player set up downstairs, because I know that would be the safest place for us to workout with out the fear of falling through the floor and into the basement! But before we did that, we had to visit the local big box store to purchase a new Blu-Ray player for our living room to replace the DVD player we had to move downstairs. Logical? I think so! Not to mention all the rest of the stuff we purchased while there, like a wireless printer...whatever. Back to my story....we did it! We actually completed DAY 1 of the work out. We didn't do all 3 segments and it wasn't really pretty what we did do, but we moved, we sweated and we completed a 10 minute work out with 2 minutes warm up and another 2 minutes cool down.
Why am I doing this? We are planning another family vacation with my in-laws. We are thinking a cruise to Alaska, including a plan ride. I need to drop a few pounds before getting on a plane again.
Back to my eating habits...I plan on just cutting down. I also got some meal replacement bars from that evil big box store for breakfast. Hopefully that will stave off starvation so I don't want to overeat for lunch.
Wish me luck. I'll keep you posted.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
My Very First Post
Greetings!
I have so many friends blogging these days, I guess I have jumped on the bandwagon.
I have several thoughts through my days on the road as an educational representative for a music store that I think I need to share with as many people as possible. Some things are funny, some are sad and some don't make much sense at all, but here they all are. The formatting may not be pretty, the punctuation may not be correct but I hope those of you reading won't give up on me.
First, I would like to introduce my self...I'm a married 30 something woman with no kids and a dog who is so adorable he might as well be my son. I went to college to become a band director/music teacher and taught a few years in the Iowa Public School system, but ended up working at a music store as an educational representative. What is that, you ask? Well, I travel around the backroads of Iowa and Northwestern Missouri, visiting schools and selling things to band directors, schools and eager new band students. I have known my lovely husband since we were in middle school and I can safely say we are best friends.
Enough about me for now...
Today I had several thoughts about the state of education in this country. Heavy topic for the first post, I know, but this has been weighing pretty heavily on my mind for a few days.
I'll start this portion with an abbreviated story I heard while on the road. A teacher has resigned his post at a very prominent high school in the last week and the band director world is all a twitter. Most of what I know is hearsay, but I did hear it from a very good source. The news is that the director resigned because some parents were threatening to sue him and force his resignation from the board of education...yes, I said SUE HIM! Now, what do you think he has done to get this sort of treatment from a couple of parents? Apparently, he got tough with a female student when she refused to put her uniform coat on before a competition. I must interject here with the information that I was not present at this alleged confrontation, nor have I been privy to any previous confrontations between said teacher and student. With that in mind...what is going on with our schools????
What ever happened to the days when a child came home after getting a punishment at school, only to get it worse at home? I for one hardly ever got into trouble at school because I KNEW I would get it worse at home. For example, my brother once had detention for tardies, after he served the detention my parents made him walk home from school. We lived 5 miles away from the school. He lucked out though, a teacher found him on the side of the highway and took pity on him and drove him home. I never even THOUGHT to talk back to a teacher, let alone not do something they he/she me to do. I see this as issue number 1, students not respecting the authouity of teachers. Issue number 2 is...maybe you shouldn't ALWAYS take your child's word as gospel when describing a confrontation with a teacher. A student will always try to make it not their fault, but someone else's. Maybe these parents should have talked reasonably and rationally to the teacher before getting all hyped up and sue happy. By the way, I think that society has allowed this to happen.
When talking with another director about the state of schools, he informed me that 38% of the freshmen in that school were performing at a 9th grade level. WTF??? That means 62% of the 9th graders were not reading, comprehending and had math skills that ALL THE OTHER 9th GRADERS IN THE COUNTRY HAVE. This is what "No Child Left Behind" looks like. If a student doesn't know how to read, it must be the teacher's fault, so promote them and make the next teacher worry about it. Never mind that the parents don't read to the child at home and they probably don't demonstrate reading abilities at home, or that the parent never talked to the teacher at parent/teacher conferences to find out what is happening at school. It has become the school's responsibility to not only teach children, but to parent as well.
I know it is easy for me to say some of the things about parent responsibility when I'm not a parent, but I was a teacher and I was a student. I would like to say that I would be a model parent when my time comes, but maybe I need to consider home schooling if we ever have a child.
I have so many friends blogging these days, I guess I have jumped on the bandwagon.
I have several thoughts through my days on the road as an educational representative for a music store that I think I need to share with as many people as possible. Some things are funny, some are sad and some don't make much sense at all, but here they all are. The formatting may not be pretty, the punctuation may not be correct but I hope those of you reading won't give up on me.
First, I would like to introduce my self...I'm a married 30 something woman with no kids and a dog who is so adorable he might as well be my son. I went to college to become a band director/music teacher and taught a few years in the Iowa Public School system, but ended up working at a music store as an educational representative. What is that, you ask? Well, I travel around the backroads of Iowa and Northwestern Missouri, visiting schools and selling things to band directors, schools and eager new band students. I have known my lovely husband since we were in middle school and I can safely say we are best friends.
Enough about me for now...
Today I had several thoughts about the state of education in this country. Heavy topic for the first post, I know, but this has been weighing pretty heavily on my mind for a few days.
I'll start this portion with an abbreviated story I heard while on the road. A teacher has resigned his post at a very prominent high school in the last week and the band director world is all a twitter. Most of what I know is hearsay, but I did hear it from a very good source. The news is that the director resigned because some parents were threatening to sue him and force his resignation from the board of education...yes, I said SUE HIM! Now, what do you think he has done to get this sort of treatment from a couple of parents? Apparently, he got tough with a female student when she refused to put her uniform coat on before a competition. I must interject here with the information that I was not present at this alleged confrontation, nor have I been privy to any previous confrontations between said teacher and student. With that in mind...what is going on with our schools????
What ever happened to the days when a child came home after getting a punishment at school, only to get it worse at home? I for one hardly ever got into trouble at school because I KNEW I would get it worse at home. For example, my brother once had detention for tardies, after he served the detention my parents made him walk home from school. We lived 5 miles away from the school. He lucked out though, a teacher found him on the side of the highway and took pity on him and drove him home. I never even THOUGHT to talk back to a teacher, let alone not do something they he/she me to do. I see this as issue number 1, students not respecting the authouity of teachers. Issue number 2 is...maybe you shouldn't ALWAYS take your child's word as gospel when describing a confrontation with a teacher. A student will always try to make it not their fault, but someone else's. Maybe these parents should have talked reasonably and rationally to the teacher before getting all hyped up and sue happy. By the way, I think that society has allowed this to happen.
When talking with another director about the state of schools, he informed me that 38% of the freshmen in that school were performing at a 9th grade level. WTF??? That means 62% of the 9th graders were not reading, comprehending and had math skills that ALL THE OTHER 9th GRADERS IN THE COUNTRY HAVE. This is what "No Child Left Behind" looks like. If a student doesn't know how to read, it must be the teacher's fault, so promote them and make the next teacher worry about it. Never mind that the parents don't read to the child at home and they probably don't demonstrate reading abilities at home, or that the parent never talked to the teacher at parent/teacher conferences to find out what is happening at school. It has become the school's responsibility to not only teach children, but to parent as well.
I know it is easy for me to say some of the things about parent responsibility when I'm not a parent, but I was a teacher and I was a student. I would like to say that I would be a model parent when my time comes, but maybe I need to consider home schooling if we ever have a child.
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