News says there is violence in Chicago or somewhere.
Windstorm in the Midwest.
But it is 72 degrees and the sun is shining in the treetops in Greensboro..
(Just entered my room as I typed this.)
So? Everything is fine in this part of NC.
So far.
Peter, last night you mentioned a storm in Iowa, a derecho. My husband and I experienced a “super derecho” when we lived in the northern part of Indiana a few years ago. Neither of us had ever heard the word before. We were living out in the country, and nearly all of our neighbors lost some or many of the shingles off their house or an out-building. We didn’t lose any shingles, just some other piece (I forget what it’s called) on the roof that was pretty easy to replace. But it was a really weird wind, and astonishing to see how many roofs it damaged in just one or two minutes.
Re: A post from yesterday:
i can drive for another 60 days. Then we will go through everything again.
Good news???
I don’t know. I take anything I can get in this stage of life.
Morning. It is a beautiful day here in this forest and it will once again be hot!
Today is the dreaded day of going to the dentist. When I come home I will have one less tooth! Then on to getting an implant. If you think of me whisper a prayer for my nerves to calm…I truly dislike this whole thing!! Having said that…I have had no pain whatsoever…and for that I am thankful 😊
Looks like a hot day for a whole lot of people today.
We are off to vote in person and then a quick visit to a quilt shop. I have not done almost any shopping except for groceries, but fabric comes and goes quickly. I have some flannel I used for a quilt top and need to find something to match for the sides and back. There is a shop not quite an hour away that seems to have the brand and possibly a match. My husband will be glad to take a drive somewhere, anywhere.
The fabric I used was one of the ‘feebies’ from a quilt shop hop. The shop hop is going on now, but we will not be doing that this year. The shop hop is like Christmas retail for shops. I am sure they will not have the customers they normally have. I guess I will give them a little business. Cotton prices have risen so much with all being used for the pandemic and other things. My stash comes in handy, but there is always something else one seems to need.
Chas- The B1G Ten is thinking of canceling the season for its teams. In Illinois, they’ve moved high-school fall sports to Spring and spring sports to next summer. that means football and volleyball in March and April. The D-II conference around here also postponed football and volleyball to the Spring.
(Question for the editors- when are the seasons spelled with upper-case letters-always, or just as nouns?)
Yesterday it sounded as if cancelling Big Ten football was a done deal, then in the evening they said that no, it’s still undetermined. Apparently 10 out of 12 college presidents voted to cancel, but that wasn’t enough to call it final. I think I heard that Iowa and Nebraska are the holdouts.
The coaches, Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh, for example, are pushing back hard. They want their teams to play.
The presidents are meeting again this morning. Stay tuned…
I got a ticket for a rolling stop in 2007. I still think it was bogus. it was a dead end street to the left. I looked left, nothing was coming and I turned right. I paid it.
I drive I-10 at least 3 days a week. Law enforcement is everywhere but they aren’t really looking for speeders. They are looking for drug and human trafficking, That saddens me.
I am working from home today. The yard people have been here already to treat the lawn and Mr. P’s Baby Boy will be here in an hour or so to mow, weed eat, and blow. He will bring Little Miss with him so there is that. I will have to take her outside because she is VERY concerned about where her Daddy is. It makes my heart swell. If she is that attached to him, I know he is a good Daddy. She loves her Papa, but she loves her Daddy more. Mr. P and I are used to doing for her when she is here but when she is here with her Daddy only he can do what she wants done. She also lghts up when we take her to her Mommy in the afternoons.
OK. I need to get some work done before they arrive.
The house is chilly this morning. The cat woke me up at 5:15 a.m. this morning, 15 minutes early. She would not let up until I got up to feed her, walking all over me, meowing loudly.
Nancyjill, prayers. I’d be a wreck too.
Taking a drive is nice, it’s one of the few things we can do these days. The Jeep has cobwebs on it still, a sign of the times.
I have to somehow find a post office spokesperson today.
Found one in LA. Sent an email but will call if she doesn’t call back in a couple hours.
Ah, the old automatic “I’m out of the office” reply, of course. Sent the email to her fill-in. They provide phone numbers too, I should be able to hunt down someone.
Instead of going to sports events people will be going to Walmart parking lot drive-in theaters. Alice In Wonderland days. And my phone changed it to Slice In Wonderland. That too!
I am dealing with questions about the car by text. I found out that when a battery is replaced that the sound system has a security code activation number to restart it. We were never given a code. When I called the dealer they said there should be a white sticker with that info in the glove compartment. It was not there. Next thing to do is to take the car by Honda service for a no cost activation.
The potential buyers have the car so I am engaged with them by text.
I just had a call from Georgia Power about the Xfinity cable being grounded to our outside power company meter box attached to our house. I had asked for a call about this when I was talking to the power company last week about the lines in the tree. The power company engineer guy said it worked for the cable guys to do that, using the power company grounding system, but he advises to get an electrician to set up a separate ground out in the yard for the Xfinity cable. He said grounding to the power box does not potentially do damage to our home if there is a strike sending voltage through the wire, but it can be enough to melt their cable wires and cause problems like that. Oh, the things we learn through living in these times!
I went to Hobby Lobby last week to buy some yarn. It seemed so strange to be in a regular store, about like being in Santa’s workshop at the North Pole! It seemed so foreign.
My oldest son sent this over with the comment, “I hope we don’t get too many negative reactions and they shut us down.” We have a whole community of complaining people.
Adorable 8 is in pink, her father in blue in one of the photos. He’s the head umpire for the league.
Me neither Jo…and I usually get them….
I am home and it only took him a half hour instead of an hour. He said one of the roots “went all the way up to my brain”! 😂 It was uncomfortable, mostly due to anticipation of feeling pain, which I didn’t. I go back mid September for the implant assessment. Good news is he says my bone is as strong as an oak so no grafting and the implant should go with ease! Thankful!
Good news Nancyjill.
I am still working on my newsletter. I have four groups that I send it to and one group did not work. My friend said to google it. It said there was something wrong with the bcc address.
I enjoyed seeing/reading your newsletter today, Jo. It was really neat to see the smiles in your and your granddaughter’s (?) eyes in the picture where you’re wearing masks. I love how big smiles show up in one’s eyes. 🙂
NancyJill, I’m glad to hear the good dental report! I hope you remain pain-free as you wait for the next assessment.
I learned this weekend that the memorial service for my aunt who died last week is going to be live-streamed. That will be nice, as she taught school for decades in two different states from the one she resided in at the end of her life. She touched a lot of lives over the span of her career.
After she retired, she and my uncle moved to Colorado. She’d occasionally substitute teach in those years. She was at an elementary school in Littleton, Colorado the day of the Columbine shooting. I don’t remember how far that school was from the high school, but of course there was a lot of chaos after all that unfolded, school shootings on such a massive scale being unprecedented at that time.
Over the weekend, I had an epiphany. I have now given myself permission to stop trying so hard to be the perfect piano teacher for my students.
I’m always looking to better myself for people who are paying me to perform a service. But some of that drive to always outdo oneself comes at a cost.
I sat down yesterday and calculated what my hourly rate is for my time actually teaching. I feel it’s a pretty fair fee for my educational level and years of experience — not exorbitant, not a pittance.
BUT — the real clincher is how much time I am actually spending doing EVERYTHING I do behind the scenes to bring value to the customers I serve.
If my teaching time accounts for half of my total work-related time, then I’ve just cut my pay by 50% when you add in all of my work hours, whether behind the scenes or directly with students.
Obvious, I know — or maybe there’s even more to it that someone more mathematical than I will see 🙂 — but, for the most part, I had been quite happy spending this extra time to design the perfect program with the perfect resources for each individual student. I spent dozens of hours watching videos this summer as part of the MTNA Virtual Conference — it’s free, don’t you know! — and some of those were excellent and gave me ideas I’m already using.
But, honestly, my behind-the-scenes weekly time investment over the last few months has, I’m almost certain, been a lot more than the mere 7 hours I spend in direct teaching each week. Maybe it’s because we’ve taken the summer off from homeschooling that my mind is so occupied with piano lessons, but I decided that I’ve spent enough time thinking and tweaking and making total revamps and … and … and … for the benefit of my students and their families.
It’s going to be unsustainable to continue at this level once I return to homeschooling. Home and family is more important, even though they aren’t paying me. 😉 I get paid dividends that are priceless.
Anyway, those are some of my recent thoughts…
Somewhat along those lines, I saw a quote this weekend that rather resonated with me. It’s by someone named Neyla Downs. (I’m not sure who that person is.) It reads:
“Our beloved forward momentum may be productive, but it’s also destructive. It inevitably leads to burnout. If you want to do your best when it counts, do your medium-est when it doesn’t.”
I copied that down onto a piece of paper and keep it in my purse. I’ve looked at it a few different times over the last couple days. That word “medium-est” I kinda liked. 🙂 To me, it’s like another way of saying “moderation.”
Jo, if ONE email address is incorrect it will not let you send any of the emails. Click on the BCC area, the one that is incorrect will be highlighted somehow. If you delete that one you can send the rest.
After I commented here earlier, I went into the living room and sat in my chair. I stretched out across the ottoman and had my eyes closed. Mr. P suggested I go get back in bed. I woke up at 12:15. I feel oh so much better.
I am happy with the post office. I usually get my mail on time up at the mailbox. It has been early lately. In years past, the mail lady has brought live chicks to the house but more recently, we had to pick them up. That is fine. They take my snail mail letters and distribute them to all the right places. I hear from folk. Just yesterday got a nice post card from a son in Wyoming.
I just bought some stamps at the post office. I was getting low. I was the only person in there. I prayed before I got there that I would not be in a long line. I got some pretty flower stamps along with some outdoor scenes. I have about used up all my beautiful train stamps. I am resorting to using nativity stamps occasionally.
Husband usually takes a long time at the post office. Not because there is a line but because he and the post master get into long discussions. Politics, religion, sports, schools, the usual.
My neighbor around the corner got a mail delivery at 8 a.m. today — it was Thursday’s and Friday’s mail that they didn’t get to her. It’s kind of a mess.
We hadn’t talked for a while, she told me all about her meniscus injuries in both knees, 10-15 years ago. Said DON’T have the surgery, which she did and it led to a lot of arthritis (which they’ve now realized is what happens).
Yep, Kamala. I covered a speech she gave on the Iowa a couple years ago, she’s pretty impressive and does have a background as a prosecutor (which doesn’t set well with some of the more liberal side of the Democratic party). But we’ll see how it all ‘plays’ in a national, high-stakes contest.
With no end to the pandemic in sight, coronavirus fatigue grips America
Gabe Rice began sheltering in his suburban Phoenix home with his wife and three youngest children in March. They worked remotely, learned remotely and put social events on hold to hunker down alongside much of the country.
It was challenging and frustrating, but, Rice initially assumed, temporary. It seemed like a plausible plan to help the nation get the pandemic under control within a couple of months.
But Arizona’s economic reopening in May, urged by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, was soon followed by a spike in coronavirus infections in June, which became a terrible surge in hospitalizations and deaths by July.
Then came August, and the devastating realization for many Americans that the pandemic, which has killed at least 159,000 people across the country and sickened more than five million, is far from over.
“It’s difficult when you think you have a light at the other end of the tunnel to look forward to, and then all of a sudden you realize it’s a train,” said Rice, 44, a program coordinator at Arizona State University.
An exhausted, exasperated nation is suffering from the effects of a pandemic that has upended society on a scale and duration without parallel in living memory.
The Rice family and millions of other Americans are wrestling with difficult questions about how to juggle school, pay their bills and look after their mental and physical health. …
…Parents lie awake, their minds racing with thoughts of how to balance work with their newfound role as home-schoolers. Frontline health workers are bone tired, their nerves frayed by endless shifts and constant encounters with the virus and its victims. Senior citizens have grown weary of isolation. Unemployed workers fret over jobs lost, benefits that are running out, rent payments that are overdue. Minority communities continue to shoulder the disproportionate burden of the contagion’s impact, which in recent weeks has killed an average of about 1,000 people a day.
The metaphor of a marathon doesn’t capture the wearisome, confounding, terrifying and yet somehow dull and drab nature of this ordeal for many Americans, who have watched leaders fumble the pandemic responsefrom the start. Marathons have a defined conclusion, but 2020 feels like an endless slog – uphill, in mud.
Recent opinion polls hint at the deepening despair. …
… Historians say that not even the 1918 flu pandemic, which killedan estimated 675,000 people in the United States, had the same kind of all-encompassing economic, social and cultural impact.
“One of the biggest differences between this virus and [the 1918] influenza is the duration,” said John Barry, author of “The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History.”
With coronavirus, he said, the incubation period is longer, patients with symptoms tend to be sick longer, and many take longer to recover. Barry said leaders did not make sufficiently clear early onthe simple epidemiological truth that this would be a painfully drawn-out event.
“Part of the frustration and disappointment and depression, frankly, is because of the expectation that we’d be through this by now,” he said. …
____________________________
I watched the 2019 film about Harriet Tubman last night. Not a great movie (film got just a little bit over a “fair” rating), but a vivid reminder of how horrific things could be for Black people at the hands of some of the more callous “slave owners.” A horrible time in our history.
Kamala Harris for Biden’s running mate. I just saw that for any who don’t frequent the Political thread. I think Chas was wondering earlier today who it could possibly be.
okay, I have now manually sent out the rest of my newsletters. You should have all received it by now. One address did autocorrect. That took about two hours. Now to go figure out the car. I barely even know what bluetooth is.
Oh, bluetooth is a must. It’s awesome. I got it with my new radio when the factory model radio (w/o bluetooth) in the old Jeep gave out a year or two ago.
No 5:00 student tonight. Mom called a half hour before the lesson to say they had school registration tonight.
They didn’t know that until then???
More likely they just didn’t bother to let me know until the last minute, which has happened on previous occasions with this family (and others). At least they respect the fact that I expect payment and don’t offer make-up lessons for those preventable, late cancellations.
Four of my five students from yesterday missed also (though one of them let me know last week about the upcoming absence, and we’ve arranged a make-up time for Thursday).
The irony is that the one student who attended yesterday is on vacation in Colorado! The relatives with whom they’re staying have a piano, so my student took her piano books with her — and even her assignment sheet from last week’s lesson! — so she could have a Zoom lesson and not miss piano!
Those are the kind of people who make extra effort worth my time. It’s others, who blow off lessons at the last minute for flimsy reasons, that cause me to ask myself, “Why am I giving so much more than they’re willing to put into it?”
Rather curious that I received a text saying I should get an absentee ballot in NC because of Covid problems at the polls. It was texted to someone named Sharon. Now, what if I requested one, which I would never do. But some people would. Yes, integrity of our voting system will be tested like never before. I see that my return text kicked back as ‘failed to send.’ I will try again to let them know it was sent to the wrong person.
Saw and shared this on Facebook today. There is a photo of a guy dressed like a Viking, and the text says:
” ‘I can’t go out because of the virus’ sounds weak, whiny, and boring.
Try this instead: ‘I’ve sworn an oath of solitude until the pestilence is purged from the lands.’ That sounds more principled, valiant, and heroic – and people might even think you are carrying a sword.” 😀
When we went to vote today at our community center my SIL was the one getting our signatures. I said; Hi,” and she looked at me and asked for my name. My husband was standing next to me. I thought she was kidding, so I said, “I am not sure this morning.” She gave me such a startled, questioning look that I was wondering if for some strange reason she wanted me to give my name out loud. Suddenly, she gasped and said she hadn’t recognized me in the mask and with a hat on. We had a good laugh about it. Otherwise, voting was the same as usual. We did chat a bit with Sis in law and another woman we know well about the chokecherries and blueberries and recipe possibilities.
BTW, Janice, I do appreciate your telling us about the book deals. I checked this one out and the website said I ordered it in 2016. I sure like that little reminder.
Wandering Views 
Good morning everyone.
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News says there is violence in Chicago or somewhere.
Windstorm in the Midwest.
But it is 72 degrees and the sun is shining in the treetops in Greensboro..
(Just entered my room as I typed this.)
So? Everything is fine in this part of NC.
So far.
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Jo
Thanks for the newsletter. One comment.
None of this took God by surprise. He has everything in PNG under control.
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Peter, last night you mentioned a storm in Iowa, a derecho. My husband and I experienced a “super derecho” when we lived in the northern part of Indiana a few years ago. Neither of us had ever heard the word before. We were living out in the country, and nearly all of our neighbors lost some or many of the shingles off their house or an out-building. We didn’t lose any shingles, just some other piece (I forget what it’s called) on the roof that was pretty easy to replace. But it was a really weird wind, and astonishing to see how many roofs it damaged in just one or two minutes.
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Re: A post from yesterday:
i can drive for another 60 days. Then we will go through everything again.
Good news???
I don’t know. I take anything I can get in this stage of life.
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What is this world coming to??
I see on FoxNews that there may not be a football season this year.
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Morning. It is a beautiful day here in this forest and it will once again be hot!
Today is the dreaded day of going to the dentist. When I come home I will have one less tooth! Then on to getting an implant. If you think of me whisper a prayer for my nerves to calm…I truly dislike this whole thing!! Having said that…I have had no pain whatsoever…and for that I am thankful 😊
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Looks like a hot day for a whole lot of people today.
We are off to vote in person and then a quick visit to a quilt shop. I have not done almost any shopping except for groceries, but fabric comes and goes quickly. I have some flannel I used for a quilt top and need to find something to match for the sides and back. There is a shop not quite an hour away that seems to have the brand and possibly a match. My husband will be glad to take a drive somewhere, anywhere.
The fabric I used was one of the ‘feebies’ from a quilt shop hop. The shop hop is going on now, but we will not be doing that this year. The shop hop is like Christmas retail for shops. I am sure they will not have the customers they normally have. I guess I will give them a little business. Cotton prices have risen so much with all being used for the pandemic and other things. My stash comes in handy, but there is always something else one seems to need.
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“freebies” Sheesh. It was underlined in red and I still missed it!!
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Kathy says: “My husband will be glad to take a drive somewhere, anywhere.”
I can relate to that.
Except to the dentist.
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Chas- The B1G Ten is thinking of canceling the season for its teams. In Illinois, they’ve moved high-school fall sports to Spring and spring sports to next summer. that means football and volleyball in March and April. The D-II conference around here also postponed football and volleyball to the Spring.
(Question for the editors- when are the seasons spelled with upper-case letters-always, or just as nouns?)
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Yesterday it sounded as if cancelling Big Ten football was a done deal, then in the evening they said that no, it’s still undetermined. Apparently 10 out of 12 college presidents voted to cancel, but that wasn’t enough to call it final. I think I heard that Iowa and Nebraska are the holdouts.
The coaches, Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh, for example, are pushing back hard. They want their teams to play.
The presidents are meeting again this morning. Stay tuned…
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I caught up on yesterday’s thread and thought about traffic tickets. My last one was in 1974. I was riding a bike on the wrong side of the street.
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Kevin- Nebraska might play outside the conference if the rest decide to cancel.
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I got a ticket for a rolling stop in 2007. I still think it was bogus. it was a dead end street to the left. I looked left, nothing was coming and I turned right. I paid it.
I drive I-10 at least 3 days a week. Law enforcement is everywhere but they aren’t really looking for speeders. They are looking for drug and human trafficking, That saddens me.
I am working from home today. The yard people have been here already to treat the lawn and Mr. P’s Baby Boy will be here in an hour or so to mow, weed eat, and blow. He will bring Little Miss with him so there is that. I will have to take her outside because she is VERY concerned about where her Daddy is. It makes my heart swell. If she is that attached to him, I know he is a good Daddy. She loves her Papa, but she loves her Daddy more. Mr. P and I are used to doing for her when she is here but when she is here with her Daddy only he can do what she wants done. She also lghts up when we take her to her Mommy in the afternoons.
OK. I need to get some work done before they arrive.
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The house is chilly this morning. The cat woke me up at 5:15 a.m. this morning, 15 minutes early. She would not let up until I got up to feed her, walking all over me, meowing loudly.
Nancyjill, prayers. I’d be a wreck too.
Taking a drive is nice, it’s one of the few things we can do these days. The Jeep has cobwebs on it still, a sign of the times.
I have to somehow find a post office spokesperson today.
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Found one in LA. Sent an email but will call if she doesn’t call back in a couple hours.
Ah, the old automatic “I’m out of the office” reply, of course. Sent the email to her fill-in. They provide phone numbers too, I should be able to hunt down someone.
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Instead of going to sports events people will be going to Walmart parking lot drive-in theaters. Alice In Wonderland days. And my phone changed it to Slice In Wonderland. That too!
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I am dealing with questions about the car by text. I found out that when a battery is replaced that the sound system has a security code activation number to restart it. We were never given a code. When I called the dealer they said there should be a white sticker with that info in the glove compartment. It was not there. Next thing to do is to take the car by Honda service for a no cost activation.
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The potential buyers have the car so I am engaged with them by text.
I just had a call from Georgia Power about the Xfinity cable being grounded to our outside power company meter box attached to our house. I had asked for a call about this when I was talking to the power company last week about the lines in the tree. The power company engineer guy said it worked for the cable guys to do that, using the power company grounding system, but he advises to get an electrician to set up a separate ground out in the yard for the Xfinity cable. He said grounding to the power box does not potentially do damage to our home if there is a strike sending voltage through the wire, but it can be enough to melt their cable wires and cause problems like that. Oh, the things we learn through living in these times!
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I went to Hobby Lobby last week to buy some yarn. It seemed so strange to be in a regular store, about like being in Santa’s workshop at the North Pole! It seemed so foreign.
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Sept. 2 is the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII
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I hear on the radio that a woman in Asheville stole $600,000. She was sentenced to home confinement.
Same as me. Only I haven’t stole anything.
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I relate, Chas!
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Jo, I really liked all the photos in your newsletter!
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I didn’t get a newsletter . . .
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My oldest son sent this over with the comment, “I hope we don’t get too many negative reactions and they shut us down.” We have a whole community of complaining people.
Adorable 8 is in pink, her father in blue in one of the photos. He’s the head umpire for the league.
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/little-league-baseball-in-santa-rosa-helps-ease-pandemic-isolation/?artslide=3&sba=AAS
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Fun, Michelle!
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I received Jo’s newsletter and look forward to reading it.
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Me neither Jo…and I usually get them….
I am home and it only took him a half hour instead of an hour. He said one of the roots “went all the way up to my brain”! 😂 It was uncomfortable, mostly due to anticipation of feeling pain, which I didn’t. I go back mid September for the implant assessment. Good news is he says my bone is as strong as an oak so no grafting and the implant should go with ease! Thankful!
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Good news Nancyjill.
I am still working on my newsletter. I have four groups that I send it to and one group did not work. My friend said to google it. It said there was something wrong with the bcc address.
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invalid bcc address?????
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I enjoyed seeing/reading your newsletter today, Jo. It was really neat to see the smiles in your and your granddaughter’s (?) eyes in the picture where you’re wearing masks. I love how big smiles show up in one’s eyes. 🙂
NancyJill, I’m glad to hear the good dental report! I hope you remain pain-free as you wait for the next assessment.
I learned this weekend that the memorial service for my aunt who died last week is going to be live-streamed. That will be nice, as she taught school for decades in two different states from the one she resided in at the end of her life. She touched a lot of lives over the span of her career.
After she retired, she and my uncle moved to Colorado. She’d occasionally substitute teach in those years. She was at an elementary school in Littleton, Colorado the day of the Columbine shooting. I don’t remember how far that school was from the high school, but of course there was a lot of chaos after all that unfolded, school shootings on such a massive scale being unprecedented at that time.
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Over the weekend, I had an epiphany. I have now given myself permission to stop trying so hard to be the perfect piano teacher for my students.
I’m always looking to better myself for people who are paying me to perform a service. But some of that drive to always outdo oneself comes at a cost.
I sat down yesterday and calculated what my hourly rate is for my time actually teaching. I feel it’s a pretty fair fee for my educational level and years of experience — not exorbitant, not a pittance.
BUT — the real clincher is how much time I am actually spending doing EVERYTHING I do behind the scenes to bring value to the customers I serve.
If my teaching time accounts for half of my total work-related time, then I’ve just cut my pay by 50% when you add in all of my work hours, whether behind the scenes or directly with students.
Obvious, I know — or maybe there’s even more to it that someone more mathematical than I will see 🙂 — but, for the most part, I had been quite happy spending this extra time to design the perfect program with the perfect resources for each individual student. I spent dozens of hours watching videos this summer as part of the MTNA Virtual Conference — it’s free, don’t you know! — and some of those were excellent and gave me ideas I’m already using.
But, honestly, my behind-the-scenes weekly time investment over the last few months has, I’m almost certain, been a lot more than the mere 7 hours I spend in direct teaching each week. Maybe it’s because we’ve taken the summer off from homeschooling that my mind is so occupied with piano lessons, but I decided that I’ve spent enough time thinking and tweaking and making total revamps and … and … and … for the benefit of my students and their families.
It’s going to be unsustainable to continue at this level once I return to homeschooling. Home and family is more important, even though they aren’t paying me. 😉 I get paid dividends that are priceless.
Anyway, those are some of my recent thoughts…
Somewhat along those lines, I saw a quote this weekend that rather resonated with me. It’s by someone named Neyla Downs. (I’m not sure who that person is.) It reads:
“Our beloved forward momentum may be productive, but it’s also destructive. It inevitably leads to burnout. If you want to do your best when it counts, do your medium-est when it doesn’t.”
I copied that down onto a piece of paper and keep it in my purse. I’ve looked at it a few different times over the last couple days. That word “medium-est” I kinda liked. 🙂 To me, it’s like another way of saying “moderation.”
Not laziness. Not workaholism. Simple moderation.
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Jo, if ONE email address is incorrect it will not let you send any of the emails. Click on the BCC area, the one that is incorrect will be highlighted somehow. If you delete that one you can send the rest.
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After I commented here earlier, I went into the living room and sat in my chair. I stretched out across the ottoman and had my eyes closed. Mr. P suggested I go get back in bed. I woke up at 12:15. I feel oh so much better.
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DJ, itsn’t it at least a little funny that someone at the post office has an email that says they are out of the office?
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I am happy with the post office. I usually get my mail on time up at the mailbox. It has been early lately. In years past, the mail lady has brought live chicks to the house but more recently, we had to pick them up. That is fine. They take my snail mail letters and distribute them to all the right places. I hear from folk. Just yesterday got a nice post card from a son in Wyoming.
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I just bought some stamps at the post office. I was getting low. I was the only person in there. I prayed before I got there that I would not be in a long line. I got some pretty flower stamps along with some outdoor scenes. I have about used up all my beautiful train stamps. I am resorting to using nativity stamps occasionally.
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Wow, how many “I” statements can be made in one paragraph. “I” need to do better on that!
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Husband usually takes a long time at the post office. Not because there is a line but because he and the post master get into long discussions. Politics, religion, sports, schools, the usual.
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Kampala’s Harris?
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My neighbor around the corner got a mail delivery at 8 a.m. today — it was Thursday’s and Friday’s mail that they didn’t get to her. It’s kind of a mess.
We hadn’t talked for a while, she told me all about her meniscus injuries in both knees, 10-15 years ago. Said DON’T have the surgery, which she did and it led to a lot of arthritis (which they’ve now realized is what happens).
Yep, Kamala. I covered a speech she gave on the Iowa a couple years ago, she’s pretty impressive and does have a background as a prosecutor (which doesn’t set well with some of the more liberal side of the Democratic party). But we’ll see how it all ‘plays’ in a national, high-stakes contest.
I think I’m beginning to grasp this:
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https://www.lmtonline.com/news/article/With-no-end-to-the-pandemic-in-sight-coronavirus-15475104.php
With no end to the pandemic in sight, coronavirus fatigue grips America
Gabe Rice began sheltering in his suburban Phoenix home with his wife and three youngest children in March. They worked remotely, learned remotely and put social events on hold to hunker down alongside much of the country.
It was challenging and frustrating, but, Rice initially assumed, temporary. It seemed like a plausible plan to help the nation get the pandemic under control within a couple of months.
But Arizona’s economic reopening in May, urged by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, was soon followed by a spike in coronavirus infections in June, which became a terrible surge in hospitalizations and deaths by July.
Then came August, and the devastating realization for many Americans that the pandemic, which has killed at least 159,000 people across the country and sickened more than five million, is far from over.
“It’s difficult when you think you have a light at the other end of the tunnel to look forward to, and then all of a sudden you realize it’s a train,” said Rice, 44, a program coordinator at Arizona State University.
An exhausted, exasperated nation is suffering from the effects of a pandemic that has upended society on a scale and duration without parallel in living memory.
The Rice family and millions of other Americans are wrestling with difficult questions about how to juggle school, pay their bills and look after their mental and physical health. …
…Parents lie awake, their minds racing with thoughts of how to balance work with their newfound role as home-schoolers. Frontline health workers are bone tired, their nerves frayed by endless shifts and constant encounters with the virus and its victims. Senior citizens have grown weary of isolation. Unemployed workers fret over jobs lost, benefits that are running out, rent payments that are overdue. Minority communities continue to shoulder the disproportionate burden of the contagion’s impact, which in recent weeks has killed an average of about 1,000 people a day.
The metaphor of a marathon doesn’t capture the wearisome, confounding, terrifying and yet somehow dull and drab nature of this ordeal for many Americans, who have watched leaders fumble the pandemic responsefrom the start. Marathons have a defined conclusion, but 2020 feels like an endless slog – uphill, in mud.
Recent opinion polls hint at the deepening despair. …
… Historians say that not even the 1918 flu pandemic, which killedan estimated 675,000 people in the United States, had the same kind of all-encompassing economic, social and cultural impact.
“One of the biggest differences between this virus and [the 1918] influenza is the duration,” said John Barry, author of “The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History.”
With coronavirus, he said, the incubation period is longer, patients with symptoms tend to be sick longer, and many take longer to recover. Barry said leaders did not make sufficiently clear early onthe simple epidemiological truth that this would be a painfully drawn-out event.
“Part of the frustration and disappointment and depression, frankly, is because of the expectation that we’d be through this by now,” he said. …
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I watched the 2019 film about Harriet Tubman last night. Not a great movie (film got just a little bit over a “fair” rating), but a vivid reminder of how horrific things could be for Black people at the hands of some of the more callous “slave owners.” A horrible time in our history.
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Kamala Harris for Biden’s running mate. I just saw that for any who don’t frequent the Political thread. I think Chas was wondering earlier today who it could possibly be.
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It was yesterday Chas was wondering that, not today.
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okay, I have now manually sent out the rest of my newsletters. You should have all received it by now. One address did autocorrect. That took about two hours. Now to go figure out the car. I barely even know what bluetooth is.
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Oh, bluetooth is a must. It’s awesome. I got it with my new radio when the factory model radio (w/o bluetooth) in the old Jeep gave out a year or two ago.
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No 5:00 student tonight. Mom called a half hour before the lesson to say they had school registration tonight.
They didn’t know that until then???
More likely they just didn’t bother to let me know until the last minute, which has happened on previous occasions with this family (and others). At least they respect the fact that I expect payment and don’t offer make-up lessons for those preventable, late cancellations.
Four of my five students from yesterday missed also (though one of them let me know last week about the upcoming absence, and we’ve arranged a make-up time for Thursday).
The irony is that the one student who attended yesterday is on vacation in Colorado! The relatives with whom they’re staying have a piano, so my student took her piano books with her — and even her assignment sheet from last week’s lesson! — so she could have a Zoom lesson and not miss piano!
Those are the kind of people who make extra effort worth my time. It’s others, who blow off lessons at the last minute for flimsy reasons, that cause me to ask myself, “Why am I giving so much more than they’re willing to put into it?”
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Rather curious that I received a text saying I should get an absentee ballot in NC because of Covid problems at the polls. It was texted to someone named Sharon. Now, what if I requested one, which I would never do. But some people would. Yes, integrity of our voting system will be tested like never before. I see that my return text kicked back as ‘failed to send.’ I will try again to let them know it was sent to the wrong person.
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Sorry that I did not see the other posts about Harris before I posted.
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Saw and shared this on Facebook today. There is a photo of a guy dressed like a Viking, and the text says:
” ‘I can’t go out because of the virus’ sounds weak, whiny, and boring.
Try this instead:
‘I’ve sworn an oath of solitude until the pestilence is purged from the lands.’
That sounds more principled, valiant, and heroic – and people might even think you are carrying a sword.” 😀
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When we went to vote today at our community center my SIL was the one getting our signatures. I said; Hi,” and she looked at me and asked for my name. My husband was standing next to me. I thought she was kidding, so I said, “I am not sure this morning.” She gave me such a startled, questioning look that I was wondering if for some strange reason she wanted me to give my name out loud. Suddenly, she gasped and said she hadn’t recognized me in the mask and with a hat on. We had a good laugh about it. Otherwise, voting was the same as usual. We did chat a bit with Sis in law and another woman we know well about the chokecherries and blueberries and recipe possibilities.
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That’s so funny. Masks do hide us!
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Went to the post office myself today and received Jo’s newsletter twice. Those comments, actually, were unrelated. 🙂
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BTW, Janice, I do appreciate your telling us about the book deals. I checked this one out and the website said I ordered it in 2016. I sure like that little reminder.
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I had two addresses for you, Michelle and was unsure which one you were using.
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That is funny, Kathaleena!
And thank you for your appreciation for the book comments.
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The newsletter arrived and was a fun and encouraging read as always.
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Thanks, Mumsee.
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