starting over

So, I've survived my first 2 weeks at the new job, one week with students, which is no small feat. It's a small school, our numbers this year are 153 students and 9 teaching staff, including the principal. I'm enjoying the job so far, the hardest part has been making a schedule for my 2 TAs. We have one student who requires full time TA support, so that leaves us with one TA. Not sure how to make that work, but it's been done, and I guess you just do what you can. We had been told initially that this student actually does better without people sitting on him constantly. That's just not true, unfortunately. So, we'll sit on him for now, and try to back off later. The school is nice, everyone gets along well (which is nice, and a bit surprising), but everyone does their own thing too. I have a bunch of reading comprehension tests to mark this weekend, which is super fun. Marking has always been my least favourite part of teaching. In large quantities anyway. I know I'll be doing testing as part of my job, but not normally for a group of 50 kids all at once.

It's the babe's 17 month birthday today. We celebrated by going to the market, Staples, and Superstore. I wanted to go to Home Depot too, but he needed a nap. One of the reasons I needed to go to HD is that my clothesline has broken. 3 times. I wish I was kidding. I put up this stupid clothesline. I bought the kit from Canadian Tire, with the spinney end parts, 150' of line, and the winch thing to join the 2 ends. I get up there, I'm drilling pilot holes in trees, I'm precariously perched on a ladder, I'm getting things done. I get it all strung and screwed, and I'm holding one end of line in my left hand and the other end in my right hand, and I have literally...3 feet of air in the middle. There is no way the line is going to reach for me to be able to connect it. So, apparently from the corner of our house to the nearest sturdy tree is not 75, but about 76.5'. Excellent. So, a few days later, I make it out and buy another winch thing to splice in a piece of line that I stole from my sister. She didn't need it, her line was long enough. So, good. I splice in the line with the 2 winch things, and am good to go. Before I ever get clothes hung out on it, I notice it's loose. This is maybe a day or 2 later. I go to see what's up, and I see that one of the winches has broken. Ok. Fine. I take it off, and go to HD and buy some clamp things made specifically for looping clothesline ends together, in cases such as mine. Perfect. I put them on, and am good to go again. I do a load of laundry, and I hang my clothes out. I'm really excited. I go mow the lawn. Then my line falls down. Apparently, I did not squeeze the shit out of the clamps enough, and the line slid out. My fault, I can accept that. I'm still furious, because all my clothes are on the ground, but it's my own fault, so whatever. I take all the clothes off the line, because I can't get it back up with stuff hanging on it. I loop the ends together again, and put 3 clamps instead of the recommended 2 on each end. 3 new ones on the end that slid out, and 1 new one to go with the 2 already on the end that stayed put. I squeeze the shit out of the clamps. I use 2 different sets of pliers. My hands were sore for days. The line WILL NOT slip this time. I'm happy. I put the clothes back on the line. I will have fresh smelling line-dried clothes if it kills me. I go out, I come back, clothes are still hanging. I'm happy. I go put something in my bedroom, I look out the patio door, clothes are on the ground. WTF. Upon investigation, it is discovered that the line itself has broken. Seriously. The line that was supposed to hold up to 1100lbs. It had a basket of clothes on it. Not towels or anything, a load of the babe's clothes, which are tiny, and a load of our clothes with a fitted sheet in it. Actually, the sheet wasn't even on the line, because after the 2nd time it fell, I said, eff it, I'll put the sheet and socks and stuff in the dryer, and just dry the regular clothes. So. We have no clothesline, I guess is the moral of the story. I told my dad this story, and I decided that I must have angered some clothes-hanging-out god or something, because really. WTF. I will try again, I will get a 160'+ piece of super deluxe heavy duty line that will stand up to towels hanging in hurricanes, and hope for the best. Wish me luck.

In other news, the babe is doing very well at his sitter's. She has a 13 month old boy, and also watches a 5 month old girl, and they all play really well together. Well, the 5 month old doesn't really do much other than laugh at the boys, but that's goood. Dear husband drops the babe off in the mornings because it's on his way to work, and in the opposite direction of where I go to work. It was rough and traumatic for him at first (the husband, not the babe), but once he realised that babe has fun at the sitter's, and does not cry for more than 10 seconds after Dad leaves, all is well. We've also had to buy a 2nd carseat, because DH was leaving it at the sitter's in the morning, and I was installing it and bringing the boy home in the evenings. That got old really fast. We looked for a while, because if I can avoid spending $200, I will, and my sister found me one at Zellers for $99. It's not the super deluxe model, but it's Cosco, which is a good name, and it's a 3-in-1 carseat / booster, so it's good stuff. And, it has a cup holder. Also, since kids have to be in carseats / boosters until they're like, 80lbs or something, it's quite likely that we will need 2 carseats at one time.

Hmm. I got a new phone, the Nokia 6265i. I like it. It's also a radio, 2mp camera / video camera, and mp3 player. And alarm clock. And other stuff that's cool. I can connect it to my computer and sync files and contacts, which is good, because it doesn't have a sim card, nor did my last phone, so I lost all my contacts, which is annoying.

DH has started his masters in ... fire protection engineering? I think. Something very close to that. He's doing it mainly by correspondence, but taking a couple of courses here at the university. He's pretty excited about it, so I guess I am too! I think sometime I will do my masters, but not just yet. After there are no tiny babies, I'll take a year of Ed leave and do it. With summer courses, I should be able to do it in a year. I have to decide in what though. I'd like to do a joint one in resource / guidance, but I don't think it exists. I guess I would pick one and do any electives in the other.

My cat is sitting, staring at me, waiting for me to move my arm so he can jump up and crush my lap. I'm not doing it, Mort. You have to wait.

My sister and her man got a puppy. He's very cute. He's a chocolate lab named Reese. I'll post some pictures soon. I have some in my gmail, but I'm trying to do minimal stuff right now, because I'm downloading the nokia suite thing that lets me connect my phone to my computer, and it's a 17.1mb file, and it's 37% done and still has over an hour to go. Good times. I love dialup. I did appreciate though, on the Nokia site, there was a link for dial up users to click and go to the non-graphic version of the download site. Very thoughtful of them. Most ... pretty much all sites, assume that everyone has highspeed. I don't. I can't get it, and I don't need to be further annoyed by not being able to access some sites because they take too long. Jerks.

Holy long post, batman. Ooh, 17 days til my birthday! I'd like a watch. I haven't gotten my laptop yet, so a personal laptop is still on my wishlist also. I'll let you know if I think of anything else.