Thursday, March 01, 2007

What a week!

Want to hear about it?

Maple Syruping
The school groups have descended, from kindergarten to 5th graders. The sap will be running heavy today since the days are warmer. Someone asked in the comments about the taste of sap. Since there is a 40 to 1 water to sugar ratio in sap, it tastes like very weak maple syrup, or more like barely sweet water. I observed the tapping last Thursday and the guy who was leading the group started to tap an oak tree until the owner of the camp spotted him from across the camp and ran to him yelling, "Stop! Stop!" I taught classes on Friday and Monday without incident. Except I ran into a tree branch and scratched my eye.

Swollen Eyes
I am speaking tomorrow at the Home and Garden Show and my eye is still swollen and red. I don't think makeup will help. My plan is to dazzle them with my smile and bold hand gestures so they don't notice my eyes. You know, kind of like a magician.

Presentation Woes
My computer gave up the ghost this week. It should be repaired by tomorrow, but tomorrow's presentation isn't complete plus I needed Internet access to complete a freelance job. I was able to get the boys' computer hooked to the Internet with only one call to the cable provider, but the printer plug doesn't fit. Nor does it fit the two laptops in the house. I definitely need to print my notes to the presentation, so I might borrow a computer or see if I can print at the library. Another woe: we had access to the projector yesterday to test our presentations and the projector distorted the colors. Blues are purple and browns/oranges are yellow. The AV team tried to convince me it was OK but when showing pictures of plants, it doesn't work. I'll find out tomorrow if it is corrected. Otherwise, I need to allot an additional ten minutes for saying, "This is really blue/white/yellow/orange." I also have to cut some more time from the presentation or else there will be no Q&A time.

Minor Stuff
Last night I put a deep slice in the end of my thumb with the chef's knife. The coffeepot stopped working. I never made it clothes shopping so I'm not sure what I'm wearing.

Oh, a couple posts ago, I wrote about how I was going to count my blessings. Let me think. I was able to work around most of the issues so far. The pears I canned are delicious. I like my new car. School hasn't been cancelled this week. I'm almost finished with Team of Rivals for book club next week and it is fascinating but long. Hubby has great stories every day from student teaching, which I can't share. Except this one: He was grading a test last night and one 5th grader wrote about the mid-evil period. You know, Europe between the 5th and 16th century. Right after the early-evil period and before the late-evil period.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like you need a Bathtub Moment! "What's that?" you might be asking.

You know, where you sit in the bathtub (with or without water) with the lights out and the door locked, savoring the fact that for at least sixty-seconds something hasn't gone wrong. And if you combine it with pressing a damp tea-bag on your eye, you'll be way ahead!

(Don't knock it 'til you've tried it :)

Carol Michel said...

And remember that March came in like a lion so we should have good days ahead.

Good luck with your presentation!

Unknown said...

Thanks for answering my question! I was imagining that it tasted like barely sweet water, but with a hint of that unripe-fruit tang somehow. Sounds like it's not so sour as I would have imagined.

As long as that other guy isn't around during your talk tomorrow, and you have to explain that you ran into a tree branch... you can at least console yourself with this thought: "Hey, at least I didn't try to tap an oak tree!" :)

Kylee Baumle said...

I thought I'd posted this before, but I don't see it.

Mom and I will be at the show tomorrow. We'll be sure to look you up! :-)