A Long Haul

This summer has been long and hard. I started my summer workshop education classes this summer. Nine hours of Master's classes, my daughter having a baby and a double ear infection. Eeesh.

The classes were not bad, interesting even. I learned a lot and had my eyes opened to a lot of what is happening in the education world that I didn't know about. I will probably write more on that later.

My daughter had a terrible time having the baby and it was a long troublesome recovery for her. She had to have an emergency C-section after 2 hours of pushing. She ended up with her lower body swelling beyond belief.

She hemmoraged a week after she came home...I took a trip to the emergency room with her. She was so scared she would die, I have never seen her so scared before. Her husband, a great guy and equally good Daddy was also scared and inexperienced in the ways of the medical world.

She got through that then got an infection. The doctors misdiagnosed it as a uterine infection and for two more weeks she continued to get worse. Finally they "listened" to her and treated her for the bladder infection she thought she had to begin with, but not until she became really sick. All this time she tried to breast feed and the baby wasn't getting enough and wasn't gaining weight...another stress.

I know it wasn't me going through all this, but in a way it was. I felt like I was the one that had the baby, the stress was awful.

I didn't know if after class I would be taking another trip to the hospital or doctor office. Seeing the constant pain and misery in my daughter's face was horrible. I worried she wouldn't survive with doctors that did not follow up on their patients anymore. It made it hard to concentrate in class some days. I was lucky I had made some very good friends that helped me through it. Fellow "future" teachers that looked out for each other any way they could.

While all this was going on I fought a double ear infection that drained the energy out of me.

Finally when her bladder infection was driven out with the correct medicine she began to recover. That brought us to the middle of July and the summer was half over. She began to feel better and I had two weeks to get a miread of projects done before the semester was over.

Things are better now.

My daughter is able to get around and feeling more confident in taking care of a brand new baby. I finally got rid of the ear infection and somehow I passed my class with an A.

The fall brings on new challenges for our family. I start another 9 credit hours of classes including my practicum while substitue teaching. My daughter and her husband are going back to work as teachers and will have to leave their baby with my husband (Grandpa). He will be babysitting every day with a two-month old which will be a new stress in itself. He also is going to school at night. So...with the summer now over and all of our family trials simmering down, I hope to find a little time to come back and write. In the meantime.

Here are some new baby pics.

Fw: for the blog

Book Review               The Last Ember               By Daniel Levin   Who was the last princess of Jerusalem ? Was Flavius Josephus a traitor or a patriarch? Where is the Arch of Titus located? What is the Last Ember and why is it important to Jews? Find all the answers in Daniel Levin's intriguing book The Last Ember. In my opinion it surpasses The Da Vinci Code and The Adventures of Indiana Jones, although all three deal with the same subjects.   A must read for those who enjoy intrigue, espionage, murder, suspense and danger. The author Daniel Levin successfully combines the reverence of some and the greed of others for ancient discoveries in a modern setting.   This book informs and entertains. Always a good combination.         Pat Elliott     Writer - Bible Study Lessons,     articles, short stories, book reviews     http://rthrbrtn-patsplace.blogspot.com/     http://rthrbrtn.synthasite.com/      Write Your Life Story - Coursebridge.com     Book Reviews - Bookloons.com

Posting

I tried to post on the regular site, but didn't do it right I guess. I started a blog of my own, but don't really know yet what to write about, so when I figure it our, I'll let everyone know. Happy writing all,
 

Skiz  

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from

those who are willing to work and give to those who are not. -- Thomas Jefferson

 

 

Ruth's program

Ruth's program on blogging has been very helpful. Perhaps it will encourage us to take turns on this blog.

Barb

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Get free photo software from Windows Live Click here.

Rats and my back to the land experience.

Others need to post to this blog besides me. Here is a link to the story I have posted on Open Salon. I suggest more of you join. It will improve your writing and help you build an audience in case we ever get published. Lots of editors and writers on this blog.
Click here to read the Rat story.

Lets start some new activities.

I have been participating on Open Salon's blog space. LOTS of writers, mostly liberals lurk there. However as long as I don't talk politics too much I get along. They have a couple of traditions that are kind of fun that we could do They have two days when they have themes. Tuesdays are foodie days and the will post Foodie Tuesday recipes complete with pictures. On Thursdays they do Dirty Haiku Thursdays. Today was my first entry in the Haiku which I will share here. So how
'bout we do something similar. Any ideas? I definitely think we could do the dirty haiku, just make it on Friday. It is then traditional to leave comments on the blog. Capish?

Here's mine:

Dirty Haiku Friday, AH, SPRING!

Dew on blossom moist

Bees rob their sperm to make bread

Tickling brings forth fruit

Here's the rest of the story.

I used to be a different person. I was in my twenties during the days of women’s rights, burning bras and free love. I worked at a plastic molding factory, back in the 1970’s and I don’t know why it made an impression on me, but I noticed the mechanics at the factory had pin-up pictures in their lockers. Of course, my mind went hmmm, if they can get away with that why can’t we have pin-up pictures? We didn’t have a locker room, but there was a woman’s restroom. The seed had been planted and it was just too good to pass up.

That evening I went to the variety store and picked up an issue of “Playgirl” magazine. I couldn’t wait for the next day. I left for work prepared with a large role of scotch tape.

I decided to wait until 9 a.m. and go into the bathroom as if I was just making a regular trip. I had my purse in tow and I knew no one else was in there….perfect. I went into each stall and plastered a wonderful full-page color spread of man in all his glory on the inside door of each stall. They had labels on them like, “boy next door”. Awesome!
It didn’t take long and I left as quietly as I had entered as though nothing unusual had happened.

A little later on in the morning a woman went to the restroom and I noticed she was in there for quite a long time. Finally she poked her head out of the restroom door and looked both ways. I started chuckling because I knew what she had seen. She didn’t go directly back to her seat. She stopped by a couple of other woman’s stations who were working away and whispered something to them. After about a minute the women she had stopped by to talk to headed toward the bathroom. This process repeated itself until every woman in the finishing department had visited the restroom.

Before I go on...I have to say that Monroe Plastics in Albia, Iowa was a booorrriinng place to work, so we were left to our own devices to amuse ourselves.We worked on a lot of Sunbeam parts for mixers and car parts for Chevy and Ford. It’s a wonder I don’t have Mesothelioma from all of the asbestos that was flying through the air.

I was working with a good Baptist woman who was trying desperately to get me saved. I already was, but I was Methodist so I didn’t know it. I did however, come from kind of a bawdy family that enjoyed a little course and somewhat dry humor now and then. The lady I was working with tried hard not to laugh at the women and their trips to the bathroom, looking at me slightly disapprovingly, but as each little group took their trip I was giggling without shame. I had to control myself every now and then when a manager came around, but by noon time I was literally falling off my chair with tears running down my cheeks.

Lunchtime came and I could barely eat because I had the hiccups from laughing so much. No one but my work partner knew who the culprit was that “decorated” the women’s restroom. So I sat in the lunch room and listened to them talk about the new “pin-ups”. Most of the women were in their 40’s and 50’s some were even a little older. I remember one commenting, “I’d sure like to have a boy next door like that living next to me!” They even surprised me.

We all went back to work, but the smiles and giggles were still all over the department. The finishing department manager was kind of a cranky old Italian guy of about 50. He strode around saying. “What’s wrong with these women? Why are they all smiling...what’s going on?” Maybe he thought we were getting ready to pull something on him, I don’t know.

Finally he started quizzing individual women and someone gave in and told him during our mid-afternoon break. "Go in there and get those out of there!”

Of course I spoke up and said, “The guys have pin-ups why can’t we?”

He ignored me and just said. “Who put those up? Who did this?” I didn’t admit to anything.

However, one woman did. She was the oldest employee at the plant and had been there the longest. She had to have been close to 65 with gray hair put up in a French twist...always wearing a scarf on her head. Her clock number was 001. She said. “Those are my pictures, and I want them back!”

We all roared. He sent some maintenance men into our bathroom to rip them all down and that was the end of that. But it was a hilarious day that I will always remember and will never regret.