School's Out!

14 June 2013

Today was Kaleb’s official last day of school.  It took him nearly 10 hours to do his Algebra final exam.  The syllabus allows for a week for that thing, but he just kept on going.  He took a few breaks, so in all, he was at it over 12 hours, but he had to wait to hear back from his teacher about a question he had.  They threw in a calculus equation with the sigma symbol, which he’d never seen used in that way before and the lessons he’s taken never once mentioned the sigma, so he was all perplexed about what to do.  I thought that was kinda crummy they did that since the question was worth 7 points out of 100.  It would be one thing if it were a bonus question, but this was right on the final exam.  Geez.   At least he didn’t freak out too badly, but in the end, when he didn’t finish up in time to have a sleepover with Daniel tonight, he was pretty emotional.  He was so looking forward to having a little celebration with his friend and just relaxing after a grueling week of studies.  There’s always tomorrow.

We are finally getting some action on the ad we placed on the internet so we’ve gotten many calls, emails and text messages from people wanting to see our condo.  Still, no good fit for us though, but tomorrow we’re going to have a “showing” between noon and two for people to come by and see it all at once.  I’m hoping we get the right fit.  There’s one hopeful couple from India that will be looking at it.  He’s an engineer with Rolls Royce and she’s soon to have their first child.  That couple could work, but we’ll see.   I’m not really wanting small children here, but babies don’t do much damage.

I spent the day monitoring Kaleb’s test, as is required by Johns Hopkins, so I couldn’t go anywhere.  I have to sign a document stating I watched him the entire time so they know he didn’t cheat in any way.  So I decided to make a nice dinner and invite my friend Sandra and her husband over,  so that’s what I did.  Kory didn’t even get home form “work” until after they arrived and he was pleased to sit down to a big meal which included recipes I’ve never tried. One of them for wild rice pilaf was a big hit with everyone.  Always happy to find recipes worth making again.

We had a nice visit with Sandra and Karl, talking about the life of ticks and all the gross things around them.  I liked the discussion on parenting and all it’s challenges better.  Karl quit his job today so he was in a bit of a celebratory mood.  He has no idea what he’ll do now, but he was fed up with the stress.  He owned his own cleaning company, in partnership with another person that was making him miserable, so he just walked away.  They had quite the deal going, cleaning empty houses before they went on the market to sell – a day’s worth of labor and they charged over $1,200 for the work.  He said half goes to taxes, but still, making $600 a day isn’t too bad.  

After our company left, Kaleb double-checked his math test and then we just played Rummikub til bedtime.  It was an at-home day, but with rain off and on, it was okay by me.

I got an email from my editor at the LaConner paper today saying I had a lot of fans for my new column in the paper called "Life on the Ridge."  That sure was nice to hear. 

(Photos are NOT from today!)