We had our first "post-school daze" weekend and as usual, there was no shortage of entertainment/drama. Daniel came back to the house early this afternoon to tell Uncle Andrew that Aaron had apparently taken Duchess for a walk "because this girl wanted to see her and have her meet her dog." Aaron has a classmate named Bailey who lives a couple blocks down towards the high school. Unfortunately, along the way he met up with some neighborhood dogs that spooked Duchess and you can probably deduce the rest. Bailey apparently took Aaron to Ben Franklin and bought him a cap gun, then they both went to Taco John's. I'm thinking the latter was Aaron's idea... He didn't have any money with him though...
Daniel went with Andrew to comb the neighborhood for sight of boy or dog while I contacted authorities and burned a CD with pictures of Aaron and Duchess to bring down to the police department. I walked over there and a local officer gave me a lift back. He said he had picked up a "boy and a girl who matched the description," but let them off shortly after after the girl apparently said she could "get out now." Aaron was still AWOL, though, so the officer drove me one last place to look as he had a small inkling he may have headed to the park (coincidentally known as "Lover's Lane"). He wasn't there, though. Somewhere on the way back home in the squad car, the pastor who lives on our street corner found him and picked him up, so all was well. Any more days like today and I'm going to be on a first name basis with the TRF PD.
The rest of the day went much better, though, with the boys playing just out front of the house with their buddies and Bailey came back later in the evening and we all had a nice game of catch with the junior Cougar football, Nick, Bailey, Aaron, Daniel, and I, before the sun went down. Now I just gotta get their laundry done. They keep pulling their Star Wars shirts they got from Lisa out of the dirty laundry to wear again as they apparently like them quite a bit and can't wait for the washing.
Aaron and Daniel gave me their report cards this afternoon and they were both officially promoted to the next grade, Aaron in third, and Daniel in first. Aaron made some improvements in his music class and Daniel maintained solid achievement in his alphabet and related skills. It was kinda funny reading the personal note from Mrs. Miller to Aaron, thinking of what she would have written to Jennifer years ago in first grade.
I discovered rhubarb in the backyard this weekend, so am picking it for Mom to prepare in July. I also took a walk around the house today and found on the South side of the house there are large green leafy plants/bushes that appear to be ready to bloom. Not roses, but they look like they may be pretty once they finally bloom. I'll have to post a picture if they turn out well. They've filled in the outside of the house nicely so it's not so barren. I also bought a weed trimmer this weekend so I got the back fence cleaned up a bit. The flowers in the backyard garden area are coming up nicely, about 4 inches tall so far.
Hopefully everyone has a safe and happy Memorial Day holiday. I've been getting over a chest and head bug with an eye infection to boot, so I'll probably be laying low much of the day just typing, but will probably get out the football later on with the boys just to get the blood flowing a bit.
Monday, May 30, 2005
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Countdown to summer with a house full of rowdy kids...
The days are numbered for the school year in TRF. The kids are about out of class for the year, which means a lot of noise around the house and hopefully just a morsel of quiet time left for daddy to get some work done. I will soon discover the true test of a home-based business. It's with somewhat mixed emotions I greet summer with to say the least.
The boys and I decided to take in some of the beautiful evening weather here at sundown and took a long walk, making a wide square to the local train tracks and back, stopping for some Mexican food before looping back and stopping to chat with an old acquaintance, Terri Cuppett, who was out with her guide dog on the corner in front of her house. The sunset was truly spectacular, with the sun being eclipsed by this single white billowy cloud in an azure blue sky with brilliant beams of sunlight bursting out of the top of the cloud in all directions. I wished I had my digital camera with so I'd have a nice new wallpaper for my computer. If nothing else, it's good motivation to make a habit of the evening walk. The only complaint out of the boys is Daniel started saying he was going to "die" if he didn't get something to eat and drink "right away." That was about halfway through the walk and was shortlived as I boosted him on my shoulders and his mind was then shifted to his "fear of heights..." The boys watched a movie Friday night at one of their friend's houses, a rather gawdy colored house in an otherwise conservative neighborhood. Imagine a whole street of white, off white, light yellow, brown/earth tones and pastel blues, then right in the middle of it all, a PURPLE house. At least it's easy for the kids to find...
I finally took a few minutes of free time yesterday afternoon to put together Aaron's half of the bunk bed, lacking my tools to finish the entire set, but I found my tools tonight, so I will likely get the rest done tomorrow and the boys can return to their "pre-Minnesota" sleeping configuration. Speaking of sleeping, I think I'll post a picture of Daniel following a LONG day of play last weekend. You can see he truly had nothing left to give that day...
Since I last wrote, we did take another trip to Grand Forks, North Dakota and signed up last weekend for Sam's Club, so I can keep the kids better supplied with snacks and other staples with fewer trips to the supermarket. We were impressed at the amount of stuff one can fit in a 1991 Honda Civic. This time around we got home before the sun went down completely and didn't have any more run-ins with the local deer population, knock on wood.
As for current vocational activities, I was just graded for my third month's work at Transolutions in Illinois and earned a rating of 99% accuracy, which means I've now gotten 97, 98, and 99% in three consecutive months. They just now switched my backup account from an emergency room in Connecticut to the University of Illinois - Chicago, so I will possibly have the potential of typing discharge summaries and consultations for a large population of residents and therefore a number of English as a second language dictators given it's status as a teaching facility. I'm actually hoping against hope I will always have enough work on my Orthopedic Associates of Hartford account so I never have to type on the secondary one. For those of you interested in who I'm actually typing for, here's their website: http://www.oahct.com/4udr2/webpage.asp?wppagename=physicians.htm&wpleftmenu=leftmenuphysicians.htm&wptitle=Physicians&g_cid=1&g_sid=270796116&chk=9643
They have some nice bios of the various surgeons and physician's assistants with pictures, etc. It's more fascinating for me as I type them all sight unseen and then match up their face with their voice later on. As a transcriptionist, you often conjure a picture in your mind that is far from reality, i.e. thinking the doctor came over on the Mayflower given their stuffy old voice, then finding out they're actually 30 years younger than you had thought. Speaking of transcription, this past week was National Medical Transcription Week and my first week I got a nice card from my employer for it. It's nice to be appreciated at least once a year as this job is mostly unsung for all the things we put up with from doctors.
That's about all that's goin' on over here. I gotta get some sleep before church in the morning. I'll try to get more pictures of the neighborhood for posting so you can see better how TRF looks in the summer. It's so nice and green here right now!
The boys and I decided to take in some of the beautiful evening weather here at sundown and took a long walk, making a wide square to the local train tracks and back, stopping for some Mexican food before looping back and stopping to chat with an old acquaintance, Terri Cuppett, who was out with her guide dog on the corner in front of her house. The sunset was truly spectacular, with the sun being eclipsed by this single white billowy cloud in an azure blue sky with brilliant beams of sunlight bursting out of the top of the cloud in all directions. I wished I had my digital camera with so I'd have a nice new wallpaper for my computer. If nothing else, it's good motivation to make a habit of the evening walk. The only complaint out of the boys is Daniel started saying he was going to "die" if he didn't get something to eat and drink "right away." That was about halfway through the walk and was shortlived as I boosted him on my shoulders and his mind was then shifted to his "fear of heights..." The boys watched a movie Friday night at one of their friend's houses, a rather gawdy colored house in an otherwise conservative neighborhood. Imagine a whole street of white, off white, light yellow, brown/earth tones and pastel blues, then right in the middle of it all, a PURPLE house. At least it's easy for the kids to find...
I finally took a few minutes of free time yesterday afternoon to put together Aaron's half of the bunk bed, lacking my tools to finish the entire set, but I found my tools tonight, so I will likely get the rest done tomorrow and the boys can return to their "pre-Minnesota" sleeping configuration. Speaking of sleeping, I think I'll post a picture of Daniel following a LONG day of play last weekend. You can see he truly had nothing left to give that day...
Since I last wrote, we did take another trip to Grand Forks, North Dakota and signed up last weekend for Sam's Club, so I can keep the kids better supplied with snacks and other staples with fewer trips to the supermarket. We were impressed at the amount of stuff one can fit in a 1991 Honda Civic. This time around we got home before the sun went down completely and didn't have any more run-ins with the local deer population, knock on wood.
As for current vocational activities, I was just graded for my third month's work at Transolutions in Illinois and earned a rating of 99% accuracy, which means I've now gotten 97, 98, and 99% in three consecutive months. They just now switched my backup account from an emergency room in Connecticut to the University of Illinois - Chicago, so I will possibly have the potential of typing discharge summaries and consultations for a large population of residents and therefore a number of English as a second language dictators given it's status as a teaching facility. I'm actually hoping against hope I will always have enough work on my Orthopedic Associates of Hartford account so I never have to type on the secondary one. For those of you interested in who I'm actually typing for, here's their website: http://www.oahct.com/4udr2/webpage.asp?wppagename=physicians.htm&wpleftmenu=leftmenuphysicians.htm&wptitle=Physicians&g_cid=1&g_sid=270796116&chk=9643
They have some nice bios of the various surgeons and physician's assistants with pictures, etc. It's more fascinating for me as I type them all sight unseen and then match up their face with their voice later on. As a transcriptionist, you often conjure a picture in your mind that is far from reality, i.e. thinking the doctor came over on the Mayflower given their stuffy old voice, then finding out they're actually 30 years younger than you had thought. Speaking of transcription, this past week was National Medical Transcription Week and my first week I got a nice card from my employer for it. It's nice to be appreciated at least once a year as this job is mostly unsung for all the things we put up with from doctors.
That's about all that's goin' on over here. I gotta get some sleep before church in the morning. I'll try to get more pictures of the neighborhood for posting so you can see better how TRF looks in the summer. It's so nice and green here right now!
Sunday, May 08, 2005
Thunderbolts, Lightning, and Tornado Warnings
Sorry for the delay since my last post. Been a little busy over here these days. That's getting to be the norm nowadays. Since last post, we had our combined choir performances at three different churches in two days. I've sent recordings of it to some of you. Those who didn't get one and may be interested, go ahead and e-mail me at cougalum1@hotmail.com. With that performance, the choir is off now for the summer, so we have our Wednesday evenings free again, which I think Andrew needed, working his two jobs and all. He gets a little more time to snooze that way.
The boys seem to continue making new friends all the time and broadening their play experience. Today we set up the volleball net in the back yard and the neighbor girl and another boy from the neighborhood, Dorion, played with the boys back there as well as horseshoes in the front yard. It's nice to have two yards for a change. I don't miss the asphalt jungle a bit...
The boys had Uncle Andrew take them out to the school carnival at Challenger Elementary as I had to work yesterday. They had a really good time and got a lot of prizes. The prizes are a little nicer then when Jennifer and I went to the carnival in our old country school house in St. Hilaire.
My work continues to go well with the transcription company in Illinois. They had been holding on to all my work for close inspection during my orientation period, but recently took me off 100% hold and authorized me to send my work directly to the doctors' offices, so it's nice not having someone looking over my shoulder all the time except for those few reports I am not able to understand the doctor on. I scaled my hours back a little bit so I'm just working 9 to 3 pm on weekdays and 8 hours on Saturdays. I'm already feeling a lot of pressure lifted now that the evenings are more open and I'm not "chained to the desk."
In the past week, the boys helped me plant our herb garden and some flowers and Daniel planted his tree from school for Arbor Day. I have yet to see how they do as it's been hard keeping them watered enough. It's so windy and sunny that the soil tends to dry out pretty quick.
As for the headline of today's post, we had a severe thunderstorm warning flash on TV last night, but all we got was a dazzling light show. Tonight, however, both thunder and lightning are here in TRF and in full force. I'm probably stupid typing this right now given the state of weather affairs, but I didn't want to put this off another week as there are a few still reading what's going on over here. There was also a tornado warning this afternoon for the counties of Grand Forks, Marshall, and Polk, all areas surrounding TRF, but probably a good 40-50 miles away. They just said conditions were "favorable" for a tornado. None sighted yet, though, knock on wood.
I took some new pictures today of the kids and will probably post them next, but give me a few to get around to it. We had to come inside from playtime thanks to the thunderstorm.
Hope everyone had a happy Mother's Day!
Until next time...
Jim, Aaron, Daniel, and Andrew
The boys seem to continue making new friends all the time and broadening their play experience. Today we set up the volleball net in the back yard and the neighbor girl and another boy from the neighborhood, Dorion, played with the boys back there as well as horseshoes in the front yard. It's nice to have two yards for a change. I don't miss the asphalt jungle a bit...
The boys had Uncle Andrew take them out to the school carnival at Challenger Elementary as I had to work yesterday. They had a really good time and got a lot of prizes. The prizes are a little nicer then when Jennifer and I went to the carnival in our old country school house in St. Hilaire.
My work continues to go well with the transcription company in Illinois. They had been holding on to all my work for close inspection during my orientation period, but recently took me off 100% hold and authorized me to send my work directly to the doctors' offices, so it's nice not having someone looking over my shoulder all the time except for those few reports I am not able to understand the doctor on. I scaled my hours back a little bit so I'm just working 9 to 3 pm on weekdays and 8 hours on Saturdays. I'm already feeling a lot of pressure lifted now that the evenings are more open and I'm not "chained to the desk."
In the past week, the boys helped me plant our herb garden and some flowers and Daniel planted his tree from school for Arbor Day. I have yet to see how they do as it's been hard keeping them watered enough. It's so windy and sunny that the soil tends to dry out pretty quick.
As for the headline of today's post, we had a severe thunderstorm warning flash on TV last night, but all we got was a dazzling light show. Tonight, however, both thunder and lightning are here in TRF and in full force. I'm probably stupid typing this right now given the state of weather affairs, but I didn't want to put this off another week as there are a few still reading what's going on over here. There was also a tornado warning this afternoon for the counties of Grand Forks, Marshall, and Polk, all areas surrounding TRF, but probably a good 40-50 miles away. They just said conditions were "favorable" for a tornado. None sighted yet, though, knock on wood.
I took some new pictures today of the kids and will probably post them next, but give me a few to get around to it. We had to come inside from playtime thanks to the thunderstorm.
Hope everyone had a happy Mother's Day!
Until next time...
Jim, Aaron, Daniel, and Andrew
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