Happy Memorial Day Weekend! Unfortunately, I plan on working the holiday, but fortunately I get paid double time! So while my family plans to go off and see the Night at the Museum movie, I will be slaving away. We are supposed to have a rainy Memorial Day, so today we are visiting the neighbors with the pool. Last night we enjoyed Allison's piano recital and went out to dinner afterwards. We then stopped into our neighbors house for dessert and chit chat. Their neice was visiting since she is doing a college internship in Harper's Ferry for the summer which is about an hour or so drive from Baltimore.
And speaking of neices, Happy Belated Birthday to Stacey Seitz. We cannot believe she hit the Big 21!( we remember those days-oh boy do we ever). I was just surprised I missed putting that date on my yearly calendar. It is on there now. And a Big Happy 12th Birthday to Christopher Bozyk in Texas. I really am putting together some Birthday packages for the cousins-just waiting on a signature. Hint Hint. And we hope Stacey is having a fun, informative and safe visit to Nicaragua. Stacey is volunteering at an orphanage with fellow nursing students. What an awesome experience.
We have been keeping our volunteer experiences a little closer to home. On Friday, my day off, I went into school with a few other parents and we supervised Allison and the other kids from the National Junior Honor Society as they made pb and J sandwiches and put together lunches for the homeless in downtown Baltimore. The NJHS decided to complete a service project for the year. Most of the school had already made and assembled the lunches on Thursday and we just had a few more groups to finish up on Friday morning. All together the kids packed about 700 lunches. I then filled my van with about 250 of those lunches and delivered them downtown to Our Daily Bread-the new Catholic charities shelter that provides education, job counseling, medical care, food and shelter to the homeless of Baltimore. They were overwhelmed with the amount of food we dropped off. Then on Friday evening, the cub scouts traveled to our local National cemetery where we all placed flags at the headstones, followed by a small ceremony with retired servicemen and women. The kids also had a very nice memorial service on Friday at school with a guest military speaker. We feel all patriotic. Last year Allison and I marched with the GS choir in the Annapolis Memorial Day parade, and sang God Bless America at a special military ceremony held after the parade. The guest speaker that day was Pat Sajak from the game show Wheel of Fortune. He really gave a wonderful speech about being thankful for all our military and how much they sacrifice for all of our freedoms. Since the naval academy is situated in Annapolis, the ceremony was even more special, and they brought in a few naval ships there at the pier. That was an amazing experience, but I guess we were not needed this year. Instead we are scheduled to march in a local Fourth of July parade this year. Same with the baseball games; last year we got to sing the National Anthem at the Orioles stadium, but this year they just want the scouts to act as the color guard. So we are scheduled to sing the Nat. Anthem at the Frederick Keys baseball game-minor league baseball. But that should be fun too. I guess you can picnic out on the lawn near left field and watch the game. They also have a merry go round for the kids. And our last volunteer project this week was with my Girl Scouts as they finished up their Silver Award volunteer hours providing babysitting to the parents as they attended the last Parent/teacher meeting for the year. The girls are busy putting together a report to earn their Silver Award pins, but they each received a certificate in a small ceremony this past week with our local GS council. Now it is on to the Gold Award-equal to the Boy Scouts Eagle. My girls will be moving up to Senior Girl Scouts for the next two years, and Scott will be a Weebelo I.
We had plenty of activities to keep us busy this week. While Allison and I were at the Silver Award ceremony on Thursday night, Tom was busy at school running the Science Fair. We still only had a small participation rate-about 15 kids, however, this is just voluntary and we are still pushing for the school to take on the project and make it mandatory for all the classes, just like most of our public schools in the area. We were excited to see that Scott's teacher, Mr Will had both of his 3rd grade classes participate in a science experiment and put together a poster presentation for the event. So most of the week, Scott and Allison were scrambling to organize all their data and poster boards(along with a bit of help from Mom and Dad). Scott studied the mentos in a bottle of diet coke-it makes a great fountain! Allison videotaped, so Tom edited the tape and put it on display with Scott's presentation. Allison did research on why spiders do not stick to their webs, and bugs do. We even ran out and caught a spider to add to her presentation. Sadly, Allison was not present at the Science Fair to explain her project since she was getting her Silver Award(we can't do everything!). The kids did a great job and everyone loved Allison's and Scott's presentations.
This was a big week for school work for AJ especially. Last weekend besides working on the science fair presentations, Allison was busy assembling a prayer and picture scrapbook for religion class, as well as writing a paper on the meaning of Memorial Day and a book report. She also had her Language Arts final on Friday, so we were busy studying about 60 vocab words and I had her reread all her short stories-about a dozen or more. Then her science teacher decided to add a last lab report on weather as well as a test on Friday. She survived with flying colors and now is busy studying for her Math final scheduled for Tuesday. Then she is done with classwork. Next week she is off to Hershey Park with the 8th grade class for the day. And also an all day religious retreat. On friday she will participate in an award ceremony at school. Then on Monday, June 1st it is graduation day! She also has a few parties to attend next weekend.
We had to run out and get her some more shoes-she already outgrew her dress shoes from Easter. At least we have her dress from Confirmation. And Scott needed summer sandals. I was just glad to find him some.
And it was time for medical appts. Our cat PiKa had her check up on Friday. She needed her yearly shots and exam. The vet techs were very impressed with how healthy she is for a 9yr old cat. They had a new vaccination and a new way to administer it too-no needles, just a strong blast of air that sends the vaccination into her skin. She was not too thrilled with the application, it was like a small air rifle going off on her hindquarters, but I bet my kids would like that instead of needles! Star Trek is not too far away!
But not soon enough for the kids. They had a dental cleaning and got their first cavities! YucK! Allison has a small one in a back molar, but Scott has a big one in a baby tooth. Sadly, noone in our dental office will fill kids cavities, and they told Tom to find a pediatric dentist. When I called for referrals, I got 3 that our insurance covers in all of Baltimore. One dentist no longer works, that left two, so I checked with Cigna to see if they had an updated list. The reps said our kids don't qualify since they are over 7yrs old, so now we are back to square one hunting down a dentist! And on top of that my microwave decided to die, so we sent Tom out for a replacement. He said none of the local stores had many in stock-we would have to wait 6 weeks or more for delivery. I cannot hardly live a day without the microwave-so he ended up getting a GE. I was not too crazy about the features, but at least we have one. I do not know how companies think they will stay in business if they don't work on stocking their shelves or provide better customer service. I called a local county office to get some info and had to wait for the woman to call me back 30 mins later because they were busy having a party! Right in the middle of the afternoon! So sorry to bother them during work hours. Tom said he went to pick up pizza the other night, and the cashier interrupted the order so he could answer a personal phone call on his cell. And people wonder why we are having a recession. Everyone wants all the rewards, but noone wants to work for it.
And I am busy hunting down a replacement summer class for Allison. She was signed up for a High School prep class when public school got out, but only 3 kids signed up and they are cancelling due to low enrollment. And it was a two week class. Guess all the kids in Howard County are too smart and too well prepared for High School. I am desperately searching for two kids to sign on. If not I will have to try and put together another schedule for her for June. I tried to get her into a volunteer position for girl scouts for Day Camp, but they have all the help they need. Sadly, there is another class in August, but we plan on having Allison visit her Grandparents when that class is running. And the college wouldn't attempt to see if any of the kids in the second session would consider signing up for the first session. Guess they don't need the money either. I will probably end up cancelling the classes for Allison altogether if she does not get into the High School prep class. But it drives me crazy since I made this summer schedule back in February and scheduled my Girl Scout trip around the classes and other camps. And to top it off, the college had Scott's name on every one of Allison's classes. Never a dull moment.
So I am off to write up my own presentation that I have to do this coming week at work. Since we do not have a manager at work, we have been working under the two administrative staff that really don't have a clear picture on the daily structure of a rehab clinic. To top it off, the state was in at our nursing home/rehab unit last week doing their annual review(always a nightmare). They will probably be there a few weeks. I have to present to our Low Vision support group on Weds. They want me to do two presentations, so I am hoping our inhouse tv station will videotape me and run it on the inhouse tv station. If not, I will have to do another presentation, probably a live tv interview. Like I don't have anything else to do-(like maybe treating patients). The administrators did not think I had a big enough caseload and they want me to round up more business. They would also like me to do a presentation to our physicians on what services I provide in outpatient OT. Right now I have so many people I do not know where to put them all. But it is always like that-either too busy or a bit slow. I prefer the slow periods so I can get caught up!
And by the way, Ellicott City recently was listed in the newspaper as number 17 out of the top 25 cities to live in the US-I guess we have lots of diversity for a small city. Not to mention Howard County is one of the top 10 most prestigious/expensive counties in the US as well. That is all our hard earned tax dollars at work.
Talk to you next week! Kathleen