This Little Piggy or maybe Have You Seen the Little Piggies?

Pig jokes will be funny for about 20 minutes. Starting now.

A week ago today I was sitting at a baseball tourney, watching Chris' games. Sunday it felt like allergies were kicking in, although an internet search told me nothing was really high in terms of allergens. Monday the Mack and Peterbilt trucks hit me. Tuesday I did not even get out of bed - all day. I turned on TV, got a can of ginger ale, a bottle of water and some pretzels on the nightstand and started a cycle of watch a little TV, sip and crunch, sleep, wash, rinse, repeat. This continued into Wednesday morning. A 102+ fever decided to take up residence in my otherwise normally healthy body Monday. It kept a hold on me till about noon Wednesday afternoon when it teasingly dropped to about 100, then went back up to 101.

Thursday a trip to the doctor's office confirmed what an internet search caused me to suspect, I tested positive for H1N1. Fortunately I was on the downside and the fever was actually stayinig around 100 most of that day. By noon Friday I saw 98.something for the first time in days! And it stayed there. So that meant that I could resume normal daily life again Saturday (today).

We have all been hearing about this virus since last spring, and I am really glad I did not get this last spring. Talk about feeling like the town pariah! When I got to the doctor's office there is a big sign telling you to ask for a face mask if you are coughing or have flu symptoms. Seeing as I had both I did the responsible thing. Everyone who walked into the office after me avoided sitting near me like I was a leper! Technically I was not contagious, but I did not know that. It was a very unsettling feeling to say the least.

So what did I learn about this nasty flu virus? It is nasty. I get a flu shot every year for seasonal flus and if I ever get flu, it is really mild and very managable. This one sucked big time! I ate only pretzels and crackers, drank only ginger ale and water for 2 1/2 days, and after that really could only eat small amounts of really bland things like rice. I lost 6 lbs in 3 days on that diet though! The incubation period for this virus is very short - 2 hours to 48 hours at most. So I was exposed Friday or Saturday. My bet is Saturday since no one at school has reported flu symptoms yet. Gary and Chris both escaped it since neither have shown any syptoms at all.

So get your seasonal flu shots ASAP, and when they get the vaccines for this flu, run to get it if you can. I hear they are doing at risk populations first, but if you can get one, get one! If you are unfortunate enough to be exposed, plan for being down at least 4-5 days, and get a supply of Gatorade and ginger ale!

I missed 4 days of school with this. If it was last spring I would have been banned for at least 2 weeks from campus. Hmmm - maybe that is not such a bad deal after all. ;-)

Shameless Plug

Sweet Redemption by Leslie Follmar click here!
Two posts in one day? This is a short one. My friend and former co-teacher writes and sings her own music. It is awesome. Take a listen and if you like it, maybe you will think of a purchase. She is also on iTunes. "End of the Road" is my favorite so far.

Thirty Five to Go (More or Less)

One week down. It was a good week, probably the best start I have had in a while. Even though I could not get into my room when I wanted to so I could start setting up, and even though the construction at school still is not finished, I think we had a great start.

I am loving the paint color in my room. Thanks to Heather, Craig, Chris, and Jackson for helping me get it painted. Mitch (my boa) is happily settled in, and Gary was only too glad to help load the car with his stuff. Goliath (my little lizard) died towards the end of last year, so we are one pet down in my class. I still have a few things left to move in, like my plants and some window coverings. But overall, it looks great. Every once in a while it catches me by surprise how nice it looks. Behr Fresh Pine and Old Vine look quite nice if I say so myself!

I put dark brown burlap on the bulletin boards, and bought some new borders. Earthy stuff. The result is that the room has a very calming effect, in spite of the red cabinets. Add to that, the music I am using thanks to Quantum Learning over the summer, and we are off to a good start. Now if I could just get my music moved to my school computer so I don't have to bring my laptop every day. I burned a couple CD's with the music I chose to use in my classroom and it won't play or transfer. Hmmm. I burned it as an audio file. This weekend I will try a data file.

Gotta give a shout out to a former student teacher of mine, Jim, too for his contribution to the start of the year. Thanks for the awesome rec on software to rip DVD clips to use in PPT presentation for the classroom. I am having way to much fun with it and now need to begin to catalog all the clips I plan to use. Examples: Run Silent, Run Deep the scene when some bolts start to leak or pop because the sub has gone too deep. Red October, the scene where they are looking for the Russian sub and the audio guy reports that he hears singing???, many clips from Apollo 13, clips from Harry Potter with Hermione politely waving her hand in class and Seamus blowing himself up for class procedues and lab safety. The list goes on and on.

I also managed to stay yesterday afternoon and get all the spiral notebooks graded so I did not have to drag them home. They would have just visited here and would have never been productive if I had done that. So I am pleased that I got some grading done in a timely manner for a change. That is probably my biggest downfall. I put grading papers up there with folding laundry and cleaning the house. An evil necessity.

So, I sit here happily blogging away, while the wash machine sits idle. I guess I had better get it going. Maybe we can do something fun tomorrow!

Another First Day

Tomorrow is the first day of school, my 46th over all! Thirteen for grade K through 12, five in college, and twenty eight in teaching. As always, I am nowhere near ready, but as ready as I can be. Kind of like having a baby. It happens no matter how much more time you think you need. It finally just gets here.

I spent all day yesterday (yes Saturday) in my room, 8AM to 4PM, trying to get things in some order. We had rooms reassigned at the end of last year. The room I was assigned to was left a huge mess, so I had to clean that before I could even move my stuff in. We had renovations over the summer, so we could not unpack stuff until renovations were done. Any guesses when that was??? Yes - Monday of this week! So in the middle of all the inservice week meetings, we have scattered hours here and there to get settled in. Fortunately, the work is still not done, although done in the classrooms, so the building was open. There were way too many teachers there for a Saturday, but it was nice to know I was not the only one behind the 8-ball.

Took Chris and 3 buddies to Comedy Sportz for his birthday last night. They had a blast! Getting ready to get breakfast ready for them this morning.

So I enjoy the last official day of vacation doing a mountain of laundry and maybe watching a movie. Also messing with a first day PPT and a lab safety PPT. Got some new software to download video clips from DVD's we own. Make things a little more fun for me and my kids. And then it begins again, another year, year forty six. And I am still loving it!

If Things Don't Work Out...

Last year at this time we were in China. And we had 2 dogs.

We came back from China on a Sunday. Monday Craig left for Abilene, Gary left for work as usual and Chris and I started back to school. I missed all of the inservice week - darn it! Just started the first day with the kids. At least jumping back into school helped the jet lag issue resolve a bit quicker.

I have one week of vacation left - sort of. I have a district DC meeting tomorrow, and a meeting at school Wed for a couple hours. But Monday our inservice starts. I start year twenty eight! I am eligible to retire this year, but won't. I still have lots of work to do.

In the past year we lost Abbey, daddy, and Duke. But we welcomed Rowdy. Life goes on. Different, but it goes on. Put one foot in front of the other and take a step. Then do it again. And again. And again. Wash, rinse, repeat.

A friend of mine shared this video with me, ercently. I have been a recipient of an e-mail with the text of this many times, but had never seen the video. I will make a point to watch it often. I like it! He says what I often think. I like his other stuff too. Check him out.



I have yet to get the whole house cleaned on one day this summer. I guess today is that day. Better get to work. Have a great day all!

Hello Rowdy!

Meet the newest member of the Osterman family.
Name: Rowdy
Age: about 5 months old
Breed: some Wheaten terrier, lots of "I dunno"
Smile factor: off the scale

World Cup of Softball

Another year, another trip to beautiful Oklahoma City! We have been going up there since spring of 2002, for Catherine's first Big 12 tourney. Some years we have been there 2 or three times. It seems to have become "our summer vacation destination" except we really have seen very little else there except softball! IS there anything else in OKC to see or do? Ah well - if we did not have softball of some sort in the summer, I don't know if we would know what to do!

Anyway - photos are arranged in albums over to the right. We were not there for the first game, so no pics. :-( Some highlights - fan photos at the end of the Italy album and scattered in a few other albums. It is amusing when kids paint their faces, wear adorned caps, and make great posters! Caitlin Lowe's diving catch is towards the end of the Japan album. With a little lucky shooting, I also managed to get Hansen's grannie swing and Lappin's HR swing. A nice sequence of the Japanese runner, Lappin, and the throw coming in is also in the Japan album. Late games caused a few problems, since I kept having to change the settings. I deleted way more photos than I saved.

Crowds were great during the games, with a full house for Japan as expected. We got there about 20 minutes before game time and ended up having to park/walk about a mile down the road from the Firefighter Museum. Made for an enjoyable hike back when they cleared the stadium! (Yeah right!) But it made it easy to find a better spot when the game resumed. ;-)

I always enjoy moving around the stadium for photo ops, talking with others. I am always in awe of the fans that travel significant distances to see the games and haved no direct tie to the team, many with even no direct tie to softball. They just love watching the game.

Next year, OKC will host the World Championships. This tourney is every 4 years, in between Olympic years, and hosted in different countries each time. Since the tourney will be from July 16 through 26, we are going to look for a house or condo to rent near one of the lakes. The thought of 11-12 days in a hotel sends shivers down my "budget" spine!

Enjoy the photos!