It's time....

Back to school.

In our area, there's a staggered back to school schedule. some schools started today, others will be starting in a week, the Tuesday after Labor Day. That's when mine starts.

Not that we haven't already been working a bit. Last week I had two days of training at the main offices. I've had more than one friend/relative scoff and say something like, "What the hell do you need training for???" but it's not an insult to my expertise or experience. It's just a licensing requirement for me to keep my certification. For all of us, really. Everyone has to have a certain number of hours of training yearly. It's not optional.

So I sat through six hours of training on Tuesday. After that, I drove over to Lyssa's to pick her up. She was going to spend the night here and ride with me on Wednesday. Why? Because she's working for the same company I work for now and we had full staff training on Wednesday.

I'm glad she's working with kids again. I've had many assistants over the years. Lost count. None of them have been bad at it. Some lasted longer than others, that whole revolving door thing. But Lyssa was the best assistant I've ever had. She just has a knack for the work. She likes the kids and respects them, and they return that.

So we had two days of training. Then I spent a few hours at my school with my assistant on Thursday putting away first aid supplies and setting up a new shelving unit.

Work from home hours started today.
I did our daily schedule (another licensing thing). I'm working on a little gift for my office staff. When I get a can of peas or green beans with a pop top, I flip it over and remove the bottom of the can with one of the can openers that take off the entire lid. After I clean it and dry it, I put whatever little gift items I want in it. Then I wrap it with scrapbook paper and add stickers or whatever and give it to the person it's intended for. When they open their gift, they pop the top.

I'm putting a few Nestle Crunch bars (fun sized) in the cans this time. It's 'Crunch Week' after all. I'll make some bookmarks out of some little bulletin board penguins and write something either fun or inspirational on them. Something like "It's crunch week, don't forget to take time to chill."

I have a designated work space now. All the punches and markers and colored pencils and scrapbook papers and card stock I could ever use. My printer works with my computer and with the company laptop. The work from home hours I'm given will be a little more efficient now that I've organized.

Let's see. What else is going on?

Matt and Amy celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary this weekend. I really can't believe it, but there it is.

Lyssa and Mason are coming up on three years in a couple weeks.

::sigh:::
My kids grew up!

Eric got wild this past weekend and made tamales and enchiladas. I'm a fan of one but not the other. The enchiladas are too spicy for me.

A bunch of them will be frozen for later

When we got married, his job was cooking in a Mexican restaurant.

One of my friends had a new step-grandma. She was a really sweet lady. Even though it's been 44 years, I still remember her face and her smile. Just a very kind person.

Grandma's name was Esperanza Mendoza, and she had published a small cookbook through an independent publisher . She gave us a copy of it as a wedding gift. We still have it.

Entitled How to Make a Square Tortilla, it gave a little bit of history of her life.

The title is inspired from the fact that most little girls make their tortillas square at first, it's not easy to roll them out round. They don't use a rolling pin that looks like the one I use, instead they use one that's more of a round dowel, a solid piece of wood that's a little smaller around than a toilet paper roll, but about the same length.

So now we have some good stuff in the freezer.

Makes it easier when we're both working.

I've still been messaging with Mom most evenings. She looks forward to it, and I'm sitting here in front of my computer anyway. Her world is a lot smaller, so she doesn't have a lot of new things to talk about. Our conversations aren't terribly exciting.

Her dog is having issues again. The dog is ancient. Earlier this year, her back legs stopped working. When Mom called me, I could hear the dog crying in the background. She was in a lot of pain and didn't understand what was happening to her.

Mom spent nearly a thousand dollars on laser treatments for the dog. Steroids, Gabapentin and lasers. To my surprise the dog was able to walk again.

The vet cautioned Mom that it wasn't a permanent fix, that eventually Daisy will deteriorate and have to be euthanized. I know that Mom doesn't want to do that, it's her last thing she shared with my dad. Daisy was really his dog.

Well, this past weekend, one of Daisy's back legs stopped working again. Mom was dithering about taking her to the vet. I told her that she should, that it was needlessly cruel to just let her be in pain without trying to help, so she's back on the medicine/laser thing again. I don't know, the dog is 17 years old. She's mostly blind and deaf, has arthritis all over the place and isn't in great shape. I think it's mean to keep her hanging on, but Mom doesn't want to make that call. I do understand, I just don't agree.

I think that once Mom has to make the decision to let her go, it won't be long until she's lonely enough to go to assisted living. I really feel like she would be better off doing so, she 'doesn't feel like' making food most of the time, she has some other issues that are difficult for her to deal with alone, and we all worry that she's going to end up falling and no one will know.

Yeah, she has a Life Alert, but she often forgets to wear it. It's not going to help her if it's lying on the counter in the kitchen when she falls on the floor in the bathroom, but there's not a whole lot I can do about it except hope that doesn't happen.

So that's what's up.
There's more, equally exciting and thrilling. Life in general.