Catching Up: September 23, 2022 Edition

It’s the first week of Fall Quarter for me. Whee.

[+] Mary of Steel Magnificat needs a new car. If you’re familiar with her blog, you know that her now-defunct car was the “Neighborhood Trolley” and used not only for her family’s needs, but she also drove people to the grocery store, to the doctor, and to myriad appointments that would have been very difficult (if not impossible) to get to on public transportation. The GoFundMe for her is here. (I can’t donate at the moment, so I’m sharing it.)

[+] Queen Elizabeth’s coffin was flown from Edinburgh to London last week on a RAF Boeing Globemaster C17. The story behind the choice of that plane is beautiful.

This is what leadership looks like.

[+] The services at Westminster Abbey and Windsor Chapel made me happy to be Episcopalian, but what undid me were the pipers. I think the most touching moment was the pipe band playing “The Skye Boat Song” as they were parading behind the hearse to Windsor Chapel. I also loved the two appearances by the Queen’s personal piper.

Between the pipers and the military parade through Central London, I have no doubt my grandpa was geeking out at all of this in heaven. I’m pretty sure the Queen was also pretty happy with everything as well.

Catching Up: August 7, 2022 Edition

It’s 12:39 a.m. on August 7th, and I have very little to tell you about my life because I’m eating, drinking, working with students, watching too much YouTube, and not sleeping near enough. All the student stuff is kinda sorta protected by FERPA (and I’m not feeling like getting into the Come to Jesus conversations I’m having to have with a few of them), so here is the stuff I’ve been watching for the last week or so on YouTube. There’s A LOT of them, so I’m putting a cut in this post. Click on “Continue reading” to see the whole shebang. (And yes, I have a weird YouTube algorithm.)

Continue reading

Catching Up: March 15, 2022 Edition

What I would like to do eventually is have this kind of thing posted weekly.

[+] A week after I posted my last update, I slipped on ice and ended up with scrapes, bruises, and a sprained wrist. It was absolutely irritating because I was having to do things effectively one-handed for a week and a half.

[+] I was hoping to have the socks done for my parish’s OPOP releasing friend (who is being released in two days), but the cuff ended up being too small on sock #2. I brought stuff with me to work on at the college today, but the hook in my bag broke. Argh.

[+] It’s finals week, so everything is quiet at work today. We are supposed to be transitioning to having close to a full slate of classes on campus, but we’ll see how that goes. We’re also trying to have offices open 5 days a week, so it will be interesting to see how the staff manage that.

[+] My latest music find has been The Longest Johns. There are many that I like, but I’ll share the three that are currently making me happy.

Catching Up: December 16, 2021

[+] The coughing is mostly down, but now I’ve got some kind of stomach crud. Not winning here…

[+] Tim Foust of Home Free has a new video out for a do-wop album he is putting out. It’s worth watching, especially

[+] I haven’t touched my bullet journal since September, so I’m just restarting 2022 with a new one. There’s no way that I can fit six months into what is left of my old one. I found one I liked at Notebook Therapy, and I will probably put it together once I get my Christmas crocheting done.

Catching Up…

I haven’t posted since Kelly’s last Quick Takes because I’ve been busy. What have I been doing, pray tell? Well…

[+] I put my church’s Advent devotional book together. It was called “Savior of the Nations, Come” and I asked people in the parish what had been saving them since March 2020. Their answers make up the devotional book. I even made a playlist of songs that had been saving me since March 2020, and I’m sharing it below if you need some tunes.

[+] I’ve been working intermittently. Two problem students got taken off of my tutoring roster, so I was down to just a handful of students and much less than the 19 hours I had on paper. A few of them just needed me to correct papers for them, so that further cut my hours down. I’ve been having sinus and asthma crud, so being able to go back to bed after getting Daniel off to school for a nap is not a bad thing.

[+] I’ve been trying to socialize my spooky paws. Doc finally moved out of the guest room two weekends ago and set up housekeeping under my parents’ king-sized bed. This was fine until it came time for Mr. Sissy Stripes to go to the vet. It took a herculean effort on the part of Mom and me to get him out, and we only ended up getting him into his cage because he fled to the bathroom which is a more confined space. (We figured out that getting in his cage is a sign that he is going to a new shelter, so no wonder he hates it!)

Here’s my striped prince at the vet. Doesn’t he have beautiful stripes? Aren’t his eyes a lovely green color?

My beautiful boy.

At the vet, he eventually stopped fighting us and let me hold him. (The room had a ton of Feliway in it.) His tech and vet wrapped him in that towel (which was sprayed down with Feliway) to take him elsewhere for shots and bloodwork. They returned him with him looking like the happiest cat in the world. He had four women loving on him and telling him how gorgeous he was for 40 minutes, so his little kitty ego got scratched. The good news is that he’s in amazing health, but the bad news is that he tested strongly positive for FIV on the antigen test. Mom is paying for the PCR test, but it’s probably going to be a definite FIV diagnosis. It means that we need to keep eyes on him and make sure he isn’t getting any viruses or infections. Minion will be tested for it the next time he is at the vet, but we’re not super worried because it’s usually spread by saliva and bite wounds. (We’re sad, but FIV isn’t a death sentence.)

When we got home, it was like Doc realized he was home and not in a new shelter. He let us hold and cuddle him… and then disappeared under my parents’ bed. I found him under my bed later that day and did get pets, but I made the mistake of trying to take him out so he could have my window… and I’m in deep trouble for that still.

[+] I’m working on Christmas presents… from last Christmas. I’ve been working on Mom’s socks from last year and I had to restart sock #1 on Friday during therapy. Thankfully, this iteration (#4 or #5) has been going OK.

7 Quick Takes: Mixed Week Edition

7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Kitty hospice. My parents’ elderly tabby Jethro likely has lymphoma, and my mom took him to the vet on Tuesday to address him not eating. They gave her the options of doing nothing, doing palliative care, doing kitty chemo, or euthanizing him. Mom and I talked about it, and she opted for palliative care. The vet will do fluids weekly, and we’ve been given medications to deal with nausea, pain, appetite, and a steroid to deal with the lymphoma. Mom is aware that this is giving us weeks, not years, and I told her that I would clear my schedule and go with her to the vet to do the talking when it comes time to let Jethro go.

— 2 —

Daniel’s health. My monster had an ADHD appointment a week ago, and his pediatrician felt a stool ball in his stomach. She put in an x-ray order and we got it on Saturday. The x-ray showed the stool ball and what looked like a kidney stone, so she put in a stat ultrasound order. The ultrasound was Tuesday, and it was thankfully clean. So… we’re dealing with the stool ball, and I’m hoping we’re not jockeying for another hospitalization.

— 3 —

A lovely fight. The Sea Chickens are headed down to rumble with my boys (THE NINERS!!!) this weekend. I’m hoping my boys win because the Sea Chickens get insufferable when they win.

— 4 —

My other boys. My baseball boys (THE GIANTS!!!) are in the mix for the NL West. I’m hoping the LA Losers stay multiple games behind and/or lose the Wild Card game to St. Louis (my other boys) if it comes to that.

— 5 —

“Special needs”. Kelly of This Ain’t The Lyceum did a piece on the term “special needs” last week. It’s worth a read.

— 6 —

Interesting hymnody. I was on a Maddy Prior binge and discovered an album of hymns from the 18th and 19th century. It includes “The God of Abraham Praise” which is a hymn I wish we would sing in my parish. (Hello minor key! Hello interesting tune!)

— 7 —

Huh. “And Can It Be?” is a song I associate with Baptist churches, and I had no idea that it’s a Charles Wesley tune. Cool! (This is another Maddy Prior recording.)

For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.

7 Quick Takes: First Week of School Edition

7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

First day back on campus. I had my first drop-in tutoring shift back on campus on Tuesday. It was surreal to say the least. There are definitely fewer people, everyone is masked up, and there are lots of plexiglass boundaries to keep people separate when using the computers in front of the enrollment office. The door to my drop-in room was open when I got there, but it ended up autolocking later… which meant that I accidentally locked the people out who were joining me an hour into my shift. Oops! The security guard letting them in was one I know, and he laughed at me.

Once they got in, they let me know what the opening protocols were… which was good because apparently, we don’t have a paper with the list on it. I think I’ll have to rectify that…

— 2 —

Full load. One of the other tutors who handles Communications has moved on, leaving me as the only one doing it this quarter. In fact, I’m the only one doing Accounting, Office/Business Technology (only 2 classes left as the department shut down in June and these classes are general education ones), Human Services, Communications, Sociology, and pretty much any class in the Humanities. I’ve been booked solid since last week. I have more work hours than I’m supposed to have, but there’s nobody else to cover the requests.

If nothing else, I’m putting my interdisciplinary B.A. and part of my Master’s degree to good use!

— 3 —

Working together. For a couple of the classes, I’m double booked where I have two students sharing a time slot. The first session of that went far better than I could have imagined, and it turns out that the students have multiple classes together. It’s a win-win because they get a study buddy, my boss satisfies two tutoring requests without adding excess hours (at least in those cases), and I get to listen and learn from the discussion.

— 4 —

Seeing old friends. I’ve got two students assigned to me that have been part of the program I serve since before the pandemic, and I am SOOOO excited to see them again. I would absolutely enjoy curling up in my ivory tower and doing Accounting spreadsheets, but these two are part of the way things used to be for me and I *REALLY* missed my students.

I also have my first Human Services student back with me this quarter for an OBT class, so I am positively jazzed to get to work with her again. She and I absolutely clicked during the first full quarter I was working only online, and I’ve missed her the past few quarters.

— 5 —

Ummm… yeah. We were going to start doing live choir again… and then the Delta variant decided to dopeslap the country. After Daniel had the potential exposure and I had to get tested, emails started flying between the members of the choir, and the decision was made to do virtual anthems for the near future. I haven’t actually looked at the music or my part for the one I have to get recorded by Saturday night, but I’ve been singing the hymn (Siyahamba) for 20+ years in Zulu, English, and Spanish, so I think I’ll be OK. 🙂 (Don’t tell my choir director!)

— 6 —

Oh hey, another devotional book project! Because I hate myself and I clearly am not doing mearly enough right now, I have a devotional book project in process that was put on my heart by God during the week Daniel was quarantined and the two of us were taking a drive in the car to preserve our collective sanity.

Retroactie prayers for my ability not to overextend myself would be appreciated. Please and thank you!

— 7 —

My YouTube consumption. So what do I watch when I’m this overextended? How about people with tats and piercings doing snake surgery and puppeting deformed reticulated pythons with an attitude! (Probably not safe for work or children or people who are spooked by snakes.)

For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.