I thought of one more important reason our trip does, in some sense, resemble vacation: My mother in law likes to cook for us. Food is good and plentiful and I don't have to make decisions. Helping out is my choice, and there are many other helpers around. Of course my in-laws do have some health issues, so I really shouldn't count on this. Still, the food has always been a very positive aspect of a visit.
In preparation for our "vacation", I also did some garden harvesting. The garden is so lame this year that I only got a bunch of cucumbers (that I had to give away), and a small amount of not very big potatoes. As I dug, I kept coming across ones that were already munched on. How had they been munched on so quickly? Additionally, we've NEVER had such a bad pole bean and bush bean year. There were only a few to harvest- and they were just not right. Even the zucchini didn't grow. I got exactly one before the weeds took over. Admittedly it was in a slightly shady spot, but in all other years, I never have to weed zucchini, and I always get more than I need. Last year I got more than I needed so in fact I still have some frozen grated zucchini, so I'm not exactly disappointed. Additionally, I suppose its a good thing the garden is so lame- I have no regrets about leaving it for ten days. Squash, tomatoes, peppers... nothing is ripe.
I went to the athletic center for the last time. Missing a few weight lifting sessions will reduce my strength substantially. I'm getting used to this problem. Even missing one session seems to be a problem. I guess I need to be more active outside the gym so that missing something like that is not such an issue. At least my little star seems to be strong enough to walk further now.
My little star had another "out of sorts" type of day at school. I kind of figured he would since his morning before we got to school didn't exactly start out too well. His teacher seemed a lot more surprised at his behavior than I was. She described a rather extreme melt down, and how she'd had to be very firm at nap time (I with I had that authority!). Welcome to my world on some days. She was worried he might be sick and had taken his temperature. Of course she found nothing... then again he might actually be coming down with something. That would be rather bad timing. On the plus side, he actually used the potty at school, something he did not do yesterday.
Did I mention, yesterday I finally heard from the author I working with. I last wrote to him JUNE 23, and said something like, here is what I have for you, tell me if you need any changes or if I need to do anything else. And by the way (I did not say this), my contract suggests I will be done JULY 15. Now he wants two things redone. I will do it- I mean if you are doing a small part of a book, you have to make it fit with what the major author needs, but I did explain to him that I was leaving on a trip very soon, so I wasn't sure when I would get it done. I've already met MY deadline that I mistakenly believed was July 15. At least he did not have the audacity to give me a deadline. Perhaps my attitude needs some revision- perhaps this is just how the publishing industry works all the time, but it seems awfully unprofessional to me. If I get asked to do anything again by these people at least I will know what to expect.
And the last thing- I finally got an insurance quote for a science play space, and its not too bad- its like the cost of insuring our house. So then I started running numbers (it was the last one I needed) for how much it will really cost to run the space. I tried different paid memberships and different working memberships. I was hoping to equate 1 hour of work with $10 of pay like Ithaca hours, but I think that's going to make our memberships too expensive. I don't mean they are too expensive, I mean they will be perceived as too expensive, and it will be bad publicity. Or we just need a LOT of working members.
I'm not sure what numbers are realistic, but it looks like I'm talking of about 10% of our population base needs to be members. I'll have to look into if that is reasonable.
Now to back up my computer.
And that's without paying anyone- yet we really do need one person (I guess that's me) in charge. As a volunteer position though, its just bound to get short shrift- even by me.
Maybe we can a get a sponsor to pay a salary?? Ha Ha. People pay for stuff, not salaries. I'm not sure why this is. We can probably get a grant to pay for somebody to do "programming", and that should help us to offer it.
In preparation for our "vacation", I also did some garden harvesting. The garden is so lame this year that I only got a bunch of cucumbers (that I had to give away), and a small amount of not very big potatoes. As I dug, I kept coming across ones that were already munched on. How had they been munched on so quickly? Additionally, we've NEVER had such a bad pole bean and bush bean year. There were only a few to harvest- and they were just not right. Even the zucchini didn't grow. I got exactly one before the weeds took over. Admittedly it was in a slightly shady spot, but in all other years, I never have to weed zucchini, and I always get more than I need. Last year I got more than I needed so in fact I still have some frozen grated zucchini, so I'm not exactly disappointed. Additionally, I suppose its a good thing the garden is so lame- I have no regrets about leaving it for ten days. Squash, tomatoes, peppers... nothing is ripe.
I went to the athletic center for the last time. Missing a few weight lifting sessions will reduce my strength substantially. I'm getting used to this problem. Even missing one session seems to be a problem. I guess I need to be more active outside the gym so that missing something like that is not such an issue. At least my little star seems to be strong enough to walk further now.
My little star had another "out of sorts" type of day at school. I kind of figured he would since his morning before we got to school didn't exactly start out too well. His teacher seemed a lot more surprised at his behavior than I was. She described a rather extreme melt down, and how she'd had to be very firm at nap time (I with I had that authority!). Welcome to my world on some days. She was worried he might be sick and had taken his temperature. Of course she found nothing... then again he might actually be coming down with something. That would be rather bad timing. On the plus side, he actually used the potty at school, something he did not do yesterday.
Did I mention, yesterday I finally heard from the author I working with. I last wrote to him JUNE 23, and said something like, here is what I have for you, tell me if you need any changes or if I need to do anything else. And by the way (I did not say this), my contract suggests I will be done JULY 15. Now he wants two things redone. I will do it- I mean if you are doing a small part of a book, you have to make it fit with what the major author needs, but I did explain to him that I was leaving on a trip very soon, so I wasn't sure when I would get it done. I've already met MY deadline that I mistakenly believed was July 15. At least he did not have the audacity to give me a deadline. Perhaps my attitude needs some revision- perhaps this is just how the publishing industry works all the time, but it seems awfully unprofessional to me. If I get asked to do anything again by these people at least I will know what to expect.
And the last thing- I finally got an insurance quote for a science play space, and its not too bad- its like the cost of insuring our house. So then I started running numbers (it was the last one I needed) for how much it will really cost to run the space. I tried different paid memberships and different working memberships. I was hoping to equate 1 hour of work with $10 of pay like Ithaca hours, but I think that's going to make our memberships too expensive. I don't mean they are too expensive, I mean they will be perceived as too expensive, and it will be bad publicity. Or we just need a LOT of working members.
I'm not sure what numbers are realistic, but it looks like I'm talking of about 10% of our population base needs to be members. I'll have to look into if that is reasonable.
Now to back up my computer.
And that's without paying anyone- yet we really do need one person (I guess that's me) in charge. As a volunteer position though, its just bound to get short shrift- even by me.
Maybe we can a get a sponsor to pay a salary?? Ha Ha. People pay for stuff, not salaries. I'm not sure why this is. We can probably get a grant to pay for somebody to do "programming", and that should help us to offer it.
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