Update

Thought y'all might be interested in how life is shaping up around here.

1. Masters Class
I managed to slam through the essays needed for my Models of Teaching class. They are all sent off. Now I am just waiting for the final exam to show up so I can get it finished for reals.
The textbook for my next class, Career Development, arrived recently. I started working on it today, but I am having a little trouble getting into it. For one thing, I can't quite figure out why I have to be taking a class about how to be a better career counselor. The kids I work with are 10 years old for crying out loud. They all want to be sports stars or firefighters at this point and I am not going to tell them that it's time to think otherwise. Let 'em have their dreams through their first decade at least. I think I might have to email the school and find out what the point of this class really is, or I am going to have a hard time taking it seriously.

2. Fridge
We are now on Day 15 of The Great Fridge Wait of 2008. (Hey! That rhymes!) I called them yesterday and they have me attitude. "There is a 14 day window for delivery. This is the 14th day. We'll probably call you within the next day or two." Um. Yeah. When you tell someone that their fridge will arrive in "7 to 14 days" that kinda implies that 14 is the MAX. But that wasn't the worst of it. When I admitted that I was a little stressed because I had been without a fridge for 2 weeks he said, "You should have bought one that was in stock." If we had been having that conversation in real life I might have slapped him. He did have the good graces to admit that I might have had a reason for buying the one I bought, but still. Jerk. Anyway - The new fridge should be here any day. I am SOSOSOSOSOSO looking forward to not having a dead fridge in the middle of my kitchen (we pulled it out fro m its little hidey-hole so we could clean up the melted Popsicle puddle) and being able to drink all the cold beverages I can handle.

3. My Back
Well, I finally went to the chiropractor a week ago. He adjusted my back and it felt GREAT. In fact, in the course of popping everything back into place he made it so that I could once again touch my chin to my chest - something I hadn't even realized I could no longer do.
I really wish the story ended there.
The next day I was at a district training I leaned over in my chair to pick up my computer bag and POING! I finally understood what people mean when they say, "I threw my back out". I could feel how the part of my back that had previously stretched slowly out of place had gone from 0 to 60 in a fraction of a second.
I spend all last weekend on ice and the floor. On Monday, the chiropractor put things back into place again and told me a horrifying story about a guy who leaned over and threw his back out so hard that he paralyzed himself. Eeegads! I have been faithfully doing my exercises, and I have tried to be very careful about how I move my back. I see the chiropractor again on Friday, but I am feeling quite a bit better already.

4. Solar Panels
Did I mention before that we were hoping to go solar? I can't remember, and I don't feel like looking it up. Anyway. We are, and I called a couple of places. The BP Solar folks are coming out tomorrow, but I am not really very excited about it. This is mostly because the other guy I talked to gave me some bad news. It turns out that our electric utility - Anza Electric Cooperative - is one of only 2 utilities in the entire state of California that doesn't participate in the PV incentive program. Being a cooperative, they aren't obligated to do so. This means that a PV set-up in Anza costs 10 grand more than almost anywhere else in the state. Bastards. If the BP guy verify this tomorrow, we will have to put our solar plans on hold. We just can't swing $30,000+ at this point.

5. The Letter "M"
The M key on y keyboard had decided it is only going to work if I REALLY MEAN IT. Apparently, unless I a looking at the screen and hitting the key really hard (somehow I think this is the ore iportant of the two) it doesn't believe that I really want the letter M to appear. It's starting to drive e crazy!

Okay. That's all the news that's fit to print. Time to put the dogs in and head to bed. Nighty-night, all.