Randomday with Photo Editing

Here's a random fact about our house: in the closet in Secundus' room, on the right side, it adjoins the cabinet outside the bathroom that is used for towel storage.  And behind that, there is a narrow open bit that must lead to a dead space behind the wall that has been untouched for at least 20 years.  And in the crack, the front part of a woman's high-heeled shoe is stuck.  It has been there ever since we bought the house, and I've tried to work it out many times, the last time during the intervention I did while Secundus was on the Great American Road Trip.  It doesn't come out.  I've decided it gets to stay and add character to the house.

Since I downloaded Photoscape I've been resizing all the photos I've ever used on this blog, to get them to the size that doesn't count against me for storage on Picasa Web albums.  It really is not as difficult as I thought it would be.  But I wonder why they make you jump through so many hoops.  I certainly never paid attention to the pixel size of the photos that I snapped before this.  So I'm working with Picasa Web Albums up in one tab, and going backward through my posts.  I'll look at Picasa and delete the photo du jour, then go to the post and remove that one and replace it with the slimmer version, then update the post.  I've been doing this for 4 days or so and am all the way back in June.  Still, Picasa shows no difference in the amount of storage I've used (100%).  I wonder if I'm doing it right.

I got up early last Monday morning on the first day of school for Cedar Tree.  I went through the stack of paperwork for Tertia's school, and filled out the order form for her school pictures and wrote a check.  Then I filled out an order form and wrote a check to re-fill her lunch money account, and I may have filled out another form as well.  It takes considerable nervous energy for me to tackle filling out forms and writing checks, and I tend to put it off as long as possible.  Well, Tertia got some grief early in the week because she didn't have the receipt for her new P.E. uniform that I had paid for the week before and so couldn't change into it, and then the next day even though I sent the receipt in, she didn't know what to do and didn't change fast enough, and then Thursday, which was school picture day, she went in looking all pretty and her teacher wrote that she didn't have her picture money so we would have to order online.  So, apparently, both checks I wrote Monday were lost, and Tertia has been made to feel like she has been doing everything wrong at school all. week. long.  And I've just about had it with writing checks and filling out paperwork only to have it lost.  I should stop before I rant any more.  But I'm concerned she's being set up to fail, and as a teacher I can't imagine how much trouble I'd be in if I lost 2 of my students' checks.

I've been (finally) reconnecting the Megaquilter, which if you remember, I had to order new tracks and ratchets for.  It is time to get back into quilting again.  But while working around in the quilting area, I stirred up so much dust my allergies were terrible today, and I sneezed so much my vertigo got bad.  I do have the Log Cabin UFO quilt loaded on the frame though, and hope to start quilting it soon.  After that, maybe the Feathered Star and then I choose from Orca Bay, Jack's Chain, or Farmer's Wife for a big project.  I bought 6 yards of Warm & White for 50% off at Hancock Fabrics today.

Steve and I watched Confidential Agent, with Charles Boyer and Lauren Bacall last night.  Tonight we watched Dr. Who while I caught up on the ironing.  Tomorrow he's scheduled to be a narthex monitor at church while I'm in the nursery: I guess we'll find out if the kids are mature enough to sit through the service unsupervised.

Four Round Trips

Thursday, the fourth day of school.  The day I don't have a carpool, and I get to appreciate the huge favors others are doing for me on the other four days.  Thursday is the day it will take some time to understand.  At present I have to make four round trips to Cedar Tree.  Here's how the schedule worked today:

6:50 - wake up kids
7:40 - drive to CT with all 3 kids (Daniel in Pennsylvania is on his own, but I send love!)
7:55 - 8:10 - prayer with other members of the staff.  This is the reason I'm willing to attempt the four round trips thing, but if somebody offered me a carpool I'd jump on it and just ask people to send me a memo instead!
8:11 - collect Tertia and drive home, arriving a little before 8:30.  Tertia was a little concerned when she saw her bus going the other direction, but I explained the driver was probably just heading off to pick up the first kid on the route - 1st round trip completed.
8:43 - Tertia's bus collects her, all pretty in her dress for school pictures.
8:50 - drive to CT again, arriving 9:05.  Open the classroom, attempt to untangle the blind cords, lay out 6th grade materials and review lesson plans. 
9:20 - arrive in 6th grade classroom carrying basket of supplies (plus the 1st declension classroom mascots Prunella, Rubella, and Vacca Caledonensis).  Set up vocab charts and, when math is finished, conduct Latin 1st declension and sentence diagramming practice until 10:15.
10:20 - 11:10 - conduct 7th grade verb synopsis practice and distribute materials for Roman culture overview.
11:15 - 12:05 - conduct 8th grade sentence translation practice and adjective review.
12:10 - 12:50 - drive home, stopping at Target to pick up halogen light bulbs that cost $9 each, and some parmesan cheese to go with leftover spaghetti tonight - 2nd round trip completed.  Technically I could have hung out at CT for a few hours in the afternoon, but I'm a homebody and I was tired by this time.
2:15 - 2:30 - drive to CT again, pick up Secundus after he has changed for cross country practice.
2:47 - deliver Secundus to CRHS for cross country practice - 3rd round trip completed (it's walking distance from there to home).
2:49 - 3:02 - turn left instead of going straight out of the parking lot and go straight back to CT. 
3:03 - 3:30 - Pick up veggies from Grace's Garden, pick up Quarta, and drive home - 4th round trip completed.  Quarta is excited when she sees Secundus jogging by our house.
3:45 - Tertia gets off the bus.  Unfortunately her teacher has emailed me that she didn't have money for her school pictures.  But I had sent a check in Monday, along with another check for lunch money.  So now we have to figure out what happened to the two missing checks.
5:25 - I think that's all I want to think about for today.  I'm going to go heat up leftover spaghetti.