Totally Tardy Tuesday Tidings...

Photos by Ben Solomon, GWHatchet.com
(If I publish this at 11:59 p.m., is it still considered Tuesday Tidings?)

Happy day and new week to you!!

It's been a "rough" week already! Wow! And it's only Tuesday.

The busyness never seems to stop....and here's me hoping life would slow down a bit once we put the clocks back an hour...

Anyways...

There was quite a bit of excitement this weekend on our coast since several of the cast/crew of 24 -- including Kiefer -- were filming in Washington, D.C. I was really hoping to go (we're three hours away), but we had some house chores -- like finally putting in our kitchen floor -- that had to take precedent over roadtrips... Drat.

I also heard that Rocco is playing in Atlanta again...tomorrow. No chance of us going there this time. All the mundane duties of life call...like homeschool learning group, dance class, a doctor's appointment, Spring soccer sign-ups...

Speaking of our homeschool learning group, tomorrow is picture day. I'm always excited for that since it means new photos showing the growth of our kids. When they were really small, we, like most new parents, took them regularly (read: bi-monthly) for photos. In fact, if you stapled the photos together, you'd have an animated flip-book of them growing during those early years. Still in all... I'm excited since we only get professional photos annually now.

I spent two hours this morning participating in a focus group for homeschool curriculum. It included a Myers-Briggs type indicator profile to show what my teaching style might be. The session was quite interesting, especially because you got a good mixture of people.

One of the added bonuses? I got paid $75...not a bad hourly rate. The other? My great, wonderful, marvelous friend Angel watched my two cherubs for me...and I returned to her house to watch her three munchkins so that she could join in the afternoon session. Worked out perfectly!! $75 each! Woo-hoo! Let's go shopping! *grin*

I saw two former colleagues from the newspaper whilst I was waiting in line to vote tonight. Pretty interesting, especially when this usually-introverted-former-reporter told the one totally-extroverted-former-colleague-turned-business-editor that she was available if she -- the editor -- ever needed a stringer or a sub. (I have to admit, I miss it a lot. I love being home with my two sweeties...but I miss some of the excitement of the news world. I noticed it especially while I watched the reporters in New York City during the 24 Season 7 trailer. There's a certain non-drug-related-rush gotten from having deadlines and doing interviews.) Ah, well. Not the right season yet. *sigh* Until then, I have to be content in training future journalists...and continuing to write my bestseller. *wink*

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5 THINGS TO BE HAPPY ABOUT

• meditating on the morning commute

• student-organized film festivals

• rotary telephones

• chicken pot pie in a flaky crust

• earrings that dangle and jingle

* * *

The first time Emily used a corded phone she nearly ripped it out of the wall. We had one in the house just in case we lost power and the cordless ones didn't work.

She was about 2 years old and had no concept of a phone that was tethered to the wall. As far as her toddler mind understood, phones were portable. She couldn't grasp the idea that a phone might have a cord attached to another part.

Usher in the rotary telephone.

My grandmother gave us an old one that she was throwing away. She thought the kids might get a kick out of playing with it.

It was such an oddity to them. They couldn't understand the center dial with the little fingerholes over each number. It didn't resemble any phone they'd ever seen.

Technology is like that though. What we grew up with suddenly becomes antiquated seemingly overnight.

Our kids "surf" the internet on Pentium III (or better) computers with a DSL connection that allows downloads in seconds. I grew up with a Commodore 64 -- a chunky computer with 5 1/4-inch disk and a game/program loading time that allowed you to use the bathroom and get a drink and snack before it was finished. My parents didn't have computers at all.

I remember the first time the kids saw 45 rpm records on the walls of a 50s-style ice cream shop. They pointed to them and giggled, laughing at the funny, black "CDs." Hmm...

Can you still hear the purr of the telephone dial as it rotates? I can. And what a bummer if you missed the proper hole and had to start over again...

* * *

Well, I missed my deadline, and it's technically Wednesday. But since I can tweak the time aspect in the "post options," you don't technically know that.

I'll bid everyone adieu and return anon with more musings.