stay at home

I am having a really hard time talking myself back into substitute teaching. I love being home and taking care of this and that. I have tons of stuff to keep me busy without subbing. This week was food co-op week and I've been organizing and packaging everyone's orders. The sisters at church seem to really appreciate having the food co-op. I was at the regular grocery store last night and noticed a can of olives of the exact same brand as I bought at the food co-op. The food co-op price is less than half of the grocery store price. It's hard to know what to buy for the co-op. Last time I bought 50 lbs of milk chocolate chips (GOOD quality!!!!!) and repacked them into one pound bags. They sold ok. This time I bought white chips and could've sold tons more but I ran out. I guess I'm in the grocery business now and that's the way it goes. I'm having fun with this.

substitute teaching

My first day as a substitute teacher yesterday. They put me in ISS. That means I was in charge of "In School Suspension." What a lousy job. I lived through it, but the guy I was replacing does this every day of his working life. Sheesh. I could not sell my life that cheaply. Actually I felt sorry for the kids. Most of them had just acted up in class a little and the teachers had to be able to threaten them with something, but a couple of the kids (boys) were totally out of control. There is no way they could've handled being in a classroom. It took the one kid three hours to draw three doodles. A flower, a bowl, a spoon (parts of the Japanese tea ceremony). These were not carefully done doodles either. The actual "work" took less than three seconds. He just didn't want to do it because it was the assigned work. Nothing like having to work for money to make me appreciate my wonderful job (staying home and doing whatever I please). BTW I'm only planning on working one day a week. If I had to do that every day of the week I'd go crazy!

creeper

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yptk6IxyqQQ

The kids finally uploaded their latest youtube video. This one was Missy's idea. They worked so hard on it and then lost half the footage to a computer glitch. But, like movie makers say, movies are not finished-- they are abandoned. I'm just glad the kids' movie is finally available for public viewing. Now to get the spy story uploaded. All it needs is a music track.

february thaw

It is lovely today. The sort of February day that makes me hope for spring, but dread the inevitable freeze that will destroy the young buds. If the trees and plants start thinking it is spring we're guaranteed to get a killing frost. Still, I'm looking forward to spring. I've got a tray full of early plants going. On nice days, like today, I can take them outside for a serious dose of sunshine. Get them used to being outdoors. The broccoli and cabbage are doing well. I'm trying Chinese cabbage this year, for the first time. I'm going to use netting over them all. Last year this pretty little white butterfly tried to destroy my entire crop. When I saw a good price on netting at the local fabric store (it was going out of business, it was a REALLY good sale) I bought a couple of bolts. I could end up with an entire garden dressed in tulle!

reading the Book of Mormon

I'm reading the Book of Mormon in simplified Chinese. It is such a challenge for me. But I'm slowly getting better at it. Sometimes I can even read an entire verse without looking in the dictionary. That is rare. I feel like I've been trying to learn Chinese for most of my life. Actually it's just since I was 20, but that's more than half my life! I'm still at the kindergarten level. Every time I start getting serious about learning I have to make some major overhaul. Years ago I started learning traditional Chinese, then I realized only the Taiwanese used traditional Chinese and that everyone on the mainland used simplified so I went back to square one and started over. Last year I started reading the Book of Mormon and found out that it had been republished. I bought the newest edition; it hadn't just been republished, it had been retranslated!!!! Back to square one. Reading the Book of Mormon in Chinese forces me to savor the word of the Lord very slowly. I am an extremely fast reader (in English) and reading it in Chinese makes me enjoy the word in a totally different manner. I'm enjoying it. It feels like a mountain I'm climbing. I can't see the summit, but the climb is interesting.

painting

This is a painting of DD#2 by DD#1. It looks exactly like her.

youtube videos

It's #3 DS bday. He's off at college. He has made some really fun youtube videos. Go to http://www.youtube.com/user/willhodgson2004 to see a selection of them. They are currently working on two more. I wish they'd put on the finishing touches so they can post them, you'll love them. Ok, all of the videos were a group effort, but C~ is the driving force on most of them.

food co-op

A friend found a restaurant supply store and together we set up a food co-op for interested people. It's mainly for people from church, but anyone is welcome. We were amazed by how easy it was for us to be restaurant level purchasers. The savings are amazing. We're saving about 50% on most items. Now they don't have everything we might want, but what they have is really a good deal. Example-- Gheridelli (sp?) brand chocolate chips for $1.20 a pound. The cheapest Aldi's chips (which aren't near as good) are $1.99 a pound! Spinach was $2 for 24 boxes (yes, you read that correctly, about 10 cents a box). The idea is for me to buy in bulk and portion things out so people can buy reasonable amounts off of me. I guess I'm acting as the middle man. This is pretty cool. We decided to put in an order once a month so none of us feel overwhelmed by all this. A big order means they drive it over here and we don't even have to drive downtown and pick it up. Huge plus.