For High School, Nick auditioned and was accepted into the Band Magnet program at Coral Reef Senior High – a top-rated school with a great track record of kids going to All State Marching Band, good colleges, getting scholarships, etc. Between the music and the AP classes, since he wanted to go, we decided it was a good thing. He’s now in his second year.

The Miami-Dade County School System has a number of convoluted regulations about a student’s attendance.

From talking to various teachers, administrators, and friends, I understand that, by and large, these have come about in an effort to keep parents from taking their children out of school frivolously. Apparently, there was a big problem with repeated week-long absences for family trips to Disney World and such.

So now there are several sets of rules in place:

Excused vs. unexcused.

The definition here is much stricter that it used to be. Essentially only the child’s illness, or a death in the immediate family is “excused”.

Accumulate five unexcused absences in a semester, or ten in a school year, and they have the right to withhold your grades and credit for the entire semester/year.

We ran up against this with our recent trip to Mississippi to visit Wolf’s dad after his cancer diagnosis. Quite a struggle over “excusing” those absences, which even had another entire chapter after the saga I originally posted (over at As for My House!

Eligibility restrictions.

Any student who accumulates ten absences in a school year – regardless of their “excused” status – becomes ineligible to participate in all extra-curricular activities.

In other words, I suppose, “If you’re not present enough to reasonably be doing your school work, you shouldn’t be allowed to participate in ‘the fun stuff.’”

Such a rule seems designed to deter people from taking those excessive absences even if they can get their doctor to sign off on it and get it excused.

This is the one with which I am currently at odds.

Nick had five absences during the first half of the school year, all due to illness.

Then we took our six-school-day trip to Mississippi. Yep, that’s eleven, and ineligible.

But that’s not the problem!

We worked with the Assistant Principal to file an appeal with the District, and they granted a waiver for those six days for Eligibility purposes. So he’s back to five.

But Nick has been sick the last two weeks. Pretty darn sick, and out of school four days before all was said and done.

NINE absences!

So if he misses another single day during the remaining three months of school, he will become ineligible. And although the absences were excused, we have no way to know if the District would see fit to grant his eligibility back on appeal.

But here’s the thing…

Words mean things – including Extra-Curricular.

Here’s what it says at Dictionary.com:

ex·tra·cur·ric·u·lar /ˌɛkstrəkəˈrɪkyələr/ [ek-struh-kuh-rik-yuh-ler] –adjective
1. outside the regular curriculum or program of courses: football, orchestra, and other extracurricular activities.

Outside the regular program of courses.

Not something you’ll see there with a grade next to it on your report card.

So… Football, right? Makes sense.

If you can’t play in the football game, it’s no fun for you. It’s no fun for the team. But it doesn’t hurt your GPA.

They list Orchestra, which in a regular school setting might be something you do similarly after school, outside of your regular classes.

I remember how distraught my friend Vicki and I were, after months of practicing, when we couldn’t participate in the Senior Lip Synch because our third pal, Tammie, had gotten a bad grade and become ineligible.

But in this case, Band is Nick’s regular, graded class – two of his six, in fact. It’s “Curricular,” you might say.

They do some semantic weaseling, of course.

This policy is all spelled out in a two-page Contract that looks like something we shoud have signed when Nick started there… And we may have, in the avalance of paperwork, even though I don’t recall it.

The vast majority of the document explains how the student is representing their school, and needs to uphold standards like good behavior, dress code, etc.

When they get to eligibility, the prime requirement is a 2.0 GPA.

They also carefully use the phrase “Interscholastic Competitions or Performances” rather than “Extra-Curricular Activities”… although to me this leaves open the highly relevant question of whether they are discussing Interscholastic Events (be they Competitions or Performances), or (Interscholastic Competitions) or (any Performances).

But the real core issue is simply this:

If Nick does not participate in a concert, Nick will receive one or more grades of “F”, which will lower his grade in that class accordingly.

How is it reasonable to say that the school District is prohibiting a child from participating in a Requied Classroom Activity?

Can that even be legal?

“We’re not going to allow you to do your assigned classwork”??

The web address of this blog, as you’ve probably noticed, is the subdirectory /blog of my domain tiffanyblitz.com.

The root of the tiffanyblitz domain has actually hosted two websites already over its lifetime.

It began, a decade ago or so, as a website promoting my fitness modeling, personal training, fitness competition, and acting/modeling. Tiffany Blitz was my stage name, hence the domain name.

Anyhow, when we moved to Arizona (2004) that all came to a halt. And getting pregnant with Jewel was the end of it once and for all.

We repurposed the website as an access portal for our home-based business, and it served us faithfully in that capacity for another few years.

When we went on the road full-time in 2007, we started this blog to chronicle our adventures.

So, for some three years now, some people have been using this URL to access the blog. Some have bookmarked it. Some have made shortcuts to it. Some have included the link on their web page or blogroll.

Hence the question.

We are no longer involved with that home business venture, so the tiffanyblitz.com root domain is sitting around, empty.

A few options present themselves, and I really don’t know what would be the best way to go:

• Keep the blog at /blog, and forward the root domain to here as well. (This is what I’ve done currently, just because it was the easiest thing, and seemed better than leaving a blank, empty page there).
• Move this blog to the root directory, and put in forwarding from the /blog address. (Do I lose too much link love?)
• If I’m going to move it anyway, I could get it its own domain with a better name? I can still forward this address. (Ditto the worries about lost links. Is this any better/worse than moving within the domain here?)
• Or ??

I’d be very interested in your feedback on this issue!!

I participate in MyPoints, and I keep us in Cracker Barrel Gift Cards by earning points for reading emails even if I don’t actually SHOP through them. (They have tons of other Gift Cards as rewards – if you haven’t cheked it out, you ought to!).

Anyhow, I was delighted when they offered me the opportunity to earn points all the time with a “MyPoints Visa.” I applied, got one, and began using it (and paying off the balance immediately, of course!).

Sadly, though, the card was administered by Washington Mutual.

When Chase bought them out, they cancelled the MyPoints program. All the existing accounts were tranferred over to their “rewards card” program… Whatever.

I kept the card for a while, figuring it was still doing my credit score good. Plus, when we went through six months of unemployment this summer, we did actually carry a balance.

But I kept not getting statements… I’d say from the time Chase took over I received an average of one statement every two or three months. When I called, they’d verify my address, tell the the date it was sent out, and suggest I contact the Post Office!

As though the Post Office has anything to say on the matter – not like they were sent with Delivery Confirmation or something! Since I got all my other mail just fine, it seems unlikely to be a Post Office problem.

Naturally (until recently, as I understand the law), the due date shifted, and minimum payment changed with the random new fee they assessed… So payments were occasionally late, and occasionally considered late when I guessed and made a $40 payment when they’d upped in minimum to $42. And, of course, they were totally unsympathetic when I called.

The card has been paid off and closed, and I will certainly never do business with them again.

And now, the thrilling sequel!

The WaMu/Chase branch near us ran a great promotion last year – $50 free for opening a checking account (which also has no fees, etc.).

After the qualifying period ended, we withdrew most of the money back to our interst-bearing credit union account. We kept it open with about $10 in there, figuring that it might be nice to have an account at a nationwide bank if/when we finally get the heck out of Dodge, er, Florida. All the paperwork, debit cards, checks, whatever we had was stuffed in a file folder and forgotten.

Until this week, when I received a notice of overdrafts!

Two charges of $10 each had been processed, along with two, get this, $34 overdraft charges!

So the account balance is currently -$78.43.

Needless to say, I called as soon as the office opened at 7 am the next day to try and get things straightened out.

After a lengthy identification process, and a struggle over the fact that I didn’t have the card number(s), the representative told me that I could not file the dispute. The card used was issued to the joint account holder (Wolf), and he would have to call in.

I was frustrated because Wolf is, of course, at work. While he can take a call if need be, he doesn’t exactly have time to sit there and wade through their voice-response system.

The representative said she could call him on a conference call, and he could then authorize me to complete the transaction. Although the odds were against him picking up, we gave it a try.

Wolf did answer, and the Chase rep didn’t jump in. So I greeted him, and explained the situation.

The representative then asked him if he authorized me to file the dispute on him behalf.

He said yes. She thanked him, and told him he could hang up… And we went ahead with filing the dispute.

Wait a minute! We went through all that about identifying me, and my inability to file a dispute on my own account because his card was used…

And she didn’t identify him AT ALL!!

Heck, if I had known that I could have called ANYONE! So much for security being enforced…

I’ve been assured that all the credits will post within two days, at which point I will go into my local branch and close this account. Because

I’ve discussed my issues with the Sport Tops.

Interestingly, their website now proclaims that the “flat and loop tops are leak-proof!”, having been forced to admit that the Sport Top is not.

Our latest issue is with the Kanteens themselves.

As I’ve probably told you, we each have one… A 12 oz. rust for R.T., an 18 oz. pink for Jewel, 27 oz. in green for me and stainless for Wolf, and a 40 ouncer in black for Nick.

Over the last couple of years, we’ve put them to the test. Lots of use, lots of washing, lots of rolling around in the car… and yes, lots of dropping.

When dropped, naturally, there’s a chance you’ll scuff or nick the paint on your colored bottle. We have, some, but actually I’ve been incredibly impressed at how well the colored exterior have held up.

Amazingly, my complaint is actually about the steel portion!

Nick has the big ol’ 40 oz. size, so that he can have more cold water on hand for marching band practices.

While the smaller bottles are the same diameter as the “basic” 27 oz., only shorter… This one is the same height as the basic, and wider.

Turns out, this is a fatal flaw.

The ratio of the size of the circle to the strength of the steel works out very well in the three smaller sizes, which seem nearly indestructible.

Not so with Mr. Big.

Although the 40 oz. Kanteen is wider than the other sizes, the steel construction is the same thickness.

One day, Nick’s water bottle was sitting on the front passenger floorboard, and rolled out when he opened the door. The bottle was empty (no extra weight), fell about a foot, and landed on dirt.

The bottom edge (the “corner” where it presumably hit) was caved in pretty seriously. There was also some deformation to the rest of the bottle bottom, which is now convex and no longer stands up (really REALLY a problem, with those leaky Sport Tops!).

I know it could be argued that it was Nick’s fault for dropping it. And I haven’t said a peep about the minor damage sustained by the other vessels in the course of our daily abuse (quite the contrary, as I said). This was just such a disproportionately large amount of damage – to a stainless steel bottle! – from such a minor event… That’s hardly real world useful.

The three smaller sizes of Klean Kanteen are wonderful, for all the reasons I’ve mentioned, and all the ones they advertise…

But the seemingly-handy larger size is a flop.

One of the great things about their setup is that a given curriculum can be used over a wide range of ages. You read a book (together or alone), then vary the depth of analysis and type of activities based on the child’s age.

I would like to find a way to combine my two “littles”, but I’m not sure how to start. Right now, Miss J is almost 5 and my littlest is just 2.

I can see how you could possibly combine over a 3 year spread later on – although even then that seems like a bit of a stretch… but how do you handle the beginnings?

J actively begs to “do school” already, and we are dabbling in things this year and will do some more next year. I bought a copy of the Weaver curriculum used, and I think we’ll wrk through that… Seems like a lot of fun books for both of them could be incorporated.

I’m not particularly worried about her age, “getting started”, or anything like that. I’m not an unschooler, but I do think it’s counterproductive to do busywork and stress about it with little ones. She’s really working on reading and writing, all on her own. Gee, ya think there’s A Plan in all this?

But R.T. isn’t remotely ready for anything like that yet. He’ll barely sit still and listen to a simple board book most of the time.

Typical little boy, no big deal… But not conducive to sharing “school” time with big sister.

Anyone done this and want to share some words of wisdom with me?

Since PIN is an acronym, that phrase that people walk around saying all the time is actually

Personal Identification Number Number

Hmmmm.

Here’s another funny redundancy. This one is not just something that people say, but something that has actually been published, produced and enshrined by a major food service company.

Taco Bell would like to sell you a

Five Dollar Buck Box

What??

You know, one of these:

When we first saw this on a signboard outside a store, we assumed it was just an employee’s error.

Needless to say we were stunned to discover the magnitude of the ignorance, which they spent millions of dollars showing off during the Super Bowl.

I can’t eat one. I won’t support it.

Stealing a phrase from the old Star Kist commercials –

Taco Bell doesn’t have food that tastes bad; Taco Bell has food that’s in bad taste.

Head over to our other blog, As For My House. Check out the review, and enter to win a copy of Near Mama’s Heart – a beautiful book about breastfeeding, for children.

Good luck!

You can read all about the lessons I learned the hard way, published today over at Mommy News & Views.

My heartfelt thanks to Judy, who has offered me this platform. Look for the next installment in February…

But this time, for variety’s sake, it will be over at As For My House.

Head on over to check out the particulars, and please – spread the word!