The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree

Roadeo

2009-07-13T08:04:00.007-04:00

Saturday was the NYAPT Big Three Roadeo in Albany and I want to give a Big Thank You!! to all of the judges that came down to the conference early so that we could compete. I'm not certain but I think it takes almost as many judges as there are contestants to put on this event. Not only were there volunteers out on the course, the seven team leaders, there were the folks that administered the tests, others that played the part of student, several were runners, others were stuck in a little room all day tallying score sheets, and undoubtedly many more that I haven't mentioned. Everyone was pleasant and worked hard to make sure that the contestants had a great day.

I drove down on Friday afternoon and had dinner with some of the other people there from the CNYAPT chapter. After dinner I spent the evening battling the butterflies in my stomach by studying.

The Roadeo is an all day event with registration starting at 7:00 am. There we were given our t-shirts and contestant number. My registration had gone in late so I was expecting a very high number and was thrilled when they handed me #39! The first event of the day was a written, general knowledge exam and it was tough. I'm always worried that some of the questions are "trick" questions and I over think things. This cost me on at least a couple of questions :( There was also a written pre-trip test that we took later in the day.

We were then divided into "teams" and I was pleasantly surprised that there was someone I knew on my team and I quickly got to know others. Our team leader, Dave aka "Tangerine Man" was great!

Crowd near the announcer's table

I was quite worried about the surprise event, certain that I would have to do some type of backing skill so I was happy when it turned out to be a railroad question. We had to simply sit in the drivers seat and decide whether or not we had room to to cross the tracks and have a 15' cushion behind us before we got to the stop line represented by the cone. I decided that I wouldn't try it and I wish that they had told us what the correct answer was later in the day, when everyone was done.

Surprise Event

One of the activities between events was a smoke bus demonstration. Some of the pictures they used of a burning bus were ones I had taken at the Mass Casualty Incident Drill. How cool was that!

Smoke Bus

Straight Line

Serpentine

Offset Alley

Parallel Parking

Traffic Jam

Diminishing Clearance

End of the road!

So how did I do? My #39 that I was so happy about turned out to be the 2nd to last number on the course because my class went last. I don't think that really affected me too much but let's just say that I have never had a worse trip around a roadeo course. I was waived off of both of the backing events and I struggled with the events that I normally sail through. Thank you Helen, for being friendly and helping me relax before I drove. I'm sorry your last ride of the day was such an awful one. Thank you to everyone from CNY that hung around to the end to give me moral support! If you guys hadn't been there for me I'm certain I would have dissolved into tears.

I didn't have a good score this year but it was the most fun I have ever had at a Roadeo!

State of the Garden

2009-07-10T08:54:00.005-04:00

My sister has pointed out that I hadn't been posting much about my garden. There are areas that I am loving right now but there are more areas that I'm not!

I'm happy with ~~butterfly~~ hummingbird garden between the house and the garage. I initially envisioned masses of butterflies flitting through and instead I see an occasional one fly through. The hummingbirds are the real entertainment.

I'm very happy with the garage side except that it looks like there is an empty area in the center along the wall. I have cannas that are taking forever to get going. They took so long that I gave up on them and planted zinnias and now I have to move them - or just have an interesting mess. Hollyhocks do not get tall in this bed so I'm looking for a perennial that will get tall and not clash with the coneflowers and black-eyed susans that will be blooming shortly.

I'm not as happy with the house side. I planted the red lillies thinking they were the same as the ones on the other side. I love them! but they really need to be moved toward the back. I also love the combination of the red beebalm, gloriosa daisies and shata daisies but they need to be mixed up more because the daisies are all taller than the beebalm and are in the front. There are also a couple of big holes that I won't show you right now that I need a plan for.

The nightmare bed is once again looking scary but I'm still working on taming it. The milkweed smells wonderful so I don't mind working out there right now :-)

The front of the house has become overgrown and just blah. I have major plans for a makeover but will I get it done? Stay tuned.

The back and the other side of the house are so bad I won't even show them to you. They do contain some very pretty flowers however so here are just a couple.

Holiday Picnic

2009-07-06T18:45:00.004-04:00

We spent the morning of the 4th with Mom and were just as surprised as she was when my niece called to say she was in town and coming to visit. We left before she arrived but I hear that she had a nice visit with her grandmother. I know that Mom enjoyed seeing her!

Our family picnic was on Sunday and my niece was able to join us. It was so nice to be able to catch up! Good food, great conversation and kickball - what more could we want?

Happy 4th of July!

2009-07-04T05:10:00.000-04:00

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Vanishing Apple

2009-07-02T07:15:00.003-04:00

I can hardly believe that it's been nearly three weeks since I posted anything. June is such a busy month here yet certainly there has been time where I could have written something quickly. Quite simply, I needed a blogging break I guess. More than that I needed a break from the computer. All winter and most of the spring I spent 8-12 hours a day parked on the couch with my computer on my lap.

After we moved into the new garage I started having lots of aches and pains, was winded easily and just was not feeling well so I finally broke down and went to my Nurse Practitioner. She took blood to check my thyroid, ordered a pulmonary function test and bullied me into going for a very overdue mammogram. After all the test results were in it was learned that I have very high cholesterol. The only other thing wrong with me is that I am fat. While I was relieved that there is nothing wrong I found the news very depressing. I have always been heavy and I know the only way that I personally will loose weight is by lots and lots of exercise. I have 60 pounds to loose but I'd be very happy to loose 35. There have been three other times in my life where I lost a lot of weight. When I was a teenager I went to live with my father on a farm and chores did the work for me. Twelve years ago I spent several hours a week in front of the TV cursing Richard Simmons. Five years ago we bought this house and spent 12 hour days working to make it habitable.

I have elected to take the summer off. I hope to spend a lot of time working in the garden, moving plants around and expanding beds. While we've been here five years now there are still things that I haven't done yet and some of the rooms already need repainting. I will be moving things around so that I have room to do aerobics. I'm tired just thinking about it.

I do have some fun things planned for the summer. There will hopefully be several family picnics, I will be going to the Roadeo next week and the grandkids will keep me busy. John and I will be spending a week away too.

Hopefully I can get back in the habit of writing with a minimum of Apple whine.

Another week has flown by!

2009-06-14T06:57:00.004-04:00

Work kept me very busy this week. We are starting now to work on our Safety Expo for next October. I'm hoping that by starting earlier we'll be able to really expand and that I'll be more organized in the fall! A couple of people volunteered to take charge of sub-committees but I still have to cajole at least a couple more.

We went to Mom's a couple of times and I had to go for another test. On my one free day during the week I had a very pleasant morning visiting the gardens of two friends and they came all the way out here to see mine.

Yesterday was the first Epilepsy Walk held in this area. Not really knowing what to expect I took just Mike and Nikki and we headed out to support a friend. For a first time event it went very well. Most of the kids there were younger than Nikki so next year we'll make it a family event. They had games and crafts for the kids, raffles, food and music. I was worried that I'd have a hard time making it all the way around the loop that we walked but I took it slow and wasn't too sore when I finished :-) The kids were way ahead of me but I could see them so I let them do their own thing. It was actually nice having just the two of them as they got along well and I didn't have to deal with the bickering that happens here at the house. After the walk we went to the dairy for ice cream cones and then went to see Jae's new apartment.

I have a couple of dozen chores that need doing but the dust isn't going anywhere so I think I'll just head out and play in the garden.

Garden Path

2009-06-07T15:12:00.005-04:00

I won't go into details of the week past. Instead I'll just say that I was busy all week and felt like I got nothing done. There are three more weeks of school left but the kids and I are all ready for vacation to begin. Some of my older elementary kids that know they'll be on a different bus next year are really testing my patience.

John did manage to get the screen room put back together. The weather was just perfect yesterday and I could have spent the entire day there reading a good book.

We haven't had much nice weather when I've had free time lately so instead of relaxing with a book I decided to take on my "Nightmare Bed." It doesn't look very scary in this picture, does it? I love the mass of ox-eyed daisies and the lupines have really done well out here while the ones by the house are looking sad. The lemon lilies look happy but there's a ton of grass to be pulled in with them.

Here's a longer view from the far side. I had originally laid out a nice path that the weeds and some of the self-sown plants obliterated. Even in this picture you can see that I'm winning the latest battle but with the type of weeds out there I imagine the war will rage on for years.

I had chores in other parts of the garden but the majority of the day was spent digging weeds and putting in a new path on the left side and under the new arch. Maybe I can work on the path to the right during the week. Right now it's mostly grass but there area few plants that will need to be moved.

We decided to try a vegetable garden this year. We've planted tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, peppers and watermelon so far plus we have a row of strawberries. We're killing the grass on both ends to have more room next year. We covered the plants when there was frost expected but we must have had a bit of frost on other nights as there is some damage but the plants look like they'll recover.

Despite the frost it won't be long until we have our first berries!

Blow the House Down!

2009-05-31T19:57:00.006-04:00

Yesterday was cool but sunny and I spent all day working in the garden. Today was not so nice. I was out early pulling plants to take to a plant swap this afternoon. It was cold and windy.

The swap was great and I was in a good mood until I got home. The wind continued to increase all afternoon. I pulled in the driveway and just about cried at the sight of my brand new screen room.
I thought the wind had ripped it down and it probably would have if John hadn't taken the canvas down. The wind blew so hard it knocked the flower heads off of these iris.

Even here in Snowville it is supposed to be safe to plant after Memorial Day. Our new vegetable garden was planted yesterday. We should have waited until next weekend I guess. We're under a frost warning and a FREEZE advisory tonight!!! So here's what the vegetable garden looks like tonight.

Four weeks of school to go. I'm really counting on summer to be here by then!

Dancing the Night Away

2009-05-31T19:48:00.004-04:00

Nikki and Liz had their dance recital on Friday night. I had the chance to see several of my students perform, past, present and even future. The pre-schoolers were adorable as always but my girls were certainly the stars!

It is impossible to get a good picture with my little camera from 50 feet away, especially if the subjects are moving. Here are the best two of the night.

Seven

2009-05-18T10:23:00.000-04:00

Alex is about to turn seven so we had cake and ice cream for him here last week. He invited the kids who live next door so we had seven kids - quite a crowd for my little house. We won't be able to see him on his birthday because he's at Disney. I think he'll remember his 7th birthday forever.

Road-eo in the Rain

2009-05-16T18:24:00.004-04:00

The regional road-eo was today and boy was it a miserable day to compete. I got soaked through when we walked the course. I'd just start to dry out and it was time to go outside and get soaked again. The judges had it much worse than we did as they had to be outside all day. We had a very long delay due to lightning.

The scoring system has changed since I last competed and a few other things had changed. I figured I did OK on the written tests and pretrip. I was one of the last drivers on the course and by then it was no longer fun, I was wet, cold and ready to go home. I made some mistakes and was very unhappy with myself.

I was shocked when they announced that I'd finished 2nd in my class! Woo-hoo!!!! I'll be competing at the state level in July.

Thanks Miriam!

2009-05-10T07:34:00.000-04:00

Miriam at AnceStories has kindly nominated The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree for the One Lovely Blog award. Miriam is one of the first friends I made when I started blogging and I do hope that one day we will be able to meet.

I feel quite undeserving of this award as my recent battle with the blues has kept me from blogging the last few weeks. I'll try and do better ;-)

I am supposed to nominate seven other blogs for this award.

Kerri, at Colors of the Garden, is another person that I formed an early friendship. Her pictures are always beautiful and she shares her knowledge freely.

Edith at Hawa's Musings is another bus driver and her spring isn't going any better than mine. She's currently looking for the positive and I hope this award cheers her up.

ThreeCollie is another" neighbor." She and her family work harder than anyone else I know on one the the few remaining family run dairy farms in New York. At Northview Diary I find beautiful pictures, a smattering of politics and lots of humor.

Notes of Life by Nikki-ann is beautifully done. I love being able to visit Wales without leaving my living room.

No matter what life throws at her Susie stays positive. Her west coast pictures at Susie's Space, help me through the long winters here.

Heather is another bus driver. I find her younger outlook on life refreshing at A Day in the Life.

Velda is another "neighbor," never mind that Lake Ontario and the US Canadian border are between us. Velda's Place is about family and friends with some local history thrown in.

More Apple Whine

2009-05-09T20:33:00.003-04:00

I've been away from blogging for quite awhile now. I was sick enough to be miserable but not sick enough to miss work for a couple of weeks and then things (mostly work) simply got so stressful that I basically stopped doing anything I didn't have too. Instead I've spent hours in the garden, read a few novels and become addicted to Peggle.

We normally keep our routes from year to year, however due to a change I'm not sure I can talk about yet, all of our routes for next year went up for bid. The not knowing what we were going to get was stressful for everyone. Some of the drivers will be loosing a 1/4 of their hours and others are loosing overtime that they have come to count on. Bidding is finally over and I am quite relieved that I will have routes very similar to what I have this year and will retain 40-45% of my students. Knowing that I will be loosing so many has made me quite sad, as I've had my routes for five years.

We also had to move into our new facility before it was finished. I'm thrilled for our mechanics that they have such a great garage to work in. We've all been told not to say anything negative because it will be great once it's done, and I'm sure it will be. It is much larger than than the very old and cramped space that we've left behind. I anticipate loosing lots of weight walking up and down the ~~giant hill~~ gentle slope that we now park on. I hope the flat tire I got from a screw in the new parking lot was a one time thing.

There have been lots of other little things that by themselves don't amount to much but so many, so close together just piled up. I've found myself angry over things that normally I'd just shrug off. Hopefully with things starting to sort themselves out things will get back to normal - and so will I.

Twig Turns Three

2009-05-09T08:48:00.002-04:00

My youngest grandchild is already 3!
Happy Birthday Twig!

Belated Happy Birthday

2009-05-02T06:58:00.002-04:00

Nikki is nine! Where have the years gone? I remember coming home, exhausted and depressed after the death of my father, and getting an early phone call the next morning. She had waited for my return and refilled my soul with joy.

Happy Birthday Princess!

Happy Easter

2009-04-12T06:00:00.000-04:00

Dallas and Apple
1963, Syracuse, NY

Memory Lane

2009-04-05T17:38:00.006-04:00

Mom was doing really well on Friday! However I was battling a cold and almost didn't go for fear of giving it to her. John stayed home to wait for a delivery so, not feeling like cleaning I suggested we go to the cemetery because she'd mentioned awhile ago that she'd like to go.

Mom almost never leaves the house except to go to the doctor or to stay a few days with my sister so I was quite surprised that she was willing. It was a drizzly day but the rain stopped and we headed out. It's been a couple of years (or more) since I'd been out to Onondaga Hill and on down to the Valley. She and I both we're pointing out all of the changes from years ago - new mini mansions and churches - or we'd remark as we drove by a place that we hadn't thought of them in ages or what ever happened to them?

She made sure to point out the Post Office to me, except they'd built a new one across the street years ago. The old one is a Chinese Restaurant now. As we started down Seneca Turnpike hill we both remember how Grandpa would always tell about how they tested the Franklin autos on the hill. The Dairy Queen at the bottom of the hill is now another Chinese Restaurant.

Heading out Valley Drive we quickly came to "the duck pond" and there were several geese on both sides of the road and Mom thought she spotted a swan.

It took me awhile to locate Grandma & Grandpa's headstone. It was right where it's always been ;-) but the last time we were there the two shrubs that Grandpa had planted partly obscured the stone. Somebody had either trimmed up the bottoms or the deer worked them over good and it just looked so different. (I need to find out how we go about having them removed altogether.)

After Mom paid her respects (from the car) we drove around and found Frank's uncle's monument and then drove through the older part of the cemetery picking out well known Syracuse names.

Mom was worried about the time and my getting back to work but we still had plenty of time and I was still looking to get of doing any cleaning. We headed over to our old house. We did the math and it's been 45 years since Mom moved into her current home. It was a good thing they hadn't changed the house number! When we lived there the attic was unfinished and they have since added on to the back.

I took the long way home. Mom wanted to see the new town hall building but I wasn't able to find it. We did drive by the golf course where both my father and brother worked in their teens and then past the park where I played when I visited my grandparents. We drove by their old house and it hasn't changed much, except for the color.

I'm sure this was boring to read but it was a fun morning for both of us.

Training Bus

2009-03-31T20:49:00.002-04:00

Before I get to the bus pics I'd like to congratulate Sue of Susan's World for placing 3rd in her local Road-eo! She now gets to compete in the regional competition and I wish her the best of luck. I missed competing the last two years but I'm signed up for this year.

I mentioned in my last post that we had taken the training bus to one of the schools and Edith asked for more information about it. A few of you may remember the earlier pictures and excitement here as the bus was being rebuilt to suit our needs but I really haven't talked much about it in the last year. Since safety training is one of my passions I thought I'd review the history of our bus.

Many years ago we borrowed this bus to teach emergency evacuations to our students. It is owned by a district in another county and always books up fast! Here it was being used at a Safety Fair that I attended. You can see a student being helped out of the roof hatch.
I love this bus because it has railings so drivers and students can actually practice going out the window and roof exits. Being able to do it myself really changed the way I conduct my thrice annual evacuation drills.

Back in 2006 I did very poorly at the regional Road-eo but one of my teammates did well and went on to the state competition. While she was there she saw a bus redesigned to simulate a rollover accident but that could also be used for regular window and roof hatch drills. I don't own a picture of their bus but you can find their pictures here. That district was much too far away to borrow the bus, so she brought back pictures and started talking about building our own. She got drivers together from across the region and we started fund raising. That generated a blog to both thank our sponsors and to update everyone on the progress.

This is what we ended up with. We do not have the safety rails or ladders that the other buses have as the local fire departments expressed an interest in being able to use the bus to train their personnel.

Here you can see the roof hatch on it's side. Right now we use the bus simply to show students what the bus will look like inside if there is a roll over and get them thinking about where they'd end up and what they would need to do to get out. It also allows us to get a dialog going with them about overall bus safety while we really have their attention.

We have mats that we can use but we're still working out how to allow the kids to use the exits without anyone getting hurt. The bus is available for use by any school district in the area.

We also use our everyday rides to teach safety to the kids and their parents. At our annual safety expo in October I do a mirror demonstration where I put the parents in the drivers seat with the kids behind them and ask them what they can see in the mirrors. They are always surprised by how little they can see inside the bus. Meanwhile I have items that a child might drop near the bus scattered around outside along with a car parked up tight to the rear bumper. We also usually have someone teaching safe crossing, we bring a wheel chair bus and chair and one of our volunteer firefighters runs a smoke bus which you see below. That's Mike (a couple of years ago) learning to sit and slide as he goes out the rear door.

I'm looking for ideas that we can use to create another hands on learning experience at our next expo in October and I'd love to hear any ideas you may have!

And if you're curious as to how the bus was cut and flipped, here is the slide show I created back then.

Blues

2009-03-29T21:26:00.005-04:00

I can't believe I haven't posted here for two full weeks! I had gotten behind with my letter transcriptions so I worked several days on them. Otherwise I have just had the blues.

Big stress at work. I was one of a very few that knew that we are going to have major route changes and loss of overtime next year. That was a huge weight but we had a meeting on Friday and now everyone knows what's what for next year. As a group they took the news much better than I thought they would. Some of those with the least seniority will be having their hours cut 25%. To keep their hours from being cut even further the senior drivers will be losing some of the overtime that they are used to and count on. I will be loosing my route but I will be keeping my hours. I'll find out next month just exactly what I'll be driving next year. I've worked with most of "my kids" for the last five years so as thankful as I am that I'll keep my paycheck, I'm very sad to be starting over with a new group.

I spent most of the week with a new driver, something I usually enjoy. We don't usually train at this time of year and for some reason it just wore me out everyday. The driver did fine so I don't know why it wore me down.

We took the training bus to the Fun Fair at one of the schools and had a huge turn out. I expected to sit around reading but we were busy the entire time. For many of the kids and their parents this was their first time seeing the bus and we got very favorable feedback. Definitely a bright spot in the week!

Everyone has been posting pictures of their spring flowers while I've continued to watch the snow melt. This was taken yesterday. We finally have more grass than snow but there is more than enough of the white mess left.

Yesterday was warm and sunny so I started on some garden clean-up on the beds that are snow free and John started shoveling off the shade bed in front. He found my wood poppy sending up new shoots under all that snow! He really had to work hard as most of it was ice.

The crocuses started coming up through the snow and started blooming a couple of days after the snow was off of them. I still have one patch that hasn't started blooming yet so I'll get to enjoy flowers longer.

I looks like a normal week coming up so maybe I can drag myself out of this funk I've been in.

Poor Robin

2009-03-15T21:52:00.003-04:00

I was very excited to spot a pair of robins in the yard today but I was dumbfounded as to why they'd visit here! The snow is taking it's sweet time melting. It's been quite warm the last couple of days and we do have a couple of spots where we can see the grass in the backyard. We sent the boys out to play yesterday and they thought it was great that we still have so much snow. They especially liked walking along the snow bank in front of the window which made them so tall they were looking down on me sitting inside on the couch.

The moon was pretty last week and I tried to get a couple of pictures, none of which turned out well. There's an annual photo contest for school bus pictures but I think I need to stick to daylight shots. I'm not liking the time change at all.

Hurry Up and Wait

2009-03-11T20:11:00.004-04:00

It's been a couple of boring days. Tuesday I had my annual physical and I was assigned a mid morning time which meant time to kill. I went and checked out the new Hobby Lobby store that opened down in Clay. They have very nice stuff - hopefully they'll have very nice sales too. I found lots of things I'd like for the garden and some pretty fabrics. I showed up for my physical right on time and the four ahead of me were still there. So I waited........

We've had several days of heavy rain that have washed away some of the snow. The temperature is supposed to drop until the weekend and we may get some fresh flakes so I'm still waiting for the snow to be gone.

I've enjoyed following the Iditarod but we're at the 24 hour layover, the first of three mandatory rests at a checkpoint. Everyone seems to be stopping at either Takotna or McGrath so more waiting. *Except for Martin Buser! Buser blew through Takotna about three hours ago. Bold move!? Time will tell. During this layover the times will be adjusted to make everyone even from the staggered start, so all but the last musher will spend more than 24 hours.

All at Takotna

6th - Jeff King

12th - Aliy Zirkle

22nd - Ryan Redington

23rd - Robert Bundtzen

27th - Allen Moore

Best Friends

2009-03-09T21:00:00.003-04:00

It's Monday and that means Mom in the morning and kids night. I took Mom to the doctor and that went fine.

PJ had a tire blow out when he was bringing the girls over so John went and got them. I thought this picture was adorable. Mike had to stay late at school for Battle of the Books practice and the girls were watching a movie until the boys could get here.

It was a cold, rainy, miserable day. The warm weather over the weekend melted about 3/4 of the driveway ice so we are moving on to mud. I don't really like mud season much but it does mean the nice weather is coming.

I have another couple of long days coming up. My annual physical for work is tomorrow and I put my name of the list for some OT on Wednesday.

Mush!

2009-03-07T14:00:00.002-05:00

The Iditarod begins right about now, with the ceremonial start in Anchorage, Alaska. The mushers and their teams will cruise through the city with an Iditarider in the sled, rather than supplies. Tomorrow the real race begins from Willow.

I will of course be cheering for my cousin's husband, Robert Bundtzen. He is wearing bib # 51.

The economy has affected even the great race so the field is a lot smaller than last year's. I was hoping this year would be the year for Zack Steer but he is sitting this one out. Hopefully the economy will recover and Alaskan tourism will thrive this summer (especially at Sheep Mountain Lodge!) so that we'll see Zack back on the trail next year.

Marianne, at Northview Diary, is a Jeff King fan. Jeff is one of the top mushers but she follows him because of his local connection. Jeff has his own homepage, blog and Youtube channel. He will be wearing bib # 41.

Mike followed Ryan Redington last year as part of a school project and we'll be following him together again this year. He had to scratch last year so we're hoping he has better luck this year. He is wearing bib #13.

I'll also be watching husband - wife team, Allen Moore, bib #6, and Aliy Zirkle, bib #24 because I discovered their kennel's blog, The SP Kennel Dog Log, awhile ago. They have someone that will be updating for them during the race and I'm looking forward to coverage from their perspective. They have some interesting videos and great information on all the work that goes into race preparation.

I'll most likely be updating through out the week but here are some links to check throughout the race.

If you have any other links please share them!

So who are you cheering for?

Spring has Sprung!

2009-03-06T20:54:00.004-05:00

Ann was released from the hospital Wednesday and yesterday John took her back to her GP. She is doing much better. I had a fairly quiet day at work. Sally didn't go to school, her mother was taking her to the doctor but she was out with the other kids in the morning and she looked ok. B had a class for job #2 so the boys were here for dinner and we had a pleasant evening with them, watching some silly cartoon movie.

Today was mostly an ugly day but for me, the best day of the week! I always wave to the drivers that have to stop for me and mouth the words "thank you". Usually about half of them wave back. This morning every single one waved back!!! All of the kids were out and ready and most of them said good morning. I picked up a little craft kit for the Nikki and Liz and gave it to them just before we left on the route and they both said, "Grandma, you're the best!" Most mornings they will barely talk to me. Sally was back and has pictures of her xray. I'm very relieved that she's going to be fine.

We went down to Syracuse to see Mom today and I took a walk around the yard. Here is one of her clumps of daffodils.

Out back she has a few snowdrops blooming! We are usually 2-3 weeks behind her so I'm hopefull I'll have something here soon.

The temperatures here got into the 50's - it's still is the 50's! Let the melting begin. By the end of the weekend we may no longer need ice skates to get across the driveway :-)

Runaways & Emergency

2009-03-04T17:33:00.004-05:00

My job is rarely dull but today provided much more excitement than I needed. Despite a cold and snowy start the morning was pleasant and I had no reason to expect the afternoon would be any different.

My first route went ok. The kids were acting a bit goofy but not bad. I picked up my shuttle kids early and headed to my elementary school. I ended up with a new shuttle student who had been on the wrong shuttle. New to the district she wasn't sure of her new address so we got that straightened out just as the little kids started boarding. Nothing went right from then on. My two new kids got on and I assigned them seats. The dispatcher was calling me on the radio but I couldn't hear what she wanted because that kids were so loud. I yelled at them and got them quiet and then found that two of us were both trying to use the radio at once, canceling each other out. Meanwhile one of the girls starts screaming because one of the boys stuck his tongue out at her. Then somebody had to tell on somebody else and I'm still trying to answer the radio call. I breathed a sigh of relief when they released the buses and we started rolling.

I get to the light and go right and the new shuttle kid panics because she lives to the left. I reassured her that I'd be going back that way. Make a stop, another right turn and they're calling me on the radio again - the new kid's mother is calling to find out when I'll have her home. Turn the next corner and at the second stop the two new regular kids get off with a group at one of the sitters on the route. I cross that group and release the kids that aren't crossing and catch a glimpse of the two new kids running back down the street! I've got a full bus, I can't get off and chase them down and I have no idea why they're running away. I rolled up even with the sitter's door and start pulling on the air horn. One of the kids came out and I told them I needed the sitter. She finally came out and I explained that the new kids had taken off. It turns out that they live back that way and their mother was home early so the sitter had yelled to them to just go home, but I never saw her stick her head out the door. So they weren't really runaways but it was a scary couple of minutes for me.

Soooo, I'm in the middle of my next turn, onto a busy street and one of the kids screams that Sally just swallowed a quarter! Then somebody else screamed that she couldn't breath. Several kids were now all yelling at once. I got straightened out and looked up in my mirror. I could see Sally and I thought I heard her crying. Before I could get the bus pulled over another kid confirmed that she was breathing. This all happened in less than ten seconds I guess. I radioed in that a child had swallowed a quarter and that I was going directly to her residence. She was upset but otherwise seemed fine when we got there. Now I had other parents calling in because I had driven right by their stops and they were worried about their kids and dispatch needed to confirm that we did not need the ambulance. Everyone got home safely, if a bit late.

I stayed late to fill out an incident report and other drivers stopped in to share their stories with me. I guess I'm glad it was a quarter rather than a key chain or third of a pencil or any of the other items mentioned and I hope none of my kids ever sticks candy up their nose.

It's only Wednesday........