misty dawn

i have been writing names on hundreds and hundreds, and hundreds of transcript plastic holders in preparation for moving files to the conference office since our school is closing. lots of interesting names.

i have never liked my name...means bitter -- if you look now for the meaning it says something about loved, but the original hebrew is bitter.

now my son tells me he doesn't like his name.

my sister's youngest son doesn't like the spelling of his name.

my daughter has the same name as thousands of her generation.

BUT, no one in our family is named misty dawn.

i saw it on a transcript.

kitty bathroom

my son made a practical kitty bathroom out of a toy box. very cool if you live in a small space. i like that the lid opens up for cleaning up. since i am moving into a house that will have three cats, seriously thinking about making one or two.

needs of the soul

i just finished watching a pbs show on the rebuilding of tick hall on montauk point.
in order to satisfy my soul i need to order my life, surround myself with beauty, and live with generosity.

what they did cost much money, but to have beauty and peace in life does not require money, just the right attitude & sensitivity.

loess

i tried to find a bigger map but got tired of searching. i was thinking about loess today because the wind for the last several days has been blowing between 30 and 40 miles an hour pretty constantly. which means top soil is being blown eastward and being deposited somewhere else. the desposits of this fine dust makes up loess hills. there is more in nebraska than i guessed. everyone always mentions the loess hills in iowa along the missouri river and the loess hills in china. so i was surprised to see so much in nebraska. we are probably in the dark red area here. but at the rate the wind is blowing we won't have any left. well it will take a while and at the same time more is blowing in from colorado and western nebraska. loess soil is very fertile.

it is difficult to really compare actual area covered. sorry.

treasures

while packing i keep running into treasures that i have tucked away...and forgotten

a christmas card from 2 years ago from my employer with a 100 dollar bill :) i had added some extra to it. so now i will keep adding for my trip to paris... should open a special savings account, but it is nice to feel it and see it...

a card written by my daughter for mother's day on special green paper ...:)

a little basket for potpourri decorated by my son ...: )

other observations:
like my mother i have a collection of scarves no one else will want. one is a gift from my boy friend in high school....he died from leukemia when i was a junior
i think i have a thing about time... lots of little clocks that i don't use since i now always check my cell for time and date. but i'm not going to throw them away.
i have way too many things. my advice is to think carefully what you collect. once things are in your house the items spin webs of event memories....then it is hard to get rid of them.

dilema

so... i don't whether to be happy or sad that i don't have to worry about anyone looking out for me...that i can take care of myself.

jobs

sometimes i am think that everyone should be forced to change jobs every 5 years or 6. if a person stays at a job any longer than that they start thinking they own the job if not invented it and that no one else can do it as good as they can because they know everything about the job.

long ago i decided that i would do a job or assignment to the best of my ability in the time and space allowed but that i would never OWN the job. when i left or was fired, that was it. there is always someone who can do the job...... maybe worse, maybe better, maybe a lot better. but at that point it is not your job.

i think one of the reasons the school where i am know needed to close is that too many people thought and think (those few that are still here) they own the job. once you think that, it seems that you lose your ability to think outside the box and to be flexible.

so when i leave i will try not to make comments or roll my eyes about what happens. it's not my job anymore. it is so freeing.

just by chance

i just happened to go to dannabrog ... nothing going on in shelton and i thought i should go there before i left nebraska as it is the home of roger welsch who used to be on cbs's sunday morning. so, they were having a tractor meet in the little town of 325. i took lots of pictures. there were not lots of tractors, but they were interesting. i walked around of course, and checked out a couple of stores looking for a souvenir. hopefully something made in dannebrog, or something danish.

the first store had stuff that seemed to be shipped in. but a bought a little old time replica of a wringer washing machine....one dollar. had little seed pearls for bubbles in the machine.

in the next store i found some paper danish christmas harts and stars made by the residents and some straw cones and stars made in sweden. good prices. one dollar for 4 hearts and one dollar for 4 stars . the straw ornaments were 5.

there was also a stack of books by welsch so i bought one. as i was waiting in line (one person in front of me) i spied what i thought might be roger sitting in front of the store. he was probably there when i walked by. i was busy taking pictures of tractors. i asked the store owner if it was roger, he said yes, i asked if he thought roger welsch would mined if i asked for an autograph. the owner said he wouldn't' mind at all. i rather gathered that mr. welsch would enjoy it.

i asked him, and he talked my leg off. i mentioned that my grandfather was a blacksmith....that was why i bought a book on horse trading. mr. welsch not only told me the background of the book but about other blacksmiths he knew. he also talked about helping shoe big horses. etc. he could have told tales all afternoon. but his friendliness is probably how he collects all the tales in the first place.

and he did sign the book.

the train crew

the first picture shows all the crawlers on the track that seem to be checking bolts, fluffing gravel, checking plumb, etc. all i know is that in the spaces you can see the sky through the machines there are men sitting and doing something. behind one of the crawlers another crawler with a magnet was sweeping the gravel for metal something and putting it in a cart.

the other three pictures show a 10 or 12 car set with yellow cars on either end. the cleaner cars seem to be the beginning. but most interesting were the 4 or 5 blackened cars in the middle with strange looking mechanics. you can see through the sets to the sky on the other side. i saw men walk through the openings. there seemed to be two cars where men could work or live and 2 or 3 fuel cars. non of the cars really look like engines but i am sure it moves up and down the track doing something. it must be important because i am guessing the whole thing is very expensive. it reeks money.

graduation

what i learned this year

1. never wear high rise undies with low rise jeans.....sigh (not me!!!! someone else)
2. don't sponsor the senior or junior class at the same time as being registrar
3. triple check everything
4. running away to town with your new fun car doesn't make work go away.....sigh
5. true colors of students rise quickly to the surface when grades are final
6. even though you are graduating...ie four years and retiring .... you are not the star or even a twinkle
7. sticking it out in a dying organization is not always the best choice for everyone, if your young get on your horse and ride out of dodge
8. we are all dysfunctional, some a lot more than others
9. if you can affect someone's future, they are very nice to your face, can't really be friends with those who are dependent on your evaluations
10. young people take technology and many other things for granted ( i learned to type on a manual typewriter and cranked the telephone to make it ring three short and a long instead of speaking a name)

gender bias

as i drive my mini

i can see men mouth the word .....mini .... with a kind of 'that's cool' look as i drive

women say "cute car!" when i pull up to the take out window

old age bias....why won't my telephone work to unlock the doors and change channels on the TV....kirk's communicator did everything!

awards

i hereby award myself an award for having award certificate supplies for teachers available and for making last minute awards for staff without technical finesse.

GOOD JOB!

new and old auto

it was sad to say goodbye to my old friend muffy. we have had all 4 wheels off the ground at once, been on mountain tops, curvy roads, flat plains roads, and through water pot holes. but finally i needed air conditioning for summer--the heat is just to much for me. in colorado i could get by. and i was starting to trip on the lip when i got out. sigh..... so something different.

i was thinking about a yaris or honda... then thinking i will just keep the jeep and get a new top, radio/cd player, get the dent fixed. etc. and buy a golf cart to use around town for groceries and errands.

but then my nephew called and said he had found a mini for me. i had mentioned that what i really wanted was a mini, but didn't have the money for it. but he found a used one...2005 S.

it was more than i wanted to pay, but .............it had air, leather seats, heated seats, cd/radio, sun roof, fog lights, cruise control, .......... it was love at first sight.

my sister and i went shopping with the mini and were able to get our groceries and 4 big flower planters in the back with no problem. for most of our little shopping trips it will be fine. when it is snowy and slippery we will take the blazer. when we go cross country we will take the mini.

now i have bert in the garage. i took bert out today thinking i would drive to gi with it but decided to take the school car since my new insurance isn't quite the right kind for providing taxi service for kids needing to go to town. so what happens!. it hails. but i think it is okay.

trains old and new

On my way to Belle to pick up my "new" car i passed a train with these strange cars. I don't know what was in them, but suspect the contents maybe were parts for the planes that were on the two flatbeds following.

I had not ever seen planes on trains before. Of course, there were no wings!

Earlier that week I had gone with the students to North Platte where we saw an old steam engine. It was so large that it had two separate sets of drive wheels and was articulated. When you look at it from the front it is off center. I don't know exactly how it works. Guess I would have to see a model that actually worked. I have ridden on articulated buses, but it looks like the top part of the train does not bend, only the two bottom parts are articulated.

They had a mail car attached. it was interesting to see all the mail bags and slots.

There was also an old rail bicycle. Instead of two men powering the wheels by pushing a bar up and down, you could ride the rails by "bicycling." I am not sure you can see it all in the picture.

old lady river riding

sabbath afternoon i loaded up 5 of the 6 junior girls and headed to valentine nebraksa. we went through overcast skies, rain, mist, hail, and finally when we close, it lightened up. the weather is so fickle. we thought it was smooth sailing. however, but the time we were driving up a steep road to the top of a bluff over the niobrara it was sprinkling again. you have to picture a big truck....you know the double seats etc, with a horse trailer behind with horse.(trailer could hold at least 3 or 4) plus the obligatory dog in the truck plus the cowboy brother, the girls and the old lady sponsor. the trailer wasn't going to make it up so it was unhitched and the cowboy and his sister(one of the junior girls) alternately drove and rode the horse--dudley.
by the time we were on time we had only a few minutes to enjoy the view before it rained heavy duty. the cowboy road is horse down lickety split leaving the sister drive everyone else down on the slickery up and down road. got stuck on a little rise and had to figure out that it was not in 4 wheel . backed up several times to get a running start but it was no go until it was put in 4 wheel low and then it was no problem. it was right at sunset. the view was pretty while it lasted. we made it safely back to the cabin on the gumbo/sand road.

The next day it was sunny enough and warm enough to go kayaking. we stopped on the way down the river to see the step falls pictured above. it is the perfect river for a beginner and old ladies like myself. most of the time you can touch the bottom with your paddle. there were a few wavy places and one place where there was a whirlpool, but you just had to go around the island on the left and you were home free.

the girls all got sunburned. they wanted to. they were in swimsuits and shorts.

half way back home we ran into rain again. girls didn't care. they were all asleep in the back of the van. no wonder. they slept on the hard deck outside the night before. they only had their sleeping bags. there were soft beds inside. but... well, we were there for the adventure. i didn't need that much adventure. i slept on the bed. inside my sleeping bag. i have done my duty sleeping on hard floors over the years.

muzzle day

started out to work in office, but because of uncertainty went home to do some packing but remembered i need some cortisone so went to town. after returning and having lunch went back to the office and copied some discs, and printed the church bulletin. the people who are in charge are all off campus so had to do calling for information. in the process discovered the maintenance man had already disconnected his phone. talk about checking out early! couldn't reach the cook because there phone is misbehaving. but the bulletin is done. then remembered i needed a waterproof camera for my trip with the juniors to valentine to run down the niobrara. so back to town. principal called. didn't understand that he wanted the cook to call him. i just thought i needed to tell her they were coming back tonight and she didn't need to feed them. so he had to call someone else as i was already in kearney. then i called my sister and found out that we had water on the basement floor. somehow when you water the back yard now, water finds it way in. didn't do it last summer. so it has to do with the remolding that went on downstairs. sigh. did i get any packing done. no. sigh.

bible study dangerous

i usually try to avoid the local bible study. life is calmer if i don't go. but this weekend for some reason i wound up in class. they were studying prophecy. the discussions wandered wildly away from the subject even though the teacher --politely tried to return to the topic again and again. a lot was said about those "californians" and those people who didn't study the prophecies and instead emphasized relationship with GOD. i kept my mouth shut as much as possible. discussion what people wear or not wear to church is a non issue and a waste of time. (not even close to any one of the commandments) but my body paid the price. it kept getting stiffer and stiffer and when i went to get up i twisted weirdly and wound up with a pulled or strained muscle. i have been trying to get rid of the pain since then. so finally, wednesday afternoon i went to the doctor and got some muscle relaxer. i am subbing for a teacher this week besides doing my own classes and it is alumni weekend. i can't be out of commission. i plan to stay away from adult bible study and stay with the youth bible study.

new favorite author

this author has been around for awhile, but i just discovered him. many of his books have 'book" in the title, hence the interest. also, he lives in denver and since i once lived in boulder, i know the places he talks about.

but the best part is his ability to keep me off the the computer, away from the tv and up at night to finish the book!

great mystery writer.

waiting

i hope i don't have to wait too long to pick up my car! anticipation always grows larger the longer the wait and the greater the chance for let down. i thought i might pick it up this weekend, but no such luck. cyn is coming down next weekend for alumni, so maybe if it is in belle she will drive it down although i don't know how the money will get transfered that way or the plates done. i want to get sd plates.

one good thing about waiting is my money gets to make some more interest ...puny as it is.

i keep looking up on the internet to see pictures.

i saw one in kearney the other day and actually saw one in omaha in front of the barnes and noble store. there were 3 jeeps in the parking lot also. real jeeps not those liberty pretend things.

in the hot seat

i cannot seem to cut and past or copy a picture of a mini so i just put a link in (click on the lighthouse). i went and did it. bought a used mini with low mileage. traded my jeep, muffy. i think i will call the mini bertie. it will be the first car i have owned with air conditioning and with an automatic transmission . it gets good mileage and the repair rate is good and it gets a high rating from the 'green' guys. i had to climb in the jeep....now i will have to climb out of the mini. and it has heated seats..... leather. wow!