Back to work.

Soccer started 6 weeks ago.  School started 2 weeks ago.  I'm back to work more than full time.  I am teaching a new course this year, Environmental Science.  Much like Forensic Science from a couple of years ago this is outside my area of expertise and thus requires a significant time investment for planning.  I got a decent amount done during the summer to hopefully carry me through much of soccer season, which is good because I have done little more since school started.

I am also in a new room.  Due to some growth, we needed another science room, and the only place there was space was in the basement, 2 floors down from where I was.  I had to move my room over the summer, which required a lot of work, because of all the lab equipment.  I'm settled in, stuff is put away and the room is somewhat decorated.  I didn't have a clock for the first few days as maintenance was still getting the little stuff done, so a student bought me one of these:

It's awesome.  It's the one where the tails and eyes move back and forth.  I mounted it front and center above my whiteboard.  The consensus amongst my students is that it is both creepy and distracting.

On the home front there is much going on. Mom is recovering well.  They are looking to hit the road shortly after Labor Day as Mom is now able to get into and out of the truck on crutches.  Brenda and her daughters spent a week here in August helping out while Collyn was in California for a writer's conference.  That was a huge help.  Speaking of huge help, George and Marlice stopped by for a few days in early August at the same time and we got the two large, decrepit spruce trees cut down.  I spent a few days sweating to death in the heat cutting up the brush and hauling away the small green stuff.  The rest of it I stacked along the fence and we now have a lovely wood pile.

You may also notice we have some raised beds.  They were more of a pain than one would think because the ground is quite sloped, so we had to do some beveling of the sides digging out a trench.  They sit right where one of the trees used to be.  We cleared of the pine litter and dug down into the soil, where I found I giant rock, that after 30 minutes of digging around I gave up on and decided to leave where it was, so one of our beds has a fairly shallow section.  We partially filled them with dirt from the other side of the backyard, where we dug out for a brick patio.  We got a bunch of work done on it today before rain from the remnants of Hurricane Isaac shut us down.  We are hoping to finish it this weekend as during the week I don't have time to get much work done, and I have several weekends with soccer tournaments coming up.

I did a little brick work back in the summer lining the front walk.  That spruce tree to the right is gone as well.  We are creating a planting mound in its place, that we will tie into a weeping cherry tree that will be planed a little ways further off to the side. We are going to repeat this around the back concrete patio as well.

 

 And now, since it's nearly Labor day, I leave you with a song of celebration: