The usual catching up to do

Here it is mid October. So much has been happening. On the 11th day of the month, Tammy and I celebrated our 4th year wedding anniversary. It was a quiet celebration. We were supposed to go to our bedroom early and not be inundated with knocks on the door to interrupt us. (That would have been nice ... not practical, but nice.) I really do believe the kids tried to keep it to a minimum. ANYWAY ....

Wow, four years with a beautiful sexy loving caring woman. I am totally spoiled. It has been five and a half years counting the delightful dating and engaging period. Tammy has had such a positive influence in my life. She sometimes disagrees with that, citing all the drama that came with her, but overall, she had been wonderful for me. Dontcha think so, Red ?

There has been a lot going on at work.The first nine week grading period is ending this week. There was potential fireworks about Wednesday, the 17th. Allow me to explain:

I have been in the process of getting a book published. I told my principal that I would be taking off a day in October to meet with the design team to go over cover design, back cover design, layout of the book, size, font to be used, and numerous other details before a first printing could take place. She was aware of this for a month or better.

October 1-5 was fall break. We had no students. I took off part of the week as did all of the other teachers. During the week off, the publisher called and scheduled the team meeting for the 17th. When I returned to school and told my principal that I needed to be off on the 17th, she balked. She told me she could not approve leave on that day, as we have students that day. No leave would be allowed except for sick leave. I was not going to lie to get the day off.

I told her I would take the day off without pay. There would be no need to pay me out of any of my three avenues to take time off (Annual leave, Sick leave, and Comp time) and therefore no problem. She informed me that I could not take leave without pay if I had any available leave time. She could only approve sick time.

As much as I hated doing it, I called my doctor's office and moved my November 23rd appointment to Oct 17 early in the morning. I filled out my leave slip as sick leave for a DR appointment.

I went to the DR at 8:45 AM and had my routine blood work done and picked up a DR excuse for work. From there, we went to Mom's house to visit, then to fill up with gas at $2.55 per gallon, then off to get my oil changed. Finally it was time to go to Bloomington, IN. It was a 198 mile drive. The first 115 miles were interstate. The last 83 miles were two laned country roads. Still it was a good drive and we got to the publishers early.

The meeting was fabulous. The team, consisting of Matt and Ryan, was great. We talked about sports teams and family for about 20 minutes before we ever got around to talking about the book. They didn't rush the process at all. There was a free sharing of ideas, and humorous stories about loved one and family. It was obvious that both had read at least part of the book and had a good feel for what we were trying to accomplish. JR, my author rep sat in on part of the meeting, which was not required at all. We chatted about UK sports and the mania in KY about it. Then it was back to book discussion. More often than not, it was me steering the conversation back to the book. It was just a good feel.

Up until now, the published thing was still an off there in the distant, can't really see it thing. Suddenly, we are talking a month.

The drive home was slow and easy. We got home about 8ish.

Back to work today. As always, after missing a day, there were numerous tales of mischief and revelry. All in all, the substitute said they were good kids and would be glad to sub for me anytime.

There ya go, all caught up.