church, a birthday thing, and a POD

here is the catch up of my day thus far.

Sunday is church day. Our Sunday service starts at 11 am and usually runs until 1 pm. The church is a 30 to 45 minute drive from home. We did our usual. We picked up the grand baby. She loves going to church with Grandma and Papaw. Today, however, after church was a surprise birthday party for the Pastor. He turned 71 today. Because of his health and energy, you would never guess him much past 60, though.

Before we left for church, my oldest daughter "A" called me about poetry. She didn't like the TS Eliot poem I found for her renewal ceremony. She had been searching online for poems and decided to check out the website of her favorite poet. (That would be me, her dear old dad.) She found one she liked but it didn't fit exactly. Tammy mentioned, loud enough to be heard, that she needed a POD. A POD, she questioned, What is a POD? POD is Poetry On Demand. Over the years, several close friends have requested poems for certain occasions. They would tell me the situation and what they wanted to say, and I would go from there. I do have a couple things in my favor. I am very empathic. I can seem to feel what those around me are feeling. It goes back to a prayer I prayed about being more compassionate. Also, I do know how to write. It isn't being conceited, it is just a fact. I call it one of my gifts from God.

"A" found a poem with a couple lines she liked and asked for her POD. The lines she liked were on a brass folding purse mirror that I had engraved as an anniversary gift when her mom and I were married. They were also in another poem I wrote years ago. I took those words and what I felt from her an composed a new poem. I called her this afternoon and she was pleased that it was done (I mean, we only have 8 months until the ceremony.)

You will see the lines she liked in the following poem:

I Knew

I knew you before I knew you

There are things we have and outgrow
There are clothes that become too small
There are toys that become too childish
For all the possessions that come and go
There are things that we keep all our lives
One of the deepest is the idea
That there is someone just to love us
It is reinforced every time
We see lovers holding hands
It grows every time
We see couples steal a kiss
From our birth we have held this knowing
There is someone out there
Someone just for me to love
And to love me in return
So you see,
I knew you
Before I knew you

I knew you, and then I loved you

When I first met you I did not know
I didn’t know if you were that one
I didn’t know where you were going to fit
I didn’t know what place you would hold
But I knew you
You were like a rose
I was captivated by your charm
I was awed by your beauty
The vibrancy of your colors
The sharpness of your thorns
Time passed
And my heart fell in love with you
I knew you
And then I loved you

I loved you, and then I knew you

As our love grew
I began to behold
As the rose opened itself
Revealing more and more
What I knew I knew more
What I loved I loved more
The love became deeper
The knowing became fuller
The more I knew The more I loved,
The more I loved The more I knew,
I loved you
And then I knew you

Before I knew you, I knew you
I knew you, and then I loved you
I loved you, and then I knew you

Ron Simpson, Jr.
October 26, 2008

the week

It has been a week.

I have had better. I have had worse.

I took the truck for estimates and filed the police report. The local estimate was just under $2000. My agent gave me the bad news. They were mistaken in their earlier conversation with me. The deductible is $500. So, through no fault of my own, I am going to be out $500.

Tuesday and Wednesday were basically eventless. Well, not exactly. I have been building shelves for the garage and attempting to clean out some of the boxes that have been stored there since we moved in almost two years ago. I did manage to clean out several boxes and create some good piles of trash to be dragged to the curb by the boy. However, one of the things I did find was something I have been searching for. I found 6 of 10 chapters of "Seeds". For those that don't know, 'Seeds' is a novel I started many years ago. I am now in the process of typing the chapters I have found and storing them on hard drives and jump drives.


The kids started school on Thursday. So, the house is peaceful during the day.


Today, Kyle missed his bus. When the bus got here and no Kyle got off, we were worried. We did figure, since Chella didn't get off either, that she was bringing him with her. One call from her squelched that idea. Her ride drove back to the school and they found Kyle, sitting and talking to his friends. He hadn't bothered to call or let us know anything. "Bad Kyle"

Tammy was reading him the riot act. Sierra was here. She said, "I am glad I moved out."

I looked at her and said, "You moved out?!?!?!?" LOL .. she is here more than she is home.

Oh yeah, we now have over 250 pounds of boxer. A friend was moving and had to find homes for her two dogs. She called us. We found a home for the 11 yr old Lab mix. We told her we would take Sampson until we found him a home. We remembered Sampson. When we had Malcolm, Sampson came to visit (3 yrs ago) and He was about Malcolm's size (80 pounds.)

Well, Sampson came on Thursday. He is 110 to 120 pounds. (pictures will follow) He is HUGE !!!! At 75 to 80 pounds, Dusty looks small next to him. With all three, Rocky @ 70ish pounds, Dusty @ 80ish pounds, and Sampson @ 110ish pounds, that gives us over 250 pounds of boxer.

Tammy took Sampson with her last night on a midnight errand. She took him in the Mustang. He filled that front seat. She said that he rides great. She felt extremely safe. He is a great dog. He is well behaved. It did take a few lessons for all three to learn to get along. They are doing much better now. Rocky has a high pitched bark (he is just one year old this week.) Sampson has a deep earthquake growl and bark.

All that, and watching the Olympics, is my week. Yours ?

yes, it has been 9 days

Here are the highlights:

Been sick with cold/flu thing. I missed Friday due to sickness.

State Program Assessment visit at the school on the 9th .. worked 5 hours overtime on Monday and Tuesday getting ready for it.

High winds blew off part of the guttering and siding, exposing a fascia board that needs to be replaced as well. Sounds like fun for me and the insurance company.

I have been working on organizing my poetry. I have 175 pieces of work in a notebook, so far. We are seriously considering doing the publishing thing.

Other than that, it has been the usual stuff, sleep, eat, beat kids, etc, etc.

Sliding into home

Feels like I have been running the bases for the last week.

Where do I start ?

The state agrees to allow me to sign the contract to hire a tour coach to take my students to the National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville. I sign and send a check for $790. The tickets are ordered and have arrived (46 tickets for $971.) We are all set to go. Well, almost, there is the matter of permission slips. I have been so wrapped up in this State approval thing that it slipped my mind to get permission slips signed by students. It was Friday, the trip was Wednesday, and I didn't have one signed permission slip.

I have to say, these guys are the worst at keeping up with, or following through with permission slips. Half of them I expected I would be calling their parents on Wednesday to get phone confirmation of their permission. (It wasn't as bad as half, but it was close.) I told the students and parents, that if school was cancelled for weather, we were still planning on going. This is a SkilsUSA trip. It isn't a school field trip. It is a co-curricular event. I told the parents that it would be at their discretion if school was cancelled to send or not send their child.

I get up Wednesday morning about 5:30 as usual. I check the school closings. Sure enough, we are closed. I call the driver of the tour bus to see if we are still on. He calls his companies garage and calls me back. The bus is cancelled. There is state-wide ice.

Students begin calling me. I begin relaying the bad news. Several asked if they could come get tickets and go on their own. Several asked about the possibility of rescheduling. I am checking on both. The ticket office doesn't open until 10AM. by then, I have heard "Welcome to Hell" about a hundred times (my ring tone.)

Eventually, we discover that we can reschedule. We will have to pay the extra $9 per ticket, as our Wednesday trip was at a group rate discount that was only available on that day. That isn't a problem. The real problem is timing. We can get a bus only on Thursday, but there is no way i can notify all my students of the change. They are checking on a bus for Friday. Then, I find out Friday won't work, because it is homecoming for the basketball team. So, no trip. $971 in tickets is lost (actually $845 as I sold 6 tickets to students at $21 per ticket) Our fundraising was for the bus fee, which is now being refunded. We will have raised $850 by the time all the money is brought in. So, we break even, sorta.

That takes us through Thursday. Friday, I was home again. This time I was sick.

Saturday finds us going to Beattyville. Chris has been moved there. It is a 48 mile drive that according to mapquest® takes 1 hour and 31 minutes. We head out about 8:30 and arrive there about 10:00. The roads were snowy and very slick. It was a tedious drive. The snow fell as we drove. Some of the stretches of road had no tracks. Most of it had just a few tracks. Still we made it there. We went to Lexington after Beattyville.

We stopped in Winchester on the way to Lexington. We went to one of the Chevy dealers there to look at Trailblazers. We drove one that drove like a tank. Then we drove one that drove great, but had aftermarket tinting done, with it's black interior, it was like a cave. There were issues with it. The gear shifter knob came off in my hand. One of the windows was cracked. All of which, the salesman assured me would be fixed. Here is what got me. He asked me what I wanted to spend. I gave him a specific number. Then he wanted to show me a GMC Envoy XUV. It was beautiful. It drove great. We were interested. We sat down at the desk and started talking price. The first words out of his mouth was the price that was $6000 more than I told him I wanted to spend. WTHeck? Quickest way to lose a sale with me is to ignore what I tell you. I know what I want. I know how much I want to spend.

From there we went to Lexington. We stopped at Motorvation to see Randy, who sold me my last two SUV's. He had a few to look at. He had a Ford Explorer. It was nice but not as comfortable. He told me he had one *a little more than I planned on spending" but well worth the price. He didn't let me test drive it until he had told me the price and made sure it was OK with me. It was, and we did. It was nice. Oh, it was nice. It was an '03 Trailblazer with 37K miles on it. It was the extended version (2ft longer.) It had third row seating. It was very nice. It drove great. It was very comfortable.

I did some quick figuring in my head as to the price with my credit unions interest. It was affordable. I wanted to stay about the same as my current loan payment. This was going to be about $70 to $80 more. It was doable. I told them to make the deal. Less than an hour later we were on the road in the new truck. We decided to keep the Bravada instead of trading it in. Trading it in would have saved us about $20 to $30 a month on the payment. That was like saying, "you can buy this Trailblazer for this much money and for an extra $30 we will throw in a nice Bravada."

We were looking for a car for Tammy anyway. She wants to put the 'ro in the shop and would need a car for a little while. we wanted to spend about $2K on a car. The payoff on the Bravada is about $2K. So, we use that money to pay off the Bravada, and she has a car she already knows all the quirks on. It only has 102K miles on it. It is a '99. Still a great ride.

Then, on Sunday, we all did the audition thing. Tammy, Chelsea, and I auditioned to sing the National Anthem at a Lexington Legends Ballgame. I auditioned last year and sang at one of the games. We auditioned individually. The CEO of the legends was one of the judges. He gave me a thumbs up. I assume that means a good thing.

Tomorrow is Presidents Day. No school for students, It is an in service day for me.

Now, you are mostly caught up.

How has your week been ?