Corner View: Monochrome

 I especially liked how this turned out.  It's a little barn all by itself in a field near where I get my hair done.

 The next few pictures were taken in a cemetery that overlooks part of our small town.  We had had a deep snow and I trudged up there to get some shots.

For more monochrome, go on over to Francesca's.

Corner View: Paper

 I like to cut out items from the newspaper.  Such items include recipes, pictures featuring family members, and articles about interesting places to go or things to do. I stick them on my fridge with magnets.
Here are the bits of paper that are on my fridge now.

 Ogleby Park in Wheeling, WV has a children's zoo and train.  I want to take the grandkids there.

 I liked this list as I am going to have the grandkids one day a week.  We've done the chalk sidewalk art.

Grandson Dillon is the boy standing by the blond-haired girl in purple.  He has on a bight blue t-shirt with a design on it.

 My son's family company owns a Cross Fit gym and recently they did a special  work out in honor of a fallen soldier.  My son is 2nd from the right in the back row. He manages the gym as well as his other numerous duties as president of his family company (they have gas stations and roofing, heating, air conditioning stores.

 I think I will go to some near-by farmer markets because they are at other times in the week instead of the Saturday morning that our local one is on.

 I'm interested in getting the kids in the summer reading program, but they've been and are still on vacation, so hopefully they'll let them join late.

My grandkids' mother's family company is Mosser Glass in Cambridge, Ohio.  They were featured in the paper recently.  Mindy, my son's ex, is the woman in the printed sleeveless dress standing behind the cake plate.

For more corner views on paper, go on over to Francesca's place.

Retirement with the grandkids

The first week of retirement I scheduled a day with the grandkids.  Friday was their first day off from school and they would be staying Thurs. night at their dad's.   So I arranged to get there when he had to leave for work, so that the oldest, Peyton, could sleep in.  Dillon opted to go to the sitter's as there were going to be boys there that he hadn't seen for awhile.  That left the girls and me.

I had bought the game Quirkle for them for Christmas.  It's a game much like dominoes except it uses shapes and colors.  I had bought the extension boards for the game which makes it much harder to play. Peyton loves it.  It can't keep Addy's attention and Dillon hasn't played it yet. We learned one of the extended board games that day and we each won one game.

Next we went to the Cambridge city pool.  We arrived there a little before 11, so we got in right when it opened and found good chairs.  The chairs were taken up quickly.

Addy headed straight for the diving boards to jump off.  She did not go on the high one though.

Peyton hooked up with some friends who were there also.  Eventually, Addy found a friend there too. We  were there for 3 hours, I read an entire More magazine, and the girls had a blast.

After we went home and changed we went to DQ (Dairy Queen) to get ice cream.  They had pizza at the pool.

Peyton is the third from the left and then there is Addy.

The next week Peyton stayed overnight here so we could go shopping together at a near-by mall.  I drove to Cambridge and picked her up at her middle school after she finished a volleyball open gym. We went to Bob Evans for supper and took some food home to Grandpa.
The next day we went shopping at an Old Navy store where she got jeans, tops, and a bathing suit.
We stocked her up on purse size hand sanitizer at Bath and Body (her request), took some things back to Penny's, and made a quick stop at Target.  We had a lunch of broccoli cheddar soup and bread at Panera Bread. It's a favorite lunch of mine.
After we got home, we played another game of Quirkle, then I took her to her mom's. It was a wonderful day.

This past week they've been gone on vacation with their mom and her family.  They got back Sat. and left today for a week long vacation with another set of grandparents, their dad,  Aunt Sara,Uncle Jory, Uncle Eric, and cousins.
However, we managed to get a supper in last night.  Doug had to bring his dog over for us to dog sit. So I made tacos, corn on the cob, and pasta salad.  We then went for ice cream.  (I think that will be a recurrent trip this summer.)

The younger ones helped bring the bird feeders in and threw out corn for the lone deer that visits. They always enjoy doing that. It was another pleasant time with them.

Last day of school for me foreverr

 As of June 1st, I am officially retired.  These photos were taken on the last day I was at school. I had worked hard for several months on getting the room cleaned up and organized for the new teacher.  I sorted through 11 years of teaching and threw a lot of stuff  out.  The rest I organized into binders and crates of folders.

 The new teacher spent an afternoon with me and I went through everything and she used sticky notes to remind her of where certain things were.  She's in her thirties with 3 kids.  She has a lot of enthusiasm which is, of course, good.
I had the kids keep notebooks in the classroom and we stored them in crates.  I had no use for the crates so I left them for her as she too will be requiring notebooks.  It's for a 'bell-ringer' that gets the kids in their seats and copying a sentence to correct or a journal prompt to respond to.

 You can see some of the posted notes. Everything was in my car or at home that I wanted except for the printer.  Another teacher carried it out to my car to go back home. It's fairly new and a very good one; it was my husband's --he got a new one.  I needed one at school for printing a brochure project.  Our school does not have a color printer for general  use.
  I'm giving my old one from home to a teacher friend who teaches two rooms from mine.  She will have the tech guy hook it up  or she will just use it with her lap top.  Either way she is happy. No more leaving her classroom in the middle of a class to get something. Its color is not as good as the other one, but she doesn't need color.

I left the basic bulletin board stuff up too.  The janitors don't wipe down the bulletin boards so they tell us to just leave the stuff up.  She can change everything if she wants.  I left a lot of supplies for her also because I don't need them in retirement.  She was grateful as her husband has already warned her not to spend a lot on getting her classroom ready.
When I came there the teacher before me had a ritual of throwing a worksheet away the last time she used it.  She left me nothing: no worksheets. tests. or lesson plans and no supplies.  I was completely on my own and it was daunting.   I didn't want to do that to my replacement.

It felt  good to walk out and know I was done---that not only my summer was free and clear but the rest of my life also.

I will be trying to write regularly about my retirement.  This and the previous posts are the first installments.

Corner View: Together

The high school staff got together and had a surprise party for the five teachers who were retiring.
They had all kinds of delicious food and then a cake with our pictures on it.  They also got each of the women a beautiful inscribed keepsake music box and a prayer/praise daily stand-up calendar. We were truly surprised! They even had our spouses there!  I'm in the back on the right. I was officially retired as of June  1.  Hallelujah!

For more corner views on together, go to Francesca's.