I think I am ready to blog again. I really need to vent. School has begun and all four kids are now in school - 2 in high school, 1 in middle school and 1 in kindergarten. Whew!! But we've been doing 3 different schools for awhile now, so that part isn't too bad.
I had to go to the high school this week to take care of a problem. My freshman daughter was being 'stalked' by another student!! She started working in the school library and spoke to another student working there. He decided that he was pretty much infatuated with her and wouldn't leave her alone. He started sending very creepy emails - there were 15 emails in 3 days - all rather unnerving. Thankfully she just started deleting them and not reading them. I printed a sampling off and took them to the Dean. This student even got her personal info from the library computer and texted my work cell phone. Hopefully the problem is taken care of now, but how do you get through 10 years of school and have zero social skills or academic skills?? I mean - the guy couldn't even construct a complete sentence! 'Stalker' is the word my daughter used. If he isn't one now, he might be one someday...
On a happier note, my middle schooler thanked me the other day for sending him to the new tech school instead of the regular school. He was not thrilled about the change at first, but I knew he would love it if he gave it a chance, and he does! So many times these decisions are of the 'they'll thank me later' type, but I didn't have to wait long for the thanks this time!!
My kindergartener is LOVING school. I went in and read to them on 'Put your nose in a book' Day a few weeks ago. I read them one of my favorite (and one of the most under-rated) children's books ever - "Whitefish Will Rides Again". One of the funnest children's book EVER. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.
In other news, I now have 'high speed' internet. By 'high speed', I mean faster than dial-up, but not as fast as broadband. You see, we live in what I refer to as a cyber black hole. Even though I am less than 10 miles from a large town both north and south (we live in the country, but I don't consider myself rural - if you want rural, go to southern Alberta), I do not have access to high speed internet through the phone and cable won't come down my road. My nephew spent a couple of years in Mongolia a few years back and the joke was he had quicker, easier access to high speed than we did. So I have literally been waiting for years for reasonably priced, reliable, high speed internet. My neighbors got satellite internet and said it was working well for them so I decided to give it a try. So far, so good. It could be faster though for how much it costs - not to mention the installation/start-up cost! I don't even get their advertised lowest price. They call it a 'high volume' area which is really just code for 'we know you don't have any other options, so we're charging you more'. But I have to say that listing on eBay is much quicker. Hopefully I can increase my listings enough to offset the increase in internet cost.
My oldest son's electronic drum set died. I was so happy!! But then he got a used acoustic set from a friend. It is much, much louder than the electronic drums. *SIGH* I keep telling myself that he is a junior and he will be gone soon and I will miss him, so I try not to complain too much about the noise pollution. Maybe it's a good thing we live in the country...
