Friday Photos

A look back at the week, Monday through Friday, through photos

Early in the week, I subbed in 1st grade for half a day. This is aberrational for me as I do not, as a general rule, sub for little kids. They are cute as can be but generally it's much more challenging to sub for a group of kids who are less independent than what I am used to. I subbed because one of my teacher friends asked me to sub for her. She teaches for half the day at the school where I normally sub (a middle school) and then goes to our district's pre-k to 1st grade school and teaches half a day there. Of course teachers are not tasked with finding their own subs- but they are welcome to find them and that saves the school secretaries the job of posting the position. So I agreed to it- truly I can do 1/2 day anywhere- and hoped for the best. I had four classes of 1st graders (I was a specials teacher) so I introduced myself to four different classes. In each class, at least one student asked if they could call me "Mrs. R" instead of "Mrs. Rineer." I felt kinda like a meanie but I told the students that they could handle saying a two syllable name. To mitigate the harshness of my unwillingness to agree to an easier/ truncated name pronunciation, I told the students that if/ when I sub for them in the month of December, they can call me "Mrs. Reindeer" since reindeer is a word associated with the Christmas season and Rineer and Reindeer rhyme and sound someone similar. That mollified them! It was actually a good afternoon but my voice was tired at the end of it.

I read them this book which was cute enough... and asked the students if they felt like they'd like to nap during the day and was surprised when almost all of the students raised their hands. The students also colored and we played a musical game together. Whenever I sub for the music teacher, I always give the students the spiel that unfortunately I don't have musical talent like their real teacher so we have to do things differently when I am there (it's a good segue to talking about how everyone has different talents and things they're good at).

Tuesday something very not good happened. When I pushed the start button on the dryer, the dryer did not "ding" to life. (When working properly, I hear the sound of, "do, do, do, DO (last DO in a higher note) when I hit the start button.) Nothing happened. I was worried but no pit burrowed its way in my stomach. This had happened to me about three weeks prior and a simple unplugging of the machine and plugging it back in restored power to the dryer. This time, however, when I plugged the cord back in, several sparks flew up, I heard a zapping sound and had long Covid not reduced my sense of smell to about 50% of what it had been pre Covid, I may have smelled something malodorous as well. Now, a pit borrowed in my stomach. No dryer. A decent bit of clothes that needed to be washed and (ideally) dried in the dryer. Ugh. I called electricians and one could come out on Friday to take a look at it. 

One burnt prong- unfortunately 1/4 of the prongs being burnt is enough to do damage....

I was worried my dryer was a goner- I thought that the damage may have extended to the dryer itself. Fortunately, the damage was exclusive to the cord and the electrical plate thing where  the cord plugs into the wall.

Later on Tuesday, I drove about thirty minutes to Beavercreek, OH to see JD Vance at a meet and greet. He is running for a vacating seat in the US senate. I've followed his campaign and thanks to adding my name to a list of supporters, I was notified of the event. I've written before that I like JD Vance a lot. He wrote the book Hillbilly Elegy that was later made into a movie.  He and I have quite a bit in common, starting with being on same side politically on every issue that's facing the country. Besides that, though, JD and I have other things in common. We both grew up poor- he in Middletown, OH and I in rural Indiana. Neither one of us had assurances of going to college (indeed JD joined the military right after high school and pursued college after that). We both graduated from law school, passed the bar but had little to no legal careers (JD did work as an attorney for a short time whereas I worked for a company that provided legal services before I quit my job to be a stay at home mom). We had many fundamental differences growing up- but the basics of growing up poor and the uncertainty and stress that inures from that is something that resonated with me when I read his memoir and watched the movie. I also don't agree with everything that he's said (I don't consider myself a sycophant) but I agree with the vast majority and certainly I agree with him on all the salient issues. 

This yard sign was on the grounds of the place where he spoke. I was able to get one to place in our yard.

There he is while he was being introduced....

Me & JD and Lindsey- After JD and Lindsey talked, attendees were able to meet and get pictures with them. I am not a huge Lindsay Graham fan but he was part and parcel of the meet and greet and photo.

Meanwhile back in Springboro, when Donnie and Alyssa both first saw this, they thought it was some sort of Halloween decor (silly them, they should know I don't decorate with ghosts). It was a sheet that I'd hung to dry. It was part of the wash for which I'd turned the dryer on earlier only to have nothing happen. In an effort to dry the wash (fortunately, mostly thin sheets), I hung the sheets in various places around the house.

The rest of the week passed by quickly with more work:

I subbed for a specials teacher again but this time at a middle school (and was thankfully not expected to teach music to the students- they did an assignment about famous composers). 

 And then on Friday I couldn't work because an electrician was coming to (hopefully) fix the dryer which he did. I was super grateful and started doing literal loads of laundry.

I also  made another batch of marina sauce and froze it. The tomatoes are ripening nicely on the counter in a bag with a banana (a method by which unripe picked tomatoes are supposed to ripen)

I treated myself to CFA for lunch. I had a reward in the app for a free chicken sandwich so I got that and then bought a drink. A cheap lunch and one with way more protein than I have for lunches when I sub. When I sub, I pack thinks like pretzels, animal crackers, a granola bar and maybe a tangerine- basically no protein. So I felt like I did something good for myself, the chicken fried in peanut oil notwithstanding ;).