Friday Odds & Ends

Yesterday's visit to the Waterford School (better link) seems to have gone well. No problems with food or costume and Little Dude was co-winner of the spelling bee! Managed to get some suffix work in before the trip to George Mason University and did multi-step multiplication in the car and the Patriot Center before the ceremonies began. J-Man's graduation was very nice and I'm glad we could attend. Luckily, it ended at 9pm; unfortunately, it was pouring down rain when we left for home.

ALM and Ms Giggles have been baking cookies for two days in preparation for the Bake Sale at the Potomac Station Giant, Saturday from 8am to 2pm. St Gabriel's youth are raising money to attend the REACH Workcamp in Hurricane, WV this July. They will be helping to repair the homes of needy residents for a week. Tuition is $399 a person and we have 10 people going this year, plus there are transportation and other expenses. And they have to purchase their own tools/supplies. Come by and get a cookie, muffin or brownie!

We have a full weekend of activities, but we need to see the new Star Trek movie! Guess we'll have to see if we can fit it in on Sunday, but it might depend on the weather. Saturday night would work with our schedule, but that's probably the most crowded time. And Little Dude likes to comment on the screen action which works best at matinee time.

Ms Giggles has filled out about two dozen job applications since arriving back home last week and has two interviews today. Hoping for quick success. Floggy called yesterday...to ask for $ of course, lol.

I'm still following the school boundary and school location battles that won't seem to end. Besides the local paper links, John Stevens blog has a lot of comments including the April 30 entry about Ashburn Farm and Lansdowne. Expecting some official news from Little Dude's school soon also.

Am thankful that friend's surgery went well and seminarian's thesis is completed; am praying for couple who lost their son to sudden illness earlier this week.

TGIF

Waterford School

Today was the big field trip to the one-room schoolhouse in Waterford, commonly referred to as the Waterford School. I learned many things that I didn't know from the website and other information came home from our teachers. Initially, our concern was getting an appropriate costume for Little Dude. We ended up with black boots (on clearance at Super Target < $9.00), old black baseball tube socks (so he wouldn't complain about the boots rubbing on his legs), dark brown pants that he already owned but with the internal elastic bands buttoned to the loosest setting, men's suspenders (Sears = $20), a white button top, the required white handkerchief and a straw hat (Party City = $20). He complained about the use of the tube socks, "I think the use of dye was rare." We thought it was the acrylic part that was worse than the color. But not coming home with a rash on his legs that would bother him for two days and send him to the school clinic was the most important.

Then we moved onto HOW to pack his lunch. Of course no plastic, foil or paper bags could be used. Having the opportunity to lose a tin or basket seemed silly, so we decided to tie it up in a bandanna. Finally, we got to the food itself, and it became clear to me why life expectancy used to be so short. Let these items sit in a hot classroom for half a day and see how your stomach feels: hard boiled egg, chunk of cheese, sandwich spread with lard, bacon fat, molasses, syrup or jam. So far I'm having a jam sandwich, but Little Dude doesn't eat jam. We decided he'd at least try to eat bacon pieces on biscuit, an apple and chewy chocolate chip cookies. Guess we better have his snack ready when he gets off the bus! Meanwhile, I'm trying to imagine the triglyceride levels of those eating a lard sandwich. I guess we survived the white bread with margarine and bologna, but only because we stopped eating it as trends changed.

Tonight J-Man graduates from college, so we are experiencing the extremes of education in one day. Hope it doesn't go too late.

Haven't made any more progress on our math or suffix list. Maybe we can get some suffix tasks done after the snack this afternoon; will have to save the math for the weekend I guess. Might try to take some info with us in the car.