Sunday, September 4, 2022

 Sunday, September 4, 2022

I planned to get up at 6 a.m. but hit the snooze button. I connected with Vince and Julie on my morning walk. She shares details of her work decorating material in various ways, embossing, embroidering, and infusing.

  I got the blog post out before I left for church. I got there before mass started and went to sit on the north lanai. I like it there.

    A young family with two children, one about three and the other two, sat down in front of me. That made the time go fast; it was a show and a half. The kids were all over the place. As the expression goes, the parents were herding squirrels. We sit in folding chairs on the lanai. The youngest was taken with the lady's purse, sitting in the row in front of them. The father would grab it from his two-year-old's hand and return it to the seat where the lady had set it. The best was when the kids were rolling on the floor. They were quiet and out of sight. I could concentrate on the mass.

  A woman walked by I knew from when I volunteered at the local elementary school. Mass was well underway. I didn't know she was a Catholic. Of course, we had never talked about religion. I concluded she was passing through the church grounds from the building behind to get to the street. I was surprised to run into her again at the end of mass. She was raised Catholic and had eight years of Catholic school but hadn't been coming to church. She's a volleyball coach and works on Sundays. She had a day off today and came to mass to support her son, who suffered from PSTD from his tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. She said the Veteran Administration was useless.

  She was no longer subbing at the local elementary school. Still, she had a full-time position at a project-based private or charter school. Years ago, she told me she didn't want a full-time teaching position because she would need to write lesson plans. At this school, she gets to design her own curriculum as long as it addresses the core standards. I suggested she look into my approach to teaching phonics. I said it was not highly sequenced and structured. She misunderstood me to say it was and told me the school was opposed to using those programs. I made it clear it wasn't. I would love to get this into a school structure. I hope other project-based programs will pick it up. I sent her the link to my YouTube video, The Phonics Discovery System, emphasizing she wouldn't have to buy new materials. You can use anything.

      I suggested EMDR for her son's PSTD. It is an effective method for dealing with traumas. She said no one on the island used it. I mentioned a woman's name; Mike was seeing her at the end of his life. She knew her. She had trained her daughter in volleyball. Sadly, she was no longer using EMDR. I sent her links to Brainspotting videos. I also offered to support her son when he went to church.

 After church, I stopped at Lowe's to pick up another Valspar cement paint chart. I want to paint the pillow supports for our engraved granite gravestones in the back of my car. I wanted to call the company and see if painting the contact surface would prevent the glue I needed to use to attach the granite to the concrete from working. 

  Long's was my next stop. I needed AA batteries, Hersey's milk chocolate nuggets, and a small container of Dawn dish detergent. I couldn't find my stash of AA batteries for love nor money. I knew I had some, but an extensive search netted nothing. I bought a package of eight. I needed one as soon as possible for my acupuncture pen. The nuggets at Long's are cheaper than through Amazon by a long shot, about half the cost. I had asked Judy to pick up a small bottle of Dawn dish detergent. Meaning, well, they picked up a middle-sized one. I didn't need the detergent; I had a Costco-sized container in my closet. I need a new small bottle. The cap on the lid had worn out on my old one.

 I sat down to finish reading this book I couldn't stand, Barren Grounds when I got home. I had to finish it because it was assigned to sixth grade W. I enjoyed the other book she will have to read during the year, The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise. There were two others W had to read over the summer. I ordered those.

  I tried to nap to avoid doing other things, like scrubbing the spot on the lanai carpet where Elsa threw up this morning or giving her a bath. I set my alarm for 4 p.m. when I thought I had a session with the M & W sisters. I woke up in the middle of the nap, realizing the appointment was at 2 p.m. on Sundays. It was already 2:15. I texted the parents. The mother said to do the session at 2:30. I had opened all the files I would need with the girls before I went down for my nap; I only had to send her a link to the Zoom meeting. Then I had no internet connection, zero. Weird. I texted the parents, saying I had it right. It wasn't a day for a session. The mom texted me to skip the session. Then the internet came back on. I had already texted Brian to say there was a problem. He texted me that he didn't see one at his end. I texted the mom to tell her we were in business again. She never got back to me. I didn't object. These girls shouldn't need a lot of help anymore. I worked with 2nd-grade M on third-grade material, and she did well.

  Jean, my Hanai sister, called. She recommended a TV series she enjoyed, Incredible Attorney Woo. It's a Japanese series. It should be interesting. I watched the video of Sandra Bullock receiving an Oscar for Blind Side. They spoke about the other nominees. They all sounded like good movies. I started with An Education. It was well-acted, but I wasn't comfortable with the subject. The young girl is sixteen. Why didn't that guy go to jail for seducing her?