Square dancing and teaching

Last night we had a pretty good night dancing C3A in our square dance room (finished daylight basement). We are dancing to the AACE 2007 dance tapes.

Bob and Joan Smith, our good friends who were in our wedding (51 years ago) and whose 44-year-old son died unexpectedly of a heart attack last week, were here from Monday until this morning. It was great to have them here, as always, although I didn't have much time to spend with them because I'm teaching every day this week.

I love teaching but am finding that teaching six days a week is too much. After all, I retired in order to have some time to do what I want to do. But, let's face it! I've always loved teaching and so this is something I want to do! But this may be the last cycle I'll teach in and the last election for which I'll serve as a poll manager. I've already decided that if I'm still working with the elections training when Sharon Dunn, Cobb County Director of Elections, retires, I will retire at that time, too. She is such a great leader and a great friend and it would not be the same without her. Oh, yes, another reason I like doing this is that I feel that it helps to keep my mind sharp.

Tomorrow I will be working and teaching at the Elections Office from about 8:15 am until around 5:45 with a short lunch break. Then we dance tomorrow night, level C2. Two of the couples are ones with whom we danced in Savannah - Jim and Gerry Lewis and Larry and Dot Steinheimer. They now live in metro Atlanta (as we do) so it's great to be dancing with them again.

We just watched a Dateline episode that we taped this week concerning a young, new teacher in the Atlanta area. What a great young lady! It was an inspiring story (and a tear jerker) and brought back memories of my own early teaching days.

Today is the last full day of spring and summer will be coming in tomorrow. So tomorrow will be the longest day of the year - at least the day with the most time from sunup to sundown. Just wish we could get some rain, as we are in a severe drought. We're concerned that the sod that cost us an arm and a leg won't make it when our watering permit expires (July 4). Wish we could get some of the water that is unindating the midwest. We're so glad that Scott no longer lives in Cape Girardeau, MO, as that city is on the Mississippi downstream from the flooded area. As the water moves south, Cape may have some flooding, too. Part of the downtown has flood gates that close when the water gets high, but I'm not sure how effective they are.

Too busy

I've let myself get too busy! Running several square dance groups at C2, C3A, C3b, and C4 is almost too much, although I really enjoy doing it. I've been trying to learn C4 by listening to tapes when I am in the car, but I really need a full square of eight to practice. We have only five people here in metro Atlanta and that makes it difficult.

I'm teaching election worker classes five or six days a week. So I have little time at home and when I am home, I'm doing something on the computer. Boy, has my house gotten in a mess - clutter everywhere (as well as wall to wall furniture). Watching some of the HGTV programs about redoing homes makes me wish I could find a good designer like one of those to help me redo my house because it really needs updating. It's so "60ish"!

I also have been working with all my computers trying to get them updated - all of them need to have their hard drives reformatted. And I need to get all of them on the network. Last night I had network problems but was able to solve them.

We need rain so badly in metro Atlanta. Wish we could get some of the rain that is falling in the mid-West - poor folks there with their flooded homes! We spent over $7,000 having our entire yard sodded. We had to get a permit from Cobb County to use our irrigation system to water. That ends on July 4. That will be hard on the new grass. We also had come dogwood trees put in.

Yesterday we got some really sad news. Bob & Joan Smith, our wonderful friends who were in our wedding 51 years ago - he was best man, lost their 45-year-old son, Matt. He had taken a new job and and was working temporarily in Iowa. The cleaning lady at the motel where he was staying found him. Autopsy was to be performed today. We don't know what the cause of death was. Our hearts break for them. We aren't supposed to outlive our children!

Got to get to bed, as I have to get up at 6:15 to get ready to leave about 7:30 to teach tomorrow. I'm getting "sleep deprived"! I can tell because my brain isn't working as well as it usually does.

Back on track

After purchasing a Linksys router (supposedly new technology), I tried to install it to replace the old worn-out one, and it wouldn't install. Called my friend John, who owns a computer company, and he came and tried to install it. He was unable to do so, too, so I took it back. It was apparently defective.

I purchased a D-Link router and it installed on connection. Now I'm using WPA encryption instead of the old type WEP. Not sure all my old computers will accept it or whether or not I can use WEP on them if they won't.

Also, Direct TV came out and replaced some of the connections which were put in a year and a half ago. They were bad. The company said it would cost us $79, but since it was their fault and their equipment, which we rent, was bad, I'm going to hopefully get them not to charge us.

Election classes started a couple of weeks ago and I'm working a lot teaching. Why do I do this? Well, just because I love teaching and the people I work with are great. The pay is only slightly more than minimum wage and with the cost of gas about $4 a gallon, this may be my last session to teach.

It's Sunday night and I have things I need to do, so I'm signing off.