Sunday's Comments - UPDATED

Early Sunday. Well, it's 7:00 a.m. but I've been up for about 1 1/2 hours. I did try to sleep late, but Frasier and Maggie seem to have this strange idea that someone needs to feed them breakfast at a regular time. So I was awakened by Maggie's cold nose in my left armpit! Let's just say she got my attention. Bill was up earlier than I was, he was going to let me sleep in but after I fed the dogs I decided to just stay up. The dogs never, ever go to the person that is already up. Without fail, they go wake up the person still sleeping when they want to be fed!

Friday afternoon I got an automated call from the school's attendance office. It left a phone number, which was constantly busy. So I called the main number and was told that the number left by the automated call is never actually answered. OK. Anyway, they were showing that Otter didn't attend her first class - which is math. I knew she did, I took her to school myself that day. When she got off the bus, I asked her if she had homework from that class and she said yes. Good, now she'll have proof that she was in that class. I called the attendance office back and told them that she was there, and that I was really getting tired of this happening. The attendance cleark told me that the roll system is computerized and once a teacher marks a student as absent, there is no way to fix that. Really smart! She said that she would email the teacher, and I did the same thing. The teacher said that she never uses the computerized system at the beginning of the class, she rights the names down and then turns it in later on. She said that she didn't have any idea why it showed Otter as absent, that she remembered her being there. In fact, Otter went in early so she could talk to her about a couple of homework problems she didn't understand. This is frustrating, and it's getting very old. VERY OLD.

We've had quite a bit of rain lately. Yesterday was rainy off & on all day and some of the rain storms were intense. None of them lasted long, there were just a lot of them. We stayed home as we usually do, the dogs were happy because they got to spend the day sleeping inside - as opposed to sleeping outside or in the garage like they normally do!

We made cookies, the recipe was chocolate chip and we usually use carob chips due to Otter's chocolate allergy. However, we have run out of carob chips (how did that happen?!) so we used 3 different colors of the candy melts (they are meant to be melted and poured into candy molds), and grated them. Turned out great. They are not particularly healthy cookies, lots of sugar and some fat, so I'm trying not to eat too many of them. But it's hard! We also made pizza. My bread machine has several different choices including jam, french bread dough, bread (several varieties) and pizza dough. It was easy, pour all the ingredients in, turn it on and then about an hour later take the dough out so it can rise for a little while and then flatten it out, top and bake! Very easy, not too messy and very good. (Well, Bill always makes a mess when he cooks. But I don't!) We can also control the amount of fat that goes on it that way. I've found fat-free shredded cheese, both cheddar and motzerella, a few times and it's pretty good. I think we'll make it more often.

The plan for today is to go to the rent house, Bill is going to sand down and re-varnish one window sill and he needs to finish re-installing the back screen door. It could probably stand to be mowed, but it's still rainy so that will wait a few days. But there really is nothing else to do over there, it's cleaned & ready to rent. Now, we just have to wait until our agent manages to get it rented.

Ok, I've had my coffee and it sounds like Otter might be up so th-th-that's all, folks!
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Ok, it's later now! We did get a few things done at the rent house, the back screen is re-hung and Bill sanded the window sill that needed it, and put the color varnish coat on. I think he also put the first of the 3 coats of clear varnish on it. He'll finish that up tomorrow. He will still need to do a couple of things to the back screen door, which will only take a few minutes. Provided he has the right screws, which he didn't have today.

Just occured to me that Tuesday is September 11th. I hope we all remember what that day means. Let's all stop and say a prayer. I'm going to put my flag out, if the weather forecast looks ok. (I really need to get a weatherproof flag!) And let's never, ever forget what it means.