We had a fun week at Disney even with the rain. Started the week off with light saber builds (which was totally awesome) and ended, finally, with some sun and the pool on Saturday. Our timeshare down there is pretty awesome, the pool is probably the kid’s favorite part of it. Had a chance to see Aunt Pam and Uncle Dennis on Thursday; we were hoping to catch up with Pam in Animal Kingdom…but it decided to pour all day Thursday so we took a short road trip up to Deland for some cards and family time. Hopefully this link works; the music is copyrighted and Disney blocks it now on YouTube, but enjoy some Magic Kingdom fireworks:
Been a busy week here; Aria is well into Nutcracker practices for the Bristol Ballet and that has us (rephrase: Brittany) going three times a week to Bristol for a few hours. Aiden is busy with scouts. Both just finished up their first period in home school with flying colors. The public schools here still teach cursive, but not until 3rd grade. Abeka, on the other hand, teaches cursive starting in Kindergarten, so they’re having lots of fun catching up with that. So far its been a challenge, but fun, and just from listening to some of our other neighbors and some issues going on in the schools right now, we’re still confident it was the best choice.
Brit may be getting an opportunity to work from home more, while the kids are doing school. It’ll still be with the same independent pharmacy she’s working for now, but they’re just trying to expand their clinical model to keep up with the changing pharmacy times. Pharmacy is still the only business I know of that doesn’t get paid for the product we sell, and the government wonders why small pharmacies are going out of business at an alarming rate and we’re looking at a shortage of ~200,000 pharmacists within the next 10 years. To put that in perspective, there are currently 315,000 pharmacists currently employed in the US. In the next 10 years some estimates are expecting that for every 2 pharmacists leaving the workforce, only 1 will be replaced. With pharmacies (e.g., Walgreens and CVS, to start) already having issues keeping the doors open because no pharmacist is available, and pharmacists walking out because of the work environment, it will be interesting to see how this plays out…
Pictured is Dan the Man. Our re-homed rooster for the last few weeks. Probably not really liked by our neighbors, although I can’t really hear him in the house, but we took him to keep him out of the cook pot. We had a family in June that had 2 roosters a couple houses over that moved to Alaska, so I’ve enjoying hearing the crowing again. Just something about that sound…
Gearing up to shut the pool down unfortunately. Its that time of year, but on the upside Christmas is coming up. We’ve snagged a trip to Gordonsville in a few weeks, might have hit it right to see some color.
I did make the mistake of taking all 3 dogs to Aria’s ballet practice last week. They “insisted”. But I did get some funny looks with 3 dogs in the car, 1 in each window.
On a separate note, two items have been added on the homepage.
A searchable address book. Contacts from the spreadsheet have been imported to the site and are searchable by group (cousins, siblings, grandchildren) or location (town, state, etc.). This can be found on the profile page under the Address Book tab.
Minecraft server address and server status are both available on the help page.
In both cases you’ll need to be logged in to access.
Another uneventful, but cooler week for us. We had guests from PA this week; Brittany met them through her mindset/motivational coaching group. The lady that Brit knows was traveling from PA to Alabama, her daughter had finished up a training course in one of the service branches (Army, I think) before she starts with law enforcement in DC. They crashed here on their way back and enjoyed a few of the different things Abingdon has.
We’re in full flu shot mode at work; its unfortunately that time of year again. So…if you happen to be in the pharmacy…
We had a very calm weekend by the pool. I came off of a long stretch of a week and a half and ended up with a 6-day weekend, so it was nice to chill. Our pool at the moment looks like a float dock thanks to the kids (their brilliant idea to blow up and put all the floats they own in the pool). We also managed to crank out 2 more batches of salsa on Saturday, bringing us to 3 batches this year. Putting in a garden expansion really bumped our tomato crop, although we still had to buy some peppers from the farmer’s market.
Aiden and Aria have officially started homeschooling. They’re actually ahead of the game in a lot of things, but it’s nice to be able for them to be able to get their work done in half the time and still get to enjoy their day. We’re getting to teach (or, shall we say, “augment”) the science portion of the curriculum, they’ve got a microscope on the way and already have a list of what they want to look at.
It’s been an uneventful week in VA. We’re getting ready to start homeschooling the kiddos (with some great advice from Aunt Becky), and looking forward to a quiet Labor day weekend. I’ve been covering for my partner in the pharmacy while she is on PTO, so I’ve worked 8 days straight. Unfortunately, nobody wants to work any more, so finding help is a challenge…so it was a hard 8 days.
Aria auditioned for a part in an upcoming Barter Theater play. She made it through to the last round before she got cut; they ended up casting a kid from an in-house actor. Aiden is starting boy scouts, still TBA if he likes it.
We had our share of storms move through on Tuesday this week. Lots of lightning. We’ve also made a small decision to move kids to home school. It’ll be interesting but given that anymore most of the work has been done, even in school, on a Chromebook, we decided it would be a better choice at this point to give them some freedom back. School started a week ago for most other kids here, it just seems to get longer every year.
We’ve just gotten back from a week in San Antonio; officially it was for the BODi convention, but we turned it into our vacation this year since we’ve never been. After a week of heat indexes ~112°, we’re enjoying the cool 70° temps back in Virginia. I’ve put up the photo gallery here; most of our time was spent downtown on the River Walk, where it stayed a “reasonable” 102°.
On a separate note, I’ve moved jobs and have taken a staff pharmacist position with Walmart in Abingdon. I’m 10 minutes from home now, versus an hour, and stepped back out of management so I can have a little more time at home and not have work aggravating me all the time. I’m taking a couple of weeks to recharge and start 7/3, but in the meantime I’ve got a fireworks show to set up for the neighborhood, so I’ll stay busy. That and catching up on the gardens from all the rain last week while we were gone.
Praying for Uncle Bill, and missing the 4th celebrations.
Our pool is open for another season, green to clean in 3 days. Kids don’t seem to understand why I can’t just fire up the propane heater and shoot the temp up about 20 degrees. Amazing how fast a 500 gallon propane tank will empty.
Working on expanding our garden this year, had a friend come by and turn over a small 12’x18′ spot with his plow. Hoping to crank out some salsa this fall. Still have to finish putting in a fence around it to keep out the deer and rabbits, but it’ll be nice to have some fresh veggies again soon.
On an amusing note…Brit’s cousin was fascinated at our “fancy” grocery list. I use Life360 to tag our grocery stores, home improvement stores, etc. I’ve tied Alexa in with Life360 using a low-code programming software; when we add an item to one of our lists in Alexa, when we arrive a location that is associated with that list we get a push notification on our phones with the list. Anyway…apparently when I say raspberry pi…everyone jumps to a food. No. Its not a food. She’s asking me how we do this and I’m saying go get a raspberry pi…and she’s assumed I’ve lost my mind, since what on earth does a raspberry pi have to do with Alexa and the grocery list??? After wondering why Brit and her cousin are both laughing hysterically…I finally figure out not everyone knows a Raspberry Pi (not pie) is a small computer.
We had a fun week at Disney even with the rain. Started the week off with light saber builds (which was totally awesome) and ended, finally, with some sun and the pool on Saturday. Our timeshare down there is pretty awesome, the pool is probably the kid’s favorite part of it. Had a chance to see Aunt Pam and Uncle Dennis on Thursday; we were hoping to catch up with Pam in Animal Kingdom…but it decided to pour all day Thursday so we took a short road trip up to Deland for some cards and family time. Hopefully this link works; the music is copyrighted and Disney blocks it now on YouTube, but enjoy some Magic Kingdom fireworks:
https://synology.themays.me/vs/sharing/GPPbGXUq#!aG9tZV92aWRlby00OA==
Been a busy week here; Aria is well into Nutcracker practices for the Bristol Ballet and that has us (rephrase: Brittany) going three times a week to Bristol for a few hours. Aiden is busy with scouts. Both just finished up their first period in home school with flying colors. The public schools here still teach cursive, but not until 3rd grade. Abeka, on the other hand, teaches cursive starting in Kindergarten, so they’re having lots of fun catching up with that. So far its been a challenge, but fun, and just from listening to some of our other neighbors and some issues going on in the schools right now, we’re still confident it was the best choice.
Brit may be getting an opportunity to work from home more, while the kids are doing school. It’ll still be with the same independent pharmacy she’s working for now, but they’re just trying to expand their clinical model to keep up with the changing pharmacy times. Pharmacy is still the only business I know of that doesn’t get paid for the product we sell, and the government wonders why small pharmacies are going out of business at an alarming rate and we’re looking at a shortage of ~200,000 pharmacists within the next 10 years. To put that in perspective, there are currently 315,000 pharmacists currently employed in the US. In the next 10 years some estimates are expecting that for every 2 pharmacists leaving the workforce, only 1 will be replaced. With pharmacies (e.g., Walgreens and CVS, to start) already having issues keeping the doors open because no pharmacist is available, and pharmacists walking out because of the work environment, it will be interesting to see how this plays out…
Pictured is Dan the Man. Our re-homed rooster for the last few weeks. Probably not really liked by our neighbors, although I can’t really hear him in the house, but we took him to keep him out of the cook pot. We had a family in June that had 2 roosters a couple houses over that moved to Alaska, so I’ve enjoying hearing the crowing again. Just something about that sound…
Gearing up to shut the pool down unfortunately. Its that time of year, but on the upside Christmas is coming up. We’ve snagged a trip to Gordonsville in a few weeks, might have hit it right to see some color.
I did make the mistake of taking all 3 dogs to Aria’s ballet practice last week. They “insisted”. But I did get some funny looks with 3 dogs in the car, 1 in each window.
On a separate note, two items have been added on the homepage.
In both cases you’ll need to be logged in to access.
Another uneventful, but cooler week for us. We had guests from PA this week; Brittany met them through her mindset/motivational coaching group. The lady that Brit knows was traveling from PA to Alabama, her daughter had finished up a training course in one of the service branches (Army, I think) before she starts with law enforcement in DC. They crashed here on their way back and enjoyed a few of the different things Abingdon has.
We’re in full flu shot mode at work; its unfortunately that time of year again. So…if you happen to be in the pharmacy…
We had a very calm weekend by the pool. I came off of a long stretch of a week and a half and ended up with a 6-day weekend, so it was nice to chill. Our pool at the moment looks like a float dock thanks to the kids (their brilliant idea to blow up and put all the floats they own in the pool). We also managed to crank out 2 more batches of salsa on Saturday, bringing us to 3 batches this year. Putting in a garden expansion really bumped our tomato crop, although we still had to buy some peppers from the farmer’s market.
Aiden and Aria have officially started homeschooling. They’re actually ahead of the game in a lot of things, but it’s nice to be able for them to be able to get their work done in half the time and still get to enjoy their day. We’re getting to teach (or, shall we say, “augment”) the science portion of the curriculum, they’ve got a microscope on the way and already have a list of what they want to look at.
Have a great week
It’s been an uneventful week in VA. We’re getting ready to start homeschooling the kiddos (with some great advice from Aunt Becky), and looking forward to a quiet Labor day weekend. I’ve been covering for my partner in the pharmacy while she is on PTO, so I’ve worked 8 days straight. Unfortunately, nobody wants to work any more, so finding help is a challenge…so it was a hard 8 days.
Aria auditioned for a part in an upcoming Barter Theater play. She made it through to the last round before she got cut; they ended up casting a kid from an in-house actor. Aiden is starting boy scouts, still TBA if he likes it.
We had our share of storms move through on Tuesday this week. Lots of lightning. We’ve also made a small decision to move kids to home school. It’ll be interesting but given that anymore most of the work has been done, even in school, on a Chromebook, we decided it would be a better choice at this point to give them some freedom back. School started a week ago for most other kids here, it just seems to get longer every year.
We’ve just gotten back from a week in San Antonio; officially it was for the BODi convention, but we turned it into our vacation this year since we’ve never been. After a week of heat indexes ~112°, we’re enjoying the cool 70° temps back in Virginia. I’ve put up the photo gallery here; most of our time was spent downtown on the River Walk, where it stayed a “reasonable” 102°.
On a separate note, I’ve moved jobs and have taken a staff pharmacist position with Walmart in Abingdon. I’m 10 minutes from home now, versus an hour, and stepped back out of management so I can have a little more time at home and not have work aggravating me all the time. I’m taking a couple of weeks to recharge and start 7/3, but in the meantime I’ve got a fireworks show to set up for the neighborhood, so I’ll stay busy. That and catching up on the gardens from all the rain last week while we were gone.
Praying for Uncle Bill, and missing the 4th celebrations.
Our pool is open for another season, green to clean in 3 days. Kids don’t seem to understand why I can’t just fire up the propane heater and shoot the temp up about 20 degrees. Amazing how fast a 500 gallon propane tank will empty.
Working on expanding our garden this year, had a friend come by and turn over a small 12’x18′ spot with his plow. Hoping to crank out some salsa this fall. Still have to finish putting in a fence around it to keep out the deer and rabbits, but it’ll be nice to have some fresh veggies again soon.
On an amusing note…Brit’s cousin was fascinated at our “fancy” grocery list. I use Life360 to tag our grocery stores, home improvement stores, etc. I’ve tied Alexa in with Life360 using a low-code programming software; when we add an item to one of our lists in Alexa, when we arrive a location that is associated with that list we get a push notification on our phones with the list. Anyway…apparently when I say raspberry pi…everyone jumps to a food. No. Its not a food. She’s asking me how we do this and I’m saying go get a raspberry pi…and she’s assumed I’ve lost my mind, since what on earth does a raspberry pi have to do with Alexa and the grocery list??? After wondering why Brit and her cousin are both laughing hysterically…I finally figure out not everyone knows a Raspberry Pi (not pie) is a small computer.
Back to work, lunch, unfortunately, is over.