Long update
School has finally started here (as of this past Thursday). We had the teacher meeting and back-to-school picnic on Tuesday which was nice. Doodle's main homeroom teacher will be one of his teachers from last year (she had him for math and part of the year for writing). A new teacher will be his other homeroom teacher. The organization of the schedule seems to be a little better than last year (not that it was bad last year)--for example, instead of having one period a week devoted exclusively to handwriting, they are going to incorporate it a few minutes a day into the regular writing class (which I think will be more supportive of the kids learning and using cursive). They are going to concentrate even harder on doing the full six weeks of the responsive classroom program http://www.responsiveclassroom.org/ (Responsive classroom/morning meeting is for the whole year but apparently has a special first-six-weeks-of-school thing.)
Other changes in the school schedule (weekly and the year) all look good and well-thought-out. They are doing their College Settlement http://www.collegesettlement.org/ camping trip in the fall instead of the spring (last spring was the first time the school did this--they did it for grades 3 and up) and they have extended it to 2 nights/3 days instead of last year's 1 night. The usual stay at that camp is 2 nights but they wanted to make sure TQS' student body could handle it. They did! The activities include things like ropes courses and cooperative activities for teams of kids, which makes it a really good thing for the beginning of the year. Special Friends Day has been moved from October to April which I think makes sense, especially since I was having trouble lining someone up for October!
The school has gone ungraded this year (though I still heard teachers, let alone parents, referring to grade #s at the picnic) and Doodle's group is "Team Neptune"--astronomy topics are going to be built into the entire curriculum for the first half of the year and all the groups are named after astronomical things--strangely, however, there is no "Team Uranus." I wonder why. (If traditionally graded, Doodle would be in 5th grade).
They are suggesting (but not requiring) laptops for the kids, but I don't see how we can get one right now. Finances are going to be a little tight. Rupel started his new job, but since the firm is new, they are not necessarily going to be getting their remittances back from their clients right away. We also had to buy a car (a Honda Civic Hybrid) so Rupel could commute, and there are other new-job expenses (of course smaller than a car!), etc. etc. We will be okay, especially after a few months, but this time is stirring up all my money anxieties. Enough of that, since if I try to think of everything else we've spent or will need to spend etc., I will get even more anxious!
Speaking of R's commuting, it changes my routine in little ways...he is no longer downtown, a short drive or 1/2 hour leisurely walk away. I can't do him the favor of dropping him off in the a.m.s, and he can't come home for a quick errand or emergency (or dinner and bedtime for Doodle) and then rush back to work. I can't ask him to do downtown errands either! So things will need to be rethunk, including our usual dinner routine, etc. But I did have an odd moment...after R started at his new job (he's still working out of the home of one of the head partners right now, but they plan to move in to the new office space as of next weekend--R says he will believe that when he sees it--but anyway, both places, stopgap and new, are in the same general area, which is actually rather close to Doodle's school). Anyway, back to my odd moment...I was driving home on I-95 and came to a place where you can see the city skyline, and this feeling washed over me--the city is Mine, all Mine! Weird, huh? But it means I have to enjoy it, use it, experience it....that is my current directive to myself.
Along those lines, yesterday we participated in several of the more family friendly aspects of the Philadelphia Fringe/Lively Arts festival http://www.livearts-fringe.org/2004/templates/home.cfm. We stopped at "The shed," a multimedia installation inside a garden shed, then at the Artist Trading Cards session at the Well Fed Artists Gallery http://atc.hingeonline.com/ (we all, even Rupel who thinks he's not artistic, made cards--I made 3 actually--and Doodle, although reluctant at first, decided to make a card of his comic strip character "Snake," which led to him meeting a cartoonist who was also there at the time, who gave him a copy of one of his books!). I am very intrigued by the artist trading cards thing.
Finally we watched a demonstration of the Brazilian martial arts/dance form Capoeira which was really cool. And the festival is still going on through next weekend! I am hoping to see a more adult-oriented program or two with my sis sarasusa if I can fit it in.
Despite the advance of the Eggplant Army (they're everywhere! Ack!) we are still enjoying our membership in the Farm to City Community Supported Agriculture program http://www.farmtocity.org/csa.asp?id=1. Luckily last week I was able to find in the trade box one spaghetti squash among about a dozen eggplants, so in went our eggplant to join its friends and I came home with not one but two spaghetti squashes--yum!
The pool is still open--last week Doodle really got into swimming laps with me and he did over a mile twice and over half a mile once (more than I did!). Then he skinned his knee badly and since then hasn't wanted to swim, but on Friday I went on my own while he was in school and did some laps. Doodle is all excited about doing cross country again this year--it starts up right after College Settlement.
One of our biggest bits of news is that we've adopted a second cat from the PSPCA. Doodle named her Spark. She is probably about 3-5 years old (according to the shelter, but I know they don't really have time to make more than a snap judgment--I'll wait and see what our vet says about her age from her teeth). She is plain gray with white markings--a teardrop shaped white blaze that covers her forehead and mouth area, extending down into a white bib and belly, with white paws and, most important, a white tail tip! A few years ago Doodle invented a series of cats including one named "Mossie" who was a black tuxedo cat with a white tail tip. Ever since then he wanted our next cat to look like that, but frankly I had never seen a cat with a white tail tip before so I told him they were very rare. So to find a gray one with a white tail tip, especially one who mewed so sweetly at us when we stopped at her cage (just like our first cat, Pobble, had done so many years ago, although I'd substitute "insistently" for "sweetly" in her case)...it was fate!
She is very sweet and soft and a little crazy. She likes to lick people, especially licking me on the face (nose and mouth even). I'm not a dog person and I'd hate being licked in the face by a dog, but I kind of like it from Spark. (I keep wanting to call her "Squeak" since her mew is so high-pitched. Ever since Pobble died Mymble's mew has gotten more and more low-pitched and raucous sounding so it is funny to hear the tiny mews!). She is good at chasing string--Mym is not into it so much any more. It's been a while since we had a young cat around here. She had been surrendered by previous owners to the shelter and so she was already spayed and, unfortunately, front declawed. We are keeping her and Mymble mostly separated and slowly introducing them, but, unfortunately, Mymble usually hisses when she sees Spark. They'll get there eventually!
I'm still inspired by my goal_posts group to make progress on a lot of house, creative, health, and social stuff--some aspects more slowly than others. The decluttering is going pretty well (for me anyway!) and I've taken bags and bags of books to the book swap store, clothes to AFSC, and miscellaneous stuff to my parents' garage to eventually be transported to the Swarthmore Meeting Jumble Sale. There's something about being accountable to someone else--even if it is essentially an artificial construct of a schedule for reporting in to people you've never met in real life (except my sis sarasusa, whom I persuaded to join goal_posts too)--that really inspires me to make progress. The weekly check-in also makes me thing of the steps required to reach bigger goals--something that is sometimes hard for me (e.g. I might think "I'd like to make more of my Christmas presents this year," but not really plan out all the steps I need to do like decluttering the sewing room, which is kind of our substitute attic as well, etc. until there is not enough time to do it. I think I am used to operating on daily priorities and crisis mode--just the way my brain works--and it's hard to see past the immediate priorities to plan ahead. So this is helping me get better at that.
So, since Sunday is my day for reporting in to goal_posts, I'd better wind this up and go and finish off some of my other bits and pieces that I need to do!