ShopRite of Canton!

The ShopRite of Canton opened yesterday! I would like to take this opportunity to bring you a little excerpt from the Canton newspaper this week :)

Discipline Mr. Joseph Style

As many of you know, Chuck is a high school teacher. He is currently teaching seniors who have absolutely no interest in their last few weeks of classes. Having been in their position no too long ago, Chuck can sympathize and so, when one of his students made a "that's what she said" joke in class, instead of just giving the student detention, Mr. Joseph allowed the other students (a jury of his peers, if you will) to vote on what his punishment should be. They came up with this:

Kitty

Katie loves cats. So much so that as a kid, upon learning that "Kitty" was one of the nicknames for someone named "Katherine", she attempted to get us to call her "Kitty". Luckily this never caught on but that did not dampen her love for cats which is still going strong as evidenced by her waking up at seven this morning so that she could get back to playing with Dad and Julie's new kittens:

Happy Birthday Dad

Complete with a Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie :)

Katherine is engaged!

This past weekend I asked Sheldon to marry me - well technically he asked me first but either way we both said yes!

Farewell Dinner Party

L to R: Jay, Dan, Kelly, Tim, Drew, Paige, Kim, Chuck, Ashley

The countdown has begun! I officially fly out next Sunday night so this past Monday we had one last dinner party. The menu consisted of eggplant rolatini, pork in tomato sauce, cous cous, soycutash and DIRT DESSERT... I will let you guess what was everyone's favorite :)

Saturday Volleyball

We switched things up last weekend: instead of playing volleyball all day on Sunday, we moved it up and had a day of volleyball on Saturday (crazy, I know).

L to R: Tim, Chuck, Dan, Kelly (kneeling), Jay (chugging, behind Timmy's feet), Paige

The Beard

I couldn't get any packing done today because I was busy making this: (you will notice that the right side of the video is cut off, this is because it is in HD which is too wide, watch it on youtube if you want it to look normal)It was clearly worth my time. Chuck is teaching seniors this year. Since he works at a private school (all boys) the students have a pretty strict dress code that includes no facial hair, but the seniors have the option of participating in a fund raiser that takes place between their spring break and graduation where they can make a donation and then take part in the senior beard growing contest. There are a number of categories but Chuck's favorite is the 'Harvest Peach' award that goes to the senior who, despite all efforts, can't grow anything :)

Fun With Plumbing

So after about a month of increasingly tepid showers that finally became character building COLD showers I broke down and called the plumbers. Water heater out, water heater in, check please – easy peasy, right? Riiiight.
My house was built in 1942 and like any house of this era, it has galvanized pipe. Lots and lots of crumble in your hands, rusting galvanized pipe. Pipe that is long past being sturdy enough to allow itself to be attached to a spanky new hot water heater. Now its water heater out, water heater in, new pipes in, bigger check please. Either that or learn to embrace cold showers.
SON O’ BEACH!! I didn’t fully appreciate how bad the pipes and water pressure were until all was new! Showering has now become full body exfoliation! Police could use this kind of pressure to quell riots! Seriously!
However…..
the water still dribbled into the washer like an old man with prostate trouble. Hmmmm. I have a Barbie Dream House sized stackable washer/dryer that lives in a tiny closet in the kitchen and getting to the back of that to investigate said problem (having already spent the children’s inheritance on plumbers) involved removal of the louvered bifold and the strong help of my good friend, Jane, to muscle the whole works out. Sqeeeeeezing into the closet space and removing the hoses from the washer I found the intake screens were completely, totally clogged. Exhibit One below – the left side has been scraped out, the right has not. ick ick ick ick ick.Technical problem was that the pulling out of the unit also pulled out the electrical connections and the dryer vent hose WHICH could only be re-connected if said unit was almost totally repositioned – as in almost all the way in the closet. Requiring the following maneuver:So how was YOUR Sunday?

Introducing the kitties

Tapper's new buddy



Look Jessie, a New Chew Toy!