Such a busy week!

The week started out with a holiday--Labor Day and a BBQ and swim with friends. But any mother knows a "holiday" with the kids home isn't a holiday for the parents, satisfying though it may be.

I had lots of work this week which is always nice when the paycheck comes. My second job involves being paid to think. I smile when that comes into my mind because I remember when I was little my brother L announced to the family that when he grew up he wanted to get paid to think. The job involves my listening to sound files of foreign people speaking their best English while I determine where their performance falls on a scale of 0-3 or 0-5. Lots of thinking, believe me. However, the week was kind of off-kilter due to the holiday and an apparently huge testing volume. All week there were pleas from the company for anyone with any extra time to work to please sign themselves up. I added one shift that way, but my family time is sacred, so I resisted their efforts to get me to sign up for Saturday or Sunday.

All week the girls were working on Student Council campaigns for E and C. E ran for vice-president and C ran for treasurer. In the end neither won, but they had a good week making campaign T-shirts, pin-on campaign buttons, posters, and writing their campaign speeches. Dh was their main supporter in doing those things and he really put a lot of kindly effort into it. He's a great dad.


The girls also started orchestra at school. Fourth and fifth graders can learn to play the violin, viola, or cello. E chose the violin and C the viola. Perfect. We went to the music store on Saturday and rented the instruments and bought lesson books. We think it's a great benefit of the PTA which pays for the orchestra teacher. Oh, the orchestra teacher happens to be the mother of the girls' piano teacher and she's the former Relief Society president in our ward.


I have a little vacation this weekend because Monday is a Korean holiday, Chuseok, which is Korean Thanksgiving. That means no work for me at that job from Sunday afternoon until I start again Tuesday afternoon. Kind of the opposite of the other job--I hate when the paycheck comes without those two days on it, but I sure do enjoy the little break and time with the kids.