Irish for a day

Yesterday the girl participated in her school's Heritage Fair. She decided to be Irish. lol. We do actually have a relative from Ireland. I believe it is my great grandmother, or maybe great-great grandmother...I'm not sure, but there is a picture of her somewhere and my father told me that her surname was Murphy and she came off the boat from Ireland. So there's our Irish tie-in. The McLeods may also be Irish, but they appear to be much more Scottish...what with the McLeod castle on the Isle of Skye and all that. So for the Heritage Fair we baked Irish Soda Bread which turned out pretty good and she made a big display board with map of England (where the Armstrongs are from), Scotland and Ireland. She also played Irish music from a CD and let me tell you, it is a delightful CD. I'm listening to it right now and it is very relaxing.

In other news, the teachers in our district are poised to take a strike vote on Friday. After agreeing to a tentative contract agreement before Christmas break, and ratifying the vote following break the school board pulled the contract off the table last week. Then had a secret meeting two days later and had another secret meeting scheduled for tomorrow night. Looks like they changed the private meeting to a public meeting though and they are scheduled to vote on the contract so it looks like the strike may be averted at the 11th hour again. I wish these people would learn.

The other jobs continue to be tedious and draining. Someone got the bright idea to have me do accounts payable. While it is a nice experience it is certainly not anything I am interested in doing and is now taking me further from my goal of working with the image and communication aspects of the district. They could have such a better image and web presence than they currently do. If only, if only. Sigh.

Happy New Year!

Happy Jack is wishing everyone a safe and prosperous new year. Especially me, lol. We could use a safe and prosperous new year, that's for sure! This year's New Year's Eve was a different experience for us. I worked at that other place tonight and the kids and Patrick went to a friend's house in the next neighborhood over from ours. I joined them at about 11pm when I got off work. I spent the earlier evening getting rather well acquainted with canned tomatoes. I'm hoping 2006 brings an end to my rather hectic life. The hectic part that is, lol. I really took for granted the time I had from September 2004-July 2005 when my life revolved around my family and the perpetually happy pumpkin. I really want that life back. There are so many things I want to do...grow my business, run for public office, or at least get myself involved in some form of government, teach my family members to play guitar and really truly join me in my love of music, study molecular biology and genetics, research legal challenges to the constitution as they relate to school law, take my kids to the pool over the summer, plant a really wicked vegetable garden, grow pampass grass in my front lawn and tick off the HOA. Ah, so many ventures and so little time.

Well, tomorrow, or rather, today I plan to sit on the couch and watch football, finish painting the kitchen and mudroom and generally relax a bit. Not too much, because there is just so much to do, but I definitely plan to enjoy tomorrow and Monday too. Two whole days without those bothersome jobs. Will have to do something about those this year.

Anyway, happy new year and remember to read a good book every day.