Busy Bird

I'd have to call this an all-around positive day, even if it was a Monday and I am tired. It's beautiful out for one thing-even though I flew three times today, looking out at the still warm air makes me want to go fly for relaxation, too. Instead, Kaylee is up front eating Mac & Cheese, Steve is at work, and I'm writing this after some clean-up action around the house.

I have to go get my logbook and work on it before I really get buried alive or just skip a bunch of hours. It wouldn't be the first time I just quit recording most of my hours for a time period, but there are a few areas in which I need to keep tallying up, so I might as well do it for all.

After I dropped Kaylee off for school, I drove over to Glenndale, and Chuck flew me to Sheridan in the Citabria. The runway at Glenndale has two big puddles in the middle of it and is fairly soggy, but at that time of the morning the ground was still fairly hard from the cold and we just avoided the puddles. I flew in a 172 with a student for about an hour, doing soft and short field/spot takeoffs and landings. I left them at Sheridan and flew the 172 back to Glenndale myself so Charlie could work on a nosewheel shimmy and a 100 hour inspection. So I'm taxiing down the runway to take off, and I realize I have a message on my phone. I pull off and it's Steve telling me to call him before I come back to Glenndale, so I called him, and it was cute. He was letting me know about the puddles on the runway and suggesting where to go and stuff. I'll admit that while I already had a plan in place, having seen the runway when I left it an hour and a half prior, it's still good to have someone care and make sure you're not about to do something ignorant, isn't it? I'm sure I'll get a chance to return the favor. ;)

As light as the winds were, I decided I would land to the north and just make it a very short soft field landing and get it stopped prior to the first puddle rather than trying to play dodge the puddle to the south/hope I don't get bogged down on the taxiway. I should have had the student with me, since we were doing simulated ones on the concrete runway at Sheridan and this was much more real world. On second thought, I shouldn't have had them with me, because when you really want to make it short with no energy left for a long roll-out, you tend to make sure of it by coming in at an airspeed you don't really want students copying. Anyway. Mission accomplished nicely, and the runway was definitely softer than when we left it earlier as the sun warmed it up more. The bad news is that we're expecting several more days of rain. Just what we need, both for flying and for our poor runway.

We had nine of us at lunch today, which was a pretty good amount even for us. Usually we run 4-6 people, so it was a popular Monday I guess. After lunch I went back to Glenndale and entered time sheets for the end of the month billing until it was time to pick up Kaylee from school. She and I went out to Kokomo to pick up Steve and bring him back to Glenndale, I had to run my errands with her along, and then finally we were home for the day, cleaning up the kitchen, fixing dinner, giving out medicine, all that good stuff.

Kaylee started taking standardized tests today, and she hates it. She doesn't like being timed, and she doesn't like 'tests'. Not that anybody does, but she seems to be one of those who really is influenced by it. She said that when she knew it was a timed test, she'd get nervous and sloppy and have to go erase mistakes all the time and that she can't think straight. I tried to help, but while I was always nervous before tests, during them I focused and did great. She's nervous before and during both, poor thing. I'm trying to find ways to help with that, because this is something she is going to be dealing with for her entire lifetime in one way or another, and there has to be a way to help besides Valium. :)

Well, I've got some work to do tonight and hopefully some relaxation too before tomorrow and its rain hits...