Hi-Ya

I flew with another brand new guy this morning, making it number six or seven of 16 year old guys all pre-solo that I'm flying with.  This is really stretching my memory as an instructor!

I got one more flight in after lunch, IFR stuff in the RG, and then a line of storms and high winds moved in and my last guy, learning to land, canceled.  I ended up having a bit of hassle before I could get home, having to do with an airplane with a missing tow bar, hiking to the plane, hiking back from the plane to Nathan's hangar, four times in total, and getting rained on while I tried to put away a plane without a tow bar, alone.  That was...fun.  But eventually I got it taken care of, stopped for some household supplies, and finished my airport day a bit early.

Tomorrow we have a house cleaner and carpet cleaner both coming in to do a thorough job on our house.  Sometimes when we get busier in the Spring/Summer, it's nice to have a little help for the deeper cleaning stuff.  I keep it picked up and the dishes and laundry caught up all over Sundays most of the time, but like I said, it'll be nice to have a bit of deep-cleaning assistance.  :)

Today was Kaylee's 3rd Tae Kwan Do lesson.  This time I was finally around to be able to go see her a bit, and afterwards the instructor came out to talk to us.  He asked us if Kaylee usually picked up things pretty quickly.  I guess on her first lesson they showed her a "form".  They didn't do it on her second lesson, and today they did it again for her third lesson, and she had it memorized and down pretty cold.  He said several times that that's very unusual for students to pick up the whole 'form' that fast, said she's doing very well.  Kaylee's funny--this will sound braggy, but since it's mostly grandparents reading this, that's okay.  ;)  But she got a little bit of both of us, and if she had decent discipline, that wouldn't be too bad.  She got my (mostly former now) ability to memorize and mimic about anything, do fairly well at about anything if shown how.  Except golf and bowling.  I always have stunk at those no matter who showed me what.  ;)  Steve can't do that, but she also got what he can do, which is get good at something by digging in to it and understanding something on a deeper level, something that's important, and that doesn't come as easily for me.  Unfortunately for her, she also got a distinct lack of interest in pursuing much of anything any deeper than figuring it out lightly.  Once she hits a certain point on it and it's more work, she doesn't care to become actually great at it.  Gymnastics was different-she was never a natural at that.  But the rest of the stuff she picked up pretty fast, and then lost interest.  We've let her...wander, let her try out stuff, but I think Tae Kwan Do is one we'll have her stick with, for awhile at least, for a few reasons.  It's good for her.  What will be interesting for me to see in the future is what exactly it is that does catch her interest, that does light her interest to dig deeper and really try.  I wonder what it will be, that thing that catches her fancy.  Home, family, career of some kind...guess we'll find out.

Kaylee had a good day at school today.  She'd thought it out, and she made the first move, deliberately sitting by a friend at lunch that she cares about with whom she's been struggling, and when she did that, some of the other friends she's been spending time with when her friend was rejecting her came over and joined them there, and the friend that has been a real problem, wasn't today.  So she was pleased, had a good day, and that makes us have a good day too.  :)

The homework for tonight included her having to write a paper on animal testing for products like make-up, etc..  She was horrified, and angry, and said "I CRIED looking at some of that.  WHY would anybody DO that to those poor animals?!"  In a little burst of historical irony, I was pretty close to her age when I had to do a report on that too, and I remember the shock and horror I felt looking at pictures of bunnies and cats and dogs and monkeys and mice in all sorts of desperate conditions, having various products tested on them for toxicity, and so forth. There really are better ways to test for some things--I kind of thought that stuff had faded out and was replaced with more computer/lab testing these days.  I guess not all the way yet...

The storms in Oklahoma took out my cousin Cheryl's sister-in-law's house, but as far as I know, with the rest of the family in Oklahoma, everybody else is okay, thankfully.  That line of storms has moved over to here, but I think it's supposed to fade some before it hits us.  I'm sure it'll keep  me grounded tomorrow, but I haven't heard of any tornadic fears thus far...