Well, dear reader, if you have been wondering what I've been doing the last 10 days I'll try to fill you in. School started on Aug. 22nd & that meant I plunged back into my 11th & 12th Grade Language Arts class with great joy & anticipation! We kind of alternate years between teaching primarily Lit. one year & primarily writing & grammar another. This is the writing & grammar year & I have thrown in a heavy emphasis on vocabulary. Each student got a brand spankin' new Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. Happily, 3/4th's of my class was very excited about this. We tackle about 10 new words a week plus a couple of bizarre words that I throw in for good measure. In an attempt not to bore them to tears, we are reading a few books. On Friday we started Animal Farm, by George Orwell & will be working through that for a couple of weeks.
On the non-work front, last week was the week of doctor appointments, mine this time, not Evan's. With all the brouhaha surrounding our son the last few months, my "issues" have been left on the sidelines. For several months, my ears & jaw have been hurting. After a visit to a specialist Monday, I was diagnosed with advanced TMJ & arthritis of the jaw. He told me the news very gently, like I was going to be upset. My response was basically, "Whatevah!" I just don't have it in me right now to get upset by stuff that all I can do about it is pray anyway.
Evan continues to adjust to being a working man. He does tire easily so we have to be careful with him. He had a blast this weekend with his friends, one of whom has a Wii game console. Evan apparently took to it like a duck to water, much to the joy of his friends! He, of course, now wants one!
We've had quite strange wrangling's with our county probate clerk who oversees our administration of Evan's assets as we are guardians & are accountable for how we spend Evan's money. It's been quite the process that has taken place over the last 4 months, trying to get things in a format she likes. All communication has been between our lawyer & the clerk, which probably wasn't the best thing in retrospect. He kept telling us we needed to change this & that, get canceled checks, don't get canceled checks, blah, blah, blah.
Finally, we got fed up and decided to go to the source (the probate clerk) for a detailed explanation of what we needed to do. Harold met with her Friday & we were astonished to find out that Missouri has few set laws or format for the accounting of funds in guardianship cases. A lot of things are just up to the judge who signs off yearly on how the assets were spent. We found out several things we were doing wrong that our lawyer either didn't make clear to us or didn't tell us about. We also found several things that were just up to the judge's discretion. Harold got to speak to her also. (It's one advantage of living in a small town that you go to the courthouse & you're probably going to run into whomever you need to see.)
Apparently my obsessive receipt keeping & notations of every penny spent threw the clerk & judge off. It was too much information for them. How that can be I do not know. I mean, we supposed to give an accounting right?? Instead of either writing a check or using Evan's debit card so there will be a record of what is spent, they just want us to write him a check a couple of times a month for cash. And, no, we don't have to account for how the cash is spent. On one hand this is easier. On the other hand, if we were evil people we could be buying lottery tickets or meth with that money for all they would know! *Sigh* At least it will be easier next time around. I hope.
Our Labor Day weekend has been fun & we've had some time to relax. Hopefully, yours was the same. Off I go for a snack & then early to bed. Have a good week!
Wii is awesome! Have you tried Wii Sports Bowling? It's so addictive!
Posted by: Shannon **Gabi's Mom** | September 09, 2007 at 03:03 AM