What I am doing with my summer vacation -2015

I am so blessed to have a job where I can work more during the school year and cut back (to the hours I committed to work when I started this job) during the summer.

Mostly I am working 2 days 7-2:30 and one day 6:30-10:30.  It is awesome because I have a 3 day weekend most weeks and am home a bunch.

We hired a new audiologist, so I may even work less this coming school year than I did last year.  I will cross that bridge in the fall.

Carolyn and Joel both spent a week at camp (Catholic Youth Camp for C. and Mitigwa Scout Camp for J.).  Matthew skipped scout camp this year, but vowed to return next year.  His scout money went to Driver's Ed, so I was ok to have the savings.  This week Carolyn is at "Christ's Hands" missionary program at church.  She is working at a food bank during the day and doing fun Youth Ministry things in the evening.  I am sure she is having a great time.  This is the first year for a middle school version of this program.  (Matthew did "Faith In Action" - the high school version - during Spring Break the last 2 years.)

We are planning a trip to Chicago at the end of July.  During the rest of the summer, we are hanging out, spending time at the pool, having fun with friends, reading, biking (this is mostly Anna and Matthew), going on walks (mostly me, Carolyn as well).  The boys have scouts, Matthew has Marching Band and work, the kids are cooking more.

Cascade Falls (our cool water park)

This summer, I am walking a ton, thanks in part to my Fit-bit.  Anna's bike and my walking partner, Joelle, make this much easier than solo-walking would be.

I have been cleaning my house!  The clutter has to go!  This book and the author's blog have really motivated me!

 The 2 youngest and I created a special place under the stairs today after pulling everything out from underneath.  Here is the back of the closet (too dark to see well) - all the scout/camping stuff will now have a place of it's own.

Here is the front of the closet - a special fort-like play area.

In cleaning out this space we found a Birthday Card from Ken's folks - for Anna's FIFTH birthday.  Not sure how it got in the basement closet - but Anna was excited to have $20 to spend!  (She doesn't know how lucky she really is, because "back in the day" most of her birthday money went into her college fund.  Now she enjoys having some money to spend, although she said that she is going to save 1/2.)

In addition to cleaning - I am trying to get back into a budget.  I took $50 to the grocery store and was so happy to spend $46.37!  I was a little less proud when I returned 2 days letter and spent $65!  Still way less than normal and I  made 7 main dishes after the first shopping trip, which will hopefully prevent us from going out to eat in July.  Hoping to stay out of the grocery store this week.  Let's just say there was less preparation in June....and a bit of budget-busting!

In addition to cleaning and cooking a bunch, I read:

 This was a recommendation from Gretchen Rubin, the author of "Better than Before".  She has a blog where she recommends books and this was one that I actually bought from DEALOZ.com, since it wasn't at our library.  Joel is reading it now.  I will recommend it to all 4 kids.

Anna and I read:

 Now we are working through the other 4 books in the quintet.  I know I read the first book when I was a kid, not sure if I read all 5.

There you have it!  We are about 1/2 way through the summer.  (This summer is especially long for Iowa children due to the governor's insistence that schools start later this year.)

Pictures from Chicago to follow in a couple of weeks.

Reptiles and Salamanders Merit badge - take 2

Last year we had 6 chorus frogs living in our fish bowl, this year we have a big toad and a little toad.  Last year it was Matthew's merit badge, this year Joel's.  Anna is just along for the ride.  (a phrase she just learned yesterday)

Boulder trip

Memorial Day Weekend I flew to Colorado to celebrate the wedding of my nephew.  I forgot my camera, so below please find my brother's excellent photos!

The day of the wedding we traveled into the mountains for a long hike.  It was wonderful and it made me understand why people loved Colorado so much.  I still don't understand why the people climb the face of a mountain, but that was fun to watch too.

 Above Betsy, Mike, Paul and Joe.  (Mary's son was the groom, so she didn't hike the morning of the wedding, nor did my brother Steve.)

All of the hikers - awesome.  I also learned that my brother Joe almost became a biology teacher before deciding to become a mechanical engineer and that he would have been great at it.

  Fitbit report  >18,000 steps that day - one of my 2 highest days.

Little League Update, my offer of services

Dear S*, P* and R*,

I thank all of the volunteers, both board members and coaches for their time and love of the game.

My complaints about the lack of equality among the teams in A.L.L. mean nothing if I am unwilling to help create a solution.   What I know about baseball comes from watching 11 years of little league and 3 years of softball.  This translates to “very little”.  That said, I did research and data analysis for 18 years on federally funded R01 grants before returning to pediatric audiology 4 years ago.  I know how to collect data, fact check and create spread-sheets.

I offer you these services so that the skill level of the A.L.L. players will be easier for new coaches to recognize.  I will research the players and create a column on your players list for all coaches to see.  I do believe you need to provide a "Helpful hints card" so that the new coaches know how to do more homework.  (I don’t want to provide hitting stats for example.)

(Optional)  If you would like to make this information easier to gather and much more complete, you could add one question to the Little League application.  “At what skill level does your child currently play baseball?” 

1.       Majors (travel team), 2. Triple A (travel team), 3. Double A (travel team), 4. Single A (travel team), 5. Little League All Star 2014 or 2015 (but no travel team), 6. Average (or slightly above) Little League player, 7. Little League player, but still learning to bat and catch, 8. Never played on a team. 

Collectively, this one question will save hours of our volunteer coaches’ time.

In the middle of our email discussion last week I wished I had not introduced my boys to Little League.  Then I found this picture - check out that smile.

I offer my services because I love my son Joel.  I also offer my services because I care for the boys below and all those not pictured.

Johnston’s Little League [a neighboring city] draft method includes the statement:  “The goal of the draft is to balance the teams as closely as possible.”  Isn’t that what we all want for these kids?

It would be my pleasure to start this process immediately.  I will update this year’s lists to reflect all the data, so that next year, it only needs to be updated.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth McCleary

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In the end the league responded favorably and they will meet in August to discuss changes to be put in place.  I likely will be gathering the travel team data to provide the coaches in the Little League, so that team stacking will stop!  I will let you know next summer if it had any effect in the team fairness.