Quick trip, working from home, mama’s phone, Brittany’s time

I got back into DFW about 9 pm Monday night from an overnight trip to Birmingham, AL. The class I taught there was a very enjoyable one. Those happen about one in three. The two that are not as enjoyable are still pleasant but the participants in those classes do not seem to enjoy each other’s company and/or the material in the same way that the very enjoyable classes seem to. In every class, there is at least one person who will admit to me that they are anxious about the test – some are very anxious. In my last class, the person who confessed to being scared of the test made a 100% on the exam. I challenged him to stand by me and watch me grade the exam and when I finished and announced the final score, he grabbed me in a bear hug. Since he and the other participants were scheduled for meetings through the remainder of the week, that moment made his whole week a great week.

Since I was back in so late Monday I was told to not come into the office until noon. It was an order that was easy to follow. I needed the rest. Additionally, I was told to call before I came to the office to see if the internet was up and running. Our connection at the office had been lost on Monday afternoon. I called and found out that there was still no internet service, so I worked from home using my mobile Hotspot. It was not productive but it was enjoyable – especially since I had spent so much time away from home recently. Today, the internet is up and running so things are back to almost normal at the office.

Mama has needed a phone upgrade for a few months. The one she has started messing up on the one required operating capacity or function of a cellular phone – making and receiving phone calls. It was exasperating to call Mama and not be able to actually converse with her. All the gaming and texting and Marco Polo and Facebook functions worked perfectly but it would not make or receive calls very well. So, Monday she worked out a deal with the local Cricket store and got an iPhone SE 64 GB phone brought in from another store so we would not have to wait on a phone to be shipped to us. I spent an hour in the store waiting for the transfer of videos, calendar events and images from phone to phone while Mama went to the church to drop off a gift and talk with a couple women there. There was a ladies meeting last night to reveal the Secret Sisters and to draw names for the coming year. Mama was not feeling up to participating but she did want to drop off her and Victoria’s final gift to their Secret Sister.

The transfer was on 21 of 41 videos when she got back to the store so we went to eat while the phone continued the transfer process – internet was required for the transfer to happen. We did all this at the store because we were not able to order a phone via the internet Cricket website because our personal information was all messed up on their site. Mama spent an hour on Monday with Customer Service and in between the “Are you still there? and “Can you hear me?” questions, got all of that corrected. In the Cricket system, I was Timothy Klirg, living at some address I had never heard of. We are not sure how that happened but it should be corrected now. I don’t know if Mama will be happy with the smaller phone, but I am happy to be able to talk to her via cell phone and it has enough memory for her photos and videos for some time to come.

Brittany called Mama yesterday and told her that she is to be induced on Wednesday the 26^th if she does not go into labor prior to that time. Mama will be heading up the day before – if not earlier. Victoria and I will not go up until sometime during the first week of August because Cori, Nate and the kids are due to arrive at the farm that week and Cori requested we wait for her to make the trip to see the babies. That should be an interesting week with all the new arrivals – both temporary and permanent. Regardless, we are all looking forward to meeting the twins.

God it good.