The Putnam Scoop

The New Teays Elementary School was built on the former site of the Mountaineer Dinner Theater in Hurricane, WV to alleviate overcrowding at West Teays and Scott Teays Elementary Schools. The majority of the students are from West Teays and the new school will feed to Hurricane Middle School. Students from Scott Teays were allowed to request to remain in the Winfield district if they preferred.

The open house yesterday was a huge success! I ran into friends, family, neighbors, former coworkers and media people I’ve met through my blog. Fifth graders were proud to act as tour guides to show off their new school. I totally enjoyed the “small town get-together” feel of the open house. Some people there didn’t even have students that would be attending the school, they just wanted to see the first new elementary school in Putnam County in nearly 30 years.

The new school is beautiful and up-to-date. The kids seemed impressed that the teachers will have microphones so they can be heard equally well from anywhere in the classroom. I appreciated the creativity of the colorful ceilings reflected on the tile floors. Motion detectors will turn off the lights if no one is in the room. There are separate playgrounds for the older and younger kids. At the time of the open house, the library shelves were still empty and the computers still weren’t set up, but they are working like crazy to be ready for the opening day of school tomorrow.

The faculty is full of teachers I’d have hand picked if asked to come up with a Dream Team of Teachers! Some taught my kids in the past and made such a difference in their lives. I was surprised and pleased to see so many familiar faces.

This school does Putnam County proud. If you’d like to see more pictures, click here.

Early last spring, probably around April, I noticed a really ugly bird that would occasionally show up on my back porch.  He looked a little like a cross between a cardinal and a vulture — not such a good look.  I felt bad for him and pointed him out to the kids, but we didn’t know what was wrong with him.  We thought maybe he was sick, so we started leaving out food for him.

Then I took a picture of him and loaded it up to Flickr and told some friends about it on Twitter.  He has such personality that he picked up the name Edgar (after Edgar Allen Poe) and health care lawyer/blogger Bob Coffield directed me to a site that solved the mystery of his missing feathers.  His baldness is likely caused by mites, and the feathers are missing on his head because that’s the only place he can’t groom himself and remove the mites.  Malnutrition could be a contributing factor, so we kept feeding him just in case.

This is one of my earlier pictures of Edgar:

And now I am proud to announce that Edgar is finally beginning to regrow his feathers!

Doesn’t he look handsome?   I’m pleased for him and also just a tiny bit sad because by winter he will probably look like all the other cardinals and I won’t know which one is Edgar anymore.

But I’m glad his head won’t be cold.

My teenage daughter Tall One was gone for a week at camp, totally out of touch with the outside world.  She asked me what she missed while she was gone.

“Well, Brett Favre decided that he didn’t want to retire after all.  His team had already moved on with another quarterback and got a little miffed about the last minute un-retiring.  They said, ‘You can come back, but you can’t come here!’ and he was immediately snatched up by the Jets — who dumped Chad Pennington for him.  Chad is now a Dolphin (one of her favorite teams), and all is well.”

Seriously, did the news talk about anything else all week?  She was quiet for a minute and then agreed that it was all “a bit high school.”  (She’s in high school.  She knows these things.)

I am probably only telling you this so that I have an excuse to use this picture of me with Chad Pennington.

But look — there’s me with Chad Pennington!!

My kid is home safe and sound and look, there I am with Chad Pennington.   I feel better now.

Just in case you’d forgotten, dogs love:

• Getting to ride in the car.
• Going someplace that is NOT the vet’s office.
• Playing in water.
• Socializing with other dogs away from home.
• Being with you.

The Valley Wave Pool in Hurricane will be having their annual dog swim September 1st from 6:15 to 8:15.  Hey, they have to clean out the pool for the end of the summer anyway, might as well let the pooches have some fun first, right?

Donations will be accepted for our new animal shelter.  Questions?  Contact Putnam County Parks 562-0518 or Karen Haynes 757-7584.

I am joining in with many other blogs across the country in mourning the loss of our friend Sheila Lublin.  As a sign of respect, our blogs will be quiet tomorrow as she is laid to rest.

To show our support, we will be helping raise over $1500 by Monday to support Sheila’s husband Bill and his favorite charity, the American Cancer Society.  We hope to go above and beyond our goal.

We often feel helpless in the face of such sudden, devastating loss.  There is nothing we can do to make things better.  But there are small things we can do to offer comfort.

I offer a quiet blog and a donation in the memory of a friend.  I invite you to do the same.  Please feel free to make a donation or to use this widget on your own blog.

It’s funny, isn’t it, how moods spread?  One cranky person can ruin your day, and one compliment can have you smiling for hours.  We pick up on each other’s moods and spread them around whether we even mean to or not.

If you could use a little more energy, please watch the clip below.  This is what my friend Jeremy Hart’s wife Natalie requested for her birthday — and although I don’t think it’s something I’d ever ask for, I’m so glad she did.  Watch it, and I bet you smile!

Are you happy now?  Got some extra energy?  Good — get out there and spread that around a little, would you?

Are you listening to what your family/friends/clients/so on need?  Really?

This clip is a hilarious illustration of how it feels when wants and needs are ignored.

Our Lady of the Pines is the smallest church in the 48 contiguous states.  (My kids and I love saying “contiguous.”  Try it, isn’t it a great word?)  It seats just 12 people, but is complete with pews, kneelers, beautiful stained glass windows and a perfect little altar.  There’s even a tiny vestibule in the entry with room to greet maybe one person.

It is tiny perfection.

Located behind the church is the smallest mailing office in the 48 contiguous states.  (Look!  We got to say it again!)  You can buy a postcard of the smallest church and drop it off at the smallest mailing office.  Go on and send the card to the smallest child you know, it just seems right.

They are located in Horse Shoe Run, WV, Rt. 219 at Silver Lake, about 10 miles past Thomas.   (This is a great place to stop in if you’re going to Blackwater Falls or The Purple Fiddle, as we did.)

What would you end up with if you took a picture documenting some part of your life every day for a year?  When you looked back at the end of the year, what would you see?  I’m hoping to find out.

I recently started a Flickr group called 365 Tweeters so that I could drag friends into my project as well.   Isn’t everything more fun with your friends along? With a picture a day we’re getting an interesting peek into each others lives and challenging our own photography skills.

I’m only a few days in but I’m loving it!  I’ve set the Flickr badge below to grab a random selection from my personal 365 set so you can see how I’m doing so far.  If you’d like to join in our challenge, please feel free!