Josiah’s New Job

Josiah started his new job as a concrete finisher with a pool and spa installation company. It’s hard work, but pays fairly well. When your proud mom writes your resume, you don’t have much choice–you get a job.

JOSIAH LEE LEGGETT

joemax1010@yahoo.com

Work Experience:

Construction – Assistant Manager, Leggett and Son’s Construction
2004 – present
Breaking up old concrete, hauling it away, hauling and spreading gravel, building forms, preparing ground for new concrete, pouring and finishing new concrete, laying cement blocks, repairing stone walls, installing septic systems, digging ponds, clearing trees, laying foundations, erecting wooden structures, building fence, repairing and maintaining equipment, operating power tools, heavy equipment, and other machinery.

Farming – Assistant Manager, Leggett farm
2000 – present
Maintain, operate, purchase, and sell farm equipment including tractors, lawnmowers, four wheeler, chain saws, weed eaters, power saws, compressors and air tools, arc welder, acetylene welder, skidsteer, backhoe, bulldozer, dump truck, tillers, and trucks. Build fence, outbuildings, and ponds, run electric wiring and plumbing, maintain grounds, budget, schedule, care for various farm animals, garden, landscape, paint, hunt, photograph, and keep records, typing, computer, filing.

Music – Assistant Manager, Vocalist, Musician, Stage Manager, Productions Manager
Middle of Nowhere top 40 country band
2008 – present
Scheduling, planning, promoting, recruiting, purchasing, budgeting, performing, record-keeping, and recording concerts; creating and duplicating flyers and CD’s; maintaining, setting up, packing, and transporting sound equipment; playing and maintaining guitar, mandolin, banjo, piano, organ, drums, bass guitar; web site design and maintenance; songwriting.

Lead and Backup Vocalist and Musician
Good Time Country
2008 Same as above.

Assistant Manager, Vocalist, Musician, Stage Manager
Leggett Family Bluegrass Gospel
1998 – 2007 Same as above, including leading church worship.

Tenor, Eternity Quartet
2006
Performing tenor accompaniment with men’s gospel quartet.

Sewing – Assistant, Leggett Needleworks, 2006
Construction of home fashions using sewing machine, upholstery machine, and serger.

Education: Parkersburg Christian School 1995 – 2002
Music Award – 2002
Drama, Music, Composition, Basketball

Wel-Life Ministries Home School 2002 – present
Interest-led unit studies and skill-building assistance

Flight school, 2004, Bob Gibbs, Instructor, Ravenswood Airport
24 hours logged
King’s video course completed

Open Office computer software course, 2005, Adult Basic Education

Mandolin and Banjo lessons, 2000 – 2006, Ron Seebaugh, Instructor

Hobbies: Soccer, Wrestling, Basketball, Biking, Camping, Fishing, Hiking, Playing and Recording Music, Videography, Computer games and messaging.

Meigs County Huttons

I finally found some time to do some genealogy research. I’m down to two jobs for the summer, working only 10 hours a week now, and only 3 days a week. Hopefully, I’ll have some time to play with my grandkids now.

Perhaps Elijah Hutton was a cousin to my great-great-great grandfather Joseph Hutton. The inscription at the bottom says:

Thy toils are now ended

Thy suffering is o’er

Thy spirit is at rest

On that far distant shore.

Weaver, Racine, O.

Me Bad Blogger

So sorry to have neglected posting for such a long time. My life is very busy right now with four part-time jobs (60 hours per week).

Josiah moved back home with me after Christmas. We enjoy playing music and chess.

Amber and her “crew” are staying with me temporarily. She’s relocating here.

So, with 5 extra people in the house, it’s wild around here.

One of my missing camera’s reappeared mysteriously. I’m glad, but curious as to where it had been. It’s an old Nikon SLR, so no good for blogging.

They caught the guy who had been robbing people in the neighborhood, but it’s unlikely I’ll get anything else back.

I’ll check in later when I get some good pictures to show off.

Horseback Riding

Can you believe I get paid for doing this? As Youth Activities Director at a local church, I enjoy all the benefits of the activities I design for the kids, from canoeing to skiing. Of course, sometimes it’s the breaks, too, like when I fell and sprained my wrist rollerskating last winter.

Unschooling school

The more I unschool, the more I realize how senseless it is to require children to spend countless hours of their valuable childhood memorizing trivia stored on the web and practicing drills which any calculator can mimic.
Instead, children should spend time with a knowledgeable adult or peer learning how to access information on the web, in books and periodicals, and by interviewing knowledgeable people in person, on the phone, by email, or by chatting online. The access of knowledge, once gained, should then be taught in the context of applying that knowledge to making wise decisions.
Job skills which were once deemed to be invaluable in job search are now becoming obsolete more quickly than they can be taught at the educational institutions. Rather than teaching job skills, schools should be teaching skill acclimation, acceleration, and adaptation.
Gone are the days of job security at an assembly-line mass production plant.
In its place are multi-level small businesses and business giants whose goals are to acquire employees with versatile backgrounds who are capable of adjusting to any requirement.
The new skills are multi-tasking, adaptability, computer literacy, and web-savvy. Set the children free to learn what they will need for their future. Give them a keyboard, a gamestick, and a wi-fi connection, and turn them loose. They will suck up knowledge like a hungry bear. They will acquire skills pertinent to their world.

On the Job

Yesterday I started work at an upholstery factory. I never even had an interview, they just called me to come in, and when I did, they started training me.

I had to make two practice pillow covers from heavy duck material. The second one had a cording around it. They both had zippers. They liked my work, so they started me on the real thing.

I got three pillow covers done before time to leave. The velour was the hardest to work with as it had a rubberized backing.

I think I will enjoy working there because of the nice machines–sewing, serging, quilting.
I love to learn new things.

It was hot, though. They don’t have air conditioning. Just a lot of fans.

Today I made 5 pillow covers. Practice makes perfect.

Family Trip

Wednesday, my mom, Josiah , and I took my grandmother, Mommo, to Walmart.

She did so well. We just put her walker in the shopping cart, and she pushed the cart. When we got to the pharmacy to get a toothbrush, we rested on the bench and talked. She was so happy to get out for a while. I hope she’s not too sore from all the exercise.

Virgil got a job with the school bus garage as a substitute bus driver. He starts today driving a full-size bus to pick up some kids and take them home. He’ll be doing a lot of weekend driving, taking deaf kids to school in Columbus on Sunday and picking them up on Friday.

Josiah is spending a few days with my mom. I hope he’s not driving her crazy. He likes for people to do things with him and feed him constantly.

A friend who hunts on our property brought his small tractor and plowed our garden for us. I gave him a quart of honey.

Virgil has some work to do on his dumptruck and some gravel deliveries to make when he gets back from the bus trip.

Journal and Pictures for May 20, 2005

It’s a beautiful day. I got up to pack Virgil’s salad and get him off. He’s volunteering with a Construction Club from Hocking College to do some work near Lancaster. I think it has to do with Habitat for Humanity. He’ll be back by noon, but I have to go to the Farmer’s Market to pick up some lettuce. We called Ed yesterday, and he’ll have it all boxed up and ready to go–including 14 head of lettuce, a large bag of spinach, and 4 pounds of chard–all for only $20!

I made chili yesterday. I had the tomatoes thawed out and the beans soaking overnight, so I then ran the tomatoes through a colander, pressure cooked the beans for 10 minutes, added onions sauteed in olive oil, fresh pressed garlic, and chili powder, and heated it in the crock pot.

Yesterday, Megan came for her tutoring session. I had a page of her Banned Book project typed up for her, and had the corrections done on her report on the Civil Rights Movement. Then I typed up a presentation she had written, and we worked on her Banned Book project folder some more. She is a Senior and just has 3 days left. Good Luck, Megan!

While Megan was here, Virgil and Josi were out delivering a couple loads of gravel to a couple neighbors. Virgil got stuck up in a driveway because he made the turn too sharp, and it took them and several neighbors 4 hours to get it out. I guess the driveshaft broke or came loose, so they had to take the other (old) dump truck to pull it out. The local towing company wouldn’t even touch it.

When they came in, they were starved and ready for the chili. We had to cancel our singing engagement at the nursing home–it was too late. So Josiah watched Sandlot 2 for the third time, while he ate grilled cheese. I helped Virgil with his Technical Writing–a report on driveway construction. We snacked on some watermelon, and I read Josiah a Bible story before sacking out.

My leg looks much better today, though it still aches some from the accident. It’s not as purple. We’ll go to my mom’s this evening. Josiah and Eric, my brother, like to play music together. I’ve got to finish typing an outline for Virgil, and email his Driveway report to his online teacher.

The Day After

I admit, Virgil and Josiah picked up a vegetarian pizza on the way home from geting the Barley Max and the movie. We pigged out while we watched Sandlot 2. We also had watermelon, bananas and walnuts. Oh, yeah, Virgil got lots of nuts and olive oil at the store, too.

I’m hobbling around some this morning, my leg is a little stiff, and my arms a little sore, but other than that, I’m ok after the accident with the tool cabinet.

I put olive oil on the scratch on my leg, hoping to help with the scarring. It’s healing up nicely.

This morning we all got up about 6am. Virgil has his first day on the substitute school bus driving job this morning. I helped him juice carrots while Josi watched Sandlot 2 again, with headphones to cut down in the noise department. Virgil just took some bananas, an orange, and an apple to snack on, since he plans to be home by noon. He has to be at the doctor by 10am for some blood work. He thinks his thyroid medicine needs cut again because he’s been having headaches. I think it might be the salt. He eats a lot of chips and dip. However, the last time he was having headaches, he did need his medication cut in half.

Virgil was diagnosed with hypothyroidism about 12 years ago when he gained 20 lbs within a month. He initially refused to be medicated because of his adversion to going back to his old drug-addicted lifestyle (he used to be an alchoholic and pot-head–that’s another story). He tried to manage his illness by nutrition. We went on the Hallelujah Diet (hacres.com) 6 years ago, and he used lots of exercise, running 3 miles a day, 300 situps a day. However, 3 years ago he was forced to go on sick leave because his blood pressure was so low. His heart rate was consistently 40 bpm, and he had lost most of his hair all over his body, along with slurred speech, and falling spells. When he went on medication, his TSH levels stabilized. Now, however, they are rising again, indicating that the thyroid is beginning to function again. He has already had to cut his medication. He is very encouraged and gives God the glory.

Anyway, after the movie, Josiah went to sleep in the recliner, I worked on Virgil’s outline, and had a breakfast of watermelon, bananas, and walnuts. After checking my mail and the news, I started on this blog. I’m having a snack of cantelope.