What I like to collect

I have always liked coins. Ever since I was little if I found a Paso or a Canadian coin I would keep it. Not that I came across them often, but I liked them. It was not until much later that I started to collect more.

I am a chaperon on the 8th grade DC trip each year. One year I went and found a civil war era penny. That was my gift to Miles from the trip, along with civil war era relics that had been dug up. He really enjoyed the gifts. Why get a t-shirt that says Williamsburg when you can get real history. All that year I kept kicking myself for not spending more time looking in the glass case that had coins and paper money for sale. It all looked so cool, but I was really short on time and had about 90 kids to get in and out of the shop. The next trip I asked if he wanted more money items. He requested Confederate money if they had it. Off I went. I made a mad dash to the same store trying to get there before the kids so I had more time to look. Sure enough, there it was Confederate paper money. I got that, and some coins for myself. The year after that, same thing. All the chaperons and travel agents know I want to rush down to shop at this one shop. Problem is they don’t schedule time to shop there anymore. It’s next to my favorite restaurant. I have to rush the best food ever, to get the coins I like. What’s great is I get a 20% off purchase coupon from the travel agent. Then I can also write it off as educational expensive. It’s a win, win!
So the drill is, shovel all the fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy I can eat in my mouth. (Best food ever. I don’t know how they make it, but it’s magic.) Then mug the travel agent for his coupon. Sprint to the shop and tell the students to get on the bus. Raid the glass case of everything they have, and get on the bus. Only the slow little old ladies that run the shop slow me down. I am a well oiled machine. Since the trip I have bought two Roman coins from home. I would love to get a Roman coin from the B.C. era. That’s next on my wish list. Here is my collection. It’s so hard to take pictures of the coins and money. Bear with me.

My mom went to Itlay and got me a gold venetian coin. It was the best thing ever. I just love it so much. (sorry, I could not get the camera to get a good picture of it.)

I love the one on the left. It's rare and from 1588. Can you believe it?

The one on the right is only from 1710. hahahaha

Here is another bad picture. It's of my two Roman coins.
The one on the left is from 247-249AD
The one on the right is from 193-211 AD
(Need a BC coin)



Top Left: 1668 English coin
Top Right: Silver half dollar of 1810 USA
Bottom Left: 1773 English coin
Bottom Right: 1639 English coin.


I had this one made into a charm.
English coin from 1688

All the bills from 1910-1920 were this size. This is still legal tender!
If I were to spend it, I would only get $5.00 worth of value out of it, and it's worth over $100.00. Kind of funny when you look at it that way.

How cool is this? Confederate $100.00!!
1861 First year of the war.

Civil War coin hoarding caused the US to make small value currency in paper. This type was made from 1869-1875. It is US 10 Cents. It is still legal tender.

I can just see the persons face if I were to give them this and say it's 10 cents.

This is an old Rail Road Cert.

$5.00 Confedertate dollars. Sept 2, 1861.

I hope that you liked the items I have. I enjoy looking at them now and then. I always wonder who had it? What did they look like? What was going on that time? If the money had eyes what would it have seen? I like the Roman coins a lot. I would like to really get a clean looking on that from the BC time period and make a charm out of it. It does not mess with the coin in any way so I am ok with that. I could never damage an old coin. Next on my list is a Civil War sword or gun.

To tell you the truth, anything that is ancient Roman, I would just love to have. Also ,ancient Egyptian. That won’t happen since Egypt is on lock down for any of its ancient items.

Thanks for looking, and have a wonderful day.

Family History

Welcome to my family.

"Lucchesi"

My Uncle Jimmie Lucchesi. He has since passed.

My grandparents. Leo and Alice Lucchesi.


Great great aunt Carlotta. Just found her picture and a letter from Italy form her to my great grandma. I was jumping up and down finding a new family member.

My handsome Italian Grandpa Leo. :-)

Family on the wall of Lucca Italy 1958.

I walked on that very wall 2009.

Church in my family town of Riolo, Italy.

I MADE IT!

The church tower in Riolo Italy. It was the first thing I saw when I drove into the village.

My great grandpa Atriemo Lucchesi in his Army uniform.
Look what I found. That very church tower in Riolo, Italy. This is a family member of mine. I can't believe I was standing right there in that town.

As most of you know I am big into my family history. I love to find old photos and hear about my history. We all come from some place. All the different people in our past make us who we are. I have been finding out about a great deal of my English side. The English would take census records for many years. This has been wonderful in finding my past. Cross, King, Berry are a few of my English names. I found out that many worked in mines and one was a confectioner. I know this because it lists occupation at time of the census. Also, all the names of the people in the household and their relation. It’s been great. I have a bunch of family info on that side. Now what happed in Italy. My ties to the Italian side is strong. I am deeply fascinated in historical things. Not just history, but more into ancient history. Rome was a power house and I have roots from this amazing part of history. This leads me to my problem. There are not records. Also, I can’t understand the language. I have been collecting pictures and scanning them. My goal is to write all the info I can about everyone in my family as well as add some pictures. I would like to make this into a book form. Technology is always changing, but a book last forever. It’s a lofty goal, but I can do it.
I thought I would share my Italian side with you at this point. I am proud of them and know I have so much family over in Italy that it makes me sick. I plan on trying to find them somehow. I would love to take another trip to Italy and spend time just doing that. I need someone that speaks Italian to help me.

For more pictures CLICK HERE.

:-)

Met a new group.

Ride one and two this weekend.




There is a forum for supermotos that I am a member of. I have been a member of it for a while, but never had a supermoto to ride. Now that I have one, I am happy to say that I met a local group to go ride with today. Of course my ridding buddy Mike was more than willing to join in on some riding fun. Why put off until Sunday, what you can do today? It was my first time meeting these people. I did not know them from the forum, but it said “all level riders welcome”. I did not have to worry about being the slowest person out there. Some of those people ride the same roads so much that they are really fast. I don’t know the roads at all. It was Big Bear again, but different roads this time. This could be a problem for me when I try to keep up. Well, I won’t try, if I can’t I can’t and won’t push myself on a road I don’t know. Heck, I just got back to riding last weekend and don’t want to get hurt and be out again.

There were 6 of us (to start and 8 later on the ride). It was a nice bunch of people. I told them my bike tops out at about 80MPH and that I can only go about 90 miles on a tank of gas. They said it was no problem. So off we went. The guy leading was going a little slow so Mike just goes around him. That caused the leader to pick up the pace. We were moving right along. I was third out of the six riders the whole day. All but the end of the ride. I asked if I was holding anyone up that was behind me. One guys said I ride faster than most the guys he rides with. That made me laugh and blush. The other said I was intimidating and he pulled over for me to pass. Not sure how that could be but I did hold my own on some weird tight road.

We stopped for lunch where two other riders from the other side of the mountain range met us. They seemed nice until I saw them ride. The leader of the ride had bike problems so he went home. One of the two guys to join us late took over as ride leader. He was on a white bike. His friend was on a black bike. That black bike rider just about ran into me. I was very upset. To give you a clue to how he rides, he would dive the bike over just to move from one side of the lane to the other. He cut off cars to go around them doing that same dipping motion with the bike. Not a smooth motion as he moved over. Kind of hard to put into words how he was riding. He was a mess. I made sure to stay away from him. I tried to stay behind him so that I could keep an eye on him. Even with that it was a problem. He would let off the gas just before a turn and then gas it through the turn. Ok I guess, but we were all still going about 15-20 mph due to cars in a busy town area. I kept running up on him when he would do that. It made no sense so I was not expecting it. I felt I had to pass him for safety. Here is where it gets good. We were riding around the lake with a bunch of cars. He was in the back and I was in the middle. We were only going about 20 MPH. We were all riding stagger. He wants to tell his friend in the front something. He thinks it’s a good idea to split between the center of all of us on a winding road to get to his friend. Who does that? We were in a slow tight pack.
How did he almost hit me you ask? Just at the moment he wanted to gun it and split us all, there were debris in the road. I’m talking some giant chunk of something and other pieces of junk getting kicked all around. The best way for me to get by this chuck of stuff, that took up the whole lane, was to go from the outside of the lane to the inside by the yellow line. I did not know that guy was on it hard to split all of us. Everyone was swerving around all this stuff and he does not see it. He was inches from clipping my bar end at an accelerated rate of speed. He would go slow then hammer it. What a nut. I would have given him an ear full, but we never stopped after that. We just split up. The guy on the white bike made Mike uneasy also. He said felt that it was turning into a race down the mountain. So you can say we both don’t like riding with those two extra riders. The others were very nice.
Miles shocked me by buying me a GoPro camera. I have a helmet cam, but it’s not the best. He heard me talking about getting one and got it for me. That was very kind of him and a surprise to me. He hooked it up to the bike this morning for my ride. It seemed simple to operate. Push button to turn on, push other button to record. Repeated to stop recording and turn off camera. I can’t tell if it’s on or recording when I riding so I was just pushing things now and them. Seems I somehow missed recording a great road section. I also seemed to have recorded about 50 minutes of one section. I thought I turned the camera off when I was done with the downhill section, but I was wrong. I recorded my ride all the way home. You can even see me turn into my driveway, get off the bike and turn off the camera. I guess I need to work on my camera skills. Too bad the footage is so long I can’t get it on youtube. It only takes about 10 minutes worth of video at a time.
Here are two videos from the ride. One is riding, the other is me being a dork trying to work the camera.


I don’t know why, but I was really pooped when I got home. I know it was very hot most of the ride. Well over 100 degrees and I had a sinus headache, but I was really tired. Nothing a nice nap could not fix. Don’t you just love a good nap when you’re tired. Ride hard, and nap. Awwwwwww good stuff.






Ride Video Click Here.

Dork Video Click Here. Is this thing on????


I could go for some Mexican food right about now! Ummmmmm Tacos.......

RIDE NUMBER TWO THIS WEEKEND
Went on a sportbike ride today with the club. As soon as I sat on the bike, I felt funny. It's hard to go from the Supermoto to a sportbike. The other way is easy. It took me most of the day to feel ok on the bike. (Mushy brakes were not helping.) The roads we went on were really tight. Not so good for me just getting back on a sportbike. I felt so slow. I was doing ok, but just ok. I was also getting tired. After the ride yesterday of just about 200 Miles on the supermoto, I was tired. Then about 250 miles today, I was getting tired. I have been off riding to long. I am also dealing with what I thought was sinus, but now I don’t know. Yesterday my nose was stuffed up. Last night it was stuffed and runny. I had to take a hot steamy shower as soon as I got up to clear my head. It did not help. With me being tired, I thought maybe I’m sick. I’m not sneezing like allergies. I only get allergies once a year and that always seems to be Super Bowl weekend. I always have to bring tissue to watch the game. I am leaning towards sick. I have a lot of sick students right now. I think they could be the cause. I missed most of last school year and did not have a cold. It was so nice.
Time to blow my nose. Oh the joy. :-) (Sniff,Sniff)

School Daze :-)

Here are the pictures of the doughnuts that I was talking about in this blog. I can't move the pictures around since it's in code right now and I can't switch it for some reason. Enjoy time with my classes. (If it's not fun, why do it?)















After a nice long vacation I am back to work. I left last year thanksgiving weekend and finally made it back to start this school year. I did not know what things were going to be like with teacher cuts, but I have been there long enough that I should be pretty safe from the cuts. Now I just hope they don’t cut our pay.

I never know what my schedule is going to be like when I return. They always change my prep and what grades I teach. I like to teach the 6th graders a little more because they like the games I come up with. 7th and 8th get lazy and can be so low energy that I don’t feel much like doing things with them. They just want to stand around and talk. This year I have two 7th grade classes, one 8th, and then two 6th grade classes. I have 3rd period as my prep. All different from last year. I guess change is good.

The first week of school we just take roll and make sure the kids get their clothes and lockers. The second week is all about Social Skills. Getting to know the class and working together. I like to play crazy fun games with the kids. My co-workers always laugh when they see me putting stuff together. As my co-worker says,” You have to be a little off to teach middle school.” That might be true. I always end up blowing up a ball that is over 6’ X 6’. It’s a monster. I have to fill it outside since it won’t fit through the door. I don’t know why I am the only teacher that uses that ball. The kids love it. I also crack up watching them bounce off it. Then there are the giant doughnuts. Yep, you heard me. I laugh all day long when I have my class working with them. Don’t ask me how I came up with this, but I have my class do races with a giant doughnut. Half the time they start off running and in a flash they tumble. All you see is feet in the air. Or a student falls down and you see this kid pop out from under it. Everyone is laughing and having a good time. Again, I am the only teacher that uses that stuff. I get sick of soccer, football and so on. I like the track and field unit, tumbling, rugby, and paddleball. I like to change things up.

Here are some pictures of my classes I took today. We did mod. pull ups. Today was an easy one for me. :-) I just had to demo how to do them all day long. lol I missed taking a picture of my last period of the day. A group of 56, 6th graders. Oh and my class sizes are always weird. I normally teach about 230 kids p/day. This year I am down to the low 200. My first period has only 12 kids. What can you do with 12? Ok, 6 on 6 again today. There are not enough kids to change it up. They finish everything so fast. I would like about 40 in each class. That’s a good mix. The most I have taught in one class was 72 students. I was then given 3 soccer balls. What do you do with that? Stupid. That may be why I am always looking to create something out of what I am given. What games can I make out of this? I came up with a game that my students love. After seeing my class do it other teachers are now doing it. How cool is that. To create a game just by looking out at some trees and then it works well enough that the kids like it and so do other teachers. You will find me standing in the equipment room just looking around. I try to think of things I can do and try for fun. I must be a little off to come up with the things I do. Lol

Enjoy a day with the teacher. What, no apple?

Ugh, I forgot the pictures of the kids in the doughnuts at work. Dang, they are pretty funny. I will have to add them tomorrow.

On The Road Again

After 10 long months I am happy to say that I am back. (Think Willie Nelson “Oh the road again…… I just can’t wait to get on the road again…..” )
I took out the supermoto this morning to meet some friends for a ride to Arrowhead. I have not done that ride and was a little worried about how I was going to handle it. I did not know how far we were going to go. My buddy Mike was very sweet and said he would stay with me and if I needed to turn around, he would go with me. Thank you Mike. It seems that I did not need to turn around. Not only did I go to Arrowhead, I also made it to Big Bear. We were all over that area. My foot did fine and I was doing better than I thought. I made sure I was in the back and taking my time. I don’t know the roads and I know my reaction time is going to be a little off. That and a new bike that I am still getting to know. I was pretty much with the group the whole time. I just could not really go over 80. That’s about top speed with the gearing I have right now. If I could have gone faster it would have been better on the ride. It was weird to ride after so long. It hard trying to get the feel of things when I did not know the road at all. There were also lots of cars on the road. That’s why we never ride that area. At this point we had to since all the roads are closed from the fires or they are still burning.
It was so nice to feel the wind hitting me. It was even nice to feel sweaty in my leathers as well as to have soggy sweaty gloves. I even missed the bug splats on my visor. Then the best part was after smelling the cool pine are, we made a turn and had that blast of furnace heat hit us. It always amazes me how within a turn or two, it could go up 10+ degrees. I also enjoyed our stop for lunch. I did not know where we were going to eat and only had one thing to say when we got to the restaurant. “High altitude and Mexican food? Really?” If you can believe this, I had a bean and cheese burrito and it was not very good. How can you mess that up? I enjoyed the conversations and funny stories. They always make me laugh.

Here are some videos of the ride. The first one you will need to watch until the end.
They are about the same. Just riding here and there. It was just fun to get out. The quality of the video is ok. The SXV vibrates enough so that it affects the picture. I would like to get the go-pro camera. I believe that’s what it is called. No picking on my riding or bad shifting. Lol It’s been forever. Awwwwwww My bike and I are back. Sigh…… I missed it so much.

VIDEO # 1

Video #2

My friend took some pictures. I hope to add them later. Oh yeah, we did the Alpine Slides. It was my first time doing this. It was pretty fun. We all had on our full leathers looking like dorks. CLICK HERE FOR INFO

Can't wait to see the pictures. I can only guess how bad we must look. LOL

My Brother

I typed this whole long thing about my brother, and for some reason it wont let me cut and paste it on my blog. I am not up to typing it all over agian so I will make it short for now.

My brother Eric is an amazing person. He can see the world like few others can. Take a look at his blog and you will see what I am talking about. All the pictures are his pictures. Take some time to look at his older post and you can spend hours lost in his world.

Enjoy is blog.

CLICK HERE FOR HIS BLOG AND PICTURES

Thank you and enjoy.

xoxoxoxo

Lisa

What's going on with me.

It has been a while since I have posted something on my Blog. I have had problems with my internet. It has not been much fon since I mostly communicate with people via the internet. It is just about all worked out. We still have some problems, but we hope a tech will fix them by Thurs. Verizon only had to come out 6 times now, but don't get me started.

I won 2nd and 4th place at the LA County fair. I was very happy to have done so well. It's not an easy contest.
Judging for one of the contest I was in. That was my Garlic and Rosemary Sheepherders bread.

I made cornbread also, but that did not win anything. Everyone seems to like it so I am happy with that.


I got my plate for my SXV. Il Pulce. It means "The Flea" in Italian. Italian bike, rider, and plate. My parents call me the flea. I think you have noticed the name of my Blog is The Flea. So there you go. You learned something new about me.

Awwwww it screams ride me! Now that my foot is getting better I want to ride. It figures that all the roads to ride on around here are closed from all the fires. What is the deal? I get the bike one day before surgery. My foot is ready to ride and all the roads are closed for fires. It's ok. I can wait a little longer. (not much longer, but I can wait)
I am just happy the ash has stopped falling on the house and cars.

:-)


My mom and I went to the lake right before I had to go back to work. After missing most of the school year I was stressed about going back. My foot was still hurting. I could not get my foot in a shoe. What was I going to do? How could I teach PE to my classes? I needed one last vacation. I almost had to go solo to the lake, but my mom was able to go at the last minute. We always have a good time. It was nice to not worry so much about my foot. It was heavy on my mind. I don't know what it is, but my mom can make me laugh at just about anything. We laugh at things I don't even understand why we think it's funny.

Sonoma went floating with me on the raft. She did so well. We were out there on the lake for hours.

My floating view.

I love this view. I always know I am at my happy place when I look out over the water and see the mountain. I always say that I love the smell of the water. I take a deep breath and think of the sounds of the waves hitting hte hull of the boat. I love that. I love to look down into the water off the boats edge. That calm rocking feeling you get as you sit there looking at the view around you. I don't need to go fast and make sharpe turns on a boat. I like to move along, watching someone ski. I like to pull into shore, take out the chairs and wiggle my feet into the sand. I like to have a nice sandwich. There has to be some kind of cold fruit as well. No need for soda, water is fine. The one thing I do like is chips and salsa. My weakness. I can't pass it up. A little of that as well and you have a perfect day at the lake. I wish my family had a boat. It would be nice to get back on the water. I wish I could water ski. Not that I have done it often, but when I did I really liked it. So much that I had to buy an old ski so I had one that would fit me. I still have it.

My mom with a good book.

Mollie and Sonoma after a swim. "What's for lunch?"

Trying to get some sun. I had been stuck inside for almost a year. I needed a tan! I still need one.

My foot is getting better. It's been painful going back to work, but it's gettign there. Here is a link to a video of my tendon moving in my foot. Don't click on it if you don't want to see it. It was a few weeks after it opend up so it was lready healing by the time I filmed this. You should have seen it at first. It gave me the chills and it was my own foot. Yuck.

LINK, CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT.

That seems to be it for now. I hope to post more often. Thanks for looking.

Cheers.