Is it really Sunday already?

Wow the weeks seem to be flying by. Before I know it, it's going to be Christmas. Yikes, no way I'm not ready for Christmas and really cold weather.

With it being Sunday, it also means laundry, lesson plans, grading papers and trying to get some things ready for next week. Unfortunately it is going to be an even crazier week due to the fact that a car we are borrowing from a friend won't start and it's something with the fuel filter or fuel pump. Now we are down to one car again.

Doug came home and was here for about 24 hours. He picked up his glasses that were replaced and has a trial pair of contacts. He has an appointment next Sunday again to have them checked. So we'll get to see him for a short amount of time next weekend again.

Brian, he's having difficulties in school. I had to take off a day from work to go to the school for a meeting. Based upon the meeting has forced me to play my hand and create a homework requirement rules. They are strict and to the point. They lay out the law and it makes the rules and Brian responsible and the consequences are laid out in stone. No arguements, no discussions. It will be, "What do the rules say?"

In school on Friday I got told that a student would be transfered into my class. Ok, that's fine, it's normal for the most part but this new child doesn't speak English or Spanish (not that I speak Spanish, but she would have been placed accordingly if she did) She speaks Arabic. Don't even ask me if I speak Arabic!

Yesterday we went apple picking right in our own backyard! Although we didn't spray the apples, many are consumable. I've eaten a few, I'll be making applesauce and some are good enough for apple pies. I wanted to get those done today but I'm just not too sure.

Well this post was just meant to be a short update. I don't really have any new pictures to post or much else to say. If you drop by please say a prayer that things with the borrowed car work out.

have a good week everyone!

Feeling horribly sad

I just read on my friend Susanna's blog that there was another school shooting in Finland. Oh my that just brings back the feelings I felt during the shooting at my son's university last February. I feel so horrible for those students and the families. I just don't understand why people think there is just something "wonderful" about opening fire on innocent people, let alone students going about their own business at the school.

This just saddens me to no end.

My prayers go out to those people.

Although I do not know any of them and I've never heard of that town, I just feel a bit more connected to the Finnish people after visiting and seeing how wonderfully beautiful they are as well as their country.

Homecoming Weekend

Another willllllllllldddd and crrrrrrraaaaazzzzzzy (said in my very best Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd voices) week. Long week, 2 jobs, picture day, lots of papers to grade, still no set schedule, and homecoming week.

Brian went to the dance today with his girlfriend. They looked cute, but teenage boys are still in that awkward stage where they don't quite fill out the dress pants and the shirts, they aren't used to a tie or dress shoes, and they try to pull off the dressed-up look with their long shaggy hair. At least my son did.

The picture plans changed so I went early and snapped a few then took myself down to the nail salon for a pedicure. Then I walked next door to Dairy Queen for a little ice cream treat.

Here are a few pictures of Brian and his girlfriend.

What a week

The days of the week seem to slowly pass. Things are not normal here yet. Who am I kidding, things have never been known to be "normal" at my house.

I'm still working on organizing my classroom. Each day it gets a little better. I'm about to finish organizing my classroom library and let kids start checking out books. We played Scrabble with our 100 most commonly used words. Thanks to Linda, a teacher I adore working with, she drew up our own classroom version of the board. I wasn't ready to let the kids loose with the real boards and tiles. Not yet, maybe not for a few more times.

I got 2 new students last week, lost 2 students on Friday, and found out that I've just become the classroom with the second ESL cluster of students. We cluster so that they students can be serviced together by the ESL teacher. That's Linda, the ESL teacher; so I'm hoping that we'll be able to work together again. Things will hopefully pan out by Friday and then the "normalicy" will start with the schedule. Of course these students are coming out of transitional so they're used to 50% of their curriculum & day being taught in Spanish. I guess I don't know what I'll be expecting. We'll soon find out.

I've not been taking any pictures lately. I've not been doing any digital scrapbooking lately. I've not knitted much but have my yarn and needles for a hat I'm going to make. I did actually have it started before a couple stitches fell off the double pointed needles (dpn) and I decided to frog it so I could start over.

I did go hang out with my friend Marybeth and did some scrapbooking with real paper and scissors. OMG for those who know how into digital I am. I did 3 more pages in my Christmas Journal. Yes, that is the journal that I started almost 2 Christmas's ago and still aren't finished. Marybeth has forbidden me to do any other projects (that doesn't include digital or knitting) until I finish this dumb book. Woops...did I just call my project dumb? Well let's just say I'm quite tired of it and would love to move onto another project. So with all the rain we had yesterday and today... I decided to get my supplies back out and head to the LSS (local scrapbook store) and continue to work on it again. I got another 3 pages finished. 6 pages completed in the weekend. There are 35 different prompts and I've got over 20 finished. I'm trying to be postive about getting it finished. When it's finished I've got to find the album for it. That will be another big issue. I know what I want, but really haven't been able to find it.

Well it is really late here. Way past my bedtime actually and I didn't leave Marybeth's house until 2:00 am this morning. I've got a big week and I have to come home tomorrow and make up a quiz for my tuesday night class.

Here's hoping you have a good week.

It's been a while

since I blogged. I can say that I have been busy. I know, that's the typical response, but it is truly my excuse. I guess I knew having my full-time teaching job was a lot, but when I undertook teaching night school I figured it wouldn't be so much of a big deal. It really is like preparing to teach just like I do during the day. I realize that my least favorite part of teaching is grading papers and maintaining the grade book.

Another thing I've been working on is trying to get my room at school organized. When I asked to change rooms, I knew I would have to pack up the old room and move and unpack. That I knew, I was prepared for that. What I wasn't prepared for was how many things were still in the room. I've been cleaning out and donating things to a bunch of new teachers. It feels good to start making this room my own, but I also felt really great being able to give things to new teachers.

I'm trying to employ the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid)method and the OHIO (Only Handle It Once) method together at school. Right now neither are going too well. I've changed files from two file drawers once already, now I've got to do it again. But when you combining 2 classrooms of things down into one, I've got to pair things down and truly decide...do I need that? Have I used it? Will I use it..if so when? Is this book above my students' reading level? Is this in my curriculum?

By keeping this in mind I've been able to start to weed a bunch of stuff out and donate it.

In other family happenings, Doug is at school just as happy as a clam. Don is trying to find study times and get his homework schedule fixed so he'll be able to keep things flowing smoothly. Brian has started school and had his first behind the wheel day in drivers ed. We've been letting him drive and hopefully he felt comfortable when he had to drive in the big honkin car with the teacher.

The dogs are shaggy beasts and are in desperate need of grooming. The extra expense of grooming 2 dogs stinks. Right now that's not in the budget. Any ideas how to groom dogs yourself?

Well laundry and grading papers and placement tests is screaming for some attention. If I get it done, I'll be free for the rest of the weekend.

Toodles people!