Thursday Delightfullness

I'm sitting here at parent teacher conferences, overjoyed with excitement. It's slow tonight, compared to Monday night, so I'm going to entertain myself, keep myself busy,and possibly you,  by jotting down some random thoughts.

• I did not see any of the miners be pulled out this week. When Bobby is working, I just don't turn on the TV, so I didn't know anything was going until I woke up the next morning and was checking Twitter. I'm stealing this comment from someone else, but when I realized I missed it, I kinda felt like I'd missed the moon landing or the OJ chase. 
• Our whole family, all 4 of us, have off the next three days. Woo-hoo--mark that on the calendar, because when has that EVER happened. Lots of fun family time. Come Monday, I'll probably be talking about how much we annoyed each other, but for now, looking forward to time together. 
• Looks like I might be getting a student teacher in the spring--excited about that. I've met her once, and she seems on top of things. Student teachers can be a good thing or a bad thing. I've had two; one was exceptional and one was so-so. Either way, it is a treat to get some time "off".
• The girls are going to start doing chores and receiving an allowance. They will be required to give a portion to church each week. I thought they would fight me on that part, but they really didn't.

Is it time to go home yet? Only 1 1/2 hours left. 

Oh, boy.

I emailed many of you this story, but in case you didn't get my email, here's my funny story from yesterday:


My juniors read story from  the Puritan time period called Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. The story  is full of excellent, descriptive imagery, so to do something different, I had  them pick 5 elements and draw them together in a picture. A boy turned his in, and there was a picture of a raft. Here’s our conversation:

Me:  “Why is there a raft on here?”

Boy: “You know, God’s raft”

Me:  “What? There is no raft in the story.”

Boy: “Yes, there is. God’s  raft.”

****Lightbulb goes off in my head*******

Me: “Oh, you  mean God’s WRATH.”

Boy: “Yes, God’s raft.”

Shirt sizes

I ordered shirts for my newspaper staff last night, and here were the sizes:

10 Smalls
3 Mediums,
5 Larges

It just strikes me funny that there were so many smalls, and I couldn't get one side of my body into a small! That's the joy of teaching 15-16 year-olds.

Nothing really

As usual, it's been a busy week. As usual, Bobby has been working a lot and I haven't seen him but an hour or two since Tuesday. I'm thankful that in this economy he has a job (or three!) but good grief. It feels like I'm a single parent when this happens, and being a single parent sucks.

Kaylin got in trouble at school on Thursday, for the 3rd time. She was grounded this weekend and had all her silly bands (all 100 of them) taken away until Monday. Today we went to a little festival with some friends, and she won 2 silly bands. She promptly handed them to me to wear, telling me she was grounded from them. Then when we got home, she took them and put them with her other silly bands.

Macy had a great grade-check on Friday; really proud of how well she is doing in school. Hopefully it continues. She was quite a bit moody at Girl Scouts on Thursday, which drives me nuts. One little comment can set her off, and she decides that no one likes her. I reminded her later that I am the Brownie troop leader because of HER, not the other girls, and if she didn't straighten up, we'd quit at the end of the year. She seemed to understand my point. Basketball sign-ups are this weekend, and she is excited about that. She's also asked to play volleyball next year.

Funny story from GS Thursday night. We have a new girl  whose parents are missionaires in China. They are back in the states until Christmas time, then they are going back to China. The girls were asking her questions about China, and one girl (not my daughter!) says, "Can you say something in Spanish?" Ummm....no. Then another girl (again, not my daughter!) says, "Well, can you say something in Mexican?" Maybe we need to work on our cultures a little bit.

Parent Teacher Conferences are this week coming up, always a fun time. I will see a big increase in the amount of parents I see, because of the new class I am teaching.

Wordless Wednesday...Or Fun with PhotoBooth

Split Allegiances

I teach at a district just 10 miles away from our town, where Bobby works and the girls go to school. Houses are cheaper in our small town, while the pay is better in my district. 

But the girls are growing up with a split allegiance. My students are constantly asking me if I am coming to their games, and we do go to quite a few. I love being able to tell the quarterback, "Awesome touchdown pass in the last 5 minutes" or tell the volleyball player "what a great game!". I think it helps build relationships with them as well. The girls tag along with me, and love all things my school as much as their own school.

Thursday night my school had a festival of sorts, and then Friday night was the Homecoming Football game. We met a new friend:

and had a great time. Of course, however, we missed the girls' Homecoming football game to go to mine. To show the split allegiance the girls are feeling, Kaylin brought this art project home Friday night:

One sleeve says "Go Bulldogs" and the other sleeve says "Go Eagles!" I laughed when I saw this--nice job Kaylin of accurately depicting both schools.

I don't want to move, and have to pull the girls away from their friends, and I don't want to take a pay cut to move to their district. Looks like we'll be dealing with this for a while.

Still here

Just checking in to say that yes, I am alive. It's coming close to being a week since I blogged last, so I figured I'd better say something, lest all my loyal readers stop reading.

I've been a bit puny today, and Bobby was at work. Thank goodness for good friends who can help out in a pinch with the girls. And the girls were wonderful all day for me too, thank goodness. I spent the day either in bed or on the couch.

Last week was Homecoming-the first ever! Of course, no one was really "coming home", but that's ok. It was very heartening to see so many kids dressed up for spirit days! At the "classic" high school, so few kids or teachers dressed up and it was sad. This was a great change!

Remember me talking about Gabe's late night wanderings in the backyard? We may have figured out what is going on. Friday night Bobby was working late. I put Kobe outside, then apparently fell asleep and left her out there. When Bobby came home at 1, he went to bring her inside and she was freaking out. There was a possum in the tree by the deck!

That's it for now. As if I haven't slept all day, I'm going to bed now.