I’ve been sort of absent from the online world the past couple of weeks. My blog needs the cobwebs cleared away.

Here’s what I’ve been up to:

* School ended May 30th (summer vacation, yay!)
* I unofficially have a job teaching first grade for the upcoming school year (!!)
* I attended a 2 day training about open response questions
* I spent a day “planning” with the other first grade teachers
* I’ve been shopping a few times
* I’ve been playing with paint
* Watched a few movies
* Colin and I have been playing a lot of Wii (Mario Kart, Wario Ware, and Mario Galaxy)
* Spent Father’s Day with my family playing games and swimming in the pool

Here’s what’s coming up:

* Mine and Colin’s anniversary is this Wednesday, May(I was thinking about Colin’s birthday when I wrote the ‘May’ part previously, thanks Jessica!) June 18th
* Colin’s on vacation this whole week!
* Trip to Nashville
* Trip to Paducah for anniversary
* Mini-golfing, shopping, eating out
* I have to clean the fish tank desperately
* More Nintendo fun (and Nintendo with Katee!)
* Gynecologist appointment July 3rd

I have lots going on, and I’ll have lots more going on once I “officially” have this job. I pretty much have it, but I haven’t signed a contract or anything yet. I’m excited though! I’ll be more excited when it’s more official. I’ll be working with two really great first grade teachers (and a special education teacher too). I’ve already seen my class list, and I think it will be a pretty good class. I will have an autistic kid and a mentally handicapped kid in my class, but those two students will have an aid and then I will be working with the special ed. teacher as well. I just wish it was totally “official” so I could start working on my classroom and everything.

Other things I need to do:

* Finish adding tea cup trades to my Quilting Bee Quilt.
* Maybe work on a new layout for my quilt
* Upload the school calendar page I made so you can see it
* Upload a ton of pictures to Flickr
* Paint more! (I’ve been playing with paint a lot)
* Work on the dollhouse I’m building (well, Colin and I are building)
* Keep exercising!
* Enjoy my summer vacation!

Hopefully it won’t be forever before I blog again. I have lots of things I could blog about, but I just haven’t been blogging lately. It’s kind of been nice to have a little break from the internet to be honest. I’m still on here every day, but I am not stressing about my website or blog or anything like that. I have some changes I’d like to make to the site, and I’ll get around to that when I can. I also need to work on the school website and, I’d like to start working on my classroom website once I have a few more things figured out.

Hope everyone out there is having a great summer so far!

Well, I am back from Florida and back to the same ol’, same ol’. I went back to work today. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be (even though I did have ESS today on the first day back). The kids were surprisingly well behaved. I was expecting them to be super hyper, but they weren’t. Maybe they wore themselves out over the break. Here’s hoping the calmness sticks around for awhile.

The trip to Florida was a ton of fun. We left on the 21st of December and got to Florida on the 22nd. We stayed on Disney property at the Pop Century Resort. It’s super cool staying at a Disney resort because you never have to worry about diving to the parks. They have busses you can ride around on for free! No parking worries! Plus, resort guests sometimes get to go to the parks earlier than the public or stay later. It’s neat. Colin and I stayed at a Disney resort on our Honeymoon. It is definitely the way to go if you’re going to Disney World.

Everyone (me, Colin, my parents and sister and Colin’s parents) all went to Animal Kingdom on Christmas Eve, and we all went to the Magic Kingdom on Christmas Day. Colin, his parents, and I also went to MGM and Epcot. Katee went to Epcot with us too. I got her a ticket as a Christmas present. Animal Kingdom was super busy on Christmas Eve. It was so fun though. I went on Expedition Everest 4 times! We all also got to go on the Kilimanjaro Safari too. Colin and I didn’t get to do that on our honeymoon. The safari was pretty neat. Some of the animals were pretty close to where we drove! Christmas Day was sort of chaotic at times. All four parks were actually shut down at 1:00 in the afternoon on Christmas Day. By shut down, I mean they wouldn’t let anyone else into the parking lot for a few hours. We got excellent seats for the Christmas parade though, which was the main reason this trip came about. I also got a great seat for SpectroMagic and got lots of neat pictures.

A big highlight of the trip for me was the fact that I got to meet Alice in person! So, as you may or may not know, I am a huge Alice in Wonderland fan! I got to meet Alice at Epcot. I got her autograph and had my picture taken with her. It was pretty cool. I also got an awesome Alice tea set for my Christmas/birthday and some other really neat Alice things too.

I got so many great Christmas and birthday presents this year including: DVD’s, Nintendo DS games, Alice stuff, and… Santa brought Colin and I a Nintendo Wii! We have My Sims, Cooking Mama, WiiSports, and Tamagotchi Party for the Wii. Unfortunately, we haven’t had much time yet to watch our DVDs or play our Wii very much. Funny how I made several snide comments about Wii’s when Katee got hers. *blush* I love bowling on the Wii! Colin loves beating people up (boxing).

It was weird not being at home with all the family on Christmas though. It almost didn’t even really seem like Christmas. It was like 80 degrees while we were in Florida. These past two days we have had snow flurries and it is colder than it has been in forever (16 degrees this morning, felt like 4!). We did have a Christmas get-together on the 30th. On New Year’s Eve my family and Colin’s got together to eat and play games. Colin and I won Pictionary (as usual).

So now it’s a new year. Colin and I are also possibly looking for a house. I have some “goals” (or resolutions) for this year. More about all of that later. Right now, I’m just really happy that while we were gone to Florida, Pouncy survived (even though she apparently climbed up the Christmas tree and took a nap on the branches…)!

I’m leaving for Florida tomorrow!!

My mom, dad, sister, husband and my husband’s mom and dad are all going to Disney World for Christmas. We’re staying at the Pop Century Resort which should be pretty neat. I’ve always thought it would be so much fun to go to Disney World ON Christmas and see it all decorated and stuff. The only bad part about going to Florida is having to leave Pouncy behind. My uncle is going to feed her every day, but I’ll be worried about her just the same.

Here are some updates on my holiday crafting. I bought some unpainted wooden trays from Hobby Lobby. I had planned on painting them and then putting all the goodies I’m making for people on the trays. I didn’t really know how I was going to paint them though. I started off painting them all a wintery blue color, and then it hit me: I’d paint snow on the trays! I painted a layer of snow around the bottom edges, and then added some snowflakes. On the inside of the tray, I painted some snow and a snowman with more snowflakes. They turned out really cute!

Another thing I’ve been busy doing is making picture frames. You know those really plain, wooden picture frames you can get from Michael’s for $1.00? I found the cutest thing to do with them. All you need is some paint and some scrapbook paper. I added some 3D stickers as embellishments. They turned out so cute! Some of the paper didn’t match up exactly, but I think it turned out very well. Needless to say, I’ll be making I made more of these and added them to my tray of goodies for family members! (Actually, the trays were full so they got to go in their own bag. The whole frame ended up costing me around $2.00 since I already had the paint. Can’t beat $2.00 for such a nice gift! (strike>My Michaels is out of the 3X5 frames. Lots of the craft stores are wiped out of stuff. Michael’s got more frames in! I bought 10 to stock up. See more pics here on Flickr!

I did manage to get all of my things mailed the other day, so Jessica, Miranda, Bubs, Heidi, Diane, and Melissa - expect something to arrive from me (hopefully soon!). I had hoped to get all of my Christmas Ornament Trades up on my Quilt, but didn’t have time to do that after all. If you have emailed me a trade request, I do accept! You may go ahead and add my ornament if you’d like, and I’ll add yours as soon as I get back from Florida, if not before!

P.S. I have got to fix my smilies!

Edit: Yes, I have a new theme. Hit Ctrl+F5 to see it. (I seem to be having some issues with IE. I am working on it….)

Happy December everyone! I can’t believe Christmas is just around the corner! I’ve got so much to do before Christmas and our trip to Florida. I still can’t believe I’m going to be at Disney World ON Christmas! I am a little disappointed that “the” Disney World Christmas Parade doesn’t actually occur on Christmas Day. Don’t get me wrong, they have a parade on Christmas, but THE Christmas parade with all the performers and such happened yesterday (November 30th). You have to buy special tickets for it, and they sold out in six hours apparently. Oh well though, I’ll be in the “happiest place on earth” on Christmas Day! I’m still very excited!

So here are some of the things I have been working on lately. First up, I decided today to go ahead and mix up a big batch of peppermint bath salts that are part of the goodies I am making for my aunts and cousin for Christmas. They smell super yummy! I love the little jars too. I got those from Hobby Lobby for 99 cents each. They’re very good, quality little jars. I love little containers and such.

I’ve also been busy painting cupcakes. I guess it was last week I went shopping and found these adorable cupcake ornaments at Joann’s. I bought all that they had. I also found some really awesome glitter paint. I used the glitter paint to paint the tops of the cupcakes. They are really sparkly though the picture doesn’t really show very well. Only one has gotten it’s cute happy face so far. They will all be smiling soon. I haven’t decided whether or not to sell these, give these away in ornament exchanges, or keep them for myself. They are so darn cute! Luckily, I bought lots.

Another thing I have been doing is making more little charms out of polymer clay. It’s not really as easy as it looks. It takes practice and patience to get the shapes and sizes just right. I’m getting better I think. It’s also tricky painting their little faces sometimes. It is time consuming, however, to shape the clay, bake it, let it cool, and paint several coats of paint on. In the end though, they’ve turned out pretty cute I think. I’ve got several I need to still paint.

One other thing I did this morning was make up a big batch of peppermint lotion. Now, I don’t know how happy I am going to be with the end product. The red dye really turned out more pink. I’m not sure if I got enough peppermint oil in the mix either. After it all cools, I’ll try it out later and see what I think about it.

I have so many more things to do: paint Christmas trays, finish the cupcake ornament faces, paint more clay charms, wrap presents, make sugar face scrub, make my peppermint soaps, and try out my new button makers! Yes! I am now the proud owner of a 1 1/4 inch button maker and a 2 1/4 inch button maker. I’m going to go crazy making cute buttons and mirrors! :kiss:

Oh yeah! And here are the two Santa ornaments I made the week of Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving, my family has an ornament exchange. Everyone brings an ornament. We number them, and then everyone draws a number and gets an ornament. I gave away the Santa on the left. My grandma got my ornament again this year.

You can see more pictures of my craft adventures on Flickr.

Oh, and both Karin and Jessica tagged me to post a list of seven facts about myself. I was already tagged before with that same topic (only it was six things). Since I didn’t have time to make a new list of seven things, here is a link to my previous answers.

Are any of you working on handmade gifts for Christmas?

I last updated here on September 25th. Shame on me.

I just wanted to post real quick and let everyone know what the scoop is.

I’ve been sick for going on 3 weeks now. I’ve missed 3 days of work, had a week of Fall Break, celebrated Canada Thanksgiving, and went on a mini-vacation with Colin to Chattanooga, Tennessee. I took almost 1000 pictures while in Chattanooga. I hope to upload the pics sometime soon. I have to go back to work on Monday. I’m not really looking forward to it. I won’t go into a lot of details about that right now….

I’ve been in a crafty sort of mood. I have so many ideas about things I want to make!! Now all I need is time to do it all in. Hopefully, I’ll make some progress with that soon.

Oh, and I’ve pretty much got my new layout finished. I’ve just been tweaking things for a couple of weeks now. Should be totally done soon. *hopefully*

Tonight is the last race of the season for my dad. *crosses her fingers for him* Hopefully he’ll do pretty good. It’s going to get cold tonight though. I’m going to have to bundle up. Hopefully I won’t cough too much and annoy people. I have been coughing so much I annoy myself.

This post feels so cheesy! Oh well. My blog.

Work has kept me super busy lately.

This week was the first week I actually had classes in the computer lab. Whoa. Of course, I spent all this week going over the rules, expectations, and procedures with students. Last year, I didn’t really do that because I was hired after school had already started. The rules were already in place. I am soooo sick of rattling off my rules. I am so sick of saying the same thing over and over. Boorrrring.

The kids all really like the new lab setup though and the ocean theme I have going on. I bought a betta fish for the lab. I got another female (girl power) and my mom helped me pick her out. She was kind of unusual. Most female betta fish are very light in color. All the ones I have ever seen anyway. This one is a really deep purple/blue/black mix. She’s very pretty. I named her Techie (like…Technology…). The kids LOVE her. I figured they would. However, each time I had a class and introduced Techie, it started a huge chain reaction of kids who either had a fish, knew someone who had a fish, saw Finding Nemo (there’s a tiny Squirt the turtle in Techie’s tank), or other miscellaneous fish stories. I had to nip those in the bud. If I let them keep talking about fish, we’d never get anything else done. A girl had a betta fish that almost jumped into her orange juice one time though….

In between classes I spent this week helping sort out the Scantron machine and the GMADE software. We finally got a computer setup so I could install the software on that computer so it wouldn’t tie up mine in the lab. Luckily, I’m not going to end up being the one who has to scan all those 460 something tests. Yay! I also spent a lot of time working on the computers. I didn’t have to do anything too major this week. I mostly had to reset data locations on some of our software/programs. There are a lot of things that the technician needs to come fix. On our new work order system we use to place work orders, it gives us a graph of all the total number of work orders in the district. My school has the most with 60 something. The second highest number is like 20 something. It’s ridiculous. I don’t know why anyone else isn’t having as much trouble with their new computers as I am. *rolls her eyes* I mean, there are just certain things I can’t do. Whatever.

I had a lab attendant meeting on Friday. We got some goodies: a Kid Pix book with a cd-rom that has some pretty cool activities/lessons to do with kids, a new flash drive (a 2 GB one this time), and a cd with all of our lab manuals on it. We can throw away the huge binders now that just sit around and collect dust and take up space. Yay! My friend who works in the lab at another local school asked the Technology Resource Trainer if she thinks they’ll ever hire certified teachers to work in the labs. She said no, that they did that several years ago and had to go back to hiring classified assistants to do it because of the lack of money. Lame.

My dad’s going to race tonight. I don’t think I mentioned this before, but my dad does have a race car. He’s raced a few times each year for the past 5 years or so. I think he wants to start doing it more regularly though. Last time he did okay, his car just didn’t go very fast. He got a cam or something though that’s supposed to make him go faster now though. My camera doesn’t take good pictures at the track. The lighting is bad and the cars are moving of course, so it’s hard to get a picture.

I had to get a new aquarium for Freebie. His tank’s filter sort of died. I don’t know what happened exactly, but green algae started invading. So, I just went and got him a 10 gallon tank like Chunk’s. He seems to be waaay happier now. I planted several plant bulbs in there. I hope they grow. The one in Dazzle’s tank has grown, and she really likes it.

Pouncy’s birthday was on July 6th. She is…. *drum roll* 17, SEVENTEEN, years old! She still acts like such a spunky little kitten. As a treat, we got her a plain Cheeseburger from McDonald’s (she always tries to get our food when we bring food home). She opened it and drug the top bun off. The she started trying to eat it. She picked up the patty and bottom bun and carried it off into the dining room. I finally cut it up for her. She loves cheese. It was so adorable. Pouncy is the bestest cat ever. I’ve had her for practically my whole life it seems. I can’t imagine not having her around!

She’s still doing just fine with her FIV. You’d never know she had by just looking at her. She’s still fairly thin, but she’s always been a tiny cat. Pouncy is so precious. :kiss:

Friday night Colin and I went to the Drive-In. We’ve never been to a drive-in together. Heck, I’ve only ever been once and that was to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in the rain.
We saw Ratatouille. It was pretty good. Cute too. It was a little more adult-ish than some of the other Disney/Pixar movies out there. The Incredibles was that way a little bit too. It had funny moments, but it wasn’t like over-the-top funny. There were some parts they could have totally drug out, but instead, they got to the point pretty much. Remy is such a cute little rat. Never thought I’d use “cute” and “rat” in the same sentence.

We got to the movie before the first showing had ended. We parked in the back and played our Nintendo DS’s trying not to look at the screen. I’m getting really far on Cake Mania. I need to play Animal Crossing Wild World more often. I don’t socialize with my neighbors on there anymore. Lots have moved out of my town. Oh well. When one leaves, another comes.

We had tried to play Jungle Golf before we saw the movie. It was closed when we got there. We figure they must have closed because of the weather. It had rained a whole lot earlier on in the day. Oh well. We had fun at our movie with the chips, and cookies, and candy we brought with us. Who cares if we got home at 3 a.m. Fun times!

And now… tomorrow is Colin’s big day. He begins his “career” tomorrow at the library!!

Yesterday I got to thinking about fish. I needed to clean Chunk’s tank, and I was thinking how he looked lonely. I thought maybe I’d get him a friend. Of course, Chunk is huge. He possibly might have eaten one of my fish before who went missing. Also, he’s in a 10 gallon tank by himself. If I got him a friend, I’d probably need a 20 gallon tank. Then I was thinking how I wanted another betta fish. While in the swimming pool with Colin, I decided I wanted to go to the pet store.

I actually went to Wal-Mart first. Apparently, they don’t sell fish there anymore (not here anyway), which is good because last time I looked at fish at Wal-Mart, every single fish in every single tank was belly-up dead. Terrible. I went to our small, local pet store E&L Pets to see what they had. I found a nice 20 gallon tank with stand for about $140.00. I don’t think I really need to spend that much money on fish right now. So, I decided I probably wouldn’t be getting a friend for Chunk or a bigger tank. I looked at the betta fish, but none of them really jumped out at me.

I came home empty-handed. I did some looking online to see about finding a good gravel cleaner to use on Chunk’s tank. I came across this one that looked really good at PetSmart. Unfortunately, the closest PetSmart is in Evansville, Indiana. After agonizing over what to do, I decided at 6:30 I wanted to go to PetSmart. Colin hates fish. He wasn’t too happy about my decisions, but we went with me anyway.

When we got to PetSmart, we looked for the gravel cleaner thing, but all they had was a 50 foot one. I had wanted the 25 foot one. We got some cat food, cat litter, the 50 foot monster, and then I started looking at fish. I looked through all the betta fish (and there was a lot). I finally found a tiny female I liked that was kind of iridescent blue. She also has a sort of rainbowy patch by her face. I looked around at the other fish too, and found some Calico Telescope fish that caught my eye. The biggest one in the tank is the one I noticed first. It was a pretty fish. And then I noticed… the fish only had one eye.

A one-eyed fish? I had to have it. I decided at that instant I wanted that fish. I decided I’d put him in the 5 gallon tank and not get a betta fish. I asked the lady if something was wrong with the fish. I wanted to make sure he wasn’t sick or something. I thought maybe an eye was missing because another fish ate it off or something barbaric like that. I noticed there was a smaller one in the tank with only one eye too. She went to ask her manager about it. I waited for what seemed like forever. When she finally came back, she said nothing was wrong with the fish. He just has one eye. She also said PetSmart couldn’t sell me the fish because they can’t sell animals with missing body parts or ones with extra body parts. But… she said they could adopt him out to me and let me have him for free. So of course, I snatched him up.

Colin reminded me that I have several small betta tanks I could use if I still wanted to get a betta fish too. Duh! So, I grabbed the female I had been looking at and we headed to the check-out lines.

While standing in line, the girl in front of me told me how pretty Mr. One-Eye was. I think she was curious why it said “free” on his bag. I told her why he was free and that I wanted him because I have a one-eyed cat. She told her mom, so then the mom had to look at it. Then the cashier girl had to show it to another girl who works there and tell her how I am getting a one-eyed fish because I have a one-eyed cat. Yes, it seemed everyone was interested in my slightly handicapped pet choices. The total came to like $100.00. Once outside I looked at my receipt. They had charged me too much for the gravel cleaner. I went back inside to check, and suddenly there were 25 foot cleaners on the shelf. So, I exchanged the 50 foot one for the 25 foot one and got $32 back.

We got home at around 10:00. Colin read the directions for the gravel pump. We couldn’t hook it to the kitchen sink, so we had to hook it to the bathroom one. It wasn’t working like it was supposed to. We finally got it to work, then it stopped working. It was very frustrating. Water was everywhere. The bathroom sink was filling up and not draining fast enough. Colin began pulling wads of hair out of it. Hair that wasn’t ours. :sick: It was pretty rough for awhile. We were both tired and getting frustrated. Finally, we gave up. Colin went to Kroger and bought more water, and I started cleaning the gravel like I always do which takes forever. I think we finally got all 3 fish settled into their own tanks at around 1:30-ish in the morning (Chunk, Dazzle the betta, and Freebie. We were tired and hungry so… we went to McDonald’s and got Happy Meals.

Ah! I haven’t posted since July June 8th?! *smacks herself* Well, I’ve been busy I suppose. :hmm:

Colin and I just got back from our sort of mini-vacation a couple of hours ago. We went to Louisville on Thursday and went shopping (yay!). Friday we went to Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom. Today, we finished our trip off with a trip to the Louisville Zoo. So, what this means is… I have pictures to share!

Six Flags was pretty fun. When we got there we pretty much headed for the water park and got a locker to dump our stuff in. Then we went on a couple of roller coasters. It was weird because on those two roller coasters, there were only two other people on it with us. It wasn’t very busy for some reason. We had lunch at the water park and then jumped in the wave pool for a little bit. The most exciting thing we did at the water park was float along that lazy river thing twice in a row. Adventurous of us, huh? We did a lot of walking, but that’s not even really worth mentioning.

It was a hot day. We pretty much didn’t really have to wait in line for any of the rides we went on. I think the rides we waited for the longest were the Breakdance or something, and oh man. :stunned: I swear it felt like I was in a washing machine. I was jerked around.

It was pretty rough. We went on the big ferris wheel appropriately named “The Giant Wheel.” We also went on a ride called Rainbow. It was like this ride Holiday World used to have called The Banshee. The very last ride we went on was The Penguin’s Blizzard something or other. It’s a rapid ride, so we were expecting to get wet of course. When we got up to the front of the ride to get on, our raft was already full of about 5 inches of water. Bad sign. That ride was ridiculous! We got totally soaked! Yes, it was a hot day, but this was overkill. After the ride was over, it wasn’t like, “Oh! I got wet! Feels good! Fun!.” It was like, “Oh my lord. I am soaked. I need dry panties. I am miserable.” We actually went and got our stuff from the locker and left after that.

I’ve never taken so many pictures at a zoo before. I guess because every other time I have gone, I was only using a disposable camera. It’s not as easy to take good photographs with a disposable. You can’t check and see how the pictures turn out right away. I love my camera. :kiss: I pretty much got a picture of every animal. There were lots of random snakes I didn’t take pictures of. Yuck.

I’ve seen gorillas at zoos tons of times. They’re always been some distance away though, like up on a hill or something. We went in this one building, and they had some gorillas that you could see through the glass. There was a male silverback gorilla just standing right there in front of the glass. He was HUGE! Like, oh my gosh. I’d be scared if I ever ran into one of those guys and there wasn’t any glass between us. He started showing off too. It was cool.

I got lots of good pictures. (I’m posting more on my Flickr account soon.) Several of the animals had babies. There was a baby hippo, baby elephant, and…more babies that I can’t remember! So many animals! I tried to pick some really good ones to post in this entry. Maybe it will inspire you to go check out all of my pictures (THEY’RE UP! Click here for more zoo photos!).

So, Colin had his big, half-day interview yesterday for the library coordinator position at MCC. After he got home around 3ish, we decided to head on up to Evansville to see Pirates 3 and eat at Boston Pizza. We stopped at the Burger King here in town first, because he hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast and since we weren’t going to eat until after the movie (the long movie). We were getting close to being finished when his phone rang…

… He got the job! Whooo-hoo! It was very exciting! I know how super-smart he is, and how professional and I guess they realized too! I’m so proud! I think he’ll be really good at it, and everyone is very excited for him. It was good because he got to enjoy the rest of the day without having to worry about how his interview went.

We saw Pirates (got there just in time to see it), and it was, of course, very long. Longer than it really needed to be I think. It was good though. I was confused during some parts of it, but that’s to be expected I think. I’m sometimes not good at following action-type movies with lots of swordfighting. We went to Boston Pizza afterwards and had…pizza!

Today was silly because we got all ready to go swimming and walked down the million steps to get to the pool, and there was a chain and lock on the pool gate. Apparently the pool pump is broken, so they closed the pool until they get the part they need (which is supposed to be tomorrow). We went to eat supper at my parents’ though, so we swam there (and played Katee’s Wii!).

Well, that sister of mine, Katee, saved her money and bought herself a Wii a couple of days ago. I got to experience it for the first time yesterday. Katee, Colin, and I all played Bowling on Wii Sports. I must admit…it was pretty fun. *blush* Yes, I could become addicted perhaps, but I won’t because I don’t have one myself.
Yesterday was Colin’s birthday. We went swimming at my parents’ house, had hot dogs and cupcakes, went to see Shrek 3 (Puss in Boots is so cute!) and had popcorn, had Dairy Queen Treatza Pizza, and then Colin and I played his new Pirates of the Carribbean Life game after they left. It was a pretty good day. Colin definitely had a better birthday this year than last year. (Last year, we moved into our apartment on his birthday and we had no air conditioner. It was hot!) Today, he’s at his MCC librarian interview. *crosses her fingers for him* I am so nervous for him! We’re going to go to Boston Pizza and to see Pirates 3 sometime soon (today or in the next couple of days). Fun times.

I have several things I should do before Colin gets home from his interview: shower, start some laundry, clean up a little bit, and…um…cross my fingers for him!

I feel I accomplished a lot today. I…

* wrapped Colin’s birthday presents (his birthday is tomorrow!)
* rode 6.5 miles on my exercise bike
* baked and decorated cupcakes
* went swimming
* took care of some Quilting Bee business

Yay! I had a pretty good day, I think.

Friday was the last day of school for students. I have to work Monday, but after that… summer vacation! Whoo-hooo!

Friday was insanely busy. I didn’t go into work Friday morning. Friday was Katee’s 8th grade promotion. I can’t believe she is going to be in high school next year. It’s crazy. She got her perfect attendance award. I could have NEVER in my life gotten one of those. One kid has had perfect attendance for 8 straight years! :O

After the promotion, Colin and Katee dropped me off at work. Mrs. Carol (one of the custodians) and I set right to work to finish moving all the old Compaq computers to the blue pod hallway. I got so many questions throughout last week about those computers. People still can’t get over the fact that we are crushing them all. Anyway, unhooking computers, moving them all around the school, and stacking them up in piles is hard work. I actually have some bruises on my arm from carrying monitors (I assume). We got most of the computers moved.

When school let out, Colin came and helped me move the computers and tables in the lab. The way the lab was set up was annoying because there was no room on the floor in front of the SmartBoard. This was annoying because I couldn’t get kids seated back there very well (especially the big kids). I had like no floor space in there either. There were rows all over the place. We moved the computers so that, for the most part, they are against the wall. This totally opens up the middle of the floor. The room looks so much bigger and open. We set up some of the tables back to back so it made a little “station.” Colin also fixed all the wiring so that I don’t have to use the annoying plugs in the floor. He used the network hubs that I had in various places. Now kids won’t be as likely to trip over cords because there aren’t any cords plugged into the floor. Mrs. Carol and I moved a few more computers too. I’ll have to finish a few things on Monday.

Colin and I went out to eat that night at O’Charley’s in Hopkinsville. Yum yum. Our waitress was silly, of course. We came home and watched one of our Netflix movies. A Japanese movie about these two little boys who wanted a tv, and their parents wouldn’t buy one. So…the boys decided not to talk anymore. The youngest boy was retty cute.
I never have heard anything else about my “illegal job.” I guess no news is good news. I’m sure the district made up some B.S. about what CIA’s in the computer lab do. Lies. Oh well, not my problem anymore (I hope).

I have to go through all my forms so I will be ready to place them on computers and tables tomorrow. I hope I get all of that sorted out. I also have to figure out where these three Compaqs are going that we have to keep. I’m sure I have that in my inventory somewhere…

My smilies aren’t validating. I installed the Custom Smilies plugin, and liked it until I found out it doesn’t give a alt attribute to the smilies. I tried to go and edit that bit of code myself, but it didn’t work. I’ll have to find another smiliey plugin soon. Any recommendations? I’m also working on some modifcations to my layout or possibly a new layout.
Okay, enough. I am hungry. My stomach is saying so. Literally.

I am exhausted. I have been all week. It’s probably the fast that spending two weeks covering a first grade class has caught up with me, mixed with a cold I think I’m getting. Either way, I am so incredibly tired.

The school year’s almost over which means it’s that time of year again where I worry about next year’s job. I’m trying not to worry. I really am. Sometimes it’s hard though.

The county I worked in posted eight teaching jobs that will be available for next school year. I’m not really excited by this. I feel like I should be jumping all over these opportunities, but I feel discouraged for a number of reasons. First, I know (well, I feel pretty certain) that several of the positions have already been filled and are just being posted as a formality. Second, I don’t really care too much for any of the schools that have open jobs right now. Third, the idea of working in another new place for the third year in a row bothers me.

I just wish I had an “established” career. I know it takes years to settle into a job, but I’m really tired of constantly having to move all my stuff around from place to place. I finally found a school I feel totally comfortable at. People like me. They value what I do for them. I am appreciated. I can’t say any of those things about my teaching job last year.

I guess I just have this fear of turning into someone who hates their job but continues to work at it for their whole life. I really like what I’m doing right now. Yes, I get paid way less than I should be, but I enjoy it. It’s fun. I’m good at it, and people recognize that I am good at it. Is money more important than happieness? Well, sometimes it seems that way!! Sometimes I feel like I’m being lazy by wanting to keep my computer lab job instead of being a teacher. Sometimes I feel like I’d be wasting my degree by sticking with my computer lab job, or that I’m being selfish. I could really use the tons more money I’d make from being a teacher.

It’s not that I don’t ever want to be a teacher again. I’m just still really “traumatized” over the Lexington thing. It’ll take a long time to really get over that. That’s why I really like my job now. Everyone is nice to me. I’m doing a good job, and everyone lets me know. I feel….important as cheesy as that may sound. Lots of people have told me that perhaps the Board of Education might want to snatch me up for their Technology Department there. I don’t know if that’d ever really happen, or if that’s something I’d be interested in. I just don’t know….
On another note, Colin found on on….Tuesday, I think, that he was finally approved for his Green Card. We’ve been waiting forever to hear about it. We had our interview in July or August of last year (I think, Colin can and will correct me if I’m wrong) and we were told his FBI background check hadn’t been completed yet. I made Colin call and talk to someone about it a couple of weeks ago. So now we just have to wait for the Green Card that’s not really Green to come in the mail. That’s one less thing to worry about now! Yay!