Christmas Update

So Christmas came and went and now it's New Year's Eve. Let me tell you that Christmas with four kids is pure craziness especailly when there are so many presents. When I set out presents on Christmas Eve, each child had a large pile - and that was just from Montgomery County DSS, us and Santa. I looked around while the house was blissfully quiet and felt sort of overwhelmed by the amount of presents. So when the kids woke up in the morning they were very excited by what Santa had brought. They proceeded to play with toys, rip the paper off of their packages to see exactly what they got. There were lots of toys and clothes and such. Colby got his firetrucks, Noah got his Cinderella doll (more on that some other time), and Ariyana got a TON of dolls (one of which I found disturbing enough to ban).

After breakfast we did round two. Brandon got the presents out of the truck that my parents had brought at my graduation. We Skyped my parents and let the kids open the presents while everyone in Hampton watched. That was fun! When we were done with that round of opening presents, the house was a hot mess. There was wrapping paper, tissue paper and toy packaging everywhere. I wish I'd taken a picture of the huge pile of trash that made it out to the curb on trash day...it was ridiculous. Of course Brandon didn't help much because he decided to throw wrapping paper snowballs at everyone, which then encouraged the boys to throw snowballs too. They had fun though! The rest of the morning was spent playing with toys, opening toys and generally having some fun.

After lunch and nap we went to Brandon's parents' house. We ate dinner and opened presents until very late. We had to leave the presents there to pick up the next day because there was so much! I washed all the kids' new clothes over the next couple days - a load and a half of just new clothes! I love new clothes myself and everyone has great taste in clothes so that was exciting! Now the dilemma is finding a place to put all these great clothes.

I decide that Sahara did not need all the presents that DSS sent over, so I put four of them in her closet to give to her for her birthday. I guess I just thought ten new toys for a eight month old was a little overkill. All in all, it was a great Christmas. We may need to make a trip to goodwill with some older toys or store some up in the attic, so there may be some more work involved, but I wouldn't trade everyone's happy faces.

Oh and I enjoyed playing my wii :-)

Work Yet Done

I'm off from work for two weeks. So far it's been really good. I've taken the Rose kids to daycare for most of the days and I've gotten to hang out with Colby. I think he's really enjoyed that and I know I really have. I would like to say that with most of the kids at daycare for most of the week, that I got a lot done, but that would be false. I've just felt so tired. I bought supplies to make red pepper jelly several days ago, but finally got around to doing it today. I've needed to put away a TON of laundry and I started today. I still need to wrap some presents, but I think it can wait until tomorrow. I mean why do it today if I can do it tomorrow right? :-)

A while ago I bought some movies off of Amazon with the intention of giving them to the kids for Christmas, but when I discovered the sheer quantity of gifts that Montgomery County DSS brought over for the kids I also discovered that the movies were nice but unnecessary gifts. So we're watching them over the next couple of days - Toy Story 2 today, Finding Nemo tomorrow and Cars 2 on Christmas.

Update

Whew...I've been quite terrible about blogging lately, but I guess I have a pretty good excuse :-) So, the the land of the Gill's things have had their ups and downs lately. Truth be told my marriage with Brandon has never been tested as much as it has been lately. The last six months have been rewarding but we've had to grow in patience, love, and we've had to learn how to talk about differences of opinion in thoughtful and productive ways (which I'm still working on because I always cry when there is confrontation). All in all things are going well. Sometimes we wonder what the heck we were thinking by taking in three children, but we're too stubborn to give up. Plus we love those kids :-)

This week is Christmas vacation. Since the school is closed Colby is hanging out with us at home while the kids go to daycare. I had some plans that involved going to see a movie with Colby and Noah, but then I got the crud that's been going around so I had to scrap that plan. Instead Colby watched a bajillion episodes of X-men while I slept. Ariyana got an unplanned haircut the other day (Noah found a pair of baby safety scissors and decided to play hairdresser), but other than that she's doing well. Sahara has been on verge of crawling for several weeks and today she moved over that edge. Because she started crawling, I moved the coffee table so she wouldn't hit her head on it. Plus the boys like the open space, though I think it makes them much more rowdy.

Well, that's all for now. Laundry is calling. I'll try to post again tomorrow, but no promises :-)

It's November?

Yesh, it's been a while since I last posted (though not as long as some people I could mention ;-) ) We've been trucking away here in Radford. We still have our foster kids - and Colby of course! Brandon and I have pretty much come to the conclusion that we're crazy and have probably bitten off more than we can chew by taking in three foster kids, but we're too stubborn to give up. Their next court date is in March so we'll see what happens from there. Things have been going better between Noah and Colby. Their playing much better together, though there are still some issues from time to time - but when are there not between brothers. Ariyana is learning more words and is an accomplished singer. She sings all the time :-) Sahara is growing so fast. She just started to eat solid foods and I swear she will be crawling any day now. She has been pushing up on her knees and looking at things across the room with such wanting, but she hasn't yet figured out how to move forward. She's very good a moving backwards :-)

Everything has been going well with the pregnancy. I'm about twelve weeks and I haven't been sick and my appetite is starting to be not as selective. A couple of weeks ago a salad turned my stomach, but I ate one at Applebees last weekend. My students keep asking about the baby all the time. They want names, genders, due dates and everything. I keep telling them to chill out because I'm not due any time soon and it's too early to know anything.

October Update

A while ago Brandon fixed our old computer. I had knocked the power jack into the computer and we had to get a new one soddered on. Brandon finally soddered it on, but then it broke again about a week ago. I finally was able to talk Brandon into buying a new computer :-) Words cannot express how awesome it is to be able to work on a computer without it randomly cutting off on me.

In other news it is really cold and windy outside. I don't think it's supposed to make it out of the forties today and tomorrow. I had to turn on the heater in the girl's room - it gets cooler because it has two windows and it faces the north. With the cool weather comes the germs. Noah, Ariyana and Sahara have runny noses and I'm sick too. If I don't feel better by Monday morning I'm going to need to go to the doctor because it won't be a cold - it will be an upper respitory infection.

Everything is going well with the kids for the most part. Colby and Noah are playing better together. Unfortunately they are getting into lots of mischief together too. Today they decided they were going to grab a bag of chocolate chips off the counter and dump them on their bed and then eat handfuls. We decided to try a soap chaser to see if they will think twice next time. Aryiana has been in rare form today - she can't seem to keep her hands off the new computer nor can she nap when the boys are napping. Sahara has been a sleepyhead today. I don't think she's feeling well or maybe she's going through a growth spurt, but she hasn't been awake for much longer than 45 minutes at one time today.

Addicted to the left behind books

Julie got me reading a military spin-off of the left behind series over the past two months or so and finished up the 4th of the series yesterday. Already on the third book of the original series.

Author Mel Odom writes the military version: Apocalypse Dawn, Apocalypse Crucible, Apocalypse Burning, and Apocalypse Unleashed. Follows several different story lines, both male and female, about people's struggling faith following the mass disappearance of 1/3 of the world following the rapture.

Authors Tim Lahaye and Jerry Jenkins write the Left Behind Series which follows several story lines based on somewhat everyday ordinary people. There's approximately 12 books in this series, I'm currently reading #3 Nicholae.

Not sure about the whole rapture thing as its presented in the books, but haven't studied revelation much lately.

My Saturday

Today I took my big test - the School Leadership Licensure Assessment. I have to pass this in order to be a principal. It was 100 multiple choice questions - many of which were very tricky because two answers would have worked - and 7 short response questions - only twenty minutes to write out a response per question. It was really difficult to focus because my nose was stuffy, I was tired and the room was freezing. I pulled the hood on my sweatshirt up because I was so cold. I don't know if I did well or not. It's the sort of test that you could feel good about it and bomb it or feel terrible about it and ace it. I'll find out in a month.

The good news is, when I got home, the boys had been good for the sitters...yes, sitters plural. I felt like it was unfair for there to only be one sitter, so I hired two to watch them while I was testing. They had already eaten lunch so all I had to do was make sure they went down for a nap and then I took a nap! This evening there were a couple of frustrating and hairy moments, but overall Noah and Colby played well together. They created chaos in their room, but they helped clean up, so that was okay. If only I could get them to stop hitting when their angry and Noah to stop screaming over everything, that would be great. But then I wouldn't have anything to blog about :-)

Restaurant Snub

So this weekend Brandon, Noah, Ariyana, and I drove to northern Virginia to sign the papers for our van to make it officially ours. On the way home we stopped at a Texas Roadhouse that was largely empty. Noah and Ariyana had been acting pretty decent - just your minor turn around, stop kicking the seat, talk softly sort of reminders. Well, the hostess tried to seat two ladies across the isle from us. When the hostess asked if that was alright, one lady said no, it wasn't. I was like, huh? So then the hostess tried to seat them behind us. The lady said again no, that wasn't okay. Then she approached the hostess being really careful to keep her back turned to us and told the hostess she didn't want to sit near the kids. The hostess then dutifully took them to another part of the restaurant (right on the main thoroughfare, I might add, so that she would have to see every man, woman and child that entered the restaurant, ha!) I was very surprised. I have heard of such behavior happening at other places, but it had never happened to me. My kids behave at restaurants. They're not allowed to run around screaming everywhere. But I was flabbergasted - it's a Texas Roadhouse not a five star restaurant. This same lady ended up going to the restroom at the same time I took Noah. Our waitress also happened to be in there. She told our waitress that the floors were sticky in the bathroom and all over the restaurant. Our waitress was like 'oh, okay.' When the lady left I asked the waitress if that woman thought she was going to clean the entire restaurant right away. The waitress laughed. You don't eat off the floor, lady. And it's a Texas Roadhouse for crying out loud! You can put peanut shells on the floor! On the way out, without any prompting, Noah told the lady goodbye. I laughed all the way to the car. Fun times...

It's a Struggle

I think up until today I've made fostering seem like a piece of cake when it's really been a struggle. Today I've felt that struggle more keenly than ever. Here's a sample of my day with all four children. In the morning, I'm trying to get ready (shower, clothes, makeup, breakfast, pack lunch) and Colby wants his formula while Noah and Ariyana want juice. Somehow I end up getting them their various drinks, I eat breakfast while I'm giving Sahara a bottle, I get them dressed and out the door sometime befor 7:40 (even though every day I'm shooting for 7:30). I drop of Noah, Ariyana, and Sahara while Colby waits in the car, then I drop off Colby at his daycare and then I go of to my internship at a nearby elementary school. Fastfoward through school (which is going okay, except for 4th block when I want to strangle someone...not a good way to end my day). I got pick up Colby, then I take Colby inside the other daycare while I collect the other three, then I herd them into the car and drive home. If I'm lucky the boys keep their hands to themselves and nobody ends up crying and I get to sing a few songs at the top of my lungs to relieve some stress. Then when we get home everyone is thirsty and hungry and they want to watch a movie or cartoons and I just want to lock myself in a sound-proof room for ten minutes. The boys fuss with each other and constantly jump on their beds even though I've told them a million times not too and they've spend tons of minutes in timeout for jumping on the bed, which makes it take that much longer to fix dinner. Dinner is usually not too bad thanks to the food in my freezer and a little ingenuity on my part. They are at least quieter when they're stuffing their faces with food, which they rearly say thank you or please for. Then I play referee for the rest of the night and listen to small voices whine, complain, cry, tattle, and ask questions until I can't stand it anymore. They are good for maybe 20 percent of the night. Ariyana is good, but frustrating because she doesn't use words. It's a guessing game as to what she wants. Sahara is good too, but when she's hungry that makes it difficult to keep an eye on those boys like I need to. At bedtime it's a battle with those boys. I want them to be asleep by 8:30, but they use every excuse in the book to stay awake. Bottom line: I really love all my kids, but damn do they drive me crazy. And I now I know I'm not anywhere close to patient enough to have twins. There's a more realistic view of having three foster kids or four kids in general. I hope you're not too horrified :-)

IRS Finally Comes Through

So, a long time ago...around the time we sent in our 2009 taxes...we applied for this little thing called the first time homebuyers tax credit. It was $8000 dollars. Well, the IRS, being the dumb thing that it is, denied the tax credit claiming that we didn't file the correct paperwork. So we refiled the paperwork and they denied it again saying that we didn't file the correct form with the paperwork. So we refiled the paperwork and the correct form and waited. Then we got a bill for $10,000 and were like WTF!!! We called and they said they'd made an error (and we were like "you're damn right!") We got two letters saying they were still processing our paperwork, but finally, FINALLY we got a check in the mail for the $8000 plus interest. Honestly it couldn't have come at a better time. Now we can pay the last five hundred dollars on the RAV4. Now we can get the transmission in the RAV4 fixed so that we have a four wheel drive vehicle. Now we can put some money away for our emergency fund. If you couldn't tell, I'm pumped about getting the money! Thank you GOD!!

First Couple Days of School

This week has been a little crazy because there have been multiple appointments in various locations with various people. Monday Early Intervention came to work with Ariyana on her motor skills. I think if this teaching thing doesn't work out I'll become an Early Intervetion person - I think it's a pretty sweet gig because all she does is go to visit these kids and play with them so that they'll learn new skills. Also on Monday was the weekly visit with the kids' mom. We dropped them off and then Brandon and I got to go to Barnes and Noble all by ourselves. I was a nerd and bought a book of commonly confused words :-)

Yesterday was major craziness because Brandon had to take all three of the kids to the doctor - by himself. I'm sure it was craziness, but at least afterwards he was able to take them to daycare and spend a little time tooling around Walmart by himself. They seemed to have a really good time at daycare and none of their teachers expressed any concern. Yesterday was also my first official day back at school. It was sort of weird because there wasn't anything on the schedule except breakfast...then we had the entire rest of the day to put our rooms together. I'm DEFINATELY NOT complaining, it was just weird because that almost never happens on the first day of school.

Today was my first day taking the three siblings to daycare by myself. It was a little crazy because the daycare asked us not bring infant carseat carriers back to the classroom, which means I have to carry the baby AND get Ariyana out of the car and then herd Ariyana and Noah through the door with only one free hand. This is hard - at least in the carseat carrier I can set Sahara down if I need to chase someone. Maybe I can take the carseat carrier in with me, drop her off and then bring it out with me...there's a thought! At school things were a bit crazier with meetings and such. We had convocation, a faculty meeting and a department meeting. My room is looking pretty good, though. I just need to arrange the student desks, get rid of a bookshelf and put together a new one and I think things will look pretty decent. Now I just need to iron out the details on this new class...hmm...

School

Today I dropped $375 on a test that will determine whether I can be a principal or not. This test will take four hours and will be part multiple choice and part essay. My had will be cramped and my brain will not be working when I'm done with this test. Yay. I'm confident I can pass it, though, so it will not be $375 wasted :-)

So yesterday's meeting was good. It was weird because it was me and a bunch of principals and RTI coordinators...you know...people that matter. RTI is going to be taking the education world by storm soon and Pulaski is one of the test counties that will ultimately be mentors to other local counties when it's up and running. Basically RTI is assessing what students know and then working on the things that they don't know in a more systematic/scientific way. It's supposed to be highly individualized. One of our elementary schools has already implemented this and it seems to be working well, but now we need to implement it on a larger level including a test group at the high school that is being taught by yours truly. I am teaching a new class - a year long English class where the Reading Specialist will work with them on reading and I will work with them on writing. They want us to use RTI to target skills that they need to know and then I have a feeling they are expecting us to be able to tell the rest of the school how awesome it is when they implement it full-scale at the high school. I did not know what I was getting myself into when I went to this meeting, but I feel sort of honored that they would ask me to be part of a group of such illustrious school officials. I think the timing is good because the state just released the Adequate Yearly Progress Report and both middle schools and the high school did not make AYP. This is the second year in a row that we haven't made AYP, which could mean not good things for us. Maybe RTI will be good for our students and good for AYP.

Week Two...

So we're well into our second week of fostering three kids. We dearly love them all, though they all present some different challenges. Sahara, the baby, is great. She mostly sleeps through the night and rarely cries unless she's hungry or tired. She's a real pleasure to have in the house. Ariyana is really sweet when she's not pouting. She does have a killer pouty face, but I like her better when she smiles :-) She's mostly non-verbal, but I think very soon she'll start picking up words. We just keep talking to her and hoping she'll start talking back. Noah is definately out of the honeymoon phase these days. Sometimes he and Colby play nicely, but the rest of the time they're fussing with each other or being pouty with each other. They fight constantly over everything from being in each other's space to he took my truck. I can't wait for daycare to start next week so they can get a break from each other and maybe peace can reign in my house. I firmly believe that Noah is not a bad kid. He's just not used to sharing with someone his age all the time. There's been lots of temper tantrums today too, which I'm not fond of. I know I'm slightly overwhelmed when I can't wait for a meeting tomorrow for school. I can't wait to listen to adults - not fussing, not screaming, not yelling. I don't even care what they talk about tomorrow just as long as I don't have to break up a fight between three year olds or put anyone in timeout!

Emotional Day

So, I had my first cry today. All my emotions got jumbled up and got the best of me. I guess four kids will do that to you especially when go from one kid to four all of the sudden. It's more stressful sometimes than it ought to be. One good thing happened today though, I got to go to Steppin' Out in Blacksburg. Steppin' Out is a big festival where local artisans sell their stuff. There was lots of cool stuff. Unfortunately I ran out of checks so I only got three things. I saw some pretty cool stuff including wind chimes made out of silverware and some pretty cool lawn ornaments. There was lots of pottery, art and jewelry. I got a necklace and some toys for the boys and that was it. I also got to meet up with Gwen for the second time in two weeks. It was fun to see her again :-)

Where to Start?

Alrighty so, last time I blogged we had one child...a lot has changed since then!

On Friday Brandon and I drove to West Virginia to see the Black Eyed Peas. They are a contemporary pop group that sings pretty decent and clean music. They do some cool stuff with lighting and whatnot. It was pretty fun because we got to meet up with some friends and hang with them. It was really crowded, but that just meant we got to do some people watching, which considering we were in West Virginia was pretty entertaining :-) We spent a long time waiting to leave, but we had a blast.

On Saturday Brandon and I went to go see the children for the first time. They spent the weekend at the home of a family that goes to our church. They didn't seem to be hyper or anything, just kids being kids. We felt better about everything after meeting them, but we were still unsure of how the whole car situation would work out. I mean, how do you put four kids in five passenger car?

After meeting them, we went to a wedding. It was really hot, but it was really pretty and just perfect for that person. I got to meet up with the other English teachers, so that was fun. Unfortunately the real excitement happened on the way home. We drove to Kmart to purchase two cribs for the two girls, but the RAV was acting up on the way over. Eventually we made it, purchased the cribs to be picked up later and loaded diapers and clothes and other misc. stuff into the RAV. Unfortunately RAV made it exactly half a mile and left us stranded on the on ramp for 460 in Christiansburg. Luckily Brandon's dad was able to come pick me up and our massive amounts of stuff. We called a tow truck and Brandon hitched a ride with him to Roanoke to rent a van. Brandon picked up the cribs on his way home and we spent the evening putting those together and trying not to stress about our vehicle issues.

On Sunday we went to church and came home with three extra kids. Ever since then it's been really crazy at our house. It's been good, though. Having a baby has been really pleasant since she sleeps through the night mostly. The 20 month old is below what her development should be, but she's really sweet and she's Brandon's buddy :-) Noah and Colby seem to get along okay, but they have their bad moments like most brothers. They certainly had a blast avoiding nap time today until I seperated them.

So, as far as vehicles go...we found out that the RAV needs a new $3500 transmission. That's more than the car is worth, so we're oging to buy a Mazda5 van from Hertz Car Sales in Charlotte. The Mazda5 is small as far as vans go, but it gets great ratings and is highly recommended by everyone that recommends vehicles. It will seat six so it's perfect for us and the price/mileage is excellent. Brandon is supposed to go down on Sunday to pick it up. I'm pumped :-)

The Start of Foster Care

So today we got a call from DePaul asking if we would take our first foster children. I thought they would try to ease us into this, but no, they asked us to take not one, not two, but three foster kids - Noah (4), Arianna (18 mos) and Sahara (3 mos). I think we can fit three more kids in our house, but the main problem is that our car is not big enough for all of them to sit in the back seat. The ideal solution is for us to buy a new car. The reality is that we don't feel like that's a viable option for us. So we decided to buy a passenger airbag on/off switch. That way one of them, probably Noah, can sit in the front seat without the airbag going off in an accident. The hope is that we can pay off the RAV ASAP and save for at least a couple of months to put a really nice down payment on a new or new/used van. I'm really excited about this! I'm excited to be able to provide a home for these kids who are in a less than ideal situation. I'm also excited about being able to buy little girl clothes :-) I think I'll be glad to look back on this craziness, but I think I'll look back with fondness!

Thoughts for Teaching This Year

Every summer I think about the up-coming school year and decide what I'm going to do differently. This summer I decided to buy a book that would give me some fresh ideas and a new perspective. The book is What Great Teachers Do Differently by Todd Whitaker. This book is really good. As I read I think about how great it would be for everyone in my school to read this book - it's a quick read, only 128 pages. I already have a list of things I'd like to do or do better when school starts. I also have a mental list of what I'd like others to do better. If they only did one thing better, I would say they need to be more positive. I think my school has a culture of complaining and negativity that I would love to see go away. I'm guilty of complaining, but when confronted with massive complaining this summer, I found out how unproductive and detrimental complaining is. I won't say that I'll never complain again, but I think after reading the book and my summer experiences, I'll complain less. And what's to complain about really? We have the best jobs on the planet (hello, summer break!) and we get to help influence future generations to hopefully be better than past generations. Every day is different from the one before and every set of kids is a chance to get to know new people and solve new problems. If you are a teacher and don't love your job (most of the time) then maybe you're complaining too much :-)

Summer Lovin'

Now that summer school is over, I'm trying to do some things that I don't normally do. I went to visit my parents this past weekend (not that I don't normally visit, but the timing was good :-) ). I got a bunch of apples, tomatoes, corn and green beans while I was visiting. I made a batch of applesauce to can and am thinking about making another bag of apples into apple pie filling. I'm also thinking about making apple cobbler. I haven't decided what to do with the tomatoes yet, but I'm thinking about canning those or making spaghetti sauce and then canning it.

I've also been working on my slip cover some. I got fabric back in June and I started pinning it, but I haven't gotten around to sewing it until last night. I realized some time ago that I'll need a couple more yards of fabric, but I can finish most of it this week if I keep at it. I'm also contemplating cleaning out the laundry room. Brandon finally moved the shed to it's final resting spot so I'm thinking the giant saw and extension cords and other random stuff can be moved to the shed. This is a big job, so I might wait until this weekend when Brandon can help me. Then we're taking the entertainment center out of the laundry room, taking it apart and putting it in the attic because it takes up TOO MUCH SPACE. It's convenient for storage, but I think there are easier ways to solve the storage issue...like shelves over the washer and dryer or using shelf space in the closet more efficiently. My house may never make it into Better Homes and Gardens, but by golly it can be better than it is now! Actually I know that my house would never be in Better Homes and Gardens because it is tiny! I've been dreaming lately of living in a house twice this size with an open floor plan...sigh...one day we'll make it happen :-) One day we'll have the house, a flower and vegetable garden worth bragging about, chickens, fruit trees and bushes and space to grow our own wheat (I know, I know, I can buy flour at the store, but why bother if I could easily grow my own?!).

Summer School is Out with a Bang

Well, summer school is over. It definately went out with a bang this week. We had a fight on Tuesday where one boy knocked another to the floor. Both kids were suspended and might be suspended at the beginning of the school year. The real headache happened on Wednesday morning when we discovered that someone had video taped the fight on their phone and posted it on youtube. We spent a long time trying to figure out who put it on there and how to take it down. As of right now it's gone, but I'm sure the video is all over Pulaski by now. Today I had to deal with an angry parent. I won't say exactly what happened, but they cursed at me and were really rude because THEIR CHILD made a stupid decision. It's amazing how parents thing we ought to stalk their child and literally keep and eye on them every second of every day when we have to supervise so many other kids too. As some point these children need to become responsible human beings and we can't trust a child to go sit in the lobby and wait for their ride without them walking out the door, then what can they be trusted with?

Blueberry Cream Cheese Pound Cake...Yum

I finally made some blueberry cream cheese pound cake. One word - delicious! If you want the recipe here it is: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/blueberry-cream-cheese-pound-cake-i/detail.aspx

This has been the hottest day of the summer so far. The heat index is well into the hundreds. I'm sure our electric bill will be ridiculous when we get our next one, but thankfully the A/C doesn't cost as much as heat. We apparently keep our A/C a lot higher than lots of people (75) but we use fans in the living room and bedrooms, though I 've been contemplating putting one in the kitchen too.

We've been trucking along in summer school. I had one kid get smart with the school resource officer and my fellow administrator yesterday. He was suspended for today and will be back tomorrow. We'll see if he can behave himself. Other than that most of our issues have been minor and a lot of paperwork. We are halfway through and nobody has quit yet, so I guess that's an accomplishment :-) I think I like this internship because there are some problems that have to be figured out and parents dealt with beyond the discipline issues that I spent a lot of time on at the high school. I think the lady in charge wants to give it up next year. I think in her mind she thinks she's training me to take her place. I think I'd do it if I haven't been hired to be a principal somewhere else by then. It's a pain to deal with some of the things, but I think overall it's a decent three weeks worth of extra pay :-)

Blueberries Everywhere!

Yesterday I took Colby blueberry picking. I'd never been picking around here...as a matter of fact I haven't been blueberry picking since I was a kid. There was a place out in Giles County about 10 miles past Virginia Tech that was great! We had such a good time. Of course it took Colby a while to figure out that the you're not supposed to pick the green ones and the look on his face when he ate a green one was pretty funny. He stayed near my the whole time and picked some good berries (and ate some good berries). It got kind of hot toward the end, but it was so relaxing and the view was beautiful. If they're open next weekend, I might take Brandon there :-) You know those containers you get at the grocery store for strawberries? We filled up one big square one and two small ones for $13. I think that's a score. I was going to try making some blueberry cream cheese pound cake, but I felt that taking a nap was a much higher priority today :-) I'll make some pound cake tomorrow :-) I did however make blueberry pancakes this morning...yum!

Summer School/6th Anniversary

This week and last week I've been getting ready for summer school and helping it get off to a hopefully good start. Last week I did some grunt work and made phone calls and such. This week I've been putting rosters together and keeping track of attendance. I'm doing summer school for middle schoolers and it's interesting how different they are from high schoolers. High school boys and girls can't keep their hands off each other, middle school boys and girls think they might get cooties and keep their distance. High schoolers think they're too cool for lots of things, middle schoolers haven't gotten there yet. Some high schools have discovered that getting in trouble gets in the way of the things they want, middle schoolers still think it's funny. High schoolers call each other harlots and other similar things, middle schoolers accuse each other of eating boogers. It was really hectic for the first couple of days because I had to manually change rosters and keep attendance on an excel spreadsheet. There have only been some minor discipline issues so far. Some of these kids go to alternative school and can get to snotty, rude, hateful human beings in 2.5 seconds. Some are really sweet and I totally admire their energy. They are always running and full of energy, except some who can't keep their heads of their desks during class :-)

Last weekend we went to the river with Brandon's family. We got into the river for a bit with Colby who really enjoyed himself...especially throwing rocks to hear the splash. Also last weekend was Brandon and I's sixth anniversary. Colby spent the night with Brandon's parents and we went out for dinner and a movie. We've been trying to go to Outback for I don't know how long and finally got to eat there blooming onion and all. We saw Bad Teacher and I got a few laughs out of it. On July 4th we went to Christiansburg and Colby got to watch his first fireworks. He really enjoyed watching them and waving his glow stick around :-) This weekend I'm thinking of taking Colby to pick blueberries...I think that could be fun, but only if Colby is a good listener since Brandon will be sleeping. We'll see though!

Fun Week!

Last week we had our summer sitter come and watch Colby for three days. I think she's doing a good job so far. And Colby loves her because she pretty much lets him do whatever (within reason of course, no tearing up the house!) They go on lots of bike rides and spent a lot of quality time playing with cars. She does a good job getting him to eat his lunch and getting him down for a nap.

One good thing about having a sitter is that Brandon and I can go out on a date from time to time. Thursday was date day. We loaded up Brandon's rifle and hand gun and rode out to the shooting range in the national forest outside of Blacksburg (across from Pandapas Pond if you're familiar with the area). There were some older gentlemen there who seemed to know each other and had lots of spiffy looking weapons. After we started shooting, a small group of twenty-something showed up too, so it was a pretty full shooting range. I was afraid to use Brandon's rifle at first and to be honest the recoil hurt the first few times, but after that I got used to it and did a pretty decent job hitting what I wanted to hit. I got a pretty awesome video of Brandon shooting a bottle full of water up into the air :-) I was just okay with the hand gun. His gun is heavier than I would prefer and I would anticipate the recoil and go higher or lower than my target a lot of the time. All in all, it was pretty fun. After that we got lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings in Blacksburg and went to see X-men: First Class.

It's been a pretty good week all in all. Today we worked on cleaning up the spare bedroom so that it looks like somewhere a foster kid can sleep. We put a ton of baby supplies in the attic - I didn't realize there was so much stuff hiding in the closet in there - it's not a very big closet! We figured if we needed it getting it down was a lot easier than putting it up and if we didn't need it, then it was out of the way. Our last home visit is tomorrow, so we just wanted our case worker to think we really ARE interested in fostering. We also got our fingerprints done this week so...but come to think of it, we never got the doctor to fill out our physical forms so I guess we'll have to do that before we get our final approval.

Summer Adventures in Cleaning

So I'm almost two weeks into my summer vacation, but I'm definately not bored. Brandon has been off for most of the two weeks so we've been hanging out and doing things as a family that we don't normally get to do during the school year. We've started cleaning up the extra bedroom so that it looks like a place where a foster child could live instead of an extra storage closet. I've cleaned out my half of our closet so that I can store my sewing stuff. I had no idea there were so many clothes up there that I didn't like/were too small. I started a pile of clothes to take to goodwill too.

I think we're getting pretty excited about the prospects of being a foster parent. We bought another car seat just in case we need it, plus it's just good to have an extra car seat because you never know when you're going to need one. Our last home visit is next Monday so hopefully after that we'll be ready to go.

Today I made some crab cakes and hush puppies. It made me miss home :-( But I'm excited because I will be coming to visit in July :-) The 22-24 to be exact.

One Step Closter to Becoming a Foster Parent

Today we finished our fostering classes. We basically spent three Saturdays learning about the issues we might face by taking in foster kids but also thinking about our strengths and what we bring to the table as far as our family is concerned. I think it will be hard at first, but once we get into the swing of it, it will be fine. A foster mom came in today and answered our questions. She brought an adorable 11 month old boy she was fostering. He was a shaken baby and had really bad acid reflux. There's been an influx of small children lately so I'm hopeful that when we're finally certified, we'll get a small child or sibling group of small children. I think we'll have to go shopping soon for some bunk beds or a crib.

I've been having an excellent summer so far. We went to the pool, park, library and Roanoke this week. We saw Colby's UVA doctors while in Roanoke and checked out some old haunts and ate at an old favorite restaurant. Next week our summer babysitter, Kim, will be starting so I can get serious about my school work that I've only been piddling with. I'm looking forward to July when we go camping, when Colby and I go visit Hampton and when get to take a look at the new locker banks at school :-) My school was built in the 60's and still had the original lockers that were beat up and only worked halfway. The powers that be finally decided they needed to be replaced so I'm looking forward to a spiffy new locker bank area.

Summer!!

Okay, so last time I wrote I was stressed about Colby being expelled from daycare. Well, the good thing is, we've figured things out and it's going to be okay. We decided to enroll him at the high school in fall. It's a small class and the high school students taking childcare class come up with lessons and teach the kids. The price is reasonable and it will be very convenient for me because he's right there! This summer we're going to be getting a sitter to come to the house and watch him and basically be his personal entourage. That way I can do the work for my classes and have someone to watch him during summer school this July and teacher workdays in August. We interviewed people on Monday and we have a few more interviews later this week. I think we have met a lot of great girls and I think we know who we're going to pick, but we'll see.

So, school is over for me. I spent the last three days cleaning up my room and putting things away. Colby came yesterday and helped clean desks and we had a lot of fun with the other teachers. I'm excited about next school year. I am going to have three classes of English 9 Honors in the Fall and I'll be splitting classes with the reading specialist in the Spring - I'll teaching writing, she'll teach reading and then we'll switch. At any rate, I'm glad to be relaxing for the summer...well until summer school!

Daycare Issues Abound

I'm super stressed out about Colby's daycare situation. We got a call today that Colby will not be allowed to come back to daycare so we're left trying to figure things out. I think we decided to find an in-home daycare for the summer and then enroll him at the high school in the fall. Many people have said what a great program we have at the high school and that the classes are small and there's lots of supervision. I think Colby will do well there and it will keep things pretty simple for me.

I don't know why I keep taking this whole situation so personally. Colby did something really bad, but he's three. He's not going to make good decisions. We try are damnedest to make him understand that there are things that he shouldn't do and praising him when he does things he should do. That's all we can do and hope that somehow it sinks in. I've been feeling like an awful parent though. I know in my head that we're working hard at home, but my feelings don't understand that.

Colby Suspended

Okay, there's some good news and some bad news about today. The good news is I'm down 5 pounds. The bad news is Colby got suspended from daycare for biting a kid on the nose and drawing blood. Yes, I just said my THREE YEAR OLD got suspended for two weeks. There's nothing else on earth that can make you feel like the worst parent on the face of the planet. If he bites again when he goes back, we will have to find a new daycare. Brandon and I are sorting through our options. We think that his current daycare is great, but the classes are super big so he might benefit from being somewhere where he can get more supervision and attention. We might just get through the summer with a college student and then enroll him at the high school for the childcare class. We'll see. I'm just having a really hellacious day :-(

Memorial Day 2011

Yesterday I blogged about starting my diet. I must've done something right because I lost 4 pounds between yesterday and today :-) That's the other reason I like this diet - I see results almost immediately and it gives me the motivation to keep going. And I'll need the motivation because I realized that this week at school will be pretty tempting with at least two cakes for various birthdays.

Today was a pretty good day. It was Memorial Day so we were all off. We went to the park for a good hour and a half this morning and Colby had a blast making friends and running around. We went to Walmart to get a card because a family friend's husband passed away. He was only 52 with three kids in their twenties and upper teens. I'm sad that they didn't get to spend more time with their dad, but in an odd way it motivates me to keep losing weight. He didn't safeguard his health and died too young so I need to safeguard mine so that Colby can spend a good long time with his mommy.

Oh...and I bought an outdoor clothesline! I'm super excited to make these super hot days work to my advantage and save a little money in the process!

Hangin' with Friends and Dieting

Yesterday I got to hang out with my best college buds. It has litterally been years since we've all be together at one time. We had dinner at Macado's in Lynchburg and because of Colby we had to leave early. It was short, but fun and I'm super glad I got to see everyone.

Today I started a diet. I'm going back on the Weigh Station diet because I know it works and it's so strict that I don't have to stress over what to eat because there's very few things TO eat. I really hate dieting because it's such a pain. When I'm dieting I literally want to eat everything sweet in sight. But I'm doing this because I really don't like what I see in the mirror these days. I just see fat. I want to look in the mirror and like what I see. I want Brandon to come home to a hot momma :-) My goal right now is to lose 30 pounds. I know I can do it! (if the sweets stop calling to me!)

First Home Visit

Today was the first of three home visits for the fostering to adopt. We met our case worker and she gave us a ton of paperwork to fill out including a whole giant packet about our personal lives. We have to go get fingerprinted and our families and friends will have questions asked of them to see if we're fit parents. One thing was clear - we need to fix up the spare bedroom so it's not our junk room anymore :-) Plus Brandon will need to start putting his gun in the safe and he's not supposed to have a gun in the car while driving with foster children, so that will be a change.

In other news I have seven more days of school left. I'm pretty excited about being off for a couple of weeks before my internship during summer school. I like my kids but they wear me out! And they have some serious spring fever! We'er almost done with The Road so it'll be a breeze to get through the rest of the school year. Yay!

PKU Picnic

Saturday was the annual PKU picnic. We drove up to Charlottesville to the park outside of town. The weather was nice and there were lots of people. We got to talk to a family that lives near us and we also talked to other families who live farther away. We learned a few new tricks and found out about some new foods - namely sliced cheese that we can get for cheap. I also learned a trick to making Colby's mushroom burgers that will hopefull keep them stuck together. We got a bunch of free stuff like pasta and formula samples. I'm always really encouraged when we go because there's plenty of kids that are doing really well and one young man with PKU that attends UVA. We got back home around 6:30 so it was busy, but nice. We even won a gas card, a walmart card and Colby got a new hand made truck!

Gardening!

I am slowly but surely planting the big garden. We should have already done this a week and a half ago, but we've been busy. Last Sunday after the rain came to an end, I worked on the new front flower bed. I planted some sunflowers and some orange flowers that are doing well in the other flower bed and some new pink flowers I've never planted before along with some lilies Brandon bought. And Brandon was busy with planting his new peach trees. We now have two decently tall trees with fruit already on them. If only we could keep the dogs out of them. Brandon has fenced them off like Fort Knox, but those dogs still keep messing with the one closest to the house. This year we're planting the usuals - tomatoes, peppers, onions, lettuce, okra, squash, zuchini, watermelon, pumpkin, potatoes, carrots, and green beans - and we're also planting sweet potatoes, strawberries, and spaghetti squash. I'm super excited about getting some awesome veggies...oh, speaking of I need to go out and take the blooms off my tomatoes so they'll grow bigger before I get some fruit!

12 Days of School

This week is SOL testing. Yesterday I got to help proctor the Earth Science SOL. I got kind of irritated when the teacher paused to say something like, "You know, I teach them all this stuff and then they have to apply it." It sounded sort of whiney. I don't really understand what's wrong with a test that requires students to apply what they learned. Overall the students did pretty well. Some of my students complained that they failed, but honestly, the ones that compained are the same ones that come to my class without a pencil and without a will to succeed. Those are the same one's that will be taking my class again next year. I wish for them to fail, but sometimes they need to. Maybe next year they'll be the phoenix rising from the ashes of a wrecked ninth grade year.

In my class we're slogging our way through The Road. Some of my kids seem really into it and they complain when I stop reading to them. Others couldn't care less. I feel pretty good about teaching this book because it's really different and it's challenging. I can reach some students with this book that I can't reach with others, plus the boys kind of get into it.

Potty Training Victory! Taking the Fostering Plunge!

So, Colby has finally decided that he wants to use the potty. All the time! He finally filled up that potty chart I started weeks ago and he got to go pick out a new truck. I think he liked that because he literally filled up another chart in three days. He got to pick out another truck and now he's all about putting stickers on that chart so he can get ANOTHER truck. I now swear by the potty chart because it works! Sure, some call it bribery, but I call it success!

In other news, we finally took the plunge and made the phone call to start the fostering to adopt process. We're not giving up on having more of our own children, but I know that Brandon has always wanted to bigger family and I certainly don't mind having more children :-) The thing is, we're not getting any younger and there are a lot of kids out there that need loving parents - we can provide that. There's been a lot of success stories at my church, so I know there's a lot of support there. I know my parents are okay with it. We haven't talked to Brandons' parents, but we think it will be mostly okay. We're supposed to get a packet in the mail and we set up our first home visit with the agency. We'll be doing training in June and we'll have two other home visits before we're approved so it'll be several months before this happens. In the meantime pray that this will be an excellent decision and experience. FYI- fostering to adopt means that we will be fostering children until their parental rights are terminated. Terminating parental rights is a really long, emotional process. Sometimes it doesn't happen causing the child to age out of the system and sometimes the children are sent back to their families, which if my imagination is anywhere close to reality, that would be heartbreaking. I'll keep everyone posted as to whats happening with this adventure!

All My Monkeys

I've been making sock monkeys for my church to take to central america on a missions trip. It's pretty fun, but sock monkeys are not up to professional standards by any stretch of the imagination. Colby likes them though and keeps asking if he can keep them, so I think they'll be okay to give to kids :-)

Colby Food Issue

We had our first real food issue yesterday with Colby. Up until yesterday he was pretty cool with eating things that are different from mommy and daddy. Yesterday I fixed pigs in a blanket and while I was cooking I talked to Colby about how hot dogs were not Colby foods and that they were bad for him. He said okay and repeated what I said so I put them in the oven and moved on. Way later Colby decided to sneak into the kitchen and take a bite of one. I was watching him and when it got really quiet I followed him, saw what he was doing and made him spit it out. Then he went to timeout for not listening, but I felt really bad. After his two minutes I went to hug him and hold him and explain to him again that hot dogs were not good for him. He said okay again between hiccups. What a rotten predicament. It's awful to have to deny him a food that we all take for granted that we can eat. :-(

Computer Woes

I killed my computer. I was sitting on the couch with it in my lap and Colby started peeing on the couch (the joys of potty-training). I hastily set the computer aside and when I turned around, the computer fell off the couch right on the power cord. That pushed the power jack into the computer. I didn't think that was a big deal. I thought it could be an easy fix so I took the computer apart in an attempt to fix it. I learned how to take apart my computer, but I could figure out how to fix it. Next step I called Best Buy. Best Buy says that it will cost $100 to send if off and then it might be a one or two hundred dollar fix. I was like 'what!' I called a local repair shop and they wouldn't even touch it. I called Gateway and they said it would be $199 to fix it, but they needed the stupid serial number which I could not locate. Then I start wondering if I even want to get this computer fixed. I don't like it - it shuts off at the most inopportune times and doesn't like to have flash drives, mice or printer cords plugged into it. Plus it has the dreaded Vista on it. At the moment we're borrowing Mary Lee's spare computer until we decide what to do. The most annoying thing is my big paper that was due on Friday and the reflection paper that was due on Saturday was on that computer. Thankfully I have some understanding professors and it isn't a big deal to turn things in late.

In other news Brandon might be going to Alabama for 10 day to assist in keeping the peace in the tornado areas. I'm nervous about being the only one to take care of Colby for ten days. I'm afraid I'll get sick of it and get short-tempered with him. Beleive it or not I really enjoy the times when Brandon and I both look after him because between the two of us it's not as much work. But I'm, like, mom of the year right? :-P

Horrifying Experience

So today I had an experience that is still bothering me long afterwards. I have to preface this by saying that I am in no way a perfect parent. I fail daily, but what I heard today from one parent left me heartsick and quite frankly horrified. I won't tell you under what circumstances I met this parent, but during the course of the conversation the parent admitted that they let their child smoke at home and in the car even though the child is underage. As a matter of fact, there were smoking rules for this child. The parent said that since everyone in the childs life smoked, there wasn't any point in trying to prevent the child from following their example. Here's an idea - quit smoking and be a positive example for your child. The parent also spoke about how she was being evicted from her apartment and was having trouble renting a trailer at the local trailer park. I felt terrible for that child. To have to grow up like that is an awful childhood. And whatsmore, I think the child will live the same sort of life as the parent, which makes me nauseous. There's a school in D.C. where low income boarding school where they are only at home for the weekends. This experince makes me think how wonderful something like that would be in our area so that students can be exposed to positive role models so that we can break this cycle of poverty. If I ever win the lottery or if Dave Ramsey ever makes me a billionaire, I know what I'm going to do with all the money.

Gorgeous Weather

So, prom was really good. The decorations were fabulous, most of the dresses were appropriate and there wan't a lot of bad behavior aside from the boy who put a hole in the drywall of the bathroom when he slammed the door back. I had fun slow dancing with Brandon and making jokes about the students. There were some bad things that happened too, mostly afterwards, but I can't post about those - Brandon fussed at me not too long ago about future employers checking my blog (not that I'm looking for a new job!) and not being pleased about badmouthing, so I'll only be pleasant when speaking about my job :-)

The weather would be super fabulous if it wasn't so dang windy! The temperature is nice I just can't take the breeze pushing me every which way and drying out my planters like the Sahara. Maybe I need to get a clothes line going on...with the wind everything would be dry in like 30 minutes! Not really. The weather has acutally been so nice that I'm considering hardening off my tomatoes and planting them...anybody think this is a good idea?

I'm super pumped to be going to visit my family over spring break. Of course it's supposed to rain on Friday for the drive, but it's supposed to be excellent weather for an easter egg hunt on Saturday and Sunday. I'm also really excited about eating ribs at my grandparents'. I secretly think they decided to do this to bribe us into coming...it worked!

Busy Week!

It has been one crazy busy week...

Several teachers and I took 150+ ninth graders to Radford University to see a production of Romeo and Juliet. We had all finished reading the play in class so it was pretty cool to go see it for real. The kids were pretty good - I only had to remove one student because he got an attitude with me after I seperated him from his buddies. He was taken care of the next day at school with some in school suspension. The play itself was pretty good. The kids were impressed by the fight scenes and got a good laugh over some inappropriate gestures during one scene. I thought it was true to Shakespeare, but I realized that I've probably read this play a few too many times because I could tell when they screwed up the dialogue. The Friar was particularly bad and screwed his lines up regularly. And Romeo - I deny you stars? Dude the line is: I defy you stars! Sorry...38 readings of Romeo and Juliet will do that to you!

I've been helping decorate for prom this week. I couldn't stay for very long because I had to go get Colby from daycare, but I got in a good hour and fifteen or twenty minutes for three days. And a teacher counds as like three kids, so that's like nine hours of kid time :-) The theme this year is cruise to paradise so we have a cruise ship on one side and paradise on the other. And this year I have a date! It's a lot of fun with Brandon :-)

And four years later, I still think about what happened at VT. I can still clearly remember where I was when I found out about the tragedy. I still think about Stack and how vibrant he used to be and in my head I picture him laughing always.

Happy Birthday Colby!

Today was Colby's third birthday. His birthday was kicked off several weeks ago when my mom and dad decided to buy him a new "ramblin' chuck" truck along with a special foods delivery. They were visiting and decided to do that while they were here to see him in person. Today was a beautiful day. It was 80 degrees with the sun shining. He got some really cool toys including a basketbakll hoop, a little people noah's ark and several new DVD's including a new Bear in the Big Blue House DVD (I was getting tired of the old one). He even got to eat something new - a tortilla pizza. We bought corn tortillas and topped with pizza sauce, cheese and spices. He ate the entire thing :-) It was a really good day, except there was no sitting on the potty.

Over the weekend there were tornados in Pulaski. An F2 touched down in a poor part of the town of Pulaski and another F1 touched down in Draper on the other side of the mountain from Pulaski. I know that there was a lot of damage to houses of residents who can't really afford it. I sincerely hope they had house insurance or renters insurance. The students are on a two hour late schedule tomorrow while us teachers go to work on time to see how we're supposed to handle this with our students. I feel really bad about everything and hope that things turn out okay.

Principal Gill

So yesterday I was at school from 8am to 9pm. Of course I worked my normal day slogging through Romeo and Juliet and grading like my life depends on it because grades are due. Then I morphed into Principal Gill and patrolled the sports events that day. Those sporting events were tennis, varsity softball, jv baseball, jv boys soccer and varsity boys soccer. It was a really nice day so I was pretty excited about being outside and getting in some intern hours and grading some papers and watching some of my students play sports - I have four boys who play baseball and two boys that play soccer. The first thing I noticed when I stepped out the door was that it was super windy. It was still warm, but I was concerned about my papers blowing away. I found a seat in the bleachers by the baseball field and graded during warmups. Brandon brought me dinner and we meandered over to softball to eat and watch a few innings. Between baseball and softball the sky got dark, but it was still decently warm. I walked Brandon out and walked over to the stadium for soccer. I watched the second half of JV and I got to watch my two students play. And by watch I mean I graded and looked up when the cheering piped up. It was all good...I could handly a 30 minute half. Then Varsity took the field and much to my dismay their halves are 40 minutes. I settled in, in a non-windy location and continued grading. Then it started to sprinkle. I was thinking great :-( I packed my papers and went to go stand near the concession stand. The way the wind was blowing I was able to stay pretty dry. At the end of regulation the score was tied and I was thinking "damn!" So I decided to go get my car, which was parked at the other end of the school grounds. I got a bit wet walking over there, but I pulled back over and watched the scoreboard until the end of the game from the comfort of my car. We lost the game just in time for it to start pouring, which made me glad I was in my car. I stayed long enough to make sure everyone scattered and went home. I was in my house at 9:15p.m. Now I know why high school principals get paid more money than other levels of principals. A 12+ hour day really takes it out of you.

Adventure in Rearranging!

We rearranged our living room this week. I don't know if it's the fact that spring has sprung that makes us want to do such things, but I really like it. I think that after two and a half years of not having cable we decided arranging our furniture around the TV is overrated. Now we have a sitting area and a reading area. Plus the bookshelf got decluttered. I don't know what it is about us and shelves, but if there's an open shelf, we need to put something on it besides a book. The really excellent thing is that the love seat is no longer in front of the closed side of our door. If you've never been to my house, let me just say that we have a door that is supposed to be a back door for our front door. It opens on one side and is a window on the other. With the house being so small we had the loveseat in front of the part that doesn't open. Now more sunlight can enter our small house and make it feel even more open. I can see the flowers I planted too!

Today the wind has been blowing like a hurricane outside. At times it seems like it's really nice outside and I get this idea that I might take Colby somewhere, but then a gust of wind blows everything sideways and I reconsider.

I Don't Think I Can Be a High School Principal

At least not right off. I've come to realize that my mentor has something I do not: a deep, strong manly voice that does not allow for arguing. I do fine talking to girls and boys that I've taught in the past, but boys who don't know me want to argue until the cows come home. Today I was talking to a young man I've never taught who didn't want to go to SRC. He cussed and then walked out of class, but he thought he didn't deserve SRC because was provoked. Well I told him he was still responisible for his behavior and he still had to serve his SRC. He argued. I reiterated that he still had to go to SRC. My mentor walks in and says the exact same things that I said and asks the exact same questions and the student doesn't argue. WTF!! I'm irritated because I did everything the same and didn't get the same respect because I am a young woman. Certainly I understand that part of the problem is that I am not an official principal and only an intern. But I really think that this is going to be a problem for at least a few years. Maybe I'll start at a middle school or maybe if I like elementary school I'll aim for that. Who knows. Maybe I'm just over-emotional and sad and sensitive because for the eighth month in a row I'm not pregnant :-(

In other news, Colby is back to potty training. So far today we've had two accidents and a pair of tennis shoes that need to be washed, but I think as long as he doesn't pee on the couch or bed that we're doing good.

My Daffodils Bloomed!

You may wonder why that's important, but it is. I've been impatiently waiting for spring to come to see what came up from my planting adventure last fall. The tulips are on their way as well, but I think it'll be a couple more weeks before those come up. I also decided I wasn't going to buy any more plants until the daffodils bloomed, so today when I saw their yellow, sunny blooms, I went to walmart and purchased to yellow pansies and a purple something or other that will go in a container for now and in the flowerbed later. I'm really looking forward to making my flowerbeds gorgeous. I'm starting with the one out front to see how it works. Should I plant things in a regular pattern, mix it up a bit, mix colors or go for a pop of one color? Truthfully I'm ridiculously envious of the pictures in those gardening magazines...but there is one thing I've learned from reading them and that is most of those gardens took years and years of hard work to look like that. I keep reminding myself of that so I won't get too down on the shape of my flowerbeds.

In other news I just lined up my internship for the fall. I'll be interning under Stacey Heller at Critzer Elementary School. I feel weird about interning at an elementary school because I haven't really been in an elementary school for any substatial time since...hmmm....since I was in elementary school eons ago. I just keep telling myself that teaching is teaching, parents are parents and students are students and it'll all be okay. I really DO want to do this internship to keep my options open as far as getting an elementary principalship. Who knows, maybe I'll even learn to like it. Maybe kids who actually fear the principal and getting in trouble will be a refreshing change. Maybe parents who care will actually restore my faith in parents in general.

Potty Training Failure

This weekend we tried potty training Colby. I'm woman enough to admit that no training happened, just lots of wet clothes and carpet. Saturday started with promise. Colby sat on his little potty and peed and even "dropped a duece" as some of my friends might say :-) After much praise and calling people to brag, he didn't use the potty anymore all weekend. He peed three times on the carpet, once in my bed (on my side much to my chagrin), twice at church, and once after I laid him down to take a nap - none of them in the toilet. I got a little frustrated and put him in a diaper to take a nap. I guess I'll try again when he wakes up. I know he's old enough to use the potty, it just seems like he can't connect the feeling that he needs to pee to the fact that he needs to go sit on the potty. I might need to make a chart and use stickers or something to get him to go. When all else fails, use bribery I suppose.

In other news I just made two pumpkin pies for pi day tomorrow. You know, pi - 3.14. Tomorrow is 3/14/11.

I Feel Stupid

I had to take Rolly to the vet and I got made to feel stupid. If I'm honest I'll admit that my feelings were hurt. I'm not used to taking care of puppies. I've only had full grown dogs up until this point who are fairly low maintenence. I don't claim to know how to house train, though he seems to be learning by example pretty well, and I was uncertain how much to feed Rolly and how often, but everything seemed to be going well since he was growing and acting playful and such. Today I let him inside around 5:30 and noticed he was shaking. I decided to take him to the vet where I was informed that they couldn't find anything wrong and that he should be eating at least twice a day, which he had been except for today. They thought he had low blood sugar and wanted to keep him overnight. I said okay even though I almost fainted when I looked at the charges for it. So at any rate I'm going to ask for the vets advice on when and how much he should be eating so that they won't think that I'm some sort of hateful dog owner who doesn't take care of her dogs and so we don't have this problem again. I was also told that he shouldn't be staying outside that long, though he was only onside from about 1:30 to 5:30. Yeah it was rainy, but he has dry places to hang out and it wasn't incredibly cold. I'm sure she didn't mean to sound hateful, but I guess I just felt stupid and ignorant, which I certainly don't enjoy.

The stuff with Rolly was the end of a hectic day. I got up early to drive to Abingdon for my internship where we talked about stuff fromm 9-12 and then I had to drive all the way back. And then this! It was a crazy day and might have been avoided if I had thought to put some dog food in Rolly's bowl this morning, but my brain was going in all sorts of directions and I got distracted. I won't get distracted again because my bank accouny can't take it.

Meet Rolly

One cute pup!



Definately not a lap dog cause he's scared in this pic.




:-)

Rolly

Several weeks ago while working Brandon got called out to go pick up a dog. When animal control isn't on duty it's up to normal patrol officers to go out and get them. Usually he picks up pits and other random dogs, but this time he picked up a puppy. He thought it was so cute that he sent me a picture and named him Rolly. He considered letting him ride around in his car with him because he was sweet and small and generally the kind of puppy that melts your heart, but he couldn't do that and took him over to the animal control building. Of course he told me all about him and mentioned him often over the next week or so. I encouraged him to ask about him and when he did he found out that we could foster him if we wanted so on Monday he went and got him and we are officially the foster parents of Rolly. Rolly is a Bernese mountain dog (with a dose of boxer) so he might grow to be pretty big, but for now he's a small, cute puppy that is much better behaved than Hershey. The one plus about Hershey is that he was house trained, which Rolly isn't. When he came to us Rolly had an upper respitory infection so we've been giving him antibiotics (that we don't have to pay for because we're fostering him). Colby is doing well with Rolly - he's his new buddy. And now I'm completely and utterly outnumbered when it comes to the male/female ratio around the house.

Not My Favorite School Day

So, we've been doing Social Studies remediation so that the kids that didn't pass the Social Studies SOL might pass on the retake. Out of our group of 10 only 2 passed. I felt really bad because those kids worked really hard and some of them REALLY knew their stuff. I can't help but think that the people who write those SOL tests are purposely wording things to make it difficult. Another English teacher went with me to tell them whether they passed or failed - it was one of the hardest things we've done in a while. Overall only 26% of the kids who retook the test passed.

Monday :-/

So...Colby is feeling better, somewhat. He is still doing a lot of cuddling and fussing and generally not being very pleasant to be around. I'm hoping that by the end of the week he'll be back to normal.

In other news we're starting a remediation schedule at school. I think its sort of...stupid. Sorry, I can't think of another word for it. We're supposed to take 30 minutes at the end of class on Wednesdays and either remediate or do enrichment. I find it stupid because if you're a decent teacher, you spend time remediating when your kids don't get a concept. I don't really need to have my principal tell me to remediate - If they don't get verbs we spend extra time on verbs (though why a 9th grader wouldn't get verbs is beyond me). I think I'll spend some time reading nonfiction articles and maybe do some activites with them. Other English teachers have thrown out the idea of doing silent reading, but I already do that on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'm sure I'll think of something productive to do like a good little teacher. I'll let you know what happens.

Losing the Battle

This morning Colby is feeling a lot better. He's causing mischief and starting to play with his toys again, so all it well in Colby's world.

It's quite amazing that in one week our house can go from extreme clean to crazy messy. I feel so lazy because I just don't WANT to clean the house. And I know exactly why: It's a losing battle. You can never really win the battle over a clean house because there will always be something or someone cluttering it up. I certainly don't want to live in a nasty house, but if all the laundry isn't put away or Colby leaves toys out occasionally, I'm not really worried about it.

Nice Spring Day

Colby has been sick for the last couple of days. He woke up yesterday with an extremely red eye. When we went to the doctor he was also running a fever. That mean he had to stay home for the rest of the week and he got some eye drops as well. I can tell he's still not feeling very well because all he's been doing today is laying around the house watching TV. But that's better than crying for nearly an hour, which he did yesterday. It's a helpless feeling when your child feels terrible and you can do nothing about it.

Today was super nice. While Colby was napping I cleaned up the back yard a bit. That meant cleaning up the abundance of dog poo (clearly that's a popular thing to do on one's day off). I didn't finish cleaning up the poo...I got hot! Anyway...there's still tulips and daffodils poking through in the front flower beds so I'm pretty excited about that :-)

I got a catalog from JCPenny today. I now have the itch to go shopping, but since we've started the Financial Peace University I feel like I can't. Maybe one or two things this month and one or two next month? Maybe that will be okay. Maybe I'll hit Ross and see if I can find some things I want for a much lower price. I did some looking around online to see what the trends are looking like for this spring and I'm now certain that I'm no fashionista. But what I did like: the jewel colored trench coat (short, not long), the t-shirt layered with a collared shirt, and of course the jewel colored cardigan.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Today I went to the Building Leadership Team meeting as part of my internship. I was suprised at how little they accomplished. I'm going to ask of that's a normal meeting because if it is...it explains a lot.

Over the weekend Brandon and I went out to dinner. We tried to go to Outback, but with a 65-80 minute wait we decided to go to Panera instead. After that we hit the used book sale in the mall and Ben and Jerry's. I got Brandon a card that plays a Taylor Swift song (he loves Taylor) and some Little Debbie cakes since I never buy those for him. I have yet to recieve anything, though I haven't seen Brandon since this morning when he was really sleepy and I won't see him until tomorrow afternoon. The only thing that sort of marred the weekend was my dear father-in-law's behavior. I hope that when my kids are grown that they still come over for Sunday dinner and that I never, ever loose sight of how blessed I am during those occasions. I hope I never keep a running tab of how much my kids owe me and that instead I always show them how much I love them.

Thoughts for the Day

Today I got to sit in on a meeting with my principals and their consultant (a principal at a larger high school in northern virginia). Two things became abundantly clear at this meeting.

1. I don't know that I would want my head principal's job. For every little decision there is too much to think about. The tiniest decisions require you to think about students, teachers, central office and community. The biggest decisions...well lets just say I don't know how my principal doesn't leave school every day with a migraine. I have so much more respect for him now that I've gotten a glimpse into the things he must think about on a daily basis.

2. My school leadership is out of touch with teachers and students. There was nothing specific that was said, but there were several times that I thought that they didn't know the faculty well if they thought that decision was going to go over well. Or that, that idea would create the nightmare classes I'd only want to see on a silver screen horror movie. Brandon and I talked about how loosing touch is a problem with almost all leadership including his leadership at the PD. I guess that's just one thing I'll have to remember when I become a principal - loosing touch isn't helpful in any way.

Wasted Day

Today was a waste. I have probably posted before that parent-teacher conferences are basically a waste of time in my high school. Today was an even more extraordinarily useless. First of all, it snowed last night. When I woke up this morning, the news said we were closed. It didn't say anything about conferences or anything. So being the good teacher I was, I checked my e-mail and discovered that parent-teacher conferences were still on and we were to report at noon. What the heck! Parents probably assumed we weren't even having conferences because the news said we were closed! I basically spent seven hours at school doing nothing but helping come up with ideas for prom, which I believe is going to be awesome. I met with one parent. Count 'em. One. And there were many teachers that didn't even get the message that they were supposed to be there!

Oh, funny story from today. I dropped Colby off at daycare just in time for lunch and had some time to kill before noon so I went to Walmart. I ran into one of my fellow teachers and we started talking. All the sudden out of the corner of our eyes we see this woman. We both had to do a double take because we weren't sure what this woman was wearing. Unfortunately for both of us, she was wearing daisy dukes. In the middle of winter. With snow on the ground. And she didn't have the figure Daisy had. We both lost our trains of thought while thinking abut how horrified we were and had a good laugh about it later at school.

Not Feeling Well

I have not been feeling well lately. I guess I have a bug - I've been tired, naseous (sp?), gassy and today I had a bit of a migraine and had to take something in the middle of fourth block. Thank goodness I had some ibuprofen in my purse. I don't know what's wrong with me, but three days later I sincerely want it to go away.

We got back the Social Studies SOL scores last week. They were not good. Apparently the state decided to revamp the test and make it so that the kids had to use some higher level thinking skills, which in theory is okay. It's not okay, though, to do something like that and not warn teachers. So our school freaked out and those kids that qualify for a retake (they got a 375-399 on the test - 400 is passing) now have to do this intensive remediation. They are asking the English teachers to help, but I have no idea what exactly we're supposed to do beside make sure the kids are taking the notes like they're supposed to. I had nightmares on Monday night about helping with the remediation so I didn't sleep well. I think the first day went well, though, so it will be alright. Pray that all these kids pass the second time around otherwise our pass percentage will stay in the 60s.

My Name is Julie and I am a Softy

Brandon frequently calls me a softy because I apparently care more about people in general than he does. That diagnosis was confirmed today in the front office. We had this girl who was SPED turned in for eight tardies. When we called her in, she wouldn't make eye contact with us or even tell us why she had been late. She seemed so scared. We put her out in the hallway and talked and I found out that she had only been in trouble for tardies and that for the last set of tardies, she'd been given 4 days of after school detention. I was like 'holy cow! 4 days for tardies!' and I felt really bad for her since I could tell she probably didn't fully understand everything. So my mentor was like 'do you want to call her mom?' and I shrugged and said 'sure.' Mom was pissed. She thought we shouldn't punish her daughter for being late since it was her fault because she overslept. I explained to her as best I could that we had to enforce the rules, but that we thought four days of detention was a bit excessive, so we knocked it down to two. After we sent the girl on her way, my mentor asked if I was nervous and I was like 'yeah, at the beginning'. I felt complimented when he said he couldn't tell in my voice.

Internship

I have been using the USDA food pyramid lately to eat better. I've not been using the menu planner religiously, but it seems keeping the principals in mind have worked well and I lost two pounds! Yay!

So, I have been interning in the front office this past week. It's very eye-opening. I realized that students do exceedingly stupid things (like refusing to give up their mp3 players even in the face of suspension) and also that teachers contribute to some discipline issues as much as the students. I have come to realize that I am a big proponent of natural consequences. If a student decides not to do his work, but is not disrupting others, then it's their choice and the natural consequence is you get a zero on the assignment and your grade lowers. If this becomes a chronic problem, you talk to the student privately, you call parents and talk to case managers and guidance counselors. Some teachers in my school, however, think that refusing to do work is something to actually punish a student for with lunch detention, SRC or suspension. Now disrupting class and others while not doing your work is definately a discipline issues, but just not doing your work? Not a discipline issue. Two students tied up my mentor for most of a class period with this issue.

I also learned that special education is huge. I went to a meeting for a SPED student who had been in a fight and then helped problems solve for another student who is soon to be labeled SPED. Special Education is no joke - principals lose their jobs over not handling it correctly so I'm trying to learn as much as I can so when I become a principal, I don't end up as a casualty of SPED law.

Master Degree by December?

Do you know what I realized today?! That I can be done with my masters degree by the end of this coming fall! Heck yeah! I feel a little stupid, but I just noticed that they offer 13 classes, but I only need 12! Yay me!

However I'm sure my advisor is sick of hearing from me. This problem is this - I can't finish my masters unless I take out some financial aid and I can't take out financial aid unless I'm taking 6 credit hours. My second problem is this - this semester I'm technically taking 4 credit hours of internship (plus a 3 hour class), but I'm really doing 2 hours this semester and 2 over the summer, so that works fine for financial aid this semester as on paper I'm taking 7 credit hours. However, that means that on paper I'm not taking any classes this summer. This means I have to take two extra classes to stay at 6 credit hours to avoid repaying my loan so soon. Whew...it's complicated. It's made even more complicated because my degree program doesn't offer a lot of classes each semester which is why I have to keep calling my advisor and changing things. I think I settled what I'm going to do...but I need him to sign me up for a class this summer! I think I'll wait a few weeks before I ask for that one!

Long Weekend!

I realized today that nobody can make your blood boil like your own kids. Getting Colby to pick up his toys today was like a battle. I got so frustrated that he had to go to timeout because he wouldn't listen. After that he came back and helped clean up, but I didn't miss the sharp spike of anger in me. I'm unwilling to clean up after Colby, however, so I guess it was worth it in the end.

Overall he was pretty good over the long weekend. He did well at dinner on Saturday with all of Brandon's family. It's sort of funny that he always wants to sit with other people. I joke and say that everyone is cooler than mommy and daddy. He did throw a fit yesterday when we were playing wii with Brandon's parents. He wanted to be part of it, so we found him a "remote" to play with and I let him play baseball with me. I didn't know it, but daycare was open today. I thought it would be close for MLKJr. Day, but I got a call asking if he was coming in. I think I would have taken him just to have some time to veg out and not have to watch hours of cartoons, but we had a good day.

I started watching this new show called "The Cape". Pretty corny, but for some reason I keep watching it. I mean, some criminal just killed four people with playing cards...ha!

New Journey

So, lots of times we make New Year's Resolutions to lose weight. Well I didn't do that (see my post about New Year's resolutions). However, I did get inspired to eat healthier. I frequent an online magazine calles Slate (www.slate.com). It has a variety of articles from politics to the environment, from electronics to parenting. Slate also has an interesting array of blogs. One blog I started reading is about one woman's quest to eat healthier. She is using the USDA food pyramid to do this. Suprisingly, the USDA has a TON of great resources like a menu planner to help you stick to their recommendations. Best part - they're free!

So I started using the menu planner (type in mypyramid on your google search to find it). My recommendations based on my height and weight are: 6 oz. of grains (half of which are supposed to be whole grain), 3 cups of veggies, 3 cups of fruit, 3 cups of dairy, and 5 1/2 oz of meat. The menu planner's goal is to get you to eat between 2000 and 2500 calories a day which is the daily recommendation. So far, the hardest part has been fitting in grains and veggies. I realized I don't like a lot of raw veggies and that sometimes I don't eat a lot of grains (I'm not sure if my grain problem is a really a problem or not). I feel pretty good about it since it's NOT a diet, though if I lose weight I will NOT complain. I'm on day three and I'm not hungry and I actually have plenty of energy, though maybe that has to do with not having school for the last two days. We'll see how my energy holds up when I go back to school.

Oh and #4 on my New Years Resolutions will apparently need to wait until next month.

Also, since I stopped playing Frontierville (one New , my computer is much more reliable. Apparently those Facebook games are kryptonite for the computer.

Wishing it Were Spring

I am looking forward to spring. Yeah, I know it's a little early for spring, but I want to see flowers and veggies growing. I can't wait to make some changes to the garden and hopefully rock our world with lots of awesome veggies. I want to work on the flowers in the front yard and enjoy the weather outside. This year we may be getting a share of a local fruit co-op, which I find exciting because I got several canning books overy christmas and would like to put them to good use! So here's to spring! That supid groundhog better not see his shadow!

Top Books of 2010

If you're looking for a list of books like you might find on Amazon, you're in the wrong place. As a working mom of an energetic two and half year old, I don't have time to read a LOT of books, but here's some I read this year and enjoyed.

1. The Hunger Games - a young adult book, but still very entertaining for myself and Brandon. This book follows Katniss Everdeen to the Hunger Games in the captitol where she must fight other teens to the death including Peeta, a boy from her own community.

2. Catching Fire - this is the follow-up book to The Hunger Games. Katniss and Peeta find themselves fighting again in the Hunger Games against other Hunger Games winners from years past, but things are much more politically charged in these games.

3. Mockingjay - Katniss is free of the Hunger Games, but now she must free the rest fo the country. I cried through the whole last quarter of the book. The Hunger Games is by far my favorite of the trilogy, but I liked the others as well.

4. Dies the Fire - Electrity and gunpowder stop working sending the world into the apocolypse. This book follows the creation of Juniper Mackenzie's Makenzies, Mike Havel's Bearkillers and Norman Armingers Portland Protective Associaction. Juniper and Mike become allies against Arminger, but how will they all survive? I have to say I loved this book. I picked it up on a whim from Barnes and Noble, but it's become one of my go-to recommendations. This book is followed by two other books, The Protectors War and Meeting at Corvallis. This is an excellent trilogy that will have you shedding tears at the end of Meeting in Corvallis.

5. Island in the Sea of Time - By the same author as Dies the Fire, S.M. Stirling. Nantucket goes thousands of years back in time, which is presumably why electricty and gunpowder stop working in the present day. This book is very interesting and the characters are great. This book is followed by two others, but for some reason I don't like it as much as the Dies the Fire trilogy. If you have some free time, it's a decent read.

6. The Sunrise Lands - This is the first book in the Rudi Mackenzie series. Rudi has grown up in a land without electricity and gunpowder, but now he must quest to get a magical sword to fight a rising menace known as CUT. This is also the first book in a trilogy. I enjoyed this trilogy, but it's much more fantasy than science fiction so it may not appeal to everyone.

7. Shiver - This is a young adult book about werewolves, but it's much different than you would expect. I definately doesn't have as much teenage angst as Twilight, though as with most teen books there is a Romeo and Juliet type quality about the characters. I enjoyed it, but not the sequal, which I didn't even finish reading - a rarity for me.

Happy New Years!!

Happy New Year's everyone! I hope your 2010 was fabulous and that your 2011 is off to an equally fabulous start. Christmas 2010 was wonderful for the Gill family. Brandon had to work, but I put on my big girl panties and made it work for Colby. He got his presents from Santa on Christmas and we opened family present the day after. So far Colby has really enjoyed his carpet with the roads on it, the new matchbox cars to add to his collection, and he alternates between Chuck, the John Deere truck and Mr. Potato head the rest of the time.

We've been fairly low key since Christmas, mostly spending our time hanging out. Finally got to see the movie "Easy A", which I thoroughly enjoyed. Even got a chuckle out of Brandon from time to time. I've been getting the itch to organize things in the house - so far I've cleaned up the entertainment center, the laundry shelf in the laundry room, and I'm attempting to clean out the rest of the laundry room. My goal for the rest of today after typing this is to take down the Christmas tree so I won't have to worry about it this coming week.

So New Years resolutions? Hmm...this is hard because I always resolve to do something, but I don't even remember what those somethings are. Eat better? Work out? Get my finances strait? We can obviously see how well those things have worked out. So I'm picking a couple small things and I'm just going to see how far I make it.

1. I'm putting that dog in obedience class - he's currently outside barking at the wind. (Easy enough I think)

2. I'm giving up Frontierville - this a harmless little game you can play on Facebook, but it's eating up my time when I could be doing other things like crocheting, writing stories, or simply playing with Colby.

3. I'm giving up soft drinks - this is the one I think I'm least likely to accomplish as I have a long love affair with Diet Dr. Pepper. But I'd like to give it an honest try. I had lemonade at Chick-fil-a yesterday so I'm off to a good start.

I'll let you know how it goes.

4. Get pregnant - many of you know that this was one of my goals for last year, but obviously my timing is not God's timing. Maybe God and I can come up with some sort of compromise.