Fadedwords

So I called my Mom today after work, because she was worried about my last blog post.  (Note: I’m just stressed with work and life… it’ll get better and I’ll be fine).  In any case we were talking and I was saying how stressed out I was.  All of a sudden she came out with:

“The dolphin swim is booked.”

Uh… buh……what????

Apparently my Dad decided that my Mom and I needed to go HERE while we are in Florida.  I had mentioned it when we first started talking about the trip to D*isney, and he had said, “We’ll see.” I was pretty sure this meant, “No friggin’ way,” because it’s very expensive.  Mom and I were both really excited about the mere prospect of doing it, but I don’t think either one of us had our hopes up too high.  Dad had other ideas though, and as is so often the case he has made it happen.

So on June 24th at 8am my Mom and I will be swimming with dolphins!  I’ve wanted to do this since I was a kid, and I’m so incredibly excited that I’m going to go.  I’m even more excited that I’ll be going with my Mom.  It’s something that just the two of us are doing, which will make it even more special.  My Dad is awesome for making this possible.

I don’t know how I’ll wait a whole month for this to happen…

I have reached my breaking point.

It’s been awhile since I updated my Scrapbooking Layout album in the gallery, so I took some time to do so today.  You can prance by and see:

Andrea’s Wedding Album

The Girls 2007-2008

Kate and Jake Year 3

I’m working on a very large project right now, and about 1/3 done with it.  Keep your fingers crossed that I get it finished in time.

When Jake and I went to Mississippi at the beginning of April, his father sent us home with three geranium plants that were all but dead as well as several other plants in various stages of life.  The geraniums were important though, as Thelma had bought them prior to her passing and Boots gave them to me with the words, “Why don’t you take them and see if you can save them.”

My first thought was, “Oh bother, I’m going to kill them.”

We got home and Jake invested some time and cash into creating a 4×4 bed garden.  We planted lots of veggies and hoped for the best.  Every morning I came out for work I soaked the garden and the geraniums, unless it was forecast to rain.  Every two weeks I hit the geraniums with some M*iracle Grow and hoped for the best.

Me and the radishes we grew

Jake and the radishes

Me, radishes, and… the GERANIUMS.

I am really, really proud of the geraniums.  I’m going to send the picture above to Jake’s dad so he can see that they made it.  I hope that will make him happy.  I wasn’t aware that I had such a green thumb, but apparently when I put my mind to it I can make things grow.

It’s been an incredibly, incredibly long week.  EOG testing is a stressful time for everyone in the school.  I get super stressed because I am coordinating everything that goes on that’s associated with state testing.  I’ve written of this before, so I won’t bore anyone with it again.  Suffice to say it was a very long and trying week.  Things went smoothly though, at least from my end of things.  The kids did very well too, so it was a positive experience overall.

Of course, the state has decided that we will retest all students who were not proficient.  This is a change from last year when we only retested students who had not been previously retained.  So instead of having a total of 20-30 kids to retest from grades 3-5… we have about 150 kids.  This means I’m having to plan a very large scale retesting cycle.  I also have to retest all students on alternate assessments, so I’ll be doing testing until approximately June 8th.  It’s good because it gives the kids a chance to do better the second time around.  It’s bad because I have an extra week of testing.

I was shown once again why my boss is so awesome this week.  In an effort to encourage the kids to read, he agreed to dress up like H*annah M*ontana if they read 1,000 books before the second week in May.  They hit that goal about two weeks in to the contest, so he upped the ante.  If they read 2,000 books, he agreed to perform as Hannah on the morning broadcast.  As you can imagine, the kids read record numbers of books.  Yesterday was the big day, and he was true to his word.  He sang on the announcements and then went to each and every classroom to say hello to the kids.  They were so excited, and I know they will always remember that he was willing to do something so crazy for them.

Today I went out to lunch with my good friend Steve.  We had a really good time and after we ate we went to a couple stores.  One was B*est B*uy.  I was looking for a movie, but instead I found the drum set for Gu*itar H*ero World Tour.  Just the drums, which is exactly what we’ve been needing.  So I got them.  I’m super excited about having them and can’t wait to put them to good use.

I’ve begun my official Disney countdown.  Less than a month now.  I’m looking forward to that trip so much.  Bethany and I are both thinking about all the things we need to do prior to the trip, and what we want to do while we’re in Florida.  It’ll be a great trip.

That’s life in a nutshell right now.  I’m incredibly busy with work, and it’s leaving very little time for anything else other than sleeping and dreaming.  Thank goodness I have time for that.