Test Prep... Ready..... GO!

Oh. My gosh.  Test prep season.  21 school days left until the dreaded ARMT and SAT-10.  We are in full test prep mode at GES and it. is. insane!!  EVERY free moment is doing something ARMT/test prep related.  Our reading lesson plans have all been modified so that we can include more test prep time.  I completely understand now what Kacey was talking about in August about how after the ARMT test prep time and the week of testing, she puts all the test prep books away so she and the kids no longer have to see them!  I can't WAIT to put mine away!

Read Across America is next week, and I'm so excited.  I love Dr. Seuss and all of his fabulous books.  And we get to watch a Dr. Seuss movie.  I'm totally using that as an excuse to go buy Horton Hears a Who.  :)

If you know me, you know how much of a worrier I am.  I can't help it; I just am.  With that said, I am freaking. out. about next year.  With budget cuts and proration and how ridiculous this year has been, I'm so nervous about getting pink-slipped.  Although, on an honest note, I'd be more ok with getting pink-slipped if I knew it was 100% because of the economy and budget cuts and whatnot than I would be with getting pink-slipped because my principal thought I wasn't doing a good job.  Part of me wants to be ridiculously optimistic and think that if the funding is there, I'll be hired back, no problem.  But then there's that pessimistic side of me that is bringing on all this worry about what I'm going to do if the funding isn't there.  Be sure to keep an eye on my blog in April... I'll either be posting an exciting entry or a very sad one.  Until then, keep me in your prayers.

I took a personal day on Friday and thoroughly enjoyed the mess out of it.  I had a rough couple of weeks and just really needed a day off.  We were supposed to have today off as well, and a teacher workday tomorrow, but because we had that "bad weather day" in January, they took the holiday away, made today a teacher workday, and bumped up the students' return day to tomorrow.  I feel like today was the most unproductive workday known to man.  It was Cum Folder Day, and I spent the entire day making sure everything in each of my students' folders was in there and ready to go.  That way, come May, all I will have to do is write in their final grades, their attendance info, and the last day of school and I'll be done with them.  On the one hand --- YAY for being forced to do this now so that I'm not procrastinating on it later when ALL the other teachers are peacing out quick for their summer vacations.  On the other hand, however --- BOO for having my entire day sucked up by those cum folders and those meetings I had.  Other than checking over the cums and having to go to some meetings, I got nothing in my classroom done.  No lesson plans.  No grading papers.  No organizing.  No putting grades in the computer.  No making copies for this week.  Ugh.  I mean, I knew it was Cum Folder Day, and I'm not upset about that... I'm glad I had to do it now so that I don't have to do it later... But I didn't realize it was going to take soooooooooo long!!! So, all that stuff that I hauled home on Thursday (because I was going to work this weekend... ha!) and hauled back today (because I thought I'd have time to work on our teacher workday... ha!), I got to haul it all back tonight (because I'm going to get papers graded and get stuff done tonight.... h--- I did!).  I'm actually pretty proud of myself for getting all those papers graded, recorded, and filed.

And speaking of getting stuff done, can I just take a moment to brag on myself about how stinking productive I was yesterday?!  Holy. Moly.  My downstairs is so clean now (minus the closet by the front door -- that is still on the to-do list), I wish I had taken a before and after picture.  I threw away three bags of trash.  THREE. BAGS. OF TRASH.  Bleh.  I cleaned both bathrooms top to bottom and did all my laundry.  I made my bed (which I actually slept in last night, and am planning on doing so tonight -- so long sleeping on the couch!).  I cleaned the kitchen.  I made an appointment to get my taxes done.  I organized papers.  I cleaned out my fridge/freezer.  I put stuff in the storage shed.  I cleaned out my car and put windshield washer fluid in it.  And I cleaned my room.  Seriously, all that's left to do now is clean out/organize my spare bedroom, clean out the downstairs closet by the front door, and organize my closet in my bedroom.  Here's to hoping I can keep it this clean for more than a week...

**I know I've been a super-slacker on posting my Project 365 pictures. It's on my to-do list for next weekend.  Pray that I can keep my procrastination at bay and get everything done! :)

If only he could talk...

Harley escaped today.  It was the worst feeling in the world!  I went to get something out of the laundry room and noticed that the corner of the screen in the window was sticking out more than it usually does (I've tried to fix it, but haven't been able to).  I looked outside - didn't see him.  Looked in the kitchen - not there.  Ran upstairs and looked in the bathtub - nadda.  Looked all over my room and the spare bedroom - zilch.  I started FLIPPING OUT.  I called Lauren, thinking she was down at her house, to come help calm me down and help me find him, but she had gone home.  So then I call the next logical person.  My mom.  In Alaska.  When she got on the phone, I completely burst into tears, "Harley is gone! He got away! He pushed the screen out in the laundry room and he's gonnnnnnnnnne!"  She calmed me down and told me to leave the door open for a while, and while I'm doing my thing, he'll get hungry and find his way back.  Now, I'm the kind of person who, as much as I hate it, is run by my emotions and my thoughts.  The fact that he was out there all alone, for the first time ever, scared me to death.  I could hear dogs barking and trains going by and cars whizzing down the road... What if he got attacked?  What if he got hit?  What if some kind person found him and picked him up?  He doesn't wear a collar because of his allergies, so had he been picked up, this person wouldn't have known who to call.  And what if someone picked him up and decided to keep him since he didn't have a collar on?  But then, when they took him to the vet and figured out all his issues, they just decided to have him put down?  I couldn't bear the thought of all those possibilities, but at the same time, I couldn't keep them away.  And I couldn't just leave the door open and "do my thing."  No no... I sat in the door way, crying and calling his name.  Pathetic.  But it was all I could do.  I was so scared.  Eventually it got dark and it got cold, so I had to close the doors.  My sitting in the doorway became laying on the couch.  I made myself cook/eat dinner and while my potatoes were boiling, I sat on the floor in the kitchen and bawled my bloody eyes out.  After dinner, I went back to the couch.  I had the TV on, but it was muted so just in case he came back and was scratching at the door, I'd be able to hear him.  Finally, I heard something and I ran to the door and there he was.  He stopped and looked up at me as soon as he was halfway in the house, so I had to sweet talk him the rest of the way in.  As soon as he was in, I shut the door, picked him up, and started bawling.  Again.  It was the longest 5 hour time span of my life.  It felt like he was gone for an eternity, and I was not ok with it.  Not ok with it at all.  I wish he could talk and tell me what he did on his adventure.  I hope he remembers how much fun he had while he was out, and I hope he has lots of dreams about it.  Because he is absolutely, without a doubt, never going on one again.  Ever.

Catching up

I have been so busy/tired/stressed/all related words, that I have neglected to write in here.  I have taken my pictures for Project 365, but I didn't upload them here or on Facebook.  Since I have pink eye (again...) and stayed home today, I figured I'd might as well get caught up.  Get ready...

Day 20

Harley loves playing with my Auburn shakers!

Day 21

Harley sitting on top of the cabinets watching me cook dinner.

Day 22

Harley's toys... That he never plays with because he would rather play with

straws, pens, and pencils.  Go figure.

Day 23

Finally set my Wii up!

Day 24

One of Alex and Christine's cats playing on top of their truck.

Day 25

I finally got my own membership to Sam's Club!

Day 26

Lots of granite!  I went to granite store with Alex and Christine to pick

out a color for their countertops.

Day 27

New purse from Kohl's!  And thanks to some Kohl's

cash from Christine, I only paid $17. :)

Day 28

He loves playing on his cat tower.

Day 29

Next up on my "Things to Buy for the Apartment" list... Somewhere to

put my movies.

Day 30

One of the cutest pictures of Harley!! He's so precious!

Day 31

I love this game!!  Now I just need some people to come over and play!

Day 32

My classroom. :)

Day 33

Inside of my car.  LOVE the 6-CD changer. :)

Day 34

My bracelet from the Emergency Room.

Day 35

   When I went to the ER last night, they told me I had pink eye and that

  I had to stay home today.  Alex and Christine brought me a get well basket

  with homemade chicken noodle soup, cheese muffins, chocolate chip cookies,

a bottle of Diet Coke, and some pencils and candy for my class.  I love them!!

BFF4L day

I spent the better part of today hanging out with Lauren.  Her husband was at drill all day, so we went to Old Mexico and got some lunch.  I really wanted a margarita, but margaritas are expensive and I'm low on the dough.  We ended up ordering the same thing, but I didn't realize that the chalupa came with guacamole.  Nasty.  I picked it off and started eating some more of it, and I realized that the chalupa also had refried beans, not meat.  Double nasty.  I ate the taco and inhaled the enchilada -- that thing was SO good!

After we left, we went and walked around Ulta for a while.  She taught me the trick of sniffing a coffee bean between sniffing different perfumes.  I don't know how I didn't know that trick earlier.  We continued to walk around and found a display of bottles of shampoo/body wash/bubble bath.  We proceeded to smell each fragrance and decided that the Buttercream Cupcake was, by far, the best one.  Lauren ended up buying a bottle of Buttercream wonderfullness.  I would have too, but again, I'm low on the dough.  We looked at hair dye and figured out which shade we like for our hair, and we are possibly going to go back in the summer and dye our hair.  We want our color now to grow out.

We left Ulta and went to Barnes and Noble.  We spent a good while looking at books in the children's section.  She found a Harry Potter book of 3D images and could not, for the life of her, figure out how to see the images.  I tried to help her, but it's hard to show someone how to see them.  I found a book of 3D images in the puzzle and game section, so I tried to help some more.  She saw a couple of them briefly.  I should get her a book so she can practice. :)

Around 3:30, we left and went to the movies.  We saw How Do You Know with Reese Witherspoon and Owen Wilson.  It was an ok movie.  I don't think it's one that I would buy for myself.  Parts of it were really slow and it took all I had to not get my phone out to check the time.  After the movie, I dropped Lauren off at another store so she could go to dinner with her husband, and I went home.

Now, I'm about to go downstairs and play some Wii.  I haven't raced in a while.

Day 19

Lauren trying to find the 3D images at Barnes and Noble.

TGIF!

I'm so glad it's Friday and that the weekend is finally here.  Today was a rough day.  And knowing me, I would have stayed until 5:00 to try and get things done, but I was able to get Harley a last minute appointment with a vet about his toes and mouth.  So I left at 3:30.  I'm going to have a bit to do on Monday, but I really needed to leave.  Just one of those days.

Anyways... Harley.  When is there a time that there is NOT something wrong with this guy??  Poor thing.  When we moved to Dothan, he quit eating his z/d prescription food.  I had to get him to eat something, so I started giving him Friskies and 9Lives.  For a while, everything was fine as far as his allergies go, but here lately, his toes have been swollen like no other and I've come home twice not to bloody footprints in the kitchen. :(  When I was checking out his toes last night, I noticed that he had licked one of his toes so much that it was now an open would and was bleeding pretty bad. 

The principal at my school gave me the name of a vet in town that her mom goes to, but when I called this afternoon, they weren't going to be able to fit him in until next Tuesday.  I didn't think it could wait until then, so I called another vet (and this lady is SUPER nice, so we're staying with this vet).  The lady I talked to agreed that it couldn't wait, so she squeezed us in on an emergency visit at 4:00.  (This was at 3:35 and my apartment is 15 minutes away from work.)  So while I was packing up stuff to take home, I called the vet in Fairbanks and asked them to fax his records to the new vet.  I rushed home and got my copy of his records, rounded up Harley and his crate, and then rushed over to the vet.  We got there right at 4:00 and were in the exam room by 4:10. 

They weighed him and my jaw hit the floor when they said he was 10.3 pounds!!!!! It has always been a struggle to keep this guy above 9 pounds.  They checked out his paws, his mouth, and the growing bald-ish spot on his back and determined that his allergies are back in full-swing and we need to get him back on his medications.  The vet put him on Clavamox for a week and started him back on his Prednisolone steroid.  She was out of the liquid steroid, so we have to do tablets right now.  He'll take them, but he fights it a bit.  We also have to get him back on his daily allergy shots.  That's going to be fun.  I took the paper of his allergy test results to the vet and they are going to call and see if they can get a refill of his serum.  But since it's been over a year since I last had it refilled, the vet is not positive we'll be able to and we might have to start over and send them blood work.  That would suck a big one, because the basic test is about $140.  If we can get his serum refilled, it'll be about $130, and that bottle will last about 4 months. 

And on top of the medications, I have to put him back on a low-allergen diet.  We're going to try a couple different brands of low-allergen food since he refuses to eat the Science Diet kind now.  The vet said that the Purina has a low-allergen food, as well as Eukanuba.  Hopefully one of those will be satisfying to this guy.

Ohhhh, the things I do for this cat.  He's too precious not to do them, though.  He's my world. :)

Day 18

Our new vet. Always a good sign when they are Auburn fans. :)

War Eagle!

"Grrrr..."

Highlight of my day:

During after school tutoring, I have kids from all four third grade classrooms.  Today, I had two students from my class and one from another class.  We were finishing up practicing some of our multiplication facts before we got ready to go and the room was very silent.  And then my stomach growled.  Loudly.  The kids started laughing and then one of my students said, "Your stomach sounds like the tiger in my book!!"  I was confused and started laughing.  I said, "I sound like a tiger?"  He said, "Yeah!  I'll show you!"  So he goes to his desk and gets his AR book out of his backpack and opens it up to this...

Day 17

 "See?  'Grrrrrrrrr.....' Your stomach sounds like the tiger!"

Hahaha.  Moments like that make me love my job.

Foggy Windows

Today was a pretty dull day.  It was insanely hard to get out of bed this morning, and as a result, I got to work at almost the last minute possible.  The day was actually pretty uneventful, other than the fact that I had a lot to get done and not much time to get said stuff done.  But... that's the story of my life, isn't it?

Even though I stayed up late last night grading papers to go home in conduct folders, I didn't get around to filing the papers or putting them in the folders.  I kept a couple of my responsible kids in from PE and let them help me with that while I attempted to work on my PLP (Professional Learning Plan) thing for the principal (the computers/internet at school were screwing up and I couldn't save anything).  That thing is intense!!  I didn't have to do anything remotely close to this last year, and as much as I miss Northway at times, this PLP reminds me that coming down here was definitely the right decision for me as a teacher.

I was supposed to have after school tutoring today, but since there was only one third grader to tutor, the teacher who runs the ASEP told me I didn't have to do it today and the third grader was sent with the fourth graders.  On the one hand, I appreciated it because it freed up my afternoon to go home and finish my PLP.  But on the other hand, that's $50 in my check that I don't get  now.  She said we'd have more tutoring kids next week, and two more of the students in my class signed up, so hopefully, I won't have anymore days dropped.

I took my picture for today this morning before I went to work.  I can't wait until I get new doors and can actually see outside, haha.

Day 16

My sliding glass door going out to my patio.  The seal between

the two panes is damaged and the gas inside reacted with whatever leaked

in, and now this is my lovely view.