Nothing like a good scare

Last week at school, some teachers' contracts were not renewed for one reason or another, so there has been a feeling of ominous doom throughout the hallways. (We got our contracts the other day, however, so that's a good sign.)

During 6th period today, one of the assistant principals came to my classroom and told me the "main" principal needed to see me. Right now.

Let me add that our principal is BIG on not interrupting class time, so this had to be pretty important.

As I walked to the office, my heart was beating triple-time. "This is it," I thought. "They have found some reason to fire me." I immediately tried to think of what I had done that would validate my dismissal. (For the record, nothing came to mind.) Or maybe a parent had complained about me. I had no clue.

When I arrived at the principal's office, the superintendent AND the assistant superintendent were there.

I was about to wet my pants.

Fastforward to the end of the story...basically, they discovered that several employees had been overpaid or underpaid for the past five or six years. I had been overpaid by $100 a year. Apparently, the higher-up peeps had come by to apologize in person.

Really?

So for not even $10 a month, I about lost my lunch right then and there?

My theory is that it was one of those tactics where you make someone think a situation is really bad, so when you tell the person the "real" story, it's a relief, kind of like the teenager who says, "Mom and Day, I'm pregnant. No, just kidding...I failed my chemistry test today."

Breaking Dawn and Resolutions

I'm beginning to think that Breaking Dawn, the fourth (and right now, last) book in the Twilight series, is the book that simply won't end. I feel that for every page I read, two more are added to the end. While some interesting stuff happens in the book, it is REALLY drawn out. I want to finish it before our trip Friday so I can take something new to read with me, and I refuse to lug that huge book with me. (I have to finish one book before I can go on to the next. I'm weird that way.)

As for my resolutions that I proposed last Sunday, here's the report:

I give myself an A for walking. I walked Monday and Tuesday, even though I didn't want to, but then the rain came Wednesday and stayed for the week.

I give myself a C for Internet time. I did great Monday, but then I got caught up in a blog story (I'll mention it at the end) that compelled me to keep checking people's blogs all week.

I give myself a B for going to bed early. I did this Monday and Tuesday, and I felt great because of the seven hours of sleep I was getting. Wednesday and Thursday, however, I stayed up a little later to grade papers. Okay, I confess...Thursday I stayed up to watch Grey's Anatomy.

I give myself a B- for working diligently after school. I did get a good bit done this week, but I also killed a lot of time talking, mostly because of some school drama that I don't feel comfortable discussing here.

This week's resolutions:

Because of the trip Darryl and I are leaving on Friday, my main priority is to get stuff ready for the trip and to get some grading done. I don't need to worry about walking in the afternoons...I just need to get stuff done.

I need to go back to the 15 minutes of Internet surf time.

I need to work at school until I pick up Amelia.

And that's it as far as the resolutions go this week.


About the blog story that has consumed my attention...Several months ago, I mentioned a baby named Stellan who was a "miracle baby" who was having a rough time with RSV. Well, he survived that and appeared to be doing fine. Now, he's in the hospital again, this time for the heart condition that caused problems when he was in the womb. The doctors appear to be stumped. Anyway, if you are a praying person, keep him and his family in your prayers. You can read more here.

Long week

I kept meaning to blog some over the past week, but I never got around to it. Here's a quick recap...

• Yesterday, the 27th, was our 10th Wedding Anniversary. Darryl has been gone all week and was gone most of yesterday, too, so we didn't really do anything to celebrate, but...we are going on a week-long trip next Friday. I would tell you where we're going, but my mother is convinced a crazy blog stalker will follow us there, so I won't tell you now. We're very excited about it, but we will definitely miss Amelia. :)
• I had my teaching observation/evaluation this week. I was so glad to get that done. I hate being observed. It isn't that I'm doing anything that I shouldn't be doing, but you know how sometimes you have one of "those" days, and I always fear that I will be evaluated on one of those days. Glad that's behind me.
• Amelia has been spending some time in timeout at her daycare this week. Apparently she likes to pull kids' hair. My favorite account of this is that apparently one day she and her buddy Jake were playing in a playhouse on the playground. Jake tried to leave, and she pulled him back by the hair. Oops.
• I took Friday off as a personal day but still took Amelia to daycare. Unfortunately, I spent most of the time trying to catch up some on my grading. The pile never ends.
• I missed having Darryl around this week. I don't know how single moms do it. Amelia was pretty good, though, so I can't complain too much. Little else got done, hence the personal day Friday.

That's about it...

Bath Time=Fun Time

Weekly Resolutions

New Year's Resolutions apparently don't work for me. The weight I'd hope to drop by mid-March is still on my body. I kill a lot of time doing things like surfing the net and talking with co-workers after school instead of grading and getting work done. (I definitely think talking with co-workers is a good thing, but sometimes I probably do it because I'm procrastinating with the work that needs to get done.) On top of it all, I'm tired most of the time. Darryl marvels at how I start snoring (yes, I just admitted to that) within a minute of my head hitting the pillow.

I'm going to try these things this week:

• I am going to make an effort to walk/exercise every weekday this week, weather permitting. I've actually been pretty good with this lately.
• Along the health and fitness line...I'm trying these exercises that are supposed to minimize the "mummy tummy," which I still have 16 months after Amelia was born. Basically, the exercises--from what I gather--consist of repetitions of sucking in my gut (thinking belly button to backbone) 500 times a day. I think I've done 300 today and I can feel it. We'll see if it works.
• I'm going to try to be in bed, lights out, by 9:30.
• I'm going to focus on work in the afternoons until I pick up Amelia.
• I'm minimizing my Internet surf time to maybe 15 minutes a day. This is HUGE, people.

I'll report at the end of the week and let you know how it goes...

Standardized Testing :(

Sorry to be Debbie Downer, but I'm not looking forward to this week.

The juniors are taking the state graduation tests this week (and for you non-teachers out there, the reason the tests are taken the junior year instead of the senior year is so that students can have multiple chances to pass...). We've been required to review, review, review the tar out of these tests. Our pass rate, especially in Language Arts, has always been pretty high, but the administration wants us to have more students with scores that exceed the standards. These juniors are notorious for not doing that well on standardized tests, so I'm curious to see what the scores will be. Last week, I pretty much turned the review into a competition and awarded candy to winning teams. I'm not too good to resort to bribery.

Anyway, testing typically throws everything off kilter. Gotta love it.

I can't believe I'm quoting Forrest Gump here, but "that's all I've got to say about that."

LOST

I am finally caught up on Lost. I thought I had two episodes to watch, but apparently last week's was a rerun. (Am I crazy, or was the whole point of the show's starting in January so that they would not run repeats?)

Anyway...I'm completely confused. What do you do to make a show that is already confusing even more confusing? Have them jump through time, that's what. I'm glad they are finally stuck somewhere, though, even if it appears to be the 1970s.

I did enjoy the last episode, however. I may be in the minority, but (spoiler alert) I think I like Sawyer with Juliet instead of Kate. I thought the way they had kind of "joined" the Dharma Initiative was cool, too. I think we'll find out some interesting things...or in typical Lost fashion, we'll probably get some questions answered but then have a dozen more questions to ask.

One last thing: This last episode did answer a question I'd had this entire season, which was whether or not 3 years had passed on the island as was the case for the Oceanic 6.

Any thoughts from the Lost viewers?

Not a whole lot to report

Well, as the title of this blog post suggests, not a whole lot has been going on with us lately. We enjoyed some warm weather for a few days and Amelia and I went walking some in the afternoons, and then by the time I had gotten in the routine of doing it, the weather turned cool and rainy.

School has been hectic as usual. I need to grade but have no motivation to. My "bad" class has been a little better since the post I now will call the "post of despair." They're no angels, mind you, but they haven't driven me to the brink of insanity again.

I caved and bought some Girl Scout Cookies today--Thin Mints and, because they were out of Samoas, I settled for some Tagalongs. Then later we went to Barnes and Nobles, and lo and behold, the Girl Scouts there had Samoas. Now we have three boxes of GS cookies. This isn't good, y'all.

Let's see...I really have nothing to report. I'll end with a cute pic of Amelia. I was doing a couple of things in the kitchen this afternoon while she watched Sesame Street, and when I looked over at her, this is what I saw:

A little entertainment news talk

I haven't blogged about TV or celebrity stuff in a while, but two events this week have prompted me to do so:

--The trainwreck known as The Bachelor. Up until the finale Monday night, I think I had seen, oh, maybe 20 minutes or so of this season. I didn't even watch the whole finale, just the last 40 minutes. Then I felt compelled to watch the After the Final Rose special because it promised "the most dramatic twist ever." For once, ABC was right. This was the most dramatic twist ever. As I'm sure you've heard, not only did the dude break up with his "fiancee," but he then had the audacity to ask the girl he dumped to take him back. Are you kidding me?

There's nothing I can say that hasn't already been posted and blogged. I know one person who is probably glad how this turned out: Brad Womack, the dude a couple of bachelors/bachelorettes ago who dumped both finalists at the last rose ceremony because he didn't see himself with either one, and he got a lot of flack for that. Compared to Jason, Brad comes out smelling like a rose. (I couldn't resist. Get it? Smelling like a rose? Ha!)

--Oh, Rihanna. Seriously, you are taking Chris Brown back? Sadly, I know this is probably the case of many abusive relationships. Can someone talk some sense into this girl, though? She's cute, has an already impressive career...is this the best she can do???

Okay, time to get ready for school now...

A Day for Two

Darryl had to have an upper-GI test done early this morning (he's fine, no worries), and--thank goodness!--the daycare was open, so Darryl and I had kind of a nice day (medical procedure aside) just the two of us. I was able to get a good bit graded while he was at the doctor, and then we did a little shopping, had lunch at La Madeleine's, and came home. I was able to finish up laundry, fix dinner, and take a nap before picking up Amelia. It was a nice day.

In other news...I'm seriously considering watching the finale of The Bachelor. Y'all, the most "dramatic twist" is supposed to take place tonight. Tonight!!

Food, Glorious Food!

We've had a good weekend so far. Technically, this is going to be a 3-day weekend for me because I'm taking Darryl to have an upper GI test done tomorrow.

There's talk of a snow day Monday, and for once, I'm hoping it doesn't happen because that would mean that Amelia's daycare would likely be closed and I would end up trying to entertain a 15-month-old for probably at least an hour and a half in a waiting room. That would not be good.

We've been trying to be better about eating out so much lately, but we failed miserably this weekend. We went to three new restaurants, and all were really good and places we would go again.

Friday night, we went to Gladys and Ron's Chicken & Waffles. I had actually been to a different location before and enjoyed it, but this was Darryl's first time eating there, period, and it was the first time for all of us at this location. Darryl enjoyed some fried chicken with the "fixins," and I had the smothered chicken and while it was good, I think my arteries might still be a little clogged. Amelia gave their waffles and their black-eyed peas the thumbs up. That girl LOVES black-eyed peas something fierce.

Saturday morning, we got up pretty early (meaning we were out of the house before eight) to eat breakfast at a place called J. Christopher's. Darryl's office had a breakfast catered from there, and he's been talking about it ever since Tuesday, when he found out the name of the restaurant. The breakfast was super yummy. We both had their Blueberry Crunchcakes, which are these delicious blueberry pancakes with some granola thrown in the batter. Yum! I want to go back and try their Coca-Cola ham served on a bed of cheese grits.

Yesterday afternoon, we ventured out once again to eat, this time to an English pub whose name I can't remember. The funniest thing about this restaurant is that Amelia had some mac n' cheese that she rocked her world. She'd stuff it in with both hands and throw her head back and laugh and go "mmmmm." And it was super cheesy, so she had it EVERYWHERE. Our food was good, too, but not as good as Amelia's, apparently.

Then last night, I made chicken pot pie. After all out gluttonous eating out, I've decided to try to cook for the next four or five days at least. And it was good too.

Then last night, I decided to do the Wii Fit. Probably a good move, right?