One more Saturday

My vacation is winding down and now I realize that I have a ton of stuff to do. As predicated by my husband, I did go to work on Friday and spent about 3 hours getting 'caught up' for the Monday onslaught of hormonal teenagers. The state of Georgia has standardized testing as a gateway to graduation. These tests start in 11th grade and if not passed then, continue on into 12th grade. They include Math, Social Studies, Science, Language Arts, and writing. In their infiinite wisdom the writing 'retake' is scheduled for Wednesday. We just had a week off, and these poor students have to come back and take the writing test. I put a pretty heavy emphasis on the writing test in my class. I have only had 2 of my students ever fail the writing test. I have about seven I think taking it this time. Did I mention that I teach English to students whose first language is one other than English? So these kids have been here two years and have to pass graduation tests in basically a foreign language. I have had great success, but I sweat it out every time. I am making breakfast for them on Wednseday morning. I made goody bags that include a nice pen, healthy snacks, Gatorade and water. They get so little support from other sources, so I try to really go all out for them. I spend too much money on them (so sorry Honey...I know, but we don't have kids of our own)Some of my kids on the Europe trip
Exhausted in the Coliseum

, but it makes them feel good. On a completely unrelated note..... South Dakota is trying to ban abortion. Now, I don't like the thought of women getting abortions, but I sure feel like we have that right. So people say that this will open up the road to give rapists parental rights. Good grief, would that be a mess or what? My husband and my baby girl dog are out scouting trails. Ballou....the prettiest girl in the world

New Furniture=Up all night?

So we got new-to-us furniture last night. My friend's boyfriend gave her some really nice leather furniture so she gave us her old furniture. It is nice and in good shape so we piled in the truck and went to Dalton to pick it up. After dinner (pigs in a blanket..yummy) we loaded the truck...just in time for the rain. Well, we put the tarp over the furniture and looked for the tie down straps. We found them we when got home, still in the garage. So a quick trip to Walmart and a slow drive home and new furniture. In the garage. Still. I moved old furniture around much to the chagrin of my husband. He helped with the entertainment center, but said no more. I must have pulled something because I was awake most of the night with a terrible pain in my side. I kept telling myself it is only ovulation (if you are a guy..never mind) but visions of emergency hernia surgery were flashing in my mind. This went on all night with moments of sleep in between. So now I am up and around trying to do a few things and I feel like my stomach is going to fall out through my pelvic area. My husband said 'yeah'. My sister in law says go to the doctor. I say go get ice cream, it's going to be a long couple of days, and the new furniture is still in the garage.

Gallbladder Fun

I had my gallbladder removed over Christmas. It was a fairly easy surgery and they gave me good drugs afterwards. The pain that I was experiencing before the surgery is now gone, but there are at times nasty side effects. Let's just say that homemade chili is no longer an option. It is not so much fatty foods that do it to me (as my doctor warned), but spicy. The slightest hint of spice and within an hour I am....well, you can guess. I do have tiny little scars, four of them on my belly. They are turning purple. I have named them the Romo quadruplets, after the guy who watched me throw up when I had my last attack.
So all this to say that I am not going far from the bathroom today. A good excuse to put my pajamas back on and read.

Ah....Saturday

So it is once again Saturday, and again will probably wind up being a pajama day. A pajama day entails:
sleep until 10:00 or so
breakfast
television
nap
check e-mail
make phone calls
light housekeeping
love dogs
possible quality time with husband
read newspaper
read 'fluff' book (no real redeeming value except to escape)
practice guitar (hah! says my husband)
more television
possibly another nap
dinner
more television
10:00 bedtime
Yes, I know, but I deserve every second of it. Sunday is my work around the house day, errands, help out my mother and school work day. I spend about 4 hours or so grading papers, journals, essays, etc. I only get one real day off and by GOD I will spend it how I want to. Saturdays are not always pajama days, but as often as possible.
I had to tell my husband the other day that I have the upcoming week off. He was astonished. Again, I deserve every moment that I get, and will spend a good portion of one of those days actually at work trying to get caught up. The weeks that I have off are the only weeks that I feel like a normal person. I get to do things like go to dinner. Not many teachers go to dinner during the week. We may drive thru somewhere, but dinner out on a school night is a pretty big committment. My husband does not believe this, but I have at least 100 or so teacher friends that can back me up on that one. Sometimes when I have more than a couple of days off in a row I will actually COOK something for dinner. My poor husband.

Did I mention?

Did I mention that I am a club sponsor? Yes, I sponsor the Bluegrass Club . Love the music, but I have a VERY small classroom and with 8 people with instruments in here I would like to poke my eyeballs out.

We are having a jamboree on April 15. The Lovell Sisters will be there as well as Browngrass and several other bands.

I don't know when, but...

at some point I became respectable. It had to come with the teaching at my high school. Well, maybe with the English teaching. I taught German before. People looked at me askance back then. The title of ENGLISH TEACHER somehow makes everyone feel like I am a responsible adult.

Summer 2005 Europe trip with students

I'm 36. I don't know when that happened either. I married at 23, he was 27 and we were both mere children. Now he is a writer and you already know what I am. We have a house we semi keep up, a yard that I wind up mowing and dogs that we feed regularily. What's really funny is that I still feel like I want to sit at the kid's table at Thanksgiving.

Oh..so now I am supposed to write something?

Yes, I admit it. I caved to the pressure of blogging. Now I just hope that I will not spend all of my time here. I spend enough time in front of the computer at work. It could be a problem. So yes, I am a high school English teacher, but note that you should not expect my grammar nor my spelling to be exemplary. I enjoy what I do, but my normal state of being is stressed out and trying to go 16 different directions at once. I am not your typical prim and proper English teacher. I refuse to wear makeup, only run my fingers thru my short short hair once every other day or so and my wardrobe consists of two colors: black and pink. I wear Spongebob watches. I love the PowerPuff Girls. So sue me.