Billboard sign reads

"Slow down. We can wait." -- Rosewood Funeral Home

Tears Rolling

I'm laughing so hard!

Yet another first...and a minor correction

Three friends and I ate at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse last night. I had never been and truly enjoyed it! It was fun to chat and enjoy scrumptious food, too! I highly recommend the warm apple crumb tart!


I realized last night on the phone that this was not really a first. Oops!

Inhale through mouth, exhale through nose

One of my kid's stinks!

Poor baby, but man! Pew!

Gotta love...

Taxes!

I love that in teaching summer school, I earn more money. Which in turn puts me in a slightly higher tax bracket because HISD lumps the summer school income with my regular school year income. This means that 1/3 of my income was taken in taxes and other deductions.

Love it!

Blessings

"But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life; and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine."
-Thomas Jefferson

Thanks precious Friends! :)

Counting Down

We're halfway through summer school!

Following a Stereotype

Because I didn't have a spoon, I used animal crackers to eat my breakfast of applesauce today.

I'm such a teacher!

I'm blessed

I'm blessed in friendship. A friend and I were talking on the phone yesterday. She forgave me for not getting back to her over a concern that had been raised several days before. She then promised to pray with me through a particular issue in my life. She also loves me enough to ask the tough questions. The ones I don't always know the answer too...and sometimes I do. She doesn't demand an answer. She understands the need for time, but she voices the questions because she wants what is best for me.

I'm blessed!

Events to Remember

- On Monday, I hit a bird and it lodged in the luggage rack of my car.

- On Tuesday, my computer spontaneously shut itself down and rebooted at 5:30 am.

- On Wednesday, I heard a scampering of little feet on metal and woke up to a roach on my bedroom windowsill at 3:15 in the morning.

- On Thursday, a parent, that looks like my former (and very intimidating) boss, acted very confused when I showed up for a scheduled tutoring.

- On Friday, money flew out of my bra.

- On Saturday, I reversed into a tree.

My to do list

This week was busy in the sense that I've added workouts to my daily routine, committed to tutoring several children three days each week and said yes to quite a few evening committments. I hadn't done laundry since... well, I'm not sure when really, and was becoming perilously low in all areas of my wardrobe. Getting dressed each morning this week became a comedy routine, let me tell you!

Last night, I left work right on time, made a couple stops on the way home and immediately gathered all my laundry together. My basket has never been filled so high! I had to swing back to get some momentum and heave, ho! to get it up on the table in the laundry room! Of course, I started giggling. This whole thing was just too funny. :)

I did ten loads of laundry. Yep, I said ten. My dinner companions last night stopped me in the telling of another funny story (which is absolutely hysterical, but I'm not sure is blog material) because they were dumbfounded over the fact I had ten loads. What can I say?

There are only eight washers, and one wasn't working. I felt badly for monopolizing all of them, but at least it wasn't on a Saturday morning.

Whew, clean clothes again!

Who's on first?

Towards the end of each school year, I send an email out to my students' parents offering my tutoring services during the summer time. This year was no exception. One parent responded that she was indeed interested and asked my rate and available days and times. I gave her a list of days and open time slots and she responded choosing one of them. I then sent another email telling her I would add her son to my calendar and informed her of the day I would begin coming. All of this happened in late May.

Last night was the first day of our scheduled tutoring. A man answered the door and I could tell he thought I was a salesman. I knew right away this was going to be an interesting experience! When I explained who I was, he said this was the first he'd heard about this, but I was welcome to come inside. He got me a glass of water and attempted to reach his significant other on the phone to no avail. Mom and son arrived about fifteen minutes later. Her first words to me, "What brought you to this side of town?"

??

After this confusing initial sentence, she said we had never confirmed, though she acknowledged choosing a day of the week and time. I told her I didn't have to stay, but the man of the house spoke up stating I was wanted and promptly set the child and I up at the dining room table.

As I was leaving, the boy's mom apologized and said next week would work well. I wondered if that was confirmation enough, or if I should email a day or two ahead of time. ;)

Another first

I had my first shot the other day. It started off sharp and then a warmth flowed through. The doctor smiled at me when he was finished.

Children make me smile

One of my little girls was wearing one earring yesterday. She's a little sensitive, so I waited until we were able to have a private moment before I brought it to her attention. She didn't act surprised and simply said, "I lost the other one at the waterpark." When I asked her why she was only wearing one earring, her reponse was priceless. "I didn't lose this one."

I'm living in an illusion

I feel like I'm on summer vacation. This feeling makes me stay up late reading, leave work even though there are papers to grade, work out and lay by the pool as if I have all day to do so and agree to late nights out.

Reality is I'm teaching summer school. I am allowed to arrive at work a little later, but I still have to set an alarm. There are papers to grade, lessons to plan, copies to make and no time without children to do any of these things. So, really I need to arrive at work a little early or stay a little later to accomplish the things that need done. There aren't as many things on a 'to-do' list as during the regular school year, but there are still a few things. Working out and laying by the pool is great (and definitely do-able), but I still need to clean my apartment, wash the dishes and do laundry.

July will come and I will get to be a little more lazy, until then I need to realize, I'm still at work!

a first encounter

I had an experience this evening I wasn't quite sure how to handle. While driving down the feeder of the beltway, I hit a bird. That's not the experience. I mean, I might not have hit a bird before. I don't really remember. But it was what happened after I hit the bird that was weird. It flipped from the front of my car, where it did not narrowly miss the contact with steel as most birds usually do, and flopped onto the roof. I heard it hit, but I didn't hear it bounce off. Bad sign.

I arrived at my destination and wasn't sure what to do. What if it was right on top of the roof by the driver's door and when I opened my door it fell down? On me! What if it was still alive or at least partly alive and tried to fly at me? I gently opened the door and waited a heartbeat, but when nothing happened, I pushed open the door and jumped! away from the car. I looked up at the roof and didn't see anything. Small sigh of relief. Maybe it really did fly off. Uh, bad choice of words. Fall off. I took a step further away from the car so I could see the entire roof and sure enough, there! At the back of the roof, caught in the luggage rack, was the bird. Ewww! There wasn't anything I could do about it in the Cheddar's parking lot though, so I walked in to meet Jill for dinner.

I walked out later, hoping it would have somehow disappeared, but nope. It was still there. I sent a text to a friend, "I hit a bird and it flopped onto my roof and got stuck. Help" I didn't hear anything back from him though and I didn't want to just drive over to his house. But I knew I was going to be girly about this. I COULDN'T take the bird off my roof. I just COULDN'T.

I had to run an errand on the way home and sure enough the bird was still up there when I walked into the store, and back out again. I called another friend of mine, and Bingo! He answered the phone. He laughed hysterically at my predicament, but said he would help. I drove over to his house and when I got out of the car...no bird! That's right, the dumb thing finally fell out. I was planning to borrow his camera to take a picture to post, but now I have no proof. Man! Ain't that always the way!?

But, it was a good laugh. :)

Student Drawing

A young girl just brought me a picture she had drawn for me. It's done in girly pinks and purples and says:

"Princess or Qeen Ms. Ross rocks!"

Gotta love our next generation!

Huh? ... Ohhhh!

I'm teaching summer school at a school I do not teach at during the school year. I know almost all of the teachers here, but there is one I just met. This one is a PE teacher during the school year, but is teaching 1st graders in summer school. He is feeling a little overwhelmed due to the change in content and the extreme lack of supplies. (We were provided with nothing but a classroom with desks and chairs!!!)

On our in-service day, I was almost finished and about to leave. We were chatting briefly about the letter our administrator had asked us to send home with the children on the first day introducing ourselves to the parents and blah, blah, blah. Anyway, he said he didn't know where to type it. I was a little confused by this. I tried to play it off a little. "Well, I typed mine in Microsoft Word on the computer." He then said he had opened the Internet and didn't know where to go from there. Up until this point, my mind had been racing to figure out what he was talking about...but when he said this it all clicked. I had an aha! moment. I walked over to my computer and showed the poor computer illiterate man exactly where to go to type his letter.

I'm a little worried about him!

10 Reasons why I love summertime

#1. Sleeping late.

#2. No stress of children passing.

#3. Reading an entire book in one day.

#4. Dinners with friends more often.

#5. A feeling of spontaneity for gathering people together.

#6. An opportunity to earn extra money for doing extra things.

#7. Time to travel and see interesting people and places.

#8. Hanging out by the pool!

#9. I can meet friends for lunch! (Gasp!)

#10. Things get done around my apartment that I've been putting off.

Wedding Season

My cousin's wedding was Saturday. It was a great time of fun! I love that weddings bring family together more often than just seeing each other on major holidays!