Weekly Menu

Monday:  chicken quesadilla (me) mushroom pizza (Mr.)
Tuesday:  Salad
Wednesday:  fend for yourself
Thursday:  beef enchiladas
Friday:  out to eat
Saturday:  fend for yourself

Gotta go grade some papers!

Weekend Weather and Such

As Texas continues to suffer through a drought, the east coast is suffering from too much water from Hurricane Irene.  I hope that my blogger friends on the east coast are safe with minimal damage.  Yesterday and today the heat in Texas was unbearable.  Yesterday's high was 109 and I am pretty sure that today's was close to that.

I have to admit that last week was a very hard week.  But on Friday I had an incident that made me smile.  One of my sweet darlings (whose Dad I have been friends with for years) came to school in boxers instead of pants.  Dad brought the student to school and he thought that said boxers were shorts.  We all had a good laugh about it and it is one thing that I will remember forever!  I am anxious about this week because I have so much going on with the differences in my students.  Yes, I know that all teachers have that but a public school has pull out help and I have to be the regular ed teacher, the special ed teacher, the dyslexia teacher, the pe teacher, the elective teacher and the english as a second language teacher.  And since this is my first classroom it is truly overwhelming.  I know that it will all work out but it is still pretty scary.  And with that, I had better close for tonight because I still have some school work to get done.  I hope you all had a great weekend.

This & That Ok, Not Much of Anything!

Three day so of school down (with the kids). . . . .172 or so left!!  I will wait to post about the first week at the end of the week.  It has been a roller coaster ride for sure!
It rained here today. . . . .we got a whole less than 2/10's of an inch.  We are expecting 108 degree temps on Friday and Saturday.  Joy, joy, joy.  I hate to say it but I have begun praying for a hurricane to hit the coast so we can get some rain! 
It is time for bed and a skunk just did a walk by our house and left a lovely (NOT) calling card.  Oh the joys of country life!!  Well, I will leave you with the scent of skunky plums dancing in your head!!

First Day of School

Oh my goodness. . . .the first day has finally gotten here and thank goodness it is OVER!  It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be but well, let's just say it wasn't as bad as I had feared.  I did forget to take a picture of myself on the first day.  Gggrrrrr.  I am irritated about that but life goes on!  Oh, and I still haven't taken any pictures of my classroom.  I guess I need to try to do that tomorrow.  Anyway, I have a class of 13 and the breakdown is 5 girls and 8 boys.  We had one playground melt down, we have to practice walking in line in the hall and learn not to complain about everything and I do mean everything!
I don't have any back to school traditions but when I was a kid we always went to the big town about 90 miles away to go back to school clothes shopping and we always got a pair of suede shoes to keep our feet warm in the winter!  We would go school supply shopping and I loved getting to pick out my school box (and school boxes back then were like cigar boxes) because they always had some really neat ones.  I love school supplies even today!  On the first day of school Mom would have us dress nice, take our picutre and then she would take us school.  Then she would wait for us to come home so she could hear about our day.  My Mom always made the first day of school special.  I miss my Mom so much.

School. . . . . .already?

Tomorrow is the first day of school and I am terrified AND I do not feel like I am ready. . . .at all.  I am really wishing my Mom was here because she would know all the right things to tell me.  I promise to write a longer post and tell you all about school.  That is if I survive.

Open House

Tonight is Open House and I am just a little (ok a lot) nervous.  I am not ready for school to start.  I still have so much to do!!  Will I ever get it done?  Will Monday go away?  Oh goodness, I have a headache!

Tuesday

Really wanted to tell you about teacher in service today but I am so tired I am going to get my stuff together and go to bed.  Goodnight.

And So It Begins. . . . . . .

Tomorrow we begin teacher inservice.  I am not going to lie and say that I am excited. . . .I will say that I am very apprehensive.  I don't feel prepared but I hope that after inservice I will feel better about it all.  I know that one of the problems is that I am really missing my Mom.  She is supposed to be here and she would be helping me get ready and I would feel much better about everything.  I have been cutting out all of my laminated items and I was working on my calendar and the numbers along with some other calendar pieces when I discovered that two of my dates are too close together but I can work those out.  One of my weather pieces and another date over lap so I am going to have to cut one or the other.  This really irritates me because we are not allowed to do our own laminating, we have to get the "laminator lady" to do it.  So now my brand new calendar set will be messed up.  I know that in the overall scheme of things it really isn't that big a deal but it still makes me just a little (ok a lot) upset about it getting messed up.  I hope to have some pictures to post later in the week.

I hope everyone has a good week.  There has been rain in the area the last two nights but we still haven't gotten any.  Praying we get some soon.

Proud, Heat and Weight Watchers

This is going to be one of those random kind of post, oh who and I kidding! All of my posts are pretty random (kind of like me). I guess I will start with the heat (I know, I know if you don't live in this furnace we call the great state of Texas, you probably really don't care). Last week our temps were 105+ every single day. They are talking of putting us on water restrictions and have warned of possible brown outs. There have been 13 heat related deaths. As you drive down the highway in the countryside, you see lots of brown and lots of stock tanks that are drying up (and doing it very quickly). When you pass a truck and trailer with hay you know that they just spent a lot of money and more than likely had to drive a pretty good distance to get some that is good quality. Cattle herds are getting smaller and no one wants to have to do anything outside.

I drove around our place and took some pictures to show you what it looks like around here.



Our big pasture that usually has so much grass in it.

Our smallest pond, this is just part of it.  There is only a little bit of water on the other end.

This is our hay field.  We have two fields and were not able to get hay from either one.

This is my front yard.  Most of the yard is brown with just a little bit of green.

I think they recognize my car.  When I first pulled up they all looked up to see who it was and this one looked like, when are you going to feed me.  We never have to start putting out hay this early and we have fed all summer long.

Hanging out near the mineral tubs and in the shade.  This pasture is pretty much dirt.

And another picture of the tank.  It has been this dry for over a month now.

This past weekend we headed up to the big city to see my sister's family.  My nephew had decided that he wanted to be baptized so we went up to see this big event.  We are so proud of him and his decision to give his life to the Lord.  My Momma would have been busting at the seams.  She loved her grandson so much (and her granddaughter) and would have hardly been able to contain her excitement.

This week for WW was much better.  I lost what I had gained last week and then some.  I am 6.2 pounds so far.  If you have any incredible WW recipes, please share.  Oh, and I need some good lunch recipes.  I found out that my good old standby for lunch won't be allowed in my classroom because I have a student with peanut allergies.  Ugh, I had planned on having a lot of peanut butter sandwiches because they are easy and filling.

If you are ready for fall. . . .raise your hand!!

Have a great week.

Nephew and Niece Love

I had such a good time with my nephew and niece this week.  But all good things must come to an end and today they went to the other g-parents home.  They really enjoyed getting to spend time with my Dad and he enjoyed spending time with them.  He took them to see the Smurf's Wednesday and they all really liked it!  My Dad is willing to go again.  I love when the short people are here!!  BUT their being here + my dad's retirement party = bad weigh in at WW.  Hoping next week is better! 
Well, I have worked on school stuff all day long but I haven't gotten anything accomplished and it has given me a headache so I am going to bed.  Hope you are having a great week!  Tomorrow is Friday!!!
Oh and since starting WW I haven't had one coke but I have found something yummy as a replacement. . . . .diet sprite with cherry. . . .yummo!!

Busy Weekend and Fun Week

This past weekend was a very busy one for us.  My dad retired in May and due to busy summer schedules this was the only weekend we could have it.  It was a surprise and even though it was at the building where our church meets and the entire church was invited. . . .it stayed a surprise!!  My sister and her family surprised him, several former students and his siblings were just a few of those who helped us celebrate.  We did have an almost disaster but it was averted thanks to my hubby.  We had taken the punch fixins and fruit and veggie trays to the community center on Saturday so we wouldn't have to sneak them in.  Well, the refrigerator stopped working so our fruit trays went bad.  Ggggrrrrrrrr.  Thank goodness hubs was able to head over to Sam's for replacement trays and ice.  Everything turned out beautifully and my Dad seemed very pleased.  My brother in law spoke for us kids and of course he made us cry because he talked about my Mom and how there was a big part of our lives missing for the special occasion.  I hope she was pleased with what we did.

This week has been busy so far because my sister and kids are finally able to spend some time with us.  Yesterday was swimming, Dairy Queen and hamburgers while today was swimming for me and Madcow, going to see Captain America and bbq with some of our favorite people from church who just happened to show up at the restaurant and came over to eat with us.  Tomorrow I will be tied up most of the day with a continuing ed course I am taking and then Thursday we will be taking the extra family to the other grandparents house for a visit.

And to end tonight's blog. . . .it is HOT here in Texas.  The temps are supposed to be 102 to 106 all week.  We are burning up around here.  Since it has been so hot here, I thought I would share this picture my sister posted on facebook last week.  I hope you are all having a great week.