Golf

Jordan started golf on Monday.  Below is a link to access the pictures.  Don’t judge his form too harshly…remember that these are pictures from day one and day two.  He’d never picked up a golf club until three days ago.  He is enjoying it, though on day one he got a bit overheated out there.  It’s damn hot outside in Florida.  But after he got himself hydrated, he was fine.  We talked that night about preemptive measures—to drink water BEFORE he gets out on the course.  So, yesterday was a better day in that regard—no “almost” heat stroke. 

Maybe I’m just the biased mother, but damn my boy is adorable!   Click here and it’ll bring you to the album on my Facebook page.  You don’t have to have to be a member to access it.

Day Three

I am on day three of my summer vacay.  I don’t actually get the whole summer off.  I don’t personally know any teachers who actually get the whole summer off.  Most of us have to work another job and/or take workshops all summer.  But I am free until July 13th (with two workshops between now and the 13th).  Because I cannot relax at my own home until my houseguests are gone (which is looking like that’ll NEVER happen), I have been dropping Jordan off at basketball camp at the “Y”, and then either going to Panera Bread (free wi-fi) or to Barnes and Noble.  Today I am at Panera.  I could totally fall asleep in this big comfy chair.  Lord knows I can’t relax in my own home!!!  >:o(  I should utilize my Bally’s membership…yeah, right.  My plan to lose 40 lbs before my 40th birthday fizzled out.    Boooooo! 

I posted a bunch of new photos of Jordan on my Facebook page.  If you have a Facebook page and are on my ‘friend’ list, check them out.  I’m too lazy to post too many here, but here are a few:

Channeling Scott Weiland

 

Glam rocker!

Those were taken at Miss Lisa’s a few months ago during a sleep-over she had.  The theme was “rock and roll” in case you couldn’t tell!  lol

Here are a few pics of Jordan from basketball camp:

Nothin' but net, baby!

 

Future ballah!

And lastly, here is the Clone Troopers helmet (from Star Wars) that Jordan wanted so badly.  I think it’s a bit creepy (it has a voice changer and everything!), but if he’s happy, I’m happy.  He wanted to wear it to lunch the other day.  We compromised—he was allowed to wear it in the car, but not into Subway.

Clone Trooper helmet w/ voice changer

That’s The Way The Ball Bounces

My little guy started basketball today.  He has a clinic today and next Saturday with some dude who’s worked in the NBA (as a trainer).  Then this upcoming week he has basketball camp at the “Y”.  On June 22nd, the actual league starts. 

When I dropped him off this morning, it took a lot of will power not to cry—ME, not him.  He’s just growing up too fast, and my poor old heart can barely take it.  We shopped yesterday for new tennis shoes (wow, are Nike Shox pricey!) and basketball shorts.  He looked so cute this morning.  I didn’t take a picture, but I will when I pick him up.  I was too emotional this morning to be ‘with it’ enough to do it.  I walked him in to the gymnasium and wanted so badly to stay, but I didn’t.  I also wanted so badly to kiss that sweet little face, but I refrained.  I sensed that that just wasn’t the cool thing to do in front of all those boys and men, and Jordan probably would’ve shunned me which would’ve stung badly.  So I leaned in and whispered to him, “I really want to kiss you right now, but I’m not going to.”  Jordan smiled really big and whispered back, “I love you,” and off he went, bouncing his basketball across the court, leaving me standing there, fighting back tears.  Wow, am I a complete sap or what?

I am going back early to sneak a peek.  There are windows that you can look through into the gym.  I want to watch him without him knowing.

I am officially on summer vacay.  I actually packed up my classroom on time this year…first time in fourteen years.  I am always one of those teachers who has to go back on my own time the week after school is out and finish packing up.  Not this year.  I’m not sure how I managed this time.  But it felt great.  I am working this summer but not until July 13th.  I am doing eight two-day writing workshops (giving the training…not receiving) for our county to fellow teachers who sign up.  The training is geared towards motivating writers.  I’m nervous as hell, but I’m also thrilled, too.  Plus, the money is great. But like I said, that doesn’t start until July 13th.  In the interim, I am planning to do some writing, and I have a STACK of books I cannot wait to read.

Power of Facebook

The power of Facebook.  I logged on this morning and was looking at all my friends’ update statuses, and I noticed a handful of my former students’  statuses kept referring to Liliana (a former student…)…that they are praying for her, that they hope she pulls through.  So I figured out quickly that something had happened to Liliana.  I emailed a few of those former students and got some sketchy, unverified (at first) info that Liliana had been in a car accident.  Well, that was partially true.    Here’s what actually happened…click here.

At the time of printing, Liliana and her mom were unidentified.  Liliana was a student of mine when she was in seventh grade.  She is supposed to graduate from Hillsborough High School this Thursday.  Incredible student…extremely intelligent and extremely driven.  In fact, she was one of two kids in the country to receive the Academic Excellence and Leadership Award from the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers [which is why I think she was in Miami...receiving that award].  If you go to my school district’s website (click here) you can see her.  Look at the box that says “Good News and Information”…scroll down almost to the bottom…you’ll see her and the blurb about the Excellence Award. 

She is in coma.  Please pray for her.  Her mom died on the scene.  So, even if, God willing, Liliana comes out of the coma, she’s going to get blind-sided yet again—with the knowledge of her mother being dead.  Ain’t that some shit?

Let Them Eat…Pie!!

First let me start by saying I am furious.  I was almost finished with this post, and the bleeping thing disappeared…seriously—it’s just gone.  I soooo do not feel like typing this all out again.  Gawwwwww!

Damn.  Well, now you get the shortened version, which I’m sure makes you happy since we know I can be long-winded.  I can be, I know.  Yesterday was my school’s “Pie in the Face” assembly that I organized…eighth graders who earned high scores on the FCAT Writes essay were eligible to throw a pie at a faculty member.   Faculty members volunteered to be in a line-up.  We had forty-seven eighth graders who were eligible, and we had eighteen or nineteen faculty members who volunteered, myself included.  It was a HUGE success.  I’ve been obsessing and stressing over this thing for months.  This was pretty much my baby.  I’d never organized one…you wouldn’t believe all that it entailed either; thank God my bestie, Cobbie, had organized one before (actually MANY) and gave me soo many tips and ideas.  I’ve been making list after list since about February.  Oddly enough, despite being very abstract-random…and visual…and messy…I am very “detail oriented”, so I would make all these lists, combining new items, re-writing the list once I thought of something I missed, scratching off things I’d accomplished.  And what do you know…that madness paid off.  The assembly was awesome!  The energy in our gym was palpable.  The whole school was there to watch.  Our assistant principal for eighth grade was the popular target…the kids about peed themselves each time he was hit.  I only got one pie in the face from one of my favorite kids, Demetrius.  We had media coverage…positive media coverage for once.  See, usually when my school is in the news, it’s for something bad (even though we have SOOOO many good things going on…we just have a ‘tough school’ reputation that is taking a looooong time to shake).  So to have them there for a good reason was a wonderful feeling!  I’m still on a little bit of a high over it going so well.

Forgot

I just finished a wonderful book, The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold.  If anyone has read it or reads it, please tell me what you think the ending means.  I’m puzzled and could use some input.  I highly recommend it, mind you.  Very, very good.

Alive and Kicking

I love my blog…but I have done a horrible job of keeping it updated as of late.  (  It’s not for lack of material to write about—my mind is FULL of things I want to say.  And that’s the problem—too much to say, to the point that I feel overwhelmed, so I end up saying, “F*** it!”

I didn’t share on blog land my wonderful news about my students’ writing scores.  For those of you who keep up with me, you know my kids took the state writing test back at the beginning of February.  I was so nervous (because as most of you know, my school is a “SINI” school—”school in need of intervention”—because we haven’t improved our school grade…so boosting our writing scores was a must!), though a tiny little part of me felt very confident that my kids did a great job.  They are intelligent (though not always overly-motivated) and were well prepared.  Well, our scores came in a few weeks ago—we kicked a$$.  I’ll spare you the boring numbers, but suffice it to say, we rocked it!  So that was great news.  This week we’re having a “pie in the face” assembly.  Our high-scoring students get to throw a pie in the face of a faculty/staff member (volunteers, of course).  I’m so nervous about this—the assembly, that is.  I want it to go off without a hitch <fingers crossed>. It was my idea, and I’m pretty much putting the whole thing together myself.  A liiitttle nervous, I am.  /

We have like 12.5 school days left ’til summer.  I am ready for the year to be over.  Summer has a lot of interesting things in store!  That’s all I’m sayin’ right now.

Jordan is great.  Doing exceedingly well in school; he makes me so proud.  He’s going to learn how to golf this summer (thanks Jon—and Sean!).  I am excited for him.  He’ll have his own starter set of clubs (again, thanks Jon and Sean)…I will definitely post pictures.

I still have house guests.  They’re moving out at the end of July.  It’ll be nice to FINALLY have my space back.  I am tired of having no peace and quiet…I am such a loner; on the weekends I could go the whole day without speaking a word and be totally fine.  I could go a whole day without HEARING people talk, as well (minus Jordan of course).  I hate listening to inane chatter about things I could care less about…which makes me sound like a bitch, but I’m not.  I just enjoy “quiet” and hate small talk—or talking just to talk.  But there’s a light at the end of the tunnel…July 31st!!  Just in time to turn 40 and have a mini-meltdown in the privacy of my own home with no one around.  )

So that’s just a tiny portion of what’s been going on.  I promise to do better keeping up with you, bloggy blog.

What a Spring Break!

1. April 3rd…car accident…I got the ticket…still don’t agree with it…tore up my car…hurt my neck…no one else injured THANK GOD…received WONDERFUL news when I found out that I got accepted into the Tampa Bay Area Writing Project’s Summer Institute at USF (part of the National Writing Project) though it did not negate the accident 
2. April 4th…took a four-hour bus ride on the route 36 bus…too much fun, seriously! Couldn’t get on MacDill AFB…what a crock…technically wasn’t trying since we didn’t know the bus went ON to MacDill…but it sucked having to get off and catch #36 heading northbound
3. April 5-9…spent most of the day lying on the couch with a heating pad on my neck and shoulders, watching every freakin’ “judge show” known to the free world…read a little…wrote some…played lots of games with Jordan
4.  April 11th…got my car back finally…more pain inflicted when I had to shell out enough money to feed 211 families in Botswana for a year…took Jordan to Brandon for a sleep-over with his best-friend-since-kindergarten, Steven…got BACKED INTO by some fool at the parking garage on 15th in Ybor…started thinking maybe Fridays are not days to be out driving since LAST Friday is when I was plowed into, butIstillgottheticketwhichisbullshit…ate dinner at Carmine’s with Julie…saw “Taken” (w/ Liam Neeson…what a kick-ass movie…the plot literally made me nauseated at times, but Liam is such a flippin’ bad ass…like more than Rambo and Chuck Norris combined…seriously, go see it!)

Yep…that’s how I’ve spent my Spring Break…so far. I still have Saturday and Sunday. Think it’s too late to book a vacation in, oh say Mexico??  That’ll be #5 on my list.

Rock and Roll Party

I am child-free tonight. A rare night as most of you know. My friend, Mike, is taking Jordan (and his own son who is two-and-a-half and some other kids) to the Renaissance Festival tomorrow, so originally we were just going to meet up tomorrow, and I’d drop Jordan with him.  And then yesterday he asked if Jordan would want to just stay the night tonight, which Jordan did.  Jordan thinks Mike is the coolest guy to walk the planet.  Ever.  Ever ever.  [Let me go off on a tangent here...his Uncle Carl, Aunt Melissa's love, also hung the moon in Jordan's eyes.  Jordan loves his Aunt Melissa and Uncle Carl so much].  Anyway, but, besides just being a really great guy (which he denies–might ruin his image!! lol), Mike is a DJ here in Tampa for the classic rock station [read: local celebrity ]102.5 The Bone; I knew him long before this, and this is important to know because I do not want to be clumped in the “groupie” category!  So this (him being a DJ) is extremely cool to a little boy who lives and breathes music and rock and roll!  Mike’s show is from 3-7 [I'll plug the show right now---The Cowhead Show---you need to listen to it if you don't already.  Hysterically funny!  And, I don't know all the numbers and terminology, so Mike when you read this, please correct me if I am wrong, but his show is #1 in a few different demographic categories.  The show is awesome!  You can listen to it online if you're not in Tampa.] so Jordan gets to hear him pretty much every day when we’re driving home from school…even though he doesn’t see Mike every day, he hears him almost every day.   Anyway, I’m telling you all this because I don’t want you to think Jordan is with some random guy! )  Jordan is in extremely great hands with Mike and his wife.  There are very, very few people (aside from my family) with whom I’d let Jordan stay overnight…or even just visit for a playdate.  Mike is one of those few people.

I digress, as usual [you know I love words].  Mike got one of those bouncy house/slide thingies for tomorrow when everyone wakes up, and then later they’ll head to the Renaissance Festival.  Tonight they’re eating pizza, playing the Wii, and gonna watch a movie in a little bit.  I worried a little because Jordan can be very [painfully] shy.  Like, he’d put himself in misery having to pee so bad before he’d ask someone to show him where the bathroom is.  So, even though Mike is Jordan’s BFF (and has met Mike’s wife at their son’s birthday party), there are other kids there whom he doesn’t know…however, Mike updated me a little bit ago and said Jordan is doing fine and having fun playing Wii bowling. 

This evening when I dropped off Jordan with Mike, he said his little guy was referring to tonight’s shindig as the “rock and roll party”, which I thought was sooo cute.  )

Now, in the old days, I’d be out on a Friday night.  But now?  I have a new book I just started, so I am going to curl up on the couch and read for a while.  I’ve been looking forward to it all day.  Then, I am heading either to Walmart or Borders around midnight…because the “Twilight” DVD goes on sale at 12:01 a.m.!!  

Speaking of books, I just finished Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah.  While it is definitely a very light read, as in you won’t have to do any deep thinking, and is very predictable in many places, the last third of it killed me.   All you mothers out there who read it will relate and connect.  I do recommend the book if you’ll keep in mind that it’s a very light read…not because of subject matter…but because, as I said, there isn’t a lot of deep thinking involved–Hannah is a very ‘cut and dry’ kind of writer.  Now I’m going to go curl up with Everything Must Go by Elizabeth Flock (who wrote Emma and Me, and if you haven’t read it, you need to!  Stat!).

George Costanza

The other night Kelly opened the refrigerator and things just kinda flew out at her. It made a huge commmotion. So loud that Jordan, who was in our downstair’s bathroom with the fan on, heard it. He had been in there for a while, doing whatever little boys do when they’re supposed to be, um, well, going to the bathroom. So I had kind of forgotten he was even in there…he had been in there so long (normal for him!). But as soon as he heard all the commotion Kelly was making in the kitchen, he flew out of the bathroom…like this:

Takin' care of business

It cracked me up because (A) he has to be completely naked whenever he does his “business”, and (B) he was reading the dictionary while doing his business! He is sooo my child.  Cracked me up!!!   Oh, and yes, he still has remnants of the spider/nipple tattoo. 

And for any of you non-Seinfeld fans, George had to take his shirt off whenever he did his business.  Not quite the same as Jordan being totally naked, but you get the idea.  )