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.  )

I’m Here

No, I didn’t drop off the face of the Earth. It’s “FCAT season” so I’ve been superbusy and SUPERtired. This school year is completely exhausting me. Plus, I’m getting old. ) I tire easily.  I don’t think I’ve ever gone THIS long without posting.  It hasn’t been for lack of things to say (you know that could never happen).  It’s just hard to find time to sit down and actually do it. 

Jordan and I are great. Just counting the days until Spring Break. We have nothing special planned (yet); we’re just soooo ready for the break.

Two funny pictures of Jordan:

Jordan's "do-it-himself" tattooing!

 

He voluntarily put these on! LOL

Never a Dull Moment

Dull moments are few and far between in my career. Check this out.

But on a happy note, check out these beautiful flowers that one of my students arranged for me.

One of my students made this arrangement for me!

A floral arranger (is that the correct terminology?)…florist?…whatever…came to our school yesterday to teach some of the girls how to make floral arrangements. One of my girls gave these to me. Aren’t they beautiful? She did such a wonderful job. Fresh flowers are in the top five of simple things that make me smile, so having these on my desk yesterday and today made me smile a lot…they’re just so pretty!

Beautiful Boys and a Beautiful Sunset

Yesterday evening Jordan and I went to visit Mrs. Smith, his kindergarten teacher whom he absolutely adores. He loves her. She has left an indelible mark on that boy’s heart for sure.  I only wish she could be his teacher for the rest of his academic career…she is that wonderful.  We both adore her.

She had a baby, Eli, back in November, and we finally were able to coordinate a ‘play date’ for the boys (lol…not really…he’s two-months-old). Eli is gorgeous, and Erin is adorable like always. She looked refreshed and rested…not at all what I looked like when Jordan was brand new. Wonder what her secret is.

Afterwards, Jordan and I went on down to the old Gandy Bridge/Friendship Trail to watch the sun set since we were close by.  Here are some pictures from yesterday. Yes, the date is still wrong on my camera. Once again I forgot to change the stupid thing.

This is one of the reasons I love living here in Tampa–the water…the sunsets…simply beautiful.  God does good work, no? 

1/24/09 Sunset at Gandy Bridge

1/24/09 Jordan at the Gandy Bridge at sunset.

1/24/09 The face says it all..."Stop posing me for pics?" LOL

Introspection

Just a second to ’stop in’ and wish everyone a great weekend. School is stressing me out so much (the adults, never the kids!) that I livefor the weekends now. I am usually never like this–at least not to this extent. But lately, Friday afternoon cannot get here fast enough. I just want to get away from that place as fast as I can. I hate feeling this way. I know I need to pray for patience and peace in my heart…I know God is testing me. I need to stop having such negative thoughts towards certain people. I know this. It’s a huge fault…I just think people should do their jobs correctly. It enfuriates me when they don’t and then their incompetence impacts my students in a negative way. And when this happens, I will speak up…I will be a bitch.  So that is what’s tearing me apart—keeping it inside so as not to ruffle feathers, OR speak up and stand up for my kids and piss certain people off.    People that know me well know I don’t like conflict…at all.  But I feel like my kids are getting $hit on, and isn’t it my job to stand up for them?   I guess I just answered my own question.

Grrrr. Anyway…have a great weekend all. 

XOXO