The Liar Show

So, how many of you out there have watched this new show on TV about being paid to tell the truth?  The show is called The Moment of Truth and basically the contestant is hooked up to a lie detector and asked lots of very personal questions.  They are then asked some of these questions on national television with their family and friends in the audience.  The more questions they answer correctly, the more money they earn.

The more I watch the show, the more I hate it.  I get so uncomfortable watching people squirm while being asked personal questions that destroy their lives and relationships with their family and friends.  Is the money really worth it to divorce your spouse, estrange your family, and lose your friends?  I hardly think so.

A Little Mindless?

Apparently I’ve been a bit forgetful lately.  Or maybe it’s turning out to be more than just a little bit.

Tonight we thought we’d go for a walk before dinner.  The power was out but came on 2 minutes before we headed out the door.  No problem.  I put the salmon in the oven and thought it would be ready by the time we got home.  When we got home I expected to smell something cooking.  Well, it seems I set the clock but forgot to turn the oven ON!  Later I thought it was taking a lot longer than usual and then I noticed I didn’t set it for the right temperature either!  Yikes!  Maybe I’m getting a little senile in my old age!

This has been a reoccurring problem but if it’s not the oven, I forget to turn on the ring of the stove.  Good thing we didn’t have any urgent plans tonight!

In the Dark

As Ken was driving closer to my school this morning (yes, the carpool thing again!), we noticed that the traffic lights were out on most streets.  In fact, the street that runs behind the school was completely blocked off by squad cars.  Hmmm, I thought.  When Ken dropped me off at the front, there were Westar trucks all over the place, trying to fix something or another.  Turns out the power was out for a whole grid of the city, including my school and its neighborhood and some of the surrounding areas.  The workers had managed to get most everything back up and running except for our school.  We kept getting updates, but it’s a little hard to do work in our building without a computer or lights!

Picture this:  8 teachers sitting in the hallway chatting.  Our coffee makers/tea pots plugged into the emergency outlets in the hall.  (The hallways and bathrooms were the only lights hooked up to the generators.)  We planned how we were going to teach without lights, overheads, computers, Smartboards and determined a fun day with games and reading time huddled around the windows with the blinds fully open.
The first bell rang at 8:50 am and the kids streamed down the hallway, trying to turn on the lights in the classrooms to no avail.  Finally, about 9:30am, they came back on.  It was really nice being able to talk to other teachers without worrying about other stuff that needed to be done.  Electricity has its perks, but it being down this morning was most definitely welcome!

Man’s Best Friend

Week of the Teeth

Or, at least that’s what it seemed like! Taylor had oral surgery on Tuesday to have 4 permanent teeth pulled in order to make room for the other huge ones he has in his mouth. He ended up having 7 removed, 3 baby ones and then the 4 permanent ones. Needless to say, he was rather groggy and bleeding Tuesday afternoon as I spent the day changing out his soggy, bloody cotton swabs.

Then Wesley, who commented that his front tooth was “like a door” flapping, lost his at school this week. He proudly came home with his tooth in a snack bag and left his tooth on his pillow so I could see it when I came home from work and the snack UNDER the pillow.

Last night Jocelyn proclaimed when she came upstairs that she was “coming upstairs to pull out my tooth.” She did, with a lot of blood and Ken’s help. Hmmm, maybe that was a hint that it wasn’t ready to come out yet?! But she left out a snack as well with her tooth in a baggie under her pillow.

I think the tooth fairy is going to need to take out a personal loan if this continues!

Taylor even made an origami box for his teeth!

Another Reason to Carpool

Both mine and Ken’s vehicles needed gas this weekend. We filled up at Dillons, attempting to save a little ($.02 per gallon with our Plus card) but still paid $2.87 a gallon. Combined, we put in over $105 worth of gas in our cars that will, hopefully, last two weeks until our next pay day. We’ve tried carpooling a couple of times over the past week and with the shock to the checkbook of the gasoline purchase, I can see it happening again in our future as well! Perhaps I shouldn’t complain, though. Rumor has it England is up to $5.50 a gallon!

Ahh, a Weekend of Rest?!

Well, no, not exactly since my to-do list is longer than my arm but with the long weekend stretching out before me, it’s nice knowing I’ll have some extra time to get some of my things accomplished!

I had an inservice day yesterday and although 1/2 of it was for the district and the other 1/2 for my school, it was very interesting. I chose my “classes” in the morning and went to a Differentiated Instruction class and a Mini-writing class. I had enough time to get my sub plans done over my lunch hour and a half and be ready for the the Cultural Proficiency meeting in the afternoon. We got out early enough for me to stop by the Wonder Bread store before picking up the kiddos from Mom’s and heading to Jocelyn’s friends house to drop her off for a sleepover.

At 4pm I am looking back on the day with one bathroom cleaned, Jocelyn’s room cleaned with the bed changed and Junie’s cage cleaned out, 4 loads of laundry nearing completion, dinner cooking in the oven, my 2007 tax file sorted and ready to begin entering, shopping at Book-A-Holic, and an attempt to go to the library. Ken is tackling a big project of cleaning out his former darkroom to make way for my new scrapbooking room. Maybe I’ll get more accomplished if I can leave it spread out everywhere!

I AM looking forward to church tomorrow as our parenting class is going to be learning about discipline. I’ll keep you posted! The whole family is off Monday for President’s Day and I’m taking Tuesday off to take Taylor to the dentist for some oral surgery. (He’s having 4 permanent teeth removed to make room for the others in his mouth!) I have one parent/teacher conference in the morning that I’ll have to go to but other than that, I have a 4 day “weekend”! Well, the buzzer is beeping on the dryer so off I go to see to finish my domestic chores!

I’m multi-tasking . . . again!

Like what mother/teacher doesn’t?!  As I’m standing here at the kitchen counter I am helping Taylor with his fractions, listening to Wesley read his story, blogging, going through papers from backpacks and baking cookies.  Once I’ve updated my blog, I will continue with the fractions and monitoring the reading, baking cookies, then move on to preparing for a meeting tomorrow afternoon and writing out Valentines for my own class.  It’s amazing what one can get accomplished all at once!  There goes my timer!  Ta-ta for now!

So Far, So Good. . .

. . . on the goals for the year!  Or maybe I should say, the month.  It was January 31st and the project I wanted to get completed by month’s end was uploading and ordering all of my pictures for my scrapbooking.  Thanks to the snow/ice day on the 31st, I was able to accomplish this!  For February I have set a goal of going through the children’s closets getting ready for the Britches and Lace Consignment to be held in the beginning of March.  What doesn’t work for that will be going to for a garage sale!  Next is organizing the paperwork for doing taxes and cleaning out the filing cabinet.

I have an idea of what I’d like to get accomplished this year, but I’m taking it one step at a time.   That way it’s much more manageable.  I don’t see them as New Year’s Resolutions, just things that need to be accomplished in the realms of life.  I’m anxious to decorate the master bedroom and bathroom, something that hasn’t been touched the entire time we’ve been in this house (going on 5 years!).  In fact, I’m even thinking new bed and frame to go with it, in celebration of Ken’s and mine 16 years together!  Then I’d like to tackle downstairs.  I know what theme I want (old-fashioned photography) but the paint job of an area that large will be a HUGE undertaking.  Like I said, one thing at a time. . .

Logan, The Sky Angel Cowboy

A neighbor friend shared this with me and I found it so touching, I have to share it!

It’s a remarkable phone call from a 12-yr old boy to Houston radio station KSBJ FM 89.3 . So profound, the station has it posted on their website. Click below to listen to it. It’s short.