Moments in Time

Whew! I am GLAD that this week is over.

The dreaded attendance reporting went well. Only a few corrections to make and no angry parents. In fact, my principal gave me a thumbs up on the attendance (literally) at our after work celebration on the last day of summer school.

The last week of summer school was nutty between all the work involved in closing out the session (lots of paperwork and checklists) and the fact that the stomach flu hit full force mid-week. We sent several kids home daily the last few days of school. The end of the session came just in time!!

I am also very happy to say that we are done car shopping. (Give me a root canal any time. Cheaper and not any less enjoyable. I hate all the haggling and hardballing.) On Monday we will be the proud new owners of a (used) Ford Escape. It's an '06 and only had 11K miles on it. They didn't come down much on the price (they said that they'd had it a while and had marked it down a few times), but we were pleasantly surprised at what they gave us on a trade in. Made it worth it not to hassle with selling it ourselves. Here's our new vehicle:

The highlight of my week was finding out my salary for my new job. I had hoped it would be close to what I made in summer school (that job is a higher salary grade than my school year job will be). Even better - it will be a little bit more. They looked at my years of experience (presumably my AT&T years) and put me on a higher step on the pay scale. This is really what they *should* have done, but being the school system you do the happy dance when they actually do it.

I have a month off before I go back to work. (Unfortunately, that also means no paycheck but you can't have everything!) The girls and I are making our plans! :-)

Ever notice how no one ever says "Happy Monday!"? Or "Thank God, it's Monday!"? For most of us, there's nothing happy or thankfulness-inducing about Monday.

I suppose I should be happier about this Monday. It's our last week of summer school. (Now that gets a big YIPPEE!!!! from me.) But it's also the start of all the work of finishing it up. Several of our problem kids were slightly (?) bonkers today. (Principal sent 2 home today - one for the rest of summer school.) And I get the true test of my attendance taking skills when I brace for incoming calls about any errors (or at least points of contention) about the attendance reports I sent home with all the kids today. (Since any absence counts against the gift cards kids earn for attending, people get VERY touchy. And they really hate the policy - which we have NO control over - that doesn't excuse any absence. Not even doctor certified illness or Grandma's funeral.)

Oh, but there was one other good thing about today. I emailed Ali's summer school teacher today. I wanted to let her know how much Ali liked her and enjoyed summer school. I also thanked her for giving Ali a free pass to Bonkers (play place) for an act of kindness. I mentioned that Ali sometimes had trouble in school with following directions, etc. and asked her to let me know if there were any issues I needed to be aware of. This was the teacher's response:

"Thank you for letting me know how Alison is feeling about summer school. I want you to know that I really have enjoyed having Alison in my classroom and she always shows 100% effort and motivation in the classroom.
I hope you all enjoy going to Bonkers and have a great rest of the summer."

It's always an especially good feeling when someone says something nice about your "problem child". (Problem child is an overstatement, but Ali is my child most likely to have school "issues".)

I just have to get through tomorrow.... Blech. I am dreading it already.

Yippee! After weeks of having her stuff all over the living room, Jess was able to start moving back into her newly decorated room. The new carpet looks great! It's hard to judge the wall color in these photos (the flash changes the color), but it's a deep purple blue. I think it's the color of hyacinths. The accent colors are a bright green (not so yellowish as in the photos) and 2 shades of light aqua blue.

(You can click on the 2 photos of the walls to see a bigger version.) Here's the striped wall:

That was pretty simple. Would do it again in a flash. Not so the circles. They came out pretty good, but, boy, were they a pain in the butt!

Of course, in our house, the pets have to give their stamp of approval. I think Tiger likes Jessica's new comforter set from Target:

Dixie obviously finds the new carpet comfy:

We're off to the lake tomorrow for a belated 4th of July family celebration, but Jess will have the fun of putting away the rest of her stuff on Sunday. I'm so glad I'll be at Jill's crop. :-)