I just flew back from Atlanta and BOY are my arms tired!

When I think about all that I haven't blogged about recently, my mind begins to swim. That's why I'm not going to stress about telling you every little bit of my summer, but instead focus on the major events. I feel like I apologize every time I get on here because I haven't been keeping up with my blogs like I thought I would, and I am going to stop apologizing. My friend Bonnie put it best when she said "I'd rather be living my life than blogging about it." Amen sister! Thanks Bonnie! :)

For starters, I just got back from a school trip to Atlanta where we presented and attended conferences on High Schools That Work. While I did see some interesting ideas (and people), one thought that popped up in my head quite frequently was how these "professional" people spoke. One woman was so bad that I began to tally each time she said "um" or "uh" during her speech. Before I left at the 30-minute mark, this professional speaker had said 165 ums or uhs. HOLY COW! I just couldn't take it any more. I had to get out of there!

Our group stayed at the Holiday Inn Select, and this was the view from our hotel window--the Olympic torch. How cool is that? Since I had never been to Atlanta before (I don't think just the airport counts.), I was super stoked to visit somewhere new. The following is a list of what I did or saw during my stay:

--LOTS of bad drivers. I thought the people down in Springfield were bad? Ummm...they don't have anything on the drivers in Atlanta. Chad, our administrator in charge and the driver of our minivan, couldn't let everyone else take control, so he felt it necessary to join the ranks of the other drivers. It didn't help, I have to say, to have a British speaker on our GPS who kept telling us to turn either left or right as we were passing THROUGH the intersection. Needless to say, we made LOTS of U-turns!

--Atlanta Underground is a place for food, fun, and weed. On our first afternoon in Atlanta, we ate lunch at the Atlanta Underground, a part of the city that burned way back in the day. Instead of tearing it all out, they decided to build OVER

this section. So now there's a cool little shopping and eating area. As we were making our way to Johnny Rocket's (it's called Rocket's for a reason! Ugh!) to eat lunch, apparently Justin, our second administrator on the trip, looked like he needed some weed. Some random dude offered him some pot! We are really hoping it was an undercover cop, and Justin passed the test. At least that's what we kept telling ourselves!

--The CNN tour was really cool. I skipped out on two sessions because one was with the lady who said um 165 times, and I just didn't care to hear that again. So I walked across the street to CNN and paid my $13 to tour the news. I couldn't take pictures inside the tour (I really, really wanted to take a picture of huge Anderson Cooper on the wall--YUM!), but I did manage to snag this shot from below the newsroom. The wall of windows below the CNN and globe is the actual newsroom where 90% of all CNN news comes from. While I was there, the weather man was getting ready to begin, and a news anchor was reporting behind the desk. I was able to get my picture taken from behind a CNN news desk as well. :)

--Coke World was not as cool as I expected it to be. For $15, I expected more. We did see a cute 4-D show (hence the glasses) about what makes a Coke so special. However, I was expecting more of a tour like the Anheiser-Busch tour in St. Louis where you see production from beginning to end. Coke World only had one little bottling tour that took less than 5 minutes to walk through. Boring! I guess the best part was tasting some Coke samples from around the world. The Korean one was REALLY good! :)

--My new favorite restaurant resides in Atlanta--a place called Two Urban Licks. This is what we drove up to, and my first thought was "Where the heck are we????" However, once we went inside, the place was totally rocked out! The food was unbelievably good--Calamari, tuna tartar, GIANT beef rib with homemade mac and cheese, oh man. My mouth is watering just thinking about it!

--The best part? Getting to know some more people from school that I didn't really know before this trip. They were a great group, and we laughed NONSTOP. "That's what she said!"

(By the way, I'm taking a Jessica Sprague online class on using frames and text with pictures. It's a cool class and I plan on taking more from her later on!)

Birthday

Finally, an update. I do realize probably the only reason I'm really on here, other than to give you just a small sneak peek of what's been going on in my life recently, is to avoid tackling the laundry basket of papers and portfolios I need to grade before tomorrow. Let's see...I have Fahrenheit 451 tests and portfolios to grade for my seniors, The Great Gatsby tests and portfolios to grade for my juniors, and whatever late work my freshmen have turned in to date. I have a feeling the freshmen work won't be graded any time soon. I'll get to it...eventually. :)

Back to why I started this post:

My birthday. My mom and I had a FABULOUS time together when she came to visit me for my 31st birthday weekend. She arrived Friday evening, and we ate dinner at a local Mexican place up here called Jose Pepper's. They make the BEST cheese dip--and I think that's a very high compliment considering I thought Mexican Villa down in Spfld was the best before! The highlight of our meal was the cheese dip was FREE! :) Gotta love Valpak coupons! :) After dinner, we just came back to the house and talked. Even though we talk on the phone every day (more than once, mind you), it was good to talk to her in person. Just sit on the couch and gossip. Because I still didn't have any bedroom furniture, poor Mom slept on the couch that night, but she said it was fine. She took the couch while I wrestled with the air mattress. (Never again...)

The next morning, on my actual birthday, we woke up early and went to breakfast at IHOP over by Nebraska Furniture Mart. The plan was to eat, then go shopping for new furniture. I had already picked out what I wanted for my new bedroom:

I found this set online and just fell in love! Weeeelllllll, when I saw it in the store, I fell out. It looked rediculously cheap, and according to the salesperson, it was. So it was a no go. We searched until I came across THE ONE. Actually, there were two that I considered to be THE ONE, but after much debate, I finally settled on this:

The bedding I found at Dillards and just thought it was the girliest set! BEAUTIFUL! I wanted something luxurious, and my 500-thread count sheets are it! :) This was the time to splurge. Just FYI--after testing it out last night for the first time, I was right! Never again can I go back to the Walmart $10 sheets after sleeping like a baby with this Princess set. Now everytime I go into my new bedroom, I want to open my arms wide and sing out a chorus of "Hallelujah" in high C. (I think I've done that twice!)

So, after choosing my new bedroom, it was time to pick out the other furniture I still needed. I found a nice set for the guest bedroom in the Clearance center--headboard, chest, and nightstand. (I'll add pictures of it when I finish setting that room up.) Then I saw the patio set I wanted--high top table, bar chairs, cute, cute, cute. (Again, I'll add pictures of it later.)

Once we wrapped up all of our shopping at NFM, we headed over to the Legends shopping area (much like Branson Landing) to see what kind of deals we could make. I found some new brown dress sandals for this summer, a skirt (SIZE 12!), and a couple pairs of shorts from Old Navy (SIZE 12!). (Just had to throw my new sizes in there--down 3 sizes since December...) This is the only picture of both my mom and me from this weekend. You can tell we were trying not be blown away by the wind (this area ended up having a deadly tornado just an hour or so after we left).

Dinner was calling by this time, so we drove into downtown and ate at The Cheesecake Factory in the Plaza. Hmmmm...cheesecake...

Sadly, my birthday came to an end, and Mom had to go back home the next day. All in all, my birthday was a smashing success. I met up with some friends the next weekend to celebrate a late birthday, and that did not disappoint either! No pictures to post, but let's just say it ended with me getting an ice shower from a VERY attractive piano player downtown. :) The End

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Not sure why I haven't been blogging this month, except the only news-worthy stuff so far has been non-bloggable (is that a word?). I'll definitely blog about it later, but for now, it's in my head and that's where it will stay for a while.

I did celebrate my 31st birthday with my mom, and I do plan on blogging about that this weekend. I need to upload my pictures to the computer first, so let me get on that, and I'll fill you in on my fabulous birthday later! :)

Where has the time gone?

My seniors surprised me this morning by starting the countdown to graduation on my board. They are out of school in 32 days! I couldn't believe it when I saw that number. This school year really has flown by. When I think of all that has happened this year, my mind literally cannot comprehend that the end is drawing near. I have so much yet to do!!! My seniors are reading Fahrenheit 451, a commentary by Ray Bradbury on the state of current affairs (how scarily close he was to predicting the future...), and I want to end their senior year by doing some awesome poetry (thanks to Hayley in advance!!) and reflective writing. For so many of my seniors, I know this will be the VERY last English class they ever take in their lives, so I want to end this year by doing some things they will appreciate (I hope!).

My juniors are currently reading The Great Gatsby and although some are hating it, others tend to be quite involved with Nick and Daisy and Gatsby and the whole gang. I still want to do one more writing piece with them, and then hopefully end the year with A Raisin in the Sun.

Freshmen? Oh boy, they are a whole other crop...they are doing some poetry stuff right now--in fact, some groups presented their poem/song choice today, and I heard some good ones. We had anything from Bob Marley's "Waiting in Vain" to Sara Bareilles' "Love Song" to HotStylz's "Yo Mama Got a Mustache." That last one was HILARIOUS!!! To be honest, I have no idea what I'm going to do with them after this--just something to make it through the end of the year.

Speaking of end of the year, I'm on the list to teach summer school this year. I don't know if I'll get chosen or not, but the practical side of me really needs to teach for the money. Things are going to be very tight when I refinance, and I will need every extra dollar I can get to make it through. If I don't get chosen, money will still be tight, but I will enjoy my summer and my pool! :)

On a side note, I may be moving classrooms again. However, this time, it will be to a much bigger and better room! Let's see...this will make my 8th room in 10 years. Hmmph! Bring it on!!!

I'll close with some pictures of school projects my kids have done this year. See? I don't sit on my butt all day! (NOT EVEN CLOSE!!!!) The faces have been deleted to protect the innocent.

Before we began reading Of Mice and Men, the juniors created their own little "Hoovervilles". The rules were: There were no rules--they could steal whatever materials they could get their greedy little hands on in order to build a shelter big enough for their "family" group.

During our reading of "The Odyssey", the freshmen re-wrote the story as a script and acted it out with stick puppets. Aren't they cute?

My freshmen made a game out of a story called "The Most Dangerous Game", complete with a gameboard, moving pieces, rules, and most importantly, playability.

Spring Break Here I Come!

This week cannot come fast enough. Not that I have anything major planned, but Spring Break for me just reminds me that the school year is almost over. Instead of getting a full week off like I am used to, we only get Wednesday-Friday off. Apparently, it's so we get out two days earlier in May, but as it stands right now, we are going to school until May 27th anyway. So instead of being bored after a few days, I am going to revel in my three days.

I thought I had plans made with a friend, but I'm thinking those plans may be on the back-burner for now due to situations out my control. I definitely want to clean house, work outside just a bit, relax, put up my new scrapbook shelf, relax, work on some home projects, scrapbook, and relax. Did I mention I want to relax? It's not that my life has been totally wound uptight lately, but I just want to keep moving forward. No matter what is getting in my way, I have decided to move forward and not look back. I know this may sound corny, but I was watching season 1 of "Reba", and she said a line that struck a chord with me. Her advice to her daughter was this: "You can't mourn the rest of your life just because things didn't turn out how you always imagined they would." BINGO! I'm trying to take this to heart.

Okay, so this blog post didn't turn out exactly how I had planned either, so I'll end with commenting on the new book I'm reading. Actually, I'm in the middle of two, but one is here at home and the other is at school. The Shack, by William P. Young, is turning out to be everything I had heard. Kodi, I think you were the first person to tell me about this book, and now that others have read it and offered it to me, I can honestly say, "Why didn't I read this sooner??" So far, I'm only halfway into it, and it is definitely making me think of my own spiritual journey. For those of you who haven't read it, the book begins with a man, Mack, and his family. They are the typical family who loves each other but something tragic occurrs within the first few pages--Mack's youngest daughter is kidnapped and murdered while the family is out camping. Fast-forward a few years and the family is now in turmoil. Mack receives a note, presumably from God, telling him to go back to the shack where his daughter's bloody dress was found. When he arrives, he encounters a God like he's never witnessed or ever heard about. This is where I am right now. This book opens your eyes to all the endless possibilities about love and God's work. It is a must-read for sure!

An 80s girl at heart

A few weeks ago, we had "Flashback Day" at school as part of our Courtwarming Spirit Week. Of course, once I learned what that meant, I immediately knew I had to go in some 80s gear. The kids loved it and couldn't believe that I used to wear stuff like that. Now that I see the picture of me, neither can I!!

I found this commentary online, and I thought it would be appropriate to re-post on here. No author's name was attached, so whoever you are, thanks for memories. (I did change one detail just to make it more suitable for me.)

"Children of the Eighties"

We are the children of the Eighties. We are the ones who played with Lego Building Blocks when they were just building blocks and gave Malibu Barbie crewcuts with safety scissors that never really cut.

We collected Garbage Pail Kids and Cabbage Patch Kids and My Little Ponies and Hot Wheels and He-Man action figures and thought She-Ra looked just a little bit like I would when I was a woman. Big Wheels and bicycles with streamers were the way to go, and sidewalk chalk was all you needed to build a city. Imagination was the key. It made the Ewok Treehouse big enough for you to be Luke and the kitchen table and an old sheet dark enough to be a tent in the forest.

Your world was the backyard and it was all you needed. With your pink portable tape player, Debbie Gibson sang back up to you and everyone wanted a skirt like the Material Girl and a glove like Michael Jackson's.

Today, we are the ones who sing along with Bruce Springsteen and The Bangles perfectly and have no idea why. We recite lines with the Ghostbusters and still look to The Goonies for a great adventure. We flip through T.V. stations and stop at The A Team and Knight Rider and Fame and laugh with The Cosby Show and Family Ties and Punky Brewster and what you talkin' 'bout Willis? We hold strong affections for The Muppets and The Gummy Bears and why did they take the Smurfs off the air?

After school specials were only about cigarettes and step-families, the Pokka Dot Door was nothing like Barney, and aren't the Power Rangers just Voltron reincarnated? We are the ones who still read Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, the [Sweet Valley High] Twins, Beverly Clearly and Judy Blume, Richard Scary and the Electric Company. Friendship bracelets were ties you couldn't break and friendship pins went on shoes - preferably hightop Velcro Reebox - and pegged jeans were in, as were Units belts and layered socks and jean jackets and jams and charm necklaces and side pony tails and just tails. Rave was a girl's best friend; braces with colored rubberbands made you cool.

The backdoor was always open and Mom served only red Kool-Aid to the neighborhood kids- never drank New Coke. Entertainment was cheap and lasted for hours. All you needed to be a princess was high heels and an apron; the Sit'n'Spin always made you dizzy but never made you stop; Pogoballs were dangerous weapons and Chinese Jump Ropes never failed to trip someone. In your Underoos you were Wonder Woman or Spider Man or R2D2 and in your treehouse you were king.

In the Eighties, nothing was wrong. Did you know the president was shot? Star Wars was not only a movie. Did you ever play in a bomb shelter? Did you see the Challenger explode or feed the homeless man? We forgot Vietnam and watched Tiananman's Square on CNN and bought pieces of the Berlin Wall at the store. AIDS was not the number one killer in the United States. We didn't start the fire, Billy Joel.

In the Eighties, we redefined the American Dream, and those years defined us. We are the generation in between strife and facing strife and not turning our backs. The Eighties may have made us idealistic, but it's that idealism that will push us and be passed on to our children - the first children of the twenty-first century. Never forget: We are the children of the Eighties.

Agape Love

The day my Grandma was buried was one of the more beautiful days this winter. Since it took place down in Arkansas, the temperature was warmer than it probably would have been up here in KC, but there was something about that day that just made it seem all that more special. So many of us had worn long sleeves, pants, even a head scarf (Aunt Kay), but none of that was needed. I think the sun warmed us up to about 75 degrees and the wind came in strong from the south.

The church service was nice...nice is too vague of a word, but it was quaint and small. It was held inside a church I used to go to when I was a little girl when we'd go visit family down there in Palestine, Arkansas. The town itself is nothing really, but I will always remember that church. I remember singing a song about "agape love," stirring my imaginary pot of all the ingredients used to make agape love, or God's love found within us. I know my grandma was full of it, and she made sure she her cup runneth over as she rose to meet Him.

Family came whom I had not seen in years. In fact, most of the people there I had not seen since my 7th grade year. That was the last year I ever attended a family reunion. Few friends and family came to see my grandma for one last time, and boy, did she look great! Seeing her in the casket reminded me of the grandma I once knew so many years ago. Her skin was taut, showing not-so-many wrinkles, and her face actually had on makeup! I don't know that I ever remember my grandma wearing makeup unless we were going to church, so I guess that's a befitting way to look when she was walking through the Pearly Gates.

Probably the nicest part of the day was actually at the graveside service at Forrest Park Cemetary, located in Forrest City (pronounced FAR City for anyone from Arkansas). Of course, this is one of the only pictures I have of her children all together--sitting by the casket, heads knelt in prayer. As the preacher was saying a prayer, a gust of wind came in and blew through the tent! I just know that was grandma's way of saying, "Stop crying now. I'm in a much better place here than I was on earth. You'll see me again someday. I'll be here."

Once the graveside service was over, we all stood around talking, catching up with each other and what everyone had been up to since the last time we'd spoken. I asked Mom why Grandma was being buried way out in Forrest City when she had lived somewhere else for so long. She said it was because this area was really where she came from, her husband had been buried there, and she wanted to be buried close to my mom as well. HUH???? Apparently, it turns out that my own mother already has her tombstone picked out, planted, and even has her name already engraved on the darn thing! Now that was a little freaky to see for the first time. My brother wasn't so sure he even wanted to see it, but curiousity got the better of him, and he looked too. Mom said she didn't want us kids to worry about that trivial thing when her time came, so she had it made beforehand. Thanks...I guess...