17

I have a little Post-It next to my computer. All it says is the number "17" with a box around it.

This is the number of weeks left in school. I just started this last week. It seems to me like an okay way to make it through the toughest moments...only 17 weeks to go in my first year of teaching. Is this wrong?

Ring update

Just talked to the jewelry store folks. We decided on a total of 6 stones for the band, 4 diamonds and 2 aquas. They will be on either side of the large center aqua that I have, so there will be a plain band of white gold to go around the center aqua. So from left to right: diamond, aqua, diamond, center band, diamond, aqua, diamond. I think it will be gorgeous. They are going to make up a wax model of the band so that I can see, approve, try on with the engagement ring, etc. It's $200 to make the model, but since we are doing this from scratch, I really want to see what this will be like before we spend the money to have it made.

Working on solutions for the envelopes. I've tried a couple more printing places to get prices...we'll see what they come up with. Otherwise I will just buy my own and stamp the return addresses with a custom stamp (only about $25).

My substitute left a pretty bad report for the kids on Thursday, so I had to chew them out yesterday. The whole class got chewed up one side and down the other, and those whose names were written down lost their participation points for Thursday and got 30 min. of detention apiece. I also took some class points away from the worst classes. Grrr. It just really makes me mad that the kids would behave like that in my absence. Plus, subs go to other schools and say bad things about our school when they have a bad day like that.

Funny because it's true

Received over e-mail:

Have you heard about the next planned "Survivor" show?

Three businessmen and three businesswomen will be dropped in an elementary school classroom for 6 weeks. Each business person will be provided with a copy of his/her school district's curriculum, and a class of 28 students.

Each class will have five learning-disabled children, three with A.D.D., one gifted child, and two who speak limited English. Three will be labeled with behavior problems.

Each business person must complete lesson plans at least 3 days in advance with annotations for curriculum objectives and modify, organize, or create materials accordingly.

They will be required to teach students, handle misconduct, implement technology, document attendance, write referrals, correct homework, make bulletin boards, compute grades, complete report cards, document benchmarks, communicate with parents, and arrange parent onferences.

They must also supervise recess and monitor the hallways and monitor bus lines. In addition, they will complete drills for fire, tornadoes, and shooting attacks.

They must attend 40 hours of workshops, faculty meetings, professional meetings, and curriculum development meetings.

They must also tutor those students who are behind and strive to get their two non-English-speaking children proficient enough to take the FCAT.

If they are sick or having a bad day, they must not let it show.

Each day they must incorporate reading, writing, math, science, and social studies into their program. They must maintain discipline and provide an educationally stimulating environment at all times.

The business people will have access to the golf course only on weekends, but on their new salary they will not be able to afford it anyway.

There will be no access to vendors who want to take them out to lunch, and lunch will be limited to 30 minutes.

On days when they do not have recess duty, the business people will be permitted to use the staff restroom as long as another survival candidate is supervising their class.

They will be provided with five, 40-minute planning periods per week while their students are at related arts. If the copier is operable, they may make copies of necessary materials at this time.

The business people must continually advance their education on their own time, and pay for this advanced training themselves. This can be accomplished by moonlighting at a second job or marrying someone with money.

The winner will be allowed to return to his or her job.

Sick day

I took a sick day today. I was up half the night with various kinds of discomfort that I'm sure you don't want to read about. Suffice it to say that I was exhausted and unhappy when I decided to phone it in. It's only the second day this year, so I don't feel too bad about it. I think I'll be okay though, just need some rest and relaxation. Advil and heat are definitely helping.

The bridesmaids are getting their dresses in the mail. This is making me so excited...I can't wait to see all these gorgeous women on the big day! Only a little more than five months to go. I took a break from invitations last week because of conferences, but I need to get back to them and figure out what I want to do for the envelopes so I can start addressing and writing names. Yes, dammit, I am going to address my own wedding invitations. O ye of little faith...and you thought I was just making it up. Well, I really don't have much of a choice...there's no way in heck I'm paying someone else to do it when I'm perfectly capable myself.

I need to bug people for realtor names and numbers. Sometimes I wonder how people fit all they need to do in the course of a day or a week without going crazy. Yes, I am certifiably insane. But really, is there any other way to be?

blah.

I am not feeling very well, and instead of entering grades into my gradebook I am here typing a blog entry. Sore throat and my sinuses are hurting. If I wasn't observing my mentor teacher tomorrow I would be taking a sick day. As it is I will probably go home early tomorrow.

I spoke with the lady from the jewelry store Saturday. She told me that they came up with an estimate for a ring w/diamonds the size of the middle one of the three on either side on my ring...and it was WAY out of our price range. So we are trying to come up with alternatives...I was thinking fewer, smaller stones, and alternating diamonds and aquamarines (either 5 diamonds and 4 aquas or 4 diamonds and 3 aquas). Keep in mind these are tiny stones--around 1/100th of a carat each.

That is all for now. The kids wore me out today--they were being irritating and complaining a lot.

Being a grown-up

Saturday was a very "grown-up" day for me and D. First, we went to meet with the mortgage officer to find out about how much $$ we can borrow to buy our condo. Turns out with only about $9k down, we can borrow about $120k and still have payments less than $950/month. We would like to spend less on the place and have a smaller payment, but still, this is within our budget and do-able. It's always easier to borrow less money than more.

We also went wedding ring shopping. We went to the same small boutique where I got my engagement ring. They still know us there--when we walked in, the lady asked if we were married yet! Apparently we are somewhat of a legend around there. She told us that several couples have come in since looking for original engagement or wedding rings and they tell our story a lot. We love these guys--they are SO nice, and have such great selection (i.e., they let us look through their catalogs), and are just as excited about our wedding as we are.

D picked out a ring for himself--it's really cool looking. Two-tone gold, with stripes of shiny white gold on either side of a stripe of brushed yellow gold (think satin nickel finish, only gold-colored). I am going to have my band custom-made, since the shape of the engagement ring makes it impossible to get a regular guard or wrap that sits flush against it. So the store has my ring right now; their artisan(s) are making up a wax model of the band so that I can approve it before they make it. It will have a row of tiny, tapered diamonds. I am so excited!

We booked the airline tickets for our honeymoon last week as well. We are now set for 14 days in Scotland and England. We will spend the first two in London, take the train to Edinburgh, rent a car, then spend three days in Stirling and two on the Isle of Arran, then back to Edinburgh for a few days and back to London before leaving. That's the tentative plan anyway. We will shortly be booking the rental car and train, and hotels are next.

We are trying to find a place to buy just envelopes for the invitations. They are SUPER expensive to get printed with return addresses (60 cents apiece!!) so we are looking for an alternative. Maybe we will buy a stamp with my mom's address on it and use it on the return address as well as the response cards. Since we are moving, probably sometime in May, we don't want to put our current address on the cards.

D has applied for his passport. Next up on each front:
Wedding-find envelopes, keep constructing invitations
Honeymoon-book hotels, rail, car
House-find a realtor

Busy, busy, busy!

Oh and by the way, I'm in the middle of my 2nd 13-hour day this week. You have to love parent conferences. We had a half day yesterday and conferences from 1-8, today a full day and conferences from 3-8.

What is this "full day" you speak of?

Today is only the fourth full day of school we have had in the last two weeks. We only had school Tuesday and Friday of last week. This week, Monday was a full day, we had a two-hour delay Tuesday, and school was canceled yesterday. Of course, the upshot of all this is that we now have a 3-day weekend at the end of February instead of a 4-day weekend, and we have (so far) 3 extra days of school in June. Ah well...I guess it was a good way to ease back into the new year.

Gotta love those midwestern ice storms. Didn't even know what that was until I came here. A temperature difference of a few degrees is enough to make the difference between sheets of ice and just wet roads. They canceled yesterday because we were supposed to get torrential rain/ice just when the kids were supposed to get out of school. Well, we did get the rain but it was warm enough to stay liquid. The district caught some flak from parents for it, but really, what other choice did they have? It could have been disastrous, and there's no way to predict exactly what temperature it will by at 3 pm by 7 am when they have to make the decision.

I got some much-needed rest and got some business done...travel agent for tickets to London, went to the bank, and D and I filled out a mortgage preapplication online. We are going to a loan officer recommended to us by a friend whose brother is a mortgage broker, so we are pretty confident she knows what she's doing. We will set up an appointment soon to discuss the application. So exciting!

Ice day

Couldn't properly call this a snow day, since there isn't any snow to speak of. Because of freezing rain/ice, the roads are treacherous and school has been canceled! Woo hoo! I am getting paid to stay home!
Today is a gift, though, and I'm mindful not to waste it. I will catch up on my sleep because I slept poorly last night--trying to readjust my body clock has been painful at best. D's family are a bunch of night owls and we were regularly up past midnight during the break. When you can sleep until 10 am, that's not too big a deal. But when you need to readjust to getting up at 5, it's not so much fun.

New Year's Resolutions:
1. I will watch no more than 1 hour of TV on school nights and 2 hours on weekends. This includes movies. I have been watching way too much and it is rotting my brain and eating my time.
2. I will eat a fruit or vegetable with every lunch and dinner. I know it's not quite five-a-day, but it's a step in the right direction.
3. I will spend 15 minutes a day cleaning or picking up the apartment.

The bridesmaids' dresses are ordered! Hurrah! Next up: more invitation construction, buying envelopes, and ring shopping for wedding bands.