This was taken on Wednesday when the kids had their Closing Ceremonies for their "Olympics". We both got a nice sunburn out of the ordeal and man, it was hot! But I love the pic of my girl.

They had the high school team's mascot, Crusher, at this event and he was running around hi-fiving the kids and stuff. When he got over to me, I asked him to go over and dance with/tease the 2 other TA's I work with that are my friends - Gail and Claudia. He walked over and stretched his arms (in a comical way like a nervous boy would) and put his arms around one of them. My other friend who was there taking pictures ran over, told Gail to get on his other side and took a pic which found it's way into the copy room, blown up, on Thursday morning - LOL. As he walked off, he was blowing them kisses. It was pretty funny.

Monday is Rachel's graduation. Jay is home, so thankfully he will be there. I'm done with work but told Carol in the office that I would help first thing in the morning on Monday getting kids in, signing in the tardy kids and directing graduate parents into the gym for the graduation ceremony for her. She's so busy, it's impossible to do it all. I did promise to write up a list of things for the new TA to follow which I'm doing this weekend. Haven't gotten there yet. But I will before I'm done.

We worked all day on the dollhouse Rachel got for Christmas today. It was rough getting it going because it was supposed to be a daddy/daughter project, but Jay is out of town so much and you need so much time between glue drying that it's been taking forever. We painted most of it today, though. It will still be a couple of weeks because of drying time and Jay being gone. At least it looks like there has been progress now, though.

I got a great e-mail today. Rachel made it on to the new swim team we were shooting for! They moved some older swimmers to the morning session, so she's in. We start Monday. I'm really excited because I think there will be some great improvement in her abilities on this new team and she won't have to endure missing Ryan, her old head coach. He never gave us details about why he wasn't rehired, but I work with his sister at the school and she said when his mother called (I know, why his mom but he was in the process of moving when this all came up), they told her they hadn't heard from him, were concerned about the seizure he suffered last year at a swim meet (he's on meds for it now) and so meeting was held in which they all decided to not renew his contract. I don't know who is on the board, but it doesn't seem like they wanted him back and just made an excuse for why. One of the parents responded to everyone on the team e-mail saying she's called the guy in charge who was rude to her and told her if she took her child off the team, she'd only be hurting all the kids on the team. It just sounds like a place to be done with, so I'm really glad we were able to work it out for Rachel.

I'm beat, so I'm off to bed.

Yeah, I'm Still Counting....

It can't go fast enough. I've got 3 more days and I'm done at school. I'm not going back after the Monday 5th grade graduation. Once the ceremony and celebration is done, so am I. We're leaving and not showing for the last day of 2 & 1/2 hours, either. Why they drag them in for that short time is beyond me. But I'm done Friday. YES!

So, lots going on and it's already late but I'll type as fast as I can.

My folks, who just a year ago were too ill to travel and just 2 years ago my mom was near death, are coming to Colorado for 2 weeks. Then they will go on to Indiana - where they were born and raised and my mom's family still lives - for another 2 weeks. They'll stay at my brother's while here as he has a main level guest room for them and we'll be going over there a lot to visit with them.

My husband hasn't been home for almost 2 weeks now. He was in New York, then New Jersey, then South Carolina, North Carolina, back to South Carolina, back to New Jersey and now he's in Wisconsin. Hopefully, if all goes well, he will be home Friday or Saturday. We'll see. As long as he's home in time for Rachel's 5th grade graduation ceremony. And to spot me a few minutes of peace and no responsibility....

My daughter's head coach on her swim team didn't get his contract renewed. We are a bit miffed about that. He started the team even before we were on it (which has been 5 years) and worked for them for longer than that. He's been her swimming teacher for years. We were loyal to the pool because of him. But this info was given to him and all of us just a couple of days ago - too late to get on another team. Still, I'm pursuing that. Maybe there will be an opening at the pool we want to switch to.

My mood is a bit cranky at school, particularly with the 5th graders at lunch and recess. They are becoming middle schooler pains in the neck and I'm ready to scream. Of course, it's the same old, same old few that have been pains all year, but it's escalated.

My name is tired and I'm going to bed - where I'll lose myself in my love affair with sleeping.....

13 Days and Counting

The school year is nearly over. There are actually only 9 full days of school, but counting the weekends and Memorial Day, we have 14 as of tomorrow (if you count tomorrow). Confused? Me, too. Dang math. I can't wait. I'm so ready to be off my dang feet and to be able to give my body a chance to get well. I'm still congested, wheezing and coughing, though my voice is starting to come back. And I'm back and forth with some stinking stomach bug that crops up off and on. I'm wearing down, so those 13 days can't pass quick enough for me. Then we only have about a week before Swim Team starts. Of course, that's not me being up, correcting kids, running all over. All I do is sit in the heat and watch or read.

We've had gorgeous, perfect weather until this week. Now it's just plain hot out. I feel like a sweat ball every day. Summer is not my season, though I'll certainly survive it. But summer will give me the chance to finish my book, which is my utmost desire right now. I've got an editor, I'm up to page 155 with additional partial portions of the story written to add in as they are appropriate and I'm confident. I just pray I can make something really wonderful happen for our family with this book.

I'd love to post more and go on about whatnot, but I'm a burned out old lady who needs to get some sleep tonight.

What's That?

A good night's sleep? It's somehow escaped me lately. I, who has always had a satisfying love affair with it. I've been having a hard time sleeping through the night. I have this nasty little cough left over from earlier in the week when my asthma kicked up and I couldn't breath very well. Two days of using my nebulizer seemed to take care of the breathing issue but I'm left with the cough. Last night, it finally seemed better and I only woke up once coughing. Then, at the lovely hour of approximately 4:30 a.m., our dog decided if I didn't let her out, she'd let IT out. So I came downstairs and got that door opened as quickly as I could. Now, like an idiot, I'm posting in my blog. Lack of sleep all week has removed my sensibilities. But I will go back to bed soon.

Last night was the school carnival. Honestly, and we've been to every single carnival they've had since Rachel has attended school there, it was the best one I've been to. They had great games that were nicely constructed, a jumping house (those huge blow up things they can let 8-10 kids in at once to jump around), Cold Stone ice cream and the usual other food fair, they put to use a new popcorn maker they bought this year, prizes and a generally smoothly run operation. Rachel had a blast. While there, I saw one of the moms I know with her 2 boys and an other's in tow. I told her it looked like she drew the short straw. By the end of the night, despite how much fun I know all the kids had, I was ready to get out of there. It was very reminiscent of the lunchroom for me. I warned the boys from my grade that I didn't want to see any of that disappearing ink on Monday morning. I have a feeling most of them will have used theirs up by then.

I spoke with the teacher I let read the first 42 pages of my book. I asked her, since she'd edited those pages, if she'd be interested in editing the entire book. I told her I'd give her credit for such if the book got published and that I'd be happy to pay her. She agreed but refused any money. I asked her, "What if I make it big with this book and make a lot of money? You'll let me pay you then, won't you?" She said okay, I could send her to Bora Bora for vacation and put her up in one of those huts on stilts over the water. So now I'm anxious to get more of the book to her. I'm going to try really hard to dig out some time to prepare more pages for her this weekend and early in the week. I feel like I'm very close to having this thing ready to go to an agent. I even have a couple of agents in mind whose blogs I read. I'm quite excited.

Does Water On The Head Equal Creativity?

In my case, the answer is YES. When I get new ideas or am able to finally press on from a spot in my book I'm stuck on, it happens in the shower. Is it the Chinese Water Torture-like experience, the soothing plopping of the shower stream or just that I finally have utter silence with which to grant my mind its wandering? I don't know but I have a lot of stuff on an ancient handheld tape recorder to transcribe into the written word for my book.

I fasted for Fast Sunday. You would think I would do this every month on Fast Sunday but because of my diabetes and the medications I'm on, I usually get very sick when I attempt it. I just felt so strongly that I needed to do this today. So at 4:30 p.m. yesterday, I stopped eating. Many people don't even take water, but I knew better than to do that as getting dehydrated, which I am prone to do because of my medication, causes me to get dizzy, light headed, nauseated. So I drank water, but that was it. The only time I started to feel sick was about 3 hours after I took my medication. I prayed and it went away. Anyway, the whole reason for wanting to fast so badly is how difficult this job hunt issue has been for Jay. You can look at him and see how wearing being over the road is on him. You can see it in his face, his countenance, hear it in his voice. You can see how hard it has been on us as a family when you see Rachel cling to him from the moment he gets home until he leaves, when she tears up every time he has to leave again, how she tells me all the time how much she misses him. And I miss him, too. The distance has long stopped making the heart grow fonder. It's just made it more empty. So I fasted and prayed that something local, that he could support our family with, would come through very soon. Please pray with us.

Did Someone Say Middle School????

Tonight was the "Sneak Peek" at the middle school Rachel will be attending. The kids were invited in to have a scavenger hunt which helped them explore the building. I started out with two other parent sets and then Rachel and her friend, Tony, took off running. They were so excited. We just let them go and headed to the front of the school to chat with other parents similarly abandoned by their offspring (mostly because we couldn't keep up). It was a nice visit for us and she scored a hoodie and sweatpants sporting her new school's name.

Today was also the first day Rachel tutored a 3rd grade girl at school. It was for an hour and they got a lot done. I sat in, which I'll do for a little while, to help. She'll continue to tutor her the rest of the school year once a week and then over the summer. With all this activity today, by the time we got home, I was beat. I'm about to head to bed. I'll tackle the house tomorrow and then spend Saturday working on my book.