My Week in Review

This past week wasn't as busy as last week, but full of fun stuff.

The boys started their National Junior Honor Society meetings (I found out the morning of the meeting that it would be after school) and have to complete 12 hours of community service each semester. I was under the impression from the teacher sponsor last year (she moved) that the sponsor would organize some group stuff, but no, it's up to me to figure out. Twelve hours doesn't sound like much, but with everything else we have going on, it might be hard to squeeze in. Some of the other moms had some ideas for a couple of group things and I'm still brainstorming. I'll call the church tomorrow for some ideas - if any of you can think of something that is age appropriate, please let me know.

Progress reports came out last week and the boys did very well - many 100's for each of them, all A's for Ryan and one B for Justin (Geometry). Of course I e-mailed the teacher to see if he needed to go to her tutorial sessions or if he was still talking too much and she called me the next day. After re-averaging the grades he actually has an A and both boys are doing better than during the first couple of weeks. I'm not sure that I agree with the new group-work grading system, but we will see as the year progresses. As long as they are paying attention and learning something!

Ryan did a poster project for his Spanish class - pictured above. They started it at school, didn't finish it so he brought it home and we basically started over (many of the pictures had been pulled off and the poster was bent up). You can probably see my influence, but I just can't help myself!! The boys also turned in a PowerPoint presentation for Language Arts that they did completely on their own (I just proof read for spelling and punctuation) and they think they got an A - they'll get their grade tomorrow. Lots of animation and pictures - very good job. They now have a project for Science that we spent some time today shopping for supplies. They have to make a 3 dimensional model of the Bohr Atomic Model of different elements of the Periodic Table. Ryan was assigned Manganese and Justin has Iron. It involves bunches of protons & neutrons surrounded by rings of electrons. I was thinking about Styrofoam balls and skewers, but they want to make it with actual rings - hard to explain. Anyway, we ended up getting wooden beads (that we will paint) and heavy gauge wire for the rings. Again - anybody knows more about this and has a better idea, please clue me in!! I think we have another week to finish.

I took the boys and Lindy to dinner at Pei Wei yesterday and a movie afterward. We saw The Invasion - a kind of remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It wasn't my first choice but all 3 teenagers thought it was great! All you need to know is that it involved lots of vomit - some from one character's mouth to the other!!! I'm getting queasy just remembering... Lindy insisted on paying for half of the evening as she had cleaned her entire house last weekend to earn money for the outing! Very sweet, responsible girl. She had played in Bailey's volleyball tournament that morning where the 8th grade girls came in 2nd place among 8 different schools. Go Bailey!! She had some medals and was very excited! We didn't fair as well in Friday's Cross Country race, but they all ran very hard and have improved a great deal from last year.

That's it for now ... need to get the boys off to bed and everything in place for tomorrow.

Pictures from Saturday

Just posting a couple of pictures from Saturday's trip to Texas City to visit my Grandpa Hughes and the boys at the surprise birthday party for one of their friends. I'm off today and am finally going to spend some time in my bathroom painting! I'll post about all of this later in the week.

Justin, Me, Mom, Grandpa Hughes & Ryan

Lindy, Ryan & Justin at Kyle's Fear Factor Party

Why I'm always so tired ...

I've had a crazy-busy week and want to share it:

Monday - home sick from work, laundry, Incredible Pizza Band/Choir party

Tuesday - work (including Nursing Practice Congress, a 4 hour meeting with rules that say when you can talk that I still can't figure out), library to return overdue books, home for 15 minutes to start dinner, to the school to pick up the boys from Cross Country practice, dinner, homework, some TV (love The Biggest Loser!), dishes, prep for tomorrow

Wednesday - work, to library to pick up holds, home again to start dinner, to the school to pick up boys, realize I forget to call the private flute teacher and find out if they had a lesson after practice, worry that the house will burn down because I left potatoes boiling on the stove while I went to the school and got trapped between a school bus and truck and had to back over the grass to escape, dinner, forms to fill out for the boys, laundry, dishes, some e-mail

Thursday - work, stop to pick up something for the boys to eat, make it with 1 minute to spare before the Bailey Band Booster Board meeting (as the new Secretary), finish the meeting late, drive around the school with the boys to attend the Rachel's Promise assembly (read Justin's blog for more on this), talk another band mom into taking over the concession stand duty to replace the mom that quit before I get talked into doing it, home, more forms, help boys pack their gym duffels for the Cross Country meet on Friday, phone calls, prep stuff for Friday

Friday - drive to work instead of taking the bus since I need to get to the boys meet on time, work, drive 1 hour and 45 minutes to Conroe for their meet, make it barely in time to see them run the last lap, cheer them as if I've been there the whole time, run all around the school campus trying to find them and their stuff before my car gets towed from where I illegally parked it next to some buses in the street, home at last, dinner, start wondering how long I have to type up the summary of the Band meeting and e-mail it around, start planning for tomorrow: family get-together in Texas City around 12:00, surprise birthday party for one of the boys' friends - they need to be there @ 5:30 - don't have a gift or a card yet and can't find the phone number of that mom ...

Rachel's Challenge - Justin's blog explains who Rachel Scott was and what she hoped to accomplish in her lifetime. The presentation given at their school brought me (and everyone else) to tears. The school principal asked for parent volunteers to help with upcoming activities related to the Challenge and (surprise) I was the first to sign up! I urge everyone to go to the website, read and watch the videos and accept the challenge yourself. http://www.rachelschallenge.com/ You never know how far a little kindness will spread ...

Bad Headache, Band Party & Baby Shower

Not too much to say today. I had a horrible headache yesterday and after taking Tylenol before Church and Motrin in the afternoon I finally broke down and took some Excedrin in the evening. This is usually my last resort because the caffiene makes me jittery and the aspirin makes me bruise more easily than usual. Anyway, as a result I could not sleep at all (finally around 2:00 a.m.), my head still hurt a little and I'm home "sick" today to recover. I've found that it's hard to deliver safe and cheerful patient care on a couple hours of sleep and a caffeine hangover!

The boys have their band party at Incredible Pizza this evening and I'm chaperoning, which is another reason to recover today. Anyone who has experienced a school bus full of very loud middle school students understands the need to be headache free when first boarding the bus!! I love Incredible Pizza's buffet. Along with all kinds of pizza, they also have salad, many pastas, sauces and very yummy grilled veggies. Brownies, apple pie pizza, ice cream ..

The baby shower at work went very well. Everyone worked very hard and it was a huge success. They won't have to buy diapers or wipes for at least 1 year! Here are a couple of pictures.

Bailey Middle School Open House

Last night the boys' school had Open House and I was able to meet their new teachers. They have 3 teachers that they had last year which is great because I really like them! The nice thing too is that they can mostly tell the boys apart which is really good for them. Their new teachers seem just as good - all young but with experience and plenty of energy. I especially like their Geometry teacher. Young, no-nonsense, but with a good sense of humor and really wants the kids to do well. This is a 10th grade level class and will be hard work but she is available for tutoring, phone calls and e-mail so I think they should make it through just fine. I think I got more pointed looks than the other parents when she said that this class was the most talkative, but I'm really not surprised!! The boys have all of the same classes with the exception of Ryan in Spanish and Justin in Health. This will probably be the reverse next semester. The Spanish teacher said that Ryan was doing very well and could easily teach Justin what he is learning. I'm sooooo happy that everything is going so well this year! Go 8th graders!

The boys started Cross Country practice this week and are both limping this morning with muscle pain, bone pain and just general aches and pain! I tried to get them to run some this summer and they have both said they should have listened to me. I haven't heard this in what seems like years! Glad to hear that I know at least one thing. There is hope.

Today is school picture day and I'm nervous about the boys' longer hair but have decided to pick my battles. I'm getting used to it, but am trying to convince them that it's time for at least a trim. Hopefully this weekend since their American History teacher has challenged them to not watch T.V., play video games or computer games. Can't wait to see how this works out! They do have a Power Point project to work on for Language Arts and say they will do the research for that, read, play outside and play some board games. They're also reading Great Expectations starting next week so should be able to get a head start on that. I'm reading it too since I don't think I did while in school. Their Language Arts class is also taught on a 10th grade level. They actually will get high school credit for the 9th grade classes they took last year and the 10th grade ones from this year. This makes them eligible to get college credit in high school if they do well. Did they do this stuff when we were in school? I'm adding up how much money I will save on their first year of college!

Tomorrow is the baby shower at work so I'm off to get the diapers for the diaper cake and a few other supplies. I'll get them the Diaper Genie (never used one myself, so I hope I can recognize it when I see it!) and a couple of pink outfits. I love girl stuff! I'll post pictures in a few days of everyones' hard work. Many people have worked hard to make this a great shower and I'm very excited to see the fruits of our labor (get it - baby shower, labor, ha ha!).

Happy Labor Day!

Hope everyone had a great labor day - I "labored" at work, but it wasn't that busy. Sometimes over the holidays our patient census goes down and things run at a slower pace. I was able to care for my patients, fill out a few time-off requests, read all of my work e-mail and continue to plan the baby shower for next Saturday. There was a small drama involving a broken bathroom door lock, but since I'm not sure who reads this, I'll leave out the details. Overall, I found the whole situation quite hysterical and hope the injured party can eventually somehow see the humor! I wonder who invented automatically opening doors (a feature for the handicapped) that not even the World Heavyweight Champion could pull closed once it starts to open? I love my job.

The boys had a good first week at school and are currently at a swim party at the home of one of their friends. They've been fed lunch and are now having dinner and I'm having some time with my feet up and the T.V. on. I just love their friends and especially the mothers of their friends!!

Yesterday the boys and I went to visit Mary & Les (my foster parents) and their daughter Debi, her husband Chris and their 5 kids who were here for the holiday weekend. Their oldest daughter Rebeckah is in the 7th grade and had a poster project for Texas History due on Tuesday and needed some help. We were able to cut the poster into the shape of Texas, cut out the 6 flags that flew over Texas and some other symbols related to our great state. Does anyone know what the state snack is? Chips and Salsa, my favorite! We also have an official butterfly, dinosaur, gem, musical instrument and many other interesting items. If you are curious, here is the link: http://www.texasalmanac.com/flags/

Here's a picture of all of the kids with their names from left to right:

Rebeckah, Sean, Ryan, Austin, Matthew, Justin & Hannah in front

A small update on my never ending bathroom project: Roland put in the counter top, grouted it, put in the sinks last week and finished the faucets today. At long last I can stop brushing my teeth in the tub - it's the little things that make me happy! Now I have to finish taking down the wallpaper, prime & paint the walls (at least I've picked out a color that I like), pick out new mirrors, finish sewing the shower curtain and window curtain, sand and paint the shelving unit that goes between the mirrors and paint the cabinets. I hope to finish before my taste changes again! Stay tuned for pictures (maybe by Christmas?).

I just realized that I may be addicted to projects. I have a half-done bathroom, a partially painted chair on a sheet in my living room, a lamp out on the patio table that still needs another coat of paint (for the craft table in my bedroom) and a "craft table" in my living room that has at least 5 unfinished sewing projects covering the sewing machine. This doesn't mention the amount of various sewing and craft supplies I have crammed in several closets and many drawers around the house. Do they have interventions for this kind of thing? I hope not!

Until we meet again ...