Crazy!

I think my head is going to explode!! Way too many things bouncing around in there of things that need to be done before my show opens this weekend. There just are not enough hours in a day, so I will taking the day off sick tomorrow to get it all done. Next year, I'm going to delegate a lot of these responsibilities to parents or capable students!! We had our massive tech rehearsal yesterday and things went well. It was a very long day, but a lot got accomplished. On Satuday I learned how to sew. We had to sew some patches onto basketball and cheerleader uniforms. And they had to be sewn on by hand because next week we have to rip it all off! But, the kids wore all their costumes for the first time yesterday and it all looked really good. The end is in sight!!

Same Job!

Yes, I have kept my position at my school! It's going to be so totally different here next year, with only one of each grade level. Everyone else at my school who was displaced was able to "bump" into another position - except our newest teacher. She's only been here 3 years, but she's first in seniority order to be called back. It sucks. She's pregnant with her second child and now they have to put their house for sale because of the instablilty of her job situation. Sucks. I'm sure that there will be a job for her - over the summer, something always happens and someone takes another job, moves away, etc. After the meeting on Friday, 7 people left without a job. Oy vay. Terrible. I know that there are a lot of other school districts in a lot worse trouble than us, but it's still hard to see people that you know go through these things.

In other news, the musical is less than 2 weeks away. We had a work day on Saturday and got many things painted and finished. Good things!! Although some student left the top to a can of brown paint laying on the stage, which is the same color as the stage, and I didn't see it and stepped in it. I'm still trying to get the brown paint off the bottom of my foot. That was fun.

We watched Borat this weekend. I'm still not sure what I think of it. Yes, I leaughed out loud many times. But would I have felt satisfied that I had gotten my money's worth had I seen it in the theatre? I doubt it. I guess 'shock value' is more of what that show was about. But it was a nice form of free entertainment for an otherwise uneventful Saturday night at home. Plus, now I feel more "in the loop"! I've seen Borat! :) hee hee...

Speaking of being home, I got to be home for a good portion of the weekend! In fact I never left my house on Sunday. I used to hate having to stay home - now I love it! I'm never home anymore, although 2 weeks from today I'll be all done with the show and can be home again! I did mountains of laundry, totally cleaned my house, and my parents and my in-laws came over for dinner. It was a good day! Plus, it was gorgeous outside so I had just about every window in my house open. Loved that!

No longer displaced!!!

I just got some terrific news today! I am now officially NOT displaced anymore. I'm not totally in the clear yet for keeping my same position at my school, but it's a lot more feasible now! Long story short, my teaching partner was offered another position within the district (non-classroom teaching), which left me as the only 3rd grade teacher here, and since we only need one - that's me! Now, I can still be "bumped" out of my position, but I'm not sure why anyone would choose to come here. Generally people don't choose to come to my school - we're considered the 'bottom of the barrel' population. Yes, we have kids from very diverse backgrounds, and yes, they're a pretty transient and unstable bunch, but kids are kids. You just gotta love 'em. Anyway, our big bid/bump meeting is on Friday, so then we'll finally know for sure where everyone will be. It's a bit tense around the schools these days. One other good thing - our school board approved a buy-out for 9 teachers in our district. As long as they free up the right jobs, then no one will have to actually lose their job. The retirement/opening list still has not come out. What a wacky time! I'll for sure post again this weekend about what all happened - that is, after I sleep off my hangover - I'm actually going to drink on Friday. A lot. Can't wait.

Thanks for the idea, Jess... wow, this was an eye-opener!!

Your Dominant Intelligence is Musical Intelligence

Every part of your life has a beat, and you're often tapping your fingers or toes. You enjoy sounds of all types, but you also find sound can distract you at the wrong time. You are probably a gifted musician of some sort - even if you haven't realized it. Also a music lover, you tend to appreciate artists of all kinds. You would make a great musician, disc jockey, singer, or composer.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

My mom's crack pipe

As promised, here is the story of my mom and the crack pipe...

In Daytona, there is something called the Flea Market. It's only open on the weekends and there is everything imaginable there. Mostly, it's t-shirts and hats, but also fresh fuit and vegetables, jewelry, purses, toys, cell phone accesories, etc. A lot of the vendors go up to Shipshawanna (sp?) in the summertime. So if you've heard of that place, that's like the flea market.

We're walking down the aisles browsing at all of the stuff and my mom stops at this glass case. Inside were all these colorful, blown-glass things. I was down a ways, so I didn't see at first what she was actually looking at. As I got closer, I saw that it was a place that sold "smoking paraphenalia". Great. My mom says, "I think I'm going to get one of these, they're so pretty!" Um, hello!?? I said, "Mother! Get away from there!" She said that she thought that they were fancy wine bottle stoppers!! I quickly informed her that those pretty things would not make good bottle stoppers and dragged her away from the case. Can you say, naive?

That's my mother. Gotta love her.

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We are now back from vacation. Overall, it went pretty well. We had some family drama and trauma - and it's very nice to be back home. We did convince my grandma to come up to Michigan in May for my show and for Mother's Day. That was a good thing!

This week we attended the funeral of my grandpa's brother. He was a little more than a year younger than my grandpa and died a little more than a year after he did. Crazy. 80 years seems to be the life expenctancy of the brothers. Weird.

The show is coming along. We're up to our armpits in rehearsals. I'm having a great time - a stressful time, but it's a lot of fun. We have a lot of really great kids in this show. We open in 3 weeks! I'm a bit nervous about that!!!

This weekend will be filled with more rehearsals and mountains of laundry. Somehow I acquired a bunch of new clothes on spring break. Unfortunately, most of it is for warmer weather so they're going to have to go in the closet for a while. I'm also going on a date with my husband! He's been crazy busy with this seed thing he's in charge of for pheasants forever, so we really haven't seen much of each other this week. Can't wait for the weekend!! Have a good one, everyone! :)

DTW sucks my butt

I am on Spring Break! Hallelujah!! It's been wonderful since we've been here - mid 80's and sunny every day. I'm getting tan!! No more pasty white!! However, we had quite an ordeal getting here. Let me fill you in...

We have had reservations on Spirit Air since October 30. I actually booked the seats using Travelation - cheap, everything good. Usually, we fly right out of Lansing (lovely little airport), but it was way more to fly out of there this time, so we had to fly out of Detroit. Yuck. Not a fan of DTW. Plus, it's almost 2 hours from my house compared to just over 30 minutes to Lansing. So, we had to leave school an hour early just to get there on time. Soooooo.... we did and we actually got to Detroit in record time! :) So we wait in a nice little line and then go up to the counter and give the girl our driver's licenses. "I'm sorry but we have no record of you on this flight." Excuse me?!? It was true- they had no record of us. All that I had was a printout from Travelation with a confirmation number. So, we stepped out of line and I frantically called Travelation (sucky site - good prices, but apparently some incompetancy abounds). I was on the phone with an agent for an hour and a half - to no avail. There was absolutely no way that they could get my mom and I out of DTW that night. Ugh!! This really sucked because we had this all arranged and my aunt and uncle were also on this flight and we had a car rented for us all to go to my grandma's. Therefore, we really needed to be on that flight. However, it was totally booked. So, we got on the standby list. Never done that before. The girl at the desk told us to come back up to her a few minutes before the flight was going to close to see if there were seats left. We did, and there were two!!! Home free!! Then some little fucker comes running up to the desk and proclaims that HE is a ticketed passenger going to Orlando. ARG!!!! Thus, leaving one. My mom and I argued about it, and I won - sending her on the flight. She's not incredibly independent and I knew that I would fair far better than her being stranded in the airport. Yes, I was totally stranded - my dad had dropped us off hours ago. So, I called my cousin who is in grad school at U of M (boo hiss - he's the total misfit in our family) right now and he and a friend came and got me. The next flight I could get out was at 6:20 the next morning. I stayed at his apartment and he called me a cab the next morning - since I had to leave at 4am. I'll delve into that experience later - suffice to say, his apartment was nasty. I realize he's in college and doesn't care - but there was stuff growing in the shower. I slept on the couch and didn't walk around without shoes on. Maybe it was also my avertion to everything U of M. Yuck. Ick. Gross. I have no idea how he got this way!! I was in college too, and have seen some really bad apartments, but I really think his takes the cake. It made me want to immediately start cleaning. And I hate cleaning with a passion. Although in order for me to have even gotten started, I would have needed a haz-mat suit and industrial-strength cleaner. Okay, time for a new paragraph.

I got to the airport way early only to find a gigantic line!!! I stood in line for over an hour and a half, only to get up to the counter 15 minutes before my flight was to take off, and have the girl tell me that since I was "so late" (hello? is it my fault that you don't have enough people working?), there was a good possiblity that I wasn't going to make the flight. WHAT?!?!? You can't make me go back to the filth hole in Ann Arbor!!!! So I ran. Of couse, my gate was the farthest away, and I ran. I got up to the gate, handed the attendant my boarding pass, and she told the guy that I was the last one and to close the door. Hot damn!! I did it! To celebrate, I slept most of the way to Orlando.

We're really not sure what the hell happened that we were even in this predicament. According to Travelation, it was Spirit who dropped our reservation. According to Spirit, it was Travelation that never booked the flight. Luckily, I had brought my itinerary that Travelation had emailed me, with the price we paid, and Spirit sold us our seats for the same price - even though they could have gotten a helluva lot more out of us. I must say, I am pleased with Spirit and how they took care of us on an incredibly busy Friday night. However, we will not be flying out of DTW for a long time. If ever.

Before I close, I also wanted to share our rental car experience. I had reserved a 'Standard SUV' for us - since there would be 4 adults and lots of big luggage. Well, there was a kind of an accident at the Sanford/Orlando airport (where we usually fly into BTW), and they had redirected all their flights to Orlando. I wasn't there Friday night (I was at the dirty AA bachelor pad, remember?), but this is what was relayed to me. My mom, aunt, and uncle got to the Dollar counter and because of all the extra flights, there were a gazillion people in line. They stood in line for 2.5 hours just to get the damn car!!! And, they weren't able to get the SUV, they had to get a little Sebring because they were all out of big things. My grandma lives in Daytona (approx. 1.5 hours from Orlando) so they didn't get to her house until 2:30am. Then got up at 7am and turned around to come and get me. Today, we went and exchanged the car for a Grand Cherokee and all is now okay.

What a mess. But, you know, it's been only a few days since all this happened, but it seems like a long time. It's been sunny and beautiful everyday. We have gone to the beach everyday and it's been great. I've also been doing a good job of catching up on my sleep. I don't wear a watch and we just do things when we feel like it. We already have our arrangements to come home all set - with printed itineraries right from Spirit, so there will be no more 'snafus'. From talking to T, it sounds like the weather is really really crappy at home. I wish I could send all this sunshine up there!! I sure would if I could!!

Have a great week everyone! Next time I'll tell you all about how my mom wanted to buy a crack pipe! Seriously.