Happy Birthday to Brook

I know you aren't supposed to play favorites, but I have to say Happy Birthday to my favorite son-in-law! Oh, yes, he is my only son-in-law. Here is a picture of his way early birthday present from July 14: Surfing lesson in Galveston. There really were waves, even if small. We should have waited a week until the hurricane hit, and the waves might have been higher. He did a great job, which worries me, because he may take Kara-Kae off to some ocean beach to live.

Beware of what you say in front of your kids!

The scrapbook room is coming along. We got the south wall in place and went and bought the window yesterday. Hopefully, we will get it in this week and then start on the east wall.
I have been looking through my old lesson plan books and P.E. activities to help the new elementary P.E. teacher out. Whenever my students would say something funny, I would try to remember it and write it down later. I usually just wrote it in my lesson plan book. I will randomly include some of them in my blog. Children will tell you about anything that they have ever seen, done, or heard. Just beware, because they will probably tell their teacher all about it, and sometimes will add to it to make it more interesting.

Brook should enjoy this one:
Student: My dad has a BB gun.
Me: He Does? What does he shoot with it?
Student: Moose & Cheetas!

Since I am getting on in years, I will have children of students that I once taught. I was asking a little girl what her mom's name was before she got married (you have to be careful with that one, also).
The student replied, "Actually, it was Rebecca, and now it is Becky."

We played a game in P. E. that is called "3 Down" in which 2-liter pop bottles are used. When the students walked into the gym, one of the boys asked, "Are we going to play spin-the-bottle?" Why would a 3rd grader even know that game? Must have a teen-age brother or sister.

Scrapbook Room

I am so excited that Dennis and I are building a room in the garage for me to scrapbook in. I have had scrapbooking stuff upstairs, downstairs and back upstairs.
We have an area in the garage that we are going to build a room that is about 11' x 11'. We went and bought the top and bottom plate boards and studs this past week-end. He worked on the west wall yesterday when it was raining, since he couldn't work on the farm. This evening after we ate, we worked on the south wall. We measured and cut the top and bottom plates, we also marked and cut the studs. We nailed the end studs to the plates and set it in place to make sure that it fit between the floor and ceiling. It fit!! We are some kind of carpenters, not sure what kind, but it doesn't look too bad. Hopefully the wall will not fall down. I will try to keep updated as we build the room.

New Job

I am not very good at this blogging stuff. It has already been a week since I last typed anything. I have the excuse of school starting and then, of course, there are the Olympics. What will be my excuse in a couple of weeks?
I started my new job Wednesday. It was definitely different than teaching physical education. The best the way to compare, is a day in the life of when I was a P. E. teacher and a day in the life of a library assistant. My P. E. classes would start at 8:15 a.m. and go through until 11:15 with a 10 minute break around 10. Then at 11:50 I would go back to the gym until 2:35. When it was hot outside it was very hot in the gym, being a metal building with no a.c. and very little, if any, insulation. When the temps were cold outside it wasn't too bad in the gym, except for when I had to stand outside to watch for the kindergartners. Kindergartners, now that is a whole other beast. My day as a library assistant will change when we start having students come to the library, but for now all I am doing is sitting at a table crossing out the word elementary in the books and stamping PURCELL INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL, or at the computer and putting book titles, authors and ISBN numbers in excel. Very easy, except by the end of the day my neck is mad at me. It is definitely not hot like the gym, in fact, some days I could wear a jacket.
I think I am really going to enjoy my job, when we start checking out books and seeing students every day. I'll let you know then.

Grandog spent the week

Last Sunday Dennis and I met Kara-Kae and Brook south of Ardmore to get Jack, our granddog. He came to the house for the week, while they were on vacation with Brook's family. It was an enjoyable experience most of the week. As I have mentioned before Jack is a dog that doesn't know he is a dog, so if I went places or did things, he thought he should be involved. We went to the library one day and helped Donna with getting books ready to shelve.

We went out to the garden to see what Dennis was doing.

He visited with his buddy, Pete, outside anytime he could.

This is Jack's new friend, which used to be Kara-Kae's friend when she was younger.

Jack overcame his fear of the stairs last week, also. Well at least his fear of the first four steps. He never would go to the top.

Overall it was an enjoyable week, but I think a dog that knows he is a dog is a little less demanding and time consuming.

I do have to admit that when a dog loves you and whines for you, it makes you feel good. Then the real people in charge of him comes home, and you don't even count anymore.

Eventful first half of 2008

The first half of this year was fairly eventful in my life, if you consider weddings and retirement eventful. My daughter got married on February 29 (smart guy that she married - only one anniversary every 4 years). I retired from teaching in May. My son got married in July. To make it even more eventful, neither one of them got married in our home town. Kara-Kae got married on NW Expressway (not literally on the expressway) in OKC, and Toby got married in Galveston. Both weddings were beautiful, but I have to say that daughter's weddings are harder than son's. Also, destination weddings are easier. Toby and Stephenie did have a large reception the next week-end in Sulphur. Not only did I get a wonderful son-in-law and daughter-in-law, but I got a granddog and granddaughter. Both families are settled into the married life, and I have recovered.
Retirement! I retired from teaching in May. I have taught since 1981, which I started at Lexington as a coach and P.E. teacher. The next year I came to Purcell and have taught there since. I taught 5th and 4th until 1995 when I moved to the gym to teach P.E. I am not completely retired in the sense that I don't work anymore. I am going to go back to the school and work as a library assistant. I am really looking forward to it. I still get to work with the kids at school, but won't have the experience of the "HOT" gym to deal with. I will get to work with my good friend, Donna, even though we will be in opposite buildings each day. I will be in the elementary on the days she is in the intermediate and vice-versa.
I almost forgot, my husband has had two surgeries this year. Even though it was much harder on him than me, it still was stressful.

Ya' gotta love a bargain or two

I love getting a bargain. I know it is not really a bargain if you can't use it, but the bargains I got yesterday and today are usable. It all started at Hobby Lobby when I found this greenhouse thing that I thought my husband would like. He was in special directors' meetings in OKC, so I went shopping. I was walking around Hobby Lobby, one of my favorite places to shop, when I saw this greenhouse thing. It was 66% off!! I took him there during his lunch break, and he wanted it,so we purchased it. I took him back to his meeting and then went back to pick it up. The manager helped me to take it apart and load it in my car. I just hope we can get it put back together. Second bargain of the day came at Michael's. I bought some baskets to try to get organized at home. When we started checking out, the cashier gave us a coupon that someone had an extra of and left it at the store. The baskets were 50% off, and the coupon was for another 20% off. WOW!! (yes, Kara-Kae WOW is MOM upside down.) Today I went to Khol's, since it is tax free week-end. Here is the greatest bargain yet. I got 4 pair of pants and a long-sleeve shirt for $20.20. Yes. twenty dollars and twenty cents. The decimal was in the right place. I need real clothes for my new job, not just play clothes like I wore in P.E. Now for my final bargain of the day. We get back to Purcell and run by Walmart. I always go back to the scrapbook section just in case they have Cricut cartridges on sale. I found two that I don't have that were $25 each. If you don't know anything about Cricut cartridges, this was a great deal. They sale for as much as $89.
Can you beat those bargain?