I HATE FALL!!!

Yes, I know that it technically isn't fall yet, but it may as well be for those of us who are back to school. Besides, my trees are already beginning to turn orange etc.

It sounds like Mouse and Robyn are living the same life as me right now. Ginny, good luck balancing the needs of your college-bound child, your teen, and your little one as you prepare for back to school. Kerry, I'm guessing you are buried deeply in school.

I got my kids on Thursday. Guess who was two hours late for work? Yes, my aide. So, here I have 15 (3 were absent) 3 and 4 year olds with there parents touching everything in my classroom. Two cried hysterically and both were "flight risks," so every time somebody opened the door, I had to run to catch them. Half of the children in the AM class don't speak English. Five have behavioral problems. One vomited all over the gross motor area. And, I was all alone. All I needed was the state inspector or NAEYC to walk in, and my accreditation would have been gone. There was nobody available to help me until 45 minutes later. I have a set of twins in both sessions. The twins in the AM are horrible!!! They speak only Spanish, and even with a translator, refuse to behave. When I read a story to the class, they just laughed hysterically. (The story was, The Kissing Hand. It isn't a funny story.) The PM class is better and brighter (I only have 3 boys in that class, and two of them are hops in the a*s.) They all speak at least some English. One girl, a twin, had diarrhea all over herself, then went into the bathroom and had it all over the floor and walls.

Thursday, I was EXHAUSTED after the day from ****. But, we had tickets to the Beach Boys, so I had to get it together and go. We had to take a shuttle bus from the high school to the amphitheater. We waited almost 3 hours for the show to start. Finally at 8:45pm, on a week night no less, it started. By 9:30pm, DD was thankfully ready to leave. But, then we had to wait 30 minutes for a shuttle bus to take us back to our car. DD's principal was on the bus with us. And, my gastroenterologist was with his family on the bus too. His wife was rude. I just wanted to hide from him, but, it was impossible, so I just said, "hi." We got home really late.

Friday was pretty much a repeat of Thursday except that my aide showed up. Basically, the AM class will need A LOT OF WORK. I am a strong behaviorist, so I shall get them to bend to my will. I have at least one referral to make from that bunch if not more. The PM class will be a joy to work with once they get in the routine. The couple of naughty boys will have no choice but to behave.

I had my last chiropractor appointment which I really needed after carrying around all these crying kids. It is too bad my insurance won't cover any more appointments. I think I am gonna need them.

Last night I crashed. This AM I was up early cleaning my house for an appraisal for a home equity line of credit. Please pray that we get the HELC. It may save us.

Now, I'm off to try to enjoy some of this weekend and do some school work. Tomorrow is church, a sunday school meeting, and a Longeberger party...then some more school work.

Have a great weekend, and remember, a three day weekend is just a week away!

Hi all,
Sorry I was MIA for a few days. I was just completely worn out from school and trying to get back in a routine. Sounds like everyone has been doing well. Busy getting ready to start or already started school.
Summer, I can relate with you about the naughty boys in your class. My class is all boys again this year and they try to push their limits daily with me. Plus I have to do morning bus duty. Some of those kids look like angels getting off the bus and then you see them in the hallway 30 minutes later and they are little devils. I hope next week goes better for you. Sounds like you have a busy weekend planned. Enjoy your self and don't get too stressed out about stuff.
Mouse, when does your students start back? Sounds like your staff meetings go alot like mine. Half the time, I don't get much out of them since they are most generally geared for the regular ed. teachers. So I sit by one of my other special ed. friends and we either write notes back and forth or I work on my lesson plans for the following week. Glad that you were able to get your TA to make the copies for you. That was very sweet of her. Sounds like you are really getting involved in your exercise plan. Keep up the good work!!
Robyn, glad to hear that you made some grade level friends. I bet that eases your mind now. So are you going to start going to the Wellness Center? Hope everything goes well for you on Monday. Enjoy your wedding on the bay today. That sounds like it would be a lot of fun!
Ginny, so are you recovering from going to college yesterday? Sounds like you have your hands full right now. Hope you are able to find some time to relax and regroup before starting school next week.
Well I better go and get some housework done. Then I think I will do a three mile walking video, before getting ready to go to tonight's first football game for my town's high school.
Talk to you all later.
Hugs,
Kerry

Well, the first week is over. We had MORE in-services on Friday... behavior management, nursing, and clinical. The majority of our students have emotional issues and get therapy, so they all have a mental health specialist and a academic specialist. They've changed my homeroom AGAIN, or did I already tell all of you that I was demoted to 10th grade? I'm NEVER going to graduate! :grin:
My TA and I have had our first power struggle: she hates my calendar system. The kids have to fill it in daily, and it has little sentence fillers for 'Today is', 'Yesterday was', etc. I think its important for our lower functioning class to do as a way of getting them used to a schedule. They can't follow a schedule for a job if they don't know the days of the week! She thinks that their regular classroom teachers should teach it, but none of them do... well, one teacher probably does... I insisted that the calendar stay up, and she finally gave in.
Oh, and here... I bought some new stuff for my classroom, mostly instructional materials (which was another power struggle: I have 50 kids, and $1000 to cover an entire year of instruction... that has to include renting buses for the 8 required field trips in the vocational curriculum. My TA wants to spend some of the money on decoration for the room! NO WAY!!!!!). One of these was a book I've had my eye on for years called WorkBoxes, which is a set-up to teach kids with significant disabilities various manual office tasks like sorting, filing, matching, collating. I finally bought it this year because I figured it would fit in very well. Well, first I had to convince the other teachers and my TA it would fit. None of them like it. But then I divided it up by our various industry areas and they started seeing how it would work. I meant to bring it home over break because a lot of the materials need to be made: please see my plea at the bottom of this message. Anyway, I forgot the book. It was the last day of summer session, they let us go early, and I was buried in those reports!
Over the 10 day break, the lead teacher for the certificate classes came in my room and TOOK STUFF OUT! She took that book, and some other stuff. I've been going crazy looking for it all week, she never left a note or anything! I finally sent out a 'if you've seen this book' to the whole high school, being VERY embarrassed. I thought I was going to have to repurchase it with my money! Nope...she had it the whole time! Oh, I was livid! Especially since last year students kept stealing software from my computer literacy program and leaving it all over the school or the memory cards from the digital cameras and I got knocked on it during my evaluation! Never mind that there wasn't a single place to lock anything up and I was in the basement which had NOBODY else in it!
So I have all this work to do for this program, and can't do any of it because this twit took the book and gave it to another teacher. She coudn't figure out why an industry teacher had it, and what I was going to use it for... and now she wants to know what I'm teaching in the classes the kids in her program have with me so that her teachers don't have to teach it again. These kids NEED reinforcement badly! Just because *I* teach them food words and grocery store sections in industry so they can shelve products at a store doesn't mean that their other teachers shouldn't do it too!
I mean, these kids didn't know the food pyramid and thought eggs came from a COW! I'm not kidding.

Anyway... here's my plea: the program calls for something like 200 coupons of varying amounts from 1 cent to $3.00. Its VERY HARD to find all these coupons. Would some of you be willing to send me coupons? Please? I'll give you my address in a PM or email.

wedding on the sailing boat was wonderful. (if you want to see the boat go to AmericanRoverDotCom!) got just a bit too much sun. had THE most delicious wedding cake that i've ever eaten....EVER! (and i ate it!) i have a blister on my big toe the size of my teeniest toe. it is huggge! and it hurts horribly! waiting for the laundry to finish so that I can put it in the dryer and go to bed. DH is taking the boys to Water Country USA tomorrow. i'm not going. for various reasons... the least of which is that I don't swim and/or that I'd hate to walk around all day in lycra! my new blister would NOT be happy hanging out at Water Country!

gotta run..... i'm thinking that the clothes are done spinning!......... take care! meee

tell me what to do and where to send the coupons to Mouse! I'd be happy to help you in any way I can! meee again!@

Robyn: Your choice: Do you want to scan them? If so, all you need is my email address. If not, I'll PM you my snail-address. And THANKS!!!!!!! I've got my whole family and others involved. My grandmother is going through her collection of Women's Day and what-not for me! I found GOBS of $3 coupons for Hatteras, too... I finally figured out that I could hit the touristy sites on-line to find coupons. Some places were better than others, and of course today I picked up both the Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun. Then I asked if the copies of the NY Times had its filler, but it didn't.

Coupon Update, 5 hours later... I've spent all afternoon buried in the Washington Post, and the Baltimore Sun, plus various things like Smartsource.Com... Anyway, I'm making definite progress.
I'm now most in need of the following values: .01, .05, .10, .25, .30, .35, .40, .45, .60, .65, .85, 1.50, $1.60.
There may be others: I think the 2nd set of sorting requires $2.00 coupons, but since the twit took my book, I can't be sure.
I know, for exaple, that Pathmark (for those of you up North) has 1 cent off coupons lots of times for specials in their stores. I'm probably insane insisting that all the coupons be different, but...

Evening Ladies,
Sounds like you had a very productive afternoon Mouse. If you pm me your address, I will mail you some coupons. I can go snag my mil newpaper and get the coupons out of it. So did you workout any this weekend? Is your pool open yet?
Robyn sounds like you had an enjoyable time at the wedding. Sorry to hear about your blister. I would offer to kiss it to make it feel better. But I have a problem with kissing people's feet. LOL Hope you enjoyed your day to yourself.
Summer and Ginny how was your weekend?
For a week now, I have been getting up in the mornings and doing a 2 or 3 mile walking video. Then on M,W, S I went to Curves to workout. So I am hoping that by boosting up my activity level during the school year, I will continue to lose weight. I don't want to pack around my extra weight for another school year.
Well my dh just asked me to go for a walk with him. So I best be off, before he is standing over my shoulder bugging him to go. Talk to you all later,
Have a great work week!
Kerry

Mousie, I would be happy to mail you coupons. Does the product matter or just the monetary amount?

Robyn, so sorry about the blister. I was in your shoes, no pun intended, one month ago in Disneyworld. I'm left with all this dead skin under my toes. Yuck!

Kerry, you sound like you are in really good spirits right now.

We had our appraisal yesterday. I'm concerned that our house won't be appraised for what we need it to be. DH is sure we will get the loan and is already starting to relax too much. I'm so terrified of things getting out of control financially.

In the morning, I have to have a second mammogram. Am I scared? I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't. My sister and aunt are breast cancer survivors. My brother is a cancer survivor. My parents died of cancer. So, yeah, I'm sh*tting my pants right now. I've always said that I will never get cancer since everybody else in my immediate family already got it. And if I did get it, I would beat it. It is just frightening to be a mother of a young child and have to face the possibility. The radiologist will be there at the time of the second mammo, so I should know right away if things are okay or if I'm in trouble.

So, please pray for me. Pray that the radiologist just wanted a different angle and there is no cancer inside my body. The mammogram is at 11:30am.

Well, my weekend of torture has ended.....Dd is safely at school and hopefully not too homesick....now if Dh would JUST STOP WORRYING!!!!! (got to admit, I wish he cared this much about me.....) Anyway, I have only skimmed the posts- will be back to read tomorrow. But, I'll address Summer.
I will absolutely be praying for you!!! Are you going to a large breast imaging center/hospital??? If you find yourself uncomfortable with the results- you might try that-a facility where they only have breast imaging.
You are going to be fine no matter what- we won't be given anything that we (and He!) can't handle, right?
I'd better go- a tired Dd is yawning next to me. I'll be back tomorrow.....Kerry, Mouse and Robyn- sorry not to get personal tonight.
See you tomorrow.
Ginny

Another shortie from me.......
Mouse- let me know if you still need any 1cent coupons. There is no Pathmark by me, but my Dm lives near one- and I can get some from her.
Robyn- how is the blister.....did you get a day of peace and quiet??? Hope so!
Summer- praying for you........let us know how all goes. Are you working today also? (at least the am class is troublesome enough to keep your mind off your woes.)
Kerry- hope you got your walk in! Your activity plan sounds good- I am happy for you making the time for yourself to keep yourself feeling good! Keep up the good work with all those workouts!

I am here this morning.......because Dd called....she can't find her schedule! I know I packed the darned thing- can even see it with the other stuff I packed......She can get her schedule online- but has not yet hooked her computer online yet....Oh, bother! Dh is still in freak out mode- don't know when he will calm down, if ever.

On a brighter note.....I started my seating chart....how to keep 29 sticks of dynamite away from 29 matches is an interesting challenge.....they told me last year that they were going to change my route to reduce the number of students......and I am back up to 58. That means I will still have over half of my bus squashed 3 students per seat......9, count em!, 9 kindergarteners..... which means that the gang that I used to keep in the front rows because they could not be trusted (remember my buddy the flasher?) now have to sit back in rows 5-6-7! (Lord, give me grace). The good news....the camera focuses best on those rows- the bad news is there is little I can do about their behavior while driving. My run is short on 5th graders- and they were my big helpers last year. The other good news, although it is bittersweet- my little guy- the one who the Principal and I were positive was going to be classified.....well it looks like he is in a special program now, although I do not know which. He is off my run- on a special ed run. What a sweet kid, although a major handfull. (he is the one that I had 2, 5th graders trained to assist with- a sweet child but very unable to communicate well, or care for himself- the monitor who rode with me a few times in the spring was shocked that I "put up with" him all that time)
I have to find some sort of blank tiles that I can mark the seat numbers on- got the magnets to hold them up.....guess that is one of my jobs for today.
And I have to finish my "welcome back" letter. Hopefully that will help soothe some of the nerves of the new mom's......and keep things on a positive note for the toxic mother stop.
Summer- I'm thinking/praying for you.........
See ya later~!
Ginny

Ok, I know I am talking to myself here....and I know I am rubbing it in (which is NOT my intent......you have to realize how sick my summer was!)- but today is just wonderful.......Dd is at school, Ds is just hanging out and not crabbing and Dd is at a buddie's house.....I have time off and almost do not know what to do with it! Of course the house is trashed.....and I have tons to do.....which I will. (Ds left the computer on).
Hope everyone is doing ok- Summer, how did the mammo go this am??? My thoughts and prayers are with you.
See ya later.
Ginny

Evening Gals,
Summer, I hope your test went well today? My sister had the same thing happen to her. She needed to go in for a second mammogram. The radiologist said that in larger breasted woman it is hard for the machine to read through all the breast tissue. Her's came back fine. So I am praying that is what happened with your first one. Did you work this morning to take your mind off your test?
Robyn, was today the day your first day with your new angels? How did it go? What did you do on your day of rest yesterday?
Mouse how is the coupons coming along? Just PM me and I will mail you some. Did you get to go swimming yet this week?
Ginny, sounds like you were able to survive your hetic weekend. I know what you mean about your dh worrying about your dd so much and he doesn't seem to do that for you. My dh is like that too sometimes. It use to drive me nuts. But I just have gotten use to his weird ways I guess. So are you going to join Curves?
Well I better go and grade some papers tonight. I have decided that this is going to be the year that I am better organized. I don't want to be running around at the last minute trying to complete everything.
Have a great Tuesday!
Kerry

Hi, all! Wow, I was in meetings and then had to go to the gym, and after that I had to go over to the Red Cross. PM coming to Kerry and Ginny, for the coupons... I'm still in need of most of the list that I gave you, and got my book back from the twit late today, so I have to look up that second set. I forgot to do it.

Don't have time for much more... Summer, how was the test???? We're all praying and hoping you're okay!