A Silver Tie Affair

As our long day is coming to a close, it has been fun watching the kids get ready for their Homecoming dance tonight.  You can't have homecoming without football.

 Our varsity won last night 34-14 against Smithville.  JV got the short end of the stick today weatherwise, not a loss, but freezing, blustering rain, sort of a morning.  The above picture showed my view from under an umbrella, I had a tarp over my blanket so it would not be soaked.  The rain was actually blowing into our faces the way we faced the field.

 Kyle bought us all rain suits for the weekend.  I was grateful for the wind and water breaker!

 Crazy parents will follow their children any where.

It was worth watching, JV won, 36-0.  Kota had an awesome sack on the quarterback, right into a mud puddle.

 His clothes were so wet and muddy that you couldn't even smell the sweat when I put them in the washing machine this afternoon.
I had a lot of dirt and grass left in the washing machine after this load.  I ran a cycle with just soap and hot water.  I hope it works.

Then we came home and cleaned the house and got Kayla ready for her first formal dance with a "friend" date.  It took 1 1/2 hours to go from this to....

(She owes free babysitting for this)

...this.

 She cleans up nice.  Tristan's tie is a perfect match.  (He reminds me of  a guy I dated in high school that looks very similar to this.  Crazy!)

 Kota's date Meghan and Kayla are friends from YW (youth group).

 I love the silver tie.

There were three schools having homecoming this weekend in our county.  Our local Applebees was packed with fancy dressed teens.  I think we had the finest four.  I hope they have a good time...I know they will.

As Meghan's mom said, "Oh to be 14 (or 15 or 16) again...Nah!"  It felt good walking away with my husband, knowing that those awkward years are over, and I'm happily married with no pressure to find the right person, because I already have.  We just need to grow old gracefully together.  The older part is coming, not sure we're to graceful yet.  Hmm, well, maybe I am....

Rainy Day Inside and Out

Somedays no matter what you do and how long you hold your positive attitude, it just stinks.  Well, that was today.

Long day it started at 6:45, meeting in my classroom at 7.  (Interesting stuff, just early)
Students were extremely hyper and chatty today.  By 2:40 I bubbled over, angry.
My anger usually bring tears, which makes me more angry.  Never show weakness to the kids, well that all went out the window. (dang PMS hormones, TMI, I know)

3:15 found out our new report card was not working properly and all the grades we entered had to be changed. 

Thank heavens Kayla's soccer game got canceled (a small blessing in the chaos)

6:00 I walked out of my classroom after fixing 5 weeks of grades to be able to compute the "old" way.

Highlight of the day: we tried the new Chinese place in town, the Lotus.  Yum.  Swiss Cake rolls for dessert because you can't end a rotten day with out comfort food.

Once I've been home and put up my feet and read that some of you have had great day and some not so great; I feel better.  Almost ready to go back and work hard again.

I hope I haven't lost all the hard work I've done so far by letting the tears go.  We shall see.  I think I might take the weekend completly off and just rest, get my house back in order, and enjoy my kids in their formal attire for homecoming.  Goal: focus on the positive....

Blue Ribbon Year

 It's hard to choose what photos to enter into the fair.  I have a very crumby camera that pixelates my pictures when I blow them up.  Some of my best pictures looked terrible 8 x 10 size.  This picture was a last minute choice because at $4 each I did not want to keep printing them just to be disappointed.

 Of my 7 photos I entered, I got this blue ribbon!  Last year I just got a 4th place...so I'm mov'in on up in the world.  I love going to the fair.  It  brings back so many memories of the farm days in my youth.  I guess it is forever engrained.

 These guys decided to join the 160th anniversary of the Ashland County Fair.  Someone has a lot of imagination with some bales of straw.

This year I had two students with animals at the fair.  That was a first for me.  My students are not typically in 4-H with the entire building being walking distance from the building.  This duck is a bit camera shy.  My other student is in the picture I took of her and her pig.  (so I decided not to post it)

Oh, My Aching Heart

I mentioned this summer that I had a tough roster this year at school.  Tough, for a lot of reasons, but the main reason is the needs of the students.  I have a wide range of abilities both academic and economic.  The kids I work with are both emotionally stable and emotionally needy.  I suppose everyone that teaches can say that about their room.  Since school has started these are real live things that my students have experienced:

living in foster care because their home was not safe

mom being beaten by dad

family members going to jail due to possesion of illegal drugs

the list goes on ...

I had a student say to me, I don't want to go home, I like it here.  Mrs. C you don't want to know what happened to me this weekend...(with a horrible story), I have a burn on my leg because I let my friend set me on fire, I want my dad to love me, the water was shut off again, and the list keeps going.

I want to just love on these babies.  I want them to know what it is like to have parents who are interested in them instead of just themselves.  I want them to know what it is like to have enough money to pay for the necessities so they don't have to want for the water to come out of their faucet when they turn it on.  I want them to know that they really can do anything they put their mind to if they work hard.  I want them to feel loved, warm and safe. 

Now, not all my students are facing these daily battles, some are loved and cherished.  The difference in their behavior is remarkable.  So this tough year is just breaking downs the walls the children put up to protect themselves over the summer.  To remember they will be loved and taken care of, at least for 6 hours of their 24 hour day.  That someone will notice what they are good at, even if I really have to reach for something. 

I talked to Kyle about maybe fostering kids in the future.  I could take some of these kids or kids like them and just show them what they need most: Love.

Life in the Fast Lane...and Lovin' IT

These two teens are keeping us busy.  I'm enjoying every minute of their lives at the present.  We are dividing time between games, home games are seen, who's starting vs. bench sitting....

 We are co-seminary teachers for our church calling.  So we start the morning early.  Kyle is up at 5:30, kids at 5:50 to start the seminary lesson with another student who comes 2-3 days a week, depending on her family schedule.  Then I take over to work on scripture mastery and scripture study.  This year the kids came up with the theme (Smurf your Scriptures).  If you haven't ever watched the Smurfs, they use the word Smurf as a verb.  Smurf =Search or Read in our case.  (So I located all these smurfs to represent what the students are doing in school.)

 Kayla has games 2-3 days a week.  She plays JV and sits the bench mostly for varsity.  Of the 20 soccer games, JV plays 6 games.  The other games are a gamble as to if she gets some time.  We volunteered to run the game clock at home games because they needed help.  The benefit to this is we got a season pass for 2 for all the home games for ANY sporting event for the entire school year.  Do you realize what a blessing that is to not have to pay $12 to see all the kids games!  Whew!  (They just won tonight 1-0)

Then we can't miss the Friday night lights and Saturday morning games.  Football truly is fun for me to watch.  I enjoy it, I understand what is going on more than soccer, but I'm learning.  (Varsity against Loudonville 17-10, JV against Norwayne 32-26, still undeafeted).

Then of course work takes up a lot of the day as well as some nights grading papers and planning.  So if you don't hear from me in a day or two, know that I'm enjoying being a mom or grading papers, or both!  No complaints, really, I am enjoying watching my kids in their activities.

Go Falcons!

It Will Be Funny....Tomorrow? Maybe!

Ugh!  I can't believe I did this!  This is after partially cleaned up! 

(Then I thought this is a perfect thing to blog about.)

I pulled the bowl down while my kitchen aid was blending instead of switching off the beater.  OOPS!  So instead of pouring the pudding into the big bowl for a soccer team dinner, I got to clean ALOT of it off my counter, my cupboards, my breadbox, ME, my clothes, all the things sitting on the counter waiting for my son to recycle...I can keep listing but it makes me grumpy.

Needless to say, I was cleaning up stupidity.  Oh well, it might be funny tomorrow...maybe not until next week.  But definately funny eventually!

Sweltering Heat

I think I am going to melt!  The heat and humidity is crazy in our area right now.  I sat at two football games and sweated as much fluid as I took in.  Swimming in your own sweat is not fun!

To ease the burden of the sweat the boys did win both the JV and Varsity games against Bucyrus.  Friday night 89 degrees AFTER the sun went down at 8pm.  Today we sat in 95 degree sun, which felt like 150 degrees because it was reflecting on the aluminum bleachers.  I now know what a foil wrapped baked potato feels like.

Varsity won 22-6.
JV won 50-22.  (Kota helped with 5-6 tackles today.)

JV soccer was less successful; they lost to Waynedale 0-3. 

It sure was nice to get the kids, home, showered and in the A/C.  What a blessing AC is.  I was never so grateful as I was today to just be home in my house, cooling down.  Oh, how I look forward to the cool, crisp days of autumn in Ohio.