Highs and Lows

Yesterday was a day of highs and lows for me.


First off it was my first day back to school. I was really looking forward to being back in school and working with kids, but at the same time filled with a kind of dread thinking "What if I forgot how to teach?" Which is of course ridiculous but it worried me all the same.


In fact it worried me so much that the night before I went back I had nightmares, you know the ones, you are back in highschool, you can't find your class, you can't remember your locker combination, none of your friends are in your classes, you walk into the lunchroom and realize you don't know a single person there and can't find any of your friends and you are numb with fear and don't know where to go, so rather than enter that enormous room jam packed full of strangers you decide to ignore your protesting stomach and skip lunch today because it's better than the idea of carrying around a tray of lukewarm food searching desperately for a place to sit where they will #1 not mock and ridicule you and #2 will actually be nice to you and talk to you.


I woke up in a cold sweat, dreading the morning even more, but despite my misgivings I got up, showered, dressed and headed off to school.

Found the classroom with ease, it was in the same place it was last year. What I didn't anticipate was the room full of fresh faced second graders would turn out to be HELL in a cinderblock box.


OH MY HECK!!!!!!! That was the worst exerience I have ever had! I feel so badly for their teacher. I have never been so grateful to be a sub in my entire life. By lunchtime I was ready to run screaming for the hills and if I had only known that after lunch would be the more horrific half of the day, I might not have tried so hard to talk myself into sticking it out through the end of school.


I called my boss on the way home and said "I don't ever, EVER want to be put back in that classroom.... EVER!"

She told me that says a lot because I was the one that always took the classroom that no one else would take last year. I said if she tried to send me back there, I would quit first LOL I am kidding of course, but I think if I had to go back to that classroom I would have nightmares all night the night before.....again.

Then of course last night we sold the Camaro. I am so glad that beast is gone. I hated the look of it sitting in my driveway, maring my otherwise lovely landscape (if you ignored the weeds that is). And DH is considering possibly buying a new camera for me with the proceeds. I am afraid to hope because I so desperately want a new camera. My old reliable fuji is finally giving up the ghost. I am not surprised, the thing is about five years old and has probably taken close to a million pictures. It has been a really good camera. The one I really want to replace it with is a Fuji Finepix S9100 which would basically take up every dime DH made from the sale of the car and then some.

DH really wants to spend the money on either a pool table or a Wii. The Wii I don't want, I think they are a waste of money and addicting (unlike my computer ). The pool table I REALLY don't want. It's a huge waste of space and really, who is going to play with it???? It isn't like DH has a bunch of guy friends that will come hang out in our basement and play pool all night. He only has one friend that he hangs out with, and I really can't see Shane hanging out and playing pool. So I just think a pool table would be a waste of space. He also wants this stupid tent the size of Buckinham Palace from Cabella's that is almost as expensive as my camera (ok, not really but it's over $200......for a TENT). And that is another thing I think is a huge waste of money. Our tent is big enough to easily fit our entire family.... on air mattresses. It's not like we are sleeping on top of each other. His complaint is there isn't enough open space. Hello....honey....it's a TENT, we are only sleeping in there. He says "Well, what if it rains?" I said "Isn't that why we bought the big easy up screen room?" He says "......well....."

I think it all boils down to the fact that BIL's new tent is bigger than ours and he has tent envy. He doesn't stop to consider the fact that BIL has twice as many kids as we do .


Ok, so the next high comes from my mom calling and saying "Hey, you want to come over for veggie dinner?" Ok, this is seriously one of my favorite things about summer. Veggie dinners... fresh from the garden. Cucumbers in vinnegar, tomatoes with miracle whip on them (yeah, not healthy but it only happens a couple of times each summer so I am not giving it up), corn on the cob, steamed squash aaaaaaaaah my mouth is watering. Oh and we usually throw in the ever healthy Hot Dog for the kids . The benefit of this is that my kids actually truly love vegetables. People are always asking me how I get my kids to eat vegetables and it's easy, I love them, we have several at every meal and my kids were raised knowing that veggies are my favorite part. Heck, one of my boys even begs for Brussels sprouts. Am I the best mom or what?

The next high was a mixed blessing. Seeing the Camaro as it pulled out of my driveway for the last time. I almost wanted to stop him, tell him to wait so I could run for the camera. It was a bitter sweet feeling. I have wanted it gone for so long, but at the same time was sad to see it go, like we had lost a family member or something. On the other hand, I'll bet our neighbors threw a party last night as it disappeared down the lane. It's bad enough when it is your own eyesore sitting there spoiling beauty, but when it's your NEIGHBOR'S eyesore, it is ten times harder to live with LOL

Well I guess I better go off and start my day. The boys are off to the bus and I have a million errands to run before they get home. It's "Early out" day so I don't have much time.

Hope all my avid readers (Waving madly to both of you ) have a great day