Blue tape, so many signatures, a fat check...and a dead snake??

We did our initial walk-through for our new house today. What a crazy event. It gets really hard to stare at white walls and find tiny cracks or nicks in the paint. The superintendant followed behind us, slapping blue tape on the mistakes and looking bored. Nice guy, but he looked bored out of his mind.

Then, there's all the signing. My goodness. So much signing. And I'm pretty sure by the 95th time I signed my name, it didn't look a darn thing like the first time I signed it. I guess they don't care as long as you signed it. We even signed a paper saying that our name with middle initial was the same person without the middle initial!

And the fat check: yeah, that's a little painful. I've never seen so many numbers on one check before. It's a good thing, but also a a little frightening.

And the dead snake, you ask? Well, we drove by our place the other night, and as we were pulling out, our headlights shone on one of the trees and we saw this thing that looked like a skinny rope hanging down. Taking a closer gander, my hubby realized that it was a little gardener snake and it was dead. Weird. I've never seen a dead snake that was coiled around a tree with its head hanging down, have you? Well, that was a week or so ago, and when we went for our walk-through, it was still there. But not as pretty. It was decomposing and smelled like rotting kitty litter. And when the superintendant attempted to yank it off the tree with a hammer, its insides dripped on the concrete. Yuck.

A lot goes on when you don't go to work on a Tuesday, eh?

Uhhh...what?

Here are some recent "what is going on here?" moments going on in my life, brought to you by Yours Truly:

1. Apparently the Everything bagel makes me throw up. Yeah. Last Sunday I had one for breakfast, and within 10 minutes, I was puking "everything but my toenails" (as my dad would say). And this morning, I had another one (not thinking it was at all related to the last time...silly me) and by the time I was well on my way to dropping Mason off at Ms. Cindy's, my stomach exploded. All I could do was snatch up a Target bag I had on my passenger seat, shake everything out of it and place it under my chin. I didn't even have time to stop the car. Mason was needless to say, a little confused.
Note to self: stay away from the Everything bagels.

2. Somehow, in some other dimension, a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, 2 weeks ago, I was able to be in a town about a 4 hour drive away from here at the same time I was here. We got a Traffic Violation Notice in the mail today, from the said town. They had blurry pictures of a license plate that looked vaguely like ours, a driver that looked sort of like my hubby, in a car that was a Toyota, but not the same model. Interesting. I gave them a call, and they laughed. I guess we just need to mail in our vehicle registration, and prove that it wasn't us, that drove 55 in a 40 mph zone. Weird.

3. I guess one week of Fall Break was not enough for most of my students. All day they were groggy and whiny and sloth-like. By 7th hour, they were a bunch of slugs that could barely keep their eyes open. I told them they were spoiled, as every other school I've worked in never had Fall Break, and furthermore, I NEVER had Fall Break when I was in school. The neighboring district gets 2 WEEKS off for Fall Break. I tried to explain to my distraught students that you are still in school the exact same amount of days as any other district, it's just how they break it up. They just don't see it that way.

Sometimes in life, I just have to stand there, with my eyes squinty, my mouth hanging open and say, "Ummm...what?"

Trick or Tater

We will be moving around Halloween this year, so sadly, no decorations will be put out. But, since Mason's been going through a lot of changes and disturbances in his everyday life (Ms. Cindy getting baby Joe, then they moved, then we're having a baby and we're moving), I found him a Halloween gift at Fry's. This is Mason and his new Trick or Tater Potatohead. Boo.

Ahhhh...

I have a new reason that I've been slacking on my blog the last few days: I'm on Fall Break this week. Ahh, glorious Fall Break...

The end of last week was pretty busy but not too stressful. I did, however, send a kid (whom we shall call Name Name, since he has the same first name and last name) to the office BEFORE the first bell on Thursday, for being rude to me and then flipping off two students. That was special. Friday was uneventful, as it was an Early Release and the kids were just finishing the movie "Hercules" (we just wrapped up a unit on Greek Mythology and they wrote Mythology Narratives of their own). Oh, and grades were due. No sweat. Saturday, I had some time to myself, as Hubby attempted to take Mason to an airshow (but it was too much of a hassle). I went to the Christian store to get the new Veggietales, "The Wizard of Ha's" (very funny parody of the original), got a smoothie nearby and went to Kohl's, since it just opened here last week. I managed to get brand new master bath towels and stuff for when we move. That was fun. Yesterday, I felt very drained and yucky, so we skipped church. Later, I felt better, so we ran some errands, then met Ms. Cindy's family for lunch. Today was my first official day of Fall Break. Mason and I have had a nice, restful day. I spent the morning playing with Mason, watching "Wizard of Ha's" (this is Time #3, by the way), packed a box and played outside a bit. We also went to Target and Costco. In a little bit, we're off to meet Hubby at my doc for my monthly prenatal visit. Nothing exciting planned for this appointment, as I am only 15 weeks along. But I think next visit (next month) should be my UltraSound. Yeah!!

Well, Mason's been left to his own devices in the living room long enough. Hope all is well with my faithful readers and Fall is finding you in a pleasant mood. See ya.

I made a funny

I actually originally wrote this blog over at my myspace, but I thought I'd share it with you all too. Hope you get a chuckle out of my lack of attention--look, something shiny!!

I saw a student in the halls today with a really funny shirt. And I have to say, it takes a lot for me to say that, as most of their shirts are either just dumb or insulting (like, "Genuis by birth, Slacker by choice" and crap like that). But here's the funny one: "9 out of 10 doctors say I have A.D.D.--look a butterfly!!" Now, that's funny. I know A.D.D. is overdiagnosed and a term that is overused and overemphasized, but it's still a funny--Wait, what was I saying? Oh yeah, A.D.D. Yeah, A.D.D. is funny. Wait, no it's not. I don't know what I'm saying. Hugs are nice. Especially ones that are warm and just the right amount of tightness and come from someone you love. Ahhh, love. Robots are cool. I want one that will clean my house. I hate cleaning my house. It's always messy and the bathrooms are my least favorite.Have you read the book "Everybody Poops"? That's a funny book. It's about how every animal poops and it's supposed to help kids go potty. It's funny.

You know what else is funny? This shirt I saw on a kid today. It said: "9 out of 10 doctors say I have A.D.D.--look a butterfly!!"

Isn't that special?

First thing first hour this morning, a kid throws up on my carpeted classroom. Nice. He wasn't looking too good beforehand, but said he was fine. Luckily, there wasn't any wretching noises and it wasn't chunky. The kids, of course, acted like they had just witnessed the most utterly disgusting event ever in the history of humankind. They were pulling their shirts up to their noses and flying out of their seats to get away from it. I told them to get over themselves. Yeah, it was gross, but I'm pregnant and I was standing right near it, and couldn't smell anything. Buncha babies...

Today, Mythology Narratives were due. I told them about the Final Drafts on Thursday. Thursday to Monday is how many days?? Apparently not enough days, I realize, as I glance over my puny pile of stories that made it in today. 36 were turned in today. Out of 77 students. Granted, about 10 kids total out of my 3 classes were out today, but still. Let's just say for the sake of being hopeful, that all of the absent kids would have brought their papers today had they been at school (which is doubtful, as I am assured that some were "out sick" for the very opposite reason), that's still a whopping 46 out of 77. That's shameful. In fact, I think that's the worst percentage I've had in my 6 year teaching career. Oh, and by the way, I gave them an extra 15-20 minutes at the beginning of class today to finish! Problem was, most that didn't turn in their assignment didn't even bother bringing it to class. I even had one, for now we'll call Complacent Boy Reincarnate (since Hormone Boy last year was the first Complacent Boy) that flat out admitted that he didn't do it, didn't plan on doing it and didn't care that he was getting a big fat 0 out of 100 for not doing it. I told him that he was a big boy and that I wasn't going to hold his hand, and that I was sorry that he didn't think he had to do the assignment, but he would be very unhappy when he saw his report card. He just shrugged his shoulders and said, "I know." Sigh...

What a day.