The first day of Spring has decided it is going to be a beautiful one in our neck of the woods! Not even noon yet and it is 70 degrees.
The day has demanded that lessons be cut short. Flower beds are begging to be cleaned out. Dirt is longing to be played in. Eler Beth and I have decided to oblige them all.
One of my sisters, a teacher, sent this to me today. I thought it was pretty good:
Next season's Survivor show:
SURVIVOR: school classroom island
Have you heard about the next planned "Survivor" show?
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />Three businessmen and three businesswomen will be dropped in a school classroom for 6 weeks. They will be assigned 2 weeks to an elementary school, 2 weeks to a middle school, and 2 weeks to a high school. Each business person will be provided with a copy of his/her school district's curriculum, and a class of 28-32 students.
Each class will have seven learning-disabled children, four with A.D.D., one gifted child, and two who speak limited English. Three will be labeled with severe behavior problems.
Each business person must complete lesson plans at least 3 days in advance with annotations for curriculum objectives and modify, organize, or create materials accordingly. They will be required to teach students, handle misconduct, implement technology, document attendance, write referrals, correct homework, make bulletin boards, compute grades, complete report cards, document benchmarks, communicate with parents, and arrange parent conferences. They must also, at all times be ready to supervise any “unsupervised” students and monitor the hallways.
In addition, they will complete fire drills, tornado drills, and [Code Red] drills for shooting attacks.
They must attend workshops, donate 24 hours of professional development to the district, attend faculty meetings, union meetings, attend curriculum development meetings. They must also tutor those students who are behind and strive to get their 2 non-English speaking children proficient enough to take the CATS test and meet satisfactory goals of the No Child Left Behind Act. If they are sick or having a bad day they must not let it show.
Each day they must incorporate reading, writing, math, science, and social studies into all areas of study. They must maintain discipline and provide an educationally stimulating environment at all times.
The business people will only have access to the golf course on the weekends, but on their new salary they will not be able to afford it anyway. There will be no access to vendors who want to take them out to lunch, and lunchwill be limited to 20 minutes. The business people will be permitted to use the staff restroom during their planning period, and if they need the bathroom anyother time, they may go as long as another survival candidate is supervising their class.
They will be provided with one 40-minute planning each day while their students are at special areas.
If the copier is operable, they may make copies of necessary materials at this time. They cannot surpass their daily limit. The business people must continually advance their education on their own time and with their own money.
The winner will be allowed to return to his or her job.
Pass this to your friends who think teaching is easy and to the ones that know it is hard.
I took Eler Beth and her friend to the circus tonight at the National Guard Armory!
We didn't go to the big Kosair Shriners' Circus in February that comes every year to Louisville and plays at Freedom Hall. But the one we went to tonight, although a much smaller circus, was so much more fun!
And Eler Beth even got to perform!
At one point they called for two girls and two boys out of the audience to participate in a hula-hoop contest. Eler Beth had her hand raised, and I just knew the Ringmaster was going to pick her. She was the first one picked. The audience had to cheer for the one they thought was the best, and it came down to Eler Beth and the other little girl. Everyone sitting around us yelled as loud as they could for Eler Beth, but the other little girl was proclaimed the winner. Eler Beth said that was okay, she didn't mind coming in second. What an experience!
(During the elephant act a little while after the hula contest, both elephants answered the call of nature while in the ring, and Eler Beth whispered to me, "I don't care if they have another contest, I'm not going back in there now!")
Circus Pages is a small circus, but they put on a wonderful show; especially as far as the acrobatics go. All the performers are multi-talented. They come to our area once or twice a year, but we'd never gone to their show before.
The girls got to ride an elephant, so I'll probably post pics of that soon. I spent a fortune, but we had a great time!
Friday night was the Spring Festival at Eler Beth's former school, so she and I went. She got to see a few of her friends and her favorite teacher. Her best friends weren't able to go, though. She had fun playing the games and winning some prizes, and we ate pizza and watched the dancing.
There was a little girl there who couldn't have been more than nine, wearing a shirt that said on the front, "Too many boys", and on the back it said, "Too little time." I just don't think shirts like that are appropriate for young girls to wear, but maybe I'm just a prude!
Saturday Andrew was at a friend's house all day and spent the night, and Thomas worked for 12 hours, so Eler Beth and I spent the day shopping. We bought two very dressy, summery dresses for her, a pair of sandals, a knitted shawl, and four pairs of earrings! She was quite pleased, to say the least. I tried on a lot of things, but didn't end up buying myself anything. The shopping trip was mostly for her anyway.
We started out the day by having brunch at a nice little restaurant near our house called "A Nice Restaurant". It's a cute little, family-owned place that only serves breakfast and lunch and closes at 1:15 every day. They open at 8 on weekends and at 6:30 during the week.
I had biscuits and gravy, bacon, and hash browned potatoes, and Eler Beth had french toast made from homemade bread, an egg, and a biscuit and jelly. Their food is great, portions are very large, prices are reasonable, and the service was really good.
I got this from
ndnhunny30 , and I thought it was cute.Things You See While at Your Computer......
Name 6
red things that you see from where you sit.1. A pencil sharpener
2. Eler Beth's red shirt
3. My red shirt
4. Red on a box of envelopes
5. A Candy wrapper
6. A mechanical pencil
Name 5
blue things you see from where you sit.1. A picture frame
2. The shorts I'm wearing
3. My carpet
4. The cushions on my rocking chair
5. My calculator
Name 4
green things you see from where you sit.1. One of Eler Beth's combs
2. A green highlighter
3. Eler Beth's philodendron plant
4. A pot holding some cactus
Name 3
yellow things you see from where you sit.1. The yellow on my can of compressed air
2. A #2 pencil
3. My smiley face "You make the difference" ball
Name 2
purple things you see from where you sit.1. The heading on my "Weekly Errands" list
2. The background on Eler Beth's school picture
Name 1
black thing you see from where you sit.1. My Bible
My sister P.J. sent this to me:
Remember, old folks are worth a fortune, with silver in their hair and gold in their teeth, stones in their kidneys, lead in their feet and gas in their stomachs.
She brought her bird outside for a while, too. Lucy is getting good about letting Eler Beth carry her around on her hand or arm, but Eler Beth still has to wear thick gloves. She was walking in the lower part of the yard when she saw a little garter snake, and she didn't freak out this time. She is very proud of herself!
My flapper weather pixie says it is 60 degrees right now, but it isn't; it's only 47. It's a very sunny, nice 47, though.
Well, we're having lunch right now, so I thought I'd pop in and say hi. Guess I'll talk to everyone later.
This week has seemed to drag on for me. It is a gorgeous day, though, although not as warm as it was on Monday. I had some sort of a bug over the weekend. I made a very fifties-American-housewife-type-meal Saturday night of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, peas and carrots, and rolls, and then I couldn't eat any of it!
I was over the worst of it by Monday, but I still didn't feel very energetic until today. Last night I made a sumptious elk roast. That was the first night I really felt like eating much.
Does anyone else out there sautee mushrooms and then sit and eat them like candy??
I sauteed some for the roast last night, and after they were ready and I put them in a dish to wait till time to add them to the roast, I started snacking on them while I was cooking. I ended up eating about half of what I had fixed, so I had to slice and sautee some more!
Well, I hope everyone has had a good week so far. I know there have been some deaths in J-land this past week, and others are having other problems with health and other issues. I hope that everyone can find some enjoyment in today, and take advantage of whatever good there is in your life right now.
March has certainly come in like a lion, hasn't it? The tornado in Alabama that ripped through the town of Enterprise killed at least 8 people, 5 of them in the local high school, which was destroyed. Enterprise is about 30 miles from where Thomas' youngest brother lives. We are having some high winds right now, and it has rained off and on all day, with buckets of rain coming down at times.
Eler Beth was feeling much better today, but I'm not really feeling so hot. I think it's just sinuses and drainage, though. We took Eler Beth's cockatiel to get its wings clipped today, and found out that it is a girl, not a boy. I had said a few days ago that it might be, because I'd been reading up on them and noticed that it's tail feathers are still barred.
So instead of Louie, we have Luci. We took her to a friend of ours who owns a pet store with her husband. She clipped the wings and nails for us and said she's pretty sure it's a female. She also complimented us on how pretty she is. I normally would have bought a bird from them and not from a chain store, but Lucy really grabbed at our hearts. We'd been watching her for three days before we bought her. She is so interested in what's going on around her and so personable. Her cage is in front of a window, and she's been mimicking the song birds. She sings (whistles) about the same times each morning and afternoon.
She's been letting Eler Beth handle her more and more lately, even sitting on her arm. Now we can get her out of the cage without fear of her flying off. Our friend has a pair of breeders and when they have another male, we'll probably get it and hand-feed it. That would make a neat home-school project, wouldn't it??
Well, ta for now. I hope no one out there is having anysevere weather.
How do you prefer your peanut butter? I love peanut butter on toast, and I like peanut butter and bananas. Once in a while I crave a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich with a glass of milk. I'm not too awfully fond of peanut butter cookies, unless they're the kind my sister, Barbara makes. She makes these peanut butter puffs, using whipped egg whites. Of course I can't eat them now because of my egg allergy, but I used to love them when I was little.
I also like a smoothie that I make using peanut butter and bananas. Do you prefer creamy or crunchy? I prefer creamy, but once in a while I like crunchy.
