Overheard Recently

With the end, the school year definitely went out on a humorous note.  

Yesterday, one of my boys was mad at someone and wanted to call him a name to hurt his feelings so he said, "you're just a burnt potato."   I am still laughing about that one.  

Today I only had 7 of my 17 kids there so it was a basically a free day with lots of play time as I cleaned.  

The three girls decided to play house/school and these are the things I over heard...

"No!  Our parents don't really care about us.  We live alone."

Still playing school
 "I'll see you at lunch"  3 seconds later, "okay, it's lunchtime."  

"Pretend our mom went away - she said she was only going to be gone a day but instead she's been gone a year and now we have to find our dad."  

***Side note***
#1 and 3 would not be as funny if I did not know these girls came from good homes.  

After lunch, we played heads up/7-up and one of the boys guessed who put his thumb down immediately.  So this conversation occurred...
"you cheated"
"no, I didn't"
"you did too.  You looked"

wait for it.....

"no, i didn't.  I saw you with my mind"

Oh boy

Universal Summer #2

Last night we headed into Universal for our second summer evening.  We had perfect weather this weekend so, with it also being a holiday weekend, I did not know what to expect as far as crowds but I was pleasantly surprised.   In the end, we were able to get on 7 things.  

We started out on the Mummy - thankfully I was able to ride this time because concussion = over!  Then went over to Men in Black.

I suck so badly at this ride but thanks to a 100,000 bonus at the end of the ride, I still pulled out a respectable score.  

After that, we headed over to Islands of Adventure and went on the Seuss Trolley and Forbidden Journey.  By this time, I needed a drink badly and I had forgotten my refillable cup (which I will usually just get filled with cold, filtered, free water) so I decided to just splurge on icees and the three of us shared two drinks.  Very refreshing.  

After that, CJ and Zack went on Jurassic Park while I took a bathroom break.  When we walked passed King Kong, we noticed it had re-opened so we hopped in a very short line, and then we hit Spiderman on the way out.  

Fun evening!

School Gathering

There was no school today (by the way, how do we only have 1.5 days left?)  Instead, we had to go to Tampa for a "family gathering from noon to 3:00. (i.e all three branches of Kids Community College).   

There was great food (Chipotle), games, speeches, and awards.  Before leaving, they handed out these small boxes and had us all open it together after counting to 3.  


I was SHOCKED by what was inside:




What a blessing. It is badly needed right now.  

Also...I'd like to know who had the brilliant idea of going to Tampa on the Friday before Memorial Day.  90% of my drive home was spent going under 30 MPH!!!!!  

Welcome to Another Edition of 'It Could Only Happen to Me'

I am so serious -  I could not even make this stuff up!

So...I got up this morning about 6 and got all ready to enjoy my last Friday of school.  I made my way down to my car at 6:50 - a little earlier than usual- with visions of a Dunkin Donuts stop for a toasted almond coffee and maybe a muffin or a donut. Aaaannnndddd...my car would not start!  

For a while there I actually thought myself as being lucky (**silly silly foolish me**).  You see, my dad just gifted me with a pair of jumper cables on Sunday!  So I flagged down a neighbor and we gave it a good try and it was close to turning over, but just wouldn't.  He didn't speak but a few words of English but I got his message and he felt my battery was too far gone to be charged.  

I called work and headed upstairs to contemplate my choices.  I finally decided the easiest (or so I thought), cheapest (or so I thought), and quickest (or so I thought) option was seeing if I could borrow C.J.'s car for a time until I can decide what I want to do.  This way, at least I would be able to get to school by lunchtime (or so I thought).  You see a theme here?  

I then paid $50.00 to have a cab pick me up and drive me to C.J.'s school to get the key, and then to his house to pick up his car. Aaaannnndddd...his car wouldn't start!!!!  Thankfully Chris and his friend were home to help out.  We tried jumping the car to no avail - again.  They have AAA so a call was placed and I waited - and waited- and waited.  They came to replace the battery in his car but also said there was no oil in the car!   

Soooo...a run to the gas station for 2 quarts of oil was next and I then drove the car straight to Penzoil for an oil change.  By this time it was after 2:00 and making it into work was not happening.

Ugh!   I still don't know what I am going to do about my car.  I do think it is the battery and may eventually turn over if given enough time... at least that will allow me to get it into a garage for a new battery.  Or, I may just bite the bullet and get that new car I was going to get over the summer.  

But at least, for now, I have a car to get to work tomorrow, and possibly next week ---even if the air doesn't work and the temps are in the 90's. Beggars can't be choosers.   

Sea World Field Trip

When you live in Florida...there are some awesome field trip choices.  Today, we took our second graders to Sea World (along with about 80 other schools!)

Since I live right across the street, I would love to have been able to just walk over and meet everyone there.  But, alas, that was not to be as I needed to be the teacher!  And once we were on the bus I wished even more that I had been able to meet them there since there was no air conditioning!  A couple of the chaperones decided they were going to call an uber driver for the trip home if the air conditioning was still broken.  Thankfully, it was not!  

I was under the assumption that the killer whale shows had been terminated but they have somehow managed to change the show from entertainment to educational.  

Pictures from the day:

Petting the sting rays

And my favorite --- the dolphins.  They loved the human touch

This dolphin was sitting on the edge because he really wanted to be touched but, sadly, we could not reach it. 

We had a beautiful day

Confessions

Since I do not have a camera and my life is nothing but a bottomless pit of nothingness...I thought I would just state some random, meaningless confessions.  

1). I am not sad that the school year is almost over.  Sure, I love my kids and there are some that are so good and I will miss them terribly.  But, as a whole class, they never really reached the bar I set for behavior.  On a daily basis we are still experiencing endless talking, constant tattling (and I stand by my rule of NEVER saying, "stop tattling"- most of the time I just listen say something useless like, "really" or "oh"and they seem satisfied), and the drama- oh the fighting and drama.  Of course, I love every one of them as they are but they are just SO! MUCH! WORK!   

2). There are certain things I will miss like the little bits of humor they bring to my day.  Like the other day when I was talking about my Italian-speaking grandfather and some of the Italian things he would say to me.  One of my boys then says (as serious as can be), "my dad knows how to speak pig Latin."  

3).  I selfishly enjoy seeing proof of academic growth in my students.  It gives me a sense of satisfaction that I did my job well.  Based on the end of the year testing, 10 of my students experienced a growth of over 105% in Reading and of over 85% in Math.  As a reference, 50% would be average growth.  My lowest reader, who actually could not read at all at the beginning of the year, went from the 2% to the 26%!   

4). Sometimes I use a metal spoon in a Teflon pan - just because I can!  Only my sons will understand that one. 

5). I watch Downton Abby far more than I probably should. I don't have cable anymore, and Youtube, Netfllix, and Amazon are okay, but, for some reason, I never tire of watching Downton Abbey.  I have seasons 1-5 and will watch anywhere from 1-3 episodes every night.  I need to get my act together and get season 6.  

6). I've become the "squirrel lady."  They wait for me to come home, follow me up the stairs, and wait outside my door for peanuts.  A couple times when we left our door open, they walked right into my apartment!  

There you go...6 random, nonsense, confessions.  

Universal Summer #1

We decided to commence our Universal summer evenings on Saturday.  I was a little unsure about going since I was still experiencing headaches, which was also accompanied by dizziness, fog brain, and drowsiness.  I figured I probably had a slight concussion from getting hit with the ball last week and going on spinning and jerking rides were off the table for me.  

But we had a good time anyway (despite it being crazy busy)!  We started with dinner at Chick-fil-a...which was great since I had a gift card (a teacher appreciation week gift).

From there we parked and tried to enter Islands of Adventure but Zack's card was blocked so I had to wait about 20 -25 minutes in the customer service line.  The problem ended up being two missed payments. OOOPS! A while back I cancelled my debit card when I noticed some suspicious activity on it.  So, obviously, they were not able to draw out the payments.  

Once that was straight, we went on Cat in the Hat, took the Hogwarts Express to Universal,  and then Zack and CJ went on Mummy while I sat and waited.

We ended the evening by riding ET, which, I guess is being closed for refurbishment soon.  Why at peak tourist season I have no idea.  
With that, we put a period at the end of our first summer Universal evening.  Every time we do something like this I think about how lucky we are to be living in this area and how can jump in the car and be at the theme park within minutes.  

Pictures are from CJ's cell phone since I still do not have a camera.  

Gloom, Despair AgonyPart II

Aaaaand......

Now I've lost my voice!   




In all seriousness though, I don't believe in luck -good or bad.  But c'mon man....this is getting ridiculous.  I've never lost my voice before and now, this is the second time this school year (last time was in August). And unless I get it back before school starts tomorrow, we'll be watching a lot of movies and doing a lot of silent reading. 

Check back tomorrow for our first summer Universal evening review.  

Gloom, Despair, and Agony on Me

When I was little, my dad would watch Hee Haw on Saturdays.  There was a part in the show when four men would sing a song which included the words, "if it weren't for back luck, I'd have no luck at all,"  and, boy, those words could be printed on a tee-shirt for me wear!  

Just in the past week:

- the battery in my small camera has now died too!  Yes...I am telling the truth!   Now, I have no camera at all.  I've researched a battery for my Nikon and they are not that expensive - but still not in the budget until the middle of the month.   

- my car insurance deducted $150.00 too much last week from my checking account and overdrew my account.  They kindly acknowledged their mistake and paid my overdraft fee but adamantly refused to refund the money saying they could only apply it as a credit to my account, leaving me short on rent this month.  FINALLY, yesterday, I was able to speak with a manager who agreed to a refund but it will take a couple business days for the money to make it to my account so I had to borrow money from son to make my rent payment!!!   I couldn't make this stuff up!  

- Today, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  I was sitting on the ground at recess talking to one of my students when I was absolutely hammered in the head with a basketball.  It was thrown so hard it knocked me completely over and I was left unable to even sit myself up for a couple minutes.  I am pretty sure I have a slight concussion but not gonna bother going to the doctor.  All I remember is feeling like I was hit with a hammer and then hearing the teachers screaming at the girl while she is apologizing over and over to me.  Turns out she was mad at someone and trying to hit them with the ball - got me instead.  I am still feeling it right now.