The good news is...

...there's only 2 days of school left this week.

Dancing with the Stars, The Finals is on, so I'm out!

(My prediction - Mya will win. I would love to see Donny win, since it would be a major win for us old folks. On the other hand, I have completely fallen in love with Kelly while watching this season, so it would be great for her to win. However, so far, her scores have been crap, so the only way I see her winning is if she gets all the viewer votes.)

Email of the Day

I've received this email several times over the years, as I'm sure all of you who are fellow teachers have, also. But, it still touches me every time, and reminds me just exactly why I get up every morning and go to the Hell-Hole...

As she stood in front of her 5th grade class on the very first day of school, she told the children an untruth. Like most teachers, she looked at her students and said that she loved them all the same. However, that was impossible, because there in the front row, slumped in his seat, was a little boy named Teddy Stoddard.

Mrs. Thompson had watched Teddy the year before and noticed that he did not play well with the other children, that his clothes were messy and that he constantly needed a bath. In addition, Teddy could be unpleasant. It got to the point where Mrs. Thompson would actually take delight in marking his papers with a broad red pen, making bold X's and then putting a big "F" at the top of his papers.

At the school where Mrs. Thompson taught, she was required to review each child's past records and she put Teddy's off until last. However, when she reviewed his file, she was in for a surprise.

Teddy's first grade teacher wrote, "Teddy is a bright child with a ready laugh. He does his work neatly and has good manners... he is a joy to be around.."

His second grade teacher wrote, "Teddy is an excellent student, well liked by his classmates, but he is troubled because his mother has a terminal illness and life at home must be a struggle."

His third grade teacher wrote, "His mother's death has been hard on him. He tries to do his best, but his father doesn't show much interest, and his home life will soon affect him if some steps aren't taken."

Teddy's fourth grade teacher wrote, "Teddy is withdrawn and doesn't show much interest in school. He doesn't have many friends and he sometimes sleeps in class."

By now, Mrs. Thompson realized the problem and she was ashamed of herself. She felt even worse when her students brought her Christmas presents, wrapped in beautiful ribbons and bright paper, except for Teddy's. His present was clumsily wrapped in the heavy, brown paper that he got from a grocery bag. Mrs. Thompson took pains to open it in the middle of the other presents. Some of the children started to laugh when she found a rhinestone bracelet with some of the stones missing, and a bottle that was one-quarter full of perfume. But she stifled the children's laughter when she exclaimed how pretty the bracelet was, putting it on, and dabbing some of the perfume on her wrist.

Teddy Stoddard stayed after school that day just long enough to say, "Mrs. Thompson, today you smelled just like my Mom used to." After the children left, she cried for at least an hour. On that very day, she quit teaching reading, writing and arithmetic. Instead, she began to teach children.

Mrs. Thompson paid particular attention to Teddy. As she worked with him, his mind seemed to come alive. The more she encouraged him, the faster he responded. By the end of the year, Teddy had become one of the smartest children in the class and, despite her lie that she would love all the children the same, Teddy became one of her "teacher's pets."

A year later, she found a note under her door, from Teddy, telling her that she was the best teacher he ever had in his whole life. Six years went by before she got another note from Teddy. He then wrote that he had finished high school, third in his class, and she was still the best teacher he ever had in life. Four years after that, she got another letter, saying that while things had been tough at times, he'd stayed in school, had stuck with it, and would soon graduate from college with the highest of honors. He assured Mrs. Thompson that she was still the best and favorite teacher he had ever had in his whole life.

Then, four more years passed and yet another letter came. This time he explained that after he got his bachelor's degree, he decided to go a little further. The letter explained that she was still the best and favorite teacher he ever had. But now his name was a little longer... The letter was signed, Theodore F. Stoddard, MD.

The story does not end there. You see, there was yet another letter that spring. Teddy said he had met this girl and was going to be married. He explained that his father had died a couple of years ago and he was wondering if Mrs. Thompson might agree to sit at the wedding in the place that was usually reserved for the mother of the groom. Of course, Mrs. Thompson did. And guess what? She wore that bracelet, the one with several rhinestones missing. Moreover, she made sure she was wearing the perfume that Teddy remembered his mother wearing on their last Christmas together.

They hugged each other, and Dr. Stoddard whispered in Mrs. Thompson's ear, "Thank you, Mrs. Thompson, for believing in me. Thank you so much for making me feel important and showing me that I could make a difference." Mrs. Thompson, with tears in her eyes, whispered back. She said, "Teddy, you have it all wrong. You were the one who taught me that I could make a difference. I didn't know how to teach until I met you." (For you that don't know, Teddy Stoddard is the Dr. at Iowa Methodist in Des Moines that has the Stoddard Cancer Wing.)

"Believe in Angels, then return the favor"

Potpourri

Here are a few pictures from my uncle's surprise party this past Sunday. This was the moment he walked in.
Here he is enjoying an after dinner drink with one of my cousins.

This isn't the greatest picture, but I wanted to get the four siblings all together. They're actually arranged oldest to youngest. My Aunt Marylou, my Aunt Lucy, my mom and Uncle Ed.

Yesterday was Report Card Pick-Up Day, which is Chicago's version of parent/teacher conferences. In a nutshell, it was fine. I actually had the highest number of parents show up in all the years I've been at the Hell-Hole. 23 out of 27 report cards were picked up. I'm actually shocked because it was rainy and miserable here all day yesterday, which usually keeps the parents away. AND, I had 18 parents show up before our dinner break, which is unheard of! Normally, I only have 3 or 4 parents before the dinner break, then I get about 10-15 during the last 15 minutes of the night. It was completely the opposite yesterday. I had promised the babies that if every single report card was picked up, we would have a pizza party. Man, they must have worked on their parents because it was pretty damn close.

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Today, I enjoyed a day away from the Hell-Hole. New Principal let 7 of us go to a conference today. SEVEN! I still can't believe it. That's a hell of a lot of subs. The conference was only from 9-1, which made for a nice short work day, huh? Unfortunately, the conference was really a waste of time. Yeah, that's right, I actually STAYED!! Pick your jaws up off the floor, people! There were too many other teachers there for me to ditch. Actually, all but 1 of them would have ditched with me had I asked, but that one probably would have ratted us all out. Anyway, the conference, it turned out, was just a 4 hour sales pitch for software! Ugh! But, on the bright side, we were finished before 1, so we all were able to chat for about 20 minutes before I had to leave to pick up Stud. I actually picked him up a little early from school because he had an orthodontist appointment. Even after all was said and done, I was still home before 2:30. Not bad, right?
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There are only 13 school days left with the babies before our glorious Christmas break. Woo hoo! The countdown above is the number of actual days, but the number of days that include the babies is so much more important! ;-) The only downside to this is that I only have a handful of days to do any kind of Christmas activities. I only have 9 days between Thanksgiving and the break to do what I usually do in a month's time. We'll just have to make the best of it. I'm willing to step up and take on for the team on this one. tee hee!

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Last week we had a bit of a heat wave here in ChiTown, and it hit nearly 70 for a few days. All of my planter boxes in front of my house sprouted new growth, and there are tons of new blooms. I was awestruck yesterday when I went out to get my mail. (I really should go out and takes pictures for you, because the flowers truly are beautiful.) Anyway, this week, the temperatures have been dropping rapidly, and there has been talk of some snow in the next few days. WTF? God, I LOVE Chicago!!!!

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I almost forgot! Here are a couple of pictures of Princess Sylvia! She is so damn cute! We had such a fun visit before going to work yesterday. I kept telling Mrs. F. that I was going to put her in my purse and take her with me to school!

The happy family!

No news...

...on BJ's condition today. I've placed several calls to friends, but no one has heard anything yet. Please continue to pray for her and her family.

Tomorrow is Report Card Pick-Up Day, which means the stress level is pretty elevated this week. When I left at 4:00, my report cards had STILL not been printed out! WTF? We're supposed to be giving report cards to parents TOMORROW, so it makes perfect sense to wait until this afternoon to try printing them out, right? Especially given that we were required to have all grades entered into the computer by November-freakin'-6th! I guess CPS couldn't figure out a way to print them any other day in the past two weeks.

We were also supposed to get a "packet" today with things like our sign-in sheet for parents and other papers for tomorrow. New Principal told us at the 8:30 staff meeting that we would be getting it at some point today. Again, when I left at 4:00, no packet! Whatever. I'm not going to worry about it. I'm sure I'll have plenty of time to get everything together when I get there, since none of my parents will be there when it starts. (little side note-New Principal was very excited about her double-chocolate brownies, but insisted that I put the tray out at the meeting to share with the staff.)

I completely forgot to share that Mrs. F. had her baby last week. Yay!! And, how completely apropos that Little Miss Sylvia Maria entered the world on Veteran's Day, given that both her parents are military and her daddy just recently came back from Afghanistan. What a good girl!! Seriously, her daddy was very stoked about that. :)

My friend, Mrs. J. (my next door neighbor) and I are going to Miss Sylvia tomorrow before work. The one nice thing about Report Card Pick-Up Day is that we don't start until 12:00. (On the flip side, that means we have to work til 6:15, which kinda sucks.) So, we're bringing Mommy and Baby some breakfast, and we're going to visit for a while before work. I'm very excited. It's been a long time since I've had the pleasure of being around a newborn. It will be a nice little reminder that life does, indeed, go on...

The Last 24 Hours

• Got a phone call from a friend letting me know that another friend (and former coworker) had fallen ill. Some sort of degenerative brain thing. It doesn't look good, they say she probably has less than 2 weeks to live.

• Drop Stud off at school at 7am. Came home, got dressed for work. As I was leaving for work, got a phone call from school, had to go pick up Stud cuz he's sick. When I got there, I was greeted by an incredibly rude school nurse. She shrieked at me that "I TOLD HIM ON FRIDAY THAT HE NEEDED TO GO SEE THE DOCTOR!"

• Arrived late for work. Play a rousing game of text tag with CSJ all day, as we tried to arrange to get Stud to the doctor's office. Finally received a text saying we had a 2:30 appointment. Too bad I work til 2:45.... Luckily New Principal agreed to let me leave at 2:00.

• Got a call from a different friend (my friend at work in the room next door, who used to work with me at my last school, too) to let me know that our friend had taken a turn for the worse this afternoon, and isn't expected to make it through the night.

I don't even know how to wrap my brain around this news. My friend, BJ, was my first kindergarten partner. We had the best gig ever. My last school was severely overcrowded when I was there, and we rented out a small 6-room school from the church down the block. Four of those rooms were used for preschool, and the other two were kdg. We were the first two kindergarten teachers to use those rooms in ages when we opened them up. It was seriously one of the best school years I can ever remember. I had the most wonderful partner, and it was glorious to be away from the main building! Our kindergartners were the Big Fish in our wonderfully small pond! There is a park about 2 blocks from this building that we used to walk the kids to for recess several times a week. There were so many other wonderful things that we were able to do together. We both started at that school at the same time, and even after I left there 5 years later, we stayed in touch.

Sadly, I hadn't seen BJ in person in a very long time. Over the past few years, we played several games of phone tag. We were lucky if we actually had a conversation more than once a year. But, we never gave up trying to stay in touch.

When I got the call last night, I was floored. The friend who called only knew limited details, and she knew I'd want to know since BJ and I were so close when we worked together. When my other friend called tonight, I was even more blown away. We know now that BJ contracted Mad Cow, but we don't know how. I'm having so much trouble wrapping my head around the fact that by tomorrow, she probably will no longer be with us.

As I called a few friends who used to work with us, I kept having the same conversation over and over. All of us feel so bad that we let life get away from us. We always SAY "we need to get together," but then life gets in the way, and it doesn't happen. BJ and I must have said that 100 times. Now, I'll never get the chance to do that, and it's just so very sad.

I think I'm still in a state of shock about the whole situation, as my emotions have not really taken a hold of me yet. However, I'm dreading that next phone call from one of my former coworkers/friends, because I know it won't be good news.

I'm having yet another Pampered Chef party in a couple of weeks, and BJ was, naturally, on my guest list. I had no idea that she was sick and in the hospital. Now, in some strange way, I'm feeling guilty about sending her the invitation. I want to go get it from her house, so her mother and sisters won't see it. In some way, I feel like it shows what a bad friend I was, that I didn't even know she was sick. One of my friends had a different take on it, though, and said it will show her family that she had friends that missed her and cared about her. I don't know what to think. This whole situation is just so surreal. I simply can NOT wrap my brain around it yet.

I'll tell you one thing, though. I will no longer feel bad for having so many parties, Pampered Chef or otherwise. I sometimes feel bad that I'm always inviting my friends to something. It makes me feel kinda like a pest at times. But now, I'm going to focus on the fact that every party is an opportunity to get together with the people I love, and every invitation they receive is a reminder of how much I love them and love to spend time with them. So, let the Drunken Kitchen Fest commence!!! (my last few PC parties turned into just drunken messes! gee, could it have anything to do with my new-found bartending skills?)

Please send thoughts and prayers for BJ to have a peaceful passing, and for her family to be comforted in this time of sorrow.

I can't end on such a sad note, so let me tell you that Stud was diagnosed with a sinus infection. The doctor prescribed a Z-pack and an antihistamine. AND, I made sure I got a note saying that he is cleared to return to school so Nurse Nasty can stick it up her.....ok, take a breath.....ooo, she was so nasty! If I wasn't already late for work, I would have gone straight to the principal to let him know about her pleasant bedside manner! My only response to her screeching was, "Oh, I wasn't aware that you saw my son on Friday." I mean, seriously, WTF? If you feel a child is sick enough to go to the doctor, perhaps you should contact a parent. Why would you tell a child to go see a doctor, and expect something to happen? Ugh! Anyway, I hope the note is enough.

OK, it's time to get the brownies out of the oven that I'm baking for New Principal. She was wonderful today when I had to ask to leave early. I thought for sure I would get a bit of an attitude, given that I came in late already. But, she couldn't have been more accommodating. I suppose that's one of the benefits of having a working mom for a boss.

Happy Birthday! (updated)

(I just got home from the awesome party, and I have a couple of little things to change/update about the story below, since we talked about it at the party! I added the changes in red.)

Today is my favorite uncle's birthday. The big 6-0!! He is my mom's younger brother, the baby of the family (and only boy!). Since my mother was about 12 when she got married, my uncle was still in high school when I was born. Let me share something he wrote for English class his senior year.

Lisa Marie

As I walked into the bedroom, she was sleeping. I went over to her and kissed her cheek. Her head turned as she stretched her beautiful body. When she opened her eyes, it seemed as though someone had turned the lights on, they were bright as stars. She looked at me and smiled. A sudden warmth rushed through me. I sat next to her and kissed her again. Chills ran down my spine, as she ran her fingers through my hair. As I touched my face to hers, it seemed as if the sun had just come out on a cloudy day. Her skin was soft as velvet. "Lisa," I whispered in her ear, "surely you are the most beautiful girl in the world." But, she said nothing -- because at four months, she had not yet learned to talk.

This is something I have always treasured. I have the original paper he wrote (complete with the big red A he received!) with the rest of my childhood keepsakes. I have so many wonderful memories from my childhood that involve my uncle.

One of my favorite stories happened when I was just under 2 years old, so I don't actually remember the incident, but I will forever remember the story. My uncle had come to pick me up to spend some time with me. As we were driving down the street, some lunatic flew out of an alley, across the street we were on, and back into the alley. My uncle slammed on the brakes, and, being the late 60s, I was not in a car seat, or even in a seatbelt. I flew into the dashboard, and hit my head.

Naturally, I started to bleed like a stuck pig. My uncle raced back to my parent's house, carried me up to the house and banged on the door. When my mother opened the door, he said, "HERE!" threw me at her, covered in blood, and took off.

My mother, of course, freaked the hell out at seeing her baby covered in blood. She started cleaning me up, and finally found the cut on my forehead. It wasn't even big enough for my mother to take me for stitches. Apparently, my mother DID take me to the hospital since it was a head injury, and I received ONE stitch!

In the meantime, my uncle drove around the neighborhood until he found the car that cut us off. It was parked outside a neighborhood bar. He went in, asked whose car it was, then dragged the assbag outside and beat the ever-living snot out of him!! The whole time, he kept screaming at the dirtbag that he hurt his baby niece. My hero!!! He's STILL my hero!

I think about that story every time I look in the mirror, and see my scar. And, it makes me giggle a little inside every time. :)

Happy Birthday, Uncle Ed!!!

In a couple hours, we will all be getting together for a surprise party for him. This will be the third Sunday out of the past four that the whole family will be together. I can’t wait. My family is a riot!

Today is also my bestest friend’s birthday! It might not be the most recent photo, but trust me, we’re still just as cute!! (If you look close enough, you can see my scar! Maybe click on the photo to enlarge it.)

Happy Birthday, My Bestest Friend!!

Email of the Day

Save on Christmas lights this year.....