Saturday, July 5, 2008

Saturday

Now that the fireworks are over here in the US, there's finally some quiet in my neighborhood. We live next to this huge housing development. There are more than a half a dozen "neighborhoods" in this one development. It is so large it has it's own pool, swimteam, clubhouse, grocery store and newspaper. Personally I think it's a cult. They even convinced one of the most popular pizza places in the neighborhood to shut down on the 4th of July and come sell food exclusively for them.

One benefit of living next to cult central is that we do get to see the fireworks display they put on each year. It is so large the city in which we all reside moved it's fireworks display to the 3rd so it didn't conflict. I'm telling you it's scary. One of the neighborhoods has a 25 lb. weight restriction for dogs in thier covenant and they actually weigh people's dogs. Another made someone I know take a small ceramic statue of a dog off their front step. It was less than a foot high and white. I am not a big fan of homeowners associations.

I'll be rolling out the contest for Lovers' Stone on Monday, so make sure to stop by and figure out how to win a genuine diamond and ruby pendant with matching ruby ear studs. The hero was one of my favorite guys to write. He pulled no punches and had no diva fits during the writing. He sat down and we knocked out his story in about three weeks time.

I got the dreaded school letter on Thursday. Each year my principal sends out an "almost time to come back" letter telling us the schedule for preplanning events. The arrival of that letter is the beginning of the end for the summer vacation. New teachers and leadership staff have to report back on the 25th of July. I have to report back on the 30th. I'll be there sooner however, because the scheduled the open house for parents on the 31st. So I have to get my entire room ready to go in one day skirting around the faculty meetings that are scheduled. And since we have to completely box up our rooms and strip our walls, that means I have to start from scratch every year. The one year I didn't go in early I had parents complain that my room was awfully "bare".

About ten days left until we find out if we have a girl Smudgie or a boy Smudgie. That is if Smudgie cooperates. We now keep hearing how so and so couldn't tell because the baby was positioned wrong. Such an occurance may cause the SO fits as the line around here has been, "Let's wait until we know what we're having." Curtains, furniture, bedding, clothing and even name selection have been put off "until we know what we're having." Very sensible advice if you didn't live with the OCD queen of "lets do it now!now!now!" Unless of course I'm talking about writing then I become the queen of procrastination.

I've written nothing in a couple of days.

Go check out Anny Cook, Amarinda Jones, Kelly Kirch or Sandra Cox. All have delightful blogs that are far more interesting than mine.

5 comments:

Anny Cook said...

Well I wouldn't say that exactly. I found your blog quite interesting. But I'm not sure I would want to be involved in a school system that runs nearly year round. Enjoy your time off!

Unknown said...

Going back to school huh? Sounds pukeable.

I predict Smudgie is a girl...what about calling her Janet or Amarinda?

Phoenix said...

If Smudgie doesn't cooperate (J didn't and we did this) ask the operator to leave for a minute and then get up and jump around. It wakes the baby and they try to get comfy again. Also, babies kick when you drink a carbonated beverage. It's how they check to see if there is fetal movement if things seem really quiet to the mom. Maybe take a 7up with you too. It worked for us more than once.

Molly Daniels said...

I 'cheated' with my daughter and it took the thrill out of the delivery. JMHO.

Gads...school stuff already? And how dare those parents complain about the 'bare' room? Teachers ought to have a life out of school too, you know! They're just jealous 'cause you get 'the summer off' while they only get 2 weeks, ha ha!

JacquƩline Roth said...

Yeah, but "summer off" is getting smaller and smaller all the time. We were in school til after the first week of June and now go back the last week of July. I swear if they didn't need the time to do the major building repairs and maintenance, they'd make us go year round.