A Random Kid Funny

With the little extra money I've made on the side doing the diva birthday parties for the local photography studio, I decided to jump on board the ugly-shoes-for-a-good-cause bandwagon and bought a pair of petal pink Toms.  If you aren't familiar with Toms, they give a pair of shoes to a child in need with every pair of shoes they sell.  Anyway, I wore my new ugly shoes earlier this week and I had a kid at school ask me if she could have my shoes.  When I told her "No way!", she then asked, "Can I have them when you grow out of them?"  Ahhh, kids.

Time flies when you're old

This upcoming week is the 5th week of school, but it marks the end of the "first six weeks" grading period.  Our school year is broken up into 6 six-week periods, yet I don't think any of them are actually six weeks in length.  The first semester is all like 5 week chunks, and the second semester is usually 7 week chunks.  Weird, huh?  Anyway, the point of all this rambling is that I can *not* believe that we are already 1/6th of the way done with this new school year.  It seems like school just started yesterday.  Time really does go by fast when you get old.  All you youngsters...you've been warned.

Pray for Rain

As you may know, Texas has had the hottest summer ever and the worst drought (maybe ever).  People have had to sell their cattle because there is nothing to feed them.  Trees are dying and the grass crunches when you walk on it.  And just in the past few weeks we have had an outbreak of wildfires.  Some are a result of arson, some are the result of idiocy. 97% of the state has been under a burn ban for months, yet people are still trying to barbecue on charcoal grills.  This  video is a fire that started yesterday to the south of me, and we could see the smoke at our house.  Of course this morning we had to breathe the smoke as it was low-lying throughout the town.  This fire started because some redneck went to set up his deer camp and parked his vehicle in tall grass and left it running while he ran about on the 4-wheeler.  Of course the heat from the vehicle caught the grass on fire and burned his vehicle up and many, many acres.  I am so thankful for all the volunteer firefighters that have been working day and night to try to contain these fires. 

Where Were You?

As you are more than well aware, it is the 10th anniversary of the horrific attacks that took place on September 11, 2001.  I still remember where I was when I learned of the plane crashing into the World Trade Center.  It was my last semester of college and I was student teaching in first grade at Sunflower Elementary School in Andover, Kansas.  Classes started at 8:30 a.m. CST, so when I arrived shortly after 8:00 that morning, my cooperating teacher had gotten wind that something major was going on and had turned on the news on the tv in the classroom.  I could hardly believe what we were seeing.  It was all very surreal.  Of course the kids started to arrive so we had to shut the tv off and act as normal as we could.  When the kids were at lunch or at activity, the news was back on and everyone was glued to it.  The mood among the entire faculty was very somber.  It's a day I will never forget.

Where were you on 9/11?

Friday Night Fun!

I had the great pleasure of attending a 7-year-old's birthday party this Friday night.  Sound like fun?  Believe it or not, it was!  A local photography studio in town offers Lil' Diva birthday parties where the guests get to play dress up, walk the red carpet, eat cake, and have a photo shoot.  The photographers (who are also educators at my school) had invited me to come help out.  Well, I have always loved dress-up and playing with makeup so it sounded like more fun than my usual Friday nights, which consist of Michael passing out on the couch and me trying to stay up until 10.  It definitely was more exciting than that!  I got to be the makeup artist and help glam up all the girls. I did my best to make sure they still looked like little girls and not the hooker clowns you see on Toddlers & Tiaras. The girls were so excited and several told me they felt like celebrities.  They were so cute!  I even made a little money.  Not bad for entertaining my makeup artist fantasy for a couple hours. However, I was very thankful to come home to a child-free home after the two hours of squealing laughter.

Oh Happy Day!

This past March I went to Kansas for Spring Break and brought back an antique pump organ that was taking up too much space in my parents' house.  I already had a spot picked out for it in my living room.  But, when I got it in the house, the top piece was just  a smidge too tall to fit where I wanted it.  So we had to put it against another wall and the room began to feel very cramped.  We have a moisture problem with two of our walls and I didn't want the organ to get moisture damage, so there was only one place to put it. ( But as of 5 minutes ago, I have ordered a dehumidifier and hope that helps with the problem...and my allergies!  That's one of the downsides to having a windowless living room and not running the a/c at night or during the day when we're at work...horrible basement-like conditions.)

Anyway, the hubs and I tossed around the idea for a few months about getting rid of the shelf that was causing the organ not to fit where we wanted it.  We were afraid it might look really stupid.  But we woke up bright and early today and hacked that shelf off.  Then I painted all the shelves and the wall.  The organ fits perfectly and I am super-happy with the results!  See for yourself:

This is what it looked like after we cut the shelf.  You can see the brown line where it used to be.

This is the organ in its new home.  Our living room feel much more open now!