Oh, back to Friday and what have I done

This week I have kept myself out of jail. (That should count for something).

I went with a friend to the doctor's so that she wouldn't have to sit there alone. (Good friend points since I appear to have reduced inventory in that category).

I went to see my friend Pam ( she is looking fabulous). She was the first to finish proofing -Go Pam. I have to say I had no idea there were so many hyphens in the world. I knew there were many commas that were under appreciated, but hyphens, good heavens.

I have managed to do all of Pam's corrections, and I have worked on some of the other copy.

I have also done laundry. But that, is that, as they say. I'm a little disappointed that I haven't accomplished more. Oh well.

I also had my house cleaned for the last time (professionally that is). Let's have a moment of silence to mourn the passing of my home being cleaned regularly. Let's face it; it is going to be a little more slip shod now that I'm back in charge.

That's all I got.

Random things in my life

I had a cool Mexican star hanging in the front corner of my porch, but these silly birds started building a nest. So, Emily told me I should take it down. As it turns out, it didn't slow the birds down because they just started building on the column. Crazy birds. Sabrina and Buddy love their rawhides. Sabrina, loves them most as you can tell by the fact she has hers and the one that she stole from poor Buddy. You know for as many pictures of my silly dogs sleeping, they seem to still do a fair amount of damage to everything in the house. Hmmm, curious.

Land of puppies

I can't remember what day it was, but I met up with Cindy, had lunch, and then we went to pick up her new puppy. He is a yellow lab. Sooo cute and huge. What a beast. But soooo adorable.

What have I done with my time?

It's Friday afternoon, and I'm not sure that I have much to show for my time this week.

Let's see, I showed up at the crack of dawn, well, ok 6:45 at the Dallas Court House to get my number for court. I took a picture so that everyone could appreciate how dark it is and how long the line was. I got an afternoon slot. So off I went for lunch with the boys (went fine, I think they are happy with the book so far).

Back to the court house for my 1pm appt with the judge. Actually it was an appointment with a long line of people. The photo is of Officer Smiles (What a great name). The girl talking to him is Jennifer. I met her while in line. She was really nice and a great reality check for me. She was driving along when she got stopped. She already had a ticket that hadn't been paid, so she got sent off to jail. Talk about sucking!! While sitting there I had time to check out some of the outfits people chose to wear to work. I was worried about looking appropriately contrite. This woman might have wanted to just look. Good grief, it doesn't even look comfortable!

Things you really shouldn't forget

I got a letter in the mail from a law firm in San Antonio that said it represents the City of Dallas. It further stated that I had a citation that I needed to clear up immediately.

I started calling this morning, but the lines were busy (totally frustrating). I did manage to get through the automated line to find out it was for a speeding ticket.

I finally spoke to someone this afternoon. Weeeellllll, I got a ticket in September of 2006. I now remember the incident. I was driving with Ann heading south on Preston following her husband when I got stopped.

I apparently called and got a court date for April. This is the good part . . . I failed to record on the palm pilot that I had a court date, so that went flying by.

So, now I have to get up and be at the court house before 7am!!

A Story to tell

OK, so I have a story to tell, and I'm going to tell it because I think more will unfold as time goes by.

Yesterday, we had something going down in the parking garage. A student called me and said there was an accident. Did I want her to take pictures? Of course.

I toddle off after her to see what is going down.

At the garage all of the counselors are milling about keeping kids out. The head of counseling tells me that something is going down with a kid and the police are there etc. so they sent the photographers away.

Stood around for a little bit talking. One of the counselors said that maybe we should make an announcement about students being late to class because we weren't letting them park in the parking garage. I, of course, had my phone. So, I asked if they thought I should call one assistant, no call a second one. He doesn't answer, so I call my friend Susan, principal's sec.

One of the other counselors, we shall call her Hotpants (another story entirely), comes waddling up to me (I know I'm being rude) and says that I shouldn't be calling anyone, that it was none of my business. Then she went running off in the other direction. I thought it was a little freaky, but didn't think much else of it.

I finish talking to the other counselors and mosey my way up to my classroom before 6th period starts.

Moments later I get a call from the principal's secretary that I needed to just teach my class. She was very obviously passing a message along, so I say ok. I call her later to find out moments after I called her the principal called her and asked why I was telling everyone what to do and that we were not going to make any announcement and I should just teach my class????????? What???? She told him that was not exactly what happened, and that she would let me know.

Pretty easy to tell who waddled her butt over to the principal. So, I go down to counseling actually looking for the head of counseling who I really like and figured I could vent to and be done. She wasn't around, so I ended up venting to her assistant. Ok, fine.

No, later I get an email from Hotpants saying that if I'm upset I should talk to her and that she was trying to protect me. Give me a freaking break. It turns out I can take care of myself.

So, I responded, "I'm confused, you were trying to protect me by going to Patrick?"

She of course doesn't respond directly to that, but says that I should stay with my class in the event of an emergency, as if I had a class at the time. Freaking wack job.

Then I find out that one of the assistant principals this morning was saying that I was trying to tell everyone what to do yesterday (I never saw him and word is he got his info from Hotpants)

So now I am really, super duper unhappy. I have sent an email to the head of counseling that I would like to meet with her and with Hotpants (only with another person there).

More later . .

aauuuggghhh

Every freaking year we mess up. We make the staff list, we check it twice, and we still have a mistake. I've already gotten an email from a parent (I'm so glad she emailed and that I checked!) wanting to confirm that her daughter didn't make staff. shoot, shoot, shoot.

Why, oh why, can't we get it right.

On the other hand, it is officially spring break. I have refinanced my house, and I have a bibliography for the book to write. go team.

Latest book update

So, there are now lots of copies of the book out there. I had my girls go through all of my copies of various pages and put them in order because when the pages got printed I realized some of them were old versions that were printed. I'm so annoyed.

With any luck, everyone will peruse their copies, I can get them back in the next couple of weeks, and then do all of the corrections.

In the meantime I can be bibliography girl.

Time for photos

Where shall I begin? First, we finally got snow. Of course, it wasn't enough to get me my one snow day that I desperately needed, but it was pretty. I'm not sure that the dogs knew what to do with it. Did I mention that my friend Roseanne got a puppy. She brought it up to school on my bday. He was so tuckered out by the end he just slept under her desk. I took a short cut home one day and passed a house that had huge carrots and eggs on the front lawn. I love HP. Sabrina loves the sun. Of course I think that part of it is that she gets so exhausted from the mass destruction she causes. Speaking of which, happy news to report. I managed to tape most of the money Sabrina and Buddy ate back together. I merrily took it to Bank of America. Told the teller my sob story. He looked horrified by the way. It's not like you can see the poop or anything. So at any rate, after much conversation with other tellers etc, the vote was to give me non shat on money!! Hooray. I"m only out $20.00

So far this week. . .

Well, I was up until about 12 Sunday night working on the book. Exhausted Monday. Got home Monday afternoon and went on an expedition for my 5 twenties. I am truly impressed with the U.S. governments choice of paper for bills. Money is extremely durable. Although the money was in pieces, I managed to excavate about $40.00. Cleaned it up and pieced pieces together. I got another twenty, but it is missing Ben Franklins face in the middle. There is a last bill that is missing so much that I know I missed a pile o poop somewhere, but I just can't find it. My goal is to tape the money up and then take it Bank of America and beg them for non shat on money. We'll see what happens.

I was up last night until about 2am working on the book. I had to fix spreads and then turn each one into a pdf and then burn disks.

I set the alarm for 5am so that I could get to Kinko's, but that didn't work out. The alarm went off at about 5, but I kept hitting the alarm. At some point it went skidding off the bedside table. I am missing the battery cover on the clock because the stupid dogs ate it (as you may have realized there is NO limit to what they are willing to eat.) So when it goes skidding off the table the batteries fall out. I, still asleep, say to myself, no problem I'll wake up in a second. HA I woke up at about 7am. I hauled it to school where I had a 7:30am meeting with some parents of a dipsy doodle kid who just isn't doing his work.

HOLY crap I just realized I missed the morning meeting and forgot to go to the afternoon faculty meeting. shoot.

OK, at any rate, I called one of my kids who is a sweet heart. She came up grabbed my disk, took it to Kinko's and had copies made.

Now I tried to go pick them up before the meeting with the boys, but they weren't ready. Then I sent someone to get them later, and they weren't printed properly, so then I had to take them back and have them reprinted.

In the meantime, while meeting with the boys they said that they are worried about the mad rush to finish, and they want to slow down enough to make sure that everything is exactly right. That is probably a really good thing. I still have to do the index and bibliography which will probably take up a lot more time than I realize, but maybe I can get back to walking the dogs everyday again.

In the meantime it is almost 5:30. My stomach is burning from all the acid swishing around, my eyes are burning from the total lack of sleep, and I'm dangerously close to taking a bath and going to bed. By dangerously close, I really mean that as soon as I'm done writing, I'm taking a bath and going to bed.

Sunday morning 24 hours to go (approximately)

OK, woke up with a bit of a migraine. No big deal, I've been popping migraine pills for about 4 days now. I'm getting good at functioning while slightly loopy.

Dogs ate my money. I curse them, but fine.

I have about 65 spreads left to finalize and turn into pdfs by tomorrow morning when I need to send them to the plant. Let's not kid ourselves. I really need to have this done tonight.

Did I mention I am crampy?

shit, damn, fuck. (pardon my language)

Unfreaking believeable

So, Hi-lites - girls organization at the high school had a dance last night. I was asked if I would help chaperone (as always when I was asked it was when the book was supposed to be long done.) I agreed because I have a lot of the girls in charge in class.) It is also late enough at night that I couldn't really work if I wanted to because my little eyes start to burn.

At any rate, I worked like the very devil yesterday. Stopped, went to hi-lites. We got out of there totally early (10:30) came home left the money on the desk in the tv room.

I went in there this morning I swear just minutes after letting the dogs out of their cages . . . Sabrina ate the money. ALL of it. She left two pieces of two different twenties. . . that is it. . .

No snow day and he is letting my dogs eat my money. WHAT HAVE I DONE TO YOU LORD????

Things you don't want to see at 7am

So yesterday morning I let the dogs out to go to the bathroom. Sabrina immediately finds a place and starts peeing. By the way she has a big ole bladder so it takes her a while.

Moments later Buddy finds a spot about two inches from Sabrina. He lifts his leg . . . wait for it . . and begins peeing on SABRINA. I start yelling at them. (I am wearing slippers and my backyard is a total mudpit, I don't care what they are doing I am not going out there.)

She doesn't even blink and he goes till he's done.

So at 7:10am I am bathing Sabrina.

Can you hear that?

The tick, tick, ticking of the clock? That is my deadline making its presence known. Atleast I can say I am down to 8. Could be the 8 that kill me, but still.

Ok, we are all worrying about my neighborhood, Pam C. lives in a really nice neighborhood and while she was at the doctor's, her house got broken into. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT? How totally crappy. AND the rotten bastards took all of her electronics. TVs, Laptops, stereos etc. What a freaking drag.

We have TAKS testing tomorrow which means my whole day is shot. I need to make a gazillion calls to get more info to write the final 8. sigh.

In the meantime, Saturday I met with Elisabeth, graphic artist who is working on the Book. She did some work on the tombstones and they, at least I think, are done.

So, weird part, I put the files online so that she can access the spreads and try to work on some design improvement. Great right? I've now gotten two emails from her about proofreading. I want to reach through the internet and smack the crap out of her. Stop reading and do the freaking work.