Ouch! That hurt!

OK, this actually happened the Thursday before Thanksgiving. I thought I posted it, but as it turns out, I didn't. So I'm putting it in now.

Picture this:



My garage.

10pm

Stack of clean, neatly folded clothes in my arms.

I turn away from the washer and dryer and take a step toward the door when all of a sudden....BAM! I knew the box was there. It's always there. That didn't stop me from kicking into it. And it's full of stuff. Stuff that is heavy. Stuff that when you kick into the box with your baby toe, the box doesn't budge. But something had to give and, unfortunately, it was my baby toe that was doing the giving.



It's broken.

Charna

~*~ CHARNA MARIE CHALUPCZYNSKI ~*~

I received some sad news yesterday. Charna, my first baby puppy, had to be put to sleep. She had been sick for several years and she just seemed to get a little bit worse everyday. She used to get ear infections all the time and had become deaf from the repeated use of medicine to stop the infections. She had numerous lumps, bumps, and tumors that had developed over the last couple of years. Well, from what I understand, she started having nose bleeds recently. According to the doctor this was due to tumors that she developed either in her nose or in her brain.

Poor Charna.

She put up the good fight, but it was time to let her suffering stop.

She loved her Aunt Maura and always showed her affection anytime I came to visit. Even after I moved away, and my visits with her became less and less, Charna still remembered me when I'd come to visit. We would share an "Aunt Maura cookie" which was a cookie that I would give her just because.

Her tail would wag like crazy when I was around. She wanted to be near me so I could pet her and love her. And I did. Even though she was older now, she'd still act like a puppy whenever I saw her.

For Christmas I would get her a big rawhide chewy and she would hoard that thing and growl at anyone who tried to take it. She loved her rawhides.

I will miss you, Charna. I hope you have lots of rawhide chewies in heaven.

I love you

Quality Time

Today was a great day. I got to spend some quality time with my husband today.

Our day started early. We were up and out of the house by 8:30 and headed to Celebration for the local Rotary pancake breakfast and 5K run. Don't get too excited. I was there for the pancakes not the run! They had several booths there including the local civil servants (fire, police, EMT, etc.) and a couple of clowns working with balloons and face painting. Well, I can never pass up a chance to get my face painted so after reviewing the books showing all the possible selections, I got my face done.

Although I really wanted something a little more purple, I had to settle for kind of a pinkish color. Bust sprinkle in a little black and white and you've got a pretty swirly face. The topper...just a hint of glitter!

They also had a silent auction at this event. There wasn't much there that I was interested in, but the did have several long tables of items (mostly gift certificates) from restaurants, spas/salons, etc. If you're not familiar with how silent auctions work, you just write down your bid and if no one outbids you, you win.

Well John and I had gone through the tables a couple times before we decided to bid on anything. I bid on a 3 day/2 night stay at the Wyndym Resort in Orlando and a gift certificate to a spa in Kissimmee. I know that Orlando isn't that far from here, but it was for charity and I thought it would be a great way to pamper myself a little. After having a bidding war with a couple of people, I finally won the bid on the Wyndym. As for the spa, I got a $50 gift certificate for $25 without anyone fighting me for it.

The big draw to this event was the pancake breakfast. I wasn't too impressed with that. You got 2 pancakes, 2 sausage links or patties, and some fruit. They also had coffee and oj. While the portions were fine, the food quality wasn't the greatest. Plus the pancakes were cold, and so was the sausage for that matter. But again, it was a charity event, so I'm a little more willing to forgive.

After breakfast, we headed for home stopping first at JoAnn Fabric. Usually this is an exciting event for me, but this time it was just a little bit satisfying. I don't know if I just wasn't in the mood or if that pancake breakfast was trying to settle in my stomach but having a hard time that prevented me from being able to really concentrate while I was there. We left and I had only a little bag to show for the effort.

We also went to Bealls. I love Bealls. It's a great store and they have some very nice clothes. They also usually have some good deals. Well, we thought we'd stop to see if we could pick up a few new holiday/seasonal tops for my mom. Last year she wanted some new tops at Christmas as all the women at her apartment complex seemed to have a different holiday top for every day of the week! We got her a few last year, but decided to start a little earlier this year.

We picked up a couple new Christmas tops for her, but we also got a couple of Fall/Thanksgiving tops too. Now I have to get to the FedEx store so I can get these delivered before the holidays!

After our stop at Bealls, we went home. The dog was thrilled to see us and I needed a nap after all that excitement! I'm always thankful to be able to have some quality time with my husband.

Unexpected Company

What a long weekend! John and I went to Palm Beach Gardens, FL for the weekend to take part in the FCSS (Florida Council on Social Studies) conference. We left Friday morning and drove the 2 1/2 hours south stopping for lunch along the way. When we arrived, we checked in and just relaxed in the room for a couple of hours.

The room was beautiful. We had a great king size bed, nice flat screen TV, and a good size bathroom. There was a desk area set up for the laptop. The best amenity of all...a balcony! We were on the 4th floor and had a balcony! But, as is usually my luck with balconies, we had an awesome view of a wall! You know what? I didn't care...we had a balcony!

The rest of Friday and Saturday were pretty uneventful. We went to several sessions at the conference and collected some good materials and information. Sunday morning was a little more exciting.

I got up and was going to go out on the balcony to enjoy my coffee and have a cigarette. I pulled the sliding glass door open and something caught my eye. Underneath the little table and chair set on the balcony was a little black and yellow/orange bird.



This is the little bird under the chair.






I moved the chair to get a better look at the bird and I knew that something was wrong as it didn't move. I called John out and he brought it some water in one of our used creamer containers. We also happened to have a granola bar that we broke up and tried to give him, but the bird really wasn't interested in food or drink.

The bird held my attention for awhile, but then I had to get ready for conference sessions. I went back inside to get dressed and ready to go. By the time I returned to the balcony, the bird was gone.

It's always nice to have that unexpected company drop by and say hello.

What am I going to do with you?

Every year, it never fails, I get a few students that just don't feel it's necessary to do homework. Their reasons vary for not completing the work from "I forgot" to "My mom made me go shopping so I couldn't get my homework done". Whatever the reason, it's not usually the truth and they're just being lazy.

It's the same this year. I have a couple of students that just don't seem to care to do their homework. They know that they will get an "F" for the assignment and a color change (3 color changes in one day = detention) which will prevent them from getting the recess reward at the end of the week, yet they still don't do it. So I decided to talk to each student individually and ask why they don't feel that homework is something they need to do.

I asked one of my boys why he chose not to do it. He looked at me and said he just forgot. After a little further discussion (it's impossible to "forget" since I remind them several times throughout the day, have them write it in the agenda and sign it, and watch as they pack up everything they need) I finally asked him, "What am I going to do with you?"

He looked at me and said..."Love me?"

Ok. I can't argue with that.

Brush with fame

I have lived here in central Florida for 9 years now. There are a lot of people that live in this area and many of those people are famous. Athletes, movie stars, and musician have homes here. I don't usually see any of these types of people as we don't exactly run in the same circles, but tonite was different. Tonite I had my first brush with fame.

John and I went to the movies tonite. We went to see the latest Harry Potter movie. It's been awhile since I read the book, but I remembered a lot of key parts. Like the hand. I knew it was going to happen..I even knew when it was going to happen, but that didn't stop me from jumping out of my seat!

But I'm off topic already. I'm not here to talk about the movie. I'm here to talk about my brush with fame.

The movie was playing at Pleasure Island in Downtown Disney. We parked the car and started our walk to the ticket office. As we stepped out of the parking lot and onto the sidewalk, I noticed Joey Fatone walking down the walkway with his daughter! Wooohoo! Joey Fatone! Now for those of you who don't know who he is, Joey used to be a BackStreet Boy. You may have seen him on TV as host of the short lived TV show, The Singing Bee.

He stood behind us in line to get the movie tickets. He followed us inside and stood behind us again in the popcorn line. After that I lost track of him. I don't know what movie he was going to see but it was Harry Potter.

That's it. My brush with fame. I was in the front of Joey Fatone in the ticket line at the movie theater.

So much excitement for me. I think I need a nap.

Milk and Bread

On the way home from work yesterday, I thought I'd stop and pick up some milk and bread. The weekend was upon us and we were dangerously low on both these items. So rather than wait until the last minute, I thought ahead (for once). I pulled into the parking lot of the grocery store and ran in for the much needed items.

When I walked in I saw the Coke display. It was on sale! Woohoo! Can't pass that up. Four 12 packs in my cart. I proceeded down the aisle. Another sale...Capri Suns. Hey, we needed some of those. Six boxes in my cart. We didn't have any fruit and the price on the seedless grapes was doable. In my cart they go. And bananas are always good to have.

It had been awhile since I had last shopped and our meat supply was low. A roast, some chicken, and a couple of quickie meat dinners found their way into my shopping cart. Snacks! We needed em! For the last week we've been whining there was nothing to munch on so I had to get some chips. Of course, you can't have chips without dip or salsa so picked that up too.

Now that school has started, we need more lunch type foods. Cookies cakes..I need cookie cakes! And string cheese. And regular cheese. And cheese for cheese and crackers. Ohhhh...and crackers! Yeah, that's what I need!

And we can't forget Shae. She was out of puppy ice cream. So I picked up several boxes of ice creams for her. And chewies. She needed snack chewies.

Well, when all was said and done, I walked out of the grocery store with milk, bread, and an overflowing cart and $204 less in my pocket.

Dang, milk and bread are expensive!