Finally an evening at home. Yeah!! This will be the last one for the next five days. I suppose I should take advantage of the time and do some homework. We will see if that happens or not.

I am happy to report that my linguistics class went pretty good last night. I received an A- on my paper which came as a complete surprise. I also thought the mid-term was not too bad. Some of the teachers in class have determined that we can miss 160 points and still get an B. Good information to know since we have to have a B to remain in the program. We celebrated my A- with dinner at Pei Wei.

Today after school, I had to run to Walmart. I had sent a request to our local Super Walmart last November for AVID supplies needed at school. Well, three months later we are getting closer to getting assistance. However, they were very nice and offered some money today to help us purchase binders and few other supplies. Thank you Walmart!!

The sixth grade solar ovens are coming along pretty well. Of course sticking the thermometers in the dirt was not a highlight especially since they were purchased by ASU. I guess we needed to know the temperature of the ground!?! Unfortunately however, we have not had much sun this week. I find that kind of funny and sad at the same time. Phoenix is suppose to be the Valley of the Sun. Finding the sunshine was not suppose to be a problem! I know that I should not even say one unkind word about our weather considering what is happening back East. We also practiced our AVID presentation today that we will be giving to the school board next week. A couple of students will be giving a short report on how AVID has helped them. I know they are nervous, but both of them have some really great things to share.

An Alpha Delta Kappa meeting and a church conference are a few of the things I have going on the next few days. Hope everyone enjoys the last few days of this week.

C.

Ok...I know I should be studying, but Kansas is playing Texas. Sorry linguistics, but you lose tonight! Which is really a silly thing to say since I'm the one who has to take the midterm tomorrow!!! Oh well, it's Texas!! Sacrifices have to be made for the team.

My Monday was okay. I did have my bi-annual visit to the dentist. We tried new dentist, but unfortunately for me it is the same story. "Your have a cavity and we want your money." I think I'm going to start my dentures fund. I know this is where it is heading someday.

Oh well, I need to pretend to be reading about pragmatics.

Have a great night!
C.

Wow!! Has it really been two weeks since I last blogged?? So much to write about, but I will try not to bore anyone. I started off the week trying to make sense of linguistics enough that I could write a coherent paper about it. I spent much of last weekend, working on it. I had spurts where I had some good ideas and then it would all dry up. It was very frustrating to say the least. I really don't like that class. I thought I had it all wrapped up so that on Monday I would just be tying up any loose ends. Well, at about 11 that night I suddenly realized that my margins did not fit the ALA format. I quickly fixed them and hoped I would still have enough information to cover four pages. Well, unfortunately, I was a whole page short!!! By 1 a.m. I had managed to come up with enough words to finish the last page. I say words because I'm not sure they had anything to do with my topic, but they did fill up the page. Linguistics is probably the wrong class to try to find irrelevant information and try to make it work. Oh well, I guess I will find out Tuesday night how I did.

Not only did I have my class Tuesday night, but I also had the "fun" opportunity to take 160 sixth graders to Tucson, so they could tour the University of Arizona. On the bright side, I did have 4 hours to just relax in the charter bus. I had never been to the U of A (we are more loyal to ASU) so it was interesting getting to see it You may wonder why we are taking the students to visit the different state universities at their age. Well, if it encourages at least one of them to pursue higher education then it was well worth the effort.

You may have noticed from my blog that I like cats. Annie had been a barn kitten. In fact she was only six weeks old when I picked her up from my friend who lived out in the country. The year was 1992!! She was this cute gray kitten that quickly became a member of the family (don't ask my mom about that). Annie saw me through college and all the various moves we had made in the last 15 years. I had her before I was even married!! Anyway, after Annie turned 17 last April, I could tell her health had deteriorated. Now she was still cranky and bossy, but she was slowing losing weight and not eating her cat food. Lately, her diet had become baby food, but she did still enjoy a good powder sugar donut every once in a while. The last few weeks she was having even more difficulty digesting her food. The writing on the wall was slowing coming into focus. I was hoping she would make it to April, but that was not to be. I came home Thursday from school, to find Annie really suffering. I knew she was not going to get better and a decision needed to be made. We decided to go ahead and have Annie put to sleep that afternoon. While it's always a difficult decision to be made, I knew that Annie had lived a great life and shouldn't suffer anymore. It is definately the worst part of owning pets.

So there is the week in review. Looking forward to a more calm week ahead!

C.

We survived the crazy weather last week in Arizona. I couldn't believe that we were actually under a tornado watch. Let's just say I think the local weatherman was really out of his element. They really didn't know what to do or how to report the storms. I'm sure they were probably just as shocked as we were that it was even raining. We did have some rain come through the front window, but we were able to handle it pretty quickly. On a positive note all the reservoirs are full.

We had a pretty low keyed weekend. I was able to get my haircut yesterday. My hair stylist is expecting a baby any day so, I really didn't think she would make this appointment. I guess Baby Landon knew some hair needed attention before he made his grand entrance into the world.

I'm still trying to figure out what to write my linguistics working paper on. I'm hoping that once I decide on the topic everything else will fall into place. I know this maybe wishful thinking. On another note, I have late night conferences on Wednesday so, I will have two late nights this week. I don't particularly enjoy these, but I guess it has to be done. I'm just glad I have a great driver who picks me up!

I guess it is time to do some reading. I hope everyone has a great Monday.
C.

Tornadoes in the Desert?!?!

I can't believe this. We are under a tornado watch until 10 tonight!! This is Phoenix!!! I didn't think you were suppose to have tornadoes here. I was at my writing class tonight (it is located at the district offices). We were there about 15 mins. and then word came from the superintendent that everyone had to leave. They were expecting hurricane type winds and they were closing all the school buildings. I also heard that there were 5 overturn semis on Interstate 8. Most of the trees planted in Phoenix are not rooted very deeply, so the the cacti is really blowing. I think this could be a very interesting evening. I was scheduled to go to Tucson with the sixth grade tomorrow, but that was cancelled. I just heard on the news that Phoenix is suppose to get a year's worth of rain in a day and a half. Wow!! I wonder if I might just get a "rain day" tomorrow??

I think we will enjoy a nice evening at home tonight. I wish I had a book to read (Yes, I could be reading my linguistics's book, but that's not fun). Hopefully there will be something interesting on t.v.

C.

We are just about to settle down and watch a movie, so I thought I would update my blog. I'm really excited that I have tomorrow off for MLK. You can't beat three day weekends.

Yesterday, I had my Alpha Delta Kappa meeting. We met for breakfast at a unique restaurant near South Mountain. I had some delicious french toast that melted in your mouth. Afterwards we went to our mystery tour location. The Mystery Castle has long been part of Phoenix history dating back to the early 1930's. It is something you should see at least once. The builder's daughter even still lives there. She is now 85 years old! ADK does one mystery tour a year.

I got home just in time to watch the Cardinals play football. Needless to say, it was very disappointing. I guess football season is over for me, so now it's time to move on to basketball. I decide to make some sausage balls and put in the freezer. I found a great recipe that is so easy. We all love them!

This morning I got up and decided to be very energetic. I did some cleaning and even managed to do some cooking all before noon. I have gotten the idea from several blogs to do all your cooking for the week on one day. I think it's a great idea and would probably be very helpful, but I have not gotten organized yet to pull off this feat. I will definitely try it sometime.

After church tonight, we stopped by Barnes and Noble to browse through the books. I found several items from bookmarks to bags that had the saying, "Keep Calm and Carry on." It is a saying from WWII that I really like. They even did a different take on it. "Keep Calm and Have a Cupcake." Love it!!

C.

I thought I would write a quick note tonight. I just made a new recipe. This Friday is my day to help bring breakfast for the teachers. After hearing a lot of people talk about sausage balls, I decided to try to make some. I think they turned out pretty good. To top it off they were easy too! You can't beat that combination. I will definitely be making them again.

I had my first graduate class last night. It was ok. I'm thinking linguistics might be a little difficult. It is interesting, so I hope to learn a lot. I only have eight classes, but each class is five hours long. Fortunately, last night we were done a hour earlier.

February is starting to look very busy at school. I was able to finalize plans this week for ASU's college of engineering to work with the sixth graders to make solar ovens out of pizza. ASU also has another program called, "College is For You." Our fifth graders will be taking part in this on Feb. 22nd and 23rd. I had only two sixth graders students sign up to be AVID tutors. I was a little disappointed with the lack of students applying, but I also knew I made the application process challenging. I met with the girls at lunch yesterday about the expectations. They will be helping me on Friday to check AVID binders. I hope they will encourage other students to get involved. Whew! I think I'm looking forward to March!

I guess this pretty much sums up my mid-week review. Please remember to keep Haiti in your prayers.

C.