New Year Update

First of all, today is my hubby's birthday.  He is 39 years young today.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY HONEY!!  I love you and the tank looks great.  (He redid his aquarium today with sand instead of gravel.)


Second, I am clear of pneumonia.  Praise the Lord my lungs are completely clear and my breathing is back to normal.  I am still taking 2 breathing treatments a day, but I can handle that.  I have been back to work for a week and a half.  Besides being exhausted, which is perfectly normal for me after a long day of work, I have suffered no ill effects from the pneumonia.  I am so glad.  On the down side, I was docked for 3.5 days of pay.  That is going to hurt, but we are not worried about it. 


Third, I had a doctor visit with my RA doc.  Anna and I waited for over an hour past my appointment time to get back.  UGH!!  I can't stand long waits, but unfortunately, I can't go at another time right now because I can't ask off work, since I have no days left.  The best I can do is leave early.  So...long waits it is.  The doctor agreed with me the the meds I had been on are not a good fit for me and for the time being I am off of them.  I will not go back on them as they were lowering my immune system too much and were part of the reason I have basically been sick since September.  I am glad that he agreed.  I will however remain on the Plaquenil and pain pills and we will add in a different new medicine at a later time.  He and I both felt that since I have been doing okay on the Plaquenil alone that we would let it be.  I am glad he agreed, because I took myself off the other meds right before Christmas.  Now the only odd thing was that he knew I had been in the hospital and I KNOW for a fact that I never told him.  Weird, but okay. 


I guess that's all for now.  I am praying that the worst of my sickness for the year is over.  I had the flu and pneumonia shot before I left the hospital, so hopefully that will help.  By not being on the other medicine, I am praying that my immune system rebounds.  I hope everyone has a very Happy New Year.  It may be 3 weeks into the year, but its still Christmas in our house.  I am not in a rush to take it down, so if you come over, don't be shocked.  LOL!!  I hope to check back in soon.  Take care.  God Bless!

Happy (cough) New (cough) Year (cough cough)

Happy New Year.  I brought the new year in with a bang.  I was sick for the entire Christmas Break with a head cold.  I went to the Doctor this past Monday with a fever and a cough and was diagnosed with Bronchitis again and prescribed antibiotics.  I ran fever through Wednesday and coughed and coughed and coughed!!  On Thursday night, I ended up with very labored breathing and by Friday early morning we were on our way yet again to the ER for some extra help.  I assumed I would get a few breathing treatments and some steroids and be on my way.  Boy was I wrong.  It turns out I had pneumonia and I was admitted for treatment.  They gave me IV antibiotics, two different kids and I received IV steroids for a day as well.  I was released today after nearly 4 days at the hospital.  Yeah, happy new year, huh?  Now I'm home, but I am not back to work until next week.  I was released for Monday.  We will see how it goes.  Praying for a complete healing and the ability to get through the rest of the school year without incident. 

More Sleet, Snow and COLD!!

Ok, I've decided that we have had enough snow, sleet and cold for a long time.  It's been just about two weeks since our last round of cold and ice storms and here we are again with another.  It was mostly sleet and ice.  School dismissed at 12:00pm today and the Lubbock teachers were allowed to leave at 11:30am.  As soon as I had coverage in my room, I rounded up Anna and we made the slow treacherous journey home.  A drive that usually takes us 45 minutes took us almost 2 hours today.  Not too bad and certainly could have been longer, but I HATE driving on ice.  Completely hate it!!  It's scary how many people passed me at unsafe speeds.  The roads were almost all covered in ice.  We drove 20-25 MPH all the way home.  It wasn't until we were 5 minutes from Lubbock that we could drive faster, 30-35 MPH in town.  The sad part is that all that was slush in Lubbock has now frozen over and will probably stay that way for the next 2 days or so.  Sunday it should all melt down again and be okay.  I'm glad I have a job, but having it so far out is not so fun, especially in this kind of weather.  I'm actually praying that we have classes cancelled tomorrow morning and that I do NOT have to drive this again tomorrow.  If I do, it will be about 2 hours to drive in and about 2 hours to drive back and I will have to stop at a gas station at some point because I used more than I planned today trying to thaw off the car.  Sigh.  Just complaining, I guess.

On a plus side, my evaluation was done this week and I did really well.  I am pleased, especially since I've been out of the classroom for so long.  I obviously still have some teaching in me.  LOL!  I never really stopped teaching, since I homeschooled for so long.  I miss it a lot and when I asked Anna, she said she misses parts of it.  I think she really just likes that there are other kids around her all day everyday.  She too hates the long commute every morning, but we are in it for the long haul this year.  Who knows what next year will bring. 

Guess that's all for now.  Need to wind down with some gaming time and get to bed.  Night all. 

Brrrr....

Baby it's cold outside!!!  I am ready for normalcy.  Anna and I have been in the house for two full days.  Tomorrow will be three.  My initial plan right now is to drive up to Post tomorrow afternoon and spend the night in a hotel.  This is of course all dependent on the roads.  We are expecting 2-3 inches of snow tonight and they are advising all of us to stay off the roads.  Praying that we don't have to miss another day.  Anna and I missed on Friday because of the weather.  We got up at 5am with the intention of going in.  We were in the car by 6am and trying to be on the road by 6:20am, but we just didn't get there.  The roads in Lubbock were okay, but when we got to the highway we travel to get to school, I could not keep my windows clear of ice.  The sleet was immediately sticking to the windows, despite my defrost being on high and my wipers going full blast.  We had pulled over 3 times before we hadn't even gotten to the prison, which is about 10 minutes out, and I just could not keep them clear.  To top it off, the highway was icy and it was dark.  Black ice and dark do not mix, so I decided it was in our best interest to turn around and go back home.  I spent the better part of an hour after we got back trying to find a sub for my class to no avail.  There was not one that was able to go in at all.  My aide was already out because her daughter was sick and she also could not get a sub.  My class ended up getting split between the other three teachers.  I felt awful and cried for over 2 hours because I felt so bad.  Using my last day of sick leave because of weather was not what I had planned.  I was very upset about that, but then the weather got worse and I was very glad that I was at home and didn't have to drive in the worsening conditions on the road.  We have stayed home since then.  J got sent home at around 1:30 to 2:00pm.  I was glad to have everyone safe and sound at home.  I am also very glad that we have a working heater. 

Tonight, the sleet is back and we are expecting more precipitation.  I do not know what tomorrow will bring, but I will have my eyes watching the news and checking things fully before I drive that way.  I'm hoping it'll clear up a bit, but not counting on it.  We can't afford for me to be docked a full days pay for missing, so here's hoping....

Overwhelmed

Been feeling a lot overwhelmed lately and like I don't belong in the classroom.  Today was a particularly rough day.  I have random thoughts come into my head and make it hard for me to believe that I belong in the classroom.  Sigh.  Kids have also bee off the wall crazy this week with Halloween and all.  I tried to keep our "Halloween" related activities to a minimum.  I changed books we were reading, found some of my own activities, etc.  We did make masks, but that's more for fun.  We also did lots with pumpkins, but other than that, I really tried not to do too much. 

But I digress, back to the reason I started this post...I'm having a particularly rough year.  I know part of it's because I received no training from the district at all.  The other part is because I am relying solely on other people to plan lessons and since we aren't really ahead, it makes it hard.  They have a curriculum that the school adopted, but other than some of the literature from it and the tests for beginning, middle and the end of the year, it does not get used.  I can see why, as the literature parts are great, but the rest is not really easy to use.  You can't really take great stories and make a curriculum out of them.  So, since we are all "on the same page" or doing the same thing, we meet every Tuesday to plan.  I can't possibly get everything I need on my own to make the curriculum work in such a short amount of time, so I just get a few things and "share" with other teachers things that belong to them.  It gets old borrowing all the time....really old.  I can't afford to buy everything that they have though, so I have no other options.

My aide is great too, but I get the feeling that I am not using her as much as I should be, but there we are back to the no training thing, so I really don't know what I am supposed to be doing.  The other teachers always say to let the aide do it.  The aide is there to help me in my opinion, not do all my work for me.  She does a lot for me, copying, laminating, cutting out, crowd control, etc.  I do not feel like adding to her responsibilities is fair. 

And my number one source of being overwhelmed right now is the nagging fear in the back of my head related to our past.  :-(
I can not get this horrible thought out of my head that I do not belong in the classroom and something terrible is going to come up and I will be fired on the spot and not be allowed to teach ever again.  Sigh.  It's not a good feeling.  I don't know why it keeps coming back, but I've had enough.  Just the thoughts put tears in my eyes and that's easy to do lately. 

Alright, its bedtime.  Will post more tomorrow, but falling asleep here typing.  Prayers still very much appreciated.  This is hard for me still.  Thanks all. 

Wall-E and Anna

I searched the house for Wall-E last night at bedtime and couldn't find him. He's usually on my bed or in his bed and I just say good night. Last night I could not find him anywhere. I searched in Anna's room, since she had a sleepover l...ast night and I couldn't see him. I looked in the playroom where the girls were sleeping and couldn't see him there. I looked the house over and finally went back to the playroom. Looked a little closer and there was Wall-E sleeping with Anna under the covers. It was too cute not to capture, so I tried to take a pic with my phone and that was a no go, so I quickly went to grab the "real" camera and here's what I got. Not bad for being taken in the dark. I was praying the flash didn't wake up the girls!!

 

First pic shows how cute they looked...

 

 

Second pic shows all three of them all the way across...

 

 

 

  I am so glad I got these pictures and that I didn't wake the girls in my attempt to capture this.  The flash on my phone went off 3 times and them 3 for the camera.  LOL!  Love that I came across this before bed last night.

Birthday Blessings...

Well, the day started out like any regular Friday, we got up and went the 45 minute drive to work.  I worked, not expecting anything, but my dear hubby took care of that.  I had a birthday card in my box by my 10:15am break.  J had called the school and asked them to do something.  Apparently this prompted them to realize that they didn't have any emergency info at the school for me, so I in turn had to fill out more paperwork.  LOL!  I decided that I just did not want a PB&J sandwich at lunch, so I went to Sonic and brought me a meal back. At this point in the day I was still feeling pretty down, as I was feeling lonely and sad that I hadn't gotten so much as a Happy Birthday from anyone at school, not that it's their fault, no one knew.  But still down just the same.  I did feel incredibly blessed to get a card from the front office as I wasn't expecting it.  Still, my brain doesn't always think good thoughts....

Now after I got home, things started looking up.  My mom had done another load of laundry for me and had made me cupcakes for my birthday.  That was nice.  I love the laundry help I've gotten this week.  It's been great!!

We then went to lunch at Red Lobster and enjoyed it.  Waiter a little odd and forgetful, but good food and we had fun.  There, J gave me a Kohl's gift card and an ITunes gift card.  The guys who work there sung me "Happy Birthday."  I did NOT want to be embarrassed.  LOL!!  Oh well.  Then it was off to my MIL's and a short visit there.  She gave me a purse I have been wanting forever, cause I'm not about to buy me a purse myself.  LOL!  She also gave me some money to spend on myself, so I'm thinking I'm going to place a Kohl's online order.  I need a bunch of stuff, plus I have a 20% off coupon to go with their sales.  I am going to think on it over night.  LOL! 

Anna made me a little note and now I'm going to bed.  LOL!!  It is the 26th already and I've been up for hours, so I deserve it.  Thanks for all who made my day special.  I loved reading all the posts and well wishes.  It made my night.  (Yes night....didn't read most till just a little bit ago.  Night all and thank you!!