My name in lights..... Well sort of

This is probably the closest that I will ever get to the Great White Way and getting my name in lights ----- a middle school marquee. You see, I found out last Friday that I finally made it over the hump and passed my National Board of Professional Teaching Standards assessment. For those not in education circles, you are probably going, so what. Well, in education circles this is a HUGE deal because it is alot of work to successfully get this certification and it validates my professional practice among my peers and colleagues. I become only one of seven art educators in the state of Texas to be certified as a National Board Certified Teacher in Art - Early Adolescence through Young Adulthood. Soooooo my school is recognizing me on the marquee this week. Do you think I need an agent? I am ready for my close-up......... Really............ Quit laughing..............

Tagged - 8 Random Things

Rules: Once tagged, you must link to the person who tagged you. Then post the rules before your list, and list 8 random things about yourself. At the end of the post, you must tag and link to 8 other people, visit their sites, and leave a comment letting them know they’ve been tagged. (We were tagged by Brooke).

1. We love Survivor and have watched each one except the first season. It is one of the few things the kids can watch in which everyone is interested.

2. We have a thing about fast food - we try to avoid it if we can which is hard when you have Mickey D's, Long John Silver's, Taco Bell loving kids.

3. Lorna has a thing about proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling and wants to correct every blog entry I write (including this one).

4. I can't watch people in the movies / TV be uncomfortable (ie. horror movies) or have needles put into them (think Grey's Anatomy where they put a needle into a patient's eye). It creeps me out to the point I have to cover my eyes. Yeah, Lorna watches --- she's not bothered.

5. Lorna loves Pumpkin Pie ice cream from Baskin Robbins.

6. Lorna plays online bingo all the time and she never wins the $$$. She doesn't want her dirty little secret exposed.

7. I have always wanted a Jeep Wrangler --- it's on my Christmas list every year since I was 16. Yeah ------ I drive a van.

8. Lorna and I met at church youth group when we were in middle school.

We tag Michael and Leigh.

My Turn: State of the Blog

So I am blogging in from Galveston as I am at my professional conference. I am here for a week with all my art friends - BIG FUN! Bob has tagged us so here you go:

1. What motivated or inspired you to start blogging and how long have you been doing it? I first started blogging when I went to Japan on my Japan Fulbright Memorial Teacher Fund trip in summer 2006. I started as a way to communicate my experience to my students, family and community. Lorna got hooked on blogging and when I got home Bob threw down that how would he keep up with us if we didn't blog. Lorna worked at it for a year and then I finally got on board and now we are more frequent. The pressure of it all.

2. What are your goals, purposes, or reasons for blogging? Basically to communicate with family and friends - to record those simple moments, thoughts and events in our lives in a more thoughtful way than just taking a picture and sticking it in an album.

3. In your opinion, is your blog “successful?” Yeah - we don't have hoards of people, but it is a fun outlet for us.

4. If you pay attention to your blog statistics, rankings, number of comments, number of visitors, etc., share some of your significant numbers. Statistics - what are those? Just kidding. No, we just like seeing comments from our readers and sharing our life with those we don't see on a daily basis. It must work to some degree, because we still have a connection with Bob after more than a year and we know what's up with him and I think he gets a flavor of what's up with us. My brother-in-law gives us a hard time that he doesn't know anything about us unless he reads it on our blog. He didn't even know what a blog was until he started reading ours and now he blogs too (even though he hasn't put anything new up in like FOREVER). So there you go!

Your Turn: State of the Blog
1. What motivated or inspired you to start blogging and how long have you been doing it?
2. What are your goals, purposes, or reasons for blogging?
3. In your opinion, is your blog “successful?”
4. If you pay attention to your blog statistics, rankings, number of comments, number of visitors, etc., share some of your significant numbers.

What is My Turn / Your Turn?

More Conversations with Reed

Reed and I practice rhyming words a lot in the car on the way to school. I'll say, "What rhymes with ____?" and he'll tell me and then it's his turn. Today's rhyming session went like this:

Me: Reed, what rhymes with "tree?"

Reed: See. Mom, what rhymes with "cracked?"

Me: Packed.

Reed: Oh, like, "I need to get packed to go to Mema's or a hotel or something."

Me: Yes. Did you know that's where I'm going with Daddy in a few days?

Reed: To a hotel?

Me: Yes.

Reed: Lucky for you! (he was very sincere; no tone at all in this response)

************************************************************************

As Tim has already headed off to his conference and I won't join him for a couple more days, I picked up Reed from his after-school care today. I went in to get him and was standing there speaking with one of the counselors and was interrupted by Reed.

Reed: Mom, I'm very disappointed in you.

Me: Why, Reed? What did I do?

Reed: (points at the window where it's now dark outside)

Me: Oh, Reed. I'm not any later than usual picking you up. It's just getting dark earlier.

He clearly doesn't believe me. We get in the car and start to drive home and I try to explain the time change again.

Me: Reed, I wasn't late today. We had to change the clocks back on Sunday, so now it's the same time, but it gets dark outside sooner than it used to.

Reed: (still fuming) Yeah. Nice try, Mom.

Giving Thanks

In the car on our trip to school this morning, Reed and I talked about how Halloween was over now and Thanksgiving was the next holiday. I asked him if he knew what Thanksgiving was about. He didn't. I told him this was the day where we give thanks to God for everything in our lives that we're happy about. It was interesting to see this from a child's perspective.

Me: I'm thankful for Daddy, Lane, Maren and Reed.

Reed: I'm happy that my orange water gun still works.

Me: I'm thankful that we have a nice house and food to eat.

Reed: Yeah. I like food.

Me: (as we're pulling up to school) I'm happy that you and Maren and Lane all have good schools to go to.

Reed: I'm glad there aren't any monsters.