My first vote

On the eve of this important election, I can't help but think back to the first time I voted. I turned eighteen years old on September 25, 1996, just in time to vote for the presidential election. That year, it was Bill Clinton vs. Bob Dole.

My voting location was my elementary school where I attended from kindergarten through third grade. In that place which held so many memories for me as a child, I stood there as an adult. As I waited in line for the polls to open, what I felt is difficult to put into words. I felt the weight of the future of our country resting on our shoulders, us, the voters. I felt so privileged to exercise the freedom that so many men and women have fought to defend. Voting is having a voice, and I was going to be heard!

What a great memory.

I have to say, now that I am older (and wiser?) and understand the ramifications of electing certain people for president, I am a little sick to my stomach with anticipation of what tomorrow may bring.

So tomorrow, I'm going to vote really hard for McCain, even if I have to stand in line for five hours.

A new twist on an old tradition

On Friday night we went over to Grace Community Church in Cranberry because they were having an event called trunk-or-treating that sounded great on so many levels. They had people park in their parking lot to hand out candy from their trunks! They had the parking lot blocked off so cars couldn't drive through - much safer than walking door to door! Also, since it was at a church, we assumed that there wouldn't be anything scary, and we were right. Everyone's trunks were very festively decorated, but totally kid-friendly. The thought of some life-size scarecrow or something jumping to life and scaring my kids was the main reason I didn't want to take them door-to-door. The best things? WAY less walking than traditional trick-or-treating, and WAY more time efficient. We were done with the whole ordeal in a half hour!
This is definitely the way to go!

Two funnies

1. When we were out running errands this afternoon (after things had calmed down from the biting incident) Isaiah said to the lady that parked next to us: "You have a cool van!" Oh. It was so funny. And actually her van looked a lot like ours, but without the scratches, dents, and dirt! We all laughed.

2. Over dinner tonight, Dan asked me how many pair of underwear I have. What????!!!!! I guess he was trying to figure things out for the Blanchard house girls. I told him that I'm really not sure. I told him that ideally, a person would have about fifteen pairs of underwear, but that I thought about ten pairs would do.

My terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

I left this morning around 7:10 a.m. for a meeting at school. This is extremely early for me to be awake and out of the house, but it was a required meeting for all full- and part-time faculty. I figured it had to be pretty important. A new high school principal? Nice bonuses for everyone? Some other huge and shocking news?

On my way to school I got stuck in exactly eight minutes of Pine Richland High School/910 detour traffic. Argh. I ended up arriving late for the meeting. Now, that wasn't too bad because I was only the third person in the room, so apparently everyone else was late too.

It turns out that the purpose of the meeting was to review the procedures for turning in quarter grades. We've been using an online grading system called renweb for about three years. Toward the end of each quarter, the office puts out an instruction sheet on how to load your grades from your online grade book into the students' report cards. The instructions are simple, step-by-step, and include pictures. The purpose of this meeting was to show us how to do the steps on the instruction sheet! So the presenter (who did a fine job) had her laptop hooked up to a projector and walked us through the steps. For new teachers who aren't familiar with renweb, maybe the meeting was beneficial. But talk about poking pins in my eyes!!! I actually did learn two things, though. One thing about recording attendance and one thing about using renweb with vista. But worth getting up that early for? Hardly.

But the worst part of the day was that ISAIAH BIT ONE OF MY PIANO STUDENTS!!! I was shocked and horrified. He bit the 10-year-old girl on her arm hard enough to leave a black and blue mark. I don't know why he did it. Clearly he was overwhelmed by having all the extra kids in the house, and walked around whining and crying the whole time they were here. It just seemed like he was having an off day, but to BITE a kid?!? This was awful. So as soon as they left I spanked him (which I had never really done before) and put him in bed and told him not to even think about getting out of bed. That was an hour ago and I haven't heard from him since. I'm assuming he's sleeping.

Thankfully this is a family that I've been teaching for seven years, and I have a great relationship with them. That is until TODAY!! Oh goodness. Can you imagine if it had been a new student? Oh the horror! Well I guess that's the end of teaching lessons at my house for a while. Clearly my kid can't be trusted. It will mean more evenings out of the house, but oh well!

So that has been my bad day so far. And it's only 12:30 p.m. Argh.

Weekend update

On Saturday the four of us, my mom, my nephew, and brother-in-law and sister-in-law went to the Pittsburgh Zoo to celebrate my nephew's 10th birthday. The fun part? It was a Halloween dress-up weekend at the zoo. My newphew was Darth Vader, Isaiah was Superman, and Sam was a cowboy. It was a cold day that was threatening to rain. We had a few raindrops when we first got there. Then when we went inside for lunch, there was a major downpour! It is such a nice relief to go to the zoo when it's cooler, because I've been there many times when it's been so hot you didn't even want to walk around. The only thing that was cuter than the kids dressed up, was the two new baby elephants! Here are some pictures from our fun day: