Sunday, November 30, 2008

I am just that lame. . .

to take a picture of the gas I bought for less than $1.50!

Beautiful, isn't it?

Friday, November 28, 2008

My Son is Very Special

It is not very often that a person gets to celebrate their first birthday, and then four days later celebrates their first Thanksgiving. However, my son is not your average child. Since Thanksgiving was so early last year and later this year, Andrew's 1st birthday came before the holiday this year. And, yes, I will have pictures of his birthday party up before the weekend is over!

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

I'm Just Going to Vent

Here are the things that are going on in our school right now:

1. We have conferences next week that I STILL need to prepare for

2. We are being retrofitted which means that various items are being taken out of my room, and new things are being brought in. Friday, I have to turn in my laptop, and Monday I'll get a new one, so sometime between now and then, I have to move everything off of this one and onto the server. Plus, we have new printers and desktops coming too. While this is all nice, it's a huge upheaval in our rooms.

3. My room is being painted as I type. What does that mean? Friday, instead of having a fun Halloween party with my kids, I had to take everything off of the walls. That afternoon consisted of me climbing up and down on stuff interspersed with my frustration with my children as they kept wrestling on the floor. Plus, much of the stuff I had up on the wall was what I had made. When I took it down, it ripped, so I have to make it new. My word wall alone took me a week to get up. I have to cut out all new letters and glue them back up and make new words to put up as well. Then, today, instead of math, I had to move all of the furniture four feet away from the wall. If you've ever been in an elementary classroom, you can only imagine how much stuff that was. Plus, there wasn't really a math lesson. And tomorrow, I'll have to be in before 7 am to move everything back before my kids come. It could be worse. The people who are having their rooms painted Friday or Saturday were pretty much told they needed to come in on Sunday to move their stuff back. Also, I won't be able to put anything up for two weeks, so my room is going to look like a dungeon for conferences. That should make a great impression.

It's just so frustrating since it seems like every time I turn around, it's something else we have to do. I realize much of it is coming from the county, and my principal really has no say, but that doesn't make it any easier.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

I've Made My Selection

Well, I've finally made my selection. I did the research, pondered the choice, and decided today what I wanted. And the choice I made. . .Cigna Healthcare.

Oh, you thought I was talking about the election? I voted for Obama there. (Apparently, it's not going to matter too much since NBC just gave Georgia to McCain.)

The big decision I had to make was health insurance. Every year, we have open enrollment where we have to literally sign up for our insurance again. Last year was easy. I logged onto the website. Confirmed my choices, and was done in the space of about 5 minutes. This year was a little harder. I got a letter last July telling me that the State Health Benefit Plan was no longer offering Blue Cross Blue Shield. Since I was very happy with my insurance, I was a little peeved. The only companies that were available were United Healthcare or Cigna. The premiums were the same for both, so normally, I wouldn't stress about it since if I have to switch doctors, I just do. I don't have too much loyalty to a doctor since I got so rarely, but this time I had to make sure that I chose an insurance company that had Andrew's neurosurgeon as a provider. It took me a little while on both of their websites, but finally, I was able to find his doctor on the Cigna website. He wasn't on the United Healthcare site, so my decision was easy. I logged on and made my choice. I'm glad that's over for another year. Now, I just need to decide if I want a Flexible Savings Account for daycare expenses. Fun.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Thoughts on the Election

This is the best comment I've read on this election in a long time. I'm not really going to comment or add to it, just encourage you to read it with an open mind.