April 30, 2008

It's the last day of April. How did that go by so quickly? I have 29 days of school left until I am on summer break. I am actually very anxious for it to get here. I'm just really tired lately and finding it hard to stay motivated at work. The kids are getting antsy too and I don't blame them. It's been kind of a long year.

This week they have to take the Gaits-McGinitie test. We took this in the fall as a pre-test and now we're taking it as a post-test. Next week, my students have to take the Terra Nova. This is mandated by our Reading First grant. It is a little more involved than the Gaits. We take it every year. Then, the week after next I have to do the DIBEL's end of the year bench mark with ALL of my students. My poor kids are going to be so burned out by the third week in May it won't even be funny. We still have two theme skills tests to complete and two Integrated tests to finish also. It's just insane how much testing I am required to do with my students.

Tonight I finished the scrapbook page I completed earlier in the week. I'm REALLY happy with the way it turned out. It's a page about Abby. The pictures are from Thanksgiving time 2006, so they're kind of old, but they are some of my favorite pictures of her. She had just been groomed. It was the day before Thanksgiving and we'd just gotten the steps vacuumed. She's sitting one step down from the top with her chin on the top step waiting for Daddy to come home. She's so cute.

It really did not turn out how I had planned at first. I think it turned out much better. I'm really not good at planning a page before I start. I pick out the colors, papers and a bunch of possible embellishment ideas and then I play around with it all until I find something that fits together in a way that I find pleasing. I'll never be in a magazine, but I do pretty good. Especially considering I'm pretty much completely self taught in that area.

Again, I was really tired tonight so I was up here in the bedroom by 9:10 or so. I've been trying to watch CSI: NY, but I just cannot get into that show. I love CSI and CSI: Miami, but for some reason CSI: NY just cannot hold my attention and I really like the actors that are in it. I just don't understand.