This Thanksgiving break has been much needed. I have done a little of all of my favorite things over the past five days - reading, shopping, spending time with family, and watching movies. My sister and her two boys came and spent Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday with me. We had a great time. Andrew and Ben are so much fun. They kept me laughing. We went bowling Wednesday night and they had a ball. Ben, the three year old, was so cute rolling the ball down the lane. Andrew, the five year old, tried so hard to beat Shelley and me. Too cute! Thanksgiving day was very nice. My Grannie made a lovely dinner and then we hung out as a family and watched The Godfather. Shelley, the boys, and I went shopping Friday morning...not at 4 am. We shopped for a couple of hours with the boys until they hit their shopping wall. Andrew, who is a lot like me, needs a plan before you leave the house of how many stores we are going to. I talked him into 5 stores. Thankfully, he usually counts the mall as one store. We went to 3 stores the way he was counting. I could tell he and his brother were getting tired so I told them we could go home and didn't need to go to stores 4 and 5. Andrew said, "Aunt Patti, that is a great plan. Are we still going to get long chicken nuggets for lunch?" I had told them earlier that we could go to Zaxby's for lunch. So we drove through on the way home. Oh, while we were shopping that day, little Ben happened to knock down three racks of clothes. He likes to hide under the clothes and scare us. One of the racks was wobbly already and I had almost knocked it down. I set it up straight and was walking away when Ben rushed past me. Next thing I knew 3 racks of clothes were on the floor and Ben kept saying "I'm sorry...It was an accident." He is too cute for words.

Well it is back to school tomorrow. I have three weeks to make it until Christmas holidays. It is going to be a stressful three weeks with the students having to take their end of course tests. I hope I have prepared them well enough.

1st Semester Update

I can't tell you how exhausted I am. It has been a fun, but rough start to my teaching career. I still have a lot of self-doubt that I am actually teaching my students enough or anything. I have also had many frustrating days where I am not really sure this is for me. Thankfully God provides me with some really great teaching days along with the bad. I really enjoy my students. This 9th grade class has some serious behavior and respect issues. It seems as if half of my students are always in In-School Suspension(ISS) or Out-of-School Suspension(OSS). I have to send work down to the students in ISS. I have had as many as 6 students in ISS at one time. That puts a lot of extra work on me.

My classes have just finished reading The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. They really enjoyed it. I have now read the book 4 times in the last month. Once on my own and then with each of my classes. The students will take their test over the novel on Tuesday -right before Thanksgiving holidays. After the test, I am planning to share Mr. Alan's Thanksgiving Carols with my classes. I hope that many families throughout Dublin will participate in singing and spreading the joy of the Thanksgiving Carols.

My apartment is coming along. I purchased a dark wood round dining table and chairs. I have also hung additional artwork around my apartment. After I finish the office area, I hope to tackle the space that I am calling my craft room. I need to get my Cricut machine set up in a more permanent place so I can continue to make things for my classroom. I got my hair cut into a bob style. I am enjoying it. Chloe is doing well. She loved seeing Emily and Ms. Jan when they came for a visit earlier this month.

On a sad note, my mom's dad, Granddang, passed away on November 7th. Yesterday would have been his 89th birthday. It will certainly be a hard Thanksgiving this year b/c he loved this holiday. His wife, my grandmother, is home from the rehabilitation center and hospital, but can not do anything for herself. My Aunt is in Florida taking care of her on a full-time basis right now. My mom is going down to FL for Thanksgiving and then she is going to stay the week after to give my Aunt Net a break and a chance to go home and see her husband in NC. I can't even begin to imagine the stress that my mom and her siblings are feeling. Thankfully there are four of them so they are trying to share in the responsibilities. So far no major disagreements have erupted between the siblings.

I am on the last push to the end of this semester. After Thanksgiving, I have 3 weeks until Christmas break and then 1 1/2 weeks after Christmas before final exams and the end of the semester. We are going to be finishing our research paper projects, reading and discussing Romeo and Juliet, and completing a public speaking project. My students also want to see the movie based on the novel The Outsiders and I told them we would try to work it in near the end of the semester. I still have two more formal evaluations coming up. I am looking forward to meeting a new group of students next semester. Some things will certainly be done differently next time. I learn a little bit everyday and overall I still love it. Just be glad you didn't ask me on Friday if I loved teaching or not....you would have gotten a different answer.

Love you guys! Give me a call sometime!