Pushing Daisies

My favorite tv show is Pushing Daisies. I love the quirkiness, the pictoral quality and the storyline. So when I found out the Pushing Daisies Touch of Wonder Tour bus was stopping at Westgate last Sunday, September 14, I just had to go. They gave out free cup pies, magnets, pie servers, spatulas, balloons and a chance to win the first season DVD.

I participated in the trivia contest and answered the first question correctly, then went on to the second round, where I was asked an extremely easy question, (the name of The Pie Hole's waitress and I froze!) My mind was a complete blank. As a result, the other contestant won. An hour later, they played another round of trivia and I wasn't even close on that one. An hour later, they played yet again. This time, I was only competing against four other people, not twenty. I ended up winning an advance copy of season one (two days prior to the public release date.)

On my way home with all my free goodies, I stopped by a fast food restaurant for a burger. While I was driving home in my Buick (a car with no air conditioning) I had the front window open, one hand on the steering wheel, the other wrapped around my burger and suddenly my precious mylar Pushing Daisies balloon flew right past my face and out the open window! There went my twenty-years-down-the-road-Ebay-collectible.

If you like quirky, you'll like PD. Try it out - Wednesdays on ABC. And abstain from eating fast food in the car.

Heads of the Family

Four heads are better than one!

Fascinating History

Currently, I'm reading Natalie Bober's fascinating biography on Abigail Adams. Recognizing that they were living and making history, the Adams' purposely saved all their correspondence to each other. Plus, Abigail herself saved letters from others she wrote to. If you like history, you'll like this book!

Political Cartoon

I'm reading Johnny Tremain The Story of Boston in Revolt Against the British by Esther Forbes. Intrigued by what I've read, I decide to make a political cartoon. (This is something like what a teacher in school would assign for credit.) I love doing stuff like this for myself-wacky, I know.

California Trip

Disneyland and California Adventure were awesome! Lezlie, Louise and I were visiting CA from June 1-4. We were all feeling our age, but it was a fantastic trip.

One of the highlights of our Disneyland experience, was receiving a free lanyard and two "Year of a Million Dreams" pins, just because we were in the right place at the right time! All the rest of that day we looked for other park visitors with our same free lanyard-we saw no one. We felt giddy with excitement for the rest of the trip.

After some internet research, I found out that those free promotional pins are not available to the buying public, we just got a special blessing.

Of course, those free items made me want to purchase two more pins for myself, (clever people there at Disney.) I bought the Tinkerbell and Soaring Over California pins to add to my lanyard.

We're already talking about our next trip, (that always happens.)

A scary message

Here's a graduation message from Irene to all high school seniors:

Make a Smilebox free ecard

My Job as an Assistant

I still love my job even though:

• I had to confiscate a young boy's bike for a day because he constantly rides it in the busy breezeways
• boys and girls both enjoy running in the hallways, even after I tell them not to
• some kids love to whistle in the classroom and it's hard to catch them doing it
• kids often forget to bring a pencil to class

This is why I will always love my job:

• I've seen two years worth of academic growth in one year as students go through our remedial program
• some children are amazed to realize they finished at least five books through the year, when previously they'd finished NONE
• I no longer have to remind my 8th graders to properly punctuate their sentences
• junior high students can be extremely funny, they crack me up daily

If God hadn't prodded me into accepting this job, I'd never know these highs and lows. I'm thankful for summer vacation though!