It's a beautiful day...

...here in Florida, and what did I do? I was sitting inside a classroom learning about how to "grade" teachers and help mentor other teachers. Yep--it's as boring as it sounds. Not to mention that I had the traingin about 10 years ago and NOTHING has changed. (Although that probably won't help me pass the test next week! Have I mentioned that I'm a bit Type-A and that the word TEST causes me to break out in hives? ACK!)


I must admit though, I am SO GLAD that the HOS event is finally over! The last night of the event was last Saturday, and I've been using the past couple of days to try and get caught up on my sleep. After all is said and done, the experience wasn't as horrible as I first thought it would be--especially since I was able to meet some really interesting people! Speaking of interesting, I met a Zombie....






a vampire....



some dead gothic club goers....

escaped convicts that have come back from the dead to exact their revenge....




and we musn't forget THE CLOWNS!!!!!





We also had members of the biker gang and the SLIDERS.....


(The one on the far left is one of my former eighth grade students....YIKES!)






In addition to the HOS event ending, I also had the chance to meet author Alane Ferguson while she was visiting some of the school's here in town. She has written one of this year's Teens Read books titled--The Christopher Killer.



Let me tell you--she is one of the coolest people you'll meet. She's a Christian, so she's been given A LOT of flack because her stories deal with crime and death, but she's so down to earth and has interesting stories to tell that I think it's horrible that some people are giving her a hard time about it. She's also a blogger (yay!) and teaches writing at the local community college in Colorado.

Stay tuned because there's more information and a giveaway coming to you soon!

Also during the week of Halloween, we had the Preschoolers come around trick-or-treating to the library. The had some of the cutest little outfits! One even had a cute little piggie tail!




Now that things have died down a bit, what am I planning, you ask?

Tomorrow, my aunt and I are going to see Phantom of the Opera at the Performing Arts Center!!!! It's my absolute favorite so I've been trying to remain low-key about the whole thing, but it's starting to wear off. I've been blasting the soundtrack for the last couple of days, "singing" at the top of my lungs and I think Madison is ready to kill me. I know she'll be excited when it's finally over. Hopefully we'll be able to get around to the back door and get our pictures taken with some of the cast members before they leave. I'm also going to bring my Sharpie so that I can hopefully get some autographs too. Here's a clip of Sarah Brightman and Antonio Banderas singing Phantom of the Opera...

I'll let you know how things went. Have a great rest of the day!