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!

Whew! What a Crazy month!

Craziness has taken hold of my calendar and will not let me have it back!

It all started when I started working that event at the local theme park and hasn't left me with a chance to breathe. It's not hard work--it's just a lot of late nights coupled with very early mornings. YUCK!

I do have to say, while I don't agree with the whole scaring other people thing and the very adult theme, working this event has given me a new appreciation for the evil and craziness that is out in the world. There are people who are actually attacking our characters--hitting (punching), spitting, and throwing things at them. How HORRIBLE! Do these "guests" feel that they have the right to behave that way because they paid an admission? If you don't want to be scared, why come? Speaking of which, this event has been classified as an adult theme--so why are parents bringing their VERY young children and then yelling at them when they get scared and are crying? How stupid are these parents?! I just want to tell them exactly what I think--unfortunately, I would probably get fired.

On the flip side, the people that I work with are wonderful. The subs that I work with are wonderful--although there's a few I could live without. One of the ladies is really sweet. She normally wears a wig and takes it off when given a role. As I was running the paperwork, she told me that she's undergoing chemotherapy for her cancer again and that having this job has made her happier and willing to battle it again. She even brought us a cake and a card because she's so thankful. You see--people like this sub have given me a renewed hope for humanity--that maybe this event, while promoting a theme I'd rather not, it still provides jobs for those without them.

Meanwhile, we have the jerks who come in and then spit on the nice people like her--Grrrrrr....people are jerks!

I did take a few days off at the beginning of the month to go back to Disney with my aunt for her birthday! We stayed at the Contemporary (yay! On site!) and hit every theme park. We had a fabulous time!

I think I was more excited because my aunt finally had a chance to relax for a couple of days. What made it even better was that one of the employees at Epcot (which is where we went for her birthday day) asked her if she had spoken to Goofy yet. We both just looked at her like she was crazy and said "No." A couple of minutes later, she walks up to my aunt and hands her the phone. Goofy was on the phone and sang Happy Birthday to her! How cool was that?! Then, when we made it back to the room, Mickey Mouse had sent a delivery...

Chocolate and a signed birthday card with his picture! Mr. Bear (my teddy bear) had to get in on the fun too. :)

While we were at Epcot, Starship (as in Jefferson Starship fame) was in concert! Unfortunately, the camera's battery decided to die and we couldn't get a replacement for it, so we'll just have to remember the fun of that experience. We also ate in Italy at Tutto Italia--the BEST restaurant in Epcot! (Ok, so maybe it's great because of the Italian guys working there--unfortunately, we didn't rank one of the guys as a server, but it was nice to drool for awhile.)

The second day we went to MGM and rode the Tower of Terror twice! Each time it was a different ride and WAY better than the first time we went back at Christmastime last year!

We were even able to get a seat at our favorite restaurant--the Sci-Fi Diner! It's great! You sit in what looks like a drive-in and there's a huge screen at the front of the room playing clips from all of the sci-fi movies that used to play Saturday mornings. Your "table" is in what looks like a little car. Our server was Mike and he's been working there for about 9 years. He absolutely loves his job--although he knows the entire dialogue in the movies that are playing.

I even got to meet Prince Caspian!

The third day we went to the Magic Kingdom and actually walked from our hotel! Because we had stopped at Guest Relations and picked up a button that said it was my aunt's birthday, everyone was wishing her a happy birthday all day! One of the guys on Main Street stopped a her and have everyone sing Happy Birthday to her. She was completely mortified because she tries to be invisible all the time, but I think she was happy overall. We rode the Tea Cups and say Alice In Wonderland and the Mad Hatter riding too!
We eventually came across the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and look who we found! Wahoo!

After we finished at the Magic Kingdom, we decided to hop the monorail back to the hotel. We got to ride in the front with the driver! I even got to watch their little monitor and he explained what all of the controls and stuff meant. It was great fun! He even gave us miniature driver's licenses for the monorail! :)

On our last day, we decided to go to Animal Kingdom to tackle Mount Everest and the Yeti again. We even got to ride in the front seat again! Here are some pictures from the front seat:

I think what is even better is that we didn't have to wait in line for more than 5 minutes the whole time we were at Disney, with the exception of the Safari Ride--the wildebeest were migrating and we had to wait for them to move, so that was about a 30 minute wait. We did get to see the giraffe's pretty closely though--



We were both pretty tired when we left, but it was a great adventure! We decided that we need to renew our Annual passes for next year and search for the Hidden Mickey's throughout the parks. We found out after we left that there was a Hidden Mickey somewhere on a building of the Contemporary, so we'll have to go back and search for that one. :)

To add to this month's craziness, I took a group of students on a field trip to the public library to hear Catherine Gilbert Murdock speak about her books: Dairy Queen, The Off-Season, and Princess Ben. (If she looks familiar, her sister wrote Eat, Pray Love.)

After we came back from the public library, we had a pizza party in our library to celebrate. It was interesting to see that the girls stayed inside and the boys went outside. Oh well, I'll be working with this group this year to see if I can help improve their reading scores. :)

One of my favorite principals, Marcia Elliott, retired and I went back to one of my old schools to celebrate with her. I must admit, she made me a stronger person and teacher. Every year she moved me to a different team so that I had to work with various personalities and learn to get along with them. She also made me take a leadership role before I thought I was ready, and I came out of the experience and wiser person. I must admit, I hated being moved around and doing things I didn't want to do, but it's helped me in my current role in the library today. Thanks Mrs. Elliott! Now go play some golf and relax a bit!

Hayley had her baptism last weekend!

We have a Family Picnic next weekend with family coming in to stay this week. My cohort at work, Mary is on a cruise and should be back Tuesday. I've had meetings galore, and a full daily schedule this entire month. Whew! No wonder I'm seeing more gray hair pop up on my head. The really sad thing is that I haven't been able to read as much as I would like, so my Fall Into Reading Pile is not as small as I would like for it to be--yet. Thankfully there's only a few more weeks of craziness and then I can go back to a semi-normal schedule for awhile. Or at least until the Poetry Jam next month. Anyone want to be a judge on November 21???? I could pay you with pizza and student performances! :) Anyone?? Anyone???

Thankfully I think the craziness is dying down some and will finally let me have my calendar back sometime in November. (Just in time for the holidays....)