Sexy Name Decoder

Click here to have your own name decoded. Thanks, Tonito, for the link!

Back to Work!

And so ends another summer. Ahh, it was a good time. Outings with family and friends included Six Flags, picnics, boat rides, Navy Pier, an NFL training camp, a camping trip, road trips, and beach days. There still may be some revelry, but as of tomorrow, it's back to work. I guess I'm ready. There will always be more to do. There will be friends I didn't visit, but wanted to. There will be appointments that must be made and kept that would have been much easier to schedule if there weren't work added to the mix. However, I am grateful for the time I did have. Not many other professions have so much time for rejuvenation built into the regular work hours. It is not a perk; it is a necessity, my friends.
A superintendents group in Minnesota wants to add more school days to the year so as to have teachers work a schedule that more closely resembles the work schedule of most other people. How about this? Let's give the other professions MORE time off, not take some away from the teachers. Who wouldn't support more time for vacations, relaxing, spending time with family and friends? The governor, so far, is supportive of the proposal. Where are this governor's advisors? Doesn't he know that teachers are a powerful voting block? Good luck to this guy in the next election! Yes, there are advantages to children spending more time in school. I just ask two things: 1) If you want the children to spend more time in school, do not add more learning standards. Let the students master the ones you've already given them. 2)If the lawmakers decide to increase the number of working days for teachers, can they also extend the work calendar for legislators? That seems fair to me.

Warm Fuzzies All Around

Mama Christy found this on The Delaney Diaries, who got it from The Pajama Mama and thought it sounded like a great idea:

“Bloggin’ Good Blogger Days
Your mission, shall you choose to accept it (and you will), is to go to as many blogs as you can and point out at least one good thing about the author of that blog. Do your best to give them a warm fuzzy feeling. Show your appreciation, admiration or plain old joy.

Tell them why something they did touched you, why a choice they made shows the true fabric of their moral being. Just go BE NICE to every blogger who’s blog you read today. And don’t be shy, either!!

Plus, post an entry similar to this one on YOUR blog and ask people to leave warm fuzzies in your comments. Spread the love, people!

Maybe if we take a week to engage in warm fuzzies, they will become a more permanent part of our daily lives, both on and off the computer.

In review:

1. Leave me a warm fuzzy in my comments.

2. Post a similar entry (or copy and paste this one, giving credit) on your own blog.

3. Leave a warm fuzzy on every blog you visit today.

4. Sit back, read your own warm fuzzies and feel, well, warm and fuzzy!

Enjoy!"

This sounds like a great idea to me. Let's get all warm and fuzzy on each other!

Update

Thanks to all of you who prayed and worried with me. I have secured a new position for the coming school year, teaching 7th and 8th grade math. A new adventure!

More: I just finished reading Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. Interesting, for sure. At times, the details were so intense, so real, that I had to check on whether it was fiction or non-fiction. No one could be this messed up, right? Right?! Right. It's fiction.

This Saturday is my family's annual Cousin Picnic. Yowzers. While I was in college, I spent a summer in Pennsylvania, far away, but I just HAD to come home for The Picnic. Mom suggested I bring a friend so that I wouldn't have to drive alone. So Brenda came along. As we parked the car and approached the picnic grove, she picked her jaw up off the grassy plain and said, "All of these people are related to you?? This is bigger than my church picnic!" Yes, there are that many of us. I can't wait to initiate The Boy this weekend. He thinks he is prepared. He is not. No one could be.

I joined a gym yesterday. I am very excited. I haven't been a member of a gym since I quit the corporate job in 2003. Teaching doesn't pay too well, especially at the beginning. My (free) personal training session is tomorrow, 10 am. I already attended a class for abdominal work and ran on the treadmill today. Yipee! With dangerously hot weather in Chicago, the outdoor running was mighty taxing on the body. Now I can run in the air conditioning, or as the months pass, in a heated gym. Although I would prefer to be outside, this option will likely get me more toned, due to the availability of weights, and make me work out for longer periods of time, because classes tend to be 45 to 60 minutes. Hooray!