If I haven't posted in over a week...

...then you KNOW I have been too tired. We started practicing for the Kansas Assessments last week, and it was a hot mess. We have switched to computerized assessments, which is an entirely new variable, which angers many teachers because we are expected to have a higher number of our students pass. That tends to be pretty tricky when you introduce a variable as touchy as computers. Blech.

Anyway, for some reason, testing combined with whatever else (hormones? the general stress of teaching?) made me totally exhausted.

However, I wasn't TOO exhausted because I did these things this week:

• went to see New Moon! It was fun...especially because we were surrounded by hilarious teenage girls who swooned. One girl made gagging sounds every time Jacob appeared onscreen. Apparently, she is on the OTHER team.
  

• Bought tickets to Wicked!!! YESSS!!! I have been dying to go since California. Normally, I have a distaste for musicals, but I borrowed the soundtrack from a co-worker when we lived in Sacramento, and I loved it! Since then, it's always been sold out everywhere we've been. And now, its in KC, and I laid down WAY too much money to go see it, but Tuesday night, Todd and I have a date with the wicked witch!

• Replenished my arsenal of books. I just finished reading The Time Traveler's Wife. By finished, I mean skimmed through the end, skipped through parts. It was an interesting idea, but put together quite crassly. I HATE when authors use crude language. You would think that the art of writing would lend itself to be above bad language, but that's just not true. I find that irritating, especially when those books are supposed New York Times bestsellers. I also finished reading Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol" which was exciting in parts, boring in others. Dan Brown does his research!

I checked out a James Patterson book (I know, they have language too, I'm a hypocrite, but they are fast, fun reads) as well as a book in the Percy Jackson and Gregor series. Both series have been recommended. I'm excited to have books to gobble up over Thanksgiving (haha, gobble?? GET IT!!??) I love reading. I would go crazy without reading.

• We used our free Kodak gift to get a jump on our Guatemala pictures...we haven't printed out hard copies yet, and it seemed like a good way to spend the money. We received 200 pictures this week...and that's only half of them! I went and bought some photo albums and am in the process of putting them inside...next up, writing captions in the books!

• Still drooling over the imac. I think this week or the next will be IT! I am waiting to see if anything spectacular comes out for Black Friday or Cyber Monday, but the Thomasons may be Mac owners by Christmas. I am excited. I want to shoot my computer sometimes (although it sure has been good to me for 5-6 years!)

Anyway, I guess that sounds like kind of a lot...but most of this was accomplished on Friday and Saturday...I never knew how blissful weekends were until I started teaching...now I milk it as long as I can into Sunday evening!