No time to post again

Life is still busy. I'm out of town right now with students competing at an Academic Decathlon competition. I've spent the week trying to get stuff done but it just keeps piling on. On a very sad note, I lost one of my dogs. Roo died yesterday morning shortly before I had to leave for school. He had been getting sick and had been going down hill for a while but Wednesday afternoon he just went downhill fast. Josh is taking him to be cremated this afternoon since the ground is too hard to bury him. He was a very sweet dog and will be greatly missed. If you never caught the video of him that I took a few years ago, here's a cute one of him titled "The Headless Dog"

I survived - but not unscathed

I'm not sure where to begin. This past week was extremely stressful but thankfully it is all over.
On Wednesday my tonsils were huge and I knew I needed to get to the doctor or I wouldn't make through the rest of the week. Even though I didn't really have the time, I took off the last three class periods from school that day to go to the doctor. I feared that I might be getting strep, but it turns out it's just tonsillitis which still isn't great, but a much better prognosis. I spent all evening on Wednesday decorating the stage for the Koobraey awards. After I got home around 10:30 I stayed up another couple of hours finishing tallying the awards. I still hadn't finished the script for the show by Thursday and the show was that evening at 7:00.
I spent all day working on the script in my classes and didn't get finished until around 5:30. I didn't have time to eat at all on Thursday with all the preparations that had to be done. I also started to lose my voice that day. Somehow I managed to get myself dressed for the show and get it started. I still had a few issues in that I didn't print enough tickets and it was almost standing room only. We had some technical microphone glitches as well, but once the show got started it seemed to run pretty smoothly overall. I think I made record time as we finished in just a little over two hours. It's my understand that in the past it has gone three hours or more with a lot of down time. The audience was a bit rude from what I was told, but that is something I have no control over. I did get a lot of compliments about the show afterwards so I was fairly pleased about it. I got home around 10:15 and picked up some Wendy's for dinner since I hadn't eaten all day and then I had to do a quick assignment for grad school that was due by midnight.
I spent all of Friday getting ready for the speech tournament. I had to get judges sorted and the software downloaded and a million other things done. My kids helped after school and we got most everything set up and I was headed home by 5:15 so I could get to the bank to cash the checks for the supplies I needed for the tournament. I was still up until about 1:30 that morning entering information for the tournament into the computer program that we use for it. I had to get up by 5:00 and be on my way to the school by 5:45.
The tournament went well other than the fact that I really started to lose my voice and I'm sure it didn't help that I still had to keep on talking all day as I dealt with tournament stuff. We were a little behind in the morning, but we quickly caught up and actually got done early since one of the debates closed out. (Meaning the top two teams were from the same school so they didn't debate the final round.) I went with my kids out to eat afterwards and by the time I was headed home I had a hacking cough, chills, and my voice was completely gone. I took a tylenol p.m. and just knocked myself out.
This morning I went to church though I probably just should have stayed in bed. I ended up having to step out because I had a coughing fit. I went to the bathroom where I realized that I had a slight bloody nose as well. I pulled myself together enough to go back in for the rest of the service, but came straight home when it was over. I just had some leftover thai food for lunch and now I'm going back to bed.
So like I said, somehow I survived but it's not unscathed.... I just hope I get my voice back soon. I can't call Marty which totally sucks because I miss him.
I don't know how much blogging I'll be doing... as you can tell, life is back to the state of busy-ness for me.

Most Beautiful/Handsome Judges

I still need judges for the most beautiful/handsome contest at my school. I'm specifically looking for people outside the area in which my school is located. I'd like both sexes represented as judges as well as a variety of jobs. If you have any interest in helping me out, I would love it!
Judging needs to take place by Wednesday, Jan. 21 in the evening.
Email me or comment if you are at all interested and I'll give you the link for judging. I will need a contact email to send you the link. If you do participate, be sure to give me the complete information requested in the email or your "ballot" will have to be thrown out.

I'm getting sick and I am not even close to being ready for the awards show or my tournament. I don't really know if I'll survive by the end of the weekend.

Sitting at the Airport

I'm tired. I haven't had much sleep in the last two days. Now, don't let your mind go to the gutter or anything like that. We've just had some late nights. Marty got in Friday afternoon and we met up with him when we went to dinner that evening. We ended up eating at a Cuban restaurant. After that, I went back with Marty to his hotel and we watched t.v. and that's it so don't let your mind go wandering. I explained my reasons for "behaving" to him and he understands them despite the fact that I really didn't want to behave even though I do and it's really just pretty confusing but there you go. So I didn't sleep well that night and had to get up early. Saturday was a long day at the Shot Show but Marty enjoyed it. He said it was like being a kid in a candy store. There was so much for him to see. I did my work most of the day. Had several orders to put in. When the show was over, we headed out to a game store so Marty could pick up some things for himself and a friend. Then we went to dinner (Boston Market) and finally to the mall. We didn't really want to do the mall thing, but we were there so we could see the movie Defiance. But we had time to kill so we walked around the mall for about an hour and a half. The movie was very good. We didn't get back to the hotel until after midnight and my alarm went off at 6:45. We headed back to the shot show and I did a little bit more work until 11:00. I could have waited until 1:00 and come to the airport with the others or I could leave early and have Marty take me. I chose the latter of course. That meant I got to see him for another hour.
We had some good talks while we were here, much to his chagrin. But I feel much better about us. I think he's starting to feel more for me although he's not to the "L" word yet. He says he doesn't want to get married until he gets out of the coast guard which is fine as long as we continue to head in that direction. I think he still has a lot to think about. I still don't know what the big barrier is for him and I'm not sure he knows either, but I think a few walls were broken down on this trip.
I've book a flight to go visit him during spring break. I've made him promise to come see me in the next year, however. He still feels torn about having to split time between me and his girls, but I told him that they should always come first. He'll go visit them this summer and I plan to go back to see him this summer as well though I'll probably drive because I want to stay for perhaps two weeks. I don't want him to take time off of work so that he can continue to save it up and hopefully use at least a little time to come visit me in the fall.
So I'm at the airport with quite a bit of time to kill. I wish I could take a nap, but I'm not one of those people that can just fall asleep in a public place. I may doze a little on the plane though. I have some books to read, but I may need to get up and walk for a bit. Thankfully there's free wi-fi here which is why I'm posting now.
Next week is literally hell week for me. I have to do the Koobraey awards and run my speech tournament. I am not ready at all. I've been saving a massage coupon I got this summer and will probably cash in on it shortly after my tournament is over.
Well, I think I'm gonna try to wake up and wait for my flight which boards in about an hour.

Need Judges

I am in search of judges across the country for a most beautiful and most handsome contest. If you are interested in helping me out, shoot me an email and let me know. For judging, you will be going to a website with the candidates photos on them and then ranking them in order of your preference. I'll need the following information when you email me:
Name
Location (City, State)
Age
Occupation

My email address is jenz32@gmail.com

I am hoping that some of my regular blogger readers might be interested in helping me out... hint, hint.

I wanted to get people that are not associated with my school or the town it's in to be the judges to avoid any bias. This is for the upcoming Koobraey awards. You must be able to judge these photos on Tuesday, Jan. 20 between 3 p.m. and midnight.

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In other news... I'm at the shot show doing some work, but not the same work that I've done in the past. I am making the process easier this year by creating a more simple order form for their dealers and distributors. Marty will be here this evening. I can't tell you how excited I am to see him. I want to have a bit of a "talk" with him so I'm a little nervous about that. It's not bad or anything... just need to clarify some things with him so we'll see how that goes. We're going to the movies tonight. Well... gotta run and try to be productive.

Just Crazy

I must be insane. Really. I must. Why did I think I could do yearbook AND speech at the same time? I really must learn to say no. Sunday night I got no sleep. And when I say no sleep, I really mean absolutely no sleep. And I was sick, but that's not why I didn't sleep. No, I didn't sleep because of the darn Koobraey nominations that had to be counted. I realized it was going to take me a LOT longer to figure the results than I anticipated. For EACH category it took 30-45 minutes to tally the results. I had about 20 of those to figure. I started Sunday afternoon and tried going to bed at 1:00 a.m. with less than half completed. I tried sleeping but gave up at 3:30 a.m. I got up and continued tallying. I got to school at 7:30 that morning and continued soliciting student help when they came to class. I finished getting results about 25 minutes before I was supposed to send the ballots to the classes so I didn't have time to print and sort the ballots. I finally decided to just have the students vote today instead. Then last night I also had auditions for the Koobraey acts so I was at the school until 8:15 p.m. So I had no sleep and no food and was dealing with a fairly miserable cold. Yesterday was not pleasant at all. But I did get registered for my spring classes. I also slept very well last night especially after taking a benadryl.
Today I got a few things accomplished, though I'm still not ready to host both the Koobraey awards AND my tournament next week. Not to mention the fact that I'm leaving for Florida tomorrow afternoon and will be gone until Sunday. But on the very good news category, I will get to see Marty this weekend. He's driving up on Friday and will stay until Sunday. Woooo hoooo! I haven't even started packing. I'm waiting for some laundry to get done.
I don't know how I'm going to make it to the airport on time tomorrow. I have a meeting at school until 2:30. My flight leaves at 4:05 and I'm an hour away from the airport. Well, I'm going to go get some packing done and try to get some sleep tonight.

One free weekend

I took my students to the Congress competition this weekend. I have three students that are all 2nd alternates for Nationals. It's not likely they'll get a spot, but it's still pretty good. It was a very long day though. I went to bed early Thursday because I was simply tired. So I was awake at 3:30 that morning. I finally got up at 4:15 and took my shower and did some work for school. I got to school early and continued working. We headed to the competition around 11:00 getting there at 1:00. I had to help get things set up and I realized that the rules stated that we had to have three judges in the qualifying houses rather than the two we planned. So we had to scramble and reorganize our judges. We started mostly on time but then it took forever to figure the results because it is a very complex system of doing it. I also had to explain that they were figuring some of the scoring wrong. It's a good thing that I read the manual on the trip down there. We planned to be finished by 8:30 or 9:00 but it took until 11:00. Of course my students hadn't eaten so we had to stop at Whataburger so they could get food. We didn't get back to the school until 1:30 p.m. which means I didn't get home until 2:15. I went to bed and slept until 11:00 this morning. On top of all that, I'm feeling sick. I have a scratchy, sore throat and just feel drained.
I have to go through a bunch of nomination forms and figure the results so that I can put out a final ballot on Monday. I that means I have to go up to the school for a while tomorrow. Monday will be crazy. I have to register for my college classes, have students go perform for a study group and then spend after school until around 8:00 p.m. dealing with auditions. Oh, I also have to have my semester tests ready by Monday as well. I also have to give tests on Tuesday & Wednesday and then I'm leaving for the airport to go to Florida. I have no idea how I'm going to get everything done. The next week I have to get the Koobraey awards done AND my speech tournament. I can't do all this next year. I'm going to have to do something else or give something up.
Josh called earlier. He didn't make all-state band this year. He had much more difficult competition since his school moved up to 4A. They only took the top 4 players and he was ranked 9th. I'm sad for him. I know he really wanted it and was practicing hard for it. I guess now we need to focus on auditions for college.
Well, I'm going to take a nap and then get busy.

Back to busy-ness

Sorry I haven't posted. Things are out of control once again.. but amazingly my house is still clean other than a cluttered desk in the office. I'll be gone to Congress competition tomorrow but thankfully we don't have a tournament this weekend so I'll catch up on posting then.

Procrastinating Again

Laundry Area Before

Laundry Area After

It feels really good to have a clean house again. I won't take bets on how long it will last but I hope it stays for a few weeks at least. There's still one part of the garage that isn't clean (yes, I said that dirty word again) but I probably won't get to it until this summer. But I can still park my car in it and now I have a decent laundry area. I'm a little sore from all the bending, scrubbing, sweeping and cleaning I did the last two days.

I was up until 12:30 last night and slept fitfully. It feels kind of weird sleeping under the covers. Yes, I know that needs explanation. For the past few months I've been sleeping on top of my comforter with it folded over me. Last night it was very cold and I had to add another blanket on top of the comforter. I slept until 8-something and then went back to sleep until almost 10. I got ready for church and went to the 11:15 service. After that, I went to the store to get some milk and a few other items. When I got home, I continued to finish up the last of the laundry and put things away here and there. I was really procrastinating on doing school work. I did a good job of it though. I procrastinated until about 4:30 when I decided I had to get some work done. I graded some work for debate and interp and made plans for the rest of the week. I also figured out what I'm going to do in comm. app. this week. I need to get some yearbook stuff done, but it's not a priority right now. I did finish the cover... I'll try to post that as well. I have to get prepared for the Koobraey Awards and I did get the ballots for those finished but they now need to be printed.

I have a to do list going. I just hope I don't let myself get too distracted with other things.

Progress with the house

Well, I'm on a roll of sorts, but of course now I'm taking a break by posting. I've cleaned my bedroom and bathroom which took most of the day yesterday. I've done probably 8 or 9 loads of laundry. It's been a long time since I've had drawers filled with clean underwear and socks. I did make enchiladas last night but didn't clean the kitchen. I did get some dishes done but I'm moving lots of stuff from the other rooms into the kitchen while I clean them. Today I cleaned Josh's bathroom except for the toilet and mopping. I need to get some rubber gloves before I attack that project.

I generally do a good job of cleaning once I get into it, but I get easily distracted and so it often takes me a lot of time. Take for example that I started this post at 3:45 and it is now 6:00. I chatted with Marty and then decided I needed to go ahead and get stuff to clean the toilets. So I went to Walmart and then continued working on laundry which got me started on the laundry area in the garage so I started cleaning it. Then I started pizza and more laundry. I still haven't cleaned the toilets, but I'll get to them. I'm waiting until I finish the kitchen (which I haven't started) so that I can mop it and the bathrooms while I have the mop out. I'm going to try to get as much done as I can tonight even if that means staying up late. I haven't done a bit of school work that I brought home with me.

I'm thinking about not playing in the community band for the first concert because of my schedule this month. Maybe I'm learning that I can't do absolutely everything. Maybe. Well, back to cleaning for me.

Goals

Here are today's goals:

• Clean bedroom & get lots of laundry done
• Clean kitchen
• Take trash out (or get Josh to take it out)
• Make enchiladas for dinner

Tomorrow's goals

• Clean everything else
• Do school work

Sunday's goals

• Create semester tests for yearbook, debate & interp
• Put yearbook template pages online & add fonts

This year's goals

• Say NO
• Get A's in next two grad school classes
• Stay sane despite my schedule
• Visit Marty & get him to come here at least once
• Pray more

That's it. I'm not going to get into more than that right now... it's already enough.