Thanks, Davey! I needed a swift kick in the arse!

Hello again my faithful!

Thanks to Davey, (my homie from the mitten) I'm back and ready to update you on me. (Since I'm an expert on the subject!)

As you can imagine, I've been SWAMPED with work! 10 hour days MINIMUM! It's insane, and it's about to get crazier because we do a 3day/2night camping trip with the 8th graders the 2nd week of October, and there is a mountian of paper work and prep work to go along with it. Naturally, I'm right there in the middle of the planning, and the stress. From what I hear, though - once this camp gets pulled together, and executed - it's the most fun thing of the year. Let's hope that information was accurate. :)

The majority of my work - outside of grading papers, creating worksheets, quizzes, lesson plans, etc... - has been dealing with the parents. These parents LOVE LOVE LOVE their children! And that they should! These kids are truly fabulous people. I have great confidence that they will be running the world in about 15 years. They will do very well. But the parents are so involved in their childrens lives that they are emailing me and calling me and setting up conferences with me over every single low grade, question, big homework assignment... Which wouldn't be a big deal if I taught only 30 students, but multiply that type of high maintenance by 137 - and welcome to my nightmare! :) To be honest, though - I am happy to have parents like these who only want the best for their kids. And eventhough I have to sometimes really go to the mattresses and defend my grading, assigning, etc... I'm okay with putting up that fight. These are good, noble people. And so am I. And at the end of the day, we all just want what is best for their children. I guess you could say I've gone the complete cycle... Denial - the parents won't come after me! Admitting - these parents are kicking my ass! Anger - who do these people think they are to question me!?!? and Acceptance - We're on the same side, we just don't all realize it yet. :)

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood today. The sun is shining, it's about 74 degrees out... We've got every window in the house open, and the fans going. The house smells clean and fresh - and the air is light. It's just damn near perfect.

And then, my Sooners will be kicking off in about 20 minutes. So - I'll have a football game to top of my wonderful, relaxing, not-a-care-in-the-world Saturday.

OOH! Alex and I got new cell phones! I'm totally high tech now. I have a bluetooth headset and everything! We also switched carriers... My number is the same, but I'm now with Cingular. It's saving us tons of cash - and I think we will both be a lot happier with Cingular than we were with the other guys.

My candle business is getting off to a shaky and slow start. I closed my first catalog party yesterday. I didn't do stellar sales, or anything like that - but it was a start. I need to get more people interested. But since I don't have friends that come over to the house - it's really difficult to do the whole "Wow, Amber! Your house smells amazing! What is that?" Well, friend #4, that would be my Gold Canyon Candle in the cool and refreshing Ginger Lime Scent. Let me show you what else we have..." So - I've basically been harassing people via email to buy my candles. If I've recently harassed you - A: I'm sorry, and B: SO BUY A CANDLE ALREADY! ;)

Alright - 15 minutes to game time... I'm going to get myself all set up on the sofa. I wish you all a lovely evening! And I promise to try to check in more often! :)