Who says spring is the time for cleaning?

I have been meaning to organize and clean Brandon's room for a while. He would "clean" it up at times, but his type of cleaning was stuff things where ever they will go. So now that summer vacation has begun, Brandon and I decided it was time to tidy up.

Before pictures:

After pictures:

Now the REAL question is: How long will it stay like this?

Another New Old Love

I have always loved to camp. This weekend Dan is coming down from MD just for a camping weekend with Brandon and me. We will be tent camping at the oldest state park in the US, Indian Springs, Ga. Brandon and I will pick Dan up from the airport and with the car already loaded we will head to the campground. We will make one small stop to pick up Bobbaloo and the cooler, then we will be on our way.

I have never camped at Indian Springs although I have been to the park several times as a child. It is very pretty and full of history. I am sure we will take plenty of pictures. If not, we will get in trouble with Sandy. We look forward to cook outs, long walks, maybe a swim, putt-putt golf, maybe a canoe ride and of course we have our Greedy dice and Uno cards!

Too bad we can't leave right now!!

A New Old Love

I started quilting a few years ago, but for some reason I kind of dropped the hobby. I had been wanting to start up again, so I started asking a few people about quilting. It turns out that quite a few of the ladies at church quilt. One friend, Monica, makes incredible quilts! So I asked Monica if she would like to form a group to learn, teach, fellowship and make quilts. She agreed and we met for the first time this Saturday. We had six ladies show up and there were at least 4 more that couldn't make it for previous obligations. (The amazing thing to me is that our congregation is only about 40 people, and growing.)

Some of the ladies were complete beginners and some of our more seasoned members have always quilted completely by hand. We taught some new tricks with rotary cutting and chain stitching and low and behold we were able to create our first quilt top. Twelve pinwheel squares, none of them perfect but full of love and laughter. Monica is finishing it up quickly so we can give it to one of our home bound members for her birthday THIS Friday.

We are going to make lap quilts and give them to a resident of the month at our local nursing home. We go there every other month to sing and visit with the residents and we thought this would be a great way to brighten some one's day.

I knew if I would just get started I would fall in love with piecing quilt squares again. Now if I could completely finish a quilt, that would be awesome too!

Here are our squares. I know it is hard to tell what the final product will look like but we were proud to display our squares on the wall.

From the classroom

I teach science in the middle school setting to kids with special needs. My first period class is my favorite because I have some of the kids from the self-contained class join in with us. They are able to learn and they LOVE being in a typical classroom. It helps them so much with their self esteem and confidence.

We have been studying evolution, changes over time, and we have to introduce the kids to Darwin. So I showed them a power point presentation about Darwin and we talked about how many people didn't accept anything he said because he did not study science in college. Then we talked about other famous scientist that weren't formally taught in the field of science. I told them that I didn't even go to school to be a science teacher but it is my favorite subject to teach. So they asked me, "You didn't? What did you study to be?"I said, " a musician."

One student threw his hands up and said "Great!!! Show us a magic trick!"

reaching out

I was diagnosed with May-Hegglin when I was 17 years old under some very interesting circumstances. I had an emergency surgery. My platets dropped to only 11,000 yet I had no bleeding out. The doctors were baffled and sent me for testing. Since that time my platets have never numbered higher than 70,000. I was tested for any and everything you could imagine and the Dr finally decided that I had MHA. Ok, the twist is that even though this is a genetic disorder, the tests on my family were all negative. So I was declared as a new mutant, yes wonderful for a teen.

I don't know another single person that has this disorder. The older I get the more questions I have. I will be turning 40 this year and I really would like to have atleast one person to compare conditions with. I have always bruised easily and I understand that part of the disorder but I have noticed that as I age common activities bruise me that didn't when I was younger. For example, some door knobs bruise my hands when I turn them, Bottles and jars are getting harder to open because of bruising, not because of strength.

I would like to know if that is normal and to be expected when aging with this disorder.

Recital

Kids today rarely get a chance to do some of the things that we and our grandparents did. One of those things is reciting poems or readings for others. I was delighted when Brandon had an assignment to do a reading for his class. He had to choose a poem to recite/read for his class. We practiced every night and I hope he did as well at school as he did for me at home.He has had a slow start in reading but now with medication to help his attention, I have seen him make huge strides in his progress. He isn't afraid to get up in front of others which is good for a future president.Here is the poem he chose:

The Toughest Boys in School

Don't mess with us! Don't be a fool!
We are the toughest boys in school.
So if you meet us - best behave.
We're big and strong and very brave.
Though I admit it's true to say
That we've been known to run away
From kids at school who call us names,
Who laugh at us and spoil our games.
'Cause even though we boys play rough,
The girls in school are twice as tough.

Bob Woodroffe

Reading??

Anyone who knows me, even acquaintances, knows that I hate to read. I can handle short news stories and magazines, but give me a novel and I will almost always scoff, roll my eyes and put it on the shelf. I noticed that many of my students were reading these huge, thick books. Yes, the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. So just like I did with the Harry Potter books (which I hated), I got the first in the series and started reading. Within record time I finished the first book and was hungry, or should I say thirsty, for the second and then the third. I am currently reading the last of the series, Breaking Dawn. I am mesmerized with the story and found myself making myself turn off the lights at midnight last night. Of course, it didn't do me much good to turn the lights off when my mind is still full of questions about what might happen next.

I have loved the story line and I will definitely look at the authors other books now that I have read these. If you haven't read the Twilight series yet, get them but have plenty of time to get wrapped up in a swirl of questions, intrigue and love.