DD's 8th Grade Graduation

DD graduated from 8th grade yesterday. Our charter school/homeschool program held a ceremony for all of the 8th grade graduates in our region. There were about 30 other students along with her. It was a short and sweet ceremony with a couple of the 8th graders speaking, the Head of Schools giving a brief speech and the presentation of the gratuates. All in all it lasted about 35 - 40 minutes.

I just finished looking through the pictures and realized that I don't have any of Grandmother, Grandpa or Dear Aunt, but they were there REALLY they were. Unlike DD's father, who was a no-show. What a piece of work! Seems he hit a deer and messed up the car. That resulted in him being too busy dealing with that to attend his only child's graduation (even though he has another car). URGH! It was probably a much more pleasant time for everyone with his absence, but it's the principle of the thing.

On a more pleasant note......Here are some of the better pictures of the event:

The graduate being a goofball


DD getting her "fake" diploma (I have her "real" one)


Mom and graduate (Yes, DD is taller than Mom now by 3 inches)


DS and DD


And, finally, DS holding Mom's purse while she was posing for pictures with her other students


After graduation, Dear Aunt treated us to a celebration dinner at DD's favorite place, Sweet Tomatoes. YUMMY!

The Library Shelf - Help Yourself

I have stacks upon stacks of books just waiting to be read. So what did I do yesterday but go to the library book sale for the $3 a bag sale and get ANOTHER bag of books. Gotta love those books!

Up next in the just finished section of the Library Shelf is "Help Yourself" by Dave Pelzer. This isn't one that I got at yesterday's book sale, but one that I've been reading for the past week or so.

From the back of the book: "In Help Yourself, Dave Pelzer explains how we can move beyond a painful history, harmful negative thoughts, and innumerable setbacks by taking control and being accountable for our lives."

This is not necessarily a book for those who have been hurt in the past, but for everyone because we all are bombarded every day with negativity from the world around us.

In Part One (Get Rid of the Garbage in Your Life), he stresses the importance of solving an issue before it explodes. "Even the "best of friends", the "perfect parents", the "perfect marriage", if there were two people stranded on a deserted island they would eventually get on each others' nerves. As long as there is more than one person in the world, there will always be trouble in paradise."

He takes snippets from his own personal history as well as those of others such as Oprah Winfrey and Colin Powell who didn't let their meager backgrounds hold them back from going for their dreams. He ends with this, "If you carry a bad attitude, you have no chance of being happy, let alone living up to your full potential and achieving your greatness."

This author is something else. How he could go through everything that life threw at him as a child, turn it all around and wind up guiding others to find the hope and happiness in their lives is just simply miraculous. The horrific abuse that he suffered at the hands of his mother is chronicled in the books "A Child Called "It" and "The Lost Boy". Simply amazing that he came to be a man full of inspiration and gratitude. He DEFINITELY doesn't believe in feeling sorry for himself.

I'll sum it up with these two sayings from my own personal arsenal of words of wisdom:

It's all in the attitude!
Attitude = Amplitude

Where Have I Been?

No, I didn't fall off the face of earth. No, I didn't get abducted by aliens. No, I'm not in the hospital. It's the end of the school year and I've been WORKING, WORKING, WORKING! The first four weeks and the last four weeks of the school year are BUSY TIMES. Oh, I'm not complaining. I know how lucky I am to be one of those teachers in California that still has a job. Plus, I'd much rather be busy than bored. Our last official day of school is June 18th, and my last work day will be the 19th. Then, I'll have so much time I won't know what to do. Just kidding....I'll be crafting and reading all summer long. And, tending to that darn money tree that has yet to bloom.

DD will be graduating from 8th grade next Monday. Then, it's off to high school. Actually, she won't be OFF anywhere. She's still going to be homeschooled. She just won't be an elementary school student any more so she won't be in my "official" class as I am only certified up to 8th grade. I'll still be her teacher though as all homeschool parents are their child's teacher, but she will have to answer to another teacher in addition to me for high school. Confusing enough for ya?

Here's a good one: DD absolutely LOVES playing with the Community Band. She LIVES for Monday nights when they practice. Now, her graduation ceremony is scheduled for Monday night. She asks me at least once a day if she can just skip graduation so that she won't have to miss band. OI! I'm all for enthusiastically pursuing your dreams and passions, but I'm drawing the line on this one and I say, "NO!" Band happens every week. Graduation is once in a lifetime!

I am the "official, certified" teacher for eight of the 40 8th graders who will be graduating on Monday night. I wanted to give them all a little something, but what can you do when you have no extra cash. Well, since I'm the queen of turning nothing into something right out of thin air....here's what I came up with:

At Dollar Tree, they had a package of 12 of these cute little handled boxes. They were plain white so I got out my trusty stamps and stamped a confetti pattern all over them with blue ink (our school color). Then, I designed a little tag on my computer that reads, "Reach for the Stars! Congratulations" That is tied to one of the handles with some skinny blue satin ribbon. Next, I cut blue tissue paper into squares. I put little bags of M&M's in the center of two tissue paper squares and tucked them inside the handled boxes. There you have it. Graduation favors for all 8 of my students. Total cost...$2!

Updates

A few updates.......

After two consecutive evenings of spraying the bejeerbers out of the "nesting" spot of the flying, stinging creatures, I have found several of them belly-up on the outside table. However, the majority of them have moved over to somewhere near the stairs. Great! So now rather than the real possibility of getting stung every time we walk out the door, we risk getting stung as we go down the stairs and then falling the rest of the way down because we got stung. I can just see it now, and of course, if someone's falling, I'm laughing. (It's a sickness, you know.)

I finally got brave enough to venture into the garage late this afternoon. It was only because one of my students needs some help with a vocabulary lesson. I can't help without the book, and wouldn't you know it, all of the books are downstairs in the garage. Lucky me! So, I carefully opened the door and looked around. Then, I even more carefully opened the door to the storage shelves. And, gingerly opened the box that was supposed to have the 7th grade vocabulary book in it. Crud! It's not there. I never did find it so I put on my "brave suit" for nothing. Oh, and now that I think about it, I forgot to put on my tennis shoes too. I went in there in my darn sandals. One of my little snake friends could have bit my cute little toes. By the way, while I didn't find the book I was looking for, I didn't find any snakes either. And that's A GOOD THING!

The real reason for this update post is to get the picture of the snake further down on the page of this blog. Every time I open my blog, I get freaked out all over again because of that darn photograph of the baby snake. So, here's a picture that is a little more pleasant....



On another note, God works in mysterious ways that are sometimes very hard for us humans to understand......That's all I'm going to say about that for now.

Mother's Day Gifts

I received a couple of Mother's Day gifts that I don't recall putting on my official "Wish List". The first was a swarm of these lovely flying, stingying creatures right outside the front door.



After looking at pictures on the web, I think they're wasps. And, lucky me, I received about 50 of them.

Oh, another gift for me?!?! What is that rope-like, bungy cord thing coming out from under the garage door?

A BABY RATTLESNAKE!
And, you know where there's a baby, there's a mama. And, snakes usually don't have just one baby. And, it was coming out from under my garage door so now I'm terrifed that mama's had her babies in my garage. I'm not going in there until WINTER! (Lucky for me, my neighbor came over with a gardening hoe and killed that ugly rascal.)

Ahhhhh! Now this is more like it. This is a gift that I can relate to. DD made homemade waffles for breakfast.


I could have done without the other two gifts though!

The Library Shelf - I Closed My Eyes

The latest book on my library shelf was "I Closed My Eyes" by Michele Weldon. It is subtitled "Revelations of a Battered Woman". Some may ask, "Why would you want to read a book like that? Or, doesn't it scare you to read that kind of book?" Well, No, it doesn't scare me. It's research for me. It's an education. It's learning from other people's accounts of experiences.

This book is unlike others on this subject because it is the firsthand memories of someone who actually LIVED in a household with an abusive husband rather than the clinicians that usually write about what you SHOULD do and what you PROBABLY are feeling. This woman has been there. It's not light reading, but a very good and realistic look at how it REALLY feels to be in this situation, why she stayed, and how she did eventually leave with her three boys and start a new life. Recommended reading for those who are interested in this subject for whatever reasons you may have.

A New Blog

I've decided to start a new blog for everything "cute" in honor of our Etsy shop "Oh It's Sew Cute." I hope to include what I'm working on creatively, crafting tips and ideas, and well, whatever I think of or run across that is "cute". That blog will be at www.ohitssewcute.blogspot.com. I will still have this personal blog at www.carolscorner1234.blogspot.com for all things personal so my family and friends can check in to see what we're up to and my various ramblings about life.