tributes

this tribute is for my dad. my dad is my hero! he is the bravest and strongest person in the world.

let me tell you just a few things about my dad. he served in vietnam twice. that was hard because it was not a popular war but daddy felt that it was the right thing to do. his country called and he answered. i have learned patriotism from my dad.

he always made me feel safe and secure. even now i know my daddy is there for me. as dr. phil says, he provided me with a safe place to land. i learned how to be a good parent from my dad.

he is absolutely one of the funniest people on this earth. if you have never had the privilege of being on the receiving end of one of daddy's stories you have definitely missed a treat. my favorite story is the one about the "ghost" train that was really my dad in a plane! i learned to have a good sense of humor from my dad.

my dad is a leader. whenever something needs doing people look to my dad. he is conscientious, dependable, and gets things done. i learned my work ethic from my dad.

my dad is deeply committed to God. he doesn't talk about his relationship with God very much but i have watched my dad through the years and his actions speak volumes. he will and has risked his life for others, greater love has no man than to lay down his life for another. he is always helping others. his charity runs deep. he is always willing to give someone another chance. i learned many of my values as a Christian from my dad.

these are just few things that i love about my dad. again, i could go on and on but these are the things i thought of today : )

tributes

i haven't figured out yet how to upload pictures but if i had i would put a big heart here. i've been thinking that i want to let my family know how wonderful and special they are and let others know how wonderful they are. my family is my heart.

the first, of course, is my fantastic husband. i love him for so many reasons. first is that he saved me. many of you don't know much about my life when i first went to college. my parents got a divorce and i was pretty much left to my own devices. the summer before i left for college my dad came home from vietnam for the second time. my parents had not had a very good marriage for awhile and it all came to a head when daddy came home. mom and dad got a divorce and my mom went a little "wild." just suffice it to say that home was not home anymore. i lost most of the contact with my dad. i was somewhat adrift when i got to college. i met keith and he helped me work through a lot of things. he loved me and believed in me.

he has always believed that i could do more than i ever thought i could. he has always been there for me. when i went back to college he did so much so that i could study, work and when i wanted to quit he wouldn't let me! he is now encouraging me to continue my education by getting my specialist degree. yet again when i said i didn't see how he said of course i could. it so nice to have someone affirm you.

he is a fantastic father. he is the man that i dreamed of for my children, although he is a soft touch : ) he's never been afraid to tell his sons that he loves them and give them hugs and kisses, even now! he loves them unconditionally and they know they can trust him always.

he is the smartest man i know, alive or dead!!! he's horrible to play trivial pursuit with unless he's on your side. he has helped me with so many papers and research projects that would have taken hours to find information for. he's also my editor which has gotten me more than one A in school. he even went to school for me one time when i was sick to take notes. my professor wanted to know if he could come back!

i think i knew he was truly the man God had for me when we could sit without talking and there was not an awkward feeling about that. even now, if we are driving or sitting and neither of us is talking it just feels comfortable.

these are just a few of the things i love about him. i could go on and on but these are the most important things: he is a man of God, a good father, a wonderful husband, the best person i've ever met and i am fortunate enough to call him my husband.

i love you with all my heart!

your deb

tubing with family and friends

if you read keith's blog then you will know that he is not really a fan of tubing but i love it! i think that if it weren't for me the man would never have any fun (just kidding honey!) i like being in the water and going down the small rapids, getting in the water, laughing and talking, and going at a leisurely pace watching the scenery. i really had fun : )

we had a good day at church and with no church tonight, of which i'm not a fan of anyway, we had a nice restful sunday afternoon. i'm hoping we're going to sam's club tomorrow and see matt and tasha but keith doesn't want to go so we'll see. he has a lot of his mom and dad in him and i have a lot of my dad in me, meaning i like to go and do stuff and visit. he would rather stay home. like i said, we'll see. i'm pretty easy : )

it is one of life's little pleasures that we have a monday off. that to me is so nice to wake up and realize it's monday and you don't have to get up!!!!

hope everyone has a wonderful labor day.

sacs

every 5 years or so the state department of education in its infinite wisdom comes to schools with a committee to see if schools know what the heck they are doing. this group of people are known as the sacs committee. sacs stands for southern association of colleges and schools. before they come the school system that is lucky enough to be accredited that year has kittens and everyone goes "insane in the membrane!"

our school system will be host to this wonderful event the 2nd week of september. you would not believe all the things that we have to be sure we know. we have been told again, and again, and again ad nauseum to know the school motto, vision (i didn't even know we had one!), and on and on. we have these things posted everywhere, and when i say everywhere i mean everywhere, would you believe the bathroom in front of the toilet????? the one in our bathroom seems to have grown legs and it has become quite a game to "find the school vision in the bathroom."

my funny today at school has to do with this visit. apparently these people will be interviewing parents and students as well as school personnel. i chose 2 students from my room. i told them about this separately and their reaction was a stitch! i called one student to tell him about his appointment to the panel. he looked at me and his jaw dropped and in his inimitable way said," this week just keeps getting better and better!" when i told the other student, she took the paper with the "suggested questions and answers" and looked at me then dropped her head on my desk and said,"and who do i owe the thanks for this honor!" needless to say they are not very happy with me right now but they'll get over it (tee-hee).

rainy days and tuesdays

what a rainy day we had here in georgia. we probably had 5-7 inches of rain! everything has greened up again. it doesn't look like august anymore. we sure did need the rain.

as a teacher i love rainy days. the kids are somewhat subdued and seem to be quieter at least until recess. ha-ha, i don't have recess duty! smart woman! everything is going very smoothly. it's almost kind of scary. i guess that it's because i know these kids and they know me. like i said, we didn't have to learn the routine and sort of picked up where we left off.

i gave them an interesting writing assignment yesterday. in social studies we have been talking about scarcity and how that changes what people buy and prioritize in their life. their assignment was to pretend that they were on their own for 2 weeks and they had $100 to use as they wished. of course the goal was to have them see that if that is all the money they had then they had to spend it wisely. when they first heard that they could spend $100 they started talking about buying games, etc. then as they started thinking about it. they became pensive and really thought about the situation. they shared their writing today and surprisingly enough they, almost to every kid, they would spend the money on food, bills, pet food, they would conserve water, electricity. it was wonderful! these are the times that it is so cool to be a teacher b/c you can see their intellectual maturity growing!!!

in another vein, it is interesting to live in this environment we call school. it is like its own world. we have the leader, we have the peacemaker, we have the arbitrator, the comedian, the drama queen, the complainer, the questioner (this person drives me crazy b/c they always have that last question when the meeting is over and we are asked, "does anyone have a question?" and you KNOW this person is going to have ONE MORE QUESTION!!!) anyway, it is an interesting study in people and this microcosm world.

we finished our 2nd and 1/2 weeks of school. i have already graded 252 papers, scheduled 2 conferences, written at least 5 notes and put 5 students in study hall (detention). wow! but you know what? i wouldn't do anything else. i truly love teaching!

i had several "atta girls" this week from my principal! it was really nice b/c she doesn't give compliments all the time. we were asked to come up with goals for our teaching, what we wanted to work towards. i had actually been thinking about this this summer (slow summer ) so i was ready for this. they are ambitious goals to be sure but what's a goal that can be easily reached??? anyway, my principal was so impressed with them she e-mailed them to our curriculum director who wrote her back with "WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

the other thing was about my kids. i am so glad i was able to move up with them. in social studies we have been discussing goal making and why goals are important. this is one reason i wanted to move to 5th. these kids are just beginning to have opinions of their own and understand what these mean and the importance of them. anyway they came up with goals of their own and they also wrote a class mission statement which was pretty awesome. my principal thought this was terrific also!

if you can't tell i am very glad to be working with 5th graders again and so far i have had a good start to the year. i think it will be a good year with lots of hard work on my part and my students' part. i told them i was going to work them hard and they could rest on the weekend!

i would like to share some things i have learned over the years as a teacher. keith is forever telling me i should write a how-to book but for now this will do. so here goes:

1. remember that each and every child you teach is someone's baby
2. you are not the most important person in a child's life but you can definitely be one of the important people in their life
   
3. always give a child a chance to save face, if you back a child into a corner they will come out fighting and you will lose
4. be enthusiastic and honest when you teach
5. never be afraid to say i don't know and then try your best to find out the answer

more later : )

birthday and a funny moment

we went to jim and bonnie's to celebrate jim's b'day this evening. we love getting together with them. it is so good to have good friends. we always have good food, laugh until we can't laugh anymore and just enjoy being together. matt, tasha, keith and i got jim a tent. yeah, i know it's a strange gift but it is practical for what he needs it for. jim rides a motorcycle and at the end of this month he and other riders will be taking a trip for about a week. they will be camping for some of the time and he didn't have a tent thus the tent.

the other thing i wanted to write about was that as i said earlier, i wanted to find something to laugh about everyday. today was a good one. in my language class we are learning about sentence fragments. i was explaining to the kids that you don't start a sentence with the word "and." i asked them to tell me what part of speech "and" is. one of my students very enthusiastically told me it is a conjunction! god love him, he doesn't often get things right so i told him excellent! that it is indeed a conjunction. to make sure he understood what a conjunction is i asked him what a conjunction does. he got that deer in the headlights look and then, you could see the lightbulb go on, he tells me, "it conjuncts!" funny stuff for this english teacher. it made me laugh!! yeah : )