School's Out!!!

Where has this year gone? Today is my first Monday off. Last Thursday was my last day. It was also the day that I was able to sign my letter of "intent" form. You know, the one that says I HAVE a JOB next year!!! I was so afraid that I wasn't going to know until sometime during the summer. Like maybe not til August, just before school starts! WHEW!!! What a relief and burden lifted!

I really enjoy the job that I do. It is very satisfying to work with these children that are struggling so much with their reading skills and to feel like I have had something to do with their successes. Of course, not every child has a success story. That breaks my heart. We do our best, but sometimes that just isn't enough. This year our scores for our testing were soooo much higher than last year, except for our 1st graders. It almost feels like a personal failure. I know that I did the best that I could for them, but it still doesn't make it any better.

Our "theme" for next year is "wild". I am going to start looking now for jungle type things to decorate my area at work. It is fun to have something like that to work on. This year, our theme was the "sea". There were a lot of fish at school this year.

We have planted a bit of a garden here at home. Not much. And mostly in containers. I have a ton of tomato plants and have already harvested 3 Roma tomatoes and two very tiny round ones (not sure of their names). Yummy! We have basil, green onions, red onions, cilantro, strawberries, cucumber, zucchini squash, and grapes. I am so looking forward to the harvest of more. We also planted 5 rose bushes. So far, so good.

I have lots of plans for this summer. I wish they were all fun plans. We probably won't be going on a vacation. We have plenty to do here. I have a few projects (cleaning certain areas) that I really want to get done. I started last summer, but when you figure that I have 30+ years of "stuff" to go through, it might take me another 30 years to get it done!!!

I have been doing a lot of the indexing for the church. I really enjoy doing it. It is relaxing to me. Last year, I was in the top 6 in our stake for indexing. Maybe this year I'll be #1? I try to do 2 or 3 a day. It is so interesting to index these people that lived so long ago. I prefer to do census' and am currently on 1910. I think that Ohio had the best penmanship so far. I am working on Vermont now.

Well, my projects beckon to me. Til later...