Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Hallowhen ?

We found out today that Mt Sterling is doing the whole Halloween Trick-or-treat tonight !!



They have moved Halloween. Kyle was aghast that they would move such a favored holiday. I told him they would have a hard time moving my favorite holiday (July 4th.)

They threw together some impromptu costumes (as if they wouldn't have done the exact same thing tomorrow night.)

The kids are going trick-or-treating. Tammy (who found out today that she has a torn muscle and a pulled hamstring) is going to pick up the brake pads for her Caddy. She is twitterpated because she got the Camaro started yesterday and it reminded her how much fun it was to drive. She is now back to vacillating between selling it or keeping it.

I am taking a blog break after finishing my college class and in the middle of doing a KTIP lesson plan for my Principal's observation tomorrow morning.

I was looking around and checked Tammy's blog. Two months ago she blogged about how it had been two months since she blogged and promised not to make y'all wait that long again. Ooops.




Anyway ... the book progresses on toward it publication date. Some of the teachers at the High School want copies. One of the counsellors said he wanted a 'signed' copy. It still freaks me out about signing a book. I don't know why.



Time to get back to work ... y'all have a good evening (or morning .. or whenever you read this .. have something good afterwards.)

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

more comes

Got the cover of the book today for approval. It was cool.

It gets more real as it gets closer. All along, this has been kind of surreal. It is like it is happening, except to someone else.

Here is the link to the bookstore version of my book.

Journey Into Darkness

or: http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore
/ItemDetail~bookid~47770.aspx

Monday, October 22, 2007

Thursday, October 18, 2007

The usual catching up to do

Here it is mid October. So much has been happening. On the 11th day of the month, Tammy and I celebrated our 4th year wedding anniversary. It was a quiet celebration. We were supposed to go to our bedroom early and not be inundated with knocks on the door to interrupt us. (That would have been nice ... not practical, but nice.) I really do believe the kids tried to keep it to a minimum. ANYWAY ....

Wow, four years with a beautiful sexy loving caring woman. I am totally spoiled. It has been five and a half years counting the delightful dating and engaging period. Tammy has had such a positive influence in my life. She sometimes disagrees with that, citing all the drama that came with her, but overall, she had been wonderful for me. Dontcha think so, Red ?

There has been a lot going on at work.The first nine week grading period is ending this week. There was potential fireworks about Wednesday, the 17th. Allow me to explain:

I have been in the process of getting a book published. I told my principal that I would be taking off a day in October to meet with the design team to go over cover design, back cover design, layout of the book, size, font to be used, and numerous other details before a first printing could take place. She was aware of this for a month or better.

October 1-5 was fall break. We had no students. I took off part of the week as did all of the other teachers. During the week off, the publisher called and scheduled the team meeting for the 17th. When I returned to school and told my principal that I needed to be off on the 17th, she balked. She told me she could not approve leave on that day, as we have students that day. No leave would be allowed except for sick leave. I was not going to lie to get the day off.

I told her I would take the day off without pay. There would be no need to pay me out of any of my three avenues to take time off (Annual leave, Sick leave, and Comp time) and therefore no problem. She informed me that I could not take leave without pay if I had any available leave time. She could only approve sick time.

As much as I hated doing it, I called my doctor's office and moved my November 23rd appointment to Oct 17 early in the morning. I filled out my leave slip as sick leave for a DR appointment.

I went to the DR at 8:45 AM and had my routine blood work done and picked up a DR excuse for work. From there, we went to Mom's house to visit, then to fill up with gas at $2.55 per gallon, then off to get my oil changed. Finally it was time to go to Bloomington, IN. It was a 198 mile drive. The first 115 miles were interstate. The last 83 miles were two laned country roads. Still it was a good drive and we got to the publishers early.

The meeting was fabulous. The team, consisting of Matt and Ryan, was great. We talked about sports teams and family for about 20 minutes before we ever got around to talking about the book. They didn't rush the process at all. There was a free sharing of ideas, and humorous stories about loved one and family. It was obvious that both had read at least part of the book and had a good feel for what we were trying to accomplish. JR, my author rep sat in on part of the meeting, which was not required at all. We chatted about UK sports and the mania in KY about it. Then it was back to book discussion. More often than not, it was me steering the conversation back to the book. It was just a good feel.

Up until now, the published thing was still an off there in the distant, can't really see it thing. Suddenly, we are talking a month.

The drive home was slow and easy. We got home about 8ish.

Back to work today. As always, after missing a day, there were numerous tales of mischief and revelry. All in all, the substitute said they were good kids and would be glad to sub for me anytime.

There ya go, all caught up.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Yep, it happened

50 happened.

On Oct 4, I turned the corner on my half century. the first thing i did afdter fielding call while still in bed, was sign on, and join AARP.

The weekend had two parties. My children couldnt come to the party on Saturday, so they all came down on Sunday and we had a second party. Yep, a birthday so big, it took two parties to cover it.

It was a good time.
You have already seen my birthday present from my honey. The rest were assorted shirts and games. It was great.