Additional Blog

I have an additional blog linked to this one now all about the books I am reading and reviewing. If you enjoy reading please take a look.
www.thelibrarybooknook.blogspot.com


I also have a blog that was created for school and describes what we are doing at school in the library. Please visit if interested.
www.carsonelementarylibrary.blogspot.com

DONE!!!

I am done!! The very last assignment is turned in. The only thing to do now is walk across the stage this Friday and receive my diploma (well kind of I'll actually get it in the mail in about 6-8 weeks). It looks like I will get an A and keep my 4.0 through all of grad school. I know it isn't important to anyone but me but it was my goal and I worked hard to accomplish it.

Getting the last 2 assignments done was the hardest part of the class. I knew I had to do well on the research paper since it was 25% of the grade. Luckily I got a 98 so I stressed about it for no reason at all. Even if I make a 50 on the last assignment I should get an A.

I am back at school already so it really does feel like I had no summer at all. Oh well, I have that much more to look forward to next year. Now on to the next big venture, buying my first house!! More to come soon.

Nearing the end

Summer is coming to a close quickly for me. Today I had a workshop and then I go back to work on Wednesday. That means I have this weekend and Monday and Tuesday to get the last of my summer list of things done. Unfortunately this weekend is a family reunion. I am thinking I may just not go even though it will make my mom unhappy. I also have a dog who needs attention and medicine at certain times of the day. I also don't want to spend my last weekend of summer in a car driving for many hours.

Since summer is ending it also means my time in grad school is also ending. Even though it is almost over, I still have several assignments to get done. One assignment is due on Saturday and is relatively simple. The others are my research paper that is due by Tuesday and another assignment called a Thought Piece which is due next week as well. It seems like I have less of a desire to get these last assignment done than I have for anything else in all of my classes.

And We'll Have Fun Fun Fun...

It is summer and that means occasionally having a little fun. Tonight my sister and I did just that. We headed to Putt-Putt and had some fun with mini golf and arcade games. We started with the golf even though it was about 100 degrees outside still. At first we just kept tying so that it looked like no one was going to be a winner. After a few more holes I finally pulled ahead by 2 putts and stayed in the lead. I even had some fun with 2 holes in 1 in a row!! After we finished sweating to death outside, we headed inside to eat our dinner. Pizza for 7.50 isn't bad even if it was just a frozen pizza that they cooked. We ate almost all of it then headed over to play games. Most of the games we played were just the kind to get tickets. After we had blown through about $15 in tokens we gathered all of our tickets and headed for the prizes. Since we aren't kids and only had about 500 tickets, most of the prizes were things we wouldn't want. I chose a deal of Rolos and then let Jill spend the rest of the tickets.

We left there but weren't ready to go home so we headed to one of our favorite places Barnes and Noble. I usually don't buy anything there but look for some of the new releases that might interest the kids at school. Tonight they were rearranging a lot of the books and we just looked around a little. We will have to go back in a week or 2 to see where they have moved everything.

So even though it is my summer and I am working on school work I have proven that I do still know how to have some fun. Next week will be a lot more busy so there will be less time to play. Hopefully I'll get to have a little fun though.

Celebration Time!!

Well as of 3:00 today it is official. I GET TO GRADUATE IN AUGUST!!! I survived the Capstone experience even with dealing with a sick family. I am sooooo happy that it is over. Now I just have to finish the class I am in and hopefully get an A to keep my 4.0.

In some unfun news, the last 2 days have spent cleaning up the house so that the AT&T Uverse can be installed tomorrow. I know this will end up as a good thing because the house will be slightly cleaner and we will have better TV, internet, and phone service than we have now.

Now it is time to get very serious with my house hunting. I have been surfing the internet looking at houses through various realtors and have found a few that I like. Now I just need to get my approval from the bank and head to the realtor to find the final one. I am hoping to have the house before school starts which means I am in a tight crunch.

The month of June

The month of June has flown by. The beginning was very hectic due to the end of the school year and Capstone. I was very happy to have made it through my first year in the school library. Everything went really well and we increased circulation almost 10,000 books this year!! Unfortunately we had 26 books not turned in by students at the end of the year but I am hopeful that a few shall still turn up at the beginning of next year. After we wound down the year and completed the inventory and moving of the books in the library, my true fun began.

Capstone! This is the exam I had to take in order to determine if I will graduate. It is a 1 week period of writing 3 research papers. They give 10 questions to choose from and each person must pick 3 of them to answer. I choose the 3 and got started right away. I decided to start with the question I thought would be the hardest to answer, then the next hardest, and last the easiest. It turned out that the last one wasn't the easiest to answer because I had trouble finding evidence to back up my arguments. I did finish with over 8 hours to spare before the deadline even with all of the difficulties of the week. First dad came home on Friday and asked about how to go to CareNow. I knew he was sick because he never volunteers to go to the doctor on his own. Then Saturday we had my cousin Michael's graduation party. We spent the day with family enjoying good food and swimming. Then on the way home mom started feeling worse. She ended up going to CareNow on Sunday. Then she had to stay home most of the week with me running any sort of errands to pick up food and medicine. My original goal was to lock myself in my room and not come out unless it was time to eat, clean up, us the restroom, or for short breaks. I didn't get my wish but did have 1 less distraction because my TV decided to bite the dust on Saturday night. I ended up just playing my music from iTunes over and over again to get me through the time. I am one of those people who can't just work in quiet. I must have some sort of noise to distract me somewhat. I am very happy the papers are all turned in now I just have to wait for the results. It is either pass or fail and I really don't want to fail.

The rest of the month flew by with workshops, my sister's birthday, and other class work. I am so glad this month is over and now I just have a few more days to find out if I will get to graduate in August or not. Please!!!!! let me get the results soon so I can quit thinking about it.

Summer???

Although school is out for the students, it is not out for me. I have a longer contract than teachers in order to get everything wrapped up in the library. Monday was spent cleaning, organizing, and finishing the inventory. Today I decided to attend a workshop that sounded promising. It was suppose to be about collaborating with teachers and sounded very promising. Unfortunately most of what she talked about are things I have learned in my library classes. I also started an online workshop today. It should last about 2 weeks but I think I'll have everything done by this weekend unless the teacher shuts off the other parts of the site.

My last summer class also began on Monday. It promises to be rather boring since I have already been working in a library for a year and know about our automation system. It will help out if I can learn about other systems (in case I ever leave Decatur). Friday will start my Capstone experience. This is a 1 week exam in which I will write 3 research papers and get very little sleep. Originally the plan was to hole up in my room other than food and restroom breaks but that has quickly changed. I now have a graduation party for my cousin's son on Saturday and a workshop on Wednesday. Even though these may interfere I plan to do both even if it means pulling all nighters.

After Capstone finishes, all I'll have is my summer class, a couple of days of work to finish my contract, and a ton of workshops. At least the workshops will pay off later since I will earn an extra $1,000 by completing 40 hours of workshops. I guess I will eventually see a summer again one of these days. Now I am in countdown mode. All I have to do is make it to August 13th when I graduate!!!!!!! My mantra has become "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can."

Another Fun Filled Week

This will be another fun filled week. Because of the storms last Friday, our school field day has been moved to this Friday. I was not so thrilled because I wasn't even at school on Friday but will be there this week. This means I get to help. Not a fun way to end a week especially when we have our end of the year blow out that night.

I am also having an author visit our school this week (on Tuesday). The kids are very excited and can't wait to meet her. I am hoping for a good response afterward as well.

I did have a little fun this weekend by going to the Scholastic Warehouse sale and getting almost $900 worth of books. About half are going to be added to the school library and the other half to the AR prizes for the older students.

On a happy note, I got my grades and have kept my 4.0!! Only 1 semester left and I am hopeful to continue to keep my GPA at a 4.0 and graduate that way in August.

Mother's Day

Spent a restful Mother's Day with my mom. We rested around the house until this afternoon then headed to Weatherford and Baker's Rib. We ate some delicious BBQ and fried pies. After eating we drove toward Granbury enjoying the scenery on some back roads. Dad and mom spent a lot of time reminiscing about the old days and the times spent hunting and camping in the area. We finally headed home just in time for me to get everything ready for another week of school.

On a happy note my principal sent an email today saying we can wear jeans all week long in celebration of Teacher Appreciation Week. We are a week later than most since our PTO president was gone last week with 4th grade to Camp Grady Spruce.

On another happy note, I have finished with classes for this semester and am just waiting to get my grades back. Only 1 semester left!!! I also filled out my application for graduation and will mail it tomorrow. So much to do and so little time left!!!!!

Long time no see.....errr write

Okay so my New Year's resolution was to keep this updated and it is now May and I think this is my 2nd or 3rd post of the year. Wow!! I guess I blew that one. Things have been crazy busy but I am happy to say they are smoothing out. I know that the minute they do it will just kick in with the next part of my life and craziness.

I am almost finished with school for this semester and forever!!! I have 1 course to take this summer and my Capstone experience. This will be a hell week for me in early June so I may go missing again around that time. To all my friends if I disappear from here, facebook, email, and do not return calls it's nothing personal I am just dying!! Just kidding I will just be slammed with all of the assignments for that one week. If all goes well, I will graduate on August 13th!!!!! This is the best news and I am so glad that I took on this challenge. I have had so many wonderful opportunities since I took this challenge on.

Like I said the craziness is dieing down but will soon resume with summer school and house hunting. I am very excited to be looking for my first house to purchase. I have already started looking and have seen a few that interest me. I am hoping to be a home owner by the end of this summer if not sooner. Then it will be me all on my own (well, except for my dog).

The last month has probably been one of the busiest. I went to San Antonio for the TLA annual conference. While there I was able to meet up with my bff and her family. I wish I could have stayed longer but knew that things were still busy in my life and I needed to head back. I also had a great time meeting so many other librarians and getting authors to sign various books to add to the school library. The kids have loved coming in and finding all of the new books and then finding out about the signatures. I can't wait for next April when it's in Austin and I get to have even more fun!

Hopefully my next post won't be so far away that I feel like I have to put so much in. Stay tuned for more Total Insanity!

New Year

Well, even with my promise to update more often I have let things go for a long time. One of my goals is to make sure to update my blog at least once a month (I think I can come up with something to say that often). First day back at school was tough. The day did go by rather quickly, but when I got home I crashed. I had planned on watching the TCU Bowl game but slept instead. I think I got most of the important plays thanks to mom screaming at the top of her lungs! You would think she was trying to get them to hear her in Arizona. Hopefully my sleep schedule will get back to normal now that we are back to school. I think I shall go back to bed now.