Bathroom Renovations

This weekend was busy finishing our bathroom renovation. You can see some before and after pictures below. We are SO happy with our bathroom beach paradise. There was much cursing involved, mainly in installing the woodwork. This was a new experience for me, and I had a lot of trouble nailing in the quarter round. Eventually I stormed out of the house to the local hardware store to buy some Liquid Nails, which seemed to solve my problem. So, now, I have to decide what my next project is... I think I will take advantage of the warm weather and do some yardwork next weekend.

It was a very family-oriented weekend as well. It felt a little like Trading Spaces in getting this bathroom ready, as we wanted to get everything finished before Meg's mom and sister arrived. They were here Saturday night into Sunday. It was fun. Meg got lots of birthday gifts, and we went to our favorite restaraunt, Peter's Diner, for dinner. I had a delicious patty melt. :-) They left around mid afternoon on Sunday, and then I made sauce, and a few hours later, my parents came over, and they brought their westie, Scamp, over. This usually works out well, as it tires out both dogs, since they play and fight non stop. Then the whirlwind of fun left, and Meg and I had about an hour of peace before we went to bed.

This week at school should be pretty easy. We have conferences (as a music teacher, it means free time to get stuff done), and GEPA tests. I have so much organizing and grading to do this week, since the last few weeks have been nothing but yearbook. Thank goodness that is over.

Well, Meg is already asleep, and it is almost 11, and I should be too.


Before and After

Before & After 

Busy Week- yearbook yearbook yearbook yearbook...

This was one heck of a week! Although, it did go fast...

The big project of the week? The yearbook! I am one of the advisors for this year's yearbook. I have never done a yearbook before, so most of the beginning of the school year was spent with me learning how to do it. However, several weeks ago, my co-advisor was out on medical leave, unexpectedly. She is better now, and was able to help me finish it this week, but I was running solo, along with my staff of students, for a couple of weeks. ANYWAY, our deadline was Friday. Thursday night, my co-advisor and I were at school until 9:30 finishing the yearbook! We had it almost all of the way done; we just had a few more team pictures to take, and then, it just had to go out in the mail.

So, I get to school Friday morning, to be greeted to an angry e-mail from a normally supportive parent. She was upset because her daughter was absent the day I took the yearbook staff photo. I had attempted to do a re-take on several other meetings, but someone was always missing. I felt it best to go with the one that I took originally. Well, this parent was upset that her 8th grade daughter was not going to be included, and demanded that I retake the picture, or she would bring it to my principal's attention. I reluctantly replied, telling her that I would TRY to retake the picture, and showed the e-mail to my co-advisor, who was PISSED beyond belief. She went to the principal, who said we had to retake the picture. So, I retook it at lunch; the rest of the yearbook team was ANNOYED with this student that she got special treatment. I just kept repeat, "we have to do what is fair" (even though it isn't). We ended up with a terrible picture, because half of the yearbook staff refused to smile in protest, but we had to go with that.

The other issue dealt with the ads. Parents can buy space to place messages to their graduating students. Well, we had received many ads, and it was difficult to fit them all together, but we accomplished it on Thursday night. Well despite the fact that the deadline was WEDNESDAY, we received THREE more ads Friday morning!! I would have turned them down, except one was from a particular parent who I had an ugly run-in with last year, and I now know to stay out of his and his daughter's way, if I want to save my job, so I had to redo most of the ad pages.

BUT, we did get it all done at the end of the day, and it is off in the mail.

I was also sick this week, no voice and all of that other stuff. I was out on Wednesday, which I didn't want to do, because I had so much to do. I also had poster projects due this week from ALL of my middle school students, so when I got back to school, I had all of these posters to check in. Also, I was out on Thursday, because it was the Teen Arts festival at the community college, and I was taking my trumpet trio.

But the week is over, and I can relax, except that I finished the bathroom today. It looks great, a beach theme. I'll post a picture when I take some!

Let's hope next week is easier.

Max in the snow

It snowed a couple of weeks ago here, so this is old. But this is our dog Max, and among other things, he LOVES the snow. Here he is playing with one of his favorite toys, his kong. 

New Blog Smell...

Here it is my new blog, and my first post on it. Not much to say yet, but there is more to come!