the sun has come out...

Well, summer has arrived here in North Carolina and summer has brought the heat with it. Now, I don't mind hot, if I can be dressed appropriately, wearing shorts and tank-tops and flip-flops. But this last week of school means I'm outside with kids in the heat of the day, wearing professional dress clothes. And when the temperature inside is set by men who like it COLD, I tend to wear long sleeves for inside and then sweat outside with pushed up sleeves.

A couple Saturdays ago I sat out in the backyard reading a book, and since we have no shade in our backyard, I was so thankful for our red umbrella. Mind you, it's only red underneath, because the sun has completely bleached the top! But look at that sky! The blue is beautiful and there were no clouds. It was a perfect Saturday.

I'm ready for vacation and free time and more mornings out under the umbrella with my books. My husband and I are considering a Kindle, or some such other device, so that I might read books and not have tons of them lying around.

The end of school means that there should be some answers on the job situation. I haven't known the status of my job all year, with not knowing whether I'll be back next year or in what capacity. It's looking good though, but I might only be able to return part time, which would be okay if we got a baby. That would be a perfect situation, because I would be able to keep my health insurance, which is really awesome. I had a talk with the principal today and he hasn't really made any decisions yet. There are a ton of options with staffing and there are some other open positions that he is focusing on first.

I know I haven't been around this past week as I was performing inventory this weekend and that means scanning 10,000 books in the library. It took me Friday night, all day Saturday and several hours on Sunday. I turned on the tv in the library and watched movies and West Wing on DVD. Luckily we had Monday off, so I was able to have a break and Charlie and I spent the day together, eating bad sausage and alternating time in the bathroom. Seriously. It was a nice day to have together, but too bad we both ended up sick.

We had to have the AC fixed in my car last week, and it was just in time for all this heat. I drive a white 1997 Honda Civic and haven't had many problems with it, and I was realizing something about it. I bought that car in 2000 and it is now 2010, so ten years, right? And I paid it off in five years and am so proud of that accomplishment. I know eventually we will move up to a minivan or something bigger, but for now I love my Civic. It fits me well and has enough space for now.

Enough random stuff for you? Just wanted to keep you updated.

Did I tell you I have a big crush on Robert Downey, Jr? Yes, I do. I have now seen Iron Man 2, twice. Yum is all I have to say. Do you have any celebrity crushes? I want to know.

I meant to show you...

A couple of weeks ago when shopping for a baby shower present at TJ Maxx, we stumbled upon the toy section and found this Harry Potter music box. It plays the movie theme and is a really beautiful tune.

Maybe I haven't mentioned how much I love Harry Potter?

It's the scene where they talk to Sirius Black in the fire. Pushing a button on the back makes the fire light up.

I took it to school and placed it in the library and showed it to my kids, who absolutely loved it. They asked me to play the music over and over. They hadn't really ever seen a music box before and thought that it had a "play" button. I showed them the thing you turn to make it work and explained how they work. It's an abstract concept if you've never seen before.

Go Gryffindor!

It is really hard to see the faces from any angle, but if I held it the right way I could snap this picture of Harry's face.

It has been a very, very busy couple of weeks. Spring break is coming up next week and I will finally have a little time to breathe. I've been working hard on getting a project done for work and it's been consuming my time. But I need a vacation and I am so glad this one is coming.

Pedicure, here I come.

chick lit meets adoption

I think many of you know I am a elementary and middle school librarian, and my middle school girls really love this author: Sarah Dessen. She writes very realistic high school fiction, and I have fallen in love with the way she writes her characters and the amount of heart in her words. The situations are real, things you can imagine happening to girls today, things you know are being kept from parents and teachers. But Dessen, deals with them in a way that girls can handle and understand. But like I said, mostly for high school girls.


This is the problem, really, because I don't teach high school. I have middle school students that want to be high school students so badly. While I want to expose my students to great, contemporary literature, I have to be careful. I ordered a couple of books, thinking I could preview them and slip them to the 8th grade teacher for her classroom bookshelf, and I knew I would have to read them first.

This book was especially poignant. The whole plot of the book deals with two best friends, one of whom becomes pregnant. The mom wants the girl to give the baby up for adoption, since she is only 16, but the girl wants to keep the baby. The mothers of both girls caution that life won't be the same when dealing with a baby, and they seem to get it, but the character is determined to keep the baby.

Now, I don't have an opinion about whether she should or shouldn't give up the baby. That's every woman's choice. And I understand why a mother might want her 16 year old to have a shot at a normal college experience.

I understand that angst. Our side of the coin is just as confusing and hurtful and filled with pros and cons. To adopt or not. What races to consider? How much to budget? It's all filled with questions that we won't have answers to right away.

The book is a great read, and would certainly spark conversations between a mother and daughter if read together, about where to draw boundaries, who to love and how to be there for your friends. This author is such a rare talent, and if you have daughters, buy her books now and save them for her teenage years.

Okay, library time is over, for now.

a little mystery

I've been so sick this week that I haven't thought to much about all this waiting. Charlie and I were talking about paying down our debt, something that has been a big goal of ours, and how we are trying to get it done this year. We have done some Dave Ramsey things before, but this year we are sticking to it tightly and applying every extra cent to the amount of debt we have. It isn't huge, mind you, but we still have some college loans and a credit card to pay off this year.

Currently, his schedule has us paid off in about 6 months. And I told him I thought that was good, but he said he figured it would get interrupted by an adoption. I kinda stared at him. I know he thinks about it too, but he seemed so certain that it would happen.

There are days when I think it won't ever happen.

Don't you have those days?

He said he knows someone will choose us eventually. And I just didn't have that kind of faith. I mean, the law of averages says yes, we will get chosen. But it could take years. I don't want to wait that long, but it isn't in my hands.

I did get the strangest FB message today from a student of mine. Now, I don't allow my students to be my friends on FB. There's just too much personal stuff on there, but this message was from a 4th grade student. The title was "adopt" and all it said was "Are you serious." No question mark or anything else. And the student's name was spelled wrong, but the picture was of her. Weird.

I'm not quite sure what to do, and I think I might talk with her teacher about it. I highly doubt she wants me to adopt her, which would be strange, but I don't know why she would send me that message.

Curiouser and curiouser, as my dad would say.

What do you think?

UPDATE: The teacher and I talked with the student this morning and all she said was she wanted to know if we were really going to adopt a baby. That's it. I told her I didn't talk to students on FB and wouldn't be replying to her, and I told her because the message was so short and abrupt I didn't know how to interpret it. I know people find adoptions in the oddest ways, and I really didn't want her to know a pregnant girl or something. Weird, I say again.