Busy?

So, I am feeling a little frazzled this week. I had one IEP meeting today. (IEPs by the way are a government form I have to fill out yearly on every one of my caseload kids which contains among other things goals and how they are currently performing. They are a lot of work, and sometimes I wonder if they do any good.) I have another one tomorrow morning, two tomorrow night, and an additional parent conference. If you haven't figured it out, tomorrow (Thursday) I have parent teacher conferences from 4-8pm after a full day of school, followed by a full day of school. It is exhausting. I am pretty much ready for the meetings. I am usually fairly relaxed when it comes to meeting with parents, but I have a few touchy areas to talk about with some of the parents. So, I am just praying things go well.

My neice, Sophie, is scheduled to come Friday night for a sleepover. I have no idea what this will entail since she is supposedly formulating a list of what she would like to accomplish with her aunt. I will say that when she went to Grandma's for a sleepover, her list was long, and she checked things off as she did it... sounds just like me :) I look forward to spending time with her; I am pretty sure I haven't had this chance since before we went to Colorado. On Sunday, my brother, Luke, is preaching at Salem. I am looking forward to hear what God has laid on his heart. I have been praying that he speaks articulately and with confidence. While I am doing all this, Jeremy is starting to get sick, trying to keep up with mega amounts of homework, working at the latchkey program, and job hunting. This weekend, he is attending a youth leader's conference here in Columbus that is Friday - Monday. We'll see how often our paths cross. I type all this to say, We're feeling busy. Is anyone else?

Thankfully, I feel at peace with life most of the time - even with all that is hectic. I have been working on memorizing scripture - one verse a week. The first week I learned Joshua 3:5, which is so cool: And Joshua said to the people, "Consecrate yourselves because tomorrow the LORD will do amazing things!" Isn't that cool to know that promise? I have started to randomly say it just as a reminder that God is big and will do amazing things. Well, soon I will begin just randomly, so I am signing off. Have a good rest of your week and look for God's amazing things.

Week in Review

I don't really even know what went on this week. I feel that it drug by and was a blur all at the same time. My students are doing a great job working on this project that is an assessment of what we learned about force, friction, and motion. It is the first time that I have seen them really try to problem solve/demonstrate pretty much on their own. We have been working the last two days and then said they needed another day! Wow! On Tuesday, they are going to present their demos to the class. That should be the most interesting part. Jeremy headed back to work at latchkey after a day off on Monday. He said the kids were angels on Thursday for some unknown reason, but he wasn't really complaining. :) He started a new class in his quest for his GIS certificate. Apparently, it involves a lot of homework - ugh! In other news, he made some more job contacts, no openings necessarily, but contacts never hurt anyone. Please pray for those possibilities. I hope everyone has a great weekend

Valentine's Day

What a holiday! It is one of those times when you think, Do I want to give in to all this commercial hullabaloo or not? And then you think, What's wrong with an excuse to actually go out on a date? At any rate, Valentine's Day is pretty low key around our house, and if it wasn't for Jeremy, it may be forgotten all together. We went to a Thai restaurant on Thursday night and rented the movie Fireproof on Friday night. The Thai food was fantastic. The message of the movie was excellent; the acting left something to be desired - it was still worth watching. We thought we would avoid the busyness of the actual 14th by celebrating on those days. So, on Saturday, I went to work at school and Jeremy played racquetball with Mike. BUT... he also made me a card and had thought ahead enough to get a small box of chocolates. I wrote a note to him in return. Do we sound like a boring, old, married couple? I hope not because we do love each other; there is no need for a holiday to remind us of that, right?

At any rate, I feel much less stressed out after going to work yesterday - I was able to write (or get a good start on) 4 out of 5 IEPs that are due in the coming weeks. On Friday, I stayed until 5:30pm getting lesson plans and worksheets done for this week, so I am feeling much better. Today, Jeremy was able to play in the men's basketball league at church. It was close game that his team won in overtime. It was good to see his teammates again; we had basically been out of touch with them since the last season two years ago! Tonight, I am taking it easy. Jeremy has the day "off" tomorrow, but will be working on school work. I have to go to school. The high school has accumulated 6 snow days, and they decided it was necessary to make them up as soon as possible - blech! I will work to write as this week continues. My blogs have been sparse since returning to Ohio. Apparently, teaching is not nearly as exciting as volunteering and traveling around Colorado! I need to take some pics to improve this blog as well. I'll work on that, too. I hope everyone has a great week.

Loss and Living

Well, I decided to take time to blog. It has been a hectic week. Jeremy's grandma had been moved from the hospital last week to a step down unit in Canton. While there, her condition continued to worsen. They had difficulty regulating her oxygen. Additionally, other organ systems were shutting down. On Friday early morning, she went to be with her Lord and Savior. We headed home on Friday after school. We joined a majority of Jeremy's family at his grandpa's house to begin grieving and celebrating. On Saturday, Jeremy headed back to his grandpa's to help fix some things and be with everyone. I went to see Sophie who had stayed at my parents' house the night before. While there, we delivered cookies to my other brothers. It was really good to see the rest of my family as well. I went back to be with Jeremy around 4ish. It was healing, I think, to spend time with all the relatives and reminisce about their lives growing up so close to their grandparents. Very late Saturday night, Jennifer and Jason arrived from New York to join us. On Sunday, we had calling hours from 2-6pm. It was a time to meet many, many new people. Many had great stories to share about knowing Verena. There was supper provided afterwords, which was such a blessing to everyone. On Monday morning, we went to the funeral service. There were many tears, much laughter, and a start of the healing. Dean and Verena had been married for 60 years this April, and I think one of the hardest things for everyone, is thinking of Dean being alone. God is bigger than we think though and knows that Dean will have a support of the most caring family around. Please keep the family in your prayers in the coming weeks.

You Would Think...

With all my free time, I should have been blogging, but alas, I was not. This past week of school was completely not normal. We did not have a full day of school once. On Monday, we had a scheduled early release for teacher's meetings; Tuesday was a 2 hour delay; Wednesday and Thursday were snow days (#5 and #6); and Friday was a 2 hour delay. Whew! I have started going back to bed on 2 hour delay days. I am usually up and showered before I actually hear about the delay, so it is usually the debate - do you just get up and do stuff, or go back to bed? Bed has been winning the debate lately. I do wake up with my hair doing funny things, but do I really care? No, not really, and a curling iron can do wonders! We did manage to cover some material on the three short days we were there, and the kids really weren't too bad. Jeremy on the other hand had to go to his night class at Columbus state on Tuesday night - crazy! He did get out of latchkey on Wednesday afternoon, but he had to go for an extended time because of a 2 hour delay on Thursday. I think those days always disappoint him - I go back to bed, and he works double time. On my snow days, I baked snickerdoodles and giant fan tan bread, and then, I tried not to eat it all! I did an advanced tae-bo video with Billy Blanks; I thought I would die, but I didn't, and I have been paying for it for the past three days. Yes, it is super exciting, my snow days life. I had no good books to read and did not venture out to get videos, so I have to admit, I was a bit bored! That is a first. I hope everyone is safe in this weather and keeping warm. Have a great weekend.

January's Last Week

Jeremy and I went home (Wayne Co.) this weekend for two reasons. Originally, we were planning to go for my niece's 6th birthday party. But something else came about that made it pertinent that we went home. Last week, Jeremy's grandma was taken to the hospital because of shortness of breath. They ended up doing X-rays and a CAT-scan. The doctor discovered that she has pulmonary fibrosis and pulmonary hypertension. Basically, this leads to a hardening of the lungs. Neither of these conditions are curable or slowed by medicine. When we went to visit, she was in the ICU for intensive monitoring and on an oxygen mask. Her condition was compounded by a blood clot as well. It was good to see her. She seemed in good spirits despite her situation. His grandpa was there as well. He had just gotten a haircut and looked like a young man! Jeremy's grandma is still spunky enough that she had to remind her husband that she had been telling him for weeks to get it cut! I thought it was funny. The good news is she was bumped down to a different unit on Monday. Please keep her in your prayers.

From the hospital, we headed to my parent's house for the festive, hectic, and loud birthday party. Jen and Paxon were the only two not in attendance because Paxon was running a fever, and they didn't want to pass anything on to the other kids. It is so fun to be with all the kids though. Jeremy commented that Cale seems to be recognizing him. I noticed the same thing. The kids warm up much quicker - probably because we come home more often. I ran around chasing the little boys, read stories to the girls, ate supper with the adults, watched a movie in the quiet of the basement with the birthday girl, and ate a huge piece of Dairy Queen ice cream cake. I am posting some pictures so that you can enjoy the fun as well. Sophie really wanted to cut her own cake. She had the privelege of using the HUGE knife!!! I love the pic of my mom with the two "baby birds" wanting a snack. They are the cutest!

Welcome Mom and Dad Ediger

This weekend was a long one for me and Jeremy. On Friday, Reynoldsburg had a planned day off school; Olentangy (Jeremy's latchkey place) had school called off because of the frigid cold temperatures. So, we hung out. Well, I mostly cooked all day. My parents were coming to visit. For Christmas, each of us kids gave them one night out with us as a couple - no kids! So, instead of taking them out, I cooked for them. I always think that it is a good excuse to try some new recipes. You can see the table set for the big Greek Night. I made a Middle Eastern Vegetable Relish and Hummus served with fresh veggies and pita bread. Then, we had a Greek salad, Greek pork tenderloin with cucumber yogurt sauce, roasted red potatoes, and marinated and roasted vegetables. All this ended with Pear Custard Pie. I must say it was delicious... and a lot of work. It was fun to just sit, eat, and talk for 2 hours, which is I think the time it took us to get through all the food. They spent the night. On Saturday, Dad bundled up and went for a walk (1.7 mi!!!) before breakfast. Mom and I bundled (see pic to left) up later in the morning and went on a 2.5 mi walk on the bike trail. We actually started peeling layers off while we were walking. My parents took Jeremy and I out to eat at Cheesecake Factory - yum! - for lunch. After that, they headed home. It was a great few days of company.

On Monday, we went to the YMCA to work out at some time in the late morning, did laundry, and then headed to Lowe's. We worked at pricing some things for a few house upgrades at some point. Then, we went to eat at El Vaquero , which is a fantastic Mexican restuarant here in Columbus. Today (Tuesday), I headed back to work and Jeremy scrambled to get all his homework done before class tonight. I hope you all are having a great week.