Free-For-All Friday

Yes, I know it's Saturday.  It's the Saturday after the first week of school, which should explain why there has only been one post on the blog this week.  Now that school has started back, my posts will not be as frequent.  There's just too much going on!  And on the rare evenings when we are home together as a family, I will not be wanting to spend all my time on the computer.  I will once again be off on Mondays this year, so hopefully I can get at least one post in each week!

Anyway, back to Free-For-All Friday.  Here are my random thoughts from this week...

• Busy as it is, it was good to get back into a regular routine this week.  It's always good to see my students again.  I work with students in small groups, and tend to have the same students for a couple of years in a row, so I get to know them pretty well.  Some of them have home lives that make me very sad, but they somehow always seem to have smiles on their faces.  Sweet kids.

• Why do parents not exert more control over what their kids watch on TV?  I remember when I was a kid, we were not allowed to watch Three's Company, The Love Boat, or even Bewitched. Kids today watch TV shows, movies, and listen to music that no adult should be watching or listening to.  It's scary.

• We got a new vehicle this week!  Well, it's new to us.  It's a 2008 Chevy Silverado pick-up with only 33,000 miles on it.  That means we will be selling Brad's 2000 Chevy Blazer with 116,000 miles on it, hopefully this upcoming week.  We're excited about the new truck, but will be a little bit sad to part with the Blazer ... simply because there are memories of Hannah associated with it.  Little by little, we seem to be replacing those memory-filled things ... but I guess that's part of moving forward.  As my friend Susan says about her son who went to Heaven not long after Hannah ... "I don't need to keep all of his things to remember him by -- I have him with me in my heart all the time."  

• I have discovered Pinterest.  I fought joining it for a long time ... I knew I would like it, and I just really don't need another time drain like Facebook.  But after looking over my friend Gina's Pinterest page on her iPad during one of those school inservice meetings a couple weeks ago (Shhhh!), I knew it was time.  And now, like I knew I would be, I'm hooked.  I really joined for the recipes, and boy, have I found some good ones.  I think my family is just happy I'm cooking again!  We'll see how long into the school year that lasts....

• This week's free Kindle classic has been Oliver Twist.  I am thoroughly enjoying it.

• An article about While We're Waiting appeared in this month's "Hot Springs On The Go" magazine.  If you're interested, you can link to it here.  Click on the "flipbook edition" of the magazine and flip through to page 30.  It's a great article, but we were terribly disappointed that the author gave the wrong website at the end.  The correct website is www.whilewerewaiting.org, not www.whilewerewaiting.com.  We were very pleased to get the publicity for While We're Waiting.

• We've had some really nice weather in Arkansas this week ... cooler nights, lower humidity levels, and even a little bit of rain.  A nice change after the extremely arid summer we've had.

• I have to admit it ... I'm a weather geek.  Most of the people I follow on Twitter are weather forecasters and storm chasers.  I get a kick out of watching tropical systems develop and following all the predictions of where they're going to go.  And I get positively giddy when winter weather is predicted.  And I'm thinking that as dry as our summer was, our winter precipitation chances have got to be good.  Bring it on!

• Finally ... Bethany started her senior year this week.  And I'm pretty excited about the fact that by the time she graduates, she will already have 12 hours of college credit under her belt.  My girl is growing up ... and I'm absolutely thrilled about it!