college grad

it is finally sinking in that my degree is complete and i now am free to enjoy my homework-free life.  when i signed up for the eighteen month program, i was thinking, "sure! i can handle four hours every tuesday eve." not really thinking about the ten hours (at least) of homework every week.  a minimum of fourteen hours a week is a lot different than four hours a week and i wasn't really ready for the chaos that it would bring to our home and lives.  thanks to the support of my loving husband and the understanding (mostly) of our little girls, we all survived and live to tell the tale.  the girls still occasionally ask if i will be going to college on tuesday night, but i think they are starting to get used to mommy being home and more available.  

my new goal is to lay off the goals for a while and enjoy the extra time with the fam. maybe i'll think about goals around easter...tune in, hee, hee

Back in Action!

i was so out of it that i actually did the last post on the wrong blog. it was supposed to post on my scottelementarymusic blog. an idiot, you say? no, just a crazy woman that was trying to finish her master's degree and get ready for a performance of over 80 students in a new theatrical location (where i had no control over the sound). it was so stressful that i ended up getting strep throat over thanksgiving (the week after all of this mess).

but that is all the past!!!!! hurray!

my final portfolio presentation was wednesday, dec 9 and i am currently free and clear! i can not express the ultimate joy it is to have my tuesday nights and approximately 10 hours a week back in my life. instead of sunday afternoon football and homework, i can now do sunday afternoon football and laundry. this sounds like a wimpy trade, but my family has been digging clothes out of laundry baskets for the last eighteen months. now they might have a chance of finding them in a drawer. and now the bonus!

kim frank, you just finished your master's degree in education. what are you going to do now? "i'm going to disneyworld!" jason, the girls, his parents, and his sister's family (joy, glenn, and timmy) are all going with us christmas morning and we will be coming back january second. we are all so excited...what a great way to end the year!

Red Ribbon Week

We have just completed red ribbon week festivities and are preparing for a short week with parent-teacher conferences. Special class teachers have a pretty booked schedule. We will try to meet with as many parents as possible. Be sure to let us know if you have any concerns. Tune in next week for the latest on third grade.

george w bush

i am sick and tired of people calling our president names like "lame duck" and such. he has become the butt of every joke and it pisses me off!

has he shown himself to be less than perfectly presidential? yes.
has he made decisions that we do not agree with? yes.
is he still the president of the best country and leader of the free world? yes, yes, yes!!!

last time i checked it took a majority of americans to vote in this president twice. we all voted him in for a reason. do we forget that if our president is truly an idiot then so is over half of the nation? if this is true then we better hang up our hats and join the socialists because we don't think our democracy worked correctly.

i will be the first to say our country is not in a perfect place, but i do believe that a big part of that problem is our fat baby whining and complaining, cnn, and how quickly we forget our own responsibility.

by the way, obama, biden and mccain have a lower approval rating as senators than george w. bush...and sarah palin has a higher rating than all of them put together.

so be done with it. he's gone in just a few short months and we may be wishing he was back before the end.

What is poverty? - Part I

terrible news about the finances of the u.s. has been all over the television today. the safety of the united states economy has become a questionable thing and i wonder what impact it will have on our society.

with all of the turmoil of this, the bombing in pakistan and the presidential election coming soon i had cause to think deeply about poverty in america. people on tv keep saying that we are losing the middle class in america and we keep heading towards a greater gap between the rich and those in poverty. this causes me to wonder. i once told my mom that i thought she grew up in poverty and she was offended. she said that she always had clothes to wear and food to eat. they weren't the richest people in town, but they had what they needed.

my family qualified for food stamps and just about every government assistance you can name. yet, i always had a place to live, clothes to wear and food to eat. i went to the movies, got christmas presents and really was able to do fun things that most kids do. in fact, sometimes i think i was able to do much more because of all the artistic events i was able to attend because my parents were involved with the productions.

so what is poverty? is it living without basic needs? is it a salary below $20.000 a year? in some ways doesn't american poverty look like middle class in other countries?

today i am just posing the questions...maybe i'll find some answers another day.

Fantasy Football

i now have my very first fantasy football team. it is a trivial persuit, but for some reason it makes me smile. i won my first game and can't wait to see what happens this week. i did put a lot of my team on seattle! gotta stay true to the home team! so i picked hasselback as qb and the seattle defense. they didn't do so great last week, but i'm hoping they will step it up this week. fun, fun, fun!

weekends

I should really look forward to weekends, but I am in a funk. During the week I am busy with the school where I work and the girls go to school, college homework and basically trying to keep the house from completely turning into a science experiment and keeping us fed. This is about all I can do during the week and I find it satisfying despite it being tiring.

The weekend is another story. I should be catching up on laundry and cleaning and homework, but my back hurts and all I feel like doing is sitting around and being lazy. It doesn't help that Ari woke up sick last night and that just sucks the life out of me.

Today is filled with finishing up my homework and watching football. I think the biggest frustration is that I missed church because Ari was sick and Jason has a toothache and can't hear in one ear. I think when I miss that time with other Christians that it just sets off the weekend and makes me look forward to going back to work.