All About Kimberly

Sailing Along the Life of Single Parenthood

Tag Archives: life

Where Does The Time Go?

It seems like if I put off one day of blogging, it leads to more and more.  But since this blog is going to focus more on my personal life, I thought I’d check in today and tell you about life at our house right now.

Softball Season – That’s one of our big Spring events. Becka plays with the high school (who only have 2 or 3 games left), and Cameron plays in a community league that has only played their first 3 games with 10 or so left to go.  

Academic Competition – This is big in mine and Becka’s life as I coach several events, and she competes in several events.  We’ve finished our competitions at the district level and now all students who placed in the top 3 at district will compete at the next level of competition during the end of this month at the Regional level.  In some ways this is less stressful as I’m now working with 5 students versus about 15, but this level of competition is also stiffer so those 5 are working even harder than before.  On top of that, I’m trying to secure us rooms for this competition and looking for good business hotels that are suitable for this situation can be time consuming – especially when they send you out to the middle of nowhere for competition.  :)

Easter - Yep, can’t leave that out today can I?  Well, we had storms all day so after the church celebration Easter was sort of a flop this year.  Eggs had to be hid in the house (and personally I find hiding real eggs in the house kind of creepy – what if we didn’t find them all?), and so really it was more like a typical Sunday with household chores to be done.

Standardized Testing – Our state has standardized testing at each grade level from 3 to 11.  This year Cameron is taking her first set of the TAKS tests (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills), and Becka is taking her last. Both HAD to pass this year as 3rd graders must pass the Reading test to move to 4th grade (This test was taken in early March and we already know Cameron passed) and 11th graders have to pass all 4 sections (English Language Arts, Math, History, and Science) to graduate high school. As an ELA teacher, my test was the first week of March, but the other 3 are the last week of this month (as well as Cameron’s math test) so with just two weeks to go everyone is in major test cramming.

End of the School Year – Last week we finished up the 5th Six Weeks which means we have only 6 weeks to go.  With 1 week being dedicated to the TAKS test and one to Semester exams at the high school level, we are actually down to 4 weeks of instruction! We’d be crazy to not admit that we are all tired and counting down!

The End of a Friendship – This has been a sort of emotional/stressful weekend and thus while I thought I’d be posting on each of my blogs throughout the weekend, I’ve actually kind of moped around this weekend. This weekend I had a friendship end.  I think this is the first time I’ve ever had a friendship just end at a moment’s notice. I’ve grown apart from friends of course, but never just had a conversation of “This friendship is over. Goodbye!”  It’s been tough and awkward.  I’m not sure how to react.  I am for sure not happy about the situation even though because of the details involved, I can acknowledge that maybe it was best – best for everyone else involved but me.  

So in a short less than 500 word recap – that’s life at our house right now.  Keep watching as I move this blog into more and more personal, stay up with Kimberly, Becka, and Cameron posts!  :)

MIA

Yes, I know. I’ve been MIA for the week. Every time I think life is back on track – there is another snafu – life turning busy, technological problems, you name it – I seem to have experienced it lately.  I “think” things will get better now. Life will still be busy of course (it it ever any other way?), but it will be normal busy and not super busy!

We had our district contest for our academic events this past week and did very good. Our students brought home many awards.

Technological Problems – Yes, I’ve had those too this week.

Creating a new Site – Yep, I’ve been slightly distracted too, but I’ve taken the time that I couldn’t be online to do some true blogging soul searching and decided that I need focus.  I don’t like having this one blog that covers so many topics. I don’t survive as well with no focus.  So I’m breaking off into multiple blogs. I’m a little nervous about trying to maintain multiple blogs, but ultimately, I think I’ll do better having a place (here) to keep focused on the personal life – talking about work and family, sharing with you more and more about me through weekly memes.  You already know about my new book blog – A Novel Mind. Next I’m moving future reviews (and hopefully one day contests) to a separate site – Southern Girl Reviews.

Speaking of contests, I have winners to draw here and at A Novel Mind – I know.  Look for winners on both sites listed tomorrow!  Good luck everyone (and hint, hint…if you haven’t entered, I haven’t closed them to comments yet).

An Online Break

Do you ever take 100% online breaks?  I took an unexpected one this week. It wasn’t meant to happen, but somehow it did, and I think it might have been just what the doctor ordered. I’ll pay now as I’ve made no progress on my to do list for Spring Break, but I really feel so much more energized and focused.

I left Sunday for Austin for the CX State Debate Meet with my students.  We ate at Red Lobster, and I was happy to get lobster.  I’d been craving it. And better yet I paid for it with a gift card I received from MyPoints.  We also spent a couple hours at the mall and it was fun to just unwind and relax with a fellow teacher for adult time.  :)  I checked in online briefly Sunday night, but I knew we had a long day ahead so I turned in early.

Monday the debate tournament at UT took from 8 that morning until 9 that night. We were exhausted!  We finished the night off at Chili’s where I had the worst Chili’s experience I’ve ever had (one of my top awful restaurant experiences ever).  When we got back to the hotel, the kids piled up in our room, and we played Uno. By the time we quit and sent them to their rooms, I couldn’t hold my eyes open – so no online time.

Tuesday we slept in a little and then went and played tourist.  I took the kids to the capital and such, and then they wanted to hit another mall.  This was Spring Break so we headed across Austin (thank you Garmin) and hit another mall.  It was much better than the one Sunday night so we spent more time there than we should.  It was after 4 when we left so I hit rush hour.  Ugh!  

I finally got home at 10 last night.  After visiting with Cameron a little because I missed her SOOOOO much, I went to bed again without checking in online.

This morning we met a new friend of mine and her mom at Ihop for breakfast. It was nice. Then Becka and I both had eye appointments.  It’s been a busy few days, and I’ve missed my online world, but I feel so much better than I have in weeks.  Hoping now to get lots of new content out and get some other blogs officially going.

Happy Weekend

I’m rebelling and staying in the bed this morning.  Yes, I will pay as when I get up I’ll have to go ninety to nothing to be out of the house and getting the girls to their practices, but I couldn’t sleep last night so I’m tired.  I’m not sure what was wrong but I was wide awake – it was sort of that feeling you get when you take diet pills and your brain and body just go on and on and you can’t settle except I didn’t take any medication of any kind to wire me up.

Today I’m going phone shopping after the girls have softball and play practice. I’m excited. I’ve been looking at my provder’s website at phones and drooling.  The real question will be what kind of discount they’ll give me because I can’t afford much, but I don’t want a “cheap phone” either.  I have become really spoiled with my current phone and couldn’t imagine going back.  What are my criteria? I want a touch screen and a QWERTY keyboard.  I currenty have a Palm Treo, but all of a sudden it doesn’t have a signal most of the time.  I’m not sure what happened, but about a week ago I was in the middle of a conversation during my conference period and all of a sudden it just cut out – no signal.  I always have full bars at work.  Then that evening I didn’t have ANY signal at home. Ok, that signal comes and goes a lot, but not totally. Even at my worst points, I usually have one bar – enough to talk.  Now occasionally a signal blows in and I’ll get like 20 text messages at a time, but then the signal is gone just as fast and so I can’t reply to anyone.  So basically my phone is useless.

I’m with a smaller cell phone provider and don’t have a lot of options for phones.  I’d love an iPhone or the VUE, but neither are options for me. I think I have my heart set on a HTC TYTN2.  It looks like the most awesome of my choices.  Wish me luck on finding one in stock and hoping I’ve had my current phone long enough to get a discount on it.

Have a good Saturday!

Yes, I Know

I’m not posting this week. I know…I’m sorry.  I’ve been busy and tired this week and really not even checking email.  Our state testing is on March 3, and I’m putting so much energy into last minute techiques, lessons, etc in the classroom that I’m just exhausted when I come home.  Stick around and I promise to be back to reguarly scheduled posting within the next few days.  Love ya’ll!!!