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Yesterday was R's birthday, and I'm always looking for some weird way to do birthday gifts and for kitschy silliness to give as gifts. This year I ordered a bunch of goofy stuff from Archie McPhee. (Go there and look, they have hilarious pop culture crap.) I bagged things up and made little labels for each bag with a clock stamp I have in my classroom. I gave one gift to R every hour. Her silly gifts included Uncle Archie's Box O Fun, a box of 25 paper wrapped little toys. They were pretty cool toys, too. I put 3 in each bag. The big hit of the day were the Jesus bandaids, which came with a tiny Jesus pencil topper. Excellent!

Her big gift was a copy of the book The Pink Elephant with Golden Spots, which she loved as a kid and is out of print. You really can find anything on the internet.

I wish my most beautiful baby the best year ever, full of good laughs and good things. I love you, Lala.

Looks like we made it…. Through the school year, that is. I've always liked that beginning and ending cycle to teaching, the life/death/rebirth aspect of it. I'm not sure I could be tied into a job without these yearly endings to look forward to. And it's fun watching the kids grow, too.

The district has 2 more days in which to lay me off if there are budget cuts. Tuesday is the last teacher work day. If it doesn't happen by then I'm clear for next year. Now to just survive my summer job and living in a tiny cabin. I'm striving (hard) to look at the summer as a great adventure and not bad karma coming to bite me. It could work.

Happy summer! It's almost 70 degrees here! The leaves are budding and green grass is peeking through!

Bea tagged me and now I have to post 8 random facts about myself. I'm meant to tag 8 more people, but am not feeling very sociable today. So I'll just answer for myself.

8 random facts about Liz

1. I was born at home. On purpose. Which makes it sound like my parents are hippies even though they could not be less so.
2. I've celebrated many more birthdays away from home than I have at home. I count at least 7 at camp and many others on vacations elsewhere.
3. Sometimes I read old blog entries and either remember the event completely differently from what's written in the entry, or not at all. Memory is a tricky thing.
4. I've never felt like primary is my best age to teach, which has made this year teaching second grade more surprising, exhausting, challenging and rewarding than I would have thought possible. It's a steep learning curve, so I hope I get the chance to give it another go.
5. The hardest job I have ever done, and likely will ever do, was being a camp director. Less sleep, fewer showers, more mosquitoes… I get sentimental and miss it until I think about the workload.
6. R ans I are spending the summer in a 20 by 16 foot cabin 30 minutes outside of town and next to a yard full of sled dogs. It should be interesting. I'll post pictures.
7. I don't believe in god, ghosts or an afterlife.
8. I am, at heart, a great planner and organizer. You might call me bossy, but it works for me– especially in the classroom.