Hard to believe September is nearly 3/4 over.

Our weather has been bi-polar - cold mornings and hot evenings. Maybe the snow is a bit further off than I thought.

The last few nights I've been going walking with the 3rd grade teacher. She was amenable to the idea of going further than the larger group had been going .. so we did 3.5 miles instead of 2. Tomorrow we're planning on doing a roughly 4 mile round trip trek. The best thing is, she and I walk at roughly the same pace, so I'm not walking way ahead of her.

My mom's birthday was yesterday. I called her and caught her just before she left for dinner (where her now fiance proposed.) Judging from what she posted on FB, I'm assuming she accepted.

We had a motivational speaker guy come today and talk with the kids. He was pretty good - had the kids excited. The only qualm I had was that he asked the kids to write a testimonial on his website - name, age, email, school name included. Something I've been drilling into them the past month is about information that you *don't* share on the internet - especially if there is a chance of it being posted on something like a testimonial page!!! I used it for a teachable moment today after he interrupted my 5th grade group (which was already running way behind) to show his website and where to put their info at.

I got a bill from my doctor's office today for $35 from when I went in to have my thyroid checked. I'd thought it was strange they didn't ask for a co-pay when I was there ... It'll have to wait til October though, because my medical fund is slated for the second filling I'll be getting tomorrow.

I made a smoothie tonight for supper. I just can not say how much I love my Ninja blender. I don't have to worry about it leaking like my old blender (or the brand new one which I never used thanks to the rubber ring not fitting properly!)

I finally heard from the lady in charge of financial stuff for the 6 month program. I figured out how to give her the documents/info she needed, and am now officially registered. I should be getting more info within a few days. Class starts the first week of October, so I have about 10 more days of leisurely evenings.

Today I had numerous requests for books in series and topics which we don't have. Some of the topics qualify as non-fiction, so I can easily justify getting some like that (my focus plan states that I'll spend 40% of library funds on non-fiction to make our collection closer to Common Core standards.) The books in the series though, are fiction. I *really* want to get those remaining books because the person asking for them is someone who generally is hard to please. I was sorely tempted to just jump on Amazon and buy them with my pocket budget so I wouldn't have to include them as coming out of the overall "real" library budget... but I restrained myself. Barely. (We have the first ten books in the series - which were actually a donation last year. The student saw that there are 8 more books in the series ... and salivated.)

We got a box of brand new donated books from a publisher on Monday. All but 3 of the books were ones we had a minimum of 1 copy already ... so I emailed the publisher to see if I could return those books for a credit or refund without the donor finding out .. They told me how I could do that, so I'm going to look in their catalog and see what other books might fit our student population better. This same person sent a box of books around 4 or 5 times last year - in all but one of them there were at least two books that were exactly the same. So I'm glad my principal gave me this idea (of contacting the publisher) - I was going to do it with the box that came the beginning of June .. but life intervened.

I have about ten episodes left of Ocean Girl on Netflix. Once I finish it, I plan on sticking with only movies. I don't want to get wrapped up in a tv series before canceling my service. (I plan to cancel it on Oct 1 before a new month is charged - this way I have few means of being too distracted from doing my school work.)

My asst has been out sick for the last three days. Although most of what I've had her doing is long term project type things, I have definitely felt her absence. Especially in preparing for Clifford's birthday (Kinder, first and second) and prepping for the pre-school storytimes. My book cart is getting pretty full of returned books ..

Next week we're doing a lot with Johnny Appleseed for the lower grades. So .. I'm really hoping she'll be back by Friday.