I come from a long line of bookworms. It’s not just me, oh no. My grandmother was the Queen Bookworm! She would tell us about a book she had been reading, and the story would just come alive right in front of our eyes! And she had a steady stream of books coming into her house at all times. It was kind of like Netflix nowadays, except that instead of movies, she was receiving talking books. She received audio books in the mail from a national audio book library, because, she had lost most of her site from macular degeneration. The books (tapes) came in these big, green boxes and quite often she had a backup. And things were just a mess. I remember trying to get them bagged up with her, so the mailman could return the ones she’d listened to. Oh, that mailman just loved us! 
She usually kept them on a shelf of an end table, but, sometimes there just wasn’t enough room for all of them. I bet if she had had some audio racks, she could have kept them more organized. Either way, she was definitely a bookworm mentor of mine!
My older son just finally got into the gifted program out here. I have been asking about it since signing him up for the school last year, but, through one communication gap after another, it was slow going. Anyway, he is just loving it. And the way that they do it, is to replace one of their academic classes with it, weaving that subject into the gifted curriculum. Last year, if you were in the gifted program, that meant you were in gifted social studies. This year, however, that means that you are in gifted English. My other son loves his regular English teacher so much that he didn’t want to switch. He might do it next year, though. He had the gifted teacher for another six-week long class, and he really liked her, too. And she was very happy having him in her class, as well. We went ahead and did the paperwork for him, so he can easily go in next year, if he chooses.
Anyway, Patrick has some cool projects and things coming up in his gifted class. And one of the things that he needed right away was a thumb drive, for taking material back and forth between home and school. Isn’t technology amazing? I just love it. It would be so neat to be in school during this exciting time! I think thumb drives are external hard drives, right? Anyway, it is just neat.
I’ll have to post some more about the gifted class and all they have planned this year – it’s definitely going to be cool!
I love having my own business. My Very Own Mail is just my baby and I really enjoy it. And being self-employed is great, because, I don’t even have to worry about stuff like corporate performance management. My work life is a lot simpler than that. It can definitely be a lot of work, but, it is basically pretty simple. Another thing I happily miss out on – office politics. Ick! And you know, they are just everywhere. No place, or even organization, is immune to the vileness of ‘office politics’. Case in point – the year I was PTA president – oh my goodness. You are at the school, volunteering your time, putting in major hours, and people actually get upset with you. It totally blew me away. So now I am just at home, with my personalized letters business and my blogs, and no office and no PTA. It’s pure bliss.
One thing you need to have when you’re reading is good lighting. I am always getting onto my kids about reading in lights that are too dim – they drive me crazy doing that! And it’s not just because I’m a bookworm. It is also because messing with your eyesight scares me, as macular degeneration runs in my family. I want my children to do all that they can to protect their eyes for as long as they can. I will catch them trying to read by the light of their gameboys, by the closet light, by any little bitty light that they can find! I wonder if I got them some really cool seagull lighting, if that would inspire them to turn on better lights to read! I suppose it’s worth a try!
That’s who I’m going to meet tomorrow – well, me and a couple busloads full of fifth graders. I’m so excited. I’m scared already, just from looking at the pictures. I mean, really – do you think these three boys ever have nightmares?
See, because, what I am seeing tomorrow is a cast replica – but, those sweet boys are looking at the real, for real, actual ….head of a T-Rex!
Maybe it didn’t help that I watched Godzilla with my son yesterday! The images of Godzilla are helping Sue ‘come alive’ for me, you know? I mean, good gosh! Sue’s hips are 12 feet high! Just her hips!
I have been doing some reading up on her and I am getting more excited with every page that I read. The Field Museum, in Chicago, Illinois, with the help of many sponsors – purchased Sue for $8.4 million!
Her debut was in May 2000, and she even had a special piece of music written just for her big debut, by The Chicago Chamber Musicians. The piece is called, “Tyrannosaurus Sue: A Cretaceous Concerto”. I just love the sound of that! I mean, the name, that is. I haven’t actually heard the piece. That would be really cool if I could find it on YouTube and then I could post it here for all of us to enjoy together!
Ok, I’m sure I’ll have lots of good stuff to report after ‘meeting’ her – so for now…
