I take it back, sort of. . .

A while ago, I wrote a post about my feelings about stick people and stick families on cars.  You can read that here, in case you missed the joy of that post.

http://jim-merson.blogspot.com/2017/02/you-know-youve-seen-them.html

This week, I’ve been in Daytona for a church conference. (Brace yourself, there’s more about that coming too!) Right before I left, I got a surprise package in the mail. It was from my friends, the Everharts. Dr. E was my professor at FSU, her husband Harry is a retired school teacher and now, we’re friends.  Inside I found this:

I have to say this may be one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen. I know what I said, but. . I may just have to put this one

on my car.  And look, that could be my Bubba-cat on there too!  Isn’t she just absolutely adorable? I love her! 

It makes me laugh every time I see it!

I’m back. . .

For several years I used Windows Live Writer to write my blog posts. It was easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy. But a while ago, Windows Live Writer quit working, it wouldn’t send my posts to my blog. I could still do it, it just took some extra steps. I miss my blog. I like ranting and raving like a lunatic.  So, since it’s summer and I have a little more time than during the school year, I have been looking for some replacement.  I found it – OpenLiveWriter. It’s open-source, which makes me happy. It looks like Windows Live Writer used to, which I like.  (It may be the exact same thing, which I don’t care, really where it comes from.) This is my test to see how well it works. If it works like I hope it will, brace yourself. I’ve got LOTS of stuff rolling around in my head.

If You Give a Curvy Girl Curly Fries. . .

If you give a curvy (feel free to read that as fat) girl curly fries. . .

                She’s going to eat them. She will also eat the broccoli, because it’s good for her, but she’s going to eat the curly fries.  Then, she may ask the server for cheese sauce for the curly fries.

                After she eats the curly fries with cheese, she’s going to feel guilty, so her friend will talk her into a bicycle ride.  She will try to ride the stationary bicycle and watch her friend on the elliptical, all while trying not to gossip. (Although this fat girl may begin to wonder how it is she even has a friend who can ride? Use?  Whatever the word is for what someone does on an elliptical. Honestly, most of her friends prefer cake.)  After she rides the bicycle for 5 miles, she will feel like her legs are jelly and she will be all sweaty. . .

She will hobble back to her room covered in sweat. Because she’s so sweaty, she will need a shower.  After she takes a shower, she will be exhausted, because she didn’t sleep well for the last two nights. So, she’ll try to take a nap. Because her hair is wet from the shower, it will get flat and dry funny because she’s lying on it.  She will get up, and have weird hair from both the attempted nap and because she has ridiculous baby fine hair that won’t do anything when it’s freshly washed anyway. . She will try and fix the weird hair, by wetting it and trying to dry it properly.  It won’t work.

Because she rode the bicycle and attempted to take a nap, she won’t have time for dinner.  She will go to her meeting with weird hair and feel strange the whole time. She will go to dinner after the meeting with her friends, still feeling strange about her hair. It will be late, so they will have to eat at the IHOP.  She will want pancakes, because DUH it’s IHOP. She will eat half of her best friend’s pancakes, which will make her feel guilty and think about a bicycle ride. . . 

You know you’ve seen them. . .

I know you’ve seen them. I don’t know how you feel about them, but I know you’ve seen them.  I don’t like them.  There, I said it. I don’t understand them and I don’t like them at all.  I don’t hate them with a white, hot burning hate, but I just don’t like them. It’s none of my business if you want one, but I don’t even like looking at them.
What, you may ask, are these items of my distaste? Think about it. You’re driving down the road and all of a sudden on the vehicle (read mini-van) in front of you, appears a family.  A stick family on a car.

 One day, I was with a bunch of ladies from church and I’m not lying, the entire back of the van was COVERED with stick people. It must have been grandchildren.  They were EVERYWHERE on the back of that minivan. 
There are all kinds of stick families. Superheroes.  Zombies. Families with Disney ears. Feet. Flip flops.  People with hobbies – golfing dads, soccer playing kids, cheerleaders. . . You can find any kind of stick family you want.

If I were forced at gunpoint to pick one, I’d pick this one:

 This one makes me laugh.

I saw this one the other day:

But, I think my all time favorite is this one:

 And then there’s this:

I bet I could really find this one in Polk County!

For some reason, the stick families just creep me out.  I get it, it’s not really my business. You may not like my JoyFM sticker or my AWANA “Kids Matter to God” sticker but hey, that’s my thing. Your stick family may be your thing.   But, every time I see one, I cringe!

This one made me snort:

Thankful to be. . . “Library Girl”

    The other day at school one of our kindergarteners couldn’t remember my name. He said “Hey, hey, hi, hi Ms. . . Miss. .  . Ms. .  Hi Library Girl!”  I laughed and laughed  and then laughed some more.  I love that!  I started to wonder and think about how I went from the Social Studies teacher to Library Girl. . .
     Have you ever wondered what would have happened if you’d gone left instead of right?  Or asked that question? Or taken that chance? I have been reminded lately of the best decision I ever made.  When I make a list of the things I am thankful for, this is near the top of my list.
     Raise your hand if you know I have a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science from Florida State University!  I thought so. . . Most people who know me know that!
     But here is what some of you DON”T know:  Two professors at FSU got a brilliant idea to transform classroom teachers into school media specialists.  They wrote a plan and  got a HUGE amount of financial help from the Laura Bush Foundation to turn that idea into reality.  Doctors  Eliza Dresang and Nancy Everhart created this whole thing called Project LEAD, and that’s how I got my degree.
     Way back in 2006, somehow I got an email from our district media services person. There was a meeting about this brand new program that would help teachers become school media specialists. There were going to be six spots in our county – and a meeting on September 11, 2006.   That was my fork in the road – and the choice I made has literally changed my life. I went to that meeting, met Dr. D and Dr. E and the rest, as they say, is history.
     We started class in January 2007.  It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.  Looking back those  2 1/2 years just sort of seem like a big blur. I learned so much more than I ever thought I needed to learn,  and was stretched so far out of my comfort zone.  Part of that time included my 6 week trip to London in the summer of 2008,  an absolutely fabulous trip, but again, way out of my comfort zone. I could count on one hand the times I’d been in a different STATE than my family, but to be in a completely different CONTINENT?  For 6 weeks?  I’d spent TWO nights in my life EVER in a hotel room alone.   It was hard, but it was good!
     Here’s the most surprising thing.  Somehow, along the way, my professor, Dr. Everhart, along with her husband Harry, turned into my friends.  I’m not sure how or when it happened – it may have been the 6 weeks in London.  Maybe the time we were both got carsick on the bus on the way to Stratford –on-Avon was the bond.  (I’m not sure but I think throwing up together may do it! )  I know  she moved to the “One of My Most Favorite People Ever List”  – when she found grits for me in London! I know it sounds silly, but I’m a Southern girl and I missed my grits!
     Oh and her husband, Harry? We just clicked. We talked about middle schoolers and there was just a connection there!  I read his blog (and so should you – it’s great – (http://everhart.blogspot.com/)
Since our graduation, we’ve seen each other here and there,  off and on. We’ve had dinner together a few times when they were in the area. I was looking at my old emails and when I got the media specialist job at my old school – I sent Harry an email. When I got my new job at my new school this year, I sent Harry an email!   For years, they have invited me to their home to visit Tallahassee.  So, finally I decided to take them up on it and headed north on November 10th.  had a fabulous weekend – but  that’s a story for another day!

     Here’s the thing. . . I can’t even imagine what my life would be like now if I hadn’t attended that meeting on September 11, 2006.  If I’d decided the GRE was just too hard, or I didn’t want to write that essay, what I would have missed. Today is Thanksgiving – and we think about the things we’re grateful for. I’m grateful that Dr. D and Dr. E had an idea. I’m grateful the Laura Bush Foundation funded that idea. I’m grateful that I could get my degree while I was still working, grateful we could do class in our pajamas at home.   I’m grateful for the friends I made along the way – the other girls in my county, the other Project LEAD people, for Dr. E and Harry. I’m so, so grateful for the opportunity I was given. I’m thankful that because of that, I get to be “Library Girl!”

A Magical, Mystery Place, right here in Florida. . .

Apparently, there’s a magical place right here in our state that very few people know about. But I’m going to share it with you.  What is this wonderful place?  The Florida School Book Depository!!  If you Google it, you can find this picture:

What is the Florida School Book Depository? Who really knows? Here is what I do know. . .
All textbooks in the state of Florida apparently come from the FSBD.  I have no idea how the books get there, or how big it is or how many people work there.  I really don’t know much, but I have very strong feelings about that place.
Here is what I think happens there. They (whoever “they” are) receive an order from the Polk County School Board. Apparently, it’s split up by school, with all sorts of rules – you can’t deliver on Fridays, this is how many, blah, blah, blah.  So, somehow there’s an order placed and “they” get ready to fill it.  When I say “filling the order” here’s what I mean. Someone (or maybe it’s robots, I have no idea) picks the books for my school off a shelf.  Then, they pack them on a pallet. But, before the pallet is packed, all of the boxes are thrown into a big, huge pile somewhere on or near a giant pile of dirt. They roll the boxes around in the dirt for a while, and then they put them on a pallet.  But, when they pack it, they put all the pallets they are going to pack the order on to, and put one of each kind of box on each pallet because, God forbid, we end up with two boxes of the same kind of material anywhere NEAR each other. 
Now, the packing must be some kind of big Jenga game.  Instead of little blocks of wood, they use boxes of textbooks.  I think there must be several  rules to this game: first, no two boxes of the same thing can be next to each other.   Next rule, they have to stop occasionally and throw even more dirt onto the boxes.  Last rule, they get bonus points for having all the labels on the inside of the pallet, so that no one can tell what’s actually in the boxes without unpacking the entire pallet.
Finally, when all of the pallets are packed, making sure to follow all the rules, they wrap the pallets in GIANT Saran wrap.  This must be super, duper Saran wrap, or maybe it’s the industrial strength Press and Seal.
Last, but not least, just for fun, they pack “Mixed Title” boxes.  These involve throwing a few lonely items from each kind of book into a box.  And again, if there are 4 Mixed Title boxes and there are 8 copies of a book, they put two in each box, instead of all 8 in one box.  Again, even Mixed Title boxes must be covered in the obligatory layer of dirt.  And these must always be placed on the very inside, very bottom layer of a pallet, so that just when someone thinks they are done with one book, SURPRISE – there’s ONE more in a Mixed Title box, buried under 22 workbooks of an entirely different grade and maybe even a different subject.

I really don’t know what goes on at the Florida School Book Depository.  I do know that I was so dirty the other day after digging around in some of my 12 pallets of Reading materials that I blew dirt out of  my nose later in the day. When I washed my hands, I made mud.  One of the men who is building our school walked past me and he was cleaner than I was. (And that is not an exaggeration.) 

I’m sure the people who work at the FSBD are very nice.  I’m sure they are loved by their mamas, daddies, spouses and children.  However, they are NOT on my Christmas card list. In fact, every time I think about it, I hear this song in my head:

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZQVSxXTCjg

A First For Me. . .

     I’m not like other people. I figured that out a LONG time ago.  When I became a media specialist at Westwood, I was one of 20 something middle school librarians.  Before that, I was one of six, sometimes seven  Social Studies teachers at my school.  I am my own person, but I was just one of a herd.
     Now, things have changed a little.   There are five K-8 schools in our county.  Of those five, only three have a certified media specialist  - I’m the tie breaker. Until my school, we have two media specialists and two media paras.  Of those five schools, the other four are schools of choice – meaning students have to apply and they have rules about who can come to their school and who can’t.  Needless to say,  those schools of choice generally get a pretty good school grade. For some reason,  students who might bring down test scores don’t stay very long!  So my brand new school is a K-8 school, but it’s a regular school. We don’t get to choose or remove students.  We are bound by all the “regular” school rules. So I’m in a pretty unique position – there’s no other media specialist in all of Polk County in the same situation as I am.  I’m special!
     Today was my first school orientation ever with elementary  age students.  It was . . . different. It was fascinating.  Some of them are so little and most of them are so, so excited about school. Our school is brand new, which is very exciting for all of us, and the vast majority of kids and parents I saw today are all excited.  I’m excited!
     So today, one of the first families I saw had a mom with a pink cast on her foot, with a knee scooter like my friend Laquita used last year after her bunion surgery.  This mom was wheeling around like an expert. She told me she’s been on it for almost six weeks.  Her little girl is in first grade. They wanted to look around my beautiful new media center so of course, I let them!  This little girl was adorable. Her eyes were as big as saucers.  She didn’t say much, but she was soaking it all in.  They told me she was home-schooled for  kindergarten last year, so this is her first experience in school.I talked to her a little, asked if she was excited about school, if she liked books, just general small talk.  She nodded at me, and they went on their way.  
     A little while later, they came back to the media center.  I thought maybe there was a problem since the guidance counselors were fixing problems in the media center.   I asked if everything was OK.  Her mom said

“Oh yes, she told us we had to come back in here so she could tell her librarian goodbye.”

I almost cried. I knelt down so I could see her more closely and she just looked at me and smiled. I told her thank you and that she made me very happy.   
     I’ve worked in middle school for a really long time. Middle schoolers may like you, but they don’t always  act like they do. They may  tell you later, when they are older, but not so much while they are in middle school. 

     I don’t know why my new principal chose me.  I don’t know what the future holds for this job. (I don’t like change – so I intend to stay here until I retire! Moving is too hard!) Leaving my friends and family at Westwood was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done – definitely the hardest decision in my professional life.  I thought of the verse in Esther that says “Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”  I’m not saying I’m as important as Queen Esther. I’m not here to save an entire group of people.  But I’m firmly convinced that God had a plan for me all along.  I’m here at this place and this point for something.  Maybe this sweet little girl is one of the reasons.  I can’t wait to see what happens next!