Maurina's Sweet 16th Birthday Party

September 8, 2012 was Maurina's 16th birthday party at my house. The theme was Paris France. It was perfectly planned by Cassandra, my daught-in-law. Jeff came over Friday night to put up the lights. Of course, it didn't go as planned (techno difficulties). However plan "B" worked great and the lights went up. We called it a night.
Saturday morning came and we were busy decorating. The heat was awful and the sweat profuse. We just couldn't drink enought water! By about 3:00 everything was in place and looked fabulous. We called it quits until 5:00 when we would arrange all the food and I mean ALL the food. We prepared cheese and crackers, fruit platters with yummy dip, chicken salad sandwiches, cupcakes, cream puffs, mini eclaires and drinks. Everything was perfect.
The party went from 6 to 10pm. There was music, picture moments, games, and of course plenty of eating all the yummy food. A lot of Maurina's friends and family came to enjoy and celebrate this special night with her. We all had a great time visiting and laughing. The weather was cool and beautiful. The yard looked so pretty with all the shining lights around the yard and in the tree. It's times like this that make all the hard work worth while.
I am certainly proud of my family and the many ways they show their love. This was a night to remember.

Wheelchair Disaster

The other day at the hospital where I volunteer, I had a night mare come true right before my very eyes. I was escorting a man down to radiology in a wheelchair. I was feeling quite happy and moving him along the corridors at a nice pace. When we reached our detination, to my horror, the man was stuck in the chair and could not budge. I put on the brake and tried to pull him out. Wow was that a mistake! I fell backwards onto the floor with a CRASH! when I finally got my composure, I looked up and the man still in the chair but with a rather frightened look on his face. To my relief the X-ray tech came running over to help. To make a long story short, the man had put his keys in his front pocket and they were wedged under the arm rest of the chair preventing him from getting up. We finally managed to get a hold of the keys and free the man from the chair. I always wondered what would happen to a person that was stuck in a wheelchair. Well, I found out the hard way. Needless to say, the man walked out of the hospital on his own with no help from me.

3 Thousand Dollars Richer and Didn't Even know It!

Well, last week I had an interesting thing happen to me at the credit union. I went in to cash a $124.00. The teller mixed up my request with the guy next to me. I got his $3000.00 cash all packed neatly in an envelope. I was in a hurry and didn't bother to count it let alone look at it. I* threw it all into my wallet and turned to leave. One of the managers stopped me and asked me to go back to the teller. This is when I found out how much money I had in my wallet. I quickly returned it, got my money, and left. This is not the end of this story. Later that day the credit union called me wanting to know if I had the man's driver's license. Well, I quickly went through my wallet, purse, and envelope of money. It was not there. Two days later, when I was returning something at Ross, the sales clerk asked if she could see my debit card. So I flipped open my wallet and out flew that man's driver's license onto the floor. Talk about a shock! I ended up sending his license back to him certified mail the next day. Who would have ever thought I would ever have a mix up like that one?

Retiremant 2010

Well, I finally took the plunge and retired after 27 years of teaching elementary school. It was a hard decision but I was certain that it was time because teachimg wasn't fun any more. There were too many condtions and measures and lots of pressure from the state and district. So I filled out the paper work and sent in my letter of intent to retire and did just that in June of 2010. My school, Van Buren, gave me a wonderful party. The district had a lovely dinner. Then on the last day of school my parents and children gave me a huge surprise party with tons of yummy food. The good-bys were hard; but the leaving was a breeze.

We're Going to Disneyland!

We're going to Disneyland! And we actually made it a whole family event. We managed to ride plenty of the rides that the younger kids would like. Yes, that would include Dumbo! I rode with Maurnia and the others were right behind us. Of course, this ride makes me dizzy and crazy as we whirled around and around in circles. Oh, by the way, Maurnia just had to keep our Dumbo going up and down too. My stomach was going up and down and all around too; but I survived.

I was pleasantly surprised that we all stayed together as we experienced the Disneyland atomosphere. I laughed a lot watching the little ones. Their eyes were wide and filled with joy as we went from place to place.

One fun thing that happened to make my day, was when Julie Andrews(Sound of Music star) came within touching reach of me. I got a really good picture of her passing by and said hi to her. She actually responded back to me with a jolly hello.

The Power of Thought

I started subbing for summer school last week. I had a 5th grade English Language class of 12 students. I was expecting Hisapnic names; but soon realized that I had an international class(well in their names only). Try these names on your tongue: Anahi, a girl, Zuri, a girl, Jafed, a boy, Hiringde, a boy who just wanted to be called Harry, thank goodness!

When I finally put a name to their faces. Now I could call on them easily. I only had one problem. Everytime I called on Jafed, I wanted to call him Jafar from Aladdin. I was really doing good until Thurs. While going over some language mechanics, I called Jafed, Jafar. There was no laughing or comments of any kind from the class only blank stares and confusion. I quickly apologized and to make him feel better, I said oh I'm sorry. I just had been watching Aladdin with my grandchildren (about 2 or 3 months ago). Jafed simply corrected me and class went on.

Never under estimate the power of of your thoughts!!!