According to VSU, I officially know more things now.

Well, you are now reading a post from a lady with a Master's degree in Accomplished Teaching!  I finished on Monday, around 11:00 p.m. to be precise.  My diploma will be mailed to me.  I had to the option to walk at graduation, but the combination of no one really wanting to take the 4 hour drive down there, and it being on a Friday evening, helped me decide to just have it mailed.  In mid-August I begin my last class for my gifted endorsement.  I am REALLY excited to be so close to finishing this endorsement, but now I kind of want to get a reading endorsement.  Or math.  Or science...

I have about a week and a half before I go back to work.  This week, until today that is, I was in Literacy Institute, which was basically lectures and small group classes about literacy instruction.  I learned a lot, and have big plans for my class this year, which is why I decided to go to my classroom on Monday to start the physical part of organizing everything, since they furloughed us during the first 2 days of preplanning.  I've already enlisted my little sister and Jeremy to cut out laminated file folder centers.  This will set my mind at ease, and I am actually excited about it.

This weekend and next week I will be organizing our office some more (I already did the filing cabinet), and the closets.  I am also experimenting with some new recipes from Allrecipes.com.  If you haven't ever looked at this site, it is really handy.  It is free, and you can set up an account so you can search for recipes based on how healthy or user ratings, and save them to your "recipe box."  This week my plan is a vegetarian chili, bison pot roast, and low fat vegetarian "chicken" pot pie.  I also plan to sit around and do nothing (other than doing some gardening, seeing friends, etc.), seeing as how my summer started last night around 6 when I got back from Literacy Institute, and will end on August 4, when I go back (officially) for preplanning.

Jeremy has been really doing a great job working towards his goals- he gets up early- I'm talking 4-5 a.m., so he can work out and prep for officiating in the Fall, have some God time, eat a healthy breakfast, and get to work early so he can leave early.  I'm really proud of him.  :)  He likes the people he works with both at his office job and at Ted's, which is nice.  He typically has a few hours off each day, and then a few full afternoons/nights off each week.

Oh!  I saw a flea on Powder last week.  Jer immediately bathed him, and I was the photographer.  This was taken about 5 minutes after.

Last weekend, I was so blessed to be able to hang out with my cousins from the midwest, who I haven't seen since, we believe, early high school, though possibly earlier.  Now that we're all grown up, we have a lot more in common, and didn't really want to leave each other.  It was a very nice visit.  (They were down in Sandersville visiting Granddad and Marilyn, so we went down there to visit the whole bunch.)