The end is near, (of my shopping that is).

Well, I am finally about half done with my shopping. I have gotten all I am going to get (maybe) for my kids. Now I just have to get for everyone else on my list. The hardest part is going to be shopping for my parents. I might have something figured out for my mom, that is if I haven't waited to long to order it, but I don't have a clue as to what I should get for my dad. They are no help. All they will tell me is not to get them anything. Yeah right, this are my parents. With everything they do for us during the year, not to mention the way they spoil all 5 of us at Christmas, I've got to get them something! I guess I will figure it out, (hopefully).

I really hope the hubby is going to get some kind of Christmas bonus this year. I just wish they would hurry up with it already if they are going to do it. I hate waiting till the absolute last minute to shop. Oh well, I just won't count on it, and be happy if/when he gets it. Maybe we can use it to get each other gifts this year.

Happy shopping everyone!

This is why I DON'T read the newspaper

This just made me sick. Especially now that I have worked at the school a couple of times, and seen first hand the shape our school system down here is currently in. This was on the front page of yesterdays local paper........

More than 150 {local} teaching and other positions will remain unfilled for the next 10 months due to an expected budget shortfall, officals announced Tuesday.
Even more teaching and other jobs may be cut next fall. The system currently has 116 vacancies on the local school level, many of which are teachers, as well as 56 central office vancancies. Those positions are now under an official hiring freeze.
Many teaching vacancies are in inner-city schools. One school has six vacancies, including four first grade teaching slots.
In addition to the firing freeze, the system may have to cut some of its 433 locally funded teaching positions. Those include assistant principals, teachers assigned to reduce class sizes, music and art teachers and others that the system hired in addition to the state allotment.
The state gives local systems enough money to hire one teacher for every 18 to 25 students, depending on the grade level. But because those students are not evenly distributed among schools, {superintendent} said, he hires these extra teachers.

DETAILS OF SCHOOL CUTBACKS

School officials said they would decrease the system's spending this year and next by taking the following steps:
*Enact a hiring freeze through Sept. 30, 2008. That means 116 jobs in schools and 56 in the central office that are vacant now will remain so. People who are currently on the payroll but retire, quit are fired or are reassigned during that time will be replaced. But supervisors will have to show that the job is "essential to operation."
*Reduce the number of teachers and other positions that are funded through local revenue above the state allotment. The system will reorganize and redistribute personnel to address vacancies.
*Further reduce staffing through attrition.
*Eliminate overtime pay for employees, which totaled $1 million last year and has been on track to do so again so far this year. Employees would get compensatory time off instead.
*Eliminate in 2009 the administrative program, which trains people to become principals while they work at a school in need of an assistant principal.
*Travel and staff development will be limited only to requirements set forth by schools receiving federal funding, to training that is required for employees to maintain their certification and to training required by law.
*A 30-day moratorium has been placed on all spending, with the exception being utility bills, cafeteria services, emergencies and a couple of other exemptions.
*The system has asked officials with the Alabama Department of Education to audit the special-education services currently being offered. Officials suggested they may be providing too much.
*Streamline legal costs. The school system has spent an average of $1 million on legal fees through the Atchison Firm over the last couple of years.
*Refrain form adding new programs and initiatives that require funding from local sources.
*Reduce and eliminate outside contracts where practical. And minimize temporary services.

Personally, I think they should add "pay cut for superintendent and other over-paid employees, to make up for the budget shortage" to their list. The current superintendent is wwaaaayyyy over-paid, and the new one starting at the first of the year was promised a huge paycheck to come here. Wtf? Why can't the cut backs start there? Aren't the future of this state and country more important than their damn paychecks? Obviously not.
So, what pisses you off?

Can I open my presents now?

Not a lot to post about yet, since it is only Monday morning........but I just had to share some of my little Bugs cuteness from the weekend.

Yesterday morning everyone got up before me, (look, I was tired so Dad got to be in charge for a little while....cut me some slack, will ya), anywho.......Kbug gets up and heads straight for her daddy.

K-bug with Boo

Kbug: "Daddy, Mommy needs to get up and put the presents under the tree so that we can open them."

Daddy: "No sweetheart, it's not Christmas yet. It's not time to open presents, you still have a while."

Kbug: "Then I need to go back to bed so Mommy can get up and go to Walmart and buy presents and put them under the tree so that we can open them. It's Christmas....she put up the lights and the tree."

Daddy: (laughing) "Mommy is just getting ready for Christmas, you still have a few weeks before we can open presents."

Now that I have heard this I am scared to even put the presents under the tree. She might get up the next morning and decide it's Christmas and start tearing into them while the rest of us sleep! She's too cute about the whole thing. Now at age 4 she's big enough to really get excited about it all and really enjoy it. I guess I will be spending the next four weeks telling her no, not yet, today is not Christmas.

Ahhh, only four weeks, and I still have sooooo much shopping left to do!

I had my second job

Yeah, it's the weekend. I am sooooo tired. I really need to clean my house. I need to start getting my Christmas decorations up, including the tree. Then I will have to clean again, (the tree and stuff can be messy). I guess we'll see how it goes.
I had my second sub job yesterday. I did P.E., which means I had all grades throughout the day. At least I had help from another sub with 14 years experience. I am scared of the day when I have to run a class by my self. It really wasn't too bad. It was a beautiful day to be outside, and most of the kids were pretty good. But, I also have now completely made up my mind that I DO NOT want to go back to school and be a teacher full time. God bless teachers. I have a whole new respect for them and what they have to put up with through out the day. Maybe if I had gotten into teaching before I had kids....maybe then I could have handeled it. But now I know that I don't want to spend my entire day, everyday with a room full of kids, and then come home and deal with the wants and needs of my own lovely children. Now, don't take this the wrong way, I love kids, ESPECIALLY my own. I just know now that when I go back to a full time job.....I want to be around adults. I want to have adult conversations. And I don't want to feel the need to run away screaming from my children when they start tattling on one another because I JUST CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE after listening to it all day every day. So, I will just stick to subbing from time to time, and leave it at that.
Now I guess I'd better get started on cleaning my house....or maybe take a nap.........