retraction

**Long post warning: This post is VERY long. But also funny.**

If you know me at all, you know I'm prone to embarrassing moments. You might even know that prior to today, my most embarrassing moment was when my top fell down during a drill team performance and I exposed myself to a ton of students and parents, my dad caught it on video, and then half the school knew about it the next day. That was of course, until today tied that...

Today was a crazy Friday (as usual) in my classroom! One of my friends was way more off the wall than usual, which in turn had all of my other friends acting super silly too. My aide had to leave unexpectedly because her mom was sick, and we borrowed an aide from next door. So things were wild. We had made our blue jello already (speed set method so we could eat the rainbows today of course), and were sitting down on the carpet to read a story. We had just gotten settled when I looked up to see Cyndi and Christy at my door (my special ed "bosses"). What a nice surprise!

So Cyndi and Christy come in and they've got flowers and a balloon and presents, and I'm thinking "what in the world?....". And they proceed to congratulate me on being rookie of the year and tell me how proud they are. So I'm smiling, and thanking them, all the while thinking to myself "I'm still not sure what's happening"... because I won rookie of the year at my campus before spring break, and my super wonderful PPCD team had already given me a present... Anyways, we chat a little more and they they had to head out to congratulate a middle school rookie of the year. A few minutes later I took one of my friends to the nurse, and when I walked in, she and another teacher said "congratulations, winning district rookie of the year is so awesome!". At this point I was REAL confused. I thought Cyndi and Christy were congratulating me on being campus rookie of the year... and that the district one would probably be announced at the awards banquet later.

But then more people started congratulating me. And then the announcements came on, and our assistant principal proceeded to announce to the whole school that I had won district rookie of the year. So I started thinking "Um... I guess I did win.. but it's super strange that Cyndi and Christy didn't say that explicitly. Weird" I went back to my room, emailed a thank you to the lovely special ed admin folks for the flowers and gifts, then went to lunch.

Well when we got back from lunch Cyndi called and our conversation went something like this:
Cyndi: I hope we didn't get our wires crossed, the things we brought you were to congratulate you on being GVE's rookie of the year.
Me: Oh ok, that's what I thought. But then I got really confused, because people started congratulating me on winning district.
Cyndi: No, they don't announce the district awards until the banquet. But we're totally rooting for you
Me: Oh ok, awesome. I was just so excited to be chosen at GVE. BUT... um... they announced that I won district on the intercom at school...
Cyndi: Oh...no...I'm so sorry for the confusion

Then we get off the phone. And all I can think is OH.MY.GOSH.I'M.SO.EMBARRASSED. Because the whole school has been congratulating me on something I didn't even win. And then I'm thinking "how do I fix this?". I ended up emailing the assistant principal, telling her that somehow there was a miscommunication, and asked her if there was a way we could clarify... Which lead to the retraction. On the afternoon announcements, she got on and made a statement to the effect of: we know Ms. Horner is the GVE rookie of the year, and we hope she wins district rookie of the year at the awards ceremony." AWKWARD.

Now I'm just hoping everyone forgets about it by Monday.

Poor Sean had bought me flowers today just because (yet another reason why I love him!), and then when I brought home the flowers from school he felt one upped. I say they're both beautiful. Happy Weekend!

halfway there

Yes, it's 6am. Yes, I should be in the shower instead of blogging. But, I just got back from the gym and I'm 12.5 pounds down from where I started. 8.5 to go until I reach my goal, 13.5 to reach my dream goal (aka my high school weight). I just had to write it down, for personal motivation to keep going more than anything else!

Now I better shower, I don't think my friends will like me as much if I'm stinky!

the rain boot conundrum

First of all, I just got off the phone with my mom, who called to see if I had floated away. She had seen pictures on the news of Houston and all the flooding that's been going on, and in true mom fashion, got worried. But no mom, I'm safe. No school cancellations for me today.

Usually I would be sad that it's raining so much because that means no playground time, but since its TAKS and we're on lockdown that doesn't matter anyways. And what's more, rain doesn't matter because we can just go to motor lab! (If you don't already know, it would take way too long to explain, just know it's this awesome new thing I have at school!) AND, we're talking about weather, rain, and rainbows this week... so the rain is actually perfect! How fun is it to play outside under the umbrella? :)

Every time it rains I say the same thing "I'm going to buy some rain boots." And then I proceed to look online, bookmark at least 5 pairs that I like... and then never buy the stinking boots. There's just too many cute pairs out there, and I worry that as soon as I pick one and press the pay button, I'm going to have buyer's remorse because I'll see a cuter pair. But then I won't want to pay the return shipping, so I'll just stick with the first pair of boots I ordered, but in the back of my mind I'll think about the cuter pair I should've gotten. And then there's the whole thing about needing to find a pair that are neutral enough to match with pretty much anything... but also wanting a playful pattern. So you see my dilemma, I'm stuck in this vicious never-ending cycle of non-boot buying. But that is going to end this week. I'm going to muster up all of my decisiveness and just pick a pair. Really, I am. And as soon as I press pay, watch it not rain again for months.

On a very unrelated note, I'm making good on my mini-resolution to get back in touch with friends. All my letters are mailed and I've made quite a few phone calls. Gosh it feels good to start being a better friend!

my new best friend...part 2

2 posts within 5 minutes of each other, weird I know. But I just had to update on my new best friend Dr. Cockroach!


In case you didn't read my earlier post, this little toy has been following me around school! He's made appearances in the cafeteria, the gym, my classroom, and when I left for Easter weekend, he was in my motor lab.

When we came back from the break, he was nowhere to be found! I keep expecting him to pop up again somewhere, but it's been two weeks and there's no sign of him. I wonder where he went...

belated

Lately, I feel like I'm perpetually behind. Some things are a day or two behind schedule, some are like three weeks behind. And for a while, I've been alright with it, even liked putting things off for a change. But then today, when I realized some of the things I was the most belated on were some of the most important (birthdays, thank yous, etc), I started to feel like a real jerk. Which was just what I needed to kick my lazy butt into gear. So, Kaylee will be getting her ballerina birthday book tomorrow, Amina's present will be on it's way to DC tomorrow, thank you notes will be in the mail, and letters to the grandmas will be in the mail by Wednesday. Much better.

But still not good enough.

Another thing I've pushed to the back burner more times than I care to admit is a huge THANK YOU to my amazing friend Kristi. I don't think I can begin to explain how much I appreciated your post the other day. Those were just the words I needed to hear, and from someone I really admire. I don't know about your silly friends from high school, but looking at you and your family and the little green house, I'd definitely say you've succeeded! Thank you for being a friend, and for cheering me up. :)

Still better.

In all of my catching up today, I've started to realize that I've let a lot of friendships fall by the wayside recently. Which is decidedly not cool. So, my new goal for the upcoming month is to fix this. I will be making some much needed phone calls, sending some long overdue emails, and even buying a plane ticket to the east coast. It's time to be the type of friend I should be.

Even better.

The icing on the cake though is that my house is clean as well! After much coaxing of Sean and Brian, I can cook in the kitchen again without wanting to freak out, and can sit on the couch without stressing about how dirty the coffee table is. Life is good.

my new best friend

Say hi to Dr. Cockroach, from the movie Monsters vs Aliens. This little guy is a McDonalds toy, and apparently he's made it his personal mission to become my new best friend!

On Tuesday of last week, I went to lunch in the cafeteria with my kids, and this Dr. Cockroach toy was laying on the floor by the table we sit at. We picked it up, and I let D play with it. She took it to the gym with us, but we forgot it when we left. No big deal.

When we went to breakfast on Wednesday, Dr. Cockroach was waiting on the floor under our table again. Maria and I laughed, wondering how he ended up back under the table! At lunch he was still under our table, but we left him there, figuring someone else would pick him up. After lunch Wednesday we went to the gym, and when we returned to the classroom Dr. Cockroach was sitting on the table, staring at us!

At this point, Maria was weirded out, thinking the toy was haunted and following us. I'll admit... I thought it was pretty strange, but I figured maybe someone was trying to get us back for the jokes we played a while ago (we got the nurse & the custodian pretty good back in January...). Not wanting to be pranked again I decided to hide my new friend Dr. Cockroach, and put him inside a cooler, where he remained until Friday. That Friday I gave the toy away to the nurse's daughter, and told her to take him home with her. Adios new friend.

Then, on Wednesday of this week we went out out to our motor lab portable for the first time and when I went to grab a ball from the ball basket, guess who I found? Dr. Cockroach! Way too creepy! I left him there, so we'll see where he turns up when we go back to school Tuesday...

rookie, yes. of the year, not so much

The Friday before spring break I got some very exciting news, I was voted rookie of the year for my school! My roommate won rookie of the year at his school too, so maybe there's something in the water around here!

...fast forward to Thursday...

The morning ws great, but around lunchtime is when the real fun started. One of my little friends was doing the potty dance, so naturally, I suggest that she use the restroom. This results in a full-on, screaming, kicking, cursing tantrum. I thought I had won when she finally went potty, but she got me back later that afternoon. Five minutes before we had to get on the bus and I hear "Ms. Rachel, I peed on the floor." Thanks friend! Sooo... we're changing her clothes and when she hands me the wet panties, it splashes all over me! I clean off as best I can, and tie a oh-so-stylish art smock around my waist to cover my wet pants. (Just watch, that's going to be the new fashion trend on the runways next season.) Now that we're clean, my friends get on the bus and I breathe a sigh of relief, only to turn around and step in a giant mud puddle. I rinse off and head for tutorials. (As an aside... I absolutely LOVE teaching Kindergarten tutorials!) When we're dismissing, Ms. Roberson asks me to take the bus & daycare kiddos along with the walkers, since one of the other teachers was absent. No problem. I drop everyone off and I'm standing with the bus/daycare friends when another teacher asks me which kids these are. I say "oh the daycare and bus Kindergartners", and as soon as he opens his mouth I just know. I had the bus riders in the wrong spot, and by the time we got to the bus ramp half the buses were already gone. Seven phone calls and parent pick-ups later everyone was home safe, but I don't think my cheeks stopped burning for a good two hours.

Maybe they should've voted me Blunder of the Year instead. :)