Four weeks and four days...
Monday, and school is over for now.

Tomorrow, we begin three days of standardized testing. For five hours each day, I'm supposed to keep 25 7th graders quiet, in their seats, and focused on those tests that will determine how our school is graded and how much funding we receive from the state.

Now, usually, the only way I can get them to be absolutely quiet is to stand on my desk and yell the word "naked" at the top of my lungs. That usually works for about 20 seconds...which is all the time I need to start handing out worksheets.

But after this week...it's gonna be smooth sailing. After this week, I've got four more weeks to go...and that last week is all about finals. And I'm going to give the final on scantron...so I won't even have to grade it. SWEET!!!

I'm soooo ready for summer. This will be my first summer off since I could drive. I've been working or in school every summer since I was 16. I've got big plans...oh yes. The Piglet will be taking swim lessons on Fridays...Thursdays will be lawn maintenance days....Wednesdays will be zoo days....Mondays will be aquarium days....and Tuesdays will be the library and ice cream days. With lots of arts and crafts thrown in.

Yep...I'm gonna get me a big heapin helping of that "stay at home Mommy pie" and eat it until it drips down my chin onto my shirt. Until August, anyway.

Five Weeks and Two Days...
Okay...So I've been researching the fight between and creationists and the evolutionary scientists....and danged if I can find any middle ground at all.

I'm trying to get a position at Lincoln Christian Schools...and I'm trying to prepare for some of the inevitable questions which will arise for any science teacher who tries to teach science in a religious environment.

Personally, I can't see the major discrepancy. To me, the study of science is the ultimate worship of the Lord...because to understand only a small part of the way He put this universe together is to glorify Him. How can you look at the organelles of the cellular structure and not shout, "Way to go, God!!"

But according to people who I suppose are a lot smarter than I am, you have to completely belive one way or the other. There can't be any middle ground. Everything must have been placed on this Earth exactly as it is, or everything had to completely evolve from a single primordial snot-ball.

You know...it seems a bit presumptious of us as mortals to second-guess the way God chose to build the Universe. We have the Bible as a testament of what happened, of course. But the few words of Genesis are hardly a blueprint for the galaxy. I suppose I'll find out what really happened someday when I get to go home to the Lord. But for now, I would just like to be able to say "AMEN....LOOK AT THE GREAT JOB GOT DID ON THAT ANTEATER!!!" without being taken to court.

Five Weeks and Three Days...
To be really honest, I would rather face a giant, throbbing butt-pimple than to teach today. I miss the good old days when I could take a day off just because I wanted to stay home and watch cartoons all day. You must actually cough up a lung to miss a day at school, and then you dang well better make sure that the lung was infected, or they'll expect you to shove it back down and teach.

How in the world am I supposed to teach these evil monkeys when I can't get them to shut up? They know you can't do anything to them. You assign detention; they don't go. You write them up at the office, and they don't do anything but assign them to another detention. Hello??!!! Look in the dictionary under "redundant" and it says "see also redundant."

I'm also really tired of hearing that certain things are "age-appropriate" behavior. What ever happened to holding children accountable for their actions? How are they supposed to know how to behave if you don't tell them what is expected, and then follow through on consequences afterward? We are giving them an excuse to be little turds by saying that it's "age-appropriate."

Sigh...five weeks and three days to go in Texas....I'm the little fat blonde train that could.....I think I can....I think I can....I think I can...Oh, crap....oh, crap...oh, crap.....

5 weeks...four days
Now, don't get me wrong. It's not that I don't like the state of Texas, mind you.

I could surely do without the horrid music that sounds like a bag full of howling dogs being beaten with a banjo. That is true.

And I would rather take a warm gin and thumbtack enema than drive on these constipated highways during rush hour, which lasts from 6:30 a.m. until roughly August. Also true.

And what is up with the large hair? I swear, the FAA needs to put warning lights on top of some of these bee-hived bimbos. Gonna take out a Cessna one of these days.

And must every single mother-grabbing blue-collar person of questionable parentage drive a pickup truck with tires that have their own gravitational pull? Is that tire thing supposed to balance out their girlfriends hairdo? If it's a proportion thing, I could almost understand...but I sincerely doubt they've put that much thought into the matter.

And with all these damn cows around, you would think these yahoos could come up with a decent BBQ sauce. Vinegar and ketchup is not BBQ sauce. If it don't coat a spoon, Jethro, it won't coat a rack of ribs.

And please spare me from your ugly regionalistic nastyness. I saw a young man at the mall a few weeks ago, wearing a T-shirt which proudly proclaimed "F*** YOU, I'm from Texas." Only the company of my young daughter stopped me from informing him that while I appreciated his charming invitation for coitus, the second part of his statement insured that any offsping issuing from such a union would have an insufficient number of chromosomes to insure the appropriate number of limbs and internal organs. Not that he would have understood every third word....or even heard me over the sound of his mouth breathing.

So, really, I have no problem with the state of Texas. But this state needs an ecological colonic...the lovely landscape is littered with the genetically flawed.

Wait....can you hear it??? A tiny, shrill, heavily accented voice, yodeling..."Iffen ya'll don't like it here, jess git own out!!"

Yes, well....thank you for your insight. And I certainly shall. In five weeks and four days.