Catching Up...

Hopefully when winter break starts in 2 weeks, I'll be able to catch up (and keep up!) with my blog.

Until then, some quick news....

AT&T has announced they'll be laying off 12,000 employees. Thus far, this does not effect DH or the center where he works here in Jacksonville. They were told that the 12,000 layoffs will occur throughout 2009...so we are hoping the economy doesn't worsen so that jobs in Jax are not impacted.

My friend Stacye sent me a cute email link: http://www.aaasouth.com/newsletter/1205/santa/santaletter.asp

When you go to the site, you can click on a template to complete a quick letter FROM Santa. It even includes a small Santa "mailing stamp" you can print and stick on the envelope. I completed the template and printed it out at school, then stuck it in an envelope with a Santa "stamp." When Emma and I checked the mail after arriving home from school I was able to sneak the letter into the mail pile. Em was SOOO excited to receive a letter from Santa that mentioned, "Mrs. Claus and I have been watching and are very proud that you help feed Viggo, clean your room, and have green behavior days at school." Emma's jaw literally dropped and she said, "I can't believe it!" She was so tickled. It was great.

Best news of the week: I received e-mail confirmation from my teacher this afternoon that I successfully completed my Reading Endorsement Competency 6 class. HOORAY! This means that I am FINISHED with the 6 classes I need for reading, and can now add "Reading K-12" to my professional teaching certificate. Whew...3 years of work is finally done! I am ecstatic!

Other good news: My school is in the pilot program to start using an online gradebook system. Because most of our laptops are outdated, we had to turn in all of our teacher laptops yesterday. We'll be getting NEW laptops on Monday! (Still no word on if they'll be Macs or PCs....but I'll take a new anything compared to the old piece of junk I just turned in!) We'll start the gradebook program in January. Word on the street is that it will be a district requirement for all schools to use this program starting next August. I'm glad we'll have training and be used to the program ahead of time!

Meghan---sorry, no extra time (and not exactly sure how!) to do your "tag" this time. I'll look into it during break. I'm sooo behind on reading/commenting on other blogs, I'm going to use time to do that instead. :)

Only 10 school days left until winter break...