Miscellany Monday

1. Happy Valentine's Day

Luke and I decided not to really do anything for Valentine's Day this year. We went out to lunch, just the two of us, on Friday, but decided to leave it at that. So I was pleasantly surprised to come home this afternoon to find a beautiful vase of roses on our kitchen table. Awwwww...... :)

2. Happy Tax Day!

Even more exciting to me than Valentine's Day is the fact that today marks the day we can officially file our tax return. Stupid Congress taking so long to pass everything at the end of last year - we would have our return in our hands by now if not for having to wait because we itemize.

3. Frosting

Dillon's really makes the best frosting ever (except for the woman who made my weddin cake, but how accesible is her frosting?). I pushed myself a little harder at the gym tonight to make up for my discovery of Dillon's frosting. lol

4. Head Start

The House is talking about a 22.4% cut to Head Start for the remaining six months of the 2011 fiscal year. This is huge. According to everything I've read today, this would result in over 200,000 children losing services and ovr 50,000 employees losing their jobs (in the U.S.) I'm pretty passionate about Head Start, not just because they cut my check every month, but because I believe that it's a good thing. Study after study shows the benefits of early education, and Head Start provides this to the poorest of the poor who may not otherwise be able to afford a quality early education for their child(ren). If you feel so moved, please consider contacting your members of Congress by email and ask them to reconsider this proposed cut of funding. If you go to this link, you'll find the information you need to do so. There's a form letter you can use, or you can make changes to it to add your own thoughts.

I feel like I should add one more miscellany so that I don't end on such a downer, but I just don't have anything else. Good night all!

Miscellany Monday

1. Saving money
I am slightly obsessed with websites that gives tips on how to save money or pay off debt, if you couldn't tell from my last post. Like, all of my web surfing tonight has pretty much been on The Saved Quarter, Penny Pinchin' Mom, Money Saving Mom. I guess it's getting me away from Facebook for awhile, which I was sorely in need of a break from.

2. Parent teacher conference week
I am doing 24 parent teacher conferences between tomorrow and Thursday. I don't think I really need to say anything more about this miscellany, now do I?

3. Snow
Just for the record, I do not want a snow day tomorrow, or any day this week. See #2 for my main reason why. Honestly, I'm just tired of snow. I want it to be spring. I want to wear my favorite capris and play outside with Raegan. I hope that Phil was right about spring coming earlier this year!

4. Annual review
I had my annual review at work today, and it was pretty good. I don't take compliments well, so it's weird for me to sit there and read and hear good things about myself. But it is nice to know that my hard work is noticed. :)

5. Shoes

I bought these beauties at Target last week. Aren't they fabulous?!?! They pinch my toes just a smidge, but are a lot better than high heels, but cuter than my other black shoes with no heel. This miscellany doesn't quite tie in with my desire to save money I suppose. :) Eh, I don't have to penny pinch all the time, right?

Miscellany Monday

Finally! Something to participate in that makes a jumble of random thoughts okay. :) I love being random.....

1. Snow day
Or ice day. Whatever you want to call it. Zane said last night that he was really hoping we wouldn't have school today. I poo-pooed him and said that the weather channel didn't even put a percentage amount on the sleet we were supposed to get last night, so I was sure we would have school. I even put my phone on the nightstand, and when I looked at the clock and it was 6:05 I said, "Guess we're having school today." (District is supposed to make a decision by 6:00 a.m.) My supervisor called me at 6:12. Awesome.

2. Zane's grades
I don't think I mentioned it on here yet, but Zane made the honor roll. He finished out the semester with 6 A's and 2 B's. Which is exactly what his grades are right now a couple weeks into this quarter. For the rest of the year he'll be taking General Music instead of Art, because that's how they do optional ninth hour in middle school. He wasn't too thrilled about the thought of General Music at first, but he's really excited about it now because they're going to learn to play guitar for a two week period after Spring Break. He's thinking about taking Guitar as one of his electives next year. If he really likes it this spring, we may look into getting him lessons for the summer.

3. Running
I'm up to 1.25 miles on the treadmill now. Which I know that being able to run a certain distance on the treadmill doesn't always translate into being able to run that far outside because of wind, weather, etc. But before I took this up I couldn't run at all, so I'm pretty pleased. There's going to be a 5K fun run here in town on February 26th to help raise money for Reed (the little boy from Raegan's daycare with the tumor that I blogged about in this post. I've been saying for months now I want to finish a 5K (and wasn't able to at Thanksgiving because I got sick and it messed up my training), and I thought this would be a good way to support Reed's family and it would be really motivational for me. For anyone local, there's also a 2 mile walk, and registration is by donation, so you might consider doing it. Let me know if you want more details!

4. Organizing....
....sucks, but I sure do feel good when I have things all in their place. :)