Mrs. Merry Mack

I went to the Dr. today and I am headed to get my hand X-Rayed tomorrow. She is concerned that the swelling and bruising is still there and about some cartledge in my wrist. She gave me some free drugs and said if it is not markedly better in a week then I need to see and hand specialist/surgeon. I heard tonight that there is an excellent hand surgeon who is a parent at our school, so that is interesting…. Whatever the case, it hurts. Bad.

Missy Mack did her best to charm her grandparents this weekend and she actually turned down the Lelli Kelly shoes that were offered for the Twinkle Toe Sketcher shoes. She is so proud. It is funny what a new pair of shoes can do for a girl.

The parentals watched Missy Mack while we got to go to fancy adult sushi birthday party for my dear friend. She is finally 30!

Then we headed to a Karaoke Bar. It has been years since I have been in one of those. It might have been the same one around 11 years ago. It was bad, it was good, it was funny. We were signed up to sing but couldn’t hang long enough for them to get around to us so we busted loose and headed home to our child. On the way to the car, I kept sliding all over the parking lot. I am sure I looked drunk. Come to find out upon arriving at home, my shoes lost their soles/heels. I had a total shoe blow out. Bummer.

We had a lazy day with a great brunch yesterday and my mom headed back. Missy Mack now has some sort of crud and I hope she can hang in at school because I sure do need to be at work. Mr. Mack has a job interview tomorrow so cross your fingers for us. We need this so badly. I have a presentation to my staff tomorrow and it is daunting. Teachers are a tough crowd. Think of me tomorrow. Actually, say a prayer for the whole family, it sounds like we all need some.

Wish me luck!

I am also going random this Friday. I got my camera back today so it truly will be random.
1. I am so tired. This really worries me for the coming weeks. How will I adjust. I am beat down tired everyday. I forgot this is another part of my job I absolutely hate. It is so draining.

2. I spoke too soon, today’s staff training was just awful. I twittered around 1:00 that I was ready to poke my eye out with my pen. It was so very painful. Bad. I did have an awesome sandwich at lunch so that was great.

3. Here are some pictures of Missy Mack’s first day of Pre-K

4. Missy Mack has had a good week at school. She has yet to nap, which is bad, but she said she was almost asleep today so that is progress. Her teacher gave her the business yesterday for wearing sandals. I was wanting her to support me in saying that sandals weren’t the safe choice for school, but she kept going telling her how other girls will want to wear sandals now. She really went at her about it in the nicest way. This kinda got to me so I stopped the director this afternoon and told her I read the handbook and I didn’t see anywhere in it where it stated that the children HAD to wear closed toe shoes, even though I agree with the teacher. I just wasn’t happy about how she handled it. The director said it wasn’t required but they would prefer it. There you go!

5. My mom is coming to town tomorrow and is going to buy Missy Mack a pair of Twinkle Toes and Missy Mack is super excited!

6. One of my great friends is having a 30th birthday party tomorrow night at a sushi place and we have a free babysitter. I am so excited! I am also so glad this friend is now in her thirty’s she has been making me feel way too old.

7. I take back what I said about #2, I did hear a lecture that has me thinking and intrigued about a book called Mindset. It is about building success in students, as parents, in a business, in relationships. It has my wheels turning and when I arrived at the bad meeting, we were given books so I am interested in this read.

8. One of Missy Mack and I’s last activities of the summer was making a cake using her creation.

I now know the only reason why Missy Mack wants to make a cake is so she can like the beaters and spoon.

Then she did this move and I told her she had to stop.

We crushed up those oreos and put them into the batter. Yum!

I tried to convince her to ice a chocolate cake with chocolate icing, but she insisted on vanilla and I have to say it really looked like an Oreo. She is a smarty.

AND she INSISTED on Pink sprinkles, of course.

The sad thing is, you can’t even taste the Oreos in the cake. It was a good idea and there is still lots of cake here, but it was fun.

9. We watched this movie

It was so fabulous and luckily my smarty Mr. Mack knows a lot about Mandela so that helped. I highly recommend if you haven’t seen it yet. Wonderfully inspiring.

10. I think I have broken my hand. Well, maybe not broken, but something is seriously wrong with it. When that cute little girl in the pink swimsuit jumped off the diving board, she landed on my fingers and they bent backwards. My hand is swollen, it is blueish purple, I can’t grip anything, I can’t hold anything heavier than a cup, it hurts to type, to write, to drive. It has been over a week. I go on Monday to see about it. The timing sucks. Won’t that suck if I have some damn brace on my hand as school starts? Boo!

Have a great weekend!

Is it possible that I would, me? have fun during staff days at work?

Well, I did! We read this book as a staff, How Full Is Your Bucket (go to the book page for more), and after the discussion, we were broken into groups, given a list of 20 silly tasks that are related to the book to go on a photo scavenger hunt.

It was so fun. The fun part was that very few of these things could be done at school. We had to go out into Austin and take pictures. Part of the fun in our group was one teacher moved here from out of state 2 weeks ago so it was fun to show her the South Congress area of town. Very cool, very hip, very eclectic. Then we got to get treated to lunch at Matt’s El Rancho. Yum! When we returned to school, we had to put our pictures into a multi media presentation the show to everyone. They were so cute and funny. We had a pee in your pants kind of funny moment. It was fun.

If you ever need a good team building exercise, this was fun.

Here is a pic I took and sent to Mr. Mack.

Day one wasn’t too bad. I took some pics but left my camera at the school I where I went a meeting. Another day. Here’s the good and bad of the day.

Good
Missy Mack went happily to school full of excitement for the new year.

I remembered most items needed at school

Missy Mack could not stop talking about school when we got home.

Mr. Mack missed us terribly.

I got to be around adults all day.

I got to go out for lunch with grown ups and have grown up conversation without interuption.

My principal loves me.

I ate all the right things today.

Bad

Missy Mack went to school happily today without being sad about being away from us all day.

I left kitty at home

And Missy Mack’s water bottle.

Missy Mack could not stop talking about school when we got home.

Mr. Mack missed us terribly.

I had to do cheesy ice breakers with adults today such as use these items

Where I had tell the story of me and my summer using these items.

I learned that I am not dedicated to my job enough to become teacher of the year because I had a colleague skype into a meeting today because she was unable to join us since she wad at a thinkers conference in Austria. I would not do this.

My principal loves me.

I need Starbucks gift cards to make it through the next week and a half.

School invades my sleep so I am up at 2:30 with my mind on repeat about stupid things that don’t matter like what I will wear tomorrow or where a bookshelf will go. I hate school dreams.

That is all folks. Tomorrow we are back to meetings. Ugh!

In honor of my return to work, I am going to treat you to some funny shit Mr. Mack found today and all of Twitter was ablaze with this. I love creativity. Click on over and have a giggle.

http://thechive.com/2010/08/10/girl-quits-her-job-on-dry-erase-board-emails-entire-office-33-photos/

Since I am returning to work, that means Missy Mack starts her first day of Pre-K. She is so excited but I am freaking out. Pre-K is almost kindergarten. I read her this before bed tonight.

Such a touching story and just in the tender moment, Missy Mack says ‘but Mommy, I am not scared to go to school and that racoon is so this isn’t a good book to read to me.’ oh, really? Whatever, it is a good damn story and I will place a kiss in her palm as I drop her off tomorrow.

Speaking of books, I have updated my books page so hop over there and see what the Macks have been reading this summer. Lots of kids stuff.

I can remember when I was entering the teacher world and fellow teachers would refer to teaching as going to work or their job, I would be so offended. I was excited to be a teacher. It was a calling, a passion, I was going to touch and change lives. How could that be work or a job? Let me tell you friends, it is work and a job and my summer I had off, I worked my ass off for it. About 80% of my job is fun, exciting and rewarding. I am about to start the 20% of the job that is my least favorite. Professional development. It is so painful. I will be presenting during part of the pain. Also, the beginning of school just plain stinks. I will be glad to get this part over with. There are days where I do feel like a government babysitter, but most people at my school value the job that all teachers do each day.

Here I go, there is no turning back. I think I will miss putting 13 baby dolls to sleep each day.

This weekend, we did some craft projects. We started with painting clothespins pink and putting some glitter on them.

Then I spent hours searching for these cute alphabet cards that I bought two years ago and hadn’t figured out what I wanted to do with them. Then, Coco gave me the great idea of clipping them on a ribbon, thus not making tons of holes in the wall. Here is how it turned out.

Next, I had some cute alphabet cards and a canvas I that I had messed up with some paper. A little paint, a little modge podge, cute cards and some more paper.

I finally feel like I accomplished something over the summer.

I am in mourning. Two more days of summer. Two more days of sleeping late, staying up late, no make-up, no bra, flip flops, shorts, pjs until noon, drinking in the middle of the day. Oh…. it is so sad.

A few days ago we had a swimming playdate at my friend’s parent’s house. Here’s what it looks like when you step outside.

Not bad huh?

Missy Mack and Tyce did a lot of jumping.

My friend has a cool under water camera and we got this cool picture.

The highlight of the day was Missy Mack’s no fear diving board diva jumping.

I am so glad she picked that cute, frilly, pink swimsuit or these pictures would not be so awesome.

I am so proud of Missy Mack and her new swimming skills. We ended the day with a little ice cream treat.

Now, I have some randomness for your Friday. In Coco’s post today she shows you her awesome picture wall. She has high ceilings and when I was there this week, this is how she attempted to hang those top pictures.

I was so glad when she came to the conclusion that this might not be a great idea.

Our kids played on the waterslide, hide and go seek and ate lots of these, which I am positive Missy Mack left her cherry red one some where in Coco’s house to melt.

Wednesday night a teacher friend and I drove to Boerne, Texas to spend the night before out 8:00 AM conference at the high school. This is THE cutest town ever and I can’t wait to go back and shop. Holy cuteness.

After being away from my family for less than 24 hours, I have found that I am a tiny bit irritated that I can’t have a complete thought, my house is still messy and the tv is always on. How quickly I lost my sense of reality.

This afternoon we are headed to meet Missy Mack’s pre-school teacher and we are all pumped up!

Have a great weekend.

O.K. people, I guess I have become un-interesting. I am getting no love from you people and I need it to get out of bed in the morning. I don’t feel loved and needed without your validation. Here are a few videos to make you laugh from Missy Mack’s naked day.

A little Risky Business 4 year old style

Saturday we had a fun Missy Mack day. Missy Mack and I made chalk with this kit I bought at Target on clearance for $3.50. Bargain! I wish I would have got more. This would be a perfect activity for a playdate or a party.

It was simple as pie. Here is what you do:

and I little girl to shake it when you add water to the bottle of chalk powder.

A Mommy to let you pour even when you make a mistake.

I poured most of them but with a little re-teaching Missy Mack did a few all by herself too.

Then they dry in the hot sun. Lucy waited with us.

So did our new Snow White doll that we got at Target for $3.50. Snow White has bad hair. I mean this baby has the biggest, baddest fro you have ever seen. I keep trying to convince Missy Mack to let me put her hair up, but she will not budge. Poor baby doll.

Viola! Here is our finished product. This seriously was so fun. I was very impressed with it’s ease and just pure family fun.

Then we headed for some lunch and to an awards ceremony at the library for Missy Mack reading 800 minutes this summer (more on that later. Please know she is not reading, yet, I read to her). Anyway, she got some cool prizes, a poster of her picture that was posted on the wall at the library and a Joe McDermott concert. It was really fun. I love pure kid joy. If you have never had the opportunity to attend a kid concert, I highly recommend. There is nothing like a kid mosh pit. While, there were clearly dads in the room that were a little unsure of Mr. McDermott, Mr. Mack plays guitar, has a silly sense of humor and has a great appreciation for these kinds of events. Some parents, not so much. Between this event and our Laurie Berkner song book, Mr. Mack has been playing the guitar every night with Missy Mack and we sing and listen to him play. He keeps trying to get her to write a song with him, but she loses interest quickly. I love listening to Mr. Mack play guitar. It reminds me of our dating life.

Here are too many pictures of the fun.

Mr. Mack did some camera tricks (there are about 15 more of strange angles).

She got a CD signed by the man!

Here is my sweet little reader in the dress that her great-grandmother made for her this summer.

Yesterday, Mr. Mack had a conference downtown so Missy Mack and I had a field trip day.

First stop, the Texas Memorial Museum on the UT campus. The have constructed dinosaurs out of bones found in Texas and one marine Dino from right here in Austin. They also have an extentive mineral and gem collection. Missy Mack’s class studied dinos this year and she is obsessed with birthstones so I thought this would be right up her alley.

When we got there, we looked at the tracks and sat in the vertebrea classroom. Notice the bone chairs in the background.

This is what meets you as you enter:

Found in Big Bend near where Missy Mack’s grandma lives. Then we checked out gems. Here is my mom and Mr. Mack’s birthstone and we used to have a smaller version at my house growing up.

Then Missy Mack lost interest, but I found it interesting. Here are some cool things there.

See, Missy Mack didn’t need me to teach her anything about these dinos because her friend Jackson at school knows a lot about dinos and he taught her. Interest regained by the microscope and the wonderful piece of furniture with all the drawers.

As we left, interest heighten by a bus full of summer camps kids coming to the museum. She watched them for at least 20 min. I think someone is ready for school to start.

Next we headed to the coolest toy store

Missy Mack spent a long time playing with Groovy Girls and their accessories. Then decided on a Hello Kitty wallet and is super stoked about putting the goods in her first wallet.

Then we headed to Phils Ice House and Amys Ice Cream for lunch and play. Next to Target for two items but they were having a toy clearance. I got toy cockblocked by a lady clearly on a mission. She took Fancy Nancy’s phone a dog practically out of my hands!

We went home for a different kind of girls night.