Pumpkin Carving.............

Our new friend

He flipped his lid!

Hard at work!

The proper tools for the job??

Well Olivia had a blast murdering a pumpkin on our front porch yesterday. It has been forever since I actually carved one, I had forgotten how difficult and disgusting it really is!! LOL! Liv, of course, loved every second of it!! I sent her in the house to get a SPOON to scoop out the pumpkin guts and she came back with A PASTA SPOON!! LOL!! It sort of worked. Anyway, after battling the pumpkin for about 45 minutes we FINALLY got it cleaned out and carved. Liv had a new orange friend who was Scarey enough for her specifications.................: )

Photography Class

As most of y'all know, My dad and I started taking a photography class last week. I am learning SO much!! Lot's of terminology now makes sense, like grey card, and F-stop. I had no idea how my camera worked. I was pretty much using my DSLR as a glorified point and shoot!! I am hanging my head in shame! Not only am I learning a lot in class, I am also enjoying getting to spend some time with my dad. We rarely get to spend any dad and daughter time together anymore as we are both so busy so it's really nice to have a common interest that we can enjoy together. My mom is probably enjoying having one night a week to herself also! LOL!! We had to share some pictures with the class tonight. I brought some that I actually thought were either over 0r under exposed or not quite sharp enough. Amazingly I got good feedback on all of them. Goes to prove that we are our harshest critics.........................

Too tired to even think.................

I don't know what it is BUT I am SOOOO exhausted I can barely function. I slept for a total of about 10 hours yesterday and still woke up this morning feeling as if I hadn't slept at all. I can't keep going on like this. I think it is more mental and emotional than physical. I have SO much to do at work each day, especially now that I have team leaders duties and responsibilities along with everything I normally do. One thing that is really draining me is the constant complaints and negativity I hear from one teacher in particular. OMG! I don't know how much more of it I can take. It's gotten to the point that even lunch is stressful. She literally complains about everything all the time. What amazed me today was that she was talking about having an eye opening experience realizing which teachers in the school are not "respected." WOW!! Does she NOT realize that SHE is one of those teachers?? Talk about being in denial. She was also talking about how scarrey and sad it was if what was going on in NBI is an example of how most teachers teach. This from a woman who can't control her class well enough to actually teach. Good intentions are all fine and good, BUT I would rather have my kid in a class with a half-ass teacher who had control of the class than a teacher with great ideas who couldn't control the class well enough or long enough to implement them. Not a good choice but at least SOME learning probably occurs in teacher "A's" class.

Another thing that I think has been causing my tiredness is worrying about Tom. He has had a lot of stuff happening at work. Hours have been cut, I think he feels like the axe is hanging over his head. All I can do is be there to listen and offer support. It doesn't help that we haven't seen each other in about 2 weeks because of schedules, the gas situation, etc.

I did start a photography class in Kennesaw with my dad on Tuesday nights. Although I am sure it is a contributing factor, it is something I've been wanting to do for literally years and I'm not willing to give it up. Hopefully, one day in the not too distant future I will have my own photography business. This has been a dream of mine for many years. I'm NOT saying I would give up teaching, just that it would be nice to actually supplement my income by doing something I love.