Mermaid Sirena’s blog

   "Granny we need to get our things at least above a few feet in case it floods." Hannah threw her favorite compact disks and dvds into a plastic bin. After snapping the lid she stacked it on top of her dresser with the other three bins she had packed.
   Granny walked slowly into Hannah's bedroom, leaning on her walker. She gave a long series of coughs and said, "this house did not flood during Hurricane Betsy so it is not going to flood for Katrina. Stop your worrying girl." Granny coughed again and started to weeze.
   "You should be in bed and on your oxygen," Hannah said as she turned around. If the pnemonia will not stop her Granny then the emphazema will. "The doctor said to stay on it twenty four seven." Hannah stopped putting her stacks of jeans in the next bin and turned to help Granny back to bed.
   "I wish you would let us take a taxi out of here. I'm worried about this one. All the channels are saying it is a manditory evacuation." Hannah and Granny slowly traveled the hallway back to the master bedroom.

Ok - and about 48,000 words left to write but I am really enjoying it again. Glad I didn't do too much outlining this year. I think that sucked the life out of it last year since I planned it out almost day-by-day. It didn't leave any room for the characters to talk to me. Hannah already has a voice and has asserted herself by demanding she have a cat. Go figure!

Knowing that I want to Nano again this year has me pulling out the last three nanos that I wrote. Novel one didn't get to 20,000 words. Oh, well. It didn't have a good beginning.

Novel two was over 50,000 words but the story isn't finished. As I read over it it makes me think a child wrote it. I do have a varied of words and sometimes it seems too wordy. Since wordy is the 'thing' of Nano I know it is ok. I just REALLY need to finish it and edit it.

Novel three was over 20,000 words but not by much. It has a lot going for it but I lost interest. It became more about history and less about a story and that was boring.

My novel this year - well - I'm thinking about a person who loses their sight in an accident (child maybe) and then has the ability to see the past/future when others touch that person. Not sure if it will be a boy or girl; what the accident is; etc. but am looking forward to the planning.

Every October I get in the mood to write again. I am sure it has to do with NaNoWriMo being just around the corner. I am hooked on it even if I only won once in three years. Seeing as November is also the month I was born, it is a way to celebrate creativity, writing, November, etc all rolled together.

I wonder if anyone in the Vox world will be joining me on the Quest for a Writing Frenzy like National Novel Writing Month. If so, drop me a line and we will word war, throw ideas around, or just talk over the process!

As for my life - we have tons going in in Cub Scouts, my youngest son will be having surgery on his left hand to remove a tumor, and teaching has me going full force.

Adios!

MONO! It has been confirmed by the second blood test and an ultrasound of my internal organs. I have an enlarged spleen and have over the top liver enzyme numbers. The fever seems to have disappeared (just like it is supposed to) and has been replaced by a very swollen and sore throat and complete fatigue. I know I am supposed to rest but WHEN??

I have two small children and a full time job. I am going to be going to bed earlier every night and trying to nap when I get home from school (before the kids get home from extended day). I am going to curb my activities with cub scouts - and that is going to be the hardest considering it is all volunteers and I'm one of the main ones. My event, the Bottle Rocket Derby, is the 17th of May.

I hope everyone else out there is doing better than me. Have a wonderful evening.

My doctor sent me for bloodwork on Wednesday morning since I have had a 99.1 to 100.3 fever for ten days (we are on 12 now). She is going to test for Lyme Disease and Rheumatoid Arthritis among other bloodwork tests. I thought it might be Hand, Foot, and Mouth since I have developed in the last two days five small bumps on fingers of my two hands. They are painful to touch or put pressure on but they aren't itchy or very big. In fact, they are hard to see; I can sure feel them when I pick something up, though. The doctor disagreed since the bumps came too late after the start of the fever.

The fever has me pretty rundown. I think it is gone and then it spikes back up again. Tylenol can keep it at bay for about five hours but then it is back around 99.8 or a bit higher. It tends to stay around the 99.3 to 99.8 level. I get the sweats during the 99.5 to 99.9 and it is uncomfortable. I get aches and chills when it hits the 100 mark and higher. I have had the fever so long now that I can predict fairly accurately what my temperature is to the tenth of a degree. It's been a bit amazing.

I tried staying home two different days last week but gave in when the fever didn't break and nothing else surfaced. Schools have a thing about fevers but since I am being reviewed by a doctor they seem satisfied. The nurse sadly said that I will probably have to get worse before we know what is wrong. I wish it could just be the flu and that I worried over nothing. My brain and the internet have given me everything from cancer, to aids, to meningitis. The internet can be a dangerous item when your ill.

I'll let all know when I know. Dang, I wish the fever would just go away!

I do. I really feel icky. It started on Sunday around noon but I just thought my alergies to the pollen was the cause. I hung out with my friend, Jen, and her kids playing two wonderful games of Clue so I didn't think much of the achy shoulders and chest, or the thumping headache. When I got home my eyes started to burn so I decided to take some tylenol and take my temperature. 100.7 - no wonder I felt bad. I went to bed early but between sweaty tossing and turning and my 6 year old waking up every hour shaking with fear over nightmares I didn't get much sleep.

My fever wasn't around in the morning, neither was the headache, but the aches were still there. I stayed home. At noon I started to feel real icky so I took my temperature again and it was up to 100.4 - tylenol and a two hour nap helped and it didn't return until around 10pm.

I slept pretty good last night and felt pretty good this morning, minus a few aches, so I went to work. I know, I know. Schools frown upon going to school for 24 hours after a fever. I now know why. At noon I stopped by the nurse's office of the second school I was in and they took my temperature. 100 again! She sent me home. I rested at home and then went and got the kids. We ate leftover pizza and went to cub scouts. I sat most of the time cutting the nose cone shapes for the upcoming bottle rockets so it was easy going. We came home and I started to feel icky again. It is back to 100.5 again. My chest still feels a bit tight and my shoulders and ribcage ache. I'm not coughing, I don't have a stuffy nose or sinus pressure, My stomach feels fine. What could it be, then, that is making me spike a fever and feel so icky?????

If you work in the school system and even touch a lower ability student you have probably heard of Alternative Assessment. The AA is a way for the government to see we have progressed learning for these students. The problem is that, just like state assessments, every state gets to make their own rules for it. When I worked in CA I had a state made AA and it changed and grew as the state better understood what testing needed to look like for these kids. When I moved to FL I was told "We can use any assessment we want, like the Brigance" and I said "Just WAIT!" and I was right.

This past October we were given instructions to test a certain student (black, male, in 3rd; white, male in 8th; etc.) so that the state could have a test of the test. The problem was that they wanted to real test administered in March and that did not give them enough time to get all the results accounted. They did listen and change the test some but you can really tell NONE of them are administering the test and they don't, or haven't ever, taught this population.

I administered the October test to three students and the March test to aporoximately 10 students. I was nominated to to to the Alternative Assessment Review Committee for our county. I was selected and went this past week during my Spring Break. Of course there is very little I am allowed to share but I do know that the company designing the test is trying to listen to all comments that teachers send in. I also know that the test is still in it's infancy and a work in progress. I have found out that we won't get the scores on our student probably until next fall.

It was exciting to be a part of the State changing and I have applied for the Content Review Committee and another Assessment Review Committee that will happen during the summer. I hope I get at least one of them!

Dear all that know Miss Minda,

Yesterday, Friday, around 11am she fell going down the outside steps at a county building. A police officer happened to watch the whole thing and was over to her within minutes. She knew she had broken something and the county building insisted on calling an ambulance since it happened on their property. To make a long story as short as possible she was operated on last night. She basically blew out her ankle. It was broken in three or four places, they had to insert a four inch plate of metal at six or seven screws to hold it all together. She spent the night and might spend tonight as well. She won't be working for at least a week, probably two, since she can't have a cast for two weeks. Getting into her own home will be a problem since they have stairs to get into ANY door in the house; there is a chance she will be staying with my parents since this is where she is anyway (she lives about an hour away from here). If anyone needs to contact me fee free to send a message and I can give further details as I know them.

Prayers and thoughts are always welcome.

Sirena

As of this moment I am finally wireless! It took over an hour with the rep on the phone line to get it working but now my home computer, my school laptop computer, and soon the printer are online. I am in heaven; this also saves me from buying a brand new computer until my tax money arrives. I am also looking into some office rearranging since I am not tied to my desk anymore.

School is going well. We are having many IEP meetings to start talking about transistions for students moving from elementary to middle and middle to high school settings. Each move is scary for the parents as well as the students to this is the time to give all a chance to see the new school and classroom as well as give everyone the chance to meet the teachers of the programs. I have a student that is blind and autistic moving to middle school next year and the meeting is Friday. It will be quite the way to end the week before spring break next week.

Sis is visiting this weekend. The boys can't wait until the cousins arrive. They all get along pretty well and really enjoy the sleepovers. I hope we can do something creative. I am itching to get my hands are art of some kind. Maybe clay or even drawing. I'm not sure but I know I want to create something visual.

Cub Scout night tonight - it was Pack night. The room was way too hot so it was frustrating. We learned how to adjust the temperature after the meeting so it never happens again. There were many Tiger badges handed out today and that worries me. We usually try to have the den leaders postpone these until June so that the boys have a reason to continue coming to meetings. Many boys and parents drop out once that badge is awarded even though there are many other patches, belt loops, and pins that can be earned.

I am signing both boys up for Cub Scout camp this summer. It is a day camp for the week and I will volunteer this year. If I like it I will probably go to training to run our own camp in our own county (this one is south of us). The current summer camp leader announced this was going to be his last summer and the council has offered to send Jenny and I to training if we would hold a summer camp for our district. Sounds like lots of work but also lots of reward. I will keep you all posted as the summer gets going.

Well, I'm off to bed. Look forward to reading all the posts from all those from EFX and those that I am learning from VOX. Good night!

Sirena

The day was filled with testing for the most part. I have a student that needed to have testing to show adaquate yearly progress (AYP) but the first grade test did not come in braille because there were too many pictures. We got permission to use the Brigance instead. We had the same problem last year with the SAT10 kindergarten test so I was worried this might happen again. Next year, maybe, he will take the same test as his peers. The student did remarkably well in the reading section - even completing a section of the second grade reading comprehension! His math sections, however, left me concerned. He has a tendency to reverse the numbers 4, 6, 8, and 0. In Literary Braille these are the letters D, F, H, and J and he confuses them in reading as well. The bonus with reading is that he can use context clues to figure out which letter it really is. I need to find ways to practice these letters/numbers without it being too boring. That will be my challenge for the rest of the school year. I hope to find something he can practice with over the summer that he can self-correct. His parents are not very interested in his school career.

I will be computer shopping over the weekend. My router died and we decided we might as well look at computers while we are shopping for the router. For some reason EVERYONE chimes in with their theory when people look for computers and computer stuff. Feel free to drop some info but don't be alarmed if I go with a completely different idea. I'm not the biggest computer junkie in the world so the basics usually hold me for about five years. Each computer I have had has lasted that long and it works for me! My one goal is to go wireless! I want a laptop and the ability to get online from my kitchen table instead of always being in the office! I would like the office to start being 'homework center' for my two boys as well as a crafting area for us all. Wireless will allow those things to happen.

Cub scouts on Tuesday ended up being nothing like was planned. All dens were told that a guest speaker from the police department would be having a Bullying Discussion with the boys. We have 8 dens and one of the newer den leaders put this presentation together. My friend, Jenny, and I were there about fifteen minutes early to set up for the fundraiser handouts that would be delivered at the end of the meeting. At five 'til seven only half the den leaders were there, the one coordinating was NOT there, and NO police. At seven we gathered the boys into the circle for our promise and some simple information about the fund raiser while I quickly tried to call the important missing den leader. NO ANSWER! At 15 minutes after 7, and Jenny was running out of steam talking I decided to step in and make the most of what was supposed to be one of the meetings I could actually relax at. I had all den leaders join me up front and all boys without leaders were to stand around me. The others were to go to their leaders and stand by them. I discovered that three den leaders were missing. I had all the kids sit on the floor and I talked about bears in the woods and introduced them to "The Other Day I Met A Bear" echo song. I shortened it so I didn't lose them. Then I took them on an imaginary "Bear Hunt" with the Bear Hunt song. I had them all stand up and we tried twice to make a mixed up circle of joined hands and try to untangle without letting go but the boys couldn't handle it (maybe next time there are less boys, I had around 30 or 40). I had them learn how to sit in a circle; this sounds simple but you would not believe how many boys could not firgure out how to move to make the circle a circle. We stood up and all sang "I'm Singing in the Rain" with the addition of silly body movements each time we sang the verse again. My last song was "The Grand Old Duke of York" which I have done about 4 times with these boys. Many of them could help with the words this time which makes it more fun. Believe it or not, that took up all the time until 8pm. Many parents came up to my husband and said that the meeting was wonderful considering the circumstances and "what would we do without Sirena" comments were also heard. I love hearing that but I really do wish the police/den leaders would have had the presentation. It was really disappointing to have tell the boys that the police were not coming.

OK -that's it for today. Have a great night out there ya' all!

Sirena