Craziness

Gonna have to drag over my soap box again.........this school year the winter break was a late one. It was from a couple of days before Christmas till Jan 9th. Seems this has just messed up some teachers' schedules. They have one less week to teach required material before the big review time for state testing. I think it's crazy that those state tests have become so important. I realize it all comes down to the mighty dollar. the schools with the best scores will have more people interested in having their children attend those schools which means more money for cash strapped schools blah blah blah.
Don't know when school became something other than teaching. Everyone feels pressure to "perform" better than the year before. Pressure on teachers and administrators just trickles down to students. Then the teaching is almost gone. It's come down to memorizing. Not actual learning why something happens the way it does, or making any sense out of what they're doing. Not fair to the students or the teachers. I'm sure they'd rather skip the entire waste of time testing and reviews as much as the students.
Ok, I'm done ranting.........well until the state testing begins. That's a whole other craziness in itself!

Lover's Lane

Warning: This is all about a rant from Grace.......
Yesterday on the drive home, Grace was a "bit" grumpy. She has decided that there needs to be a special area for high school couples to bid each other farewell. Apparently she's sick and tired of having to either wait for the lovers to finish their "business" or shove people aside with her chair to get to her classes.
She said something to the effect of.......... 'it's not like these boys are leaving after each class to be sent of to war! NO! you'll see him again in 45 minutes! Besides you will be texting him before he even walks in late to his next class, because it's always the guys that have to hang outside the girls' room for that last lingering kiss.'
I think she may be onto something here. If only Grace ruled the world we'd all be put in our places and everything would be perfect :)

Home Again

Home from our time at the coast. Still have schoolwork to finish, books to read, movie to watch papers to write yikes!!!!
Thought I'd share a few pics and then crack the whip  HA! we'll do homework tomorrow.


Grace & Kayla at the lighthouse




The girls checking out the aquarium





Loved the jellies  we could just sit and watch them for hours



Wow thats a ton of work!!

Last spring one of the long term substitute teachers at Grace's school, very generously offered our family a vacation at the ocean using her time-share facility. When she called to reserve the handicap accessible room she was shocked to discover that the earliest available time was this January. So we are ready for a vacation. It's been 7 years since we've been able to have one.
Grace's BFF gets to join us as the room has 2 bedrooms. The girls are on independent study for 2 weeks and they sure have a ton of work to do! Their plan was to do as much as they could ahead of time, but they didn't get their assignments until Friday afternoon.
Kayla (BFF) came over today and they've been fast at the homework. I think they finished history except for movie notes on a movie we don't have yet. Kayla has a math class and is getting that out of the way. in English they have several stories to read, some grammar work to do and a paper to write!
Have no idea what chemistry has in store for them as the teacher posts his assignments online, but his site is down until Tuesday. Guess they'll be doing chem as they listen to the waves, could be worse.
Now for all my work, it takes a great deal of planning to take someone with special equipment on vacation. You have to have every tube, wire canister  and connector with you, along with backups in case something breaks, you also have to take chargers for the equipment. Thankfully, Grace is a great planner and always makes our lists for trips. She's very thorough, and almost never forgets anything. Plus there's all the regular changes of clothes for us all, school books, computers, ipads, phones, chargers etc. So glad we don't have medication to worry about.
I'm not sure how we'll fit all this in our van!!! But it's a nice problem to figure out. Updates when we return. 

How Does She Keep Up?

UGGGHHh.........almost time to return for the second have of this school year. It is hard to return after a long break. The good thing is that finals and benchmarks are finished. Grades should be out anytime ( OK maybe the grades part isn't always the good thing).
Heard an interesting comment from Grace's English teacher before the break. If the students had 90% in the class they could use a finals pass to skip the final. When he was passing out the review packet for the final test, Grace asked if it was going to be graded, did they have to take one if they were using their finals pass. When he asked who in the class wasn't taking the final it was only Grace.
He was amazed that someone that misses so many days of school is able to keep up and get a good grade. Said he'd never met anyone that could do it. Usually grades and attendance go together.
I've been thinking about his comments and granted English is Grace's best subject, I think her ability to keep up with her classes relies on several factors.
First, she has to be on top of her assignments, as soon as she comes back to school after an absence, she finds out what she has missed and prioritizes what she has to start on first.
Second, she has teachers that don't mind a student popping in after school or after class to ask a quick question. I think most teachers are there for their students and want to see them succeed.
Lastly, I think this is just "normal" for Grace. She's had a trach since 4th grade, she's missed a great deal of school since having back surgery in 7th grade. She had been on independent study a few times in middle school, but this isn't unusual for her. She is bright, and hard on herself. There have been a couple of classes she had to drop because of absences, but on the whole she's done fairly well. Having a medical condition that takes you out of the  'norm' doesn't have to mean you can't find your own norm and be successful. I guess I should remind her how proud of her I am.

What I did

Thought I'd show what I did with all those inchies from 2011. I was given a gift in a random candle box that seemed too nice to toss. I painted it my favorite color and just glued the the inchies on. I plan on using it to keep 2012 inchies in as I complete them. I have decided to try another year, but will post on my craft blog ..... www.tipistinkerings@blogspot.com

Inchie's 2011

My year started with inchies. Little one inch pieces of art. They were loads of fun most weeks, quite a challenge other weeks. Made me think of some abstract words in a new light.
Here are my last four inchies for the year. The challenges were all colors, blue,red, yellow,and green. Still deciding what to do with the inchies now that I'm done. And deciding if I will do 2012 inchies, I probably will since they were fun :)


when I was a kid I must have been a little bit of a hippie, I used to beg my mom to get a blue Christmas tree. As an adult I know why  she never would.





Here's the red one, not sure what I was doing, but It's finished




Yellow, couldn't get the pic to load right-side-up



So, this green inchie looked so nice when I finished, unfortunately, Grace's cat is a wild thing that stole it off the table while it was wet, I would say he smeared it, but I'm going to go with he "personalized" it



Christmas Break

Christmas is just a few days away!! Grace is finished with finals and the semester. Grades will be out soon. Good or bad I know Grace did her best, that's all I can ask for.
Thankfully there weren't any projects to work on, books or chapters to read over the break. Just relaxing and enjoying the holidays.

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Still Here

I'm still here, just haven't posted in a while. Seems like a rough time of year for me to keep up. This is always a hard time for Grace, as the weather gets colder she seems to experience more pain. Sounds like arthritis to me, she doesn't see her next doctor ( muscle specialist) until January. This means she misses more school than her normal and she is frantically trying to play 'catch up'. Most classes aren't too difficult, especially since she doesn't have a math class. But there is chemistry, which seems to be 1/2 algebra.
As the semester comes to an end next week She is gearing up for finals. At her school, students can earn finals passes which allow them to skip finals in classes that accept the passes. She thinks the only class she will have to take a final in is, of course, chemistry. They also have benchmark tests in each class so it feels like 2 weeks of tests, tests, tests!!!
But Christmas is just around the corner, I love this time of year. The decorations, cooking, even the shopping isn't too bad. For some reason her school district isn't out of school until Dec. 22nd. Which isn't giving us much time before Christmas day. Should be nice for the 2 weeks after Christmas though.
I haven't forgotten my inchies either, I just need to sit down and finish them all.  Hopefully soon :)

 Merry Christmas!!!

No Name?

There are so many kids in high school that just don't do their homework. Of course their grades show it too. But what doesn't make sense is how many do their homework, get an "A" on it, yet don't have enough sense to put their name on their paper. This is from a math class that Grace is a T.A. in. From the first of school till now none of these papers have a name on them. The board is actually bigger than the pic. Crazy kids!!

Inchie Monday: Amusement

Happy Monday. This week's inchie challenge is "amusement". I am amused by so many different things, but my most favorite thing to do when I have insomnia or sick on the couch is watch my favorite sitcom. The original classic ones are the best, I Love Lucy. I could watch everyday if it were on. Getting harder to find it, good thing for us is we have almost all of the episodes on DVD.



Thanksgiving Week

For some reason theres no school the week of Thanksgiving. It's a nice break, when I was a kid we got Wed-Fri off the week of Thanksgiving and we thought that was great.
Unfortunatly there is always homework involved. Grace was assigned the play "Death of a Salesman" for reading, about a month ago. She decided to wait until this week to read it since it was small and she didn't want to forget the details when tested next week.
She said she didn't like the play. I decided to see if it was as bad as she was claiming or if she was just being a grumpy teen. It's a small book,easily read in a few hours. I have to say I agree with Grace on this one. Not sure what all the excitement is about it. Maybe the old movie is better, but honestly I don't know why the state has it on their reading list.
 So, if you haven't read it, don't bother unless you're getting graded on it. It's a snooze. One more day of Thanksgiving vacation. Christmas will be here soon, then two weeks vacation :)