The Ticker Don't Lie!!!

Holy Crap! 3 days left until "Summer Freedom" and I am in denial. I can't believe, even though I really can if I stop and think for 5 seconds, that this week is it. Two of my cherubs left on Friday due to family vacations. It was bittersweet since I really enjoyed having them in class. Monday will mark the other 20 leaving me forever....forever.....forever. Wow, that just sounds so permanent. Like I said, bittersweet. I will miss them, and it has been an interesting year, but to think that they are on their own from now on is humbling. I hope I served them well. I hope they have all the tools they need for the next grade. I hope I see them again even though I will be at a different building. Luckily, I will be able to check up on most of them returning to 5th grade in our building. The others though, I wish them good luck and farewell. I hope they make me proud somewhere along the way. One of my kids I have had for two consecutive years now. I will miss seeing her next year the most. Man, she isn't even mine, and I feel like she is leaving for college or something. I am not looking forward to that moment in 17 years, let me tell you!!!!

Well, two missions today.... 1. Kitchen clean up. I still have things out of place from our Memorial Day BBQ. That coupled with the fact that we have ANTS EVERYWHERE! I can't stand it anymore. I am spraying TODAY! If that doesn't work, we are calling a pest control company. Having a toddler is not helping the cause to rid the house of ants either. We can't keep up with him while he eats. Food just lands on the floor.

Second mission....2. Start looking at the garage. Cleaning is a must! Now that my classroom is in there, I need to really prioritize some space. My classroom junk will be gone on Tuesday or Wednesday. We can't even get our bikes or strollers out right now hardly at all. It would take some work.

Okay, lastly the Sauter family is currently taking donations. I'm joking, but we found out how much our adoption finalization and citizenship costs are going to be. We are looking at $1,600. I about crapped and fell off my chair yesterday. This whole thing has been such a financial undertaking. This is like the icing on the cake of debt. Please don't get me wrong. We have been ultimately blessed and am so glad that we took this path. I wouldn't have it any other way. However, it does dent the bank account and that hurts from month to month. We were really talking about starting the process over again, until we realized yesterday, that isn't possible yet. The "new homestudy" would cost $2,000. Now we need to concentrate all of our funds on our finalization, not a start up. That is okay, but I just hope that we can start again in the next couple years. Right now I just want a SSN so we can have a legal DEPENDENT and our adoption tax credit next year. That should replenish $10-12K in our account. Thank God the government pays for almost half of this process.

Have a great weekend!