Lovin' it!

We're using up the positive energy here in the Ribbit household recently and I'm not looking that gift horse in the mouth. Things are plodding along quite nicely and while I remain the hopeless pessimist, I surely can't complain.

Today was the first day of school that included the students. I know I had a blast with pre-planning, but I must say, I just love, love, love my job. (Am I alowed to say that?) I belong in a classroom. Even though it was just the first day and everyone's well behaved and attentive the first day, I was in my element. I do have three 'super seniors,' two of which had me last year, but hopefully we can get them through this time. We've started mandatory tutoring the very first day of school to get these kids going in the right direction. The freshmen get smaller every year the seniors more entitiled, but we'll work that out soon enough.

I must say that the kids in that law class were even more excited than I was. If I can feed off of their energy and actually embody the fact that the class is an elective and the kids chose to be there because they wanted to be there and make my lessons reflect that, then we're going to do great. They seemed really geared up about the second semester contemporary issues class. Thinking now about adding some things about the credit rating and debt ceiling that have been going on.

So, being the first day of school for us all, I'm bowing to peer pressure and posting the obligatory first day of school pictures for the boy and the girl. Yes, they were both up at 5:30 this morning. The boy tried to get up at 2:30, but I convinced him he didn't need 3 hours to throw on a shirt and shorts.
The girl was booted from the state GA Pre-K program because of funding, so we're back to paying for private pre-k for one more year, but you saw in a previous post how much we love the place. My pocketbook is sad, but I know she'll do great there.

On to gardening- the other day I was caught off guard by dinner yet again and threw together a pasta dish that combined my pesto, tomato sauce, frozen zucchini, fresh tomatoes and some ravioli. I then got a wild hair and threw in some shrimp for good measure. Why? Why not?

It looked yummy when finished baking.

However, I think I poisoned the man. Unintentionally, of course.

In other good news, the deck for the pool is finished, negating the need for the fancy ghetto entry system.

It's made an incredible difference. The kids are so glad they can finally jump! It's apparently un-American to have a pool that you can't jump from. Completely unacceptable.

Always looking for ideas for the Law and Contemp Issues classes. I'm writing them all down. Thanks for sending the suggestions that you have!

The morning comes early - yea school, go team! Sweet gardening dreams.