My reason...err, excuse for not being on here

I really have slacked off on writing or posting things here on my blog lately. For the few people who actually read this, I apologize. Believe it or not though, there is actually someone other than myself to blame for my absence. Her name is Angenette Crawford-Sharp. She is my wife. For the last four-and-a-half years, she has been a Middle School Science Teacher. the most dedicated, almost to a fault, Middle School Science Teacher that any school, student or parent could hope to have. She was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING at what she did. Unfortunately, that meant at times that our children and I went on the back burner.

The woman has boundless energy. She was getting up at 4:45 am so that she could get dressed and be at the bus stop by 5:46 am. She would ride the bus to the Transit Center where she would transfer to the bus that would take her down the street that her school was on. This entire process lasted until roughly 6:30 am. You have to understand that this was late by her standards. Before we lost our car, and she was able to drive to work, she was there at 6:00 am so that she could have "ample" time to set-up for the day. The roughly 45 minute travel time which that time of the morning would take about 12 minutes in a car was a real cramp to her style.

The school day actually started at 8:30 am and would last until 4:00 pm. During that time she would teach 5 classes and end the day by conducting a meeting because she was the Team Lead. She attended countless meetings on her team and departments behalf and relayed that information to her constituents in a timely and efficient manner. She handled all discipline issues and discipline referrals for her team. She coordinated field trip and PRO activities with the other 8th grade team and their team lead. She also worked very hard to coordinate her lessons with the other 8th grade Science teacher. All the while, he made no attempt to do the same. Last but not least, there were the parent contacts. I would guess that she spent a third of her day emailing or calling parents. She talked to them about their child's grades and what it would take for them to get the grade that the parent wanted. She talked to them about their child's discipline or more appropriately put, lack thereof.

Busy day right? I get exhausted just thinking about it. Guess what though. It is just getting started. At  the end of each day, she would hitch a ride home with a co-worker of her's who lives on our side of town. At this point you may be wondering why she didn't catch a ride with that person in the morning to avoid having to get up so early and ride the bus. The answer is fairly simple. That person did not get to school early enough to allow my wife the time that she needed to prepare for her students and her day.

Once she arrived home, I would immediately run out the door and head to work. Which left her at home alone 4 out of 5 weeknights. From the time she walked in the door, she would entertain our children who would cling to her from the moment that she walked in the door until the moment that their head hit the pillow that night. She fed them a snack even though most days I had just given them a snack. She prepared dinner and had it on the table at 6:00 pm every night. She bathed them, read to them and then put them down to bed at 8:30 pm.

It was at this point, nearly 16 hours into her day, that she would take a shower, and get herself ready for bed. But only so that she could sit in bed, surrounded by papers and projects that she was grading and lessons that needed prepared for the next day. A few times, I would come in the door between 10:30 pm and 12:30 am and find her slumped over in this pile of papers asleep. But most of the time, she was still hard at it, insisting that she "finish looking over one last classes" assignments for that day.

It wasn't until I turned the light off and insisted that she lay down that she finally conceded that the day was in fact over. This generally happened around 1:30 am. Only so that she could get up and do it all over again in roughly 3 hours.

You may or may not have noticed that my last blog entry was posted on June 3rd. My wife's last day of the school year was on June 4th. Since that day, I have delighted in every moment that I have been able to spend with her and our children Lauryn and Ben. Especially her. I am attempting to make up for the lost "us" time that we missed over the last 4 and a half years. And that friends, is why I haven't posted a blog entry for the last 13 days. I have been spending time with my wife.

I will do my very best in the coming days and weeks to do better about posting on here. I must warn you though. I don't anticipate my wife starting her new job as a Nursing Assistant until mid to late July. So, if my entries are sparse in the time in between, I do hope that you understand. :)

A short rant and plenty "to-do"

Yesterday was such and insanely busy, run around day. Thank goodness I had my mom's car to get the errands done. However, having their car was part of the reason that yesterday was such a frantic day. But, oh well. Yesterday is over and today is another beautiful day. Thank you LORD for seeing fit to open my eyes and get me on my way this morning.  Thank you for giving me another day with my soul mate and partner, Angenette. Thank you for two beautiful and healthy children. Thank you for the gift of family and friends. To GOD be the glory.

Today, I need to finish up the to-do list that I have leftover from Wednesday. Here is what it looks like with a few additions.

1. Feed L&B breakfast
2. Feed L&B lunch
3. Get L&B down for a nap
4. Give L&B a snack
5. Clean the master bathroom
6. Catch up on Google Reader
7. Wash and dry bedclothes
8. Put above mentioned bedclothes back on bed
9. Finish folding and put away the white clothes and towels from Wednesday
10. Clean out fridge
11. Wash dishes
12. Straighten living room and dining room
13. Clean the stroller
14. Sweep entryway
15. Work on planning Lauryn's birthday party
16. Call office about new lease, wood floors, blind (AGAIN)

Have a great day! More later!

- b

A Monsterous To-Do List

This was my to-do list when I woke up this morning:

1. Feed the kids breakfast
2. Feed the kids lunch
3. Give the kids a nap
4. Give the kids a snack
5. Clean up the lunch mess
6. Get a diaper bag ready for Angenette to take the kids to the salon with her
7. Get the kids dressed to go to the salon with Angenette
8. Wash dishes
9. Wash seven loads of laundry
10. Fold seven loads of laundry
11. Put away seven loads of laundry
12. Clean master bathroom
13. Take out trash
14. Take a shower
15. Blog
16. Catch up on Facebook
17. Catch up on Google Reader

This is my to-do list now:

1. Feed the kids breakfast
2. Feed the kids lunch
3. Give the kids a nap
4. Give the kids a snack
5. Clean up the lunch mess
6. Get a diaper bag ready for Angenette to take the kids to the salon with her
7. Get the kids dressed to go to the salon with Angenette
8. Wash dishes
9. Wash seven loads of laundry
10. Fold seven loads of laundry
11. Put away seven loads of laundry
12. Clean master bathroom
13. Take out trash
14. Take a shower
15. Blog
16. Catch up on Facebook
17. Catch up on Google Reader

I must be truthful, I haven't got the last load out of the dryer but I am still going to check it off becasue six loads of laundy is a task in and of itself. I won't get to clean our bathroom until tomorrow. I will get the kids a snack and get them ready to go out the door when they wake up from their nap. Right now I am writing this blog entry so that I can mark one more thing off of my list and then I am going to go take a shower before "Thing One" (Lauryn) wakes up from her nap. :) Don't really see myself getting to tackle Google Reader today seeing as how I work until midnight but oh well. It will still be there tomorrow.

Happy Birthday, Nancy Drew!

This one is for my wife, Angenette. She was a huge Nancy Drew fan growing up and still is to a certain extent now.

This week, a grand female icon of American culture turned 80. No, it's not Barbie. For literary-minded women, it's actually a much more revered figure: Nancy Drew. (After all, have Bette Davis, Barbara Walters, Hillary Clinton, Mary Tyler Moore, Joan Mondale, Fran Lebowitz, Beverly Sills, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg ever mentioned Barbie as a favorite role model?)

The titian-haired sleuth from Riverdale, Calif., first appeared to the American public on April 28, 1930, when "The Secret of the Old Clock" was published. Since then "Nancy Drew" books have gone on to sell more than 65 million copies in the US and 200 million worldwide in 25 different languages. (She's "Kitty Drew" in Sweden and "Alice Roy" in France.)

There is also a new series of "Nancy Drew" graphic novels and, of course, there was the 2007 movie starring Emma Roberts.

Most of us who grew up loving the books now know that there was no Carolyn Keene (the author name that appears on every book's spine) and that Nancy has had various ghost writers over the decades. (For the full story of her creation, try "Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her" by Melanie Rehak.)

To mark the occasion of Nancy's birthday, original publisher Grosset & Dunlap is releasing an 80th-anniversary edition of the first book, "The Secret of the Old Clock." The book will mark a return to the 1959 version of the story (with just a bit of updating to remove some unfortunate racial stereotyping).

For those of us who loved the old blue roadster (as opposed to the blue hybrid she drives in Simon & Schuster's updated series), it should be a treat. In fact, if you're looking for a Mother's Day gift for a woman anywhere between the ages of 18 and 80, you would be well advised to grab a copy.

Credits: Marjorie Kehe, Christian Science Monitor

Why I adore you

Angenette, my wife, is on Spring Break this week. That added to the fact that my hours were recently cut at work, we have spent an ENORMOUS amount of time together since late Saturday afternoon. Granted, I had to work a few hours on Saturday night, this is still the most time that we have seen each other since she was on Christmas Break.

What a hectic schedule she has been keeping. Between being an educator for Fayette County Public Schools at LTMS as an 8th grade Science teacher/team leader and the classes that she has been taking to become a Certified Nurse Aide, she has been going non-stop for the last 6 weeks working on sitting in class for at least 8 hours a day.

Just when you think she has no more to give, she keeps going. We have accomplished so much in her first four days off. Yet, there is so much more that she would like to get done. Where does she get it from?

• We finished hanging the border in the kid's room (At least all that we had. We need to go and get one more roll to finish it off with.).
• Cleaned the main living areas of the house countless times. With two children and ALL the times that they have it is a seeming less endless process.
• Went to Kroger and did a major grocery shop. Thanks to her meal planning, what could have easily been a two-hour long trip to the grocery was relatively quick. Unfortunately though, it was time to restock all of the essentials. We had to buy cleaning supplies, health and beauty products, etc. So it was of course, a drain on our already tight budget.  
• Angenette has done probably eight loads of laundry plus our bedsheets which are still in the dryer now.
• Today, I cleaned the front entrance to our apartment. I thought that maybe the maintenance men would come back and clean up the mess that they left behind after demolishing and rebuilding the balcony above us. But of course not.
• She made my twin sister and I a chocolate cake with chocolate icing for our 27th birthday tomorrow.

Why do I mention all this? Because there has been no rest for my wife this week and that is actually what you are supposed to do on when you are on a break from work.. But due to the strained budget and the fact that we still have no car, we will be here at the house. Being the kind of women she is, my wife has decided to make the most of this.

She constantly amazes me with what she is capable of doing. She is the best thing to have ever happened to me. I love you Angenette!