Sunday Post ~ Marching On

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news, a post to recap the past week on your blog, showcase books and things received, and share news about what is coming up on the blog for the week ahead. To get in on the Sunday funday, see the rules here: Suday Post Meme.

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This week was an easy week in terms of work. My students had writing two days of the week that is mandatory for this time of year, we went to the library one day, and the last two days of the week were the 27 week district test. The kids and I both hated the test. It tested on a unit that hasn’t even been covered, and there were questions with answer choices that they don’t learn until 8th grade. No one was looking at our year-at-a-glance for our units nor at our TEKS, obviously. It’s a great way to confuse the kids and make them feel dumb…right before state testing. I dislike not having input into or reviewing/revising these district created content-aligned tests.

In other news, I got my day to work on the yearbook. I thought I would get much more done than I did, but that is why I needed the day. There is so much that is small-scale detail-oriented, so it takes a lot of time. I don’t want to have mistakes in the book, and I have to go over everything with a fine tooth comb. Everything is coming together nicely and I’m pretty proud of the work we’ve done this year. That morning I also had a very unsettling experience with someone at work and I immediately went into fight or flight mode. I won’t go into the entire thing, but I was verbally attacked and it made my station on my campus very real to me and that I am not liked and neither is my yearbook crew (which they will freely admit based on how I am treated when it comes to yearbook). Further solidifying my decisions.

I sat down Tuesday night to pay all of my March bills, and I am happy to announce that…

I AM CREDIT CARD DEBT FREE! 

I never thought I would see this day anytime soon, but I paid off all of my credit cards entirely and even had a few hundred dollars left in the bank.

My mother’s class has decided to go on a cruise for their upcoming reunion. All of the classes from the 80s decade are invited to join in. The cruise itself will happen only on their 34th year out of school, but I will say the group rates are pretty damn good. (My 10 year reunion in this summer.) We had recently heard about this happening, but didn’t have any information. At my birthday dinner last weekend, we discussed it. The Man and I talked about it and he is in! My mother wants the entire family to go (and my dad refused to give an answer so he can lament about not going late – seriously, this is his SOP). I was finally approved to join their closed Facebook group, and found out on Tuesday that all the deposits had to be paid by Saturday to receive all of the group pricing and other incentives! That didn’t give us a lot of time to make arrangements. I talked to The Man and convinced my mother that we should upgrade to the mid-priced rooms with the ocean view. This is not likely something we will ever do again, so we might as well do it right the first time. My mother got everything squared away for our rooms. The cruise is July 2018 and we will be going to Cozumel.

our bedroom

our bedroom

Baby’s bedroom

Baby’s bedroom

Saturday the new mattresses for the bedroom were delivered, and The Man and I had to play magical furniture and move everything from our bedroom (except bed) into Baby’s room. She has the old mattress from our bed, and the old mattress for her bed is going to my M-Th house so I can give that lumpy mass the boot. The new bedroom furniture was suppose to be delivered on Thursday, but they cancelled our delivery! The company claims to have had 4 people quit since it was ordered, so their plan was to just show up whenever! The Man set them straight. He is a law enforcement officer and works nights. That’s why we have to schedule things like this. They would have shown up to a very, very angry man. So now the furniture is not being delivered until the 29th. There are two TVs and DVD players in Baby’s room now that we are having to wait the whole month. The Man’s parents come the week before the furniture, so they are going to see the hot mess in all its glory.

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When your Saturday morning consists of Mini Blog Ahead tasks! #miniblogahead #bloggerlife

A post shared by Charlie Anderson (@sissybearla) on Mar 4, 2017 at 8:59am PST

I also raised my NetGalley rating ONE WHOLE PERCENT! I am now at 7%!

This year my goal is to read at least 50 of my NetGalley selections, and I am working on it! I already feel off to a better start than I did last year.

I’ve downloaded a handful of titles since the year started, but I’m also reading and reviewing older titles so I’m moving in the right direction. Even going up one percent is showing me gains.

I’m also participating in Mini Blog Ahead and I’ve already written over 60 posts! Not all of them are going to count for the challenge, but about half of them will. And I am not giving up anytime soon, either. I do plan to slow down, but my next posts to craft (reviews, Famous Last Words, and bullet journal posts) take a lot longer for me to get done.

YA Lit Giveaway | The Piper’s Price | Scarred

State of Allegiance | Songs of Insurrection

• Monday
  • Cover Characteristics ~ Cookie Jar
  • Audiobook Review ~ Cruel Beauty
  • Cover Reveal ~ The Supernatural Pet Sitter
  • Blitz + Giveaway ~ State of Allegiance
• Tuesday
  • Top Ten Tuesday ~ MGs with Food
  • Teaser Tuesday & Intro ~ King of the Friend Zone
• Wednesday
  • WWW Wednesday
• Thursday
  • Famous Last Words #22
  • Blitz + Giveaway ~ Songs of Insurrection
•  Friday
  • Feature Follow Friday ~ Dr. Seuss Day
  • Book Blogger Hop #10
  • Blitz + Giveaway ~ Scarred

• Monday
  • Cover Characteristics ~ Cookies
  • Review ~ Someone to Love
  • Blitz + Giveaway ~ Ares Road
  • Spring Fever Giveaway
• Tuesday
  • Top Ten Tuesday ~ FREEBIE
  • Teaser Tuesday & Intro ~ To Move the World
  • Blitz + Giveaway ~ Falling for Boston
  • Blitz + Giveaway ~ Incence and Peppermints
• Wednesday
  • WWW Wednesday
• Thursday
  • Famous Last Words #22
  • Did You Hear About The New Goodreads Feature?
•  Friday
  • Feature Follow Friday ~ Books That Made You Cry
  • Book Blogger Hop #10

I am finishing up King of the Friend Zone. Next I’ll start To Move the World.My students and I finished chapter 14 of The Phantom Tollbooth.

I started this feature as part of my Sunday Posts in the fall. After being asked by a coworker – in all seriousness – if I had a life, I decided to join disc jockey Bobby Bones of Kase 101 in doing one human thing each week. In order to not lose what little sanity I have left and in order to not become enslaved to the Texas Education Agency via my school district, I will…

• leave school within an hour of dismissal once a week
• do one human thing with another human – and then talk about my human thing on the blog each week

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I wasn’t very good at doing any of this this week. I stayed every day but Wednesday and Friday. I have become very bad at the “human connection” part of this whole thing. Maybe it needs to be renamed “Self Connection” or something. But on Wednesday when I left school – at 4:15!! – I called my mother to pick up my vacuum. When I moved in November, I basically gave her everything, but my roommate’s vacuum is literally from the 70s and sucks. It doesn’t suck up anything! I met her in my hometown (20 minutes from my new house) and I actually stayed with her at my family-hangout spot (seriously, everyone in town knows if you need to find us, you can find someone in my family at Golden Chick) for several hours. We made our cruise arrangements then, but it wasn’t planned and it took away from my reading time, so I didn’t finish my last book for COYER, but oh well. I got to spend time with my mom and my baby brother, who didn’t act as much of a jerk as usual. And I got to vacuum my room and tidy things up before the man and I brought the mattress up.