Working overtime! And other stuff...

Yes...THAT'S why I haven't blogged in over 10 days! Amazing! It finally dawned on me about a month ago that if I didn't get it in gear and work some serious overtime we could just kiss this trip to Cali goodbye (myself at least, fund raising has already paid a big chunk of Hailey's costs). I make a pretty good wage on regular time and since I'm still an hourly employee, a VERY NICE wage on overtime. So I withdrew from school (just put that on hold until Hailey graduates) and really buckled down on the overtime. From January through May I maybe worked 3 hours of overtime total! In the last 6 weeks I've worked over 10 so I'm headed in the right direction. I'm in real good shape this week having worked almost 30 hours in 3 days. I should be on overtime all day Friday and will go in Saturday to meet my goal of 50 hours this week. I'm tired but it's just gotta be done.

I've also been exercising. I've been doing Turbo Jam every morning (not today, since I got up late).  It's really great and gives me lots of energy. There's no better way to start your day than to get a good, sweaty workout! I've been trying to do 5 days on and 2 days rest BUT since I'm skipping today I'll have to exercise on Sunday and just rest on Monday.

We've been doing this fruit flush diet and it's great too! It's a 3 day detox where you eat nothing but fruit all day, then a salad and some chicken or fish at night.  I don't own a scale and the only time I get weighed is when I go to the doctor, but I can definitely feel that I've lost weight and the exercise is really toning me up.

I've also been NOT smoking in the house, which naturally keeps me away from the computer.

So, those are the reasons my blog has been kind of neglected as of late. Plus I just haven't had anything to blog about. Hailey is out of school and there's nothing really going on right now. They've cut her hours back to just weekends at Moe's so she's just basically chillin at home while I work.

There are some upcoming events that look promising though:

Senior band members get fitted for their uniforms on July 8th.

Hailey has her Senior pictures made on July 9th (I'll be there probably snapping some pics of them snapping her pics).

Band camp starts on July 22nd and I will be there spying and listening as much as I can. They don't play when they first start because they always have to teach the Freshmen how to march.  Hailey will be one of 4 section leaders for the clarinets. It's going to be a great year for band!

And, my BFF Melonee is having an adoption party on July 26th (she's adopting a foster child that she's had for quite some months). I will be taking my camera so I can blog the event.

We MIGHT be taking a short trip to the beach (we SO need it). This depends upon the above-mentioned overtime.

Hailey's Senior registration is August 4th.

Band pictures are on August 6th.

First day of school is August 11th.

My Birthday is August 16th.

The band will perform for the Tournament of Roses president on August 19th (he will be here all that week).

Homewood Patriot Football starts on August 29th!

Looking at all this I guess it's good we've got this little break where there is nothing going on. But I love the fall, when band and school and football start, it's so exciting and since this is Hailey's last year, I'm not going to miss a minute of any of it!

Here's some more very good news about our school system, of which I am so very, very proud!

 Homewood High School was named one of the "top 1,300 U.S. high schools" by NEWSWEEK magazine.

To qualify for the list, public schools are ranked according to the number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and/or Cambridge tests taken by all students at the school in 2007 and is divided by the number of graduating seniors. Any school with a ratio of 1.000 or higher is placed on the NEWSWEEK website to indicate that the school had as many tests taken in 2007 as they had graduates.

Homewood High School was ranked 479 out of the 1,300 schools, a ranking that would place it in the top two percent of schools in the nation.

There were very few schools in our state that made this list.

Here's the article and the complete list.