The U.S. Olympic Sewing Team?

I heard a couple of boys in my 8th grade class talking and heard my name mentioned.  I asked them what they were saying about me.  Here's how the conversation went...

Student #1: Miss Lacey, we were just talking about how skilled you are at sewing.
Student #2:  Yeah, you're like a pro.  Do they have sewing as an olympic sport?
Me:  Why yes, they do.  I'm on the U.S. team.
Student #1:  They have a U.S. Olympic Sewing Team?
Me:  Yes.  I'm a gold medalist.
Student #2:  That's sweet!  So you and Michael Phelps hang out?
Me:  Yes.  We play golf together in the off-season when we aren't training.  See how cool I am?
Student #1:  How does one train to be on the sewing team?
Me:  I just sew stuff and unpick it.  It keeps my fingers strong.
Student #1:  Wow, you're so cool!
Me:  Yes, I am.  Now get back to work.

5 minutes later...

Student #2:  Miss Lacey, do you have a sharpie I can use?
Me:  Yes, there's one in the cup by my computer.

5 more minutes later...

My very own gold medal in sewing.

Go Team USA!

Turn that frown upside down

So...

I had one of those mornings.

The kind where nothing goes right.

You try and try and everything falls apart.

All between the times of 7:15 and 8:00 am.

I emailed my bff Carie to tell her about my morning.

It was a downer email.

I vaguely remember threatening to quit my job.

Then, a few things happened...

An office lady comes down with these...

 Carie is the best!  Wow!  That's about all I can say.

Then at lunch I find out I'm going to be getting one of these...

Then I find out that I'm likely going here for Spring Break...

(that's Ireland, in case you were wondering!!!)

And suddenly, my day doesn't seem as bad.

Thank you, tender mercies.  Heavenly Father knows when I've reached my limit and knows when to let some sunshine peek through the clouds.

It's finally Friday

I wanted to find a picture of quicksand to post as my picture. Because that's how I'm feeling this week.  The harder I work, the more buried I get.  I can't seem to get ahead, and it's frustrating!  I stay late at work, and my to-do list grows.  I asked my principal if I could win a prize if my car was the last one in the parking lot all week.  He brought down a granola bar yesterday morning. That works. :)  

But as I tried to find a good picture of quicksand, I found this...

And it made me laugh.  

Mean?

Probably.

But I guess I also feel like this poor horse whose head is stuck in a tree.

This evening's music brought to you by....

It was just a matter of time...

I always think the few people who read this don't like hearing about my teaching stories all the time.  A few of you have told me that you enjoy them, so you get to hear them.  I'm bad at journaling, so this and emails to friends are my forms of journaling.

With that being said, let me tell you about the first finger-sewing incident of the 2011-2012 school year.  It's a pretty common occurrence that students sew their fingers.  Some aren't too bad.  Maybe it just gets a little layer of skin.  Sometimes it hits the bone and breaks the needle.  You may remember the winner of 2010 where the little piece of needle broke off in her finger, and I had to pull it out.  That was easily the most disgusting needle-in-finger incident I had faced...until today.

It was first period.  There were 6 minutes left in class.  I see a girl with her hand casually in the air, waiting for me to come answer a question for her.  I walk over and she calmly says, "The needle is in my finger." I look down, and sure enough, the needle is in her finger.  Her hand is still attached to the machine.  It's sick. Blood is coming out.  I calmly ask if she's okay.  I don't want her to freak out.  I don't want to freak out.  And I don't want the rest of the class to know because she's already embarrassed.

So in order to get her detached from the machine, I have to remove the presser foot.  Then I had to loosen the needle clamp to get the needle out of the machine.  Once it was out, I could get a better look.  Her finger was centered on the needle.  There was an equal 1/2" sticking out of both sides of her finger.  This wasn't a little skimming of the skin.  This needle was IN her finger!  I brought her over to my desk, away from the other students.  I warned her that I was going to try to pull on it.  I pulled it about 1/4".  Sick.  It was sick.  I asked if she was still okay.  Then I tried pulling again.  She pulled her hand back and let out a little scream of pain.  That thing was stuck.  Blood dripping away.

I called the office.  "Umm...I have a sweet girl here who has a needle really stuck in her finger.  What can you do to help me?"  Miracle of all miracles occurred...the school nurse was actually there!  I think she's only at our school one day a week.  So I sent her on her way and tended to the blood path that was left...my pretty new machines had their first blood incident.  I went to the office between class periods.  I saw her walk out of the nurse's office.  No needle!  Just a traumatized 14 year old with tears in her eyes and a handful of bandaids.

Happy 11th day of school.

Things I've learned from Google this week

Sometimes when I don't know the answer to things, I brush it off with an "I don't know. Oh well!"  But this week, curiosity has gotten the best of me a time or two.  Here's what I've learned...

Question:
How do you perform the Heimlich Maneuver on pregnant women?
Answer:
Above the baby.  Push in the center of the breastbone...inward and downward.
Question:
What is happening to a person during a seizure?
Answer:
It's electrical activity in the brain. The brain sends out too many impulses at the same time to tell muscles to move.  Your muscles go tight and relax really fast over and over until the seizure stops.
Question:
Do bees really die after they sting?
Answer:
Let me give you a little funny background about this question...
Two of my 7th grade girls told me they want to have pet bees.  They want to catch them, freeze them, remove their stingers, tie a string around them, then defrost them and hope they're still alive to be pets.
Only honey bees die after they lose their stinger.  This is because when they try to pull out the stinger, they also lose parts of their abdomen and digestive tract.

There you go.  I hope you feel smarter.  I sure do!