So here's the short of it, 

Good news from the doctor, and bad weather!

And here's the long

I had a good doctor visit today. I was right the soft spot on my breast is nothing to worry about. It's a place where "a lot of tissue had to be removed". It was apparently filled with fluid for a long time after the surgery, but eventually some of that fluid, or maybe all of eventually, is absorbed and the tissue collapses.  There is more currently, but Dr. Witherspoon seems to think that my breast may or may not be nearly healed enough that it won't change much more. I'm really not very focused on whether or not it will continue to change. And now I know the spot is nothing to worry about. 

I had a meeting scheduled today with a disgruntled parent. I drove 35 minutes to a school and the parent didn't show up. We'll reschedule. I wonder what that was all about.

As I was headed back to the office this afternoon a little after 2:00 - oh maybe 2:30ish. I headed down Hwy 153. I gave a little thought to turning onto Amnicola, but it looked awfully dark and I decided to keep going.  In about 3 minutes I could see the leading edge of a  big wind heading across the highway - I could actually see it! I sped up to get to the next exit and get off the road to wait it out. All of a sudden the sky opened up and the rain fell and grayed out the whole road. I couldn't see very far at all, although I could see the lights on the cars behind me. I slowed down, got over onto the shoulder and made my way to the Bonny Oaks exit. There were several cars pulled over on Bonny Oaks.  Within 5 minutes it was gone, and I headed on out. The rest of my drive to downtown involved avoiding downed trees and limbs and water flooding the roadways. Chattanooga has, I've heard 25,000 families are out of electricity. There were lots of accidents, many instances of damages to homes and cars from trees and tree limbs falling. One old brick building downtown which was being renovated had a whole wall collapse.  The news is not good.  Communities all over Hamilton County experienced lots of storm damage. When I got home about 5:00, we hadn't had any damage at all even though just one street over a tree was down in the street. By the time I got home, a neighbor had already cleared it from the road.

I understand that schools spent most of the afternoon with kids in the hallway. I don't think any of that will be on the TCAP test, but I imagine they learned a lot anyway. Tomorrow should be a nice dry and pretty warm day. I'm looking forward to that.

So here's the short of it, 
Tomorrow will be a pretty busy day.


And here's the long

Another weekend is over. Sophie is already sacked out on the den sofa, and I'm still doing laundry, loading the dishwasher and trying to get in the mood to go to work tomorrow. I've got an appointment with my surgeon tomorrow morning and then a physical therapy appointment tomorrow afternoon.  So I'll have to get myself busy to get everything I need to do done tomorrow.

I'm glad that my surgeon appointment is coming up. I have a spot at my surgical site that is changing. I don't think it's anything to worry about, but I'll sure be glad to let a doctor tell me that.  I "think" I know what's going on. The spot is soft, if you will.  It feels like a hole with skin over it. I think it may be the site of the primary tumor, and I think it really is a hole. I'll let Dr. Witherspoon tell me about that!

In the meantime, work is full of great stuff that needs to happen, but it means lots of energy and the nose to the grindstone!  And this nice weather is making me want to get my gardening going on. I want to start some stuff in the little greenhouse.  Mom brought some onion sets up this evening when she came up for dinner. I'll want to get those set out as well.

So here's the short of it, 
Today it felt like spring is around the corner. 

And here's the long

Well, another weekend is already half over. I managed to get a bunch of stuff done today  - so tomorrow I can be in all day. That will be a good thing! I'm looking forward to a whole day at home. It happens so infrequently!

It's time to get started with gardening plans. Valdis put together a small, little greenhouse the other day, and I'm going to start some seeds -- when we had that high wind Thursday night, it blew right over. Thank goodness I didn't have anything in it yet. Alan is going to try to anchor it down real good and then we'll get started.

It was a nice day out today. Nice enough for Sophie to have a lovely morning walk. She'll get another one tomorrow!  

Night.

So here's the short of it,
Work was good today.
 
And here's the long

I feel pretty good about work today. I don't do anything at work that I'm really free to post about. I work in special education, and everything that has to do with specific children is protected under the federal law. Other work that I do has to do with teachers, and that work is confidential in nature because of human resources requirements.  So I really can't often talk about the details of my day to day work. That's the case today, but I feel really good about some of the parts of my day.

Now there's another part that I can talk about.  Everyone in the county had to update our electronic profile. I couldn't get into my profile. When I e-mailed our HR contact, she couldn't find me in the system - HaHa. Since I'm known by my middle name it sometimes causes confusion.  One time when I was being offered a promotion, personnel called to say that they couldn't offer me a promotion, because they didn't even have a record that I worked there! Hardly anyone knows my first name is Carol!  Anyway I finally figured out who I am.  I'm three different accounts, depending on what part I'm trying to access.  I hope I can remember all that the next time it's important!

I'm headed to bed pretty soon tonight!  The whole Nashville trip was very tiring, and by the end of today, I was pretty exhausted!  Night all.....

So here's the short of it, 

 I'm home.

And here's the long

We had a great few days in Nashville at the State's Annual Special Education Conference. There was a good strong strand in gifted education and they were all in the very same room. We were able to get a really good rate at Opryland Hotel this time. It was pretty great to be in the same building where the conference was being held. I was pretty glad when I looked out this morning and saw the rain coming down that I could walk all the way over to the conference inside the building!

It's always good to go and see colleagues from across the state, trade ideas, and just have a chance for a good visit. I sure was glad to get to see folks.

The drive home seemed long - but I didn't drive this time, I was just a passenger!

I'm just about to topple over asleep so I'm checking out and going to bed!!!

So here's the short of it, 
Today has been a long but very productive day.

And here's the long

Today started earlier than I wished. I was awake before it was time to get up because my body is still on Eastern Standard Time. I sure remember younger days when that would not have been any issue!  And it's now after midnight my body time. 

The conference is going well. Our motivational speaker was a fellow named Dr. Dale Henry. I thought he was really very interesting and he certainly got our attention with all his stories. He does lots of training for corporations, universities, and Fortune 500 companies. This afternoon we got to hear two really good sessions. Our friend Bonnie Digby from up in western Tennessee did a great hands on session on integrating STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) into the curriculum. They are using it with the Junior Great Books Curriculum!  I liked that. Tomorrow we are presenting two sessions then one of my colleagues and I will head back home so that I can get a work day in on Friday.

We haven't left Opryland since we arrived.  It's so huge it seems like I've walked 2 miles today. By the time I remember how to get from the room to the conference location, it will be time to head home. 

So here's the short of it,
In Nashville ---

And here's the long

I'm on the bed with my foot propped up on a pillow! We had a great day and a nice evening. We had two great school visits to Hume-Fogg in Metro Nashville, and Merrol Hyde in Hendersonville. Both of them are academic magnet schools. Hamilton County doesn't have such a creature - and I kind of doubt seeing that in the long term picture, but it sure was interesting to think of what kind of components from these schools could be implemented. I was amazed that Hume-Fogg has 26 AP course offerings! Including AP Chinese!

We were able to get in a quick lunch at Cafe Rakka, just down the street from Merrol Hyde. It's a restaurant that's been featured on the Food Network. And even though we were quite rushed and only got a sampler, it's good enough that I'd make a special trip to eat there again. We had Hummus, Baba Ghanoush, Falafel and Tabbouleh as well as Turkish Coffee. Our Chef is from Syria, and learned to cook from his grandmother. He's also got a law degree and credits his father with teaching him most of his life lessons - he refers to his father as his "professor of life".

I credit Chef Rakka with serving us magnificent food and making a little piece of today really special. I'll have to figure out how to get back there.

We landed here at Opryland by about 5 o'clock and got checked in just fine. It's good to see that it's back up and running since the flood. I'll have to say, however, that my dinner was a disappointment. But right now I'm thinking of how early morning will come and thinking that I'm glad Central Time will give us another hour to get ourselves down to the conference.