I have PVNS: GREAT week...

My week was crazy.. but GREAT... It started off Monday with working with some amazing students to begin filming for our community service day project... filming people saying what they are thankful for... kids will edit it and we will be sending it to some troops in Afghanistan. Can't wait to see the finished product. That afternoon I got the BEST news I have gotten in a LOOONG time... My friend, Debbie, who has breast cancer, got results from her most recent scans and the news was good... the tumor in her breast has shrunk and the other tumors have not grown and there are no new tumors... so doctors told her that treatment is working....for now... told her that she will never be cancer free... but that it is possible to keep the cancer under control... I was excited for her... no further tests until after the holidays... something for which I am grateful...

Then Thursday our school hosted our annual Diversity Day... I helped organize the event and was responsible for all the scheduling and for the most part the day went off without a hitch. It was great. I was pretty tired after that, just because I was stressed about making sure it went well...and when it was over it was a huge relief and weight off my shoulders...and that night had to stay at school until 8:00 for parent teacher conferences. Parent teacher conferences continued into Friday. My conferences went well. The kids in my homeroom are great and their parents are very supportive and involved. It was nice. Then the fun began...

After work on Friday, my colleague and co-planner for Diversity Day,Sarah and I went to get manicures and pedicures. Ahhhh... it was so nice to relax and get pampered while having a chance to visit and debrief from the week.

Then on Saturday one of my out of town friends came to visit. This weekend marked twelve years since we first met. We had a great time. Started out by playing tourist... he wanted to see Portland Headlight... but we didn't stay there long because it was windy and cold. We then went bowling. I am not someone who is a great bowler... usually. My friend had forewarned me that his bowling skills were less than stellar, but I did not believe him... he was true to his word... he was pretty bad... and I had the best bowling streak of my life! My best score was 154, my worst was 136.. his best was 104 and worst was 85 I think... It made for some good laughs... we had put a wager on the games and after he had not won any of the first three... asked if the last game could be winner take all..double or nothing.. I agreed... and kicked his ass! We then had something to eat at the bar and he said he was feeling a bit ashamed of his performance and wanted to compete with me in something he could have a chance and suggested we go to a sports bar we had been to before that has those arcade basketball games... so we did... we played side by side and I was pretty sure that I was player 1 and he was player 2.. player 1 kept winning, but he was sure his machine was player 1... so I said fine... let's each do a round, using the same machine so there cannot be any mistakes... I beat him.. and he demanded another round... and again, I beat him.. He just shook his head... and then we had to play scrabble... we had been doing some trash talking about our scrabble skills... and he did not realize that scrabble has been a part of my family's culture for a long time, despite that I had told him my family were pros... So we started.. he went first... with some crappy three letter word and I built upon it adding my own three letter word right above his making one three letter word and three two letter words.. and he challenged one of my words... ae... and I told him it was in the scrabble dictionary, which I had brought with me... and I was right... it went down hill for him from there... I ended up with 393 and he had something like 179... Again he said his ego was suffering so I agreed to arm wrestle... and he won, hands down. (Pun intended) After that we went to a really nice restaurant and had some drinks and some food. We laughed a lot and talked and I had so much fun. We left the restaurant around 9:30 and it was snowing like crazy! Insane really... and we quickly shuffled through the wet slush to another bar where we continued laughing and talking... So much fun.

It was so nice after a busy and hectic week to be able to kick back and relax with someone I have known for so long. Good times.

And yes, for the record... I said SNOW. I hate snow. We got like 5 inches in some areas... I did eventually take some pictures of it this morning, but it had already melted significantly. But thought I would share anyway...