Monday morning i volunteered to watch a group of 6th graders in the computer lab as they did some research on a project. the group included Margaret and a few other girls, the "higher performing" students that didn't need as much TAKS preparation as the rest of the class. i'm signed up to do the same Monday thru Wednesday of the next two weeks. some of the girls actually did what they were supposed to, looking up info for an assignment about mountains and volcanoes, but others just surfed the internet, reading the latest celebrity gossip. i never like being the bad guy and stepping into to tell them to get back to work. i left them alone and decided to tell their teacher about it. i'm a wimp.

i worked around the house after that, cleaning, gardening, other home duties. my garden has been slow to take off, but it's finally showing some progress, and we ate a salad from it last night.

tomorrow Brian and i are going for a tour of Lamar Middle School. it's one of the ones we're considering for Margaret. it's really hard to believe that she'll be in 7th grade next year. and then aftrer that, just one year left before high school! we have so few years left with our kids under our roof! the time really does just fly away. i have to remind myself of this daily because it's so easy to get frustrated with the kids and wish for some kind of break from them. it'll come all too soon.

while i was there in the in the computer lab with the 6th graders, i got a call from the art teacher saying that she was having trouble with Samuel. Samuel struggles with all his special areas. i think it has something to do with transitioning from one class to the next. he tends to not be very cooperative. his hardest class is music, and he's probably the only kid in the school who Mr. Marks has ever given a C to in music. it's just that Samuel shuts down and refuses to participate. sometimes we can get him to offer an explanation as to what is going on inside him, but sometimes he doesn't know. Samuel is a mystery to us. he's all or nothing. when he's ON, everything is great, but when he's OFF, nothing you do or say will move him. he's made much progress socially and other than his periodic crying episodes, he acts like a normal kid, and all the kids in his class love him. he tells me he's one of the "cool kids" now.  haha. that's one thing that is very precious about him. he doesn't know there are certain things you just don't say. but he still has lots of trouble controlling his temper and emotions. a lot of it can be attributed to the Aspergers, but some is just sin. for Brian and i, knowing how to handle it is so difficult.

i also got a call from the school yesterday saying that John had wet his pants. it was after 2 when i saw the message, so there wasn't a point in me bringing him some new clothes. he didn't want to put on the clothes that Ms. Monica in the office offered him. he just cried to me on the phone and said he wanted me to come get him. poor guy! i think he was tired and embarrassed, and didn't want to go back to class and have everyone ask him why he'd been in the office.

the weather here has been so nice. i wish i could bottle it up and save it for those frigid days come January.

another installment in my home tour.

here's the hall bath, or the kid bath. we also sometimes call it our Aggie bath because of the maroon and gray tile.

 when we first decided to work on the bathrooms, the plan was to gut them and start over. but the more we looked at options and got opinions, the more attached we became to the old bathrooms. most of the money went to replacing plumbing, things you can't see. we replaced some fixtures, hardware and the door, regrouted, rebuilt a cabinet, and repainted. we're pleased with the results, and it stays in character with the rest of the house.

we left the large original mirror above the counter, but removed the medicine cabinet above the sink, and instead put in a mirror, not really needing or caring for medicine cabinets.

initially i wanted to decorate all in white, but then my mom and i found this shower curtain at World Market, and it had all the right colors, so i went with it and kind of worked everything around it. i also got the rug at World Market to echo the round mirror. it seemed like the room needed some roundness since everything is so square and rectangular. i made the simple, almost sheer curtains, which are identical to the ones in our bathroom, as is the paint color, a pale gray.

i think the best thing we did in this bathroom was take out the regular door and put in this pocket door. the frosted glass lets in a good amount of light to our cavernous hallway. and you can't see through it unless you're pressed right up against it.

this picture shows how much it needs to be cleaned.

this bathroom is rather plain, but i think it works best that way since i gets so much traffic.