No news from here

I still haven't gotten to play w/my stuff :( Maybe today??? Yeah, right.

We had a phone meeting w/ds's teacher. Nothing was really accomplished. Dh now understands that the problem is w/Nick not her dumping too much homework on the kids (duh). I picked ds up from school to make sure he had all his stuff for his First Ladies Project. He still forgot to bring home a book. DH worked w/him on homework tonite & another meltdown. I don't know if we're ever going to make it thru 4th grade.

Sorry to be such a downer. I do have scans of some cards I worked on last week. I'll try to "find" them & post them here in a bit.

Non-stamp related post!

Apologies to Erin (if she's even still reading my blog)

I have not had a chance to stamp! DS, Nick, is taking all my time. He got his report card just before spring break. He's in the gifted class at school. The Math & Spelling are a grade level ahead. The kids have to keep a "B" average to stay in this class. Well, Nick got a "D" in English. Needless to say, since the rest of his grades were "B"s, he is now BELOW the "B"! The real bite in all of this is that I had a conference w/his teacher 2 days before the end of the quarter. I was concerned about his concentration & his grades. His teacher told me not to worry about his grades, they were "fine". Well, apparently her version of FINE & mine are NO WHERE NEAR THE SAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To stay in the class, Nick has to bring his grade up to a "B" by the end of the year. So, we decide (since screaming, yelling, threatening & taking away his privileges wasn't working) to implement a reward system. For every day he gets his reading done by 3:15ish, he gets a check mark. For everyday he gets all his homework done (and with a good attitude) he gets a different check mark. When he accumulates 15 check marks in each category, he gets a reward. Day one (yesterday) no check marks. He somehow stopped reading & it took him until 3:45 for get his reading done. Then, he threw a fit about all the other homework & didn't finish it until nearly 6pm!! And guess who got to sit there & work on it with him? ME!!! I did not keep my patience well :(

Tonite; same problem. He had 20 minutes of reading left when I got home at 3:15. Somehow, 45 minutes later, he was done reading. HOW is this possible???? When I asked him he said "I don't know". ARGH!!! When he did his math, he missed 6 out of 25. I told him to go back & fix them & he yelled at me about everyone of them; how they weren't wrong & I was just picking on him. Of course her redid them & got different (right) answers and then complained 'cause 80 was close to 75 so he should have gotten credit for it. HUH??? It's math. It's NOT SUBJECTIVE!!!!!!!!!!!

I am at the end of my tether on this. I don't know what to do. I truly feel (and his teacher agreed w/me last month but, she also thought his grades were fine) that he is quite capable of the work (he knows the math, just doesn't want to take the time to do it right) . DH thinks we should pull him out of the gifted program. I don't think that's the problem!! I think he'll have the same problem in the regular classes & probably more since he will not be challenged.

The only 2 options I see are 1) test him for Attention Deficit. This was a suggestion by the school social worker. I really think he's probably a classic case but dh won't HEAR of it!! I was given a form to complete & the teacher was given one. This would ID the areas he has trouble & then, if the Social worker thought he was in ADD territory, we could chose to pursue it with our Dr or not. Either way, we would at least know the areas he needed help with. Dh said NO WAY and threw out the form.

2) Take him out of public school & put him in the private school DD's in. They would not put up w/his shenanigans & would have the ability to deal with him better one on one since the class would be much smaller. Obviously, this would create a monetary concern. Plus, I know the "breaking in" process would be quite taxing on all of us.

There are only 7 more weeks of school (OMG, that sounds like forever). Of course, summer vacation is just a bandaid. I needed to vent. Thanks for listening. Hopefully, tomorrow will be better. I doubt it as he forgot to bring home the research for a paper that has to have a rough draft done by Thursday.

Glitter, glitter everywhere

Ok, a week or so ago, I bought this glue pad. I had seen in advertised & since I've had NO luck w/heat & stick, I bought it. I haven't used glitter w/stamps in forever and don't really remember WHY I felt it necessary to glitter but, I have like 8 diff colors of glitter & then my friend Sara sent me 6 more baggies full of it.

I just grabbed a stamp that happened to be on my table & stamped it into the glue (YOU add the glue to the pad & it's supposed to be good for 100 images per tablespoon full.) The glue seemed to give good coverage. I sprinkled my glitter over the top. I didn't read the directions and decided to give it time to "dry". I ended up leaving it overnight. Next morning, it was fine. The glitter stayed on really well while I punched it out & glued it to a card front. The details were lost in the glitter. I don't know if this was user error or if I needed to do something different.

After Sheri posted at the Shack the problems she had w/her glue drying, I tried the technique again. I stamped a different image. I added the glitter & timed the wait. After 10 minutes, I went back to check it. The glitter was firmly attached. I even took a stiff paint brush & wiped away the excess glitter & the glitter that was supposed to stay, stayed.

As I said, I used ultrafine glitter. I used cheap (not SU) cardstock that was not glossy. Seems to work pretty well to me. I can now add bling to my cards w/o messing w/the stickles (which, technically are easier to use but, I have problems getting the stuff out of the bottle!!) Click on the pictures & I think you'll get to see the "big picture" so you will get the detail.