Summer Library

starts tomorrow! I am excited, mostly. It's the third year for Summer Library, and now people are expecting me to do it. And they're expecting my fabulous hotdogs, so I went to the warehouse club today and bought the food supplies. The PTA is funding summer library (thanks, guys!) and so I spent almost $200 of their money buying drinks, paper products, snacks, hot dogs, and other goodies for the families. I haven't done as much publicizing this year, but I hope we'll have a good turnout anyway. For the past two years, I sent postcards to every family in the school the week before we started, but I decided not to spend the money on postage this year. That added up to a couple hundred dollars, believe it or not! My fabulous former student, Austin, will be back to help me this year again. It will be his third year, too, and I haven't seen him since last summer. I am sure he has grown; he'll be an eighth grader this coming fall. He sent me the funniest email the other day; here's an excerpt. I won't bother to correct his punctuation (who needs periods?!?!) or spelling. It's just priceless the way it is:

• looking forward to this or next Tuesday what ever comes first... lol. im going to be staying at my grandma's (nana's) house Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. they are leaving to go to buffalo on the 10th of July for my grandpa's mom's birthday (80th B-day) so my mom will be dropping me off at her house the week they are gone and I will be riding my bike to [school] as I am told? :) so when I come the first time I will bring the Craftsman tool set I bought so if we need to put something together we can do It fast... the set cost me $250 but I got a drill, saws all (reciprocating saw), 5 1/2 in trim saw, light, and a impact driver (I love that thing 900 lbs driving force) but a little loud but it drive long screws in fast and easy unlike a reg drill... and it is a 19.2 volt die hard battery set (2) but its real nice... and then dell sent me $200 of replacement parts for my laptop. a new screen cover and a new keyboard (old one's "enter" key broke off) but it's all good now.... I had to take the whole screen apart to replace the screen cover... nothing broke and now its like the day it came out the box... (on the outside) lol..... hold on I have to take the battery off the charger. ok so me and my best friend Ricky have been making money cutting ppls lawns for 20-40$ depending on the size. we just got a free riding lawn mower from a person that we do lawns for. they messed that thing up so bad.... the deck was bent and was hitting the back tire... the blades U don't even want to know. she hit something hard that caused the deck to get bent back and tared the deck apart so now when the blade spins it would hit the deck. we still need a belt for it. the front stearing was all messed up and him and his dad have been working on fixing it... the operation station (where the stearing wheel is) was all cracked so we had to but a piece of metal on it and we put 60 rivets in it so its strong now... the engine works and sounds good. could use a little carb cleaner but ya it still runs good. he has put about $120 in it and still needs to get a belt so he may end up putting $150 in to it... but that is all it should need (knock on wood). we'll see. my grandma is still unemployed and her unemployment check has run out so the only income is from my grandpa... I was over at her house I think last weekend or the one before that and U had to be there my nana and papa were getting competitive playing bowling on the Wii... that was funny... my papa almost hit the TV off the stand... but ya well I cant wait to come and help U out and take your whole day telling you what has happened in the last 200 days (give or take) but ya well talk to you Tuesday... and happy 4th of July!!!

Seriously, who wouldn't want help like that?!