Another book to work on

I just wish I had thought of this idea 4 years ago when I started substitute teaching.  The next book I would love to write is called The Crazy Things That Kids Write, Say, and Do.  I'm sure I could get a lot of help from many teachers for this book.  I wish I had thought of this when I was doing my grading job, too.  The invented spellings that I read while grading were hilarious.  I started writing down quotes that happened a few days ago, today so that I would have them on file.  I'm sure if I sat down and really thought about it, I could remember some other funny things that the kids have said throughout my time working with them.  Kids and older people are very similar.  They have zero patience and no filters.  Whatever comes to their minds comes out of their mouths.  I do the best I can to try to teach the kids to have a filter, but most of the time it doesn't work.  This will be yet another very fun book to write!

P. S. I reached 2,000 views today!  I believe the 2nd thousand views came quicker than the first 1,000!  Thanks to everyone that reads my blog!

How much money have I touched in my life?

I have worked with a lot of numbers tonight.  I had to go to my dad's liquor store to help him count bottles.  I'm watching the World Series of Poker main event final table where the winner gets over $8.5 million.  I'm looking at horse races for this weekend, which involves looking at numbers to assess how I think the horse might do.  It got me thinking.  Since I have worked 9 years at the grocery store, and probably about that many years (only about a dozen times a year ish) at my dads store, I wonder how much cash I have touched in my life.  When I was younger, I used to go in to my dads store on Sunday's and help him count the money.  I would bundle up $20 bills in stacks of $1,000.  Although more and more people use credit, I still handle tons of cash at both stores that I work at.  I have definitely touched hundreds of thousands of dollars.  I touch thousands of dollars each shift, even more around holiday time.  It's interesting to think about the amount of money I have touched throughout the years.  I wouldn't mind handling the $8.5 million that a poker player is going to win tonight.  That will be more money than I will ever touch in my life time, won't come anywhere near making that much money either.

112 and 112

I put my first book on sale for free for the 2nd time this past Saturday.  I put my second book on sale for free that day, too.  Then I decided to keep that book free yesterday so that both books were free for two days total so far out of the five they allow me to have.  Oddly enough, both books have sold 112 free copies.  Obviously that means that the 112 people that got my first book for free also got my second book for free.  That would be really weird if that were the case.  As I said, I have 3 more free days for each book between now and January.  I have no idea when I will use them.  Hopefully people will now buy my book as the word gets out there!

Donating part 2

Along with me not donating money to people, I also do not like asking people for donations.  At the grocery store, pretty much every month, they have cashiers ask customers to donate to such and such cause.  This month, they are trying to give the cashiers incentives to sell donations.  I still refuse to ask people to donate money.  I feel like it is rude.  If a customer tells me they would like to donate, no problem.  However, I'm not asking them to donate with the horrible economic times we are in.  One good thing about our store is that 100% of the donations go to that cause.  The store profits absolutely nothing from the customers.  That's good.  I've heard of places that take a profit from the donations.  That's horrible.  Enough about donations.  The store was very busy today, but nowhere near as busy as I expected it to be.  Buckle up and be safe, Sandy is almost here!!! 

Donating to those in Need

I am not one to donate money to anyone besides the Indians at casinos.  However, I have no problem donating clothes to people.  I also donated blood once.  I only did that to get extra credit in a class, but I did it!  Whenever I have too many T-shirts or stuff that doesn't fit me anymore, I put it in a pile and my mom brings it to the salvation army.  The other day, an aide in my school asked me what size clothes I wear.  She told me that her daughter knows a boy that is 14 and around my size.  This boy has nothing.  This is coming from an aide who unfortunately doesn't come from much herself.  She said her daughter was crying the other day because this boy hardly has clothes to wear.  I told her I had a bunch of T-shirts sitting on the porch waiting to go to the salvation army.  I also told her I would look through some other stuff to see if I could give anything else.  Yesterday, I ended up bringing a large bag filled with T-shirts, flannel pants, sweat pants, and some sweat shirts for this boy to have.  The aide could not have been happier.  I wish I could see the look on the boys face when he receives my clothes.  It feels good to donate to those in need.  I'm lucky enough to have an abundance of T-shirts that don't fit in my drawers.  Unfortunately, some people aren't that lucky.  I like to try to help people who are less fortunate whenever I can.  It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, haha!  But seriously, it's a great thing to do!

OMG, a storm is coming!

It's that time of the year again.  Yup, the time when everyone freaks out because a little bit of rain is coming.  You know what that means.  The grocery store is going to be packed the next two days because everyone will be locked in their house during this epic storm.  I don't understand why people freak out over a little bit of rain.  I'm sure most people have plenty of resources if the power were to go out.  When huge storms come like this, people tend to buy anything and everything.  You don't need lobster if a storm is coming.  This storm is not going to keep people from leaving their house.  People over react anyway.  Naturally, tomorrow when I work at the liquor store, people will not be rushing to come in to buy wine and liquor before the storm.  That would be pretty sweet, though!

Kids Voting

There's a website that allows students to vote for president.  Our school signed up so that our students can vote.  I have had several classes come to the lab and vote.  This includes kindergarten students.  I feel like this program should be limited to grades 4 and up.  Kids that are younger than that will not understand who they are picking and what it all means.  Obviously it is just for fun.  However, I think it would be slightly more accurate if it were only older kids voting.  Then again, since we are a democratic state, many of the kids probably chose President Obama because they have listened to their parents talking about it.  Naturally, after each student voted, they asked each other who they voted for.  We tried to explain that it's a private decision.  Kids don't care, though.  We will find out sometime next week how the entire school voted.  We will see how that stacks up to the actual election in 2 weeks.