8.28.2007

i survived the first day

This morning I had my first two Kindermusik classes ever. (not counting demo classes) It was SO MUCH FUN! I loved seeing all the funny things the kids did and said. They really get into the dancing and singing! I can tell I'm really going to love teaching these classes.

OK, gotta go! I'm still horribly busy - I have to plan for 2 more brand new classes tomorrow, and then all the rest of the classes tomorrow and Thursday will be repeats. I love that I can teach the same class 2 or 3 times during a week - that way I don't have to do as much planning! Thursday should be super easy!

And just imagine - after 2 years, the curricula starts all over again, so I'll be teaching these same units in the fall of 2009. It should be REALLY easy by then!

Oh yeah - and my total enrollment is now 35. I'm thrilled! More later.

8.24.2007

it's almost time

Well, in case you haven't noticed, Kindermusik has pretty much taken over my life. I actually scrapped last night, but the whole time I was scrapping, I was thinking of other things I should be doing! So today, it's back to work! 4 days until classes start, and counting.

I have to go to the dreaded Walmart today. Ugh! It's SO not my favorite place, as you read in a previous post. But I have to get child locks for my cabinets, a doll to use during the baby class (to demonstrate with), and a plug adapter thing, because the outlets in my room only have 2 prongs and my heavy-duty fan needs 3. Brian is out at Target right now buying me this really cool stereo/speaker set for my iPod. That way I'll be able to upload the songs for class onto my iPod, put them in the correct order, and then use the remote to play/pause. I have high hopes for this to work without any tiny hands getting ahold if my iPod!

Besides that, the room is nearly ready. I have to hang a dry/erase board tonight (well, Brian's gonna hang it), and I must remember to take everyone's picture on the first day, so that I can put them on my wall - I got little music note die cuts for the pictures. I can't wait! I'll take pictures and post them when it's all done.

And I've been studying the curricula - I'm SO very excited about this and I know I'm going to love it. I'm nervous about teaching the actual classes, now that I've gotten used to the demo classes! But I'm more excited than nervous. I just have to plan the lessons and I think I'll be all set. Seems like there's no time lately to eat, sleep, clean the house, or relax - but I'll get there.

And, by the way...HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENNI! I know, it was yesterday. Sorry I didn't even call you! We will talk soon. Hope you had a great day!

8.22.2007

more kindermusik kraziness

I can't even believe what is happening with my Kindermusik enrollment! It's less than a week until classes begin, and I'm having people enrolling left and right! Now I'm at 31 - 31 kids enrolled!! I can't even believe it! This is going to be a great semester. :-)

8.17.2007

a big day for enrollment!

Yesterday morning when I left the house, my Kindermusik enrollment was 10. Last night, when I went to bed, it was 20!!!! I cannot believe that my enrollment DOUBLED in ONE DAY!! Things are going absolutely crazy. I had another few sign-ups today - and it's starting to look like I might break even or even make a little money this semester! This is wild and I'm loving every minute of it!

Mom and Dad are here - they got in tonight and they're leaving Saturday morning EARLY. They came down to get Nan and Pops' car. So tomorrow we're going to hang out, play cards, and go out to dinner. Brian is taking a half day off. :-)

OK, I have to go and place my materials order for Kindermusik! More later!

8.13.2007

we sing hello, hello

Well, I did five demo classes last week and they all went well. Now I'm in the midst of registration and enrollment - and I'm still marketing and networking and mainly sweating! I visited 2 different preschools today and dropped off brochures for them to put out, and I'm hoping for the possibility of teaching at one of them! I'll be following up on that soon.

Everything is like a whirlwind with Kindermusik - I'm still getting emails from new people every day, and I have 3 more demo classes to do this week, and I still have to organize some more of my instruments, and tomorrow or Wednesday I have to order the Home Materials for the people who have registered and paid, and there are still a few finishing touches for my classroom, and...whew! This is a lot of work, but it sure is fun!

Mom and Dad are coming on Thursday night for a short visit - they'll be leaving on Saturday morning. We're going to play lots of cards and relax and take them probably to Seasons 52 for dinner on Friday night.

No news on the scrapbooking front - there's just no time for that lately! :-(

On an entirely different subject, here's an update on the Summer Reading Thing. (I've slowed down a bit due to the busyness of my life! And I made another change to my list, because I just don't think I'll have time to read another "print" book this summer - but I'm sure I can fit another audio book in!)

1 The Blue Zone - Andrew Gross
2 The Sixth Target - James Patterson
3 Main Corpse - Diane Mott Davidson
4 Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
5 Sisterchicks Do the Hula - Robin Jones Gunn
6 Sisterchicks Down Under - Robin Jones Gunn
7 The Good Husband of Zebra Drive - Alexander McCall Smith
8 Lean Mean Thirteen - Janet Evanovich
9 Being Committed - Anna Maxted
10 While My Pretty One Sleeps - Mary Higgins Clark
11 Queen of Broken Hearts - Cassandra King
12 Heartstopper - Joy Fielding
13 Body Surfing - Anita Shreve
14 Divine - Karen Kingsbury
15 Dream When You're Feeling Blue - Elizabeth Berg
16 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J. K. Rowling
17 The Note - Angela Hunt
18 Where Are the Children? - Mary Higgins Clark
19 Dedication - Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
20 Nineteen Minutes - Jodi Picoult

BLUE = currently reading
PURPLE = finished

8.05.2007

catching up

Well. I've got a few spare minutes to blog while Brian takes a shower and before we watch our nightly episode of King of Queens. So I'll try to quickly catch up!

The rest of the week at my parents' was wonderful and fun. We ate at favorite restaurants, I visited Dad's voice lessons, Mom and I cleaned out closets and dressers and stuff till our little hearts were content. We even got Dad to go through some old stuff and throw things away! AND we found a bunch of slides and had some GREAT laughs - and then we shared them with Nan and Pops in the car on the way to the airport. In Columbus I even got the chance to stop by Archivers, a fabulous scrapbook store. And I only spent $13 in there! Amazing. All in all, it was a great week with Mom and Dad!

I came back home to find that my Kindermusik postcard was in my mailbox! (I mailed out 2500 of them to people in my area, and of course I mailed one to myself.) I literally walked in the door to a ringing phone - everyone else had gotten their postcards that day, too. The phone calls and emails haven't stopped coming since then! Which is great - but boy, am I busy! I've got 8 demo classes set up; my first one is Tuesday. I'm so nervous and excited! I'm going to spend most of the day tomorrow preparing. I'm even going to run through the whole thing with Brian (little does he know that I'm going to give him one of my old Cabbage Patch dolls and say, "Here, this is your kid.") LOL

So, this past Thursday we took off for the condo in Ft. Myers with Tim and Christi in tow. We spent all day Friday there and most of Saturday - we lounged by the pool, went to see "The Bourne Ultimatum," (GREAT movie), ordered pizza, played lots and lots of cards, sat around and talked, ate at the Shrimp Shack, and just relaxed. It was great fun, even if lots of things were not quite right! (I'll save that story for another post - there's just not time!) But, suffice it to say that the "Spider Van" (sung to the tune of the "Spider Man" theme song) is now parked in our driveway! More later. ;-)

Last night we had a long rehearsal at church (we learned some new songs) and then I had to practice quite a bit when I got home. (And then I STILL messed up some this morning during the service, ugh!) So we went to bed really late, got up early, did the church thing, then went to the Sprint store - I needed a new phone and a new phone number. (I had never gotten a local Florida number and hey - I just realized that it was 2 years ago today that we closed on our house in NY!) Anyway, I got the coolest phone, it's RED, (love it), it's called the Upstage. Flip phones and I don't get along, so this phone is perfect for me. :-)

We got home around 3:00 (after fooling around at the Sprint store forever and then going to eat) - and we relaxed for about an hour and then we headed over to the Presbyterian Church to work on my Kindermusik room. We worked there till 8:00, cleaning out things, cleaning up things, vacuuming several times, scrubbing, taking down the bulletin board stuff, covering the bulletin board, and etc. and etc. My wonderful husband vacuumed up all the scary bugs, and then we moved a big shelf and there were some dead lizards under there, and he got rid of those too, while I ran away! LOL They were weird, too - they were like little skeletons. Gross! Then he went all the way around the room and scrubbed the baseboards! We washed windows and I scrubbed the countertop within an inch of its life. When in doubt, use the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. This church is like 100 years old and the room I'm using hasn't really been used for years, and there were all kinds of stains and paint and stuff on it - and I got it completely clean and shining! Brian even washed the mini blinds. That room looks and smells as great as a 100 year old room can.

Have I mentioned that I love my husband? He's fab. He helps me so much and supports me in my new little business. He's the best. :-D

So then we went and ate dinner and then went to the dreaded Walmart. I DESPISE Walmart and this trip did NOTHING to change my opinion. We were there for over an hour and I just needed help with one thing (I needed 6 storage bins and they only had 2, and both of those were broken.) Well, in the course of those 60+ minutes, I asked no less than 4 people to help me, and they all gave me some kind of big sob story about why they couldn't help me. Add this to all the random screaming kids, and parents screaming back at their kids, people dropping store merchandise at least 3 times and making large noises, crazy rednecks pushing their 2-year-olds around while cursing up a blue streak (the rednecks, not the kids, although it won't be long for the kids, I'm sure), the filthy store, the unorganized aisles, the mobs and mobs of people, most of them with B.O., the apathetic employees, and I'm sure more stuff I can't think of right now...........and ugh, you'll easily understand why I DESPISE Walmart. >:-( But, Brian got a Rubik's cube and that made it all better.

So now we're headed to bed. We're exhausted, but we've had a successful day! Tomorrow I'll take my instruments over and get the borders up on my bulletin boards, go to NY&Company and buy some shorts to teach in (they're on sale and they're comfy and long, so they're perfect), and study for the demo class. After Tuesday's class I can release this stress, since I'll be doing the same class 7 more times. Whew. OK, good night!

8.01.2007

too busy to blog!

Kindermusik is going crazy! :-D I'll give an update soon, I promise!