The End of an Era

      4 Comments on The End of an Era

So, the last I left you, I was knee-deep in a work project, and that was after  spending nearly every waking moment working on the memory book for Jamie’s eighth grade graduation.   The book was pretty amazing, except for one not-so-small thing, right on the inside front page. image

Seriously???  And the worst part is that I didn’t even notice it, nor did the principal, nor the eighth-grade teacher, nor my son Jamie, who helped me by proofreading all the kids’ profile pages.  Nope, it went to print just like that, and  it wasn’t until one of the kids sent a picture of it in the class group chat, a week after graduation, that it came to my attention.  Argh.  I suppose if that was the only mistake in 28 pages, I should consider myself lucky.   Anyone who knows me, though, knows I’m a perfectionist, and I’m  still fighting my urge to have them all reprinted… :p

But anyway, that was last week. Let me tell you what else is been going on.  For starters, my work project, which I got right back into as soon as I finished the memory book, has been all-consuming.  Like, to the point where I have been  working on it nonstop during the workday, staying late, and then going home and staying up until 1:30 or 2 AM every night to continue working on it.   Last Friday, I actually took the day off to attend JJ’s end of year award ceremony, and then the class party at one of the moms who always has a gathering every year.  As it turned out, I sat in the parking lot before the award ceremony started, working on the project, and then I spent the whole party working on my laptop, still working on the project. :/

Most of my eating during this time was pretty bad.  Wednesday and Thursday were particularly awful.   At the party on Friday, I  only ate some of the carrots I brought, and a cookie.  Actually, I want to have more cookies, but they were all gone by the time I went back for seconds. 😉

When I got home from the party, after doing another hour or so of work, I decided to go lay down for a little bit.  That was it about 5:30.   The next thing I knew, it was 6:30 the next morning!  I guess only getting four hours of sleep per night, and still running 2-3 miles most days at 5:30 or 6 AM, had taken its toll.  When I went to log into My Fitness Pal the next morning, to finalize my calories for the day before, I experienced something completely new:

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Oops!  Between earning 265 calories on my run, and then not eating anything but a small breakfast, some carrots, and a cookie,  I ended up with over 1000 calories left for the day, and MFP didn’t like that. It yelled at me! :p

I did a 7 mile run Saturday morning, and then I came back and worked all afternoon and evening, going to bed at 11:30pm. Sunday was church, and then we came home and it was time for JJ to do his training run. While Jamie is training for the Kona 10k, JJ is training for the Strawberry Run 8k. He agreed to do three whole miles!

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While we were running, I tried to convince him to go 3.5. I had to bribe him with a waffle cone later, but it worked!

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That’s his longest run to date! And we all got ice cream afterwards, including me.
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After all the hard work I’ve been doing (70 hours and counting!), I decided I deserved a hot fudge cake. 🙂  The following morning, after another night of only 4 hours sleep, I checked the scale.

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Surprisingly, that’s down a tiny bit! Only .4, but I’ll take it.

Another thing we had this week: my nephew’s high school graduation.

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My nephew is such a character. 😉 He is also very smart, as noted by all the embellishments (sash, medal, ropes). He is so smart in fact, that he is following in his aunt’s footsteps and going to college on a full-ride scholarship. 🙂

And then, on top of all that, we had one more big event in our lives last week.

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See that adorable little boy? That is my oldest son, Jamie, back on September 6, 2007, his first day of kindergarten. And here he is on June 2, 2016, his last day of 8th grade, and the last day at the school he’s been in for NINE years.

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Forgive his pained look. I actually forgot to take the picture the morning of his actual last day of school,  but he agreed to wake up early the next morning, since JJ still had two days left,  and pose for this picture after his brother got on the bus.   He  really does love his mother.

So, Thursday, June 2, was graduation,  and it was a pretty special day for us. I have talked fairly often on this blog about the challenges we have had with him in his eighth-grade year, but although he struggled in a few areas, especially behaviorally, he is still an exceptional student. This was demonstrated on graduation night when he was presented with a special honor from the local private high school that we will be sending him to starting this fall.

The school has three levels of scholarships, depending upon how a child scores on the high school placement test.  That test is taken by all 8th graders–across the nation!–who are looking to get into a private high school. The scores are determined on a percentile ranking, which means instead of getting a set score, the students are ranked in comparison to how they do against their peers who are also taking the test. And since it’s only being taken by kids trying to get into a private high school, you can probably guess that the scores in general tend to be higher than your normal standardized national tests.

So with that in mind, the scholarships are given out as follows:  a student who scores in the 90-95th  percentile gets the “level one” scholarship, a student scoring in the 96th-97th  percentile earns the “level two” scholarship, and a student who scores in the 98 or 99th percentile earns the highest level scholarship.

One thing I can say about Jamie is that although he is not always as focused in class as I would like, he is an exceptional test-taker.  How exceptional?  Well, he scored in the 98th percentile on the test nationally!  That 98 score translated to the highest level scholarship, which is renewable for all four years of his high school education, assuming he maintains a decent GPA.

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That’s Jamie at graduation, being presented with his certificate in front of all his classmates and their families.  🙂

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The big winner, lol!  We were really stunned when we found out he scored so high, and then we were even more stunned to discover that he scored in the 99th percentile locally. And since they don’t have a 100th percentile… 😉  It doesn’t pay for his whole tuition, but it definitely takes a good chunk off the bill. 🙂 We were so proud of him and so happy, because he actually did work to do well on this test, studying the “prep” materials he was given and even taking practice tests. We encouraged that, of course, but we really never dreamed he’d actually get the big scholarship, ha ha! 

Because of the big savings he earned his parents, we decided he deserved a reward.  So…

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That’s Jamie and his two best buddies at Cedar Point, the amusement park that’s about 90 minutes from our house.  Jamie’s dad and I treated the boys to a day at the park, and they were all thrilled, especially Jamie, who has been begging to go for years.  I drove them down yesterday and then spent most of the day with this view…

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I found myself rushing to keep up with them all damn day, lol.  I ended up getting in over 23,000 steps that day!  (For comparison, the day I ran 7 miles and also went grocery shopping, I only logged about 20,000 steps!)

The boys had a blast, and they even got me on one ride.  Which was more than enough for me!  The rest of the day, I sat around and waited for them, or went to the car to work on this post.  (And take a catnap once. :-p)

So now I officially have a high schooler. 😮  Sadly, the “three musketeers” will be parting ways, because only one of the two is going to the same high school as Jamie.  It’s sad, but I know they will always be friends, and that they will have lots of exciting adventures ahead of them, too!  But it will definitely be interesting when they play football for rival high schools! 😉

Thanks for reading!

4 thoughts on “The End of an Era

  1. Cindy R

    Congratulations Jamie (and mom & dad)!!! Awesome test scores!

    One thing my children’s high school never told the parents about was the importance of doing well on the PSAT test taken either at the end of sophomore year or during their Junior year of high school (it is done a year before the SAT/ACT college testing). Keep this in the back of your mind for your son if his school has them take it and encourage him to start prepping for it six months ahead of when his school gives it (not all schools offer it). If your son is a natural test taker and is prepared for the PSAT, he will have an excellent shot at being named a National Merit Scholar which really ups the scholarship dollars and extends the range of colleges he may want to apply to.

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