OUCH!!!

I'm in the middle of entering grades for the first two weeks of school. Ick. Grading and then entering grades has to be my single most hated part of being a teacher, even more so than lesson planning. If all I ever had to do was show up and hang out with the kids, I'd love my job. Maybe I should look in to counseling or something like that.
In the mean time, the dress store is doing pretty good. We finished Sasha's dress today. Finally. Jenny does really great work but sometimes she has a tendency to drag her feet a little bit, which sucks because Sasha had to reschedule the photographer who's doing her groomals like three times. Dumb! The dress looked fabulous, though, and Sasha looked demure yet sexy... It reminded me of the dress that's described in Stephanie Meyer's latest book "Breaking Dawn." As slow as Jenny can be, sometimes, she really knows how to fit a dress to a woman's body, if I do say so myself.
I got to spend the greater part of this holiday weekend hanging out with Andrei, because he got in trouble at school and was grounded on Saturday, and then his mom no-call, no-showed last night and again tonight. He behaved exteremly well all weekend, though, which makes me wonder why is he so good with me and so rotten with other people. Something to do with mommy? Maybe all of that stuff I said about structure and discipline being necessary even for very small children was right. Hmmm... something to ponder. He's really growing up to be a very awesome kid. He's really intelligent (although I think he might be dyslexic), athletic, funny, and very kind... Not that I'm biased or anything. :) He's recently come to a very profound understanding of what our relationship actually is. This year he discovered what step-mothers are and explained it to me this way- He said, "I grew in my mommy's tummy so she's my first mom, but then I grew in your heart so you're my second mom." Pretty deep stuff for a kid who's just barely six, if I say so myself. Anyway, if you don't know him you should get to know him. I am not a huge fan of most kids (I find most of them sticky and smelly) but I think he's the bomb.
Anyway, 6th period awaits, so I better get going. But in closing, I'd like to share with you the gory story of how I mutilated my big toe today. I am in the process of finishing up the decorating in the store, as we are approaching our major publicity time of the year and I anticipate business will be steady throughout the fall, and I wanted to update the pedastal in the fitting room. We've had some carpet tiles stacked up to make a platform, but it's wobbly and kind of ghetto looking. So I had the brilliant idea of getting some luon and sticking vinyl flooring tiles on it to create a hard floor platform for the brides in the fitting room. I was unloading the fiberboard from my truck this afternoon when I lost control of it. It swung down like a pendulum catching my big toe on the upswing and slicing off the bottom part of it. It's quite grusome. I didn't want to get stitches, though, so I just soaked it in alcohol and superglued it back together. I'm attaching a picture, but don't look if you've just had lunch. Happy Labor Day!