Thoughts for Preparedness Present Ideas

This year *B* and I decided to make wish lists for present ideas this year. We have his birthday, our anniversary, my birthday, and Christmas in about a month and a half of each other, and we often run out of ideas for each other. As expected, our lists are full of preparedness ideas and household items.

The question I have: which vacuum sealer should I ask for? It would definitely be on the inexpensive side. I've been trying to research vacuum sealers, but it seems that the only sites on which I can find reviews are the actual companies' sites. I tried America's Test Kitchen site, but they require a paid subscription. I remember my mom had a FoodSaver (or a seal-a-meal, I'm not sure which), but it didn't work all that well and it was so loud! I'm afraid that whatever I ask for will be useless.

School has been going very, very well overall. Today in physics, we learned to calculate error by shooting dart guns with marker on the tips at the whiteboard. The kids really seemed to like it, because it is really unconventional compared to what they do in other classes. I'm still trying to figure out how to make math more fun and interesting for my juniors.

We had a club fair today, and the group I moderate, Students Against Violating the Environment (SAVE), did a great job by enlisting many new freshmen into the club. I'm so proud of them! We have our first meeting a week from tomorrow. It's going to be tough to let them come up with all the ideas (or at least make them think they do :p).

I don't know what to do about my juniors. We had a "quest" (large quiz or small test) on work they did this summer. My highest grade so far was 34/50, or 68%. I'm still grading a set and a half of papers. I don't know what happened. I've decided I will have them take it as many times as necessary to get their grades up simply because the material is SO important, that by doing the test over and over, at least they will learn something. But I wish I didn't have to keep going back over things so much. Why did it all go so badly so soon? Is this a glimpse of the future year?