A picture that I like!

It is so rare that I actually like a picture of hubby and I, so here it is! I had to share!

Merry Day After Christmas!

So I think I will be able to settle myself after tonight. We are having Christmas at my grandparents tonight. So after I make the pistacho bliss pie and the chicken pasta salad dish, I will be able to relax! We got out of school on Friday and since then I have been baking up a storm and have come to realize that my kitchen is not holiday friendly. I lack the counter space to work on everything. So I had dishes piled up everywhere and cookies stacked upon cookies. But I got through the mess and was able to have a clutter free kitchen.

Christmas was good. I got three new Wii games that I will be busy during my vacation. Jay and I also bought a video camera courtesy of my parents. So it was nice to record everything. I also got a Zune with the bonus I got from work so I have been busy playing around with that. It will come in handy when I am working out and after school grading papers!

I think the best present that my brother and sisters came up with this year for our parents was the conversion of the super 8 film onto a DVD. It is wonderful and hilarious to watch my parents when they were my age and I was one year old. We were watching it and laughing up a storm.

I hope everyone had a merry christmas and you are now able to relax a bit. I am going to the library and getting the continuation of the book I already have and curling up on the couch for the rest of the day...after I make my last two food dishes!

4+3=craziness

Oh yes I am beginning to think that I am not of sound mind. My sister moved back home with my parents until the other house that we are fixing up gets finished. So in the meantime she is selling the house that she bought so she is trying to clean it up. Well that includes the animals in the house need a place to go. Her dog went with her to my parents. So at the time being there are four dogs living at my parents, two inside and the two regular outside dogs. Rosie's three kitties have now taken up occupancy in my basement. So yes at the present time I have seven felines living in my house! I am a little afraid to let Rosie's kitties upstairs for the fear that my Jenni will beat up the the ones in the basement because she is my dominant female cat and it is HER house. Rosie's kitties are going to hopefully spend the next two months here at the Matchett household. My hubby is just happy he gets more cats. If it was up to him the entire house would be crawling with the four legged felines! I have to be the resonably one!

How to confuse a third grader....

Our staff christmas party is tonight and since I have a time crunch because today is the day where I actually drive back and forth to Plymouth twice in one day, I decided to straighten my hair this morning because I fell asleep at 8:30 last night. So I woke up earlier than normal and took the straightener to my hair for about 30 minutes worth of effort. I hardly spend anytime on my hair. It usually just consists of washing, air drying, and then up in a ponytail/bun 5 minutes before the students walk in. So imagine the suprises on their faces when they saw me. Some just stopped and stared while the others asked where their teacher was. It was quite funny. The other third grade class even made comments to their teacher and their teacher told them to tell me that they liked my hair because it is a kind thing to say. Some didn't understand that concept, I guess. So during play practice today I had a bunch of third graders from the other class tell me that they liked my hair. Nothing like some self-esteem from a third grader! Now I'm off to finish getting ready for the party tonight. Should be fun!

Why I need a child...

This is why my sisters tell me I need a child:



I guess I just have way too many cat pictures!

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving and I am getting festive by sharing what my students completed and I am quite pleased with how they turned out! Not bad for a 10 second idea!

Turkey time

Talk about a short week, but lets jam pack everything into it! Tomorrow is Turkey day at school. This is when the room moms prepare a Thanksgiving Feast for the entire school. Yup all 231 of us stuffed into the cafeteria and dressed the part. This is something that I really enjoy at this school. The students are responsible for preparing some aspect of the meal. My third graders are in charge of the stuffing. Needless to say after seeing how it is made I really don't think I will be having stuffing this year. My students pulled apart loaves of bread on Friday into tiny pieces so the pieces can then air dry. I got some really cute pictures of them, but then again I am not eating the stuffing I know what they do with their hands all day. Then tomorrow the room mom can cut up the onion and celery because I am not letting 8 and 9 year old near knives!

I am hoping that tomorrow will not be a fog delay because it was getting foggy tonight. Normally I would love a fog delay but we still need to make our pilgrim hat's! Hopefully I can figure it out. I just need to arrive at school tomorrow early enough to run the pattern onto stiffer paper so the hats will actually stay somewhat firm.

Oh and if the Thanksgiving Feast isn't enough, we are also in charge of Thanksgiving basket for a family from the community. My class has a single parent with two kids. Normally I don't fret about the basket because I have had older kids who took on more responsibilty. Now that I have the younger ones it is kinda up to the parents. Let's just say some don't understand the directions of bringing cold items on Wednesday because we don't have the fridge space or one little thing of cheese is going to help this family out. So I am off to drop off a perscription, work out, and then swing by Martins to pick up a turkey for the basket and other goodies. My fellow teacher from last year has told me that it is the students service project, I also consider it my service project also. I just love buying food to make other people feel better!

Life

So today I thought the students were being calm and then 5 minutes before lunch it is like they lost it! So I spent the entire afternoon trying to get work done. Needless to say we got a few things completed. I was happy to drop them off at computers at the end of the day. Then when the computer teacher left after school she dropped off letters to me from the students. Each student wrote me a little message wishing me a happy thanksgiving. They all wrote cute messages and they thanked me for teaching them. Gee it is really kinda hard to dislike them after that! But still I am glad tomorrow is Friday!

Although my sister has my weekend all planned out for me. She is in the process of moving back home (long story and involves an ex boyfriend who is finally out of the picture!). So guess who gets to move her....Jenny!!!! . She has a new house lined up but first my mom and I are having some work done to it and it will not be ready for about three months at the earliest. So the plan is to move all of her furniture into the house and she is only to take the bare necessities to my parents. Then on Sunday I am meeting her at 9 in the morning to rake leaves at the house that she is planning to sell. My parents also told me to take my hedge clippers over there so do some trimming. So that is what I am doing all weekend.

I am trying to get my hubby to help move, but he has an insane work schedule this weekend. He normally gets Saturday and Sunday off and back to work Monday. Well because of the short week next week, he has to go in on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday but then then gets Wednesday off and doesn't have to be back at work until the Monday after Thanksgiving! So I doubt he wants to do much of anything on Saturday, plus he has to get up at the butt crack of dawn to have a blood test. Yucky!!

My parents are in Vegas enjoying the somewhat warmer weather. My dad had another test on Monday and they will not get the results until Monday when they meet with the doctor. When he had his MRI done a few weeks ago they found three spots on the his hip bone area. One doctor was assuming that the cancer had spread, so they went to another doctor who wanted to be sure that the spots are actually cancerous. So over the past week an a half he has been poked with needles get bone biopsies done. We know that two of the three spots are nothing and now we are waiting on this past test to tell us about the third spot. If all is clear hopefully they will schedule surgery sometime next month to take out the prostate. So please just keep him in your prayers.

I am off now to get dinner for my hubby. Just so I can take it to him at work and we can enjoy a nice romantic dinner in the car! Lucky us!!

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to my sister Laura....she turns 21 today. She didn't want to go out to the bars last night so we took her to Between the Buns. Maybe Rosie will get her to go out tonight!



I think she enjoyed her Papa Smurf drink!

I am a dork!

We got a brand new copier at school about a month ago. This thing is the queen of copiers. It does everything but cook me lunch! The most exciting thing is that we can now print directly from our computers to this beast. Oh and did I mention somehow I got put in charge of this beast. So if someone wants to know how it works or run transperancies they come to me. So I have been playing around quite a bit on this thing. But tonight I found the greatest thing on it! Before we thought we could only print single sided copies from the computer to the copier because we didn't know if we could get the double-sided feature to work from the laptop. Well low and behold I found the button and I was EXCITED plus I can have the copier staple it from my computer! Too bad no one was around for me to tell. I can't wait to go into school tomorrow and tell the tech person what I discovered. I think I am truly a dork!

Hearing is fun!

So I am typing this and I am hearing every key that I am typing. I am trying to be soft in typing because everything is just so dang loud. I guess that is a good thing though! Surgery went fine this morning. My mom picked me up at 6:45 and then we were off. We sat more in the waiting room than actually in surgery. I remember it being 8:15 and then the next thing I knew they were waking me up and it is 8:27. Gee whiz. The doctor talked to my mom and said this one should last and they are not planning to take this one out because of all of the problems I have had. My mom mentioned to the doctor that I was still upset because I was still paying for the first surgery. He said he would take care of that since the dang thing only lasted 4 1/2 months. Go mom! We will however see if he actually remembers to do this. So I am now taking it easy and very much so a lady of leisure today. I rented some movies last night because I knew I couldn't go anywhere today. I also have a list of things that Jay needs to do around the house because they said I need to take it easy. :-)

Blah

So I really should go to the gym and work out, but my ear is telling me otherwise. I have ended up with yet another ear infection. It came on Saturday night at the Halloween party I was at and then by the time I went to bed it was just throbbing. So on Sunday I went to the Urgent Care place yet again and the receptionist says I recognize you. Gee that's great when the Urgent Care people recognize you! So I do have a pretty ugly ear infection because the doctor said she couldn't recognize any landmarks in my ear. Gee there are landmarks in my ear! So I have a heavy duty does of antibiotics. The only good thing that could come out of this was that I did call my ear doc and I can still proceed with the surgery on Friday to get my stupid tube put back into my ear granted that my ear is not hurting me. I have plenty of faith in the lovely horse pills I am taking!

It was great to see Jen & Ezra, Amy & Brent, Rachelle & Mark, and the family, and Emily on Saturday afternoon. Too bad the bookstore wasn't open!! I then managed to run back home, make the apple pie drink for the Halloween Party later that night. The party was great on Saturday night. It was just beginning to get interesting, but Jay dragged me home because he didn't feel good. I made lots of cookies and cupcakes and my brother had me make a recipe for apple pie. It is a drink with Captain Morgan. I guess it turned out pretty good, I guess it needed more Captain though. Anyway here is the concoction:

1 gallon of apple cider
5th of Captain Morgan spice rum
1 cup of sugar
3 to 5 cinnamon sticks

Boil apple cider, sugar, and cinnamon sticks for 5 to 10 minutes. Let it cool down. Put the Captain Morgan in the empty gallon container and then add the apple cider. Put in the refrigerator and enjoy. However I recommend you make this a day before you actually want to drink it because it took forever for the concoction to cool down.

I lost a student today....well not actually lost but mom decided to move over the weekend to another town without telling anyone. The student's grandma showed up there on Saturday and there was a moving van in the driveway. The parents are in a midst of a very ugly divorce and I thought dad was getting custody. So it will be a long and ugly battle. I feel sorry for the student to be put in the middle of all of this. So now I have 13 students. Should be an interesting year!

So my dad had his MRI done today to make sure that the cancer has not spread. Because the two other tests that he had could not tell if it had spread to his hip or not. He will get the results on Wednesday and if everything is okay then they will proceed with surgery in the middle of November. My mom has decided if she can go through four c-sections my dad can do one prostate surgery and then they will have matching scars! So if you could send some prays his way I would appreciate it.

Well I think my ear is going win out and not partake in the working out exercises and I must now decide what I need to make for dinner. Chili sounds good even though I don't like the stuff. I don't understand, I just don't question my food choices anymore. I think I am growing up however my ear decided that it didn't want to because how many adults do you know that get tubes placed in their ears! Okay I'm done rambling. Have a wonderful night!!

Look what happened...

I can't believe someone would do this!

Here is the article:

ROME (AP) — A man threw a bucket of red paint or dye into Rome's Trevi Fountain on Friday, coloring the waters of the 18th-century monument bright red in front of a crowd of astonished tourists and residents.

The man escaped, leaving the fountain, which normally runs on a closed cycle, spouting red water. Police arrived and technicians briefly shut off the water before restoring a clear flow.
Experts said the baroque fountain was not permanently damaged and the marble statues depicting the sea deity Neptune on his chariot had not absorbed the color.

"There shouldn't be any relevant damage," said Eugenio La Rocca, superintendent for Rome's monuments.

The monument, designed by architect Nicola Salvi, has been a tourist hotspot since Federico Fellini's 1960 movie "La Dolce Vita," which featured actress Anita Ekberg seductively splashing in its waters. Many visitors flip a coin into the fountain; tradition says that doing so promises a prompt return to the Eternal City.

The news agency ANSA reported that a box was found near the fountain containing leaflets by a group that claimed responsibility for the act. The leaflets said the red paint was a protest for expenses incurred in organizing the Rome Film Festival and symbolically referred to the event's red carpet, ANSA reported.

Rome's monuments are monitored with security cameras and police, but the risk of isolated vandalism persists, said Silvio Di Francia, city councilman for culture. "We are obviously in a city full of tourists so the gesture of an agitator is always a potential problem," he said.

Tasty...

So on my desk today is an apple from a student. And I thought this practice was long gone. The leaves were nice and green this morning...now they just look kinda dying. I'm just not sure I want to eat the apple. Although it does look mighty tasty!

Another funny...

So the question on the test yesterday was how many inches are in a foot. My third grade girl proceeds to use the ruler in front of her and then measure her foot! It kinda made me chuckle and just wish she understood the question. However her foot was 8 inches long...which is kinda scary because that was one of the answers on the test. :-)

Funny

Me: Okay today class we are going to write halloween stories to enter into a contest

(time elapses)

third grader: can i use what is in this book?

Me: no, it needs to be an original idea that you thought of on your own

third grader: oooohhhh okaaaaaayyyyyyy, I will only use half of what was written (then sits back down)

Okay so this made me chuckle, thought I would share :-)

Ironic

On Thursday as I was getting ready to talk about St. Francis, patron saint of all of God's creatures, my third grader in the back row raises her hand and says there is a spider crawling around on the bullentin board two feet away from me. I look over and sure enough here is this tanish colored spider with white spots crawling around next to me! Well I cannot kill the dang thing, I'm teaching about St. Francis! So I thought maybe I could leave it alone and it would crawl back up. Well dummy me reminded myself that I am teaching third graders and they are interested in anything that moves. So they are shouting and wiggling around in their seats. My one "special" student, is yelling out you cannot kill it!! So I calmly grab a paper cup that I have and shoo the spider into the cup. I then make a beeline for my door because it is right next to the back doors where I safely deposit the spider outside. My third graders then remark that they will see the spider at recess. Gee I love kids! So as you can see I cannot kill one of God's creatures on the day that I am teaching about the patron saint of God's creatures! It just made me chuckle!!

Stupid ear!

Since last Saturday my ear has been bothering me. Granted this is the ear that has always given me problems since I was young. I had a tube placed back into my ear in April and viola I can hear again! So when it started acting up again I blamed it on the weather because any little shift in the weather and my head goes crazy. Well a week later it is still the same and plus the dang tube fell out of my ear on Friday night. I am quite upset by this. It was not even in there five months and the one I had before was in for about 10 years! I am still paying for the dang surgery to put the blasted thing in! My father, the mechanic, offered to put it back in and explained that my brother, also a mechanic, is certified! How funny are they? So now I have fluid shloshing around in my ear everytime I turn my head. I told my hubby it sounds like I am a boat. So now I need to call the ear-nose-throat doctor and pray for an appointment because it takes about three months to be seen in this place. Maybe I will go to the urgent care center today and get something to clear up the fluid because I don't know how much more of this I can take!

Happy Labor Day!

So now that two and a half weeks of school has passed I am now starting to get ahold of teaching third grade. I thought I wouldn't like being with my students all day long but we are so busy during the school day that I wish that I had them more! I am also starting to believe that out of my class of 14 students that 10 are ADHD and so that makes for a loud and very busy classroom. However they are listening to a point however I need to find some suitable type of discipline for them. I cannot keep yelling, I hate yelling! I however was very grateful for this long weekend! I just need to get my butt in gear and start their papers from Friday and try to enter my grades into the computer. I say try because we went to a new grade program and it is very tempermental. So we shall see if the computer will cooperate.

I did get a few things done this weekend. Saturday I cleaned and then cleaned some more. I don't think the house has had that good of cleaning since I left for Europe. So it is good to have a clean house only if it means for a couple of weeks. The cats are so dang hairy, but then again they are cats.

On Sunday, I went out to Best Buy and we finally bought our new tv. It is a Sony 40' LCD flat panel television. I had won some money from the AC Neilson Homescan Consumer group to which I belong and so we earmarked it for the tv, it also helped that Best Buy is running a special of no interest for 36 months. So because of this great sale and some extra money our living room looks so much bigger! I am very pleased with the tv, I had my brother come over last night and figure out the wiring because the VCR wouldn't work and my hubby needs it to watch his tapes. So Tony figured out the back of the tv and got us our HD channels so football will look really nice starting next week. Hubby is very happy for this reason. We only now have to get rid of the 36' big monster and our stand. So right now the big monster is sitting in between the living room and the dining room because it is so gosh darn heavy and the stand is taking up our front porch area. I think we are going to see if our friend would like it because he is moving into a house and hubby and I just want it gone.

It was so nice to sleep in today! I had some errands to run and find a new type of furniture that would hold our DVD's and I found a nice piece of furniture at Target for $60. So when I get paid again I will go back and get another one for the rest of our tapes and video games. But when I got home Jay wasn't home, which I thought was really odd because he doesn't go anywhere. Well it turns out that his mom fell off her back step at home and did something to her ankle. So he drove over there and then took her to the ER where she told him to go home and wait for her to call to pick her up. Well that was 3 hours ago. I just talked to my mom and she thinks that they are probably just beginning to see her. So hopefully her ankle is just badly sprained and not broken. But we will soon find out.

I did also make cookies today and they are very yummy! They are chewy granola cookies and so I think that they are semi-good for me! So now I am off to grade papers and tackle that grade program! Lucky me!!!

Happy Anniversary

Happy Anniversary to my parents today. They were married 29 years ago at St. Anthony's Church. Next year will be the big 3-0!

Anyone looking to move?

So I come home tonight and see the most wonderful sign...a for sale sign in my neighbor's yard! These are the people that have 5 boys all under the age of 11. The parents let the oldest watch the youngest (who is about 2 at the most) while they are running around outside doing whatever they feel like. These are also the same neighbors who do not say a word to you and allow their children to beat up my trees while they are standing right there. These are also the same kids who have been throwing rocks at my birds and picking my flowers. I was only waiting for a rock to go through my window. When I have been outside, one of the younger ones now stands there and makes faces at me, yells at the top of his lungs, and pretends to beat me up. So yes I am very happy to see that sign and plus the listing agent is my cousin's husband! Hopefully we will have someone that is more respectful to the ones around them or I can only hope!

Radio Advisory Group

So I filled out this survey on one of the radio stations that I listen to and give feedback. The last question was if I wanted to be part of the listener advisory group. I checked yes and thought nothing else about it. Monday after school I received a voice mail telling me that I have been chosen and to show up at the station at 7 PM Wednesday night. If we do show up we receive a light dinner, a prize pack, and a $25 gift certificate for a restaurant. Well heck yes I am going to be there tonight. I get free food and free food for me and hubby in the future! I just have to sit there for an hour and talk about the radio station with a group. So we will see how it goes.

Lazy bums

So it is 8 o'clock and the house is quite. Gee I thought to myself where could the dang cats be the house is only so big. So I start putting laundry away and look what I stumble upon...

Pardon the messy bed but gee Lucy is snuggled on my side with her purple mouse, Isabelle is on the Redskins fleece blanket and Daisy is just trying to wonder why in the heck I disturbed her!

Just glad they enjoy the bed now because when it is my turn to sleep, out they go!

Happy Day

Happy Friday!

So school was good and the kids were a little more behaved than on Wednesday. I just wish that lessons would plan themselves and copies would copy themselves! I have so much work to do this weekend, but I guess that is all of the joys of being a teacher....you lose your weekends! Oh well, I enjoy being busy.

On the way home today, the radio station I listen to asked a question about what do 27% of teenagers admit to having in their notebooks, I thought gee that one is easy it is doodling! So I called the radio station and then it started ringing and I thought to myself gee it never rings when I call I always get a busy signal. So I couldn't believe that it was ringing and thought clearly I had the wrong number so I hung up and went through my recently called list because I called the same radio station a couple of weeks ago. So I find the number and dial again and gee it was ringing again! So imagine my luck when I got the question right and I won! Other people were guessing locker combos, paper (sorry but how dumb are we!), phone numbers, and so on. But I won a $50 gift certificate to a photography studio and tickets to a blues fest in Elkhart on the 25th. I'm just estatic I was on the radio! I seem to chuckle a lot, as my mom puts it, but I think I sounded cute!

So now I am off to watch my cousin play football for Clay. It is his senior year and he is starting and the weather is going to be great football weather! Go Clay!!!

1 down, 179 to go!

Okay so I am joking, but it sometimes is nice to count things. Well the first day of school was great. I have a class of 8 girls and 6 boys. However 5 of the 6 boys I am going to have to sit on during the year because they are so hyper. One mom warned me about her son and said that his meds didn't kick in until 9:30ish and I would have my hands full until then and then she said good luck! Gee what a great introduction to her son! I had two girls that wanted homework and one girl that wanted to know if she could work in her new workbooks! Talk about ambition!!! I don't even think I was that ambitious at that age level.

I have the students fill out informatino about themselves and how their summer went and silly questions like that and then I take their picture and glue it on their page and viola a class book! It keeps the parents interested on parent's night. One of the questions that I have is what do you want to be when you grow up. I had one little girl say she wanted to be a thearpist! I guess that is real amibtion there. Another thing that is kinda sad is when the kids were writing down their birthdays the years were 1998, 1999. Gee I was graduating high school and beginning college. I don't know if I should be depressed or not!

So I was getting ready for day two and guess what we are cancelled for the day! There was a terrible storm that rolled through the area and I guess Plymouth got hit pretty hard and parts of the town has no power. Our school does have power, however some of the other elementary around town do not so rather than make the kids sit in the dark they get an extra day of summer vacation! Gee if we did one day on one day off school might be more interesting!

Oh well I now have time to find some very comfortable shoes because my feet are killing me and I am walking kinda funny because of that. I also have to get more bullentin board things and then I can relax and watch the newest series I am getting into...ROME!! At first I was a little unsure of the show because it is a little hard to follow but now that I am into it I love it! Plus the library had a copy so it is only 25 cents a day. Blockbuster wanted $3.99 a disc and they had five different discs with about three episodes on each. The library is the entire discs and for the low low price I cannot beat it! So I am saving money watching it!

Happy Birthday Rosie!

Today my sister Rosie celebrated her 22nd birthday. Here are some pics of the day!

Jenni getting ready for Rosie's birthday...can't you tell by the festive present box!

Happy Birthday!!

Cute pic of brother and sister

Hey I was there too!

Artistic shot of Dad by the pool

All good things must come to an end....

So today is Thursday, so that means that I have one more vacation day left and then its the weekend then back to work on Monday. I have a retreat to go on and Tuesday is our teacher meeting and Wednesday is the first day of school. Wow this summer went fast. In a way I am looking forward to being busy again, but then again it means not seeing my hubby during the week and only on weekends because of our different shifts. It just makes us appreciate each other even more.

I have however accomplished a lot in the past two weeks. My classroom is set up waiting for the 3rd graders on Wednesday, the only thing I have left to do for school is accomplish my schedule for the year and decide what I am actually going to do the first full day of school. Hubby thinks that I am nuts for sending postcards to the students welcoming them to the new school year. I think it eases some of their first day jitters, also how cool is it for an eight year old to recieve mail!!

I got my hair highlighted and thinned out because once school starts, I just don't have the time and it will be Christmas time until I actually start thinking about doing something with it again. I also got my eyes checked and got new lenses for my glasses and totally new sunglasses. The optometrist also found a freckle on my right eyeball when they were dilated. I think it just means that they have to watch to make sure that it doesn't get bigger. I just think it is cool I have a freckle on my eye....how many people can say that?

It has also been warmer than heck around here and my air conditioner decided to go on the fritz Monday and I went to check on it in the basement and one entire part of it was a brick of ice. Lovely....I called the repair person Monday and all they could tell me was that it was going to be Tuesday or Wednesday when they could get to it. I loved the definite time! So I stayed home in a humid dark house on Tuesday and luckily they did call and came over. It turns out that we have a small leak in somewhere that is leaking freon. So the repair person just refilled us and we were good to go. So not too expensive...just $20 for the freon and $80 for the service call. Gee I love repair people. I am now waiting for something else to break because my mom told me it comes in three's. The first was the garage door, the second being the air conditioner, and I am afraid to find out what else....unless you count the fridge that went out last fall and we had to throw all of our food out and replace. Maybe I can count that!

Oh well...I promised Jay that I would fix him dinner when he came home. I just need to boil some noodles and fix the garlic bread and viola spaghetti dinner with my homemade sauce! Absolutley delicious if you ask me!!

Waiting

Well I am sitting around waiting for Mr. (or Ms.) UPS man to come and deliever my scrapbook that I made from the trip in Europe. The tracking system says it is out for delievery just not at my doorstep at the moment. I am very anxious because I want to see it! Gee it would have been better if the tracking system was never put in place because then I would be suprised when it came!

Oh well back to waiting and avoiding my schudule that I am trying to come up with for my third graders. I have to somehow plunk in 150 minutes of language arts, 35 minutes of religion, 30 minutes of social studies, 30 minutes of science and 45 minutes of math a day. I also still have to work around the schedules for the art, gym, music, computers, spanish, and library times that have already been plunked into place. Oh and we do really have to eat lunch and let the little ones run around for recess for 15 minutes or I will go nutty! I love scheduling!!

Fair Time

So today was full of accomplishments. One being that the grass finally received its haircut and looks mighty nice if I do say so myself, another being that the garage door guy came and fixed my garage and it works wonderful now and it didn't cost an arm and a leg like I thought it would (by the way we did get our Wii, and we are lovin' it!). I also finally cleaned my house and it is officially dehaired of kitty hair until tomorrow :)

Tonight my Aunt Rita, my cousin Anna, my parents, and my brother all went to the 4-H Fair and had some yummy not so good for you fair food. I even brought home an elephant ear for Jay! Rita and Anna rode the rides and I strolled through the exhibits and looked in amazement at the photos that were taken by the very talented 4-H'ers and the beautiful decorated cakes. I love looking at all of the projects that these very talented, hard-working kids do every year. I am including some pictures of the evening. Enjoy!

Just our luck!

So Jay and I had a lovely evening last night for our anniversary. I know it is two weeks late but I was in Europe for our anniversary, I did however call and wish him a happy anniversary. We went to see "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" and then out to dinner. Then we went looking for a Wi. No luck we went to two different stores but one of the stores we went to called around to other stores looking for us. I thought that was nice, but then again the people at EB are always that nice. So we came home anticipating to call Best Buy and then I am getting ready to pull the car into the garage and I heard a loud snap and then garage went up a quarter of the way and then stopped. Great I thought....so we pulled around to the street and make a beeline for the garage and discovered that a spring snapped and bent some other piece. So needless to say I think the money for the Wi is going towards the garage. Oh well....I guess Jay didn't need it for his early birthday present!

Back home again

Well we made it back home two days ago and I am still recovering. Switzerland was gorgeous. Definately the place where I would love to spend all of my time in. The place we went to was called Murren. We drove four hours from Germany into Switzerland. We parked the car down on the mountainside and then had to take cable cars up 5000 feet. The weather was a bit chilly and it was raining. Heck I didn't care because I was in the Alps! When we made it up to the sleepy little town of Murren we checked into our "lodge" and then went to explore a bit before we found dinner. I had the best chicken and salad dinner plus these very delicious strawberries and melon! By the time that we left dinner it was pouring so we went back to the lodge only to fall asleep early. When we woke up the next day, we were still in the middle of a cloud. Yes a cloud....how cool is that. We had slept with our window open and in the light you could see the mist falling into the room. Way cool! Later that morning we took the tram up to the next little town above us and hiked around for a little while and then ate a little cafe on the way down and just took in the beautiful scenary. When we finally hiked our way back down the "hill" we did some tourist shopping and then went out to dinner and I had the best spaghetti. It was even better than the spaghetti that I had had in Italy. Kinda hard to imagine. Then the rain came through again and it was downpouring by the time we got back to the lodge. The next day, we checked out and headed our way back north. My aunt and uncle suprised us by taking a little detour into France! We stopped at a little town called Colmar. This town is nicknamed the "little venice" because of the waterways that surround the town. Colmar was gorgeous as well and had a ton of flowers all over the place. We ate lunch in France at a crepe restuarant. This was the most delicious lunch I had had. It was a chicken and creamy sauce crepe. It literally melted in your mouth! We did a little shopping after lunch and then got back in the car and headed back to Germany. On Monday we went to the next town over via train and did some shopping at the mall that was there. I got the new Harry Potter book (the British version) so I was able to read it on the plane ride home.

Laura and I came home Tuesday and I was home by 11:15 PM just in time to see my hubby and the pile of mail left on the kitchen table! So now I am slowly working my way through the pile, unpacking, and doing laundry. I was very productive yesterday and put together an online scrapbook. I placed the order last night and hope to receive the book sometime next week. The price just about shocked me...around $120. However I figured if I took the time to print all of my pictures (550 of them) and then bought a scrapbook and the supplies to allow me to scrapbook it probably would have been around the same price. So I went with the online book, the only reason why it cost so much was because I had 63 pages! You receive the first 20 pages for $29.99 and then $1.99 a page after that. In my mind I had thought it was the first 40 pages for $29.99 and then $1.99 after. Gee was I wrong. However I had a ton of fun putting it together and providing information about the places we went to. This way I will always remember and the album is finished before things get crazy here again. I just received the letter from school saying the school is open for working in our classrooms and we can come in anytime. Heck it is still July....I am not going anywhere near Plymouth until August. On a sad note I do start school in less than 20 days...I guess all good things have to come to an end.

Hello all!

So now that I have been in Germany for almost a week...it has been a very long and exciting week. When we arrived last Friday morning we stayed up until about 10 o'clock Germany time so I was going almost 24 hours with about 2 hours of sleep. I was quite proud of myself. Laura and I visited the next town over and walked around with my cousin and Putzi my aunt and uncle's cute little dog and then went out to dinner. I had flamflugen (i know it is misspelled) it was a type of thin pizza with ham, goat cheese, and onions. It was pretty good. Laura and I crashed that night and woke up at noon on Saturday. We then went to visit a quaint little medieval town where a festival was going on. Very cool! Then we went onward to Heidleburg and walked around the town where another festival was going on and we watched fireworks with the castle in the backgrond.

Sunday was a kind of lazy day. We went to see Harry Potter in English in Frankfurt and walked around Frankfurt in the boiling heat. Then my aunt made dinner for us that night....very yummy.

Monday night Laura and I we flew into Rome at about 11 pm. So we went to bed and got up at 8 on Tuesday and just explored the city. So Tuesday we cramed in the Trevi Fountain, numerous fountains, the lions mouth, colliseum and the ancient ruins. We got a tour guide for the Colliseum and the ruins. Such a great guide for both. Laura and I were total tourists even though she hates to be. We also spent an hour getting lost going back to the hotel...that is when we saw the numerous fountains of Rome!

Wednesday we joined a tour group for the Vatican and it was possibly the best tour guide I have ever had anywhere. He was the same man who did the ancient ruins tour...very knowledable and well worth the moeny! I learned so much about the stories behind the Sistine Chapel and the Last Judgement painting in the Sistine Chapel. How wonderful these were! We then jumped on a tour bus to take us around the city where we could hop on and off at anytime. That allowed us to see things that we might have missed so it was great! Again we got lost going back to the hotel but we were not lost that long! It was an improvement!

So here we are back in Germany where my aunt is making an authentic German dish whose name escapes me at the moment. Then getting a good nights sleep because tomorrow we are off to Switzerland! We are going to a hotel in the mountains where we have to drive to a certain point and then park the car and take cable cars the rest of the way up because it is too steep to drive. Plus we also have to walk about 10-20 minutes to get to our lodging! How cool is that!

I cannot wait to get home and post pictures; I've taken over 300 of them already!!!

Call me crazy!

This week has been totally crazy. Tuesday Jay got his wisdom teeth surgically removed and so he looks like a swollen chipmuck, poor guy. But he actually ate yesterday so that is a good sign. Yesterday I went to the lake of my friend's house and we all just laid around on the boat for six hours and just had a fun time and I managed not to get severly burnt like I did last year but that is to the thanks of SPF 50! However I missed a couple of places with the sunscreen and the top part of my forehead is red so pictures in Germany are going to look lovely!

The plane to Germany leaves tonight at 7:50 from Chicago and we are sitting in the second to last row of the airplane right next to the bathroom. I am going to see if we can move up because the middle section of the plane is empty. In the meantime I still need to finish packing, fiind out where my stupid license plate renewal sticker is (Jay got his no clue why I don't have mine because I renewed them both at the same time!), call Visa and tell them I am taking my credit card out of the country (I think I will have to get a second job when I come back!!), and drop my car off at the body shop so they can finish fixing my car from the accident back in December. So all of this needs to get done by 1:20!

The house is stocked to keep hubby happy for 12 days and I am outta here!! Yah for me!!

Best time of the year!!

So I believe that this is the best time of the year! What you may ask....the on set of school supplies on sale for dirt cheap prices. Yes I know my family and my hubby make fun of me for this obsession. However from a teacher stand point I love that I can buy boxes of pencils, folders , pencil sharpners, and pencil boxes all for a penny plus bottles of glue for 9 cents. You can call me crazy but I really do believe that this is the best time of the year because anytime during the school year you shell out a small fortune for these types of items! I'm just a little sad that I will be missing the next two Sundays of school supplies on sale at Staples because I will be in Europe but not that sad because I will be in EUROPE!

Time is Flying By!

I really should say that I have been busy with things but that is a total lie. I still have school things that I need to finish for St. Mike's and no motivation to get it done. It includes writing out what I taught for 6th Math and SS since December. I fell behind at school and it is one of those things that you don't think of until everything else that needs to be fnished. So my lesson plan book is sitting in front of me screaming get me DONE!

I also found out that spinning is not the class for me. Not because my legs hurt but because my butt was sore for two days. I have forgotten what it feels like to be on a bike seat for an extended period of time. So I need to come up with another game plan!

I have been wanting to paint the inside of my porch because after putting up plastic to keep the winter chills out and taking it down in the spring it has taken the paint right off of the wall. So I have slowly been working on finishing actually more like starting. I decided to make the windows pop and added blue paint accenting the windows. I think it looks neat and reminds me of the sky however I have four windows done and six more to go with no ambition to finish. I also need to go back and touch up the four that are finished and maybe add a brown accent also around the window. We will see. I need to stop watching HGTV.

I did however go to Shipshewana today...aka the huge outdoor flea market. My parents are going tomorrow I opted to go today because the weather is supposed to be crappy tomorrow. So I laced up my walking shoes and walked the entire flea market which took about 3 hours to browse around at all of the goodies. I found some $2 shirts for Jay for work. I also found some cute little decorating things to put around the house and I also got some cheap baking supplies that are of great quality. Go me!!! However since I have gotten home I now realize what else I could have picked up to decorate the house...so I think I am going to ask my parents to pick up a couple items tomorrow while they are there. Jay claims that there will be no more place to walk in our house because it is going to be full to the rim. I told him I will not over decorate but when we do eventually move....watch out!!!

I also leave for Germany in a week and two days. I'm getting excited! Laura and I have also booked our side trip to Rome. Yah!!! We arrive in Rome on a Monday night and have Tuesday and Wednesday to putz around the city and we leave on a Thursday to go back to Germany and finish the remainder of our trip. However I have not even thought about what I need to bring or what needs to be done so Jay will survive without me for 12 days. I figure I have next week to worry about that and pay bills that are due while I am away.

Thank you to everyone that wished me happy birthday. My family and I went out to dinner in Culver at the Edgewater Grill because I had a student give me a very generous gift card for Christmas and I figured I might as well as treat because it is probably somewhere we would never go to and so we drove about 50 minutes to have dinner on Saturday night. The food was good and I ran into a teacher buddy at the resturant and she was celebrating her 20th wedding anniversary. It was her first time eating there also...it really is a small world.

I really need to get the recycling ready for pick-up. I have boxes in the basement from January from Jay's weight bench that need to be broken down. Now might be the time to get it done. So I am off. More fun for me!

Spinning

For months I was telling myself that I really needed to get to the gym to start working out again. The reason I had a hard time before was teaching and finishing my Masters. Now that I am on summer break and finished with my Masters I really have no excuse. There is this great workout facility 5 minutes from my house and I have been looking at their group fitness classes and there is an introductory spinning class on Tuesdays at 12:00 and the class is thirty minutes long. I figured it would be a great beginner class for me and it is only $2 per class. Then I can decide if this is what I want to do and then I can find the money to buy the package deals. So the plan is to drop in on this class today and Jay said he wanted to go but I doubt that he will because his back has been hurting him since Saturday when I made him move the entertainment stand to paint behind. We will see though!

Keeping my options open

I have a job for the following school year. It is the same job that I have been at for the last 5 years. I have been driving to Plymouth for 5 years back and forth a countless number of times. Sometimes I wish I was just home instead of the 30 minute commute everyday. This was one of the main reasons for applying to other school districts close to home among other reasons. I am just suprised that nobody has called from these other school districts. I finally emailed the person in charge of applications at the SBCSC office. She emailed back asking what my certification was in and I haven't heard anything back yet. If I were given an interview I would go because as countless number of people have told me I have to do what is right for me because nobody else will. I would also go as far to break my contract with my current school and sign with a new one. Sure it would suck but again I have to do what is right for me and the money would be better and we could actually move out of our small house and into a bigger one because yes we would like a family here in the future and the two bedroom one bath house isn't going to cut it in the future! Oh well I guess I can wish for a school district to call. I just hope it isn't two days before school starts like it was five years ago when I had already been teaching for two weeks at my current school. Grrrrrrrrrr....

Health Conference

So I admit it, when the principal asked me to attend a Health workshop in Indy a month ago I was hesitant. The description of the conference sounded really dumb and nothing that I wanted to attend. However I said yes anyway because (one) it would give me a change of scenery in the middle of June and (two) it was completely free--all $725 of it. So all month I dreaded going to this conference because I just didn't want to make the drive. Tuesday morning rolled around and just as I was beginning to leave the rain (something that we desperately needed) started pouring down in buckets. The walk to my garage (all six feet of it) was horrible I got into my car soaking wet. As I am making the trek to Indy it was pouring cats and dogs and my windshield wipers were on hyperspeed and I still couldn't see two feet in front of me for about 40 minutes. Gee I thought to myself that this had better be a good conference. Because lets face it as teachers we get stuck going to some pretty boring conferences that are not worthwhile.

As I arrive in Indy on 86th street at the Marten House Hotel next to St. Vincent's Hospital the sun was starting to poke its head out. As I walk into our conference room, I am given a huge binder and hospital permission slips to fill out. I fill out the permission slips and start to look through my binder. Huh I thought to myself this is going to be somewhat a semi-descent conference....I have health lesson plans. We were given an introduction and then started to make our way over to St. Vincent Hospital...we were going to an OR to view a mock sugery. This is when I realized this was a conference that was nothing like before!

When we arrived at St. Vincent Hospital we were greated by a nurse who took us up to the second floor of the hospital and had us get into bunny suits (aka the white jumpsuits) complete with head and shoe coverings. Gee we looked so cute! As we made our way into the OR the nurse had her students play different roles in sugery. We started from beginning to end of what happens during a sugery. I have now realized that the person that does most of the work is the sugery technician because they are the ones preparing everything for the doctor and the patient. The doctor is just there to cut you open and do what he or she has to do and then leaves. The nurses and the tech are the ones that really deserve the credit.

On our way leaving the hospital we went by the storage room and looked at the entire wall of stiches that can be used during surgery. The largest one was huge and thread attached to it felt like a small rope and the smallest one was not even the size of a tip of a pencil and the thread was thinner then a piece of human hair! I didn't know that all of these existed!

When we returned back to our conference center we were greated with lunch. This was a fantastic lunch we had fruit salad, regular salad, garlic bread, two different kinds of noodles and sauces, veggies, and dessert! All of this for lunch....usually at a conference we have sandwiches put together in a box waiting for us! After lunch we returned back to the conference room and took part in lessons that we can adapt to our grade level about germs. I won the prize of squid soap. When a child presses down on the soap an ink mark appears on the child's palm and the only way that ink will come off is with proper length of time of handwashing! How cool is that!

We were also given a toolkit. Inside of this toolkit is various free goodies (and lets face it as teachers we LOVE free things!) We had another binder full of lessons, a knee hammer, a stethoscope, a blood pressure cuff, scrubs, mug, eyecharts, post-it notes, pens, stress ball, and various other little things!

Then we had time in between the last activity and dinner to check-in and rest until dinner rolled around. I ended up finding this cute discount bookstore that I wished we had in South Bend because it was just awesome and had great deals on books!

When dinner rolled around we were able to look inside of a peds ambulence that transports sick kids from all over the state back to St. Vincent's to receive the care that they need. They even make runs to Illinois and Ohio. This was really cool!

Dinner was awesome as well. They served us three different types of salad, veggies, mac and cheese, scalloped potatoes, barbeque chicken breast, sliced roast beef, and peach cobbler for dessert. Then came time for teacher relaxation. These beauty people came in and gave us all chair massages, hand massages, facials, pedicures all with relaxing music. So I went off to bed totally relaxed and full!

Wednesday rolled around and we were given a breakfast buffet (more food!). Then we were going back at St. Vincent's to meet with the radiologist students. We were broken into groups of five and rotated around to different parts of the radiology part of the building. I saw the MRI machine, CAT Scan, X-ray, ultrasound, nuclear medicine. All of which was fasinating! My sister Laura should of joined me because this is what she is going into! We left with a student-friendly powerpoint presenetation and loads of x-rays on CD that we can show our students!

When we got back to the conference center we did more health lesson plans this time about the skeleton system and organs. Then had lunch (again wow!). While we were eating lunch we were given a presentation about this new website that will be launching in August about the different health and biomedical careers that are being offered. It will be a 4th grade thru 12th grade friendly website. Very nice!

When we returned back to our room to do more activities (this time about nutrition) we also had nursing students show up and we got to play around with needles and draw fake blood from a fake arm, give a shot, look in each other's ears, look at slides, and learn how to check blood pressure. Also very awesome.

Then sadly it was time to fill out evaluations about the conference because it is only the second year for this type of conference that was all put on by four teachers from the Intermediate Center School in Westfield, Indiana and funded by St. Vincent Hospital.

This was an extremely great conference and I am grateful to Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center for sponsoring me to take part in this conference.

On the way home I stopped by my cousin Annie's house and visited with her family and my aunt was there (Annie's mom) and made dinner. Also very yummy! Then I was back on the road by 8:45 pm and made it home around 11. It was a very long day, but also very rewarding!

Day Trip

Saturday was a nice day trip into Chicago to see the musical Wicked. I went with my sister, Laura, and my mom. We found out the the theatre was three blocks away from the South Shore train. So it was a quick and somewhat painless ride (the seats were really hard!) into Chicago. I really enjoyed the musical and cannot wait to read the book. I know that I should have read the book first but Rosie has the book and is not yet finished. I figured it will be a good read when I go to Germany in less than a month! Yippee!

Now I am doing laundry and packing for a health conference for teachers in Indianapolis on Tuesday and Wednesday. I really have no idea what the conference is about, but I know that we are spending the majority of Tuesday at St. Vincent Hospital and I get to see an MRI machine and get to spend time in a sugery room. I still am trying to figure out how this connects to teaching. Guess I will know more when I arrive in Indy tomorrow!

Got Stuff?

The garage sale that I had last Saturday was somewhat of a success. What didn't sell went directly to Goodwill. Jay and I packed up the car and took a whole car load to drop off. So that was a good thing to get all of that "stuff" out of the house. However I had all of these CDs of Laura's and mine that we just don't listen to anymore. Instead of donating them to Goodwill, I went through the 20+ cds and to see if I could sell them on Amazon. It turned out that just four of them are even worth to sell. Then I had to decide what to do with the rest of the 20 something cds. Then I remembered I could freecycle them. Freecycle is an online community group (the Michiana area) where you post things that you do not want anymore but do not want to throw them away. Well it was a success, about two minutes after I posted the cds I had numerous responses. I went with the first response and if I do not hear back from her I will proceed down the list. The best part is that the person will come pick them up! I highly recommend this site. Ihave gotten rid of some things before and it is much better than throwing things away! Here is the site http://groups.yahoo.com/group/southbendmishawakafreecycle/ Enjoy!!

Strawberry Thief

I have such beautiful strawberry plants in my garden. As I was going to the basement to grab more garage sale items, I look out my window and realize why I have half eaten strawberries in my garden. I guess Mr. Squirrel needs to eat also. I just wish it was somebody else’s garden.

Whirlwind

There has been a whirlwind of activity for the past two weeks. Last week was the end of school on Wednesday followed by the teacher’s meeting on Thursday where it was announced that I will be teaching 3rd grade next year. Then on Friday and Saturday I worked ND Reunion assisting with the seminars that took place on campus. This was a far better job then the one I worked last year that consisted of babysitting reunion people’s children for 15 hours a day. Never again will I partake in that job.

Then Monday and Tuesday of this week I had to find my way back to school to complete the moving of my classroom and empty out my 6th grade room. My new room is on the first floor back in a corner. I tell people that I should lose weight this coming school year because I am farther away from the teachers lounge! I moved a lot of stuff back home. Sometimes I wonder why in the heck did I spend my money on these extra teacher books….they looked cute and interesting at the time. This is another reason why I need to stay away from the teacher’s store. So my porch is overflowing with teacher stuff that I really need to go through and separate for the yard sale I am having on Saturday.

First I was having my yard sale over the Memorial Day weekend but things became too chaotic and plus is rained the entire weekend so I pushed it up to this Saturday. Well at first the weather predicted rain and as of last night there is no rain in sight. So it looks like my yard sale is on again. So I need to finish cleaning my room at my parent’s house (yes I never really cleaned out the room when I got married) and then I need to go through and price the stuff. So over the next three days this is what I will be doing. Then I can finally have a clean porch and start some improvements on the porch to make it look more relaxing.

Now believe it or not I decided Sunday night that the dining room and living room both needed to be painted because I was tired of looking at white walls plus we just got this cute light installed in the dining room and the room needed something else. So I went to Lowe’s on Monday and picked up some paint samples. Jay approved which one he liked then I went back to Lowe’s and got the necessary supplies to paint the dining room. So Monday night I was painting my dining room. Then last night I was painting my living room. Now I just need to paint the long wall that runs the length of both the living and dining room. That will hopefully be done this weekend because I cannot move the entertainment center by myself. Here are some pictures of before and after of both of the rooms (with my new digital camera!!):

Dining Room~Before and After

Living Room~Before and After





So I also now need to find some different curtains for the living room because the old gold ones will not go so well. I am leaning towards a creamy color in maybe a roman shade. So needless to say I am keeping myself busy maybe just too busy!

Exhausted mania

Okay so the students are sending me home exhausted every day because they have so much energy and I have to constantly remind them that they need to settle down. (I fell asleep Friday night at 6:30 only to wake up at 8:30 get some grocery shopping done and then fell back asleep!) Heck I understand because we now only have 1.5 days left of school!! Hurray! I get antsy too, but I have to be the adult and quite them down. I just now only have to make it through the next 1.5 days and I am finished teaching junior high!

I have not officially heard, but I will be teaching 3rd grade next year (the school board approved me, but my principal has not said anything). I am so excited, I get the younger students who still like their teacher and think school is the best! Such a change from my junior high students.

So as I am winding down this school year, I am busy putting together their memory books. I am at the moment putting together collages of pictures throughout the school year of my students. I then take the (hopefully two pages) and get them printed off at Staples where I will bind them together with a book of memories that we have been putting together at school. The last thing that I need the students to do is write nice comments about their classmates. This is something that I started three years ago and the students absolutely love it! We do this on the computer and rotate until every student has mentioned something nice about that person. I then print off all of the comments and bind them in their book. They will receive their book on Wednesday and on the very last page there is a section that they can sign each others book. Something that they all enjoy.

On a side my note my digital camera went kaput. (Rather it was dropped one too many times) These are the types of pictures that the camera takes now:

I really enjoy the side light! I was hoping to put it off for another month before I go to Germany but it looks like that was not the plan for the camera. So I am going to Best Buy today to look and maybe buy. The current kaput model was one that I had I got for my birthday when digital cameras first came out. It was a 3.2 mega pixel and takes (or rather eats) four double AA batteries. The cost for such a thing was around $300 and today you could probably get it for 50 bucks. Kinda sad if you ask me. Oh well I can upgrade the mega pixels and not be charged an arm and a leg! How fun!!!

What a day!

After the dream I had this morning I think I should have stayed in bed. I was driving along in my dream and it was a beautiful sunny day and then all of a sudden out of nowhere there is the horrible winter weather with horrible streets and I was spinning out of control into oncoming traffic, but by that time I had woken up to realize that my alarm had been going off for an hour and it was 6:00 and I should have been out of bed twenty minutes ago.

School was okay besides the fact that the students are getting antsy because we have a short 11 days left! Eek! I have so much that I still need to cover but I really do not want to grade anymore. The red pen is done. So now I am assigning homework that is easy to grade and does not take a lot of reading. Easier on my eyes :-) Plus we teachers do get antsy also!

Oh and yesterday I was planting my garden while the little neighbor kids are playing baseball next door which wouldn’t be a problem but they have their trash all over my yard and they are taking my rocks from around the house and throwing them every which way they could. Then the two year old (maybe three at the most) is running around in my flowerbeds, pushing over Saint Francis, playing with my extended drain pipe. Then when I tell him no he gives me a nasty look and then picks grass and tries to throw it at me. Gee where are the parents you ask…inside while they let their 5 or 6 year old look after the 2 (maybe 3) year old. Great parenting skills if you ask me! Then I come home tonight and find my bird bath knocked over. I think it is time for a big ol’ privacy fence.

Also my grass is half cut because the lawn mower has decided that it wanted to give me less power to cut the grass. So it sounded like the dang thing was about to die and black smoke was puffing out of it. Gee I didn’t think that was good. So the grass on the right side of my house it cut while the grass on the left side of my house long. Guess I am going with the grass with the artistic touch!

Oh and today was my brother’s birthday and the family went out to eat at Olive Garden and just as I am about to lift my glass to take a sip and the entire bottom falls out! So I had to sit there and be sticky with Sprite dripping all over me. Gee that was the kicker of the day. I think I am going to crawl under the covers and pray for a pleasant dream tonight!

Oh wait the cat just threw up! Oh joy!!!

Walking

So today I walked 3 miles for our school fundraiser. It was fun to take the afternoon and walk for an hour even if it was with my students. It was fun to see some of them race around the block while others kept a snail's pace. However when the walk was finished they were the ones bouncing around the grass. I think that they needed to expend more energy! On the downside I think I got too much sun and now I have a splitting headache. Oh well.

On another note I did not get the job at LaVille. I was told it was a tough decision and it was between me, a guy, and this woman named Marcy. Well Marcy got the job. She is also an aide at the school who just completed her work for her teaching degree and has a young son. I am now starting to think that I never had a chance when she stepped into the picture. So I am at St. Michael for another year, I think. Nobody else has called and probably will not call until two freakin days before school starts. I can't wait until then. However there might be a third grade position opening up at school and I told my principal that I really want third grade. This is my dream grade to teach! I also think that she might go for it if there will be enough kids to make two grade third grades. Plus the priest doesn't want me to go this is an incentive to keep me there and plus the second graders coming up do not mix well in a large class together. I should know within a few weeks! Hurray!

Also for those of you that don't know....I graduated on Tuesday! I now have my Masters!! Woo-hoo!!!

Flowerbeds

This is what I started with:

So Saturday I had the whole day to myself because hubby went to a concert in Chicago. I spent the day working on my flowerbed. Actually making a flowerbed. I loaded all of the 105 bricks that I would need to complete the project onto a cart and hauled them all home along with 10 bags of dirt. I spent about two hours working on the small wall and I think that they turned out great. I just had to go back to Lowe's to buy more dirt because I ran out. I also bought some flowers to put in the dirt. Lowe's had some flowers on clearance, which I am not sure why but heck they were cheap and they still looked good! I am however paying for the work that I did yesterday because I now ache all over. Oh well my yard looks good!

Here is what it now looks like:
I just need to paint the door and pull off the white plasticy pieces around the door. But I am not sure what to do with the grass that is next to the flowerbed on the right because the walkway is not in line with the garage door. Any suggestions?

Rain Rain Go Away

So the calendar says that we are in the season of spring but all that I have seen it do is rain. I am very sick of rain. It is supposed to be a wonderful weekend. I have so much that I want to do. I need to mow the grass and pick some weeds, but the big project is that I want raised flower beds on either side of my garage door. I have done all of the measurements and I need 110 stones to complete my new project. I figured it should be an easy project and I don't think that I can mess it up that badly. I just want more space to put my pretty flowers!

The End is in Sight!

Well my paper is finished early! How fun is that. I can honestly say that the worst is behind me. I just need to print out the dang thing, bind it, and also submit by email. Then come May 1st I am presenting it in my class and I am finsihed!! But this means next weekend I need to figure out what the heck needs to go on my "science fair" display poster. I think I will need lots of pictures :-)

No time for a cold

So I wake up Thursday morning with a sore throat and then it just multiplied from there. I fell asleep at 7:30 last night and slept on and off until my alarm went off at 5:30. I have felt like crap all day. I need to finish my grad paper that is due on Tuesday by 7 pm. I have a few more paragraphs to finish and an abstract to write and then I am finished!! Well all except for the poster presnentation that I have to present on May 1st. Then I can do a little dance.

On a side note...my aunt and uncle are in Germany right now working with the government and my sister Laura wants to visit Germany this summer. My mom wants me to go with so she is not by herself and I said sure why not. Jay doesn't mind that he will be home for two weeks in July alone. So I am going to jump at the opportunity!

Let's see if this works

Welcome to the life of me. I am right now avoiding my research paper that is due in a week and a half. I have the discussion part of the paper to finish and have no motivation to even continue with the one sentence that I have started. Hey at least it is a start!