Day 48

The two personal days I took off for the choir concert were timed well, because right before we left I found out Grandma had been diagnosed with lung cancer and given a couple months to live. So after the concert we drove to Findlay and spent most of Saturday with Grandma Grandpa and AJ, who had flown in to take care of them. Grandma and Grandpa were both in good spirits and very much themselves, just much more easily exhausted and not very hungry, so that was nice to see.

Now I find myself in a weird mood the past couple days. Part of it is changes happening at school that are still very unknown, which is always off putting. Part of it is being overly invested in some of my tricky kids, given they showed up in my dreams Thursday night and I couldn't sleep. Part of it is the excitement of the school year drawing to an end but not quite believing its here and still having lots to do. And part of it is knowing in the back of my mind that in the midst of all of this end of school year excitement I could get the phone call about Grandma any day now and spend the last days of school at a funeral instead. While she is remaining in good spirits, she is deteriorating pretty rapidly. The last update from AJ a few days ago gave her 1-4 weeks. 

Day 47

A month ago I took 2 personal days to go back to Goshen for the weekend and sing at their high school concert - it was the first time we'd done an alumni event like that. It was also the very first time I'd been able to even go to a concert since I graduated practically, so I was excited. It was a lot of fun, and we had over a dozen alums there. I knew it was going to be a fun time, but it was even better than I expected. It was such a nice feeling to be on stage again and singing with all those familiar faces. Afterward a bunch of us went to IHOP just like old times. Summer brought her darling baby with her to dinner (so did Caroline), so it was fun to meet their cute kids. Garth is having a staring contest with Summer's baby above.

Day 41 - 46

Okay, again, sorry for the once a month post. Here are a bunch of pictures, to give you a quick overview of the end of March and beginning of April.

 

March 20 - one of my student's soap sculptures after studying Indiana Limestone for Artful Learning.

 

March 27 - I assembled this strandbeest sculpture for our Artful Learning unit despite entirely Japanese directions!

 March 29 - walking home after seeing Next to Normal

 April 6 - lovely day for the first Farmers Market

April 7 - cat I saw on the walk home from school

April 9 - walk downtown for Hartzell's, my favorite ice cream shop in Bloomington.

Day 27

Phyl and I aren't big on Valentines gifts, but he had flowers (tulips - think warm spring thoughts) and Reeses (he knows me well) on the table waiting for me when I got home. I made a concerted effort to leave school at a reasonable hour so that I could actually make dinner for him for once (I even washed all the cooking dishes before he got home). It was a nice night.

I don't have a picture from Friday (which is when we did the valentines party for my class and also when we had the school valentine dance) but I definitely have a good story. In my class I have a pair of students who have definitely had 'secret' crushes on one another. For internet sakes and a fun dr. seuss reference, i shall call them Thing 1 and Thing 2. Thing 1 came in Wednesday morning and told me she asked Thing 2 to the dance the day before. I asked what his answer was and she said he said he was just about to ask her! That afternoon they made hearts in art class and traded them. At the dance last night they both were there with their parents. For the first little bit their families were just standing next to one another. Thing 1 was dancing all around with her dad and little sis, Thing 2 was just kind of standing there (very shy). Eventually, they started dancing/chasing all around the dance floor. I spoke to Thing 2's mom at one point and she told me that he came home on Tuesday (the day Thing 1 asked him to the dance) and said it was the best Tuesday of his life and that his secret wasn't a secret anymore and Thing 1 had the same secret. They are just too cute, I can't take it!

Day 25/26

I really should be going to bed, but I wanted to share today's photo very quickly, so quick post. First, Sunday's picture - more scrapbooking.

 Today I went to see one of my students play basketball. She's been practicing for a couple weeks now, and it was a lot of fun to see her play! She even scored a basket. Teacher friend Katie was with me because I'd been helping her run an errand, and she thought it was so much fun that she wants to go back again to see her game next week! Below is a picture of the game - no worries of identifying kids on the big bad internet because I took the picture with my phone and it is just a bunch of blurs, but it gives you an idea how fast and exciting it was!

Day 22 - Day 24

Not doing so well with taking pictures - I'll blame it on the fact that my camera battery was very close to dead for most of this week. Phyl and I made a long overdue trip to the laundromat on Sunday. The fact that our timing coincided with the SuperBowl made for a very quiet laundry session, which was nice. And now I have clean socks again, which is always nice. We spent the time playing Blokus and playing with the shiny new ipod, which we won in a sweepstakes we entered for a free cruise quite a while ago (I convinced Phyl to keep it, he wanted to sell it, but I think its a fun shiny toy).

There was a pretty snowfall on Monday, although my camera was unable to capture the falling part. Here's the view of our snowy school playground from my classroom. There's been a lot going on at school this week, but then, there usually is!

 

No pictures from the rest of the week, which we'll blame on the previously mentioned low camera battery and busy school week. Today I meant to go in to the school while Phyl was at work, which I did not do, but I did clean the kitchen and tidy up the living room, so still productive! Look at our shiny clean table - oooh, aaah. 

Day 19-21

 

I'm back again! I was feeling some stress this week and realized much of it could be traced back to my crazily cluttered desk (seen above, on Wednesday) so I spent some time after school clearing it off. I feel really lucky to have a built in desk and a teacher desk, but it means twice the clutter when I let it get to this point. Bonus picture below shows the clean desks.

Aaah, much better.

 Thursday it was snowing off and on all day, but nothing was really sticking to the ground. I stayed after school for a baby shower for another teacher (lots of fun) and then for a little bit to prep my classroom, and sometime during those 2-3 hours when I wasn't paying attention the snow decided it was serious, so I was very surprised to find the parking lot (and all three roads I use to go home) completely covered in snow. Luckily my drive home is short and straight, so I made it home just fine. And we had a 2 hour delay the next morning (for wind chill, not snow, but still, yay sleep).

Today I did another scrapbook page from our honeymoon cruise. Can you tell I opened the circle cutter I got for Christmas today? Haha. I really like how it turned out though. If I keep doing a page or two every weekend or so I should be able to finish the cruise photos this month. I might go back to Christmas photos after that. I also really need to do Harlaxton photos, I have a whole box of those photos that I haven't touched in ages...

Day 13 - Day 18

I did warn you all that I am an awful blogger. I have at least been taking some pictures even though I haven't been blogging. To save time I am putting my last few pictures into one entry.

 

Last Thursday I reorganized the bookshelf so that my scrapbook albums were more easily accessible. They had been in the stack on the bottom with the picture frames - now I can pull them on and off the shelf. You can also note some of my favoritest books on the top shelf - Harry Potter series, Tamora Pierce books, Ella Enchanted and Fairest... 

 No pictures from last Friday or Saturday as I was not feeling well with a sinus infection.  Last Sunday I got my scrapbook supplies back out. This page is a work in progress. I actually just finished it last night - matted the pics at the bottom and fixed the title, as well as adding a journaling block.

This picture is from last Monday - we had the day off school for MLK day, at night I bundled up against the windy cold to get some stuff ready at school. We ended up having a 2 hour delay due to the below zero windchill the next morning.

 Phyl bought flowers on Tuesday for no reason. They look very nice on our kitchen table.

 More scrapbooking from last night. My goal is to finish scrapbooking our last cruise before we go on our next cruise this June.

My teacher ipad and my two student ipads. I'm loading different storybook apps onto them all so I can start using them for listen to reading tomorrow. The apps are taking FOREVER to install....

And we're all caught up, for now...

Day 12

 

Great day at school today. My kids are L-O-V-I-N-G math by myself. Mostly because they love this graphing dice roll activity. We did it today and you could here a pin drop in my room. When we stopped to go to art, there were many complaints and people begging to do it again. Yay for loving math! 

You get a bonus picture today because a particularly delightful child wrote me this letter. I love it. The last line makes me smile every time. I wrote her a letter back and I can't wait to read her response. I'm hoping she answers my question and tells me how I am like a rainbow. Did I mention I love it? Because I do.

Day 10

Today I spent a ridiculous amount of time at school, getting ready for the week and especially organizing to try to get ready to launch daily 5 math this week. I felt bad staying away from home all day on Phyl's day off, but I came home to a lovely clean living room and kitchen, with the Christmas tree put away. What a nice husband I have.

Day 9

This is yesterday's picture. Phyl and I went to Red Lobster to use some of our Christmas gift cards. we had planned on going to a movie afterwards, but Red Lobster was busy and had a wait, so we ended up coming home and watched netflix instead. It was a lovely lazy Saturday.

Day 8

 

This is one of my favorite Christmas presents, I got it from my sister. Just to show that great minds think alike, I got my sister one of these cups too, but hers says "Keep Calm Teach On". I came very close to buying one for myself but decided to wait till Christmas. Glad I did! She even filled it with chocolate, she knows me so well.

Day 7

 

This photo is actually from Wednesday. Both Tuesday and Wednesday I fell asleep on the couch before making it to bed. Getting back into school routine is hard. My kiddos are also experiencing this, as more than usual complained of being tired. I noticed it today especially. Of course I promised myself that last night I would go to bed early, but then I played the first episode of Downtown Abbey out of curiosity on Netflix while writing report card comments. I was promptly compelled to watch the entire season in one setting. So I went to bed at 1:30 and did not even finish the report card comments. Ahem. 

Day 6

This is yesterday's picture. First day back to school and the tree which we said would come down over break is clearly still up. Ah well. As I told Phyl, we can look at my procrastination as a good thing because I received two handmade ornaments from one of my students as a belated Christmas present. If the tree was all put away, we'd have to drag the boxes back out to put away those ornaments. Unfortunately I don't have a good reason as to why the tree has not been put away tonight...

Day 5

 

This is actually the picture from Monday. Classroom all ready for kiddos again =)

Day 4

Today Phyl and I went out to dinner and saw Les Miserables. Phyl hadn't seen it yet, it was the second time I saw it. I actually enjoyed it more the second time. I meant to take pictures throughout our date night, but aside from a picture of the Applebee's sign, I didn't manage to take out the camera until we were done. So Phyl's expression (which I love) says "are you seriously taking a picture of us as we walk up the driveway?". Now about to enjoy chocolate hot fudge cake with ice cream since we opted for no dessert at Applebee's (as if we didn't have enough sweets in the house with all our leftover holiday cookies).

Day 3

I volunteered at Habitat for Humanity with some other teacher friends today. I helped hang door frames and was convinced to use a nail gun. The nail gun was actually really easy. Hanging door frames was not at all easy. I can say after today that I do not have the patience to be a carpenter. Which is funny, because as a teacher I am told I have tons of patience all the time. I'm just not at all a Type A personality and have the tendency to just say "ah, that's good enough" which doesn't always work in the exact world of carpentry.

Day 2

 

Yesterday I took a whole bunch of public library books out of my classroom, today I brought in a bunch more books! These books, mostly from a long-ago half price Goodwill trip, have been sitting and sitting and sitting in my car. I finally had time to sort them all out and reorganize my library which I've been wanting to do for months!

Day 1

So I'm trying the project 365 again this year. Not off to the best start, as it's already January 3, but better than last year when I didn't decide to start until February. Besides, I've already decided I'm not aiming for perfection, just trying to get a picture a day as many days as I can.

With that said, I really like today's picture - came to school for the first time since break started with an unexpected snow day. The sun was setting as I pulled up and lighting up our beautiful school perfectly. I managed to carry out almost all of my public library books (still missing ten) and return them today. Only took four very full trips to the car!