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 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.

Days 28-33

Alright, time for another long overdue blog post. I did take more pictures this past week, I just didn't them on my computer to blog about them. First up, last Sunday I finished scrapbooking all our cruise photos and reorganized some other photos, hence this lovely empty photo envelope:

 

We just had our school book fair and I made a wish list for people to see, not really expecting anything. These were the six books I received as gifts from parents and the pto. Yay free books! So exciting. I have There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Shamrock, The Little Red Hen and the Passover Matzah, The Quiet Place, I Love Horses and Ponies (great pictures in this book, and I have several horse lovers in my room), Gilbert Goldfish Wants a Pet, and Game On - a step into reading Wreck It Ralph book.

Tuesday I went to the dentist and got 3 cavities filled. Yuck. It actually wasn't too bad. I really like our dentist here. I have bad memories of getting a cavity filled when I was younger and not being completely numb - the drill was fine, but when they blew the air it landed on a nerve and was a sharp pain - so the only bad part was I was tense the whole time they were drilling waiting for that same sharp pain, but it never happened. I was totally and completely numb. I have to go back next month to get one last cavity filled on the other side. I swear I brush my teeth - these cavities were all hiding between my teeth apparently. So I'm trying to be better about flossing. Below is a cool blurry abstract photo of one of my teeth - my breath kept fogging up the lens as I tried to take pictures!

 Friday we had a 2 hour delay due to icy sleety conditions overnight. This is what I walked out to - I expected it to be time consuming to clear off, since it looked like a decent coat of ice, but luckily the last couple hours of weather had been rain and it had warmed just above freezing, so it actually slid right off.

 Saturday when Phyl got off work he suggested we go on a walk before it got dark. I like walking around our neighborhood - we're near downtown and right by a historic district, so there's lots of nice houses. I particularly like the porch swing and trim color on this house.

Sunday I went into school to get some planning done and deliver some desperately needed data to our lit coach. When I walked outside it was so sunny and almost mild I decided to walk - it's only a 20 minute or so walk, about ten blocks, and since one of the things I like so much about where we live is our ability to walk places, I decided to actually take advantage of it. This is another house along the route - I really like the detail and the little balcony.

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 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 11

So today I decided to make cookies, for a couple reasons. One, we had milk that was expiring and needed to be drunk, and two, I wanted to do something at home that was productive (ie not sitting in front of a computer/tv screen all night as has been my pattern as of late) but also not related to school. Phyl pointed out as I was making these that we still have cookies leftover from Christmas. I say those cookies are stale and nothing goes better with the milk that we need to drink than warm, gooey, chocolate andes mint cookies. You may notice there is already a cookie missing from the tray - it was delicious. The chocolate was also still very melty, and dripped on the floor. These cookies are very messy until they get a chance to cool down.

In other news, launched math daily 5 yesterday and continued with it today. The kids are really excited about it, which is good! I'm really excited about it too, although still working out the best way to organize materials so they can be easily gotten and put away so that everything stays in the right place for next time and no one is stampeded in the process. This week - math by myself and math writing. Next week - math with technology and maybe math with someone, depending on how kiddos are doing with stamina in other areas. Then we can start groups, and hopefully keep our stamina up at the same time! Also will be starting group conferences in literacy daily five after MOY benchmarking is done. So lots going on in daily 5 world in our classroom right now!

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 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 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!