Virginia Bound

The rest of school went fairly well.  We had 3 snow days due to temperatures and then ice, which pushed back one day of finals.  When we return on Monday, we'll have the second day of finals.  I hope my kids have been studying over break!  We also still have to finish watching A Beautiful Mind in my Psych class, but there's not much left so they should have time.

Christmas was fantastic!!!  The usual Christmas Eve festivities with my mom's side of the family, and then also Christmas day with them followed by dinner at Julie's.  There was quite a bit of babysitting while I was home also, and I taught Jacob the wonders of bubble wrap.  I'm not sure who had more fun, him popping bubbles or me watching him popping them.  Then I was able to enjoy some after Christmas family time with my dad's side plus Chris a few days after Christmas.  All of the gifts I gave were well received, which is always rewarding since I have such a fun time shopping...and I also got everything that I asked for along with a few things I didn't....including a Chicago Bears t-shirt!  Maybe I'll take some pictures during the game on Sunday.

In about 4 hours, Chris and I will be hopping in the car to drive to Bloomington to head to Virginia.  Although Bloomington is a smaller airport, it's surprisingly cheaper.  We planned to go to bed around 8 tonight, but neither of us were tired.  I have a feeling we'll get a little bit of sleep and then sleep a lot on the plane.  I have yet to pack our one bag we're taking since it's such a short trip.  Me procrastinating again, what a shock!  That's all for now, I guess I should go pack that bag!

*Besos*

Procrastination Station

I did really well this week with getting ahead and staying ahead.  I have the rest of the semester planned, which is a nice feeling.  That's the easy part though.  When I say planned, I don't include handouts being made.  Soooo with that said I still have 3 finals to make and review packets to go along with them.  All before Thursday of this week.  It doesn't sound so bad and I've got some time, but it's seems daunting.  I had all this motivation yesterday when I left school, but now it's all gone.  Only 12 more school days until break though!

I've gotten no farther on my shopping, but have made progress on MY Christmas list.  I feel like I always have a hard time coming up with things that I want, are easy to find and aren't too expensive.  Here are some shirts I got for the kids...

I thought Sarah would like this one for Hailey.

Sooo excited to see Jacob in this!  It reminds me of Phi Mu :)

I just got schooled today on being a grown up in the winter (yes, it's still fall, but the temps say it's winter).  I looked at my power bill which is normally around 65 and it's 91 for this month.  This gives me yet another reason to hate cold weather, along with not being able to wear flip flops, my hair being in a constant state of static cling, it getting dark far too early, etc.

Buuttttt, winter does give me a fantastic reason to wear boots...with which I now have developed a small obsession.  I will hopefully be receiving these for Christmas :)

Super cute and I already know that they're comfortable because they're just like my gray ones.  I wore them Thursday and Friday and one of my students said "you really love those boots don't you?"  And I said...."yeah, I really do."

I'm starting to get pretty excited for the holidays.  Christmas will be a little weird this year because we won't be having the normal gathering on Dad's side on Christmas day because most people will be out of town.  It's just been postponed until Dad's family flies in from Pittsburgh, which means extra time with Mom's family that I normally don't get.  Unfortunately there will be no trip north to see Chris' family over break because I only get about a week and a half.  But I will get to see Chris when we fly to Virginia!  One of his brothers is getting married in Richmond on New Year's Eve so we're both pretty excited for that.  Tickets were a bit pricey, but that's expected for the time of the year, and we're saving money on a hotel because we're flying out at 6am on the 1st.  Our plan is to celebrate the new year until we have to go to the airport.  Should be a great time!

I'm excited for the next two weeks of my Psych class.  We're going to watch Winnie the Pooh one day and analyze/diagnose all of the characters with their respective disorders and then we're watching A Beautiful Mind at the beginning of the following week.  Such a great movie and definitely very applicable to that class.

*Besos*

Another Month Gone By

It's been a long time.  I had intended to keep this up to date fairly well, and then before I knew it a whole month had disappeared.  It was busy, it was happy, it was sad.

Dubuque was fantastic!  Alex scored 2 goals and drew a penalty kick for an assist.  I happened to get this fantastic shot of her first goal.

It doesn't look as good not zoomed in, but still pretty awesome.

Before I left Dubuque, I got a call from my Greek little-little sister informing me that one of our sisters passed away due to her Epilepsy.  I proceeded to cry in the middle of Wal-mart (Chris was really great though because he happened to be there), but made it through the next week alright.  Sometimes I still see things that make me think of her, like a picture at school that a student had drawn and signed her name.  Anytime I see those things, they make me smile because I know she's not really gone.

I got to go home the next weekend after 2 days of parent teacher conferences (I survived!).  It was really great seeing family again and attending Sarah's baby shower!  The next few weeks pretty much flew by with a weekend spent with college friends in St. Louis.  Thanksgiving was great.  I went to Chris' for the first part of the week and returned home on Friday.  Thursday night Alex and I went to Aurora, which turned out to be a huge bust, but you can't win 'em all.  Mom and I, of course, did some more shopping when I was home and I got to spend some time with the kids.  Hailey and I played Candy Land.  The tally is 1-1, I figured I'd keep track.  Jacob appears to be teething and is somewhat clingy recently and wanted to be held all the time....by Julie.  Luckily, when she was busy, "Narn" was an acceptable substitute.

I'm about halfway done with my Christmas shopping which I think is pretty good for the end of November.  I did start in October though :)  I'm hoping to be done within the next 2 weeks at the latest.  I'm trying to avoid the whole procrastinating thing as much as possible.

Last thing before I head to bed.  This is from my new favorite blog and it made me smile.

*Besos*

Off to Iowa

Another week is winding down.  It's been fairly stressful because I've been a little behind so I've been just keeping my head above water with grading, planning and making handouts and activities.  I feel like it's getting increasingly difficult because I keep trying to find new strategies to use in my classroom to keep things new and interesting, but I feel like it's so time consuming.  The workshops at school have been really helpful though.  I did survive my first quarter of the first semester though!  Which means I'm halfway done with my first semester.  If anyone has seen facebook, I made it through those first 9 weeks without wearing the same thing twice.  Not just combinations, but shirts also.  I rewore a dress yesterday that I'd already worn upon student request, and apparently it was the wrong one.  I'm just now getting into all my winter clothes, so I could have probably made it the rest of the semester.

I'm excited for another fun weekend!  Last weekend I had a great time playing with Hailey and Jacob and then I got dinner with Julie and Sandi at BWW's.  It was incredibly fun and I hope it will be repeated numerous times in the future.

This weekend I'm off to Dubuque, Iowa to see Alex play in her last regular season game.  A lot of Chris's family will be there also and it's always a lot of fun seeing them.  I'm looking forward to lots of fun and visiting, along with (hopefully) some Olive Garden.  Time to go pack and then head to bed for a school day full of vocab quizzes, Día de los Muertos, dreams and then a long drive to Dubuque.

*Besos*

Finally Friday

This week has gone fairly slowly, but it's finally over and I'm at home for the weekend.  I'm finally doing it right because the last 2 times I've been home, it was just for the day, or staying one night.  Tonight was really fun because I had dinner with Mom and then we went shopping at Target.  Where I got this fantastic quatrefoil mirror.

I just about fell over when I walked past it and I think Mom might have wondered what was wrong with me before she saw it.  It's black with red accents, the only bad part is I don't really think I'll have a use for it until I have my own place where I'm allowed to put nails in the walls.

School went really well today.  Possibly because Friday finally arrived, or because I like the subjects of the chapters better.  In Spanish 2 I taught the kids a song today about calling the docter and saying that certain body parts hurt.  They seemed to really enjoy it.  Then we played a form of pictionary with the vocab.  One of the kids asked "So is the just like a Friday free day?"  To which I replied, "Nope because we're using the vocab."  I told another teacher about it and he said that it's really great when the kids are learning, but they don't realize it.  We started this new vocab on Tuesday, and I feel like they already know it better than the last chapter.  Also I've got 2 kids who are finally stepping it up and it makes me incredibly happy.  I don't know if it's because it's the end of the quarter, or if they're finally getting interested, but I feel like things are starting to fall into place.  It's the encouragement that I've needed because things are starting to get a little more difficult.

Finally, I really like my main picture.  I couldn't decide on a picture that worked well and I finally found this one that I really liked.  I took it in Osaka Garden in Chicago.  The actual picture shows more and the bridge is not cut off the way it is on my blog.  But I really like how it is cut off because I feel like it's very uncertain as to where the bridge will lead and where the one would end up if they were to cross it.  :-)

*Besos*