Rrrrrrr!

What's a pirate's favorite letter? Have you been to the latest pirate movie? Yeah, I have quite a repertoire of pirate jokes. So you can imagine my excitement when my school put on the musical Pirates of Penzance Jr. this week. They did an awesome job! We have some talented kids (and chorus teachers!). One of the parts of the musical are these ditzy daughters of the general... one of whom falls in love with Frederick, the pirate done with his indentures. During the preshow peptalk, Mrs. B E, the 7th grade choir teacher, told the "daughters" that everyone laughs at their ditzy parts. She wanted to get the message across that they should go overboard on their acting, so finally she said, "Girls, be daughters on crack!" After some startled looks and much laughter, she revised it to "Or, how about daughters after drinking lots of pop!" Yeah, a bit more middle-school appropriate! : )

Just gotta love 'em or something...

Tuesday marked the beginning of the end. The first day of the last quarter. Phew! We made it! I have a whole new group of kiddos and for the most part I think this is going to be a great quarter. I do have one child in particular that is going to drive me up a wall. I just know it. Here is a snippit of life with dear little D.

Assignment: Fill out notecard with name you like to be called and answer questions such as "Where would you like to sit if you could choose? Who do you work well with? How do you learn best?", etc. I have read the directions, explained the questions, given examples and left them on the overhead.

D: "Mrs. J. should I put my name on this?"

EJ: "Yes, D. please check the direction sheet one more time.

D: "But Mrs. J. should I put my full name?"

EJ: "What do the directions say?"

D: "They say to put the name I want to be called."

D: "But Mrs. J., do you want me to put my number from Mr. S's room?"

EJ: "What do you think?" (inside.... "aaaaaaaaaah")

D: "What is this wire basket under my desk for? It looks like it holds books."

Yes.... and this was the first like 10 minutes.


The Life Skills teacher, Mrs. L. said that one day she was doing a foods lab. The kids saw ALL of the ingredients laid out on the countertop. Dear, sweet, curious D watched Mrs. L. add all the ingredients while talking about what to do. Dear, sweet, curious D still had to ask, "But Mrs. L, did you put raisins in those cookies?" Ahhh, life with middle schoolers who don't yet have their prefrontal cortex developed.

Still got it...

My Grandpa turns 85 this week. But really, age is just a number - he and my Grandma stay very active and involved. We celebrated with a little food and a lot of good company. And for my family the party isn't complete without some pinochle. But, JJ and I added a new game tradition - we brought our wii along for the weekend. We played countless games of tennis, bowling and even broke out the new Olympic game. My G'pa used to bowl in a league for many years. I even remember it. So, I challenged him to a game. He beat me. I swear I wasn't going easy on him either! I was so impressed with how he picked it back up right away. He even remembered which buttons to push on the wiimote. So there was the occasional shot to the audience (when he accidentally threw his ball backwards), but who hasn't done that? I told him to keep his arm fresh because I want a rematch when we come back to visit!

2 Dresses. . .

Yes, I am 25 short. I was fortunate to be a moh (maid (ahem -- matron) of honor) in my best friend TAF's wedding, which was so much fun. Now, I was thrilled to be asked to be a bridesmaid in my friends CA and JPJ's wedding. JJ is the best man. He's THE man this summer with two best man jobs. Anyways, CA let us pick our own dresses, with guidelines of course. They are getting married 06-07-08 (which could be a blessing OR curse to JPJ ---- HOW could you forget??!). It felt like grown-up prom (but much more special and important) getting to choose my dress. Here is a picture - but it'll be in "clover" a bright pretty green. Isn't it lovely? Of course being excited about CA and JPJ's big day and helping them plan are much higher on my list than loving my dress, but you know, the dress-picking was fun just the same.

Michael??

Overheard while students were finishing their podcasts:

"Wow! That's really long!"

"That's what she said."


What?! 6th graders don't know about that kind of humor do they?? This guy must've taken lessons from Michael Scott (MS)...

Teachey Blogs

I love the magazine Instructor. Probably most teachers received it free for a year or something. I did that and then kept receiving it because I enjoyed it so much. I find lots of worthwile ideas and info. - a lot from readers who write in. At times I feel it is a *bit* liberal, but that's another story. This month's edition includes four popular teacher blogs:

It's Not All Flowers an Sausages (my fav. from the list)
Hipteacher
What It's Like on the Inside
Bluebird's Classroom

As Instructor states, "21% of teachers have visited online teacher blogs for an uncensored glimpse into what's really going on in their colleagues' heads." For me, it's just nice to know that I'm not the only one who goes through some of the things I go through (i.e. puke, funny stories, funny kids, colleagues from h-e-double hockey sticks, colleagues that make me want to come to school at times, etc.!).

To change or not to change. . .

Dilema alert! Sometimes I have such a hard time making up my mind. This happens to me in all facets of my life - from too many choices at Coldstone to how I should present a lesson at school. I've currently been wrestling with the idea of if I should ACTUALLY use my Master's degree or not. I've been basically offered a position in Special Education and I'm really feeling driven to take it lately. I LOVE LOVE LOVE my job as a foreign language teacher, but I only have a minor in Spanish and that is only one of the languages I teach. Even describing it here I feel more sided with sp.ed. but I just never considered foreign langauge teaching before I got the job so it's just wierd to even be thinking that I could be choosing between different areas of teaching. I've made a (quite long actually) list of positives and negatives for and against both sp.ed. and foreign languages. I'm *trying* to be better at placing this in God's hands, but it is so tough for a control freak like me! If you have a chance, a little prayer for discernment would be much appreciated!

Facebook...

Facebook seems to just STEAL my time away from me. I sit down to check my email and all of a sudden it's an hour later. How does that happen?? I am currently addicted to the scrabble addition. Some of my friends don't quite feel comfortable with it, and I definitely see their point. I try not to put too much info. out there, but it has been really fun connecting with old friends. I have been so bad at keeping in contact or staying in touch with friends from high school especially... but now even from college. It is so easy to write a quick note or view status updates to at least find out a bit about what people have been up to. It is so crazy who is married to who and who is in what job and who's having babies (EVERYONE's having babies!!). I guess we're just at "that age". So anyways... Facebook and I have a love/hate relationship. I enjoy it, but waste way too much time with it!

Weekend update

Friday during 5th period I started feeling really icky. EVERYONE at school has been coming down with something. One day for example, there was only one teacher from one of the teams -- the rest were subs! Anyways, I knew I had to take it easy this weekend. Friday I basically did absolutely nothing. Saturday, I scrapbooked almost all day. It was wonderful! I fully updated our "every day" scrapbook as well as my Dad (WK)'s scrapbook. For one of my Dad's bday's, I gave him an empty scrapbook and ever since I have been taking extra pictures and giving him new pages whenever I finish them. My friend JAP saved us from our seclusion by coming over to "work" on her resume (code word for use our internet to check her facebook and email). Then our friend JPJ suggested going to a movie, so we watched Vantage Point --- I thought it was an excellent movie! Interesting twist on an action movie! Today, we went to Church -- Matthew West (MW) was the worship leader this weekend! It was fabulous! He is so talented and worship-filled. He has a great story and was just awesome! Pastor PK also had a great message. Then we did a little grocery shopping. JJ has spring break this week (so jealous....) so I'm defintely giving him a list of things to do -- including making supper! Back at home, I worked on some school-work -- got ready for the week and so on. Then, I did some stamping. I was feeling wonderfully creative, so it was a productive session. Even though we didn't "do" a lot, I really felt like I accomplished everything I needed to (including veging out so I wouldn't get sick!).

Sad news

I wish this note could be happy and upbeat, but that just isn't going to happen today. Yesterday was just a drainer. One of my coworkers (AB-E) lost her baby and she was between 4 and 5 months pregnant. It is just so tough. I can't imagine. She and her husband were SO excited to get pregnant and then... the worst news ever. She was back at school yesterday. She is so brave. I would be like I'm done. See you next year or something. She said she just needed to get over that first day. She needed to share her story and get support. She is an amazing lady. One of the comments she made has just resonated with me. Icky people have babies all the time. People who abuse them. People who don't have the resources to care for them. People who are on drugs, who don't even want them, and the list goes on. It's just not fair. It's tough to bring it back to my faith. I know God has a plan. I know His hand is in all things and He can bring us out of these lowest moments. I just don't know why... and I suppose that is why He is God and I am NOT.

Scatterbrain!

Oh dear! To tell you how my life has been lately, JJ greeted me at the door tonight with "I'm glad your head is still attached." Oh dear indeed! So it all started Friday evening... although I didn't discover it until Sunday morning! Sunday as we were getting ready for Church, I realized that I didn't have my purse. After running around our apt. like a chicken with its head cut off, I decided that it must be in my car. Since JJ has STILL not had time to renew his license from his bday, I do like to make sure that we are driving legally! We got in the car and no purse. I must've overlooked it somewhere in our apt. (with our clutter, it's not a far-fetched idea), I thought.

On to Church with a beautiful message regarding Compassion International and Sean Groves even lead worship.

But, I digress. When we got back to our apt., I thus commenced running around like a chicken with its head off. At one point, I even yelled at JJ, "You're not looking hard enough! If you don't even care then I won't either." Yes, I fight like a two year-old. Complete with pouting. We finally realized that I must've left it at Walmart -- it was the last place I remembered having it. I was scared to death with this reality because I left the cart outside when I left. I called Walmart as soon as they opened at noon and...... they had my purse!

So today my dilema was I thought I lost my cellphone. We don't have a land line, so our cellphones are really important. JJ was proctering a test (he's a Chem. TA), and since we share a car, sometimes he likes a ride home -- especially in this frigid windy coldness. I resorted to iming CPJ to call my phone. While waiting for him to respond, JJ came home, called my phone, and it was UNDER our bed. Our bed has drawers underneath it so to get it underneath is quite the feat. Wish me luck with the rest of my things/rest of my week!

God Bless you all!

Officially Addicted

Hi. My name is EJ and I am an Office addict. "Hello EJ..." Yes, it started with an innocent gift from Santa and turned into an outright addiction. Santa gave me Season 2 of the Office, which I was superpumped about. Two of my brothers-in-law BJ and CPJ came for the weekend and we decided to pull them out. We watched ALL of Season 2 and went on to Netflix to watch Season 3. JJ even hooked up the computer to the TV to play them through the TV. It worked out really well after a quick trip with BJ to Target for an S video cord, oh, and of course to Culvers for some custard! If you don't believe I am completely addicted, I will leave you with this statement: I came up with a dance to the opening song. heehee

Parties, Parties, Parties

I am learning that teachers enjoy "parties" immensly. Just in the last two weeks there have been five parties that I have been invited to and I'm sure there were others within my school happening. People like the chance of getting free stuff by being a hostess and teachers enjoy time outside of class to spend together. I was sucked into this world quite easily actually. I went to my friend SM's lia sophia party and bought some Christmas gifts, no biggie. But then I decided to host a party... duh duh duuuuh. It was really fun to hang out with friends in our teeny-tiny apartment and check out the products. I got some hostess prices and free stuff too, which was very fun. I do, however, always feel awkward and hope people don't feel like they should buy stuff. I was explaining this to my friend JAP, and my mom EK joked that I should've done this BEFORE the party! : ) The shipment of jewelry already came and I'm superexcited about it. JJ of course doesn't feel like I benefited at all by hosting since I would've saved money by not buying anything at all. He doesn't quite get the woman philosophy of you have to buy to save! : )

Sioux-per!

I have to respond to my brother-in-law CPJ's comment. It's funny that you mention the Sioux game because if you had been in GF you would have realized that ALL of Saturday I was literally reinacting the AMAZING game winning goal of Friday night. Yeah. People were giving me lots of strange looks (but what's new really?) : ) Seriously, ET (ha! Before this blog, I never really paid attention to people's initials!) Evan Trupp made a once-in-a-lifetime shot. It was exciting to watch! Go Sioux!

And, the Super Bowl was CRAZY as well! My friend JAP : ) was like we should root for the Giants. I was like, "Ok, but.. the Pats are going to hand it to them." Yeah... riiiight. All I can say is some lucky people had to have won some big money in Vegas! Oh, and I can also say the commercials were a disappointment for the most part. booo...

JJ's Bday Party Extravaganza!

My husband is OLD! : ) We celebrated JJ turning a year older for a whole day! We started with some outdoor hockey -- yeah -- a little crazy considering it's subzero. JJ has some hearty friends who were willing to bundle up and head out! After some Jimmy Johns (provided by my parents EK and WK), the boys headed out to watch a movie while the girls came to our place for a lia sophia jewelry party. Our friend JBP just laughs about what girls get together for. Then, we met for some Paradiso (and a free meal for JJ). And finally, we headed back to our place for some bday cake (made by JJ! but decorated by me). Yum!


One of the quotes of the day: Said confidently by JAP, "We'll it's Groundhog's Day, March 3rd."

P.S. No, I am not unAmerican, I am typing this while I'm watching the great commercials, ahem, Super Bowl.