Snowy morning... last moments of freedom!

So I'm back in the Springs. Its hard to come back to an empty apartment after being home with the family. Luckily I have a pooperdog and a fat kitty that make it not quite so empty. Fatness was VERY happy to see me yesterday and didn't leave my lap all evening. It was nice to wake up during the night and have him purring right next to me :) I love my kitty!

This morning I woke up to snow! yay for snow :) Its only an inch or so, but its nice and white and wintery. Sherlock and I went out very early and played in the snow for a while. Sherlock LOVES snow :) He is so funny! Since then I have been hanging out in my pjs and working on school stuff. Luckily I don't have to go to the store because my mommy sent me home with LOTS of leftovers :) However I do have to shower and get dressed sometime soon because I'm headed over to Marci's to babysit Nathan for the afternoon while Marci and Jeff get some date-time and go see the Nutcracker. I'm excited to hang out and play with the kiddo for the afternoon.

Oh I also got this picture in my email and figured you all would like to see the wonderful friends I have here. This is (left to right) Pam, Jessica, Marci, and me at Marci's house. Yay us! :)

A lazy but productive day...

Is that an oxymoron? :) Well that's the kind of day it was anyway! I got up to have breakfast with my mom and aunt (Dad left eeearrrlly to go visit my nephews... lucky bum!) and then I got started on more laundry (I did a bunch yesterday, and some more today. Yay for clean clothes!) Aunt Barb went back to Denver and stopped to feed the Fat Kitty on her way.

While laundry-doing I filled out my emergency licensure form (so I can take over the classroom come January without someone else being there) I also filled out some other CC paperwork, and organized my messy teacher-bag.

Then I went out to play with my pooperdog and clean out Cujo. He was VERY dirty and VERY happy to get vacuumed :) He also got a snow-bath last night... so he's relatively clean inside and out! Sherlock also played in the snow and lost his tennis ball somewhere... oh well, we have 43 more :)

Then my mommy and I had quiche for lunch. MMMMMMMmmmmmm!!!! Lunch was followed by some lazy couch time while re-sewing buttons on my coat (it has taken me forever to find purple thread!) Then I took a short nap followed by some more productive paperwork stuff. Then my mommy made caramelized pork for dinner. Mmmmmmmmmmm again! And I did the dishes (I got the better end of that deal I tell ya!) Now I'm toasting my toes by the fire and occasionally going out to throw a stick for a dog who is having a ball in the snow (lots melted today but more is falling now!)

All of this productiveness was accomplished without getting out of my pjs :) Thus it was a very lazy and productive day!

MMmmmmm... sleep

So I drove up to the parent's house yesterday (Sherlock wasn't thrilled with the trip as there was a laundry basket taking up half his backseat). I helped Mom make two kinds of cookies (and made sure the dough was ok too!) and then we had home-made pizza for dinner. Yum! After dinner I was feeling very very sleepy, so I decided around 7:30 that I would go crawl in bed. I set the Ipod sleep timer for an hour and was asleep before it went off. I woke up a few times to roll over and go back to sleep and then got up about 8:30 this morning. Apparently I was very tired!! :)

Now there is a turkey cooking, my Aunt Barb is here to munch with us, and Sherlock is snoozing by the door (after a long walk and playing with a stick this morning) Its nice to be home with my family.

Love to all! :)

Dear Mr. Craig...

Your new movie kicks some serious Bond Bootie :) I went and saw it with my friend Marci last night (with a diet coke, some hot tamales, two peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, and some rainbow nerds) and it was fantastic! I think even the biggest blow-things-up action fan (Psst... Kyle) would say that this movie was about as action packed as you could get.

My only suggestion for next time, on behalf of the females in the audience, please give us a little more than one scene with your shirt off!!! :) If you need any help rehearsing don't hesitate to give me a call!

There will be days like this...

Today sucked. I know I can't control what other people do. I know things won't always go the way I want them to. I know the kids will have off days. But when you have a sucky day, none of that really makes you feel better.

At least tomorrow is Friday.

The Best Balloon Factory!

hee hee.... now you are wondering what in the world??? :) So every Tuesday I leave school a bit early to get back to CC for seminar. Supposedly these are mini-classes that are on very helpful topics (classroom management, ELL students, RTI stuff) --

Let me just interrupt myself and say that teachers have more freakin' acronyms than anyone else on this planet! RTI, CBM, ELL, ILP, SCR, CRAZY! Its ridiculous!!

Anyway -- so sometimes seminar is helpful and sometimes its a colossal waste of my time... and today was more towards the time wasting, but it was still fun because of the activity we did. I think the point of it was to compare individual work with division of labor/production line. However, me and my super-fun partner (that would be "my super-fun partner and I" if I was being grammatically correct, but I'm not) kicked all the assembly line peoples booties! We made a total of 16 super-duper-fantastic hot air balloons (out of paper of course) in 15 minutes. We even had happy face balloons, holiday theme balloons (Christmas and Halloween) and seasonal balloons (flowers, fall leaves). We rocked :) I think we may have messed up the presenter's point... but oh well :)

On the not-so-random side of life... both meetings on Monday went very well, and today I got my review of my first formal evaluation (from last week) back and I did very well. Yay me! Two days down, three to go!

I think I'm ready!

Well the pupper and I enjoyed a wonderful meander through the woods. He chased some squirrels, I got my fresh air and sunshine. Then he practiced his stick-rescuing skills (aka went swimming in the reservoir) while I read a few of the books our reading groups are reading this week (Sarah, Plain and Tall and The Chocoloate Touch). Then it was off to the grocery store where (my mommy will be so proud) I saved almost $7 with my cupons!

When we got home it was a toss up between an early dinner or a late nap, so I voted for the early dinner and made myself lamb, salad, and butternut squash. MMmmmmmmm!! Especially the squash. Kyle use to say I would turn orange because of all the squash I can eat! :)

For the last couple hours I have been working on lesson plans for this week and I think I'm ready (for Monday and Tuesday at least!) Time to do a quick Sunday evening cleanup of the house and then to bed early!