my coworker now has a white elephant gift for next Christmas...and i have a warm fuzzy!

 WAIT! I MISSED IT! apparently today was national grilled cheese day....and i MISSED it!! boo. sigh. tear.

and moving right along..remember those squirrel underpants i got? no, seriously. well, today i gave them to a co-worker with a similar sense of humor to start friday out right! and in return i got a warm fuzzy! i remember hearing the story about warm fuzzies when i was younger, and i loved it, so when i saw them in her room a couple of months ago, it made me happy!

ahhhhh. warm fuzzy.

i seriously do love the idea of having the warm fuzzies as a special reward in class...

yesterday, as i was getting ready to go into a data meeting that we had already kinda discussed, i got an email about a spot observation on monday. i might not have been as focussed as i could have been. hmm. good times. so i had to clean up my room a bit. it's like mom's coming over, so you make your bed and pick up your socks. only no bed and no socks...and it's not my mom...

so that was the key pressure point of preparation and then i got an email this morning. i was very excited to get it! it was a request for ed-policy fellows to give testimony on the two bills that we called austin about on wednesday! they called the teaching trust and asked our group to go down again! how cool is that? this time we will be giving testimony for hb 2977 introduced by Villalba and Patrick's hb 1751. very exciting! this means that i will be using this weekend to read up and work on my testimony. a group of us will then meet up to talk over our work and our plans.

monday observation...tuesday testimony...wednesday morning fly back and pick up the latter half of the day and tutoring.  wednesday night 5 pm advisory committee for policy ed...busy week.

 so i need to think of some way to make it up to the boys..we're going to need to go to petsmart or something tomorrow, i think.

oh, and fyi, the diet is going great! no sugar except an occasional dark chocolate piece...no diet coke-no craving, no breads or chips...feeling like a cave man....can't wait till my 31 days are up. i want a slice of pizza. and the cake that i saw my assistant principal carrying yesterday!

'sweet' dreams (for everyone else),
julie

it's a good thing i never grew up on 'veggie tales' or i might feel a little guilty

well, so far so good-i have not hurt anyone.

since i decided on the no more diet coke, i also decided to get back on my diet...it's game time ya'all! went to sprouts on saturday and it was good to get back into the groove! yesterday i made my meals for the week-i'll be partaking of a taco-ish salad, lettuce wraps, tahini-tomato stuffed chicken breast, bun-less burgers...i got it covered!

lots of veggies and fruits

i had to throw out a bunch of stuff that i know i cannot have, so that i won't be tempted by it! tomorrow i will have test #1: they provide the best catered meals for our tues. night ed-policy class! i will take my meal with me and pretend that it is whatever they are having!

the boys are pretty excited about the new meal plan because they really like carrots and apples. silly boys.

and another fun little treat was the groupon that i took advantage of today-a little facial and massage action! woo hoo! (i really don't treat myself often enough) i feel relaxed just thinking about it! it was hard to pass up because it was so cheap!

i would like to take just a moment to recognize the passing of one of america's great mousekateer icons, annette funicello.

as well, may margaret thatcher rest in peace! the iron lady-with a will of steel; such a determined ally in step with president reagan. when i was mentioning thatcher and reagan to the boys, they got all excited, because they were thinking of the politicians' namesakes, b-mayes' boys, up in wyoming. they miss getting together to play! then i started to explain the powerful duo and first chaco walked away, then bruno after feigning interest for about 30 seconds, yawned and went to the screen door to enjoy the breeze (as opposed to the hot air). they have no idea!

julie

sorry girl scouts...i'm going to have to pass...i really AM on a diet-not like all the other people who walked by and stole my line!

shopping for produce today was ridiculous! we'll see how long i can make it last. i am pretty excited about trying some new recipes.

i also decided that it is probably a good thing that i don't have kids-i would go broke! i am slightly impulsive:

i went into petsmart for greenies...i came out with a bag full of dog treats that will last us awhile.ugh. must gain control!

i'm excited to get started reading a new book i just got.it was a suggestion from a dear friend in iowa-my former Bible quizzing leader. i want to start when i have time to thoroughly enjoy it, uninterrupted.

 but it won't be this weekend! i should be grading some assessments right now, so as soon as i finish this post i'll be back to the tests..bruno again offered to help, but he scores high. chaco won't even read them because: "there's no pictures!" 

today when i went to walmart, the girl scouts or brownies or someone pretending to be girl scouts...were outside the door selling cookies. i didn't even want any. i tried to avoid eye-contact as i was going in, but they caught me on the way out. "hi ma'am! would you like to buy some girlscout cookies?!" and i'm sure it sounded like a lame excuse that they'd heard all day, "no, i'm actually on a diet." i'm sure the mom was sitting back there thinking, "yeah, right, stop lying to my girls." and i almost felt like saying, "i'm serious! let me show you my bags! you'll see-it's all vegetables and fruit! and some meat...." but i didn't, i kept walking. but i almost went back to give them a few bucks as a donation, until i thought, "why should i feel guilty? i donate to other causes that are pretty darned important. you can't save the world." don't get me wrong, i like girlscouts-i was a brownie and  got all the little patches (bird-watching, toilet cleaning, etc).

alright, back to grading, because it's so much fun.
julie