yoda would own bonsai trees...and ghosts probably don't even need headbands

this morning, on the way to work, for some reason unbeknownst to me, i was thinking about parts of speech. the only year that vividly sticks out in my mind with parts of speech, was the year that miss lava was my teacher (10th grade? 11th?) anyhoo, i remember diagramming sentences and while i didn't understand the 'why', i was pretty good at it. i was sitting in my car at the corner of valley view and marsh, creating sentences and asking myself, if i were diagramming, i know that it is a pronoun, but what is it replacing in the sentence: it wasn't long before i realized the truth. then i kept modifying the sentence, trying to improve it. who am i? i mean..who does that? (p.s. 'it' is replacing a period of time)

let's see...what else has happened lately that you NEED to know? well, it was our turn to fill the trophy case last week, so here's my rendering:

so many of my finest moments...please feel free to click on this to make it whole screen, because there are some doozies in there! (proud of it) missing: pics with bmayes, shea, stevie...i had to pare down my pics because they wouldn't all fit! the story of my life was not meant to fit on one small bulletin board, but at least it's a taste!

it's been a busy couple of weeks working with fifth grade and helping out with the bilingual students and their reading...it feels a bit like a triage unit! hopefully we have stopped some of the hemorrhaging and there will be less clean-up on aisle 5...i jest so i don't cry. but i will say this- i am proud of how far they have come this year with their teacher, and how much more prepared they will be for next year!!

i am still craving a particular caramel/sea salt muffin. i went to central market and whole foods and one of them said, "no, it's seasonal." (?????) how is caramel and sea salt seasonal, please.  i know how caramel is made and i know sea salt is available over approximately 71% of the earth surface, daily...so, help a kid out! i settled for sugar free baklava. is that illegal? i only did it because the label said: 15 calories..until i ate half the box and realized that there was a second column labeled: calories from fat: 85. oops.

completely worth it! 

and then there's our garden...getting into the swing of things again! tomato plants are on the loose! and pepper plants are going strong. also in the works: garlic, onions, lavender, oregano, lemon basil, lettuce, cauliflower, beans, peas, cucumbers and if we can get the dirt from the front of the building into the last bed, we will have honeydew or watermelon! also considering pumpkin.

already, the tomatoes are showing promise! earlier than i expected-SO EXCITED!!

when i got home from work today, bruno brought his ghost to me, shaking the tar out of it (and that's saying a lot because there wasn't any tar in it to begin with!)...so...he just looked up at me and said, "i ain't afraid of no ghost!" going all ghostbuster on me...please note that ghosts have orange bandanna headbands-when they wear them..it seems to be a disputed fact, as when they have been spotted, it's a rather transparent orange, so..different camps have different theories on that...i'm going petsmart on this one. invisible or not, the headband is most likely orange...and why wouldn't it be? (although, some of the younger critics who are still having pronunciation difficulties say it's boo...[if you didn't get it, i won't judge you, no worries] dummy). 

i told him if he was well enough to play with ghosts, he was probably well enough to do chores...#immediatelydropsghost

and as i was walking the building the other day, looking at writing samples, i came across this:

had i known there was a potion...

i also got the opportunity to lend my services to a couple of friends and colleagues at a nearby school. (let's face it, there is nothing quite as satisfying as being able to share something or help someone else out). and it was really heart-warming to receive a completely unexpected gift! well played, martha!

i mean, amidst the clutter that is my desk, this is a haven of peace during a stressful day! it calms me! AND i feel a little like mr miyagi....who is very similar to yoda..i think if they had bonsai trees on his remote planet, he would most certainly have an orchard-full!

and my parents are thinking, "where did we go wrong?"

so..i mentioned about bruno being on a special diet from now until the end of time..well, there are no treats for him. so  i asked the banfield manager-guy, and he said, "well, you can get the canned food and smush it into little balls and use that as a treat."  so, i put on my latex gloves and tried to make a ball out of the slimy little chunky squares of dog nastiness. and of course it didn't work. i'm sure he thought he was being a clever problem-solver. i give him an f+. so i ended up turning on the oven, blending the whole can of dogfood in the ninja, then smearing it onto parchment paper in thin little clumps to create potato-like chips...it worked, and they crisped up. the dogs both love them, so i am getting rid of their treats and moving in this direction, because i am kind of wondering if the treats may have contributed to his condition in the first place? idk...self-diagnosed prognosis.

and while the boys absolutely love it, the fact remains that i live in a tiny apartment, and there isn't much room for the smell of baked dog food to dissipate. #sadfaceemoticon gotta do what's best for the kids!

alright, i think i am out of gas-
julie

living dangerously-licking the food processor blade!

why is it that when i start to watch the foods that i put into my body, the dog food all of a sudden looks like my favorite childhood cereal-cocoa puffs? i just kinda' wanted to pour some milk in...

but, that said...the time has come. no avocado will ever go bad under my watch again! i am smitten by the 'chocolate' avocado mousse! ayayayaiiiii! (is there a good way to spell that?) so yes, i portioned it out and then licked the bowl...and brought 'licking the beaters' to a whole new level! with extreme skill and unbelievable deftness, i carefully removed all of the mousse from the food processor blade...like a ninja! (a ninja who licks blades on large kitchen utensils).

i spent a whole lot of time watching webinars on saturday, and the one i really enjoyed the most introduced this great tool called thinglink. check out the presenter's blog-susan oxnevad; solid! i've embedded a simple thinglink from the first picture i could find on my computer. it should be on the right hand side of the screen-
let's see how this works!

the other gadget that has already come in very handy for me is the camscanner app. great for scanning and straightening, flattening..it uploads really quickly to my google drive as well; love it!

i will be out at a training tomorrow for thinking maps-which is a uniform graphic organizer across the campus. we've been using them for awhile now, so it will be good for me to get a little refresher. we began using it as a campus, and this year we began diving into their writing program. basically it helps students learn to structure their thinking. and i believe that our focus on writing has gotten better. i'm so proud of the work that our teachers have put into the kids and their writing! it's great to walk down the hallway and see writing samples in different content areas!

today i went to a thinking maps training, and it was really good! i wish we were using them well. we've begun to implement usage, but i just experienced how impactful(yes, made up word, deal with it) they can be! right now we are mostly using them as graphic organizers, but not really getting the real THINKING part out of them!

my table was a pretty good group of ladies-engaged. i came back from the restroom and one of the ladies had her ipad out and was telling them about this app she found and insisted on taking a pic of the girl across the table. it was the aging app for the kids' 100 days. well, i've seen it because we have a teacher who has used it on his kiddos the past couple of years-so fun! it didn't seem as fun to me to do with adults, (i passed). this was some time just after lunch, and she had to ask the girl's name-ha! none of us had introduced ourselves early on, but we were working like pros who'd known each other forever! i don't remember any of their names. (i am convinced that i do not need to remember the names of every person i meet! #notashamed!)

p.s. we're over 100 days into school! that means we're closer to getting out!
julie

new mantra: find a quarter, pick it up...kid who lost it, you're out of luck.

if i have spelling errors tonight, please feel free to overlook them, as my eyelids are heavy. it has been a super long first week. who knew that sitting with the students during lunch every day could take that much out of you! ok, maybe it was actually the long busy week and weekend before the first day, and the long day with meet the teacher, and trying to get things right that actually made it so exhausting.

routines, routines, routines. i am so thankful that this is a long weekend, because i have some things i need to create to really make some of those routines work better.

and when i got back to school, here is the poster that they have up:

really? why didn't they do this last year? what a joke, we did so well as a school last year!! jerks. oh well.

one morning i was walking down the hallway and saw a penny on the floor. now, everyone remembers the chant: find a penny, pick it up; all day long you'll have good luck. (but only if the penny is on heads, ya?) well, i didn't pick it up, penny shmenny...i was waiting for bigger and better...like a 5 spot maybe? because let's be honest, a 40th of that penny goes to the government...which would leave me with what, part of lincolns hairdo? well, since no bills showed up all day long, when i saw this quarter in the parking lot, i DID pick it up! we're in a recession yo! besides, i'll need it to go with a dolla if i find myself in a diet coke panic at any point! (hasn't happened yet, but one never knows).

i remember when i was younger (like 3rd-4th grade young) and my friend nathan and i would go down to the gas station down the hill and check for change from the phones-yep, remember when you could pop in a nickle or a dime to make a call?! well, we would always scrounge hoping that someone hadn't checked for the change after hanging up, or the change slot in the coke machine-the old ones that had the glass bottles that you pay the money, then open the door...well, once i got older, i would leave some change once in awhile to make the day of a kid, but not these days! sorry kids, tough luck!

new mantra: find a quarter, pick it up...kid who lost it, you're out of luck.

i did pretty good this week with my meals, and water drinking-i've gone through almost my first 5-gallon at school. i forgot my drink receptacle today, so i had to pull out my RED SOLO CUP!  and so all day long i was singing to myself, "let's have a party!" i remember being on a huge toby keith kick-thanks, jory!  anyhoo, as i was walking around with my RED SOLO CUP!  i was wondering what is the significance at school of the colored solo cups, because i know they have certain messages on the college scene....well, when we got to the cafeteria and ate with the kids, i was reminded that in elementary school-cabell at least-the RED SOLO CUP! means shut up. be quiet at least and eat your food!

then today, the day we were supposed to be able to leave early, there was a retirement party for frank, our hard-working, always willing to do whatever is needed custodial staff:

i wish i were retiring! i'd take the boys down to utila or roatan and live it up!!!

in fact, this week has been so tiring that i had not gotten over to get dog food, and the boys were looking hungry last night, so i had some of the food i was using for chaco when he was littler with the liver issues, and i put some of it out. they looked at me like...really? but they ate a little of it. then i felt bad, so i gave them some chicken i had just poached, which they really liked. so tonight we went over to petsmart to grab a small bag of food. which led us to the greenies, and on the way toward checkout, we found frankenstein...it was a must.

"aw, hey mama! thanks! i love our new franken-ball-squeaky thing!"

"in fact, i love him SO much that i am going to rip the stitching out of his mouth and kill his squeaker!"

the boys are very happy that it is a long weekend as well. it has been a rough week on chaco. he has not liked me leaving every morning. #anxietyattacks! we're just going to sleep in and enjoy it. (reminds me of the commercial with the lady who needs glasses calling in the 'cat' [raccoon] "please come snuggles with momma!")

hope everyone enjoys this labor day weekend! wear those white shoes one more time this weekend and then put them away!

julie

time to change the flapper! (good thing i don't have to say that very often)

two days at school and i got my last grades in, as well as filling out the cumulative folders-what a joy to be done with that! every year i end up not getting around to it until the last day when everyone else is finishing their room or playing cards, i sit laboring on those darned folders! boo.

and friday was field day, so i started the day off with the kids outside, "helping" with the events for about 2 hours, then i pulled out the gimp-card, and went up to my classroom to lay down on my carpeting and relax my back. that helped a ton (although my room was frigid, and i really could've used a blanket!)

this morning i took the boys to petsmart (they haven't gone with me in ages), so they were very excited and they loved the attention! until the old italian lady who didn't speak english saw them and rushed over and tried to go after chaco..he ran behind me to hide and did his little growl thing...so she went for bruno, who kind of backed up and looked at her with pleading eyes, but she picked him up anyway-without even asking. who does that??

i had to get dog food for them because i ran out and was resorting to the old prescription liver-food that i had leftover for when chaco was younger. so i got the big bag. i did look at the weight of the bag...it was a 15 lb bag, so i kinda' slid it into the cart and then from the cart to the car.

then i headed to the only arby's i'm aware of on midway because i've been craving their philly cheesesteak sandwich! well, sadly when i got there, it was boarded up and they have apparently closed down. so i went to the next thing i've been craving...

love their burgers and fries!!

when i got home, i did the responsible thing. i scooped out a bunch of the dog food into a plastic bag and brought that up so that i could feed them, and that way the bag would be about 10 lbs-my max-and i could bring it up later.

dropped some kibbles on the ground...leaving a trail...just a snack for others who are walking their dogs in the parking lot.

when i got upstairs, at some point i had to flush the toilet, but the water kept running. good thing i'm handy...i took off the toilet back and the flapper was practically disintegrated, so i had to run out and purchase a new one. i wish i'd realized this when mom and dad were here, because it would have been one more thing to keep him busy!

anyhoo, i wasn't sure what the part was called that i needed, so i looked it up and found this really cool website that shows how a toilet works...it is interactive and you can push the button to make the toilet flush...

i may or may not have flushed the online toilet several times...

then i headed off to the hardware store to buy me a flapper!

fixed!

i guess i could've called the apt. office and have the maintenance men do it, but i'm sure they have bigger fish to fry, and i'm not patient enough to wait!

hmm...what do you do if your toilet is running? GO CATCH IT!!! good to have a recycled joke once and awhile.
happy memorial day weekend!
julie

it may be a green bag, but at least it's an honest bag!

while i was in oklahoma, kb mentioned how dogs curled their tongues to bring the water up under their tongues when they lap water...so i had to find a video! check it out here on a discovery video-very cool (and short). no wonder bruno hates it when i force drink (force feed...) the water with the syringe-so unnatural to him! so every time he drinks from the glass bowl, i watch and blink my eyes really fast (to make it look like slow motion frames-try it, but be careful, because it could be addictive...and no one wants to be known as the 'lady-who-cannot-stop-blinking,' it's almost as bad as the professor who spits when he lectures).

today my goal was to get dog food (that's right, set your goals high...that's what i always tell the kiddos!), i also went to get a new shoulder-bag because chaco has ruined the strap and i can only cut off so many of the fraying strands before the strap no longer holds the bag up. i've put up with the tape and frayed strands for about 3 months now, it was time.

my biggest grievance was that when i got to rei, they didn't have the exact same bag-in black. so i opted for the green one. who cares-i've never been a fashionista anyway. while i was at there, i decided to look around the camping section and i was so thankful for the nonstop chatter-girl who was talking to the associate, that way i didn't have to talk to him. (too much customer service is a bad thing). anyway, she had her big dog with her and was talking about a 14 mile hike and then sleeping in her car. and how her dog was great because he doesn't drink stagnate water, but he will drink from running water. (fyi lady, if your dog is thirsty enough, i'll bet money he'll drink stagnate water). then i saw the store associate try to break away toward me, but she kept talking to him about the next thing she saw and i was able to slip to a different section of the store.

once i found the bags i was looking for, they didn't have an identical to mine, so i settled. it basically looks the same. just that it's green (as i mentioned before).

the tag says 'simply honest bags'...i guess that's a good thing-i wonder what a dishonest bag looks like.

there was another lady standing beside me and she was looking for a bag because she had one in europe, but it just didn't work for her. she told me she 'found the perfect one at marshalls of all places' and for 17 bucks, i thought that should be a no brainer-if she liked it, she should've gotten it then. (or maybe she was just a marshall's spy/advertiser sent to other stores to lure customers to the marshalls around the corner).

my last stop was the dog food and as i was leaving, i saw this car and i'm pretty sure it is not a mary kay rep car...perhaps a pepto bismol door-to-door sales person.

i remember when we were in honduras the last couple of years, my parents got a celebrity and it was powerful and really comfortable! but it wasn't pink. thank goodness!

and that's a wrap-time to check on my homemade fruit rollups and prepare tomorrow's lesson!

remember go green-it's the new black!
julie