17 and a half, but who's counting? and sidenote-i hate working out. just wanted to put that out there.

did i watch the world cup games today? why, as a matter of fact, i did! i don't watch sports on tv like i used to. i had a streak when i was an avid american football watcher (pro, not college), but i have lost interest in that-mostly because of the ridiculous fame and fortune piece, and the ludicrous amount of money they make and the terrible role models that so many of them are.

that said, the fact that so many of my friends are into futbol, i have decided that it is something that i am willing to get back into. it goes with the idea of being knowledgeable about the things your friends and family are interested in so that you can have intelligent discussions or at least know what is being talked about. ;) the only game i'm truly interested in is when HONDURAS plays. call me biased...it's ok, do it! i AM BIASED! and just for the record, if the US goes up against HONDURAS,  guess who i'm cheering for? hint-i'll be yelling in spanish...

now. so...17 and a half days...but who's counting?

yes, self portrait! that's why i am not a police sketch artist...because real suspects are not cartoon caricatures...

 with summer school we have 3 day weekends, so today i took advantage of that and exchanged a pair of pants i purchased the other day...they had a tiny little bitty fray, and it was in a slightly compromising location. i thought about DIY repairing it, but then i thought, "self, c'mon, you just spent money on those, you shouldn't have to do anything to them..." so i talked myself into driving back up to allen to return them-it's such a drive, at least i had good music to listen to! i tip my hat to natalie for doing the drive for so long and to destree who drives from even further every day....God bless them! i couldn't do it (i did for a bit, that's why i moved).

today it was a good thing i am not married, because i went in merely to exchange and walked out spending more than i had planned...quite a bit more. oops...how does that even happen??? i am not a fashionista...i do not LOVE to dress up..in fact, i don't even really LIKE to, but i will and i do when the occasion calls for it; i'm so much more a athletic shorts, tank top and chacos gal-if there were a quiz for most appropriate job, i would be a KANAKUK sports counselor for life...it works with my preferred style! so, it was surprising that i spent that much time even looking and trying things on.

this morning before i went, i watched LONE SURVIVOR. i was expecting it to be pretty vicious, and the title is pretty much a spoiler alert in and of itself, you know that all but one was going to die. it was the ending that got me. i absolutely loved the ending-it was touching. the tribes that have a 2000 year old code of honor to safeguard an individual from his enemies and protect him at all costs. that blew me away.

PASHTUNWALI (the code)... if only more people subscribed to this code on a personal basis-physically, emotionally, spiritually...as a Christian, shouldn't this be a code that resonates with me? i dare to say that it should; at all costs. it's easy to think that i would do that for friends and family, but would i do that for a stranger? (a little self reflection is in order).

so, as i am preparing for travel, i am packing several different bags-some for HONDURAS, some for mom and dad's, certain things that will go with me to nashville...one for the boys, and one for va/md- STOP THE INSANITY!! (only, not really, bring it on!! oh marathon summer! I'LL TAKE YA!) i had some questions for sheryl, so we took care of that last night and this morning-what would we do without facebook and email?? i don't 'chat' on fb much, but questions have been a great excuse to chat! not that i need an excuse- i just don't do it very much-although, i will say it always makes me smile...i guess that's the great thing about communication, it can be a great source of joy.

and i just finished a workout. i did not want to work out. i hate it.  but i made myself do it. every time i have to force myself and talk myself into it...there is never..nevah, evah, EVAH a time that i think, "wow! i can't wait to work out!" (it's JUST. SO. MUCH. WORK!) but i do it-not because i love it (we just went over this) i do it only because i know that it...wait..i don't really know why i do it... but i suppose just knowing that i should do it makes me feel better about doing it.only not really. i just wrote that to try to convince myself, i think.

i'd much rather be bruno, who regardless of where we are doesn't mind looking a little lazy...oh to be more like my dog!

wouldn't it be great to be in public and just lay down wherever you wanted to-don't mind me, just resting. i'll move again when i;m good and ready, and not until!

alrighty then..i'm going to go ahead and spend the rest of the evening pretending to be bruno, only with a good book!
jules

it's sibling day! bummer for all of you single children (guess you'll just have to find something else to celebrate)

i did my civic duty. i called the house chair about the bill we want to pass. (if you didn't know i was in an education policy class, you might think i called out to the chair in my house..like a kitchen chair about getting rid of a counterfeit bill....or that one of us-probably not the chair had eaten a bill and needed to pass it out of our system..or you might even think i was calling my chair about walking past a certain hottie named "bill"...but NO), as those of you who have followed this blog know, i have been in this class since december, and most recently, we are trying to get the tx house of reps to see and support a bill about recruiting and retaining the most effective teachers possible in classrooms.

we had a great class last night, speaking/listening to what our local dallas board trustee had to say about local policy and explaining how our board does things. it was very enlightening. i wish more of our trustees were as diligent as he is in looking at things and putting actual thought into what is happening and needs to happen to help improve our school district.

-also yesterday-
my class went to the book fair. woohoo! there are actually several books that i want!

how CUTE is this baby sloth??! too cute, i tell ya!

this morning on the way to work, on the radio, the commentator totally referred to a spelling bee as a sport! WHAT?? it's true.

today is national sibling day- HAPPINESS TO ALL SIBLINGS! so, here is my tribute to my brother, david:

first airplane trip to visit the grandparents

look at what my parents did to us at Easter!!

yes, my dad was the pastor and we were the main attraction, at least in our minds (i think david is picking a wedgie in this one-or he just thought he would make special pose-putting me in a headlock). please notice my open mouth-i'm pretty sure that is not how my parents taught us to smile...

...but then again, my brother has the open-mouth smile as well-this was in college, when he worked for the sound department

so, he really wanted to stencil the chiquita banana symbol on the side of his baby (the car, not his real baby below)-totally cool 80's

and david with their first child-who is now growing up faster than she should!

david and i had a lot of fun growing up. we shared some of the same friends and i always wanted to play with his friends. in wisconsin it was riding bikes, playing funny dress-up games with the mcguinty's, sand box, tree house, football, baseball and when we were in iowa, we did everything together with our youth group, from Bible quizzing to snowball fights and snowmen, to going pretty much anywhere in the little yellow beetle...

 then in HONDURAS we did a lot together when we were older. we played basketball with friends, played water-gun war all over the neighborhood at night, climbed water towers and ate hawaiian pizza while watching fireworks, hiked back to the river to slide down the natural rock slide, drove around the strip drinking tao's iced tea...there wasn't much that we DIDN'T do together with friends when we were in high school.

my sibling is pretty cool. he is much more intelligent than i am-he would come home with calculus and physics tests with a + and i would find them in the trash can and think, "dude! if that were mine, i would frame it!" he is much more level-headed than i am, and he is very patient. i wish we didn't live 11 hours apart, but whatcha gonna' do?! i'm not a great sibling because i don't call very often-i am not good at talking on the phone. but i do try to get a letter off once in awhile! so, david, here's to you!

happy sibling day, ya'll!
julie

testing brought back memories of HONDURAS

well, here we are again...testing wears me out! first it was taks...now it's staar season. i'm not a fan of testing, because it makes for a treacherously long day! and i get so stinkin' bored! at least i was with my students from last year. as i was looking around the room, i was reminded of how much i miss them! they were a good class! i don't remember if i thought that last year, but right now, i am REALLY missing them!

so as i was 'actively monitoring', i had to strategically move around the room. and amazingly enough, it seemed like every time someone important would walk by or pop their head in, i was in the same spot, hence making it look like i wasn't really moving around the room (but if you ask those kids, i think they were getting dizzy...and i did it with such stealth, that they would quietly look around to locate my position).

yesterday was better than today because the windows were open (it was so hot in the room, they had to open them), and it was great to feel the breeze, and hear the fountain and the birds! relaxing. at one point, it made me think about high school in HONDURAS  at e.i.s. we kinda had an open-air ventilation system. i transported myself back to the good-ol-days when i had to do social work-collating dirt, filling 100s of bags full of dirt for our greenhouse, planting plants all around the drive...as much as i didn't enjoy social work because i'd rather have been playing volleyball, i look back on it fondly...if those were the "unenjoyable" moments, you can imagine how incredible the other moments were! i truly enjoyed every minute of it! some moments:

typical computer class..notice how few computers there are..hmmm..

this picture is special to me because freda was one of those friends who was so humble and fun and everyone adored her and her quiet spirit-she recently passed away due to cancer, but her spirit and way of being remain fresh in my memories!

just taking a moment to play a little air-guitar...

eis breakfast club (special spanish class...and we were pretty special....in our minds)

yanira my volleyball pal-and i believe that is chin behind us (he was one of the guys who helped us improve our game)

and here we are at a game-i don't stick out like a sore thumb do i?

i wouldn't give up my high school years in HONDURAS for all the money in the world! sorry-total tangent...wait, no, i'm not sorry! every once in awhile i have to talk about the amazingness of my past because it has shaped who i am today! (someday i will have to share some of the stories about individual friends-erika, helen, sheryl(little sis), bernadette, and so many more!)

so back to testing...last night i decided to make some food for today-somehow it just makes the day a tiny bit better...so i was looking forward to that while we were testing, which made every minute take 7 minutes to pass (and as everyone knows, every seven minutes, someone is thinking about abraham lincoln); by then most of the kids were done with their test. so after lunch, i was a little tired..in fact i may or may not have tried to hypnotize myself into staying awake with my classroom keys....and the natives were getting restless- lots of fidgeting. so when that final student raised his hand to let me know he was done, i rejoiced!

and then when i took students outside to be picked up, i was blind-sided by the cold weather BOOM! there it was! so i was very excited to come home and put on my long-sleeve t that i mentioned yesterday (pretty sure i have worn it every day since i got it). in fact, i have TWO shirts on! i also have the soft, green one (also from bmayes, also from wyoming!) i have just come to realize that i am passionate about awesome comfortable t-shirts! thank you bmayes for helping me to learn that about myself! so, there you have it...to all potential gentleman callers out there (but let's be honest, who even says 'gentleman callers' besides jane austen and marilla from anne of green gables..) but i digress, it's like i was saying, apparently tulips and daisies are only one way to my heart, comfy t's are the other! so , the one who comes bearing said gifts will most certainly be up there on my list (but then he has to pass the intelligent conversation test, and meet the high expectations and make me laugh) well, in the meantime...i'll just buy my own flowers or grow them and wear the t-shirts my friends get for me!

julie

why can't they just make cards with my thoughts on them?

well...back to school!

so...i think i may have scared the pee out of someone today. we had made an agreement to put the invisible darts and dart guns away during the school-day, but as soon as 3:15 rolled around, game on! and of course, lindsey beat me to the draw on the way down the stairs, and i went down, but fortunately maria was there to find the invisible dart so i could get out the door to dismiss students. well, there was someone at the foot of the stairs, and when he saw me go down, maria said his face was in shock because he had no idea what was going on.

so, those of you who have no idea what this thing is, the 'game' consists of an invisible dart gun and invisible darts. when shot, you go down...because that's what darts do! and you're down until someone removes the dart. i think i might request a 30 second limit on the down time, because i know that if olivia, maria or dr. hughes is around, they will remove the dart, but i wouldn't put it past lindsey to sneak in when no one else is around on the last day of school before spring break and shoot me...we take this game seriously. perhaps by then it will be in the past. perhaps not.

i looked for any card that had a far-side or something with aborigines and dart guns at target, but i couldn't find any, so i made my own little comic. (erin beckwith loves it when i make comics, so she'll get a kick out of this one!)

a little difficult to see, so i added a close up

 let's not lie, this is definitely a contact sport...contact with the floor, wall, whoever you happen to fall on...it can be intense-as it should be.

carpet burn.

i wish i had the video or a link to the video, because the ambush in the hotel was classic...as was the willingness of the hotel night attendant to play along. he was like commando (not not dressed, but like the movie-diving and rolling and all that jazz)

and last night, i finally got to sit and catch up with heidi, one of my dear friends from HONDURAS. i made a book with my students, to model how to write a descriptive book, and i did it about utila, one of my favorite places in the world. she used to invite me out when she came back to visit, so i sent her a copy. it was so great to catch up, and it made me smile to know that although much has changed, much remains the same! i need to be better at staying in touch!

i am actually getting ready to look at the mimio website-i know i mentioned it in my last post, but if you teach, i would suggest you check it out! i am hoping to look into some grants or something to try to get a mimio teach (although i would prefer to get the projector), and the reading program. my biggest wish is that they would work on some bilingual materials.

so..i'm off to check that out right now and prepare my invisible darts,
julie

it wasn't the pupusas that killed the bird!

it caught me a little off guard the yesterday when on house hunters hgtv the guy looking at a spacious room said, it doesn't seem like much space. in fact, i became a little indignant. i don't know why, because i watch it often, and i've heard similar comments. but this time when i looked up at this beautiful home he was talking about, my mind went back to HONDURAS where i lived with my parents while they were missionaries there. i thought about how many little one room shanties we'd visited, where church members lived with their families of 3 or 4 children with dirt floors and a suitcase with some clothing and perhaps a few dishes. we are more fortunate than we realize, and we don't appreciate what we have often enough.

i could tell that the flea medicine was annoying chaco today, so i gave them baths (thank you inventor of the shower cap, because i didn't want to mess with my hair too). when they got out, they just looked so great! "chaco, you're hot!" he giggled, "i'm a hotdog!!" then he thought for a second and followed it up with, "better than being a weiner! get it? anthony weiner?! ha!" they're never too young to start teaching them about politics and right vs wrong.

for lunch i decided i'd throw some italian sausage kabobs and a brat on the indoor grill.remember when i mentioned the open nature sausages? well, they make italian sausage too! (worth it! if you're interested in trying it, click on italian sausage and it'll take you to a coupon site)

yea for grilling inside!! boo when it gets smoky!

wow, nice grill marks!

 why hasn't some amazing man snatched me up? why am i still single? who knows...and at this point who cares? more food for me. i absoLUTEly love brats! the only problem with the indoor grill is that for whatever reason (probably because it's dual use and i didn't get the gridle side as clean as it needed to be) i came into the living area and noticed that it seemed a bit smoky-and chaco went into the bedroom and bruno wanted out on the balcony. amazing that the fire alarm didn't go off-maybe i should check the batteries. so i opened all of the windows and grabbed a piece of foam board and attempted to 'fan' out the smoky wild-fire look. and in the midst of fanning, dust fell from the ceiling fan (i know moss doesn't gather on a rolling stone, but dust does gather on revolving fan blades). so nasty dust clumps fell and i was grossed out. after setting down my makeshift de-smoker, i got the vacuum out and cleaned up. the entire time, my lunch was cooling off. when i finally finished and grabbed my food, chaco had made his way back into the living room and bruno came in off the balcony-fair-weather friends.

ok, i have loved pupusas since my very first tasting in HONDURAS on a bus ride to tegucigalpa-when there was a rest stop and the kids got on the bus selling their goods...and it was good! so....why have i waited so long to try my hand at these things?? especially once i realized that i am actually a pretty good cook?! again, why am i single?

masa is fairly inexpensive, so it will last awhile-especially since i was able to make about 6 pupusas with 1 c of the flour...and i can't even eat all six of them (but, you can bet i'm not putting them away yet-i may be snacking tonight!)

now i need a little garden to grow some yuca ! i'll just have to buy the platano!

 i cannot believe how easy these were to make! you'd better believe i will be doing more of this this summer! the smell of masa when mixed with water brought back memories of making dinner for BIRD, our macaw. he was beautiful! he was a red and blue but he wasn't super friendly. we would make masa balls and mix in bird seed. well, rat poison should not be stored next to the bird seed. nuf said.

oh summer, you make me forget what day it is! that's why i have to watch t.v. because i know when certain shows come on! i know, poor excuse-get your calendar out!

i'm sure you've had enough of me being impressed with myself!
julie

my superhero power of the day: catching killer fruit

SHAZAM! WOWZA!
 true to what i said yesterday, i preheated the fry daddy and got my ingredients together. i'm pretty good at this kind of thing. i like cooking-it's creative! it was really messy dipping the sandwich into the batter and then even more difficult to fit the thing into the actual deep fryer! mostly because it looked like frankenstein's monster (why do i revert back to a monster of spoken of once before?? but it did because it had toothpicks in each corner and looked like the knobs in his neck..fortunately it wasn't green). i put it in and i had to maneuver it around to get the whole thing to turn 'golden brown' because it wanted to just hover at the top and only the bottom was getting browned. but, end result:

yummy-monte cristo w/ powdered sugar and blackberry preserves because i couldn't find the raspberry!

that picture really doesn't do it justice, it was delish and it hit the spot!

so, when i went to get my ingredients yesterday, i wasn't planning on getting more fruit, but fruit farmers of america and mexico, thank me. the ham, turkey and cheeses were next to the fruit, so i decided to try papaya in honor of all of my friends in HONDURAS!! and as soon as i started cutting the papaya, my thoughts went back to lunch times at EIS by the little lunch hut.  only it isn't papaya that comes to mind, we used to buy little bags of green mango with chile or salt. you might be wondering how my mind went from papaya to mango. well, in our backyard we had a papaya, avocado and mango tree (one of each, not one tree that produced 3 different fruits...but that'd be cool!)as well as banana plants, poinsettias and aloe. it was a great little yard! the mango and avocado tree were super producers!the only tree that never really produced fruit was the papaya; now we'll see how well it dehydrates!

i decided to get started on the papaya and honeydew, because as i was cleaning something in the kitchen, out of the corner of my eye, i saw bruno (the 'big' dog) eating and the honeydew melon precariously beginning to roll toward the edge of the counter above him. i grabbed it just as it was ready to take a dive. good thing i did, because here's the size difference:

well, you can imagine what a boulder have the size of you would do if it fell on your head from the roof of your house. well, this is what i imagined:

he's really lucky that today my superhero power is catching falling fruit.

may your superhero powers be what you need them to be today!

julie