i'm not a great co-pilot, but it's ok, i don't have to be any more!

dad drove me to my doctor's appointment this morning, and i was not a very good guide, and i got frustrated as i was giving directions. i need to work on my patience. they've been so great with me, and i was not very appreciative. i must work on this.

well...today was the day- i've been released!!! (don't worry, i still have to follow the guidelines for about 4-6 weeks of no bending, twisting or lifting anything over 10 lbs...so i'll carry a scale around with me-no i won't).

when the doctor's assistant walked in, she said they had to scrape out a whole lot more than they thought, and she was quite impressed that i hadn't needed pain meds. ummm, i believe the phrase was "you are one tough lady" i should've told her that i really felt that the recovery went so well because of prayer.

released but restricted...at least i can drive!

so, i'll be asking my students to help me move things and prepare for the summer close-down! that is if the benefits department clears me. so my doctor's assistant said when do you want to go back? i said thursday would be great, so the assistant wrote it down and faxed in the document. now i am just waiting for them to send the information to my principal. when that happens, i get to go back.

if that doesn't happen this week, i guess i will have an extra long weekend.

after our appointment, we went to panera for lunch, and i tried the strawberry poppy seed salad-which was amazing! new fav! then we stopped at walmart and we picked up items to replenish my fridge and pantry.

when we took the boys for a walk, mom grabbed these fruit things that i see all of the time. she explained that if you put these things under your couch or bed or wherever, they have something in them that keeps spiders away. that was news to me! so we brought some home.

anyone familiar with these or use them in this way? i'll be sure to let you know if they work!

so with me on the mend, mom and dad are taking off tomorrow morning so that they can continue to work on their new house.  like i said, it has been great having them here. although i will be honest, i was ecstatic when i was cleared to drive and dad gave my keys back...(i'm a bad co-pilot). i think we might be going to the original house of pancakes for breakfast tomorrow. i've been craving it for a bit, and i didn't have bacon thawed for them while they were here, they had to suffer through my banana-coconut pancakes with turkey bacon...

i guess i'll have to think of some things to do this week if they won't let me come back to work...i wonder if dr. hughes will let me work on some of the mural painting...well, farmer's market might be more fun, or finding some dog-friendly places to visit.

blessings,
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

thank you, men who robbed a bank and got caught-you gave me time to file!

alrighty then. this morning when i woke up, i was so excited to wear my hat and not have to worry about my hair. (not that i ever really worry about it, and it doesn't take extra effort to put it up in a ponytail). even with the hat i had to get an early start because today was our thanksgiving staff potluck! why is it called a pot luck? maybe you're lucky if people bring what you like and it tastes like mom's...i don't think i've ever been to a potluck i have not enjoyed.

so i went to get the ingredients i needed for my crockpot corn/cornbread mixture and when i got up to the cash register, i realized that i had left my money in the car. good thing there wasn't much traffic at walmart! i should have taken that as a sign for what kind of day it was going to be.

no sooner did i walk into the building when the fire alarm went off. and then there was an announcement, but i missed it and one of the teachers coming my way said, everyone needs to evacuate b/c they aren't sure what the problem is. so i left my stuff in her classroom by the exit and we went out with a handful of other early-birds. after a few minutes the sound was off, and they let us go back in, but the alarm was still going off and the fire department showed up and did some checking around.

classes were pretty routine until specials. once we got the students off to p.e., i got back to my room and then the announcement came that we were in lock-down. not a drill. i raised my hands closed my eyes and fake-yelled, "YES!!" in my mind and quickly made my way to the door to lock it. then i went back to my desk and began the tedious job of filing writing papers into portfolios. i kept hoping in the back of my mind that it would last an extra 20 minutes...sorry everyone else..i was really into getting things in order.

our doors are ridiculous. we have to go around to the outside to lock it.

so, this week we had fire drill, evacuation drill, lock down...all we need is a tornado drill tomorrow...anyone?

then at the end of the day, as children were being corralled into their cars, a policeman walked up and asked where the office was, so i led him to the office, where he asked for the principal, who was not on campus. the front office proceeded to tell us that the assistant principal was in the auditorium. when we got to the auditorium, they informed us that ms. perez was out by the buses. so i took him in a big round circle (as most circles ARE round...i suppose the route we took was somewhat of a triangle, now that i think about it). if only he'd just started out by asking for ms. perez.

we like our police presence at school

and later as we were chatting after school in ms. arroyo's room, the intercom came on again saying something about "men who were here to smoke the building." which simply conjured up pictures in my head of men passing the school around, taking a puff. hmm...strange..it would certainly take a very big man.

well, here's to hoping that tomorrow is a bit more routine from beginning to end!

julie

walmart is not really a relaxing break, but it got me what i needed

i'm having a very difficult time getting motivated to grade these writing papers...i finished another class earlier today and am in the middle of the 3rd class. it's just so time consuming! boo.

so i took a break and went to drop letters in the mail and run to walmart (isn't that what EVERYONE does when taking a break??) i think KANAKUK 2-4s are just ingrained into the fiber of my being...that's where we'd stop because there were relatively few options.

so, while i was there, i had to snap a pic of johnny b/c it made me think of shea-so, this one's for you, shea!

your pirate look is almost as good as his, and HE has professional makeup artists!

i will say that apparently a lot of other people needed to take breaks today as well, because it was pretty busy over at montfort and arapaho. and when i stopped by the post office to drop off my letters, the mail delivery vehicles were all lined up.

i began to wonder what in the world will they do with all those vehicles if the post office goes out of business?

will they auction them off? will they sell them to some european country where people drive on the 'wrong' side of the road? incognito secret service cars? somehow use them in the creating of green energy?

i remember in honduras my parents got a small jeep that seemed somewhat like a mail jeep. i believe it was a hyundai because it was way before they were popular, and i definitely had difficulty trying to pronounce it in my head (i never wanted to say it out loud for fear that i was wrong...and as time would tell, i WAS wrong).

this morning i used the last of my coffee, so i was very excited to see that they had a holiday favorite!!

thank you, millstone, for capitalizing on Christmas long before they even begin playing the carols on the radio.

why do they make the best coffee flavors seasonal?

the last items i had to get were to make some posters for my classroom-we need to get our transitional words up so that the kids are seeing them constantly, and begin to used them! i had a bunch done in spanish, but i need to get them up in english as well! so we're going bright on a black foam board...that seems to be eye-catching.

tonight when i got home, i browned some beef and dumped the beans, tomatoes and paste and seasonings into the crock pot. then i had to cut up some onions...well, i looked everywhere to find a clothespin because i just wanted to see if putting a clothespin on the tongue would really keep the tears from coming...i wonder how many people have actually tried that after seeing THE HELP....i didn't find one, so i got the mini processor out. unfortunately the onion was strong enough that i still got teary eyed, darned onions. so, i got it all ready and now i am waiting to turn on the crock pot until i go to bed because it takes 7-8 hrs, and i don't plan to be waking up at 3 am to turn off the crock pot...i need to get one with a timer!

going to get some coffee-the good stuff...i think it's going to be a long night!
julie

my guard plays with a squeaky toy over and over and over

so today i decided to try to leave chaco out of his kennel and see if he did any better and it was so good to see both little faces at the window-here's what their view is:

the best part was that i didn't hear chaco barking all the way up the stairs (when he's kenneled he does because he can tell bruno's excited, and he just wants to be part of it all). the worst part was that he took to the carpet again. i guess he's not ready to be out.

bruno is the ever faithful, ever loyal eldest dog. he heard the neighbor's door, and bolted to the door barking. good boy. chaco on the other hand had been trying to get me to throw his squeaky toy, and when he heard and saw bruno bolt, he looked at the door, looked at the squeaky toy, looked at the door...and was torn between the two. about a split second later, he did the right thing and protected me. (as much as a 3 pound dog can protect).

we found his squeaky toy while i was vacuuming. since we found it, he has been squeaking it incessantly. and he just doesn't get tired of it. and like bruno used to, he doesn't get tired of the fetch game. he's very insistent. it reminds me of something i read by g.k. chesterton, which stuck with me:

“A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.” From Orthodoxy chapter The Ethics of Elfland.

 this morning, i stopped at walmart before school because i needed me some diet coke -that means i had to get up early. i also looked for a skin-colored bra and camisole; of course they didn't have my skin color-pasty white, so i opted for biscotti...go figure they'd name it after food! when i got up to the cash register, the cashier looked at the camisole and said, "oh! i just got one of those!" and proceeded to show me the camisole she had on. well, it wasn't skin color for her either as she was much darker. just smile and say have a good day.

and on the way home i had to stop at dollar general for fabric softener. oh and perhaps some berry colossal crunch because it said try me, and there was a purple kangaroo...plus it's a resealable bag, hellloooo.

love love captain crunch! i'm sure i'll love his cousin!

pretty sure that's all i got! oh, i forgot something at school which i was going to include-guess it'll just have to wait until tomorrow!

have a berry colossally wonderful evening!
julie