22 cents...what to do?

ok, last time was a false alarm, this time i am truly done with saturday school!!! for real,real,real reeeeal.

after saturday school i went straight to u.s. toy to get some cheap toys for my students who have 'worked so hard this year.' as i was looking, i saw so many things that i wanted to get because they just looked like fun for me (the fake mustaches, fun hats and glasses...i didn't get them because i knew i would want to keep them) amongst the many items i found, i did get a bag of small kaleidoscopes-which reminded me of when i lived in illinois and my dad pastored a church. we'd have contests, and one sunday i won one-i think they are soooo cool! i am mesmerized by the various designs that are created! somehow that reminded me of one of the last sundays that we were there because we the church was welcoming the new pastor and his family, and i may or may not have gotten in a little tiff with the new pastor's daughter; it was one of those 'my dad's better than your dad' fights. i don't remember really being in any other fights....ever. although i have wondered how i'd fair in a fight.

checked my mailbox when i got home and at&t was appreciative enough after all of our time together to accept my rejection by sending me a refund for my last payment.

really at&t? was it worth it? you spent more on the check itself and the postage. but ya' know what? i'm still going to cash it-you're not getting a pass, at&t...you robbed me blind for so long, now i'm taking your whole 22 cents and i'm putting it in savings or something...i know you were hoping that it was so insignificant that i wouldn't cash it, BUT I AM!! 

tonight after i took bruno and chaco for a walk, i got back and i had to go to glorias. i just had to have their chips and bean dip, and i knew if i ordered the fish, i'd have leftovers! (i may have had to get the tres leches as well-i told you that story..i just cannot pass it up!) last minute craving, so i went alone...with some schoolwork. i'm so glad that i am comfortable going places alone and it's not awkward! it's easier to people watch or finish things that i get distracted doing at home! as fun as it is to go alone...if stevie were still in dallas, i DEFinintely would've dragged her along! (that used to be a fun hang out time)!

something is wrong with me because as soon as i was leaving glorias (full...up to the neck full), i passed by the original house of pancakes and i immediately wanted to go to breakfast there! i went for the first time ever with my friend bmayes and i have never had such delicious pancakes and syrup! then i went again with my sweet friend carla (from HONDURAS-who just had a precious baby girl!)...and i'm just looking for an excuse to go again soon! oh and the bacon is thick and amazing, you can tell it comes from a real pig!!!

when i got home tonight, the boys had just finished watching a news special about the tornadoes. bruno looked at me and said, "if a tornado comes to us, can we go onto the roof and watch it?" what part of the special did he not understand?

hoping for rain tomorrow!
julie

"crumpets for breakfast, please," said chaco

so...anyone get up at an ungodly hour to watch the wedding? when i woke up, bruno and chaco had the t.v. on and they were ooohing and aaahing over the dress. chaco looked up when i came out and said, "how bout fixing us some crumpets with tea for breakfast?" to which i answered, "absolutely!" and proceeded to pull out the dog food and water.

 and this morning when i walked into school, one of my little boys asked (with a little excitement in his voice) if i watched the wedding this morning. i knew what he was talking about but i looked at him with a pretty convincing questioning look and he clarified, "the ROYAL wedding!" so i rolled my eyes and said no, jonathan, but bruno and chaco did. i figure it's going to be playing several times over the next week, so i'll watch when it's convenient for me...and at that, i won't be watching the entire thing...just the most important portions. a comedian did mention that the queen was dressed like pac man-we'll see.

did i really agree to work saturday school tomorrow? yes. but fortunately it's only one satrurday! i'll get by.

today i finally got over to bed bath and beyond! (it's not that i'm lazy, i just never feel like it after school.. ok, i'm lazy).

i was going to go to the gift registry to get something, but alas, the clerk was having difficulty with the computer. she was helping a lady, and then there was a young couple in front of me, and i figured it would take forever...so i fled.
but not before getting my diet coke for my soda stream!!

i decided to try the pink grapefruit too...

i really do love my soda stream! i do like the diet cola, but i also am finding i really like drinking just the straight club soda again! i used to drink it in HONDURAS after a run, and it just proved to be so refreshing!

and i may have gotten a little something extra as well.nothing big, but it sure is relaxing and it's making me smile! i love candles that are fresh, but not dripping with sweetness, and not too floral-y. when i used to live in des moines, ia i would go to my friend(also my manager at comair!) cindy's house and she had the coolest little electric potpourri pot that she would melt the yankee tartlets in. kudos to cindy for getting me one as a gift, because i use it often! and today i found some new scents i thought i would check out.

the lady that rang me up had to try to smell every thing and she reassured me that the pink grapefruit was one of her favorite drinks. oh goody.

drift away, sun and sand and pink sands

right now pink sands is melting away and who knew that pink sand smells a little like cotton candy? i cannot wait to pop in the sun and sand because i took a sneak whiff (as opposed to a sneak peek) and that little smell took me straight back to jack o neill's cay in HONDURAS and vacations with heidi and margo..the good-ol-days! (i linked the pic, so you must go see it to really understand whenever i start talking about the islands, this is what i'm conjuring up in my mind!) if i could choose one place that i consider paradise, it would be there! in fact, i wish heaven were like the islands!

(and a tv commentator just now said, 'tuppence for the birds'-another reference to mary poppins...i'm tellin'ya!)

oh, and for the record i don't think i've mentioned that i'm not an american idol fan (i was brought up knowing that idols are not a good thing...) i will admit that i did watch the season when jason was on, but that was it (i liked his hair and his family was from my church!), but as soon as he was off, idol was off. that said, i did watch the voice the other night, and i liked it a whole lot! i'm pretty sure that will be dvr'd at our apt. bruno is a big fan-i'm pretty sure he just has a crush on christina aguilera.

alrighty then...tea with jam.. jam and bread!
julie

green hair and the limerick that will never be

well, today was the final showdown for science! woohoo! i am WORN OUT! sitting there trying to be observant is very tiring...i'd rather be teaching (that should be a bumper sticker).  now i'm in after school working with my creative writers! and i only mention that because one of them just said, "ms. robinson, right that there is such a thing as a bird called a booby?" and so i got to explain that and why it is called that, while they giggled i think they thought it was funnier that i said the bird was thought to be stupid (bobo) they think stupid is a bad word-funny how coincidental things are since i've been writing my blog! (after i mentioned mary poppins the other day i actually had a song on my random play that sang about her-and i'd never even noticed!)

the sub today was so sweet-she's an older lady and she said, "i just think you are just so cute! i see lots of beautiful ladies, but every time i see you, i just think 'she is so cute!' there is just something different about you! maybe it's your blonde hair." i thought maybe i should let her know she needs her glasses adjusted.

my students were working on poetry without me today. i've taught them a few different types of poetry. i thought about limericks, but there isn't enough time (we're putting a classbook together tomorrow). this is the beginning of one limerick i had thought about teaching they had as a sample:
There was an old man from Peru
Who dreamt he was eating his shoe
He awoke in the night
In a terrible fright
And found it was perfectly true...

i thought about starting one like this for them to finish:
there was a tall man from venus, if he'd have opened his eyes he'd've seen us.
the problems with this are numerous. the most evident is the use of the double apostrophe...(why can't that work? i feel like that's the way we speak....) the second problem is that there aren't many viable options for rhyming with venus that are elementary school acceptable-and the fact that 3/4 of my class are boys, they would have likely made a limerick that is unacceptable. 
hmm.

well, on the UP side, MY WASHER'S FIXED! I DON'T HAVE TO LEAVE THE COMFORT AND CONVENIENCE OF 'HOME'! 
and on the DOWN side, MY WASHER'S FIXED! I HAVE TO DO MY LAUNDRY.

and chaco has decided that not only is he embarrassed to be seen with me and my old bag(you know, the one he chewed the zipper off), now he doesn't want to be seen with me at certain restaurants 

because he said it would hurt his marketability... what? what is he even talking about?? just like the rest of the youth in america, fame and fortune is his tunnel vision. i'll wait to burst his bubble..you're only little once! (ok, he'll be little forever)

there is now a random swing. today as i was testing, i began thinking a random chain of thoughts. i thought back to when i was young, hanging out with my cousins in michigan. i loved being young! i have so many stories with them, but the one that came to mind this morning was when my cousin dick offered to help dana come her hair in the car, and he just started curling her beautiful long hair in circles with a round clairol type brush-it was a mess!! and it wasn't like it was an accident, then there was the time we were driving and i fell asleep and got gum stuck in my hair and my cousin said, "don't worry! we can get it out with a little peanut butter!" great idea. 

then there was a 4th of july when we went to a friend's pool and they had lots of chlorine and my hair was even blonder than it is now...and the words, "julie, you're hair looks green," were the cruelest words i had heard all summer. it's true, the bottom turned slightly green (this of course was before it was popular to dye your hair ridiculous colors). i wore my jacket all evening long at the fireworks (the 4th of july!) and tucked my hair under the collar; even after the sun went down! we laid out the next couple of days with lemon juice in the hair. you can see the chain of thought-hair.


jeans day tomorrow!
jules

good thing i have a roll of quarters

soooo...

guess what didn't get fixed last night.

 i should have video taped because it was a sight. i couldn't figure out the problem with the washer, but i had to move the dryer to get a huge bucket back to drain the thing, and take the dirties out and throw them into the tub to rinse...then, today i was planning on taking them to the laundry room here at the apt (i forgot we had one!). so i packed it all up in a basket, and leashed the boys and off we walked. when we got down there, i didn't have the code to the door, which was okay because i was on my way to the office anyway to drop off rent.

when i got there, i explained the problem and they explained that i had to have a special card and it cost $8, but they were out and wouldn't have any until friday. (the new girl told me all of this) then the manager got off the phone and came to play with the boys, and said they would get a maintenance guy out first thing tomorrow morning so it'd be ready when i got home from work. good.

now i have a roll of quarters. whatever will i do? hmm..save one and always have it handy for aldi's shopping cart. then i think i may start a rainy day fund for diet coke necessity at work. feed the addiction.

and as for the TAKS tests-officially my kids are done-skie (pronounced dunsky), but i apparently am not. i have to administer the science test tomorrow for 5th grade, and i will also be (as i mentioned last night) helping with 5th graders during the last period every afternoon. and as a bonus i get to do saturday school again! yippee. (you know about punctuation). i know, i know, i had you all convinced that i was done...i had myself convinced that i was done!

and since i'm administering test again tomorrow, that means day 3 of pizza, which is 3 days too many! wish they'd just throw up a salad for us-ok, not regurgitate, more like toss. but then again, i guess there is no mandate for them to get us anything...so, in all fairness, i do appreciate it. but i think i might have indigestion, so i think i'm going to bring a peanut butter and jelly sandwich tomorrow anyhow.

i probably ought to find something to cover that carpet patch before the maintenance guy comes tomorrow until i can figure out what to do with it! perhaps i should get the wee pads out of the tub in the tub too in case he needs to dump anything in there. i washed a couple of them by hand tonight, and let me just say: incontinence pads hold a lot of doggy pee...i didn't realize how much. nasty. i had to take a shower afterward. oh, and they are super heavy when they absorb all that water while washing and that makes it really hard to wring them out! i feel like my forearms are going to be 2 sizes larger tomorrow from the workout! (i guess you probably don't measure shirt forearms by sizes, eh?)

 may all of your appliances be in working order,
julie

w. machine...must there be a smack down?

i thought i would begin with this because a friend at school asked about my chaco's today. (again, yes, i named my dog after my shoes-special credit to becky mayes for being so creative and letting me steal her idea!) i've mentioned my shoes before, so really quick, these are my staples:

ah, what a handsome bunch! from left to right: keens, chacos, vibrams

most of my kamp friends are familiar with all of these, but for those of you who are not,for 365 days out of the past year these are all i have worn. i just find them comfortable and practical for me.

moving from the shoes to my life! the washing machine is still being a sissy-it keeps stopping before the spin cycle (i'm guessing that it just realized that that's when it always starts to get dizzy, and now it's just on strike or something). i look like an idiot trying to figure out how to remedy it because i've been on top of it, around it and behind it. tonight if i cannot figure it out, i'll have to call maintenance and maybe take my laundry to the mat...not like wrestling either. and i don't want to have to do that because with my luck my students and their families would be there. ew. no. please. it's like reverse mean girls-seeing students outside the classroom is like seeing a dog stand on its hind legs.

i lived in brodhead, wisconsin from 1st grade through 4th grade. i loved living there and i have sooooo many great memories, someday i might share some of those if it be relevant. i went to brodhead elementary which was later renamed after the principal who was there the entire time i was there- albrecht elementary. i bring this up because as i teach 4th graders, i try to remember what it was like and it's nostalgic. i remember the cool kids, the artists, the sporty kids, the cheerleader types, the imaginative types...today as i looked around the room i was testing, i was putting kids in their categories. there was ty (the cool kid), chad (the class clown), jamie (the big goofy redhead-only ours isn't), monique (the cute and sweet), adam (the artist), pam (the loyal friend), lottie (the imaginitive), mandy (the adventurous), tricia (the friendly and well liked) chris(the well-rounded and liked by everyone)...crazy how  memories can be so vivid.

one day of taks done and gone. we can never get it back. thank GOD! today i had halls cough drops in my pocket, so i ate one-figured the menthol in the cough drops would wake me up a little. testing is for the birds..the blue footed booby birds... please say that with a british accent like a documentary...  wikipedia says:
"Blue-foots will make raucous or polysyllabic grunts or shouts and thin whistle noise." and that's about how i felt like i was communicating today.

on the way home from school today i was noticing that my bag is threadbare in places, and i just noticed where chaco found the zipper and the zipper lost.i swear that dog is possessed sometimes by the tasmanian devil! little unholy terror...but cute. (cuteness covers a multitude of sins...wait...no, that's love that does that..but i suppose cuteness doesn't hurt!)

the strap isn't the original either(the hooks on the end went bad, so i replaced it awhile back with nothing less than my rollerblade holder strap! the kind you attach a blade to each end then sling it over the shoulder for easier carrying-i was quite the roller-blader back in the day thanks to my college friends stacey and mike! which once again is another story!) so...i guess i should just go ahead and get a new one. ugh. i hate spending money on stuff like this because i want to spend it on fun stuff, not practical necessity. blech.

ok, time to get on the washing machine issue!

jules

fowl mouth and super spy lipstick

today i got home and i could hear chaco from the parking lot he was yelling CHICKEN!! CHIIIC-ken chickenchickenchickenchickenchicken.
as soon as i walked into the house, i said, "really?" he looked up at me and said, "momma, chicken chicken chicken chicken.."     "chaco, stop!"  "momma...i have a fowl mouth! get it? get it?? fowl!" witty. i'm sure he sat around all day thinking of that one!

and as you can see, he's been picking up bad habits from his sister, reagan (you may or may not have seen her on FB on 4-20...)

i should probably have a talk with him.

i had to stop by walmart on the way home...i've had drain problems...thank goodness for liquid plumber! now i'm sitting here with wheel of fortune on in the background...my mom and i used to watch wheel together. yes, i'm a wheel watcher! i've had an affinity for word games since i was young. i can pin-point my need to spell correctly to 4th grade in brodhead, wi! one night after church, i had broken my necklace and left it on the table with a note, hoping mom and dad could fix it. the next morning, my mom kinda chuckled and asked how to spell necklace. obviously i had spelled it wrong, and she taught me the correct spelling of the compound word.

and my grandma smith was an avid reader, which helped instill the desire to read and use vocabulary intelligently. i grew up loving boggle! then i found a yahoo game called text twist...which i kinda dominated-i was so obsessed with unscrambling words and mixing letters around and manipulating them to create new words that i was doing it in the car while i drove by billboards, and when i saw ads on trucks...it took a few weeks, but it passed. i actually haven't played in quite awhile. mad gab is another favorite (especially bible mad gab).

so it is not much of a wonder that i have ended up in a classroom teaching spanish and english reading and writing for 4th graders, i guess. (growing up i used to watch cagney and lacey and thought i wanted to be a detective). today was a great day and a relief-because tomorrow and the next day we get our last two state tests out of the way and the pressure is off. now we can teach for fun, because there's nothing looming over us. or at least that was what i thought until today. i was approached by my principal to help one more batch of students on their 'victory lap,' so i will have a couple more weeks of helping out with that exciting adventure, then on to really having fun with my own class!

side note:
if anyone out there has an extra super-spy detective lipstick out there, mine broke.

it's hard to keep tabs on everyone when my spy lipstick isn't working. i'm fairly mechanically inclined, so i took it all apart and cleaned the corroded battery so the circuit would work, but i think one of the tiny wires might need to be re-soldered..i don't have soldering equipment (did that all sound pretty legit? i mean, i know what i'm talking about, but i wouldn't know how or what to heat up!)

alright, i think that is enough for this evening...stay away from the chicken and turkey-it could cause fowl mouth!
jules

p.s. i just got news that someone got her birthday gift of the baby jewelry and i'm pretty sure she liked it almost as much as the dobbit i crafted for her some time ago, using this beastly image as a guide.

congratulations to 3 lucky winners!

tr-r-r--r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r(vibrate tongue between teeth or roof of mouth and kinda hum a /d/ sound without closing your mouth to replicate drum-roll sound...or get on a drum set and bang it out)

if you read carefully, i had said that i was going to pick 3 winners, so i used the randomizer to pick the winners, and here are the results:

Research Randomizer Results

Set #1: 3, 8, 7

congratulations to:

3.Xochitl said...

Ohhhh I want one I want one I want one!! (As I wave my hands frantically in the air) :) lol!

April 19, 2011 8:41 PM

7.Anonymous said...

B. Boyce again. I think this is the right one?? Anyfoo, still praying....

April 23, 2011 9:07 PM

8.Erin said...

I'm late...but I LOVE your stationary. Duh.

April 23, 2011 9:54 PM

soooo......i will be sending those out soon!

if you missed out, perhaps on the next mile marker i will do something different and throw in a stationery :)

alright, have a wonderful evening! and congratulations again!

jules

kitchen gadgets makin me fat

this morning i woke up and i was so happy that i already had my skillet made and just had to warm it up!

when i re-read what i wrote last night- the part about the agility equipment & training, i mentioned a hula hoop and yard dart hoop. i just wanted to clarify: i am not training them to hula hoop and play yard darts. i just need the hoop to train them to jump through it. i think they'll enjoy training..they're smart, in fact, if they get the jumping-through-hoops thing, they'll be doing what i do at work...maybe i will be able to train them to hula hoop and play yard darts! (then in a couple of years, they'll be doing my taxes for me).

the theme today on abc family seems to be excellent nannies (first mary poppins, then nanny mcphee, followed by sound of music and topped off with titanic..i'm sure there was a nanny somewhere on the boat). speaking of nannies, i was watching victoria on animal planet again last night, and she was helping a family who had dog nanny! who in the world has dog nannies?! three kids and she still needs a dog nanny? c'mon.

this morning, i 'hid' the eggs for the boys (no nanny to help out):

told you i was going to be sneaky when i hid them!

bruno was pretty good at it-he can get his mouth around an crunch it open real quickly, so i had to help chaco out a little. they were fine until chaco wanted what bruno had and got snippy...he's started doing that lately and they get all alien on each other (you know how the aliens had the mouth with the scary teeth and then sigourney would blast them away)...

that took all of 3 minutes. then i decided it was a doughnut day, so i found a doughnut recipe and i felt like homer price... you know, the one where he made all those doughnuts...i remember it from when i was a kid, and it's fun to read it to our kids at school again!

homer price!

with a little chocolate glaze...

...and a bit of coffee!

 i don't know how well they save, they might be rocks tomorrow, but i'm going to put them in an airtight bag and if they're any good, i might take them to school tomorrow morning. i swear, kitchen gadgets are making me fat.don't get me wrong, i love having cooking toys in the kitchen, it makes life easier, but it just makes me want to try more things and find new recipes. it's dangerous.

alright, blessings and may the power of the resurrection be real to you today!
jules

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i will announce the winners of the giveaway in just a few hours!! i know, everyone's crossing their fingers and biting nails! if you haven't made a comment yet, you must click here to leave a message-do not leave a comment on this post.

stationery giveaway-last chance, egg-skillet!

this morning i slept in! first saturday in a VERY long time! 8:30 felt like noon! so i decided to make a pre-Easter brunch! just a quick egg skillet. i used some of the peppers, tomatoes and onions i had dehydrated last month, and i was shocked at how fragrant they were when i cut them up! this egg skillet was supposed to have hash browns. guess what. i didn't have any. guess what i had..spicy french fries. guess what i did...i chopped up frozen spicy fries and pretended they were country fries.(starch is starch, right? only there's no way it would've worked with mashed taters..i don't think..)

i mean..they could pass as country style potatoes...right?

shriveled up like old, old people...but taste fabulous!

so simple! potatoes, 2 slices of chopped up swiss slices, some peppers, some tomatoes, some onions

add some whisked egg and mix it together , bake at 325 in the skillet (wrap handle in foil if it's not heat resistant!)

add a few slices of american cheese and turn on the broiler-but not too long!! unless you like char.

it was good! i have some left for tomorrow too!! and it's just so simple!!

so i took the boys with me to get my car inspected. i hate that. when i lived in iowa and kansas we didn't have inspections...and it's a good thing because i had a car that didn't reverse (that was tricky..i got really good at parking in spots with a slight hill so that i could roll out backwards in that car), and in the other car, the speedometer and the gas gauge didn't work. i got real good at hangin' with the pack, and watching the odometer for fuel. anyhoo, took the boys with me so i could make friends.

then we stopped at petsmart because i was hoping to find some agility equipment to train them...(i guess i'll just have to find a mini hula hoop, or a yard-dart hoop. i think that's the first training we're going to do). while we were there, i saw some treats that i thought were interesting.

appropriate for easter-shaped like eggs!!

these things are solid, and have kept the boys busy all day! bruno is still going at his, and chaco tired himself out chewing on his! (notice the heartlight pics on the fridge! someday i'll have to share all of the fun jobs i've had..heartlight is such a great ministry, if you get a chance, check it out!)

as i was running errands, i realized that when i drive, i get very serious. my dashboard speaks to my driving manner. it could be because i'm focusing on what i'm listening too-which is usually talk radio or a sermon. or it could be because i'm a beast when i drive.

meet RATTLE-IGATOR or as one of my small group girls called him, ROCKADILE

yes, that is an alligator from the dollar store. fond memories with an old kamper. smile. mags and i bought him and some peeps and went to the park and sat in the gravel after swinging and as we were telling funny stories, she was feeding him tiny pebbles (he no longer squeaks, which is ok b/c he shouldn't-he's not prepubescent anymore). anyhoo, that's how he became  rattle...i shake him every once in awhile if i get frustrated while i'm driving.

i am excited about tomorrow-i absolutely love easter because i absolutely believe in the power of the resurrection! i remember when we used to have sunrise services back in brodhead, wi. nostalgic- i think i might get up early and have a little sunrise service of my own tomorrow morning with a cup of coffee and some easter music on my balcony. thank you Jesus! (and this time i am not talking about 'hay seuss' from school)
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LAST CHANCE! IF YOU HAVEN'T YET, AND YOU'RE INTERESTED IN THE STATIONERY GIVEAWAY, click here to LEAVE A COMMENT AT THE BOTTOM OF THE FAITH POST BEFORE 7 TOMORROW NIGHT! GOOD LUCK! I WILL BE DOING A RANDOM PICK!
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"but they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense." luke 24:11
thing is, miracles do seem like nonsense. that's what in-credible means. it seems un-believable. so the disciples were eating crow when they actually came face to face with Jesus before he ascended into heaven...

that said, believe the unbelievable because being wrong has consequences,
jules

nothing can ruin your day quite like an easter egg hunt

not gonna' lie, i'm a bad loser. i knew i wouldn't find anything. i knew it! i never do. i never win drawings, i've just never been lucky at those things. which really irks me about this morning. i told myself that i wasn't going to blog about the egg hunt because it was more frustrating than fun.i guess i lied to myself. so when i got back to my classroom empty-handed, i was in a foul mood. and it took everything in my to might to smile as the last person who found the last egg walked by saying, "i found the last egg!" when in my mind i was thinking something to the effect of...well, let's just leave it at that; besides, it's difficult to think bad thoughts about someone wearing a neck brace!

in fact, i was so p.o'd after i brought the kids up to the classroom, that i fixed my harry potter wand, and told them i was so mad that if the easter bunny came in-i would turn it into chocolate and eat it.

sorry, harry, Expelliarmus got nothin' on me! (i had to look up the 'spell'-ing)

i had to think about why i was in such a sour mood and here's my list (by the way, it's afternoon and i'm still a little bitter):
1. cramps since 4:30 am-i got up a couple of times and stretched and tossed and turned
2. missed breakfast for egg hunt and found nothing (and still didn't get a chance to go down to get anything)
3. didn't even get chocolate or anything...i might have to redeem this day with a bag of chocolate whopper bird eggs...pray for me that i don't slip into a sugar-induced-coma.

fortunately i have amazing students-i think they might've felt sorry for the losers...they gave me:

yeah, i got lots of pals.

this experience has prompted me to get a slew of plastic eggs to fill with treats and hide them all over the living room for the boys...and by hide i mean put them on the floor. i was going to just do a couple of treats, and have some empty eggs so they would have to sniff them out, but i think i might just fill them all because i want them to feel like big winners!
then we'll sit around in a triangle and i'll read the real easter story to them so they can appreciate the true meaning of Easter and the resurrection!

i am thrilled beyond description about the fact that tomorrow i get to sleep in with no saturday school!! i don't even know what i'm going to do with myself! but don't worry, i'm pretty sure that i can figure out something!

julie

kitsch-y angel and the girl named fish

i'm not sure why people depict angels as beautiful women holding fruit baskets...i mean is she the welcoming committee at a 5star hotel? from what i know about angels, they have to say, "woah, don't be afraid" before they can get their message out. i was in our teacher's lounge this afternoon when gigi and i saw this:

the first time i was ever introduced to the word kitsch was when i took an amazing course about art and architecture in the modern church-i learned so much and i got to take it with one of my bff's at College of the Ozarks! we had to read a book that was so dense and difficult to muddle through, and we spent some late nights trying to find all of the words we didn't know in the dictionary because he had pop quizzes almost every class. i learned how to write a really good paper (101-extra credit woohoo!) and i also got an incredible book out of it-and some fun 'field trips.'

this book by judith dupre is wonderful! it was the other one that was ridiculously difficult!

this is a picture from the book of one the thorncrown chapel in eureka springs, ar. this is one of the field trips we got to go on!

like i said, great book, great class! i am so glad i took it even though it wasn't a necessity for me, because it was a blessing!

i meant to get this posted earlier, but my internet was down for a period of time. and during that time, i was getting really frustrated because i wanted to order pizza...i realized how dependent we've become on the internet (i actually had to find the phone book to look up a number manually! i couldn't get service for the 3g on the cell phone either!) ridiculous.

umm...true to form, i am female, therefore my thoughts wander, but eventually i return to the topic. after we saw the hospitality angel offering fruit baskets to new heavenly residents (pretty sure that's not biblical either), we noticed all of the other elements that made the shelf look somewhat like a garage sale:

you can't really tell, but the bird is sitting on a weird faucet..and a teddy bear holding a child doll?

afterward, i had to teach an after school writing program, and one of the girls is writing a book called the crazy fish. when i asked her what the story was about she said it's a story about a girl named fish. hmm...

i need to set my alarm so i can get to school in time for tomorrow's teacher easter egg hunt! and according to the memo we got, if i get there early enough, i might get to see my principal hopping around hiding the eggs...humming easter songs. that would be worth getting up early!  


feeling a little jealous of all of my friends back home in HONDURAS right now as they keep posting lovely pics of Roatan, Ceiba and Tela and all the excitement and relaxation of Semana Santa. ahhhhh....sigh.

so, wish me luck! i want to get an egg with a great gift certificate or something (usually i don't get good prizes).
julie

if you have trouble posting for the giveaway, let me know on fb-it won't post immediately because i moderate comments-to avoid inappropriate comments

tricksy lights-our pond is the dead marshes

well today i was encouraged as my friend shared her magazine with me and i saw an ad that made me feel much better about my life.

how does she do it? i don't feel nearly as busy now. ok, lie. i still feel busy...and i'm pretty sure SHE does NOT produce most of the world's food.

the weirdest thing happened today. i was out of diet coke, and i still am procrastinating-i have not gone to get the syrup yet. so at lunch i decided to go get a 12 pack of diet coke. i took my sandwich with me to eat, but on my way to the store, my car turned left instead of right (christine?), so i thought...well, there's a walgreens i could stop at. and as i got close, i saw the golden arches. and it may be because i was born in illinois(not sure), but the symbol of the arch is dear to me, and because of that loyalty, i found it necessary to pay homage by purchasing a # 3. unfortunately i could only do one or the other, so i got a large d.c. so that it would last me the rest of the day and i did not make it to the store. sigh.

when i got back to school, i noticed some original artwork the students had crafted on their testing folders. there were three that stuck out

i think that's an animal tail hanging off the side of her head

it's all about proportion...notice the eyes are staples; reminds me a little of the ugly baby on family guy(which i don't watch)

80's side-ponytail=good. 2011 side rainbow-tail=not-so-good. (please note the ear on the top of the head)

gee. i can't wait to see the shirt they designed for field day. (period, not an exclamation point. i try to explain to my students that reading with, or without punctuation is really important.) actually, i'm pretty sure my class was the one who didn't do their art homework, and we don't have a shirt. cool.

bruno and chaco just got really excited that i don't have saturday school! they asked me to do and egg hunt for them. i said i would..maybe i'll put a treat in 2 eggs, and then throw a bunch of them around the room and see if they can find the treat (they love games like that!)

today as i was walking the boys around the pond, i was so happy to see that it had finally turned over. it's been so murky the last couple of weeks...i mean gross to the point it reminded me of LOTR THE TWO TOWERS when frodo and sam were in the dead marshes and gollum warns them not to look at the 'tricksy lights'..and the fallen look somewhat like seaweed. i imagine myself falling in. scary.

speaking of the pond, in the first year when i lived here, one morning during spring break (or was it easter wkend?) there was a thunderous boom outside. i got a knock at my door a little later and the neighbor made me go out to see what had happened. so i went over to the stairs on the south stair side and saw the top of a mercedes or bmw in the pond. yes, it was submerged and had floated from the opposite side of the pond to our side. crazy.ness.

in case you missed it, there is still time to post a comment for the stationery giveaway! click here!

oh, and hollie just posted another really cute easter idea!! check it out here!

so happy i don't have to produce most of the world's food!
julie

faith is turning my arm green...let's give something away!!

chaco has a new habit. he gets his squeaky toy and climbs up on the couch, squeaks it a few times then drops it...on purpose, and then puts on puppy dog face (which takes a moment to decipher because it's so natural), then says, "momma, can you pick up my toy?" i like to call it the jenni o'halloran move.

notice the homemade stairs and the tom thumb carry-all (currently transporting student projects

i used to have a kamper a long time ago who used to do silly things: jrob, will you blow dry my hair? jrob, will you brush my teeth? then at night we'd turn out the lights and most of the kampers would be in their beds when i'd hear, "jrob, will you pick up my pig?" after i answered with a yes, we'd all hear a thud and then giggles. oh kamp, how do i miss thee? 

those of you who have fb saw my post line yesterday that went with chaco's pic, he rolled over and said, "hey momma, i'm buddha! RUB.MY. BE-LLY!" he's not demanding at all. bruno, on the other hand will lay next to me, but if i start to pet him, he'll kinda' try to pull his shoulder out of reach, and if i continue, he gets whiny and says, "stooop it." and just walks away. they are so, so different in personality!

well, tonight i came home and i noticed a strange green marking on my arm.

not the bracelet, the lighter green band around my arm!

i noticed it last night too-wasn't sure what it was, so last night i might have tasted it...(?) and it was pretty nasty, but it washed off. don't ask what was going through my head to make me taste it, because i don't even know. well, tonight i thought and thought, and finally it came to me! faith is turning my arm green! i got this amazing bracelet for Christmas some time ago from my small group bible study gals, and i've been wearing it religiously the last couple of weeks, because  it's that time of year! 

now faith is being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you do not see.

 so i looked up why my skin turned green because i am a curious person. 

it's a reaction between our skin and the metals used in jewelry, especially when the jewelry touches areas that perspire.

and there you have it, i should not wear any jewelry from now til the end of the school year because i will be perspiring..it's what we do in my classroom! the ac is almost certain to not be working in my room before summer.

i like to celebrate the small things! this morning i woke up and noticed that my silly, little blog had broke the 1000 mark! (1,001-which i loved because i really think palindromes are cool!) so to celebrate, i am going to do a giveaway!!! woohoo! sorry, it's not going to be dried fruit, sorry! 


actually, i think to kick off a fun beginning, i'm going to celebrate with something i've already shown you! STATIONERY!!! i'll be putting together 3 packages of cards, notecards, and mini cards, so if you want to be part of the giveaway, be sure to leave a comment on THIS POST! make sure to post before sunday p.m. at 7!

let your friends know, because i'm guessing that if you're still reading my blog it's because it has in some way or another entertained you, and who doesn't need a little non-intellectual stimulation once in awhile!!

have faith..but keep it off of your arms! (and if it gets on your arms, definitely avoid licking it!!)
julie

p.s. as i began writing tonight, the tornado sirens went off again, and i had to explain to bruno that it was not, in fact, the ice cream man.
 

my chicken lost his contact

yesterday chaco was sitting on my belly while i was laying down and he said, "momma...i love sitting on your belly; it jiggles like a waterbed."  dogs say the darndest things...

so, how do you teach a dog tact anyway?

ok, i guess it's back to pod runner now that my throat and shins are feeling normal again! i don't want to have waterbed belly!

how appropriate that tbs was showing the wizard of oz last night after all of the tornadoes the other day. so...if a tornado makes 3 touch downs in a city, does it get 18 points? no 'field' goal unless it touches down in the country? i really enjoy the wizard of oz much more after seeing wicked. although the lollipop kids still creep my out a little bit.

i'm not a huge bbq fan. i have to be in the mood (same with chinese food), and today i was in the mood partly because i was privy to a conversation about barbecue last night,but mostly because i had a gift card i won as part of a prize for winning our school's biggest loser competition. i know, right? give someone who's trying to lose weight a gift card to fat. anyhoo, when i unwrapped the sandwich, it smelled like something that had just been blow-torched with gas. did that stop me? no. it tasted a little like i imagine lighter fluid to taste, not that i would know...but the fries were good!

the baked beans were pretty good too!

  ah, schuyler fisk! sunshine just came on my random shuffle! love it! makes me happy! it was random, i didn't realize she was actually an actress as well until the other night i may or may not have been watching reruns of law and order svu...and saw her name in the beginning credits..so i had to look up pictures and make sure i knew which one she was. apparently she was a genius, who made poor choices. disturbing show.

today i stopped at the thrift shop on the way home, and i would like to share some of my finds. some things should just be gotten rid of and not re-sold...

why? did they really think some child would want to hug this thing and give it love?

hair remover...opened...ew.

 i did find some great books though, and they were super cheap! they will come in handy in the classroom.

i just heard something down beside the couch on top of the printer. when i peeked over, i saw my rubber chicken looking for something...the boys said that he dropped his contact. i'm still not quite sure what he was even doing playing on the printer.

once you drop a contact in the printer, it's game over! raise your hand if you know what i mean!

don't be a chicken, and keep your contacts on your eyeballs!

julie

p.s. sorry so random, there is absolutely no transitioning today!! i'm like a tornado!

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