homemade barbells and poison ivy awareness

yesterday was kind of a freebie-i am so glad that we had no snow days because i really needed yesterday off! (even if i did spend a good chunk of it painting murals...a-gain). i don't know if we'll finish before summer. oh well, i got texas, the u.s. and the continents started-need a few more details. i also finished the watermelon shell in the cafeteria because i was working with greens.

 today i woke up at 7 and had to get up because otherwise i would have been laying awake trying to sleep for a few more minutes...so i did it. i got up and chaco said, "'bout time!" and we had a delicious apple, raisin, cinnamon and granola breakfast. well, i did...the boys had the usual.

for lunch i had a recipe i wanted to try out, and not gonna' lie, it was delicious! it was a chicken stir fried rice-wow! and then i decided i needed to work out, but i had no desire to go to the gym (i didn't even know if it would be open). so i made my own barbell because today's workout was deadlifts and squat jumps.

yes, as a matter of fact, those are cement blocks...so?

it was good-got my heart rate up!

yesterday the boys and i took a walk on the back trail, and i had to keep the boys on the sidewalk because they kept wanting to get close to the bushes. normally that wouldn't bother me, in fact i took them over by one to enjoy the smell of the honeysuckle, which is out now.

i've mentioned it before, i've loved the smell ever since my friend, laura, introduced me to the flower!

 but the enjoyment of our visit to the bushes and flowers was short-lived because this was at the foot of the honeysuckle bush.

poison ivy is of the devil.

i am so glad that i hung out with hank at kamp-he taught us how to identify poison ivy. that is truly a need-to-know for everyone! yes, dogs can get rash too (if they are allergic, they can have anaphylactic reactions as well) so, we'll be keeping our eyes open when we go walking from now on!

poison ivy scares me because i have had a couple of friends at kamp who have suffered from terrible rashes all over their bodies in the wretched summer heat of the ozarks! to the extent of needing to take steroids to get better. they were legitimately miserable. and i learned a couple of things about it. you can get it without touching it if you are too close to it because the oils can brush off on your clothes and can transfer to your skin if you touch it. also, just because you don't get a rash on the first contact, doesn't mean you are forever immune...you can still develop allergic reactions.

i was going to watch passion of the Christ tonight, but it isn't on until 10 p.m., so i will be recording it and watching it tomorrow. i don't watch it every year, but i did go to the opening back when i lived in des moines. i went with a dear friend i worked with, but we got there a little late and there weren't two seats together..boo. that's the worst! it is necessary to be reminded of the sacrifice that Christ made on the cross; i think in the society we live in, i take it for granted.

exceedingly thankful for the imputation of righteousness that Christ has bestowed upon undeserving me
 blessings,
 julie

mural, mural on the wall, who's the worst painter of them all...

today i got up early once again on a saturday. boo. i had to get juice for our volunteers and arrive early to finish a couple more pictures for our mural walls. then people began arriving. they were shown around and allowed to choose the pictures they were interested in painting.

some people chose to start on the drawings that did not have colored masters with them as a guide, and they did not quite turn out as planned. many of the volunteers brought children with them, and 5 year-olds just aren't professional painters...unless they're art savants...which none of these were. don't get me wrong, we certainly appreciate all the help we get...even if we have to go back and paint over and change things and spend more time on them. some of them came out great and some of them came out worse than terrible...and there is still work to be done.

the cement tubes on the playground got redid...and the bench out front was painted, as were the grates on the cafeteria windows (they had gotten so rusty)! i will have to take pictures of it all for gigi to see-i would've been great to have her help today (and moral support-laughing). it really does transform the building! i meant to take some pics today, but i just got so busy.

now we have to cover all of them on monday afternoon and our classrooms for the test on tuesday and wednesday! great timing. not looking forward to the testing at all. (even if it is only 4 hours....still too long). i am excited about the field trip on thursday, though. even if it is a short one, sitting in a theater watching a play is just the thing we need to unwind.



have a colorful rest of the weekend,
julie

it's not every day that you want to be called a loser. but today was the day.

i am sooo tired! i got to school early and finished some more of my telpas papers (checking out my students' english proficiency)...i didn't finish all of them, so i will be working on some of that this week. i did run across one funny thing in speaking about math, one student wrote: someone invented numbers his name was herold, but he's not with us right now. not sure where that came from, or what our math teachers are teaching our students....smile.

 i ended up walking the school during planning period to help dr. hughes  map out where all of the murals will be so that she can let the primer people know! i've got lots of drawing to do this week as well.

today was the last weigh in for our biggest loser contest, and our school out-lost junkins by about 40-some pounds! i ended up losing 29 lbs since jan 17, but i still have about 25-30 to go...ugh. more eating well and exercising and moving around! we are going to start a new contest starting when we get back from break. my biggest goal is to not gain any weight before we go back and to keep on losing-but we all know how difficult that is when traveling and playing. our nurse is pretty amazing at getting special prizes for these things. this year it was dickey's barbecue sandwiches, special wellness book, as the winner i got a 6 month pass to the farmers branch rec center and a gift certificate at nuevo leon-mexican in case you weren't certain, plus the money in the pot (which will be good for the trip to ok)

fun stuff

a little sacrifice makes the pants a little baggy.

anyhoo, i had to run home to the office to get my package before the office closed because i won't be able to get it in the morning.

i followed the tracking, so i knew that it had been delivered!

my coffee and flax grinder arrived! yippee!

and after i had secured my package, i went over to agave azul to meet with some teacher friends that i don't get to seevery often because we're all in different parts of the bldg, and one doesn't work at cabell anymore. it is always good to get together with these ladies to catch up!

now i need to get to bed because i have an early morning ahead so that i can get up to oklahoma to visit the crew!

will try to keep updating over the spring break!
julie

shmiggledee shmaggledee humdumdee do...dear dr. seuss, thank you.

happy birthday dr, seuss! i was thinking about wearing my grinch socks, but i couldn't find one of them. just saw chaco chewing on it. nice.

i began most of my classes today by telling the students that it was dr. seuss' birthday, he was born in 1904 and now he's dead. i guess that doesn't sound very sensitive...perhaps i could've used 'passed away' or 'no longer with us,' but nope...dead. that's what came out of my mouth! none of my parents volunteered to read-probably because of the whole reading in public thing...they probably didn't realize that we had the book in spanish as well....so i just figured it was going to be me and the kids today, but....WE HAD A GUEST READER SHOW UP!!!

mr. hise, our former principal showed up and read the inspirational classic 'oh, the places you will go!' the kids loved it! thanks again, mr. hise!

after he left, it was back to me reading the lorax to the kids. they were excited because it comes out in movie today. cute book, great theme. a little more substance than green eggs and ham.

they came up with the idea to create mustaches for us to wear while we read the book. they were on a Popsicle stick- cute idea, but too difficult to hold and read at the same time!

then we were supposed to have a meeting for the murals that we are going to be painting throughout our school, but i was the only one who showed up. i almost like it better that way because i was able to make all of the plans myself! not only that, but i didn't interrupt myself or cut me off! i love 1-on-none meetings! anyhoo, we'll be preparing and doing some work at the end of spring break and then we have our volunteers coming on the 24th. good times.

i've already finished almost all of my pomegranate green tea-it was soooooo good!! i am going to the celebration of the bridge that isn't opened. tell you about it tomorrow!

julie