i'm so glad they didn't throw away the fudge

when chaco and i stopped by the office the other day, we dropped the fudge off with shannon, and told her it was the biscoff fudge, and she said she have a piece a little later and give the rest to mandy- "mandy's going to love it!" so, when we left, i began to think to myself, "what if she's just trying to appease me and they don't eat anything from residents because they don't trust what they might get...what if neither of them actually try it, and they throw it away?" 

so chaco and i stopped by on our walk tonight before the wind picked up and there was another dog-owner with a big dog, so chaco looked at me and said, "you'd better pick me up before i hurt this guy and it's an all out assault!" so i did, he only snapped at big dog a couple of times and growled. (it was a little shocking, yet somewhat endearing). but when we walked in, the first thing shannon said was, "oh my goodness, that fudge that you left was soooo good, we ate it all and didn't share it with anyone else. i need the recipe!"  so, apparently they are not afraid to try stuff. and so i told them i might use them as taste-testers once in awhile since gigi moved.(boo). mandy then informed that she really loved the santa cakesters- i liked them, but they were rich!

so tonight i am making recipe cards.

 i found this receipt on my desk...

SHEET protectors for the students. (the other option really wouldn't make much sense)

the students LOVED putting 'special papers' in the sheet protectors.

is tomorrow really thursday? i cannot believe how quickly the days went by this week!

julie

what in the world is a flaming "o" anyway?

 so, today i received a small package with 'thank you' vouchers for scholastic books from the publishing company that we used. the books should arrive shortly. the last couple of years we have received walmart cards as a thank you in order to purchase items for the classroom, this year  they changed to scholastic, and they gave us less...but it is certainly a wonderful gesture and they don't have to do it, so...much appreciated.

i'm sure i'll find something to use it on!

i love my coffee...i love having coffee at school. that's why i got the melitta single serve pot...the only problem is that one pays more for pods than just purchasing regular brew coffee and i have to go online to get good flavors (which cost a bit more...plus the shipping costs more than the product...unless you buy $99 worth or more-what am i going to do with that much coffee?) therefore i decided to make my own pods...yes, it's true. now, does it take a bit to prepare them? sure, but just knowing that i CAN is gratifying.

 this morning i took a quick trip to walmart (love it that they are 24 hour). i had to get some sheet protectors for my students because they have difficulty keeping papers in their binders from getting ruined..maybe they play rugby with their binders...i don't know, but hopefully this will help. anyhoo, while i was there i decided to check on thank you cards. a small selection, and i really liked these!

i do have some people to thank. smile.

 yesterday i was pleased to find that our school had a soothing water feature installed. i'm not sure if that was included in the bond work or not, but it's always nice to have some peaceful brick waterfall in the background! umm...until the tile falls from being too water-logged.

and sure enough, at the bottom there is a wonderful reflection pool...

i have picked up on the fact that i should probably do a quick mini lesson on the importance of spacing with words, or deleting spaces that shouldn't be there because after my students turned in a grammar exercise, one of the answers was supposed to be about a pink bird that is famous for standing on one leg...unfortunately one of my students left a space at the end and what should have been flamingo became an overtly gay letter of the alphabet...a flaming "o"...don't ask.....(don't tell?) or maybe it was an "o" that the firemen missed...regardless, we need to work on that.

julie

don't eat the hair! no danglers!!

i usually opt for my keens in the winter-ish time because i can wear socks with them. on friday, i received a compliment from one of my students on my socks. smile. i told her that they were my Christmas socks, but now, they are my new year's socks.

gray, white and red can be considered new year's, right?

i mentioned in a post awhile back that i had my 3 favorite pair of shoes that i like to wear. well, the other day i had to go to a meeting with my new principal, and so i decided to play it safe. i wore casual, dress shoes. strangely i had a dream the other night that she had seen me in my comfortable shoes and basically said, "please never wear those again." now, remember, this was only in a dream, but still, better safe than sorry!

after school, i went to the 1/2 price bookstore and sold back some books (including the gre study books) and while i was waiting, i went to the little-kid book section.

i really do have an affinity for 1/2 price books...

i went around the entire store while i was waiting for them to price out my books. up front they had flying monkeys. the ones that make noises. i love those monkeys! in fact, i had one, but it got lost at kamp somehow...imagine that! i also perused the stationery section-love, love, love!

when i finally got my overhead page, i went back and they offered me less than i expected, but i took it anyway. i'm sure they are going to make a dime off my books. jerks. oh well, at least i get a bunch of books i don't need and videos i will never watch again out of the house and it's not as cluttered!

so, everyone knows that chaco is a little dog. i'm pretty sure he's still all of 4.5 lbs. well, he finds my hair on the floor and eats it. the problem with this is that when it goes through his digestive system, it doesn't all just pass through in one shot.(if you recall, i have had to train them to use a potty pad and they almost never go outside when we go for walks-which is frustrating). well, sometimes when he does his number, he has a dangler. and he does NOT like that. in these situations, he just stays real quiet and stands there. half of the time i don't notice until quite a while later, when i'm wondering where in the world he is. then i go to find him and he's looking up at me with his big puppy-dog eyes and he usually says something to the effect of "c'mon, mama! what took you so long?" (fitting) and i have to do the mom-thing and grab the dangler with kleenex and dispose of it. chaco doesn't like to be dirty, which i am thankful for, because this keeps him from going and sitting on it, trying to wipe it on the carpet, etc. i only mentioned that because it just happened.

later,
julie

bisc-off! (sounds like a rude european colloquialism, but it makes a great fudge!)

yesterday when i got home, i took some of the biscoff spread and the cookies over to the managers' office and the look on mandie's face was absolutely priceless when she saw what i had! she was introduced to the biscoff spread by her mother-in-law over thanksgiving, who brought more over Christmas. needless to say, she was somewhat ecstatic to learn that she could now purchase it at the local central market. so i decided to go ahead and try making the fudge! thanks bakerella for ruining several peoples' diets today!

this fudge is also known as 'little piece of heaven'

so today i took some to school to share with friends and i think this is a recipe i am going to write down and keep...yep, it's a keeper! 

i got a call last night inviting me to join my principal and one of my colleagues to go to a meeting to learn about creating quality interim assessments. it was very enlightening and i know how begin to move in the right direction-which i'm actually pretty excited about! the one thing i am going to be working the hardest on is to memorize my se's!

well, when i got up this morning, it was cold out. and there was frost on the window i was so glad that i had a can of deficer in my car. i've used it for years now, it's great on frost and thin ice...and it really comes in handy when i'm in a hurry!

walmart! if you park outside, it is a wonderful investment!

hopefully it will warm up again and i won't have to use too much of it.

good night,
julie

oh yeah, here is that recipe i promised! BISCOFF FUDGE

11/2 c sugar
6 Tbsp margarine
1/3 c evaporated milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 c biscoff spread
3.5 (1/2 jar marshmallow creme)

combine sugar margarine and evaporated milk in a medium pot, bring to full, rolling boil.
reduce heat to medium and continue boiling for 4 minutes, stirring constantly to avoid scalding.
remove from heat and add biscoff. Stir until melted and smooth.
add marshmallow creme and use a mixer to beat until well blended.
pour into greased 8x8

Jesus, help me with the eenie meenie miny mo!

done. $18 parking. boo.highway robbery. they didn't even wash my car or wipe my windows...no service whatsoever. boo.

woke up in time! (made sure my phone was plugged in and the alarm was set correctly). my chicken that i put in the crockpot was ready when i woke up, so i put it away. then i took off early to make sure that i would get there on time with all of the correct items necessary (license)...i arrived to the plaza of the americas and after a dizzying ascent up to the 11th floor, i had my choice of any parking slot i wanted! the entire time, i was hoping that i was in the appropriate building. when i went in i saw 'prometric' on the 12th floor button in the elevator and went on up.

once we went through all of the formalities and i was seated at my computer, the fun began. i was given ear mufflers (it kinda felt like i was working at the airlines again because we used the same type of noise-deterrents around the engines). yet, even with the mufflers, i could hear this girl behind me coughing. not once, not twice...incessantly.

i don't even remember what the writing portion was about, i just remember being relieved that it was something i was comfortable with and that i didn't have to invent a bunch of malarkey because if i needed to, i could, but i wouldn't feel that great about it. and quite honestly, as i was going through the verbal and quantitative portions, i remember kinda' chuckling in my head at some of them as i watched the time tick away and instead of wasting precious time on problems which i had NO idea whatsoever, i prayed that Jesus would help me pick the correct eenie meenie minie mo! i was careful not to drink too much before coming in, and i plowed through with no breaks...(diet coke-drinking diet coke-i was not drinking before the test). when i finally finished, the computer gave me the tentative score for the verbal and quantitative, and i was a extremely disappointed because i didn't realize that they had changed the scaled scoring from 800 being the top score to 170 being the top score on the current test, so when i came out with 100-some points on each section, i thought, "wow. (long pause) i know i'm not a genious, but 300 y pico...i didn't think i was an idiot..." 

so as i left the center, there was a reflection from the glass prism overhead and it was beautiful, so i got this picture on my phone before snapping one of the plaza below.

ah, the rainbow-thank God for his covenant to never again destroy the earth by flood!

view from the 11th floor, it was so quiet from 11 floors up!

i tried to pull up the information on my phone from the site about scoring and it mentioned the conversion chart-but my phone couldn't download the info...waiting game. in the meantime, i decided to stop at central market and treat myself (whether i passed or not, i sacrificed my entire Christmas break to the studying gods, and i deserved it).

well, i read on bakerella about something that had gotten me all giddy..biscoff! and now- biscoff spread!! you don't even understand (unless you worked with me at comair! [jory, shannon, cindy]). when it comes to biscoff, the delicate european cookie, i am weak. delta serves these little delicacies and when i worked for them, sometimes we'd get a gracious, empathetic flight attendant who was on their last leg to cvg, and they would give us a sleeve of cookies. these actions of kindness went a long way in getting us to turn a flight even faster! well, bakerella has a recipe for biscoff fudge,using the spread (which is new to me)...can't wait to try it!

when you dip these biscuits in coffee, they melt in your mouth! omygosh

oh, and the other indulgence was the pecan maple nut coffee! thank you central market!

um, yes, so i stopped first at the central market on royal, and wasn't paying any attention because i was looking for the gre information, so when i walked up to the door, it was slightly ajar, so i was about to go in, when i realized that there was nothing on the empty shelves and there was no one inside. yep. not open yet, as i turned around, hoping that no one had seen what had just happened, i saw the workers getting out of their truck, kinda looking at me strange. DON'T CARE! i felt like saying, "get to work! get this thing done, i want my biscoff!" but instead, i avoided eye contact and took off for the coit store in plano. i don't give up easily.

so, when i got home, i was relieved to finally look at the conversion charts and realize that Jesus had indeed helped me choose the correct eenie meenie miny mos! now to wait for the writing-which i felt okay about. all in all, i'm glad that i wasn't feeling super confident going into it, because it's a better feeling now that i've passed than to have been confident and screwed up! yea me.

so glad to be done!
julie

i've become ocd aobut checking dates-wish i had been back in may

the alarm went off this morning while it was still dark out and chaco said,"make it stop! ewwww, make it go away!"(as he burrowed further down under the cover)... i forgot to warn them last night before we went to bed.

so i got to school and got started with the most important project of the day.

seemed january-ish bulletin board

hopeful for snow days...in april or may...after good friday!

oh, and did you realize that this year we get 29 days in february? leap year!!

staff development today was pretty good-the lady who presented our developmental asset presentation liked to use the fill-in-the-blank (CLOZE) method, and thank goodness she didn't wait to long for us to answer before she just went ahead and supplied the answer. i wonder if she even realized that she was doing it, or if it was a habit from her teaching days.

i took chicken out of the freezer last night and now i have to go ahead and make some dijon chicken in the crockpot-so i can use it all and not mess around; it's a super easy recipe, so hopefully it will taste pretty good too. yum.

so i don't know if any of you remember the moment i regret most from 2011...when i missed theresa's wedding...well, since then, i have been extra careful in checking and rechecking my dates. so, every day since i printed it off, i look again...just to be sure!

makin' me ocd!

so, it really is tomorrow, and unfortunately i won't get to welcome my kids back on their first day, but the upside (whether i bomb it or not), i get to wear jeans and be comfortable...and i get to come home for lunch and spend the rest of the day not worrying about taking a test!

well, that said, i am off to do one last round!
julie

nothing beats breaking out a fresh calendar and marking it up!

i don't have a lot of nifty little sayings about last year, sorry. although i did text one of my friends :happy new year which swype translated as happy new yeast umm..not the most attractive greeting (unless you're a baker or a beer brewer); good thing i double checked.

but i am looking forward to 2012. we're going into it with a positive attitude. i attribute the positive attitude in part to the calendar that mom got me for Christmas. smile.

you DO remember that i mentioned my mom gets me one every year, right? now i have 13 more quality pages that i can use to create new envelopes!

and the best month so far is....

there's just something about january-perhaps its the fresh beginning-could be that my birthday is in january on the same day as my aunt...oh, and i am hoping that my friend hellen has baby sophia a day early so she will be born on my bday as well!!

i am glad that tomorrow will not be a full day of staff development and we get to work in our classrooms half the day. i am more than willing to exchange half day for the next teacher work day! good call.

i'm sure this year will bring much dining out for many of you, so i would like to share with you something that i read in a magazine just yesterday. i love eating fish when i go out. i am especially fond of gloria's 'pescado acajutla,' which is a delicious tilapia...and i usually have leftover because it is a generous portion. but, for those of you who enjoy fish, please be wary...

don't go paying top dollar for what you're not really getting!

i also noticed that facebook is trying to hook me up. they've been trying to introduce me to: successful men, single men, Christian men, rock climbers, millionaires, single dads...

one thing i have decided might be a good idea (not really a resolution, because like the comic strip said a new year's resolution is a to-do list for the first week of january) is to start saying great great things about people when the walk by or when i think they're just out of ear-shot because you never know if they might be wearing the 'micro plus sonic ear' the thing about the commercial is that they're always saying nice things about the person wearing the thing, but in real life, i don't think i'd want to hear the things that people say-you just never know.

gearing up for tomorrow,
julie

p.s. tomorrow will be very strange not having gigi across the hall. boo. i'm sure it will hit me tomorrow.