wow. december 16th, you have arrived and for that, i thank you.

it always seems like this day will never arrive! and when it does, it seems like it will never draw to an end-busy, busy, busy. as i was having the students do some letter-writing, i was checking last-minute books (i shouldn't have accepted them because they were due tuesday, but i really wanted as many to finish as possible...81 out of 87-not bad!) some of those students were finished, but forgot their packets at home. i also had to find time to whip up 3 'cards' for our principal, vice principal and office manager...in the midst of getting several people to write up some sweet notes and bind them together for gigi.

yes, it was a bitter-sweet day. gigi's last day at cabell. boo. she is moving west! while we're excited for her, we're bummed for us. yes, there is a great gal replacing her (don't know her very well yet, but she is on the ball), but still it's not the same.plus, she was my taste-tester whenever i had something new or was drying something fun...

gigi, we will certainly miss your sassy self!

gigi, did you know that you are part of the reason i decided to go ahead and try this blogging thing? i remember mentioning that i was thinking about it and you said, "i'd read it!" so i wrote. smile.

at the end of the day we had our party and to be perfectly honest, parties with students are not a lot of fun. it takes everything in me to not watch them eat (chewing and talking with their mouths full, etc)...ew. 

this is only a small portion of what was offered to me, i didn't eat any of it, i just made it look like i was happy to get it and saving it for later-teachers get good at that sort of thing..shoot, if i'd have eaten all i was offered, i would have gone into a diabetic coma.

i got this great little pine tree from ms. johnson today. and i thought, this is the perfect size for my apt.

then i saw that it grows from 40 to 80 feet!

i wonder if i could keep it growing for a bit and then secretly sneak it somewhere where it will grow big and tall?! it's in the apt. now, and chaco and bruno were so excited about it. "mama! now we're going to breathe better! more oxygen!!" 

there were lots of fun little gifts from the students...please let me share one tonight (as if you have a choice in what i do or don't do). one of the gals got me some bling....only i'm not a 'large jewelry' kind of a gal.

you must have just the right outfit for these accessories...

chaco tried it on, but people already just assume he's a girl because he's so little, so i made him take them off.

the students have such great hearts.

before i actually came home, i had a lot of loose ends to tie up before i could leave..like 'securing my computer'(sheet over the top), getting the book kits together to send off and a little cleaning up. when i was on my way out the door, one of the other teachers invited me to join a few others for happy hour, but me...i came home and had my own little shot.

cough syrup

two nights ago i was coughing so badly i couldn't sleep-it hit me at 1 in the morning and lasted about 30 minutes before i was finally able to start dreaming again. bruno was muttering something unintelligible. so i've been drinking cough syrup shots and chasing them with york peppermint patties. (? i don't know, i heard it was a new thing)

and they're off!
julie

i think they meant santa punch bowls, not santa punching balls....

tomorrow is going to go by quickly and i still have a lot to get done! i shouldn't, but it seems like it always happens this way around the holidays. boo.

i actually have some things that i can do tonight-like a thank you card to our brookhaven college for coming to visit, but that's just a drop in the bucket and more of a fun thing than a task...as i was flipping through the channels, the boys made me stop on charlie brown Christmas. (they actually had charlie brown Christmas trees on sale in a box at tom thumb).

when school let out, one of my students' mothers found me and yes, i will be purchasing two dozen tamales tomorrow-i am such a sucker for fresh tamales!

this morning i stopped and got some spray at walmart because it was very close to the spray my mom had so long ago (you may remember i mentioned it back in november) it is called winter wonderland, but i just call it Christmas in a can. and while i was there, i may have come across this Christmas novelty, which i think is a flop-whoever invested money in this must live in a country that doesn't know who santa is or why it might not be a good idea to punch him.

and not only that, they call him a critter...coal for you

we had a little  exchange amongst co-workers today at work, and i was blessed with some fun and thoughtful gifts! which i will be able to put to use right away, thank you very much! then when i got home, i had a note to pick up a package! i went in and i had a package from david and hollie-love it! yes bakerella cake pops!

no excuses now!

almost all of my students have finished their books! one of them wrote a dedication that was more of an academy awards speech...she even dedicated it to beyonce and her fiance. hmm....


countdown is in full swing!!
julie

can the village people be a part of our curriculum? i think not.

ah, blessed wednesday!  today we went to another Christmas reading, and it was a fun little story...there was a prop that someone brought in for our reader to use. apparently they wanted to put a doll in the 'manger,' so this is baby Jesus...

I'm sure none of you realized that baby Jesus was so fashionable and had bright blue feminine looking eyes...fire the prop-master!

but again, it was a cute tale of an irish family-very sweet. and the kids were very attentive-so proud!

today i had left the dogs out of the caged area, to be free in my room because i was going to be gone all day and then again this evening for our Christmas dinner get-together with school peoples. i didn't think i was going to get a chance to stop at home, but i did! so i let the boys out & got to play with them for awhile. i looked at the stairs my dad had made for them and someone bruno... had chewed at the carpet and left frayed ends all over the place, so i cut off all the ends and got the lighter out to seal them off...hopefully it makes the carpet a little less palatable as well. grr.

then they knew i was getting ready to leave again and chaco looked at me and said, "if you want me to go back in there, you're going to have to give me a good treat!" so i buckled and fixed up a couple of brain teaser game/treats for them.

when i got to pappadeaux for our dinner, it was rather dimly lit, but i was glad that they had decorated for the occasion. nothing says merry Christmas like...a tuna.

i know, you're looking at this saying, 'how does she know it's a tuna?' well, fortunately i was with one of our science teachers, mr. lawrence, and he is a fisherman.

the food was delicious and the company superb-good conversation is difficult to come by!

i forgot to mention that i saw this venn diagram the other day:

which made me want to cut out this picture as a visual:

picture from the greatest hits album.

the only reason i didn't put it up is because i didn't think the creator of the venn diagram (nor our superiors) would find it humorous.

i just caught bruno and chaco looking at the calendar and making plans for our break...oh boy.

thursday, please feel free to fly by like a rocket propelled pegasus in a tornado...quickly thursday, quickly.
julie

why is it called a spelling bee anyway?

i went into today knowing that we wouldn't get as much done as we had hoped-oh well. don't care. not today.

first we had the spelling bee and i knew it would take awhile, but it really didn't take too long. i think it ended up being 11 rounds (?). the strange thing was students were told no applause until after the round. understandable at the beginning, but when it got down to 2 students, and both of them missed their spellings, we were still applauding (we collectively, i was not)...conditioned to reward mediocrity. boo.

disgust. can you use that in a sentence please? although she was a political science major, issues of a complacent electorate still disgust her.(that wasn't the exact sentence, but it was similar...our 4th and 5th graders were more confused by the sentence than the word itself)

speaking of sentences that confuse in a spelling  bee, i found this funny little page, check it out, you will smile.

when we got back we had a bit of a wait for some of the contestants to get back from their little "after-party," then in the afternoon, we had our special reading after specials in the auditorium. i was very impressed with our students (all of 4th grade) for sitting quietly and giving ms. camacho the grinch their full attention; especially with no pictures or visuals besides her (although, i will admit, she was definitely dressed for the occasion!).

the verdict is still out...sea sick santa, or grinch?

 it was wonderful and the kiddos certainly enjoyed it. and tomorrow they will get to enjoy one more round!
 
when i got home i was a little frustrated because my electric company charged me already..they got me twice this cycle-before the paycheck..it's on auto pay, so i went into the account to check and there the dates are all over the place!

ridiculous, right?

so i got on to chat with someone...

roberta bird is not a fast typist, nor is she very helpful.

so basically i got nowhere-because roberta said it's not their fault-the local carrier sets the due date when they read the meters...something like that...terrible for the customer. (ME)

i've gone through so many kleenex and used this guy several times...i'm so stuffed up!

hard to use without being a little conspicuous.

but i think i need a little sudafed. i still cannot believe that they require id's for it....whoever discovered that little red pills used for congestion can make meth really screwed it up for the rest of us! i wish eternal stuffy nose and congestion upon that individual.

julie

oh, why it's a hen. thank you..i don't even collect hens, but i will collect this one.

 when i was in elementary school, we never really did anything special for our teachers...like Christmas gifts and such. now, there was one teacher who we liked a lot and she had an owl collection (3rd grade mrs. van horn), so my friend and i got my dad to make a cool owl out of wood, perched on a real branch with googly eyes. but apart from that, we didn't get random things for them. fast forward to today, one of my students gave me what i thought was a coaster, but i just got one...so i asked if it was a coaster for drinks or artwork. she said she wasn't sure.

i don't collect hens, but she said she made it.

tomorrow we have our spelling bee at school-i don't think it will last too long...just a commentary on spelling in america today (as i continue to insist on non-capitalization).
 we're also looking forward to tomorrow afternoon; we'll have some 'holiday reading.' so that should be fun. we haven't done it in a couple of years, but the students loved it the last time we did! i mean, who can say no to the grinch?

that's kinda' funny. the headline on the drone that landed in iran obama says:GIVE IT BACK. the only reason it's funny is because we were reading today in social studies about the gonzales battle in tx when the mexicans wanted their cannon back and the texans put up a flag that said: COME AND GET IT and there was actually a tile mosaic of the incident. so this is the modern day battle of gonzales-who's making the mosaic? will they give us the come and get it flag?

random thoughts:
i have a shady date coming up with jude law and robert downey jr...i am very excited about the new sherlock holmes movie!
a commercial was on the other day and it said: there's only one place to find the kim cardashian line this Christmas...and i said: thank goodness!
and
today in class i wanted to know what my student was working on and the phrase came out a little awkwardly, "how far along are you?" of course i was the only one chuckling amongst 4th graders.

julie

you smell so lovely..what are you wearing? downy.

we woke up earlier than expected today and i definitely had a sore throat-drainage boo. it came on from out of nowhere.

so...the other day when we went with some of the other teachers to help with navidad en el barrio, it was actually pretty fun, but there was someone who had on some kind of perfume or something that had a scent that i kept smelling and i loved it! but i couldn't figure out exactly who had it on, then i think i figured it out, but i opted against asking what it was because the last thing i wanted is for her to do was go post in her blog about someone asking what kind of perfume she was wearing. smile.

 i remember one time when i asked one of my coworkers at a magazine fulfillment company what perfume or lotion she was wearing because it smelled really good. she was hispanic, and i wasn't sure we were communicating because she said she wasn't wearing any perfume (twice i asked and got the same answer)...i finally asked her why she smelled so good?  downy. it was her fabric softener.. i guess i just like the smell of clean.

so today i went to bed bath and beyond for soap and looking for that fresh scent. well, i don't know that i found the exact scent, but i found one that i think might be close. and of course, you know how they are with the buy three gimmick. well, i was on a mission and i resisted!! proud of me!

sensory overload whenever i go in there. my sniffer says, "that'll be enough of that!"

so when i got home, i took chaco for a walk. but this time, we went out of the complex around to the new park they built behind the savoye in addison-vitruvian park. it's a nice little park. i've included some pictures.

chaco was most impressed, although there weren't many others visiting today. i promised him there would most likely be bigger crowds in the summer and he seemed okay with that. i heard him telling bruno about it, trying to make him jealous to see if perhaps he might come with us next time...he didn't give an answer. i might start stopping there after school to go walking though, because it's a bigger loop around than our trail...and i can walk faster if i don't have the boys with me...then take chaco for a shorter walk at the complex. hmm...sounds good.

i got these great Christmas stickers from a friend,and i think i am going to have to decorate some notes for Christmas! woo hoo!! love holiday stickers!

aren't stickers just fun?! i used to collect the ann frank stickers in a special book-that eventually got 'misplaced' by mom in file 13...

smell ya lata',
julie

medieval torture weapons? wait, is that a mariachi band?

before i went outside today, i had to fix my cabell windbreaker...my drawstring got pulled halfway through and it was stuck in the middle. ugh, i hate that because it is so hard to inch it out (actually it is less than an inch at a time)...i had to create tools. but they look like medieval torture weapons...

i know, scary, right?

finally pulled the scraggly little beast through the long dark hem shaft.

today i decided to try to get bruno to walk with us using some warmed up roast beef. well, i got him to the edge of the stairs again and then he balked. so i carried him down the stairs and tried for about ten minutes and we didn't get very far. so i took him back up. instead, chaco and i took a long walk around the trail and back to the main office. well, he automatically heads up the walk every time. this time, the door was locked and the clock was up because they were at lunch, but shannon was sitting at her desk and she gave me the WAIT sign and came to unlock the door. chaco was wagging his little tail so fast as soon as he saw her!

she invited us in to hang out in the inner office so that no one else would see that there was anyone there and we all got on the floor and he played shy and quiet because we'd gone on such a long walk. shannon always has fun stories. and we definitely got to hear a doozie today. i'm not going to repeat it, but i kinda' wish i'd been there with a camera!

tonight was fun because i got to go out for dinner with a couple of dear friends for some catch up time! loved the restaurant because it was out of the ordinary. el ranchito-delicious! live mariachi bands-two of them going back and forth all night- kinda like dueling banjos...only with mariachi bands. it was kind of like a little game trying to get conversation in before the trumpet interrupted.

it was too dark to get a good picture of the actual trumpet player that purposely tried to thwart our conversation!

then when they'd move into the other room, we were able to get some chatting done. we laughed a lot and then made our way down to the corner to take a picture of something that we had seen on the way there and laughed some more! love hanging out with friends!


good night!
julie