labor day, fish tacos and trail tots (nothing like tater tots)

first countdown: labor day-check! now, only 80 days to the next big one-thanksgiving! (that's 11 weekends!) and only 104 days until Christmas (15 weekends! not that i'm counting...) we've made it to labor day with no major glitches. although, i did receive a message that i need to do my tei calibration test again-in basics, it's just a test to ensure that we (coaches and administrators) are on the same page and really using the rubric to evaluate during distinguished teacher reviews. which means another half day off campus. boo.

on thursday i almost forgot to go to the chiropractor-mostly because i simply forgot it was thursday, and i was super excited because we were able to get a larger pool than i anticipated to participate in CATCH UP & READ (CAR),which is the program we began working with last year. in fact, i'd only had one person answer the call and step up to the plate, so i was afraid we'd not be able to have the program. so i sent out one last ditch effort email and gave a brief 5 minute spiel at our pd session, and after some begging and cajoling, we were able to get enough teachers to match it up in such a way that some will work the program every other week, and some will work it one day every week instead of two, to cut down on the over-commitment. hopefully it will go well, and be beneficial to everyone involved! i am going to do everything possible to make it fun and really show appreciation to the teachers, TAs and students involved!

as i began to say, i was so excited about the turn-out, that i almost forgot about my chiropractor appointment! i'm so glad that i didn't because had i missed it, i would've missed this gem! i was driving, minding my own business, when out of the peripheral, i noticed an suv to my left passing by. only without actually looking at it, it seemed oddly shaped. then i noticed that was because it wasn't an suv! it was a ridiculously tall car. dear sir, over-sized wheels do not make you a monster truck. sorry. i'll bet it makes it easier to tip the car over.

he has no idea how ridiculous he looks.

 and i also found out that the chiropractor is closed on monday for labor day! so i would've missed a whole week of adjustment and probably wasted a trip on monday, not knowing it was closed. 

i made no big plans for labor day, which is allowing me to save money-which is part of the plan! as part of the 'no plans weekend,' this morning the dogs were ecstatic about going out for a walk that was longer than just going around the pond! we did the back trail, and as we were walking, i had to keep them away from the 'nature-y' part of the trail, because there is still a bunch of poison ivy over yonder. then i saw some fruit on the ground, some of which had been bitten into and pulled apart. so i picked one up, as they looked to be some sort of nut, and i wanted to take it home to identify it.

i googled the images of the fruit, and found it to be exactly what i had suspected-PECAN! that was exciting! i decided to peel it and see the nut inside. and just like the walnuts used to do, it stained my fingers-darn it! why is it that the good things in life can be so messy?!? anyhoo, i will be watching that tree closely as we move to late september and into october! i hate paying so much for pecans at the store-robbery!

it looks like i was fingerprinted with pecan fruit

and last night as i was contemplating cleaning out my closet, i got sidetracked when i found my trail tot book...AND the vest! yes. i was in trail tots when we lived in raytown, mo back in the day! that was in the kinder year. 6 yrs old. and i rocked trail tots at our church! the lady in charge was mrs. aubry, the mother of curtis, one of my brother's friends. (may have had a crush on him). and the aubreys were good friends with my parents. as for trail tots itself, we did crafts, learned verses, played games...one of the things i remember doing while we were at the church was finding an animal print out in the yard and making a plaster cast of it (not sure what that has to do with Jesus, but it was pretty darn cool)...and finding a crab apple tree- i don't think our leader encouraged or even knew that we had picked apples from the tree, but i learned very quickly that they were not delicious.

this piece of vintage pleather still fits. yes, i did try it on, and i almost threw my shoulder sockets out trying to get it off! 

using the write from the beginning rubric, i believe the picture should receive a rather high score.

perhaps this was part of the development of my love for letter-writing!

DRAW SOMETHING THAT GOD MADE: please note snow-capped mountains, the tree with leaves, and the dead tree with no leaves and a hollow...the birds at different distances...AND the helicopter! God didn't make that, but what a lovely addition!

as i think about the things we did, look at the question at the bottom of the page, what we were doing at church was in essence engaging us in our interests and preparing us for school- verbal interaction, memorization skills, community and civics...i really wish more of our students were involved in something like this outside of school or before they came to our campus, because it really is beneficial!

i am doing my best to stay away from brats (the hot dog-kind) this weekend, even though it is truly the food for labor day, because i cannot buy just one, i have to purchase an entire package, and then i have to eat them within a certain time-frame before they go bad, and it really isn't on my list of good meats. so instead, i purchased fresh fish at the store yesterday and today i ventured to make blackened fish tacos at home. they were actually quite good! and i still have 1 1/2 fillets left, so i'll be eating fish tacos this weekend-and i'm not even a tiny bit sad about that!

alright, for all of you that work (for those of you that do not work-and are capable, i don't think you should take part in this holiday, as you are riding on the backs of those who do), remember that this day: honors the American labor movement and the contributions that workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of their country. God Bless America!

alrighty then, have a fabulous long weekend!!
julie

postal workers, new stamps and letter-eating-dogs (fortunately this time it wasn't mine!)

it never fails. yesterday afternoon, when i got out of our meeting, i remembered that i had to turn in that debit card! i left school, thinking the bank closed at 5 pm. i raced out of there and realized at the major intersection that i didn't remember where the nearest wells fargo was...so i turned south on marsh, remembering that there were 2 banks up on forest and marsh. when i got to the corner, i saw a chase sign, so i thought, 'well, perhaps it's the one right around the corner..' when i turned the corner, it was another chase. weird. i guess they just wanted to make it easier for people to access from either side of marsh. time was winding down...it was 4:52...8 minutes; so rushed up forest and turned on midway thinking there was one by the interstate-i was right! did i mention i was in a hurry and because of this, i was a mean driver? well, it's true. it's a little shameful-i was so glad i had no passengers #nowitnesses so i parked and seeing the hours were open until 8 (strange), i burst through the door and i'm fairly certain i had a rather confused look on my face as i stopped mid-step, because the guy looked at me and said, "the bank? it's around back." i'd walked into the phone store without even looking at the sign and realizing it wasn't wells fargo! apparently it happens often. so off around the corner to the bank-duty done!

 i hope the lady didn't close out the card and have to get a new one! but even if so, hopefully she'll be relieved that she won't have to go through all of the paperwork of someone stealing it and running it up!

i have four letters in my bag to send off...but i've been out of stamps for about 5 days-it's been rough! i hate sitting on letters and having to wait to send them, so today i made the dreaded stop at the post office. as i pulled in, i was very thankful to see that the parking lot wasn't full! short line! the lady next to me asked if the nearest clerk was wearing rubber bands around her head. i felt like turning to look at her to say, "WOMAN! what is WRONG with you?!? postal workers, hello? edmond, ok...'86???" instead, i just informed her that it looked to be gold chains fashioned into a headband. and of course, that had to be the next available clerk, and i was up. i asked for a roll of stamps and she informed me that they were out, so i overly dramatically sighed and did the whole body sag, as she asked if i'd like 5 sheets...um. no. it's really difficult to roll sheets up in a small space, sorry. i may have made kind of a big deal about it as i explained to her the huge inconvenience of not having a roll-but i did it nicely...if not humorously. i've had this clerk before, and i think she appreciated a little personality, because when i finally said, "(sigh) fine. i'll take one sheet of the batman and one of the regulars. and this card," (which i'd seen on the card rack), she used a discount coupon, so i got the card for half price, and she put another coupon in the bag for next time. it won't take long to go through two sheets. in fact, once i put the stamps on the letters in my bag, i was already feeling the OH-NO-I'M-LOW-ON-STAMPS feeling. does anyone else go through that anxiety, or do most people just run out of stamps and think. oh well, i'm out of stamps...maybe i can peel one off an old letter and get away with it...

holy toledo, batman!!

i've already got my eyes set on a card i saw today! 

and now i have another one to rewrite. i sent a letter to one of my cousins up in iowa, and i just got a message from her this after noon on facebook. i'll let you read it for yourselves:

it made me smile

i was not shocked, as this sounds like something that bruno and chaco would do! how many times have i caught bruno trying to explain why it was so important for him to shred my documents! so teachers, take note, sometimes the dog does eat the homework-don't penalize the student for the dog's behavior!

the rest of the week is pretty crazy at school. i have some things i really would like to get done tomorrow, as i will be off campus part of the day thursday for PL and all day friday for a mandatory teacher excellence initiative training.

i am excited to report that i finally filled out a report on the online apt site. it has been really exciting that they finally got it set up to pay online! so while i paid my last bill, i made a request for them to change out the lightbulbs in the breezeway, as 2 of the three have been out since before summer...i cannot believe that none of my neighbors reported it! boo. it was so dark out there, it was a little creepy-if only i could've held out until halloween! i was surprised when i arrived today and saw the maintenance man at the golf cart with a bunch of bulbs. he asked me if i knew which lights were out, so i informed him, and he turned the lights on (they are normally on a timer), and he began getting to work. apparently the third floor was not the only floor in need of bulbs. well, i just opened the door to look, and i see that the lights are all in working order-no more shady business around here!

oh, and here is the teacher poster that each staff member made to put in front of their door. it took awhile for them to put mine up- i made sure to add a little flair-i should've put something kanakuk on the poster, because it has been such a huge part of my life, but i wasn't sure what all they were wanting on the poster. sad face. hindsight.

so..i wasn't sure if they would appreciate the humor with the baby pic...

and yesterday, i was told that i had a package in the office that said: julie macgeyver robinson. i laughed, because i immediately knew who it was from. HA! so, i did not self-nickname, that was done when wendy miller was our prized fellow! and it stuck.

coke points. (coca cola, thank you very much)

and today on the way home i decided it would be wise to go ahead and get those stamps. so i stopped by the post office

so, i'm just sitting here staring at my new enlarged beach picture on the wall, and imagining the coconut bread...it's like a window to the beach! it was so worth it! peaceful and relaxing.

julie

this 'college student'(wouldn't that be nice) loves her canvas

today was a great day...after school. well, for the most part, anyway.

before school, i was walking to my car when i found a debit card on the ground, so i looked around to see if there was anyone outside but i saw no one. grr. that meant i'd have to go out of my way to do the right thing. i hate that.

i went to the chiropractor, and she was a bit shocked when she saw my hair-best compliment ever: YOU LOOK SO YOUNG! YOU ALMOST LOOK LIKE YOU'RE IN COLLEGE! oh dr. bri. you just became my favorite chiropractor ever!

on the way home, i decided i would stop by the whole foods store to see if they had guava paste. i have been craving the burgers i had in miami and st. petersburg; while both were very different, they were equally satisfying! so i looked in every aisle, but to no avail. i found the guava jelly, but it's not quite the same...so then i looked it up on my phone to see if maybe i could make my own with the purchase of some guava...then i saw how much sugar went into it, and i almost had a diabetic seizure right there in the store! nope. that was my cue to exit.

when i got back to the apartment, i realized that i had not stopped by the wells fargo bank, so i stopped by the apt. office to see if anyone had come by looking for their lost debit card. nope. unfortunately it was already 6, so i didn't have time to go to the bank to drop it off. i just told them that if anyone did come in to report it, i was planning to drop it off tomorrow.

when i got upstairs, i was pleasantly surprised to find this little package waiting at the door!

WHAT in the world could it be?!

i had to get a canvas print! i chose this picture because i LOVE the lighting and the colors, but most of all i LOVE THE FLAG! it's a slice of the beach in my living room! all the inspiration i need! i almost feel like i should put the ocean waves cd in the stereo (yes, still got one of those), and play it, blow the fan and pretend i'm there!

canvas print: it's every bit of perfect! (look at chaco, he looks like he just woke up from a nap, all disheveled!) 

the boys said they want to go with me next time...and stay. i told them they might not like it and mentioned fish, and that fish were usually a cat food. chaco smiled and said, "i'm stealth, like a dogfish! i know i'll like it!" bruno almost snorted and said, "more like a clownfish!" that's when chaco walked off and yelled over his shoulder, "whatever! you're like a blowfish!" and i just shook my head...i'll settle for mermaid.

and that's where we left it. hopefully the storms that are moving around don't hit them too hard this season! #missingthebeach

julie

who IS alejandro?

who is alejandro? you ask. well. it's rather a long story...so i'll make it longer.

i happened to see a post on a childhood friend's fb page. she posted something about the brazilian blowout, and so it made me curious and i opened it and read about it. it was an article by a huffington post style writer, and it was pretty convincing! i decided that it was important for me to figure this frizzy hair thing out, and see if there really was a solution. especially after having to deal with it at the beach this summer.

fortunately i found a groupon for a brazilian blowout not too far from my neighborhood, and i did it! i committed to it and contacted alejandro. his first available date was august 26th (i had called to set it up on aug. 1). we exchanged phone calls and emails to set everything up, and i'd been looking forward to this for almost an entire month.

so when wednesday the 26th finally rolled around, i made sure that i was at his place of business on time. the only thing was that when i got there, i wandered in a complete circle observing all of the different individually owned salons in this place, and couldn't find his. so i interrupted two ladies having a jovial little chat over nails, and i could tell they were irritated that i interrupted them. don't care! one of the ladies explained that there was a 2nd floor and he may be located up there. so up i went, and sure enough, he was one of the first salons.

"julie?" he asked, to which i replied, "yes, you must be alejandro!" and so he had me sit in the chair and told me what was going to happen and how the procedure worked. then the magic began; shampoo, condition, cut, product, dry under the cool hair dryer that i only see in movies like legally blonde and steel magnolias...then he pulled out the handheld dryer and finished it up...then for the flat iron. he talked some of the time, but he didn't force conversation like some people do, which was welcomed by me-t.v. background was enough noise; on the news they were rehashing the story about the reporters who were shot live that morning...and alejandro was shaking his head about guns. i opted not to tell him about mine. what he don't know won't hurt him (and in turn he won't take out his differences on my hair)!

although, he did find the opportunity to tell me stories about one of his 'crazy' clients who accidentally butt-dialed him at 5 am and later told him that it must've been when she was on her way home from a crazy night...and another who showed him a picture of how she wanted her hair-and that pic was topless, but she made it all less awkward by saying, "i know you're not interested in boobs, so i didn't think it would be inappropriate since you wouldn't be interested in me." yep...it was really none of my business, but maybe he was just trying to convince me that if i did want to talk about anything, he was approachable. like i said, nice guy, but i'm just not into telling a hairdresser crazy things...nor am i EVER going to have a pic in my phone that i would have to explain. and the mere fact that he was sharing with me about other clients was proof enough that i should keep my personal life personal! that wasn't hard.

he did have a great elle magazine that i picked up. i found an article called: i am not my hair. great article about not letting your hair be your identity...i don't know that if i were a hair stylist i would want people reading it, as the girl talked about cutting her own hair and not trying to get fancy with it-just enjoying the natural-ness of it. as i just looked it up, i came across a song-which i believe is based on the lyrics from some of the poetry she'd written, and i LOVE it!! listen to it here!

back to the story. he asked if i was doing anything for labor day, and i said, "well, i probably won't go very far, we may just go up to orlando if we go anywhere." freudian slip!!! he looked shocked, so i quickly corrected myself and said oklahoma, i'd go to oklahoma. then for whatever reason, i felt the need to share with him my train of thought. so i continued with, "i was in orlando this summer, and so it was still on my mind!" to which he felt the necessity to explain why his face looked so shocked, and he proceeded to tell me, "i was just thinking about a trip that my partner and i will be going on this fall to ORLANDO, so when you said that, i was thinking you were reading my mind!" comical. and he continued to tell me about finding cheap flights on spirit airlines, even though they had to pay extra per bag...i may have mentioned something about just taking carry-ons, and then it hit me-maybe they are shoe people, and needed extra bags for fashion accessories (you already know i've seen legally blonde- don't stomp your little last season prada shoes at me, honey!) 

so we finished and he took the after pic and gave me some business cards.
i'd taken some of my own before pics, and an after:

at school right before going to the salon

yikes...there's a lot going on back there.

after-much easier i LOVE it straight!

um...let's see. i've had two occasions now where i've had to help people open things that they couldn't find a key to...cue macgeyver music!! and yes, believe it or not, it worked on both occasions!

i really wasn't sure about the 2nd one, i impressed myself! 

and i should've known better than to purchase aleve gel caps before a training day in dallas. i even thought about not leaving them in the car, but i figured, it's just 8 hours. not my most brilliant moment ever! i ended up with a large clump of aleve. i had to cut the pill bottle from around it, and then meticulously separate as many as i could with a little twisting, pulling, some of the capsules popped and got gooey, but i was able to extract most of them from the lump of pain-killing-nastiness.

what made me think that leaving them in the car for 8 hours was remotely okay? 

and earlier this week we had a request from a campus that was needing some help in their implementation of all in learning. we've been using it for quite awhile now, and so i told them we'd love to spend some time walking them through it and showing them the important things, and giving some tips about how to best roll it out on their campuses to get the results they were looking for. well, i thought it might be a good idea to extend the invitation to some other coaches in our feeder pattern so that we weren't getting a bunch of separate requests-let's knock it all out at once! so today we had a small training with coaches from three different campuses and it went well-hopefully they felt better about it when they left than when they arrived!

and today on the way out, i saw this-the teacher transcribed what the student had written and it made me happy.

i don't understand it, but that's okay, it made me smile!

week one is over...we did it!
we've still got a way to go, but we will get there!

julie

breaking in, identity theft and bribery #notguilty

we're so back, that it seems like a dream that i was actually ever gone for summer vacation...and i've only been back for less than a month! sigh.

one of our teachers came in the other day and could not get her projector cart open, and the doc camera and projector were locked inside. it had been another teacher's room, so she had no idea where the key was. so i decided i would break out my macgeyver skills and took a paperclip and some mini-pliers with me to see if i could help out. it took about 30 seconds to get the simple lock open, then we had to jimmy up a handle-which ended up being a large binder clip-i'm a great person to have around in a pinch! (hopefully i don't throw my shoulder out patting myself on the back...but if i do, it's alright, i go to the chiropractor tomorrow). 

simple tools folks...if there is a zombie apocalypse, you might want to be friends with me..just sayin'.

 PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT> YOU'RE WELCOME: sprouts...thank you for the new variety of chip...anything with the word bacon it is worth trying at least once!

 yesterday we had a feeder pattern collaboration day of professional development, in which coaches delivered a variety of topics on information relating to math, reading and language arts. i was in charge of thinking maps. i did not script out what i was going to say, but i said pretty much the same thing throughout the day- 5 one-hour sessions. the morning sessions weren't full, so the other presenter and i presented together because i was more familiar, and i knew it would be helpful to her to hear it all, and add in what she learned. so we did that for two of the sessions. i will say that i enjoyed presenting by myself more than presenting together, as i like to perform alone-it's like an interactive monologue. it went well, and it seemed like the participants appreciated the information, and found ways to make it applicable in their content area.

i had two of our cabell teachers in my last session asking where the candy was. they said everyone else had candy in their sessions-i laughed and said i didn't need candy because my session was THAT good, besides, i'm funny enough that once we got going no one even missed the candy! they did NOT need me to bribe them to pay attention, i was engaging (does it count if i amused myself?)the real reason was that candy is so stinkin' expensive, and i had purchased two large bags for the day we gave the dry technology training..it was like a consolation treat: sorry you had to be here! so i had spent my candy budget for the year.

at 4:30, as i was walking out, i was very conscious of the throbbing in my feet! yikes. when i got back to the apt, i got my mail, then i took my shoes off in the car, and then i parked in front of my building. i took my shoes off prematurely, as the temps were in the 100's...forgot how hot the pavement was, and every pause-getting things out of the back seat, then out of the trunk, was painfully warm on the tender bottoms of these white feet-it almost made me forget how much they were aching...until i walked in my door.

this morning when i woke up-still aching. so i took a shower-this seemed to help a bit.

then i went out to the storage closet to look for an outfit for today's convocation. we were told to come dressed as our favorite artist, writer, entertainer...so i had pulled a few outfits, but when i looked at them this morning, nothing really struck my fancy, so i looked again, and chose to go as brett michaels/POISON. this was a comfortable choice, and i submit that posing as someone else isn't fraudulent if no one asks for your autograph...even with the inflatable guitar (that lost its air halfway through). i was very proud of our CABELL group, though. almost everyone came decked out, and ready to play. they were up out of their chairs dancing most of the time, they were chanting even when it seemed somewhat inappropriate, they did an amazing job!! what a great team to work with!

props to abby, our art teacher-for the prop!

with my fellow coach from caillet, and cabell's new principal. 

 when we got back to campus, it was back to business, working on unit planning, and meeting with the jiv daya foundation for a training on the kindles that our 3-5 teachers will be integrating into their blended rotations! it's going to be great-what a wonderful resource!!

i was asked at the training i did for thinking maps if coaches could be "contracted out" to other campuses. i laughed. i asked what campus she was at, and when she told me deally, i had to smile, because i absolutely adore her assistant principal, who was a fellow on our campus and a firecracker-hard worker! and i told her that if she talked to wendy, and wendy asked me, i would definitely be willing to talk to my principal about that possibility. i was just happy that she thought the training was valuable enough to take back to her campus to share campus-wide. smile.

i was also approached today by the principal at a campus near ours, who was also a fellow at our campus, and very similar personality to wendy-passionate about student learning and a sense of urgency like no other, and she asked if i might be able to train their staff on DRA, so i will be doing that on friday, amidst working with our staff on lesson planning and finishing up in their rooms with set-up and preparations for next week when the kids come!

we need to find the rest of these on our campus! 

 now i have a list of things that i would like to complete, but i am not certain i will finish them by next week. i am really excited about tomorrow, though, because we have a rep from MYON coming in to do a real PD Training for our teachers so that they can see the power in it, and how to use it to it's max potential, using the records to collect data, and lexile levels for students to create goals. hopefully andrea and i will get a chance to do some planning around tuesday lesson planning meeting protocols and registering for a training. good times. 

too little time, and still so much to do...hopefully this isn't a foreshadowing of what the year is going to entail! yikes!

julie

here we go-countdown!

yep...it's over. summer is officially over. i've been back on campus since august 3rd. so when i say countdown, you may be thinking...countdown to students coming. and while this may be true, i'll bet most teachers have looked at their calendars and already marked out each break...countdown to thanksgiving! countdown to Christmas! countdown to spring break! countdown to summer!!!!! it's natural. it's not on purpose-this is natural, it happens to us all, and teachers, you shouldn't feel guilty about this! as long as you're living in the moment and making things happen in your classroom, it's ok to have your countdown!

i've had meetings, new teacher academy meetings, technology training, MAP assessment training, presented our professional development pd, went to social emotional learning training yesterday and today regurgitated the technology training that we went to. we tried to make it fun, but it was probably about as fun as eating cardboard with no water to wash it down. and tomorrow we continue...yay. 

i wish i had some awe-inspiring words, but i do not. what i will say is that this is going to be a long year-an uphill climb, perhaps....and by up hill, i mean looking straight up a rock face with crags and small handholds and footholds for the climbing. thing is, most climbers will tell you, the excitement is in the challenge. you don't feel the sense of exhilaration unless you've experienced a good challenge.

as you know, our principal was promoted to an executive director position. our AP took a position closer to home. our counselor transitioned to the new personalized learning high school. our nurse...not sure what happened, but we found a new one for this year. our speech teacher-was moved to another school. we have several new teachers (which is totally great-they will fit right in and be an asset to our team; very competent and hand-selected). what we didn't expect was that we are now losing our personalized learning coordinator as well. this is a blow, because he literally pulled everything together and molded so many of the ideas for this program, and now we won't have him helping to ensure that the vision stays its course. we worked so hard last year and put in so many hours trying to piece together a vision that made sense. my only hope is that somehow it maintains some of its integrity as we move forward.

one of the nice things-i'm not sure who repainted the teacher lounge, but it got a face-lift last week. it's fresh, and it reminded me a little of my summer vacation, so i'll have that to help get me through the year!

great beach-y colors, shells, beach pics....

somewhat random native american framed art on the wall...maybe because it speaks of the sea?

***fast forward to friday***
so, the technology training that we  had to got to present, was on wednesday, and fortunately andrea-my co-coach (sounds like i'm stuttering, right? but don't be fooled-i'm not). we weren't certain who all would be in our group, but fortunately all our our new teachers plus a few others were in our group. this was good, because we were able to then say to our teachers-these tools are available to you, but we use some different tools as well.  it was brutal, a total relief when it came to the final slide!

from there, i went to my chiropractor, and signed in, got adjusted and then as she was checking my spine, she found a spot that made me jerk (an area on my lower back had been bothering me); she used her magical little tool and i kid you not, that area wasn't bothering me as i walked up the stairs to my apartment when i got home! #imabeliever ...before i actually left, dr. bree said, "so, i'll see you...tomorrow? monday?" tomorrow? OH NO!! my days are still off-i'm on summer schedule (where i don't have to keep track of what day it is); it was wednesday, and my appointments are mondays and thursdays. dr. bree laughed and said she just figured i was making up my own schedule! fortunately they didn't have any other patients, and she didn't even blink about changing it up. that's part of what i love about this office-they are all about accommodating clients. and she said, "besides, it seems like you needed it!" 

actually, before i walked up the stairs to my apartment, i made a stop at the new walmart superstore on midway, and i was impressed by the floor. yes, the floor. it was a really sharp looking poured cement...loved it. i went to purchase a kettleball for some home exercising(mostly because i saw a great post on my friend, lo's wall)-i was also interested in getting some swimming goggles for onion-cutting(because i saw brandy's onion goggles, and shea said she just used her swimming goggles...novel idea), but unfortunately, their end-of-summer inventory was out. boo. i guess i'll just be looking like gene simmons when i cut my onions until i can find some-or remember to look. anyhoo, when i approached the cashier, she looked at the kettleball and got a confused look on her face, "what's that?" i proceeded to tell her, and as she lifted it, "woah! what are you going to do with that?" "are you going to need help getting that to your car?"  "do you want me to bag that?"(no, you'd have to triple bag it...it already has a handle). "good luck with that thing!" 

yesterday we were back on campus, and i had the opportunity to observe some great presentations by our teachers at cabell. they were prepared, and had useful information to share. we had the pd sessions set up in a 'choose your own session' rotation. then in the afternoon, we had some mission and vision work.

after our sessions, we had an interview for a position at our school, then i got a phone call from ashley, our fearless p.l. leader at the district level. she called to see if i could come down to the admin building the next morning to be a part of a podcast series, and give voice to what is happening with personalized learning on the ground. so i agreed to do it, as it was last minute, and i was pretty sure she probably asked me because kristen and vanessa may have pulled the ol' "ask julie, she'll do it" card.

yep, i'm a glutton for punishment-i agreed to do it, which meant getting up earlier and leaving to battle traffic-which fortunately wasn't nearly as bad as i thought it might be. when i got back to campus, i was immediately snagged at the door to help someone look at their room and figure out how to organize it, and then i had another coach meeting me, as we were planning to collaborate for a thinking maps pd that we have to present for our feeder pattern next week. i was called to the office, before an interview, to have a discussion with our executive director on where we are with our personalized plc and pd plans. it sounds like we are pretty much on the same page in the direction that we're going. (WHEW!) 

after our interview, andrea and i had a meeting with my academic facilitator, with whom we discussed protocols for the coming year. toward the end of our meeting she said the one thing she was a little worried about was the check-in process, because there were a lot of teachers involved. we suggested creating a form for teachers to check in by QR code, like we've been using for our school pd meetings. i hope this is the solution that she was looking for! i love sharing the wealth of knowledge that we've accumulated over the past year! (thanks sean!)

it was great to get home today and be able to walk the boys because the temp was under 100! so we took a long walk and i was so proud of bruno, because this is the longest walk that we've gone on since his surgery, and i let him off his leash to go at his own pace. he did a great job! we stopped by the mailbox, and i had to stop by the office for a package-mail is wonderful, but a package? now THAT's a treat!!

i think i mentioned that hellen gave me a gift package while i was in miami to bring back to the boys-if you aren't up to date, chaco is the toy-loving dog. anything with a squeaker...so i gave him the reindeer first and he almost got whiplash swinging that thing around...he was able to get to the main squeaker in the belly and start ripping out the stuffing, so i went ahead and pulled all of the stuffing so that he could continue playing with it...he went to town-so i put him up for a minute, and he proceeded to find the stuffed bone toy-and got to the squeaker and stuffing...he's ridiculous.

shakin' it out. #happypup

and that my friends is how the new school year begins!

julie

last day- it's still all about the food!

did i mention that shea ran out of toothpaste just before we started our weekend adventures? no worries, because i had plenty! i don't know that this is important, but i thought it was funny-so on monday i decided that it would be an excellent parting gift, so that she didn't have to use all of lily's person's toothpaste during the week! it's true.

monday morning, shea went to work and it was not a beautiful morning-i had thought about getting up and going to the beach, but it was raining, so instead, i got some stuff done and took a quick trip to for some items for the flight attendants (if they so happened to be amazing), and so it was that i met hobby lobby and target of bradenton. while i was at hobby lobby, i got a txt from shea-that meant she was free and ready for lunch. so i set WAZE to take me to IMG to pick her up. she gave me instructions for the gate and where to go after that. the only problem, was that WAZE took me to the back entrance. so the gentleman at the entrance looked at me like i was an idiot using some directions app and said, "well, the HR dept is actually on the other side." i wasn't sure because i saw the 'blue tent' that shea said she'd meet me at...but i followed his instructions and turned around anyway to go to the main entrance...it made sense.

i took his instruction and i went to the front gate and the lady there made a little tag for me to put in my window and sent me around to round-about and..i couldn't remember...did the lady say take a spot in the reserved parking area, or did she saygo to the blue tent is in front of the reserved parking area. i opted to pull into a spot, not being certain. then i worried that i was going to get in trouble for parking in someone's spot...and if i was pulled into this spot, how would shea recognize the back end of this rental car? so i decided to pull out and just wait in the loading zone by the blue tent, but i wasn't sure if it was one way or not, and i didn't see any signs. so i sent a txt to ask shea, then i got tired of waiting, so i backed out, and that's when i saw the ONE WAY painted on the pavement. so i pulled out and drove around the parking lot to get back to the bus-loading zone. while i was waiting, i watched a mother saying goodbye to her kids-she must have been leaving them for sports camp. she pulled away, so i pulled forward and waited. within minutes, my thoughts were disrupted by a little tap at the window and a, "look what i found! someone you might know!" when i looked up, there was morgan! (no, not morgan freeman, i know, popularity has it's benefits, but even better, it was morgan, a kanakuk gal!) we had a very brief greeting, then we had to take off so that shea could get back for her appointment.

like 'cheers' only better! 

one of the joints i'd been wanting to eat at was the starfish- a small cash-only, dock restaurant, it doesn't get any fresher than that! so we got a little sampler with shrimp and scallops with hush puppies and an order of calamari. then we found a spot under the roof, as it was still a little wet with possibility of more rain. while we waited, we went around to the little shop up front and i got to see where they sold their fresh fish, and some other fun little ocean-type art and knick knacks.

we got there at just the right time, because it started to get busy right after our food came. fresh sea food! it was delicious! i enjoyed every piece! sadly, i had never enjoyed the calamari and scallops i'd previously had, perhaps due to the fact that it had not been fresh...my take on these items is that they were just naturally rubbery. i am so thankful that i finally got to taste each of these items exactly as they were meant to be! and in the atmosphere it was meant to be eaten in, as well!

the view out-where the fishermen are!

the view in- where the consumers are!

old-man bird

from there, we had time to stop at the sea hagg. this place will surprise you! looking at it as you drive by, which we had done many times, it seems like a junk yard of crazy. shea knew better-she'd been there before. so when we went in, it was like a salvage yard along with some artsy sea-faring type decor. definitely the place to go for unique pirate/mermaid/ship-faring decorating ideas.

medusa mermaid? coral peacock hair...#mermaidproblems

yargh! a pirate's life for shea!

oh my...what's a girl to do when the shark jumps over the bridge to maul your arm? 

you can barely see the scratch gouge from the ripped flesh anymore, but trust me, it was there!

 some stuff was inexpensive, while other items were quite pricey. shea was eyeing some great ship wheels (the steering mechanism), which would probably rip the plaster and dry wall right off the studs if you tried to hang it-they were heavy, but beautiful! and they pics of mermaids that made me blush-apparently not all mermaids are as modest as ariel. #mermaidproblems

we didn't purchase anything, but shea found a back scratcher-tried doing creepy baby hands with it, but the skin type wasn't an exact match...

baby-hands are much more convincing without the pricetag...and when the skin color matches...but i still think it'd be a great item to have available in the office!

we went back to IMG, because shea had to get back to work and i had to make my way off to tpa airport. we stopped at her car and i grabbed 3 shark teeth to prove that yes, we'd really gone hunting! i'd kinda' like to take one in when we go for the boys' teeth cleaning in a couple of weeks and tell the new vet (who i've not yet met), that bruno lost a tooth, and i just wanted to make sure it didn't alter his ability to rip flesh....thoughts?

anyhoo, i drove up to tpa in the rain and i was beginning to miss it already. WAZE was kind enough to spot the traffic and reroute me around it, but i still got to the car rental place about an hour later than i had originally rented the car for-thankfully, the little guy didn't charge me!

if you look closely, the drops on the windshield-they are not rain...they are tears from the angels wishing i didn't have to leave..they know...they feel my pain!

as i got into the shuttle, there was only one other lady, and as i sat down, my google hangouts video called, but i somehow got cut-off and decided against calling back. the gal and i ended up conversing a little about the area and before you know it, we were at the airport and the skycap got me all checked in.

that night, i received the best text ever! i'm pretty sure i got it while i was in stl on a layover, and i laughed! so i must share it- the time lapse! hopefully it will play with the music! (boo- it wouldn't load)

 i guess i'll just have to add this one-just for fun because i found it on my drive!

officially it was over. i knew it was so when the airplane pulled into dallas love, and it took 20 minutes for the baggage to arrive...and i called the lyft driver to take me home at 20 past midnight.

so yes, it's all about the food, but let's be very clear-the food isn't nearly as good nor as fun without the friend/s! having the opportunity to eat and laugh and play with this amazing friend of mine convinced me that perhaps bradenton, fl needs me.

sigh. ready for the next trip!
julie