Aim high

Bible Character day was Friday and it was a success. Everbody showed up and remembered their lines. Can't ask for anything more than that. On Sunday we went trick or treating with some friends. It was a beautiful day. Just a little chill in the air with the sun shining bright. Even better was that the kids tired quickly and after a couple blocks said that they had enough candy and wanted to go home. I think it was a record 25 minutes of trick or treating. Hooray! Here's a pic of the little pilot. I had just posted the first one but thought I should add the one with him packing some heat. I tried to explain to him that I'm fairly certain pilots do not carry semi-automatic machine guns but he would hear none of that. I'm pretty sure that was the best part of the costume for him.

The little that I know

I had a great weekend. And, at the risk of getting some ridicule from the 49th state, I am going to tell you all the blessings (big and little) of my day:

1. A great breakfast with Abbie at Frank's diner. I am amazed that I never knew about this place before, it has been there since 1926. It was a wonderful little diner that reminded me of my YiaYia and Papou's house and I imagine that it sounded a lot like their diner that they had in Decatur many years ago.

2. Finding a fabulous winter coat, that looks great with my hair and eyes (hey, its the little things right?)

3. Shopping without kids

4. Giving the bathroom a complete cleaning - not the once over you do before people come over to your house but a bleach overload that leaves you feeling satisfied and accomplished

5. Having enough energy after cleaning the bathroom to clean the kitchen and living room too

6. Putting the ipod on shuffle and being rewarded with a song from Small Potatoes, that I had forgotten was on there. My sister, a friend and I used to go see them when they played at a coffee house in Bannockburn. Made me happy. That was over 10 years ago but by looking at their site, they are still around. Thats cool.

7. The wonderful scent of my Holiday Sage Yankee Candle somewhat making up for the cost : )

8. The Tigers winning game 2 (they are only in the 4th inning right now but I'm trying to think positively)

9. Being able to keep Wrigley off the furniture...um, yeah, I'll keep working on that.

What are you lookin at?!

One day of conferences down, one to go. The ones that I had today were good, nothing surprising. I got my hair cut and colored last night (those stubborn grays...thanks mom!) Then I had a dentist appt. first thing this morning, so I wasn't at school right away. I had let my students know that I wouldn't be there right away and had told them why. When I got to school there was the usual post haircut/color fallout. All the kids just stared and then the questions and comments began. Amid the cries of "You look like a different teacher!", was the following dialogue:

Student: Why did you color your hair black?
Me: It's dark brown. Its a little darker when you first get it colored but then it lightens up a little.
Student: When? Tomorrow?

Student: Why are you wearing lots of mascara?
Me: I'm not, it just looks different with my hair (I think "mascara" was a general term for all of the eye makeup, pretty sure I didn't just cake on the mascara today)

Student: I thought you went to the dentist, not the hairdresser
Me (stunned stare): I went to the dentist this morning and got my hair done last night.

Alright, Ang, I was going to just write "awful" over and over again in the space that a picture would take up but then decided to wait till Awana was over and someone would be at home to take a picture of me. Turns out that I'm worse at taking one of just me than I was at taking a pic of two people. Who knew! Given the above student comments you would think that I had gotten this drastic haircut, not so much. The pic doesn't really show the difference in color and I just got my shorter bangs back. Not too much, but enough to throw their day off. Gotta love first graders.

This-n-That-n-Stuff-n-More

Been a busy week so far. Parent-teacher conferences are coming up, so I 've been having to get things together for those. Bible Character Day (I hear the laughter all the way from Alaska) is coming up next Friday and we will have our first class party then too. I have lots to do that I am successfully procrastinating. Going to have the kids dress up as the days of creation. They like making their costumes and its a little break from the others who are actually dressed up like random Bible characters. No Ang, I'm not going as Jezebel or Rahab. Maybe I will go as a Pharisee and just go around pointing out everybody else's faults. I'm filled with wacky Bible humor.

Just saw a strange minivan commercial where it shows a mom carrying her sleeping children in from the car and then it shows her carrying her husband in 'cause he fell asleep. Very disturbing. Reminded me of the strange Robert Munsch children's book I'll Love You Forever, where the mom goes wherever her son is, even when he's big, and rocks him to sleep.

Following the Bears crazy comeback last night, the news reports have been filled with predictions of a Superbowl presence and lots of polls about Grossman but the most entertaining are the clips of the irate/unstable Cardinals coach. Last night's interview was a crazy, swearing, mic-hitting rant and then tonight he returned completely calm and rational, must have watched last night's interview on a loop before he came out again. I accidentally left the news on after the mets/cards game went off. I now remember why I like to get my news off the internet. I hate TV newscasts.

Pumpkin Head

Had a good day today, although it started out earlier than a usual day off but thats ok, it was for a good cause. My friend had a chance to go and spend some time with her mom over the weekend, so my son and I went to stay with her kids so her husband could leave for work this morning. The kids were great, of course. Played outside, rode bikes, happily ran errands with me. It was another beautiful fall day. We are going to get spoiled. It will make the inevitable winter all the more dreary. We came home and got to work on carving our pumpkin. Decided that I would leave the portrait less to chance this time and looked for templates online. My son picked out the one that he liked and I went to work. He is always very enthusiastic about the idea of carving the pumpkin but the first step (cleaning out the pumpkin) is not as rewarding or clean as he would like and he quickly loses interest. So I used the template and was very happy with the results, given that I have no pumpkin carving skill whatsoever I was glad to have something to use as a guide. We were going to go play tennis tonight but the early morning that I started this post with caught up with my son and he had a rough evening, which required an earlier than usual bedtime. I now get to go turn orange-slimed seeds into a roasted salty treat. Yum!

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

We had our first field trip yesterday to a beautiful orchard that is about 45 minutes away. It was an awesome sunny and cool fall day. The kids had a great time. Second grade went with us, so my son and I made use of the time to go off by ourselves and pick out a pumpkin and walk through the little store together. Some parent drama started on Thursday afternoon, so I had to deal with the fallout of that first thing in the morning on Friday but luckily I had some of the parents who were going with us on the field trip stay with the class, while I talked with the offended parent and then in the afternoon I got to lay the smackdown on the offending parent : ) It is all ok now. Yea! I hate drama. Especially on a field trip day, which are always extremely exhausting. I am so glad that I have Monday off. And with the end of the grading period and Teacher's Convention on Thurs and Fri, we only have one and a half days of school this week. So much for getting some actually learning accomplished. Wish we could keep the kids from knowing that they have time off. Maybe it would keep away the vacation mode that they so easily fall into. I went to one of my student's football games today. He is so cute. All the little kids out there trying to remember what position they are playing and all that that involves. Fumbling the ball, throwing interceptions, randomly running in circles and falling on the ground. It was all very entertaining.

Letterboxing

Hooray for a beautiful fall day! We were finally able to get out and go letterboxing. We had a great time and are 4 for 4 in our searches. The first one was fairly easy but a great way to start and ease us into the whole process. The second one took a little more effort and some math skills. As I was reading the clues "about 40 yards in and at 300 degrees", my son asked me if I knew how far 40 yards was. While I was trying to explain that I couldn't exactly know how far 40 yards was without some sort of measuring tool, he interrupted my great explanation to ask "Didn't you learn about yards when you were in school?" I think he doubts my skills. But after much searching we were able to find all of the boxes. We felt very fulfilled and successful and were rewarded with deer and bunnies joining us in our hikes. Here are some pics of our fun fall day. The nature center where two of the boxes were hidden had a great little pond that was so pretty and calm. We saw some "blue-gayells" (as my son calls them) and the reflection pics were fun to take.