waiting for snow

I counted the "bridge may ice in cold weather" signs on my way home from work today. There were 20. I think I'll be staying home on Friday, whether school is cancelled or not. I got my self a sewing project today in preparation haha

chance of snow

Looking at the weather forecast for the rest of the week, it seems likely we will see some snow in Houston on Friday (um yay!). Today at work they were updating the phone tree in the event that there is inclement weather on Friday, and then after school we had a meeting about it. If school is cancelled, it won't be until 5am and we are not to rely on what the news says, but only if someone from the phone tree calls us. However, if school is not cancelled, and we live far away and cannot get to work, they are not going to be overly concerned. We will have to put it in as an absence and use a day but they won't freak out about subs etc.

On my way home I started thinking about this. To get to work I take the Westpark Toll. The majority of this road is an elevated overpass so it is going to freeze over extremely quickly. I had never noticed before, but literally every few hundred feet is another sign saying "watch for ice on road during cold weather". If I remember, I will try and count how many there actually were on my way to work tomorrow (it was sort of a ridiculous amount haha).

Looking at the weather on my phone app, it appears that Thursday night there is a 50% chance of sleet and snow, and the low is 24 degrees. Then on Friday there is a 50% chance of snow and sleet most of the day. I'm thinking I may not be working on Friday regardless. At the very least I'll be leaving out sub work for the kids the night before just in case. Pretty sure if those conditions pan out, I will not be driving the 30 minutes to work that day haha. Guess we will see.

*keeping my fingers crossed for some snow!*

"Mrs. Mac is fat"

I had lunch duty today and stepped out for a minute to use the restroom. When I came back in one little boy in my class was sitting at the table SOBBING! I went over and asked what was wrong but he couldn't even get words out. Finally the little boy sitting next to him informs me, "he's upset because he called Mrs. Mac fat and we told on him". I informed him that it is not nice to say things like that and walked away. He can cry all he wants, we don't call people (especially teachers) fat!

Well, he literally sits at his table and just cries the entire lunch. I'm talking uncontrollable sobbing (mind you this is like the sweetest little boy in the world so he is crying because he is so upset and not that he got in trouble). Finally, my teammate decides she can't let his day be ruined so she goes over to talk to him about it (she's the one he called fat). She asks him to come talk to her and as soon as he walks over to her he grips on to her in the HUGEST hug and just cries all over her shoulder. They had a talk, and he went back to his table while drying up his tears. She had a huge wet spot all over her shirt from his sweet little tears. Poor kid was devestated. Fortunately for him, Coleen didn't care. She said she told him "well sweetheart, of course it's true, but ladies don't like for people to say that to them anyway" and laughed.

too darn funny.

Many Faces of Maisie

Today I took my kitten to the vet for her third round of kitten shots. I keep saying my kitten is so sweet and loving, and even the vet admitted he was surprised. He gave her three shots and as soon as he picked her up she started purring loudly. She just LOVES people! I freaking love her.

She's getting so big now! Her little kitten face is turning into a big girl face and it makes me a little sad. She's still only 4.4 lbs though, so she's still a tiny little one. The vet seems to think she will be pretty small, but we will see over the next few months.

After we came home she was a little mopey, probably because of all the medicines in her little body, so she was just laying around sleeping by herself. I walked into the room and saw her being cute which prompted a Maisie photoshoot. haha My poor kitten is the most photographed cat on the planet. I took 40 pictures in a matter of minutes.

So, for your viewing pleasure, the many faces of Maisie!

If I'm this bad now with my kitten, just imagine what it will be like when I have children someday hahaha!

100th day

Today was the 100th day of school in Fort Bend. I don't ever remember celebrating the hundredth day when I was a kid, but it sure is a big deal now. In first grade we spent the entire day doing 100th day center rotations. I quite literally sat and played on the computer the whole day while the kids did centers so it was a pretty darn nice day for me hehe.

One of my personal favorites is the center where they write about what they would do with $100. 6 year olds have NO concept of what a hundred dollars is! One wrote that they would buy a piece of bubble gum. One wrote that they would buy a car. My all time favorite: "If I had $100 I would buy Justin Bieber". Yes, these kids are OBSESSED with Justin Bieber. If I never hear that name again after this year I would be a happy girl indeed! hahaha

We have been counting up to the hundredth day all year making a big deal about it for weeks. Apparently I did not do a very good job of explaining what it was though, because I cannot even tell you how many kids said "I can't wait to go to second grade tomorrow". Um, no. This does not mean you are moving on to second grade (though can we just go ahead and send them now?!?! There are some crazy kids this year!! haha) we still have 80 days to go.

In other news, my student teacher is taking over teaching phonics this week, which means she is now in charge of the entire morning block. This means I don't have to do any teaching until after lunch at 11:30. Score! I'm loving this whole having a student teacher thing! (mostly just because mine rocks and I don't have to do much for her though)

Resolutions - a few weeks late

I think it's pretty obvious that one of my new years resolutions this year was NOT to be more on top of things, given that my post reviewing last year and talking about new years resolutions is 11 days late haha! Anyway ...

2010 has been a crazy year. It will forever be known as the year I went crazy. However, the year I went crazy turned out to be one of the best of my life. I may have spent a good $2500, and lost all my living room furniture in the process, but moving to Colorado and back in 2 weeks flat sure helped me learn to appreciate the things in my life that matter. The move (and subsequent move back) forced me into getting a job at a new school, forced me into meeting new people, and overall forced me into mixing my life up a bit. What a blessing that turned out to be! I LOVE my job, LOVE my new friends, LOVE living with one of my favorite people ... the list goes on and on. Moving made me realize how good I had things here, and moving back made me love my life and appreciate it much more. I'd say the outcome was pretty darn good.

On to the resolutions. First, let's review last year's:

- volunteer at least once a month I did this through July, then I moved, and thus the volunteering stopped

- read through the entire bible I was reading through my one year bible and made it through the month of may, then somehow I just stopped completely

- try at least one new thing each month (could be as simple as a new type of food, restaurant, activity, etc) Um, I think I managed documenting this through March, though I'm sure somewhere in there I tried new things. Heck, moving was new, new job, new home, new pet, etc) I'd say I did enough new.

- Project 365 - I missed about 90 days the entire year, all of which were after I moved back from CO. Life got a little crazy, and while I still posted when I could, it definitely wasn't daily. The whole point of this was to take more pictures though, which I definitely did, so I'd consider it a win either way

So on to this year.

- As with every year of my life, I resolve to lose weight (though I'm not going to mention how much), and work out regularly. Unfortunately, I'm off to a bad start with a bum foot which leaves me unable to work out. darn.

- Do something to start building a photography portfolio. I may actually want to do something with this hobby someday (as a job or just on the side) so I want to get some more practice photographing different things and groups of people. This may include giving some free photography sessions to people I know just for the experience; it may include taking a class; maybe something else... all I know is I'm going to make an effort to learn more about taking good pictures, and practice what I learn.

That's about it this year. I'm not making 15 goals for once. I'm making two. Two that I can accomplish. I'm happy with them.

Oh, and maybe post to my blog more ... we'll see haha

Student Teacher

I've been trying to be better about blogging more, I really have! However, every time I sit down to write about something I get bored or distracted and it never ends up being posted. Sorry people.

So, I got a student teacher this week. Not sure when I became qualified to teach people how to teach given that I've only been doing this 3 years, but apparently I am good enough. So yeah, student teacher ... And by student, I mean, she is mid to late 30's. I feel so awkward mentoring someone who is significantly older than me! So strange haha. However, she is awesome! I mean, REALLY awesome! On her first day she immediately started helping as she saw she was needed. She is an amazing help already and it's only been 2 days. She has just jumped right in, and obviously is good with kids and ready to teach. I think she's going to do a really good job, which is going to make my life easy. How did I get so lucky?

I'm thrilled with this situation, for real!