Today I am thankful for...

the wonderful student teacher I have been blessed with this semester. Her days in my classroom are winding down and she will be done November 21st. Amy is going to be a great teacher! Today she had her summative from the principal and was rewarded with a job well done by the principal. One of our 2nd grade teachers is retiring and Amy has been offered the job! She will be fantastic and if she decides to stay in the area my oldest ds who will be entering 2nd grade next year will have an excellent teacher! :0)

Challenge: Today I am thankful...

This month long challenge is from MidniteScrapper in Cali.

Colossians 3:15
And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.

This month I challenge all of you, my blogging friends, to post a gratitude post daily. If possible, post a picture to go along with it! As an extra incentive, I will offer up something special for those of you that participate in this every day...I'll start counting from November 3rd since some of you may not see this until then. Everyone that participates daily starting no later than the 3rd will be entered in a drawing at the end of the month. Keep it simple or go all out! Comment and let me know if you're up for the challenge!



Today I am thankful that I got to spend quality time with my 3 year old. It was a beautiful day in South FL, even though it was windy. We went to the beach for a few hours this morning. The beach that I chose has a 1/3 mile boardwalk that leads out to it that we walked and watched the animals. We saw many different types of birds and fish jumping. It was raining all around us and there were dark clouds above but never once did a rain drop fall while we were at the beach. It was windy which helped keep us cool.

Blog Challenge #32

10 Things I Want to Do Before I Die:
1. go to the west coast
2. be at my goal weight
3. see my children fulfill their dreams
4. get up to date in my albums like I once was
5. Take a Disney Cruise with the family before my children are too old to enjoy it
6. visit Dallas, TX and go to a Cowboy's game
7. move back to a place that has four seasons
8. have a home at the beach
9. travel back to Northern Ireland and reconnect with the exchange student that spent a summer with me
10. find a childhood friend that moved away when we were in 2nd grade

9 Places I Last Spent Money:
1. Winn-Dixie
2. go kart track
3. Burger King
4. McDonalds
5. daycare
6. school
7. Target
8. gas station
9. Scrapbook Central

8 Sounds I Routinely Hear Around My House:
1. yelling
2. crying
3. laughter
4. TV
5. dh snoring
6. vacuum
7. garage door opening/closing
8. dishwasher running

7 Real Restaurants Where I Last Ate Out:
1. Outback Steakhouse
2. Taco place that had the name Taxi in it (can't remember the real name)
3. Olive Garden
4. Ruby Tuesday's
5. CiCi's
6. Applebee's
7. Mario Brothers

6 Things I've Recently Scratched Off My To-Do List:
1. clean the garage
2. completed a swap
3. organized scrap area
4. got a pool
5. bought songs for my iPod
6. donate unwanted stuff

5 People I Don't Know by would Like to Hang Out With:
1. Stacy
2. Carrie
3. Colbie Caillat
4. The Girl's Next Door (I know more than one, but they seem like such fun to hang out with.)
5. Sherry

4 Songs That Make Me Happy:
1. Play me Some Mountain Music
2. Lucky
3. I Got Friend's in Low Places
4. Shook me all Night Long

3 Things I Hate To Do:
1. clean
2. give the boys baths
3. get up early

2 Things I'm Really Good At:
1. procrastination
2. being there to support my children

1 Bad Habit:
1. procrastination

Wordle

I just recently discovered Wordle and can't figure out how to post the image here, but you can follow the link to find out some of my thoughts on summer.

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Memories

The garage is a mess and I have been trying to spend 15 minutes a day in there trying to get things cleaned up. You know there are just boxes out there that just keep getting pushed to the side or moved to another shelf and they are never gone through to see what is really in there and is it worth keeping what is in there. So today I came across a rubbermaid bin, when I opened it up it was about half full of books. The bin was given to me almost 7 years ago, by my aunt. These were books that my cousins had outgrown and she passed onto me to use in my classroom. This has been the bin that rides in the back of my Suburban on numerous occasions and I can't lift the thing so I slowly take some books out of it and carry them into my classroom, that is of course on days that I remember it is in the back. Then when we go places and need to load up the back of the Suburban the bin comes out and sits back in the garage until the cycle is repeated all over again.

So today I bring the bin of books into my house and sit down at the computer to lexile level them (something that we use to level books as an educator). I am going through them and leveling them and come across a book titled "Helen Keller Courage in the Dark" and what fond memories come rushing back into my brain. I don't remember how old I was but I read a book about Helen Keller when I was a child and what a miraculous woman she was. For someone who was blind and deaf she was amazing! Later I came across another Helen Keller book "A Girl Named Helen Keller." I look forward to taking these 2 books into my classroom this year and teaching them about this amazing woman!

Another book I came across took me back to my student teaching time. It is "Chicken Soup With Rice" by Maurice Sendak. I student taught in a first grade classroom back in the fall of 1997 and my cooperating teacher had blown up the poems for every month into poster size and the students learned the poems every month. My first year teaching I so wanted to use those poems in my classroom and couldn't locate the book. The copyright date is 1962 no wonder I couldn't find it. But now I have it and I believe I will use the poems with my students this year. They are just fun silly poems that I know my second graders will enjoy! Thanks Karen Proctor for introducing this book to me and now 10 years later I finally own it...actually I have had it for the past 7 years and just didn't know it.

What a week!

Monday began with T attending VBS at our church for the first time, he was somewhat hesitant at first but makes friends very easily. Today was the last day and I think he enjoyed himself and learned all about Jesus' last few days.

SSBL 2 started this past Monday and I was doing really well with it until Eric called and told me he was on his way to a cardiologist. He had not told me that he had been having tightness in his chest for the past week. I guess he decided to talk to someone at work about it and he put some fear in him. So he went to our family doctor who then sent him to the cardiologist after and EKG showed premature atrial contrations. He then had a stress test done on Wed. All appears to be fine and he has a follow up appointment with the cardiologist in 2 weeks. Needless to say I am a stress eater and was able to keep a handle on my eating Tuesday afternoon/evening, but Wed. was shot. In my food journal there is a big red X for Wed.

T had been complaining that his right ear was bothering him. Wed. night while washing his hair I went to wash behind his ear and he screamed. I finally decided that the doctor needed to be called. Thursday afternoon I took him to the doctor and just as I was suspecting he had swimmers ear. No more of this for 4-5 days.

Today ended up being a very fun day for the boys and I after T had VBS. Last Friday was 4th of July and was a rainy day for most of the day and I wasn't able to capture the boys 4th of July pictures. Today was a reenactment day. T had a great time telling me where he wanted pictures taken and what he wanted to do for the pictures. Here are a couple to share from the photo shoot.





After the photo shoot we came inside to make brownie bites. The boys were a big help and T enjoyed licking the spoon. R had a great time dumping the ingredients into the bowl to be mixed.



Looking forward to a weekend filled with making memories with my family!

Today is the day!

Why have I let myself go. It is like I don't have any self esteem anymore, but I am going to change this attitude and get my butt in gear. I need to start movin' and groovin' and start eating right. I have let myself go and I don't know why. I am not going to sit and cry I am going to take action and start today. I have so much to live for and I need to do this for me, my boys, my husband, and my family. I need to be the best me that I can be.

So what am I going to do? TODAY, I will restart my WW plan and get exercising. I can do this with baby steps. Yes, tomorrow is 4th of July, but I don't care. I am not going to wait until after the holiday to begin, today is the day I need to get back in shape and lose the weight that I have gained back.

I decided to join SSBL 2 and one of the questions was how much weight do you want to lose? I went and weighed myself and was shocked to see the number that I need to lose. I am only 13 pounds away from when I gave birth to my children, I cannot possibly ever reach or go over that number. I need to take control of my life starting today!

I know what my problem is, I LOVE FOOD! I eat food because I am happy, sad, mad, frustrated, surprised, stumped, stressed, glad...I just eat food no matter what I am feeling and it doesn't matter if I am hungry, I will just eat. Today is the day that I will eat to make myself healthy. I realize that this will not happen overnight, even though it seems to have appeared overnight. Baby steps is what it will take.