Look What I Did This Summer

Ethiopia Trip #3

You should probably just look on Facebook for pictures of this year's trip.  There were many great experiences including a wedding, celebration in the streets for a soccer win, and some great times with people and kids both new and from last year.

Got a Dog

This is Bryce.  He's a 2 year old Catahoula Leopard Dog.

He's a rescue that I got from a woman in Indiana.  He was abandoned and is hesitant in new situations and with new people.  If you visit, he won't be jumping up to greet you but will eventually warm up.

He's been great on long walks, and we've learned quickly to keep food off the counter and put away in shut cupboards.  He's fine in the yard while we are gone but does love being RIGHT next to me when we get back.

I haven't really started any training with him but plan to when softball is over.  There isn't much time these days for more than sleeping and eating when I'm home.

Buy a House

It has 4 bedrooms and 3 full baths.  I have 2 roommates, and we like it.  If you did the math right, that means there's a spare room for whoever wants to visit!  The list of projects includes pulling out some bushes, hanging the pictures, putting an island in the kitchen, and turning an old fountain spot into a fire pit.








The best part is the deck in back.  It's really big and built around 2 trees. It needs retreated but is great for hanging out whenever we get some cooler weather.

That's A Wrap!

The 2012-2013 school year is in the books!  Wow, it's hard to believe that I am finished with year #4.  It was an overall great year with a few bumps and lots of successes.  The room wrap up is getting easier every year and I didn't even have to go back an extra day to finish it up.

Now, I have a week before leaving for Ethiopia again.  It's already been quite a productive day and a half of vacation.  I've started packing suitcases, done banking paperwork for the new house, put prayer & praise ET letters in the mail, watched Ironman 1&2, visited the travel clinic for shots & prescriptions, and worked on getting an entire season of Burn Notice off the DVR.  Next on the list is shopping for a few extra things we need for the trip.

As always, I will put lots of updates here when I return.  Hope you have a great June!!!

House!

I have negotiated and accepted an offer for a a house in Champaign.
I've looked for a month and thought about it for 6.

It's very grown up of me.

It has 4 bedrooms and 3 full bathrooms.
I will have 2 roommates.
It's almost 50 years old but has great updates in the kitchen with an addition.
It's a little over 1600 square feet.
It's a ranch on a slab and 1 car garage.
The neighborhood is fine but old.

It still has to pass inspection the first week in June.
Closing won't be until the end of July.

It's not official-official but we are going out to celebrate tonight anyway.
I am at least celebrating not having to shop anymore.

*Edit:
I was going to put pictures but realized that I don't have any of my own and the only ones I can get are online through house shopping websites.  This would require me to put my future address out there for all the world to see and I would prefer to keep stalkers at bay.  If you know me, email or Facebook message me and I will send you a link.  :)

May

May

When those who've had it together start to lose it

When those who almost had it together stop trying

When those who barely held it together fall apart

When those who never had it together break everything apart

And all I want is for it to end.

16 Days

3 Solid Decisions

Solid Decision #1
I am not above bribery.   Yesterday, I bought an enormous bag of Skittles and Lifesavers.  It was only going to be Skittles but then the Lifesavers cost the same and it's harder to talk when sucking on a Lifesaver.  I pray for a quieter last month.  Last year, I broke out the candy in January.  This year it's April.  To conclude, I've had a much better year but there will probably always be a point where bribery is the only thing that's left.  Bring on the candy.

Solid Decision #2
We decided not to go to the zoo today.  It's been a wee bit rainy lately.  I think God decided the drought needed to be over.  There was a moment at 8 am today that I thought maybe the power would stay out and everyone would get to go home but alas it came back on after 5 minutes.  It was an even more solid decision when there were several power lines that went down right along the route we would have been taking.  We will try again on Tuesday.  It's probably going to rain again.

Solid Decision #3
I will not buy a house with basement. It's really not working out so well for people with basements right now.  I will probably just avoid that with my house on a slab or a maybe a small crawl space.

Spring Break Days

It's ironic to me that the last post was named "Winter Days" and I just wrapped up the last day of my spring break enjoying +70 degree weather.  I think I will officially declare winter over spring HERE.

We did get a snow day on March 25th.  It was our first one in 2 years.  Silly that we would get 10 inches of snow at the end of March 3 days before SPRING break.  However, I did enjoy sledding and helping dig a friend's car out of the interstate median.  It was a pretty great snow day.

Things I enjoy about spring break:

• Eating cake for breakfast - it is a VERY good thing this isn't more than a week.  I would probably gain 30 lbs
• Walks - long ones to justify the cake
• T-Shirts
• Jeans
• Not showering - when you don't leave your apartment showering just isn't necessary
• Boredom

I think the cabin fever will be vanquished.  We are going to race through the next 8 weeks and summer is going to be here before I can blink.  (Somebody hide the cake!)

Winter Days

Does anyone still read this anymore????  I would guess that if a person takes 1+ month between posts people probably stop checking it to see "what's new."  Oh well, I'll update anyway.  Can't promise this will continue into year 5 though.

The biggest update is that I was lying when I said I couldn't have more than 24 kids.  I now have 25.  It was a matter of circumstance because a student who has been in foster care moved to be with dad but is now back in foster care.  When she moved back, it was only fair and right to put her back in my room with people and a routine that she knew.  I definitely wanted that even though it means we are smushed together all the time.

This leads right into the next thing which is that at this point in the year we can't get to spring break fast enough.  It's cabin fever at its worst with lots of inside recess, nitpicking, name calling, and all the other little things that make the teacher crazy.  It has taken all the self-restraint I have to stop myself from walking over and snapping in half the pencils of an overzealous aspiring drummer.  Seriously.

The other addition is a student with a host of issues.  He was moved over from the class across the hall; and having been in that position a year ago, I know how it feels to do that.  Now, it's my turn to be the recipient and what goes around comes around.   Honestly, I'm ok with that because it just shows that it all evens out in the end.  I won't go into all the issues here but suffice it to say it is going to challenge me through the last 2 weeks and a quarter.  However, there are a lot of things I have learned over the last year, and hopefully it will carry us all through to the end.  Or at least Spring Break.

January Thoughts

One student found the word "date" at the top of his page.  He asked what it said.  I said, "date."

The next obvious response was "My parents go on a date!!!"

I share to say that I have found one of the hardest things for kids to understand is time.  We do calendar everyday.  We talk about the "date" every day.  We cover days of the week, the month, and year but it is still completely foreign to most of the them.  I don't know when they "get it." I hope most of them start to have a general sense by the end of the year, but I don't count on it.  I've decided it's one of those things that will suddenly make sense one day and nothing I do will make that day come faster or sooner.  I have a feeling if I taught them how to tell time that would help but then they would tell me when it was time to do things and I would lose some of my precious control.  Besides, the new common core standards say that I don't have to teach time.  Easy cop out but completely true.

I do not like writing sub plans.  I am getting ready to do 2 days of testing so I get to listen to 2nd graders read while there is a sub in my room.  It helps that I have a good one, but that does not make it easier to write them.  I drive away sickness with my loathing of sub plans.

We are HALFWAY through the year!  That seems crazy but I am loving what we have accomplished so far.  So many of them are reading and writing independently that it is exciting to watch them learn.  I have an idea for a post about taking pictures of their writing and making you guess what it says.  It probably isn't nearly as exciting to you as it is to me but it's fun to watch.  They have gone from nothing to something.  AND we still have 85 days to go.

The 100th day is Thursday!  It's a fun day.  Pictures?  Maybe. 

They're Cute

This year's kids are just plain cute.  They say cute things.  They have tiny bodies and big smiles.  They care about each other and mostly want to make those around them happy.  I really wish I would show you their pictures and prove it to you.  I think you would agree.   However, I can show you this.  I am not really even sure what it is.  It might be a dinosaur or it might be chicken.  It's a little hard to tell.  He was SUPER proud of it as he presented it to me and whispered, "And there's a message on the bottom!" and ran away.  I mean how cute is that??!