I don't think I enjoy my breaks, because I become super lazy! I'm currently looking for a fun job near the beach for the summer - so I'm not lazy for 2-3 months. My break from school officially started yesterday (because I had to go into work at school on Monday- as a typical work-a-holic I was the last one to leave :p. But I think I have my smartboard working, which the kids will LOVE). Anyway, it took only 2 days, that's right... 2 days! to finish my christmas shopping. Who says the early bird gets the worm? So here is a rundown of my uber productivity:

Yesterday: Massage, walked around the mall (and kept finding myself looking for shoes, for MYSELF! aghh), finished my Christmas shopping, wrapped some presents... and lay around the house the rest of the afternoon - so, so productive! I did finish one of my kids books I was reading, "Stargirl," not a good ending :p

Today: Awakened by a lovely phone call, lay in bed, listen to music, lay in bed some more... and now I'm watching "Sleepless in Seattle". I hope it doesn't make me cry. So productive! I do have the idea that I will eventually get up and clean... then maybe do some lesson planning (ha! yeah right).

In other news, we're suppose to get a blizzard. I want a white Christmas, but a blizzard wasn't exactly what I had in mind. Especially since it might get my brothers and sister-in-law stuck up north since they don't plan to come until after the blizzard is suppose to strike. Our Christmas still seems like it's a bit scroogie. We have no "real" tree. My mom says the 1 foot tree counts as a tree, but I don't really think so! It does have some presents around it now (thanks to me), so it's looking a little more Christmas-y. I've been wanting us to start a tradition of having a talent show... but my silly, boring brothers aren't really keen on it - yet :p

Oh! Lastly, I'm going to California in February!!! I found some super cheap flights right out of Wichita (which never happens). I am sooooo excited. I'm ready for some sun and the beach! We've been looking at some super cute beach houses to stay in, which is probably why I'm looking to find a fun job near a beach this summer :) If anyone has any good ideas, let me know! So far I've heard of a summer camp in West Virginia. If it didn't invovle cadavers then I'd totally be there! haha.

Merry Christmas everyone! ♥

before I start... yes I'm kinda venting :p

Here's my typical day -

6:30 - wake up
7:30 - leave the house for my 30 min. drive (it was nice when I had a book to listen to - but I haven't had time to pick up another)
8am - Start doing random things to get ready for the school day.
8:50am - kids walk in the door
12:25pm - lunch (20 mins, if I'm lucky. 40 if I blow off any sort of prep or planning)
4:10pm - walk the kids out the door and say goodbye
6:00 - leave school with a teacher down the hall who says we should shoot to leave by 6 (she's been teaching for over 15 years - I hope I don't stay that late if I stick around for 15 years. :)
6:30 - get home from my drive, eat dinner
6:45pm - do more planning, research, grading papers...blah, blah, blah
11pm - finally decide to go to bed and "finish" tomorrow (but in reality, it's never really finished, it just starts again tomorrow)
6:30am - do it all again.

If anyone else tells me how great teachers have it with salary, our "many days off" (yeah right!) during the school year, and then summers off. I might literally rip their head off and then inform them of my 10-13 hour work days. I'm sure it will get better eventually, but for now - I understand the crazy high statistics of people quitting after their first year of teaching. Not only do you have to deal with the time commitment, but also all the random knowledge they throw at you and you have no idea what they're talking about. I'm currently deciding to just teach the lessons and not worry about anything else :) My goal this weekend - get 2 weeks worth of lessons on my planner.

On a happy note - Braum's birthday cake ice cream kinda rocks!

Ok, end of vent... I must go grade some papers, pray for my dehydration headache (thanks to my 80 degree room and lack of enough water) to go away, and eat my ice cream.

Well wild kingdom has come to an end. We finally helped the lil cardinal fly the coop. I came to the conclusion that he was never going to learn how to fly that high in such a little space... so after doing some outside work my mom and I (mostly her-because I called her a scaredy cat) got in the window well and used the screen to get the bird up and out. But this was all AFTER we nearly killed the bird and broke the window when the rotted wood that was like a ladder (i don't know how else to describe it) fell apart when we tried taking it off.

It was rather funny. I was up above the well watching for momma bird and she came in looking at what we were doing. The lil bird still couldn't fly, but he was at least out and about. So when we left he was under my brother's truck, but when we got home everyone was gone. So I'm going to assume he is fine and well somewhere away from a cat.

The squirrel was gone the next day, so whatever it was doing... he/she moved on.

In other news... I'm starting to obsess over my classroom. I've only been in there, maybe twice, but now I have my key and the AC is coming back on ... so I think I'll be in there this week getting old stuff out and figuring out how much room I have for any comfy chairs, rugs, etc. to make it more homey.

Well I must go and watch a movie that we can't get to work anywhere, except on my Computer. It's really fun watching a moving on DVD player... that I have to hold... while both my mom and I are watching it :0P

Have a great week!

I'm starting to feel one with nature. I'm covered in mosquito bites, my favorite. Not only do I get to have fun in the garden (when my mom makes me throw out the compost stuff), but we're being over run with little critters. When we got back from our road trip we had a little bird in the window well. I thought it was a finch, but after some thinking by my mom and some googling by me... it's a baby cardinal. Maybe baby is too small of a word, I think it's more like a teenager. He has feathers, is super cute, but doesn't seem to be able to fly yet. I thought maybe it's wing was broken until (again)... I googled. Did you know when baby cardinals fall out of the nest they can't fly for 10 days? They're also brown. So we're trying to wait it out without moving him since it's only been 2 days. Although another thing I learned... touching a bird to get them back to their nest or in a more safe place (away from dogs and cats that might eat them) is perfectly fine. Most birds don't have a sense of smell, so that thing about "touch a bird and it's mom will have nothing to do with it" is apparently a myth. We threw some sunflower seeds down the well and I put a big bowl of water out. I figure if nothing else it needs something to eat and drink. So I guess we'll see. Mama and Daddy are keeping a close eye on him, but luckily don't dive bomb us when we're out in the front yard - not only would that be annoying, but I've read that they can be quite hurtful to humans.

Think that's all the critters I'm talking about? Oh, no! While looking for the mama and daddy cardinal I found a squirrel in the tree with a blank stare. I have never in my life been that close to a squirrel and it not move. They usually run up the tree super fast. I talked to it, threw some sunflower seeds to it and then googled :) Apparently, it is a normal thing to do if they sense danger. It has yet to move from it's little hiding place, so I'm currently convinced that it might be protecting some babies. In my google search I also found out the gestation period, weaning period, and the fact that they might have a mid-summer litter. So, I'll check on it in the morning. If it's in the same little nook of the tree, I'll be positively convinced that it has babies in there. Not a very smart place for a nest, as it's low to the ground, but who am I to judge?

I think this year I've seen more birds than I've ever seen in our yard. We have cardinals, blue jays and our normal robins. Today I even saw some pigeons on our roof. I also found a little turtle around our garden a week or so ago (and of course didn't get rid of it, so it could continue to feast on our garden). Luckily, we don't have a crazy amout of rabbits like my cousins did (I see at least 3 rabbits in their yard everytime I'm there - hence a funny little fence they've put around their garden).

Yep, it's definately wild kingdom around here... good thing I like animals :)

♥

It's been a while since I've had a good couponing experience. To be honest, since I left TN, I just haven't been inspired, so I haven't been working too hard on it. Last weekend while we were at my grandmother's I decided I must get back into the swing of things (even if I no longer have Publix or CVS ::cries::). Well today I'm SO glad I did. I found an amazing deal at SuperTarget (which we have here) with my Kashi Cereal, and it allowed me to also try their waffles. So here's a picture:


I got all of the above for just over $9 and I saved $23.16... which is a total savings of 71% :) That's nearly as good as my publix days! The trial size things were free with coupons, the steak sauce ended up being $.19, but the cereal which is normally $3.50 turned out to be a little over a dollar a piece (thanks to some B1G1 coupons stacked with some $.50 off coupons). My only wish was that Target doubled coupons. But I was so excited and since I haven't written anything recently... I thought I'd share :) You too can get this deal if you go to target.com and print their coupons (which they let me print 3 times... and I think I might have been able to print some more, but I thought 9 boxes would be good... for now). The coupons are good until next week, but the sale on the cereal is only good for this week - Saturday maybe?

This weekend I'm going on a super long road trip in a very short amount of time. I have wrangled mom into driving to Knoxville with me to go to Lisa's wedding reception, then we'll quickly run through Murfreesboro just long enough to get my boxes of food and teacher stuff (and apparently one bag of clothes). Then we'll get to see my lil adorable cousins in St. Louis. So it should be tons of fun... and I'm hoping to get mom to stop at some random "off the road" attractions along the way to convince her how much fun road trips really are (she's starting to dread it..haha).

What are you doing this weekend?