TGIF

Yeah!!! I am so happy it's Friday and the start of Spring Break! When your a teacher you still look forward to all those great school holidays. I packed up my room today and the mover guys came at 3:30 and started moving everything back into my refurbished room. It is going to be so nice to have a new room! They gave us new sinks, cabinets, carpet, and paint. It looks really nice and clean. I am going to spend some time there over the next week. I should have lots of fun posts the next week. We are going to some fun outdoor events this week. The weather here has been hit and miss. Today started off really nice and then the wind got crazy strong and it even rained a little.

I am feeling good about my eating and workouts so far. I just finished my P90X for the day. I am totally excited to use my new pull-up bar. I lent the Cd's to Mr. Bare our P.E. teacher and today he gave me a pull-up bar as a thank you from him and his girlfriend. They are so excited to get the Cd's and get started with the program. So, that was a nice surprise today! I already tried it and I wimped out after six. That was six with my one foot on a chair. Pull-ups are extremely hard for girls! Well, I'm off to finish my workout with some cardio. I am very energized at the moment despite a long week of packing. I think it made a difference that I didn't move anything this time.
Love, Peace, and Hair Grease,
J.D.

Way Too Long!!

I can't believe I have not posted since the end of January. It really has been too hectic lately and I'm feelin it. I do feel a little better though. Thanks babe, you always make me feel good and laugh. :) I had a fun night. Went to Bunko with the ladies. I actually won- $20.00 bucks! It is just a fun time getting to sit and chat. I held little baby Reid tonight. He is such a tiny little baby. So sweet, but I was glad to give him back to mom when he fussed. It's weird holding a baby these days. Feels like I've never done it before. I guess because it has been so long since holding Izzy. I think about having another baby and I'm truly torn. On one hand it would be fun and mean so much to create another little person to love, but it is such hard work. Anyways this post was not suppose to be about babies. It was going to be about how I have slacked on my blogging duty and how I am reaffirming my new mantra and making it know on my blog. I am restarting P90X for I don't know how many times now and making the commitment this time to see it through even if it kills me. I have ten pounds I want to lose and I want em gone for good! So here is my new mantra. So far it's working good. Ignore the posting time on this blog. It's the weekend and I went out! A girl can't be perfect all the time. Geesh!

OK here we go:

1. Eat healthy!

2. Exercise every day!

3. Take my vitamin!

4. Get to bed by 10:00!

And most importantly- Stress Less and Relax!!!

It is working nicely so far. Maybe I should put something on their about writing on here weekly. Nah! Too much pressure. Here are some of my latest pictures. I am seriously bummed because all my pictures from the beginning of the year are gone from my computer. No clue what has happened, but they are gone! The Boston pictures, fireman pictures from school, they are gone! I guess I will have to keep this blog forever to preserve those memories...

My Latest Creative Project

Every beach I visited in Florida I collected seashells. I have never fancied them much before this trip, but there were so many beautiful shells all over every beach I couldn't resist taking a free souvenir. Besides, it was a great distraction from my thoughts at the time. I decided to make some picture frames with them and here's what I ended up with tonight. The three are actually photo albums and the big white one is a frame. They turned out rather nice I think. I don't have pictures in them yet, that's tomorrow's errand to get them developed. I still have lots of shells left over. I think I went a little overboard with my collecting.

Websites Worth a Little Time

I have come across some cool websites and wanted to share. The first one is: http://www.gigoit.org/. It stands for Garbage In Garbage Out It. It is a website where you enter your zip code and see what people are giving away. There wasn't much in Las Vegas, but I thought it would be cool to get it out there so people can start using it and recycling some things that they don't need anymore. Kinda neat I think...



Next is http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/. This one is a funny site where you can read some outrageous "notes" or post your own little passive aggressive gripe. It has some pretty funny things that people have posted. It seems like there are lots of people only willing to gripe if it's indirect and passive. Pretty funny stuff...



My player on my blog comes from a cool site called www.playlist.com. You can click on it on my page and it takes you right to the site. I like it because you can create a playlist with 100 songs and link it to your blog, myspace, or facebook. It doesn't cost anything so me and millions of others may be in trouble... not sure how that works? Give it a try. You too could be in the next lawsuit...



Speaking of lawsuits, we went to Nordstroms, but they had already given away all the free products. I can't believe they had to give away $125 million dollars worth of cosmetics. We were too late :( Apparently every Asian tourist was lined up around the store getting the handouts. Unbelievable!!





OK- back to websites. This next one is another fun shirt site- http://www.snorgtees.com/. You have to have a sense of humor to like these shirts. Some are funny and some are just stupid... Something for everyone.

Here are two sites I found looking through a magazine with cute things- www.bungalowco.com and www.seejanework.com.

Alrighty- gotta go work out now. I'll post some blogs next time.

National Fire Safety Week

This week is an important week for children across America. Firefighters all over the nation visit nearby schools to introduce themselves and what they do to help others. It's a sad fact, but often in a fire children hide from firefighters. One of our local fire stations volunteered to come and talk with our first graders. They were an amazing crew and gave a memorable presentation. Our students got to watch how fast they have to put on their gear (60 secs.), spray the water hose, put on the heavy fire fighter's jacket and take a look around the fire engine. We were introduced to tools that they use to help rescue people in fires and car accidents and learned some important safety tips if we are ever in a fire. It was a blast seeing the kids get excited spraying the water. It was also pretty funny to see one of our first grade teachers get dressed up in the gear and get secured on the board. I have never seen such a great group of firemen come to a school and talk . Thank you Las Vegas Fire Station 34! You made a lasting impression on our students and teachers!

Happy Autumn!

It was time for a new layout and I've always been a sucker for argyle. I love autumn. It's my favorite season I've decided. The fall in Las Vegas is nice, but I long for the true fall sights. Each year I read books with my students and give them the description of what fall can be like in other parts of the country. It would be so much fun to pick apples and pumpkins. Go through a corn maze and see all those leaves changing colors. Izzy would love to jump in a pile of leaves. How fun would that be to have a real fall season. I'm looking for some good suggestions on places to live with all four seasons. Izzy needs to experience more than the desert!

It wasn't a successful week as far as workouts go. I was way too lazy while Izzy was gone. Mainly because I couldn't move my left side of my body. I am not sure if it was the workouts, moving things at the warehouse or a combination of both activities. I got some good movie time in though! On Monday I had a date with Patrick Dempsey. Made of Honor hah, get it, he's made of honor and a maid of honor. Well seriously it was a cute movie. Definite chick flick and worth the watch. I don't watch McDreamie on a weekly basis so I enjoyed seeing my old flame from the Can't Buy Me Love days. My favorite part is when he's playing basketball and he tells another guy "we're waiting on our friend with longer shorts". I just die laughing whenever I see a man playing basketball or doing pretty much anything in short shorts. You just don't get to see enough knee these days! On Tuesday was Sex in the City the movie. It was just what I thought it would be and I liked it. I expected it to be really horrible, but it was fine. Sadly I connected to parts of the story in both movies. I guess love is the eternal theme. You find it, lose it and still go after it again and again. I also watched Annie Hall. What I told you my left side of my body would not cooperate with my P90X regimen. Now there's a classic that is never outdated. My favorite part is at the end when Woody Allen describes relationships and love. It's true relationships have to keep moving forward, otherwise you have a dead shark. Oh and you need the eggs!

My Classroom

All the long hours, hard work and extra cash I have are in this room. Once again I had to recreate an environment for my students to learn and explore. It can take a lot to get first graders excited and keep them going through out the year. This group of students is a little different from my last few years of teaching. Many of the students are ELL (English Language Learners) and many are below grade level. I wanted to make the year extra special. I have lots of incentives and fun things planned for us to do. The first week of school my students completed "The Real Scoop On Me" papers. Each week one student is the "Super Scoop" and we learn all about him or her. The pizzas on the wall are our behavior management system. Students who receive warnings for behavior are asked to "eat a piece of pizza" or "remove a slice". The students decorated their pizzas with favorite toppings. I also have lots of books in the library area of our room. It is said by professional educators that a good estimate is to have 100 books for each child. That would mean I need 1,600. (I'm up to 16 students.) That's a lot of books. I think I have a good number of books, but there are always more to add to my collection. I really do enjoy children's literature. I think the library is my favorite part of the classroom.