Mail

                                  

You can tell a lot about what demographic you fit in just by looking at the mail. Eric gets bills and offers to purchase/change insurance. Madeleine gets the LLBean catalog, thanks to her recent duck boot purchase. Mercedes gets tons of offers for credit cards. And I get the Viking Cruises catalog. (Occasionally Caleb will get mail from USRowing.)

If you are lucky, you will be getting something in the mail from me in the near future (Merry Christmas!).

I never have anything of substance to write about so I might just start posting random thoughts to fill this blog. Looking back, it was one of my resolutions to post more this year. Failing that a bit.

Writing Class

You know writing is one of my favorite times of the day. Here are a couple of nuggets, giving a little insight into my students' family relationships. This first one is by a little brother of one of my former students, who also features prominently in the story.

I went to get some ice cream. It fell. "Not cool, dude."

My brother laughed. I punched him. That is what you get for doing that.

He got mad. He punched me back. I did not care. "I don't like you." "Don't care."

And then he added another page, because Mrs. Fox said we really should end on a happier note.

I like you. I like you too. "Love."

This is from another student's story about going to a parade with his dad. Subsequent pages detail how bad he had to go to the bathroom, that he was jumping up and down. Great literature here.

Student: Come on, I want to go home. Dad: Be quiet, I can not hear.

We are now writing All-About books and one of the boys has written an awesome book about bats. I'm glad I don't have to teach more technical writing. My goal is to get capital letters at the beginning of sentences, punctuation at the end, spelling, and handwriting. You can see I have a lot of ground to cover.

A Temporary Cook

                         

It is wonderful having the self-proclaimed "most highly favored" child home on fall break. She had a huge pot of chili waiting when I got home after a typically hectic day. Yum!

This is Pretty Accurate

A Question

I'm leading with this photo of the Chickamauga Battlefield because it was such a peaceful place to visit a couple of weeks ago. We drove down in the evening and it was bathed in this wonderful fading light. It was impossible to imagine the fighting and dying which took place here over a 100 years ago.

Preferred venue

Right now I feel like some aspects of my life are a huge battle. We have hit a major snag in Sadie's wedding preparations and aren't sure which direction to take. Her chosen venue was apparently managed by someone who had been taking money from couples but not paying vendors for quite awhile. The shit finally hit the fan a couple of weeks ago (sorry, not sure how else to word that) and we are now in limbo. We met with the new managers yesterday who have written up a new contract, even offering to return all our money and give us a wedding for free anywhere we want if something happens to our chosen venue before next July. We know they are not to blame for any of this, but we are still anxious about paying any more money toward a venue that could go bankrupt and leave us seeking legal action at a time that should be nothing but joyful.

Possible new venue

We are off to see another venue today. It is lovely and right on the river (and only available June 4 for all of next summer which would speed up our timeline). It would be perfect for Madeleine or Caleb, my rowing babies. But the venue that Sadie originally picked out is perfect for her. It is an old restored church, with gorgeous stained glass windows and beautiful hardwood floors. Do we compromise and go with another location that can guarantee they will be around next summer or risk it and stick with our original plan? Will any of this matter in 150 years?

Winter Workout

I do okay walking in the summer, but then school starts, the sun sets earlier and I turn into a couch potato. So I found this elliptical on Amazon and am determined to keep up with it. I've never used one before and I was surprised how quickly it got my heart rate up.

                            

Caleb put it together following the directions. I didn't like the way the handlebars stuck way out in front, forcing me to lean forward in this picture. So I took it apart and switched them so they angle back now. It feels more natural to be able to stand upright.

Another plus, now I don't feel guilty while I watch Acorn TV because I'm getting a workout at the same time!

Some Updates

Here are a few highlights of my room, which is almost ready.

The teacher table now has blue and green dry erase wall pops, which the students will use to practice writing sight words. The "bulletin board" is actually contact paper on the file cabinets. Last year I used fabric but it didn't stay put. Notice the white stripe on the wall. I painted that to cover bare concrete.

The library is now color-coordinated for fiction and non-fiction. The back door is going to be a bulletin board highlighting "Character Traits" vocabulary. When we read books, I'll put up pictures of the characters with a trait they represent. The first day we're reading "First Day Jitters" and the vocabulary word is "apprehensive". Other words they are supposed to know are confident, mischievous, clever, fickle...You get the idea. One thing that I still need for this corner is a huge tub to keep the Big Books in.

This is my listening library. I'm pretty proud of it. I have over 60 books so far and the blue basket on the shelf holds 6 mp3/headphones for the kids to use independently. Notice how all the cabinets and shelves are white? Madeleine painted them at the end of the school year while I was passing out report cards.

This is an overview of the room. I bought the little bookshelves this summer for them to keep their supplies on. I'm hoping that this will keep them organized and we won't lose/misplace notebooks and folders as much.

That wraps up the tour. Two weeks from today this will be my home for 10 months.