Oh the productivity!!

I have had the most productive day ever today. 

It's been great!

This is what I left when I went to work this morning.

hahaha, bums. 

I got off work a little early because we were slow. No one rents movies when it's gorgeous outside. 

Then, I got to work! Here is what I accomplished this evening!

 Updated our calendar (on time for once!)

 Planted Pansies along our walkway, because I'm tired of it being bare! I love them!

 Did a deep clean of the carpet in the office!

 Made time for Starbucks. Love. 

Got all of the dishes done! Yay!

And while I did all this, Jamie worked on repairing the grass in the front yard. It needed it. 

On the agenda for tomorrow:

 Re-organizing the office. It's a hot mess. It became my catch-all during student teaching. 

Wanted to do it today, but the carpet has ended up being a bigger job than I expected. 

Clean up the laundry explosion in my room. This is my #1 bad habit. 

I'm excited that I've been able to focus on the house more. 

I'm one paper away from the semester being over!!

So, so excited.

♥

Impromptu Broadripple Trip!

Husband surprised me with a trip to Broadripple last night. 

It was so great. 

We hung out, ate Qdoba and Red Mango (yum!), walked the Monon a bit, and went into a few little shops.

It's been so nice having him home these past few evenings.  

I miss him now that he's back at work.

So excited for this summer, when I can see him more.

I am one paper away, and for better or worse, the semester will be over for me.

Jamie has a week and a 1/2, and then he is done.

I love him.

Can't wait to have an opportunity to show him that more. 

♥

A lot of randomness.

Worked my last 18 hour day for a while on Friday.

It was my last day of student teaching.

I cried.

I have learned so much, and am so thankful for the time I got to be there. 

I had about a million goodbye cards, and I will love them forever.

Then I worked all day Saturday, and then Jamie and I went out and joined the masses of the last minute shoppers, because I decided I wanted a new dress for Easter. 

I had something really weird happen to me, when shopping though.

For the first time in a very long time, I felt super uncomfortable and unhappy with my body.

It took me a very long time to come to terms with the fact that I will never be a size 2, and to learn to love my body the way it is.  

But for some reason, while trying on dresses, I had this attack of self-consciousness.
I actually cried in the dressing room, and told Jamie "I feel humongous! I hate it!"

It actually kind of freaked Jamie out a bit, because as he said "In the 4 years we have been together you have never voiced any kind of concern like that to me at all." 

I was able to pull myself together after a few minutes and a husband pep talk, and have a good night.

I'm still a bit shaken from it though, and don't really understand why it happened.

But anyway, this is the one I ended up with:

I'm really happy with it, it's super cute.

It'll also work great for the 3 weddings I have to go to this summer. 

More than anything, I was just excited to get to spend the evening with Jamie.

We still don't see much of each other, and we can't wait until the school year's over, so we have more time together. 

We also had our grandfather clock delivered!

Jamie's Nan left us that clock specifically in her will, and I know he is so thrilled for it to be at our house finally.  It looks amazing.

The picture totally doesn't do it justice, but I hope you can at least tell how grand it is. 

I love it.

I was a bit worried that the chime would annoy me at first, but it's actually very quiet, which works perfectly for us.

And then yesterday for Easter, we were going to drive to Rockville and spend it with Jamie's family, but after church Jamie just wasn't feeling well.

He still isn't, and the doctor told him today that he is not allowed to go back to work until wednesday.

I think it's a combination of exhaustion and a cold he is coming down with. 

He just feels totally run down, and exhausted all the time.

Hopefully these two days off will help. 

(And I'm pretty thrilled about having him home with me tonight and tomorrow night.)

So, instead, we spend the evening of Easter taking naps, watching movies, and studying at Arby's. 

It was actually really great.

I'm excited about a lot of things.

School being almost over, Summer, more time with Jamie, my garden, and vacations, including a visit to see Misty very soon! 

Yay!

But now i have to go do homework, to make sure that I pass this class and can enjoy my summer. 

Uggh.

♥

A ray of hope...

Rough day.

There are days when I can't imagine my life without the kids in my class.

I forget that their lives are troubled, I just see smiling young kids, and I get the luxury of helping improve their lives. I love it.

And then there are days like today, where the realities of the lifestyles they see and experience every day come crashing in on my life.
These kids live in a world where they were surrounded by poverty, drugs, immorality, and selfishness.
I've got kids with parents in jail, kids who don't eat on the weekends, kids who's parents are addicts, kids who've lost loved ones due to violence.
And it makes it really hard when you grow to love them.
I saw one of our EH (emotionally handicapped) students taken away in handcuffs today.
I have spent an great amount of one-on-one time with this student, and grown extremely fond of him, and he had a meltdown, and there was nothing anyone could do to calm him, so the police were called. 

It was an incredibly difficult look into the world these kids live in.
Had he been at a suburban school, where they would have more resources and training to deal with his disability, it never would have happened.

While it's hard, I try to remind myself that every person who tries to help them better themselves with a good education is a glimmer of hope for them to change their lives.
And that if I can push through the bad, I have the potential to be a ray of light in their difficult lives.

I feel that i have succeeded in that, at least a little.
My number one goal with this poetry unit was to give these kids a creative way to express themselves.  These kids have no band or choir, and art only once a week for an hour (and the only thing they do, every week, for the whole hour, is draw. Really?)
Standardized testing is pounded into their heads all day, every day, because the state is 2 seconds away from taking over the school.
So poetry was my attempt at helping them find a way to express themselves.
It hasn't sunk in with all of them, but I told myself at the beginning if I could help one, it would be a success. 
The following are some of the poems that warm my heart, and help me know I've done something positive for these kids.

5th grade poetry

When my mom

 died

It was the saddest

Day of my life

I was crying my heart out

Because a mother’s love

Is more special

Than anything in the world.

I loved my mom

With all my heart

Nothing in the world

Could split us apart.

Until the cold November afternoon

And I will never forget

That day…

The day my mom died.

-This students mom died of cancer last year, when he was a fourth grader. He and his dad framed this for his room.

No one wanted 9-11 to happen

 As the towers fell and crumbled

To the ground they fell

All the way down.

Screams and cries down the streets

Why would this be?

This is dedicated to Flight 93.

-This student was not even 2 years old when 9-11 happened. 

The guy is very shy.

When he’s bored he makes pie.

Instead of using a car, he flies.

We call him Fly Guy.

-I love this one, it just cracks me up. I think it's clever.

They’re people who stay

They’re people who will always be there.

They’re girls They’re boys

They’re not kiddy toys.

You don’t use them for their looks

Or their pretty voice.

That’s what friends are!

-This is a student who struggles in social situations, and I was proud of her for this.

Me and Dad really had nothing.

We had to work to earn food.

Me and dad really had nothing.

I had to clean for money.

Me and Dad really had nothing.

But the love and peace,

House and food he gave me.

Me and dad really had nothing,

But each other.

-This student is extremely closed, and puts up a front with everyone.  The only way we have been able to get through at all is by building up her writing, which she is very talented at. 

These give me hope.  

Hope that, even if only for 8 weeks,

I've made an impact on these kids.

Friday is my last day with them,

but I'll have these to remember them by forever. 

They make me proud.

Happy Birthday Husband!

Today was Jamie's Birthday!

He is now 27.

We slept in until noon, and then went to Elegance, a little restaurant in town. It was awesome.

And then we watched "The King's Speech." Also awesome.

This is where he spent the majority of his day.

I was glad to give him some personal time, he doesn't get to play for fun nearly enough.  

This is his birthday loot, on the counter.

He got some pretty good cards.

Then we went out for dinner and drinks with Amanda, Joe, and Dan, and had a great time.  We went to the Slippery Noodle downtown, and they had some really awesome bands there tonight.

While he was playing guitar for several hours, I was painting. 

Results:

I've developed a newfound interest in painting, and I'm considering taking some art classes in the fall.

Not much else has happened in the past few weeks, other than we've been planning for our garden! As soon as school is out we are going to break ground.  Here is my (to scale) plan. I'm pretty proud of it.

It's going to be some work, but I am really excited about it.  I'm also working really hard to keep them organic, and we won't be using anything other than natural gardening techniques. I'm really looking forward to getting started!

In other household news, the chore chart is working even better than expected! Our house has been perpetually clean for about a week now. It's been so great. 

Probably won't be blogging much, if at all, for the next two weeks.  They will be the last two weeks of school, and I have about a million things to finish up.  

Keep me in your prayers, I'm going to need them. 

♥

New Organic Awesomeness!

I have officially found a new favorite organic cookie. 

They blow Newman-O's out of the water!

And this amazing creation is...

Oh my goodness. They are so amazing. 

I'm adding them to the list of awesomeness right next to Turtle Trails Ice cream.

I haven't tried any of the other flavors, but I'm sure they are equally wonderful.

The one downside:

I finished an entire box by myself in 2 days.

Dang.

♥

Don't believe everything you read...

I am a lover and firm believer in home remedies for things.  One pretty big trend of late is creating serums to improve your hair. 

This is an article I read in a magazine a few weeks ago.

Here is the exact little blurb...

"Need some volume? Lifeless strands got you down? in a bowl, mix one egg yolk, a half cup of honey, two tablespoons of olive oil, and two small, ripe avocados. Apply the concoction to the entire head and leave on for one to two hours, until hard. Shampoo and condition as usual. "This is a miracle cure," notes Goddard-Clark. "And for extra-bouncy, nonfrizzy curls, Drew Barrymore taught me to blot ringlets dry with paper towels." 

I thought this was pretty cool. I love such things. And I have quite possibly, the finest, limpest, wimpiest hair in the world. I have to use a ton of product to get any sort of volume.

So, last night I decided to try this!

I went out and bought honey and avocados specifically for it.  

First off, do you know how hard it is to "mix" an avocado? They are not liquid. At all. The best I could do was little pea-sized chunks.

Second, it was quite possibly the worst smell ever.  You know how pumpkin guts smell when you take them out? Imagine that smell, only this concoction smelled like a pumpkin that had sat out in the sun for a week. In other words, rotten.

So, when I had mixed it to the best of my ability, (and created an AWEFUL mess in my kitchen) I took it to the bathroom to put it in my hair.  

Then all of the little avocado pieces began to fall out of my hair. It was raining pea-sized avocado in my bathroom. So, I decided I had to keep it contained somehow. 

This was the only way I could think of.

I felt like the kids in "Signs." No aliens were going to read THIS mind.

So once I had that, I had to go clean up the mess in the bathroom. Which, I found out when I got in there that I didn't actually have to clean up the floor, because Minnie had graciously done that for me. What a good little helper. So, I got all of the avocado mess off the counter and out of the sink, and went about my business.

About an hour later, I decided I couldn't stand the tinfoil anymore, and had to go wash it out.

This is what my hair looked like at this point.

Eww. 

So, I get into the shower. And with little avocado pieces raining down around my feet, I start to wash it. And then I wash it again. And then I was it a fourth time. After that, it FINALLY started to feel like hair again, and not a grease ball. So I conditioned, and let it dry.

So, after all of that trouble, this stuff totally made my hair...

Oh. Wait. 

It did nothing. 

That's right. 

I did all that crap, made a huge mess, wasted money, and my hair is as flat and lame as ever. 

Lesson learned.

In other news, Jamie and i have been having WAY to many arguments about the house being clean. It sucks to have to deal with such things when you work as much as we do, but it's a part of life. So, we are officially going back to a chore chart. 

After many emails back and fourth, and several revisions, here is the final product.

I even laminated it at school today, so that we could write on it with dry erase markers and then wipe it off, so we don't have to print new ones every month.  Awesome.

There are four things per day, and when you complete something, you initial. This takes the burden of having assigned things each day, and we can help each other out and pick up the slack. 

Lets hope it works.

Got my tickets for Ray Lamontagne and the Pariah Dogs!

Woohoo! July 14th! So excited!

Oh, and I'll leave you with a video of my dog being a lunatic. 

This happened randomly the other night.

She's such a goober.  I love her.

♥