Tired and Cold

I don't like how the temperature has decided to change.  I think I might have to adjust our thermostat.  I love the colors from Autumn, the cooler temperatures, and the start of school.  But I'm not a fan of the snow that can come, the shorter days, or the fact that I don't have enough sweaters.

Luckily, I can fix that last one.  :)

Love you, Grandma June

I needed to get some closure this evening after I heard the news that my grandmother passed away.  So, even with as much as I've complained about making videos for school, here's a little video that I made about my Grandma June.  It's not much, and I wish I had more than just the last five years--but I made due with what I had.

I love "Kid 2 Kid"

So, realizing that I was running short on sewing time, I stopped by Kid 2 Kid tonight looking for pieces that would work for Carter's costume. Success! I found the jacket and pants. Then stopped by Ross, Kohl's, and even Halloween City. Nothing. So, the costume is started and manageable. I'll try the DI tomorrow to see if I can finish up.

So, why is it that I feel the need to personally sew Kaylie's costume, but am totally fine with buying Carter's? I don't have an answer. Hmmmm....

A Nice Weekend

I missed posting yesterday. Oops. My excuse is that I ran out of time with finishing painting the woodwork in the living room, and getting the house clean, and having our neighbors over to watch "Young Frankenstein" and drink Baked Hot Chocolate. But, as I wrote last week, that's just an excuse. So, I'm sorry to the large blog-sphere if you were devastated by my lack of posting.

It has been a nice weekend. I did NOT accomplish everything on my to-do list, but I got the important things done. And I spent a lot of time with my family. And that's what matters most.

So, tomorrow it's back to work. I should be having an official evaluation done sometime this week, as well as one unofficial observation. I'm not worried about either, but it's always a change to the normal routine. The kids are never quite sure how to act. (That's one of the reasons to INCREASE the number of observations each year. The faculty isn't ready for that yet.) So, wish me luck. And I hope you have a pleasant week, too.

Costume

Progress was made on Kaylie's costume. Unfortunately, I think I'm getting a cold. After buying a zipper for her dress, I just wanted to lay on the couch and sleep.

Okay, the truth was that I wanted to watch the end of season one of "24". I was able to sew while listening to "South Pacific" (with Reba MacEntire, Alec Baldwin, and Brian Stokes Mitchell--lovely show, by the way, totally need to buy the soundtrack). But I just couldn't focus on sewing straight lines while trying to listen to "24".

While I'm on the note of musicals, I think that "South Pacific" might be getting close to the top of one of my favorites. I was reminded of how much I liked it last year when the local high school performed it. Brought back lots of memories from watching it in high school way back when. But today, while ironing the last scene was on. Nellie and the kids were singing, and then the kids stop, and Emilie sings, and she turns...and I started balling. They just don't write good stuff like that anymore!

That's a lot of wood

So, my goal today was to prime and paint all of the woodwork in our living room and hallways. That way we could finally put our house back together. (We painted everything over the Labor Day weekend.)

Well, it took 2 hours to tape everything and then another 3 hours to prime. Luckily, primer dries quickly. But not before the family got home.

On another note, one of our windows cracked during the night. While at Home Depot ordering a new window, Carter kept himself entertained (and many other customers) by pushing around a large orange bucket and walking behind it. Kaylie joined in the fun, and I reached for my camera. Unfortunately, I left it at home. However, I'm thinking I could save lovts of money on Christmas by just purchasing some paint buckets. :)

If You Knew What I Was Thinking...

Yay!  Day 2, I'm on a roll.  Or at least a chair.

I often have wished that I had a way to upload all of the random thoughts that I have in a day.  I'm sure that they'd be interesting to other people.  Sometimes my inner monologue even gets me to laugh out loud.  And apparently, I'm not alone in interesting inner monologues.  The following conversation really did happen last night.  (Well, not quite word-for-word.)

Jen:  (Driving home)  What are you thinking about?
Nate:  I don't think the police would like it if I had a installed a giant with a sword on top of the car.  But it would make it easier to move cars out of the way.
Jen: (opens mouth and tries to think of something to say)
Nate:  What?  You asked.

Silly, I know.  But it's not far from what I often think.  I love my husband.

Well, it's UEA and I don't have school.  Hurray!  I created my list of things that I want to do during this break, things that are important to do during the break, and things that should get done just because it's the weekend.  We'll see how much actually occurs.

Blogging

I recently watched the movie Julie/Julia for the umpteenth time, and thought "I should blog more."  Then today I wasted time looking at what other math teachers around the country blog about, and again I thought "I should blog more."  I already spend a lot of time thinking about math, and teaching, and my students, and the teachers at my school, and education, and the changes occurring in the district, and politics about education, and the common core, and ....

So why don't I blog more?  Well, the easy excuse is that I'm too busy doing all the above plus being a mom, and wife, and primary teacher, and piano teacher, and choir pianist, and....  And then I want to sew Halloween costumes, and finish painting the living room, and clean the refrigerator, and organize the craft room, and finish scrap-booking, and...

But in the end, those are just excuses--good ones--but excuses no the less.  I recently listened to a podcast on time management (while trying to multi-task...go figure), and the speaker mentioned that he always reserved the last 5-15 minutes of his work day to reflect on the day and organize things for the next day.  That way he could go home and say "this is what I did today" rather than "I was busy all day, but I don't know that I accomplished anything."  I already do something similar at work, but what if I used blogging to help decompress what I do at home?  I often wonder what I do once I get home from work.  I mean, I cook dinner, play with the kids, try to pick up the house, and spend time with my husband.  But one day often melts into another and I can't really say what made this day unique, special, or fulfilling.

I like this.  Even writing the couple of paragraphs that I have makes me realize how much I miss LiveJournal and how lacking Facebook is.  (Though it is cool that 1 BILLION people now have a Facebook account.  My husband has two.)  I miss being able to just write and think and vent and ramble.  Lots of rambling going on--and not very grammatically correct.  Oh well.  I guess this is what people once used journals and diaries for.  But I've never been good at that.  Writing in pen/pencil is too slow and I think always felt permanent.  Where as I can edit my typing quickly and delete what I don't link.  (This, of course, is ignoring the fact that nothing published online is ever private again.)

So, rather than just rambling, although rambling is fun, HERE'S my action plan.

*A*C*T*I*O*N* *P*L*A*N*  (The stars make it look cooler, right?)
After the kids have gone to bed, and Nate is working on school work, I will decompress on Blogger each night.  My goal is to accomplish this for ONE WEEK!  After a week, I'll reevaluate and decide if it's worth the effort.  I'll probably need some reinforcement, so comments, texts, phone calls, or even live interaction would all be appreciated.

Here we go!

Edited to Add:  After spending 30 minutes writing this post, I accidentally deleted it.  The action plan was almost already stumped before it began.  Luckily, brilliant people have posted strategies on recovering post.  Thank you much, random internet genius!