biting the big one

Okay, it's time for me to face facts. I haven't lost any more weight since school ended, and I was hoping to be down 10-15 more pounds before school started up again. Well, guess what? I go back next week, and nada--no weight loss, but more likely weight gain. I'm still going to the gym for my classes (yoga and pilates), but even I know that's not enough. I have to get back in the gym on a regular basis to really work out--treadmill, bike, weights, you name it. So after talking to a friend last night, I've decided that I need more motivation. That's why I just plunged head first spending $269 on a month of Nutrisystem. I figure a couple of things--$269 is actually less than what I spend right now on food each month, so I'm hoping to save some money in the long run. I also figure that since I'm living on my own, this will be a much easier way to control my eating habits on a daily basis. Will it be difficult to drive past McDonald's and NOT stop for my daily $1 diet coke? You betcha, but I know I have to do something to get back on the right track. I'll let you know how it's going once I've been on the plan for a while. Who knows? Maybe this is just the kick in the pants I need to finally finish what I've longed for.

just a dog?

Those who know me know I love my dog more than some people. I know "some" say, "she's just a dog," but Soze has been in my family for the past 8 years, and she has come to be my baby. She's more than just my dog--she's my companion, my couch buddy, my little lady, and my punkinhead. When I picked her up at the Humane Society, she was only 6 weeks old and weighed about 5 pounds. Who knew that this tiny little puppy would grow into this massive I'll-eat-everything-in-sight-including-your-new-shoes-and-an-entire-loaf-of-bread monster? Even if I knew how much money she would cost me over the next 8 years and counting, I'd still take her in a heartbeat. Here's why:

Of course, I've also taken enough hair from Soze that I could recreate 150 more of her over the years. This is an example of my living room after a good de-shedding brush treatment. Soze acts like I'm abusing her when I brush her, but I know she has to feel better once that hair is gone. Here's hoping for plenty more memories to come! I love you Soze! :)

Playing around in photoshop

I'm taking a really cool Jessica Sprague class online that is showing me how to use textures, frames, texts, and today she showed us how to use clipping masks (who knew?) to create really cool photo collages. Here's what I did: (shhh...this may become a Christmas present...shhh...)

Here's another that I made of Soze--I'm definitely framing this one!

Taking this one class has made me want to take her others. She definitely knows what she's talking about! Maybe this fall I'll be able to take Jessica's other photoshop classes and learn from the master herself. :)

I just flew back from Atlanta and BOY are my arms tired!

When I think about all that I haven't blogged about recently, my mind begins to swim. That's why I'm not going to stress about telling you every little bit of my summer, but instead focus on the major events. I feel like I apologize every time I get on here because I haven't been keeping up with my blogs like I thought I would, and I am going to stop apologizing. My friend Bonnie put it best when she said "I'd rather be living my life than blogging about it." Amen sister! Thanks Bonnie! :)

For starters, I just got back from a school trip to Atlanta where we presented and attended conferences on High Schools That Work. While I did see some interesting ideas (and people), one thought that popped up in my head quite frequently was how these "professional" people spoke. One woman was so bad that I began to tally each time she said "um" or "uh" during her speech. Before I left at the 30-minute mark, this professional speaker had said 165 ums or uhs. HOLY COW! I just couldn't take it any more. I had to get out of there!

Our group stayed at the Holiday Inn Select, and this was the view from our hotel window--the Olympic torch. How cool is that? Since I had never been to Atlanta before (I don't think just the airport counts.), I was super stoked to visit somewhere new. The following is a list of what I did or saw during my stay:

--LOTS of bad drivers. I thought the people down in Springfield were bad? Ummm...they don't have anything on the drivers in Atlanta. Chad, our administrator in charge and the driver of our minivan, couldn't let everyone else take control, so he felt it necessary to join the ranks of the other drivers. It didn't help, I have to say, to have a British speaker on our GPS who kept telling us to turn either left or right as we were passing THROUGH the intersection. Needless to say, we made LOTS of U-turns!

--Atlanta Underground is a place for food, fun, and weed. On our first afternoon in Atlanta, we ate lunch at the Atlanta Underground, a part of the city that burned way back in the day. Instead of tearing it all out, they decided to build OVER

this section. So now there's a cool little shopping and eating area. As we were making our way to Johnny Rocket's (it's called Rocket's for a reason! Ugh!) to eat lunch, apparently Justin, our second administrator on the trip, looked like he needed some weed. Some random dude offered him some pot! We are really hoping it was an undercover cop, and Justin passed the test. At least that's what we kept telling ourselves!

--The CNN tour was really cool. I skipped out on two sessions because one was with the lady who said um 165 times, and I just didn't care to hear that again. So I walked across the street to CNN and paid my $13 to tour the news. I couldn't take pictures inside the tour (I really, really wanted to take a picture of huge Anderson Cooper on the wall--YUM!), but I did manage to snag this shot from below the newsroom. The wall of windows below the CNN and globe is the actual newsroom where 90% of all CNN news comes from. While I was there, the weather man was getting ready to begin, and a news anchor was reporting behind the desk. I was able to get my picture taken from behind a CNN news desk as well. :)

--Coke World was not as cool as I expected it to be. For $15, I expected more. We did see a cute 4-D show (hence the glasses) about what makes a Coke so special. However, I was expecting more of a tour like the Anheiser-Busch tour in St. Louis where you see production from beginning to end. Coke World only had one little bottling tour that took less than 5 minutes to walk through. Boring! I guess the best part was tasting some Coke samples from around the world. The Korean one was REALLY good! :)

--My new favorite restaurant resides in Atlanta--a place called Two Urban Licks. This is what we drove up to, and my first thought was "Where the heck are we????" However, once we went inside, the place was totally rocked out! The food was unbelievably good--Calamari, tuna tartar, GIANT beef rib with homemade mac and cheese, oh man. My mouth is watering just thinking about it!

--The best part? Getting to know some more people from school that I didn't really know before this trip. They were a great group, and we laughed NONSTOP. "That's what she said!"

(By the way, I'm taking a Jessica Sprague online class on using frames and text with pictures. It's a cool class and I plan on taking more from her later on!)

Birthday

Finally, an update. I do realize probably the only reason I'm really on here, other than to give you just a small sneak peek of what's been going on in my life recently, is to avoid tackling the laundry basket of papers and portfolios I need to grade before tomorrow. Let's see...I have Fahrenheit 451 tests and portfolios to grade for my seniors, The Great Gatsby tests and portfolios to grade for my juniors, and whatever late work my freshmen have turned in to date. I have a feeling the freshmen work won't be graded any time soon. I'll get to it...eventually. :)

Back to why I started this post:

My birthday. My mom and I had a FABULOUS time together when she came to visit me for my 31st birthday weekend. She arrived Friday evening, and we ate dinner at a local Mexican place up here called Jose Pepper's. They make the BEST cheese dip--and I think that's a very high compliment considering I thought Mexican Villa down in Spfld was the best before! The highlight of our meal was the cheese dip was FREE! :) Gotta love Valpak coupons! :) After dinner, we just came back to the house and talked. Even though we talk on the phone every day (more than once, mind you), it was good to talk to her in person. Just sit on the couch and gossip. Because I still didn't have any bedroom furniture, poor Mom slept on the couch that night, but she said it was fine. She took the couch while I wrestled with the air mattress. (Never again...)

The next morning, on my actual birthday, we woke up early and went to breakfast at IHOP over by Nebraska Furniture Mart. The plan was to eat, then go shopping for new furniture. I had already picked out what I wanted for my new bedroom:

I found this set online and just fell in love! Weeeelllllll, when I saw it in the store, I fell out. It looked rediculously cheap, and according to the salesperson, it was. So it was a no go. We searched until I came across THE ONE. Actually, there were two that I considered to be THE ONE, but after much debate, I finally settled on this:

The bedding I found at Dillards and just thought it was the girliest set! BEAUTIFUL! I wanted something luxurious, and my 500-thread count sheets are it! :) This was the time to splurge. Just FYI--after testing it out last night for the first time, I was right! Never again can I go back to the Walmart $10 sheets after sleeping like a baby with this Princess set. Now everytime I go into my new bedroom, I want to open my arms wide and sing out a chorus of "Hallelujah" in high C. (I think I've done that twice!)

So, after choosing my new bedroom, it was time to pick out the other furniture I still needed. I found a nice set for the guest bedroom in the Clearance center--headboard, chest, and nightstand. (I'll add pictures of it when I finish setting that room up.) Then I saw the patio set I wanted--high top table, bar chairs, cute, cute, cute. (Again, I'll add pictures of it later.)

Once we wrapped up all of our shopping at NFM, we headed over to the Legends shopping area (much like Branson Landing) to see what kind of deals we could make. I found some new brown dress sandals for this summer, a skirt (SIZE 12!), and a couple pairs of shorts from Old Navy (SIZE 12!). (Just had to throw my new sizes in there--down 3 sizes since December...) This is the only picture of both my mom and me from this weekend. You can tell we were trying not be blown away by the wind (this area ended up having a deadly tornado just an hour or so after we left).

Dinner was calling by this time, so we drove into downtown and ate at The Cheesecake Factory in the Plaza. Hmmmm...cheesecake...

Sadly, my birthday came to an end, and Mom had to go back home the next day. All in all, my birthday was a smashing success. I met up with some friends the next weekend to celebrate a late birthday, and that did not disappoint either! No pictures to post, but let's just say it ended with me getting an ice shower from a VERY attractive piano player downtown. :) The End

no new post

Not sure why I haven't been blogging this month, except the only news-worthy stuff so far has been non-bloggable (is that a word?). I'll definitely blog about it later, but for now, it's in my head and that's where it will stay for a while.

I did celebrate my 31st birthday with my mom, and I do plan on blogging about that this weekend. I need to upload my pictures to the computer first, so let me get on that, and I'll fill you in on my fabulous birthday later! :)

Where has the time gone?

My seniors surprised me this morning by starting the countdown to graduation on my board. They are out of school in 32 days! I couldn't believe it when I saw that number. This school year really has flown by. When I think of all that has happened this year, my mind literally cannot comprehend that the end is drawing near. I have so much yet to do!!! My seniors are reading Fahrenheit 451, a commentary by Ray Bradbury on the state of current affairs (how scarily close he was to predicting the future...), and I want to end their senior year by doing some awesome poetry (thanks to Hayley in advance!!) and reflective writing. For so many of my seniors, I know this will be the VERY last English class they ever take in their lives, so I want to end this year by doing some things they will appreciate (I hope!).

My juniors are currently reading The Great Gatsby and although some are hating it, others tend to be quite involved with Nick and Daisy and Gatsby and the whole gang. I still want to do one more writing piece with them, and then hopefully end the year with A Raisin in the Sun.

Freshmen? Oh boy, they are a whole other crop...they are doing some poetry stuff right now--in fact, some groups presented their poem/song choice today, and I heard some good ones. We had anything from Bob Marley's "Waiting in Vain" to Sara Bareilles' "Love Song" to HotStylz's "Yo Mama Got a Mustache." That last one was HILARIOUS!!! To be honest, I have no idea what I'm going to do with them after this--just something to make it through the end of the year.

Speaking of end of the year, I'm on the list to teach summer school this year. I don't know if I'll get chosen or not, but the practical side of me really needs to teach for the money. Things are going to be very tight when I refinance, and I will need every extra dollar I can get to make it through. If I don't get chosen, money will still be tight, but I will enjoy my summer and my pool! :)

On a side note, I may be moving classrooms again. However, this time, it will be to a much bigger and better room! Let's see...this will make my 8th room in 10 years. Hmmph! Bring it on!!!

I'll close with some pictures of school projects my kids have done this year. See? I don't sit on my butt all day! (NOT EVEN CLOSE!!!!) The faces have been deleted to protect the innocent.

Before we began reading Of Mice and Men, the juniors created their own little "Hoovervilles". The rules were: There were no rules--they could steal whatever materials they could get their greedy little hands on in order to build a shelter big enough for their "family" group.

During our reading of "The Odyssey", the freshmen re-wrote the story as a script and acted it out with stick puppets. Aren't they cute?

My freshmen made a game out of a story called "The Most Dangerous Game", complete with a gameboard, moving pieces, rules, and most importantly, playability.