My feet hurt.

I've been setting up my classroom for the past 4 days. I'm REALLY happy about it. I love the set-up, the flow, and the decorations I have up. I have more confidence this year, and I know it's weird, but my attitude this year is "Bring It!" I'm ready.

Today, I spent all day getting it clean and shiny for Open House. It went really well (my class seems awesome) but I haven't sat down in quite a while. Plus, I didn't wear my normal Rainbows, opting for more professional kicks. Thus, my post title. Ouch.

I took lots of pictures of my class, but my computer is currently on the fritz. I'm on Joel's mac (thanks, babe) but I don't know how to put pictures on here.

I need a new book to read...I just finished Twilight, which I'm embarrassed to say I LOVED...any suggestions?

Inspired.

I am not a morning person. I enjoy summer because I have the freedom to wake up at 10, have a muffin and some soy milk (and take 45 minutes to finish my breakfast) and lounge around on the couch until noon. (Don't hate.)

Around 7pm, I get really energized and want to go work out. I might take a 20 minute nap around 9pm, and wake up ready to conquer the (sleeping) world. Joel and I have become fond of walking in our neighborhood around the time most people are turning in for the night, talking about our ideas for our classrooms this year. Currently, I'm in our fabulously neat, clean, and organized guest room (and it only took us a year to fix it up!), working on lesson plans for the year, and listening to Ben Folds. Joel has, of course, planned a whole month in 15 minutes and is making an awesome unit that includes Batman (high school teachers totally have it easier).

I went into my classroom for the first time since I closed the doors in June. I'll have to admit, just driving to school gave me that slight panicky feeling again. But I had to remind myself that my class is different this year, I have a lot more experience, and for goodness sakes, they're only 8 year olds!

I ended up spending a good 4 hours setting up pretty much all of my furniture, organizing all my worksheets from last year (no small feat), and cleaning the incredibly thick layer of grime that accumulated in the past two couple of months. Yuck. But I got all the tedious work out of the way so when I go back in a few days, I'll be able to do the fun stuff-decorating, putting up my bulletin board, and making nametags :)

In other news, Joel and I bought a cabinet for the rest of our china that didn't have a home. It was a steal, and when I came home from working at school, Joel had installed the shelves and
put in all our china! He did such a great job :)
Before (note the broken glass...oops...)




















The final product.






































Note to Erin: I enjoyed my birthday tea in the beautiful tea cup while working today!

Just some randoms

This is my brother and I at my wedding. Really, I don't have a lot of pictures of my brother and I've rarely written about him, but here he is. He's a great older brother who really looked out for me as a kid. He also gave me the car I have now! I'm so thankful for him, especially because he lives in Fayetteville now, so he's super close to me!

In related news (to the wolfies in the picture) Joel and I bought some State football tickets. Basically, he's pretty excited about football season, and I'm looking forward to a new t-shirt and hot dogs at the games.

School starts up in a couple of weeks. I've got a bigger class than last year, but I'm thankful for some new organizational tools, a year of experience under my belt, and awesome new software that makes engaging lesson planning a bit easier.

I'm trying to have a good attitude about this year. I am more confident, but I'm still nervous about not being the kind of teacher I want to be. Goals for this year include:
-sucking it up and actually having good parent-teacher communication
-staying on top of all the papers that come in
-being more organized in matching my lessons to the curriculum
-being more consistent in discipline
-rewarding students more
-having morning meetings

The last goal is something I saw in classrooms as I was student teaching, but never really worked in my room this year. Being in a magnet school means a lot less instructional time in the classroom, and that makes a 15 minute meeting somewhat of a burden when you have SO many other things to fit in. However, looking back at all my issues this year, I think a lot had to do with a lack of social skills with some students I had. A regular morning meeting to have "devotions" of some sort, going over our routine, and checking in with each student would have been really helpful. I started teaching about bullying behavior and what to do about it late in the year, after my other (not so healthy) routines were established. Last year, that bullying became such a huge problem that it totally interfered with teaching and learning. There were days when we didn't really accomplish much of anything...we were surviving. That was a huge problem...this year I've made a really cool, interactive presentation on bullying to introduce the topic, and I plan on reinforcing these points during morning meetings.

Any other tips for this year? How will you do things differently?

A year ago today:

We were on our way to Charleston for our honeymoon!

Yesterday was our anniversary, and it was wonderful!
We went to church with my whole family and later went to lunch at Doc Green's (my choice-healthy and low key.) They were wonderful and bought us a new vacuum which we are SO thankful for!
Joel and I spent the afternoon at the pool working on our tans and listening to side conversations going on around us. I love neighborhood pools :)

We came home and watched the final two episodes of Gilmore Girls (don't hate-you know you love it too). After that, we went to Whole Foods to buy our fabulous food for the evening:















We watched the first three episodes of my favorite, Pride and Prejudice. Joel bought me a book: The Flying Carpet of Small Miracles, a storypeople card, and lilies. My favorite.
Joel's mom brought me hydrangeas from her garden a few days ago, and you can see the wooden bowls Joel picked up for me and the cookies I bought him at IKEA on Saturday. His gift is a new pair of Pumas, but I couldn't find them in the store so I told him to find them online.

































It ended up being a perfect day. I'm so thankful for my husband and the wonderful year we've had!

Candyland Battle

I play Candyland with my client now, to practice taking turns and whatnot. I had never played the game before, so you know, the first session I had to actually read the instructions.

I'm usually one to let a kid win, but not this time. My three-year-old client beat me twice in a row. Honestly, if I had just not given my client any assistance on the counting part of it, I would have won.

Well, today, the tables turned. I actually won at Candyland, and yes, I will gloat. Unashamedly.

I love my job.

Dessert success!

We had Joel's parents over for dinner last night, and per Joel's request, we had our typical summer menu: burgers (which fell apart and became sloppy joes), corn, and fried green tomatoes. I made biscuits for Joel's dad that were made with all organic ingredients. It ended up being a really monochromatic meal, oops!

But my favorite part of the meal: peach ginger sorbet.

It's a WW recipe, only 2 points per serving!

Here it goes:
1/2 c. water
1/3 c. sugar
1/3 c. light corn syrup
2 tsp. ground ginger
1 1/2 lb. peaches (peeled, pitted, quartered)
3 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1/4 tsp. table salt

1) Combine water, sugar, corn syrup and ginger in a saucepan over medium-high heat until sugar dissolves. Let it boil for 1 minute and then set it aside to cool for 5 minutes.
2) Pour sugar mixture into a blender or food processor, blend with peaches, lemon juice, and salt until pureed.
3) Pour into a bowl and freeze for about 8 hours.
4) This step confused me-I put it into my ice cream maker but I think I used it wrong. To serve it, I just defrosted the sorbet a bit and shaved it off into a teacup :)

It's really refreshing, but because of the ginger, it's spicy at the end. It's really yummy!

I think I'm going to try make a green grape sorbet later. Mmm...

At the risk of now being overly scrutinized...

I wanted to share some things that I've been thinking about over the past few months.

I joined Weight Watchers to lose weight, yes, but also to just be healthier in general. I realize that I eat cheeseburgers every now and then, and somehow factor in ice cream almost 3 times a week, but I know that I'm learning how to just control my portion sizes.

I've also started thinking a lot about where our food comes from and how it's processed. I've mentioned that Joel and I shop at the farmers' market, more for the cost than for the environmental/social benefits. It helps us stay on budget to buy locally.

However, a few months ago I learned about a study about workers in chicken processing plants in NC and the health problems they suffer. You can find the abstract here.

Joel and I started talking about where our food comes from and the social costs we really don't think about. As Christians, we know the Lord has called us to be loving to our neighbors. One way we feel we can do this is to consider how the least of these in our state are treated, often in indentured servitude-like positions.

We tried buying our groceries at Whole Foods but it got really expensive (of course). But, step by step, we're trying to move towards different ways of buying our food and different meals. I mean, I still need to buy regular chicken and veggies sometimes, but we're trying to slowly introduce organic and locally grown foods. So I realize that if you look at my fridge it won't look like the picture of sustainability, so don't judge me! I just wanted to know if other people out there are also thinking about these things/changing their lifestyles.

Last night, I saw Food, Inc. and it brought up a lot of issues that we've been thinking about for a while. Namely:
-Farmers and plant workers rights
-buying locally to support NC farmers and reduce how much "oil" goes into our food.
-foodborne illness
-obesity
-chemicals and additives in food that our body isn't used to
-sustainability and the global food crisis

Joel is totally supportive of me looking into this, and today we spend forever looking at the ingredients lists on the food we bought. It was good to just be aware of what we're eating.

It is really challenging to revamp how we do things, though, and balance natural food, health, and a budget. . Here are some examples of the challenges:
-I love to bake, but I want to include ingredients that are low fat, low sugar. So I bought a "buttery spread" on sale that was, calorie-wise, really healthy. But the additives list was ridiculously long. Buying our butter from the farmers' market like we used to do means I compromise health. What to do??
-I wish we could buy meat from grass-fed animals, for the above stated reasons, but it's so expensive. EEK!

Anyway, I'm just on the beginning of my research-journey, and I'm not trying to be all granola-hippy-wacko. But if anyone else is thinking about these things, let me know! I'd love recipes, suggestions, and information!