Telling stories

The last few days, I've been helping Molly & Erik at their new house. When I say "helping", I don't actually mean that I've scraped old wall paper from the walls, or pulled bags of weeds from the flower beds. I've helped by entertaining Ellen since there isn't much she can do in a big, empty house that is a construction zone right now.

To stay busy, we've picked up sticks in the front yard, watched bunnies in the backyard, colored in coloring books and told stories. Ellen has turned into quite the story teller. She remembers her favorite books well and has started "reading" to us when we come to visit.

This weekend when Ellen & I were coloring, she wanted to know about the story in her Fairy Tale coloring book. It was Hansel & Gretel and I did my best to retell what I remembered about the tale, using the blank pictures to help me. Ellen was fascinated with the witch and she's decided since last Halloween that ALL witches are "scawey". I agree, Ells. 100%. Oh, and clowns, too :)

Here she is retelling our version of Hansel & Gretel. I'd say she's ready to run her own classroom! Sit back and enjoy the story.

Not bad, huh? She insisted on watching herself on my camera multiple times that day. She likes to smirk at herself in videos, which is worthy of another video, too. If only I had multiple cameras and pairs of hands.

Your day

Happy Father's Day!

I chose this picture for my Father's Day post for a few reasons.

1) It is a great family picture ... minus our additions since it was taken (Erik, Minnie, Ellen).

2) It is summertime and this was taken in late July many years ago.

3) It is funny to see us in old pictures.

4) It is a picture taken from Camp Waldemar, the camp where Molly & I each spent 7 summers between the ages of 9 and 16. Today for Father's Day, I gave Dad a book called P.S. I Hate It Here! It is a compilation of hilarious notes home from summer camp. Dad was the KING of sending us mail while we were at Waldemar. They even got us to record 1-sided conversations on blank tapes & send those home in addition to letters.

Thanks for being such a great dad, and for being the KING of so many aspects of our lives: planning family road trips, teaching us to keep our cars clean & gas tanks filled (even if I had to meet you in DeSoto for cash to fill said car), helping us with school projects (like staying up late to bail me out when I've procrastinated too long), sending us to great colleges, taking care of your Granddog & Granddaughter when needed, providing lots of laughs, sharing your love of photography with us AND supporting us in whatever we do!

Love you, Dad!

Woof, Woof!

Remember when I was shopping at the Mission Road Antique Mall and found those adorably cute doggie bookends back in March?

Then, one day my Aunt Susan called to say that she had called the Antique Mall to have them pull the terrier bookends to reserve them for me. She was going to get them for me as an early birthday present.

I drove over to the Antique Mall and they had pulled 3 other sets of bookends, but none of them were as cute as the ones I had picked out a month earlier. I purchased & immediately went home to find the perfect spot for them.

Here they are ... looking very cute in my loft with some great reads AND a lot of other books that I have yet to read.

Thanks, Aunt Susan! You're the BEST :) I love you to pieces.

What a great visit!

Last week at school, we were lucky enough to have Susan Stevens Crummel visit our building and give an author presentation. We used to have an author visit every year and we've since decided to save up our money and splurge on a really great author every two or three years. When our librarian, Jill, told us that Susan was coming to our building, I didn't know much about her. Jill read one of her books each week when my kids came in for library check out.

Many of her books are about dogs. Of course, I liked that! Her presentation was over an hour long & the kids were engaged and excited the entire time. That's hard to do! I was laughing, I was interested in hearing what she had to say ... and I walked away wishing that I had some writing and/or illustrating skills!

Here is Susan with one of the many puppets that she brought to act out parts of her stories. Susan is the author and she partners with her sister, Janet Stevens, or Janet's best friend, Dorothy Donohue, to finish the artwork in her books.

Aunt Betsy & cousin Minnie were nice enough to get some books for Ellen. We took them over yesterday & she was happily flipping through the pages. Both books had doggies on the covers and Ellen waved hi to the dogs! :)

Here is the first book, Help Me, Mr. Mutt! It's a book where dogs have written to Mr. Mutt to ask for advice on all their "people" problems. Check out the autograph!

Here is a sample of one of the letters. Overdressed in Oklahoma writes, concerned about the amount of clothes that his owners are dressing him in.

And here's the funny reply. Be sure to click on the picture to look at the graph that compares the breed of a dog vs. how often they are dressed up!

I loved the illustrations in this book! The yarn in this illustration looks so real, that I actually touched the page. Janet punched holes in her original artwork & laced the yarn through. Then it showed up like this in the book!

Minnie got City Dog, Country Dog for Ellen. It is about a book about 2 dog friends (based on City Mouse, Country Mouse). The City dog, Henri T. LaPooch lives in Paris and his friend, Vincent Van Dog lives in the country.

The book has lots of French in it, which I thought would be fun for Ellen. This book has illustrations made out of all cut paper. They also looked like they were 3D.

Here is an example of the "real" artwork in the book and the letters that Henri & Vincent wrote back and forth.

Here are the two dogs visiting in Paris, at the Moulin Rouge. In the end, they realize that they like their lives better in their original homes, but they will continue to be pen pals.

If you're looking for new books for your little one ... or a dog lover ... be sure to check out Susan's books! Some other great ones are The Great Fuzz Frenzy and All In One Hour!

Enjoy!

"It says he was an English Explorer ...

... that means he was from America, right? We speak English in America."

Oh holy research! We started a research project today in 4th grade that involves every student reading about and collecting "evidence" on one of several European explorers. We found after all 3 classes had a full hour of research in the library, that our kids DO NOT KNOW HOW TO GATHER INFORMATION FROM EXPOSITORY TEXT!

It was seriously terrifying! The kids had no clue that someone that was a French explorer would be from France; and Italian explorer would be from Italy; a Spanish explorer would be from Spain; and clearly they didn't get that an English explorer would be from England! They also had no clue that the two dates in parentheses after the explorer's name had anything to do with the dates he was born & died ... and some of mine couldn't even figure out that the later of the two dates was the date of death. Yikes!

We spent the rest of the afternoon moaning & groaning about how the kids don't know how to research and don't have the background knowledge needed to take notes over the correct information. I read the following quote recently on a blog I read, and I thought it fit the situation quite well:

"At which point did children stop going to school to ask questions and go to school to be given answers to remember?"

We are too busy teaching our students the information that "will be on the test, I know it will be, so make sure you are paying attention" that we don't have time for them to explore (pun intended) to find the answers to the questions they have about the world around them.

Something to chew on ... I'll step down from my soapbox now!

I've been (self-)diagnosed with Grocery Store Sensory Overload

It's true! I read about this disease in a book.

Okay, it was less of an informative medical book, and more of a fun, girlie novel. :)

I started reading "Drunk, Divorced & Covered in Cat Hair" thanks to Mitzi & Jill passing it along my way. While I am not any of the things listed in the title, it's a pretty good book so far. I'm only 70 pages & 18 chapters in, and it's going so quickly, that I can pick it up when I have a few minutes here or there which is nice.

In the book, Laurie talks about how she has Cooking ADD (will start to cook something on the stove and completely forget about it until the smoke alarm is going off) and she has Grocery Store Sensory Overload.

I laughed out-loud at this part, because it is totally me! Here's what she has to say about her trips to the grocery store:

"I know I should go to the grocery store instead of the 7-Eleven, but I can't be trusted in that place. Left to my own devices I will spend a hundred dollars and arrive home with items that when placed together do not even make one complete meal. I'll buy Shake 'n Bake but forget chicken, buy milk but forget cereal, buy lunch meat and no bread. It just happens. The grocery store is big and the selection is vast and I come down with a case of vertigo every time I walk through the perfectly oiled sliding glass door.

And I love lists. I am a list-making fool. So I make lists for the grocery store on Post-it Notes, and on the back of the light bill, and even in a notebook bought solely for the purpose of holding my many lists. But even if the list makes it to the store (shocking rare incident, but it has happened), the list is not in the same order as the aisles, and I still have to walk around and everything is so pretty and appetizing and ... look! Lucky Charms cereal! Lunchables with mini tacos! Oreos with chocolate filling! Hey, I'm an adult and what fun is it to be on your own and paying bills and doing things like wearing panty hose if you can't buy Oreos? I would be denying my power as an adult if I didn't buy these! It would be a travesty! In fact, by purchasing Double Stuf Oreos, I am declaring my independence!

And dammit if an hour later I'm not standing at the check-out with coffee filters, beer, four frozen Lean Cuisines, a big packet of Oreos, and seventeen other items that make no sense."

Just this week I was at my neighborhood grocery store and ran into some of these same issues! I had a list, but of course, things weren't written down by the store layout. I had to make my way back to the first aisle 3 or 4 times for things I forgot to get while I was there. I've been shopping there for 7 months, you'd think I'd have this figured out! I was good, and I bought things specifically for recipes I wanted to make, but when I got home I wasn't in the mood to cook, so I felt like I had nothing to eat.

I think this means that we need to start up with our food swap again. Too much to do during the week to take time to cook a real meal for myself. Blech!

Things are coming together ...

... Slowly but surely!

Mom and I ran errands for about 6 hours yesterday trying to get things done. This weekend has literally been the first time I haven't been up at school for the last 2 weeks! It was nice to sleep in and try to get things done.

On my list of things to do: shop for a dryer (mine is broken, so I've been taking laundry to M&D's) and to look for bookshelves. Miss Minners also had to be dropped off and picked up from PetSmart for a grooming appointment! She looks super cute now!

We ran all over town, and got a lot accomplished. My bank account balance is considerably smaller, but I got lots done. Dryer is purchased and will be delivered on Thursday! Bookshelves bought and put together by yours truly! Desk top bought and set up! New shower curtain rod put up and new bathroom towels hung! The list goes on and on!

Here are some pics of how things are starting to look finished around here.

Desk in back bedroom. I got the file cabinets from school, and bought the board to go on the top. Today's project was to cover them with contact paper.

Here's a side view of the contact paper. I still have to figure out what to do with the fronts of them.

This picture is old, but I don't think I shared it. Here are the apothecary jars that I've filled with rices, grains and peas. I love the finished look!

Here is one of the bookshelves I bought yesterday. Putting it together meant that I could finally unpack some of the many boxes of books I had up in the loft. Up until now, I didn't have anywhere for them to go. I saw in a magazine this summer, that someone had arranged the books according to the color on the cover. I loved that idea, so I did it this morning, and I really like the way it turned out!

Here is the beautiful, hand-painted couch that Aunt Susan & Cindy brought up from Wichita last weekend for me. It was quite the task to get it up the stairs to my condo and then up the stairs inside to set it up in the loft! Once it gets a bit cooler, the afternoon sun will be pleasant in the loft, and not steamy! This can be my new hang-out spot.

Here's the other bookshelf I put together. Not quite sure where it will go yet. The one thing I know for sure is that I've got plenty of books to fill it up!

Here is one part of my place that is finally done! You can't tell very well from this picture, but I painted my bathroom PINK! I was a bit apprehensive about it at first, but it is growing on me. My bathroom is so small, that it isn't overwhelming at all.

And here's the other bathroom that is completely done! I really love it. This was the first painting project and I finally got some towels and things hung on the walls.

It feels really nice to have some things start to come together. One of these days, I'll feel like my home is presentable and I can have some people over to celebrate! :)

The Teachers' "Lounge"

I love that the place we eat our microwaved lunches, rush to the bathroom, make copies and check our mail ... all in our 25 minute lunch "hour" ... is called a lounge. There is NO lounging done there.

Today, Dad gave me a copy of a book called, 1,003 Great Things About Teachers. I opened it and the first section I came to was about the teachers' lounge.

It is called, "What Do Teachers Do in the Teachers' Lounge? - Real Kids' Answers". Here they are!

• Go the bathroom and sleep.
• Take off their shoes.
• Think of more rules.
• Chew the gum they take away from you.
• Practice trash-can basketball.
• Read kids' notes.
• Show each other their kids' papers.
• Play cards and watch TV.
• Drink wine.
• Tell each other who has the worst kids.
• I haven't been inside, but I know they have candy machines in there.

I would agree that a few of these are spot on ... can you guess which ones?

"Life Lessons from Teaching"

Today I rushed home from school to spend some quality time outside with Miss Minners in the sun with a good book. Well ... it's been so long since I did any "free" reading that I had to search for a book. I ended up picking up The Memory Keeper's Daughter and I'm only one chapter in and I'm already hooked.

While I was finding a book, I ran across 32 Third Graders and One Class Bunny by Phillip Done. If you are an elementary teacher you NEED to read this book! It's a very fast read and full of great stories. I wanted to share one of my favorite excerpts from the book. It is a perfect description of an elementary teacher's hectic daily life in his or her classroom!

Here's a bit of background to the excerpt. Phillip got into a conversation with his friend, Troy about whose job was easier. Troy mentioned that Phillip's job was cushy because he gets so much time off. (Just for the record, we HATE people who say that about teachers). They decided to make a list of everything they did at work in just one hour and then they could compare the next day.

"So the next day, I began to record everything that happened in class. I started taking notes at 8:30 just as the kids walked in. Here's what I wrote:

• Ryan told me that he had to leave early for a dentist appointment, Matthew asked to use the bathroom, I started taking attendance, Ronny handed me a note from his mom, Aaron told me about his sleepover, and Michael asked what was for lunch.
  
• Katie ran in late, Kevin gave me a picture he drew of Spider-Man, Peter said he didn't feel good, Aaron asked to borrow lunch money, Amanda asked me how to spell octopus, Natalie showed me her new Girl Scout patch, I picked up a glove off the floor, Kenny showed me how he could write 'HELLO' on the calculator when you turn it upside down, I ordered three boxes of Girl Scout cookies from Melissa, and Melanie ran in with a frog.
• Everyone ran over to Melanie, Tomoya asked to get a drink, I felt Peter's forehead, Ji Soo made fun of Katie's new haircut, I began collecting their homework, Joshua asked if I'd seen his sweater, I handed Aaron a dollar for lunch, Matthew wanted me to read his story, and I taped Spider-Man on the file cabinet.
• Katie started crying, I sent Peter to the nurse, Joshua went to the lost and found to find his seater, I refilled the tape dispenser and finished taking roll, Amanda announced that her dad is mad at her mom for leaving the car lights on, I pretended to read Matthew's story, Ji Soo apologized to Katie, I told Matthew his story was wonderful, and Ryan told me it was time for him to leave for the dentist.

I stopped writing at 8:47. Later I showed Troy my list. He showed me his. Between 8:30 and 8:47, he waited at the coffee machine for his latte. I'm not complaining. Really. I like frogs. I like Spider-Man. I like Girl Scout cookies. There are those days, however, when I just don't want to stare at braces or look at new pierced ears or pick up sunflower shells. There are days when I just do not want to button up thirty-two raincoats and put on thirty-two pairs of gloves and hats and snow boots and then take them all off then minutes later when the kids come back in from recess."

This is what I feel like my day is every day ... especially right in the morning between 8:25 and 9:05. I'm running non-stop and barely have a time to sit and figure out what I'm doing and where to start.

I HIGHLY recommend this book ... in fact, after flipping through it again, I think I need to read it again before the end of the school year! :)