Just a few months

Today marks exactly three months until I turn 30. Just 89 short days. I can't believe it.

Ten years ago when I was turning 20, it felt like 30 would never come. These last ten years have flown by! While my life doesn't look anything like I thought it would at (almost) 30, I know that I have accomplished quite a bit since I've become an adult at 18, and even more since I graduated college at 22.

I can't wait to see what my 30s will bring me. I have a few goals for things I would like to do before May 21st, and then I'd like to set goals before the next big birthday. Maybe 35 things before 35? I have a few friends that have done 30 goals before 30 ... but I'm a bit late to start now.

Let me know if you have goals in mind ... maybe we can cross a few things off our lists together!

New Year's Resolutions - Written by 4th graders

It's been a while, but I just sat down to grade the NYE Resolution worksheets I assigned to my kids the first day we came back from winter break. After sharing half of them with Jill during our grading party at Panera, I thought I'd share some of the best (unedited) resolutions with you. [Side note: I was surprised how many of my kids didn't know what a resolution was. Some had not even heard the word before.]

Directions: During New Year's celebrations, we often pledge to make the coming year better than the last. Many people make New Year's resolutions. Think of some resolutions you want to make and write them in the spaces below. List your resolution for becoming a better ...

Student:

• I will put my head down at lunch.
• To always put my best work into my papers.
• Listen & follow directions.
• Study 30 min or more a day on test.
• To stop playing alot of videogames.
• To get my work turned in on time. Because I'm a slow worker.
• I will pay attention in class.
• Don't talk as much.

Son or Daughter:

• I can be a better Daughter by babysitting For my mom.
• To not make a fuss about cleaning my room.
• Not complaining when my Mom or Dad asks me to do it.
• I'll think before I react to things.
• Not to say no when my mom or dad ask me to do something.
• Vacum the house when were cleaning the house.
• Help clean the citchin.
• I will do stuff on my own.
• When my parents say play the piano I will.

Sister or Brother:

• Dont tatltale as mutch.
• To not be so "mean".
• By not trying to be bossy.
• To help my sister with her homework.
• Lend a helping hand.
• Be nicer to my brother.
• I will try not to get upset when I am playing a game with my brother.
• I will not fight with my sister.

Friend:

• To not be so end pendent.
• I'll be generous to all my friends.
• If I want to play a different game than my friend I will play their game first.
• Inviting them to my partys.
• Don't just talk about me.
• Invite people more, so we can have a playdate.
• I will not push around with my friend.
• Listen to their ideas.

If you could make one New Year's resolution for our country or the world, what would it be:

• DO NOT POLUTE! (recicle)
• I would create world peace.
• Save electricity, and carpull, go green. So it will save our earth.
• To give more stuff to charity and poor people.
• Stop the ozoarn layer it from disentagrating.
• To end world hunger and every one have a home.
• To recycle more, stop globol warming, be green, stop littering, don't text while driving, let the troops see there family more.
• Stop puluting.
• Try to adopt animals so they aren't stuck in pet shop were they will get lonely and feel unwanted.

I think they did a pretty good job ... what do you think!?

Winter Break Review

I was feeling bad that I hadn't posted in a while, but I didn't really know how to sum up what had been going on since the beginning of my Winter Break. So ... here it is in pictures. I have a few more days of break, so any additional pictures, you'll just have to check out my photo blog. I've decided to continue with it for year two. I really enjoyed doing that blog since it was simple & quick. I also felt that it was a great way to work on my photography skills. My goal for this year is to save up enough money (ha!) to treat myself to a fancy digital SLR camera.

Here we go!

Part of my Christmas decor. I love the way my condo looks with all my decorations up. Last year I took it all down by January 7th. I'm hoping to put it all away by the time I go back to work next week.

This pic pretty much sums up Christmas morning. Ellen wanting to get her hands on all the presents & Minnie looking flustered and running around.

The cute moss terrarium that Molly & I made for Mom and Ann. They were doing so well the first week and now they seem to have some yucky mold growing in them. I will read into some quick fixes ... but the best fix may just be starting over from scratch. They are so darn cute, I hate to see them do poorly.

I came home on Christmas night to find this lovely leak in my living room. After FREAKING out & using my fancy ear-to-wall detective skills, I realized that it was snow/roof related ... not pipes/bathroom related. It continued to drip pretty steadily for 4 days. Now it has stopped, but the plaster on the ceiling fell off & the ceiling is stained much more than what this picture shows. The HOA workmen say they'll be out in a few weeks to fix. Hopefully this will, in fact, be covered by my HOA dues!

It snowed ... and snowed .. and snowed ... AND SNOWED! I'm not sure when I've ever seen this much snow in Kansas City! I don't think Minnie has even been alive when there has been this much snow. It's NOT fun walking her in the bitter cold, but at least she'll go out!
The crew at the Wagner's annual Cookie Decorating Party. It was the 20th (or was it the 21st?) year of the party ... so it was 1989-themed. A fun time was had by all ... unfortunately we were missing some due to snow, family & plumbing disasters!

My cookie this year! I normally just do one cookie. I earned the 2nd Runner Up prize with this snow globe. It took me close to an hour ... well worth it!

Look! It's a Snuggie! You can even knit when you are wearing it. Mitz & I were so cold, we both wrapped up in the Snuggie that Adam & Jill got at their family gift exchange.

We spent a lot of our break playing Wii. Big Brain Academy is always good for a laugh! I call this girl on the right, "angry, unicorn, gap-teeth" when I'm trying to remember what the characters look like! :)

Becca & Charlotte playing at the girls' gift exchange. Charlotte is so funny when you put a camera on her. She blinks & smiles right when she sees the flash!

It was so nice to get together for our gift exchange. Thanks to Megan & Emilie for cooking up a wonderful dinner. Love you girls!

The other way that we spent our Christmas break. A rare picture of me that Jilly took. Mitzi realized that she hadn't played Guitar Hero since she moved last March. We missed it ... but I could do without playing Van Halen GH.

Jilly & Adam rocking out to 80's Guitar Hero.

On the 31st, I actually went up to school to work for a few hours. I gave up after 3 hours when I couldn't feel my fingers to type. The temperature was anywhere from 60-64 degrees while we were up there! Brrrr!

Went later that day to play with Ellen. This was the first time I'd seen her have a bath in the big tub & not the kitchen sink. She LOVES to play with her toys & move around constantly (probably to stay warm)! Look at those lashes!

And ... here we are. A new year!

It took me about 2 weeks to sit down and write this post

And it is all very ironic.

In 2008, I posted on this blog 369 times. How in the world I did that, I don't know! In half of 2009, I've only come up with 52 posts. I feel like a failure, even though I've stuck to my resolution of posting photos on The View Across Town every day.

I've mentioned before that Twitter has made it more difficult for me to find the time (okay, maybe find the effort) to write a whole post on here. I do feel like I'm a bit crazy to be able to keep up with this blog, the photo blog, Facebook, Etsy, Twitter, my school email, yahoo email, gmail email, school website ... and my offline world! Somehow I do it all, but it still takes time.

Now that I'm following over 200 people on Twitter (many of them now in my PLN - Personal Learning Network), there are MANY links that are tweeted that I click on and then find time to read later. Well, 2 weeks ago, I clicked on two interesting articles about the downfall of blogging due to Twitter's popularity. I finally read them today and realized that these articles could have been written about me ... but I hope that doesn't happen to me. Here they are:

Blogging is Dying and Twitter is to Blame

When the Thrill of Blogging is Gone

Go read them. Not all of you will find them interesting, but seeing as how you are reading my blog (and maybe you've complained to me that I haven't been writing enough), you might find them worth the read.

Some people don't understand Twitter and why you would care to read what people are doing throughout their days. While much of Twitter is people Tweeting with a "Don't u hate using public bathrooms .......", that isn't really the stuff I'm interested in reading. I've found an online network of other educators (4th grade teachers, SPED teachers, autism advocates, technology teachers, principals, etc) that post meaningful links, ideas and suggestions. I've thrown a question out there like, "Suggestions for where to seat a student who talks nonstop to her peers? She's looking for attention." The response is immediate and starts a great discussion between educators.

Don't get me wrong ... I've also shared lots about my daily minutia like, "I guess it's time to actually get out of bed since my schnoodle is growling at me & I am tutoring in just 45 min. Bed, I'll miss you :("

I know that not everyone cares and that is why you don't have to respond to everything that everyone writes. You can quickly skim by it when the Tweets are 140 characters or less! Mom said the other day that she thinks Twitter is narcissistic and is is ridiculous of people on Twitter to think that anyone cares what they are doing throughout the day. Well ... she may be right about part of that. HOWEVER, can't we say that Twitter is just a shortened version of Blogging??? Why do I think that anyone cares about anything that I post? Well, if they don't care, then they don't need to read it. I can tell when people aren't reading or really don't care about what I've posted because there aren't any comments. Days will go by without comments on this blog and even the photo blog. I'm not offended. I can tell that people are still reading.

Anyhoo ... I just wanted to share these articles and to let you all know that I'm still here. I think part of the difficulty in me sitting down and posting is now that I've been taking photos EVERY DAY, I feel the need to share some of those photos and that just takes a little bit longer.

I will try and I hope that if you are interested in what I'm writing, you should comment and let me know. If you hate it, let me know that, too!

Happy Blogging to all ... or maybe just Happy Twittering to those of you that have fallen off the blogging bandwagon with me!

More pics to share

Since January 1st, when Jill & I started our photo-a-day blog, The View Across Town ...
I feel like I can't post on this one without a great picture to match! I take pictures every day, and I feel that I've really made progress on my photography skills (which was my New Year's Resolution and the reason for the other blog). There are a lot of photos that I want to share, but not very many of them get seen by you all.

Here are a few of my second favorites from the last few weeks:










Enjoy!

What I'm capable of ...

... when I leave work when my contract hours end at 4:00! Apparently, a lot! I was feeling bad about working until at least 6:30 the majority of the work days last month. I wasn't getting anything done at home, I was super stressed, and Minnie was taking it the worst! She started this new obsession with licking her paws CONSTANTLY. Seriously, it would wake her (and me) up in the middle of the night. Well, I did some online research and most people said it was a coping mechanism when dogs are depressed or have separation anxiety. Great. I broke my dog!

So ... I've been trying really hard to be productive with my day and leave as soon as possible, or at least by 5:00. Every night this week I've left early, and last night when I went to grade another stack of papers, I saw the clock had just reached 5:00, so I put them away and came home. It feels really nice. I can get more done at home at night and I don't feel stressed from working 11-hour days.

We'll see if it lasts, but I hope it does. I know a lot of it was due to Mom helping me grade a GIANT stack of papers last weekend. That helped me to be caught up with my grading for the week. Thanks!

Anyhoo ... this is the list of things I accomplished this afternoon/evening, and the night isn't even over yet!

• Came straight home from school to let Minnie out and change into cooler clothes since it was 79 (!) degrees out this afternoon.
• Go to the grocery store for the first time in weeks. I was down to canned veggies & hot cocoa in my pantry.
• Carry my groceries up the stairs (in one trip) and unload them.
• Unload the clean dishes from the dishwasher and reload all the dirty ones from the sink.
• Peel all the chicken off a rotisserie chicken & put away for meals this week.
• Collect all the trash from the whole condo & take it out to the dumpsters.
• Organize & add to my stash in my recycling bins.
• Make & put away lunch for tomorrow. This is HUGE since I'm always rushing to get it made before I run out the door.
• Take Minnie for a 45-minute walk.
• Make & eat dinner.
• Fed Minnie dinner, maybe even twice. At 7:45, I looked at her and honestly couldn't remember if I fed her earlier. I put food in the bowl & she scarfed it down. That doesn't mean much since she would eat the entire 20-pound bag if I let her.
  
• Relax to watch some great shows on TV.

Not too bad, huh? Now I just need to be this productive on all the days that I allow myself to leave work early!

P.S. I can't tell if I lost some of my regular readers. I know I wasn't posting every day, but I'm trying to get back in the habit of doing it. Are you all still out there?

1 resolution down, 1 resolution to go.

Last year's resolution was to start a blog to keep in touch with friends and family. I did great with my resolution, and it might be the first one I've ever kept! Even though I posted 372 times last year, I wanted to have something else to do this year, in addition to The Bets Week Ever.

I love to take pictures, but I wanted a way to work on my photography skills this year ... using my new, fancy, PINK camera!


This year's project/blog is all about photography. 1 picture a day. Well, actually 2 pictures a day. I pitched an idea to Jill for us each to take a photo and post them to the blog each day. I thought it would be fun and we'd get to each have a chance to play around with our cameras each day. I sort of stole the idea from 3191: A Year of Mornings/Evenings. During the end of winter break, it was sort of the race to see who would post their photo first. Now that we're back to work, I can tell that they might come later in the evening.

Soooo ... January 1st it was. Jilly came over so we could get the new bloggy blog all set up. We had a few name ideas, but unfortunately, some yea-hoos stole the blog names first and haven't posted since 2002! Finally, we came up with the name and set up the site.

The View Across Town

We are now one week in and we've been doing well. The pictures can be of anything we want, I guess. We didn't really talk about it. Mom asked if I could be in the picture, and I assumed yes. However, after looking at many, many pictures on my computer, I've realized that once you become the photographer in your group, there are very few pictures of you on the other side of the camera! The title to each of our posts will serve as the description for the photo. Look carefully for the labels for extra info. We'll see how long we are both able to stick to a picture a day, but I figure that if I can WRITE 372 posts in a year, surely I can deal with just putting up a single picture!

We'd also love to read your comments! Let us know what you like. What you don't like. What you want to see more of. Mostly, just enjoy!