Gotcha!

Today at school went really well. I was super tired and still am! We had conferences tonight until 7:30, and they will continue tomorrow and all day Thursday.

Tomorrow is April Fool's Day. Blech! I've been pretty lucky that in the past, none of my kids have tried to pull tricks on me. I don't really like tricks and practical jokes ... but maybe that's just when the joke it on me! I'm interested to see what the kids come up with tomorrow. I really want to try and trick them about something.

I remember when I was in 4th grade, our teacher wrote our homework on the board. She told us that we were going to have to read this book, Yad Sloof Lirpa, and write a report over it due the following day. It took us all some time to figure out that the title of the book was April Fool's Day backwards, and we were all grumpy about having to read a whole book and write a report on it in one night. .

Any ideas for me???

Beak 'Em, Hawks!

Too tired to post much of anything tonight. We had a busy weekend, and I'm super exhausted! Jilly and I pulled into town around 4:00 this afternoon, and after I picked up Minnie from grandma and grandpa's, we came home to promptly lounge on the couch for the rest of the evening! I just came upstairs for the first time.

I hate to say, but I dozed off during the KU game from time to time. My internal KU spirit woke me up to see the last 2 nail-biting minutes! How amazing that this is the first time ever that all four #1 teams are going to the Final 4!

Okay ... conferences start this week. I'll try and post more about the weekend, but it will be late-night after I get home at 8:00pm.

Happy Monday to everyone!

Check it out!

A statue with the McKnight name on it!

When driving around town today, Aunt Susan told me the story about this statue, which has a nickname (possibly given by her) of "Mr. McKnight and his Indian Friend". Jill and I did a bit of google searching to figure out what the real story was.

Apparently, J. Hudson McKnight moved to Wichita from Pennsylvania in the year 1880. He owned a big chunk of land, where Wichita East High is now, and was quite a grump about his money and his land.

Go read the about him on the link. Jilly and I might run by there if we get a chance this afternoon. I think it's interesting that I've been coming to Wichita to visit family since I was born, and I'm just now finding out his stuff about long, lost relatives. I'll have Molly check into her family tree research to see where J. Hudson might "branch out" and try and do some more research on good old tight-fisted J. Hudson since apparently his quite the infamous Wichitan.

I better blog now ...

... because I may not be able to again until Sunday. Tomorrow after work, I am leaving to take a little road trip with Jilly to Wichita.

Jill is going for 3 different invites she has on her calendar and asked me to come along, knowing that my Aunt Susan lives in Wichita. So, I called up Susan and asked if I could come crash and hang out and see what sorts of furniture and art goodies she wanted me to take off her hands, and she said I could come.

It should be a fun, relaxing weekend and it works out because we both needed to get to Wichita, and now we can share the tanks of gas!

I have more exciting news to blog about, but it will have to wait ... and that means you will have to come back to read!

So ... like I said before ... if I can't blog for the next two days, it can't really count as me failing on my resolution to blog daily. I may not be near a computer to get the chance. I hope everyone has a wonderful Friday and weekend.

Rock Chalk, Jayhawk!

It's been FOR-EV-ER!

Tonight we are meeting up for Trivia. It's been weeks, and even though it's only Wednesday, this week has been hellish, and we all are ready for fun and games!

I think we might have a record-size crowd for our team tonight. Hopefully that means that more heads will make us that much smarter!

I'll be sure and post a recap of the evening ... cross your trivia fingers for us! We could use a gift card to Tanner's desperately!

GOOOOOOOOO Team!

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UPDATE:
I just walked in the door ... and ... WE WON! Yippee! Our crowd varied from 7 to 11 people throughout the night, and it was true that more heads definitely helped!

I think I may have convinced some friends that Trivia is THE place to be and we all had lots of fun. I know I promised a recap, but there really isn't much to say. We kicked ass! I think we got seven or eight out of ten rounds completely perfect (5 questions + bonus) and we got all three montages completely correct! Our new team name, "Hold me closer, Tony Danza" (thanks to Phoebe Buffay) served us proud! Don't know if we'll be able to make it back next week due to conferences, but hopefully the week after will be another win!

8 minutes and 10 seconds I can't get back.

Well, I was going to write about my good day at school and the fun evening Jenny and I had with the dogs at the "secret" dog park, but instead I'm going to complain.

I was just doing some online banking and saw something that looked fishy with my account. I thought I'd just quickly call someone up at my bank since their customer service lines are open 24 hours to ask about it.

No such luck!

I just spent about 7 and a half minutes trying to press a million buttons and listen to a million choices just to get a real person on the line. Once I finally got good old whatshername on the line, I got my question answered in approximately 30 seconds!

Thanks, Bank of America!

Give Big or Go Home!

Tell me you're watching Oprah's Big Give!!!

If you know anything about me, you know that I LOVE TV! I watch TV to relax after a long day. I laugh out-loud at TV (but my girls say that I laugh at myself out-loud, too). I love telling people about new shows that I think are well written.

So anyway, when I first saw the commercials for Oprah's new show, I was skeptical. I was afraid it was going to be some crappy reality TV show that wanted to be like Extreme Home Makeover! I was wrong. I watched the first episode by chance and now I'm hooked.

I watched this week's episode tonight after dinner and cried like a baby! The Big Givers had $100,000 to give out in just 24 hours. However, there were rules. 1) They couldn't give any cash. 2) They couldn't give more than $500 to a single person. 3) They couldn't spend more than $10,000 in one location. When we saw the previews for this episode, Jenny said it looked like Brewster's Millions. Only one of the 7 people remaining was able to spend all $100,000! I had so much fun watching the amazing things they did for others and wished I could do the same. It was great!

So after every episode, Oprah has a recap on her Monday show and has the person that just got the boot on her talk show to share about their experience. The Maloof brothers were the billionaires that donated the $700,000 for the Givers this week. They came on the Oprah show today, too! At the very end of the show, the Maloofs mentioned that they Gave Big with the money that was left over from the challenge. They did a great thing and started 20 $5,000 college scholarship funds for babies that were born that day in Miami. Great!

This is the part that killed me: With the extra money, they decided to split it up between ... you guessed it ... Oprah's audience! They went CRAZY! They gave out $100 bills to every person there, and they started screaming and jumping and yelling like they do on her show. As the credits were rolling, Oprah is trying to scream over them, "You can spend the $100 on yourself, but of course it would feel much better if you spent it on someone else!" Yeah right! None of those people are going to give it to someone else. They wouldn't have been screaming like that if they had intentions to Give Big! I'd be interested in finding out how many people turned that $100 into something amazing and how many took the $100 to go shopping on Michigan Avenue!

Who else is watching with me???

I don't want to sound greedy ...

... but I really could use just one more day of spring break. I'd be happy with more, but I feel like this break was such a whirl-wind that I didn't really have a "break". I got to sleep in, which was wonderful, but other than that, I worked pretty hard for this to be a break.

BUT ... I'll go back in the morning and then we start Kansas State Assessments on Wednesday. Assessments stress everyone out and we all get tired of sitting in our desks and being quiet. Wish us luck ... some of us really need it! :)

To make your fridge look pretty!

This week's Etsy favorites are all magnetic clips for your fridge, cubical, wall, or any other magnetic place you visit! :)

To start, these are some of my very favorite magnets that I've made. They are plain silver metal clips, but I've added these coral glass beads and some decorative soldering wire. They dress up any display of kid's artwork and they help to display any invites or pictures you have on your fridge! I have lots of other colors, too!

I saw these School House Magnets and Clips today while searching and wished I had thought of it first. As a teacher who has magnetic walls, I clip just about anything I can do the walls around me so I don't lose it! I love these chalk board-like glass magnets, and the clips are genius! They are perfect for organizing the piles and piles of papers that cover my desk!

I think this Vintage Button Magnetic Clip is super cute! I just used this size magnet for some Valentine's gifts I made for the girls at work! They are so strong, they'll hold just about anything on your fridge! I love the fabric and button combo here ... but then again, who wouldn't?!

These Prima Pretty Clothes Pin Magnets are perfect for displaying pictures on your fridge! You all know how much I like pink and green (Hello!?!? Look at my blog!!!), so I bet you're not surprised that I picked these. I think they make a cute gift for a little (or big) girl in your life!


Last, but not least, are these Super Strength Scrapbook clips. These are the same heavy-duty magnet clips like the button magnet above. As someone who is recently into scrapbooking, I thought these were so fun and flirty! You can't pass them up!

As always ... feel free to let me know if you see something of mine that you would like in a different size or color. AND ... go browse around on Etsy! It's always nice to help local artisans out!

I WAS doing well ...

See all that yellow?!?! It means that my bracket was doing pretty well. At the time I took this picture, I had 20 wins and only 9 losses.

Now that all of the first round games are over, I have 22 wins and 12 losses. Boo!

Really, there is only one important yellow, and that is from the KU/Portland St. game. I'm proud to say that that is a yellow game. And for those of you looking closely at my bracket ... no, I don't have KU winning the whole thing. I do have us playing in the final championship game, but I'm always afraid to jinx us with wins all along.

Anyhoo ... that's it for now. I'm on a roll of cleaning, purging and packing things. It's a miracle that I'm actually making progress, so I'm afraid to stop now.

Saving pennies

So today I've decided that if I'm going to take this HUGE step to be a real adult (more on that later when it's official) then I need to do everything I can to a) make more money and b) spend less money.

As a teacher, it is already pretty hard to make more money, but I am working on ways to do it. I would love for my Etsy store to be a way for me to make lots of extra money, but right now it's just earning me a few extra bucks a month. I would like to make at least one sale a week. Slowly, but surely ...

I'll also start tutoring during the summer, which is good money, but it isn't eight hours a day like my full time job. One of the great things about teaching is the summers "off", but I can also choose to stretch my paychecks out for 12 months, so I'm actually getting paid in the summers, even for the weeks that I'm not in the building.

Last summer, I opened a new bank account at Bank of America and I signed up for the "Keeping the Change" account. It has been great for me! It's an easy way to save anywhere from a penny to several dollars a day. If you are someone that has a hard time saving, but uses your debit card a lot, I recommend it.

And just recently I found on one of my bargain shopping sprees, the cutest adult "piggy banks". They just look like jars and have a cork lid. On the front, they are painted with sayings like, "For my Shoes", "Trip to Vegas", "Gambling Money", "Harley Fund", and "Home Sweet Home". I splurged the $4.50 it took to purchase the jar that says "Hopes and Dreams" and as stupid as it sounds, it's helped! Every time I walk past it, I try to add something to the jar ... change or any spare dollar bills I have. Now I have the money saved for something important!

So, this is my plan ... make more money and spend less money.

One of the easiest ways to spend less money is to use coupons. They are out there for people to use ... so why am I not using them every chance I get? At school, we do a fundraiser by selling Entertainment Books. They are $20, but they are SO worth it. If you happen to shop at Price Chopper, they have six $5 off coupons, so right there you have made it worth the purchase. My goal is to use as many of these coupons as I can before they expire in November. If I'm going some place to eat or shop anyway ... I might as well get some good deals!

This is my question:

Are there local websites where you can easily find deals of the day/week/month or print out coupons to your favorite local places? If there isn't ... that is my next blog idea! Don't go stealing it from me! :)

If you know of places to find great deals ... PUH-LEAZE comment so you can help me (and others) out!

How fitting: 100 miles in 1 day for my 100th post!

Today I drove almost 100 miles around town. If it wasn't quite 100, then by the time I get to school tomorrow, I think it will be!

Here was my day, in short:

• Woke up late and was lazy. Didn't leave house until 1:00pm.
• Drove from my house to Adam & Jill's to compile craft stuff to "shop" around town.
• Drove from A & J's to my parents' house to pick up some mail.
• Drove from their house to Hawthorne Plaza. Stopped into Statements, Shop Beautiful and some new Girlie Boutique (we may or may not have stopped in to track down the teeny, tiny pup that was sitting in the front window).
  
• Drove from Hawthorne Plaza to Tomahawk Creek Condos. We tried to hang up one of our Etsy fliers, but couldn't find the mail room.
• Drove from Tomahawk Creek Condos to AMLI Town Center Apartments to hang up a flier.
• Drove from AMLI apartments back to Adam & Jill's. Jill helped me print out AWESOME fliers for my Minnie's Fleecy Toys.
• Drove from their place to Land of Paws (out South) to try and sell some of my wonderful toys.
  
• Drove from Land of Paws to Brookside Barkery and Bath (in Olathe) to do the same.
• Drove from Barkery to Realtor to drop off signed papers!
  
• Drove from Realtor to Gordman's by the mall to kill time.
• Drove from Gordman's to Bridal Extraordinaire to go wedding dress shopping with Ashley and her Mom.
  
• Drove from Bridal Extraordinaire to Cactus Grill near Town Center for dinner.
• Drove from Cactus Grill back to Mom and Dad's to pick up a tourney bracket and more goodies.
• Drove from Mom and Dad's to home.
  

After leaving my house around 1:00pm I finally got home around 9:15pm. YEAH for finally being home.

Tomorrow I'll head back to school (aren't I the best teacher for working on my Spring Break?) to attempt to get some more cleaning and packing done. At least that will mean less driving for me.

We are the CHAMPIONS, my friends!

I've been waiting to share this until I had time to include my pics with the post about my Sunday afternoon!

Saturday night, Julie's Mom called to tell me that she got tickets to the KU vs. UT basketball game at the new Sprint Center, and she wanted to know if I could join them. Of course, I had to say YES! Julie's family is so nice to continue to invite me to games (even when Julie's not in town) and normally when it has been on a school night, I haven't been able to go. Well this time, I was on Spring Break and had NOTHING to keep me from going!

Molly had texted on Friday night (yeah for her finally getting into texting) to let me know that it was tons of fun in the Power & Light District with all the Bit 12 Hooplah! We tried to make it down there Saturday night, but instead only drove part way and went out in Westport, and even yesterday it was too hard to get down there for the holiday festivities. With the torrential rain storm, tipsy drivers all over the roads, and empty wallets, we ended up just hanging out in our hood.

So anyway, I went to meet Julie's parents and her Aunt and the four of us headed downtown. I hadn't seen the new Sprint Center or really any of the new restaurants, bars, or buildings. It was pretty amazing. Next payday, I'll save up for a tank of gas to get down there and $7 beers! :)

We got to the arena early (which was a first time for the Chonko clan) and it made for great people watching and allowed me to watch all the seats fill up in the throughout the next hour. It was exciting to hear that we were there for the biggest crowd yet ... 19, 046 people!

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Those are the pics I took. I got some great video, too, but they always take forever to upload to the blog. I hope you all enjoy checking out my pics ... KU fan or not! :)

Who's ready for the Big Dance?!?! I need to schedule in time to fill out my brackets.

St. Patty's Day is Overrated

I feel the same way about today's holiday as I do New Year's Eve!

You spend so much time trying to figure out what is the coolest thing to do and the best place to go and the right thing to wear and the fanciest thing to drink.

LAME!

We spent so much time talking about what we wanted to do today, that I was sick of the holiday before it even started at midnight. We ended up going to see Be Kind, Rewind ,which I recommend, and sitting around NOT wanting to be in the rain.

I'll be happy when it is a new day and we don't have a holiday for quite some time.

You do know that's a Journey cover band, not the REAL band, right?!?

If you've already read Jill's post from today, you 'd would have read her description of our Saturday evening. It's WAY better than anything I could write with the way I'm feeling right now. In fact ... why don't you just jump over there for a minute so you can read all about it. Then come back to see my photos and captions! :)

Here's the massive crowd at The Record Bar to see Stone in Love last night. This picture doesn't really do the crowd justice. It was super crowded when we got there at 9:45ish, and the band didn't start playing until 11:00. Adam found us the best spots in the house ... right off the side of the stage to the right in the front row. Thanks Adam! Who wants to sit at a booth, anyway? See the girls in the right side of my picture? They were dressed up in their 80's gear and acting like they were actually at a Journey concert. At the end of the evening, Jill punched me in the arm when she saw them jump on stage to dance with the band. I took lots of video from last night with the plans to put them on my blog. Turns out today when I watched them that the sound was awful. If they really sounded like that last night, I would have left. I won't torture you all with the scary videos.

Here's Adam looking super thrilled to be there with us and Doug being too cool for a boy-space-friend picture! :) Thanks go to the boys for working hard to save our awesome spots up front when we would take bathroom breaks!

The chickies. Can you tell which one of us had lots-o-wine before she even got to The Record Bar? (Hint: She's wearing black and she's not me!)

And here's the pic I got of the whole band, awesome 80's costumes and all. Go check them out if you ever find that they are playing again around town. I had lots of fun, even though I'm not the biggest Journey fan. Anyway, I think Mitz and Jill are currently holding the #1 and #2 Journey Fan spots! :)

Yeah for Echo!

If you think back to February, you might remember my post about the Pedigree commercials that I LOVE!

There was one commercial about the cutest pooch, Echo, who really needed a home. Echo had the biggest smile on his face, and then it vanished when the people walked right past his kennel. Here it is:

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Well I just saw a new Pedigree commercial about Echo. Check it out:

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You'll Never Lose Your Keys Again!

It's that time of the week! I am going to share my own little treasury of wonderful Etsy items that I found whilst browsing around this morning.

This week's items are all keychains that have a flower theme to them. I've made several of my own flower-shaped wire keychains, so I wanted to see what else was out there.

This first flower keychain is one of mine. It also comes in a different size with a large, pink stone. It is made with soldering wire and glass beads. It is one of my favorite stocking stuffers or little accessories to tie on top of gifts for a little something extra!

This bright, fabric keychain is the perfect size for a mailbox key or for a new driver that is getting their first car key! Makefuncrafts is the creator, and they make so many great items, I could barely pick one for today's post!

This felt flower keychain is so beautiful, I had to include it! Rosetutu has a shop full of felted items, but this one caught my eye! It looks so expensive and like a lot of love went into making it!

Isn't this flower, mosaic keychain eye-catching!?! The artist, big ALS artwork, is a new Etsy seller ... go check her site out and see all the wonderful mosaic items she has!

There is more to this painted, flower keychain than you see here! When you make your purchase, muraldevotee (the artist) will add your name or monogram to this keychain so nobody will be able to steal it from you! :) She has many other fun designs, that include bikinis, flip flops and purses!

Here is another felt, flower keychain! Similar, but very different at the same time. I love the choice of colors that jumpcrafties picked for this one!

Last, but not least, are these fun, felt wristlet keychains! Busybaprons has so many fun, girlie items, but these fit with today's theme!

As always ... feel free to let me know if you see something of mine that you would like in a different size or color. AND ... go browse around on Etsy! It's always nice to help local artisans out!

My beautiful "neighborhood"

I talked earlier this week about the moon and stars we can see out in our neck of the woods. I'll really miss that.

This week, we've had beautiful sunsets and sunrises. Here are a few pics from the other night. They would have been much better pictures if I didn't have a dog on my lap and I wasn't parked in my car!

I'm still LOST ...

Finally got caught up on LOST last night so that I was ready for tonight's episode. I was tired of not being able to talk about it at work on Friday mornings, and I knew tonight's episode was going to be GREAT!

BUT ... I'm still confused. What is going on? Who is part of the Oceanic 6? We now know that Sun is part of the group. So what does the rest of the group look like?

This is who I think completes the 6 so far: Sun, Jack, Kate, baby Aaron, Hurley and ______???

What are your thoughts?

It's just a little baby!

Tonight at yoga dinner, one of Mitzi's friends walked up with the cutest, tiniest, laptops I've ever seen. It honestly looked like a play or kids' laptop. She said it was called an EeePC. Who has heard of them??? How did I not know about these? I asked if they came in pink (of course I asked that) and Sue said they did!

Here are a couple of pictures of the Eee, the top one shows the cute pink color and the bottom one shows how small it is. It is almost the size of a portable DVD player. Go check them out! They are selling for anywhere from $200-$407! What a bargain for those of you that don't need a "full" laptop or something that has all the fancy, schmancy programs or settings!

Spring Break is upon us ...

... well not officially, but it's close! Today was the last day with kids at school for 11 days! Yippee! We have meetings at school for the next two days, but it's better than having to teach kids that are way too excited about their upcoming vacation from school and their meanie of a teacher! :)

Today was made even better by the 75 degree weather! It may be snowy and cold the next week and a half, but today's weather helped me to get over the winter blahs. We had 2 (shhhh, don't tell) extra long recesses and when I got home, Miss Minners and I took a long walk in the sun! It couldn't have been any better!

Get OFF the cover of my US Weekly!

Over a year ago, Julie treated me to an US Weekly subscription, and I thank her every time I go to my mailbox and there is a US Weekly treat for me in there! BUT, now I get disappointed when I see that Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt are on the cover way more than they should be.
Ugh! I don't even want to devote too much time to those crazy people.

What I do want to take time to say is that I am SO TIRED of them showing up on my beloved US Weekly covers. They aren't news worthy and they definitely aren't cover worthy! They have bought their way into any media they have showed up in and everything they do is completely posed and set up. I know that Julie feels the same way.



This is hopefully the last time I'll be seeing either of them on US!

I was mooned!

How is it already 9:30pm? Today was a hard day back to school. The kids were all half asleep until about 11:00 this morning. I think I was still half asleep until 1:00 this afternoon. We were all busy today, and my desk and the floor behind it are definitely worse for the wear. Amy had to walk through the war zone that is my "corner" to come talk to me this afternoon! We joked that she might have to take a trip to the emergency room if she takes one wrong step!

Anyhoo ... back to my post title. A few nights ago I was driving home and saw the most beautiful moon! One of the truly fabulous things about living way out here is that there are very few city lights and so we get to really see the stars. The stars seem so close that they seem to have colors. During the summer when we sat outside, you could watch them all rotate. And this week, the moon was spectacular. If I had a fancy, schmancy camera, I would have taken a picture to share. Instead, I had to do a little bit of google searching 4 days later and these are the pictures that I found that help to show what I saw out my car window!

Since I didn't remember my moon phases from 3rd grade, I had to look them up. What I saw looked more like this second picture, which if I'm not mistaken is a waxing crescent moon. I included the first picture because it was pretty cool, too. Now that I've shared your science lesson for the day, I encourage you to drive just outside of whatever city you live in and take time to enjoy the stars, moon and sky on the next clear night!

Summary of my day:

I can't believe that it is already a school night ... I honestly feel like I left school just a few hours ago, and now I have to go back in a few hours. This is how I spent my last day of this weekend:

Woke up late at 8:15 (which was really 9:15), but it wasn't enough sleep since I was up until 2:00 (which was really 3:00) for no good reason.

Checked all my favorite blogs to see who had updated today.

Went to Marshalls/HomeGoods to look for new sheets for my bed. No such luck and I actually walked out without buying a single item ... that might be a first for me!

Panera for lunch and had a yummy turkey artichoke panini. I highly suggest it if you frequent Panera! I had plans to take my laptop somewhere today to get some work done and to people watch ... the weather was too nice for that.

Drove home and called friends to see if they wanted to go to the dog park since it was so beautiful out. I felt like I needed to take advantage of the 54 degree weather since Julie called this weekend to let me know that she and Mike were literally snowed in with 17-20 inches of snow. CRAZY!

Nobody was available to meet me, so I called Mom and she met me out there around 2:45. I took both dogs, which might not seem like a big deal, but it is difficult to get both dogs to the park safely in my car and to be responsible for both of them. The dog park was horribly muddy and I came home caked in mud and other unmentionable brown goo all over my jeans, shoes, socks and fleece.

Walked in, and immediately gave both dogs a bath. That is also a huge feat! I got my work out in for the day.

Relaxed by playing about an hour of Guitar Hero. I'm out of fun things to buy with the money I've earned. I have purchased all of the outfits and styles for all the girl characters ... what else to buy now??? I wish there were more girl characters!

Enjoyed dinner with Jenny and her Mom. Thanks for the spaghetti pie meal, ladies!

Went to see Jenny's SUPER CUTE niece! Little K is about the tiniest baby I've ever seen and I was lucky enough to hold her and rock her to sleep for about 30-45 minutes. I don't know how long it was because I was so entertained by watching her little eyes and fingers and lips! That was a such a treat to go do that tonight!

Relaxed a bit more by watching "Here Come the Newlyweds" with Jenny. It was the 2nd episode, and it is a pretty funny reality TV show. If you're desperate for something to watch on Sundays ... this might be your new show!

How up to finally check e-mail, do online banking and get to bed so I can get up in 7 very short hours.

Night!

She's going to be 2, you know!

Minnie and Peanut have a birthday at the end of the month and they will be TWO years old! I can't believe that I've almost had her for two years ... crazy! Last year, we had the BIG birthday bash at the house. We had 7 dogs over and the party included doggy birthday cake, opening of presents and gift bags!

Here are some things that Minnie has decided she would love to have for her birthday from Etsy ... now if only her Momma had all the money in the world ... she would get them! :)

Here is one of the fleecy toys that I've made. I like this one because it has such fun colors and it is made out of more fleece, so it's more durable for a larger dog. Go check out all the colors and sizes I have available!

Don't these dipped ice cream cone doggy treats look good enough for humans to eat? I think they look like the perfect midnight snack for pup and human! (Maybe that's because it's midnight and I'd like a chocolaty snack!) These treats are, of course, made with doggy-friendly ingredients so your pooch is satisfied and not sick!

If Minnie is really nice to me in the upcoming weeks, she just might get a bed for her birthday. Why does she need a new bed, you ask? Well, a few weeks ago I came home to find the the schnoodles had ripped up her bed as a fun activity while we were at work.
So ... here is a fun new bed that looks durable, fun and easy to wash. It's perfect for curling up in on a cold day! Don't you love the fabric?!?!
This Jolly Rancher dog collar would be great for Spring and Summer (are you coming soon, please!?) AND I think it would look super cute on Minnie's gray fur! The collars are available in a variety of sizes and some even have matching leashes! You can't pass them up!

I saw these dog collar tags and thought they were such a creative gift! They are made of sterling silver and have a fun shape of copper soldered on top. The names are custom to each order and you can add phone numbers on the back! These are WAY better than the cheap, not-so-cute tags that you can make at the chain pet store. Pamper your pet with one of these!
With every fun collar, you need to think about a fun leash! Last year at the birthday party, Minnie's Aunt Mitzi bought her a fun lime green collar with pink flowers on it. Minnie LOVES that leash, but you can never have too many! This polk-a-dot leash is perfect for every preppy dog!
I HAD to include this photo note card, because I think this picture is the perfect combination of Minnie and Peanut. It's a picture of a schnoodle named Cutter. Isn't he cute!? This is the perfect card for any dog lover!

Just to compare ... here's a picture of our two schnoodles! :)
Alrighty ... that's it for tonight. Enjoy the doggy items, we sure do!

Minnie is SO smart!

She knows her birthday is coming up, so she's doing some searching around on Etsy for some gifts she would like.

Her wish list will be up in the next hour or so.

How did I ever raise such a gifted dog/child?

Hey! You! Bitter Betty over there in the corner!

For all you people who LOVED Jillian's final collection on Project Runway ... watch these. Maybe your opinion of her will change!

Part 1 of exit interview:
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Part 2 of exit interview:
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Really?!? Is it really still snowing!?!

This morning as I was taking Miss Minners out, we saw the teeny tiniest of snowflakes.

Fast-forward 2 hours when I was teaching Math and looked out my window and saw a white blur of snow falling onto our soccer field.

Fast-forward another 4 hours when we had to have indoor recess for the trillionth time this school year due to the cold and the snow.

And now there is a sheet of snow on the ground and it is bitterly cold!

I'm ready for Spring! I'm ready for sun! I'm ready for long walks outside! I'm ready for drinks on patios! I'm ready for winter to be gone!

Puh-leaze cross your fingers to hope that my Spring Break (starting next Friday afternoon) has some decent weather. If I can't get away to some place nice then it should at least be nice here!

Fun mail!

So last week, I featured a group of Etsy artisans in a mini treasury of blue and green magnets. I was sure to include a set of my own magnets, but there were some others that I loved just as much as my own, if not more! :)

One of the sellers, vintageinspiration, was so nice and she sent me a pair of her gorgeous Swarovski crystal magnets as a thank you for featuring her magnets!

Here they are ... aren't they beautiful!?
The pictures really don't do them justice. Go check them out on her site, too! :)

Yeah for Princess Puffysleeves!

If you haven't watched the season finale of Project Runway, then STOP reading!

STOP! Do it now ... hit PgDn and read some of my other fabulous posts.

If you HAVE watched the finale ... YEAH! My favorite designer, "Princess Puffysleeves" won! I hope you've been following along with the recaps on Project Rungay, because their commentary is fierce! :)

They named Christian, "Princess Puffysleeves" very early on when he seemed to be making a whole slew of jackets and shirts that had ... yep, you guessed it ... puffy sleeves!

Here is a picture review of each of his challenge designs ... judge for yourself!

I know the pictures are small, so you'll have to make sure you go to the site and see them up close!

I mean, COME ON! How beautiful is this dress! He couldn't NOT win with a design like this!

Is it Friday yet?

All day I've been thinking that it was Wednesday or Thursday. Sitting here ... trying to think of something to blog ... I was thinking that I could write about my weekend since it was almost here. Then I realized that it's only Tuesday. How did that happen?

The first two days of this week have been very chaotic. Everything is crazy in my classroom! We are all overwhelmed with state assessment prep and the kids are worn out and tired of listening to me talk. Even I'M tired of listening to me talk!

Today I taught two-digit times two- and three-digit multiplication in math. That is a SERIOUS concept! Sometimes I can't believe that I'm the person that teaches children skills like this that they need to know for the rest of their lives! It's much harder than you would think!

Go check out the new sections of websites I have on the blog in the right-hand side bar! Off to read a bit out of my Blogging with Moxie book and to read some other blogs. Actually ... I've got a snoring schnoodle next to me, so maybe I should join her and just hit the sack!

I hope everyone has a happy hump day tomorrow! :)

Be a celebrity, even if just for a day!

This morning, Mitzi rushed into my room to show me a fun, new website she found. It is part of the InStyle Magazine site, and it has celebrity hair makeovers to play with! It's called Hollywood Hair Virtual Makeover.

After the first 10 minutes of me playing around on the site, I ran to Mitzi's room! All I said to her was, "I look like a __________!" and she knew what I was talking about! (I'm being careful of what words I type because you never know what ads will show up on my blog tomorrow! Think of a "woman" in a certain profession that might wear a lot of wigs and makeup and sing and dance.) We then wasted lots of time trying on hideous hair just so we could laugh at the way I looked in them.

Of all the hair styles I "tried" on, I realized that I actually liked the long hair on me and longer bangs. Who knew!?

Here are my three favorite:


If you have time to spare, I highly suggest you go check this out. It's good for laughs ... or for finding a real hair style if you think you're stuck in a rut! Now, if only I could grow my hair about 10 inches longer in the next week or so ... .. .

In honor of 72 degree high today!

This sunset pic isn't from today, but isn't it cool!?!? It look like the sky near my house is tie-dyed in pink and purple!

Too bad after that after such a beautiful day, the snow is heading back early tomorrow morning. BOO! I'm ready for Spring!

I NEED to meet this kid!

I just remembered this video that someone sent me a few weeks ago! I forgot how funny it was and how it can brighten up your day in one very short minute!

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"Give them the evil eye!"

One of These Things is Not Like the Others

Can you guess what it is??? Here are some of my Etsy favorites for the week! There is a theme ... and I will tell you that it did take me quite some time to find these fabulous items, but I think I found some really awesome stuff for sale!

Here is one of my favorite magnet gift sets. Mom and Molly got these magnetic clips for Christmas from me. I think they really help to dress up your fridge and make you proud to display photos of family & friends, masterpieces created by your little ones or an invite to the latest event you have on your calendar!

How cute are these Swarovski crystal magnets?!?!? I think they are so fancy and make a great gift for a friend! Vintage Inspiration is the name of the shop and they already come in a tin box, so they are ready to be a a great gift!

These Hibernation magnets are made out of polymer clay and come in many different designs. The creator, Block Party Press, also uses the same materials to make beautiful jewelry, artwork and accessories.

This Blue Green Damask Magnet is perfect for dressing up your fridge or taking to display work at your office. TheTaylerBean is also happy to let you chose 5 magnets on their site for a discounted rate! There are many other magnets of all types of designs ... go check them out!

If Winter isn't quite over where you live, then you NEED this chunky blue and green scarf! I love the mixture of these colors and Knit1Scrap2 did a great job of making this the perfect length of scarf that works on everyone! Go check out her other fabulous knitted products, too!

This is a great mixture of patterns on these Wash Away Magnets! These 9 glass marble magnets are all large and this is a GREAT bargain for such a beautiful gift. Go check out all the sets of magnets that Undies has for sale. You are sure to find something you like there.

I bought some fused glass rings this winter for Christmas presents and now I'm obsessed with fused glass. All of these items look so sleek and beautiful and modern! This set of four blue and green fused glass magnets would look beautiful on anyone's fridge! White Sands Glass has made many other beautiful items for sale out of glass.

I hope you like the items I've picked! If you are looking for a gift for anyone in your life ... you should definitely check out Etsy! If you don't see something here that you are interested in, go browse around!