Sister

Sister.

The week that I was the VIP in my first grade class was life-changing.  How many 7 year olds can say that??  My mom made me a book to take to school to show me off to my class.  Of course, no siblings were featured (just the aforementioned dog and cat).  Well, by the end of that fateful week, I had acquired a sister.  In all the wishing and hoping that I'd have a sister someday, it didn't occur to me that she'd come so little.  I wanted someone to play with!

Who could possibly play with this little thing?

Now that I'm more used to her (after 22 years!), I'm glad to have had her around for so long.  We definitely have had some good times together.  For a glimpse into some of these adventures, check out this post.  Every girl needs a sister.  There are just some things that only sisters can do!

Only

Only.

I was the oldest born of the family, and enjoyed single-status for 7 blissful years.  It was great being both the baby of the family, as well as an adult-tag-along.  I enjoyed the full attention of both my parents, not to mention single-most adoration from a number of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  Dogs and cats, by the way, make great siblings.

This 'only' status would change eventually...

A Dozen Words

Thanks to some blog stalking, I found this post from Travelin' Oma.

~Write an outline of your life using only a dozen words. Go back and turn each word into a paragraph.

Here are my dozen words.  Subsequent posts will be my paragraphs...

Only

Sister

Wanna-be

Newbie

College

Teacher

Student

Techy

Traveler

Work-a-holic

Half-orphaned

Single

Anybody here?

Dear You,

It has come to my attention that no one is visiting my blog.  (and I don't just mean people who never get on the internet - you know who you are!)  I don't advertise to everyone that I have a blog, but people do know about and I do have some regular readers (thanks, guys!).  My fine, fine readers with blog feed gadgets on their blog aren't getting the message that I've written lately.  For some reason, that blog feed isn't updating when I post.  According to those feeds, the last time I wrote was two months ago.  (It is true that I have let that kind of time go by before, but I really try to write more often than that normally...)

And while I guess that I don't really need an audience, it'd be nice to get a comment now and then, or see someone else's city besides my own in my traffic feed...  I do write for me, but I write for you, too!  (aw, now don't you feel special?)

So if you happen to be reading this (checking to see if it is true that I really haven't written in a few months), do you have any ideas (brilliant or just kind of shiny) that would update my posts on their/your blog feed reader???

Thanks,
Me

***PS - 2/22/11 ***
So... I don't know what particular setting it was, but it's apparently all fixed now.  So if you run into this same problem yourself... better ask someone else!

"Thanks to your Dad..."

In December, Lone Peak HS sponsored a food drive at the elementary schools.  The class with the most cans got a pizza party, in addition to school-wide incentives.  My class was doing okay with their can count, but it really picked up the last week when I told them that whatever cans they brought in, I would double it.  Well, actually - my Dad would double it.  He always supported the Food Bank, and we thought this would be a good use of some of his money.  (He usually supported them with money, as the food bank gets more for their/our buck with that, but thought this would be a worthy exception.)

By the time the end of the week rolled around, the kids had brought 238 cans in... so I dutifully went to the store with Mom and bought 240 cans... of everything!  All totaled up, it was only $119.37 - not too shabby!  The receipt is still hanging up in my room, over 3 feet long!

My kids were so impressed that I'd be willing (well, that Dad'd be willing) to help them out to meet our goal of getting that pizza party.  I'm glad that I could help out their morale a little bit, and maybe help demonstrate what a good cause a food drive is, and the people it helps.

The kids brought in more cans that last day, so we ended up with over 500 cans, and ended up winning that pizza party.  When I told the kids that we won (oh, and that we were going to be good sports about it!), one of my students who really doesn't see outside himself much said to me, "It's thanks to your Dad that we won, you know."  Awwwww...!

So thanks, Dad!

11 Birthdays

I loved this book!

I started reading it last Thursday, when my students were doing some Super Bowl of Reading reading.  I pulled out my book so that they could see me reading also (I don't usually read when they are - I have too many other things to do!).  I really, totally meant to be a good teacher that day - but alas, it didn't happen.  Once I got a few pages into this book, I was totally hooked.  The kids and I ended up reading for about an hour - all the way from recess until lunch.  Oh well.  I'll be a good teacher another day.  (The kids, by the way, didn't mind - they've been making good progress on their reading goals at home, without a lot of reading time at school, and think that I'm "awesome" because I "let" them read all that time.  Hmmm...)

Amanda and Leo are best friends who share the same birthday, and who have combined birthday parties, up until their 11th, because of an overhead conversation on their 10th birthday.  Because of an enchantment placed on their great grandparents, both Amanda and Leo end up having their 11th birthday over and over until they get it right and the enchantment's requirements have been met.  It reminded me a lot of one of my and my family's favorite movies - Groundhog Day - and that's a good thing.  It was cleverly written and a quick read - because you get sucked in.  I found myself wondering what I'd do differently (or not) if I got stuck on a day and couldn't progress to the next day, and which day I'd want to live over, hopefully to improve the outcomes and attitudes of the events taking place on that day.  I'm still undecided - I'll let you know when I figure it out.

Loved it!  You will too!

Things I'd do if I had a week (or two) off from life...

1.  Sleep in.  I love sleeping.  I definitely don't get enough of it during a regular work week.  So, given a week off from life, I'd sleep in - just enough, not too much.  I hate the groggy feeling of sleeping too much - but sleeping until 7 or 8 o'clock would do me wonders.

2.  Organize.  I'm not organized by nature, I really have to work for what organization I have in my life as it is.  I have great organizational plans for my stuff, which would hopefully clear up some time in my regular life to do other things.  When I do get the organizational bug, I've just got to go until I'm finished.  And that, my friends, may take me a week, or more...

3.  Scrapbook.  After my organizing, I know that I'll be able to find all my paper, stickers, and other embellishments that I bought to use for certain events or layouts, and so I'd be able to get right down to the work of scrapbooking.  One of my best times scrapbooking was when I was a freshman in college, and it was my spring break.  I'd been to Europe the previous summer, and had pictures burning holes in their envelopes.  Early on Monday morning, I asked my dad to take me around to several scrapbook stores (remember Mac's?  I miss that place!), and got card stock, page protectors, stickers, and gel pens.  I spent the entire week scrapping all my pictures from that great European adventure.  It was one of my first ventures scrapbooking something on my own (my mom, sister and I usually scrapped together), and it was great!  Looking at that book now, it has very little in terms of style, layout, color scheme, and a lot of other things... but - it is done, and I love looking at it, and remembering the good time I had in Europe and scrapping that album.

4.  Read.  I've set a goal to read all the Utah Beehive book award nominees by the time they choose the winners in April.  I've done pretty good so far, but I'm not sure that I can keep up the pace.  (Thankfully, many of the books are picture books - woo!)  Plus, my students at school are involved in the 5h Grade Super Bowl of Reading, and have set goals to read 500 pages or more by the date of the actual football Super Bowl, so they have given me many recommendations.  One of my favorite things to do on a Saturday morning after I have slept in, is to lay in bed and read.  Sounds lovely.

5.  Craft.  Crochet, needlepoint, card making, slapping some paint on wood blocks and adding a little modge podge and paper.  Whatever.  I have so many projects to do.  I wouldn't need to leave my house for months, and I'd still have plenty to do.



Well, one of these days I'll get around to these great events.  Maybe.  More likely, I'll get to a few things at a time during the course of my regular life.  But, just in case a week frees up, you know where I'll be.