Saturday, March 28, 2009

Ollie Hopnoodle!


So tonight I was thinking about an old movie. Was I the only one that watched Ollie Hopnoodles Haven of Bliss over and over as a child? I haven't seen it in years and we only had it on VHS and don't even own a VCR player anymore. I found it for cheap on a random website and plan to buy it. I realized in a clip on Youtube that the mom on Ollie Hopnoodle was Naomi on the show Mama's Family, another all time family favorite. What wholesome entertainment we enjoyed as children!

More Fun than I can Handle

I love my community. I love the kids. I really love events that bring the kids together to do something fun and hear something about Jesus. It is for that reason that I was out at 10:00 this morning at the elementary school playground handing out candy and stickers to little ones ready to hunt easter eggs in the high 30 degree temps. It was encouraging to see so many families who aren't church members come out and enjoy the show by the balloon artist, hunt eggs, and enjoy the event set up just for them. Many asked about donations. It feels great to tell them everything is completely free. Makes the weather a little more bearable.

I came to Mom and Dad's after the hunt. Mom is at Women of Faith and Lydia is gone somewhere so it's just Dad and I. He asked if I wanted to go shopping at Academy. I said yes but he hasn't gotten out of his chair or said anything else about it. He does that a lot- brings up something and then you never hear anything else about it. It bugs me. He's on my sisters lap top that doesn't ever work right. He's complaining that it doesn't work. Will we ever make it to Academy? Probably not.

Even if we don't do any shopping I'm glad it's the weekend. My patience and enthusiasm dwindled greatly by the time 7th and 8th periods came along yesterday. Their tendency to continue to talk while I was and my frustration in talking over them was not a combination that was working out very well. I didn't feel good and was just wasn't in the mood. I thought I might be getting sick but as soon as I got home I was much better. Just sick of school for the week I guess. I ended up going to eat with Deanna, Ben and little Samantha. I felt so special that they would invite me to join them on their family night out. I ended the night watching TV on the couch with Chelsea and Matt.

Mom is headed home to take a nap. Dad still griping at computer. Lydia still MIA. Please don't be too upset that you're missing out on all of the fun around here.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Get a Kit

This morning on my conference period when I was checking MckMama's page, the home of Not Me! Monday, I was shocked when in place of her usual Monday staple was an update that her sweet babe Stellan was in the hospital struggling with some unexpected heart problems. Several months ago when Stellan was in the womb he experienced these same issues and was not expected to survive. The Lord healed his little heart then and he was born perfectly healthy. A treatment for respiratory issues Stellan was experiencing over the weekend has caused his heart to return to a very fragile condition. Check out MckMama's site for more info and pray pray pray that the Lord would place his hand on tiny Stellan and heal his heart again. All that said, no Not Me! Monday today.

A few weeks ago I was talking with Mom about what to do for a very important gift I have to give soon. We discussed several options and I decided on a scrapbook. I've done small projects like this before but usually become bored quickly and get mad when mine doesn't look like the example on the package. Anyway, after school today I decided to go to Michaels and get some of the stuff and get started on this little project. I want to give myself plenty of time.

I walk in and get a cart. If you every shop with me, you know that I get a cart in any store that has them because I have to put my purse in it. The scrapbook stuff is right by the door so I started browsing around and was quickly overwhelmed. Do I do a 12x12 book, 8 1/2x11, what kind of cover should it have? I decided on an inexpensive 8 1/2x11 memory book and headed over to the paper. I got a few sheets that I liked but I knew it wasn't enough. I meandered up and down the aisles several times but could never make my ADD mind focus on the what seemed like thousands of embellishments, stickers and fonts. On my way around the far shelf one time I spotted some nifty little kits. Paper, stickers, everything for an 8x8 book all in this one package. It was just the style I liked and everything. Perfect. I was saved right before I had a craft store induced anxiety attack and called my aunt and offered to pay her to produce the whole thing. I quickly disposed of my previous selections on a vacant shelf, grabbed the design kit, an 8x8 book that was on clearance, and hit the checkout.

As I waited in line I glanced over and noticed a gal who looked a lot like I probably did just minutes before. From what I gathered she was attempting to create a beaded name tag holder on which to place her work ID. Two sales ladies, one with poor eye sight, were attempting to help her select the correct pair of pliers for the pieces she had picked out. Bless her sweet soul.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Slowin' Down

The whirlwind that was the last couple of days has encouraged me to slow it down some for today, this last day of Spring Break.

Friday morning I kept all 3 Roth kids and the Truelove girls. The kids played outside in search of a secret underground door and a mystery to solve. There wasn't a lot of selection for 5 kids and a hungry babysitter for lunch so we loaded up and got Whataburger and Sonic to go and finished the afternoon off with picking up little Truelove and going to the park. When I was finally kid free I packed up and headed out to my parent's to spend the weekend.

Yesterday we had planned to meet some of my dad's family that was in town for dinner but before that Mom wanted to go to Norton Art Gallery and take some spring pictures of Lydia and I. They turned out great and really were fun to take but being pretty, smiling a lot, and walking all over that huge garden is tiring. By the time we had dinner, ran through the mall, stopped by our aunts house and the drove back to Texas I was done for.

Needless to say after the dog woke me up this morning and Mom came in and said that they were going to go to Lowes and work around the house instead of going to church this morning I was thrilled. I ate pancakes and as soon as they took off to Lowes I got back in the bed. Diet Coke, spaghetti, my computer and Real Housewives of NYC with a little laundry mixed in is all thats on the agenda for the day. Speaking of which, I can not stand Ramona. I know everybody gives Alex and Simon a hard time, understandably so because they are ultra creepy, but Ramona's weird mannerisms are about all I can take. Overall I guess I'm just a bigger fan of the Orange County girls.

See you tomorrow with some Not Me! action. Here's a sneak peak from yesterday.


Thursday, March 19, 2009

Check it out!

What's the fastest week of the year? Well spring break of course. I guess it doesn't help that I have spent approx. 18 hours of it driving East and West down I-20. Yes I did it. I drove to Abilene and back and then turned around the very next day and drove to Ft. Worth and came home the next day. That's what spring break is for right? Yes I thought you would agree.

Today I was scheduled to meet my sister for lunch and had a few minutes to kill so I went into our local Burks Outlet to check it out. I'll say I was quite impressed. I didn't see anything over $12.99! The best deal was the Mossimo tee's that Target has for $8 were $4 at Burks. They only had green, black and white but if you buy those things as much as I do it's a great deal. I was in a hurry and didn't take a lot of time to look at everything but do plan to go back. It's one of those "have to dig for it" kind of stores but the prices are worth it. Check it out! Let me know if you come across any amazing finds.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Not Me! Monday


Are you ready? Here goes the second installment of Not Me! Monday.

In the last week I surely did not take the whole morning off of student teaching to attend a job fair that I only stayed at for an hour. I would have never sat and watched The View and then meet friends for an hour and a half lunch all when I should have been at school. I always go to school for every minute that I should.

While traveling six hours across Texas this weekend I did not get a huge piece of toilet paper stuck to my shoe in the bathroom of a Loves travel stop and in an attempt to remove it using my other shoe tear it and end up with toilet paper on both shoes. I also did not stand on one foot at a time and scraping the bottom of my shoe against the corner of the sink to remove the toilet paper from not one but both of my shoes. Only goofy people do that kind of thing in a public bathroom and I am not one of them.

While in the shower recently I did not look up at my massaging shower head that I have never adjusted and wonder what it would be like to turn it to the high massage mode. As I turned the shower head I surely turned it the correct way and I absolutely did not pull the entire shower head off in my hand causing all of the little inside pieces to fly all over the shower and high pressure water to pelt me directly in the face. I take much better care of the cottage than that and am definitely smarter than to do such a thing.

Ok you're up. Honesty time. Go here to check out the fun.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Spring Break!

What crappy weather! I'm hating it right now. Had to get that out. On to more important things.

If you've kept up with me on Twitter any today, you've seen that spring break officially began a little while ago. We're leaving for Abilene in a few hours and of course I found it necessary to leave school a good two and a half hours early in order to prepare. By prepare I mean go to Wal Mart, get Peking, get gas, and sit here and blog and watch Bold and the Beautiful. All of these tasks definitely justify skipping out on my state required student teaching.

Last night ETBU treated us to an etiquette dinner in an attempt for us country kids to learn us some manners 'fore we gradeate come May. This fancy smansey lady from College Station led us through dinner teaching us the correct way to act. It was fun and the food was pretty good too.

Also yesterday was our annual job fair. I've never paid a lot of attention to it before but this year I decided that it was probably pertinent that I get some info and attempt to get a job. I've applied at Marshall and found out from the lady at the fair that they will be doing interviews in April. That was the best news of the day because I was getting nervous that I hadn't heard from anyone yet. Overall it was a successful day. We got some useful info and I picked up some applications to mail around.

Ok sorry this hasn't been the most interesting of posts but that's whats happenin folks.

We'll be headed out west here in a while. Hopefully driving out of the rain soon. I'm not sure I've ever been so ready for a spring break. I don't know if I will post (which probably doesn't surprise you) but I will be twittering. By the way, those of you who aren't twittering- you should. It's the thing to do. I've had an account for a while but am just recently getting more involved. Check it out. I've given you more than enough opportunities now. Happy spring break!

Monday, March 9, 2009

Not Me Monday!

For a while I was stuck on the Daybook. Even if I didn't blog all week I would do my Simple Woman's Daybook without fail on Monday. Well since I haven't done a Daybook nearly all year I figured now would be a good time to move on to something a little different which leads me to Not Me! Monday- the post where I can be truly honest (which I always am :) anyway) about all of the goofy things I've been up to this past week.

For example...

I never ordered a huge portion of beef friend rice PLUS an egg roll for dinner the other night with the intention of saving half for lunch the next day and sat on my couch and ate the entire meal in one sitting. Nope. I would never do that.

Or...

My laundry that was washed isn't still in my closet not hanging and not put away and I didn't strategically close the closet doors this morning when I left so that the ac repair man and my friend/land lord wouldn't see.

I also didn't stand in the Jalapeño Tree bathroom with Chelsea on Friday night and pull a large amount of toilet paper off the roll, fold it up and place it in my purse because I was out at home and Walgreens was out of my way.

Nor did I turn and laugh at school today when one of my students smarted off to one of his classmates who had been driving everyone crazy and totally deserved it. It would have been very unprofessional of me and inappropriate if I would have laughed at such a thing instead of correct it. I never think it's ok to pretend I didn't hear things in order for someone to get what was coming to them. I'm a much better teacher than that.

Ok wasn't that fun? I feel much better with those little tidbits off of my chest. Now it's your turn. Save the Not Me! Monday pic, put it in your post and spill it all. Afterwards, go here and put yours in the Mister Linky box and read all of the others. Enjoy!

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Welcome Warm Weekend

Aren't you proud? Two posts in one week and a brand new look! I have a feeling I'm coming around.

Friday I had the pleasure of joining the 5th grade at Sam Houston to Caddo Lake for a very educational science field trip. Our little trip was so exciting it made the front page of The Marshall News Messenger this morning. We sampled water, learned a lot about erosion, saw a collection of animal skulls (it sounds gross but was really cool) and learned about migration among other things. The beautiful weather and well behaved children made for a wonderful day.

I was in the mood for a huge nap by the time school was over and after Oprah I was down for the count. I woke up right as it was getting dark and headed up to the soccer game to hang out with Chelsea and make our what has become weekly Friday night trip to Jalapeño Tree. After we had vented our student teaching frustrations of the week I headed home and with my window cracked and the cool night breeze coming in I headed off to sleep.

I've spent today at my parents house. This afternoon everyone had something to do except me so I spent a big part of the day catching up on blogs and working on my own. When Mom got home we went walking and then came home and in joint effort made a very tasty Mexican dinner. Lydia is out with friends so Mom, Dad and I sat on the porch after we were sufficiently stuffed and are now settled in to watch TV for the night while the laundry that has been piling up on my bathroom floor for a good two weeks now is washing.

On another note, I've taken over the Summer Reading Program for the church kids for the summer. There aren't a lot of meetings and I have a pretty good budget so things should work out but now I'm presented with the reality of having to find some sort of theme and get this thing organized. Serving through 1st and 2nd grade Sunday School has been a huge blessing and I know that this will be too.

Speaking of Sunday School I have to share about these awesome kids and some of the funny things they say. We usually have about 10 kids a week but these are a few of my favorite.

M and J are brothers, one year apart. M will tell you that he doesn't play he just builds and works like a man while J doesn't take life quite as seriously. M claims to be building some kind of cat houses for the neighborhood cats. These things sound more posh than my own house. I was also informed last week that he is building a convince store that will have better prices than Wal-Mart. A few weeks ago M was talking began talking about some people named C and H. After I asked who C and H were he said, "That's my mom and dad." Surprised I said, "Your parents let you call them C and H?" M very nonchalantly said "Yeah. I'm 8 now. She had to know it was coming."

B is a very bright little girl who is homeschooled and takes every opportunity to share that with us. A couple of weeks ago during a lesson on Jesus taking the time to get to know people, we played a question/answer game in which we took the time to get to know each other. As B was having a hard time finding words (for the first time ever) to answer one of the questions, she said "I'm just a princess redneck country girl." Honey, aren't we all was my only reply.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

A Dream Away

So here I am again- close to 2 weeks without a blog post. I read blogs daily(like this one and this one) that get thousands of hits and these girls actually make money from blogging. What a life. I don't know how many hits I really get but it can't be very many considering I'm doing good to post twice a month. Everyday when I look at these sweet girl's posts I think of what I dream this blog might become someday. Maybe it will come. I've got to get motivated.

Speaking of being motivated, my two planned beach trips have motivated me to get in shape a bit. I'm watching what I eat and the pretty weather has really got me wanting to walk in the evenings. Chelsea and I walked from ETBU to the square and back last week. It was fun and I really want to make it a regular thing.

Mom and I went to Canton Saturday when was definitely my walking for the day. We got some good buys and it was of course a great time. One of my favorite new things is this. Check it out. So handy.