Rain, rain and more rain...

Dear Hurricane Tropical Storm Nicole,

Thanks for bringing all the rain.  Srsly.  I looooove rain.

Although, the roads are already flooded.  And they're predicting the rain to come down in buckets all night.

Nevertheless, I do love the rainy days you've sent our way.

In fact, I have a poem for you.

It's raining
It's pouring
Jen's about to be snoring.  

You like it?  I do.

Nothing better than taking a nap on a semi-cool, rainy afternoon.  Especially when you have a freaking cold. The windows are open.  I'm in my jammies.  And I'm nice and comfy on the couch with my favorite blanket.

Love,
Me

Wishes DO come true!

Just Saturday I found myself saying:  "I WISH it would rain."  I mean we went all summer with a srs thunderstorm each night (and by srs...I mean building rumbling, car alarm going off, dog and cat freaked out, feel it in your bones...thunderstorms).  And then nothing.  Absolutely nothing but hot. hot. hot. sunny. days.


Well wishes do come true.  Because it did nothing BUT rain from Sunday afternoon until early this morning.  I'm talking solid, heavy rain.

And I love me some rain.   LOVE it!

My view Monday night

There is nothing better than a rainy day.  Even if it is a Monday.


Now...I think I'll go wish for some other things...



But now I'm wondering - What would you wish for?  (other than the obvious things)

Dear Paula,

*mutters* ...trying to get me killed...

How's that for a crank face?


Serves you right.  You know how unstable some people are.  You're gonna feel terrible at my funeral.

No Love,
Jen

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!

Finally Fall

Time to break out the pumpkins and other autumn decor.  It may not feel like it here.  But I can pretend.

I haz a happee.

A Day in the Life of a 1st Grade Teacher

*gag warning*

This afternoon a mystery liquid suddenly appeared on the floor.  I know...magic right?  Someone 'mentioned' it by yelling out - "Someone waste on the floor."

 FYI around here - 'waste' means - spilled something.  Yeah...I don't get it either.

And it was a lot!  Not just a little spill.  So I'm looking around trying to figure out what happened and where it came from (it was definitely a spill - not a leak or something like that).  Before I can even turn my head to look around at the bookbags nearby - little "W" walks over to it - DIPS HIS FINGER IN IT...  and wait for it... PUTS IT IN HIS MOUTH.  Yes.  Put. That. Finger. In. His. Mouth.

And then yells out "EWWWWWWW!"

I almost threw up for him.

It was one of those slow-mo moments you hear about - I totally saw him do it  -  I may have even been able to prevent it.  But I was in such a state of "I know he is not going to...oh. my. GOD...yes. he. did." shock -that I couldn't move or get my mouth to make any noise.

I'm sayin'.  That could have very likely been PEE!

I was actually starting to look at the backs of pants so see if someone had an accident before he tasted the mystery liquid.  B/c it was a clear-ish yellow liquid.

And the kicker is - I still don't know what it was.  This is definitely going down in the 'Great Mysteries of My Life' book.  I did have the presence of mind to smell it (just to make sure he didn't actually ingest urine) and it wasn't.  But I don't know, nor will I ever know what it was or where it came from.

It's HOT

You know it's been hot when today it was 94 degrees today.  And it felt nice outside on the playground at 1:00 because there was a slight breeze.

You also know it's hot when the kids didn't want to leave my side while outside at recess b/c they didn't want to be out there any more time than they had to be.  When I blow that whistle - we are INSIDE within 2 minutes! 

Since they weren't leaving my side...

You also know that you have some teeny, tiny kids when they are playing tag, you're base and they are using you to run and play around.  Plus they're using your skirt to pull on and play around (without it being inappropriate - or me being violated).  LOL  I have srsly never had so many tiny kids!  Or maybe I just forget how little they are at the beginning of the year.  

Isn't Fall supposed to be right around the corner?!? *sigh*

Speaking of....I did come home to find a nice happy Fall Flower arrangement courtesy of Nick.  For no reason other than ...Just Because.  Awwwww!!!  Definitely brightened up my Monday.  :-D

*Not my picture - Found through Google Images

Friday

*takes deep breath*

Finally.

Feels good.

I tell ya.  You know it was a rough week when by 7:45 Monday morning- I was already counting the minutes until Friday afternoon.

I mean... literally living and breathing for Friday afternoon.  All. Week.


Phew! *wipes brow and kicks back*


I don't have to do ANY school work this weekend.  Well...there is one set of papers to grade.  But that is soooooo much better than doing lesson plans all (Sunday) afternoon long.



I'm going to chill this weekend.  For the first weekend since school started.

Old

Yesterday we were talking about  being in school for 23 days.  We do this every day.  Well yesterday for some reason when asking what 23 was (as in - 23 is 3 more than 20...23 is bigger than 20...23 is smaller than 30...) someone says - "23 is how old you are!"

AND the crazy part?  The. CRAZY. part?!?!  Was that I actually thought for a minute - WOW he's right!!

I haven't been 23 for a while.  And for some crazy reason...that didn't even cross my mind yesterday morning.   

SO my question is...does one ever actually feel old?  Or older?  

I mean some days I feel 83.  But that's my mind.  


Other days I feel no different than I did when I was in high school.

Does there actually come a point when you actually feel your age?  Not mentally.  Not 'I feel old because my body aches'.  But actually feel like you think someone should feel at a certain age?

Because according to my brain I am a year out of college and just married.

Although I suppose that's not a such bad thing.

Just as long as I'm not 45 and thinking I'm 18.  :)

  

We Will Remember

Today our city had a parade.

A Patriotic Parade.

To celebrate.  To come together.  To remember. 

I will admit...  I wasn't looking forward to waking up early on a Saturday morning to go and represent my school in the parade... but I'm glad I did.  When we were pulling up to the meeting place this morning - I was surprised to see so many people.  So many uniforms.  So many flags.  It was definitely bigger than I anticipated.  Considering I saw people being bussed in from Charlotte to be in the parade.  And I'm so glad I went.  

To see so many people come out - wearing their red, white and blue.  Wearing their Veteran shirts.  Firefighters. Police Officers. Boy and Girl Scouts.  Waving their flags.  So many different people.  People from all walks of life.  Old, young.  Rich, poor.  Weak, strong.  All together.  All smiling.  All proud.  It was very moving.  

It may be 9 years later.  It may be one of many reasons our military is out there, all over the world fighting to keep our freedom intact and country safe.  But it proves that we will come together.  We will support.  We will celebrate.  We will remember.  Always.  

The other part of our group - riding in the Humvee.

Something else that was moving...After the parade we stopped at a store and while checking out we talked with the cashier about our sunburned faces and arms which led to us mentioning the parade.  Without missing a beat - she said:  "I was doing laundry."  

 Everyday, mundane laundry.  And she'll never forget it.  

I bet anyone over the age of 25 can tell you exactly what they were doing that Tuesday morning in 2001.  And I bet they'll be able to tell you what they were doing on that morning until the day they die.  

I don't think anyone needs to worry about forgetting.  Because I don't think that's possible.  

*Yes, I took every one of these pictures standing up, waving my flag, waving and smiling to everyone from the back of the truck.  Our 'float' had a bug that tried to crawl into my pants.  So...yeah.  That wasn't happening.  

One more thing...

"You can be sure that the American spirit will prevail over this tragedy." 

--Colin Powell, 2001

I haz a sleepy...

Awww 

Forgot to take my B Complex vitamin this morning and WOW what a difference it makes!!  Apparently it does more than just turn your pee bright yellow (WHAT??!? - we're all about peeing and different colors in the toilet -here on the blog lately...).  Just sayin'.


That little vitamin is so much better than caffeine.   I mean really- it's more like crack or speed or whatever other drugs give you limitless energy...but legal.

So srsly - go get vitamin B Complex.  You will thank me.


 

Science Experiment

As you well know...we have our own bathroom in the classroom.

Well each day during lunch our custodian comes in to clean the bathroom.

Today in between lunch and recess a student needed to use the restroom so we stopped on our way past so he could go.

He goes in.  Comes running out.  "Mrs. K****, Mrs. K****!!!  The water is BLUE!  It's BLUE!"

Me:  "What water?!? The toilet water?"

Him:  "Yeah!!"

Me:  "Well, that's ok.  It is just cleaner.  When you flush it will go back to normal. Go ahead and go.  We're using up recess time."

[Mind you - we are still all standing out in the hallway waiting for him to take care of business.]

Him:  [goes back to the bathroom...30 seconds later...]  "Mrs. K***** come LOOK!!!!"

Me:  "um...why... what's wrong?"  [B/c I really don't want to follow a kid in there to 'look' if at all possible.]

Him:  "It's GREEN NOW!!!!"


Magic.  I tell you.  Magic.

So of course just about half the class had to go LOOK at the magic, color changing toilet water.

Lovely.

I suppose it is time to introduce the 'mixing colors to make new colors' concept.

The best...

Truth.

holy moley

*chills*

I remember how it felt seeing Hogwarts for the first time...in 2002.

I'm not ready to see the end.

Some memorable quotes from HP7:


"Just tell me one thing, is this real?  Or has this been happening inside my head?"
"Of course it's happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it's not real?"


"Here lies Dobby.  A free elf."


"Does it hurt?"
"Dying?  Not at all.  It's quicker and easier than falling asleep."

"He read the letter again, but could not take in any more meaning than he had done the first time, and was reduced to staring at the handwriting itself.  She had made her "g"s the same way he did.  He searched the entire letter for them.  It was an incredible treasure, proof that [his mother] had lived, really lived, that her warm hand had once moved across this parchment, tracing ink into these letters, these words, words about him, Harry, her son. Brushing the wetness from his eyes he reread the letter again.  It was like listening to a half-remembered voice."

"But they were not living.  They were gone.  The tears came before he could stop them.  What was the point in pretending.  He let them fall down to the thick snow, to the place where the last of [his mother and father] lay, not knowing that their living son stood so near, his heart still beating, alive because of their sacrifice and close to wishing, at this moment, that he was sleeping under the snow with them."

[Looking at the ghosts (?) of his parents before going off to what he thought was certain death]
Her smile was widest of all.  And her green eyes, so like his, searched his face hungrily, as though she would never be able to look at him enough.
Harry:  "You'll stay with me?"
His Dad:  "Until the very end."



How am I ever going to make it through these movies?

It's not all serious business...

This week my kids had a timeline project due.  Since most of the students don't actually 'do' the project themselves - they can be hard to grade.  You see, most parents are under the impression that we teachers don't notice the difference between their 'I've been writing for 20-30 years' handwriting and their child's 'I don't even know how to write a lowercase 'e' or for that matter even know how to hold my pencil' handwriting.  In short, we get a lot of projects that are completely, and I mean completely done by parents.  I mean the kids don't even know what is on the poster half of the time.  

So to rectify that issue - we stopped grading a lot of the actual project part and decided to grade the presentation of the project this time.  

Since it's still early in the year and the kids are still a little shy - most of our presentations consisted of "whisper whisper whisper annnnnnd that's all"  or  "um this is my brother.  this is my sister.  this is my cousin.  this is my mom.  this is my dad.  this is my grandma.  this is my OH i mean this is me at the water park."  or "this is me at my 1st birthday. ummmm this is me at my 2nd birthday. ummmm this is me at my 3rd birthday.  ummm this is me at my 4th birthday.  ummm this is me at my 5th birthday.  this is me at my 6th birthday.  i like pizza."  

I kid you not with the randomness.

This is what I've been listening to for the last two days.   And I purposely didn't capitalize the sentences...b/c well... I don't know how else to show that well... something just always seemed to be lacking or just not quite right about the presentations.  Perhaps it is also for the monotone voice everyone uses and the way I have to nearly go deaf straining to hear what in the world they are saying.

Oh and PS - the kid who SAID - and I quote - "THIS IS ME AT THE WATER PARK." - totally cut out a picture from a magazine and glued it on.  But ya know... I had one last year bring something like this in with a magazine cutout of broccoli with ranch dressing on top and told us it was a green cupcake that he had at home with white frosting on top.   So I suppose that isn't so uncommon.  

Point being after listening to all of the delightfully entertaining   :-/  presentations - one kid gets up to share his and totally blew me away!  (If you can't figure out who I'm talking about - ask me and I'll tell ya.)

He gets up and starts at birth - not only telling us every single detail about when he has had all of his major life events but also with specific street addresses, times, specific dates and every other detail you might never need to know.  But it was soooooo priceless.  I'm just glad I wasn't drinking anything at the moment he started talking...b/c everyone in the front row on the carpet would have had a shower.  All I'm sayin.  

"My name is *****."  (first, middle and last name)

"I was born on June 20, 2004 (not the actual date) at 10:57 at night.  At ***** Regional Medical Center, Women's Pavilion. That's on **** Street in ******, South Carolina."

"This is me and my family, my mom ***** and my dad ***** at Pizza Hut.  That's on ***** Street in *****, South Carolina.  We went there for my 6th birthday.  That was my last birthday.  I'm still six.  We had pepperoni pizza and coke."

"This is me with my cousin **** and my mom **** at Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, South Carolina.  That's about an hour from  ******, South Carolina.  We went there two summers ago. June 15, 2008." 

"This is me on my first day of Kindergarten last year.  At ***** Elementary School on ******* Drive in *****, South Carolina."

That's not even all... that's just all I can remember.  And I probably left out some of the details he provided for those events.  And those street addresses?  Straight up full mailing addresses.  Not 'Pizza Hut on Main Street'.  No.  "Pizza Hut, located at 1234 Main Street in Columbia, South Carolina 29974." I mean it took me 4 years of working at my school to commit the street address to memory.  This little dude goes to Pizza Hut for his BIRTHDAY and knows the mailing address. 

Oh and for the record and he wasn't reading this stuff.  He was pulling all of that information out of his head. 

As cute and humorous as it was...I wish I had an ounce of the recall and memory he has.  An OUNCE!!