Year 2 - Day 313 - October 31

When we visit my parents, they have to rent a car to drive us all around because my parents are old (sorry, it's true, parents) retired people with 2 seater sports cars. Usually it's a lot cheaper to rent the cars from the neighborhood branch of the car rental agencies rather than driving out to the airport to pick up a car. This year, my dad found that it was cheaper at the airport. To save trips and driving, he called to see if Mike & I would just pick it up when we got there and drive it to the house. No problem. He told me the Southwest.com-get-frequent-flier-miles price and it beat the Hotwire.com price I had showing on my screen. So...I pulled Southwest.com up on Safari and got the window on the left. I read him the prices and he acted like I was a crazy person. No matter how many times we read each other the price, our numbers weren't matching.

I remembered a similar issue with Hotwire from the past, so I opened firefox and did the same search. I came up with the prices in the window on the right. $40 cheaper, just by switching browsers! No cookies involved because I've never price checked a car in Tucson before. Weird, weird, weird. (For the record, Chrome matched the FireFox price.)

Year 2 - Day 312 - October 30

I was shocked to see this much snow still on the deck when I woke up this morning. I figured just a little bit of sun would be enough to make it all melt. It didn't last long, but it did last until lunch time!

Year 2 - Day 311 - October 29

When we got home from the party tonight, we had this much snow!!  Granted, it's nothing compared to the inches and inches we're seeing in pictures from our PA friends, but definitely a lot for October 29th.

Interesting note: We haven't yet had a frost big enough to necessitate morning car window scraping, but we've had snow. CRAZY!

Year 2 - Day 300 - October 28

No joke, people. It's October 28 and that's a giant cloud of white and pink frozen stuff headed straight towards us. They're talking of accumulation! Before Halloween!

I swear our August earthquake just threw the earth for a giant loop and messed with this year! The only thing I am happy about is that tomorrow is Saturday, so we won't have to be in school when it happens and the kids go nuts. :)

Year 2 - Day 299 - October 27

My 4th graders are working on a mini project about the Hindenburg. It's not really research since they're not making a lot of decisions, but they're enjoying learning the facts. They read about the Titanic in reading class, and that's pretty overdone, so we do an alternate disaster. The added bonus of the extra 25 years in history is the various versions of video footage. They laughed when I told them that people used to see the news in the movie theaters instead of commercials for Coke! :)

Year 2 - Day 298 - October 26

HIMYM seems to be on every channel all the time these days. I'm ok with that, because I think it's funny. But no matter how often it's on, I never catch the "Naked Man" episode! It's my favorite and makes me laugh out loud no matter how many times I see it. Simple pleasures. :) Today my simple pleasure is merely having the time to sit on my couch and do nothing for a couple hours. It's been awhile since I could do that.

Year 2 - Day 297 - October 25

This is the novel my college class is currently in the process of reading. I started it a couple times in the past but never got through it. This week though, I did read it cover to cover, and actually enjoyed it! Last week at the library conference I went to a session about using Primary Sources such as artwork to introduce research to kids. Well, we introduce things like the American Revolution to our 5th graders. It's new to them but that's a subject most adult Americans have at least some working knowledge of. The middle ages on the other hand (where Crispin is set) is a different story. So I used some of the strategies I learned tonight to get them more familiar with the middle ages and feudalism. I think it was less boring than just reading an article and less confusing than jumping right into the book. Hopefully it helped. It was definitely more interesting to TEACH than to just read the article. :)

So then I was driving home, in the dark, after 9pm, on 95, when my "check tire pressure" light came on. I was not thrilled about the event seeing as how it was dark, late, and I was in the middle of nowhere. Before I got to an exit, I got to a rest stop. I pulled into the first gas station and it was pitch black. I saw what I thought was an air hose but there was no sign so I kept driving. Luckily the second gas station had lights on, people getting gas, AND an attendant in an official outfit. I saw the air hose, pulled up, got out, and the attendant's eyes got really big all of a sudden. "Hey! You were my library teacher in elementary school!" Heh. I actually knew his first name right away, which impressed me, because I didn't have the older alumni for as long so I don't always have the ability to pull their names out of thin air. Also, they grow up when they leave us so they aren't always recognizable. He filled my tires for me (how awesome is that?!) and we talked about some challenges he's faced in the last few years. He seems to be finding his way now, so I hope he continues down that path. What a crazy evening.

Year 2 - Day 296 - October 24

I was really looking forward to Wegman's coming to our town. However, now that they're here I rarely go. All the other stores send out weekly ads with sale prices. Wegman's doesn't do that. They send out a flyer that just compares their prices to other local stores on certain items. However, the flyer doesn't take into account sales at other stores. Since I have no idea how much most items cost at Wegman's, I don't know if it will save me money. Plus, 80% of what I buy each week (or more) is on sale and/or has a coupon to use. We don't have a huge stock pile like the crazy people on TV, but we do have a few extra jars of peanut butter when it goes on sale for almost free and then that holds us over until the next time it goes on sale. (Almost everything we buy goes on sale approximately every 6 weeks.) So sorry Wegman's, you can keep sending me these little coupon booklets in the mail, but as long as they're only for a few items that we don't need, you won't get my regular Sunday morning business.

Year 2 - Day 295 - October 23

Before heading out this morning, we had breakfast at the Dough Roller on the boardwalk. I saw a sign saying they're famous for their wide variety of pancakes so that's what I ordered. Bacon pancakes! Genius idea! Really they just cooked an "X" of bacon strips on the grill before pouring the batter on top, but still, genius. That, added with THIS view made for the best breakfast I've had since my birthday brunch!

Also seen in this picture, the balconies of our hotel. We opted to be cheap and stay on the bay side. It's ok though because you couldn't beat the location and we could still see water! This was the last of our fun meals on this mini getaway and let me tell you - it was fun while it lasted!

Year 2 - Day 294 - October 22

Even though I live within a few hours of the famous horses of Assateague Island, I had never seen one in person before today. It was pretty cool, but if we go again we'll definitely bring bikes and park on the free side and bike over. The horses are everywhere and really easy to find. Much easier than the bears at Sequoia (but not as easy as the rattlesnakes!) :) For much of our time, the horses were even closer than the one in this picture!

Year 2 - Day 293 - October 21

We spent our evening meandering around at the boardwalk. It messes with my head to visit the OC boardwalk because my brain still puts all the Seaside boardwalk attractions where they belong and the OC ones don't match! :)

On another note, can you believe the size of these candy buttons?!!?!

Year 2 - Day 292 - October 20

Here we are in Ocean City! Woohoo! I'm helping run the MASL conference today and tomorrow and Mike's here to enjoy the vacation that comes afterwards. At some point today my supposed allergies turned into a nasty cold. Since I'm exhausted we went out for an early dinner and came back to the hotel.

We had dinner at a place on the water 4 years ago, the last time we were in OC for the conference. I don't remember what Mike had for dinner that night, but he has always kept the meal in his top 5 of all times. We couldn't remember the name, but a vague recollection of a bridge view and the assistance of Google Maps led us back to the same restaurant. Turns out it's called Fager's Island.

Great food, a little pricy, but worth it. The view is great, and at sunset they played (and timed perfectly with the sun going over the horizon) the 1812 Overture. Fun! Now we're sitting here watching BBT and I'm going to bed at 8:30. That's just how exciting I am.

Year 2 - Day 291 - October 19

I took this picture tonight while my darling husband was driving us down to OC for the library conference, but not because anything interesting happened there tonight. It reminded me of a cold winter night back in the fall/winter of 2000.

Years and years ago, we were sitting around at college towards the end of finals week in December with nothing to do. Well, most of us had nothing to do - one guy still had a test. Since the rest of us were being a pain in the butt, we decided to leave and go have some fun. What else would you do late at night in December than drive to the beach?!?!

We were pretty sure the beach was close, I mean, Delaware touches the ocean right??

Wrong.

We started driving south, with the latest BNL album in the CD player. No, we had it in a discman on someones lap. After driving for awhile, we saw this traffic light and it's accompanying sign - "Bowers Beach."

"Yay," we cried, "We're here! We're at the beach!"

Nope. We turned left, got to water, put the car in park, and realized the water wasn't moving enough to be the ocean. Eventually one of us had the realization that New Jersey exists between Delaware and the ocean.

So we kept driving until we got to the real beach. It was dark, cold, and everything was closed, but we took pictures at Santa's house, turned around, and drove home.

College was so much fun because we could do random stuff like that just because we felt like it!

Year 2 - Day 290 - October 18

It's Tuesday! More Winn Dixie! Tonight we watched, read, and listened to this book. I'm Winn Dixied out right now, I think...

NOW...the students are all moving towards picking their own topic. That means I have to prepare to read, watch, or at least re-visit 17 different books and movies. Wish me luck!

Year 2 - Day 289 - October 17

Part of being on the BES picture book committee is finding picture books to bring to all our meetings. I recently found this one, and it's pretty funny. It's no Chester, but definitely amusing. This shark isn't afraid of ANYTHING! Cept maybe spiders...

Year 2 - Day 288 - October 16

Soon, my college students are going to be writing an analytical essay contrasting either 2 fairy tales or a book and its film version. To prepare, I'm modeling the assignment with this week's novel and its film companion. I read the book Winn Dixie years ago but re-read it for this week and then hunted down the movie at the public library. It wasn't nearly as good as the book (is it ever?) but it wasn't as awful as I thought it would be. Hopefully this goes well. :)

Year 2 - Day 287 - October 15

I totally didn't take this picture, Carl did. However, I was having fun at Oktoberfest so I didn't think about taking pictures. He always remembers to take pictures, so here we go. ;) That's my left hand doing a princess wave while Darra gets ready to take us on our hay ride! It was a little scary and that cart wasn't very stable, but we had fun and survived to tell the tale. :)

Year 2 - Day 286 - October 14

Tonight I attended the Maryland State Teacher of the Year banquet with some of my colleagues. One of my friends and fellow media specialists won the honor at our county level and was a top 7 finalist for the state. Due to those awesome circumstances, the higher-ups in our county paid for a table of media specialists to go and enjoy the evening. While our friend did not win, we had a great time and the person who did win will be a great voice for our state.

There was a tanker accident on 95 in Harford County, so it took 3 hours to get to Martin's West from Perryville. Ouch. Luckily we got there just in time to see the ceremony begin. Whew. If you ever have an opportunity to go, you should because it's a great evening. I saw lots of people I know from other counties, as well, and enjoyed a chance to get dressed up.

Years and years ago, our high school had prom at Martin's West. I have a picture with me and the same three guys from two consecutive proms in this room. (One was from my senior year and one from the year after since the guy I was dating was younger.) The pictures both have this chandelier in the background, and the pictures together in side by side frames made a complete chandelier. I always thought that was pretty cool (and random, because we didn't do it on purpose!) but tonight I realized the same chandelier is hanging in a few different spaces throughout the room, so our pictures were a little less random than previously believed.

Year 2 - Day 285 - October 13

How can you tell it's rainy?

Look up at the sky.

But if that isn't an option, just check to see if there's a worm in my classroom. They come in droves - sneaking under the door along with the puddles. Today I had a few big books next to my rocking chair that we were using for activities. When I picked up the last one, there was a worm under it. The second graders were in awe. "Hey! That thing's real!" Luckily one of my darlings was willing to rescue the little guy and put him outside.

Where he belongs.

Year 2 - Day 284 - October 12

Duclaw night! This is a picture taken in terrible light, but the glass tonight is awesome. It's really thick and heavy - pretty much like a goblet. The beer was aged in whiskey barrels or something along those lines, and it certainly smelled like it. Sometimes I wish I could like beer (or wine for that matter!), but really, there's no nutritional benefits so I've pretty much given up trying. Give me a Key Lime Pie martini any day over a beer! I was hoping DuClaw would have their fall drink menu back that I didn't get a chance to try last year, but it isn't out yet. They had all kinds of caramel concoctions that sounded super yummy!

Year 2 - Day 283 - October 11

My college students had a big presentation due tonight. I am so excited, because they did a great job! But now, there's all this paperwork...

Year 2 - Day 282 - October 10

I stayed up late this weekend to make thank you cards for all my book fair volunteers. I stole the format from the project we did at stamping this weekend, but had to mix up the colors and patterns so that I could use stuff I already had in my stash. I'm not a huge green fan, but my color wheel put the green and brown together (I think it's old olive and crumb cake) and then I used a pack of DSP with that color scheme.

Year 2 - Day 281 - October 9

There was a manhunt near our town today. When I drove by, the helicopter was hovering over the neighborhood where the bad guys were supposedly on the loose. Crazy!

Many months ago, I was anxiously awaiting this day ... more recently I was dreading it. I was really busy, so it kept my sadness at bay for most of the day, but I was still pretty bummed. I think that's why I was willing to drive to PA to find my coat yesterday. I just needed to chill, drive in the sunshine, and solve the problem of "I want a specific coat and I want it NOW." I guess I should be happy I didn't decide I needed a piece of Tiffany jewelry or a Burberry purse while I was in the fancy mall, too?? Luckily today is also my MIL's birthday, so that gave me a reason to enjoy the day as well.

Year 2 - Day 280 - October 8

For a very long time, I have wanted a North Face winter coat. Last year seemed like it was really going to be the year it happened, but everyone was out of the good colors in my size. This year I decided to jump before winter gets here. Problem? All the coats at stores near us were not colors I wanted. A weird green, a super bright orange/red, and a white were all I could find. After visiting two Dick's Sporting Goods, a Sports Authority, two Macy's, and a random sports store in the mall, I needed to dig deeper. The internet told me to go to either Tyson's or King of Prussia because they had North Face stores. Off I went, and finally, I walked out of a store with a North Face coat. Silly? Probably. But I have 2 jobs and work my butt off, so if I want to buy a coat that I'll keep for a long time, then I'm going to do it!

P.S. I'm sure I just ensured 10 warm winters in a row with no snow. You're welcome, Baltimore. :)

Once upon a time, (fall 2000 & spring 2001) I saw bedroom set at Macy's. It was Tommy Hilfiger brand and looked just like the flowered pattern you see above. (Not those stripes though.) It was super expensive, since it was Tommy at Macy's, so I didn't buy it. Over the next few years, the pieces were retired from the Macy's collection and showed up at TJ Maxx, Marshalls, and other stores in that genre. I started with the comforter and (sort of) matching sheets from Kmart. Then my mom found the sheets and a couple shams. One day I came across the pleated valances. It was a lovely set. Then, I got married. We got a new bed and flowers weren't really on the top of our list for a bedroom set. The Tommy set got relegated to guest room status. So that was a really long way of saying "WOAH-LOOK AT THE PILLOW I SAW IN MACY'S TODAY!" Unfortunately it wasn't on sale like all the other Tommy patterns so I couldn't justify buying it, but it was a random fun find. :)

Year 2 - Day 279 - October 7

Maybe I should keep this picture and put it on next year's book fair flyer with the caption "Why you should bring your kids to the book fair on Monday afternoon when I'm open after school if your kids have book fair late in the week."

We were out of everything from the advertising flyer and video, and had very few choices left by this afternoon!

Year 2 - Day 278 - October 6

We ordered a newer version of Soar To Success this year that I'm sharing with another teacher. The difference is like night and day! There are finally non-fiction books included, which is going to make all the difference in the world (hopefully.) Cross your fingers!

Yes, I'm a nerd, but I'm ok with that. :)

Year 2 - Day 277 - October 5

My Rockport shoes came today! They were in a box on my front porch when I got home. I finally found them at Towson Town center this weekend but they didn't have brown in my size. Thanks to the friendly guy at the store for hunting a pair down at a store in Rhode Island. Free shipping to my house! PLUS, I guess there's no tax on shoes or clothes or something up there because my card was only charged for the exact amount of the shoes! These are not something I'd play basketball with, so I deemed them "NOT SNEAKERS" and therefore acceptable for work. They're not the most attractive shoes on the planet but I would rather be able to walk. :)

Year 2 - Day 276 - October 4

Not gonna lie - one of the perks of the book fair is getting to see the Mouse & The Motorcycle series of "After School Specials."

Mouse & The Motorcycle - I show this to K & 1 (Also, the big kids on Wednesday get to see it because we have a K class at the same time as the big kids - surprisingly the kids are totally ok with that. These are all ages flicks even with the 80's claymation style mouse!) - The big exciting moment is when Ralph's on the motorcycle and the vacuum is trying to suck him up. (Spoiler alert - he makes it!)

Ralph S. Mouse - Ralph goes to school and the kids have him run a maze. Ralph makes up his own rules.

Runaway Ralph - The most amusing for the grownups, even though it's not the best story of the three. Ralph goes to camp with (see above) Fred Savage! And there are girl bullies - Sara Gilbert and Kelli Martin! And "Berta" from 2 1/2 Men is their counselor! Hilarious.

Thank goodness I have book fair this week, because we are Internet-less. We get our internet from some tower nearby (just 3 schools) and we share that tower with other groups or something. (Not being on the tech committee, I just get baby details.) The part is broken, it's expensive to fix, the part's hard to find, and our school system doesn't have a lot of money. All these things together are making the perfect (internet free) storm until further notice. I don't know who provides that internet, but it's not the local cable company. My school is in the middle of the cornfields and there's a tiny little spot where a local company provides phone/cable/internet. Calling outside of our zip code at school is automatically a long distance call. Very odd and "middle of nowhere" style. They're thinking maybe we will be able to hook up with the cable company at least until the part is found, but even that will take awhile. D'oh!

Year 2 - Day 275 - October 3

Look what's here! It's the Book Fair! For the next 5 days I will be practicing my money estimating and counting skills and putting those skills to the ultimate test! Can I estimate, count, and check out kids while other kids are asking me constant questions about THEIR money? Can I do it without losing my mind? :) Here's the super duper rules for keeping me happy (and friendly!) at the book fair. These rules have been finely tuned over the last 20 book fairs. (Note, I only give these to 3rd and up - 1st & 2nd all get to browse, then they watch a movie while we pull a couple kids at a time to shop.)
1 - No talking to grownups while they're doing money. Stand next to them, smile, and wave, and they'll know you need them - but wait until they're done checking out the other person.
2 - It's a book fair not a stuff fair. Pick a book, then we'll add on posters, pencils, bookmarks, highlighters, etc.
3 - No sharing money - sorry!
4 - Know how much money you have before you shop. Ask a grownup if you need help.
5 - $4.99 really means $5. However, it REALLY means $5.29 with tax. Always leave space when you're estimating from the prices on the back of the book.
6 - You're only checking out once - so make sure you have used your brains, the calculators, and the grownups to get as close to your total as you want to be.
7 - If you forgot your money during class, don't worry - there are 2 days after school where you can shop OR you can shop at our brand new online book fair. The bonus there is that they won't run out of that (cough cough Dolphin Tale) book that you're dying to get and we were out of in the first 5 minutes.

Year 2 - Day 274 - October 2

Yesterday, our baby shower was an afternoon tea. My friend decided to get us all tea balls (do they have a fancy name?) as favors. I laughed at her, because a) there was a teabag with it, so that's silly and b) who uses tea balls?

Today, I laughed at ME. We were at Towson Town Center buying me shoes (FINALLY! Success!) and passed Teavana. It smelled heavenly and they were handing out free samples. Thumbs up to a store handing out free samples of caffeine free tea, because that never happens. We both liked it so much that we bought some to bring home. It was a little expensive, but oh so tasty. AND...it is sold looseleaf, so we needed a tea ball to make it.

I had to call my friend on the way home to apologize for laughing at her. Then she laughed at me. :)

Year 2 - Day 273 - October 1

Today we celebrated the upcoming birth of our friends' daughter. Rather than play games at the shower, we decorated onesies. I did a lot of research before the party because I wanted us to be able to make outfits they could actually use. A few things kept showing up in the recommendations list of people's blog posts. #1 - don't use puffy paint (it stays tacky forever) , #2 - don't try to glue anything onto the outfits (it will come off in the wash and/or the kid will try to eat it) and #3 - invest in stencils. We started with stencils, but as we kept going we gained more confidence. Most of us made a couple and they all came out really cute! My first one is the alphabet above ... it's hard to see in the picture, but the "I" and "U" are different colors, with the "O" being a heart in between. (Totally stole that from a picture online.) I think the mommy to be made the flower on the right, and I have no idea who made the flowers on the left. :)

Later, we moved on to free hand for large shapes we thought we could handle. We also used masking tape for straight lines like the cupcake wrapper and ice cream cone.

Our Spanish teacher friend made one that is unique - the new mommy will always remember who made that one! The St. Patty's day and pumpkin ones were made by our friend that has annual Oktoberfest and St. Patty's Day parties. How appropriate! :) And how cute is wiggle worm?

The butterfly/dragonfly was a stencil, as was the bee ... but the apple was done freehand. I also love that the butterfly has a smiley face. The friend that made that one put a smiley face on both of her animals. Here's the other ... hee hee...

We were laughing about the fact that although the new baby has some vegetarians in her family, she will be exposed to bacon. The new baby's daddy has been known to say "Bacon is nature's candy!" So this is the perfect onesie for this kid.

And finally, any baby in Baltimore needs a onesie just for Hon-Fest.

The flamingo was done free hand, which is super impressive ... and it says "Hon" on the butt. HA!

We had a great time!