Year 3 - Day 91 - March 31

We're cleaning the house this weekend in preparation for hosting Easter the day after we get back from vacation. These are all the boxes to computer parts I found around the computer room. A couple months ago, Mike got to play a new computer game for a couple days. This led to a massive upgrade of almost all computer parts.

This is why I'm a Mac girl. I take it out of the box, and it works for a long long time! :)

Year 3 - Day 90 - March 30

You know what's great about today? It's March 30. I'm finishing up and printing my lesson plans for the next time I'll need them. THEY SAY APRIL 9!! And even better, that Monday is still part of Easter break. So really, I'm not teaching again until April 10!! Now THAT is a vacation. I love my kiddos, but I really love vacation. :)

Year 3 - Day 89 - March 29

Great news in Orioles land today. Mike Mussina got elected to the Orioles' Hall of Fame! Even if he did defect to the Yankees, he's #3 in wins all time for the Orioles and high up on lots of other stats too. If the Orioles didn't stink and Angelos wasn't a poo poo head, he would have stayed. I was mad at first like everyone else, but I got over it and followed him to the Yankees.

Here we are, circa December 1994. :)

Year 3 - Day 88 - March 28

And now, a week or more after all the other flowers in the world, our double play big bang (isn't that the coolest name?) spirea are blooming. Finally. They look like fall in the spring! I like these plants because they're lots of different colors throughout the year. They start like this, turn dark green, then almost yellow in the summer sun, then back to green and finally back to fall colored at the end. They also get purple flowers on them twice a year. (Hence the double play part of their name.) And they must be hearty, because we didn't kill them yet!

Year 3 - Day 87 - March 27

New toy! I mean TOOL. It's a document camera. It works kind of like an overhead, except it will read any kind of paper. (Basically, it's a video camera pointing at the table.) They've been around for awhile but until recently they were a super high ticket item. It still cost a whole lot of money, but I use it all the time and I've only had it for 24 hours. :) You can stick a book under it to magnify up on the screen, you can put kids work under it and put it on the screen, the possibilities are endless! I will never make a transparency again.

Year 3 - Day 86 - March 26

Sarah got me this at a craft show. It's a salt and pepper shaker! (The chick is one, the egg is the other.)

Many moons ago, I had a similar looking candy dish except the egg had feet. (Kind of like the egg in the cartoon that was paired with Garfield on Saturday mornings when I was little!) It was sitting out in my apartment, and my mom accidently broke it. Like a nice mom, she got the vacuum out to clean up the shards of broken ceramic. While vacuuming, she turned around and completely chopped two glass, water and rock filled, cylinders in half. It was funny, except for the death of my chick. ;)  I told her to stay away from this one! ;)

Year 3 - Day 85 - March 25

When I got home from Hershey today, I had a great package waiting for me. My passport came! It took less than 3 weeks from mailing date to arrival date. Impressive. Now I can one again be on high alert to leave the country if I ever need to. ;)

So this morning after my Hershey spa manicure and lunch, we went to Chocolate World. Sadly, I don't have a picture of that dessert. We had a great fondue set for just $10. Then Sarah & I hit the Christmas Tree Shops on the way home. I LOVE THAT STORE. They need to come to Maryland! (Well, closer than Hagerstown!) ;)

Year 3 - Day 84 - March 24

I'm in Hershey for the weekend with 3 of my high school friends. We're visiting the Hershey spa, shopping, and hanging out. Of course vacation means dessert! Especially in Hershey. ;) This was my dessert at lunch. A trio of little desserts - peanut butter (PB mousse and PB cups), salted caramel (just a whole shot glass of liquid caramel!), and peppermint patty (mint mousse and peppermint patties.) Delicious! This was all at the bar and grill on the Hershey Hotel property. Yum, yum, yum. Plus they gave us each a hershey bar just for checking in!

Ha - I just realized you can see Sarah's hands taking a picture of her own dessert in the background. ;)

Year 3 - Day 83 - March 23

I went to see Hunger Games tonight with my hubby and his friend. The movie was decent. It's been awhile since I read the books, so I don't know exactly how similar they were, but it seemed to match my mental images. Of course it was crazy and full at the theater! We got there a half hour early with our Fandango tickets, and had to sit in like the 4th row. At dinner before the movie I saw a family of former students that I love and then when they left (for the Hunger Games of course) the family of a current student sat down. Random small world! The best part of going to the movies (which I rarely do) is that I got to have SweetTarts. :) I love them, and I really only have them at the movies!

Year 3 - Day 82 - March 22

To finish up my trio of "It's SPRING!" pictures this week, here's the courtyard at school. We planted the weeping cherry tree after our staff member died a couple years ago. It got beautiful today between when we got to school and when we left.

Year 3 - Day 81 - March 21

I love my next door neighbor's tree. It flowers first around here. Other trees are just getting buds, but her tree is fully flowered. And look! It's not dark when I'm leaving for work, either. That's the best part of daylight savings - when it's light to AND from work. :)

Year 3 - Day 80 - March 20

If you look carefully through the stained glass, you can see that our Japanese Maple is starting to get some color. The warm weather is getting better and better and the trees are starting to realize that winter isn't coming this year. Bring on spring!! Since today is free Rita's day, I guess that is today!

Year 3 - Day 79 - March 19

Our first new door came today!!! It was so awful down there that it took him the whole day to get the new one in and beautiful. We love it. It opens! It closes! Whee!! He's doing the upstairs one tomorrow. I'm terribly excited. :)

Year 3 - Day 78 - March 18

I know some people look forward to cooking breakfast every weekend, but we are not those people. We like breakfast food, but we never wake up at the same time and neither of us is interested in being woken up for something like food. ;) Today was one of those rare days when we both happened to be up in a breakfast like time. And may I add, food looks very unappealing in pictures when it is on a blue plate!

Year 3 - Day 77 - March 17

Every year our friends host a St. Patrick's Day party. Since we were hanging out and chatting, I didn't think to take a picture until we were leaving! This is the remnants of the snack table. :)

Year 3 - Day 76 - March 16

My friends host a St. Patrick's Day party every year. I'm not a big fan of corned beef and the other typical St Patty's Day foods, and I don't really eat or drink the alcoholic beverages and desserts so I always try to contribute something I like. Even though these aren't Irish in the least, I did spend the time to pick out the green M&M's to keep them St. Patty's Day themed. :) Mike is away for the night, so I had to do them myself. I haven't done that in many years and it took a lot longer with just 2 hands! Next time I'm waiting til he's around!

Year 3 - Day 75 - March 15

I'm going into work late today, so I got to have breakfast at the time of day where this amazing sunshine is coming over the trees. I wish I could do this everyday! However, going in to work at lunch time on an 80 degree March day is going to be a buzz kill. ;)

Year 3 - Day 74 - March 14

This mild weather has kept the daffodils out for SO LONG! They've been out for weeks, and some are still just getting started. I love it!

Year 3 - Day 73 - March 13

After reading another recommendation from Danielle, I picked this book up and read it last weekend. It's a dad's memoirs of how his family dealt with the health issues of their son. He was born with a congenital heart defect and had surgery as a baby to correct it. Now the son is a teenager and dealing with issues all over again. Living in NYC, they have access to some of the (perceived) greatest health care in all the land at Columbia. However, it seems at times that the doctors are a little too self important and worried about making themselves sound like the greatest at the expense of careful patient care and monitoring. If I called a doctor several times about a symptom and they brushed me off, I'd be a little ticked. Especially if it led to major complications. REALLY especially if I found out that those symptoms were known to commonly cause those severe complications.

The one thing that bothered me about the book was the dad's self important views. He was so frustrated the the docs had big heads, but the dad had the biggest head of all. If he name dropped once, he did it a thousand times. He told us how important his job was and how stoic he was. The son was never mentioned in anything less than a perfect light. When you make your family out to be the shining examples that are all that's right in the world, your arguments that the doctors are evil have a little less "oomph" in my opinion. There was no middle ground in the book, just black and white. Good and evil. I feel like the polarizing opinions made me wonder more about the doctors response.

Also, in a job where we get to know the hovering parents, I wonder how that plays out in the medical world. If a parent calls every day "His temp is 98.7. It's a fever! I'm coming in!" does that make the doctor less likely to listen when there's a real problem? The whole boy that cried wolf thing? I don't know. But something to think about.

Year 3 - Day 72 - March 12

(Picture cropped beecause it's my kiddos from school!)

A couple weeks ago, a fellow LMS emailed an idea she came up with. She gave all the kids in her classes a job. Some of them are more classroom related (like handing out papers or collecting the pencils.) Other kids had library jobs (like straightening the drawing book shelf that is continuously a disaster.) I liked the idea and stole it. :)

I have only implemented it with my little guys because I had a space in the schedule where I had time to teach them how to do their jobs. The big guys are all in the middle of a project right now and I didn't want to lose the momentum. The first graders are stinking adorable. One of the jobs I have is to "help" with book checkout. I want to work towards letting them check themselves out to free me up to help kids hunt for books. Therefore in first grade I start modeling the process very slowly. "I'm zapping your name. Do you see your name on the screen? Yes? Good, then it's ok to zap your book."

So my helper sits in the spinning wheely chair (a reward in and of itself, it appears) and double checks for me that the name on the screen is the face in front of us. (In actuality, I really do check that because my scanner has been known to do stupid things like skip a number, transpose numbers, etc, and therefore we wind up with books out to the wrong kids.)

Today, I was off helping kids find books and getting ready to go over and zap books when all of a sudden, I hear the zapping start happening. It was the right pattern of beeps (you librarians know what I'm talking about - there are so many beeps but we know which ones we should hear in which order!) and the kids were heading back towards their seats. Turns out my little helper in this class decided that 3 weeks of being a helper was enough, and she was all ready to take over.

At first, I was going to tell her to stop. But I didn't. I walked over and looked over her shoulder while she worked, and she was doing it right. She was also talking out loud so I knew what she was thinking.

(Kid walks up)
(She scanned their name)
(Looks at the monitor to ensure it scanned correctly)
"Yup, that's you! Let's scan that book. Oh! Good choice!"
(Book beep)
(next kid)
etc.

So I let her do it. It was so funny.

Now I *really* don't know how there are so many problems every time I have a sub. ;)

Year 3 - Day 71 - March 11

I'm up early again today. However, not as early as I was SUPPOSED to be up. I remembered to set my clock ahead, but then I DID NOT TURN ON MY ALARM. This is a bad thing. I woke up 15 minutes before I was supposed to be 40 minutes away. Luckily I got here before they closed! Of course since I got here late, I'm at the end of the line. (That's totally fair!) Luckily I have this picture to take rather than reading the same magazines that were here yesterday. :)

Year 3 - Day 70 - March 10

I had to be in Towson early this morning. To reward ourselves for getting up early, we got breakfast at Fractured Prune on the way home. So unhealthy, but so, so good. The only thing I was sad about is that fact that I ordered a "plain", but in my brain I thought plain was the basic cinnamon & sugar glaze. Turns out plain really means PLAIN. It was actually ok because after I ate the two covered in goo, plain was a nice break. :)

Year 3 - Day 69 - March 9

We finally ate the apple tonight. It was totally worth the wait. :)

Year 3 - Day 68 - March 8

One of the recipes I made for Christmas Cookies last year involved mint chips. I'm having a heck of a time finding those mint chips so that I can make the recipe again. Everything mint disappeared after Christmas. I was excited to see this on the clearance rack at the grocery store today. They don't expire until 2013 sometime, but I guess since there are snowflakes and candy canes they don't want to put them with the other cookie mixes. And at less than a dollar for 3 dozen cookies, I'll give them a whirl. (Although it appears that it's really just broken candy cane pieces that give the minty flavor)

Year 3 - Day 67 - March 7

My cat has been having issues for awhile so we took another trip to the vet today. Let's just say I wish there were $15 lab and xray copays for pets!!!!!!! (I can't shake the feeling that this is all related to that bad shot reaction last year. He was a normal boring cat until then!) I have a medicine to give him now that is globby and gooey. I'm supposed to smear it on his face so he'll lick it off. Another tech recommended putting it on his paws. I tried a little of both. The paw thing was HILARIOUS. I know it's mean to laugh, but oh my goodness. He knows there is something on his paw, because he feels the sticky. But instead of licking it off right away, he runs around on the other 3 feet (ok, runs is being generous) and shakes the "traumatized" paw around. But hey, it works ;)

Year 3 - Day 66 - March 6

I read this book after reading Danielle's review of it a couple weeks ago. I thought it started off excellent and really hooked me for awhile. However, I thought that the last section read like the author was tired of writing and was desperate to find a quick ending. The concept is interesting. In the future, prison is reserved for only the worst of the worst criminals. Other criminals spend a shorter time in jail but then are  injected with a virus that colors their skin a color that corresponds with their crime. After an STD spreads across the country rendering lots of people infertile, Roe v. Wade is reversed and women who have abortions can be convicted of murder. So, the main character is sentenced to being a red for having an abortion. The whole build up of the story really interested me and I couldn't put the book down. However, as it went on, I wasn't as engaged. I will say that it had hints of lots of other times in our history and I am sure the author picked red on purpose (Scarlet Letter, anyone?) but I wish the last portion had been more exciting.

Year 3 - Day 65 - March 5

I started this book for book club in late February about 2 days before our book club meeting. I hadn't been able to get it from the library so I eventually gave in and bought the e-book version. What a waste of money. Since the town is close to here, I did enjoy the mental images of what it may have looked like in this area 150 years ago, but the storyline was dumb. It bothered me even more when I found out it was based on reality. I just felt like it was very blah writing. "This happened, then this, then this, then this, then the end." I'm not usually a fan of books that have the ending at the beginning, either. Oh well. Live and learn! Oh, and book club got cancelled, so I didn't even need to read it! (That's why it took me a couple weeks to come back to it on my Kindle app and finish it once I knew that book club was off.)

Year 3 - Day 64 - March 4

This bag has been tempting me (albeit from afar) for 24 hours now. We got it yesterday at the chocolate festival and it holds a beautiful caramel apple (just like this one.) I know it will be good, but it will also put us into sugar shock, so we're holding off. I don't even want to open the bag because if I can see it, I will eat it!! Luckily, we were at Jeff's house for the last 24 hours or so, so I didn't have to look at it. Now that we're back, I don't know how long I'll be able to hold out. I still feel a little overloaded from the festival yesterday though so I don't want to push it!

Year 3 - Day 63 - March 3

Today was the annual Bel Air Chocolate Festival! Neat idea! For our $5 admission fee, we got 4 tasting tickets. You could get more, but we wound up not needing to. Some places gave out samples for free and we left full of sugar before lunch even started. We also ran into someone we knew from stamping which is fun because it makes us feel like we really live here!! :)

Year 3 - Day 62 - March 2

This is the Jodi Picoult book for this year. When I first read the summary a couple months ago, I didn't think I'd like it too much. I wound up enjoying it way more than I thought I would. The story basically centers around a man on life support and his two children who disagree on the next step. In all of her stories, various narrators take turns giving their point of view. Since the one character is on life support, we learn about him through his memoirs. He is a naturalist who at one point went off to live in the wilderness with wolves. Yes, wolves. He got the wolves to accept him as a member and let them live with him. It sounds crazy, but there really is a guy who did that! Jodi Picoult interviewed him and learned a lot. That guy even wrote a book (The Man Who Lives With Wolves) so I think that piece helped me enjoy the book. I didn't read that book yet but the fact that it happened brought it into the realm of possibility for me. If I didn't know it was possible, my annoyance at that part of the storyline would have made me not like the book. Overall, a decent read and it does make you think about a "What If" question as all her books do. In most "What to do?" life support stories (in movies or the nightly news), the opposing parties have different claims in the "next-of-kin" chain. Maybe spouse vs parents or kid vs parents or kid vs spouse, whatever. When it's two kids who sort of have equal say but maybe not really, that changes things. 

Year 3 - Day 61 - March 1

For our summer trip this year, we're looking at finishing up the West Coast. We did the southern part 2 years ago, the central part of CA last year, and now we have the rest to go! We will probably skip the space between SF and Oregon just to save time because we aren't wine people and there are Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia things that interest us more. I have been sending away for visitors packets for different places and they started arriving! Now we just have to figure out a plan and some dates. For someone who has the summer "off," there are an awful lot of school things on my calendar. Some curriculum writing in June, some Professional Development Training in July, Laptop refresh in July, and an earlyish call date in August. Once we nail down those dates, we can buy plane tickets!