Bella

I realized there wasn’t a picture of Bella in this post.  If I didn’t come back and add a picture of her I don’t think I’d hear the end of it from her Grammie.

Why did I bother planning?

SATURDAY- We had a nice but short visit with my grandparents. Shortly after they got here they said they wanted to do some shopping  and wanted me to chauffer.  Being a bigger town there are more store options and some competitive pricing for items.  The thanksgiving turkey was bough here because of the lower cost.  We got in from shopping just in time to watch the Razorback game.  I made supper while Grannie hemmed some of my pants that were too longs  and Joel and Pop watched the full game. I listened and watched while things were cooking.

(This is a picture from Saturday night of Chip begging to get out of the bedroom and see my grandparents. He cracked me up so much I can to get my phone to take a picture.)

SUNDAY-Since I had worked so hard Saturday cleaning for the grandparent visit I decided I was doing nothing Sunday.I stayed in my PJ’s all day. We left briefly to put gas in Joel’s truck and get a newspaper so I could cut out the coupons.  Only to discover they take out the coupons if you buy it from a stand and are not subscribed. Bummer.

MONDAY- I didn’t have any work scheduled so planned to have some computer time then get to house cleaning.  Just as I was finishing up on the computer I got some personal news that upset me and I spent the rest of the day in a haze between crying and trying to work out and fix the issues.  Needless to say no housework was done.

TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY- I was back in preschool.  It wasn’t a bad day but it wasn’t great. LOL  not to far into the first day I remembered why I left preschool to begin with. It was nice to have a fairly easy schedule with playing in centers, PE time, and a long nap the day sped by.  The downside is it’s preschool.  Lots of tattling, very little attention during the lesson and they had no concept of walking quiet down the hall in a line.  Yes to some that’s not a big deal but to my very particular and organized self it all grated my nerves and I came home each day wore out and with a huge headache.

   

WEDNESDAY- I only worked for the morning and had planned to come home eat lunch and clean house. No such luck I was wiped out I came in took a nap and just watched tv.  I did go hang out with my cousin for a little bit.  We didn’t do much a quick trip to SAMS CLUB then just chattin.

THURSDAY- I was not scheduled to work anywhere so had all plans to clean house this day but Wednesday evening I got a call from the Elementary school to sub. As much as I needed the day at home to clean, grocery shop and cook I had to work.  #1 because I can’t turn a day of work. Any bit to add to the paycheck. ( I got my first paycheck for the half day that went in this pay period and it was a whooping $22.) #2 I’ve been desperately waiting to sub at the Elementary school. That is 2,3,4th grades. Exactly where I want to be.  I was in a 3rd grade classroom. This confirmed my thoughts.  If I teach I want 2,3,or 4th.  I felt it was a chore in preschool but this experience was great. I absolutely loved it. I actually had 2 classes because at this school they chance between 2 classes. I had my homeroom  for like 15 minutes then they went to a teacher for Reading, Spelling and English. Then switch back to their home room (me) for Math, Science and Social Studies.  I hope now that I’ve been there once they will call me more often.

Well despite working a full day I felt pretty good when I got home. Since I had the energy I had intentions to finally get on the house cleaning.  Well as this post is titled, “ Why did I bother planning?” I came in, change out of my work clothes and got the the kitchen to get started.  Only to find a water main was busted and we had no water til 7 p.m. Yet again no housework done.

FRIDAY- I worked all day at preschool and it was physically agonizing.  They were having a safety fair where the classes rotated around the school meeting and learning from the local police officers, forest rangers, fire fighters and ambulance drivers.  By the end of the day my head was throbbing so bad I wanted to cry.

SATURDAY- Finally got around to cleaning house. It needed it, I would have been so embarrassed if anyone had come by. The thing is it didn’t even take me all that long to get the work done.  In about an hour I had a load of laundry going, the dishwasher loaded and running, another load that I hand washed the bed made and the newspaper strewn around the living room end tables picked up.  I then was able to watch some tv and get back to crosstitching. Got a nap and a shower in before the Razorback game started.

 

So here I am on the computer and watchin the game.  Searching the crowd for my too lucky cousin who got to go to the game. After blogging and checking email and facebook I’ll do some coupon searching.  After the game I’ll go pick up a few groceries for the short week.

I’m still not used to the idea of taking pictures of things to post.  This week I scrapped up some stuff offline to color up my blog but I’ll try to get better.

We will be in our hometown next weekend for Thanksgiving so probably no blog til the following week.  Until then….

Feeling the need for some routine

 

SUNDAY-I was laying in bed this night and felt the room shake a little.  It was odd and I remember thinking if we were on the top level or had before felt unsteadiness it would be understandable but neither of these are true.  I joked maybe it was the earth a shakin.  Low and behold I later found out it was indeed an earthquake.  First I’ve ever experienced. My grandparents are coming to visit next weekend.  My grandmother knows I am into crafting and I’m sure she’ll ask to see my progress. I have been crosstitching a lot lately preparing a Christmas present for my her.  So to prepare something to show her I have jumped in over the weekend and will continue this week with doing some other crafts that I can show her.  Hope it’ll work  and I don’t have to say ‘look don’t you remember what you always told us as kids that around the holiday’s you just don’t ask too many questions?” I hope she’ll just be impressed with what I’ve done so far and I can get her distracted in that.

 

           

                   (over flowing craft basket)

MONDAY- I’m going to try this week to not go back to bed after Joel goes to work to get me a bit of a routine going.  It was a good thing I got up and began doing my housework early on.  My dad is in town at my “Texarkana grandparents” (his mom and dad/my step grandparents). He called and asked if I wanted run around town and do some errands with him.  I don’t spend much time with my dad, and I knew if I stayed home I’d just finish my house work and sit around crafting and watching tv so out I went with dad. Nothing spectacularly interesting for me.  He is setting up a home business of welding so we went around town so he could do some price checking. I got home a little after noon, ate lunch, napped and did my form of relaxing, watching tv and crafting.  I’m making good progress on my crafts for Christmas presents. 

TUESDAY-I finally got completely set up on the substitute website with 2 local districts. As well as expanded my sub availability to the preschool and middle schools in hopes to add some jobs. I’m not getting as much work at this point as I had hoped and something’s got to change.  Other than this my day was pretty routine, well my current lazy version of routine. LOL The afternoon/evening did get a little rocky with the weather turning bad.  Nothing bad where we are at just rainy.  But there were tornado’s south of us heading in our direction and wasn’t sure where it would stop. Also a tornado was near enough our home town that they held the kids from getting on the busses until the weather stabalized.  I never heard anymore so I guess things didn’t turn out too terrible anywhere.

WEDNESDAY- I had my first experience at middle school today.  It was so so. Being middle school the students do change classes so the nice things with that is that I only had each class for 45 minutes at a time.  The teacher had left work so basically I just passed it out and monitored that the students were on task.  The morning classes were really good. The afternoon classes were a little more talkative and disrespectful.  However I stood my ground. I let them know I was boss and they were going to treat me with respect and accept what I say goes and not grumble at me. Despite really not doing a lot of activity as you would with elementary level I was wore out.  I came in, popped a frozen pizza in the oven an sat on the couch just staring at the tv for a few hours.  I didn’t even craft.  I was in bed by 8:30 that night. 

THURSDAY- Well again I stayed up after Joel went to work. Yeah me! However, I didn’t go farther than that to actually get real work done.  Since I didn’t have any out of the house work set up for the day I thought I had time to get things done later.  I ended up watching tv and playing around on the computer for hours until my dad called to come use my printer.  I jumped up, dressed and started straightening up a little.  We have been doing really good keeping the house clean. Usually after supper I don’t do much so being that I’m not working full time I take care of things the next morning.  Well since I worked Wednesday the house hadn’t been “cleaned” since Tuesday. I felt it was a mess, though it must have not been that bad because once I jumped in and tackled it I was done within an hour. This not working full time out of the house on a regular basis I’m falling into a lazy pattern.  I must get myself in a better routine so when I do work it doesn’t kick my tail.

(Clothes folded but still on the kitchen table, mine and joel’s lunch boxes, my school bag…AAAAGGGGGHHH! the mess)

FRIDAY- Today I was back at the Primary school (K-1) in PE. This was a good subbing experience. Nice because I had lots of kids not just 1 group all day.  The rough parts were-- it’s little little kids ,2 classes at a time so 30-45 kids at a time, for a whole hour, in PE. I am one of those structured, organized, ordered teachers.  (My teacher friends reading this don’t hold it against me)  The wildness that comes with PE was  um..different for me.  Also I’m used to teaching all subjects so what I do all day is different.  When you teach just 1 subject it’s a repeat all day of the same lesson, recitation, and exercising. REDUNDENT for a teacher used to variety throughout the day. However I do now know that a coke is 150 calories and has 3 times more sugar than children need and even 2 times more than an adult needs. I also got further proof in my belief that rote memorization/ recitation does work in some cases. Each week they have identified another bone of the body.  Every PE session (2 a week) they recite all the bones they’ve learned to date.  I was amazed at how many of these kindergarten and first graders could name and locate so many bones.  Many that I myself couldn’t even name.  A plus of being in PE I was VERY active.  I did a lot of walking around that big gym tying shoes, encouraging kids to participate and quail arguing. I don’t know if it was the force to be out of the house and going, the physical activity level of PE, or that my body is getting more into routine but I came home and was not dead on my feet.  It was nice.  Now if next week will be as good.

SATURDAY-Now that I have spent plenty of time on the computer I must get up and do some deep cleaning. My grandparents will be here in a few hours.  I want it to be spic and span (or Mr. Clean, or Fabuloso, or Lysol--whatever cleaning supplies are in the cabinet lol)clean in here, and have some food prepared.  I also hope to have enough time to continue adding to my craft supply so grannie doesn’t question what I’ve been doing with my free time since I can’t show her my original craft project.  So I must get off the couch and get going.

Until next week…

 

  

(Bella telling me to get off the computer and take her out and Chip just looking cute)

Luck is coming up! So is my crafting bug :)

MONDAY- My great aunt doesn’t work on Mondays so several times since I’ve moved to the area we’ve gotten together on Mondays. This week we went to a flower nursery down the road for her to get some plants, wondered around kmart for a while then headed to a near by consignment shop.  It’s a cute little shop just around the corner from my house and has some nice things.  I held my self back from getting clothes I don’t really need right now but I did find some black dressy flats that I’ve been needing for work. Came home but had gone too long without eating I guess and ended up with a headache. One of those that even napping wouldn’t shake and I couldn’t do much more for the rest of the day.

TUESDAY- Nothing much today. I picked up a few things from Walmart for a few meals. Got another pair of dressy flats, these brown to match the rest of my “business casual” color scheme. For supper I planned to make this french bread pizza that we enjoy. It’s super easy and really yummy.   After pulling it out of the oven I realized I skipped the tomato sauce that goes between the bread and the cheese.  So instead of pizza we had cheesy bread sticks but it was still good.  We just dipped it into the skipped tomato sauce.

WEDNESDAY- Got up early today to get the house cleaned because the water would be turned off for a few hours due to maintance. Finally got confirmation from my second district I’ve been working to sub in that they had approval and were setting me up in the online system. As a teacher I was always sure to leave PLENTY of work when I was gone.  But I know many subs don’t.  So I want to be prepared with my own “sub bag” of activities.  I plan to make up a bag with some fun color/activity sheets, age appropriate academic worksheets as well as a list of my educational games that I can input their current work to play.  I’m also taking a few books with me.  There is so much you can do with a book that should fill time if needed.

THURSDAY- Well there was no sleeping in today either.  For one my family thinks since they are all awake and at work (despite me not having work) that I too should be awake.  So once they all get to work they text me.  Mom, husband, cousin.  All of them. LOL I was just about to doze back off and maintance began banging around.  The man that lived upstairs has moved out and they are now cleaning up and fixing things. Thumping on the floor, dropping things, hammering and even using a hand saw all right about my head.  Yeah right, no more sleep for me. Did the usual around the house, pick up, check facebook and computer, then watched tv and worked on my crafts. After Joel got home to take over puppy duty I went out on the town.  I met my cousin and we went shopping.  Well mostly we just looked but we did pick up a few things.  I was needing some jewlery to go with my “business casual” work attire.  Found some I’m really anxious to get to ,]wear. We also stopped in at my new favorite store Hobby Lobby. I looked, dreamed and bought a few things.  Nothing for me though.  In hopes to reduce the heavy costs that Christmas entails, and to scratch my craft bug, I am attempting to make me of the gifts.  I was out late but as always I had a good time hanging out with my cousin.

FRIDAY- When I got home Thursday night my husband said he had looked on my substitute website and found me a job for half day Friday afternoon.  I was so excited I had my first job. Naturally as my luck works, I got a call from the school early Friday morning wanting to know if I could come in for a whole day sub.  Unfortunately because I’d already accepted a half day I couldn’t’ change. My luck that all this time nothing and basically 2 offers in one day.Well since it was only a half day and my first day I thought I’d go ahead and wear my heels.  MISTAKE! I came home with screaming feet. They hurt so bad. The sub job was good though.  I was actually subbing as a teachers aide. I’m excited to be back to work and in the classroom only if it’s a day here and there and with various classes.

SATURDAY- Well I had hoped after a nights sleep my feet/legs would be better but no such luck.  So therefore today will mostly be spent on the couch.  Not out of laziness as usual but in hopes that staying off my legs the pain will ease up. I won’t complain.  I have Christmas crafts to make and a DVR to empty.  (I’m at over 90% full.  Must empty a bit before next weeks shows start.  ) 

I’m not ready to put up pictures of my craft projects, though I am taking pictures of before and during to post with the after pictures later. I took pictures of my new shoes on my cell phone then had to send it off for repair so oops forget those pictures. Took a picture of the puppies cuddled in blankets on a chilly morning but it was too dark you can hardly see it.  So sadly this is a picture less blog today.  I must try to find my charger for the real camera so I’ll be more apt to take pictures.

--Until next time, have a good week!