An adult is.....

If Peter only knew that I didn't blog for almost 40 days. I have no life. No time to do anything. I have assignments that are due for class in mid May. I am avoiding them because I can't stand this one class. We have Trauma: Life in the ER on and I am cleaning, trying to organize and work on my assignments.
Yesterday, Peter and I, with some friends raised over $1000 dollars for WALK NOW FOR AUTISM. It was a beautiful day for a 5k and I got to see some of my students parents there. I hope next year, I can make a group that parents and kids can be in. We can all walk together.
On a happier note, I've been wanting to post something cute about my kiddies. The other day I asked them "how old do you have to be to be considered an adult?"
I guess by some kids I am an adult and others, I am not even close to being one....

25, 35, 106, 159....those seem to be a good range right???

Long week

Oh my flower is so dead.I always have the intentions to write something but seem to not get the chance too. I have been so busy with work. Last week was parent/teacher conferences which meant my new room had to be done for parents. I didn't want parents to come to a bare room. Students got to leave early from school which was nice so I got to work a bit after they left. Today was Open House along with a Spaghetti Dinner which I helped organize because I decided to join Booster Club Committee. I've always loved raising money so why not, right?
I am so incredibly tired. It has been a long week or two. I hope I won't get sick. I will be leaving Friday night, taking a red eye to NY to see family. I hope to relax a bit but think I will be busy seeing friends and family. I have slacked on my school work and I feel bad about it. I just have to manage my time like I did last semester. I really want to do well in my classes but it's hard when one is SO boring and I feel like I am not learning very much. I am going to try to work on some assignment now because it's due Sunday.

Purim

Well 2 weeks ago I made homemade chicken soup with my husband which was my grandmother recipe. It inspired me to bake this time around. I have always loved baking. I even thought about one day opening some kind of business and have some of my baked goods for sale.
Since Purim is March 10th this year, I thought to make some delicious hamantashen but use grandma's recipe. I was so excited to make them because I remembered how much fun I had as a child. I was always the one child who would stay with grandma and finish the cookies. Every moment, from buying the rolling pin to taking them out of the oven, I thought about all the fun times I've had with Gramcracker. Grandma would make most of the hamantashen with prune and then some with apricot center; I made them all apricot. I ended up making 80 of them. I have 3 left because I gave almost everyone at work 2 or 3 and mailed a box filled with them for my twin. I told my mom I would send them and would love to send to my sister and aunt too. Here are some pictures of the process to making delicious hamantashen-
This is pretty much all the ingredients and utensils I needed.
I used some apricot spread along with dried apricot to make the filling. Mmmm, I love apricots! Before making the filling, I made the dough. It had to be refrigerated for an hour. The was the worst part because all I wanted to do was start. Once the time past I rolled the dough out and cut my circles and put the filling in. The best part was when they were all finished. The apartment smelled so good and I couldn't wait to eat some! They looked delicious before they were put in the oven but even better when they all came out!

I survived...

I had a long a stressful week. I will list everything that put a strain on my body in no logical order:
1) Mark remained in ICU for a week
2) Had an annual IEP
3) Had 2 addendum meetings so 2 students can mainstream
4) Report cards were due
5) Progress reports were due
6) Had Art Day which was a CRAZY but loads of fun!
7) Dealt with another teacher who does NOTHING for her kids
8) Had a school assignment due
9) Was subpoenaed AGAIN
10) Had to schedule Parent/Teacher Conferences
11) Wrote up students assessments on matrix for meeting this week
12) Thought about my own dad's health
Ahhhhhh, I hope this week will be a bit easier on me.

homemade

Finally I have something to post. I have been working hard on being crafty. I decided to make some hats. I already sent one to my niece in NY and thought about making some for my 2 other nieces. They will be moving to somewhere cold soon so a nice, cute hat will keep them warm. I also decided to make a hat and scarf for my Dad. I always want him to be warm so it will keep his neck, head and heart warm because it was stitched with loved!
I am also going to make burp clothes and a bib for Peter's second cousin who is having a baby. I thought I would at least show the fabric and then will post what they look like once I'm done.
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Kids response to Dads do....

The other day I asked my students what their daddies did. I love what first and second graders say. They always seem to entertain me. I wanted to share this; it's word for word:
"Oh my dad, he works. He works and work.He drives a tight truck."
"He works on satellites at Raytheon."
"He goes to work everyday and doesn't get time off. He drives a truck. It goes fast at 14 miles."
"My daddy goes to CBS to make shows."
"He works at Home People." She was close..Home Depot.
"He fixes cars with tools."
"He works on computers and types letters."
"My dad works far. He drives and goes on the freeway to go to work."
My dad works in the office. He drives a big, huge truck. He works with Mommy."

birthday

I had such a wonderful birthday! It couldn't have been any better. I got to see my cute nieces, had a delicious dinner, got my GPS that I wanted and then celebrated with my cute little students. I invited them to my birthday party the week before and they were all really excited! They sang me "Happy birthday" and we all shared some pizza and cake. Later that night, Peter and I went to a nice place for some dinner...I had a really good strawberry martini.

My birthday continued all the way until Friday (my birthday was on Feb.2 which was a Monday and the day after the Superbowl). I decided to bake cupcakes, make deviled eggs, dates stuffed with blue cheese wrapped in bacon, and a chive cream cheese, cucumber, tomato dish. The food was great. I had it at my friend's new house and guests were from my old and new job. It was nice that now my friends all know each other. It ended up that one of the my new friends went to high school with the home owner's husband. It's such a small world.

To continue a nice, relaxing birthday month, I will be sitting all day, knitting a hat for myself, my niece and my dad, make a purse using an old shirt and duct tape. I love spending a rainy, cloudy, cold day inside being crafty!

My delicious pre-birthday dinner (Feb.1st, a burger with sauteed mushrooms)

My birthday celebration at work with the kids
My tasty strawberry martini
Fun with the host of my party (with adults this time)

IEP

I know working in special education can be difficult but since I have been doing IEP's, they have all made progress. The IEP meetings go fairly well and parents are proud of each little step their child does; me too! I am finishing one and all I can think of is how depressing this poor situation is. My poor little student has gone through hell and back. She has made little to no progress and it makes me feel like a failure. I know it's her disability that is holder her back but still. It makes me feel so sad and I'm not looking forward to her meeting.

I will have to write a response to this after my meeting just to vent or write about how great it went.

P.S. I really needed to write something because I don't want my blog flower to die.
This weekend I can write more blogs because I will be done with my 3 IEP's and no assignments for school until next week.

Today

I had the day off and enjoyed doing nothing! I ended up working on a 1,000 piece puzzle and finished it! I went on a nice lunch date with the hubby. We went to Love Birds. I had the turkey, avocado, and bacon sandwich on sourdough. It was delicious!

I am now planning for the week and listening to my handy-man husband plunge the bathtub. It has been clogged since we have moved in (5 years ago). When we found this place, they warned us that the piping has problems. I can not wait until we have our own house. We won’t have to worry about plunging (unless brother-in-law comes over to go to the bathroom). He has a habit of clogging the bowl.

I am also looking to add on to my baby names list. I’ve made it into a Word document and will need to write it on Excel once the time comes. I have 20 boys’ names and 21 girls’ names. I think I will ask my sister for their Excel program equation to figure out some combination's of first and middle names. I promise you, it may sound crazy that I did this already but I want to be prepared. There’s no baby but it’s fun thinking about them! Is it normal to go back and forth on when to have one??

MLKjr

On Thursday, I read Martin's Big Words to the class. My students really enjoy when I read to them. Before doing a art project called "Love comes in many colors," (students mix paints together to match their skin color, put paint on their hand, make hand print inside a heart, hang up). My students had to tell me what they learned from the book. I wanted to share their thoughts because I can see that they really got an idea who he was-a wonderful man!

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr....
wanted everyone to be friends
was a nice man
marched, sang and talked to people in the hot and cold weather
died very badly by a mean person
didn't ride the bus
could sit anywhere after a person sat in front
worked for a church
helped people get along.

Thoughts

Petey made a Widget. It will motivate me to write more often. I think about all these things that I should say but have difficulty just sitting down and writing.
I will post new pictures of my hair. I keep playing with it. I love it!
I have to write about how cute my students are....I want to be able to use this has a teacher journal.
I have been fighting a cold, so I want to write all the things I've tried to help get over my cold.
So...hopefully there will be 3 new ones coming up.

If you like my new little Widget, my blog flower, get it from Peter

New do

I must write about my wonderful vacation but right now I have to say "I LOVE MY HAIR!!!" My 1:1 aide in my classroom cut her hair over break and when she came to school I just loved it! I thought it was adorable which made me think about my hair. I thought about dreading it or just keeping it really long. When I have long hair, I usually just put it up because it gets so heavy and hot.
As many of you know, I love charity work, volunteering...anything to help someone in need. I have a student who is suffering from cancer and has very little hair. I have so much, thick, beautiful hair that I am always putting up...why not start the new year with chopping it off? I measured my hair in my pony tail-11 inches. I've already donated my hair before so all I needed was the address to Locks of Love,a ziplock bag and a hair appointment. I got all three and chopped my hair off today at 4:00pm. I love it so much!!! I now can wake up and do nothing to my hair and it will still look good. I just thought I would post some pictures up here. Enjoy!!