Growing and Learning (Slice of Life Day Thirty-One)

Whoo Hoo!  I made it!  31 Slice of Life posts in 31 days!

I am sitting here in my dining room with the sun streaming in the open windows with a breeze gently flowing in while I reflect on this writing challenge and how it has helped me grow and learn.

There is a wonderful picture book by Edith Pattou titled Mrs. Spritzer's Garden.  In the book a teacher plants and cares for a group of seeds (symbolizing students) over the year by caring for them and giving them what they need to succeed.  I feel that at the beginning of this experience I was a bit like a new seed - tossed into the ground without really knowing how the journey was going to go.  With a bit of watering and tending from my writing community's words of encouragement, I stretched my writing skills and grew out of my seed casing into a wee flower.  Thinking back to my posts some days I grew rapidly by really focusing in on one slice of my day and carefully crafting my writing with choice words.  Other days I didn't grow as much through hastily thrown together posts or distracted writing.  At the conclusion of this daily writing challenge I feel like an early spring flower - just sprouting out of the ground with the hope of someday growing into a blossoming, colorful flower.  

Thank you to the "master gardeners" Stacey and Ruth for inspiring us to write about slices of our lives!   Thank you to all the "gardeners" of the Slice of Life challenge!

Bring On The Grocery Shopping (Slice of Life Day Thirty)

Today was one of those days where a trip to the grocery store was necessary due to the complete lack of food in our home.  I prepared for the trip like a Girl Scout troop preparing for a camping trip.  I took stock of what was in the pantry and refrigerator.  A game plan for upcoming meals was mapped out.  The coupon organizer was poured through and assisted in the creation of the seemingly never-ending list that was developing.  After a quick check in with my husband to make sure I had what he needed written on the list, I grabbed my keys, reusable bags, the bag of coupons and the checklist and headed out the door.

I love going grocery shopping in the middle of a weekday because there is less people to try and maneuver around in the aisles.  I try my best to organize my list in order of how the store is mapped out so I don't forget anything, but in evidently I always have to double back for something I missed.  With the quickness and concentration of a Jedi I moved through the aisles plucking items off shelves and tossing them into the cart.  With a sense of accomplishment I crossed things off the list with gusto.  At last I approached the checkout lane and proceeded to load up the conveyor belt with all my purchases.

Now comes the best moment - how much did I save in coupons?  Each time I grocery shop like this I feel like it is a challenge to myself to save as much as possible with coupons from the Sunday paper.  With great satisfaction today's total savings just from coupons was $14!  

Spring Cleaning Mission Monday (Slice of Life Day Twenty-Nine)

Nick over at thenerdyteacher posted on his blog a Mission Monday challenge to those who wish to accept it.  Traditionally during the season of spring people engage in spring cleaning of their homes.  In his post he proposes that people also take the time to do some digital cleaning of their home and/or school computers.

I tend to be one of the those people that like to hold onto various items for memories, or to possibly be used later in life or with the hope that it will inspire me to try something new.  I am not a hoarder however!    When my husband and I moved into our house late last fall and we were packing our apartment up I got over saving some things really fast and let go of them either through pitching them or donating them.  Today as I move through cleaning our new house I need to keep this in mind to help me weed through things that really need to be kept or things that can be removed from our house.

I also need to repeat that practice and go through my laptop files, RSS feeds and bookmarks.  I am certain I will find some files that could be deleted and others that could be saved for the future.  My bookmarks definitely need reorganized and I have played with the idea of moving them over to a social bookmarking site like Delicious.  Maybe now is the time!  Also, my RSS feeds need to be weeded through so I can make some decisions of which I should keep, if I need to delete any or if there are any I need to add to my Google Reader.

So now that I have said I am going to do all of this I need to get moving on it all!    

Love My Parents (Slice of Life Day Twenty-Eight)

Quite simply put - I love my parents!

Today my husband and I are going on a date adventure.  We won tickets to go to the Cleveland Cavaliers game today and we decided to make a day trip out of it and visit some friends as well.  We have a dog and since we would be gone most of the day we needed someone to either come to our house and let her out a few times or someone be willing to adopt her for the day.  Parents to the rescue!  They kindly volunteered to have her come to their house for a "sleepover" with them and their dogs.  So now we don't have to rush back to get her this evening before my parents head to bed!  Yeah Mom and Dad!

Also, this morning my husband had to attend a work meeting before we could leave town.  So I dropped him off at the meeting and then headed to my parents house to drop off the dog.  Bless my mother for greeting me at the door with a "Do you need a cup of coffee?"  Yes!  So as I settled into their couch to drink it my father so kindly offered to make me breakfast.  Yes again!  I felt like I was back home visiting from college as he whipped up eggs, bacon and toast for me.  Nothing tastes better than a home-cooked meal that you didn't have to prepare or clean up! 

So now I am sitting at a Panera (with a pleasantly full belly) down the street from my husband's work waiting patiently to get the call to go pick him so we can head off on our date day! 

Stop Motion Video Club (Slice of Life Day Twenty-Seven)

After hearing about, reading about and thinking about stop motion videos this year my friend Tony over at Learn Me Sumthin' and I are plunging into this world with a group of 3rd and 4th graders.  We decided to start small this year focusing on two grade levels and then next year possibly branch into more grade levels.  The group will meet once a week for 5 weeks for an hour after school.  We sent out the forms this past week and I was not quite sure what the response would be.

The response was awesome!  We have 38 students who brought back forms expressing interest in joining the "club".   So now we have to start laying some foundations for this to get off the ground successfully.  We are crafting an agreement for the students to sign laying out the expectations for group members.  Anyone have ideas of what we could include?

A big thank you to Kevin at Kevin's Meandering Mind for inspiring this journey!

Lenten Friday (Slice of Life Day Twenty-Six)

Fridays during Lent season are always a difficult time for a catholic girl like me.  I take pride in practicing in the abstinence of meat and poultry on Fridays during Lent.  There are a few things working against me though during this time.

I am an Irish lady who enjoys her "meat and potatoes" at meal times.  I admire vegetarians from afar and their ability to create amazing meals that exclude all types of meat. Me?  I come up pretty short in that department. When I think of meal planning it all starts with the meat.  Will the meal be all about chicken, red meat or pork?  Unless I start with the idea of pasta, but then it turns into what type of meat will be in the pasta dish......

Also, I have unfortunate genetic makeup of having food allergies.  I am talking MAJOR food allergies!  I bet when you first starting reading this post you thought I would have fish on Fridays like most catholics.  Wrong!  I am allergic to all fresh fish.  Maybe you thought I could eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches during Lent.  Wrong again!  I am allergic to all nuts.  Add legumes to the list of things I am allergic too as well.  I also have the raw deal of being allergic to chocolate!

So you see....Fridays during Lent center around food choices like cheese pizza, noodles with mariana sauce and cheese quesadillas for me.  Heres to one more Friday this season!

Salon Time (Slice of Life Day of Twenty-Five)

I have been going to the same hair dresser now for 10 years.  I have known her longer than I have known my husband!  I love going to the salon she co-owns because it always feels like stopping by a friends house for a visit.  If you have seen the movie Steel Magnolias it is exactly like Trudy's salon.  You come in the back door, announce your arrival and grab a cup of coffee or tea.  You settle in to "catching-up" conversation about what's new, how the family is doing and the local news.  Depending on the time of day it's either daytime soaps, news or Jeopardy on the TV in the corner.  You also can always count on the salon being decorated to reflect the current holiday or season.  Today I had the pleasure of stopping by, sipping a cup of coffee, chatting and getting my hair done!

Teacher and Student Connections (Slice of Life Day Twenty-Four)

Today I had the really awesome experience of bring a teacher to her students even though she was at home recovering from a surgery.  Yesterday she had contacted me with the idea of using a video chat tool to be able to connect with her students.  She wanted to reassure them that she was recovering well, hear about what was going on with them and just overall check in.  We worked on getting her home computer set up with a video chat service (iChat) and scheduled a time that I would go into her classroom and we would "call" her.

You should have seen the faces light up when her face popped up on the screen and the kids realized they could see and talk to her!   And not only the students faces lit up, but hers as well!

The kids took turns asking questions about how her surgery went and what she was up to at home.  A few of the kids took the opportunity to share some tidbits about what was going on in their lives outside of school with her.  It was really interesting to see the connection between the teacher and the students and how much the opportunity to touch base meant to both sides.

Later on in the day the teacher contacted me again through video chat and shared how she wished we had thought earlier about this idea and how she may have been able to read aloud the story for the day.  How cool would that have been?!

Peaceful Quiet (Slice of Life Day Twenty-Three)

Tonight was one of those rare occasions where the husband had to work tonight, there were no meetings to attend, no dinner plans with friends and no pressing housekeeping to be done.  Nick over at TheNerdyTeacher posted a "Mission Monday" blog about taking the time for educators to do something nice for themselves.  So I snapped up the opportunity to have a "Mary Night". 

I decided to turn off the cell phone ringer while I accomplished 3 things I have been wanting to do uninterrupted and in almost silence for awhile.  I felt giddy as I changed my settings from "normal" to "silent"!  I did feel a twinge of guilt at the thought of maybe missing my mother call, or an important work call, but quickly quieted that thought with "So let them leave a voicemail!"

I then proceed to complete a 30 minute session of yoga on Wii Fit Plus and focused on my desire to get better at making working out a priority for me.  I did turn the sound down to as soft as I could get it but still being able to hear the instructor.  It took a lot of work though to get my brain focused on yoga and not on other things.  I had to tell myself to be quiet!

After that I prepared my favorite thing to eat - noodles!  Nothing fancy here people, just buttered noodles with some parmesan cheese.  I did not turn on the TV or iPod.  I did not check email, Twitter or my Google Reader.  I did not make the most of my time and try to squeeze in a housekeeping chore like unloading the dishwasher.  I stood there and watched the water boil and listen to the sounds outside.

As I ate my yummy noodles I opened a new book that I have been wanting to start for a few days and started reading with a vengeance.  The silence of the house enveloped me and I got lost in the world of the story.  Little did I know but 30 minutes had passed when I noticed it getting a little bit harder to see the pages because of the lack of light in the room.

Thanks Nick for encouraging me to take time for me!

Perseverance of a Student (Slice of Life Day Twenty-Two)

Today a student was thinking with more innovation than I was and this led to some perseverance on his part and some learning on my part.  I loved every second of it!

This student had been diligently working on a project about the Titanic displaying all the knowledge he had gained through reading books and researching on the web.  He had artfully created colored text boxes, sharp looking topic headings in each box and had imported eye catching pictures of the Titanic to support his text.

But was he satisfied with his final project? No!

Was he going to settle with just these items on his final product like everyone else?  No!  

He posed the question, "Can I find a video about the Titanic and put it on my project?"  Sure! Why not!

He and I tried every which way we could think of to get a video from the web onto his Pages document.  We tried clicking and dragging like you can do with an image.  Nope, didn't work.  We tried using the embedding code.  Nope, that didn't work either.  Then we came to the thought of trying to create a live link to the video on the web.  Bingo!  That worked!

Because of this student's creativity, and his perseverance in wanting this video on his project, it pushed me to not give up on trying solutions to fulfill his wishes.  I appreciate him having patience, and maybe some faith, in me and my abilities!  It was wonderful to see his eyes light up with excitement when we got the link to work!  

Grandma's Magical Quilt (Slice of Life Day Twenty-One)

I truly believe I have the best quilt in the world and it holds magical powers. My beautiful quilt was handmade by my Grandma in 1983 just for me. It has bright sunny yellow, crisp green and vibrant red colors throughout the fabric she used for my quilt. I remember when I got it and was told I could use it when I got older. It sat for years in my closet inside a pillowcase to keep it clean. I would be allowed to get it out every once in awhile to admire it, but it always returned to its pillowcase for safe-keeping. I yearned for the day that I could use the quilt for what it was intended for!

Finally, when I reached college age, it was decided I was old enough/responsible enough to use the quilt. During college it resided on my bed and then later on in life it turned into my "couch quilt". I always have it spread across my lap when I am sitting on the couch or I have it wrapped around me like a cocoon if I am laying on the couch napping or watching TV.

I know this quilt has magical powers from my Grandma. Whenever I am sad or sick the quilt makes me feel better by surrounding me with her warmth. Whenever I am exhausted it helps make me comfortable enough to sleep soundly. Being wrapped up in my quilt it is like being wrapped up in my Grandma's wonderful arms!

Family times (Slice of Life Day Twenty)

So I am sitting here surrounded by family at Cincinnati's Hofbrauhaus. We are here to celebrate my father's and brother's birthdays. It occured to me I had to get a post in to keep up with my slice of life writing challenge. My brother so kindly slid across the table his iPhone for me to use for this post. Got to love family and have to love technology!

So Proud! (Slice of Life Day Nineteen)

Today our district held it's 3rd annual Dodgeball Tournament with an elementary 5th grade bracket, a middle school bracket, a high school bracket and an adult league bracket. This was the first year for the fifth grade bracket to be included and after tonight's events I am so glad they did!

The gymnasium was packed, the crowd was loud and the games were lightening quick to watch. My school's fifth grade team was absolutely amazing to watch. They had actual skill and strategy to their games. They exhibited such teamwork and showed support and encouragement towards one another my heart swelled with pride. It was so awesome to watch because in those fifth grade boys I could see the little versions of themselves from long ago when I had them in second grade. I screamed my head off for each of their three games and now I am home drinking water trying to sooth my scratchy throat. But it was well worth it to be a part of cheering them on to the championship round where they won!!!!!!

Time Flies! (Slice of Life Day Eighteen)

5 years ago today my life changed forever.

I went on my first date with the amazing man who later became my husband.  That day seems so long ago sometimes, but other times it feels like it was yesterday.

I remember walking out to his car to leave on our journey and thinking how exciting it was and how nervous I was for this date.  The conversation in the car on the way to the restaurant was general getting-to-know you stuff,  but it seemed to come easy to us.  Throughout dinner the conversation continued to flow naturally and it was so comfortable to be around him.  After dinner ended we agreed to go to another establishment to check in on March Madness scores and to keep talking.  We ended up deciding to go see the movie "Hitch" with Will Smith to extend our time together.  If you have ever seen that movie you might agree it may not have been the best choice for a first date movie, but we didn't know!  When I finally was dropped off that evening I felt like I was on cloud nine and I had found someone special.

I guess my hunch was right that night as he is still by my side after 5 years!

Irish Imagination (Slice of Life Story Day Seventeen)

I love when St. Patrick's Day rolls around in an elementary school, especially in the primary grades where imagination still runs rampant.

In one of the schools I teach in some teachers pretend that a leprechaun visits the classroom and does "silly" things like tipping chairs over, leaving books opened on desks, writing notes on whiteboards and spilling green confetti to make a mess.  The little ones go crazy for this stuff! Their imaginations go into hyper-drive and dream up things you never thought possible.  All of a sudden kids are screeching they saw the leprechaun run across the room or they hear tiny footsteps on the ceiling.  The kids end up spending part of the day trying to find and catch the leprechaun.  It's always great fun to watch!

Spring Smells and Sounds (Slice of Life Day Sixteen)

Spring Smells and Sounds

Crisp Air

Basketballs Bouncing

Squeaky Bikes

Musty Mulch

Runners Feet

Dogs Barking

Mesquite Grills

Birds Chirping

Children Laughing

Energy Zapped (Slice of Life Day Fifteen)

Do you ever have a day where it feels like someone forgot to charge your batteries the night before and then all of a sudden your battery dies?  Do you ever feel like all the energy has been drained out of your body and no amount of pop, coffee or candy is going to kick start you into gear? Do you ever feel like the pep in your step has been zapped?

I do.


Here's to having a difficult adjustment to the time change!

Irish With An Attitude (Slice of Life Story Day Fourteen)

 I had to go into school today to take care of a few things and there was a huge surprise waiting for me on my desk.  I had actually won for the first time ever a basket in the theme basket raffle that was held during Springtacular (school's spring carnival)!!  The theme basket I won was "Irish With An Attitude", which is how I think some people might describe me!

It is filled with all sorts of goodies.  I scored a gift card to Jeni's Ice Cream which makes such delicacies as Salty Caramel Ice Cream.  I got a few more gift cards to different restaurants and speciality shops in my hometown.  Also in the basket were a t-shirt and umbrella baring the "Irish Is An Attitude" logo.  There was a beautiful shamrock lanyard which was awesome because I was thinking about buying a lanyard this week.  There is a great wall hanging I am thinking of using to decorate our downstairs bathroom with since it is bare right now!  

One of the neatest things in this basket was a traditional Irish worry stone.  It is made of connemara marble which is a green marble found in West Ireland.  It is crafted to usually be round with a slight indentation in the middle for you to rub your thumb on.  Legend is that by rubbing a piece of connemara marble you will relieve your worries and bring good luck.  There is a saying that goes with the worry stone:

There are only two things to worry about: either you are well or you are sick. If you are well, then there is nothing to worry about, but if you are sick there are two things for you to worry about: either you get well or you will die. If you get well, then there is nothing to worry about. If you die, then there are two things to worry about: either you go up or you go down. If you go up, then there is nothing to worry about. But if you go down, you will be so busy shaking hands with old friends you won't have time to worry.

Here's a snapshot of the basket before my husband tore into it to find out all the goodies I had won:

Here's a picture of the shamrock lanyard and Irish Worry Stone:

3 days and counting until St. Patrick's Day!

Dreaming of Housekeeping Magic (Slice of Life Story Day Thirteen)

I sit here in my house looking around at what all needs to be done and thinking to myself "How in the world does this always seem to pile up?"  Cluttered kitchen countertops with piles of mail, magazines and other random items.  Laundry that needs washed, dried, folded and put away.  Carpets that need vacuumed and floors that need swept and mopped.  And the list goes on.....

Sometimes my mind starts churning at the thought of magic housekeeping helpers that could help make all my dreams come true.  Here are the key characters that keep popping up in my head:

Dish Fairy:  She appears each night in my kitchen to clean up the remnants of the day and put all dishes, left out containers and pots and pans away squeaky clean.

Gain Laundry Detergent Lady (from commercial):  She appears once a week to take care of all our laundry needs from start to finish. 


Mr. Clean (from commercial):  He arrives once a week to take care of sweeping floors, mopping floors, and scrubbing bathrooms to a sparkly finish.

Rachel Ray or Ina Garten or Guy Fieri (Food Network Stars):  Honestly, I think they would have to live with us to keep up with the duties I dream up for them.  Or I guess they could alternate in some way.  They would cheerily shop for and make us all our meals and serve them up with gusto!

Doby (from Harry Potter):  Now I don't want to "own" him but I really like the idea of having someone pick up the house and keep it in order.  I would like for him to live with us as well!

Isn't it so nice to dream?!

The Past Comes Back (Slice of Life Story Day Twelve)

This evening was our school's annual Spingtacular (think Spring Carnival) and as always this event never ceases to amaze on so many levels.  I am fortunate to work in a building that has a wonderful PTO who organizes this event.  It is the PTO's biggest fundraiser because of the MASSIVE turnout it has due to the great support of our families.

It's great to be at this event and see current students with their families enjoying quality time together.  Interacting with them outside the school day is a wonderful way to connect with a student and see a different side of them.  But this isn't my favorite part of Springtacular...

I love visiting with the students that come back after having left our school for middle school to attend this event!  When they walk up to me with a huge grin and a "Hey Mrs. B!" it fills me with happiness to see who they have become.  They share with me how school is going, what extracurricular activities they are involved in, how their families are and their favorite memories of our year together.   It lets me know that I played a part in their development and that they knew I cared for them as a student.

So when this time of year rolls around I am always excited to attend Springtacular and reconnect with my past students!