Weekend Fun

Katie is graciously letting me borrow these. As soon as I'm done writing this post, I am busting open The Lion King book. Luckily for my neighbors, the keyboard has a volume switch.

Someone was looking extra handsome. 

Pacino's new obsession is with magnets on the refrigerator. He moves them around and eventually pulls them off with his teeth. This explains why one morning I woke up and everything that used to be hanging on the fridge was on the ground. And, it explains why there were several magnets under the fridge last time I looked under there. This is very cute, and was quite entertaining, until I was laying in bed last night and heard him doing this. And that was AFTER I heard him trying to take apart the humidifier. He's such my little child.

I went to Hilton last night to watch the Lady Cyclones play Oklahoma State. Unfortunately, we lost, but it was so fun to be there. Hilton is my second favorite place on Earth! Plus, I got to see an old friend from high school, a previous teacher, and my family who was out to eat after the game! Also chatted with Naz Long for a few minutes at the restaurant. So fun being back in Ames!

It was SO nice out today, so we set out for a walk. My goal was at least 3 miles, but we went just over 4, and then decided to even it out and make it 5. I can get used to warmer weather, but I'm afraid it might not happen for awhile. I have been dreaming of bike rides, tank tops and pool days lately. Spring will come someday! 

Usefulness

I'm not always useful, but every now and then I come in handy. One of my friends had a car that wouldn't start yesterday morning. So last night when she got off of work I went over to help jump it. It took quite awhile, as the battery was NOT happy, but we got it going.

Notice the temperature on my car? -5! I was outside for about 10 minutes trying to get the cables hooked up and I could barely feel my fingers by the time I got done. Glad I had brought along some hot tea. 

Staying Warm!

I stopped and got a cup of coffee on my way to church. I love Coffeesmith's for a lot of reasons, but especially for their timely stickers.

Today, it was a snowflake. 

I have had a headache the last few days, and I fear a cold is coming on so I bought these Airborne tablets. They were rather sour, but hopefully will help me not get sick!

And finally, a shelfie picture at the Cedar Rapids Public Library. One of my all-time favorite places--and my new favorite shelf!

Gingerbread Houses!

A quick fact about me: I've never decorated a gingerbread house. Not that I remember, anyway.

Thankfully, Target assembled some very nice gingerbread houses, and Katie & I set out to decorate them. Selfishly, I gave her candy and frosting for her Christmas present, so we were all set.

Here's how they started.

And here's how they ended.

The fronts.

The sides.

And the backs.

And a picture of us with our houses. This picture took 85 tries, including an accidental picture of my finger and one of my feet. Plus 83 others of half of us.

Katie & her house.

Me and my house.

Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of the HUGE MESS we made on the table. It was a fun, and successful afternoon. Even if it did take 3 hours. 

I also baked the pieces to try to put together my own house, I just haven't gotten around to putting them together yet. And, I accidentally ate the base. Guess it'll have to go on a plate instead!

Best Books 2013

**this is cross-posted from my school blog**

Goodreads tells me that I read 64 books this year, but I'm not entirely sure how accurate it is, as sometimes it doesn't automatically time stamp the finish date. I also rarely log my picture books, because I read several of those per day. I'm sure 64 is close, though, as far as everything besides picture books goes. I've split them up into categories, and only picked one book per category.

If you're interested in what else I've been reading, check out my Goodreads page or my book quotes document.

Favorite Picture Book:

 

Unicorn Thinks He's Pretty Great by Bob Shea was by far my favorite picture book that I read this year. It is just so funny! I laughed out loud several times while reading it, and then laughed again and again as I read it to my K-2 students. The goat putting the plunger on his head and dancing around like a pretty little unicorn is an image that will stay with me forever, I think. The pictures are gorgeous, and you learn to love and accept both unicorn and goat. I think everyone can relate well to goat--there's always a unicorn in your life, someone who is constantly doing everything better than you are. But, as goat learns in the end, even unicorns have their struggles. 

Middle Grade:

I first read Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper in January. I absolutely loved it and handed it to every 5th-8th grader that I possibly could, and every single one of them loved it. Then, it was chosen for the Global Read Aloud for Fall 2013, and I couldn't have been happier. That means that every 4th-6th grader in our school heard this powerful story of Melody and her struggles and achievements while dealing with the cerebral palsy that had defined her for so long. This is such a powerful book that has a message that every student should hear, one of acceptance, belief and love. This book sparked so many quality conversations about how we treat people who are different than us, and what it means to be brave. 

Young Adult:

This was much too complicated to have to choose one, and since this is my blog and I get to make the rules, I'm saying that this trilogy, Divergent by Veronica Roth was my favorite YA read of 2013. I have never read books so fast, nor have I ever had as many heated conversations in as many places--Twitter, Facebook, real life conversations with students, friends, and strangers. My favorite conversation of 2013 happened with a student on Twitter about Allegiant. It was over 1.5 hours and over 70 tweets back and forth about the book. I invested several hours AFTER reading Allegiant reading review after review and tweet after tweet, plus reading all that Veronica Roth had to say about it in her blog. I just don't even have words to describe how much I love these books. Truly. 

Adult:

This was possibly the easiest choice for me, as adult books aren't my favorite. Honestly, I only read them when they are part of our book club. But this is by far my favorite book we've ever read for book club. The Storyteller was nothing like any other Jodi Picoult book I've read. I'm not a huge fan of hers, but I'm wondering if I've just read the wrong books by her that didn't pique my interest. This was a story of a German man who killed people in the Holocaust, and a bakery shop girl whose Jewish family was impacted by the very same man and how their worlds collide in a strange way when he asks her to kill him.

Professional:

I can't believe I hadn't read this until this year. Every pre-service teacher should be required to read this. Such a different approach to teaching reading, but one that I truly believe would help kids enjoy reading more, thus choose to read more. This is another book that I wrote so many quotes down from it that I practically rewrote the whole book--so many I had to create a separate Google Doc from my regular book quotes one. 

Goals for next year:

--75 books

--log more picture books

Trying to Stay Warm

According to the weather man, there is lots more cold to come. Brrr.

I went to the grocery store the other day, which I hate. A few old ladies tried to push me around, but I wasn't having any of it. One of them even bumped my cart into an apple display and knocked some apples down! Geesh. Anyway, I realized that it was very old lady of me to carry these reusable bags from Target Optical, Triscuit, and the St. Lukes Surgery Center. They were probably threatened that I was acting 67.

All of that to say, I purchased all of the ingredients to make Pioneer Woman's tomato soup and some grilled cheese. Now, I don't really like tomato soup or grilled cheese, but something got me to thinking it sounded good. Well, it wasn't really very good. I didn't really follow the recipe perfectly...surprised? I didn't have enough heavy cream, so I just added some extra butter. Well, that didn't do much--the soup tasted 100% like sherry and 0% like tomatoes. The next day when I heated some more up, I added some milk and that helped quite a lot. Next year during my craving for tomato soup and grilled cheese, someone should remind me of this and tell me just to buy Campbell's. 

Gloating in Gifts

This highlights most of what I got for Christmas. There were other odds and ends, but I think I covered most of them.

I caved and bought a drill & drill bits using some of the money I received. I haven't used it yet, but Pacino knocked down another shelf, so I have to drill new holes for that. Maybe I should just MOVE it so he can't climb up it anymore...

Giant spoon & fork I'd been wanting...

A card catalog--a lovely unexpected gift, as it wasn't on my list. Surprises are fun.

A bottle of Roscato wine--one of my favorites!

A keyboard--I'm on page 168 of the beginner book I used in like 6th grade.

A purse I bought using a gift card from my Granny & Gramps.

Some new owls for my collection.

A new shelf to keep me more organized. Clearly I'm not finished yet. 

An ampersand symbol to hang above my desk. Clearly I haven't put ANY thought as to what's going in it.

And an owl necklace. 

I'm sure there are things I missed....including an awesome owl travel mug from my Secret Santa, and some other things from people at work. I am a lucky lady to have been given all this stuff!