Sunday, Sunday

We went out for lunch today. Our car did well in the snow considering that the roads had been plowed but were still very much covered in snow. I came home so that Colby could take a nap and Brandon went to help Kate move stuff from her old place to her new place. I got bored so I decided to prime the dresser in the spare bedroom. Maybe I'll paint it tomorrow since I have the day off :-) I guess we'll eventually get back to school so that we can start a new semester, but no rush :-)

Snow Cream!

Today it snowed. We got about a foot of snow. We took Colby out for a little while this afternoon. Brandon was throwing the snow around and Colby was giggling :-) We made Colby some snow cream with milk substitute. He had never had ice cream before so he didn't really know what to make of it. He didn't eat much of it, so I put the rest in the freezer for later. After Colby goes to bed, Brandon and I will eat some of our own snow cream :-)

End of the Road

Today marked the last day of the first semester. I get new students starting Monday. I had only a few people pass with an A, but I had a record low number of students fail my class - 2. Tomorrow is a teacher work day, but I'm unsure what I'm going to do. Almost all my grades are in and I already started making copies for next week.

Tomorrow it's supposed to snow a lot. We could get anywhere from 4 - 11 inches. This will mark the second big snow storm of the winter. And there's a lot more winter to go.

New Semester, New Classes

Yesterday I started a new class toward my masters degree. This semester is school law with Dr. Arbogast, superintendant of Floyd County Schools. I think this class is going to kick my butt a little because I think he's going to be challenging in class. I also think he'll be particularly hard on the ladies because he's definately a good old boy. I was dreading buying my $140 dollar textbook, but my prayers were answered when I went to go talk to our new principal. I was looking for a School Law Handbook that Dr. Arobgast said we could borrow. The principal I was speaking didn't have the handbook but he had the textbook and he let me borrow it! My head principal let me borrow the School Law Handbook, but guess what...the most current book he had was 2003. That was 7 years ago! The laws have certainly changed during all that time! I think he's opening himself up to a lawsuit if he doesn't at least have a copy of current law to refer to.

The semester is drawing to a close and I cannot wait to get a new group of kids next week. I'm tired of the ones I have (they're not as bad as last year, but I want to strangle a few) and I finally have a direction I want to go in my teaching that I'm actually excited about. Every year I think I've hit my stride, but I really feel like I'm getting to where I want to be - a teacher that talks about things that are relevant for my students and teaches literature that my students are interested in.

Top 5 Reasons I Want a New Group of Students

1. Hopefully I won't have any students who take 20 minute bathroom breaks
2. Hopefully I won't have any students who always think I'm yelling at them even when most of the time I'm not
3. Hopefully I won't have any students that are constantly suspended
4. Hopefully I won't have students trying to sell me stuff every week (beef jerky, chocolate, cookie dough...I'm on a diet!)
5. Hopefully I won't have any students who have a comment for EVERYTHING

I'll keep dreaming :-)

6. Bonus reason: hopefully I won't have any students that think I'm too stupid to catch them skipping (I'm like the FBI when it comes to skipping :-) )

Financial Goals

I just want to tell everyone, that Brandon and I rock! If you read my blog regularly, you might assume that we don't really have any serious problems, but one of our moderate problems last year was money. We weren't saving, we were spending more than we make and it was starting to make us seriously nervous. So this year we set some goals, so here are the goals with a quick how we're doing.

1. Only spend $100 a week at Walmart for groceries - I think we're not doing too bad, but really who can only spend $100 at Walmart, especially when you're trying to eat healthy. I think I may have to up this to $125 so I can be a little more realistic.

2. Do not let food spoil in the fridge - We were notorious for letting things spoil, especially meat. So far we are acheiving this with no problems :-)

2.1 Eat more meals at home - Doing good. We haven't been out to eat at all this month, except for me taking Colby to Cracker Barrell last night. What can I say? :-)

3. Take lunch to work - Now I was already doing this. I almost never buy lunch, but that was another story for Brandon. He's doing really good so far and anything he buys while on the beat I'm O.K. with, after all, his job is really unpredictable and stressful.

4. Save $300 a month and increase to $500 afte the RAV4 is payed off - I was really nervous about this because since I'm taking classes at Radford ($280 a month in Jan, Feb, and Mar) I wasn't sure I'd be able to do this or not, but I guess I've cut other spending enough that I was able to transfer $300 into our savings account yesterday and go out and buy tennis shoes and black dress shoes I desperately needed (I'd held out so long on buying new black dress shoes that I was afraid the heals were going to break off my old ones)!!

Yay for Brandon and I!!

Weight Loss: 6 pounds and considering adding Alli, but will probably give it another week before I do that.

Bread Machine!

This week I have been expiramenting with my bread machine. My mom gave it to me a while ago because she had two of them, but I never tried it because I guess I didn't really want to learn how to use a new machine. But it's so easy! I made a loaf of bread on Monday and it was delicious! It was a little too crusty, but I discovered how to fix that today. Today I'm attempting to make a loaf of bread for Colby. I've been needed to make some low protein bread for Colby for a while because when he gets older and hungrier, he's going to want to eat more things, but unfortunately the level of phe he's allowed to eat is not going to go up substantially, so he needs to eat more with lower level's of phe. Today I also made some blueberry muffins for Colby from a mix I got at the PKU picnic back in September. I tried a tiny nibble and they taste good. I'm really attempting to let Colby have foods that other kids eat, just the low pro versions.

Today we got out of school 4 hours early. They were really concerned about the ice issue we're having tonight and into the morning, but I guess they wanted to attempt to get some SOLs in. We got our 1st and 2nd block math SOLs in and I guess tomorrow we'll attempt to get our 3rd and 4th block math SOLs in. It was sort of funny because one student came back from their SOL in a total daze. His eyes were all dilated and he couldn't process that we were getting out of school early. I guess his brain was totally fried from having to take a 60 question math test that counts toward graduation. I felt sorry for him and eternally grateful that I never had to take those sorts of tests in high school.

Day Off!!

Yesterday I had the day off so I took Colby to daycare and cleaned house. It sort of looked like a mini tornado had spun through our house and it was in desperate need of cleaning. I vaccumed, I tossed trash, I sorted recycling, I did laundry, I potted two plants and I took the leaf out of the dining room table to make our kitchen and dining room feel bigger. I was able to do all this and find some time to blog, surf the net and crochet...it was awesome! And I love Colby, but I wouldn't have been able to do this if he was home. He's like a mini tornado all by himself!

Speaking of Colby...I think he's starting the terrible two's early. He's fussing A LOT and testing the boundries ALL THE TIME. He wants to do everything his way and only his way and it's terribly frustrating. I love it when his face lights up with a smile, but I hate it when he's screaming in my ear.

Party

Last night Brandon and I went to the police association party sans Colby. It was a strange experience. Everyone was dressed nicely (except a few people who didn't really understand they were supposed to dress up) and the food was really good and fancy-like. There was a TON of alcohol. You'd think that a group of cops would know better than get sloppy drunk, but apparently not. The booze was definately flowing like a river. And there are sharp divisions between the cops - detectives, vice, warrent service and others kept to their groups and didn't do a lot of mingling. It was fun though because I got to dress to impress, we gambled (not our money of course) and lost all of our chips in about 30 minutes, and we got a slow dance in. But then we were tired of people-watching (we determined if they wanted to do a real housewives of Roanoke they could) and crazy raffles (one raffle was to give away booze) so we went home. I don't know if we'll go next year...I guess we'll see.

Oh, and before the party I'd lost a total of 5 pounds!

Warmer Weather...YAY!

Today was the first day I walked out of school and wasn't immediately chilled to the bone. With a jacket it actually felt decent outside and I didn't feel like I needed to run to my car.

Today I completed my outfit for Friday. I needed a sweater or something just in case I got cold, which I found at JCPenny. Now I think that Brandon will be like, "Yeah, that's MY wife." :-)

New Bible Study

Today we started a new Bible study at church called The Truth Project. It's purpose is to get us to understand what the truth is (God) and be able to identify the lies in our world. The guy who does it is really engaging and smart so even though the videos are long, they're interesting. He left us tonight with this question: Do we really believe that what we believe is really real? Tough, dude, tough.

In other news, I had to sign the bite log...again...grrrr...We're onto a clean now that we filled up the other one....grrrr...

Diet Report: Holding at 4 pounds - but I give myself a pat on the back for sticking to it. I know it's only been four days, but still!

Today's Good News

Well, I made it successfully through a day of school without cheating on my diet...yay!

It made it above freezing today...yay!

Brandon is in love with weatherwoman Alyssa Corfont...um...yay? Oh, correction, she's just his favorite meteorologist :-)

Weight Loss: Holding steady at 4 pounds

Day 1 of Diet

Yesterday was a beautifully unproductive day. I did more this morning before church than I did all day yesterday. I do have to say, though, that I did great on my diet. I almost met my target for water drinkage (120 oz is a lot, so even if I'm close then that's more than I normally drink) and I ate exactly how I was supposed to. Any weight loss I had was probably water weight, but I'll take it. Let me tell you, waking up in the morning and stepping on that scale to discover I weigh less then the day before is a huge high :-)

Pounds lost: 4!

Mystery Snow Day

Today was a snow day. I'm not 100% sure why because all we got at our house was a dusting, but I was pretty excited about getting a three day weekend :-)

Tomorrow I'm going back on my diet. Just so you know, the plan is to get pregnant this summer so in order to do that without having blood pressure issues, I'm going to lose some weight. I think it's going to be tough doing this diet while working, but I'm going to give it my best shot. I'll keep you updated on my weightloss - it keeps me more honest even if you don't really care :-)

Best of 2009

Okay, so I've been thinking of putting a couple best of lists up because there were some things that I really enjoyed in 2009. Today I'm thinking songs...so heres my list in no particular order.

* The Truth - Jason Aldean
* Need You Now - Lady Antebellum
* I Run to You - Lady Antebellum
* Battlefield - Jordin Sparks (Dorky, yes, but I like it)
* I Got a Feeling - Black Eyed Peas
* Runaway - Love & Theft
* White Liar - Miranda Lambert
* Southern Voice - Tim McGraw
* I Wanna Make You Close Your Eyes - Dierks Bentley
* Cryin for Me - Toby Keith
* Gettin' You Home (The Black Dress Song) - Chris Young
* Replay - Lyaz
* You Belong With Me - Taylor Swift
* Fifteen - Taylor Swift
* Sweet Dreams - Beyonce
* If You Only Knew - Shinedown

Snow and Other Tasty Treats

Today we got out of school two hours early. Apparently the school system was concerned that it would start snowing before the buses were done dropping off kids (it takes about two hours to finish running the buses) It's 7:15 pm and I can definately say that I haven't seen a single snowflake and would be highly amused if we didn't get anything tonight. I'm not complaining about getting out early...but I would nevertheless be amused if we didn't get snow.

Brandon, Colby and I went grocery shopping. To help alieve some of the money issues we've been having, we've made a commitment to only go grocery shopping once a week and spend less then $100 dollars. So far we're doing well and I haven't made any errant trips through the clothing section. However it is only January 7th, but I'm really going to try to be better at Walmart! (My spending at Walmart is ridiculous - in October I spent almost $700)

This evening I was feeling like some soup so I made some Tortilla soup. It's so easy to make and so good! Here's the recipe if you want to try it.

1 big can of cream of mushroom soup
1 big can of cream of chicken soup
2 can's worth of water (use one of the soup cans)
1 can of green chilis
1 can of mushrooms
half a bag of frozen corn
onion to taste
4 burrito sized tortillas cut into strips

Simmer everything but the tortillas for 20 minutes. Spread out the tortillas on top and cook for about 10 minutes. The tortillas are supposed to sink, but if they don't just push them down and it's fine. You can add cheese and sour cream for a little kick, but it's fine as is. It makes a lot so be prepared to freeze some or eat it for a couple of days. It's SOOO yummy especially when it's cold out!

Today we had a two hour delay...tomorrow we have a two hour delay...maybe we'll have a two hour delay for the rest of the week? We can only dream. I love two hour delays not because I get to sleep in...Colby won't let me do that...but because I can go in early and get myself organized for the day. I'm embarking on a new adventure in teaching so being organized is key.

So just in case you're curious, we've been delayed because it's really, really cold and windy. I mean in the mornings the wind chill has been near zero and with some students being unprepared for this weather it's better to wait until it's at least light outside.

Okay, here's some pics :-)

Second Christmas

So I guess I'm not technically sick anymore as I'm done with my antibiotic, but I'm still coughing a lot and my lungs are making a weird rattling noise. Brandon said it sounded like a box of pop rocks going off in my chest, which can't be good. I feel more energetic so that's good. I hope that by Monday I'll not be coughing anymore, but if it's not gone by Wednesday I'm going to chat with the doctor.

Yesterday my parents came to visit bringing with them tons of presents. If you're reading thanks for all the gifts for Brandon and I and especially Colby. All of the presents were very generous and much needed so thanks! I'm pumped because mommy got Brandon and I some curtains that will hopefully look nice and block out the sunshine without us having to put a sheet over the window in our room. Plus she's making a matching quilt that is super unique and pretty! I'm also excited about being able to go to shopping with the gift cards and Brandon is excited to use his Lowe's cards for when he gets to build a shed.

Brandon had to work on New Year's Eve. He was pretty pooped when he got home and he ended up sleeping from 4pm on Friday to 8am on Saturday. But now he's rested and full of energy to play with Colby and Colby's new toys. Speaking of New Year's Eve. I stayed up to listen to the VT vs. Tennessee game - Tennessee got smoked :-) GO HOKIES!! I thought about staying up to watch the ball drop, but decided I wasn't going to miss anything important and went to bed at 11. At any rate, happy new year! Don't forget to put 2010 on your checks and such!