Stamp It "Redeemed"!

Okay, I'm not the hugest fan of NBA players. I did enjoy watching the NBA Finals this year, but overall I'm lukewarm. I AM, however, super geeked about the "Redeem Team" getting back the gold for the US today. The fact that these GREAT players had to band together to make sure that the gold was returned to the appropriate country is what is so awesome. Kobe is awesome. (There, I said it.) King James was impressive also, but the SOLID player for the USA was Dwayne Wade. When both the aforementioned superstars were benched due to early fouls, he picked up the team. He's such a quiet leader.

I would totally be remiss if I didn't also give MAJOR props to Coach Mike Krzyzewski. He is impeccable in all areas that are important for a coach. He has major credibility in his years of success. He has done what few others (Coach Wooden notwithstanding) have done. He's a West Point graduate for crying out loud. Seeing him singing the National Anthem (or maybe mouthing it) was so touching, I think I felt a tear. The picture of him with all the team members' medals was also incredibly awesome. You can tell the respect these guys have for Coach K. I am not a Duke fan, but I am a HUGE Coach K fan.

Congrats to BOTH USA b-ball teams. Well done, y'all!

Edit:

Sunday 7:52 - I'm wondering about my use of notwithstanding. So a check to m-w.com which only confused me more. I'm still not sure. I meant excluding John Wooden, so if notwithstanding is appropriate, then okay, if not, I don't know.

Thank You, Tropical Depression!

Well today was WAY awesome at school. All my blocks were scheduled for testing. Don't they say that God laughs at our plans? Well my fourth block was interrupted by, "Okay, y'all. Move to your tornado drill positions, only it's not a drill." Nice for a Friday afternoon. Well about thirty minutes later, we returned to our classes. My class said that there was no way I'd give the test. Well, I proved them wrong on that. Not because I'm mean, but because I wanted them to do as much as possible AND some of them will study over the weekend.

We wound up staying at school about 30 minutes over. You just can't, in good conscience, release children into a potential tornado. They can, however, act as if they've lost their ever-loving minds. I have attributed everything bizarre this week to the barometric pressure. Cuckoo-town.

I cleared my desk, mostly by putting it in my take-home bag. I dashed by Snoopy's and caught up with her, Fiona, and Shrek, grabbed my stuff and rolled home. I promptly spent a little time with The Child and fell into nap-time in bed. I got up around 9 and am now about ready to go back to bed.

Not Much Here

Not much is going on today. I went to school, of course, but I'm exceedingly tired. I'm trying to choose between going to bed and going to the gym. I think sleep is going to win. Gym won Sunday and Monday. It's all about being fair, right?

See this <---? It's me in about thirty minutes. Nighty-night.

Golden Deliciousness!

Hey you guys! This soup is delicious. I roasted parsnips (about 4 small), butternut squash ( a big 'un), and sweet potatoes (2 medium) for about an hour and fifteen minutes. I then put them in about 20 oz. of chicken stock. After letting it simmer 30 minutes, or so, I put it in the blender and (duh) blended it up. I then added 1 cup of fat-free evaporated milk. Then I added some cayenne pepper, not much just enough to kick my taste buds, cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg. It's thick and really hearty. I think I'm going to try to eat this cold for lunch tomorrow. It's such a pretty color, too. The sister thinks it looks like baby food, and I agree, but it's a tasty (that's t-a-s-t-e-y, if you're Fergie) treat! Yum!

A Little Update on the New Regime at my School

I'm a little worried about the title of this one. It looks weird without the "my" capitalized, but possessive pronouns are with prepositions in the you don't capitalize without it being the first word thing, right? Not sure about that, but whatever.

Regardless, (or as Snoopy is quick to say, irregardless, knowing she shouldn't) I thought I'd give y'all an update. Well, there were the visits to my room by the new principal that were the nightmare type. One, when I was screaming at the kids about not talking while I'm talking. The next day he came in and I was talking about how some people are happy/perky like our added counselor versus the cRaZy smiley, happy people who are so extremely happy they either are heavily medicated or should be heavily medicated. These people irk the snot out of me. Calm down people, you don't have to be "Shiny Happy People" at all times. (Now Furry Happy Monsters are a totally different thing!) Put a growl on your face from time to time, just to prove you're human, for crying out loud! A student once got written up at our school because we had a substitute that was a crazy smiler. He told the assistant principal at that time, "Go ahead and write me up. That lady's just too damn happy." I thought that was hysterical. Of course, just before the quote was when the principal came in. Now, I could have walked over to my awesome Smartboard and said something about degrees, but if you know me, you know I couldn't. So I tied the story up quickly and without the quote.

I have become accustomed to the personalities of the principal and the assistant principal in their roles. I think that there was just a lot of stress on everyone to do well. Roger that. My trig classes are already kicking hiney. There's been yelling, screaming, and gnashing of teeth, but that's just me. Anyway, things are going quite well. Hey, that reminds me, I need to do my lesson plans.

Sunday. . . or What I'll Do to Avoid College Students

Parsnips, nutritious & delicious!

After the mania of screaming the Phelps team to victory (the satellite came back, I suspect it was powered by the sheer awesomeness of Michael Phelps), I found myself getting in bed at 1:00 a.m. Since the lovely students have descended on our small town, I rolled out at 6:15. After a little waking-up process, I managed to get to WalMart at 6:40(Oh, how I hate them! But if you need Q-tips and shallots, where else can you go?). I grabbed the old pocket book and found it to be quite light. Yep, I had left my wallet in my gym bag. Hooray! Drive back home, get wallet, kick myself, say "I'm sorry" to Al Gore, and toddle back to WalMart. Now it's 7:00 and I'm starting to get a little edgy because there are more people there than I'd like.

I did find all the produce I wanted, along with some toiletries. Surprisingly, the produce, for the most part, did not look as if it had been resting up for a week-and-a-half. (Thanks, college students. They are good for something besides driving like bats out of hell.)

I'm very excited about a little project I have planned for today. Cooking. I'm cooking some black-eyed peas from dried, making some Fiber One muffins from the mix, and roasting some veggies for a lovely soup. Okay get this: butternut squash, shallots, sweet potatoes, parsnips, pumpkin (the only veggie from a can!), and a little evaporated fat free milk. These will be staples for the week. I'm very excited. I've never roasted these veggies before. I'll holla back with the results of these culinary endeavors.

Phelps Did It!

Phelps is AWESOME. He has been SO good for ratings. He's been great for USA spirit. He is what this country is about. Diagnosed with ADD as a small child, with a family abandoned by his dad, his mom put him in swimming to get some of his energy out. I say, "Well done, mom!" The Olympics ROCK and I normally don't get that excited about them. Kobe and Lebron watched HIM. Go USA!

Several Items of Interest . . .

Yes, I finally did it. I joined Weight Watchers. Ugh! I hate it. But I do know that if I follow the program, I'll lose weight. My sister joined about two weeks ago and has had success with them in the past. It's annoying, though, to have to go pay someone to monitor me. Oh well, a smart person knows her weaknesses, right and works within the parameters.

Also, I had a really good workout today, since I am bribing myself now with "Activity Points." I spent most of the day sleeping, so I didn't eat breakfast or lunch. I had a late day meal and then a post-workout meal.

The music for my walk/run went a little something like this:

Kick Push - Lupe Fiasco

Wait a Minute - Pussycat Dolls

Who Knew - Pink

Run Around - Blues Traveler

Hero/Heroine - Boys Like Girls

Time (Live) - Hootie and the Blowfish

Diverse City - TobyMac

Temperature - Sean Paul

Got to Be Real - Cheryl Lynn

You Get What You Give - Young Radicals

Hella Good - No Doubt

Heaven Knows - Donna Summer

Kiss Kiss - Chris Brown featuring (as all recordings now must be) T. Pain

We WERE watching the Olympics, but have lost satellite feed!!! Ugh, I hope that the AWESOME Mr. Phelps can get it done without two South Georgians screaming him on!

Well, on to something else.

Check out Darius Rucker's video. I've always loved his voice, but this song has a great hook.

Quote of the Day

Overheard by me during one of my senior classes:

"I hate Hannah Montana, but I want me some Miley Cyrus."

I wish I could make this up, unfortunately, it's true.

More Trouble

Okay, clearly I'm in a world of trouble or enough sleep is ruining my brain function. I saw the commercial for Beverly Hills Chihuahua. I found myself actually laughing at the promo and wanting, probably somewhere in the reptilian part of my brain, to see it. Yow. What is happening to me? I only wish I knew.

I'm now watching the rowing. It makes me want to go find a rowing machine. Wow, these folks are in awesome shape. The Olympics make me feel even fatter. Boo.

Something Is Incredibly Wrong.

It is 8:30 a.m. on Sunday and I am up and watching (wait for it, wait for it) SOCCER. I hate soccer. It's the anti-American football. You can play for 90 minutes and then have a score of 0-0? Why even go out there? Now, I am an admirer of the physique of the general soccer player. Hubba hubba, to use an expression from the first half of the last century. There is definitely something that the conditioning for the sport does. I guess I've officially got Olympic fever if I'm watching soccer. It's brought to me with limited interruption by Kia Motors. Thanks, Kia for letting me see more soccer!

I just saw a thing on one of our weightlifters who had back problems, including surgery in 2006, Melanie Roach. Mighty inspirational!

I've got a ton to do today, including lesson plans, UGH! Later, y'all.

Coming Up for Air

Okay, we started school with the kids a week ago Friday, so we've got six days under our belts. It has been pretty good, overall. The students seem to be more focused on learning (I know it's week one.). A great focus has been placed on bell-to-bell teaching. I disagree with this. Focus needs to be placed on bell-to-bell learning. That is what I've been working towards.

It's been a little difficult to adjust to our new regime. It's a deal where we've pretty much been allowed to whatever we want with very little guidance. My room is in the back of a secondary building, so there was very little traffic back there. We've got to have standards up, essential questions, and everything pretty much has to look perfect when an administrator comes in.

Don't get me wrong. I WANT my students to learn and I have been working from bell-to-bell. It's something that I've (with an exception or two) done the entire time I've been teaching. It's just that it feels as if administrators are coming in to "get us," not, as an administrator who left did, coming in to affirm that we are doing our job. It's the punitive tone that is very unappealing. It makes me feel very beaten down. It's not that I don't like the administration. I really don't have an opinion yet about them. I am pretty neutral about them. It's just that I forgot to do attendance for a block and got a very patronizing/inflammatory e-mail about it. Other people have been crawled about things that in the great scheme of things, don't seem very important.

I love my classes. I have two senior-level classes and one predominantly tenth-grade class. They are all very good. my favorite, I think, is my fourth block. This is actually GREAT because I look forward to the end of the day. Planning for me is first block, so it's kind of nice. It's not so good because second through fourth blocks are an endurance test.

I went to my friend Snoopy's house yesterday afternoon and found my friend Fiona there as well. We piled up in the den and proceeded to take a L-O-N-G nap. Fi was on the sofa with her trusty doggie and I was in a chair with a nice blankie, since Snoopy keeps her house cold. We then watched the end of Major Payne and indulged in a great bacon cheeseburger pizza.

Today, I got up a little before 8 a.m. and watched my nephew while my sister went to Weight Watchers. At about 11 a.m., I went to bed for a nap and slept until about 1:30, tried to call Mrs. C., didn't get her, and decided to go back to sleep. I then got up around 4:30. I am not going to have trouble going to sleep tonight either. I am so tired from school, it's not even funny. I sit down during first block (between trips to the main building) and at lunch, but that's it. I think that I'm going to go get fitted for inserts for my shoes. My back has been killing me.

I'm going to go fix some quinoa for supper. That may be part of my problem. I haven't been getting my quinoa quota met. Hmmmmm. Something to think about!