December Birthdays

My family is riddled with December birthdays and until today I thought it was all my parents' fault. My mom's is the 2nd, mine is 11 days later on the 13th, my brother's is 11 days later on the 24th. (Plus, my amazing friend Jill's is today, the 21st, and my sister-in-law's is the 23rd.) So naturally I had other people to blame for December being so hectic!!! :)

But, today when I woke up I realized that it was my youngest and biggest ferret Boomer's 3rd birthday! So- I contributed to the craziness- even if it is in a minor way. To me this looks like the beginning of a trend, which is very scary to me! As wonderful as having a birthday in December is, we can't chance having anything else in that month.

So Jason be warned.... you're going to be on the couch for the entire month of March!! ;)

Christmas + Teaching = Fun????

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE Christmas. I love the build up! I love the lights everywhere you look and the happy Christmas songs playing everywhere. I love that almost EVERYONE is in a good mood around Christmas. I love seeing my family and spending time with them. I love seeing their faces when they open the gift I've spent hours creating.

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE teaching. Every time I teach I have a random moment that immediately makes me think "How did I get so lucky! I love my job!" I love relating with the kids. I love when I see the, as I call it, "light bulb moment"- the moment when it all finally clicks and they totally understand what you've been trying to teach them. I love being able to share all I know.

So, by the distributive property of mathematics, if I love Christmas and I love teaching, I must love teaching AT Christmastime. Right? That should work, right?! If you believed this statement should be true, you weren't the only one! I thought "How fun will this be?! Christmas projects, and music, and happy children...." and that is where the error occurred!! I thought that happy children would be a good thing!!!

Unfortunately, I was wrong!! I have discovered the hard way that the week before Christmas break kids are ABSOLUTELY INSANE!!!! They are SO excited for not only a break from school, but also for getting absolutely spoiled in a week, that they are bouncing off the walls! It's like they've been eating nothing but sugar for a week! "You mean we have to actually learn this week? But don't you realize that this is the week before Christmas? Christmas is coming!!!"

So, I'm excited to say that I have disproven the distributive property! At least when applied to concepts other than math. I will take all that I have learned this week and keep it in mind when I have my own classroom. (And I'll try to remember to save at least 1 sick day for this week!!!) But in the meantime, I'd like to say....

CHRISTMAS IS IN 5 DAYS!!! YEAY!!!! I CAN'T WAIT TILL CHRISTMAS!!!!!!
(What can I say, I HAVE had candy....)

Memoirs

The seventh graders I was subbing for today were given one "simple" task- they were asked to write their memoirs. It was such a huge thing that most didn't even know where to begin! This made me wonder, if you were to write your memoirs, what would you include? I would of course have to include important people in my life. This would include familyI'm related to by blood (Dad, Mom, Al, Grandparents, and countless incredible aunts and uncles and cousins (was that enough sucking up to get a great Christmas card out of the deal?!)) and the family who have graced my life by agreeing to be around and in some cases join my crazy tribe (O'Reilly's, Garstka's, Mandy, Courtney, Michelle, Jill, etc and of COURSE the wonderful Jason ;) ). It would also have to include fun events that shaped my life (like, you know, being born and graduating high school/college, getting married, and eventually having kids) and not so fun events (like the time I was treed by a snake- which forever makes it difficult to watch Survivor!-, or when my grandparents died, or when I'd lose a favorite pet.)

All the people and events in my life have totally shaped me (or as Dad would say, built character!) whether for good or for bad. When I'm a happy, old white haired woman, who still holds hands with her husband and has tons of grandkids I would absolutely love to write a memoir of my life. How fun would it be to take a magnifying glass to those incredible, important events and people?! (And maybe fuzzy bifocals to the bad yet important people and events!) So that is my rhetorical question of the day-- if you were to write your memoirs, what would you include?

The First One

Merry Christmas!!! What a wonderful time of the year to start a blog! I've been thinking about writing a blog for a long time, and finally took the plunge to do it. As most people know, I have a lot to say!! So, I'll now post it here. :) I hope you enjoy my thoughts of the day.