First Time Home Buyers, Part 2

Well, we've been busy. Very busy.

As I wrote before, we bought a house and it is sucking up all of our time. But in a good way. We've been spending each day, after work, and every weekend getting the house all spiffy. We've done quite a bit and we have a little further to go before we move in. The end is in sight!

However, this week, we were put on hold for a little bit. Kevin was working at the house on Monday, he fell off of a ladder and broke his right arm. So needless to say, he hasn't been working this week. But we have a weekend of work planned with lots of helpers.

Pictures coming soon!

First Time Home Buyers

"What did you do over Spring Break, Cara?"

"Oh me? Nothing much, I just BOUGHT A HOUSE."

Yep, that's right, Kevin & I are in the process of buying our first home. All we have left to do before closing is the appraisal. It's not ours yet, but chances are, it won't take too long. Now, because we are in the process of buying and it isn't finalized yet, we are not getting our hopes up.

I have the paint colors and flooring picked out and Kevin has designed the layout of his climbing wall and lego collection, but no, we don't have our hopes up.

The house is west of Collinsville, it sits on 3/4 of an acre, it was built in the 70's and needs cosmetic updating. And we LOVE it.



View from south-east corner.

View from north-east corner.
View from north-west corner. closed-in porch (with hot tub).

Facing south-east from front of house. We are at the end of a cul-de-sac and surrounded by pasture on two sides.

Facing north-east from front of house.

Facing west from back of house. On the other side of the pasture, is the Collinsville high school baseball fields.


I am sure that many more pictures will follow, especially when we start working and we have some before & after pictures to show.

Priorities

I am no longer the 'dear' of his life. I have been replaced.

~

Busy in the 5th grade

We have been working really hard in my classroom. Here are a few of our recent projects:

This is the 'Super Duper Topic Sentence Producer'. This is a large version, the actual machine is minuscule and invisible to the human eye. I inserted one into each students' brain while they were sleeping. It allowed them to use a writing prompt to make a great topic sentence for their essays.

Your prompt goes in, a fabulous topic sentence comes out.

This new and improved model was used for our state writing test last week. You gotta get one! It'll revolutionize the way you write.



This is our Descriptive Mii's project. The name is from the Wii video game characters, which are called Mii's. There are three categories to describe yourself.

• thoughts
• hopes
• actions

The thoughts are written where our brains are, our hopes are written where are hearts are, and the actions are written in our legs because they keep us moving.

This was part of our Currency Research project. I gave students money from various countries and they research the countries' languages, location, and histories. They also studied and recreated the paper and metal currency.

Here are a few examples:

New Zealand

Brazil
Mexico

Canada

.

I hope you enjoyed our projects. We sure had a good time creating them.

~

Saturday

Got my errands done early, now I must trap myself in the house in hopes of keeping the allergen-filled air out. What a great way to welcome spring! The girl who hates winter now must fear the sneezing, coughing, headaches, and pressure that spring brings with it.

Someone enjoy some sunshine for me.

What shall I do with this indoor time? .....Bake! The yeast is currently rising in the bathroom.

Excuses

Well, the bad news is: This post is not an update on my progress with my pile of unread books.

The good news is: I have a really good excuse.

Kevin (not me & with no influence from me) bought me a book for my birthday. Now, let me say this, when I committed to finishing all of my unread books, I promised not to buy any new books, I did not, however, promise not to accept books that are given to me. So what's a girl to do? I HAD to read the book, it being a gift and all. Otherwise, I might hurt his feelings. (that's a pretty good excuse right?)

The book he gave me was The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks. I have talked about his book a few posts ago; the movie comes out at the end of this month.

I had previously written about my love-hate relationship with the author, Nicholas Sparks. Until recently, there had been more hate in the relationship than love. This is because he makes me cry so much in his books. Like, an embarrassing amount of tears. This book was no different than the others. At one point I had to sit up straight in order to breathe because I was crying to hard. I had to take a few breaks because my eyes were so cloudy with tears. It got so bad, at one point he made me curse. I know! Me!

Here's the G-rated version of the situation:

Find out a character has a terminal illness.
Character says a heart-wrenching goodbye to family.
Family weeps.
Character weeps.
Cara weeps.
Cara gets up to find Kleenex and says "Darn you, Nicholas Sparks!"

(now insert a PG-13 word and you see just how crazy he makes me)

Although I cried (bawled, sobbed, wept, whatever) through this book, it was great! This is where the Love-Hate portion comes into play. I loved it! Even the crying.

So I will shamelessly be promoting and awaiting the movie. I will, however, take loads of Kleenex with me.





But now that it is finished, I will be back to work, finishing my pile of books. I am determined to finish that pile of books, no matter how many Nicholas-Sparks-Tear-Jerkers you throw at me!




~

Wisdom (from 7 year-olds)

This weekend, I was in the storage shed looking for a few things. As I was digging, I came across old journals and photos. Needless to say, I got a little side-tracked. But I found some great stuff and I want to share one of my finds with you.

When I was a camp counselor in Colorado the summer after my freshman year of college, I wrote down everything. Here are a few quotes from my cabin of seven year old girls:

"When your heart feels good, that is Jesus being happy in your heart &
when your heart feels bad, that is Jesus being sad in your heart."

"I can't wait to grow up and get married, because I like boys now."

"I accepted Jesus into my heart because Cara's snoring scared me so much.
It sounded like a mysterious beast."

"God told Abraham Lincoln to sacrifice his son Isaac."

"My favorite thing to do in the whole world is to love my parents."

"When you have surgery, can the doctors get a really, really big microscope
and see your secrets?"

I had forgotten about these and it was nice to be reminded of how simple God's love is. Sometimes it takes the smallest and weakest among us to show us the truth.



*correction: I don't snore.

~

Sleep Tight

This post is dedicated to all those who gave to our "Mattress Fund"

*If you don't know what I am talking about, this year for my birthday I
asked for mattress money instead of gifts.

We were in desperate need. Kevin woke up grumpy 4 out of 7 days a week and I think my lower spine had moved somewhere up into my neck. Our old mattress was a hand-me-down and although we appreciated it, it was time to grow up and buy our own.

Saturday was the glorious day that we finally bought our new mattress.

I never knew my heart would skip a beat at the following phrase: "Lady Americana box-top memory foam queen". But boy howdy, did it ever!

Take a glimpse at our old mattress. When we say old, we aren't kidding.

$169.00 !!! How long has it been since you could get a queen size mattress for less than $200? I am going to guess, not since I've been alive.

But oh how times have changed! Check out this beauty!




Notice the difference in thickness.

Oh I can feel my back rejoicing as I type!

So if you gave money towards our mattress for my birthday, we say 'Thank you'. If you did not but are in need of a good night's sleep, we say 'Get your own!'

Zzzzz.......Zzzzz........Zzzz

~

Books to Movies

You know I love 'em. Books turning into movies are major events in my life.


The only problem lately is that I'll see the movie trailer and then decide to read the book really quickly before the movie comes out. Then I try to act like an expert on the book: "Oh yeah, I've been waiting years for this film."

Pathetic? Maybe. Honest? Yes.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid
by Jeff Kinney

These books are HUGE in elementary school. My kids have gone nuts over them for the past two years. I've been meaning to read them for awhile (I have a lot of uncompleted intentions, don't I?).

Movie Date: March 19th



Prediction: Hilarious (I can hardly read the books out loud to my students because I am laughing the entire time)

The Last Song
by Nicholas Sparks

Ok, this really is pathetic. So I heard that Miley Cyrus had a new movie coming out. Of course. you know me and Miley go way back, so I can't wait. Then I find out that it's based on a Nicholas Sparks novel. Well, to put it nicely, Nicholas and I do not have as strong of a relationship as Miley and I do. He makes me cry.

Bawl.
Like a baby.
With an unhealthy amount of Kleenex.

In the past, I promised myself (for my emotional well-being) that I would not read any more of his novels. Well lately, I have been breaking my promise. When the Miley connection came up, what was I to do?

In the end, my love of Miley overruled my fear of Nicholas. I have succumbed to reading The Last Song. Three chapters in and I am loving it, and predicting tons of water-works.

Movie Date: End of March (31ish)
Prediction: Miley-Magnificent

Kids say the darndest things

Student #1 "Mrs. Lawson, why do goats have horns? They aren't evil."

Mrs. Lawson: "Well, they use them. They can use them as a defense, you know, to fight other goats. It's kind of like asking 'why does a dog have a tail?', they serve a purpose and they just have them. It's not really something we worry about."

Student #1 "Cats have tails, Mrs. Lawson."

Mrs. Lawson "You know, we have tails."

Student #1 "You mean because we evolved from monkeys?"

Mrs. Lawson "No. That is not, at all, what I mean. I mean that we all have a bone called a tail-bone. It's down towards the bottom of our spine around our rear. If you look at a skeleton, it sort of looks like a tail."

All students "What!" "Whoa!" "Weird!"

Mrs. Lawson "Yep, pretty interesting huh?"

Student #2 "Quarters have tails."

25

I had a great 25th birthday this past week. Nothing like a birthday to make you notice your loved ones. And I have some very loved loved ones.

My parents and brother, Joey, surprised me at school early Tuesday morning. They brought cupcakes for myself and all of my students. I have 64 students! My mom talked with my homeroom about what I was like as a 5th grader. She bought us books that were my favorite as a kid and she brought pictures of me in the 5th grade. It was very sweet (and only a little embarrassing, you'll see the pictures). It was awesome! I love it when my family shines like that, and everyone was so impressed.

I mean really, over 65 cupcakes! Nothing says 'Happy Birthday' like that many cupcakes.

Well, there might not be anything that says 'Happy Birthday' like loads of cupcakes, but there is definitely not anything that makes you feel as good about yourself as seeing how big of a nerd you used to be and then knowing (or hoping) that you aren't that nerdy anymore. Thanks Mom!

I also had a very sweet student who made my day. She "made" me a cake and wrote a poem for me. It was just precious.

Melts my heart.


I appreciated all of the cards, texts and calls. Everyone was very sweet.

I am very blessed. Not to brag or anything, but when you know it, you just know it. ;)

Will they ever grow up?

Warning: Parents, do not leave your children at home alone.

Especially your adult children.

Especially, especially your adult child along with your grandchildren.














*My parents did, and they suffered an awful fate.

Update #2

Ladies & Gentleman...I have finished another book from the dreaded 'pile'.



I am currently patting myself on the back. I am also accepting congratulations in the form of cards, flowers and monetary donations. Oh, and you can give me a medal too.




*sidenote: the pile is still incredibly large; my celebration is entirely premature.

You've Got Mail.

By the way, we really like getting mail at our house. Reeeally like getting mail. Really.

Somebody owes me some money!

These past few months, I have been reading The Lightning Thief to my students. This is the first book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. The series teaches kids about Greek mythology in a way that they can understand. My kids went crazy for the book! We have been discussing Greek gods and goddesses for months now.





The Lightning Thief was recently made into a movie and it premiered this past weekend.

My classroom somehow became an interactive promotion of the film. I think it's safe to say that 20th Century Fox sold about 60 tickets thanks to me.

Here is some evidence to prove my case:










And now, for the most shameless of my promotions....







Pay up, Hollywood!



`

Top Quotes of the Week

Adult: "Once a supreme court justice is sworn in, how long will they serve on the court?"
Student: "Two hours."


Two men walk into a QT.
Man #1: "What are you gonna get?"
Man #2: "Well, I was going to get a Gatorade, but now I want pancakes."
Men leave and go to iHop.

Student: "One time, last year, people started a rumor about my friend. They said she eats possums."

So Long Gossip Girl

It was recently brought to my attention that gossip is becoming an issue in the 5th grade. We have been confiscating notes and shutting down rumors, all to no avail. Therefore, it was time for an intervention.

Thus, I decided to host a funeral for 'Gossip Girl'. Gossip Girl would represent rumors, lies, and all the hurt they cause.

My fellow teachers jumped on board and in my opinion, today was a hit. Many teachers came to my room throughout the day to 'pay their respects'. We walked around with somber looks on our faces and many of us dressed head to toe in black.

The hardest part of the day (besides my high heels) was keeping a straight face and stifling the laughs. I found that it really helped to carry a tissue with you, so that when you were about to laugh, you could cover your mouth and look like you were crying.

Take a glimpse of our ceremony.






Saying our last goodbye's.


Part of our ceremony was to share how Gossip has made us feel throughout her life. I think my favorite word was 'Doomful'.



Although it is quite lengthy, here is Gossip Girl's eulogy:

Today, we gather together to remember the life of an enemy, Gossip Girl
Gossip Girl, or Gossip to her friends, lived a life of poor character and disrespect

Gossip was an example of all the things that we should not say about each other,
Every time that Gossip was near, others failed to show Respect and Kindness,
Gossip caused us to say things we would regret,
words that hurt our friends,
rumors that ruined our relationships,
and lies that broke others trust in us.

She was like a disease,
Spreading lies everywhere she went,
Those whom she infected became sad and lonely,
Those whom she targeted became hurt and mistreated.

During the last hours of her life, Gossip asked that her final words be shared here today. Here is what she had to say:

“I have lived a sad and lonely life. My friends, whose hearts I broke, lost their trust in me. They did not want to be around me once I began spreading my rumors. I had poor character; I never made the right choices. And often I was so out of control that there was no way to take back the things I had said, no matter how hard I tried.
As you look back on my life, I beg you; do not make the same choices that I made. If you choose to say something about others, make sure that your words are kind. Do not disrespect those around you as I have. Be truthful and considerate. And when you hear me coming your way, ignore me, do not repeat what you hear.
As my final wish, I would like you to make a promise to yourself, that today when you leave this service, you leave me here. Forget I, Gossip Girl, ever existed. Choose to leave me out of your life and I promise, your friends, your family, and you, yourself, will be thankful that you did.”

As we listen to Gossip’s final words,
Let us take to heart what she is asking us to do,
May our words be kind,
Our stories be true,
And may our actions reveal our true character,
Character that reflects good choices and respect for others.



See...we couldn't keep from laughing.

Update #1

As previously posted, I have a lot of reading to do.

(look below to see a VERY large pile of books)

Here is my current progress report:


I finished a book that I had started and then put down after a few pages. The book, Queen of Babble Gets Hicked by Meg Cabot, was the third and last in a series. Therefore, I felt like I should read it first in order to complete the series. The book only took a few hours to complete & was a light and humorous read, as all her books seem to be. Why had I put it down in the first place?

Then I got a little side-tracked. I read a book that was not in 'the pile'. I know, I know! I promised. But it was the second book in a series that I have been reading to my students. It was sooo good, I couldn't resist.




Then, I had to read the book, Dear John by Nichlas Sparks, so that my girlfriend Amanda and I could go see the movie next week when it comes out. If you don't know this, I LOVE to compare books to their movies; it's a weakness. I can't be held accountable for straying off my path if there is a book-movie combo involved.



Next, I had to finish the book I had been reading before I even discovered all of my unread books. This book was also the last in a series. It was a drag! And it took me most of this past snowstorm weekend to finish it. Well wouldn't ya know, it WASN'T the last in the series; there is another one! But I can't even think about that series until I make a serious dent in my 'pile'.



Finally, I chose a second book from the pile and got to work. It is The Gatecrasher by Madeline Wickham. I love her books under her pin-name 'Sophia Kinsella'.

So far, I am liking it. There is a slight problem though: I have a job, chores, errands to run, American Idol to watch, and papers to grade. I need another snow day in order to make adequate progress.


So in the end, I am making progress with only minimal distractions. Three books would be considered 'minimal' distractions, right?

2 down, many to go