Last day of NaBloPoMo!

It's also, coincidentally... exactly a year from when I published my 100 Things About Me

It's been a bad day... I've been sneezing all day long due to my allergies, and the family went back to Spring today. I'll really miss my nephew... he's growing up so fast! Thankfully I'll get to see him again in January (they'll be in Kansas with my SIL's family for Christmas so we won't see them until after the New Year).

In other news, I go back to work tomorrow... :( It's a sad face because I got used to sleeping in until 8:30 or 9am... so waking up at 5:15am tomorrow will be UNWELCOME! BUT, the good news is that we just have 3 weeks and then we have Winter Break!!! I'm counting down the days til Dec. 19th... where the kids get out early from school, and we will have a paraprofessionals Xmas party right after work! YAY!

I'll post again... but maybe not tomorrow... I'm sure that everyone wouldn't mind not reading my blogs that are only being written to fulfill a silly goal I set for myself for a month! ;)

CHEESE AND RICE!

As the gal from Just Married would say...!!! My allergies are really buggin me today! I can't stop sneezing! In other news, I just got an "exclusive" coupon from Michaels today that is only good on Monday... it's to get an extra 15% off the SALE PRICE of a Cricut machine... So, I'm seriously thinking of doing that... and just asking that be the one and only Christmas present for me this year... it's the only thing I can think of that I really WANT... and if it's a good price, then my parents (or combined with my bro and SIL) may do that for Xmas. We'll see...

I'm finally going to Sprint on Monday also (after work) to get my new phone... I was going to save an extra $100 by waiting til Dec. 1st... so wait was what I did... I can't believe how fast the time went by... but I can solidly say after charging my phone up more than 4 times in the past 4 days I'm ready to get a new phone that works better (or at least better than the refurbished CRUD they gave me!)

Okay, off I go to eat some dinner... and watch the Spurs... :) Then I'll head to bed b/c I'm going to 8:30am service tomorrow for church just to have the rest of the day with family before they get on the road back to Spring, TX!

Just in time...

So much was going on today I almost forgot to post! LOL We had a pretty laid back day... didn't venture out to Black Friday as I have done before... we just hung at the house with the family. After Conner's nap, Daughn, Damian, and Dustin came by. Dustin hadn't seen Conner before... although he asks about him all the time and whether or not he's in town. So he finally got to meet Conner... but I think he was a lot more interested in playing ball with "Chachi's Dad."

After they left, we watched WALL-E... it was okay... not as funny or witty as the past Disney/Pixar movies, but it was cute. Then we ate some food off the grill and then rounded out the night by watching the Spurs take on Memphis. :) It was a pretty good day. I, of course, forgot to take pictures all day long of Conner. I'll have to make sure I remember to take some tomorrow.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Hopefully all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and really had a nice laid back day to spend with loved ones! Ours was good... although, all of us are shocked at A) How much food Conner put away today (seriously, that little guy ate a good, heaped plate of food) and B) that Conner didn't take a nap all day long... at is JUST NOW getting to bed!

Here's a couple shots from today:

Thanksgiving is 1 day away!

And my brother and the crew are about 1.5 hours away! :) I'm feeling better... I've successfully gotten things cleaned and ready... and I'm so excited for tomorrow!

And with that, I'll leave you to yours... I will check in tomorrow...! :-) Hopefully you've thawed your turkey out and have everything ready to start your cooking tomorrow morning at 4am!!!

Recovery

I'm feeling better... my throat isn't nearly as sore... I attribute that to my FINALLY finding an allergy med that helps my sinuses. But I'm getting over the sinus attack from Hell in the normal fashion: one of my ears feels like there are 20 cotton balls shoved inside. This causes me to be quite grouchy because I can't really hear anything... it's not uncommon that in a very irritated tone I'm saying, "WHAT?!?" I'm hoping it will clear out during the night or by tomorrow... usually it only takes a day.

In addition to dealing with this, I finished off 3 loads of laundry and got all my Halloween decor put away in my storage bin. I also picked up stuff around the house and ran to the grocery store with my mom. After my Dad got home he finally got around to fixing the faucet in my bathroom tub... 6 months after the fact. Behind him, in my completely clean, ready for company bathroom... he left a mess. So I had to go behind him and scrub out the tub AGAIN... as well as the bathroom countertop... I was pretty livid and raked him over the coals a second time (the first time was for not having fixed the faucet 6 months ago so that it wouldn't have been as bad as it was now that he finally got to it... since he attempted blaming it on me). It was a kinda bad day... and I can't stop sneezing... so I guess the meds aren't COMPLETELY effective for me. :(

Horrid day

I had a bad day dealing with allergies!!! My sinuses are all stopped up... and then they started draining out... this leads to a rather annoying sore throat. :( None of the meds I've taken have succeeded in anything other than making me very tired and drowsy.

To top it off, today was a day I had planned on cleaning the bathroom and other parts of the house before Rob and them get in from Spring on Weds night. So, there I was this evening cleaning the bathroom... as I couldn't really breathe... or swallow without pain... but at least it's done... and all I have left to do tomorrow is make sure all my Halloween decor is packed away... and to clean over my room one more time. Then I have like 3-4 loads of laundry to get done before next week... because I'd really like to keep the weekend to spend with the family.

I hope I wake up feeling better tomorrow!

Long, good day

I had a productive day... I went to church, afterwards we drove over to Commanche Park to check it out as a possibility for Dustin's 4th bday party... then I had some lunch with Daughn... after we ran some errands: went to Ross in search of new jeans (found 3 pair... got all 3 for less than $40!)... then we ran to Old Navy to return some shirts... and then met up with a Craigslister to swap out some DVDs that had some problems.

Once we finished those errands we stopped at HEB to get stuff to make chili cheese hotdogs for dinner... and we watched a Hallmark movie while eating dinner. Now I'm home and ready for bed! Tomorrow I need to clean around the house before family comes to stay... and I really need to get some laundry taken care of! :) Hopefully I can accomplish it all tomorrow to leave Tuesday and Wednesday open to spend some time with Daughn and get some Xmas shopping done! :)

Fun Day

Went to Dustin's TBall game... and then went to Daughn/Damian's for the party they had with the TBall peeps... Dustin had a BLAST! We had fun watching the kiddos ride power wheels (or try to) and then we topped off the day by getting us some Grady's for dinner!!! YUM-O!

Now I'm going to bed... I watched the first half of the TX Tech game... well, if you can even call it that... they're getting their little behinds HANDED to them...! So, I'm going on to bed b/c I'm quite tired!

What will I do with all the time...?

9 days... no work... :) YAY! I'm very happy to have all next week off from work! I'm hoping this weekend the weather stays nice... although, tonight was too cold for me! Although, that's my fault for not remembering to wear a better jacket/coat...

Tomorrow's TBall game will probably be COLD, too... :( I need to find my beanie cap!

New Gmail

I have to say, I'm loving the new and improved Gmail (more than I'm loving the new, "improved" Facebook that they FORCED everyone to use)! They now have color themes you can pick from and some of them are REALLY cute!

In other news, today at work we had a Thanksgiving Potluck for all the faculty and staff... of course there was WAY too much food to choose from...! We had about 4 and a half long tables full of food...! One whole table was desserts.... and that's just not easy at all for ANYONE! I made my Extra Special Banana Pudding (the recipe I got from Amy, Damian's sis)... it's SO GOOD... it's layered crushed shortbread cookies, sliced bananas, and a "filling" (which is a mix of instant vanilla pudding, milk, cream cheese, sweetened condensed milk, and cool whip)... then you top it with melted chocolate drizzled over the top... I have to take about 8 copies of the recipe tomorrow for people that loved it... I didn't even take the leftovers home... the nurse took it! lol

Tomorrow is the last day of school for a WHOLE WEEK! I'm SUPER psyched about that... I'm hoping I can get some more Xmas shopping done next week on Monday and Tuesday... and I need to get a good amount of housework done before Rob, Kathy, and Conner come to town for Thanksgiving... I also need to call up my aunt and see if she'd like me to make yeast rolls for Thanksgiving day or not. Okay, well... I'm going to go back to my relaxation... maybe I'll watch Juno...! Until next time...

Tchuss!

I wasn't tagged... but...

I wasn't tagged but Kate's made it seem fun...! So here we go!

“The rules…”

* Go to your sixth picture folder then pick your sixth picture.
* Pray that you remember the details.
* Post it on your blog.
* Tag 5 others, leave a comment to let them know they’ve been tagged.

This was taken at Conner's 1st birthday party (which happened actually 3 days after his birthday). He was eating his personal cake that his Auntie Kels made him! At first he examined all the decorative details of the cake... and took one little pointer finger and softly petted some of the border icing decoration... it was like he didn't know what to do with it! We tried using one of his spoons to get a bite on it and have him realize he was supposed to eat this treat... but that didn't work! So, we cut out a slice of the cake and put it on his tray, and as you can see he eventually just picked up the chunk and shoved some in his mouth! It was cute and the video footage we took in this moment is priceless!

I'm not tagging anyone either... if anyone else wants to take part... by all means! But I'm not going to guilt anyone into doing this ;-) Hope you enjoyed my picture!

Potluck

I will blog when I get home later... right now I gotta go mix up the filling for my dessert that I'm taking to the Thanksgiving Potluck tomorrow... :)

Today was pretty good...

Although, my hands are getting dried out from working with so much paper!!! Today I was alphabetizing Federal Forms that the students have taken home and brought back. I finished K-2... tomorrow I hope I'll finish up 3-5 and we'll be DONE with those!

I'm in limbo right now at work since I have no actual position... so I've been helping in the office again... additionally I help sign parents in with their IDs and also go help with the lunchroom doing lunch duty. In the mornings I greet the kiddos as they come in... and then I hold the door for all the bus kiddos as they leave and say goodbye.

Today I had a special treat b/c the 3rd grade teacher with whom I recently worked with asked me to run down to her room and watch her class so she could run copies of something... and wanted me to read a chapter to them. It was fun... after lunch I took another of the 3rd grade teachers' kiddos to get him to complete his benchmark math test. He didn't really need help (he's very smart) but he was abusing his allowance of time so as not to do anything else today...! Didn't really work in his favor... because he finished the last half of the test in 15 minutes with me! ;-)

That was my day... hope everyone else had a good day, too!!!

Waiting until Dec. 1st

Who knew that waiting 2 weeks from today would save me an extra $100?! I went to Sprint today... and the guy told me that if I waited until Dec. 1st, I would save $200 instantly instead of $150... AND I would save an extra $50 with my mail in rebate. SO... I'M WAITING! This girl's not stupid... plus, with the savings, I will have no issues with the fact that unlimited texting went up to $20 instead of $15... ;-)

In other news, it was a rather boring, hum-drum day... but I did get to stay busy the whole time and hopefully it'll be equally nice the rest of the week! Then next week... I HAVE THE WHOLE WEEK OFF!

Chalk It Up!

Last month I went to Chalk It Up downtown with Daughn, Damian, Dustin, and the Bayers. :) We had a great time... thought I'd share some of the photos.


I really enjoyed this one... some of the chalkings were more intricate than others.



This one was great because I really LOVE Halloween... a lot of the chalkings were related to Halloween. This one (which was VERY large) featured several classic Halloween characters such as Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, a mummy, Creature from the Black Lagoon, etc.




The Alice in Wonderland one was fun... Dustin liked it and the characters in it... I thought it was neat that it was depicting this particular scene.




The last one that I really enjoyed was the Koi fish one. It reminded me of going to the Zoo and seeing all the Koi fish there... and how they all surface and jumble together when you throw even just ONE piece of that stinky fish food stuff you can get for a quarter from the 'bubble gum' machines near the water.




And lastly, I finally stood outside the Alamo. I know... chastise me as you will... but I have NEVER been to the Alamo and I've lived my whole life here in San Antonio. I missed the school field trip dedicated to visiting this landmark... and despite my good intentions to get there on my own to visit... I just never have! But, I have been to the ITC SEVERAL times! I know more about the aquifer systems here than I'd like to b/c of it!

Wow

Who knew it was so easy to spend $100... on myself! lol I bought some new work clothes yesterday... I did also do some Xmas shopping. I have more to do... but I'm trying to spread it out until next month too when I get my next paycheck Dec. 15th. Tomorrow I'm going to Sprint to cash in on my $150 instant savings with contract renewal... Thank goodness I'll finally be rid of the demon phone! :)

I'm so excited to shop for Christmas... I think I'm most excited to shop for Conner! :) So many cute clothes! It's hard to pick just a few!

In other news I wonder what I'll be doing at work this week... I'm just glad I have 5 days, and then I get a WEEK OFF! WOOHOO! Vacation, here I come!

Purchases

Well... yesterday was payday! WOOHOO... and now, (after making my loan payment) I can finally replace my crappy, refurbished-to-replace-a-broken-flip-phone cell phone. :) YAY! I can also start buying up Xmas presents for everyone... I need to make a list and come up with a budget. :) The good thing is I'll get another good paycheck on Dec. 15th... just in time to finish up the last bit of Xmas shopping...!

In other news I attended Dustin's TBall game this morning... and now I'm spending some nice, quiet time at home... later this afternoon I'll venture out to spend some time with Daughn. We're Dustin-free (he went with his Nana and Popo Marty today after the game) and Damian has poker night tonight. This also means, we'll probably go grab some dinner after going to stop by the hospital to see her Grandpa (who has apparently been there for 2 days and JUST NOW said something to the family about it!)

Back I go to watching some tube... :)

Until we meet again... auf wiedersehen!

Sorted out... for now

Well... so here's the short story. The student I've been working with is having his last day today. Now, normally that would mean that I'm out a job... I was hired for him... and if he's not there, my job no longer exists. So, of course, I was freaking out.

Good news is that the AP doesn't want to lose me... and thus I will be doing various work around campus... until further notice. More good news from my little student's primary teacher was: I've made an incredible impression on everyone I've met at the school... so everyone that heard the buzz about my kiddo moving began fighting to keep me on campus in some capacity.... AND, apparently I'm already "pre-approved" for any opening they have for next school year (or probably even before then, honestly). This is very good news... and specifically a position up for grabs (next year) is the resource spec. ed. teacher's job. Apparently, she hasn't been doing it... which explains why my student who was supposed to be having resource time already... hadn't been getting that help! In a simple run-down... when she was last observed by the AP, she was sitting at her desk... spritzing body spray on... instructing the students to "go to the computer and start their work"... so the AP asked the kids if they knew what they were supposed to be doing... and they had NO CLUE... Anyhow, we'll wait and see... but......

TGIF! I'm wearing a spirit shirt and jeans and tennis shoes... and that's about as good as it gets in the elementary school world!

Too comfy...?

I may have gotten too comfy too soon... more details later.... In short, yesterday was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day...!

MAN!

Today is my second Monday this week! :( DRAT! And to top it off... I have an ARD meeting this afternoon.

I'm going to need a bubble bath tonight... and quite possibly a nice, cold glass of beer. I'll try and post more later... but unfortunately, I'm thinking I will really come home and take a nap and then eat dinner and go to bed!

Errands

I have a list of things to do today! I ran to go get my hair cut just a bit ago... I hadn't gotten it cut probably since around May or June. So, it was overdue... Now I'm going to run to either the grocery store or Walmart... then I am running over to Naomi's around 2 to meet her new little girl Cora. :)

YAY!

I'm officially starting my day off!!! :) We get the day off for Veterans' Day tomorrow... but I'm totally starting today... I think I may still try to go get my haircut (because I really need to)... tomorrow I'm going to visit Naomi and Ms. Cora (whom I haven't met yet... and I'm super excited to!)... then I'll come home and possibly run to the grocery store (or Walmart) to stock up on frozen food, lunch stuff, and various other things... :)

REMEMBER THE VETERANS!

ACK!

Well, I have to say, I'm not really in a "blogging" mood today. It was a fairly uneventful day... went to church... visited my Grandma... met up with Daughn at the mall... didn't buy anything there... went on to Target... found some stuff in the $1 bins that I got... went on to the house with her... then went to pick up some dinner.

It's been a mundane day... I hope tomorrow goes quickly! I have TUESDAY OFF!!!! YAY FOR VETERANS' DAY! :) Then hopefully WThF will go quickly, too! The other upside to this week is I get my first paycheck... at which point I plan on getting a new cell phone... (YAY!) and I will be adding my own DVR box at the casa (b/c I'm tired of fighting my Dad for time to watch my shows off the DVR in the main room!) lol AND... I'm going to start Xmas shopping... I'm SUPER excited about that... b/c I love buying gifts for people... and this year will be more fun buying stuff for Conner b/c I think he'll have more fun tearing the paper off presents!

Until tomorrow... Adieu!

Way too soon!

JEEZ! Our country is Xmas crazy! Well, at least San Antonians are...! Do you know one of our radio stations is ALREADY playing Xmas music?!?! AND, downtown by LaVillita there is already Xmas garland and big red bows decorating the walls on Alamo St.?

I'm sorry... but Xmas is like, 2 months away practically... it's a little too soon to be celebrating with song and decoration! On the flip side... it's NOT too soon to shop... especially if you live by the Forum shopping center and that's your primary hot spot to Xmas shop.... it's going to be a MAD house this year there b/c they've changed a lot of the lanes for turning and traffic issues... and at the main entrance at the highway/bridge they have put a light in!!! That's really going to cause a lot of issues... I'm glad that I know alternative entrances/exits to get in and out of the shopping area... but I really plan on doing a bulk of my Xmas shopping via internet to avoid all that mess!

TBall Game

Today I'm going to a TBall game at 9... then probably grabbing some brunch... then possibly going to the teacher resource store... then I need to watch a heck of a lot of stuff off the DVR and attempt catching up...! I think I have like, 15 shows I need to watch... and a lot of them are hour long shows!

:(

I'll try to get a more substantial blog post in this weekend some time... but I may be glued to the TV (at least it's an entertaining alternative!)

HALF DAY!!!

YAY! Today we have a half day with the students (and we're having assemblies, anyway) then we get a nice hour long lunch, and then I get to come back and help in the front office... filing... again. ;) lol I'm bringing my iPod with me, though... so hopefully it'll go by quickly with some good tunes.

Other than that, this weekend is filling up a bit. Tomorrow Dustin has a game... then the school's having a fall festival from 2-5... Sunday I think I've been guilt tripped into making sure I go visit my Grandma.... so I'm (as usual) busy...

And I can't even sleep in tomorrow b/c Dustin's game starts at 9am... and it's going to be COLD!!! :) That's the only perk!

FIELD TRIP!

Today I'm going on a field trip with the 3rd graders (after a short meeting in the front office)... then this evening I will be meeting my friend April for dinner at Chili's. I'm hoping this day goes well. I'm also hoping my student made sure to remind his parents that he indicated he'd BRING his lunch today and has one.... tomorrow too... for the 1/2 day. Cross your fingers... because I guess if he doesn't I have to share lunch with him...!

Yup

I just can't muster up a post at the moment... maybe I'll feel more up to it later... but unfortunately... the day totally drained me. I had to really fight with my student to get him to finish off 1/2 his work today... and now I just don't really feel like typing my thoughts at the moment... maybe later... maybe tomorrow... we'll see.

Post

Is coming after work today... I have way too much to say to try and get it all out this morning!

Another good day?

Yesterday my little student worked like a busy little bee!!! He got all of his written work done... and wheeled himself all over the place! Hopefully today will be another really good day... he's been doing very good so far.

This week's work is kind of important for him b/c we have a field trip on Thursday and then we have a half day on Friday (well, the kids... not the faculty/staff!)... so he really needs to work to get all of his things done in the day they're given this week... because we don't have the end of the week to make up work!

Anyhow... I'm hoping today will be another good day. I'm going to finish my breakfast and then leave for the campus... I'm feeling pretty tired today... and I'm hoping it's not because I'm getting sick with sinuses... tho I very well could be given how many times I sneezed last night-this morning.

:( BLARGH!

I have a serious case of the Mondays... :( I don't think there's any cure for this... only knowing that Thursday is a field trip and Friday is a half day...

BBQ and the cake adventure!

Today is the BBQ... I tried a new icing that I found on the Wilton site last night... and wish I hadn't used it. I'm sure it will taste great... but it was a NIGHTMARE to decorate with... "great for piping!" YEAH RIGHT! It says it's like marshmallow... they failed to say that it's pretty much MARSHMALLOW CREME... If you've ever had marshmallow creme... it's very sticky... and difficult to spread... and this was that way in decorating...! I was able to get it to work out, though.... and the cake turned out pretty darn good. I replicated the baby bedding design on the top of the cake....

Here's an example:


It's a cute set... I had really thought about how I wanted to put this on the cake...

So, I tackled the job and I think I was pretty victorious... given the icing dilemma!



Here are some pictures of my cake:

You can see how the edging fell flat... this icing just DOESN'T hold any shape at all!


When I decorated the top of the cake, I started out by piping the outline of the bird... I quickly decided I didn't want to use 8 piping bags and clean 8 piping attachments to do all the design... so for the inside of the bird I spread the color with a spatula.... all of the rest, I used a TOOTHPICK to outline and then to spread on the inside of the outlines I had drawn with the toothpick...! I was surprised that it turned out as good as it did...! lol I'm NEVER using this icing again!

NaBloPoMo

It's National Blog Posting Month (in addition to NaNoWriMo... National Novel Writing Month). I've attempted NaNoWriMo before... but I think NaBloPoMo is more realistic for me. :)

So, I'll be posting a blog everyday this month... it may be like normal... or it may be a themed entry. At any rate, I'll have fun doing this! :)

Today is a busy day...!!! We have Dustin's TBall game at 11... then I have to come home and bake/decorate a cake for NaeNae's (Danae's) baby barbecue... don't let that sound misleading... she didn't want a baby shower, so we're having a barbecue to celebrate the new addition... and of course we need cake! :) Then tonight is the DAWGS (Georgia) game... SIC 'EM!!! They're playing the Gators... so Damian wants to go to Louie LeDeux's to eat gator... lol Anyhow... It's just going to be a seriously busy day...! But I can't wait!

Until tomorrow...!

Tchuss!