My Word for 2010: Fitness

My favorite scrapbooking guru, Ali Edwards, does this thing where every year she focuses on a word for that year. The word should be something that you really want emphasize, achieve, etc. You get the point. Anyway, I've never done that before, but heck...why not give it a try?

My word for 2010 (that would be twenty-ten, for you, Jen C.) is fitness.

Obviously, that means physical fitness. Every year I profess that this is going to be the year for getting in shape. Losing weight. Exercising more. I think, though, that sometimes I set standards that I can never live up to. So here it is: I want my pants to be less tight. I want to make healthier food choices, and I want to get some honest-to-goodness exercise in there somewhere because I want to feel better.

But I want to be more emotionally fit as well. I tend to be a perfectionist in some areas of my life. I need to let that go. I feel like I need to "do it all," and I need to let that go as well. And I need to do things that recharge my batteries--spending time being quiet, reading a good book for fun, spending quality time with Darryl and Amelia, baking, scrapbooking, and so forth.

I want to be more intellectually fit--reading more for pleasure, being more in touch with world events, putting a bit more research and time into my lesson plans, communicating more with other teachers for new and fresh ideas.

I want and need to be more spiritually fit. I need to read my Bible more, pray more, be more invested in church, do more for others.

Oddly enough, as I'm listing all these things, I don't feel overwhelmed. I almost feel as though one thing is going to lead to another; in a sense, it all seems to be about balance.

So hello, 2010! I'm looking forward to a fresh start!

I'm Leaving You Behind, 2009!

I'm not too sad to leave 2009 behind. It wasn't my favorite year. The year got off to a rocky start for my friends and me (Kim, if you're reading this, here's hoping that you don't spend New Year's Day with ServPro!), and I never really felt like 2009 was "my" year.

That being said, it wasn't all terrible. I finally got to realize my dream of going to London; I had two fun scrapbooking excursions; I enjoyed getting to see Amelia's personality develop, and she usually makes me belly-laugh at least once a day; we've enjoyed times with family and friends; and I've gotten to teach a mostly great group of students for two years in a row.

This New Year's Eve, we're away from home. I can't remember being away from home on NYE, well, ever. I'm usually taking down the Christmas tree while watching Dick Clark/Ryan Seacrest on New Year's Rockin' Eve. This year, though, I'm in a hotel with Darryl and Amelia, and I just finished eating some Starbucks Mocha Frappaccino ice cream straight from the pint. Not a bad way to spend an evening. (I would tell you where we are--and if you are my Facebook bud, you know where I am--but I'll save my mother's sanity by not disclosing our location. I'll tell you later, though.)

Anyway, the year 2010 seems like a good year for new beginnings, so on that note, I'll create my next post...the good ol' New Year's Resolutions (not to be confused with my Christmas Resolutions, which I detailed in my previous post).

Farewell, 2009!

Christmas Festivities--Part 4 (Coming Soon)...But I have Christmas Resolutions!

For some reason, I'm having some issues with uploading photos, and my Christmas Eve/Christmas Day post would not be complete without photos, so I'm going to hold off on posting about it until the problem is fixed.

Anyway, we had a wonderful Christmas. I don't know that Amelia is quite old enough to "get it," but we definitely had fun watching her open gifts and play with her toys.

Well, more about that later. After this week, I've decided to make some "Christmas Resolutions" for next year. Here they are:

1. I will not wait until the week of Christmas to take my child to see Santa Claus. (I'm going to do my best to find a non-mall Santa where the wait isn't an hour and a half.)

2. I am going to have a photo Christmas card next year. For two years in a row, we have not gotten our act together in time to do a Christmas card. Next year, my friends, is going to be different.

3. I am going to arrange my classes so that I do not have a bazillion essays coming in to me the last few weeks before break so that I can experience the full joy of the season well before school gets out for the break.

That's the thing about teaching--yes, it is great to have two weeks off, but I feel like I have to fit in all the fun in those two weeks. Last week alone, we visited Santa, went to Alabama, baked sugar cookies, rode the Pink Pig...it's too much at once. I also watched about five holiday movies in there. Next year I'm going to try to do some of that stuff earlier (because I love it all!!) instead of trying to cram it all in over just a few days.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

Christmas Festivities--Part 3 (Santa and the Pink Pig)

One vow that I've made after this week is that I'm not going to wait until the week of Christmas to see Santa Claus. On Monday, we finally made the trek to the mall (yikes) and waited in line an hour and a half with an uncooperative 2-year-old so we could get a picture. Here's one pic of Amelia and me, and it pretty accurately captures the mood of the moment:

I don't have a scanner, so I can't show you the official pic, but here's one that Darryl took with his camera.

On Wednesday, Amelia and I set out with our friends Michelle and Sophia to ride the Pink Pig at Macy's. We had to wait about an hour total, but it was a much less harrowing experience than the wait to see Santa.

Amelia and Sophia in line:

Amelia and I on the ride with the "old" Pink Pig in the background:

And here's a pic of the four of us with Priscilla the Pig:

Afterward, we went to Chick-fil-a. It was definitely a fun outing. The jury is still out on whether or not I want The Pink Pig to be a yearly tradition, but now we can at least say that we've done it!

Christmas Festivities--Part 2 (Christmas in Opp)

Last Saturday, we made the long journey to Opp, Alabama, to see some of my dad's family. It was a little over four hours each way, but we just decided to buckle down and do the trip there and back in one day. Amazingly, Amelia was great for the whole trip--what a trooper. Anyway, we had a great time with family, and it was totally worth the drive.

Here's Amelia on the way there. She pretty much amused herself by looking at books, talking, and singing.


Once we got there, we all visited and caught up with one another until lunch was ready. Check out this table o' cakes and pies!

Amelia particularly enjoyed playing with John, who is four years old. Amelia and John are about the same age difference as John's dad, Jody, and I are. We had a lot of fun playing together when we were younger, so it was kind of cool seeing our kids play together so well.

Here's Aunt Winifred, playing Santa for our Dirty Santa exchange.


What a fun time!!

Christmas Festivities--Part 1 (Parties!!)

Friday the 18th--The 2-Year-Olds' Christmas Party
Friday afternoon, Amelia's daycare class had their Christmas party. It was very cute...most of them were dressed in their PJs, and they had a book exchange and ate snacks. I don't even know how many sugar cookies Amelia ate. The girl loves cookies. (So do I. Who doesn't?)

Waiting for her book (note how Amelia doesn't like to sit):



Looking at her new book:

Mmmm, cookies!!!
It was a fun time. After Amelia had finished her plate of goodies (of course she left the fruit and carrot sticks behind; she's not interested in those food groups), she grabbed her book and headed for the door. I guess she figured she had a book, she got to eat cookies, and that was pretty much a party for her. No point in wasting time socializing. :)

Friday Evening--High School Party
That evening, Darryl and I went to my school's party held at the home of one of our math teachers. Let's just say that apparently the husband of this math teachers has a lucrative business because that house was INSANE. At one point, I lost track of Tim (friends have to stick together in awkward party situations), and I actually had to text him to try to find him again...so that should give you and idea of the size of the house. Anyway, it was actually fun, not painful at all, and I won a $25 Barnes & Noble gift card. Not too shabby.


Okay...so in an attempt to be better at blogging, I'm trying to break down this week into smaller chunks. I was going to catch you up "thus far," but that was so overwhelming that I couldn't handle it. Stay tuned, for next I will be covering Christmas in Opp. You won't want to miss it.

Essay, essays, essays

Good grief. I have been grading essays for what feels like forever, which is primarily why I haven't blogged much. Here's the lowdown:

--I had 30 Honors essays on Sc@rlet Letter to grade. They took a sweet forever because they were TERRIBLE. (As a side note, let me add that much of my precious time was spent answering parent emails about the low grades. Sigh.)

--I had 26 AP essays on Sc@rlet Letter to grade. They were much less disappointing than the honors essays, but I was so sick of reading about SL that I wanted to pull an Oedipus and gouge my eyeballs.

--I've had to grade 30 essays so far on SL from my regular students. I should have about 20 more to grade, but that's how many kids decided not to turn one in this close to the end of the semester. Apathy, anyone?

--I now have about 100 Performance Exam essays from all these classes combined for me to grade this weekend. These are going to be quick, though; I'm reading them and slapping on a grade. End of story.

I've been switching up the colors of my grading pens just to keep things interesting. Green, purple, turquoise...it's the small things that keep me going.

Not the best week

This past week was not my favorite. Here is the bullet-point edition:

• Over the break, an alumnus of our school AND a current student at our school were killed in two separate accidents, so the mood (understandably) was very low all week. I didn't know either student, but one class of mine was particularly close to the boy who was the current student, and on Monday, I pretty much let them sit and grieve. (The accident had taken place the night before, so the shock was still new.) I'm not sure if that was the appropriate course of action, but they were in no shape to do anything productive.
• My students wrote essays on The Sc@rlet Letter this week. It never ceases to amaze me how much my students don't know about writing when they are in the 11th grade. The process was exhausting.
  
• Amelia has had two BAD tantrums this week that had us both in tears. Nothing like feeling powerless against a two-year-old.
• I had a parent send me an email with "attitude" when I gave her kid a zero for plagiarism. It really didn't bother me that much because the case is pretty much cut-and-dried, but still...it really gripes me when parents get 'tude with teachers.

Now we did have some excitement this week. Tuesday evening, in a series of events that will completely lose their humor when I try to relate them here (totally one of those "you had to be there moments," we gave my parents quite the show via Skype/webcam when a bird flew in the house. Amelia immediately scrambled in my lap and kept pointing at the ceiling shouting, "Bird! Bird!" Darryl chased it with first an umbrella and then a fishnet (he succeeded with the net), and afterward, she continued to talk about the bird. Every day she has mentioned it: "Bird? Outside?"

And today, we tackled a big feat: two birthday parties in one day. This morning we to a party for Anslee, one of Amelia's daycare friends, at an indoor play place that was very cool. It didn't have the bouncy jumpy inflatables, but instead had things like dress-up clothes, musical instruments, a splash area with bubbles, and the like. Very cool. Two hours after that one ended, we went to one at Chuck E. Cheese. I won't tell you what Darryl said about that place when we got back in the car, but I'll just say that both of us thought that place was INSANE. There were about ten parties going on, and there were kids everywhere. And then a big rat (Chuck himself) was thrown into the mix. But as I pointed out to Darryl, the birthday boy seemed to have a blast, and I guess that is the point, right?

We were exhausted after all the birthday fun, and I've tried to will myself to grade essays. I've gotten a few done, but I'm going to really have to get in the grading zone tomorrow. (Once I get in the zone, I'm pretty productive...it's the getting in the zone that's the hard part.)

To conclude this post, I'm going to show you two photos from today that are important to me because they prove that Amelia does have a little bit of me in her.

Here's Exhibit A: Amelia playing the piano and singing her ABCs.

Here's Exhibit B: Amelia does NOT like to get stuff on her hands, especially dirt or food particles. Neither do I. :) Notice how she is picking up the toy with the very tips of her fingers...that's exactly how I would do it.