A Little Snow, A Lot Of Pie

What a pleasant, relaxing Thanksgiving I had! It was very low-key, just my husband, daughter, and my dad. Oh, and me. And four cats. We had the whole feast: turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, cranberry salad, homemade rolls, both pumpkin and pecan pie. No Black Friday shopping. Maybe a nap or two (or three). I'm refreshed and ready for the upcoming week! Now for my thankfuls:

My sister in law had knee replacement surgery less than two weeks ago, which is one of the reasons we didn't celebrate Thanksgiving with her, my brother, and my niece (the other being my dad can't travel right now), but she is doing well and is closer to being bionic than not at this point.

I can safely say we made it through the holiday without anyone getting sick (flashback to 2019 when every single family member EXCEPT me came down with the stomach flu within 36 hours of each other.

My class was a bunch of turkeys with all the excitement surrounding the holiday, so the two day work week was much appreciated.

Knowing full well my kids were not going to be receptive to much in the way of instruction, we spent the two days mostly playing. They were pretty hyped when I got out the Christmas tree and set it up in the classroom (wait until they see the room tomorrow!).

Even though I HATE how all the stores are ready for Christmas the second Halloween is over (if not sooner), I broke my own rule about waiting to decorate for Christmas until after Thanksgiving by getting our tree set up and hanging greenery in all the doorways and windows before I left for my dad's last week and I have no regrets.

As a curly girl, I am always experimenting with different products to tame the beast that is my hair. I tried a new (to me) product this past week, and I love, love, LOVE it! It's Ouidad Curl Shaper Volumizing Jelly for fine hair, and for the first time in my LIFE, my hair is soft to the touch AND is holding the curl and not turning into a dandelion gone to seed by mid-morning.

We had our first snow of the year early this morning! There was a light skim of snowflakes on the rooftops, and if you looked REALLY CLOSELY you could see a little bit of snow on the grass, and it was gone as quickly as it came, so it was perfect. Now, if school had been in session, then I would have wanted enough to cancel classes, but it wasn't and there wasn't and I'm good with that.

I spent a few hours in my classroom today getting it decorated for Christmas. My kids are going to be so excited when they arrive tomorrow!

I'm thankful another teacher friend posted about turning on her alarm tonight after five days without using it, and if I hadn't seen that, I might not have remembered myself! 

I'm extra thankful for my heated mattress pad. It is COLD here, and I'm going right now and snuggle into my warm bed with a cat or two.

I hope your Thanksgiving holiday was filled with good food, naps, and family!

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Pre-Thanksgiving Thankfuls

It's Thanksgiving Weekend Eve. Is that a thing? The weekend before Thanksgiving weekend? Well, it is now, and it comes with a set of thankfuls:

All my fall decorations are put away.

While I was in the basement doing that, I straightened up the Rubbermaid container of Christmas gift bags and boxes and tissue paper that were left in a bit (a huge bit) of disarray since last Christmas. Oops.

I covered an opening in the top of a closet that gave plumbers access to some pipes when we had a leak YEARS ago. I still don't know why they cut a 2'x1.5' opening and just left it, but they did, and I had had it covered with foam core board (truth - I cut up a giant check left over from a check presentation my husband had for work) and duct tape. It fell off last year, and after a winter of cold air coming through the opening, I climbed up on a ladder and got it covered once again. 

I didn't fall off the ladder, and that's a pretty big thankful, because I had to contort quite a bit to get to the opening in the ceiling of the closet AND I only had three cats with no thumbs in the house with me if I had fallen.

I'm thankful for my Shark lift-away vacuum cleaner. Got pets? It's da bomb!

We got a very generous early Christmas gift from one of the local tribes. They appreciate what we do for their children, and we appreciate their generosity to us.

I picked up a pillow from the bedroom floor this morning to toss on the bed and just as I was about to do so, I saw a brown recluse spider on it. Of course, I screamed and dropped the pillow, and of COURSE, the spider immediately disappeared. Then I saw it ON THE SHEET EXACTLY WHERE I WOULD LIE ON IT IF I GOT IN BED, grabbed a tissue, and squished it. Whew! Close call!

I had a physical this week. I have been AWOL from any doctor's office (other than urgent care) for, oh, several years. I am proud to say my blood pressure was 122/72, my cholesterol was 166, and all my other numbers were also in the normal range. Woo hoo!

Saturday, I went to a Christmas craft fair with my friend Nikki and ran into all kinds of people that I hadn't seen in years. It was nice!

I've got a two-day work week coming up, and I am SO READY for it!

Get your thankfuls on. It's what the cool kids do.

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Crawling Out Of My Cave With Some Thankfuls

The time change is KILLING me. I'm like a bear. As soon as it gets dark, I want to crawl in my cave, eat a few berries, and go to sleep. 5:30 is a little early for that, however, so I'm spending every evening fighting to stay awake until at least 8:00 (yes, I know that's still stupid early, but I get up at 4:30 a.m. to go to work, so it's not THAT ridiculous). Am I still thankful? Why, yes! Watch me!

1. Getting dark so early in the evening means it's not dark as pitch in the morning when I am driving to work. I have a very deer-y route to work and back, and the lighter it is, the fewer there are.

2. I came back to school from my conference in St. Louis and worked on using what I learned. Our classroom is harmonious (most of the time), largely because we all work together to keep each other safe, and when we get too crazy, we employ various breathing techniques to calm our bodies. p.s. it works on big people, too. Thank you, Conscious Discipline and Dr. Becky Bailey!

3. My dad had a little health scare that turned out to be no biggie, but he was able to get himself to the ER and back home again all by himself! 

4. About a month ago, I received a new pair of boots that I had ordered from Nordstrom Rack. I hadn't even opened the box, because I was a little afraid they might not fit or would be uncomfy or both. Finally opened them and wore them AND THEY WERE NEITHER. In fact, I put them on at 6:00 am and didn't take them until 12 hours later, and my feet felt FINE!

5. I have deep regrets that I cut so much of my hair off last weekend (and off and on all week), and I'm not thankful for that, but I AM thankful that my hair grows quickly.

6. I'm thankful for Poshmark. Ordered two gently used dresses from them last week and expect to receive them in a couple of days. They should look good with my new boots!

7. Also thankful for the ability to track packages! 

8. We had delightful weather this week, and since the leaves are starting to shower down on the ground, I took my class out to the lawn in front of the school to play. We spent over half an hour throwing leaves up in the air, chasing each other, and flopping down on the ground and rolling in the leaves. Bonus thankful is they napped really well that day!

My neighbor's tree

9. The Dean who is over our school (we are part of a university) stopped by to visit on Thursday. She popped into my room for a few minutes, and my children were MODEL students! We showed off our belly breathing skills and safekeeper oath and class cheer. I then received the NICEST email from the Dean that made my heart so happy! I love my job!

10. I was trying to cut an onion yesterday with what turned out to be a very dull knife, and my husband started (teasingly) giving me shit about my cutting techniques, which terrify him. Case in point: a year ago, I sliced my finger cutting strawberries and not only had to go to the ER to get it glued together, they had to put a tourniquet on it to get the bleeding to stop before they could treat it. Of course, he brought that little story up. So this morning, I had just finished drying my hair when my husband walked into the bathroom and asked me if I could help him with his finger, which was wrapped in a blood-soaked paper towel. Guess who cut his finger with a kitchen knife? When I unwrapped the paper and saw the cut, I told him he had to go to the ER and get it glued together. They weren't busy, which was nice, and we got right in, and long story short, he got FOUR STITCHES instead of glue, because the cut went across the joint and the doctor was afraid glue wouldn't hold it. I'm thankful it wasn't serious (as in no tendons were cut), so I am able to give him a hard time about it.

Either the lidocaine didn't take or he's
a big wimp. Your call.

Hope you found dozens of thankfuls in your week!

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Toxic Waste Makes The Thankful List

October is in the rear view mirror, Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and there are thankfuls a-plenty!

Halloween is over for another year. It's just not my favorite holiday, and I'm never sad to see it go.

I carved a pumpkin with my class on Monday. Carving pumpkins is yet another reason not to like Halloween, but I reached inside it and pulled out its ooky guts and let my students feel them and smell them. They chose a happy face over a scary face, and we used our little jack-o-lantern as a night light  for two days.

Looking isn't enough; you have to 
get in there and touch and sniff!

The day AFTER Halloween should be a national holiday, especially for teachers. My students were all kinds of wound up with residual sugar highs and lack of sleep and overall excitement of having worn a costume and gone trick or treating, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

My besties Nikki and Julie and I went out to dinner Halloween night, so we could avoid trick or treaters. I don't think we've been out together since Julie's birthday in March. We talked and laughed and ate a lot of food from the brown food group, and it was delightful!

Thursday, Nikki, my friend and co-worker Alyssa, and I left for St. Louis for a Conscious Discipline training. We had gone to one in June that was a week long and included an enormous amount of information; this one was only two days, but it was chock-full of information and tools that we will be taking back to use in our classrooms.

With Alyssa at the hotel

Cute little story: on our way to St. Louis, I got a frantic text from my husband asking where the car keys were. Long story short, the answer was in my pocket, and he had to go to a meeting and then to my dad's, and I was 120 miles away. There was a spare key for the vehicle, but it was (I thought) in the console of the car that was sitting in the driveway at the lake house. My husband kept his composure way better than I would have imagined, given the situation. He then looked for a house key (also in my pocket) and while searching, he found the extra key to the Tahoe, minus the key fob. He then remembered that something was wrong with that key fob and my dad had traded keys with me, and I was exonerated.

Our hotel in St. Louis overlooked the airport. We didn't get a lot of time to be in our room, but when there was a chance, I was standing with my nose pressed to the window, watching jets take off and land.

LOOK HOW CLOSE I AM

This is really cool, and I have no idea WHY it happened, but it did, and I was lucky enough to see it go down: a fighter jet swooped down from the sky and did a touch and go landing! No idea why, but what luck that I got to see it!'

I'm thankful that all my electronics were smart enough to change their times back to Central Standard Time, because I had already forgotten all about it by morning.

Before we left St. Louis this morning, I took my friends on a little field trip to see a nuclear waste site. I went there about five years ago with my dear friend Christine, and you will be glad to know the uranium is still safely encapsulated under its mountain of rock.

At the foot of the toxic waste mountain

At the TOP of the toxic waste mountain

A few fun facts about the toxic waste mountain

I'm ready to tackle the week! 

                                        

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The One Where I Carried On

I got overwhelmed by Life last weekend and went AWOL.

I'm back.

Still overwhelmed but ready to soldier on!

This week's Ten Things of Thankful:

Last weekend, my laptop decided to update itself, and in so doing, caused the whole thing to come to a grinding halt. I couldn't write a post on it, obviously, and while it is POSSIBLE to do so from my phone, it isn't easy and I wasn't in a mood to try. After two days of spinning icons that were telling me it was updating (and which I seriously doubted at that point), it claimed victory. I still need a new laptop, but at least it's functioning now!

My cousin Rick and his wife Dori visited us on their way from Point A to Point B. It had been several years since I had seen them, and it was simply delightful to spend a few hours with them! Dori joined our family when I was 10 years old, and she was the first adult who didn't treat me like a little kid, and I've never forgotten that (for the record, she was hardly more than a kid herself - she was only 20 at the time!).

My cousins Rick and Dori

With the beautiful Dori

I made vegetable beef soup and homemade rolls and a truly yummy dessert for lunch with the cousins. Need a pumpkin dessert? Totally worth making this Pumpkin Dump Cake.

Photo from the website. I forgot to take one of
mine, but I will say other than the pecans,
it looked pretty much just like this.

The University of Arkansas has something called Senior Walk, wherein miles and miles of campus sidewalks are etched with the names of each graduate by year. It started in 1905, and the names were stamped by hand until 1986 when the Physical Plant created a machine they named the Sand Hog to etch the names into the concrete. In 1930, the graduates previous to 1905 were added to the walkways. It used to take a year to get a graduating class added to the walk, then grew to 2 years, but for my daughter's class, it was 3 years (thanks to construction and covid). The 2021 Senior Walk was dedicated last weekend at homecoming:

Emma Kate pointing to her name on
the UArk Senior Walk

We had beautiful fall weather this week, and my class got to play in the leaves. They would have stayed outside throwing leaves up in the air for the rest of the day if I had let them!

My loves

I pulled all my winter clothes out from their summer hiding place under my bed and in the bottom of the armoire and hung them up. I'm going to be sick and tired of them by January, but for now, it's like getting a whole new wardrobe!

Fall Festival was held at our school on Thursday. I had a spooky maze in my classroom, and I couldn't have done it without the help of my grade level partner, Beck. I didn't get a good photo of it, but imagine a maze (well, it was just a loop, but when you are 5 or under, it's a maze) made from turning every available table on its side and using all the bookshelves and chairs to make the path, then covering all of it with black trash bags. Orange and purple lights were tucked under the trash bags, some Halloween lanterns were scattered about, and you have a not-very-spooky walk! The kids loved it, as they did all the activities that night.

With Beck

It's hard to see but maybe you get the gist of it.

I made this photo booth for the Fall Festival, and while I'm no artist, I think it turned out fairly well. Saw several little kiddos with their sweet faces in the sunflower centers, getting a picture taken, so totally worth it!

I decided my hair was too long and stringy (because it was) and gave myself a trimmy-trim this weekend. Mostly even, I think, and who can tell with curly hair, anyway?

I'm thankful for the hours and hours of enjoyment I have gotten over the years watching Matthew Perry as Chandler Bing on Friends. I have been deeply saddened by his death this weekend at the age of 54. Many knew of his struggles with addiction, but did you know he founded a recovery center for men in his own home and was an advocate in the courts for rehabilitative care instead of jail time for substance abusers? Rest peacefully, Matthew. You have earned it.

Thankfuls done, now I'm ready to knock out this next week. I hope you'll join us!

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Long Live The Float And Other Thankfuls

Last weekend, I was mourning that our preschool didn't win best float at the homecoming parade, and I'm still bitter, but I'm trying to move on. What's the best way to do that? Why, write a list of thankfuls, of course!

I took the city scape from the homecoming float and lined the hallway with it. It reminds me of the Peter Pan ride at Disneyland and makes me happy,

I had a three-day week at school, as I had to take Thursday and Friday off to take my dad to a doctor's appointment. I miss my kids when I'm gone, though.

My dad is doing much better! The timing of him going home after his three month stint at rehab (for physical therapy, not drugs and alcohol!) coincided with the beginning of construction on his new garage and workshop. My husband takes his wheelchair outside so he can watch some of the work.

So, the first thing that had to be done for the addition was to replace all the sewer pipe from the house to the street (and it's 150 feet from the house to the street). There were several kerfuffles in getting this accomplished, including a huge, old, tree trunk in the path of the sewer line, as well as the cable and internet line being cut, materials and method not being to code and having to be replaced, plus (and this is the REALLY fun part) limited to no water use for several days AND NO FLUSHING THE TOILETS. As you may guess, we're all REALLY THANKFUL it's all fixed now.

I took my dad to his appointment with his new primary care physician. He reminded me of my son and can't be more than a couple of years older than he is. He was very kind and thorough, and we got all the medications straightened out and pared down.

I was able to safely dispose of the medications we no longer need by taking them to the police station. They have a drop box in their lobby, kind of like an after-hours library book drop off, except the pull down door is MUCH smaller, was heavy, and closed with a gigantic CLAAAAAANG. I'm sure the people working inside the police station were thankful when I finished, because (a) I had about 20 bottles of medications, (b) I could only fit about 4 in at a time, and (c) I couldn't hold the door open with one hand and put the pill bottles in with the other because the door would slam shut before I could get the pills in, so I had to stand on one leg and use my other knee to hold the door open while I threw in the bottles (then the door would slip and CLAAAAAAANG shut).

I came back from Branson early today with two of the cats (Nora Pearl and Lewis), partly because I don't like staying in the house by myself (and can blame any weird or scary noises I hear on them) and partly because my grandcat Calvin is coming next weekend and needed a playmate (that would be Lewis's job). They are good travelers and seldom complain, and for that, I am grateful. Our cat Fletcher used to get car sick, and it was. not. pretty.

After I unpacked the car, I drove to Miami, Oklahoma, to attend the graduation party of my beloved Baylee, who was my assistant teacher. She is currently student teaching and will graduate in December. She's going to make the most amazing high school English teacher! I'm so thankful to have been invited to her party. She is one of a kind!

Baylee's nana makes these scrumptious chocolate cakes that she knows I like, and she brought one to the party for me! I ate a big piece with butter pecan ice cream on top when I got home.

The Migration of the Winter Items has begun! I was only gone for a couple of hours for the party, and when I came upstairs, I found the following offerings from Lewis:

a

A new package of my husband's support socks,
and I have no idea where he even found them.

A little sculpture of a slipper sock (wondering where
the other one is) and his sloth toy.

An exhaustipated Lewis

In closing, I pray for peace in the Middle East and denounce terrorism and the senseless murders of this past week.

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Whatever Floats Your Float

This was homecoming week at the university where I work. We had a spirit week at preschool, and while the kids didn't really understand it, they sure had fun participating in it! One day, they dressed like superheroes, another day we all wore pajamas. There was also a crazy hair day. This brings me to my Ten Things of Thankful for this week:

I thought the theme for homecoming was stupid, but I made the most of it and came up with a brilliant idea for our float. The theme only meant something if you were a fan of some comic book-based cartoon, which I definitely am not ("Lions Assemble"). Thankful for the help of the interweb!

My friend Robin procured GINORMOUS cardboard boxes from her dad's work that I used to make the float, and Dane took them apart for me.

I spray painted boxes until I was pretty sure my entire right arm was going to fall off, but it didn't!

Wednesday was a not so good day. Stress from my dad going from rehab facility back home and all that has entailed was bringing up big feelings, and then somebody was mean to me, and I felt like I had been slapped. Thankful for Ceason and Nikki for lifting me back up!

I'm also thankful for Kaley for lending me an ear and reminding me that self-care is vital, then bringing me a lovely little gift to help me in the self-care department. 

Getting my vision for the homecoming float to come to fruition took a village, and I'm thankful to Robin (again!) for dyeing the superhero capes I made for the kids and to Alyssa for creating and ironing on transfers of our logo to the capes.

With Alyssa

I'm thankful for my friend Jennifer, who came up to school on her day off and cut out the city I had imagined and drawn onto the cardboard sheets. Then she added countless windows with yellow duct tape and even left me a little surprise drawing on one of them! My student worker Madi also helped me with windows and with putting the whole thing together.

Party on the 14th floor

Dane and I got ourselves in a pickle once again, although instead of being locked out of the school with no keys and no phone, we were in the (definitely haunted) basement looking for something I could use as a frame for the float's sign. I was poking around some cinder blocks and saw what I now know to be the unmistakable shape of a black widow spider. I screamed. Dane screamed, levitated, and was suddenly about 20 feet away. Once again, we didn't have cell phones with us to holler for help, but there WAS a landline and all we had to do was call one of the extensions upstairs, and someone (hopefully Ceason) would come kill the spider and rescue us. Problem was, we didn't know anyone's extension, and even if we did, we didn't know how to dial them. I took one for the team and ran past the spider and through the basement, up the stairs, through the fire door, and found Robin the Spider Killer to save us.

It was bigger than it looks....

More thanks for Dane for getting my sign set up and to Dane and Ceason plus Mr. Bobby (who doesn't even work for us but for the office next door) who figured out how to attach my city to the trailer when it didn't have any sides on it. 

Thankful to the preschool dad who pulled our float with his truck. He was immensely helpful in getting the city attached and the sign in place and for being a perfect float driver. I'm also thankful to all the parents and students who rode on our float and brought candy to throw.

We didn't win best float in the parade. We SHOULD have, but we didn't. That's okay (not really). We were the cutest. Our float was the best. And we had the MOST FUN!

We built this city on rock 'n roll....

Now I'm ready for a much quieter week. From my lips (or keyboard) to God's ears!

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