note to self:

Things NOT to make for dinner when even the smell of dryer lint makes you want to yack:

- chili cheese dogs
- roasted cauliflower
- fried anything

I'm sure I will have more to add, since obviously I haven't learned my lesson yet. Going back upstairs to hide now.

pregnancy thoughts, round 2

Let's see, where are we...7 weeks?

So I know the best nausea advice is "don't let yourself get hungry," but I'm thinking that with Luke's Halloween candy in the house, this may be counterproductive.

Hey, remember that time when I was all, "Oh, being pregnant isn't that bad?" Yeah...about that.

This, too, shall pass, but that's kind of what I'm afraid of...sure, it'll pass. Like a kidney stone passes.

I'm kind of sad that I never lost the last 10 pounds of the Luke weight. I still look 3 months pregnant. I guess now I'm just hoping that it's not cumulative. If I look 6 months pregnant at 3 months, I quit.

It is SO much easier to be pregnant at home than pregnant when you're working full-time. Holy cow. Taking care of one cuddly, affectionate, low-key, routine-loving toddler is NOTHING like getting up at 6 am every day to go sit on 200 rowdy 14 year olds. There are definitely things I miss about working, but the havoc it wreaks on my body is not one of them.

Perhaps my opinion on this will change once there are more rugrats running around here, but seriously? When people say that stay-at-home-moms work just as hard as working moms, they're wrong. They're just 100% wrong. I've been on both sides, peeps, and the math doesn't add up.

p.s.

I had a baby and he's REALLY cute. http://hereslittleluke.blogspot.com

Since the last time I posted much of anything on here:
- we moved apartments and, consequently, managed a 30-plex for a year.
- I taught for another year, this time at a real school. Bigger kids, better admins, more great teacher friends.
- Scott wrote a thesis, earned a master's degree, passed a top-secret security clearance, and landed a posh job in St. Louis. We move in 30 days! YIKES!

Maybe this blog is on life support, or maybe it's just waiting for its renaissance now that I'm not teaching anymore. Maybe Luke's blog and pinterest have taken its place. We shall see.

Poor abandoned blog...

I just had to repost these because they really made me laugh out loud (and made me feel better for thinking the same things!)

You know you're getting close to finished when...

-When you drop something you have an internal debate on whether you really needed said item or if it's a lost cause.

-You get angry at the groccery store becuase why would you put that on the bottom shelf, really!?

-You have perfected a roll scooch manuever for getting up that makes everyone else laugh but you're damn proud becuase, hey, you actually got up.

-You can't remember if you just peed or if you were just thinking about going.

hello world!

I'm not dead, I'm just lazy. I really do remember this blog exists. Anyway, I survived my first year of teaching without permanently leaving the profession...yay! Maybe my escape from the loony-bin charter school for next year will leave me more time to blog, eh?

In other news: All of my favorite recipe blogs are failing me, because it's hotter than you-know-where and our poor little AC window unit just can't cut it if I've got the oven on. I don't know if it's just the oven we have or if all gas ovens are like this, but, um, there's a big orange FIRE on the bottom when you turn it on, and big huge vents out the top of the door. Is that normal? I think we hit 88 degrees in the living room last time I tried to bake (yesterday...omg brownies) (if you're cheap like me, just use a bag of chocolate chips instead of buying a bar of baking chocolate) (and forget the nuts--just squirt some chocolate syrup along the top of the batter in the pan & swirl it around with a knife or something, pretty) (trust me, seriously, you'll never use the gummy box kind again) even though we had Lil' AC and every fan in the house (4) running full-blast. I can't even plug in a freaking waffle maker without heating our whole place up. I've decided the only kitchen appliance I'm cooking with until October is the freezer. Seriously, someone want to buy me one of these?

spring cleaning 2: teaching stuff (old post, revisited)

I found, buried under a pile of posts waiting to be published, this little beauty from a while ago. It's funny to me to see which ideas I implemented and which I didn't.

Misc. Teaching Ideas (from Spring 2009?)

• - buy a bunch of cheap notebooks at the start of the school year (when all the school supplies go on sale) for kids who "don't have a notebook" (check--the school did this for me, actually)
• - put extra trash cans all over the room to cut down on notebook shreddings (hmm...not really feasible in a small room...but interesting. May have to try it.)
• - reading corner w/soft stuff, books, lamp, rug, etc. (not as successful as I had hoped. Still have the corner of books, but the pillows & blankies only come out once in a while.)
• - "wall of fame" for student work and "wall of shame" for found grammar errors (got the fame. Don't think my kids are adroit enough to find stuff for the shame.)
• - "writers' toolbox" with literary terms inside (tried it...turns out the literary terms I was thinking of are more for high school, not 6th grade. I do have a Writers' Toolbox bulletin boardish thing, though, with writing tips & posters about the writing process etc. Think I like that better. )
• - 6 traits posters, of course (check! they're lovely and colorful)
• - posters of "audiences" for writing--Congressman, future self, Kramer, etc. (I'm still interested to see how this would play out.)
• - big calendar with due dates (kids don't check it at all...but it's helpful for me.)
• - use grammar girl podcasts--as self-starts? (interesting. hmm.)
• - have an "out box" basket for each class's graded work (yup. easy way to sort papers...I use a big stack of plastic drawers. works fabulously.)
• - define some kind of a late work/absent policy? (HA. turns out this is tricky when you're working within a department/other teachers. It's not like the kids would listen anyway...but late work isn't a huge problem for me, fortunately--just a trickle here and there. Most of the time it's just never turned in & the kid takes a 0 on the assignment.)
• - start w/desks in rows with assigned seats. you can always loosen up from there. (I actually went back to this after 5 months of other arrangements--semicircle, tables, columns of pairs, etc. I really like the old-fashioned grid, though, especially for the 6th graders. Kids are much more focused...duh.)

P.S. I think I'm going to import my other teaching blog(s) in here. No reason not to--I like this new tagging thing (goodness, am I behind the curve or what?).

spring cleaning

Snow's melting & in the spirit of the season, I'm merging & deleting a bunch of old blogs. Sorry if you just got a bunch of weird recipes in your feed reader or something. Promise I'll post something more newsworthy eventually. (?)