paperback writer

so, last year my new year's resolution was to read more books. it worked for a while, then i got busy looking for a house, buying a house, moving in the house, setting up the house, mouse-proofing the house, and getting paranoid about things in my house. now that all of that is taken care of and tv pretty much stinks right now, i have more time to read. so, for no reason, here's a list of books i've read so far this year.

The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks (repeat)
The Outsiders (repeat, I read it every year)
That Was Then, This Is Now (repeat)
Rumble Fish
Tex
Taming the Star all by SE Hinton
Kite Runner by Kahled Hosseini
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling (repeat)
Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck
King of Torts by John Grisham
Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix
Pursuit of Happyness by Christopher Gardner

That's it so far, i've got The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini, and Hawkes Harbor by SE Hinton waiting for me when i finish Pursuit of Happyness. i recently discovered the Used Books at Hastings! i love it, i'm thinking k-dogg may have a different opinion, but after the new smash brothers game for wii comes out next week, i can pretty much buy, go, or do anything and he won't notice! Anyone have any book recommendations?

i'll be there for you

My friend, lil' miss martha stewart, tagged me on her blog. there's a part one to this, but i don't know enough people to tag, so i'm just doing part two for her.

Here's how you play: Once you've been tagged you have to write a blog with 10 weird random facts, habits, secrets, or goals about yourself, at the end choose 10 people to be tagged. List their name and why you tagged them. Don't forget to leave them a comment saying "You're It!" and to go read your blog. You can't tag the person who tagged you! So since you can't tag me back let me know when you are done so I can read your blog answers!

1. fact- my pinkie toes are sideways. my toenails actually face left and right instead of up.

2. secret- i have a josh turner song on my ipod. me, the person that worked so hard to hate all things country as soon as i was old enough to know the difference!

3. habit- everyday when i get to work and turn on my computer, i read foxnews before i do anything else.

4. goal-i want to cut down on my caffeine, we'll see! last time i tried, kevin told me he liked me better when i had caffeine.

5. fact- i never leave the house without wearing my wedding ring and diamond stud.

6. secret- i'm thinking of voting for obama...mostly 'cause i like saying barack obama over and over

7. habit- coke and a honeybun...need i say more?

8. goal- to go on another mission trip out of the country

9. fact- i watch rock of love with bret michaels EVERY week even though it is reality tv at it's worst and so trashy! but i never talk about it at work!

10. secret- i dread the time during church when you are suppose to greet each other because i don't like shaking hands or talking to people unless i know them really really well.

well there you go, now i tag: no one...but if you read this, please, feel free to copy it on your blog!

shadowland

my mom and i went to see the african children's choir last night. it was even better than i expected. those little kids are SO talented. the best one was this tiny little girl, i forgot her name, but man, she can dance. she was moving and dancing at least twice as hard as everyone else! the backdrop was really cool. it was just a wavy screen, but they made it turn colors to go with whatever they were singing about. they also had a small circle screen that showed different pictures and was also used as the sun and moon. very creative. it just makes me that much madder at my students when i see kids like that working hard and being successful, and i can't even get my lazy bunch of brats to read a book! even my poorest, most pathetic kids have so much more than most kids in the world and most of them are so ungrateful. i know a lot of it has to do with their age, but some of them will never outgrow it. totally different culture tonight...i was right in the middle of cheerleaderland. i went to the high school tryouts to support two of my old students and their moms. both of them made it, so that's good...i guess. i was never into that whole cheerleader thing. i so hope that if i ever have kids i have boys. or if i do have a girl, i really hope she never wants to be a cheerleader. play sports, do drama, academic teams, absolutely nothing if that's what she wants...but not cheerleading. anyway, we saw vantage point friday night. we were both pretty excited about this movie. i enjoyed it, k-dogg was less enthusiastic. i don't want to give much away, but it reminded him of groundhog day for a while. last night he watched i know who killed me. first movie he's ever seen with an exotic dancer turned zombie turned stigmatic twin turned amputee turned robot. or something like that. he said it was a really good really bad movie...if that makes sense. i think i'm going to take a shower and go to bed early. i'm still tired from being out late last night and i need to try to get up earlier tomorrow. getting up at 7:15 doesn't work real well when i'm supposed to be at work at 7:45! the random giraffe picture is for my sister, bean.

sugarpie, honeypunch

yeah, i know those aren't the right words. i think that came from a kid my mom had in her pre-k class when she worked at the school. i'm not really sure. anyway, the worst part of my day so far has been that we are out of honeybuns. actually...is it honeybun or honeybunch? it's hard to have anything bad happen when you don't get out of bed until 1:45! i guess it would be bad if you were still in bed at 1:45 and you were supposed to have been somewhere earlier...but not me. i have nowhere to be until 4 when we are going to go tear into some barbecue and ribs for k-dogg's grandma's belated b-day celebration. anyway, i had to eat an organic cereal bar instead of my normal honeybun. yes, i know that doesn't seem right, having little debbie honeybuns and organic cereal bars from the natural foods store in the same kitchen...but who cares? i'm trying to buy more organic foods and more natural house stuff, but it's expensive and for me the best part of waking up is not folgers in my cup...it's a coke and a honeybun. however, if you think most cereal bars have a funky aftertaste like i do...try health valley strawberry cobbler cereal bars. best ones i've ever had! i also think organic milk tastes better than regular. i don't know that i'll ever be able to give up my cokes and white bread though, no matter what. my mom and dad are flying home from bean's today. i have to pick them up at the airport tonight. i had nothing to do this week while they were in california. now that they'll be home, i have more to do. my mom and i are going to see the african children's choir tuesday night. thursday is my dad's birthday. and saturday we're going to canton! we've been trying to go since october, but either someone was sick or the weather was not good. then the week after that is the writing taks, open house, and my friend's wedding. i'm pretty nervous about the taks and i don't like open house for obvious reasons, but i can't wait for the wedding! that's still two weeks away though, so for now, i'm off to try to make whole wheat gingerbread!

tuesday's gone

not as ticked off today. talked to my mom and dad while they're hanging out at my sister's house in california. heard from an old friend. got some mcdonald's. played with banjo. took some pictures of the daffodils in my front yard that i didn't know were there. ordered some stuff from drugstore.com. tried to avoid those toxic people at work, didn't work too well since we had a faculty meeting! looking forward to eating ribs this weekend and going to canton next weekend. then i have a wedding to go to the week after that and the week after that is SPRING BREAK. planning on doing major yard work during spring break. and of course some shopping. all in all...not a bad day.

Don't Lose Your Cool

i'm still amazed that people smart enough to go to college, get a degree, and be handed the responsibility of teaching our future are so flat out dumb, annoying, and childish sometimes. we got an email today from the assistant superintendent. another teacher im's me to ask if we're supposed to do something with the email, how long it took me to answer the survey in the email, and how serious she should be with her answers. come on, she got the same email as everyone else, if most of us understood it, why can't she? then we got a message from our principal explaining a reward for students with good behavior and grades. we're allowed to pick three students from our class to reward. so she had to im me again to ask what she's supposed to do with the reward even though our principal sent an im explaining it and came to each classroom to explain it in person! then she has the nerve to ask how i can teach my kids if i'm sitting at my desk every time she comes to ask me a question and tells me that my new shoes look comfortable. which basically is her snide way of saying that she thinks they are too casual for work even though they aren't against dress code. how can she teach her kids if she's always asking me unnecessary questions and coming to my room? put that with the teacher who goes out of his way to voice his opinion on anything and everything especially if it's about the school system or politics. if he disagrees with the system, why did he come back to teaching? and yes, we get it, he's a democrat. who cares? most people at our school are republican, we know that, accept it, vote the way you want, and go on with your life. i ought to tell him i'm thinking about voting for obama just to see if that shuts him up, but it probably won't. i would like to tell him that his jokes and comments about my hair are really old and that if i cared what other people thought of my hair, i'd have asked them what they thought before i cut it. i went through school with a side spike, a tail, lines shaved in my hair, and an asymetrical haircut. in college my hair was maroon and i didn't use a comb for well over a year. does he think i haven't heard "did you lose your hairbrush/stick your finger in a light socket/stand too close to the combine/lose a bet" before? for someone who prides himself on being weird and a nonconformist, you'd think he wouldn't say anything! my kids are being pretty decent for a change, it's the other teachers that are driving me nuts this week. those two plus the one who wishes she had my job and the one that can't figure out the difference between acting like the kids and being a grown up. i am so thankful for my three friends down the hall and the two downstairs. and spring break is in 3 1/2 weeks so that helps, too. ok, enough venting now, i think i need a hot shower and a book.

Long Way From Home

Yep, my whole family is in california without me. this sucks. i've been bored and grumpy all weekend, so k-dogg sent me to go shopping today. that's pretty much his answer anytime he doesn't know what to do with me. if i'm bored, mad, hyper, lazy, pretty much anything he thinks is different from normal...he tells me to go shopping. so, i did. i got some new tennis shoes. not real ones to work out in, but the kind that just look cute and are more comfortable than my boots. i think my adidas are about dead. considering they were only $17 and i bought them in '96, i'd say they've served their purpose and have had a long life! my new eccos won't last nearly as long, but they're in much better shape and more appropriate for work. i got more wallflowers! i think i now have wallflowers coming out of my ears. before the mall i went to kohl's. what did i do before we got a kohl's? i tried on a bunch of stuff, but one shirt looked like a hospital gown and some of the other shirts i tried on were too big even though they were a small! that definitely put me in a better mood! then i went to my favorite store for total randomness...tj maxx. i got a belt so my mom will be happy that i have a real belt instead of just the boy scout-looking belt i got from a bugle boy outlet. i got a st. patrick's day plate and a really cool glass that's iridescent and has gold elephants on it for my bedroom. see, total randomness. i also went to old navy and got my yearly quota of 2 perfect t's. those are the best t-shirts in the world. i actually may need to add those to my list of things that bring me inspiration, peace, and joy. i think my next shopping trip will be a quest for my dad's birthday present and hair products that actually work. it takes a lot of work to make my hair look like i don't do anything to it! for now i'm off to make suddenly salad and rest up before i go back to work tomorrow. i really wish we had president's day off.

i want candy

i survived valentine's day at middle school. i honestly think it was worse than halloween. worse...that's a comparative adjective. normally, my kids can figure that out, but today they were on such a sugar rush that it went out the window. tomorrow most of them will crash, so maybe it will be quieter. it's also my aunt's birthday, my grandma-in-law's birthday, and my other aunt and uncle's anniversary. i've never understood why they got married on valentine's day. they are two of the most boring, unromantic, unsentimental people i know. plus, if my uncle ever forgot to buy a gift...it'd be double trouble. k-dogg got me across the universe on dvd. i haven't seen it yet, but since i love all things beatles, it was easy. and the fact that he can't really stand the beatles, makes it even cooler that he bought it. i'm so glad tomorrow is friday. the seinfeld episode where george keeps yelling, "Serenity now!" kept popping into my brain all day while i tried my best not to physically harm any of my hormone-charged, sugar-rushed kids. i really want some buffalo wings, but since it's survivor and lost night...they'll have to wait until tomorrow!

Do What You Set Out To Do

So, if even my mom has a blog now, i think it's time to make the switch from xanga to here. Maybe i won't tell anyone for awhile. at least until i get the hang of it. for now, this is it. just wanted to get something down on screen before i go pop a pizza in the oven. i wanted to try an idea i got from my friend. she titles all of her blogs with a song title or lyric. i couldn't think of anything right now so i cheated and looked on the back of the cd in front of me. i thought this song by bobby bland fit pretty well...we'll see what happens...