Happy Summer!

Happy Summer, folks! I've come to the conclusion that even if you no longer have a "summer break", there is a shift in mentality when school ends and weekends at the pool begin. Mother Nature sure took the cue and brought summer heat with vengeance to North Carolina with this week hitting the 90's! Don't fret for me or Princess Daisy, though, as we can typically be found lolling about under the fans;-) I am so blessed to have a husband who works hard enough for me to be able to relax in the summer. And relaxing is definitely what's going on around here! 

We kicked Summer off with a quick trip to Ocean Isle Beach to visit with some of David's family. It was gloriously relaxing and a great farewell to the beach, at least for a while. At this point the doctor said no more far travels:-( But at least we snuck one final trip in! 

The past two days have found me busy tidying up the house from its 10-month hiatus from being clean (thanks, school responsibilities and exhaustion!) and lolling about. I've managed to read one chick-lit book I picked up from the local used bookstore (ehhh) and am making my way through Smart Money, Smart Kids by Dave Ramsey and his daughter. I'm reading this at David's prompting (I am sooooooo not a money person!), but am actually enjoying the lessons in it. Hopefully by reading it now we can help prepare Amelia Grace to be successful in the future. You did realize both her parents were uber Type-A and always trying to be steps ahead??

Speaking of Amelia Grace she is just hanging out and cooking. We are 31 weeks now and enjoying it as much as we can. When I say "enjoy" I am most certainly leaving out the sciatica pain, indigestion, and insomnia. I know every bit of it will be worth it come August, but right now I am super thankful for the time off to rest! 

Speaking of rest, I do believe it's time for my afternoon nap. . .;-)

The Book

No, I'm not talking about The book as in the Bible, though that is a pretty stellar book. I'm talking about this book:

I received a gift card to Barnes and Noble from a few of my students. While I was on the site picking out Jen Lancaster's newest gem I stumbled upon this one. I am absolutely fascinated with the Kennedy crazy, so I knew I couldn't pass this up. I started it about two weeks ago and read roughly an hour a day every day. Some days (like the relaxing few on the beach!) I packed in 2-3 hours. I could not put it down. It was 900 pages of nonfiction, but read like a juicy, gossip-filled novel. To say I was sad when I finished it would be an understatement; I was devastated! How am I possibly going to find anything as fascinating?? I'm open to suggestions!

Friday's Letters [06/28]

Happy Friday, folks!!

Dear Nashville, Oh, how you have sucked us in to your sordid, twisted, musical drama. I don't know what we're going to do when we finish the first season on Hulu!

Dear Daisy, Thank you for being so good when we took pictures last weekend. I know it was crazy hot, but you were a rockstar. I'm pretty sure you had the best pictures of any of us.

Dear Jen Lancaster, Thank you for continuing to crack me up with your crazy antics. Tao of Martha has been a great reminder that I'm not alone in the world when I mess up yet another "easy" recipe/craft/project. 

Dear reading friends, Looking for a good book to read this summer? Look no further! This list of 14 books being made into movies has quite a few on here that will keep you hooked for hours! My personal fave? Divergent, but I'm excited to read a few of the others too!

Dear Davido, You are one pretty stellar dude, you know that? Thank you for your continued patience with my crazy.

Summer 2013 Bucket List

Today is officially my first day of Summer-WAHOOOO! A few Summers ago I came up with a "bucket list" of sorts. A list of activities and tasks I wanted to accomplish over my two-month break. Enter an impromptu nannying job and buying a house and those to-do's went out the window. I'm giving it another go with a few things I want to tackle on my break!

apply for a passport

Where are we headed? Nowhere in particular, but we figured it might be a good idea to get me one in case we want to go somewhere. When we were looking at Spring Break trips we felt limited because I didn't have one and we don't want that to happen again.
 

study for (and possibly take) the GRE

Y'all, I'm scared. We've been talking about me doing this for a while now and the first step is to take that nasty test. The funny thing is I teach kids how to take tests all the time, but I'm terrified to do it myself. I haven't taken a standardized test since I was in high school! Cue freakout in 3, 2, 1. . .

top to bottom clean

I want to do a top to bottom clean of our house. David always jokes that our house is so much cleaner in the summer because I finally have time to pay attention to it. It's the sad, sad truth.

cooking

I really would like to get back into trying new recipes. A lot of time I don't have the energy to do this after school, but with hours of free time I will have no excuse!

summer reading

Ditto above, just substitute books instead of recipes. The school year does not afford me much time for personal reading and I would really like to take some time to do that.  

crafting
I have a slew of projects I've been pondering and this summer is the perfect opportunity to complete them!

sunrise/sunset
This is an item on my 30 Before 30 List and I would love to knock it out this summer. It seems like I'll either see the sunrise or the sunset, but never in the same day. I'm hoping to partake in this glorious creation sometime this summer! 

Anything else I should add??

Friday's Letters [05.24]

Happy Friday, folks!!

Dear testing, Please go away. All my poor little babies (and my little babies I mean 8th graders bigger than me) are stressed to the max! You are giving them cold sweats, sobs, and stress no child should ever experience. Just vamoosh!

Dear readers, I am in dire need of book suggestions! It's looking like my summer will be full of reading by the pool and I would love to hear your suggestions!

Dear David, Thank you for being the Godly, patient, loving fellow that you are. I appreciate you and your support more than I could ever put into words.

Dear 3 day weekend, How you doin'?

Dear world, In case there is ever a salad dressing apocalypse, I think I've got us covered.

 Dear TJ, I really hope they release you from Marine camp (aka TBS) today! We all miss our Boo-man!

Friday's Letters [05.03]

Happy Friday, folks!!

Dear weekend, Oooeee you are going to keep us busy. Busy in a good way, though. Between all the adventures and visits that await I know you're bound to be a good one.

Dear readers, In search of a good book to kickstart your summer reading? Take a gander at Sharon Draper's Out of My Mind. It's not for the faint of heart, but the story there is incredible! I highly recommend that along with Divergent by Veronica Roth.

Dear Daisy, You are soooooo lucky I was the first one home and not your daddy. What exactly went through your mind to make this a good idea? You sort of redeemed yourself when you went straight into the bathroom for your punishment instead of me sending you there. How are you so stinkin smart yet so impossibly dumb at the same time?

Dear school, Only 5 more weeks until we get to take a much-needed break from each other. It's not me, it's definitely you.

Printed Media

It is absolutely fascinating to me how far we have come with technology. Friday morning I woke up, went about my usual routine, and tossed the paper into my school bag to read with the kids in homeroom. We'd been talking about the Boston Marathon tragedy all week and I was excited to continue the conversation and to prove a point-we were moving past the times of printed news.

Friday morning's paper covered details of the two suspects and where they could possibly be found. The paper included pleas to the public to share any information they had. All of that was old news by 6:15 when the text updates from USA Today started pouring into my phone with details of Thursday night's chase. The authorities had caught and killed the older brother and were shutting down Watertown in an attempt to capture the younger brother. All of my paper news was outdated.

Am I the only one out there who finds this absolutely fascinating??

For so long our parents, grandparents, etc leaned on the newspaper for details of the world. Slowly but surely people shifted to the radio and eventually the television as sources, but the newspaper still reigned. It was until the rise of the internet that it all changed. My students' generation could care less about the printed word. To them, it's all about the fastest way to acquire their information and the newspaper is rarely (if ever) the fastest way. 

I personally enjoy sitting down with the morning paper on a Saturday morning, but I don't consider it my source of news anymore. If I want news, I'll head to Google. If I want a few minutes to just read and catch up on the world around me, you better believe I'll be at the kitchen table with a newspaper and cup of coffee. 

Do you read the paper anymore?

Bedside Table

If you've been here for a while you know I'm a big reader. I am a READING teachers after all! My parents kick started this passion young in life, and it has continued since then. I literally cannot fall asleep at night until I have read something-a book, magazine, Twitter, anything! When I was a wee one I had trouble keeping up with more than one book at a time, but as I've aged, so have my multi-tasking abilities. At this current moment I have seven books on my bedside table that I am in the process of reading. Yes, seven. Here is a look. . .

Rumble Fish by S.E. Hinton

She graced us with The Outsiders, and so I've made it a point to try to read everything she has written. I mean if you can pump out at classic as a teenager then you've got some talent.

Warriors Don't Cry by Melba Patillo Beals

This young adult book about the Civil Rights Movement came highly recommended by a teacher friend. I've had it for about a month, but am looking forward to diving in!

New Day, New You by Joyce Meyer

This gem was gifted to me by a sweet friend at church. She brought over supper one evening and a stellar goodie bag full of pampering items, including this devotional. It truly does pamper the soul and I look forward to keeping up with it daily this year.

Noah's Rainbow by David Fleming

My mom's cousin's wife (keeping up?) sent me this book following the loss of Emerson. They had lost a baby at 20 weeks and she found this book helpful. The author is a writer for ESPN.com and lives in Charlotte! He and his wife had a perfectly normal pregnancy, but due to a placental eruption lost their baby boy (Noah) the day they were set to give birth. A very emotional book that has offered me some help and insight.

Two Kisses For Maddy by Matthew Logelin

I found this at the local used bookstore and thought it would be a good read. It's by a man who lost his wife only moments after their daughter, Maddy, was born. Tear jerker all the way.

Here I Go Again by Jen Lancaster

Have you ever read anything by this hysterical woman? If the answer is no, then scurry over to amazon.com to pick up her collection. Everything she writes will have your belly aching from laughter. This is her second novel, but she's written a few nonfiction pieces chronicling her life's mishaps. 

Connect by Nelson Searcy

Our pastor recommended this to me as a way to open our ministry team's eyes to ways to love our volunteers. I'm excited to see how this can grow our volunteer base to glorify Him.

What's on your bedside table?

A Message To 13-Year-Old Me

I have the true pleasure of teaching everyone's least favorite age each and every day. When I tell people I teach middle school I usually get a response of, "why?"". Gee talk about an uplifting motivator. The truth is I love it. It can be a challenge, but what rewarding task isn't? Working with these kiddos often has me reflecting back to my own teen years and the angst I felt the need to put my parents through. A few things I wish I could tell myself then. . .

*keep reading*

Who cares if it's not the "cool" thing to do? You enjoy it and are really good at it. Don't let other people stop you from doing what you like!

*it's okay if your butt doesn't fall out of your shorts*

Unfortunately, I think this is a trend that just won't die. I wish I could tell my former self (and all the young girls I teach!) that the booty hanging out of the shorts is not attractive, so please don't do it!

*high school isn't as scary as everyone makes it seem*

With all the big talk from your 8th grade teachers, heading to high school about gave you an anxiety attack. Just breathe. They'll give you a map and after a day or two it won't even matter anymore. Now, college on the other hand is definitely going to throw you for a loop or two. . . 

*the drama isn't worth it

I know it seems exciting now, but stay away from the drama. It will only cause pain and issues later.

*nothing can shock you*

After some of the people you meet and things you encounter you begin to think that nothing can shock you, think again! Life will continue to throw your curve balls and you will continue to learn from them and grow.

If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself??

Friday's Letters [05.25]

Hip hip hooray, we made it to Friday! I'm linking up again this week with the wonderful Adventures of Newlyweds.

Dear students who are retesting, pretty please take this seriously and do your best. I may just cry if you don't all pass it this go around.

Dear Bubba, I was flipping through my phone and I found this picture. It made me start giggling because you told me you were taking it to show the world what a "redneck diva" I am. You have no idea what this redneck diva is capable of;-)

Dear magazines, I apologize for my ridiculous neglect of you. You keep coming to me in the mail with hopes of being read in a timely manner, but alas life has kept me from you! Come June 8th I promise to devote more time to your consumption.

Dear Daisy, Why do you make it so hard for me to leave in the mornings?? You snuggle down so sweetly next to me that the thought of leaving just breaks my heart. Only a few more weeks until I'll have plenty of time for tummy rubs and ear scratches!

Dear Bird-boy, I am so glad you are living with us this summer! I have high hopes that this time around will be a lot more fun than it was when we were kids. I mean let's be real here. Being an adult and getting to do what we want is a lot more fun than being told what to do by The Momma.