Cool water

"That dress looks like how jumping into cool water feels. Don't you want mommy to look like how jumping into cool water feels?" I asked Thomas. He did. He was very patient and let me try it on and didn't fuss one bit. Then I bought it. It was an impulse buy while at Target (they have the best overnight diapers, they just do), but I have no regrets. 

The color in this photo isn't great because we took it at 8 at night (Hello summer!), but the print is a vibrant blue with sort of a watery-reflection-of-sun thing happening. I wore it to walk the dog and later to sit on the couch and feel melancholy about my fifth-graders "graduating." The school year is pretty much done. I had to say some final goodbyes to students. Ugh. Hate it. Love teaching. Get all invested. Then they have the nerve to do well and move on with their lives!

What Does the Fox Say?

Oh yeah. I went there. 

When I wear this sweater to school, I get a lot of "What Does the Fox Say?" comments/ full-blown renditions from my students. They have that song memorized!

(What does this fox say?)

But the love of that kooky song doesn't belong only to my young students, my mom showed it to me at Thanksgiving. It is a song whose appeal spans generations.

I feel like it's a song you either love or hate, but I can't really defend that stance since I neither love nor hate it. But you want to know what? I really, really love how much other people love it. Like, the fact my mother loves that song makes me so happy for some reason.

And I love foxes. And fox sweaters. And fuzzy hats. And Christmastime. And gray days. And kids singing silly songs. All of those things, I love.

Crazy Hat Day

So, it was Crazy Hat Day at our school, and that's basically a day designed just for me, a true lover of the crazy hat. 

I rocked this number. It was terribly popular with young and old alike. How could it not be? It is the best of the crazy hats. Also, I wear it in "real life" sometimes too (to the theater, once to a concert). 

Oh crazy hats, how I do love you. It's actually a goal of mine to wear hats more. So thank you, Crazy Hat Day for helping me reach this goal, for encouraging me to adorn my head in a crazy-hat manner, for giving me a day where other teachers come up to me and say things like "Let me just love on that hat for a minute..." Thank you Crazy Hat Day. Thank you.

Sappy

I'm going to take some pictures in my pretty first-day-of-school dress! Hey wait. What's that?

What is that?

What is going on here?

Uh uh. No this is not acceptable.

It's like it's raining, but there's not a cloud in the sky... It's sap?

It's sap. There are worse things than sap. I can handle sap dribbles. It's going to be okay.

 Anyway, this is my pretty first-day-of-school dress. It's not new, but it's fabulous. Fabulous. And guess what? My first day of school was fabulous too. Absolutely fabulous. I'm expecting it to be an excellent year!

P.S. Glasses are fixed! Yay!

Parking lot pretty

I'm in training all week so I broke out some work wear to learn about how to be the most awesome literacy teacher in the world. Or at least to learn how to become a better literacy teacher. (And, okay, I'm a teacher who really embraces sentence fragments, but only on blogs! Or in columns! Not acceptable in more formal work! That's my disclaimer! Here's another sentence that ends in an exclamation point!)

I love to learn. I am such a nerd. I'm a nerd in a new polka-dot skirt and old ballet flats who takes pictures of her own feet in a windy grocery store parking lot. That is who I am.

Hot pink with polka dots

 I saved my hot-pink polka-dot dress for my fifth-grade students' promotion ceremony. I have to admit, I used to be one of those people who looked at this sort of thing side-eyed (as in: Um. It's not a real graduation.) But after spending a year with these kids (and these are such great kids), the ceremony was an awesome closure to the year and caused me to be very emotional to say the least.

Seriously. They're just going to go away and that's it? I taught them how to divide decimals! We went ziplining together! I cannot change my nail polish without receiving input! What is the deal?!

So yeah. Hot pink polka-dots. Ballet flats cause that's where it's at.

And I know I should be all foot-loose and fancy-free embracing summer, but I'm totally faking it in the above photo. I think I need a good cry. I'm going to have to watch "Up" or something (that movie always gets me). I'm also going to listen to the following advice from a veteran-educator friend of mine:  "(Feeling emotional) goes with the territory no matter what age you are teaching. A sign that you have given all to your students and are depleted. Now, listen up, you must use the summer to re-build yourself, fill the void by experiencing life, and that way you will be whole and ready for new class in fall so it is a must to learn, experience, live life  to the fullest and rebuild your spirit!"

Okay.

I'm on it.

Pirates of Penzanze

I grew up watching musicals and old Hollywood classics, and I LOVED them and still do.

My students these days are into horror movies and/or Disney.

But maybe that's what kids were into back in the '80s too, and I have just been a freak since childhood. I mean, what 11-year-old loves a cheerful operetta? All of them? Do all of them love them? Or just the oddballs? Goal for next year: Encourage children to embrace Gilbert and Sullivan. (Also other goals like have children improve their reading levels and identify themes and write, you know, coherently, and perhaps even divide some fractions. But also: to have children embrace Gilbert and Sullivan. And maybe Audrey Hepburn too. Or should I save that for my third-year of teaching?)



Who doesn't love pirate kings?

Although, I'll have to hit them early. Fifth-graders are already too cool for school. My third-graders could very well fall in love with black and white movies and musicals and black-and-white movie musicals (and "Pirates of Penzanze" cause duh).

Oh the anxiety

In the one year in my class, my literacy students grew their reading levels two grades on average. On the end of the year exam for the school, my math students were 100 percent proficient and 100 percent of them showed growth. This is huge news for me. And yet, last night, I couldn't sleep because I had anxiety.

"What is this about?" I asked myself. All year I worried I wasn't a good teacher yet, and now I have great data (and data is a big deal), and I'm filled with anxiety? Shouldn't I be filled with glee? And summer is a week away! Come on, what's the deal?

And then I figured it out: I have been completely consumed with this job. I LOVE my students. My whole life for the past 10 months has been mostly about the classroom, and I have been exhausted and stressed, but I've also had so much fun and found it so rewarding... and it's almost over.

I am a first-year teacher and I am saying goodbye to students who are mine for the first time, and I'm feeling a little bit "What is this about? I work my booty off for a year and then they just leave? We have a good thing going!"

I teach a multi-age class of third-through-fifth-grade students so only 1/3 of my kids are actually leaving me. The rest are coming back next year (We loop together).  Thank goodness. I was drawn to teaching because there is so much change -- the year always ends, a new year always begins, but, man, I think I'm going to be shedding a tear or two at our fifth-grade promotion ceremony next week.

So many people thought I was a crazy lady when I made the career change, but I'm really glad I became a teacher. Now I need to shift my anxiety into excitement. Summer is a-coming!

Loving Lately

Things I have been loving lately include but are not limited to...

1. Running into former students. I ran into one of the second-graders I taught (as a student teacher) last year. He was so tall! I was with Robert, who had a basket full of perfectly respectable items such as potatoes, carrots and broccoli. I was holding boxed wine. Of course. Not just wine. Boxed wine. I foresaw this happening. I always, always knew the first time I saw a student (former or current), it would be in a grocery store, and I would be holding wine.

2. Boxed wine. Black Box is good. It just is. And it's cheap(ish). And eco-friendly. I have no shame. Except for the shame I have. But I only have that because I live in the South.

3. Snow in the South. So while living in the South (and more likely for seven years in a very small southern town where I was a freakishly public personality for being a 20-something quirky chick) has made me a little paranoid about appearing like a lush in public, it has also made me a massive lover of magical, transient snow. We never get it! But sometimes we do! And when we do it is so beautiful. Snow in the South is a very specific, beautiful thing. It is not the same as snow in other places. We haven't had snow like this in three years. It was powdery and crunchy and stayed for less than 24 hours. MAGICAL. As seen here in blurry photos.

4. Ebay. I have developed a problem. I am now off of Ebay. Allegedly. Not coincidentally, I am now the owner of some awesome combat boots. I feel very myself circa 2000.

5. This song. I heard it on Jimmy Fallon. Cause me and Jimmy, we're still besties.



6. Bath salts. Not the drugs. The actual salts you put in the bath to relax. I'm really annoyed there's a drug called "bath salts." I feel it gives for-real bath salts a bad name when they are so healthy and awesome.

7. Looking forward to something. It is maybe not Zen to look forward to things. It is, perhaps, better to focus on the present. To just live in the Now, man. But I have always been a forward-thinking lady, and I find I am a much happier person if I have something very specific that I'm looking forward to. Right now, it's visiting my math-professor/gorgeous-genius sister in California. She is the bee's knees. And she lives two hours away from Disneyland (and no-hours away form the Farmers Market Ben Affleck shops at). So it will be an epic visit, and I may or may not come back with mouse ears (and Ben Affleck).

Long time, no see

As a first-year teacher, teaching is pretty much all I think about these days. I love my job. I love my smarty-pants kids. But this job is all-consuming! My new goal is for it to not consume all of me. I'm going to attempt to have a "work-life balance," which I hear such lovely things about. And so: Blog Revival! Blog Reboot! Blog 2.0!

These are pictures from two weeks ago. They show my beautiful dog and my large amount of (bunned-up) hair. I have since chopped all my hair off. Stay tuned for pictures! And other posts! Because I'm back, baby!

P.S. Although I have not been posting on here, or commenting anywhere, I have still managed to be an avid, addicted blog reader. Thanks ladies for all your pictures of puppies and knick-knacks and thrifted sartorial gems!

My new maxi-dress

In this photo, I am very hot because of all the heat in the outside world. I don't think it was over 100 when I made this face in my fabulous dress, but it was probably pretty darn close. I bought the dress while thrift shopping in California. It almost didn't make the cut, but then I thought about the summer ahead of me and my adoration for the two maxi-dresses I already own and decided I needed to make it a maxi-dress trio.

This necklace is from my days as an undergraduate in Asheville. It's handcrafted and purty. Reach for the stars!

My favorite tote is starting to look a little beat up. I am on the lookout for a nice, large, professional bag to start using when school starts, but I find it's really hard to thrift purses. Maxi-dresses? Those are pretty easy to find. Nice, large, professional bags? Not so much. 

Books are also pretty easy to thrift. I've been finding a lot of great elementary-age novels. I actually already had a decent little collection in the books I already owned. "Jacob Have I Loved," Lloyd Alexander's books of Prydain, the Harry Potter series... all already my possessions. While thrifting books, I've been reminded of my realization about children's books: A great book is a great book. I may read above a fourth-grade reading level, but a fourth-grade book can still touch on significant themes, still engage me and still teach me about life. True story (about fictional tales).

104 degrees and rising...

All I wear lately are short shorts and tank tops. Wanna know why? It is crazy hot! 104 degrees? That's insane. Crazy. That temperature should be locked up in Bellevue. Instead, it's prancing around all over my fair state wreaking havoc and straining my air conditioner.

Seriously. It's hot, y'all.

I comfort myself by eating sweet red bean buns and green tea popsicles.

So yum. Those red bean buns are terrible for you, but they're more delicious than doughnuts.

As for thrifting, I'm focusing on my future classroom. I need storage! I need a classroom library! I need owl wall decals! Or at least I want owl wall decals! I've also been garage-sale-ing (can I turn that into a verb?), but it hasn't been terribly fruitful. Garage sale-ing (sure, it's a verb) is great if you have a kindergarten classroom or a 1-year-old kid, but if you're trying to find chapter books for gifted fourth- and fifth-graders it's pretty much a wasteland. The Good Will, however, remains my favorite second-hand store. I suspect my thrifting skills will come in handy when it comes to my new career.

Ninjas vs. Pirates

On the day of our first wedding anniversary, I got fingerprinted and went to the courthouse to get my criminal background checked. I also filled out lots of paperwork. It was terribly romantic. (In absolutely related news, I have a new job that starts tomorrow taking care of toddlers. Two-year-olds are terrific. Not terrible. Pass it on.)

I wore flats for the fingerprinting, but then Robert and I went out to dinner at our favorite sushi restaurant, which is also the place we had our first date, and I changed into my Ireland shoes. I bought them on our honeymoon, and they are fantastic. Some people buy big wool sweaters in Ireland. I bought crazy pattern-mixed shoes. They are my special occasion shoes, and our first anniversary is a very special occasion.

This is my thrifted Ralph Lauren polka-dot dress. It never fails me. We are going to grow old together. Just like me and my husband. This dress, Robert and I are going to be elderly sitting on a porch rocking in rocking chairs (or out eating sushi).

On our first date, Robert and I had the classic Pirates vs. Ninjas debate. I thought pirates were way more awesome. Robert sided with ninjas. When dinner came, Robert pointed out that the ninjas (sushi) and pirates (the boat) were both represented in our yummy dinner and that was probably a good sign (and I was all like "This dude totally likes me!").

Now, three years later, he's taking pictures of me for my silly blog in my favorite polka-dot dress. Ain't love grand?

The adventure begins

I just finished my student-teaching orientation, and let me tell you this: I will have no life for the next four months. Or: I should have no life for the next four months because I want to be successful. When I told Robert we weren't going to go out of town between February and May (or at least I'm not), he laughed in my face. (Just to clarify: Robert laughed in my face in a very supportive "Let's be honest, I know you" way.) It's true: We like our weekend trips. We have a lot of family. We have never gone three months without going out of town. It is likely we actually will go out of town. But if/when we do go out of town, I'll be lugging a lot of work with me.

In other news: I have a new, steady freelance gig, which also increases my workload and I have an additional class at the university and I have to take the Praxis and by "take" I also mean "pass." I am nervous, people. When will I fit in the dog park?! I LOVE the dog park. Where is thrift shopping in this equation? (I'm going to count both dog park and thrift shopping as stress relief necessary for my sanity. They fit into the "stress relief" part of this equation.)

But it will all be fine. It's always fine. It will be exciting! I'm moving toward becoming a licensed teacher! I'm following my calling! (That's right. I said it: Calling.) And I recently thrifted a whole lot of cute cardigans to perfect my school marm look (and I'm working on getting a nice Marion-the-Librarian bun thing going too). There is just so much to look forward to.

Nerd

Tonight in social studies class, we took a multiple-choice quiz on American history. We were not required to know the answers. The lesson was more about kinds of tests and what is the best way to assess your students. That said, we did get to raise our hands to see who got the most right. And guess what? It was me. "Nerd," the guy sitting behind me said.

I am a nerd.

Why do I know that the Articles of Confederation gave each state one vote and that Kentucky was the only slave-holding state to enter the Union in the Civil War? I just do, dude. I just do.

Thirty minutes later, I was at UNCC's Barnes and Noble bookstore and saw the above bags and freaked. Two of my favorite books! And no one can deny that "The Great Gatsby" has one of the best covers ever. I've considered buying book-cover shirts for a long time, but I'm pretty darn cheap and haven't actually done it. These bags were $1.99! You do not get cheaper than that. My inner cheapskate sang a song and then pushed up her nerdy glasses.

My only problem is that I realize these are meant to be shopping bags. I want to use them as bag bags as in I put my wallet, keys and phone in them. Is this socially acceptable? If not, how much do I care? Not much? Not when "The Great Gatsby" is involved? Yes. That's what I thought.

I am such a nerd.