Is it bedtime yet?

Today was one of those never-ending days. It was the start of the second week of little kiddos and boy what a start. WHEW!!! I decided to tackle the phonics lessons starting today. We have a very scripted phonics curriculum and it takes a lot of sitting and listening on the studnets parts. Well, today was definitely not one of those days.

After my semi-successful carpet time I had the students move to their seats. Somewhere within the twelve steps back to their desks they morphed into monsters that did not have ears. Oh MY Word!!! I thought I was talking to walls and really wasn't sure what to do as I watched the clock tick away to lunch time.

I was feeling pretty down on myself all through lunch and into the beginning of the afternoon. I then took over the read a loud right before we transitioned into math and writing workshop. During this time the kiddos were angels. I was starting to feel much better about myself.

Then it came to math.....thankfully, I was not teaching this lesson....my host teacher was and this is when I realized that it wasn't just me and my teaching, but instead the crazy kiddo's and the odd day that we were having. WHEW!!!!

Let's just say I was definitely ready for today to be over and have been vegging on the couch over since. Except of course, for when I needed chocolate so I made no bake cookies.

What a day!!

Entering the Teacher World

Well, after a 2.5 month blog-leave, I am back!

A lot has changed around here and life is full of excitement again. Kyle started a new job. I am not the proud wife of a Kindergarten teacher. I am so incredibly happy for him. We spent hours cleaning out his room and getting ridding of the educational materials from 1960 that "had great educational value still." Not to mention the amounts of mouse terds we found in his room. G-R-O-S-S!!! However, it was worth it and his room looks awesome.

As for me, playing school a.k.a student teaching has started and I am loving it. I love my kiddos and actually enjoy having a purpose again every day. The host teacher that I am working with said this is going to be his most challenging year so far. We have a lot of little testers.

I thought I would share one of my favorite stories about a little boy in my class. This particular boy is very very short, has a very round face and has a very high pitched voice. He always uses the best manners, can always make me smile and laugh and has a very large vocabulary. Last night his parents brought him to the open house that we had at our school and I learned that he can to our school from a chistian school. As the parents were talking with the host teacher, he looked up at me and said, "Mrs. Talicska, we don't talk about God very much at this school, do we?" To which replied, "No, we don't." Without missing a beat he said, "But we still like Him a lot." Yes, we do....yes, we do. :) His mom also told us that on the first day of school he came home and said, "The only thing disturbing (yes, he is six) about this school is that they don't pray before snack." :) So, darn cute and innocent. It really made me stop and think.

Speaking of thinking, if you think of it please lift one of my students up in your prayers. She is 6 and is simply the nicest, sweetest little girl ever. We just found out that her dad has more than 80 tumors in his body and that Hospice has come in. His goal is to make it until Christmas. Please pray for a miracle. As you know, this would really shake this little girls life.

Oh, the joys of being around kiddos again. They can make you laugh, cry and blow smoke out of your ears all within seconds of each other. I am sure there will be many more stories to come.

Welcome to my adventures of student teaching.

Alive and Well

Yep, I'm still here. I know that I have taken a very long break from blogging, but I am BACK! My schedule got a little crazier and the job that I had that I sat at a computer all day went away for the last three weeks. Therefore my internet time was cut by 3/4 and blogging went out the window. But here I am...I've missed it. It is always kind of fun to type my thoughts out. Even if no one else even reads it.

I am headed to work shortly, but I thought I would share a funny story from work the other day. It had been a really slow day and I was becoming very bored. I looked at the clock and noticed I still had 2 hours to go. I had cleaned everything possible in the entire store and was starting to daze off when I heard a loud engine revving. Just when I heard it I looked toward the window anticiapting a motocycle to go speeding past the window... to my surprise a little old man in his amigo appeared and putzed across in front of the window followed by his wife in her matching beige button down sweater and amigo. HAHA
I laughed right out loud. Soon after the cute old couple passed by the window a motorcycle went zooming past with music blaring. I just smiled to myself.

The story is not extremely funny, but I was completely bored and at that moment that tickled my funny. :)

Well, I am off to work. We are having a big sale this weekend. Chamilia and Staxx buy 2 get 1 free.

Production at its Finest

This weekend was absolutely A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! The hubster and I were super productive and we had tons of fun along the way as well. The weekend started on Friday night when we had a date night. Hubster parents were heading to CT to visit Kelli and David. They had Loons tickets for Friday night and asked if we would want to go in their place. Well, of course.... the hubster and I LOVE baseball! When I got home from work hubster took me out to dinner at Logan's and then we headed to the game. The best part was that there was firework's after the game. I absolutely LOVE fireworks. They seem so magical to me, I love the glow they cast on the faces of those gazing at them, the sound of the booms and pops and the graceful way they float through the night sky.

Saturday started with the hubster watering his parents flowers, getting my oil changed and then picking me up to go shop for flowers for our yard. We headed to Essexville and left with beautiful blooms. We then headed back for our planting adventures. Before the planting began hubster power washed the house. My hubby is absolutely amazing and dug each hole and placed each flower in the ground as I handed them to him in the order of color that I wanted and told him where they went. (It seems he is very particular about how to plant flowers.... which makes our yard look great) We had great teamwork and knocked it out in no time. I will add pictures shortly of the finished product. In all we planted light purple and white Alysum around our light post in the front yard, a planter for our front porch that include pink and white geraniums, ivy, impatiens and a spiky plant thing, a strip of flowers along the sidewalk and side of the house that include snapdraons in shades of pink, orange, yellow and white. Next we planted shades of pink and white impatiens by our fence and rose bushes and lastly we planted two plantes for by our back door and the back corner of our yard. These included pink and white geraniums, diamond frost, ivy, spiky things and pink impatients. The day was interrupted briefly when I locked us out of the house and had to climb through a window to get back in.
Such a fun and productive day.

Saturday evening we headed to Brent's house for a cookout and hanging out. Talk about a fun time filled with ladder golf, ladderball, redneck golf... whatever you call it and simply sitting around and talking with friends.

Sunday we had church and then hit up Pride and Country Village of Unique Shops on the way home. We had a gift certificate from our wedding and we had to use it by August. They had some of the cutest stuff. I have a hidden love for country decor and that is exactly what this was. I found some really cute stuff including a large red star for our door and a candle holder. It was a great sacrifice on the hubsters part, definitely not up his alley. :) Then we headed home to paint his Grandpa's shed. It was HOT, but we got it done. We just have to paint the roof. As we were painting the hubster said we needed to get it done at a certain time because we were going on a date that night. :) WHAT?!?! Sweet!
We headed home to shower and then jumped in the car headed for Frankenmuth. They were having the Dog Bowl festival and there was Hot air balloons there. They had a balloon glow and fireworks at night. It was so much fun. We had dinner at Tiffany's and it was so nice to not leave smelling like smoke... thank you Michigan Smokeless Law.

The fun continued on Monday as we headed home for a party with old friends. My youth pastor from high school moved to PA when I was a senior and he was coming back to visit. So we got the old group back together for a party. It was good to see some old faces again.

What a weekend!! It was a lot of fun, a lot of work and well worth it. Now I start the adventure's of Gems by Em and working every weekend! Oh well, I will just focus on the moola!

Pictures will be added to this post at a later time, but for now enjoy the mental pictures.

Another Itch that I Better Start Scratching

I find it interesting that as I look back over the blog posts found in the content of this blog, I dream a lot! I like dreaming and usually a dream begins with a little itch that I get. Yet again, I've got an itch. I believe I have shared with the blogosphere about all of the downtime I have at work. Well, it isn't getting any better. So, today I spent sometime on Craig's list and other random websites dreaming... again.

This time my search took me to houses. The hubster and I are not at the point in our lives where we are planning on buying a house, financially we could, but it just doesn't seem practical for us right now. Hubster is looking for other job opportunities and I am not even at the job market stage yet, so who knows where we will end up. However, this does not take away the fact that I really, really want to call something my own and decorate something exactly the way that I want to. During my searches I found some very reasonably priced humble abodes in the area. And then there it was.... I fell completely in love. Super cute on the outside, three bedroom, two bath, nice size back yard.... (insert big sigh)... I fell in love.

To add to my dreaming my gorgeous sister-in-law decided to do a giveaway on her blog and of course it had to be for a gift card to csnstores.com. They sell so many cute housewares items that I could decorate my "new" house....er... DREAM. Check out her giveaway here.

I will be scratching the itch as soon as I push Publish Post, but for now it is fun.

Nervous Nancy

From the time that I was little I have always had a nervousness about me. I'm not really sure why, but even making a simple phone call brings little beads of sweat to my forehead and makes the heart race just a little faster. No matter how much of a pep talk I give myself the outcome usually doesn't change.

I often find that this nervousness has negative effects on my brainwaves and causes me to have a humongous brain fart. This was definitely the case yesterday at my new job.

***Pardon the interruption***
I have recently started my job at Gem's by Em. This is a very cute store that sells Chamilia, Staxx, jewelry, Littlearth, purses and other accessories. I finished up my last day of training yesterday.

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Yesterday as I was completing my end of day routines the training manager decided to tell me that she was there a half an hour after closing because the girl that trained yesterday was not able to count down the drawer and take out everything above a certain point that we keep the drawer at. As soon as she told me this guess what happened to me?? You guessed it. The heart began to race, beads of sweat started to form on my forehead and the brain seemed to go dead. It took me almost an entire half an hour after closing to figure it out and after I couldn't for a while she tried a couple of times. Finally we figured it out.

I really don't understand this nervousness, but it can go away at anytime.

On a side note: I work my first day today all by myself. Wish me luck and wish away the Nervous Nancy side of me. :)

So Fresh and So Clean

It never ceases to amaze me the differences that the hubster and I discover about our upbringings. There were a few things right off of the bat that we realized and had to discuss and form our own way of doing things or our own belief system. But I guess I never thought about the little things that would come up out of the blue. When we visit the grocery store together some things surface, like the brands to buy, the types of cleaning supplies and the way things go in the cart. As I am sure you can imagine, mini tiffs have come from some of these topics. However, not big enough that I would give up our sporadic trips together. (For some reason we are not on a schedule for groceries and simply go when the cupboards are bare or we realize the milk is a week and a half old)

The latest discussion has been over the choices of cleaning supplies. I grew up as a Pledge and Swiffer girl. Mostly the Pledge, but the smell seems to give me a headache. The hubster grew up on Murphy's.... Murphy's Oil Soap that is. Oh the tragedy when I finished dusting the entire house and he walked in the door from work only to tell me it didn't even smell clean in our house and it doesn't ever seem clean to him unless he can walk in the door to the frangrance of Murphy's tickling his nose.

Being the stubborn person that I am I was determined to get him converted to Pledge and show him that it does clean. So through headaches and dust clouds I attempted to prove him wrong. Attempted is the key word.

Yesterday, I finally gave in. I had the entire day off and decided to spend it doing a semi-spring cleaning of the house, trim and all. I pulled out the scrub bucket and filled it with water from the tub and poured in some of the famous Murphy's. I'm not exactly sure it cleaned any better than the Pledge does, but it put a smile on my face as the hubster walked in the back door and immediately said, "It smells so good in here." I had to confirm what he was smelling since I was doing laundry, I had scrubbed the kitchen, washed dishes, cleaned the bathroom and of course Murphied (I created this word. :)) He confirmed the smell by telling me it smelled so clean and he loved the smell of the Murphy's.

Well, I am glad he is happy and I will admit it does smell pretty darn good in my house and it seems to sparkle. Maybe that is just to my own eyes because I feel accomplished, but none-the-less it looks B-E-A-utiful!