Will you join me?

Tomorrow is November. Thanksgiving will be upon us soon. I am issuing a challenge to myself, my students, my Facebook friends, and to you!

Will you intentionally write down somewhere what you are thankful for each and every day this month? It can be in a journal, on a blog, your status update, a tweet, or another option.

Join me in being thankful...and a quick one before November...I'm truly thankful that you, reader, take the time to read my blog entries. It means a lot to know that someone out there is valuing my words. Thank you!

Thankfulness early...

With Thanksgiving coming up, I'll try to post daily on FB what I am thankful for, but tonight is a huge one! My water heater was leaking water yesterday. Guess that means it's shot...by the way, I can't stand hearing, "The joys of a homeowner." I bought one yesterday at a local store and they can't deliver it until next Monday for the installation. No problem...the guy at the store told me I probably had another month on it.

Wrong!

I had no hot water this morning. After several phone calls, we found someone who can come tomorrow and it might be cheaper (fingers crossed).

So, what am I thankful for?

• Thanks to the Dave Ramsey plan, I have money (cash) set aside for this. My save for a newer car is just put on a little hold.
• I have many friends who offered houses and showers.
• I took an amazing hot shower at my friend's house tonight down the street.
• As I stood there LOVING the hot water, I was reminded that while many of my close girlfriends are married, I am so thankful that they have godly men that pursue them.

Again, it's all about perspective...today I see the good!

Oh, and a parent from my class brought in her boys' old clothes...off to Honduras they go! Love it!!!

Trying something new

In reading workshop, I consistently use the release of responsibility model where I have all of the responsibility for thinking and reading and gradually I hand over more responsibility to the class.

This year, I am trying something new in writing workship...the same thing! We are studying punctuation and Thursday, I modeled a conversation with input from the class. We created a shared writing experience. Today, we looked at tag lines. I'm hoping that by doing this, I will scaffold their writing just a bit further.

Blogging?

Anyone have their students blog? If so, where? Do you feel that it's effective?

Funnies

While I tend to focus on the fun things that my class says, I can't help it. They make me smile! Some days I really need it. And since my eye was twitching for the past 24 hours (and still is), smiles were nice.

• We went to a health museum last Friday and one of the boys commented after performing some exercises, that his heart was beeping.
• After visiting this museum, I heard this strange humming coming from the sink while I was helping a student with a quiz. Suddenly, I figured it out. My almost-do-no-wrong boy was singing the Happy Birthday song to help time his washing. Smart! And he totally applied the lesson!
• Today, my Who-boy said he figured out why I have the ball in my room for kids to sit on. It's a back-up chair for my teacher chair. Bless his sweet little heart. Good inferring...wasn't my intention, but I'll take it!

They are too funny...

My kids make me laugh! I'm so grateful for that. Sometimes I feel like they are puppies and around my feet all of the time. Anyone else know what that's like?

Some days are better than others.

Today's funnies -

• One of the boys says his mom is clasperphobic. We had been talking about the miners. I was pretty impressed with one of my boys. He had learned a lot about it through his brother. It was fun to hear him share his knowledge with the rest of the class.
• I had been working with a child trying to find words that would fit in the -oat family. I suggested maybe a word that began with a g. He said, "Giraffe." I said, "No, it rhymes with boat." He responded, "It does?" I said, "No, an -oat that starts with a g." Basically handing it over to him. He finally said goat. Woo hoo!

I'll keep my ears open, reader!

Quick updates...

I feel like I'm behind in everything. I was 100 blog entries behind in my google reader. Oops! I'll be working on that this coming weekend.

• Did another card workout: mountain climbers, chest throws with a medicine ball, plank lifts, and deadlifts. I'm sore today (and I did two hours of Zumba tonight).
• Frustrated with not receiving an e-mail, but I need to throw my eyes on Jesus. It's hard. I'm not going to lie. And for those of who have no clue what I'm talking about. I was supposed to receive an e-mail from someone who was trying to set me up with someone and the window that I had given him has come and gone. I do have to admit, that there are just some days I tend to ask myself, is there something about myself that needs to change for the better?
• I'm really excited to see what happens with the miners in Chile. I cannot imagine.
• My kids are cracking me up. I hope I am doing what's best for them.
• There are some people that have been talking about the Daniel fast. I'm interested in it...but I know that some of of my motives are completely inappropriate. One guy lost 17 pounds on it and I cannot tell you how tempting it is. There's a lady at church that lost 40 pounds by drinking these shakes. It's a fine line. There are days that I feel that I truly battle wanting to lose more. I talked with a dear friend yesterday about it. Today, I can be proud of the choices I made for my body. That is all I need to do. Daily, make good choices. Daily, make healthy choices that are good for my body and honoring to God. And maybe in the future, I can do the fast...but not now.

Workout

Sunday I wanted to work out, but wasn't wanting to go anywhere. I grabbed a deck of cards and my workout was born. Hearts were jumping jacks. Diamonds were lunges. Clubs were sit-ups and spades were push-ups. I shuffled the deck, flipped over a card and did the action the number that was on the card. Jacks, queens, and kings were 11, 12, and 13 respectively.

I'm still sore today!!! Woo hoo! I'll definitely be doing that workout again and probably somehow working it into my boot camp workout with some ladies at work (once we start up again).

Can you think of any other exercises I could assign to the suits?

Horrible Day...

The no-good, very bad, can it possibly get worse day...

It all started with a pop! After having had a few extra minutes of snoozing, I finally lugged myself out of bed and went down the stairs to my basement. I heard a pop and froze. The mice couldn't have found a way in...could they? (I had seen a mouse the other day when mowing my lawn and now I am terrified that I will see them in my house.) Upon further investigation, I discovered that a small pile of water had acculumuated onto my exercise mats. As I tried to remember what was right above the mats, my heart sank as I hoped it wasn't my toilet overflowing. Anticipating a toilet falling through the floor, I raced back upstairs to find the source of the leak.

I noticed water on the kitchen floor...thankfully it was not the toilet! Brown coffee grounds stained my kitchen sink. Must have been leftover water from the disposal. It was disgusting to say the least. I ran some water and the disposal. NOTHING! The water did not take away the leftover food. In fact, it made it worse.

I opened the dishwasher and found water sitting in the base of the machine. That shouldn't be there. What should I do next? I did the only thing I could think of...call my family!

I'm sure I woke my stepdad up, but he answered the phone and promised to come over to take a look at it.

Time will tell if the sink is finally unclogged and I am excited to go home and try to investigate the pipes myself and see if they are still plugged or not.