I'm Back Again!!

If you count the MONTHS since my last post, you will notice that it has been almost a year since I posted last! I have had difficulty getting motivated to blog post! It could be because we are so busy that any down time I have is used for breathing, or maybe that between my school, my other school, and John Allen's school (which is much harder than my two schools put together), we just don't have much going on that I can write an entertaining post about. So, I am gonna give it another go!

We had a little bit of snow at the beginning of January. It wasn't enough to make a big snowman (so I settled for a snowyorkie), but it was enough to get us out of school for a day! Yippee!! That is me walking my snowdog.

Since my last blog post, we've had a four-legged addition to a family! Meet Lucy. . .the dog who found us! She is such a sweetie and has a fantastic personality. We thought she was a Suma (sum a this, sum a that), but we now believe she is a Vizsla!

This is take one of our Christmas card photo. I have to pick my times carefully for the annual photo. It has to be a day when I think I can talk John Allen into it, and I have to already have it planned out, because he's not much on dilly-dallying while I decided on a location and pose ;) So, I decided we should take our picture with Bully on campus! Why not? We live here in Starkville, and I had the perfect family photo envisioned! I had decided that it would be too cute for each of the dogs to be "kissing" Bully! My game plan was to put peanut butter on each Bully's cheeks so that the pups would lick it off and we could get a cute photo! For those of you who know Sugar, our chocolate lab, you know that she has never turned down ANYTHING edible! She will even eat hand lotion if it smells yummy! I should also add that she is a diva and spoiled rotten. From the photo, you can see that she was not planning to cooperate with my plan, while Lucy was more than happy to oblige! It was windy and freezing, and Sugar weighs pretty close to 100 pounds, so this picture didn't work out for us :( Made for a funny memory though! Oh, I took a wipe to clean of any peanut butter reside (don't want to be fined for defacing school property)!

I'm Back!

It has been a year since my last post and I'm so ashamed! I guess I was taking a blog-break! John Allen is getting closer to the end of his second year of vet school and is busier than ever with studying. I am having a great year at school and have been busy "keeping the home fires burning." I have been cooking more often in an attempt for both of us to eat healthier, which led me to create an additional blog - Bonafide Biscuits! Biscuits aren't on the healthy food list, but they sure make home-cooked meals better! Now I have to keep up with two blogs. We'll see how it goes! Take a look - www.bonafidebiscuits.blogspot.com

Do you speak MY language?

Happy V Day! This may not be funny to anyone else, and it is as much my fault as it is the student's. Today we researched how to say "I love you" in various languages. Because I am a tiny bit OCD, I have a hard time letting the kids have total freedom when I am trying to do something like decorate my door. (I know you're laughing, Leah)

Their instructions were to write the phrase on the heart and write the language underneath. Then, they could decorate their hearts. I was specific to say DO NOT USE MUCH GLITTER GLUE! It doesn't dry quickly and I am putting them on the door today! Everyone followed instructions well . . . except for one. Isn't there always one?This looks like an angry, bleeding heart. I should have waited for it to dry, but I wanted to prove my point!

Hiram and Julia

Sunday morning, we went to Shiloh National Park to see Hiram and Julia the Bald Eagles! I don't think I have ever seen an Eagle this close before, and I'm not even really sure I've seen one at all! Hiram was guarding the nest as Julia was doing some housekeeping! You can't see her in the pictures, but we kept seeing her flop around in there! Really cool!

I just liked this picture of the flag :)

Happy Birthday, Mama!

Happy Birthday to you;

Happy Birthday to you;

Happy Birthday dear Mama,

Happy Birthday to you!

I love you and hope you have a WONDERFUL 29th birthday!

. . .and a Merry Christmas to you!

Warning. . .this post may appear to be lacking in Christmas cheeriness, but please note that it is the last day of school and the kids just left! If you're a teacher (especially of middle schoolers) you understand the expression on my face above!

My grades are posted, my room is clean, my bags are packed, and I'm waiting on "the announcement". I keep this poster on the wall behind my desk, because it sums up how I feel most of the time (and I might even look like that most of the time). As hard as I try to be cheerful on the last days of school before a holiday, it is difficult to not get frustrated with the students' exuberant behavior!

On a good note, I did receive several sweet hugs, and gifts (the sweatshirt I'm wearing was a gift from one of my students). Christmas break, here I come!

Happy Thanksgiving!

This was a different sort of Thanksgiving for us this year! John Allen has semester exams beginning Monday, so he wasn't able to go out of town to visit family. He studied while we feasted. Bless his heart!

Sugar looked very Thanksgiving-ish!

I returned home today so that I could have Thanksgiving dinner with John Allen (thanks to our mothers' cooking and a microwave)! We were going outside to walk with Sugar, when John Allen stepped off the porch and turned his ankle. It looked like it hurt and it started swelling immediately. It looks even worse now. . all black and blue!

We had our own little Thanksgiving swollen ankle and all!