Don't you just love the weekend?
I love the sleeping in
and I love the long warm showers.

Of course weekends do mean loads of laundries
and piles of dishes.

But I do love the weekends
and if I'm really lucky, there is still a moment or two left over to work in the studio.
Do you remember these handy dandy little gifts? Two of McKenna's teachers have birthdays this week and man am I broke! I passed through the photo frame isle at Wal-Mart and when I saw the clear 4x6 stand up photo frames I remembered these cute little post-it note holders.
A whole dollar for the frame, I already had the post-it notes and of course I had plenty of scraps of paper. Fun to make and I think they'll do the trick. Watch out, you might get one for your birthday!



Congrats to those of us who have survived the first week of school and best wishes to those who start tomorrow. I'm thinking of you :)
Love,
Melle

Just a quickie...

Do you remember how I've mentioned before, that without the "bad", or in this case, the "inconvenience", you can't appreciate the "good"?

Most of you know, for the past two weeks, Andrea's swim practice has gone until 7pm; calculate in dinner and travel time, we weren't getting home until 8:30......and crashing at about 8:35.
Well, now that school has started, her practice ends at 5:00. We've been getting home about 6:30 or 6:45.....I feel like we are home early and I've got plenty of "extra" time on my hands! I even did a laundry tonight and some dishes. That's HUGE for me, but you knew that.

I know this feeling won't last long, but I'll enjoy it for as long as I can.

Love ya'll!
Melle

Back to School 2010

Whew!
We all made it through the first day of school. Of course, it didn't go w/out at least a glitch or two, but I'd like to say that we three gals handled our potential set backs very well.
I started at 4:30, Andrea started at 5:10 and McKenna started at 5:30.....all was going very well; everyone dressed; food warmed and ready for school lunches and everyone fairly cheerful considering the hour of the day. We even had time to take our "first day of school photo" actually on the first day this year and nobody felt rushed. So off we were out the door.....Andrea was not two steps onto the front porch and the strap of her new backpack totally seperated at the shoulder resulting in a giant "thud" upon the porch. Poor Andrea, I couldn't believe it and I totally expected some emotional reaction....there was none. She just asked for safety pins.....I knew this was not going to hold the 30 lbs of bookbag, however, since she wasn't upset and was willing to fix the problem herself, I went w/ it........
McKenna then was just to the car w/ arms full of school supplies, backpack and lunchbox when the ginormous bottle of hand sanitizer she especially picked up for her favorite music teacher, fell to the ground and of course the little snazy pump thingy snapped right off! By now, I was totally expecting a meltdown (esp. me if not her) but she handled it all very well. She even said, "here Mom, it's okay, I can put it back together."....and again, I knew it wasn't possible, but I went w/ it since she seemed willing to work with it.
And so, we are finally on the way, when (fortunately) we weren't out of the neighborhood when Andrea remembered that she forgot her frozen bottle of water for swim practice.....all was okay since we were still running ahead of schedule......turned out for the best......Andrea thought better of her safety pins and just grabbed an old backpack from last year......and McKenna thought better of her broken bottle and we opted for a smaller bottle of sanitizer that we had at home.
After all that......smooth sailing........! :o)

May I wish you "smooth sailing" on your first days back.
Love,
Melle

Here we gooooooo!

McKenna starts 3rd grade tomorrow,
Andrea starts 10th grade tomorrow,
and I start my 17th year of teaching, 8th at The Villages Charter School and 6th as the Art teacher.

New backpacks are packed and outfits laid out ready for the big day.
(I have photos, but either my computer or blogger are acting funny tonight.)
We will take our traditional "first day of school" photos in the morning and I'll try to post tomorrow night.

Have a great week everyone - love you!
Melle

Procrastination

I have it bad.
My mother doesn't at all.
I do.
My grandfather probably most certainly didn't.
But I do.
PD.....procrastination disorder.

It's weird.
While back to work this week, I noticed from 7:30 to 4:00 I really wouldn't get much done but once everyone was gone and all temptation had left, from 4:00 to 6:30 I'd be more productive then I had been all day. (6:30 was the time I wanted to leave by so I could watch Andrea swim the last half hour of her daily 2 hour swim team practice.)

Today, officially my last Saturday of summer, I excused myself from several responsibilities all in the name of "I have lots to do for Work today". And still, here I am at 10:17 at night and I really haven't gotten a lot accomplished today when it comes to stuff for school.
I did put a few finishing touches on a PowerPoint that I have created for the first day of school (first week of school in my case since I will see each one of my new 19 classes only once a week). I created the PP hoping to "kick it up a notch" when it comes to going over the rules and procedures. Rules and procedures were always the crappy part of the first day of school.
I did sit and listen to McKenna much more often today and sincerely listened to the amazing details of her imaginary play.
I did witness Andrea finish the last of her two book briefs that were assigned for summertime homework - really!?! I can't believe we assign summer homework!
I did get to visit with a good friend when she stopped by for a visit and I did get to text another.
I did get to catch a little bit of church via the internet.
I did get to read and read some more from my new favorite blog that I mentioned before www.pioneerwoman.com
I did check out another blog a friend recommended...she said I could do this.....not so sure...
www.tomkat.blogspot.com
I did create a new banner for the top of my blog...(was supposed to be designing my new classroom blog).....
And I discovered something new called "effects" in Photoshop! Most of you probably knew about this already! I learned about this feature from The Pioneer Woman. She even had free effects to add to my collection.......only after spending way too long on it (which only aided my procrastination disorder) I couldn't get the new ones to work.

I did manage this effect on at least one photo though. (it's called "carved")


This was taken of McKenna when she was 6 years old. I forgot just how much I loved those little wisps of hair that would kiss the side of McKenna's face when she wore her hair pulled back. Now that she has short hair, I hardly ever see these any more.

Well, with groceries, a trip to the library, a trip to Staples and yummy trip to Mimi's for our weekly luncheon with Nana on the agenda tomorrow, in true procrastination form, that'll leave me just a few hours to get "school stuff" done. I imagine, I'll either be very productive or sick to my stomach. Since I always have insomnia the night before the first day of school, I'll have plenty of time to be ready for that first week of school.

Peace ya'll.
and good-night

Hanging on for as long as I can

Yep, I'm hanging on to every last moment of summer by tooth and nail!
When summer started, we girlie girls treated ourselves to pedicures and manicures. Well, since summer is almost over you can imagine we were in great need of new ones, however, after the "back to school expenses" I wasn't as motivated to pay for new ones. So, I figured we could do it ourselves. (I'm afraid we owe Grandma an I.O.U.). Well, not near as good as the professionals, but almost as much fun.

The truth is, I'm really struggling with this going back to school thing. I mean, wah-wah, I need to stop with the pity party. People go to work ALL the time and a good part of our population doesn't get summers off. How lucky am I?!? But I just hate the trying to juggle home and work.
I've only been back to work for 3 days and already the bathrooms need cleaning, the floor needs vacuuming and the laundry needs to be washed......
Okay, here's what I've really been avoiding:

Planning. And I like planning. Well, I like creating calendars and appearing organized. But, I really seem to have a mental block right now. I just can't seem to get the creative ideas flowing.
Okay, feeling a little better now that I've had some blog time.
I'll keep ya posted.
Melle
(I've posted twice tonight so be sure to keep reading.)

PS - I've added a link to my blog list for www.thepioneerwoman.com . I guess it's really a website instead of a blog, but she updates it frequently. I've really enjoyed reading it and thought I'd share just in case you are someone who likes to follow blogs like me. She tells tales of how she went from high heels to cowboy boots and of life on their Oklahoma farm. She has beautiful pictures too! Enjoy.

Also wanted to share...

There were a few more tidbits left from summer that I meant to share:

As you may recall, during our visit to Boston and the surrounding areas, I did not care for the interstate driving and I ESPECIALLY did not care for The Tobin Bridge which linked us from the suburb of Chelsea to the city of Boston. Not that I'm not grateful that it was well constructed and not that I can't appreciate the engineering genius it must have taken to create it, HOWEVER for those of us with a fear of heights AND closed in spaces, The Tobin Bridge was not for me.
The bridge also inspired my mom to some creative genius of her own, enjoy:

July 18, 2010
As promised, here is a draft of the marvelous folk song that I composed:

Tobin Bridge

Never driving Tobin Bridge no more
Could have crashed, and that's for sure,
If you've never been there,
You'd better never try.

Got three levels owned by devils
Three tiers to the sky
All they did was bring me down
Too scared to even cry.

Boston town's amazing
And that is no surprise,
Buildings rise before your eyes
At Tobin tunnel's end.

Stay in your lane and don't complain
An easy way to go insane
Can't make left turns anyway,
I'd rather die with hell to pay.

Never driving Tobin Bridge no more
Could have crashed, and that's for sure,
If you've never been there,
You'd better never try.

By Margi Guthrie Boston

Yep, that 'bout sums it up. I promise to never mention of it again! :o)

About two weeks later, the family and I took a trip of our own to just over the Florida border to a theme park called Wild Adventures in Valdosta, Georgia. Even though it was as hot as I imagine hades to be, we really had a good time.(Of course the water park helped with that issue!) This family photo was taken as we entered the park. I never had any intention of ever really buying this photo, but I just couldn't resist the convenience of having a photographer ready to take a picture when my family was.

And then the photographer said, "okay, a silly one" and this is what we did.

I can't pinpoint why, but I loved the pictures and bought BOTH photos as we left the park.
Wild Adventures; a park we really enjoyed.
Now, please don't go and expect it to be Disney, 'cause it's not. But there were no lines, we walked onto everything and best of all, everyone was very, very nice (despite the heat).

And, I couldn't let the summer slip away without mentioning one of my most favorite things about it.
Do you remember how I mentioned how one amazing person can have such an influence over your child? Well, Kendra girl, I am so grateful you are part of our lives. Last summer and this, Kendra got a few wonderful little girls together for An American Girl book club. Last years books (and Kendra) led us to butterfly farm and alighthouse. This year our book inspired us to have a lemonade stand (and thank goodness for the bake sale, too!). The girls planned to donate any proceeds to "stuff the bus", a local charity that helps children who are in need of school supplies. We never imagined through the help of friends, family and complete strangers the girls would collect $350 dollars in two hours!

The girls got to give their donation yesterday; I couldn't have been more proud.

One person truly can make such a difference.