AWWWWW

Awwwww, finally, finally doing one of the things I look forward to all week (and frankly, I didn't think I was going to make it this week).......I love the part of this crazy back to school routine where I sit down in my studio on Sunday afternoons; when I sometimes catch up on reading blogs, E-mails or Facebook, when I might work on lesson plans for the week or the bills (yuck), and hopefully, if things are really going well I write my weekly post for this blog, my classroom blog and update my classroom webpage......that's when things are going really well.

I like to get here about 2:00, but today it is almost 4:00, so we'll see how much I get to do.
This afternoon I have all the above to hopefully catch up on (except maybe Facebook - haven't read that for weeks) AND a card I need to make and a canvas I want to start.

Reflecting on the week, well the beginning was pretty rough going however, thanks to a good friend from work who watched McKenna for a few hours and to the gals at this AMAZING scrapbook store in The Villages called SHE Scrapbooks (wink), my week ended wonderfully!!

I had the chance to take classes Friday night and Saturday morning with The Glitz Girls and LOVED it!
On the first mini-album we made we actually used corrugated cardboard for the front and back cover.

Not that I don't think this is really, really cool to do, I just think it is so ironic that when I joined this scrapbook hobbie over 10 years ago a responsible memory keeper wouldn't even let their photos touch anything that wasn't "acid and lignin free". I even remember a company marketing gloves to scrapbookers so the oils from their hands wouldn't get on the photos (not just the negatives, but the photos as well) and now look at the trend! "Grunge" is the buzz word. Everything we touch is sanded or inked to make it look old or "vintage".......so funny. Makes me wonder what we'll do in another 10 years?? (Let's just hope chopping up our photos with Fiskars paper edgers NEVER happens again!)

The second mini-album we worked on was taking an old hardback book and embellishing it. You could tell that all participants of the workshop were trained well, because when we were told to rip pages out of our book, there was a collective gasp! Ginger, our teacher, said, "it's okay, my mom isn't here" hee, hee, I thought that was so funny! So, the concept is that you tear out pages to make room for the thickness of photos you will place inside. Donna Downey would so recommend that you then just paint right on some of the pages as well! In fact she mentioned it in a recent post. (By the by, her post yesterday was about this new binding machine she just saw at CHA - she loves it - so I want it!)


Okay, so I've rattled and rattled on about how come my week ended well and now five days later, I really don't want to revisit why the beginning was so rough. I'll just share the highlights and I'm sure you can fill in the rest:
Monday - Open House at my school 6:00 - 7:30
Tuesday - Open House at Andrea's school 6:00 - 8:00
Wednesday - Open House at McKenna's school 6:00 - 7:30

Tuesday, the girls and I are in our car by 7:50, actually a few minutes ahead of schedule only to pull away and realize we had a flat tire.....in the rain....I can't find our jack or tire iron.....and no flashlight......oh and Scott is in Orlando at a TNA wrestling match......I believe there was a text from him that read "screamed like a little girl so I could get up front"........
Like I said, from here, I'm sure you can fill in the rest.

Although, I was perfectly ready to have the girls and I sleep in the car until he could pick us up on his way home, luckily I work with some really great ladies who have "not so excited to change a tire in the rain, but I will because my wife asked me to help a friend" husbands.

Okay, an hour later and I can check "updating my blog and two loads of laundry" off my list....I'd better go tackle that other stuff......like lesson plans!

Love to all,
Melle

Wait, just a little advertising from Melle.....you know, sort of an "Melle's current favorites".....like Oprah, she does that sort of thing, right?

• I so love following the posts on Ree Drummond's website, aka "Pioneer Woman", click here or she is also on my blog list.
• I so love www.pandora.com . It is like your very own radio station!!! Very cool. Never have I been able to hear so many of my long lost favorite John Denver songs. Woohoo!! So I have turned off the usual music I have attached to this blog so you too can sign on to Pandora and keep your favorite music running in the background!

Peace
Melle

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.