She
is a friend of mind.  She gather me, man.  The pieces I am,
she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. 
It’s good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind.
               
              
              
       ~Toni Morrison, Beloved

They
say that advice is what you ask for when you already know the answer
but wish you didn’t.  Thank you to the friends of my mind for
gathering my pieces and putting them in order for me.  Your words
have touched me, and I feel blessed to know you. 

Okay … it’s time
for the summer resolutions.  This summer I resolve to quit
grumbling about all the things I don’t like about myself and instead
get off my butt and start changing them. 

Last summer I did a big post about Bob Greene and his eating rules.  Here’s an excerpt…

Project number two is to
finally actually get less flabby.  I bought Bob Greene’s total
body makeover book used from Amazon, read it in a couple days, and then
put it on my coffee table where it is now gathering dust. 

I actually like the plan
because it doesn’t really involve any convoluted dieting … just five
simple rules that all seem to make good sense.

        1.  Eat breakfast.

          2.  Abstain from alcohol.

          3.  Drink at least six 8-oz. glasses of water a day.

          4.  Have an eating cutoff time at least two hours before going to bed.

          5.  Be conscious of what you eat and why you are eating it.

Well, those are
back in play.  During the remodeling we weren’t able to cook for
about three weeks, so any semblance of healthy eating went out the
window.  But now everything is almost back in its place, so it’s
time to get back to eating at home.  I went grocery shopping, and
the fridge is now full of fruit and veggies and all the ingredients for
at least semi-healthy meals. 

see protected … again

Hmmm … was it something I said? 

Hello.  My name is Kelly, and I’m a compulsive gambler.

Yes, it’s true.  I don’t know what came over me.  There was this little voice inside that said things like:

I am always so careful with money.  I clip coupons, hardly ever
buy anything that isn’t on sale, and I have enough savings to survive
for many months if something were to happen and I couldn’t work. 
So, how did all that common sense fly out the window?   
I thought about getting show tickets but decided against it because it
was too expensive.  Sheesh!  With what we lost, we could have
seen something really cool. 

The second was a trip to the Huntington Library and Gardens in
Pasadena.  I think the kids liked the stop for ice cream the
best.  In the picture, we all have our hands in a fountain that
teaches about vibration.

The third trip was an evening concert
picnic at the park.  I think this one was the most successful
yet.  We listened to music, ate dinner, played bubbles,
horseshoes, and Chinese jumprope, and then walked to get ice cream …
again, the favorite part.    Here we’re sharing our ice cream with Mark Twain.

One
more trip to go.  The last one is a morning trip to the
Arboretum.  Hopefully it won’t be too hot.  It has been
absolutely sweltering here.  Yuck!

I have gotten two more student letters … both very cute.  I’ve
written back to all three and sent pictures from their
graduation.  Going to the mailbox is so exciting now. 

Tomorrow my little sister is hosting a barbecue at my parents’ for 4th
of July.  Toshi and I have already called to reserve seats on the
sofa; otherwise it’ll be hours of sitting on the floor.  The last
few times we had to do that, I realized how old I’m
getting.   Stiff, stiff, stiff. 

Now you’re all caught up … at least on the exterior stuff.  I’m
saving the dark side for another day.  Until then …

Have a fantastic 4th of July!

Quote of the Day:

You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July
4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White
House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where
kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from
happiness.  You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism. 

           
           
           
           
           
           
            ~Erma Bombeck

Off to Vegas for
the next three days.  We’ve got two free nights at Harrah’s. 
That makes me feel a little less guilty about throwing some money away
on gambling.  Penny slots here I come! 

What happens in Vegas won’t stay in Vegas (unfortunately, we aren’t that exciting)… pics and stories when we get back.

Well, they’re gone.  I thought for sure that I
would cry on Wednesday, the last day, but they were so darn naughty
that it made it easier to let go … at least in the moment. 
 

It was Thursday that was hard, coming back to a lonely
classroom to face a year’s worth of clutter.  The past two days
have been a whirlwind of dust and paperwork, but I actually checked out
today.  I think that’s the fastest I’ve ever done it!



By the time I left today, I felt completely drained.  Toshi and I
went to dinner, and it was all I could do to stay awake.  I even
had (and still have) a tired stomachache … my body’s way of telling
me that enough is enough. 



When we got home, we stopped by the mailbox and found my first student
letter of the summer.  Every year on the last day of school I give
them a stamped envelope with my address on it, and tell them that if
they write to me, I’ll reply and send another stamped envelope. 
Well, I’ve received my first letter, and it was dated Wednesday.


Dear Miss Garstang,

    I miss you
already and I so badly want to go back to school with you.  How
are    you doing?  I can’t wait ’til July 2nd, the concert picnic
time when I get to see you and Toshi and even my friends.  It’s
hard for me to stop thinking about you and your beautiful smile. 
You are the greatest, fantastic, and prettiest teacher I’ve ever had in
the whole universe!



   
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
        Love,

   
           
           
           
           
           
             
           
      D.


P.S.  Make sure you bring yummy food to the concert picnic.
P.S.S. Don’t forget I’m going to visit you and everyone else on Fridays next year.


Look in back–>

(On the back is an outline of her hand )



Needless to say, I cried all the way back from the
mailbox.  I miss that kid already, too.  Even though I’ve
been at this teaching thing for ten years, there are times when I feel
like a miserable failure and like I don’t know what the heck I’m
doing.  But, then something like this letter comes along and
reassures me that at the very least, the kids know I care, and really,
what means more than that?



So,
anyway, now that I’m all signed out, I have one whole evening of
freedom.  Tomorrow is the first of the summer trips for kids who
earned a reading medal.  Up first is a trip to see “Cars” with a
group of three of my boys.  Should be fun, but didn’t I just say
goodbye to these people? 

Quote of the Day:



People won’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. 

The year is
really winding down now, but not without tons of end-of-year activities
and responsibilities.  Today we went to Medieval Times.  For
those who haven’t heard of it, Medieval times is a dinner show. 
It was great fun, and the kids had an absolutely fantastic time. 
Really, what kid wouldn’t love getting to eat with his or her fingers
in a restaurant setting?  I cried three times during the show …
no, not because it was so moving.    Just seeing all my
kids having so much fun brought home the realization that in only a few
short days they will be leaving me.  Fortunately, I managed to
pull myself together. 



Tonight I’ve been working
on report cards and comments for their fourth grade teachers. 
Again, boohooing on and off all the way.  I have two more report
cards to go, but I just can’t do anymore tonight.  It’s been a few
years since I have felt this emotional about the end of the school
year.  When I started tearing up during “So You Think You Can
Dance”, I began to wonder if perhaps it was just PMS, but it’s too
early for that. 



Hmmm … that paragraph
just reminded me that I have to put together information about summer
trips with Miss G. for tomorrow.  Ugh!  I’m so tired and
promised Toshi I would do the dishes for him because he’s been working
so hard on the house.  Aiya!



Speaking of the house, the
floor is officially finished!  Woohoo!  It is so nice to be
able to cook at home and sit on the furniture again. 



Quote of the Day:




The object of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without his teacher. 
           
           
           
           
           
        ~Elbert Hubbard

Update in protected posts … see you there! 

Sorry for the long absence.  It has been a crazy couple of
weeks.  Testing finally ended … only to have Open House two days
later.  So here’s a bit of what I’ve been up to …

This is what the parents saw as they entered the room.  The kids
did animal dodecahedron reports; each of the twelve sides had different
information about the animal … habitat, predators, physical
adaptations, behavioral adaptations, anatomy, etc.  Those were
definitely the hit of the night.  They also did country reports
… the little books next to the dodecahedrons.

These turned out really cute.  They wrote about music class with
our principal.  Since we are such a small school, everyone wears
many hats.  We are lucky because our principal makes time to teach
music to our third graders.  I plan to make memory books for them
out of the pieces of writing you see on the walls.

This is where we mark countries that we come across in our reading
throughout the year as well as the countries from their country
reports. 

We went on a field trip to the Los Angeles Country Museum of Art. 
They each chose their favorite piece and wrote about it.  This
will be part of their memory books.

This is our classroom library.  I am forever telling them to take
the beanbags out of the library before sitting on them or else it ends
up being a roiling mass of children in the library when someone wants
to get a book. 

This is writing the kids did about their all-time favorite books. 
On top is a picture of each student with his or her favorite
book.  Another page for the memory books.

The front of the room.  The TV in the corner is playing the
slideshow we made.  Each student wrote about one aspect of our day
or about a special event, and we added pictures.  On the kidney
table in the front, there are guessing jars for Open House.  This
is the first year that I’ve had two current students win.  Usually
parents or former students are the winners. 

The kids were actually in the room as I was taking these pictures.  Can you see them hiding? 

Here they are … my babies.  They are so proud of their
dodecahedrons.  I wanted to keep one as a sample, but nobody
wanted to part with it.  One student is moving to Maine this
summer, so I may be able to snag hers because her mom says it’s too
difficult to pack.   

On top of the craziness of preparing for Open House, we’ve been tearing
up the house.  Everything is a total disaster right now.  No
kitchen counter or sink, furniture piled high all over the place, and
rubble everywhere.  It’s not moving along as quickly as I had
hoped.  Toshi’s friend who is helping us said it would take about
five days.  What he didn’t mention was that it wouldn’t be five
days in a row.  Right now it’s looking more like one day a week
for five weeks.  Ugh!  But, I can’t complain because we’re
getting a much reduced rate.  I’ll try to post pics of the
progress soon.

  I’ve been reading here when I can, but just haven’t had much
time to comment or post.  I hope everyone is well and enjoying the
three-day weekend. We went to Palm Springs yesterday just for a quick
getaway.  Nothing says vacation like lunch at IHOP surrounded by
gay men!