Hope

Today I went over to my sister's house and I drive past a local elementary school on the way. It was quite depressing to see all the cars in the parking lot... NOOOOO!!!! I am not ready for school to start.

I returned the fourth season of Friends (I am trying to watch all ten seasons before summer is over) to my sister and we went to Hobby Lobby. She needed to buy a picture frame and I needed some velcro. This year I plan on velcroing my kids' name tags to the tables. This will make rearranging table seating 
so much easier and it won't leave a huge sticky spot like tape does. I will post pictures of that once it is all set up in my classroom.

Last night I used this app called Sleep Time. It keeps track of your sleep patterns such as how often you were awake, in a light sleep, or in a deep sleep. I found it quite intriguing. Just as a glimpse, I will post my measurements from last night. (I use my iPod not my iPhone so it doesn't drain my phone's battery).

As you can see, out of my nine hours of sleep, only about half was deep sleep or REM which is when you're in your most relaxed state. I can't wait to use this app again tonight. This is interesting data. This app has an alarm that is supposed to wake you up at the most optimal time. You can set your alarm, but it might wake you before your alarm because you will feel more rested. It's cool though :-)

Tonight my husband requested that I make him a smoothie for breakfast tomorrow. I enjoy using our awesome wedding present. It's a Ninja!!

The first smoothie I made with it tasted exactly like the Banana Berry smoothie at McDonald's. The second time I made a smoothie it tasted like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a cup. Not sure how this time turned out, but yum!!!

I adore these cups my best friend gave us as a wedding present. Perfect for smoothies!!!

As a final thought for today... This morning I was reading in Exodus and one verse really stuck out to me... 

Exodus 15:26 He said, “If you listen carefully to the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you."

God doesn't want anyone to suffer. He longs for everyone to be healthy and whole (that doesn't mean you won't ever get sick, but there is hope when you do). God says He will heal us if we obey Him, but beyond that, He sent Jesus to die for us and by HIS stripes we are healed. We do not have to live with any type of pain--physical, mental, spiritual, etc. God is reaching out saying "Ask me to heal you and I will!!!" He is ready and willing. Are you ready? Are you willing to ask? Step out in faith.

Tahoe

Manny and I went to Lake Tahoe for our honeymoon. On the plane ride there, we saw two famous people lookalikes and I wanted to share them with everyone.

First we saw a guy who looked like Clark Kent...

We also saw a guy who looked like Linguini from the movie Ratatouille...

I guess we were creepers taking pictures of random people on the airplane, but we had to do it :-)

I wanted to give a preview of what Lake Tahoe looked like. It was gorgeous!!! 

We had to wear a jacket pretty much everyday. It rained two days that we were there. One of our rainy days we stayed in and watched Netflix all day. The second rainy day we braved the rain and went hiking. 

We went parasailing on the lake and jet skiing. The water was sooooo cold! One of the people there said the water was probably 55 degrees (it's all snow melt).

We went to a soda pop shop, Manny got some root beer and we bought some taffy. We saw these hilarious mustaches...

A mustache for everyday of the week! Haha

We walked around town a lot and went to an art gallery. We saw some pretty paintings. I liked the Disney ones the best :-)

The hotel we stayed at, The Lake Tahoe Resort Hotel, had a restaurant on the bottom floor. Our waiter is a professional skier, but during the summer he works at the restaurant. I thought that was pretty cool. Apparently that is true for most of the employees, working at the hotel is just a summer job.

Manny and I are hoping to go back to Tahoe in the winter so we can go skiing.

Excitement

I must not have gotten enough sleep this weekend since I didn't get up until 10:30! Usually by 10:30 I am already at the gym. Oh well...

I went to the gym late today. I'm not sure if someone was sweating buckets or what, but the gym floor was covered with water. Hmmmmm... I went around the small ponds to get to the treadmill only to find a dollar. Sweet!!! Getting paid to work out. The whole time I was running, I was thinking about what if I had found more than a dollar?? I determined I wouldn't feel right about keeping it and I'd have to turn it in to the office even if the office people just keep the money themselves. I'd feel good about my decision.

Alright enough of my honest Abe mentality... Last night I had more school dreams. I was completely unprepared. We were 20 minutes late for lunch and I messed up entering my kids' pin numbers so they could buy their lunches. I made the lunch ladies mad. To top it all off, I had one of the kids from last year in my class and I couldn't figure out why this kid wasn't in first grade. But all my kids were angels!!! Oh man I hope that's not just a dream.

In order to avoid being unprepared for the start of school, I have been working on some crafts. I created a door mat so my students can choose how they wanted to be greeted in the morning. Last year I stood at my door, shook each child's hand, and greeted every child by name. Time to change it up!!

I bought a table cloth from dollar tree and cut it to the desired size. I then squared off four sections with a sharpie and wrote "Welcome" at the top. Each of the four sections has a different way to be greeted...

The four ways are: high five, heartwarming smile, wiggly handshake, and bear hug. 

After outlining the drawings with sharpie, I started painting. Once the paint was dry, I put a layer of Mod Podge. After that, I sprayed it with a layer of clear acrylic. And here is the finished product...

I am so excited to get to use it!! I will probably put it out each morning and then put it to the side once everyone has been greeted. I am not sure I want it to get walked on all day long. But anyways... Yay!! Each student will one-by-one get to stand on the square of how they wanted to be greeted. I think this will make the morning greeting more personal and make each child feel unique and loved. I want them all to start the day off in a good mood :-) Can't wait to test it out. I will post pictures once my kids have used it and let you all know their reactions to it.

Food

Yesterday we had my parents over for dinner. Manny grilled some burgers and I cut up fruit. We went to Kroger to choose fruit earlier during the day. Manny just wanted a cantaloupe, but people who know me know about the time I ate half a watermelon. Yum! Manny let me get a watermelon :-)

We were knocking on the watermelons trying to choose a good one. I found one that had a nice deep thud only to get home and discover it wasn't any good at all. It wasn't even pink!!!! I was very disappointed. I went out to Manny who was grilling on the patio to tell him that we had bought a dud watermelon. He later came inside to see the watermelon...

Apparently there are different color watermelons! Yay! I knew it tasted like watermelon, it just didn't look right. You can see in the picture where I dug out pieces of watermelon with my finger to taste test it. Haha! I was very excited it wasn't a dud.

We had a discussion later that night about picking a good watermelon. My dad does the knocking method, but my mom picks one that looks pretty. My dad said his dad would look for bug tracks because bugs know sweet watermelons.

Also, for dinner Manny picked a cantaloupe. It was perfectly ripe!

 And we had appetizers Mexican style!

My amazing husband made half pound burgers and apparently one of them was bigger than the rest. He had his eye on it, but unknowingly, I picked it. Haha oops! Hopefully he forgets about that :-)

Dinner was great! Good food and wonderful company. Parents are awesome!

Laughter

I've always been told that you shouldn't go grocery shopping on an empty stomach, but I had never been told not to go grocery shopping with your husband...  We were walking around Kroger buying our groceries for the next two weeks and stuff for dinner tonight since my parents are coming over, I needed to get some leave-in treatment for my hair so I tugged Manny's shirt to get his attention. This older man gave me a strange look, but hey, he was following his wife around like a puppy dog so maybe that was a face of "help me!" So I get Manny on the shampoo aisle... While I'm looking for leave-in, he's off farther down the aisle. All of a sudden I hear him yell "Hey! Do you need more underwear?!?" I turn to see an old man giving us a weird look because Manmy was holding this up...

OLD PEOPLE UNDERWEAR!!!!!!!! I guess that's payback for all the times I did the same thing to my mom at Walmart. Hahahahaa!! This isn't the only reason not to take your husband grocery shopping though... We ended up with candy, cookies, and ice cream. I know he works hard for his money, so he's allowed to splurge...Sometimes. I'm definitely a penny pincher, so allowing him to splurge is hard for me. Eeeekkk!!! 

So there you have it, don't take your husband grocery shopping. For me, I don't have a choice. I do not push shopping carts! Gross. I refuse to even touch one when it's been wiped with a disinfectant wipe. I don't do shopping cart germs, so Manny pushes the cart. I had a dream last night that I had to push a shopping cart. Manny's response was "That must've been a nightmare!" It was. I will load my arms up and take multiple trips before I'd push the cart. 

On a dream side note, I had a dream that my sister had her baby. It was a beautiful baby girl. My oldest sister got to see the baby first, so I asked her what the baby's name was. I thought she was going to say Emma because my sister always liked that name but nope!  They had named the baby Manone (muh-no-knee). Not sure the origin of that name, but we were all excited! The baby had long black hair, brown eyes, and olive skin. So cute! But probably switched at birth... My sister and brother-in-law have blue eyes, light skin, and brown hair.

I have been having some crazy dreams. Not sure what's been going on in my head. Alright well time to wake up my husband so we can fire up the grill! Yay! I love summer :-)

Crayons

I know it's a ways before Christmas but I like to plan ahead. One of my sisters requested artwork to help decorate her house. I told her that I'm pretty good with crayons. I can color with them and melt them!! Haha so I thought I'd share some of my crayon art...

I made this one by taking all different shades of green and peeling off the paper. I then broke the green crayons into smaller pieces and placed them on the canvas. This was a tricky piece to get the crayons to melt because they wanted to roll off the canvas. I worked in small areas at a time and held the crayons in place until they started melting. Afterwards, I wrote the words with sharpie and hot glued the daisies onto various parts of the "grass." I think it turned out well.

Now my favorite... 

For this one, I painted the heart in the middle first. Once the paint was dry, I hot glued the crayons around the heart. They are glued in a sort of rainbow pattern. I blow dried one side at a time so I could get the crayon to "run" off the canvas.  

Feel free to ask more specific questions if you'd like :-)

On a side note, my students are good with crayons too. Kindergarten has a science unit on states of matter. I'm going to use my crayola crayon maker with them for solid to liquid and then back to solid. Last year I used my crayon maker as a fun end of the year activity. I'll post pictures when I get to use the crayon maker with my kids. Things go interestlying (new word) when you work with 5 and 6 year olds...

Crafts!!

Summer is my time to make things because during the school year there is no time for hobbies. So first craft I made so far... I decorated an iPhone case :-)

I started by gluing glitter to a plain white iPhone case. After it dried I put a layer of Mod Podge to secure the glitter. After that dried I put a layer of silver glitter glue all over the phone case. Lastly, I sprayed the whole phone case with a clear acrylic. And voila!!!!! 

The finished product...

I think it turned out pretty well. It was easy to make too!

Next craft: Classroom Stuff

Trust

While Manny and I were dating, he ventured out and allowed me to cut his hair. I did fine the very first time because he just wanted the top cut. Psh, I can do that! The second time he asked me to do a medium fade. I watched a few youtube videos and thought "I can do that! Easy" He kept talking about how you had to cut it so you don't create a line. Well what did I do? I made a line... I cried I felt so bad about ruining his hair. He went to the barber shop to have it fixed.

Try number three wasn't any better. He called himself  "Patches McGee." I cried over that haircut too because he kept saying he had me cut his hair so I could practice. We then went to Sports Clips to get his hair cut. The lady took one look at his head and asked "What happened?" In the car we has been joking that we would say he tried to cut his hair with a weed wacker. Haha! But i busted out with the truth. She had to do a high fade to fix what I messed up.

Ok so now try number four! Isn't it supposed to be third times a charm?!? I had watched the lady at Sports Clips so I did exactly what she did. I didn't think I had done that well but Manny said "I'll put it this way... I don't feel like I need to go get it fixed." I said "Yeah because the only way to fix it, is to shave your head." Haha but Yay! We had planned all along to go to the barbers after I did my practice trim . Haha! He said now I just need to learn how to do a medium fade.

I took these with my tablet!!! Manny said "Are you really taking pictures with your tablet?!" I said "Yes and I am going to be one of those people who videotapes with it too like those people with their iPads." No offense if you're one of those people...

Next time: Medium fade.

Oh life!

Ok so Manny and I got married June 15th and now we are currently living in an apartment. Manny goes to Fire Academy everyday and I am left here at home alone. So needless to say, I have a lot of adventures here at home.

My first adventure was a few weeks ago when I was making tortillas. I had made the dough and was starting to fry them. Part of a tortilla stuck to the pan and started smoking a lot. (Well I thought it was part of a tortilla, it was really a piece of melted spatula). All the smoke set the fire alarm off, so I quickly turned on the fan above the stove, the fan in the living room, I opened the back door, and turned on the AC. I closed our bedroom door because apparently there are two smoke alarms in our apartment that are three feet apartment, whose idea was that?!?! When I closed our bedroom door that smoke alarm stopped beeping, and I started fanning the smoke alarm in the dining room with a towel. It stopped after a few minutes. I was scared that the building smoke alarm would go off, it didn't. So then I was afraid that the neighbors would come over and ask if everything was good. Nothing happened. I was in the clear. I just bad a smoke filled apartment.

Last week I was making Chicken Parmesan... Well you have to brown it before you put it in the oven, so I put some oil in the pan and was waiting for it to simmer. I was waiting and waiting and waiting, I decided I would stir the oil with a spoon.I was stirring the hot oil and I saw white in the bottom of the pan and I thought "Oh man! Am I making butter?!?" Not thinking clearly because obviously oil doesn't turn into butter -_- haha! I finally saw a string from the spoon... Snaps!! The spoon had melted...

The oil was smoking so I did my smoke routine. I turned on the stove fan, the living room fan, opened the back door, turned on the AC, closed our bedroom door, and started fanning the smoke detector with a towel. The smoke detector stopped beeping, but the oil was still smoking a lot. I knew I had to get rid of the oil. I was smart enough to know not to dump the hot oil down the sink... So plan B! I took it outside and dumped the oil on a bush (I didn't think about the bush combusting, luckily it had rained most of the day so everything was wet). I was in the clear again, but just had an apartment filled with smoke.

The poor bush that sacrificed it's life for my burning eyes!

Ok so I know it's not just me because Manny and I made tortillas last week before my second incident and we set off the smoke detector. It's just too sensitive! It might come unplugged soon. Don't tell my soon-to-be fireman husband.