Come On Folks, It's Not That Hard

I am not perfect, not by any stretch of the imagination. But one thing I strive to do (and I believe having this blog has made me improve in this area) is speak correctly and write correctly. If you research my past blogs, however, I am sure you will find some grammatical errors and/or misuse of the English language. But one thing I do know is that I know how to use the words your and you're correctly. Three times within the past week have I seen these words misspelled or used incorrectly. It. Drives. Me. Crazy!!!

First, in the senior hallway at school, someone hung signs (like they often do) wishing someone else a happy birthday. It was the birthday person's 18th birthday and the sign read "Your 18!" Yes, this was the SENIOR hallway; you would think these kids know better by now, wouldn't you? Second, at my workout facility, on the white board where announcements are posted, again, it said something like "Your Invited." When I noticed this, there were 3 other teachers there and someone else had the guts to say something about it, thank goodness! And third, an invitation that I received in the mail said.....now get this one....."Your'e Invited." AUGH!!!! It's not that hard, people.....Your shows possession or that something belongs to you. You're means "you are." That's it. The apostrophe takes the place of the 'a.'

After seeing the sign at school, I made a point of telling my math students that if I was hiring people and they wrote something, anything, on their job application like "your invited," I would immediately turn down their application.

Now, with my luck, my own daughters will be people who have issues getting this straight!

Pink and Blue

Here is B1 in her new bedroom in the basement. We finally got the shelves hung above the bed so she can put her little trinkets on them. She needs another stuffed animal for the bed, don't you think?

Dad loves the idea of putting Christmas lights on the pole in her room (not!) and she has her own little laundry hamper in the corner by the bulliten board.

Dierks Bentley, Martina McBride, Carrie Underwood, LeAnne Rimes, Kenny Chesney, and Gretchen Wilson. All of them are signed except Martina and Carrie.

Here is her nightstand with alarm clock, an Albert Pujols pennant, a Hannah Montana poster (we are all going to see her in 19 days), and her disco ball from Grandma and Grandpa S. The desk belonged to my grandma. We still need to get the chair upholstered with fabric more suitable for her. We also practiced opening and climbing out this window in case of emergency.

She tends to get hot very easily so since the ceiling is too low for a fan, she recently acquired a fan from Grandma F. And of course, a touch of "High School Musical" must be in the room!

B1's "new" dresser, our old one. It has lots of shelves for more stuff. The poster on the door is from Disney Channel's "Suite Life of Zack and Cody."

Awesome People To Eat With!

I have a great lunch hour this year! We have seven people, three of them being student teachers. A couple weeks ago, the four of us "regular" teachers decided to provide lunch for everyone. I made cheese soup, someone else brought Italian salad, someone else brought friendship bread, and the last one brought all the paper supplies. Today, all seven of us brought some ingredient for our own nachos! We had the works, from chips to meat to all the toppings including home-made salsa and guacamole! Tomorrow is bread bowl day! They are serving awesome soup in a bread bowl in the cafeteria this week and we are all going to go to the cafeteria (instead of the teacher's work room) to purchase a bread bowl with soup. Mine will contain French onion soup but they also serve cream of broccoli and potato.

I just noticed that I have written about food now in my last two posts! I guess I am hungry when I am on the computer!

I Can Live Another Year

Every year in September, Collinsville, IL has their annual Italianfest. And every year, I must go there and get an order of Bagna Cauda. Ever had it? It's a smelly concoction of butter, garlic, and anchovies.....and I think it is awesome. They serve it in a nacho container with the sauce in the small compartment and cabbage and french bread pieces in the large compartment. You dip the cabbage and bread into the butter mixture and enjoy. I remember the first time I saw this stuff, I wondered how someone could eat that! Then I was encouraged to try it, so I did. And. I. Fell. In. Love. Yum---yum---yum! Now, we have to go the Italianfest every year simply so I can get my Bagna Cauda. This year, we were very short on time and couldn't "do" the whole Italianfest thing like we have in the past. So, Hubby literally dropped me off 1 block from where the stand is always located, I walked to it, bought my Bagna Cauda, went around the block, got back into the car, and off we went to our next stop. But once I finished my treat (along with a Diet Coke), I promptly announced to him: "OK, I can live another year now." He smiled at me and said "well good." You just gotta love a guy who will take you out of the way to eat garlic and anchovies! :-)

From Little Girl to Bride

I'm going to have to miss the football game tomorrow night. The daughter of one of my best friends is getting married. I worked with Donna (my awesome friend) at my first "real" job out of college, ITT Financial Services in Florissant, MO. I knew the day I met Donna that I needed to stay on her good side. She was the office assistant and one of those people who could make or break you at your job. I remember that I had only worked there for 2 months when secretary's day came along and I knew it was a must to get something for Donna! I can't remember what I got her or did for her that day, but I know she appreciated it and our friendship was formed. She is one of those people who would be there for me or for my family for anything. We don't see each other very often and certainly don't spend enough time together these days, but I know that when I need her, she will be there. I first met her daughter Stephanie when she was 9. Steph and my hubby used to go to Blues practices together and get autographs. Steph thought that was pretty cool back then. They would do that on days when there was no school but Donna and I still had to work. We were jealous. I've watched Steph grow up from elementary school to middle school, to her high school graduation and eventually college graduation. I saw her turn 21 a few years ago and will now see her become a bride. I can seriously remember back to what seems like only yesterday when Donna introduced me to her. Time flies. Donna has always been a single mom and I'm sure that Steph getting married will not be easy. But then again when you know that the people you love are happy, it somehow makes things more tolerable. So, happy almost wedding day, Steph! I'm sure you and your mom will both be beautiful and I wouldn't miss this occasion for the world! I love you both!

The Weekend (so far) in Review

My weekend: Friday night football game at Waterloo. First win of the season for Triad, 30-16! Yay! Saturday we closed our pool with the help of some friends who came over to hold the cover in place. I am always glad when that job is done and it's one less thing I have to think about during the winter months (cleaning the pool and putting the chemicals in it). Then I went to a friend's house to help her move. We worked during the afternoon hours at both her old and new homes and then got cleaned up to go out. It was myself and 4 high school friends. We ate dinner at Tony's in Alton (yum!), went to the Alton Belle (where I actually won over $100!), and then to Wild Country in Collinsville, which I consider to be a mistake. The place was too smokey and I don't know the dances. It was also too loud that we couldn't talk to each other. Live and learn though. Came home and went to bed at 2am. Today I got up and got the girls off to Sunday School, got cleaned up and picked them up and hour later and then headed to St. Louis to a soccer game at SLU. One of my former students was playing there. She plays for SEMO. Now we are home and about ready to go to the park for a walk with our dog (the day is too perfect not to do this, it's 75 degrees!). Then at 6pm we are meeting some friends at Alfonzo's in Maryville for pizza, salad, and wings! These are my favorite wings of all and the salad is awesome as well! We are taking the guys who helped build B1's room out as a thank-you. (The room pics will be coming soon, but Hubby still needs to hang a couple shelves.) I still need to go through the girls' backpacks, check any homework they may have had, and check out the lunch situation for tomorrow (who's do I need to make?). I know that at MY school tomorrow (and all week), we have bread bowl soup.....YUM! So I'm buying tomorrow. That's all for now, hope all of you had a good weekend too.

9/11/01.....WE WILL REMEMBER

Just sitting here wondering what I should post about tonight when I read Nancy's blog http://worldwiderolves.blogspot.com/. She too did the same thing I did. I reminded B1 last night that today would be 9/11 and that she should probably choose to wear something red/white/blue to school. No problem for her.....she wore a grey T-shirt with patriotic-colored butterflies and flowers on the front. I had my own clothes all picked out as well, navy capris and a golf-type shirt adorned with flags (by the way, the shirt is over 11 years old and B1 announced to me today that I looked like a grandma wearing it, but I really didn't care today). When B2 got up this morning and I went to pick out her clothes, I wasn't dressed for school myself yet and temporarily forgot the date. We picked out some peach/teal flowery skort outfit and she was already dressed in it when I remembered the date and told her that she should really wear a red T-shirt in her closet with a flag on it. She asked why. She was only 17 months old on 9/11/01 so my explanation to her was that 6 years ago was the day that the bad people drove planes into the buildings in New York other parts of our country and then she seemed to know what I was talking about. Anyway, she began to argue with me about what she was going to wear to school. I told her she could pick out her own pants but that I strongly suggested she wear the red flag T-shirt. I told her it was her choice but that a lot of people had died and many others were very sad because of what happened on this date and then I left the room. A minute or so later, I glanced down the hallway to her room, where the T-shirt had been hanging on the door handle. It was gone. She changed her clothes. Good for her.

Six years ago this morning, I was sitting in my classroom (hence the Alan Jackson song "Where Were You When The World Stopped Turning" and the line in that song that goes "teaching a class full of innocent children") when my dad (a hall monitor at the high school where I teach) came in and informed me of what had happened. For the rest of that school day and the following, almost all the teachers in my building had their TV's on all day long. I usually taught my lessons and then turned on the TV afterwards. Saying the pledge at school today brought tears to my eyes. I know we all remember where we were when we heard that news.

Our New Room

Here are the pics of our new bedroom. Well, it's not a new room of course, but it looks a lot different than it did 2 months ago! I wondered if I would like the color scheme that I picked out, and I ended up loving it. As you can see, I went with earth tones and had the hubby paint just one wall in a rust color while the other three are tan. I picked about eight different comforter prints in the JCPenney catalog and then had him narrow it to three that he could "live with" and then I picked the final selection. The comforter itself is SO soft and comfy! And.....we bought a pillow-top mattress, which I have absolutely fallen in love with. At first, I wondered if it would be too soft, but since the mattress underneath the pillow-top is firm, the back support is perfect. Here you can see that Shinza likes it too! We bought the wall decorations at Garden Ridge. We also ended up buying 2 nightstands because we each have our own alarm clocks and "stuff" that we wanted to store inside. The only piece of furniture from the set that we didn't buy was the bed. The one that came with the set had a head and foot board and our room just isn't big enough to feasibly hold that big of a bed. We could have made it work, but I know myself and I know that I would have constantly been running my knees and toes into that footboard, even though it would have looked so nice! Also though, the walkway area at the foot of the bed would have been just too narrow. So we took a piece of hardware from one of the dresser drawers and headed to the mattress section of the store to try to find just a headboard that would match. We succeeded and I am very pleased!

Here is a picture of my dresser. This is the piece of furniture that I am allowed to put my things in. It actually has 7 drawers, 2 of which are really deep.

This is the hubby's piece of furniture. I am not allowed to put anything in here because it's "his." He likes the armoire/drawer combination. In the armoire side, he has 3 nice tall shelves.

I will soon be posting pics of my new kitchen and eventually, B1's new bedroom!

Carrie, Shania, and of course.....Kenny

B2 had gymnastics tonight, which is in O'Fallon, IL. Afterwards, the 3 of us (me, her and B1) stopped for a bite to eat and just before getting on the interstate to head home, the Carrie Underwood song "Before He Cheats" came on the radio. So we sang it loudly in the car. As it ended, I heard the beginning of another familiar country song I hadn't heard in quite awhile. It was Shania Twain's "Any Man of Mine." I remember many years ago when this song first came out, I wasn't sure if I liked it or not, but it just sort of grew on me. My girls and I love to blast Shania in the car and when we can, we roll down the windows and let the air blow our hair everywhere while the radio is turned all the way up. We don't do this when Hubby/Dad is in the car because his ears can't seem to handle the loudness! As Shania's song ended, I turned and said to my girls "the only way this could get any better is if Kenny Chesney comes on next".....and guess what? Next song: KC's "Never Wanted Nothing More"! I put my hand up for B1 to high-five me as we drove down the road, radio still blasting! That was probably one of those moments with them that I will remember forever.

September: Do or Die Time

I have a bet made with one of my former students who graduated this past May. He used to live in Chicago and hence, is a Cubs fan. Since my college days at Eastern Illinois University, I have hated all sports teams from Chicago, simply because there were so many people at EIU from Chicago and it seemed like 3 out of 4 of them were rude and disrespectful to those of us from "downstate" (and I HATE that term!). Anyway, back to my former student. He and his older brother love to teast me about the Cardinals, even though they both know that they are fighting a losing battle. This young man is currently in the Army Guard, stationed at Ft. Benning, GA. He left in June and I have received 7 letters from him so far. He will be back sometime later this month. I write to him as well, sending newspaper clippings, pictures, and other tidbits of interest in the envelopes along with my letters. While we were on vacation this summer, I sent him a post card from every one of our stops. Back in April, when school was still in, he started his badmouthing of the Cardinals. My traditional comeback to a Cubs fan is "see me in September." So, he and I made a bet: one of us would take the other to lunch depending on whichever team is higher in the standings come the end of the season. Seems like most season, the Cubs have been higher, and still are. However, during the past month, the Cardinals have moved from about 4 games to 2 games within reach of passing the Cubs. And we still have a month to go. With the Cards big win last night and their win again today, I thought we might be able to move within 1 game. But the Cubs won yesterday and today, had to come back in the late innings and win their game as well. We are going to the game tomorrow to cheer on our Cardinals. I look forward to watching baseball this final month of the season. I always enjoy following my Cardinals, but this year it's just a little more fun. I honestly don't have any hopes of postseason success (just making the playoffs would be a small miracle!), just as long as we end up higher than the Cubs, as we usually do!