I Love Our Bed!

Get your minds out of the gutter people, that's not what I was talking about.....

Seriously though, I love sleeping in our bed! When we got married, we used the bedroom set that was mine at my parents' house. They bought it for me during my senior year of high school and when we got married 7 years later, it was in good condition, so it became ours. It was a double bed. We slept fine in that bed. We watched TV from that bed, read in that bed, talked, laughed, and conceived 2 children there. Everything was hunky-dory.

Then last summer, we opted to do some remodeling in our home, including updating our bedroom. We chose a new bedroom set which included a queen bed. I really wanted a bed that had a head and foot board, but after measuring everything, we knew that it wouldn't work in our small bedroom. We would have had about 1 foot of pathway to walk through between the foot of the bed and the dresser. I saw many bruised knees had we purchased the bed with the footboard. So instead, we opted for a wrought iron head piece and no foot piece. We were told that the measurements of a queen compared to a double were about 6-8 more inches in length and in width. I really didn't think this sounded like much and assumed that the space for sleeping would be about the same.

Anyway, we also picked out a mattress (I have no idea the brand name) with a pillow top. Yes, it's soft on top, but very firm underneath. I also chose to order some sheets from JCPenney that are something like 300 count. These are the closest I will probably ever come to having satin sheets. They are so soft! We also ordered a new comforter set from JCPenney. I looked through the catalog and picked out something like 8 different ones I liked. Then Bruce went through and narrowed that down to 3 and I chose the final one. It's a mixture of earth tones and I (much to Bruce's chagrin when he has to make the bed!) also picked out several decorative pillows. The comforter and pillows too are so soft!

So when you put the whole combination together of the awesome pillow top mattress, the almost-satin sheets, and the softness of the comforter, it can hardly be matched. But.....the best part is that the extra little space we have when we lay down is definitely noticeable! I seriously didn't think it would be, but it so is! If you know us, you know we aren't the smallest people you'll ever meet and now, I feel like I actually have my own side of the bed and that I can even stretch out! Sleeping this past year and 3 months has been awesome! I love staying in our bed on the weekends when I don't have to get up. I just love laying there and I love when the girls or the dog comes in and joins me/us!

Now,what exactly were you thinking when you read this title? Ha ha ha ha!

Our Little Teacher?

Yesterday was a half day for the girls at school because us teachers had a school improvement day. B2's teacher decided that it would be a good day for dress-up. B2 said that at first it was going to be an "anything" day, meaning you could dress in PJ's, crazy hair, or anything you wanted. Then I guess the teacher decided that might be too crazy, so she decided on career day. B2 chose to dress as a teacher (imagine that!). This dress is in their "dress-up" clothes bin and B1 wore it once on the same kind of day at school. We bought these glasses specifically for B1 when she needed them then. They have the lenses taken out. I made an ID for her with one of her wallet-size picture from this year. I wrote her name with '08-'09 on it and we pinned it to her dress. We didn't have enough time this morning to find her a lanyard and some old keys so I just gave her my school keys for the day and stressed how important it was that she NOT LOSE them! She looked so cute!

I'm not sure if B2 really wants to be a teacher when she grows up or not. I think she thinks she wants to be a teacher simply because both of her parents are and her sister wants to be one. I think B1 will be a great teacher. She is awesome with little kids and loves to play mommy (still) to her dolls. B2.....I think she would be great in a career with animals. She just LOVES them! Not bugs though!

De-Lurking

OK.....I am curious. Who is out there reading my blog? I've seen other bloggers who write these types of de-lurking posts. It's basically to find out who is reading this particular entry. So.....if you are reading this right now, you are REQUIRED to leave a comment. And I know some of you out there (Scott P., Gina C., Patty W., etc) who read my blog but have never commented. Time for that to stop! It's very easy, just click on comments at the bottom of this post, if your computer asks you if you want to display the nonsecure items, click yes. Then type your comment in the box and down at the bottom (assuming you don't have a google user name/password), click the anonymous circle. If you are using anonymous then also please sign your name in the comment box so I know who the comment came from. It's very easy.

Who are you rooting for in the World Series? Or don't you really care? We are rooting for the Rays because Bruce's best friend (he is one of mine as well) lives near Tampa and is a Rays fan. Plus, I like to see a newer team win. I bet the networks are ticked that they didn't get a Boston/LA World Series. Ha ha! Too bad!

Randomness

Not much has been going on with us this week.

* We had turkey breast, mashed potatoes & gravy, peas, and rolls for dinner tonight. It was very tasty!

*B1 begins her basketball season this weekend. They began practicing 2 weeks ago in the new SJES gym. Bruce says they could practice every day this week and he still doesn't think they would be ready. We'll see.....

* The girls were off school two days last week. Monday was Columbus Day so we were all off. Friday was the Madison County Teacher's Institute. It was awful. It was too crowded and you couldn't walk in the halls. The first speaker I had to go listen to was awful, and the exhibits were geared only towards elementary teachers. Why do they always forget about us high school people?

* Our best running back, JJ, got hurt in Friday's game. We won anyway, 41-18. He has an upper ankle sprain. I communicated with him late Friday night and again on Saturday morning via text message and he said he is going to sit out this week and let it rest. This week's game is nonconference. Hopefully he will be ready for the first playoff game the following week.

* We began buying a few Christmas gifts on Saturday. I can't say what we specifically bought because sometimes B1 reads my blog. I do feel a little bit better about what we are going to get this year though. I am one of those people who doesn't really mind spending the money to get the stuff, it's just knowing what to get that stresses me out.

* We ate dinner Saturday night at Sam's Pizza in Highland. Yumm-O! Then we managed to spend $275 at Wal-Mart on nothing much. The ecomony sucks.

That's all for now.

Brace Face

B1 got braces today. Here is a picture of her last night, just after her shower and just before she ate some popcorn for the last time in a long while! And here is a picture of her tonight. She claims she isn't really in much pain right now. Only one tooth was a bit sore. She went to basketball practice tonight too.

Sigh.....my baby in braces! Wasn't she just born a year or so ago?

Look At My New Toy!

A while back, I noticed that some of my Kenny Chesney songs on our shared ipod were gone. I asked Bruce about this since he is the one who takes care of the technology in our household and he wasn't sure why the songs would have disappeared. His only explanation was that maybe he had downloaded too much other stuff and that it had "bumped" some older stuff off. Who knows. Well, then I kinda forgot about it. Then a couple of weeks ago, I asked him if we could download some of the podcasts from Be Our Guest Podcast that I like to listen to onto our ipod. That way when (if) I walk, maybe I could listen to the shows during that time. He said that we could try to do that. Then again, I kinda forgot about it.
Thursday night, he came and sat next to me on the couch while I was grading papers. He told me that he had a "gift" for me in his pocket. I thought "yeah, whatever!" but I played along. Well, in his pocket was this brand new ipod, just for me! And.....it was loaded with all 59 (at the time) podcasts I had requested plus over 60 Kenny Chesney songs! I was very surprised and very happy! I will put some other stuff on there as well because as much as I do love Kenny, I would get tired of listening to just him.

I had the ipod in my purse the following day at school and chose to use the stopwatch option on it while we played a game in geomery class. One of my students said "that's a sweet color, Mrs. Frank!" I agree. I also think I have a sweet husband!

Have You Seen These?

I received an e-mail today from Dan D. that was too good not to share on my blog! There were a few more pics in the e-mail, but these are my favorites.

I love the broom!

And yes, this one is great too. I remember this year when Bruce and I went to our first Cards/Cubs game and we saw Fukudome's name on the scoreboard for the first time. We kind of looked at each other and said "what the......?" What the he!! kind of name is that? This picture is classic.

Not to keep dwelling on the Chicago stuff, but the comments made on my last post brought some more thoughts to mind:

J Rod.....our governor. He governs from his home in Chicago. When we were at the state fair this past summer, we wandered into the Republican tent and in there was an empty doll house that said "Governor's Mansion" on the front of it. Also on the front was a sign that read "Vacancy." I thought it was hilarious! I took a picture with my cell phone but it's not clear enough to put on the blog. Yes, he governs from Chicago. Wouldn't you think he might want to live and work in Springfield, the STATE CAPITOL? I don't claim to know much at all about politics, but through the years that he has been governor of our state, I do know of some education-related issues on which I disagree completely with his point of view.

When I became a teacher and began watching high school sports at the state level, I noticed that if a game was televised (usually football or basketball), the announcers always referred to the playing field (which was usually either Peoria or Champaign) as being in "downstate" Illinois. Huh? What the hell is "downstate"? Back then, in basketball in particular, the system was set up so that 8 teams would make it to the state competition. About 4 of them were from the Chicago area (and I understand that, based on population), 2 or 3 teams were from central or northern Illinois, and AT LEAST 1 (maybe 2) team was from southern Illinois. This team had to travel NORTH to get to the state competition. So why was it always referred to on TV by the announcers as "downstate"? I always hated that. Seriously, if you were to draw a horizontal line across the middle of Illinois, Peoria is definitely NORTH of that line and Champaign is close to the middle. So how can you say these cities are downstate??? For whatever reason, I think it sounds degrading to us southern Illinois folks. Maybe I'm crazy, but it's as if everything "important" happens "upstate" (in Chicago) and the rest of us should just follow their lead. Wrong.

And also.....I think maybe I have posted about this in the past.....I hate when you are traveling and begin talking to someone from another state and when you tell them you are from Illinois, they somehow automatically assume you are from somewhere near Chicago! That is an insult to me, honestly. Like I've said before, I really like visiting Chicago, but I would never want to be associated with living there. Uggg. This year and last year, when we were on vacation, when this conversation would start with a stranger, I began answering that question with "Illinois but nowhere near Chicago."

A Century of Sucking!

The sign is back. I absolutely love it!


So today I wore this shirt to school. I ordered it from the site you can see on the shirt, thanks to Dan D. forwarding it to me. I didn't get the shirt until about 3 weeks ago and I am so excited to wear it to a Cardinal/Cub game next year!
I waited for 2 of my students today who are Cubs fans. Actually, they were my students last year. One of them is a senior boy and has math first hour 2 doors down from my room. I seriously almost felt bad for harassing him when I saw the look on his face. I thought he was about ready to shed a tear. Really. Then the other student is a girl who has math 2nd hour right across the hall from my room. She can "take" a bit more than the boy. So I sat in her seat, waiting for her to show up. The teacher threw a blue dry erase marker at me to write "Cubs Suck" on her desktop (dry erase marker comes up easily when you use the cleaner). So I did. Then when she came in and came over to me, I put my hands to my throat and pretended I was choking.

I hope I never see the Cubs win a World Series in my lifetime. I know that the reason I feel so strongly about this is because I attended Eastern Illinois University and probably 2 of every 3 students there were from Chicago or its subarbs. I formed an attitude towards Chicago people within the first few hours of being at college. For real. I love visiting Chicago but I HATE all sports teams from there, simply because from my experience, people from there seem to think they are better than us southerners and tend to think that anything south of Kankakee is "southern Illinois." I got really tired of hearing things like "You don't know where Elmhurst is????" or "You've never eaten at Ed Debevic's???" Get a clue, people. There really is life beyond Chicago. No, I don't hold grudges.....

More Spirit Week Pics

Alrighty then, yes, this is me on the left! Yesterday's dress-up day was called "Theatrical Thursday" and we took that to mean we could dress up like anyone from a play or movie. So here I am dressed like a combination of the nerds from the movie "Revenge of the Nerds." Alongside me is one of my students.....a cute little pixie dressed as Tinkerbell. Unfortunately, that is all my stomach you see there, no pillow or extra fluff stuck in my pants. Yuck. I had many students who came in to my room and says something like "Oh my God, Mrs. Frank.....I thought you were a sub!" I also had people (students) who I don't even have in class walk down the hall and look at me and just start laughing. And even funnier is that in college, these were my real glasses. And I seriously thought they looked good then! Here's a picture taken today, Spirit Day, of me and our best running back. You can read about him here from an article that appeared in the Belleville News Democrat. I had JJ in class last year and he is a very respectful young man.....one who it is easy to tell comes from a great family.

When I came out to my car today after school, here is what I found. Stuff like this is what makes what we do every day so worth it.

The "BTS" supposedly stands for "Brotherhood Through Sacrafice" and is something that our football team chants before and after games.

AS ALWAYS....."GO KNIGHTS!!!"