my pink life, mi vida rosada

It does not snow very often down here where I live, so snow on the day after Christmas is a pretty big deal. Especially since today is a Sunday, and snow in the south often means no church. My church wasn't canceled, but sweet hubby and I decided to stay in, anyway. We took the opportunity to take a couple of pictures before the sun came out.... And of course, we had to get one of the sneaky bunny.... She was not very happy about being out in the snow. In other news, you can give a dollar and help raise money to bring this baby to a forever family....Just click on the picture and you can find out more.

We have been busy in this family, making merry. And more merry. And then a little more merry after that, too. So merry, merry Christmas to you.

I think that vacation is a great time for me to waste my time. For real. Because otherwise, why would I have turned the "move the books from the other room onto the bookshelf" project into a "make the textbooks match each other" project? It all started with this silly idea of mine to group books not by type, but by color. I think I will hate this arrangement as soon as I want to find any particular book and can't remember what color it is. It seemed silly to put one part of The Sisterhood with the yellows and reds, and another with the blues, but I'll have to wait and see whether it bothers me in a few days, or months, or years, as it may be, when I'm finally in the mood to re-read the teenage angst. I am very proud of myself for not taking the time to sort through the books, rather to just put them on the shelf, and there should still be some re-arranging of color/height combinations, but on the whole, I rather like it. There is another half of ...

My husband and I had a little adventure. It started out with a visit to silver coast... And then a little road trip to see the giant Christmas tree... Followed by dinner at circa 1922, a relatively fancy restaurant, for us.... Which was an incredibly delicious meal at an extremely reasonable price. It didn't hurt that they have a fixed price menu for Sunday-Thursday nights, so we were able to easily choose a salad, main course, dessert, and coffee for one low price. We found the famous Silver Coast Touriga on the close-out wine list and, since there had been much discussion earlier in the day, at Silver Coast, about where the last red bottles might still be hiding, decided that we needed to order a bottle. I may or may not have had too much to drink, after drinking a woo-woo before going to Silver Coast, a couple glasses at Silver Coast, and the bulk of the Touriga, since sweet hubby was driving. After dinner, we walked around Princess Street and the river and decided it was co...

Que felicidad, que felicidad.... Estoy otra vez en mi reino, la casa de la playa.... Y de vacaciones, asi que tengo un día extra para disfrutar, y estoy recien empezando las dos semanas de libertad antes de volver a la escuela. Es rico estar en la casa calentita y con lluvia fría afuera, sonando en el techo y creando una neblina encima del agua. El tiempo es completamente diferente a lo que era en noviembre, después del Día de acción de gracias, pero lindo de su propia manera, y me hace pensar en la bendición que es tener esta casa disponible para disfrutar, siempre y cuando hay tiempo para llegar. Ayer, yo limpié un poco en la casa (normalmente limpiamos en la primavera, y a veces durante el verano, dependiente en cuantas personas están usando la casa y por cuanto tiempo -- cuando estamos ocupando la casa por dos meses, como el verano de 2010, limpiamos con mucha mas frecuencia), que no habíamos hecho desde septiembre, y yo cociné el almuerzo. Normalmente me pongo floja cuando est...

3 3 3 Only 3 more days until two little tiny weeks away from my monsters. Any progress that I thought had been made, this week, is out the window. Forget lining up, forget following directions, forget all of it. That what it feels like, at least, and what it looks like, and what it sounds like.... I am so frustrated with my kids that I could just walk out, and not return, and be sad only about the having to find a new job with no references part of the equation, rather than the part of the equation where my kids have no teacher, get stuck with a long term sub, and keep failing everything because they are so horrible and therefore super low. Third graders should know how to read, people. Sure, they won't be reading anything super difficult, but they should be able to read at least a simple book that has repetitive language and simple, one syllable words....But mine can't. And if you think that reading in English is hard, just switch to Spanish. Because then it should be e...

This sounds pretty cool.... http://greenbaglady.blogspot.com/ It goes along nicely with a conversation I had with a good friend on Friday night. We were talking about restaurants and going out to eat, and the cute cardboard box she was toting her leftovers home in, rather than a styrofoam container. We talked about how great it is that everyone seems to be getting better about taking their reusable shopping bags with them to the store. And then we decided that the next big thing in this going-green journey will be toting tupperware. Yep, toting tupperware. We're pretty good at taking a reusable bag with us where ever we go -- leaving them in the car is pretty convenient. Why not keep a couple clean food containers in the car too? That way, when I go out to eat every single Sunday to the same restaurant where I almost always bring half of my meal home, I can just pack it into my own container, instead of having to put it in styrofoam and then change it to a plastic container ...

12 more school days before winter break! I can see the light! This week has helped me see that in some ways, my kids truly are making progress. And it has also helped me see that in other ways, my kids will NEVER make any progress. How enheartening and disheartening all at once. My kids (in both groups) are now much better at entering the classroom quickly and relatively quietly, which typically translates into calmly, which is a GREAT improvement. Credit goes to the RISC 4-square tool -- what does it look like and sound like when you come in and what does it look like and sound like when you pack up? The problem is getting packed up with enough time to rate how each child has done -- less feedback, so harder to be inspired to do better. But half of the equation has improved, so I'll keep at the packing up earlier and getting quieter and calmer with that, too. My thrower is still throwing things. So overreactive. On his behavior plan, he received "2s" (on a 4 poin...