Second grade

Did you know that when talking about many fish of the same species, you say "three fish", but when talking about several species of fish, you say "three fishes".  I learned something today!  However, it was very akward saying fishes for me....

The things you learn when subbing in a second grade classroom!

Thunderstorms

Nothing better on a "spring forward" Sunday then a thunderstorm to lull me into my afternoon nap!

Building the Raised Beds

Today was beautiful!  Seventy and sunny... just the way I like it!

Last year we had several attempts at improving our yard.  We bought a foreclosure, but it was the builder who went under, so no one ever lived in our house.  So no one ever took care of the yard.  The front, at some point was sodded, because it's in the neighborhood covenants, but you could hardly tell.  We fertilized it with a weed killer.  I'm happy to report, the crabgrass is dead, the clover is gone... but there are these three different types of weeds still there.  Overall, our grass looks like C-R-A-P.  You see dead crab grass, tufts of real grass, dirt from where we killed the weeds off last year.

Yesterday, we pulled out a TON of rocks, some small, some rather large.  Man, there were so many more we could have dug out, but we called it good.

We have come up with a plan

Week 1:  Weed Killer (this weekend)

Week 2:  Nothing

Week 3:  De-thatching

Week 4: Overseeding with started fertilizer

That's the plan- we'll see how it works.  Hopefully by the end of the summer we'll have a healthy looking yard!

In other yard news... we started building the raised beds.  We started with the 16' x 4' bed.

Sub job

Wondering if taking a sub job today at an alternitive high scholl for pregnant and new moms was a good idea...
It is only a four hour assignment, and it was at an unusual time, so I was able to get my lesson in the.morning for my grad class, but still work a half day.
Almost done, and then I'm off to enjoy the beautiful weekend, and hopefully get some of the raised beds built!

Projects

So, I'm taking another grad class.  It's once a week (Monday- those classes are the worst!).  The nice thing about Grad school is no midterms, no finals.  The bad thing about no tests, is that your grade is all based on one or two projects. 

One of them is a literacy project, and I am going back to a 4th grade class that I know very well.  At the beginning of this school year, I was a long term sub for a 4th grade class.  There was another 4th grade class in our building, and we did a lot of lesson planning together.  She and I became pretty good friends, and is letting me do my 'project' on her kids.  Because of the end of the year test prep, everything else has been squished... so my 2 day lesson has been stretched over the week.

Serioulsy, they crack me up.  One of our words was 'demonstration'.  They came up with a definition that was along the lines of showing someone how to do something when in our context was for protest.  What normally happens is they write the definition in their reading logs, and draw a mental picture.  Then as we are reading the story out loud, when we find a vocab word, we re-read the sentence, but instead of reading the vocab word, we insert the definition.

When we got to 'demonstration' in the book, someone wanted me to read the sentence with 'showing someone how to do something' instead of the other one...

It's like the literacy god's were against me, it worked perfectly in that sentence... they all kinda giggled, because they knew I had been had. 

Smart little shits.

Priorties

How do you determine priorities?  I know for me, it is sometimes whatever is the most pressing.

Assignment due tomorrow, it's at the top of the list.
Dogs need more food, better get it after work.
New garden idea- google it for hours and come up with a plan.

Recently, I've made an extra effort to make my marriage a priority. It seemed that so often, we would float around in our house, and I was aware Trav was in the next room, but that was it.  Or, very often, when I got upset (which most of the time was me taking something he said the wrong way), I would pout.   And let me tell you, I could pout for hours.  Even if he apologized, and explained what he really meant, it didn't matter.  I pouted. 

I guess I've just realized how busy we've become.  We both are taking college classes, training for a 5k and 10k (at different times of the day), we work, we volunteer.  The hours that we are home together have gotten more and more slim. 

So, instead of pouting, and waisting 3 hours that I'm with him being upset, I've tried to 'get over it' faster, so I can enjoy being with him. 

I cherish our tv dates (tosh.o, The Office, and Southland).

And even though he snores, loving that he pulls me close and holds me as we fall asleep.

We have become my priority, and I really love that.


But I guess when also talking about priorities, I question what other's are.  It makes me wonder about why they made that choice.  Why did they buy that car? or house? Why did they quit that job?  Why did they wait so long to call?  Why did they move?  Why did they write that post?

And some things, I just don't understand. 

Exhaustion

Between my husbands head cold, the dogs sleeping/snoring/dreaming, and my restless legs I feel like I was up all night.

Really I was only awake until about 2:45am.  So that wasn't all night.  Just most of it.

I tired to take a nap this afternoon, but never got to sleep, and felt worse when I actually got out of bed.

So today, in a word, is exhaustion.

Tomorrow will be better.