Monday Morning Mash-Up

I worked my tail off yesterday.  Well, if that's possible sitting in front of a computer all day.  Working one's tail off implies that I was doing hard, manual labor.  I wasn't... But I was still exhausted when it was all said and done.

Yesterday afternoon, I sat and created an entire book study for Charlotte's Web.  Twenty-two chapters of comprehension questions, application questions, discussion questions, vocabulary questions, and on and on.  Not to mention pre and post reading questions. Thank goodness I picked a book I've read about a thousand times... or my four hours of work would have ended up more like ten. 

But, now it's done.  And because the book is never going to change... I can keep the book study packet for classes to come.  That's what being a first year teacher is all about though, right?  Put the work in now, and life will be much easier next year.

The plan was to create two book study packets yesterday.  But, one took much longer than I expected, so the other one will have to wait. 

Charlotte's Web was one of my favorite books when I was young.  I remember a teacher reading it to us in a class.  I remember that it was the first book I heard/read that made me cry.  It's funny how important it is for me to include books from my childhood.  They were the books that made me fall in love with reading. 

Can you believe that there's only seven weeks until Christmas?  I know.  Me either.  It seems like only a week ago I was excited that there was only three months until Christmas...and here we are just a mere seven weeks away.  In exactly 49 days, it will be Christmas Eve!  I'm happy to report that I have made a start to my Christmas shopping.  A very small start, but a start nonetheless.  Next weekend is going to be the big one.  I'm going to spend an entire day shopping.  Well, and having lunch with my two best gal pals.  That's a great way to enter in to the holiday season - lunch with great friends and a day of Christmas shopping.

OK, so in the past three seconds I've decided that I may not spend an entire day shopping next weekend.  I think it would be better to break it up over a couple of weekends.  I'm already thinking about how much work I'm going to have next weekend...and another day off may not be feasible.

Oh, and call me crazy... but I think I'm going to try Black Friday this year.  I know, I know... that's probably insane.  I loathe Black Friday.  I've been only a couple of times in my entire life - and both times I came home with hardly anything.. except sore shins and ankles from being rammed by carts.  I wanted to just partake in Cyber Monday, but I have to work on Monday.  I'm not sure what time Cyber Monday starts.  If it's a midnight start.. then maybe I could stay up late and have a crack at it.

 I've started compiling a list of things to be thankful for.  Each Thursday between now and Thanksgiving (including Thanksgiving morning) I'm going to list ten things I'm thankful for.  That will give me thirty things, which is the equivalent of doing a Facebook status every single day of November. I want to really dig deep this year.  Everyone knows I'm thankful for my family, my job, my health etc. but there's so many other things to be thankful for.  Plus, I don't want it to be all sappy and deep.  I want to bring some humor in to my thanks.  There's nothing wrong with adding a little humor, am I right?  That doesn't mean I won't include those deep things, too.  That's a big part of life - the deep things. 

I only have two weekends left to deep clean my house before my family come for Thanksgiving.  That scares me a little.  I have a very strict rule that my house has to be sparkling clean before I will host a holiday in my house.  Which is kinda silly, being that my house will be a complete wreck by the time my family leaves.  Being that my parents are foster parents, it will be likely that there will be at least 4 children in the house that's 5 years old or younger.  That many small people added to the amount of toys that Jelly own is the equation for major disaster zone in my house by the time they leave.  But, then it will be time to put up the Christmas tree - and that can't go up if the house is a mess, either.

Listen to me this morning.  When I said it was the morning mash-up, I didn't expect to go in so many different directions.  I sound like a loon!  That's what book studies and thoughts of Christmas shopping and Thanksgiving cleaning does to me.  Makes me all crazy.  It's totally the thought of Christmas shopping.  Sorry, book study and Thanksgiving cleaning.

Alright, I need to contain my crazy.  It's getting out of hand.  Just think... If I'm this bad seven weeks away from Christmas, what the heck am I going to be like a week before Christmas?  I shudder at the thought.

Oh well, time to get ready for another week of work!