Life as a Leach

My sister and I have embarked on a new crafting adventure. While I am very detail-oriented, I lack the crafting gene that my sister seems to have received. However, I like to think that this is something I can do well! We take Scrabble tiles, glue various pictures/patterns on the back, and add a bail (which is a hanger for a pendant). Voila! You have a lovely, unique piece of jewelry! I am taking this craft over so that my sister can focus on her bows. So far, I have made everything from Elmo, Dora, princesses, Tinkerbell, Hannah Montana, Vera Bradley, stained glass, holiday, dogs...I have even tested out a few photos for family members to see how it goes! If you like anything you see or have any requests, let me know! They're just $4!!! :)

I am stealing this off of Susanne's blog, with her full knowledge of course! It's a great quote! "Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity... It turns problems into gifts, failures into successes, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and a vision for tomorrow." -Melodie Beattie

Matt and I have started several traditions that we hope to keep around for quite a while. I would love to hear some of your favorites as well! 1. Each year in mid December, we drive around our community looking for the best Christmas light display. We are expanding it this year to two awards: Most interesting display and Prettiest. We then knock on the people's door and give them a certificate and special ornament with "Best Lights Display 2008" (or whatever year) written on it with our names on the back. The people are so excited to win and it just makes people happy! 2. We also choose a family that we know who maybe either is hurting financially or just needs a little extra joy this season. We go shopping for them and try to pick out some toys that the kids will really like. We also get a gift card for a grocery store and sometimes bring some canned goods as well. On Christmas Eve, we drop everything off at the house. They never know it was us, but it makes us happy ...

I was at the annual FHG Alumni bonfire at the Livingston's, which I've been going to since I graduated from high school. It is a great time to see old friends and hang out. It's especially fun now that there are some babies too! Caleb, Emma, Isaac, Ezra, and Brittany all played together today and had a jolly old time! Anyway, I was catching up with the amazingly sweet (but sometimes a little blonde) R and she was telling me about her nursing rotations. She said that she liked Labor and Delivery and was trying to decide between that and Pediatrics. She said her final decision was made because "Labor and Delivery was all babies and middle-aged women, so that was kind of boring to me." Now, I don't know about you blog reading mommies, but I'm no middle-aged woman!! I started laughing and she just didn't get what I thought was so funny. I told her that I don't really consider myself middle-aged and she said she wasn't talking about me, just ...

Thanksgiving today was rather uneventful, with the exception of my mom making the announcement right before we sit down to dinner that I wasn't allowed to make Caleb eat anything he didn't want to, and that he would get to eat dessert no matter what he ate because it's a holiday. Thanks, Mom... Other than that, it was fine. We ate good food and hung out, and Grammie actually did okay today. She slept a lot, but didn't have any major issues. Compared to yesterday, she was doing much better. Caleb enjoyed watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and cried whenever it went to commercial. We went to KMart and cashed in on some good deals. Yeah, so...pretty normal! Tomorrow is my favorite day of the year! NO, I don't go shopping! I am done with all of my Christmas shopping and try to avoid going to the stores at all costs. No, tomorrow is my favorite day because it is the day that we put up our Christmas decorations! I absolutely love it, and have been i...

I made a pumpkin pie yesterday as a test run for the real deal on Thursday. I told Caleb that he could have a piece if he ate a good dinner (I told him the same thing at lunch, but that resulted in nothing but a bunch of food being thrown and lots of tears---needless to say, no pie!) He loves pumpkin pie and was very excited about the prospect! While I was getting dinner together, he found another can of pumpkin in the pantry and began singing, "Happy Birthday to Me! Hunky Hi!" (translation: Pumpkin Pie!) and holding the can of pumpkin out in front of him like a sacred cake or something. Not too sure what that was all about... :) He did eat a very good dinner...every time he would say "All done" (and not to my standards), I would give him a look and he would say very determinedly, "Hunky Hi!" and take another bite! It was quite funny. I do hope that the pumpkin pie lived up to his expectations. I thought it was pretty good myself, but he worked awfu...

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? I really like wrapping presents...the real way! I like the convenience of gift bags though. 2. Real tree or Artificial? artificial, but I do want a real tree some day. I've never had one. 3. When do you put up the tree? day after Thanksgiving 4. When do you take the tree down? before I go back to work 5. Do you like eggnog? Yes, in very small doses...it makes me sick to my stomach if I drink too much 6. Favorite gift received as a child? my doll house 7. Hardest person to buy for? Barbara 8. Easiest person to buy for? Carter (book on CD or baseball tickets!) 9. Do you have a nativity scene? yes, of course 10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail 11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? I once got a Starbucks gift card from a student....nice right? When I went to use it, it only had 67 cents on it. 12. Favorite Christmas Movie? A Christmas Story 13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? at the after Christmas sales for the follow...

Grammie is my grandmother, and she is nearly 102. Yes, you read that correctly! She still lives on her own in the house my dad grew up in and even had a little Beagle named Gracie until she died two years ago. Recently, she's been pretty sick. She was in the hospital with pneumonia, got antibiotics for that, and was on the mend. Then she started not being able to keep anything down last week and was finally put back in the hospital for dehydration. After running some tests, they found she had a hernia that was causing blockage in her stomach. They operated Sunday night...on a 102 year old woman! She came out alright (in pain, but alright), but now she is saying that she just wants Jesus to take her home. Who can blame her, honestly? She has had a great life and she's ready to go home! We're going up tomorrow night to see her, and hopefully she will be in better spirits than she was today with my dad. Please pray for her and the family. Not everyone recognizes the fu...

My school blog is working again, thanks to my wonderful friend Megan! She is basically a technology prodigy, and I feel so incompetent next to her! She basically hacked into my blog (with my permission!) and got it all squared away again. She thinks that blogger was the one that messed up the way I was used to doing links, but she showed me a different way to do it so that I can still add links. AND, she did it all over email from 20 minutes away! I was so thankful that I sent her a thank you card and candy through the Pony (school system mail service). My kids have really been bummed about the blog being down, so they will be thrilled to know it is working again! :)

I just noticed that the example link I put in my last post to show you what it does didn't even show up in the published post! Even more interesting....does anyone know how to report a problem to Blogger?! For such a user-friendly program, they sure don't want to know if there are any problems, because I sure can't figure out how to contact them about this one! Side note: My kids are extremely disappointed that our computer lab days are over until I get this problem fixed. They do love the change of scenery that the lab brings!

Does anyone know how to fix this? When I post links into my post (doing it the same way I have always done it!), the link doesn't show up. It just puts in a very long URL with weird stuff attached to it--and it always puts it at the bottom, even when I clicked at a specific point. I have checked the help section and tried to report it, but I can't figure out how to. This doesn't affect this blog too much, but it is majorly affecting how I use my school blog, since the primary purpose is to insert links to specific learning games for computer lab use! Here is an example of what it will do if I try to insert a link: At first, I thought it was something with my home computer caused by getting Norton 360. It is doing the same thing at school (where I currently am.) Then, I thought maybe it was something with my school blog (even though this one is the one I've been messing around with recently), but it is doing the same thing on this blog. If you have any ideas or know ...

I figured out how to add a playlist to my blog...yippee! ;)

I am totally stealing this from another blogging friend. Totally...but it's fun anyway! Where is your mobile phone? In my purse, but I hate talking on the phone. Where is your significant other? on his way home from a UMD football game Your hair? dirty blonde with natural red highlights and has never been chemically highlighted or dyed! Your mother? is extremely organized and motivated Your father? is my very own computer specialist Your favorite thing? my Nikon Your dream last night? Don't remember last night's, but the night before last I dreamt my friend Sarah died in a car accident :( Your dream goal? to stay home and be a mom The room you're in? family room Your church? the one we both grew up in Your fear? someone i love dying. Where do you want to be in 6 years? here in my house being the coolest full-time mom ever! Where were you last night? home grading papers and half-watching Oceans 13 Something you're not? enjoying this year One of your wish-list items?...

I went to the doctor today. I'm an enigma! (That's one of our vocabulary words--yay me!) The tingling/numbness of the whole hand is consistant with carpal tunnel syndrome, but the shooting pain/numbness of just my pinky and 4th finger (which is what I am currently having) isn't. So....he doesn't really know what it is. He gave me 800 mg of Motrin to stop the tingling and numbness. I'm a little hesitant to take it just because that is a big dose for a person of my size and I don't want to have a weird reaction and have to go to work tomorrow (of course, perhaps if I did take it and did have a reaction, I could stay home tomorrow!!! Hmmmm....) He also gave me a muscle relaxer that I decided not to fill. It doesn't hurt that badly and I know it will make me loopy and tired. That's a pretty strong medicine that I'm not willing to take until it gets really bad. I also now have a brace for my left hand that is stablizing my wrist. Caleb is quite i...

This will be quick because it hurts to type...off and on since I was pregnant, I have had tingling in my hands to the point where I really can't grip anything at all. It goes back and forth between my two hands. Currently, I have a tingling, shooting pain running from my left pinky up my arm. I am having a hard time gripping stuff right now, and it's been going on for a couple of hours. I'm thinking it might be time to go to the doctor! Anyone have a diagnosis, based on my description of my symptoms???

November 9th is a date that sticks out in my mind for several reasons: 1) It is the day that I became a vegetarian...14 years ago! 2) It's the day that the Berlin Wall fell down: Ich liebe Deutschland! 3) Most recently and most bittersweet, it is the day of the death of a good friend of mine, Lisa. That's what the rest of this blog is going to be about. Lisa began working at SLES at the same time I did. She and I taught 3rd grade right next to each other and muddled through the difficulties of being a first year teacher. We depended on each other for our sanity! She was in remission after having a rare form of bone cancer, and things were looking really good for her and her husband. They adopted a baby at birth named Will, who is a beautiful little boy with a full head of curly brown hair! Things began to fall apart in the spring of Lisa's second year of teaching. She had some pain checked out at the doctor and they found that her cancer was back. She went throug...

We somehow got a worm on our computer a few days ago. I have no idea how it happened, but all of the sudden I kept getting kicked off the internet. It was also freezing up a lot and jumping to other websites. All of the sudden, a really big "Warning: Your computer is in danger" sign started popping up like crazy. Uh oh! I knew I had a virus of some sort. My first thought was that this pop-up message was fake. I looked closer and saw the Windows symbol, so I figured it was legit. I went on the website to check it out and run the free scan. It found several issues...but of course you have to pay to fix them! I almost ordered it (anything Windows is good, right??) when I remembered that I have Norton Antivirus! I quickly got off of the website I was on and ran my Norton. It found the virus....which was posing as an Antivirus software!!! This little worm was faking a virus to get me all annoyed. Then, just as I was about to totally freak out, Super Worm flew in preten...

Today we didn't have kids, although we did have inservices the whole day! The second half of the day was a bunch of peer presentations and I taught a seminar on beginning blogging. It basically focused on using it in the classroom, but several people wanted to make a personal blog too. I typed up step-by-step instructions on how to set up and format your blog. Then I made up 3 pages of good websites for reading, math, and language. It was fun and I hope people got something out of it. I use my school blog very differently, obviously! We are working on teaching Caleb his letters. We are working on the ABC song, but I am really focusing on learning the letters and sounds themselves. I am purposely not teaching them in order (because then it just becomes rote memorization) and we are only focusing on 3 at a time. We have these fuzzy letters that he can hold, which he likes. I have noticed that Caleb seems to respond better when a concept is connected to something he can see ...

Hey, look, I did it! :)

I'm not an overly political person and I'm absolutely ready for this election to be over so that I don't have to listen to Obama's stupid advertisements again, but this video really struck me. I had an opportunity to see this woman speak in high school, and her story really touched me. It's a hard story to listen to, but one that everyone needs to hear before they make a decision about "women's rights." I have never tried to put in a video before, so I hope it works! http://

With the busy-ness of last weekend and this past week, I forgot all about posting on Mommy Appreciation Night! Matt created a special night to show me that I do do something right, even though I haven't really felt like it this month. I came home last Friday to a wonderful dinner of tilapia, parmesan vegetables, and fried pickle chips . (Yes, they were actually really good! He got them from a Rachel Ray recipe.) Then Caleb brought me a newspaper that Daddy and he made together. Matt actually interviewed Caleb with questions about me and reported his exact answers. It was quite funny. There was also a piece about who knows me better: Amy or Matt? He had gathered info on me (after he had answered the questions himself) and got Amy to answer the questions too. They ended up in a tie. For 2 of my closest family members, they really don't know me very well! Matt thought that the job I would want if I weren't a teacher would be a social worker....does he not listen to...

October wasn't too great for me. I had a lot of issues with parents, quite a few behavior problems, had frustrations with some family members, and was hurting for some friends who lost babies. It was just kind of a lousy month. Did we have some fun too? Oh yes! The pumpkin patch was great, and we took some good trips to the playground. But overall, October was rather crummy. Now, it's November. I have a fresh start. I can start anew with my kids (who have been driving me nuts for the better part of the year), try to avoid anymore conflicts with parents (of course, I don't think that any of the conflicts were warranted anyway, but I would still like to avoid them!), and hopefully not have anymore baby sadness! I have several more friends who are pregnant now, and I'm hoping and wishing for the best!! So, here's to a fresh start. I absolutely LOVE Thanksgiving, so I'm looking forward to November. I think it's because it is one of the only major holi...