Thinking Out Loud - The Last Two Weeks or So

Well hello! It has been while. Not sure why it has been so long, but it has. I figured I would do a "Thinking Out Loud Post" to recap the last few weeks.

My back is finally getting better! Two weeks ago I got home from my annual trip to Salida with my family and couldn't move. The pain was radiating down both of my legs. It hurt to stand, it hurt to sit, it hurt to lay down, it just plain hurt. I finally made an appointment with a chiropractor that my friend goes to and I wish that I had done so earlier! He didn't do anything except an exam on the first visit, but I walked out of his office with hope and that alone made me feel 83% better! Since then I have gone back a few times and am already feeling better.

Stolen summer. With my back pains I feel as if my summer has been stolen from me. I have not been able to do several of the things I have wanted to do because it simply hurt to move. My summer adventure list was neglected. My summer wasn't completely stolen, I did have some pretty amazing times with friends and family.

School is around the corner. We report on the 8th of August and then the students come marching in the door on the 14th. That's like....two weeks! Yikes! I am freaking out a tad. I have lots to do. My sister needs to have surgery and I get the honor of being her nurse. With this, I will be with her and not in my classroom. Since I have this fear of not being ready in time (aided by scary teacher dreams that are trying to prove this fear) I am freaking out even more. I have been going in here and there to work in my classroom to get ready. I keep telling myself that it will all be fine and it will all get done.


Thankful for friends. Along with the fear of not being ready for school, I have been blessed by two past students who helped me this week in my room. Abby and Laura are such great helpers. We worked for a good seven hours and got a lot accomplished! They were able to help me when my body was loudly protesting on how much work it was doing.

Second Book Meet. Once again a few of us got together to discuss the books we were reading or had read. We had a small group of four again, but had two new kiddos join us. I think that the kids enjoyed it, I know I sure did. They wanted to continue into the school year, so I am thinking about how that will work. We will meet again next Wednesday once more before school starts.

Well, I think that might be about it. I hope I will be able to blog better here on out.

*Heart Flutter* Palooza

I am not sure if today could have contained more joy and *heart flutters*! I am surprised that I am able to write this tonight because I am tired! I played hard today!

The day started with coffee at a fun coffee shop with my dear Kris. We really haven't seen each other much this summer and I have missed her! I look forward to school starting again when I get to see her every weekday! While having said coffee, we discovered that I can share her audible account! She has a plethora of books that I want to listen too! Here comes some long walks in my future!

Once we finished consuming some liquid heaven we made a quick trip to the library and then I was able to finish my book! Any day I finish a book I am happy.

I chatted on the phone with some friends and made plans for further adventures.

Chinese food was consumed for lunch with Erin. One of the biggest things I like about my friendship with Erin is that it is so low maintenance. We can go weeks without communicating and it is ok. Then we can catch up and go on with life.

I have to start this next part out with a huge sorry to Kindra. I just couldn't help it, I had to! Please forgive me! I went into my classroom to do some work. A good friend came in and helped me move furniture where I wanted it and even solved some of my problems that I was stumped on. I am so very happy with the layout of my room for the next year. We got it all done in about two hours, which is the fastest I have ever accomplished this task!

We then picked up two other friends and went to one of our favorite eating establishments for a tasty burger and fried pickles. Food really does taste better when consumed with friends and laughter.

I am not sure if I truly captured how happy I am with this day! OH and I got fun mail today!

How was your day? Did your *heart flutter*?

Currently

I have an idea! I was blog stalking again and came across Oh' Boy 4th Grade, then thought of some journal entries I have done in my personal journal and it hit me! I can do the "currently" on my blog. Mostly for those moments when I want to blog and write, but can't really think of anything. So that's what I am going to do! Welcome to the first Currently! (Apparently it is a big thing since I just Googled "currently" images and got a ton of results.)

• Listening/watching: Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood's "Somthin' Bad About to Happen" video. Favorite new video and song! 
• Planning: on creating something with cinder blocks and other ideas for the upcoming school year
• Reading: Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler
• Eating/drinking: need to find some fried chicken since today is National Fried Chicken Day
• Needing: to get busy on my Summer Adventure List because the clock is ticking down.
• Loving: the option to build your own play list on Spotify
• Wanting: a pedicure. As much as I love my Chacos, they do tend to beat up the feet at times
• Thinking: about going for a walk, maybe to find some chicken. Maybe walking to the chicken and back will help cancel out all the fattening stuff.
• *Heart Flutter* : Dad "watching" The Sunday Morning Show with me while in OK

What are you "currently" (pick one, or two, or however many you want)?

Sunday Morning Smiles

Things that made me smile today:

Finishing a good book with a happy, romantic ending.

Seeing my house of dreams

Soundtracks for walking

A mile under twenty minutes
(would have been faster, but stopped to take pictures)

Learning new things

What has made you happy today?

Fountain Valley Trail....Check

I can check off another item off of my bucket list...I mean Adventure List! It was a major one for me too! I went hiking! Now, I know that doesn't sound too major, but since I haven't done much moving since April it was fantastic! I was worried about my back and how much I was going to be able to do, but I was able to do the whole hike and am still able to move today!! Praise sweet Jesus!

I am HORRIBLE at taking selfies. My sister asked why I looked
so terrified when I was excited to go hiking. *sad face*

Kris, Tracy, Carol and I headed on this adventure early in the morning, which was good, because it took us longer to get to the trail than we thought it would. That's the bad part of living so far out on the plains that it takes while to get to a mountain. We went to Roxborough State Park and did the Fountain Valley Trail.

It was a perfect day to go on a hike! Blue skies, a little bit of cloud cover and there weren't too many people there. Although towards the end there were a few groups of kids and we all four decided that we weren't ready to go back to school yet!

We headed down the trail and probably the first ten steps, the smallest fawn I had ever seen walked across the path right in front of us! I have seen fawns with spots before, but they were much bigger than this little guy. He was so small. I have seen kids and dogs bigger than he was!

This is the best picture I could get of him. I wasn't even sure if he was in the picture until I cropped it and found him. You can barely see his spots. We were a little worried and curious about where mom was at. I kept thinking we were going to reenact the scene in Tommy Boy when the buck wakes up in the car. She never came charging out of the bushes so we were good!

I am sure this one has a name, but I don't know it,
but it looks like George Washington laying down.
The nice lady at the visitor center told us about it.
She showed us a picture of it, but I didn't really see it.
I see it now though!

It was great to get out in the outdoors and to spend time with friends. The conversations, beer and burgers we had afterwards were amazing. I would recommend this hike and would do it again. It was perfect for someone who is slightly broken and is lots out of shape!

Can't wait to get out to the next hike!

It Might Be Time

October 2013 brought a bad case of summer blues for me. I couldn't wait for summer break. I didn't have a good reason. It was a mystery as to why May 16th couldn't come any faster.

Packing up my room at the end of the year was the hardest for me yet. Maybe it was the news just hours before that my dear OMM was now sitting at the feet of Jesus, but all I could do was think about next year. I kept thinking about how I was going to do things in the fall and wandering around the room. I wanted to forgo the deep clean that my classroom gets each summer and not shove everything in every open space. I had to finally get stern with myself and focus on the task at hand: finish this year first. Once I finally convinced myself to shove thoughts of next year away, I fully dove into summer. I didn't want to think about or see a student for a few days.

Now here we are, almost July and I think it might be time. It might be time to walk into a clean classroom full of potential and new beginnings. I am intimidated by all the work that has to be done, but excited at the same time. Right now, at this very moment, I am the most excited about my new classroom phone!

I think I will wait until it is officially July before I go in. A few hours here and there will satisfy my itch.

What is it time for in your life?

Book Meet

Today, the Book Meet Club was born!

When school ended, I knew that one thing I was going to miss was talking books with my students. When I finished reading my first children's book this summer, it made me miss them because I wanted to talk to someone about it. Today I got my chance.

Shortly after school ended a parent approached me and told me that her son wanted to do a summer book club with me. Since I too had the same thought but wasn't ready to act upon it, I figured it was fate. So I picked the three kids from my class that I was friends with their parents on Facebook and sent a message. A date was picked and a plan was made!

We met at a local restaurant armed and ready with book conversations. Since the  students are told what to read all school year, I figured I wasn't going to assign them a certain book to read and also we wouldn't have the drama of finding a copy of a book for each child. We were just going to come to the book meet and talk about what we had or were reading. You can read here about how I did something similar during the school year, but this time we weren't going to do any projects to go with the books.

For the first meeting we had two fourth graders, a seventh grader and me. I am going to share what each of us read and reported on.

Abby

Reread Holes by Louis Sacher since she didn't remember it when she read it in fourth grade and is currently reading Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Laura

The Missing Golden Ticket and Other Splendiferous Secrets by Roald Dahl and is currently reading Pickle by Kim Baker.

Dalen

Dalen needs to go to the library or a book store. He claims he has read all of the books he owns at least three times! He reread Dead City by James Ponti but hopes to find some new reading material soon. 

Ms. Wilson

I read Doll Bones by Holly Black and I Funny by James Patterson. I hope to start some of the Winnie-the-Pooh books here soon.

The Book Meet was a great success and a date for the second one has been set. So if you are in the Wiggins area on the 16th of July, stop on by and have a book chat with us!