Celebrating This Week

Fist pump for Sunday! Double fist pump because it is a three day weekend!

It has been awhile since I have linked up with Ruth Ayres to celebrate the week. It's good to be back.

This week was a tough week and in the midst of it all, it was hard to find things to celebrate. Which is why celebrating with Ruth is good, because it helps to look back and find those moments.

Our little restaurant in town was once again open from a two week closure and serving tacos in abundance. Naturally I met two of my friends there and we sat and chatted for a good three hours. These two friends are my young friends that are still in high school that I first met when I had them in first grade my second year of teaching. Now here we are eight years later talking over chips and salsa. That's something to celebrate.

Scholastic always gives me reason to celebrate! I was getting ready to hand out book orders and noticed that Natalie Lloyd's new book was ready to be purchased and put into the hands of students and teachers. My excitement bubbled over to my students and several copies were purchased. Thanks to all the awesome parents who bought books for their children and the students who raided their piggy banks, I was able to get my copy with points, which equals FREE for me! That's two celebrations!

Goodreads page

Friday night I finished my 15th row of my thermometer blanket. I was one degree away the other day from using a third color, on the warmer end. I want it to get warmer, mostly because I am tired of this cold, but also because I want to add another color! Come one Mother Nature, work with me! The celebration with this one is that I am still in love with this project!

What are you celebrating this week?

January 2016

It's a new year! The other day I had a student say, "I can't believe it is 2016!" I had to chuckle inside because she has no idea what that means in her whopping ten years on this planet. She had to have heard her parents utter this phrase at some point. Every adult mutters this phrase at some point during the beginning of the new year. I know this, because I too mutter it every year. It is then usually followed by, "I remember Y2K like it was yesterday!" Are these signs that I am turning into an old lady?

Anyway, it has been since August that I blogged. Here's what I am up to at the moment:

Crocheting:

Recently, I was tagged on Facebook by a few friends in this picture. It is a thermometer blanket. You crochet a row a day and the color is based on the temperate for the day. I broke my pledge to not buy anymore yarn until I used what I had and bought the first few colors. I am not doing the colors in the picture, mostly because I didn't want to.

Here is what eight days looks like. I have not used the coldest color yet, so I guess that is a plus for the people who have to do recess duty! I am excited to see the end product. I like the idea of not having to really plan anything other than the colors. Mother Nature decides the color pattern and I just go with it!

Reading:

Don't act all surprised that this is what I have been up to. I am still working on The Fiery Cross from the Outlander series. I started it in September but put it on the back burner a lot the last four months. I was able to get a lot read over the two week break and got a good chunk of the book finished. My goal is to have it all read by the end of January.

This year, I plan to read 50 books for my Goodreads reading challenge. My goal was 45 last year and I read 50. Should be a pretty attainable goal.

Teaching:
Second semester is off and running! The words "state testing" are being spoken more and more as we move forward. As a school we are hitting writing pretty hard. This excites me, but terrifies me at the same time. Once again this year, my goal is to write more. In order to teach writing well, I have to be able to write well. Cassie got me this great journal with writing prompts to help both of us write more. So far so good! I also hope to blog better this up coming year and not care if I don't get any feedback. I am writing for me, not for comments.

Here's to the new year with lots of adventures; Reading, writing, crocheting and teaching adventures.
What are you up to these days?