Mopey Monday

It has been a rough Monday.  I didn't feel well last night heading to bed, didn't get enough sleep, and was a bit frustrated with various things today.  If I haven't said it before, I do not enjoy teaching Math!  It is a huge thorn in my side, and every student has different needs when it comes to math and one of me.  I think that is my issue with teaching, in a class of 22 students no matter what subject you are teaching everyone needs something different, and there are only so many minutes and one of me to help them all. 

 

Back to spending my Monday evening relaxing, and waiting on  my lemon confetti pound cake to be done. 

WEEK in review

I feel like a complete slacker since I have not updated my blog in well over a week.  The past ten to twelve days have been utterly exhausting.  Last weekend was packed. Saturday started off early with a visit to Downtown Disney to be one of the first crazy Disney/Vera Bradley fans to get a piece of the new Disney Collection by Vera Bradley.  Waited over an hour but with my two gift cards and my discount the bag I got didn't cost me a dime.  A night working at Disney wrapped up my Saturday and my weekend was gone. 

This past week has been a blur because a majority of my time has been spent looking at real estate like it is my job!  There are only so many hours I can spend searching MLS listings and seeing the same homes over and over again.  Here is the biggest drawback to living in a major tourist area -there is a severe lack of affordable housing.  When houses are affordable, they are scooped up by investors and used as vacation rentals.  Which means that to find anything affordable you have to go outside of this area, and I know a lot of people that I work with do travel a bit to get to work -some drive 30 minutes to an hour depending on time of year (because tourist traffic sucks).  I however am struggling with looking at homes that far away.  Today I saw a great starter home and based on comps it could be a perfect price, but what has me concerned is the location.  Now its not in a bad location -the city its located in has a lot of amenities, but its a drive (35 to 50 minutes depending on which way I would go).  Also its on the west side of the city, if it was on the east side I wouldn't even be hesitating.  Not to mention I have lived in the area I'm in now for three years.  I'm familiar with it, I know where everything is, I have my routes for getting to various places.  If I could find a house for the price I want North of here instead of Southwest of here I'd be all set, but that's nearly impossible, and it's frustrating.  I did go view a few homes today I only really liked one.  There was one I saw online yesterday, but unfortunately it is already under contract which is really too bad.

There is not much I can really say about the rest of the week or the weekend, considering that I feel a cold coming on and I need to get to bed. 

Teacher... Thursday?

It has been a crazy week and there has been a lot going on, but on the upside this week has flown by!!  It has gone so quickly that I completely forgot to update on Tuesday.  Well to be honest I didn't really forget, after school I had to make fudge...

Oreo fudge!  And baked a cake...

Brown Sugar Pound Cake, with a brown sugar glaze.

On top of baking I had to grade a math test, and when that was done I finally made the page dividers for my teacher binder.  I also put them onto Teachers Pay Teachers, in case anyone else wanted them. And with that I will share my latest creation and head into the kitchen for a piece of cake!

 

Pastel Class Binder Set

Manic Monday

It has been one of those days, too much to do, but minimal frustrations.  Hasn't been an easy day, but it wasn't terrible either.  A week after my hard drive died I got my laptop back this afternoon, but  I also ran out of copies.  And to end the day I was at school until after 6pm, but I got a lot done though:  wrote PMPs, checked AR for our 40 book challenge, put name tags on desks and rearranged the room.  I've moved them out of square/rectangular groups, and put them into a sort of E shape, kind of.  Everyone is directed towards the front of the room, so it should be better.

Back to eating some loaded mashed potatoes -because that's always necessary at 9 o'clock at night! 

Weekend in Review

This weekend has been pretty mild, but I think I like slower weekends better than ones where I'm super busy.  Over the last 10-12 months I have spread myself pretty thin, running myself ragged on weeknights, keeping myself busy on weekends.  It is actually kind of nice to keep my schedule simple.  Onto my "Weekend in Review"

Friday night was "Unleash the Villains" night at Disney's Hollywood Studios.  I knew a lot of people who were going and had plans to meet friends there.  I figured I'd leave at like 6:30 and get there a little before 7. I did not plan on being stuck in traffic for 45 minutes, but that is how long it took me to get into the parking lot and park my car.  My friends had arrived at the same time, on the other side of the parking lot, and they were redirected to EPCOT.  It then took them almost an hour to get to Studios, and I felt terrible.  I have to say that for a Disney event planning could've been a bit better.  The idea was great!!  But everything was crammed into the hub of the park, so there were thousands of people all smushed into one area.  I think Streets of America could've been utlized for meet and greets which would've dispersed the crowd a bit.  We decided to watch Fantasmic (which I haven't seen in years) and then grabbed a spot for fireworks close to the park entrance in order to make a speedy escape.  After fireworks the villains were out and about kind of wandering, but I think we were all a bit tired and I don't regret leaving when we did. 

Villainy in the Sky fireworks.

Saturday I woke up not feeling so hot. There was some sinus, head congestion going on and it lasted all day.  I got up late, sat around doing I have no idea what for quite a while.  I ended up heading to the mall to return something (it took me longer to get to the mall than it did for me to return the shirt).  Then I stopped at Homegoods -I needed to replace a rubber spatula I threw out the other day, and finished out my day by grabbing dinner to go at Yellow Dog.  After I got home I graded papers and watched tv and that was my Saturday. 

Mr. Smokey from Yellow Dog Eats

Today I was up early -well early for me on the weekend anyway.  I finished my grading -which was only a math test that now I have to give again after an entire of review (We will never finish Chapter One!).  I checked the Target flyer online, saw that they were giving gift cards with the purchase of an iPad.  I have been wanting an iPad for a while, was weighing my options months ago between a windows tablet and an iPad.  When I was in California for my birthday I felt kind of left out because I didn't have an iPad and it would've given me something to do while hanging around the house.  Last night I started looking again and when I saw the ad this morning it really had me itching to just buy it!

I went to a Mary Kay party this afternoon, actually bought some things -which I don't normally do because the things I use I've been using forever and it is difficult for me to change.  Mary Kay has a new inexpensive fun line called Mary Kay At Play and I bought two items from that set (only $10 a piece).  We'll see how I like them.  After a few hours at the party I went to Target -bought my iPad and then got some free groceries, met friends at Menchie's, and finished up grocery shopping at Publix. 

Overall not a super eventful weekend, but its been good. I'm not stressed about work, I know what I'm doing tomorrow, I still haven't made my section dividers for my Class Info Binder -but I'll get to that eventually.  Right now I think I'm heading back to play with my new iPad mini and try to find a wallpaper I like. 

Foodie Friday: Frozen Yogurt

Growing up in upstate NY meant a lot of ice cream in the summertime.  Every summer there were at least 4 soft serve ice cream places we could visit, but once mid September rolled around, the ice cream shops closed because the season was over.  In the late 80s, however, TCBY opened, and they did not close when the weather cooled off.  TCBY -The Country's Best Yogurt, started as a small shop.  You'd go in, there were like 2 to 4 flavors, they had toppings to add, but I remember it being a bit pricey given the time and for what it was.  As time went on they added Shivers -which cost a lot, and Sundettes which were cheap in comparison.  Even as a "tween" my go to flavors always involved peanut butter.  Sundettes would be either golden vanilla or white chocolate mousse with peanut butter cup (and hot fudge and whipped cream of course).  Shivers would be the same -golden vanilla or white chocolate mousse with peanut butter cup.  Sometimes, if I was lucky, mom would even let us take pints home -it was always a good day when white chocolate mousse or peanut butter frozen yogurt were in the case to take home. 

Years have gone by since I have been to TCBY back at home. They've relocated about a quarter mile down the road, and added a Coffee Beanery, but as far as I know most things have stayed the same.   Recently though frozen yogurt places have been popping up all over the place in more of a self serve, pay by weight, type of place (TCBY has even crossed over into this).  Pinkberry of course is a quite popular one.  First time I visited though I had a sample and was not impressed.  Back in March a friend of mine were poking around during our Spring Break from school and decided to try Menchie's, she had been to Red Mango and since they're kind of the same we gave it a shot.  Unfortunately that first trip to Menchie's was the start of a slight obsession.  From then until the end of the school year it was probably a once a week habit -which was not entirely all that healthy.  I mean, just take a look...

 

All from my Menchie's Pinboard

That, my friends, is a lot of Menchie's!!  What I like about Menchie's is that, well it's close tot home, and I like seeing what kind of flavor combinations I can come up with.  I often default to the same flavors (chocolate and peanut butter) but every once in a while those fruity pebbles call my name and I need to put them on some fro yo. 

I have of course been to other places.  Visited Pinkberry again when I was in California (twice actually).  First visit was in Redondo Beach...

Where I got a chocolate peanut butter shake (of course).  I also stopped at Pinkberry at LAX before my flight back to FL. 

More recently (today actually) I visited Yogurtown while at a workshop.  Yogurtown is a local business, and they have more than just self serve yogurt, they have bubble teas and boba shakes.  I had White Chocolate Mousse with graham cracker crumbs, nutella, peanut butter chips and chocolate sprinkles.    It wasn't bad, but a little too far to visit on a regular basis. 

Teacher Tuesday

This will probably be a short Teacher Tuesday as I don't really have much to add.  School is going ok, there are some minor frustrations falling down on teachers that I think are stemming from misunderstandings at the next level.  I have faith that it'll work out for the best.  Another semi-short week this week since 4th grade has a workshop to attend on Friday.  Any week where there is a break is always a good one, especially considering it'll be a month before we have another short week (then we get two in a row!).

I have to say that aside from still trying to get a handle on the schedule, which I'm hearing is an issue with others as well, Math is a challenge.  Math is always a struggle and part of me really wants to blame Go Math for this struggle.  There are much easier ways to teach some of the strategies that we use, but I find that even with enough planning, I as the teacher don't often see the best strategy until the end of the lesson or after we've moved on.   And I don't know if this is okay to say, but there are people in this world who are not "Math People."  I am related to a couple of them!  Some people just don't get it.  They may be great at all things word related (reading, writing, etc.), but they just can't wrap their head around math.  I feel like there are one or two students in my class like that.  I try to come up with ways to help everyone, but there is only so much time in the day, and when I sit down to help one student, it's time to move on. 

I did come up with a quick easy Place Value game.  It's been on my to do list for a couple weeks now and I finally made it.  Nothing too tricky and actually very easy, but I made it so others don't have to.  And it's only $1.50!

Place Value Sort (TPT)

Edit @ 11pm:  I am pretty happy to report that I have already sold a copy of the above activity.  I don't think anything had sold that fast before.