#teamsnowday

You know how there are those little poems and things saying teachers aren't just teachers but they're also nurses, counselors, psychologists, detectives, party planners, comedians and whatever else. Well, I'm adding one to the list. We're also meteorologists. We keep our little eyes to the sky all winter long. We squeal over weather texts. Keep eyes glued to the TV for school closings. Watch radar during faculty meetings (yeah, I was totally doing that today). And then we speculate all night about if and when school will be closed.

All this weather talk is happening because we just had half an inch of snow dumped on our little city. Yes. Dumped. That is pure accumulation. We have green and white yards. Breathtaking.

I love how excited teachers get about snow days. We're big kids and we never outgrow the excitement of a snow day.

When we were dismissed from our faculty meeting at 5:00, my principal told us we better not go home and do any snow dances tonight. And then she looked right at me because everybody at school knows I'm the biggest snow lover in the land. I just gave her a smirk and she yelled, "Marcum!" and then I stood up and said, "Well, I'll see all of you on Monday!" And then anarchy followed with excited teacher chatter of snow day possibilities and a long weekend.

I've spent the evening group messaging with my teaching teammates and tweeting with my other teacher friends about the weather. We even had our own hashtags going: #teamsnowday and #supporttheteachers. They're probably trending on Twitter right now. Probably.

And even if the roads are fine in the morning, the wind chill will be around 0 in the morning. We should probably be on the safe side and stay home. For the sake of the kids that stand outside waiting on the bus. Let's do it for them. #teambusriders

Tonight on the local news, they shared that some of the county bus drivers are used as weather spotters to go out and drive some of the routes in the county to check road conditions and relay back to the superintendent and transportation director. I've got a lot of new BFFs to make. Gonna start buttering up to some bus drivers and giving them gifts. #teambusdrivers

Around these parts, a lot of people do some snow day rituals. Wearing your pajamas inside out, flushing ice cubs down the toilet, and sleeping with a spoon under your pillow are some of the things people do. I'm doing them all tonight. And I'm not taking my chances with just one spoon. That's just too risky. #teamspoonsundermypillow

I might need to go get a chiropractic adjustment afterwards, but, it might be well worth it if it gets me a snow day.

Jokes going to be on me when my butt has to get up and go to the school house tomorrow. Even so, it's so much fun to get excited over the thought of a surprise day off. #teamjokesonSarah

Do you have any snow day rituals? Share them so I can add some more to my collection.

Forgotten Leftovers, Snow Day, and The Bachelor Rehash.

You know what's really awful? Cleaning out the refrigerator. Especially when you come across a surprise. Something that was once delicious, but you forgot about it. It kept getting pushed to the back of the fridge. And it's no longer delicious. And it might smell really bad. You don't know because you're not going to open it up and smell it. Not on your life, buddy. And you'd rather throw away your tupperware or dish than to risk seeing it or smelling it for fear of barfing all over your kitchen.

It's also awful when you come across that surprise-something and you're too afraid to take care of it. So you go find your brother and tell him that it's time for him to "be a man" and go clean out the scary thing in the fridge. And if that doesn't work you resort to bribing. But you don't have to bribe because your brother loves you.

I just needed to get that off my mind.

So. What's new? Thanks for all the comments and suggestions about ways that I can fancy up my lunch routine. Lunch has gotten a little more exciting. I'm probably making all the other teachers so jealous in the lounge. I mean, nobody has come up and said anything about how delicious looking my new cuisines look. They're probably just embarrassed. I'm sure I'm causing a lot of jealous feelings, though.

I got my first snow day of the school year on Friday! Technically we didn't have snow. No snow at all. But we had ice. That'll work for me! I woke up at 4:30 Friday morning with as much excitement as a young child would have on Christmas morning. I assumed we'd be off school, but the official call hadn't been made yet. I turned on the local news station to watch our "Polar Report". I watched intently for my three favorite little words. My three favorite words are not "I love you" or "Sonic Happy Hour". No, no. My favorite three words are "Warren County Closed". That is the signal that I get a free ticket to stay home all day. My day off was a great day. It was a jam-packed day. I only got three naps in. I decided to shower for the day around 4:30 p.m. and then went to dinner. Taxing day. Just grueling.

I haven't blogged about our new season of The Bachelor yet. I need to talk about it with you guys. If you follow my Twitter feed, you've heard me talk about Sean and his Bad Girls Club. You've heard me talk about it too much. My favorite Monday activity is to watch The Bachelor and live tweet it. So fun.

Here are some of the high points:

Let's start with Selma's rock climbing adventure date.

The camera loves Selma, but not just the camera--the camera men also love Selma. That camera went down Selma's tank top, zoomed in on her yoga pants butt, and shot up her nostrils. I feel like we all know Selma. Really well. I was just relieved she didn't have any hanging boogers.
I feel like Sean's focus throughout the whole show was of Selma. In her yoga pants. Climbing that rock. That's where his mind was.

Her yoga pants and cleavage and clean nostrils won her that rose.

Next. Amanda.

Was she an injury faker like Tierra's falling down the stairs incident? Do you think she really busted her jaw as bad as she claimed? I've seen one too many chin-fall accidents. If you bust your chin that hard on the ground, it's going to split. As in blood everywhere. There was no blood. Not even a scratch. Or a bruise. Did she really get hurt? Oh, I'm sure she did. I'm sure it was painful to fall and she probably knocked her jaw out of whack a little bit. Was she overly dramatic about it? Yes. She's on The Bachelor.

Next. Tierra.

And I could write a book just about this one.

First off, and I mention this in a tweet every week, we've got to talk about her forehead dent. I need the back story on that.

And she looks so familiar. I think she resembles a Spears. She could be the sister of Britney and Jamie Lynn.

Tierra

Long lost sister Britney Spears.

Little sis Jamie Lynn.

Do you see it? I sure as heck do. Triplets.

Anyway. Back to that forehead dent. I really want to know how she got a dent in the middle of her forehead. And why does it seem to become more prominent with each passing show? The angrier and more dramatic she gets, the deeper the dent becomes. It's making me nervous. Maybe that's why she fell down the stairs. It threw her balance off.

And when she made the comment about how she didn't want to be bashed over the head with a hammer. (Which screams psychotic and unstable to talk about bashing people over heads with hammers) But, sorry, Tierra. Too late. Someone already did. You have a dented forehead. Probably from a hammer.

You know, when you look at a hammer claw, there are two points. Strangely Tierra's dent has two indentions...OMG. Was she bashed over the head with a hammer? Was she trying to tell us something tonight? A cry for help? I'm really getting scared now, guys.

{Disclaimer: And if there is anyone reading this that doesn't know me or 

my humor by now, please know I'm being totally stupid.}

And the fact that Tierra said being on The Bachelor was "torture" during her whole crying "I wanna go home" bit. Please. If being on The Bachelor is torture, I want to sign up. Spending six weeks without working while living in a mansion while lounging by the pool, wearing fancy dresses, getting roses, going on dates with one guy and 15 girls that you hate...sounds like an absolute dream to me. 

Next. Leslie.

The fact that she said "holy moly" not once but TWICE during the first minute of her date segment sealed her fate. She isn't getting a rose. And she had the worst date: the date where the guy dresses the girl up. Makes her feel like a million bucks--only because he knows he's going to dump her later. "Can I have my necklace back?"

And one lesson you always learn from The Bachelor: when a girl says they're "drama free" or they aren't interested in "drama" or they're not "one of those girls"...they are liars. Liars. They love drama. They're going to name their first born child Drama. 

I'll leave you with a few questions to answer for me:

1. Are you watching this season?

2. Give me your best story on how Tierra got her forehead dent. I'm serious. We need to figure this out.

3. Speaking of seasons, do you hate winter as much as I do?

Think hard. Answer well.

Lunch.

I have a quick poll of the audience. A poll about food. So of course this is serious. Food is always a serious matter.

What do you kids eat for lunch? I'm bored with lunch.

I'm a teacher. I have 20 minutes. It has to be quick, yet delicious.

My go-to items are typically a sandwich (usually PBJ or ham), cheese stick, apple slices, sometimes yogurt, maybe chips of some kind (if I didn't eat them all the night before while watching TV). This year I've been kind of scared to eat much peanut butter. I have some students with severe allergies.

I feel like lately I've had a lot of salad and frozen-somethings. They're full of sodium though and those get tired and played out super quick. Plus there aren't very many frozen entrees that I really like. I refuse to buy any with meat of any kind. I'm not a vegetarian, heck no. I eat myself some meat. I just eat REAL meat. Not that chewy, funk, frozen for 527 years meat. Barf all over the place. I'm not eating that mess.

So. I need some help. Give me some ideas. What do you eat for lunch?

Go out to eat? Please. Not an option. Refer back to sentence #3.

Eat in the cafeteria? Not on your life. Plus I found out this year that the average school cafeteria meal is roughly 1300 calories. Use up my whole day's caloric intake on more fake meat? No. I'd rather go outside and eat playground mulch. Or drive to McDonald's and eat 1300 calories the right way.

Eat leftovers? To that I say, what leftovers? This girl doesn't cook herself dinner.

My tired taste buds thank you in advance for any new and delicious lunch ideas.

First Post of the Year and It's Not Even a Cool One.

Well dang. It's taken me another whole month to write a post. I'm full of good intentions. I'm also full of excuses. Sorry guys. I've spent the past month doing what all of you have been doing, just enjoying some holiday cheer. I had such a great Christmas. I want to actually write a post on some Christmas happenings because I have a good Granny story to share. We'll have to see how the story goes when I type it out. It's one of those things that the humor may not transfer through writing. I'll try my best.

And as far as New Year's...it's my least favorite of holidays. Too much hype. It's dumb. I don't usually do resolutions, but I made some personal goals for myself this year. Maybe if I share some, it will help to keep me a little more accountable. These are a few I am willing to share:

Blog more often. I know, I know. I say this every month when I do my one post. We'll see how it goes.  I might actually do a better job of blogging this semester because I've decided to not take a class this spring semester. Fall semester wore me out and work has been super busy and stressful this year, so I need a little break from something. Plus I'm getting my first ever student teacher in March. I want to do a good job for her and be a good model. I feel like if I'm stretched too thin, that won't happen.

Socially, I want to "put myself out there" more. Whatever the heck that means. But everybody tells me this is what I need to do. So...I'm going to try hard this year to find out what that means and do it. I'm going to try to break out of my comfort zone a little bit. Stop being such a hermit crab (which is hard because I love just being at home by myself). Get to know some new people. Build relationships with new co-workers. Try new things. Go on a stinkin' date! Work harder at maintaining relationships and friendships that I already have. This next month I'm participating in a new book club and I've been invited to join a Bunco group. This makes me sound like I'm 63, but I'm trying to branch out a little bit. Basically, I need to find a balance. I need to make more time for others, even during my busiest weeks.

It's so cliche, which is why I hate this one, but I'm making myself do the healthy thing. I'm not hardcore working out. I will never be all about that. But I do want my flat stomach back. I miss it. I'd also like to get rid of a couple of my chins and just get back to having one. That would be cool.
I suggested to a few teachers that we start a little walking club after school. Calling it a club just makes it sound more legit. Maybe I'll look into getting t-shirts made for us. We're starting this week and will be taking advantage of our humongous school and the many stairways it has to offer. I see it as more time to talk and gossip, so I'm good with it. Walking after school will be a more realistic way to "work out" because it doesn't involve driving anywhere. I lose all kinds of motivation if I have to physically go somewhere to do exercise.
I'm also going to try to eat better. I eat crap. Just crap. And drink too much Coke. I'm going to try to cut back. I'm not happy about it because I love my junky food and Cokes, but I can feel myself getting bigger and nastier and I don't like it anymore, so I need to straighten up.

Professionally, well, I always want to be a better teacher for my students. The demands are never-ending. I also really do hope to find some time this semester to create more items for my own classroom and to post on Teachers Pay Teachers. I have several items that are in-the-works. I just need to wrap them up. I also really feel like I need a separate teacher blog. This blog originally started as a personal blog. It has evolved during the past couple years to include more stories about school and my life as a teacher because I feel like a huge part of my reading audience are teachers, (which I love, so I'm not saying to go away!) but I would also like to have a separate blog to only post about things I've made for TPT and ideas from my classroom, so I don't wear my non-teacher readers out. That sentence was way too long and not structured well. Don't judge me. It's 1 in the a.m. and I'm not about the mechanics right now.

And mainly, I just want 2013 to be a year that the excuses stop. More action. Less talk. That's going to be my new focus.

No Words.

The Elf Race.

Guys. I was scared of my class today. Well, not all day. Just from after lunch until dismissal. I don't know what happened at lunch to make them so crazed. Something was in that ham on the lunch line. Had to be.
My kids were off the chain. I saw total "snow behavior" this afternoon. Except it's not going to snow. It's been like 70 degrees here. And it's not a full moon. I have nothing to blame. It was real life, authentic craziness today. I don't even know how to describe our afternoon. It wasn't a bad day. It was a day on speed. Very twilight zone. We still learned a lot and had fun. I enjoyed them. I just couldn't manage them. My room was one big pinball machine. The kids were the pinballs.

This is just one small visual I have from my day:

Yes. One of my little angels (I say that without sarcasm. She's truly gold.) cut some of her hair. When my angel children are bouncing non-stop and taking scissors to their hair, something is wrong with the world. Today, a lot was wrong in Room 109.

My assistant looked at me at one point this afternoon and said I had crossed over and joined them. I had been laughing crazily in a laugh that wasn't recognized as my own. I was all but saying nananana boo-boo to the kids. Come to think of it, I did eat the ham at lunch today....

While the kids were in P.E. today, Markie had to "go away". He left this note:

Short. To the point. Markie is an elf of few words.

The really sad thing is that it took my kids 45 whole minutes to even realize he wasn't in our room anymore. That's how out of control they were. I was doing everything to try to draw their attention to it without coming right out and screaming, "THE ELF IS GONE"!

Once the kids realized Markie was gone, they were overly dramatic about it, of course. It fit with their moods today. Some of them threw themselves on the rug to act like they were fainting and proclaimed, "We're gonna be on the naughty list forever!" and then they fake cried.

I give up.

And guys. I'm already exhausted with the whole elf thing. I already have a "magic mailbox" and a raccoon named Rascal that leaves the kids mail every morning in my classroom. After writing that sentence, that makes me sound crazy. Rascal and my magic mailbox is about as crazy as an elf on a shelf. And we all see where the elf idea has gone. National frenzy. I'm just ahead of my time.

As I was saying, Rascal and his mail combined with moving an elf adds a lot of stress to my morning routine. I haven't been all creative with the elf. I've just been moving him to different locations in the room in the mornings before the kids come in. Today I got real fancy with it and let him hold a marker in his hand because he was sitting in my marker bucket beside my document camera. The kids told me all morning not to even think about touching my markers today because I might accidentally touch Markie and then I would be on THE naughty list. The horror.

You know, the very marker that was in Markie's hands happened to be the marker he wrote his farewell note with. Am I prophetic or what? Spooky. Do you all have chills right now like I do?

Anyway, back to how I'm feeling elf stress. I wonder if there is a real diagnosis for elf stress. I bet it exists. If it doesn't, it's going to. All these poor parents around America just trying to keep up with the All-Star elf parents. It's an elf race. And it's insane. I see all these ideas on Pinterest of how people are very elaborate with their elf. Their elf causes mischief and does elf shenanigans and reindeer games. It's called an Elf on the Shelf. Emphasis on the words *on and *shelf. I thought he was just supposed to move each night and sit. Am I wrong? Marshmallow baths, drinking syrup through a straw, spelling out messages with M&M's, and covering a Christmas tree with toilet paper? I can't keep up with all that mess. Plus I don't want to clean up a mess.
I mean, I get to school at 8. The last possible minute I can arrive. Being creative with my elf would require me getting there early...

Totally random and off topic of elves:
I'm thinking I might need to start a Bachelorette: Blogger edition. I just need a date. I'm in the mood to go on a date. I'm not saying I want to date you guys. I mean, I like you all, just not like that. I just need you to find attractive men for me to date. Here's what we'll do. If you know of any cute bachelors out there, send them my way. Or they can choose to whisk me away to an exotic location. I'm okay with that too. Definitely okay with exotic location dates.

Since I'm at a new school this year, I'm still in the getting-to-know-you phase with a lot of my co-workers. Many days, my non-existent dating life is the topic of the teacher lounge. As it was today. Even the custodian at my school is on the lookout for men I can date. Today he was telling me all about a man he knows that's "loaded and drives a good lookin' BMW". Too bad the guy is 60. He was really trying to set me up with a sugar daddy.

And I have 10 followers for my TPT Store! Say heyyyyyyyy! Thanks for following, friends! I'm planning to create more things once I get this pesky nuisance of a grad class out of the way. I'll be finished on Sunday. Praise Him.
I'm an educator that hates furthering my own education. How's that for irony? That's not completely true. I love being educated on things like new menu items at fast food places, weekly sales ads, celebrity gossip, reality TV. Those are things that matter most. Discussion boards and research papers and article reviews? Please. What's that helping me do? Nothin'.

Let's hope tomorrow has a theme of calm in the air.

We Got an Elf.

I feel like everybody has an Elf on the Shelf. I couldn't be left out, so this year my classroom has an elf friend. Yes. Santa decided we needed extra monitoring and positive behavior reinforcement, so he sent an elf to spend his days in my classroom. Poor little guy.

Back in October (I think), elfontheshelf.com had a promotional thing for teachers to sign up to receive a free Elf on the Shelf pack for the classroom. I'll do anything if it has the word FREE attached. I received a box at school at the end of October containing the book and the little squirt.

I wanted the elf to make his appearance yesterday, but I was out half of the day for a team planning day. I just couldn't do that to my sweet sub. That would have been very cruel. So, today our elf made his grand appearance.

My students have been coming to school for the past week sharing the stories of their home elf shenanigans during our morning community circle time. This morning I really played up the fact that I wished I had an elf. I was overly dramatic asking the kids how I could get one and if they thought Santa would ever send one to our class. We all wished really hard and talked about how we believed in Santa magic.

The secretary at my school will willingly take part in any kindergarten craziness I decide to do with my class. I wrapped the Elf on the Shelf book in pretty red wrapping paper and included a special note taped on the cover of the book for my class. We popped the book in the freezer at school for a couple hours to get it chilly. The secretary came down to my classroom later in the morning and delivered the special package from the North Pole. The wrapping paper had frost all over it. The kids all had to touch it. They were shrieking because they said all of our wishing really worked.

I read the note to my class and it explained that we would be seeing a special visitor from the North Pole when we were least expecting it. Then I read the book. And then we moved on and did math. Yeah, I killed all the magic.

While the kids were in lunch, our P.E. teacher went to our room to put our elf on top of our projector.

After lunch, my Assistant walked our class back to the room before I could catch up to the line. I had been in the teachers lounge stuffing my face with some of the greatest sugar cookies in this world. I ate a total of 6 today. And they were huge cookies. Oh well. It's the holidays.

I was still down by the office in the middle of the school when I heard the screams. My kids were full out screaming. It took them .3 seconds to discover our elf friend. I took off running down the hall (chomping down the last of my cookie) to join in on the crazy town that was down in my classroom.
I have never seen a group of kids as excited as my kids were. Screaming. Jumping. Doing front flips. Cheering. You name an excited gesture, they were doing it.

Once we finally settled down, we talked about some name ideas for the shifty-eyed, always smiling, plastic-faced creature.
Trying to name an elf is no easy task. I had to sit down once during the process to collect myself. One of my kids really suggested "horny". Then another kid said "porny". What? This is no time for rhyming, kids. I didn't write those suggestions on the board. We had some of the most off-the-wall names. Names I wouldn't give a rock, let alone an elf I'm going to have to refer to 586 times a day for the next two weeks. I regret not taking a picture of the names on the board to share with you all. It's a loss for everyone.

We narrowed them down to our top 3. Surprisingly, they were somewhat normal. Elf name material? That's questionable. Random? You bet.

1. Chuck
2. Markie
3. Corgi

Chuck? Totally random, but I kind of loved it.

Markie? The kids said it was like me. Marcum, Markie. Makes sense in a very kindergarten way.

Corgi? That's an easy one. My kids love my dog. I have a corgi.

Since we did a pretty extensive election unit this year, we had a top secret voting process for our elf name. Markie won by one vote. Chuck was the very close runner-up.

So, please keep me and my namesake, Markie, in your thoughts for the next two weeks. Lets just hope he makes it out of my room still intact. I was really hoping he would be a positive behavior influence, but based on how our "good choices" went out the window (along with my patience) this afternoon, I don't know how much it's going to help. Sigh.

Here's Markie watching over the class. Yeah. The kids are running the show. I just sit back and let them teach. ;) 

And P.S.--Don't be jealous of my panda math illustrations on the board.