Last week got away from me

I started back to school with students on Wednesday of last week and things got a little away from me because I was busy getting back into the swing of things.

This year we're going back to block scheduling.  We did block scheduling a few years ago then did a traditional meet every day schedule and now we're back to block.  I was really resistant to going back to block because I don't think my students do well with it.  Many of my students have really inconsistent home lives so I feel like the more consistency we can give them at school the better.  But as hard as I fought against going back to block, I have to admit that I'm loving the extra day to plan between classes!!!  (I'm just not telling anyone at school because I know I'll be hearing an "I told you so" if I do!)

Not only do the students need consistency, I need it!  I've really been trying hard to get into a routine this year.  It makes me feel less stressed because I know I have the things I need to get done done before going to bed/going to work.  Here are the routines I've been working at establishing.

• Making my lunch for the next day at night.
• Getting the coffee pot ready to go so all I have to do in the morning is flip it on.
• Cleaning up the kitchen at night.
• Picking out my clothes for the next day at night.  This has saved me so much time, especially because I normally get up before Andrew.  This way I'm not scrounging around in the dark trying to find what I want to wear because I have the bad habit of leaving my clothes on the floor of our bedroom...  Whoops!
• Packing my gym bag if I plan on going after work.  It's much easier for me to go if I don't have to come home first.
• Heading to bed around 11.  Even though I don't actually go to sleep until around midnight, being in bed and reading helps me relax and get ready to go to sleep.

Recipe: Marshmallow popcorn

This recipe is so simple that I was able to throw it together from ingredients I already had in my pantry.  It came straight from Pinterest.  The recipe on Pinterest was for three bags of popcorn, which was way more than I needed so I cut it down to what I thought would work for one large bowl of popcorn.  It was really good, but I will warn you that it was really messy.

The original recipe:
3 bags popcorn (pop and take out extra kernels) 2 sticks of butter 16 oz bag of marshmallows 1 cup brown sugar Microwave butter, marshmallows, and brown sugar for 2 1/2 min. Take out and stir. Microwave again for 1 min. Repeat until thin sauce. When done pour over popcorn and mix.

My version of the recipe:
1 large bowl of popcorn with 1/4 stick of butter, 1/4 cup brown sugar, and about 5 ounces of marshmallows. Follow directions from original recipe.

On being happy with what you have

Yesterday, the house that's for sale across the street had an open house.  I went to it, not because we're looking at moving, but because I'm always curious about the houses in my neighborhood, how they're set up, and how they're decorated.  I think I want to compare them to mine to make sure that my house is still what I want.  And it is.

Our house shortly after we bought it.  We've changed 
a bunch of the landscaping since them.

Sure the house across the street is nice.  It's larger than ours with a dining room, a loft, and a finished basement.  But we don't need all of the space they have.  After living in our house for a few years, I've realized that the more space we have, the more stuff we have and the less we see each other.  And while our house is smaller overall, it's bigger where it counts.  Our backyard, master bedroom, and master bathtub (which is one of my favorite things about our house) are bigger.

So after walking through the house across the street, I was happy to walk into my own house because it's ours.  It's the perfect size for us and we're having fun making the house and yard what we want them to be.

A different way of looking at the sabbath

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"How beautiful it is to do nothing and then rest afterward." - Spanish proverb

Back to school

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Today the teachers and staff went back to school.   I can't say I'm necessarily excited to be back - because who wants to see the end of summer? - but I do love my job and my students.  I'm sure it'll end up being fine, but the transition back to school is definitely going to be a tough one, especially since I had to get up at 7 today when I've been getting up around 10 at the earliest.  I've had three cups of coffee to stay awake today.  I'll have to work on moving my sleep schedule to a more normal one over the weekend.

What a nice reminder

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"God created us in such a way that although we do have strengths, we also have weaknesses and we need His help."    
-from Hearing from God Each Morning by Joyce Meyer

I started a new Bible reading plan a few days ago and I'm always amazed at what is pointed out to me by reading the Bible in new and different ways.  I use a program called YouVersion that is available online or on my ipad.  It offers a bunch of Bible reading plans and allows you to choose from a bunch of different versions.  I really like it because it allows me to check things off and see my progress (which I absolutely love!) and because it's so easy to explore new reading plans or different versions of the Bible.

Breaking the "don't judge a book by its cover" rule

I know you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover but this version of Jane Eyre has kept me thinking about it for days.  I read the book this summer and didn't really like it, but I'm telling you, this cover does a great job of making it sound a lot better than it actually is.  The front cover looks like this:

And on the back cover has the quote,  "Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt!  May your eyes never shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured from mine.  May you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless and so agonized as in that hour left my lips; for never may you, like me, dread to be the instrument of evil to what you wholly love."  I mean, come on!  That quote would definitely make me want to read the book.

I finally committed to reading the book because I've had the movie saved on our DVR for weeks and I hate watching movies that are based on books without reading the books.  I always try to read the book In this case, I thought the movie was SO much better than the book because of moments like this...

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...that happen several times during the movie.  There was only one part of the book that I thought they left out of the movie, which wasn't that important and probably wouldn't have worked as well in the movie as it did in the book.  I would definitely recommend the movie; I'm not so sure about the book. 

"It was like the heart just sat down"

The words that I've bolded from the article in The Indianapolis Star captured exactly what I've been feeling about the shooting at the Sikh temple.

"Jatinder Mangat, 38, Racine, said his uncle Satwant Singh Kaleka, the temple's president, was one of those shot at the temple, but he didn't know the extent of Kaleka's injuries.  When he later learned people had died, Mangat said "it was like the heart just sat down."
"This shouldn't happen anywhere," he said.