Whooooooa.

I feel like life has taken off without me, and I'm barely hanging on! As soon as I mark off one or two things from my list, I feel like I add about five more. The other day, after a particularly rough day at school, I came home and just sat in silence for like fifteen minutes. No tv, no dogs, no Facebook. Just. Silence. I sat in my chair and stared off into space, enjoying the peace. It was glorious.

I think I need a vacation. How far away is fall break? Oh yeah. Eleven days. Because I'm counting down.

This is my life for the next 11 days: School (of course), grades = report cards = parent/teacher conferences, cleaning my room because I can't take it anymore, getting caught up on school projects (there's that darn to-do list again, will I ever get rid of it??), weekend trip to Lubbock (which means a long day on Friday, getting everything ready for school on Monday, because, let's be real, after spending my weekend in Lubbock, there's no way I'm gonna make it to the school on Sunday to get things ready), and most importantly, sleep. Does that leave any time for the enjoyable things in my life, like breaking out my sewing machine, because it's been forEVER? Nope. I feel like I've neglected my poor quilt. And it makes me sad.

On another note, this week is Homecoming. Monday was Crazy Hair Day and I rocked this sweet high, side ponytail. I'm talking full-on 80's awesome-ness here. But apparently, it wasn't crazy, according to my kids. Because, let's be real, I must wear my hair like this often, right? Oh dear. Tuesday was Twin Day, and the other 6th North teachers and I ROOOOOCKED it! We all dressed up as hippies, and it. was. epic. Once there is a picture on the website, I'll copy and post it on here. Wednesday was Pajama Day, thank goodness. And today was Favorite Team Day. I wore my OSU jersey and Pistol Pete earrings, of course. Even my panties were OSU, thanks to Victoria Secret's collegiate collection. But I didn't share that with anybody. Tomorrow is Tiger Day, duh.

**Side note: Lee DeWyze just came on my iTunes, and I must say... I love him. He can come sing to me every nite.**

This might be one of the most random blogs I've ever written. I like it.

Not entirely sure why I'm still up this late, but I should probably head to bed. 105 twelve year olds await me tomorrow. Oh boy.

Ho. Ly. Smokes.

School has taken over my life! I spend 8+ hours a day actually at the school, five days a week. I spend time every nite grading or researching at my house. And I spend a few hours every Sunday at the school, getting caught up and getting ready for the week. That doesn't leave much time for anything besides winding down/destressing from the day and then sleeping. Needless to say, I have not sewn on my quilt since.... well, since before I moved.

Yes, I said moved. The roommie and I moved into a house! It's so cute! I'll get around to posting pictures one of these days. I can't express how much I love living in a house and not an apartment now! It's awesome.

So, this is short and sweet, because, surprise surprise, I have papers to grade. (This is what happens when you take home at least 100 papers a nite.) But, I will leave you with this....

In what little free time I did have this weekend, I went to Amarillo and bought me some FiveFingers. And I'm already in love. :)

Except mine are all black. And they are awesome.

So, at the moment, school and getting ready to move is occupying most of my time. Let's start with school...



My kids are preeeeeetty darn cool. I have a lot of ornery boys, but it'll be ok. I usually like the ornery ones. In total, I will see approximately 105 kids a day. Yes, I said "a day." I've got the names of my homeroom kids down, but I'm still working on the other 80 kids' names. But I'm getting there. I started a 26-week writing project this week. Sounds crazy, I know, but it follows the letters of the alphabet. That's why it's so long. Anyways, I read a couple of the kids' A entries, and some of them are so good! I think we're gonna end up with some really good "alphabiographies." Life is good in sixth grade. I have fewer lessons to plan and more time to do it. I am really looking forward to it all.

As for moving.... we've been waiting to move for about a month now. The house we're moving into is being remodeled, and we've been waiting for it to be finished. We've spent a considerable amount of time doing some painting there. We have to be out of our apartment by Tuesday, which means everything moved out, apartment deep cleaned, and checked out with the landlord. Soooo, we're going to be packing and moving a lot this weekend. Which means a lot of my free time in the upcoming weeks will be spent unpacking and settling in, as well as keeping up with school and going to the Y. Which, I'm going to start doing every day, along with one of the fifth grade teachers from my school, starting in September.

It's going to be interesting!!

Row one? CHECK!

The stripes may have been a bad idea for my first project, because it's really hard to keep them straight. But, all in all, it looks pretty good! Here's hoping the rest of it goes just as well!

Soon and very soon

I have a working sewing machine again! Yay! Although, it is a different machine. I took my original machine (it belonged to my mom's mom) to be cleaned and fixed. I got it back, set it up, and was SO excited to finally get started on the sewing of my quilt. I got out a piece of scrap to do a little practice on first, since it's been several years since I've used a sewing machine. Turns out, this machine still won't sew. :( So, I called my mom, and asked if she would get me a brand new machine as an early Christmas present. And because she's amazing, she agreed. And even better, since she was going to be coming my way today, she asked my grandma (my dad's mom) if I could borrow her machine until I got mine. So, now, I have my other grandma's machine, which works, and I can get started on sewing my quilt! FINALLY! I will have pictures soon, once I've actually sewed some! YAY!

Tomorrow, Tomorrow...

...my sewing machine comes home! Tomorrow! It's only a day away!

:)

Sashing-Check!

All of my sashing pieces are cut and ironed! I considered starting to pin my rows together, but I figured that would best be done piece by piece, as I get them sewn together. With my luck, I'd stab myself several times if I tried to pin a whole row together before I sewed it together. So, again, I wait until I can get my machine back before I can do absolutely anything else. *sigh*