Math-ketball

Today was a white day.  This means that I see my "everyday" kids for 80 minutes, my Geometry kids for 80 minutes, and then my honors Algebra 2 kids for 80 minutes.  It's a very full day because I have prep first period and then go straight through mostly without a break.  (I do have 25 minutes for lunch in the middle of Geometry.)

It's also the last day before Thanksgiving break and although yesterday was Monday, today was "Friday" of a vacation week.  To say the kids had energy was an understatement ... but it was good energy!

So ... in my everyday class, we called it a study hall. I had kids making up yesterday's work, yesterday's activity for the kids who had finished their tests and -- yes, I had an activity for today but no, they had no interest in doing it.  And I had no interest in fighting that battle, and it was a good mix of places where everyone was with make-ups and so forth, so we took the day as a study hall.  IT WAS WONDERFUL!  Everyone, to a person, was working on SOMETHING productive, even if not for my class.  I was amazed.

And then we had Geometry.

We played ... dum dum dummmmmm... MATHketball*!  Oh my goodness, it was the best day ever!

Here are the rules:

The room was set up with desks in groups of 4. Kids sat where they wanted and that became their team.  I put up a problem on the document camera.  I set my timer and teams had one minute to solve it and race to me to present their answer.  They had to rotate who presented the answer.  If they got it right it was worth one point, and then they could ball up their work and take a shot at our handy-dandy $3 basketball hoop.  If they made the shot, they got an additional 3 points.  The shooter and presenter had to rotate, and if you didn't present within the minute you didn't get to present.  Key fact:  whatever paper you did the problem on, that was what you had to ball up and throw for your shot.  So using scraps wasn't advantageous, because it was incredibly hard to make the basket.  And thus, every group had a pile of computer paper to use and most groups used it instead of notebook paper.

It was a race against the clock and also a competition, because to make it interesting I made the "prize" 5 bonus points on the test we took last class.  (I almost never do this, but since the class had already done well on the test by my first cursory glance, I decided to be generous and was comfortable giving the points.)

When we got down to about 6 questions left the game was neck-in-neck, so we made all the questions worth double the points:  2 for getting the question and 8 for making the free throw.

And then, to really up the ante, for the last question teams could elect to keep the 2 point/8 point deal, or take the 2 points on the question and then go "all in" when trying for their basket.

My $3 craigslist find Nerf over-the-door basketball hoop (I covered the backboard in white paper because it was hideous...)

The back wall of my classroom has this half-size chalkboard and I use it every day to list our agenda for each class.  The board's wrapped with blue Christmas lights because the school colors are blue and white.  I forgot to take a photo of it earlier in the day, so here it is as I was walking out the door, all erased and lights already unplugged, sadly.  The stuff to the right is a shoe bag with simple calculators in it, and beyond that on the wall is our word wall with math vocabulary.

MATHketball was AWESOME!  Soooooo much fun.  Not a single person in the room didn't play (they couldn't "not play," because their team couldn't turn in a problem if it was their turn and they didn't go).  We did a really good mix of "Mathercise" questions from some fantastic resource books I bought ages ago.  They ask a general mix of review and reasoning and spatial reasoning questions, which meant that although the kids were working legitimate problems, it was not a "geometry" review game per se, (translation: it was something still important, but different enough to be exciting) and sometimes mixing things up like that is just what we need to keep things interesting and engaging.  Every once in a while I had to go to the board to explain a question (a few ratio/proportion questions were stumbling blocks, for example) but otherwise they were appropriately difficult and let me tell you, it was the Best. Class. Ever.

I'm pretty psyched, can you tell?!

Here are some photos.  Sadly I didn't get any action shots of the free throws...  we'll just have to play again!

Wow, this looks boring.  But you can see the problem on the document camera and the kids almost all working on it.  You can't HEAR the competition, but I can assure you that holy cow was it competitive -- and not the least bit quiet!

See the kids standing?  The question was one about direction.  You're facing North, do an about-face, turn 90 degrees to your left, etc. etc.  They were doing it!

I have the biggest classroom I've ever had.  (I am not kidding, and every day I am thankful for that fact.  We get to do all sorts of cool stuff because of it.  And it sure beats the heck out of my super-narrow, single-wide, no-windows trailer I had my second and third years of teaching!)  We moved all our groups towards the front of the room to allow for lots of space in the back for traffic -- to and from my area with the document camera, and to and from the table you see on the left, which served as the "free throw line," because everyone knows you can only lean over a table so much, but you can realllllly lean over a line.  Or maybe just I know that because I teach high schoolers and they will nudge and inch and cheat (in a fun way, not a mean way) every way they can!

Two kids are on their way to show me their team's work/answer, and one kid is stretching to make his free throw.  Hilarious!

--Jen 

*  don't say it too many times or you'll sound like you have a speech impediment!  haha! 

Me, by CAM

When we got home from school yesterday afternoon, CAM made this picture of me. I was was on the couch reading, Mick was next to me, WHM was asleep, and CAM sat and colored.  When she was done, she proudly showed it to me. 

"Look, Mommy, it's you!  Standing by a bunch of fruits!"

I asked her what the purple things were.  (Coconuts?  Bikini?)

She said, "No, Mommy.  You know."  I guessed, "Bikini?"

She came over to where I was sitting and touched my shirt and whispered, "No. You know."

I asked, "No, what?"

She leaned in, looked at Mick, and quietly said, "Those things you wear to cover your boobies."

Mick laughed so hard it was silent.

--Jen

Barbie Bungee

My honors Algebra 2 class sent Barbie dolls bungee jumping today.

It didn't even occur to me to take any pictures, even ones where I chopped off heads for privacy's sake.

Grrrrrrr.

--Jen

The Real Number System -- Matryoshka Style

Don't worry.  Just like I'm not turning this into an education-policy blog, I promise I'm not turning this into a teaching blog.  But since I am teaching and all, I wanted to share this with you and whomever out there happens to stumble upon this page.  I'm also doing some cool stuff with notebooks and other activities so if you read me regularly, consider this your warning that I do plan to post some of that this weekend.  You know, instead of grading.  ;) 

Every time I teach the Real Number system, I teach it using a sort-of flow chart/family tree kind-of thing.  At the top of the page we have Real Numbers and Imaginary Numbers, and coming down from Real Numbers we have Rational and Irrational, and then from Rational we have Integers, Whole ... you get the idea.

The kids, I have learned, either get it or don't.  For the kids who don't, they don't understand the nesting concept or even (for some of them) how to read a flowchart.

So then I supplement this with a Venn Diagram.  But kids don't always get that, either.

This year I had an epiphany.

I present to you my "matryoshka-doll-style Real Number system."

The pink can actually does fit in the green one.  It's the same height, but narrower.

In each can, I put little cardboard cutouts of numbers, so that in the natural numbers I had 2, 15, 45846876524, etc.  Then for whole numbers I added zero and threw the little can inside it.  Then for integers, I added negatives and put the other two cans in in.  Then I added fractions and decimals.  Then for the two same-size cans (rational and irrational) you get the idea ... I spent some time talking about repeating and non-terminating compared to non-repeating, non-terminiating decimals and let the kids tell me what went where.  We went through this starting with the smallest cans and putting them into their next biggest cans, and then taking the cans out and talking about the groupings and what we were losing/being more specific about/more general about each time.

I am so excited to say that for the first time in my teaching career, the Real Number system was a little less boring and a little easier to understand.  "The Cans" system, as one class called it, just clicked for them. 

The kids loved it.  They got it!  It was AWESOME!

--Jen

p.s.  So if you're wondering, the rational/irrational numbers are from cans of Cento tomatoes.  Then it's a full-size can of Progresso soup. Then a regular-sized can of mandarin oranges, then a tiny can of chipotle peppers.  I have a GIANT can of tomatoes that was just slightly too small to hold both rational and irrational, so I put them in a box that I labeled Real Numbers -- and when we get to imaginary numbers in Algebra 2 later this year, I'll break these back out and add an identical box labeled "Imaginary Numbers."

More Cooking

The other day at work I was playing researching on Pinterest and found this lovely recipe.  (The original link is here, but it's one of those things where even that blogger got it from somewhere else.  I try to give credit appropriately, but these kinds of things are tricky -- so feel free to follow the path backwards as much as makes you comfortable to get to the "original" source.)  And hey -- I really do go to Pinterest practically daily for teaching-related stuff.  It's on the up-and-up, I promise ... even if my home page on Pinterest is usually way more fun (and distracting) than pins on lesson plans and manipulatives. 

Since we'd boiled up and shredded some chicken just a few days earlier and had some leftovers, and since I always have heavy cream and lasagna noodles in the house, the only things we needed were cream cheese and parmesan -- and both of those were only on the list because we'd manage to finish off what we had in the house earlier in the week!

So, these lovelies were for dinner.

Sorry about the poor photo quality.  It was later than I was happy with, so I grabbed my cell phone for a quick snapshot.

Chicken Alfredo Lasagna Roll-Ups.

Let me put it to you this way:  by the time dinner was ready, I was full.  I kept dipping the extra lasagna noodles into the alfredo sauce.  It was that good.  (And I am definitely a picky alfredo eater.  This sauce was from scratch and was rich and creamy and had just enough kick, but was not that processed-cheese-canned-alfredo nastiness you sometimes take your chances with and end up getting and then deciding, for a moment, that you don't like alfredo.  No, this stuff was fantastic.  Seriously, I could have poured this in a bowl and eaten it with a spoon!  In fact, I may have done that.  I'm not tellin'.)

The gist of the recipe is this:  boil up the lasagna noodles while you make the alfredo sauce.  (It's not just delicious, it's super easy.)  Then rinse the noodles and lay them flat on a work surface.  Spoon some alfredo sauce on the noodle, then top with garlic salt, oregano, chicken, and mozzarella.  Roll and place in a baking dish so that the seam-side is down.  When the pan's full, top with the remaining cheese and alfredo sauce.  Bake for about 25 minutes.  That's it! 

I'm thinking tonight I may just make alfredo sauce to drink and crash potatoes to eat, and call it a night.

--Jen

Look What I Won!

I know, I know, everyone says they never win anything, but it's true.  I don't typically win stuff.  Maybe because I tend to enter contests that have 9,574,748,357 entrants?  Who knows.

But I was reading one of my favorite blogs a few weeks ago and this post really hit home.

Scroll down through the comments and read mine -- I'm Jennifer M.  (I'd link to it but don't know how or if it's even possible ...)

I was not joking.  We were in an office supply store and I had a mild freak-out because I suddenly was sad and upset that I didn't have and couldn't afford a gigundo printer that only a few minutes earlier I'd never thought about more than just as a passing, "hmm that would be nice" kind-of thing.

And lo and behold, I won one!  And the paper to go with it!

Check out this puppy!

In case you were wondering, that's 13 INCHES by 19 INCHES.  Go look at a ruler for a second and contemplate that.  It's crazy!

Thank you, Rachel, a thousand times over.  You made my day, my week, and now my day again -- and I'm sure when I print my awesome humongous printouts, you'll continue to make me smile again and again!

Hmm.  Now I really can't wait to unpack and get my "office" set-up going... 

--Jen

Catching Up, At Last!

I have not forgotten you, my lovelies!  I've just been struggling with how to balance all this work stuff with the rest of my life:  CAM at school, family, unpacking still, and errands and meetings and all the rest of running a household (granted, with Mick, but still coordinating it all), and my precious sleep.  I think this bug is still playing a role, too -- the other day, I went to bed at 8:00!!

Anyway -- pictures of our weekend adventure in Boothbay last weekend are finally here.

For the record, Boothbay is about an hour away, but the roads to get there are typically only one lane in each direction and they wind through a very scenic, very touristy, route.  So we were anticipating a long ride, and because it was "Kids' Day" at the Railway Village, we wanted to be there early and ahead of any crowds.  (Kids' Day = free admission for kids, and we all know the masses tend to come out for free stuff.)

Last summer, we arranged our trip North especially to be able to see "the big Thomas" at the Boothbay Railway Village.  This year we were in Maine for Thomas' visit, but we'd already seen him in Chattanooga barely two months earlier, and we'd only just gotten to Maine when Thomas was here.  Those two factors together meant we had to pass.  Fast-forward a month, and I happened to see a commercial for the "kids' day" at the railway village -- kids' day as in, kids are free!

We woke up super early on Saturday anticipating traffic to get there (it opened at 9:30).  We didn't tell the kids where we were going, other than "a meeting far away." They woke up, got dressed, and were so sweet all morning.  Such troopers on their sleep-in day!  On our way we made two time-consuming stops: one for a quick breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts, and one at Target because we needed Pull-Ups and wipes. 

Despite those stops, we managed to get to Bootbay in just about an hour!  There was no traffic at all -- perhaps because it was so early (we were on the road by 8), or because it was overcast and dreary, but either way, we got to the Railway Village right around 9:40. 

While we were there, we rode the first train of the day ...

 went through a covered bridge that the kids called a "time tunnel" ...

waved to the conductor when we got off at our stop ...

... rode on a 1938 firetruck (in the rain; no pictures, sorry)

... toured the historic village

This is an old filling station from the 1920s, if I remember correctly.  It was moved to its current location in 1970.

... drove a few trains of our own ...

Love that runny nose.  Sorry, folks, I don't (yet) own Photoshop to spare you this view!

 ... and rode in a 1914 Model-T!  It's 98 years old!  That was super cool.

It rained on and off the entire time we were there, but we still managed to do everything the village had to offer, going in and out of all the buildings, watching an old internal combustion engine fire up, looking at the miniature model railway -- the whole shebang.  The kids loved it.

We loved it.

When we were done, I wanted to duck into the gift shop.  WHM, of course, was immediately sucked by the gravity of Thomas over to the Thomas the Tank Engine play table.  He had no desire to leave.  Finally, I said to him, "There is nothing on that table that is not also at our house.  It is time to go."  And the volunteer who was working in the shop said to me, "You have no idea how many times I hear that exact statement.  I have lost count!"

That made me smile.

WHM and Mommy matched on Saturday.  It was fun.  We might be in Maine, but it's still 'Bama game day!

 We had a great time, and the kids are already asking to go back. Best of all, because Thomas was NOT there, we were able to do so much more of the actual village part, and that was pretty darn cool.

Grandpa, are you reading this?  You need to come with us next time!

--Jen

Elmo. Nemo. Same thing.

I came home from work today with a ferocious migraine, so I asked Mick to take CAM to her ballet class (a kind-of big deal, because today was the very first day and Mick had to register her).  I put on comfy-cozies, popped two Excedrin Migraine, shut the blinds, crawled on the couch, and put on Ellen.  Oh, and covered my eyes in an effort, if not to sleep, at least to not suffer from any kind of light.

WHM snuggled in with me.  He was precious, even if he made sure I didn't so much as get a millisecond of sleep.

There was a commercial for the new 3D Finding Nemo.  Here's our conversation:

WHM:  I wuv Elmo.  I watched dat mooovie at my school yesTURday.  At my school in Georgia.  Not in Maine.
ME: You watched Finding Nemo?
WHM:  Yes.  Finding Elmo.
ME:  His name is Nemo.
WHM:  No, Elmo.
ME:  Did you watch the fish movie?
WHM:  Yes.
ME:  That fish movie on the commercial?
WHM:  Yes.
ME:  It's called Finding Nemo.
WHM:  Wight.  Elmo.

--Jen

I Survived Week Two!

I've been laying a little low lately, in part because there's not been much happy or exciting to report and in part because I've been busy, (and in part because I've been an emotional wreck and thought you didn't need to ride that roller coaster with me) but this was a week filled with a lot of stuff and I feel like I owe you all an update.  I'm going to break it into multiple posts, though, since it's a lot...

FIRST.  I survived!  Can I get an "Amen?!"

Last week was a 2-day teaching week, and this week was a 4-day teaching week.  I can't say it was a bad week but it sure wasn't a great week.  To be perfectly fair, this week was okay. Not by any means terrible, but certainly not walking on clouds awesome.  I'm still working out a lot about how this school works and all the things I need to do and have done, and how to do them and get them done is taking me some time.  Running in the background is the fact that we (Mick and I) are stressed to the nines in our household.  He's not gotten paid in ages, our stuff is trapped in Georgia because we can't afford to get back down there, there's no telling when we'll be able to get it -- we're now running into Fall, where stuff that "could wait" can no longer wait, bills aren't getting paid ...   This new teaching gig both alleviates and adds to the stress.  There are lots of adjustments, and most of them will work themselves out with time, and we're confident, if freaking out, that the financial stuff will work itself out, too.  But when we think too hard, we can't stop thinking and that stinks.  Because we don't have an answer today, and so we are stressed.  Very, very stressed.

So there's that -- the stress of the job, which is to say, having the/a job at all and working out schedules and bed times and (now separate!) bath times, and dinner and playing and ... you get the idea.  But then there's also the stress at the job.  People are happy to help, but when?  It is absolutely wonderful that we were given so much freedom, but the trade-off is that I have a giant list of things to ask about and take care of, but making my way through that list is slow, at best, and since so much is new to me (new and strange email system, working on a mac instead of a pc, but a mac that's different from my mac at home, an alien-to-me bell schedule, I know these are seriously earth-shattering, huh?!), it's not the kind of list where I can check it all off without help.  It's comical really, and I am well aware of the fact that if I had a meeting every day to go over all this stuff, I'd be kicking and screaming about that.  The grass is always greener, right?!  So I KNOW that these issues are silly and in a few weeks I will wonder why I was ever worried.  But sheesh, the getting-back-into-the-groove is kicking my butt!  I can't lie!

I am fine with asking for help, but I'm so buried under, it's hard to figure out when to ask and whom to ask.  And in my typical "worst case scenario" brain, I jump right to the "when I get fussed at for this" mode, instead of pausing and remembering no one has yet asked me about the ten thousand things I'm worried about!  Stupid, huh?  You can say it.  It's stupid.  I'm not getting fussed at.  It will be fine.  It IS fine.  I am great and calming and reassuring when it comes to reminding other people to be calm, and incredibly terrible at reminding myself to be calm.  The short version is all my ducks are not in a row and I. Can't. Stand. That.

On the positive, I've got decent classes and only 68 students total (well, give or take -- I have two other classes that get graded, but only on a participation/civic responsibility rubric, so I am not counting that as "teaching grading," if that makes sense).  I just can NOT get my brain around this every-other-day schedule.  I can't get my brain around it, I can't get my brain around it.  I am, so far, planning every day the evening before, and even then I'm not pacing it right.  And in the meantime we're losing prep time for meetings and class time for testing and I am trying to keep track not only of the schedule in general, but then the changes to the schedule.  It's madness -- or at least, so far it is.  I know it will come, but Lord help me, I am not there yet.  And it's frustrating for me.  INSANELY frustrating for little old Type A, insanely organized, mostly-photographic-memory, me.  Oh!  And it's only 5 days into the year and so far I've thrown two kids out of class for being disruptive/disrespectful/defiant!  That's always fun, too. I shouldn't let it stress me, but it does; I come home angry and frustrated and DREADING the next day to see what awaits me with behavior issues.  (Good news:  both kids were fine, if a little sullen, the next day.)  I wish I were a guy and could just say "who cares" and really mean it.  I still go back to my first year of teaching when the kids tried to key my car and one student tried to kill another by triggering her allergies "to see what happens" ... again, I always go to the worst-case scenario.

Anyway.  I survived, and that's what counts.  And the week, all things considered, was hardly anything extraordinary.  It wasn't bad, it wasn't great, it just was.  Is that so wrong?!  Hopefully I will have some time this weekend to regroup and plan, and this weekend's planning will be a little better than last weekend's planning, and maybe it will come together next week.  I am still just only a hair ahead of "by the seat of my pants," and I need to get past that!  The nice thing is the weather's been great and the dress code is waaaay more relaxed than anyplace else I've ever worked and so I am totally taking advantage of the fact that flip-flops are cool for work ... that's especially nice because other than knowing "they're in a box," I have no idea where my shoes are!  I'm also back to checking out some amazing teacher blogs that I stopped reading when I stopped teaching, and they are, as always, inspiring.  (Well, or depressing if you think how far from those folks I am right now, but I prefer to think of them as inspiring!)

In the meantime ...

--Jen

Updates (in a hurry)

I promise that this will NOT be my MO from now on, but it's been a busy few days here and I am trying to catch up on more things than I can even remember.  In the interest of keeping it all straight in my head while that's even remotely possible (and not keeping you wondering where I am), I thought I'd do a quick update.

So, in outline form with details in more posts later:

1.  My birthday was good.  I made it through the day with only minimal tears, only one neighbor's mailbox knocked down and only one side-view mirror mangled.  Yes, that happened.  But in the end, it was a good day that ended with a red velvet cupcake.

2.  My parents were in town as of Thursday, and my in-laws were in town as of Saturday.  It was a busy weekend!  I did absolutely nothing related to school/my new job, but it was delightful to just decompress.  And we ate well.  :)

We took my parents to L.L. Bean's flagship store in Freeport Friday evening.  Here are Mick and my dad trying their hand at knots.  In the kids' section. 

3.  I have the best friends in the world.  I already knew that, but I can't say enough thank-you's to everyone who privately sought me out to tell me, "it will be okay," or, "you are awesome," or a combination of the both.  I can't tell you how many messages made me cry.  I don't deserve you guys, I really don't!

4.  I made it through CAM's orientation tonight AND my own Day 3.  Many thanks go to Mick, who helped me to organize and moderately decorate my room, which -- although it's not nearly the way I would like it -- has made all the difference in the world to me today. 

5.  At CAM's orientation I was able to score a "sale" jumper and two clearanced shirts!  Who knew?!  I've been buying up uniform pieces here and there for a few months now, but the specific jumper outfit and the pieces with the school crest were all still on my list.  Not only did we buy her the uniform jumper and shirts, but we also got her gym uniform and saved a gazillion dollars in the process.  Whoo hoo! 

6.  Everyone at my new school continues to amaze me with how nice they are and, surprisingly compared to places I have taught in the past, how genuinely happy they are with where they are.  Dare I say morale is high at my new school?  It's refreshing and I find myself happier just because everyone else is!   I have even made some friends that I genuinely consider friends.  Who knew this was even possible?!  Whoo hoo again!

7.  I still have two recipes to cook by the end of the month -- which happens to also be the end of the week.  YIKES!!!  Bananas Foster and Mint Chocolate Brownies are on the agenda.  Prepare yourselves.

8.  We expected to get back to Georgia by now, but for various reasons it proved impossible/impractical to make the trip in the past few weeks.  Now we are in the no-man's land where going down will be considerably more difficult and since I have a new job, there are things we/I need that we didn't anticipate wanting or needing (or at least, not yet).  The fact that I have a job is good, but it has exacerbated the pain of the missing items.  Worse:  among those still-in-Georgia things, we realized CAM's backpack is still down there.  We had no expectation that we wouldn't have been back to get it by now and neither Mick nor I realized we didn't have it with us to begin with (I mean, we have the kids' lunchboxes, for goodness' sake!) ... so, tomorrow after work we are heading back over to Freeport to buy a new LLBean backpack for CAM. If there's anything I hate, it's buying something twice... so I am not happy about this.  I'm thinking we'll get her the next bigger size up, so that it's not a total duplication of efforts.  But still.  If you know me in real life, you know that I am not happy with this situation, trivial as it may be. 

Well, that's about it!  I refuse to be grumpy!  I am gradually accepting my new reality and things are going okay.  I won't complain ... or at least, not tonight.  Happy Monday, everyone!

--Jen

So.

So, I'm starting a new job this week.  Thursday, to be precise:  my birthday.  Oh, the irony.

I'm not particularly happy about this, for a lot of reasons I am sure that I will share with you over a few more posts, but I feel guilty about it because the people I've already met (or who've reached out to me via Facebook) are -- to a person -- nothing but fantastic.  It's not their fault I'm not happy about this turn of events.  But I'm trying -- oh, sooo hard trying -- to find the positive.

I'm going back to teaching.  (Not happy.)

All of my teaching things are in a box in Georgia, because I had no intentions of EVER teaching again, and most especially did not expect to apply for, and get, a teaching job before we ever made it back down to Georgia to pick up the rest of our stuff.  So, I'm kind-of screwed, because we can't (and I won't) re-buy all that stuff.  And to be clear -- I purged 99% of my teaching stuff (or donated it to Tuscaloosa City Schools after the tornado), so what I still have is stuff that is stuff I really valued for that abysmal "what if" ... that happened to come true. (In other words, if I were EVER to teach again, these are the bare minimum things I would HAVE to have.  And I don't have 'em.)

Here's how it unfolded.  After much harassment by nearly everyone I know in the universe, I applied for a posted teaching job.

I had to jump through all sorts of impossible hoops, some of which I vented about on Facebook because I was so frustrated by the whole process, and in the end, I just ended up submitting a grossly incomplete application.

I think I submitted the last doc on Wednesday, and it pretty much said, "I can't get this, I don't have it with me, I have no idea when or how I will be able to get it.  So sorry, but too bad."

I got a phone call for an interview Thursday afternoon.

I interviewed Friday morning, and before I got home from the interview, my phone rang and I had the job.

I had prayed so hard they'd go with someone else and I wouldn't have to make the decision about what to do.  Because ... 

1.  The pay is only slightly more than 50% of what I was making in Alabama.  Yes, you read that right. 
2.  I could make that much tutoring, and have in the past.  (But tutoring didn't come with health insurance.)
3.  I haven't made this little since -- oh wait, never.  I have never had a professional job and made this little.  It is a huge step in the wrong direction, and now when I say "most recent salary" on job applications, it's awful.  I have lost my negotiation rights for "being worth" at least $x, because clearly -- I am not.
4.  I am taking this as a personal failure.  I am not even worth what I was worth at a chump entry-level job sixteen years ago.
5.  I don't get to stay home with WHM and that makes me sick to my stomach.
6.  I found out that my summer was being cut short with all of a week's notice to get my shit together.
7.  I don't get to take CAM to school or pick her up, and our school calendars match to the day, so while this makes things easier in some sense, I feel like I am essentially missing her kindergarten experience.  I don't get to see her face that moment she leaves her room and all the excitement, or sadness, or anything in-between.  EVERYTHING I hear about her day will be told for at least the second time that day.  I get the old news.  I don't get the spontaneous joy.  I don't get to drop her off or pick her up or meet the other moms or anything.  I am sick over this and crying even as I type this.  I am distraught.  DISTRAUGHT.  I have worked so hard in my life and at the one time that I desperately want to stay home, I don't get to.  I hate that passionately and I am angry with the universe for putting us in this situation.  Plain. Old. Angry.
8.  I don't get to go back to Georgia. I have no idea how or when Mick will get down there, or how on earth he will possibly be able to pack the rest of the house by himself.  This has woken me up in the middle of the night twice already and Saturday night kept me up all night, sick to my stomach.
9.  Now, I don't get to shop for a job that (a) pays the bills or (b) uses my law degree, until June.  I am locked in, another year closer to retiring as a teacher ... and for this, despite how much I love teaching kids one-on-one, I feel like an epic failure.  I went to law school and it will now be at least FOUR years before I get to practice.  No one will hire me.  Let's be real.  "Submit a recent writing sample" -- um, does an email to a parent count?  Memo?  How do you spell that?  I won't say I wasted my time in Tuscaloosa, but I'm kinda feeling like it ... at least in the whole "going to law school" sense.
10.  My room has chalkboards.  CHALKboards!  (Not to worry. Mick is already finagling how to get me white boards, pronto.)

Now, let's talk about all that is good with this. Because there is an awful lot of good, and I am not just saying that. 

1.  It is a job, which means health benefits.  That is huge.
2.  The schedule is pretty cush.  Three Geometry classes and one honors Algebra 2, and two study halls.  Seriously, that's a nice schedule.
3.  I get my own room, and it's not at all awful.  (It does need a carpet, though.  Craigslist area rugs, here I come!)
4.  The school is small enough to be nice; not as small as my school in Tuscaloosa, but I think a very nice size for a high school.
5.  The principal is super cool.
6.  (Business) casual dress.  (I interviewed in capris and sandals because that's all I could find -- don't worry, I told them I was in that situation before-hand -- and when I apologized again for my attire, they said I was dressed just fine for a school day!)
7.  No duties for teachers.  The principal thinks we should be teaching.  How awesome is that?!
8.  Did I mention how nice the people have all been to me?  I think about how upset I have been over this situation, and I think to myself how I don't deserve these amazing people.  They are, every last one of them, welcoming and nice and friendly and helpful, and refreshingly genuine, and I think they don't know the half about how sick I am over this.
9.  I have a wall of windows!
10.  I don't have to turn in lesson plans or any of the other paperwork-for-the-sake-of-paperwork nonsense I had to do in Alabama.
11.  I don't have to supply my own copy paper and there are no limits on how many copies I can make.  Heck, I don't even need to enter a code.  I just use the machine.
12.  Most of my classes are 14-15 kids, with one class (the honors class) at 25.  I mean, if I have to teach and all, that's awesome.  In fact, that's about half as many kids per class, give or take, as I had at every other school where I've taught.
13. Mick's cousin is a parapro there, so I have a built-in super-cool support, friend, and ally.
14.  The school is in the next town over, with an easy commute.
15.  Two words:  snow days.  
16.  They pay for grad school!  So, all those jobs I couldn't get because they required a stupid inane leadership degree?  I can get one.  And you can bet your tuckus I will ... 

I really do, in my heart, love teaching.  It's just that didn't think I would still be teaching at this point in my life, and last week at this point I had no idea I'd be going back to teaching within the week.  I am so unprepared for the major life change that this is.  Moving cross-country, giving up my home, giving up my tutoring, and now giving up my stay-at-home-mom status is an emotionally overwhelming thing.  There hasn't been a day I've not sobbed at one point.

So.  I am trying my hardest to focus on all that is good (and what is good is really good, I do know that, and look, I had all those pluses and only 10 negatives... ) about the particular situation I am in.  And seriously, if I wanted to teach and the salary was taken out, this seems like it would be close to perfect.  I've just really struggled with those two false "if"s.

In any event, I start Thursday, and I am sure that I will have lots of fodder to bounce around here.  (And I am sure some of that will be downright hilarious, because, let's face it -- teaching has plenty of hilarious stuff on an almost-daily basis.)  

Can I ask a favor?  Can y'all check in with me periodically and make sure I keep finding the positive?  Because as you know by now, sometimes I need a nudge to the happy side.

Thanks!

--Jen

Oh, Tervis.

I should explain a little for you readers who aren't quite aware of all the little details of my life (I mean, as compelling as it is, and all, I don't understand how that could be, but still...)  that for the short term, we're staying at my in-laws' place here in Maine, 'til jobs settle out and we figure out where, in fact, we want to be (whether in Maine -- which is huge, by the way -- or elsewhere).  My in-laws keep a nice supply of wine in the house (mostly red, but some white).  When we got here, Mick and I were both exhausted and it was hot, and for at least a week all we wanted to drink was a swimming pool full of sweet tea ice water.  Until one night last week when I really, really wanted a glass of wine.

But you see, I wasn't going to call my mother-in-law and ask, "Hey, can I open a bottle of wine?"  Because really.  She would be too nice to say no to me, but what if I opened a supercrazyexpensive bottle?  I couldn't put her on the spot like that.  And I was too cheap lazy confused about how to drive there to go to the grocery store to buy a bottle.  And Mick won't really drink wine with me typically, but especially if it's hot out.

So, I went wine-less.

And then my friend Kristin blogged about this. 

You can buy one!  $8!  Here's the link for your convenience -- or hit your local Bed Bath Beyond and use a coupon.  http://www.tervis.com/designs/Accessories/Shaker-top/62453ae3e6bb5dd1150f70832f89d543

It's a shaker top fora Tervis tumbler!

And the angels sang in heaven.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I'm not a crazy Tervis addict, but in recent months I have become quite addicted to my Tervis tumblers -- provided that they have a lid on them and a straw.  (The straw must come from McDonald's, Chick-fil-A, or some other place that uses big straws.  Yes, I know you can buy Tervis straws, but I don't like to wash straws, and point of fact: I can't drink from a Tervis tumbler without spilling it all over me unless I have a straw.  New mouth.) 

Anyway, she said it would be life-changing, and she wasn't lying.

I found these boxes from our move stacked in a corner...

I labeled everything for our move, and if it was heavy or fragile, I made that clear.

 ... pulled out some tequila and mixer that were conveniently in the top box,

and made Mick and I each a margarita.

We watched Honey Boo Boo Child* -- I'm not sure if we were able to watch it because we were drinking or if Honey Boo Boo drove us to drink -- but either way, in one short evening we were out of tequila.** 

So we bought more.  And this time we're onto Strawberry Lime mixer.

It's 5:11 and I thought you deserved a photo of the tumblers and shaker top.  The things I do for this blog!

--Jen

*Thanks as well to Kristin for this.  It's a train wreck we can't peel away from no matter how hard we try!
**the bottle came from our liquor cabinet in Georgia and was not full when we got here. OKay?  We are not that bad!

Not the Healthiest Pinterest Dinner Ever

Every once in a while, we like to do "free apps" for dinner.  (If you've seen the movie Beautiful Girls, you might get this reference.  If not, first of all, you're missing out, and second of all, Beautiful Girls came out long before smart phones -- we're talking about appetizers.  Sorry for the confusion.)  

Anyway, we had no plans for dinner tonight and had bounced a few ideas around without any firm decision, and then I saw this recipe on Pinterest and sent Mick an email*:

"Not good for us, but good for our souls.  Dinner tonight?"

Then I went to Publix in a monsoon to get the smokies and bacon.  I risked my life for this meal.  (It was worth it.)

And then we ate.

My sister Courtney will be pleased to learn that we pretty much had our dream dinner tonight:  bacon** wrapped in bacon, drowned in butter and sugar, finished with Fudgsicles for dessert.

To explain:

Wrap lil smokies in bacon.  Each smokie takes 1/3 of a strip of bacon.

We like to dress up to cook around here. 

If you don't have time to freeze the bacon before you cut it in thirds, just use kitchen scissors to cut right through the package.  That's what I did, and it worked like a champ (and kept the bacon from sliding, or at least mostly).  You could also take the slab out, lay it on a cutting board, and cut it with a pizza cutter, but the scissors work just as well and you don't have to touch the bacon and get all slimy while you hold it in place for the pizza cutter. 

Lay them all in a baking pan.

Melt a stick of butter with one cup of brown sugar.

It's surprisingly viscous.  Kinda like melted caramel.   Sorry for the photo quality.  You know all those bloggers who say how hard it is to take a photo while you cook?  They're right.

Pour over your bacon-wrapped bacon smokies.

Sprinkle another cup of brown sugar over the top of everything.

Bake 20 minutes at 375, and then another 5 minutes at 400, or until the bacon crisps up.

They could have been crispier, but we weren't waiting any longer. 

Devour.

Eat Fudgsicles.

Feel sorry for your sister who moved to Florida and didn't get to partake of this sinfully delicious dinner.

--Jen

* Yes, I send my husband emails from my office to where he sits in the living room.  It's a whole ten steps!  TEN STEPS! And so much easier than saying, "Hey, Mick, would you come here for a sec please?"  Or, "Hey, Mick, how would you feel about bacon-wrapped-in bacon-and-then-drowned-in-butter-and-sugar for dinner?"  Nope.  Email.  And then I holler, "Hey, Mick!  Check your email!" 

**Okay, okay, so lil smokies aren't bacon.  Close enough.

PW: Gazpacho

I am happy to say that we made BOTH of our final recipes tonight.  Since the sangria is actually waiting 'til tomorrow for us to enjoy, I'll post more on that tomorrow night.

PW:  Gazpacho

Verdict: Yum!  Surprise, surprise, surprise, we like gazpacho!
Cook it again:  Yes!  Although there's very little cooking.
Cost factor:  Really not bad.  "Pantry" items and some fresh produce.

Okay, kids, I am not going to lie.  I was kind-of (and by kind-of, I mean, completely) dreading this recipe.  I had in my head that gazpacho was green and cold and icky.  NOT THE CASE AT ALL!

I read the recipe pretty thoroughly before I committed to actually making this one this month.  And I learned something:  Gazpacho is not cooked soup that is served cold.  Instead, it is a soup that is made and served cold -- more like a blended-up salad, if you will.

Now, why I had it in my head that gazpacho is green, I don't know.  Maybe it typically is?  Anyway, this one is not.  It is a tomato-based soup and really almost looks like a salsa.

The only cooking is to cook up some hard-boiled egg and shrimp for garnishes. The recipe calls for the shrimp to be grilled, but because I forgot to defrost the shrimp, I just grabbed about a dozen or two and boiled 'em up.  (Mick and I were the only ones who'd eat them, anyway, so it was kind-of good that I didn't defrost an entire bag of shrimp!)

You chop up half a red onion, a cucumber, two stalks of celery, two cloves of garlic, three Roma tomatoes, and some zucchini. Because I don't eat zucchini, I just upped the cucumber and celery.  With the exception of the onion and garlic (and Mick bought elephant garlic last time, and I used two cloves of that, so ours was a wee bit garlicky, to say the least -- not that we mind!), you reserve half the veggies and put the rest -- including ALL the onion and garlic -- in a food processor.  You add two cups of tomato juice, some vinegar and sugar, salt and pepper, however much Tabasco you want, some olive oil, and then blend away until it's, well, soupy! 

Now here's some advice if you haven't already made this:  I have a 9-cup food processor, and this mix went over the top of the center piece, which meant in turn that I had to pick up the ENTIRE machine to pour the soup out.  Otherwise, once I picked up the bowl from the processor, the soup would have run down the center opening of the bowl.  Hopefully you know what I am trying to describe here.  The short version: if you don't have a gigantic food processor, mix your soup in a blender; it's easier and not as messy.

Anyway, once you've got your soup in a giant bowl, you add the rest of the veggies and two more cups of tomato juice, and serve with garnishes of avocado, egg, and shrimp.

It was DELICIOUS!  It was a little heavy on the red onion and the garlic, but not enough to make Mick or I think it was anything other than a relief big hit!  We definitely plan to make this again!

YUM!!!!

--Jen

Michael's Gold Rewards

Do you shop at Michael's?  You all know I do! Michael's, Hobby Lobby, and JoAnn Fabric are pretty regular stops on my weekly errands.  Depending on what I am currently working on and/or obsessing over, I can end up going a million times in a week or not at all -- although the not-at-all weeks are few and far between. 

Michael's also has a rewards program. You know the "frequent flyer" programs where you scan your little hang tag and get points you can turn into rewards?  Michael's has one, and their program is tiered.  I'm a gold member, and for right now that's the top level.

One of the cool things they do for their gold members is to hold crafting events throughout the country.  These are usually bigger events than just an open-house workshop at a store; they have "celebrity" crafters (I never know the celebrities, but there are quite a few big names in the craft-i-verse.) In any case, Michael's holds these workshops at various locations and invites gold rewards members to attend.  I've never been able to make one yet -- they've always been impractically far away.  Well, a few weeks ago, I got an email inviting me to an event right here in metro Atlanta!  They were hosting a  Mod Podge event in Norcross, and that's just a few exits down the highway from me!

(I am not a big Mod-Podger, but it's definitely in my crafting room.  I don't tend to do many paper crafts in general -- hence not being a big Mod-Podger -- but obviously I know what Mod Podge is, and so I wanted to see what I could learn.)

Who knew that Mod Podge was invented right here in metro Atlanta?!  The event was limited to 50 people and held literally 35 minutes away from my home.  I signed up, told Mick to pencil it in mark it in Sharpie that I had an event, and today I finally got to go.

(Note:  Mod Podge is made by a company called Plaid.  So although the company seems to really BE Mod Podge, the company itself is called Plaid.  Got it?  Good.)

I AM SO GLAD I WENT!!

First of all, it was fun.

Second, we got to meet all sorts of crafting celebrities, including the inventor of Mod Podge, who was I think 90-something years old and just as sweet as could be.  She was delighted to see everyone, and we were all delighted and quite charmed by her.  She reminded me of my grandmother -- if my grandmother had essentially founded a crafting empire.

Third, we got to make stuff!  Cool stuff!  Stuff I will actually hang in my house!

Fourth, I learned a ton and saw some really great craft ideas.  Stuff that I would have never guessed was done with Mod Podge. (Now I know!)  I also got to see some really creative things people did with the projects we all worked on today -- I know I sound like a geek, but it was so much fun to see what people came up with!


Fifth, they had all sorts of giveaways all day -- as I'd hoped they would -- and (also as I'd hoped) I won one of them!  Check out my loot:

I took this series of photos with my cell phone and the color is WAY off.  Sorry about that.  But this bag has at least $100 worth of stuff in it.  I'm not exaggerating.  It is huge!!

All this, plus every guest got a $25 gift card to Michael's, a T-shirt (in my size, which is always so refreshing.  Bonus points for a company that cares enough about its own marketing to ensure that the t-shirts they give out actually fit the recipients), and a goodie bag.  Plus, of course, the crafts we made ... photos of which will follow once the projects dry!

 

 

And I really can not say enough times how absolutely wonderful all the people from Plaid (and Michael's, but especially Plaid, who hosted the event) were.  They clearly love their jobs and loved hosting today's event.

Today was a great day!

Thank you, Plaid, and thank you, Michael's!

--Jen

My Story, If You Dare to Read It

As you all know, I am trying to get a job.  The thing is, I don't want just any job; I want a job where -- like teaching used to be for me -- I wake up in the morning and I am excited to get to go to work that day.  Now that I've got two kids and have been so fortunate to stay home with them (mostly; I was still in school while CAM was very young, and I worked for a school year after WHM was born), the idea that I need to actually be passionate about my job is very important.  After all, I'd be sacrificing what little time I have with my own children; the sacrifice needs to be worth it for all of us.

And it occurred to me that my resume is, perhaps, a little non-traditional.  I'm a big believer that I am never the first person to do anything, and I find it hard to believe that my resume really is that unique -- surely there are other teachers who've gone to law school, and that's really all mine says -- but I hear again and again how my "path" is different.  So I decided to try to explain my story a little bit here, for whatever it may be worth (even if it's just a five-minute distraction for you, my lovely readers).

Here you go.

"So, tell me a little bit about yourself.  Your resume tells an interesting story."

I graduated college with a degree in biomedical engineering, and I decided to work towards a Ph.D. in molecular and cellular biology.  I was assigned a teaching assistantship in grad school, and I realized that I really loved the teaching aspect, but I wasn't in love with the research.  I was good at it (according to my professor, very good at it), but I'd come from a very well-funded, large, very social lab in Boston and was seeing the other side -- what it's like to beg for grant money -- and wasn't sure I wanted that for myself.  Some of the professors wore mismatched socks and had crazy unkempt hair, wore clothes that looked as though they'd picked them up off the floor, and I know it sounds terribly shallow, but as a 21-year-old, it scared me.  I loved the research and especially the teaching, but I was afraid I'd wake up one day and live in this microcosmic research world and lose touch with people and social skills.  Is that terrible to say?  I realize now that it was probably very short-sighted, but it's the truth.  I think it's safe to say that I got scared about what I was doing and why I was doing it. 

So, I left.  That was one of the single hardest decisions of my life; it's not easy to think for 18 years that you want to do something and then decide in the span of ten months that no, maybe you don't.  I had a lot of people pulling for me to come back to Boston, but at that point I felt as if going back "home" would be quitting.  I'd gotten job offers on the spot when I gave my senior project presentation, and I could have jumped into a career, more than likely, with some biotech firms in Boston and picked back up with a Ph.D. program there, but I decided instead to go check out Atlanta.  I figured that I would take a year or two to decide whether I had been unhappy with what I was doing (research) or where I was doing it (Actually, that's not entirely fair to say.  The professor I finally ended up working with had a great lab and I loved it, and I would have been his very first Ph.D. student -- so, it wasn't that particular lab, but maybe the department in general), and if the fire got back in my belly, I'd go back to school.

I ended up finding an opportunity to tutor at Georgia Tech (made some dear friends, including WHM's godmother, through that, and I thank God for it every day), and realized that I loved teaching.  In the meantime, I worked part-time for the Atlanta Braves (also made some dear friends through that experience and am thankful for that every day, too), and spent my days working full-time as a temp for an HR/Benefits consulting firm.

I did really well in the consulting firm, and had the unique experience of getting brought on full-time -- and being allowed to pick which practice group I wanted to be a part of.  I was able to choose among the actuarial division, the compensation division (not management of the company, but the practice that helped other companies manage their own hr compensation divisions), and the communications division.  Naturally, the communications practice made the least money in terms of salaries, but it was intriguing work to me, 180-degrees from what I'd been doing, and it was a lot of fun.  And so, I ended up there, working on corporate projects and learning a tremendous amount, and generally having a great time being in my early 20's.

While I worked for the company, it was purchased by Mellon Bank, which also owned Dreyfus Financial.  In short order, I ended up as part of the team that brought the Dreyfus communications "in house" to our own communications practice.  And thus, I ended up flying to NY every Monday and back every Thursday, and went from working on Summary Plan Descriptions about 401(k) information for various clients, to the team that handled Dreyfus Fund Descriptions and fund prospectuses.  If a mutual fund was changing in any way, I was on the semi-short list of people who knew about it, because I had to modify the prospectus and simplified prospectus in order for it to go to "legal." I also got to travel to other offices to work on small projects here and there -- Pittsburgh was one fun trip.  I learned a ton about Excel and Lotus 1-2-3 and just how to be a grown-up. 

But then I decided that I wanted to go back to school.  Only, instead of finishing that Ph.D., two years of tutoring at Tech convinced me that I wanted to try teaching for a while.  And so, I went to get a Master's in Teaching.  I went full-time for twelve full months to get the master's degree (my "major," if you will, was secondary math) and then I started teaching high school math.  Believe it or not, it was more of a lateral salary move than a pay cut, but it was probably very naive of me to think it would stay that way. 

Like all new teachers, I had some bumps in my early road, but I really loved teaching.  I was not perfect, but I was definitely good at it, and within two years I was teaching AP classes, had coached, was asked by the kids to sponsor some clubs, and I was a team leader for Algebra 2.  I woke up in the morning and I wanted to go to work.  And yet slowly, we could all see things changing.  First, it was demographics within our system, and then it was No Child Left Behind, and suddenly what we did last week, we couldn't do this week, we needed to interrupt teaching for constant testing, and it really seemed that everything that made sense about teaching was being thrown out the window.  Things went rapidly downhill in terms of what I loved about teaching.

After some frustrating blanket policies were implemented without regard to what really made sense in the classroom, it occurred to me that teaching is filled with top-down mandates, and the people who make the laws and policy have, for the most part, never been teachers.  They are politicians and legislators, and primarily attorneys.  And so I decided to go to law school to try to bridge that gap.  Teachers don't make policy, and policymakers have never been teachers, and I wanted to be the person in the middle, who could speak both languages.  My goal was -- and remains -- to work in education policy and represent the interests of teachers -- not from a "union" standpoint, but from a "what additional paperwork does this represent, does it help, do good teachers already do this, and how does it help the students in their chairs TODAY?"

My first week of law school, Mick and I discovered I was pregnant with CAM, and my third year of law school, I was pregnant with WHM.  I graduated law school in May, had WHM in June, and took (and passed) the bar exam in July.  When most people took smoke breaks from the bar exam, I raced out to the car where Mick and WHM were waiting, threw a blanket over me, and nursed a six-week old.

It probably goes without saying that I wasn't exactly a prime lawyer-job candidate during my third year of law school.  I had an eighteen-month-old, was pregnant, hadn't taken the bar exam, and would be taking it for the first time with a six-week-old.  Hmm ... I wouldn't have hired me, either.  So, I ended up taking what turned out to be a very family-friendly job and went back to teaching for a year.  Technically, my first day of work was also the second day of the bar exam.  I had to take the day unpaid because I hadn't yet earned any personal days.  It was a busy summer, to say the least.

THAT job was wonderful and awful at the same time.  Wonderful because I met some amazing people and loved 80% of my day; wonderful because I was lucky to have a two-minute commute to work (I am not joking, two minutes); wonderful because my schedule allowed me to come home during a prep period to feed WHM; wonderful because the parents at the school were -- and still are -- amazing; wonderful because I got to mentor two amazing student teachers and work with the University; and awful because the administration was completely dysfunctional and morale was the worst I've seen at any school anywhere, and even the student discipline at the school was ridiculously poor.  I was set to go back for a second year -- because the good outweighed the bad -- but when it became apparent that Mick would be doing a lot of traveling and I would be essentially working as a single mom, we decided to hunker down and that I would stay home with the kids last year and this year.  I perhaps burned some bridges the way that unfolded, and certainly hurt my career path with the school system (my dream job has come up twice now and I'm not a candidate for it), but at the time it was the best decision for our family.  

So, that's how I got where I am today.  I am three years removed from law school and, other than a research position I held as a 3L, I've never worked a legal job.  I feel pretty unhire-able lately; people wonder what's wrong with me or whether I failed out of law school.  (Point of fact:  I most certainly did not, and if you take out my one semester of grades from when I was abysmally sick and afraid to ask for help, I did very, very well, thankyouverymuch.)  Do I miss research?  I do.  What I really miss, though, is a sense of society valuing what I did.  As a scientist or engineer, I had instant "smart person, important person" cache.  As a teacher, I have to prove to people that I am not an idiot.  That sounds awful, but it's true.  No one is ever "just" a lawyer, or "just" an engineer, or "just" a scientist ... but you are, almost always, "just" a teacher.  And yet I sit here and write this, and I definitely miss teaching.  I don't miss the junk that's coming along with it right now, but I sure do miss teaching, and especially the wonderful colleagues and parents where I taught last.

Anyway.  When I grow up, I want to work in education policy and yes, it's cliched but true, I want to help make a difference.  I have some great ideas, but I am still working on how to get people to hear them.  I ran for school board a few years ago, and I hope one day that I'll get to do that again.  In the meantime, I keep writing and trying to get a job and tutoring -- making my own little difference, one student at a time.

--Jen

Things You Should Know About Me

This is totally and completely stolen from inspired by Little Miss Momma, whose blog I just discovered today.

This is also the "Jen Trivia" version, not the mushy-gushy version.  The mushy-gushy stuff should go without saying, anyway. I tried to put stuff here that even if you know me, you might not know.

50 Things You Should Know About Me If We Are Going To Be BFF

1. I can’t stand poor grammar, especially if you’re educated and should know better.  That's not to say I am always perfect, but if you're chronically NOT, it makes me cringe.
2. I will be snarky about it.  (And about virtually anything else, really.)
3. I love 40% off coupons from Michael’s and it’s almost to the point where I won’t buy anything there without one.
4. I love, love, love the smell of laundry detergent and have been known to leave an entire box of Bounce in my car in the summer, just to get the concentrated smell.  “Clean Cotton” Yankee Candles?  Made. For. Me.
5. I can get over a lot of things, but if you hurt my feelings I am not likely to forget it.  I might get over it, but I won’t forget it.  Unless you’re Tara.  In which case I feel certain we’ve both hurt each others’ feelings, but I can’t recall a single time. I hope she feels the same way.
6. I knocked out my two front teeth when I was getting ready to go to sixth grade (or seventh?) and I’ve had all sorts of dental work done ever since. Say Cheese!
7. I will do laundry like a madwoman and get through 12 loads in a day if I have to, but it will sit in giant piles, unfolded at the foot of my bed, for weeks at a time sometimes.
8. I iron everything.   Well, except underwear.
9. I am allergic to Nutra-Sweet and can smell it if someone next to me is chewing sugar-free gum.
10. When I was pregnant, I could smell Diet Coke on Mick's breath from a mile away and it made me sick (and drove him crazy).
11. I can’t stand blogs and other web pages that use a ton of different-sized fonts and {brackets} in awkward places to look cute.  It’s hard to read and makes me batty.  I’ve been known to stop reading really great blogs because they look like they were formatted by fifth-grade girls.
12. I went to Catholic School for a day when I was in sixth grade.
13. Sometimes I am amazed by the complete junk on blogs, and then astounded to learn those bloggers have ads and sponsors and thousands of followers … and they are telling me to spray paint a screen and sew through it and hang that trash in my house as “art.”
14. Mick and I met on a blind date.  He was told that I was from Rhode Island and went to Boston College.  50% of those four words are correct.
15. I try to always give people the benefit of the doubt about almost anything, unless they are grammatically incompetent, in which case I will judge them repeatedly.
16. I can’t stand “text-speak," even in text messages, and I will take up three texts to say the same thing I could have said in one, just to avoid those abbreviations.
17. I don’t think it’s appropriate to tell an adult “shut-up” ever, even in the joking “Shut up! Really?!” kind-of way.
18. I grew up with St. Bernards, but don’t like other peoples’ dogs.
19. I can’t stand cats.  Don’t try to win me over.  You will only make me angry.  I hate cats.
20. I had to go to college a week early for band camp.
21. I can’t stand lying.  ‘Fess up if you mess up, and we can go from there.
22. You will hurt my feelings more if you leave me out of invites than about almost anything else you can do.
23. I will tell you the truth even if you don’t want to hear it, and I will back up my opinion.
24. My grandfather died on my sister’s birthday, and I had to fight the ladies in the front office of my own high school for them to allow me to go to her classroom to get her.  I knew that as soon as they paged for her she would break down, and I wouldn’t let that happen. 
25. My youngest sister and I are born ten years apart to the day.  Mick and CAM share a birthday.  For a while in Alabama, we were four people under one roof -- with only two birthdays!
26. I make lists, and then I make sub-lists and lists of lists.  And I love it.
27. I would rather do without than have something cheap – most of the time.
28. I drive a Mercedes, but I really miss my Tahoe, and that’s something I never thought I would say.  (Actually, I never thought I would say either of those!)
29. I can’t dive. 
30. When I was a kid I took organ lessons for a few years.
31. I owe about 6 people wedding gifts, and I remember every single one and it bothers me.  A lot. And I want to remedy it in a grand way one day.
32. I have a strange memory and will pull things seemingly out of nowhere.  
33. I can "measure" most things without a ruler, and I'm pretty accurate.
34. I make Monica Gellar look disorganized.
35. I will dislike you if you are rude to wait staff for no reason.
36. I think "excuse me" is the most under-used phrase in American English.
37. Nerds Rope, Nerds Rope, Nerds Rope.
38. I love to sing!  Especially ... well, everywhere.
39. I am known to listen to the 50s station on Sirius/XM for road trips.  
40. My college roommate only liked Red and Purple Skittles, and I only like Orange and Green.  I miss her. :)
41. Dark chocolate, not milk chocolate.
42. I can't do shots.  
43. I love corn on the cob, and whenever we cook it for our family I always buy three extra ears just for me! 
44. Mick and I planned our wedding around the SEC and ACC football schedules -- and Holy Days. 
45. One summer day when I was a kid, the priest said it was just too hot for a homily, and ended mass early.  That was the best church day ever, until I got to college and had a hilarious run-in with some hockey players and a couple who took "peace be with you" a little too seriously.
46. I love badminton.
47. I couldn't wear thong-style flip-flops until I was 31 years old!  
48. I find it relaxing to wash my car or go grocery shopping. 
49. I still race out to the mailbox every day like a kid, hoping for goodies! 
50. I really hope you like my blog, and I get as excited about your comments as I do about mail!

Okay, your turn!  Is there anything I need to know about you?

--Jen