Today is a truly lovely day. I'm sitting here by my open window with breeze and sunshine pouring in again, just like last weekend. After a mildly busy morning of straightening up while I was out, Puck is napping. All I can hear is the ticking of a clock, his rhythmic breathing and the twitter of early spring birds. Tio is sitting in the window whipping his tail and he watches those birds flitting from tree to tree behind the house.
Somewhere along my growing up I discovered the value in truly paying attention to and appreciating the little things -- in paying attention to my surroundings and not taking the simple for granted. I find great peace in following and enjoying the changes in the weather and in the plants and animals that change in and visit my backyard. This isn't to say I spend much time cultivating plants as gardening does not really keep my interest, but I do love paying attention to whatever God plants. Lately He's been working on a nice honeysuckle ground covering in my little patch of woods. I am a fan.
This morning I weighed in at WW and I've lost another 1.8 lbs. Woo hoo! My total now is 21.2 lbs down. The only tough days this week were Monday and Friday. Those seem to be the toughest days each week. Since I weigh in on Saturday mornings, I usually use my WPA (weekly points allowance, "extra" points) on the weekends. It just seems to work for me that way; I can look forward to the weekend if I've been craving chocolate or whatever and be good during the busy schedule of the week when I barely have time to eat anyway. So now I've gone down enough to lose another daily point. Waa! Oh well, I'll survive.
On the way home from WW I stopped by a yard sale a few doors down from my house. The neighbors are moving back to upstate NY. I managed to score three stuffed bags of books for the change I could scrounge in the car. This is very exciting! This neighbor is an avid reader and had quite a collection. About half are for my classroom. The kids these days just want mysteries, murder and vampires, and there was plenty of that to be had in this particular collection. I always try to keep my room stocked with books. I read once where someone had written that they knew their teacher valued books because everywhere they looked in the room they saw books. This person said that not only did this cultivate their own love of books, but also created a sense of trust in the teacher -- that the students knew that the teacher meant and believed the way she talked about valuing books and literacy. I work on keeping a mixture of both high interest books (the mysteries and vampires) and classics. I want to cultivate their interest in the classics, but more realistically I just hope to create a familiarity with the titles and authors -- sort of a subliminal cultural education. I know they are much less likely to ask to borrow and read these books, but at least when they are day dreaming and not listening to me, they are staring at these covers and becoming familiar with their existence. This is also why I leave vocabulary words and quotes all over my board all week. Gosh darn it they will learn SOMETHING.
As for my drama earlier this week with the reprimand for "caring" as it were, it seems like the situation is somewhat resolved as far as I am concerned. Keep your fingers crossed for me.
My plan for the rest of this lovely day is to recline here and read one of the books I scored earlier today, Lucky by Alice Sebold. I'm a fan of The Lovely Bones and have been intersted in reading this memior for a while. A little later, after Puck's nap, we'll have eggs and grits for lunch and watch a movie or two. I hope to see Slumdog Millionaire if it has made its way to our OnDemand channel yet. If I see anything fantastic, or fantastically terrible, I'll be sure to share.
Somewhere along my growing up I discovered the value in truly paying attention to and appreciating the little things -- in paying attention to my surroundings and not taking the simple for granted. I find great peace in following and enjoying the changes in the weather and in the plants and animals that change in and visit my backyard. This isn't to say I spend much time cultivating plants as gardening does not really keep my interest, but I do love paying attention to whatever God plants. Lately He's been working on a nice honeysuckle ground covering in my little patch of woods. I am a fan.
This morning I weighed in at WW and I've lost another 1.8 lbs. Woo hoo! My total now is 21.2 lbs down. The only tough days this week were Monday and Friday. Those seem to be the toughest days each week. Since I weigh in on Saturday mornings, I usually use my WPA (weekly points allowance, "extra" points) on the weekends. It just seems to work for me that way; I can look forward to the weekend if I've been craving chocolate or whatever and be good during the busy schedule of the week when I barely have time to eat anyway. So now I've gone down enough to lose another daily point. Waa! Oh well, I'll survive.
On the way home from WW I stopped by a yard sale a few doors down from my house. The neighbors are moving back to upstate NY. I managed to score three stuffed bags of books for the change I could scrounge in the car. This is very exciting! This neighbor is an avid reader and had quite a collection. About half are for my classroom. The kids these days just want mysteries, murder and vampires, and there was plenty of that to be had in this particular collection. I always try to keep my room stocked with books. I read once where someone had written that they knew their teacher valued books because everywhere they looked in the room they saw books. This person said that not only did this cultivate their own love of books, but also created a sense of trust in the teacher -- that the students knew that the teacher meant and believed the way she talked about valuing books and literacy. I work on keeping a mixture of both high interest books (the mysteries and vampires) and classics. I want to cultivate their interest in the classics, but more realistically I just hope to create a familiarity with the titles and authors -- sort of a subliminal cultural education. I know they are much less likely to ask to borrow and read these books, but at least when they are day dreaming and not listening to me, they are staring at these covers and becoming familiar with their existence. This is also why I leave vocabulary words and quotes all over my board all week. Gosh darn it they will learn SOMETHING.
As for my drama earlier this week with the reprimand for "caring" as it were, it seems like the situation is somewhat resolved as far as I am concerned. Keep your fingers crossed for me.
My plan for the rest of this lovely day is to recline here and read one of the books I scored earlier today, Lucky by Alice Sebold. I'm a fan of The Lovely Bones and have been intersted in reading this memior for a while. A little later, after Puck's nap, we'll have eggs and grits for lunch and watch a movie or two. I hope to see Slumdog Millionaire if it has made its way to our OnDemand channel yet. If I see anything fantastic, or fantastically terrible, I'll be sure to share.
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