I’m having to do a bit of a catch-up post. I let the days slip away last week without doing a blog post, so here’s pictures from that week as well as from this past week. Two weeks ago, I took the kids up to New Braunfels to go to the children’s museum. Joseph has aged out of it, but it was still fun for Abigail (and Joseph stuck it out for her). We also made a stop at Buc-ee’s, so that made it worth Joseph’s while. 😉 The rest of the pictures are of us squeezing the last bit of summer in. The kids still have three weeks of vacation, but my month is pretty packed with trainings, PD days, and setting up my new room. The summer is swiftly flying by!
So much awesome in one little package…Outside the museum. I like that it’s a smaller one than the one in San Antonio (the Doseum), but Joseph might like the Doseum better…I think it has a bigger range of things (he’s been once on a field trip, but the rest of us haven’t). This one is really geared toward the younger crowd.Getting ready to play an operation game. The lights would light up if you touched the sides of the part where you were trying to get the object out.Joseph was trying really hard not to touch the sides……while Abigail had a much more…gung-ho approach. 🙂She loved taking care of all the babies in the hospital nursery.In a playhouse.Patient older brother…“Welcome to the pirate restaurant…we sell food that pirates like to eat.”Trying out a drum.When she pushed down on the button, it made a stream of water bubble up like a fountain.Getting ready for outerspace!She loved this art area. They let the kids take home their creations.Abigail insisted on being the jumping astronaut…Joseph was less than thrilled to have to hunch down for the picture, but he does a lot for his little sister. Buc-ee’s always makes everybody perk up.I added a new shirt to my collection.A friend suggested this book and it was such a fun, quick read. It’s about the beginnings of Jack and Sally’s marriage, but it’s more of a mystery (with a problem to be solved) than being the typical “after the wedding” book. I really enjoyed it!I got the hankering for rice pudding…well, arroz con leche to be more exact. I looked up the ingredients and it was way easier than I realized to make. First, simmer some uncooked rice with cinnamon sticks.The other ingredients: milk, evaporated milk, and sweetened condensed milk.After the rice simmers for a bit, drain it and pick out the cinnamon sticks. Next time I’m going to scoop out the cinnamon sticks before draining out the water (since they float). It was a bit time-consuming getting all the little bits and pieces of cinnamon sticks out after the fact.Pour the three milks in with the rice and stir, stir, stir (so the milk doesn’t scald) until it’s nice and thickened up.Top with ground cinnamon, chill, and then…Yum!The pumpkin plant really is getting a little overbearing, haha. This tomato plant is trying to hold its own, though.The pumpkin plant is growing out of the ground right to the left of these two closest pots. It decided to go up and over on this closer side and then all the way down the side yard on the further side. It actually started growing up over the other plants over there and I was having none of that. I untangled them (the pumpkin plant had wrapped several of its little curls around the other plant in various places…uh, rude!) and turned the vine back on itself. Hopefully it’ll keep going the direction I turned it. I’m keeping a closer eye on it.New school year means…a new school planner! I needed to pick it up now because I needed to already start filling in a ton of things for August. Whoever thinks teachers have the entire summer off…is sorely mistaken. I did have quite a bit of time off, but it definitely isn’t going to be the full three months. That, and teachers spend so much time before and after school doing things…we need that time off to avoid burnout, haha.I want to set up an area in my classroom (I’m going to call it the chill zone) where a student can go if they feel sad, frustrated, angry, or overwhelmed. It’ll have a cushion they can sit on and a basket full of sensory toys that they can play with while regulating their emotions. Abigail found the fillers for the basket. She loves, loves, loves sensory toys (I mean, what kid doesn’t, really?). She said, “It’s really unfortunate that these toys are for your students Mom, I really want to play with them.” I made her feel better by reminding her that she would get to hang out in my room after school most days, so she could play with them then.I picked up new clothes for the kids and Abigail felt the need for a fashion show. Here she is with her unicorn glasses……and her favorite orange glasses from the dentist……and then she wanted what she called a “normal” one so that people could “see her face”. I love this kid!I decided I needed one more teacher shirt and landed on this one. I love the show Friends, so I couldn’t pass this shirt by (it’s designed like the Friends logo and part of the lyrics for the opening song of the show is “I’ll be there for you”).We squeezed in one last park day (it’s been soooooo hot). We got there about 9AM and were ready to leave by 9:45.
Well, we’ve finally reached it. The point of the summer where I just feel…antsy. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’Well, we’ve finally reached it. The point of the summer where I just feel…antsy. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s the absence of a solid schedule, maybe it’s the heat, maybe it’s the combo of both…and I think it’s a bit worse this time around because I, well, I really want to get into my classroom and get it set up for the new school year. I keep telling myself the time will pass quickly enough and that my future-self will think my past-self was crazy for wanting to be back at it all, but until then, I have to find ways to fight the antsy-ness. I took the kids to a couple different places, I tried to lose myself in the beauty of summer as I watered the plants, and I bought a new book. It’s been helping a bit.
I love using “found” things in unexpected ways. I bought some “fancy” milk (it was in a glass container). When I went to drop it into the recycling, I stopped and said, “Hey, this would make a really cute flower vase.” So I turned it into a flower vase. I also took some of the flowers from the bouquet, trimmed their stems really short, and put them into another found vase: an old spice container. It’s fun!Friends invited us to go bowling with them. We had the bumpers up, which was a good thing, since neither of the kids have ever been.Abigail would stagger up to the line while holding the ball in both hands and then just kind of…lob it down the lane. She actually managed to get a strike once. 🙂I zoomed in a ton to get a close-up of this anole that was hanging out on the water hose in the back yard. 🙂This was a fun discovery (that Joseph pointed out). My purse apparently glows in the dark!Teeny baby pumpkin!I love all the curly vines and the flowers…not sure if the tomato plant likes them very well, haha.As you can see, the pumpkin has decided to move right on in.I love this back yard. Paul has worked so hard to keep it looking this nice.I also love this tree (and the shade it provides). It’s crazy to think that 11 years ago, it was just a sapling.I was surprised by this flower spike. I mean, I know that all plants flower, but I had no idea what the flowers for these leafy plants would look like. Now I know! They’re teeny purple flowers.Abigail was excited to get a cat as a toy from McDonald’s, but she was confused about its face. I explained to her that it was actually a flerken (from Captain Marvel) and that it used its tentacles (which are usually hiding inside its mouth) to get the bad guys. She thought that was hilarious.I went to Target for bins and a mirror for my classroom and ended up also getting some comfy floor cushions that I think will also be a good addition. I also got a fun accent pillow (which will be good to give me a bit of extra back support) for my classroom chair.Can you spot the three baby pumpkins? One’s towards the bottom center of the picture, one is almost in the center, and the third is almost at the very top.She wanted to help water, but didn’t want to get her pant legs (or her sleeves) wet. I love this little girl!What’s this, you say? It’s what I have been using as “temporary” storage for extra pantry items. You know, just until I found something that worked better…it’s been years, y’all.Then I found this! I was scrolling through Facebook and there was an ad for Amazon with this on it. The drawers slide out and it’s metal, so it’s sturdy enough to put some things on top.By adding that little set of shelves, I was able to even tidy the rest of my pantry better (because there was enough room for one or two other things that were on the bigger shelves). During that tidying process, I discovered freshly hatched weevils in my grits (yuck), but luckily, since the grits were in a glass jar (I’m guessing the contamination was localized, since I had just gotten a fresh container and had dumped it right into the jar I keep them in), they didn’t spread to anything else. And we hadn’t eaten any of the grits yet, either. It did make me look at what was still in cardboard containers though, and the next day I went out and purchased a few more containers (and fresh grits, haha). Blech. I hate bugs.I was uploading pictures and heard rumblings…then I heard…RAIN!It’s been a while since it’s rained. We’ve needed this so, so bad. My grass and plants are going to be so happy!
I don’t really have another good title for this week’s post. It’s been so hot that I haven’t felt like going anywhere or doing anything. We did still accomplish some things, but there was a LOT of down-time in between. I kind of feel like I’m in this limbo of enjoying not having anything to do and…missing the routine and schedule of the school year. Is that crazy? I feel like the kids would say it was, haha.
This sweet thing spent a good portion of one of our “down” days watching Christmas movies. I think she’s over the heat, too.She had a bunch of “friends” over for a sleep over (since I told her she was a bit young for an actual sleep over).Ah, yes. The big thing that I did get done. Abigail and I went through ALL her toys and cleared out a bunch that she no longer plays with. I also reorganized her dress-up area.It’s way less cluttered now in the loft.I also no longer feel like hyperventilating when walking into her room.I spent a good portion of this last week trying to keep the plants alive (we’re on Day “I-lost-count” of triple digits). The pumpkin plant is really starting to spread out……much to the consternation of the tomato plant.This is the face of a girl who kept getting buzzed at by wasps while trying to water. Luckily, they were more interested in the water than they were in me.These plants lost all of their lower leaves (some sort of fungus attacked them), but the tops are still healthy (hence the droopiness, because they’re all a bit top-heavy). I can also see new growth popping up. There’s a big, black bumblebee that likes to come along here and get the pollen.Paul’s solar drip line system. The panel powers the system which makes it so the drip lines can pull water from the buckets…and all eight of our tomato plants (so we have a total of ten plants, because there are two in a different part of the yard) get consistent watering. There’s one pot out there (just to the right of the buckets) that had carrots, but the heat got to those. We did get a nice little harvest which we used for a stew one day. I don’t know if we have anything currently in that pot.Mint!It’s a good thing I took a picture of these, or else I would have no proof of harvest. I set them down, walked away to do something, and came back to find an empty bowl. I DID tell Abigail she could eat them…I just underestimated how fast she was, haha.This chair is eventually going to make its way to my classroom, but until then, it’s been chillin’ in our living room. This morning, I was sitting in it reading. I got up to get a drink of water and came back to find my spot had been taken over. 🙂
