I'm feeling all reflective.

2008 is just about dunzo. I'm spending my last day of the year in my favorite fleece pants from 10th grade, sipping coffee to keep me going into the wee hours of the morning, and eating pancakes while I watch 8 inches of snow pile up outside my window.

I'd say it was a good year. I made what turned out to be a good career move that ended up with me teaching 3rd grade, which is a goal I've had since I was 8. I bought a new car, and started on the long process of paying off car loans and grad school loans (not fun, but the sooner I start, the sooner I'm done!). I learned new words and phrases in two languages (including "wash your hands," "sit down," and "Do you have to pee?" in Hebrew for my days teaching at a Jewish preschool, and relearned a lot of Spanish vocabulary to help out at parent conferences at my new school). I ended a relationship that was not going to go anywhere, and felt good about it eventually. I officiated a wedding ceremony. I ran in my second 10K. I was more careful to use sunscreen. I read several really good books (and some really bad books).

I like New Years a lot, but this year it seems like it all of a sudden happened and I didn't even see it coming. We all procrastinated on making plans, and then I just got back from Florida a day ago and realized there were still no plans. We worked something out last night, and I think it will be fun.

Every year I make the same new years resolutions...exercise more regularly, eat less candy, talk to my brother more often, and be nicer to my parents. They're not really resolutions, I think, because it's stuff that I should be doing and I'm aware of it all year, but then another year goes by and I realize that I'm still going through a bag of mint M&Ms in under 3 days, and snapping at my parents on the phone because I'm tired and cranky. I suppose I'll still keep those as my resolutions this year because I think they're good things to do, but this year I have a new resolution: learn to cook one new meal each month. I think it's totally doable. I probably cooked more new things my senior year of college because it was the first time I had a kitchen, and because Losure was constantly cooking up weird concoctions. I actually even started on this goal a little bit early! I got a gift of a Greek cookbook and a cool apron last week, so last night I made some Greek potatoes and chicken with lemon. It turned out tasty...even Kate ate it! I have a bunch of other cookbooks that have sat in dust on the shelves for a long time and I'm sure I'll take them out soon, but I'm especially anxious to dive into my Greek cookbook because it has a bunch of recipes that the old Greek ladies on my term abroad in Athens used to cook for lunch!

Happy Oh Nine!

Ouch?

This is going to be embarrassing.

A little back story.
This weekend, Kate and I watched one of my top 3 favorite celebrity chefs, Paula Deen. I love her because she somehow manages to get 3 sticks of butter and at least 1 pound of bacon in every single recipe. Paula made some amazing looking Creme de menthe brownies, so Kate said I had to make them if I had a snow day again on Monday. Of course, Monday I had a snow day, so I shoveled and shoveled and shoveled and shoveled, then chipped away at ice with a dinky plastic shovel for an hour, and then I made two batches of brownies. Half of one batch went to a teacher I work with, and the other half of that batch went with Kate to work (for all I know, she ate them all in the car on her way to work). The second batch, the really good ones because Kate reminded me to mix in the Andes mints before putting the batter in the pan, and because they went in a smaller pan so they're really thick, stayed with us at the apartment.

I got home today, grabbed a shiny knife, and went straight for the 2nd batch of thick, minty brownies. Only I couldn't get the knife through. Muscles I didn't even know I had in my shoulder and arm were totally sore, rendering me unable to get the chocolately goodness.

I hacked it out with a fork instead.

Snow day Part 3?

I got my wish, and had another snow today today. It was pretty great, except for the 45 minutes in the morning, and hour in the afternoon, that I spent trying to break my car free from the ice cube it was stuck in. Last night the plows pushed a ton of slush all around my car, and since it only got up to about 20 degrees today, my car remained frozen in ice until some very nice man saw me chipping away with my plastic shovel and looking angrier and angrier by the minute. He had an ice pick with him, and in 5 minutes he had all of the ice chopped so I could shovel most of it away. I'm going to be sore tomorrow.

All of the cities around the city where I teach, including Boston, have already cancelled school for tomorrow, but mine still hasn't. I've become kind of greedy. It would actually be a good day to be at school...we have an assembly in the morning, I planned on playing a few games of vocabulary bingo and have awesome eraser prizes, and I have a writing project I wanted to finish up before vacation. I also got a bunch of wintery/Christmasy pencils to give them. Third graders LOVE fun pencils. And if i that's not present enough, I also have a ton of homework to give my kids over vacation. I kind of hate the thought of them sitting around for almost 2 weeks and forgetting everything they've learned in math in the past month if I don't get to give it to them (I'm not the only mean teacher! All of the 3rd grade teachers are giving the same "vacation math packet!") To top it off, I have a lot to do in my classroom and to pack up with me to work on over the break, so it would be nice to get all of that.

However, despite all of that, I've kind of thought how nice it would be to spend another low-key day at home, even though I'll have almost 2 weeks of vacation after tomorrow. Plus, it's going to be really really cold again, and my pink fleece pants are just so warm. That little kid excitement of "SNOW DAY!!!!!!" when you find out the news is still in me too. Typical of my "I'll worry about it later" mentality, I can't really be bothered yet about thinking that I'll be making up all of these days at the end of June when I'm antsy to get to the beach.

I spent today in mourning.

In the morning, when I woke to about 9 inches of snow, I mourned over the fact that I no longer drive this beastly thing:



That picture of course is not my car.... but I no longer drive my Explorer because it...

A) Was purple
B) Had several big dents on the top and side from where a tree fell on it last year during a winter storm
C) Had a busted rear bumper from an accident last spring

So now I drive a little red Corolla, and I have no idea how to drive in snow without 4 wheel drive. And I hated the fact that I had to spend a long time actually shovelling my car out of its parking spot. After previous snowstorms, I could just half-shovel out my car, and the beast-ness of of car would get me out of any snow bank.

Eventually I got over missing my old car and went to get a hair cut. And then I spent the rest of the day mourning my hair, or lack thereof. I have pseudo-bangs now. And right before I head to Florida next week to see my entire family who hasn't seen me since I was 13 and again had bangs. Excellent.

More snow again tomorrow. Is it too much to wish for another snow day on Monday, to make this a four-day weekend?

Gross Out

There was projectile vomit in my class today, on my floor, during my math lesson. It was awful.

Just wanted to share.

The joints are getting achy.

There's nothing like being around children to make you feel old.

--When we studied place value in my class, the kids had to show the year that they were born using place value blocks (you know, like the small cubes to show 1, then 10 of those cubes in a line to show ten, then 10 of the sticks to show 100, etc?). As I gave them paper for homework I thought, "How fun! I want to do it too!" But then their homework came back the next day, and all but a few who were born in 1999 just drew two big squares, for 2000. Most of my class was not alive in the 1900s!

--One of my students was reading a biography of Rosa Parks, and jumped out of her seat to come over to me. "Ms. Gross! There's a picture of President Clinton giving Rosa Parks an award in 1996! That's before even my brother was born!"

--I told my class that I didn't have a cell phone until I was in high school. Their jaws dropped open. Despite the fact that I teach in a very low income city, more than half claim to have a cell phone.

--Today in the computer lab my class was looking at an historical society website for the city I teach in. There was a massive fire in the early 1900s that destroyed more than half of the city, so most of my students spent their time reading about the fire. I still have a lot to teach them about our city's history, so this was mostly brand new information, and they were fascinated. One of my girls came over to me, so excited to make a connection, and told me it was like when the Twin Towers fell down. She told me with amazement that her mom was actually alive then (like I had no idea...) and had told her how everyone was so sad.

My Sunday, in pictures

Christmas has arrived here in Charlestown. Kate came out of her room earlier than usual this morning, already dressed and showered and much happier than usual, so I knew today was the day we were getting our Christmas tree. We again took advantage of our tall ceilings and got and 8-9 footer. It's pretty. Kate says it's a boy and his name is Simon.

We took out our box of ornaments and decorations. Some of them are 4 years old already.



We listened to a Christmas playlist that Kate made. It included some of my favorites, like Dominic the Italian Donkey!!



Then Kate began putting on the lights.




Kate really got in the Christmas spirit, as you can tell. She didn't like me taking pictures.



After the lights, we made sugar cookies. While they were baking, we finished with the rest of the ornaments. It's one snazzy looking tree. Unfortunately, I still don't really know how to use all of the settings on my camera.



I took pictures of a few of my favorites.








By the time we were finished, our cookies were ready to eat!






The End

Whew.

Oh Thanksgiving. I'm glad you're over.

I don't remember the last time I ate so much for 4 consecutive days (yes, my family stretches the binge eating to last about half a week). I wasn't just stuffing my face with food either; I was stuffing my face with the unhealthiest food I could find. On Saturday, with 2 days of eating under my belt and 2 days left, I was too full for lunch and had to get ready for a giant dinner with more company, so I had a very nutritious lunch that consisted of garlic bread and stuffing. YUM.

To top off this weekend, I can't think of a time when I was more relieved to get back to my own apartment and routines. Eric and Katherine were visiting, so I was obligated to stay at my parents' house and take part in lots of family stuff (like meals and museum trips), and it was a lot of time together.

My mother. Drove. Me. Nuts.

After listening to her talk non-stop with E and K about their upcoming wedding, I've decided I'm never getting married. There's no way I can go through all of that.

After it all, I wasn't as sad to go back to work as I should have. But then my principal decided to kick off the Monday morning back by observing me, unannounced, for nearly 40 minutes. During which I have a really hard time making sense because all of the blood goes to my head and I can't concentrate. Oh and then? Someone in my class wrote "Carla is a bitch," with spelling mistakes, on the girls' bathroom wall. And since no one will confess, all 45 of them are missing recess until the culprit is found. Once the kids were gone though, I kind of had to laugh. Carla can kind of be a bitch.