What the what? 2012 is just about to call it quits. Time to look back on my 2012 resolutions and see how I did...good, bad, and ugly style!

The Good: I finished my Masters degree! This has helped me tremendously, not only in my classroom but in the salary department as well. Holla!

Also, I spent more time at the gym than ever before.Over the summer, I didn't even feel like I had arthritis because my body felt so strong because I was exercising everyday. While I'm never really a numbers person when it comes to weight, the scale has been pretty friendly this year.

Aaaannd in the last four weeks I have quit smoking! That's right...I'm calling myself a quitter!


The Bad: Making some decorating decisions. Well, uh....work in progress? One of my specific goals was to get rid of the vertical blinds through out the main level of the house. I only succeeded in half of one room.

Before: Vertical blinds and a random hanging light. After: Golden yellow damask print curtains and no light!

We have some plans for 2013 that will hopefully add a little more warmth to the house, including sprucing up our bedroom and upgrading some kitchen appliances.

The Ugly: Goal wise - I don't think anything really belongs here for 2012. There were some low points of course but no use in rehashing. Bring on the new year!

So...what's on tap for 2013?

1. Continue my healthy lifestyle by heading to the gym whenever possible.
2. Continue to be cigarette free.
3. Try one of those "Green Monster" smoothies I see on Pinterest. Yes, seriously, vegetables scare me so much I have to make a resolution for them.
4. Reduce our debt monster by paying off Chris' car and two of our student loans and continue using our zero based budget.
5. Wash my face and floss everyday. I'm hygienic, I swear but sometimes it is just so tempting to go to bed before doing either.
 6.  Get together with my girlfriends at least once a month. We did have a standing date every month but we kind of fell off the wagon these past six months. We have to make the effort!
7. Continue blogging regularly. Again, I doubled the amount of posts I made in 2012. It makes me so happy to look back week after week and see what's going on in my life.
8. Take 15 more hours of graduate credit by the start of the 2013 school year.
9. Go on some kind of vacation, nothing major but at least be able to go somewhere.

There. Challenging but yet totally doable. What kind of goals are you setting in 2013?

2013. That sounds so weird to even say. I remember in 4th grade, our teacher let the students design the monthly bulletin board and we came up with "Wacky School Year 2000" for reasons I can't quite remember (it was 1994). The two thousands always sounded so zainy and now here we are thirteen years in. Cray.

Happy new year!

Can you believe it?

The last Friday of 2012.

High fives all around for a pretty decent year. This Friday rocks because...



1. Loving my new Galaxy S3. I can't believe how much phone technology has changed over the past couple of years. It takes great pictures, has synced wonderfully with all of my accounts, and is all around awesome.

2. Got the matching sheets to our bedding. Matching sheets AND bedding....FANCY!

3. The boyfriend got me new shoes for Christmas, so thoughtful. They got me to go the gym yesterday, definitely feeling the burn!

4. I spent all of Wednesday lounging around the house in my fabulous Aztec-ish  sweater from Old Navy. I would be completely content in wearing nothing but "Cosby" sweaters as the boyfriend refers to them for the rest of winter. And I just might.

5. As of Thursday, I am now 4 weeks cigarette free! Not gonna lie, there have been some rough days but I've really challenged myself to stick with it.

I'm loving that it's Wednesday and I'm sitting on the couch, still in my PJs, and reading my favorite blogs. Oh Christmas break - I love you.

As much as I love Christmas, it was exhausting yesterday. Chris and I got up around 8:30am, opened our presents then headed to my parent's for brunch and then to his parent's house for dinner. We didn't get home til almost 9pm. But it was a lot of fun spending time with both families and of course opening some super sweet presents wasn't bad either.

We all wore white, completely unplanned!

Chris and I both got new phones yesterday. Chris went from dumbphone to smartphone so we spent about two hours on the couch last night in silence playing with all the new features. We got Samsung Galaxy S3s and all I can say is wow. They are pretty darn cool.


I actually got clothes for Christmas this year, which never happens. I'm so excited for my new colored skinny jeans, aztec/fair isle print sweaters, and yoga pants!




I may actually get dressed today!

I'm also excited to thumb through my copy of Young House Love that I got yesterday from the boyfriend.



I'll be spending the rest of the day cleaning up the house and possibly venturing out into the cold to purchase some new cases for our phones. While I love how lightweight they are, I feel like one drop and the phone would be done for.

What are you doing today? Did you get any snow where you live? We didn't get a flake even though earlier in the week were supposed to get like six inches. What a bummer!

Merry Christmas Eve everybody!

Things are pretty low key around here today, just waiting to head over to my parent's house for hors d'oeuvres and the first round of present opening with my mom's side of the family.

I thought I would join the GBU of my weekend, here goes!



The Good: Finished my Christmas shopping Friday night in a frenzy, literally a spending frenzy. Dropped $300 in less than two hours - wait I'm pretty sure that should go under the "ugly" category. Chris was also off so we got to hang it for most of the weekend. We caught a afternoon showing of "This is 40"...it was good although I expected it to be funnier and it was also kind of awkward in a way.

The Bad: My mountain of laundry has grown! And no effort to do laundry has happened. But I did re-organize the kitchen. We finally figured out what all the hooks in the pantry were for. Huzzah! This goes under the bad because it took us 1.5 years to figure this out!


The Ugly: I woke up yesterday and today with major swollen joints. I'm not one to predict the weather based on my body pain, but there HAS to be some major snow coming our way.

Have a wonderful Christmas eve, look forward to seeing how your Christmas goes!

It's Christmas vacation! Squeeeee!

Linking up with Lauren over at From My Grey Desk to chat about what was awesome this week.


1. Chris and I went ice skating for his birthday on Saturday. I stayed upright!
2. New Sensationail color found at Walgreens for only $5.99 with two coupons the cosmetics counter lady gave me. Score!
3. So even thought I got a ton of baked goods, I got quite a few more gift cards then expected...including a $25 Macy's and Target!
4. My students made over 300 snowflakes for Sandy Hook. We had a lot of fun today.
5. I've finished my Christmas shopping, hooray!

Can you believe Christmas is only 4 days away? I have kind of lost track of time having to work all this week when usually we at least get a couple of days off before Christmas.

Have a jolly weekend!

Thought I would try something new today and link up with Amber for It's OK Thursday.


It's OK...

•  that I am seriously bummed about the end of Gossip Girl. I have already watched the series finale twice and may have been surfing YouTube for some favorite clips. 

• that I completely checked out for winter break oh, about four days ago. My kids are literally climbing the walls and I'm letting them. 

•  that I haven't cooked dinner in two weeks. The boyfriend has been working late and I just can't get myself to cook anything beyond oatmeal when it is just me.

•  that the McDonald's worker has started saying hi when she hands me my morning soda because she sees me every morning.

•  that my laundry is sorted but has not yet made it to the washer. Maybe in another two weeks because that is how long it took me to actually sort it.

• that I secretly wish for gift cards when a student hands me yet another baked good/piece of candy for Christmas.

•  that I can't stop eating Christmas candy.

XOXO,

There are just some things in life in which you can never be prepared for, most likely because they are things in which you think would never happen. Friday was one of those days.

I really don't know how to process all of my feelings about Sandy Hook. I feel sad, scared, angry, and a bit guilty that I still had a fun weekend celebrating Chris' birthday and my family's Christmas.

I am unprepared to answer questions about what happened on Friday at school tomorrow, no doubt my students will be talking. It will be hard to focus.

Something I want to share with my teacher friends out there is this little device I use in my classroom everyday. It's called the Door Blok.

Source: New Management

It was designed by Rick Morris as a way to lessen the distraction of a classroom door opening and closing. However, it also is a perfect way to to keep your door locked on the outside but still accessible during the day. In case there is ever an emergency you can pull the Door Blok off your handle from the inside and pull the door closed knowing it's locked without having to search/fumble for keys or step outside. 

While is something that I hope I never have to use for that purpose, I feel more secure knowing that I have it. You can purchase a Door Blok on Rick's website for $7.

I will be joining many other bloggers on Tuesday in remembrance of the victims...

My thoughts and prayers go out to the many families affected by the awful events in Connecticut today.


1. Some really cold weather this week. Mandatory potato soup making ensued.
2. Received my first Christmas card.
3. Went to an aquarium restaurant. These giant fish literally were right at our table the entire meal.
4. Celebrated the boyfriend's 31st birthday with spending the night away at a cabin over in Illinois. Since it was a Thursday night, we were the only ones there. We had full reign over the lodge pool, hot tub, and sauna. It was soooooo relaxing. Then this morning we ate a delicious breakfast overlooking the Missouri River and explored some of the trails nearby. The area is the home for wintering bald eagles but unfortunately we didn't see any.

It was great to get away for an evening, take a day off work, and celebrate Chris' 31 years on the Earth :)

How was your week? Any big plans this weekend?

Chris and I have planned an ice skating outing for his birthday in Forest Park tomorrow - since I haven't skated in about 10 years, I'm pretty nervous about staying upright!

Have a great weekend!

I can't not post on a special numbered day like this one.

12. 12. 12.

It won't happen again until 01-01-2101.

Pretty special day if you ask me!

Unfortunately nothing really special has happened today. Pretty normal actually.

I let my 5th hour watch the clock at 12:12 and they all cheered out loud then went back to work like nothing happened. I only wish I had video of that moment.

Today I taught my lovelies about the Mediterranean vegetation zone and a student asked how I knew that it was spelled with two "r"s. And I told them I remembered the same way I remember that Caribbean has two "b"s - because I would love 2 BE in the Caribbean all the time. Something I taught them when we studied the Caribbean about a month ago.

A student in the back piped up, "OHHHHH, now I get it!"

I couldn't help but laugh.Those little a-ha moments that make you smile. I then regaled them with my a-ha moment, the day I figured out how Burger King's Croissan'wich is actually pronounced. Even though I knew it was a breakfast sandwich on a croissant it never clicked with me that it was pronounced CRUH-SAN-WICH.

Whenever I saw it, I always said it in my head as CROW-ZIN-WICH.

No joke.

And that a-ha moment may have only been about 5 years ago.

You got any a-ha moments that make you just want to smack your head now that you that you think about it? Make me feel less silly and share yours!

I'm a day late but I have a good reason! Read on to find out...


1/2: Matthew Phillip and William Daniel were born Thursday to my friend Jody and yesterday I got to meet them! I only hope I look half as good as Jody after giving birth to one kid (someday...)

3. The student gifts have started to arrive, earlier than ever this year. I never expect to get presents from my students so it is always a surprise when the choose to get me something. So I was definitely surprised when this cute little cactus arrived on my desk. Thanks to Andrea - his name is Spike :)

4. I'm in love with all things fair isle, ski lodge, and aztec print. And I almost stole the new stockings my mom got a her house for mine. I also ordered this (hopefully) awesome sweater from Old Navy Wednesday night while I was Christmas shopping for my sister (so far I've managed to buy something for myself almost every time I've shopped for someone else ---oops.) ON clothes never fit me right but I've to go at least try because it is soooooo cute!


5. A fun and crafty Wednesday night with my friend Stephanie produced these sandpaper letters for her nephew Des. He is one lucky little guy to get such a super sweet gift!

How was your week? Are you getting your Christmas shopping done or waiting to the last minute? I'm spending tomorrow wrapping with my momma over at her house, hopefully we will get done rather quick!

Go check out the other High Five for Friday links at From My Grey Desk.

My 6th hour is particularly squirrelly...seated and quiet are not part of this hour's MO so I've gotten used to the students wandering around the room, sitting on the floor, and the random noises.

Or so I thought.

As I was giving directions, a boy in the back of the room got up to sharpen a pencil and while walking to the sharpener he made a noise that sounded EXACTLY like a tornado siren starting to go off. Given our 75 degree weather lately this situation is highly possible.

Immediately I gasped, clutching my chest. I may have had a minor heart attack. The kids all looked at me and started giggling. It startled me so bad, my eyes started to tear!

I'm not even that afraid of severe weather!

We all had a good laugh but I looked like a total weenie.

Congrats to Danavee for winning a pair of dark grey crocheted boot toppers! Thanks to all who entered!

a Rafflecopter giveaway