Wordless Wednesday

Crafting

Growing up, my mom crafted an awful lot. Yearly, she made beautiful Christmas presents for family and friends. I assumed that everyone's mom did it too until I was old enough to realize that it was a very special talent she had. She let me help (sometimes) or gave me my own projects to complete along side of her. I loved craft days.

With Robyn's desire to make a glittery replica of a Crate and Barrel product, I started thing about crafting my own tree. After spending several hours in Micheals and returning twice for more parts to the project, I had all the supplies to make my own set of "trees."

I was so excited to begin crafting that I started the night before Robyn and I were to meet. Remembering the days of my childhood, I used paper plates and attempted my project.

I think my trial run (to keep at my house), came out pretty good.

My trio of burgandy trees

I haven't decided if I need to give them stumps or if I like them sitting on the bottom like there are in this picture.

Preparing to Paint

After patching the millions of small and big holes, repairing the fake fireplace, and completing the front door, I thought we were ready to paint.

"Not yet," said Dave, "now we have to texture the walls so the repairs are not seen. What you see here is the texturing process. First, every single door way and window has to be covered up and taped for protection. Everything is the room will be covered with a fine layer of dust, so make sure you cover the furniture too... in the above picture, the fuzz of the picture is not my inability to focus the camera, that is plaster compound in the air!
Dave then used this contraption (aka texture gun) which hooks up to the air compressor to spray a fine layer of "orange peel" texture onto the walls. Everything experiences the spray (thus the need to have everything covered).

Wait 24 hours and then you can paint... maybe.

Front Door

When we bought the house, the front door looked like this... if you look closely, you can see that there is a two inch gap at the top right of the door.

December 27 (four days before we "officially" closed escrow), Dave changed the door.

In order to fit the new size door into the old slot, he had to change the studs on the sides and the header (the old door was only 32" and the new door was 36"). This causes a new for new drywall inside... which went up in January.

The picture above is how my front door looked for the last eleven months.

Now it looks like this... Just like the fake fireplace, the door's drywall and plaster was finally repaired in order to "paint."

This is what Dave looked like after all the plaster work...

Fireplace #2

This "interesting" fireplace was part of the original "charm" of the house-YEAH RIGHT! What were they thinking? On the opposite wall there is a beautiful wood mantle and brick surround. Why did they need this?? Plaster of paris, gretian goodess and all...

The third day we were "fixing the house" my dad and I took a hammer to this "beauty" and attempted to remove it. It was HEAVY, but we did a pretty good job of getting rid of it.

After it was all gone, the wall looked like this... no one claims that giant hole. For eight months, this giant hole and all the baby holes sat there reminding me of the godnesses and the fake fireplace.

Two months ago, Dave filled in the little holes, but the big one remained.

Prepaing to paint the room, let Dave to fill the hole (drywall and layers of plaster). It is SO exciting...

Hopefully, we will have texture tomorrow and paint on Saturday.

Curves

I made an appointment to go to my "fitness assessment" and "first workout" for Monday at 4 pm. It has been over five years since I've worked out consistantly. Although I'm usually pretty good at it during the summer months, being busy with teaching school and going to school has worked as a great excuse.

As my masters degree winds down, I only have class on Saturdays (and only seven more Saturdays at that!). Girls' night aside, I now have no excuse not to go work out.

None.

Hasn't stopped me from making them (I'm too tired, I hate to drive there, I can't work out myself, I don't want to do it, it isn't fun, only if I could afford a trainer, water aerobics is too expensive, the Y is scary at dark, Bally's is ghetto, etc).

Besides, according to my specialist for PCOS, I need to lose more weight. I need to weigh 165. Working out will get me there faster.

Curves is literally .4 miles from AHS. I will leave here and go there... I will!

Never would have thought about it Rexanne (my Tupperwear lady) hadn't called and invited me as the new owner.

Woah there, Jennifer

If you've known me for awhile, you've seen my hair color change a few hundred times and at least ten different hair cut styles.

It has been "long," flippy, and REALLY short... five weeks ago at my last hair appointment, I told my trusty hair stylist that I was bored. Because it is so short, there isn't a lot we could do, so we opted to change the color. I went all over dark (three/four shades darker than my natural color) with blond and light brown coloring...

It wasn't enough.

I was still bored.

Today, I went for my five-week hair cut (yes, every 5 weeks I have a scheduled hair appointment and yes, it is normal when your hair is this short). I was planning on getting the back bottom trimmed in order to grow it out a little for a different style.

Then... I saw another hair stylist's hair. Her hair was really similar to mine, but she had bangs.

I told Stephanie, "okay, lets do that."

She laughed and asked if I was ready... within minutes I had bangs! At first, I couldn't stop laughing because they looked funny flat and wet.

After some styling and blowdrying... I think I like them :)

Of course, the back is still the same a-line like normal, can't change that yet...

Five weeks from now, what should I add?

Des' house

The work has begun at Des' new house! I begged for a screwdrive to take off one of these tiles for a few hours; finally Dad gave me one and I popped one off. Literally "popped" it off because there was so much water damage, it came off without any effort. A few tiles fell off by themselves when I pulled the first one off.

Of course once we started, we kept going. Beneath the tile was wood, wet and moldy wood.
And we kept going... but we had sissy arms and couldn't get the rusted screws out of the wall. Eventually this will be a beautiful gray and blue new tile shower.

Wordless Wednesday-Old School Style

Midterm: Check

For the last two weeks, Des and I have been studying like mad women for our Law midterm! Following our own advice (you know we teach students how to study and how to learn, etc), we made flashcards, mnemonics, make believe stories, hand motions and practiced over and over again.

Saturday morning we took our midterm. All the studying really paid off--we started at 8:40 am and finished by 9:15ish.

Now we wait to see the score...

Dictionary.com (one of my favorite sources) defines the act of collaboration as working together, especially in a joint intellectual effort OR to cooperate treasonably, as with an enemy occupation force in one's country.

These opposing definitions to this word can be seen on educational campus across the world.

It seems that some teachers see great benefits in working together for lesson design and these people are willing to step out of their individual classrooms and work for a "joint intellectual effort." They share ideas and form new ones; they develop passion and persistent in their reflections, modifications, and further idea sharing. Their students understand that working together increases intellectual ability because their teachers model it. These are the teachers that improve their instruction after years in the classroom and get "better" after 25 years in the profession. These are the ones who raise test scores the logical way--critical thinking!

Others look at collaboration as treason, a detestable cooperation where enemies are constantly lurking, ready to attack and steal from them. These teachers jealously guard their ideas, lessons, and classrooms. As administrators force them to "collaborate" their participation becomes "cooperation" in the truest limit. They hide. They tremble in fear when others walk into their classrooms. Sometimes these are teachers are strong by nature and some learn trial by fire.

There is a third type of teacher that doesn't understand the definition of collaboration; these are the teachers that have created the feelings of treason from the main bunch. These are the takers, those who take assignments (not ideas) and never return the favor.

Obviously, you know where I stand on the issue.

Sunday, Nov. 8

I had my first "Mexican" breakfast today with Desiree and her parents. It was so much food that I didn't even finish half of the stuff on my plate, but man, it was good!

My machaca con huevos were served with tortillas, rice, and beans. At first, I thought it was kind of strange and asked several times if this was really "lunch" (we were eating at 10:30 am), but Des said no.

The beans were to die for and reminded me of Carisha's dad's beans...

Happy Birthday Melissa

Celebrating a bit early at Disneyland, but

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LITTLE SIS!

Irony

Teaching Irony to ninth graders is fun! They get it and then they keep talking about how things are "ironic." Are they using it wrong sometimes? Yes. But, who cares, they are applying a literary term to their life!

November committment

As with Robyn, Melissa, and Nicole, I am going to try to blog every day of November for the official NaBlPo 2009. I've never attempted it, but I have been trying to write more blogs and actually share pictures (I think I did a pretty good job in October--22 posts!).

I use to scrapbook and that is why I took 1,001 pictures of everything. With the combination of school (work and MA classes), scrapbooking has gone away; now I take pictures with the plan to blog them. Some day when I graduate (and don't talk myself into going again), I'll scrapbook again.

Anyway, for the month of November, plan to hear from me every day!

Isn't it ironic that this is a blog about blogging? HAHAHA

Wordless Wednesday (actually on Wednesday)

Opps... so much for my scheduling of blogs early...

Wordless Wednesday

Fall Decorations at Dland

Over in Adventure Land, Disneyland set up an entire fall/Halloween area, complete with cool, Disney themed carved pumpkins, crafts for the kids, a spooky cabin, and lots of photo op spots.

Can you believe that this is a pumpkin?!?

Candy Corn Acres

Cutest thing in the entire world,

Candy Corn Acres at California Adventure

Ready to give out candy...

We were in costume (even Reese).

We had bags of candy.

We set up our pumpkins, chairs, and tv trays on the driveway.

Dave "roped" off the new grass with caution tape.

Robyn came over as a purty kitty cat.
Melissa transformed into a pretty little lady bug.

I transformed into my busy bumble bee look one more time.

We were ready...

but there were no kids!!

9 total for the evening

We are not Disneyland, but they are still pretty!