Is Hot Dog Fingers Contagious?

Brittney filled out this permission slip and then asked if I would sign it. Ummmmm.... She wants to know if they'll let her come if she turns it in. Pretty sure that would be a no. Really? Fartie McTootles? Love the address... Hogsmeade, Middle Earth. Weirdo.



Speaking of weirdos... So Sean and I were leaving the grocery store the other day, when all of a sudden the grinch comes zooming through the parking lot in his arm chair. It's one of the goofiest things I've ever seen. He had a little stuffed dog strung onto a wire so that it dangled out front like it's pulling his chair. And then he zoomed off, out into the street, and drove off down the road. In an armchair!

Art Show

We went to an art show the other night at Brittney's junior high. Her art teacher put on an exhibit for all of the art students to showcase a piece of their work. Brittney's drawing of The Daily Planet was chosen as one of the pieces that went on the invitations. Really cool. She's a great artist, and I love to see her work. She's done a lot of superhero-themed work this year, along with other things that she likes. A few of my current faves:

I lurve this one. She said this is the rough draft, so I'm not sure if the final will be pen & ink or in color or what. Coincidentally, I am supposed to have this same image painted in my classroom, but it has disappeared. Two of my students last year painted it on one of my celing tiles, and they also painted me a castle that is supposed to be really awesome, but they're both missing. Hopefully they can find out what happened to them and I'll get them, but I'm not holding my breath.



These aren't her original ideas... for these sketches they find an image they want to draw and then they copy it freehand.





We had a fun Christmas party at mom's house last night. The kids have so much fun together. It was so funny to talk to Scott and Wendy about all of Eric's naughty adventures because he and Josh are reading from the same play book. I love knowing someone else has had/is having the same experiences.

I've got to check over my lists and see if there's anything else I'm missing on the Christmas shopping. I ordered a $10 item online, paid $5 to ship it, it shipped with FedEx on the 8th and the estimated arrival is the 21st. It's been sitting in Denver for a week. Lame.

We took a drive up to the cabin and around the lake today, and it was rainy. Not much snow. Feels like spring.

Is it vacation time yet?

I don't know whose idea this was, but it was pretty dang cute.



I forgot all of the things I wanted to blog about. Hmmmm...

One more day. I feel like I'm already on vacation. I've already mentally checked out. Problem is, so have my students. Blarg. I'm sick of them, they're sick of me.

We are writing persuasive papers. I had a kid come to me for help with fixing his paper today. There was no help for that paper. I don't even know what it was about. Something about having self-confidence and making your own rules and don't let anyone tell you you're not good enough...like a crappy rap you wrote when you were high. I told him after reading it that I felt like I had just listened to Eminem (minus the swearing) or had a conversation with Tupac from beyond the grave. His eyes lit up and he said, "Really?" I was like, that was NOT a compliment!! This is a persuasive essay, not a drug-induced piece to read at a poetry slam. I need a vacation!!!

Goody. Courtney and her date just walked in. I am wearing a sloppy ponytail, glasses, no makeup, an old long sleeve t-shirt that belonged to Sean about 14 years ago, my pink pajama bottoms with yellow smiley faces on them... I feel so awesome.

I think I'm almost done shopping. Coincidentally, I am almost out of money. I may have a few more things to get. We'll see.

Josh just about broke my heart tonight. He got into trouble, and he got really upset and started crying these heartbroken tears about how he just knows he's on Santa's bad list. It took me a long time to convince him he's a good little boy. I really kinda hate the whole you-better-be-good-Santa's-watching thing.

Time to enter some grades and eat ice cream.

Birthday, Tgiving, Life

Josh turned 7 last month. So let's see... What do I want to remember about Joshy? He can eat more than I can. He drives his sisters crazy, but he's cute enough that they love him anyway. He loves his first grade teacher. He is learning to read and do math so well, and it's like a little miracle to me every time I watch him do either, because I just really thought this kid would struggle hard with school. He had no interest in letters and numbers before kindergarten. He loves Star Wars, Legos, swords and light sabers and guns, baseball, and drawing. He's a great little artist. The only thing he knows for sure that he wants to be when he grows up is a dad. I'm so grateful for my little boy.





Thanksgiving was super delicious and lots of fun. The Chamberlains came over for dinner and second dinner and dessert and wow I ate a lot. They brought tons of food with them, all delicious. Sean took charge of picture taking, which was fine with me because I always forget, and then all the pictures he took were terrible! Some are dark, some are of people's backs, or the subjects of the picture are off in the distance so you can't see them well. He's officially fired as family photographer. My sil's posed for a silly, cheesy picture, and it actually turned out cute. Go figure.


Lookin hawt


My girlies talking


Hanging out in the kitchen talking with Marilyn


Courtney and Jeremy and lots of people milling about in the background

I got my Christmas tree put up, but nothing else. It looks really pretty when all the lights are off and only the tree lights are on. Then it's all sparkly and pretty. By the light of day, well, not quite so much. My ornaments are a hodge podge, and I'm not getting anything new until my kids stop playing with them. I think we're just about there, but I'm giving it another year. Got to put up the rest of the Christmas stuff this weekend. Have done zero Christmas shopping so far.

I brought home a stack of work about 2 feet high to do this weekend. I cannot seem to get caught up in any aspect of my life. I just can only do so much, and it seems that everything gets shorted somewhere. I feel guilty for taking time out to read or to just chill, but I can't just go-go-go. I get so that I really need my down time. All day long I have students who need my attention and I'm constantly "on", then I come home and have kids who need me, and sometimes even their friends that come over to get help with something. I just really, really need that time to myself every day.

I've been stuck in a reading rut of romance novels. It's not such a bad place to get stuck, really, but oh are they cheesy. One day I couldn't find anything I wanted at the library, and I just needed something, so I ended up with a romance novel. It was light reading and fun, so the next time I looked for another one. And now I've been plowing through Nora Roberts and Linda Lael Miller and who knows. It's been fun, but it's embarassing. If the FBI ever looks at my library records someone is going to do a major eye roll. Courtney has read a few romance novels too, and she said that if they have any steamy parts, she just skips over them. I told her that, heck, I'd read it twice. He he he I really don't read it twice, but pretty sure I've done everything they're talking about, so who cares? Whatever.

I just really walk around most days of my life feeling like I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. I don't know how other people can be so sure of themselves. I feel like when I follow my heart or my gut, I always wonder if it was wrong. If I don't follow my heart or my gut, I worry that I should have. I don't usually get clear (or unclear, for that matter) answers to prayers, but of the few really strong answers that I have received, probably 75% or more of them have been the opposite of what logic says, or the opposite of anything you'd ever read in the Ensign. Which makes for an interesting experience, trying to have faith. Anyway, most of the time I wander around clueless and just muddle through and hope I don't take anyone else out with my trial and error mistakes.

Since it's the holidays, Sean got some random weird medical problem. He has a headache in one spot and it radiates from there. The doctor gave him some medication; we'll see if it works. I hope so, because the other things they are talking about are cutting it open to see what's under there and doing a temporal artery biopsy. Neither of which is all that scary, but neither is all that pleasant either. I swear, every year in November or December he has some weird random medical issue. Pericarditis. Bell's Palsy. Weird random nerve pain in his temple.

OK, well, that is all. This weekend I will do school work, go grocery shopping, go see the lights at Willard Bay with the family, put up the Christmas decorations, and read on in my novel to find out what happens between Hallie and Chance. Hint: I bet they do it. he he he Sorry mom, if you happen to read my blog.

You Too and Stuff

The whole first part is so me. I'm so awkward.

Brittney's Birthday & my little turkeys

Brittney turned 15 last week. Such an awesome kid. Smart, cute, kind, funny... what more could you want? We had a family party Thursday, friends over for a sleepover Friday, and dinner at grandma's with extended family (grandma, Scott, Wendy, and cousins) on Saturday. She got 3 days of birthday, lucky duck.

Her big present was a phone, and she was very thrilled.





I don't know what it was, but 3 out of every 4 pictures I took that night were goofy looking. Goofier than usual. Some highlights:













Since it was supposed to snow and get really cold, I decided to pull out the garden. In November! So weird. I probably threw away easily 50 green tomatoes. I know you can ripen them, but I had to throw away ripe ones. I'm the only one that eats them, and I can't eat that many. I'm not domestic enough to bottle them or make homemade spaghetti sauce or whatever. So anyway, when I pulled the rest of the potatoes out, I pulled up this monster. Awesome!



I've been home with Josh the last 2 days. He runs a high fever at night, but during the day he just sniffles and coughs, but feels pretty good. Which means he gets bored. Which means he is driving me crazy!! Lexi, too. I get nothing done when I'm home with sick kids. I get a little thing here or there, but mostly I just get too distracted. Someone doesn't feel good, someone pees their pants, someone wants to get out the DevilDoh and I have to explain six different ways why hell no we're not playing with playdoh today, there is fighting, there is hunger, there is more fighting and more hunger, there is naughtiness and messiness and I just don't get much done. When Sean stays home, otoh, he cleans things up, rearranges the furniture, does the laundry, works on a project outside, has dinner cooking, brokers world peace... One of the teachers at work came back after I think a 7 week maternity leave, and someone said, "Oh it must have been hard coming back." She was like, "Heck no! That's a much harder job than being here. Changing diapers all day? That is a terrible job." It cracked me up because I just always think it's funny when people say what they're not supposed to. I am not great at being at home, that's for sure. I enjoy it, but it's probably good that it's limited to a couple months out of the year. For everyone's sake.

I have more crazy substitute problems than anyone I know. Probably because I'm always calling in at the last minute with a sick kid, so I just get whoever, not someone I know. This morning I got a call at 6:30 am from the lady who was supposed to be subbing for me, saying she couldn't anymore. So I had to get ahold of the secretaries and get them to resubmit the job for me and pray that someone would take it at the very last minute. Luckily it got picked up.

So anyway, Courtney and I have been wanting to make some Thanksgiving cake balls, so we decided that yesterday was the day. We had it all worked out, but nothing went quite as it was supposed to. We just kept having stupid weird problems. We spent like 5 hours on it off and on, and ended up with a less than stellar result. I don't want to see another cake ball for a long time. At least until Christmas.



This little guy was actually pretty cute in person, but in picture he looks like a deranged turkey on crack.

I'm so excited! Bon Jovi tickets go on sale tomorrow morning. Brittney reminds me twice a day about it. So excited.

Hunting, Hospital, Halloween, & How I'm a Dork

A few of Sean's hunting pics. Looks like a huge mess. I don't mind the mud... I just hate the cold.





Courtney started at the hospital last week, and she seems to be liking it a lot. I'm really glad that she's doing what she wants to be doing, but it worries me to have her working those 12 hour graveyard shifts at the UofU and then driving home, and then she has to go to class before she can sleep, so she has to drive home from Weber. I worry until she texts me to let me know she got where she was going safely.

It was just the little guys for pumpkin carving this year. Lexi predicted that when we cut open the pumpkins there would be candy inside. I imagine that was a disappointment.





These 2 small ones that Josh did, along with the bigger green one that I did, came out of our garden.









Josh and Lexi ready for trick-or-treating:



It rained on us pretty good, but that just made it more Halloweeny. I love the rain. I kept coming across whiners on Facebook and elsewhere cry-babying about how Utah was celebrating the holiday on Saturday instead of Sunday... Hello?! Who the freaker wants to do Halloween on a Sunday night? No one who has kids in school, a job, or is in school themselves, I'll tell you that. Halloween should be on the weekend every year.

Three more weeks-ish of my student teacher, and then I get my classes back. I'm ready to be teaching them all again. Not that I couldn't use more time to do a few projects. I'm trying to put together a whole grammar curriculum from scratch, but I haven't had nearly the free time I was hoping for with a student teacher. Oh well. That's how it goes. I have this student who just loves to try my patience, but he's one of those with enough charm that he can get away with it. Another teacher who also has him told me one day that she overheard him tell a friend, "I love Mrs. Chamberlain. She's like my mom." ROFL I guess I'll let him live, for now. He's a turkey, and I feel for his mom.

I wish I could learn to not be a dork. I had two different encounters with my principal where I was just shaking my head afterward, like, "Really, Shannon? Could you ever just say what you want to say and not have it come out all wrong?" Hopefully I'm overanalyzing it and he didn't notice, but ugh.

I really have to start getting more sleep, and it's all my girls' fault. They are such a bad influence on me. A week or so ago Courtney decided she wanted ice cream at 10:00 at night, so she talked me into going on a Smith's run with her... I come home at 10:45 and make a banana split, and then I'm like... Well holy hell I have to work tomorrow! What am I doing? Last night they made me stay up until 12:30 watching stuff on YouTube. I need to learn not to give in to peer pressure. I guess I'll have plenty of time to sleep when I'm dead... right now I like to hang with my kids.

I have eaten so much crap. I don't even know. It's a sickness. Brittney and I went to Wal-Mart tonight and I swear there is a tractor beam around the donuts that just draws me in, and I am too weak to break out of it on my own. My kids have instructions to say, "Keep moving, mom," when I get sucked in, but tonight Brittney just egged me on. So I came home with donuts. Apparently there was a fight at the front of the store just before we got there, but by the time we got up there they'd taken it outside. I miss all the good stuff.

This week is Brittney's birthday. I need to go shopping for her this week, got to vote, get a flu shot, go out to Salt Lake with Courtney. Brittney is having a sleepover Friday night. That's about it.

A Few Things

Last weekend Sean and I continued our annual tradition of seeing really terrible scary movies at the drive-in. This year is it was My Soul To Take and The Devil. Both were perfectly awful, and it was a fun date.

Sean and Josh are deer hunting this weekend. It sounds like it's really muddy and just not really great hunting. But, honestly, the best part of deer hunting is getting to play around in the mud in 4-wheel drive. So I'd call it a successful hunt, so far. When Brittney blesses the food at dinner, she prays that
they'll come home safely and that they won't shoot any deer.

Courtney starts her new job at the hospital tomorrow. I hope she likes it. I'm worried about her working that many hours and going to school, but I'm optimistic.

October Goal Review:
I did, in fact, read a trashy novel every week.
I did try some new donuts from Madbrook.
I did go on my Halloween date.
But... I didn't maintain weight. I gained a few pounds. Whatever.

November goal:
Don't make any goals.

Random Stuff Rolling Around My Head

This has been a strange year. June was too cold for boating, but the first weekend in October was perfect boating weather. We headed out that Saturday for one last drag around the lake, but it was a disaster. The best thing about the whole day was these pictures before we left. We should have called it a day right there and we'd have been better off.





Another weird thing about this year is that I haven't had a single ripe tomato all summer--until now. It took until the second week in October to get red tomatoes on my plants. The plants themselves are monsters. They have had huge, beautiful, green tomatoes on them for months, and now they are finally ripening. My lettuce is up and ready to eat, too. It's all kinds of mixed field greens, so I just take my scissors out and cut some salad. The pumpkins are starting to turn orange, so hopefully they'll be orange by Halloween.

We went up this weekend and put the cabin up for the winter. It's so pretty up there right now.







I wish it was a year-round cabin, because every season up there is beautiful. Some day.

We've been hitting the late season yard sales, and we've picked up a few good bargains. Yard sales are a quirky kind of entertainment, I think. You see some strange people and strange things. My favorite recent finds: a wakeboard, a wine rack, wrought iron candle holders, and The Office season 1 DVD. I really have no place for the wine rack, honestly, but I wanted it, so I bought it.

The 2 tatoos I've been wanting forever:





I still haven't pulled out my Halloween decorations. Maybe today is a good day for that.

September Wrap Up and New Goals

Time is flying by! September is all but gone, and I know October will go fast as well.

October is deer hunting season, so I declared this year that we were having the First Ever Official Annual Girls' Weekend while they went hunting. We decided we were going to Las Vegas to see Criss Angel. We were going to have major amounts of fun. That was wishful thinking, unfortunately. With Courtney's school schedule and work schedule it would be difficult. And we'd have to find a babysitter for Lexi, and I have no money. All around, it's not looking good. So we're trying to think of something else.

Sean is a crazy person. He was working on the trailer tonight and hit his head on a sharp corner. So he comes in the house with blood running down his face, which I cannot deal with. Courtney looked at it for him, and it was a good gash, but it stopped bleeding enough to get by. So he said, "I'll just put a hat on and it will be fine." I was like... "Um...???" and he said, "I gotta get this project done," and went back out to work. Alrighty then. It was still bleeding a few hours later, but not gushing, so I guess he figures he's fine as long as he doesn't pass out or hit into walls or anything. That's just how he is, though. One time he was fixing something in my old Mazda and sliced his hand up good on a piece of jagged metal. He came and told me he needed me to drive him for stitches, but first he wrapped a rag around it and finished fixing the part he'd been working on.

Work is... huh. Can't go there tonight. There are just a lot of balls to keep in the air all the time, but such is life. Nuff said.

I just finished reading The New York Mormon Regional Singles Halloween Dance and enjoyed it. It was kind of fascinating to me because I can't really relate to a lot of her feelings and views on things.

September goal confessions:
I'm not sure if I lost 2 lbs... depends on the day.
I did not really save money on groceries. Nothing significant, anyway. We spend the annual salary of a person in a small third world country on groceries every month. I have no idea.
I did not get caught up at school. Maybe a little bit.

October goals:
Read a trashy novel every week
Try a new type of donut
Annual Halloween date with Sean
Not gain any weight

Ridiculous and Ridiculously Awesome

All of these things are ridiculous or ridiculously awesome. I won't say which is which.


Brittney Chamberlain, superstar

I don't know what Lexi was doing, but the other day her pants were starting to fall down, so she just pulled them down further and went walking into the parking lot at school with her little butt cheeks to the world.

I got this really weird rash-type thing on Labor Day for seemingly no reason, and when it didn't get better and in fact started to spread by this week, I went to the doctor. He stared at it all puzzled-like and had no idea what it was, so he just gave me a prescription for some oral steroids. And I wondered as I had it filled just exactly what this medication is usually used for. I mean, is it usually used for strange unidentifiable rash-type things? Because I always wonder if it's usually prescribed for acute gonorrhea or oozing toenail fungus or something and the pharmacist might be sorta looking at me askance while I'm not looking. Maybe I should have lifted my shirt and shown him the rash just to be sure he knew. Anyway, the steroids are done and the rash is almost faded. I hope it keeps going and stays gone. I said yesterday that I felt like punching someone and Sean started teasing me about my roid rage. Pffft. I feel like punching people all the time. Like that's anything new.

With my steroids, I was taking a total of 4 prescription meds last week. That's just too many for a relatively healthy person.

Sean's birthday was last week:







Lexi after her cake:


Thursday isn't a great day for a birthday party, but we had dinner at the Spring Chicken Inn, cake, presents, and lots of love for Sean.

I have a student teacher. I think that I demonstrate what not to do as often as what to do. I just don't feel like I've got things nailed down to where I should be showing anyone else how to do it. I have taught him how to make changes when you have a curve ball thrown at you and how to make adjustments to your teaching as you go. I just think back to my own student teaching and I get a little irritated. I had 4 different classes to plan for, and my cooperating teachers pretty much said, "Here are the teacher's editions (for English; I didn't have anything but the textbooks for the law and govt classes) and good luck to you!" I prepped it all by myself, and my English cooperating teacher wasn't even around most of the time. I made all my own copies, etc. I didn't have a desk. I carried my stuff around with me, and used the library for my prep time. My student teacher gets sooooo much more help from me than I ever got.

I wrote something on my blog last week about being annoyed by future teachers and parents talking to me about school stuff. I think I was imprecise in my wording. I'm not bugged by all people who I talk to about teaching and school. Just sometimes. For example, my student teacher will watch me teach a lesson, and I can tell that he thinks it looks pretty easy... and then he gets up there and tries it and it wasn't as easy as he thought. It's a different ballgame between watching and doing. It just is. Or when a friend will tell me, "I don't know why the teacher gives that assignment," or, "I don't know why the teacher can't just do XYZ," and I'm thinking... I know exactly why.

I do not understand why on earth there was any sort of controversy or issue about the president giving a Welcome Back speech to students. It's absolutely ridiculous, and anyone who has a problem with the president speaking to school children is ridiculous. I'll say it to their face. I don't even care. My school district is actually pretty progressive, apparently, because they're one of the few (maybe the only?) in Utah that didn't feel the need to send home letters and opt-out forms to parents. Seriously? But when they showed the speech at my school, they told the kids that anyone who didn't want to watch it could go to the cafeteria. So of course 2/3 of the school went to the cafeteria. Why on earth were they given an option? Since when do we ever give them an option? It's school. You do all kinds of stuff whether you want to or not. Parents can check kids out at any time, of course, but generally speaking kids aren't allowed to opt out of guest speakers, assemblies, videos, whatever else. One of my students came in and said, "I hate Obama. I'm not supporting him by watching the speech." I snapped back at her, "This isn't about supporting or not supporting President Obama. It's about listening to the president of your country speak." I felt bad because she knew I was pissed off, and I usually am able to keep my cool.

We went camping this weekend.

Lexi on the way up:











This is what Brittney thought of camping:



I had to buy her Dr. Pepper and M&Ms to bribe her to come. Courtney was working the graveyard shift, so she wasn't there.

Both of my teams won today. Chicago beat the Cowboys, and in Manning v. Manning, my Colts won. It's time to get ready for another week of work, and that for sure goes in the ridiculous column.