Monday Made It - Summer Week 8

I'm linky up with Tara for her Monday Made It linky party. I had a late start with my summer this year. We had so many snow days that we worked until June 9 (should have been out May 31). Then with me changing districts for next year more of my time was spent moving things from my old room to my garage. So this is the first time for me to link up this summer. I had planned to have more things made, but Made It #2 will explain.

Here's my little teaser picture I posted the other day.

Our school theme is supposed to be "Our Future's So Bright" using neon colors. Here is what I came up with. It is a poster, I have been in my new school, but I don't remember is there are bulletin boards, tack strips or what out in the hallways. I don't even know if this will work. I hope it does, my computer/printer was having an "issue" the other day. I was just going to print it out poster size, but for some reason it kept printing without the background so I printed it and had to cut out the letters to put on poster board. I did a google image search for some of the sunglasses. The bright colored ones with the black lenses I got FREE from Ashley Hughes. Here is a link to it at her TPT store. Check her site out, she has lots of great things. 

Here is an close up of the glasses, they each have a different occupation on them.

My final one has no picture and believe me you wouldn't want to see a picture. I have made myself crazy this last week! I need my social security card to take up to my new district. So I went home and looked where I normally keep it, it wasn't there. So I thought about it for a while, the last time I had the envelope out was when I enrolled my daughter last Fall Break into the neighborhood school. Oh, I forgot to mention, the envelope had my social security card, Delaney's social security card and her birth certificate! I have spent three days tearing our house up trying to find them. I couldn't sleep because I would keep thinking about it, so I would get back up and look some more (until 5AM, good thing it is summer!). I never have found them. The only thing I can figure out is that they ended up in our recycle bin. I was going through a bunch of files and getting rid of stuff. I had a little portable file box that I had filed papers from this year. I'm thinking that maybe I had stuck the envelope in the file box intending to put it up later and when I was recycling, I didn't check the box very carefully. Just writing about this is making me want to go look through every thing again for about the 4th or 5th time. On a positive note, I have gotten rid of a lot of junk while searching for them and I also went through Delaney's stuff (supposed to be for a scrapbook) and sorted it by grades.

So this is my very lame Monday Made It. I have somethings I have been working on and hopefully this week will go a little better and I will get them finished.

Five For Friday July 18, 2014

I'm linking up with Casey @ Doodle Bugs for her Five for Friday linky party.

Since I didn't find out until school was already out that I got my new job, most of the stuff in my classroom ended up in my garage. It was a MESS, you could hardly walk around in there. I forgot to take a picture, but believe me, it wasn't a pretty sight. At first I was just going to take the boxes up to my new room when I can get into the school, but then I realized that some of those boxes have 1st grade stuff. So I started the unpleasant and very mess making task of going through all of the boxes.

I'm not finished, but this is after I sort of cleaned up! HA As you can see, I've got a lot to do!

 These are some of the books for my library. I have them sorted out all o fhte AR books by level and the rest of the books by type/genre.

These are first grade things I am giving to some homeschooling friends.

These are the homeschooling backpacks I made up to loan out to friends.

I signed my contract this week!

I've been working on some things for school. Our theme for the beginning of the year is "Our Future's So Bright". Here is a peek at my Monday Made It for next week. Hopefully it will turn out the way I am envisioning it will! 

I'm not going to be able to do much with my color scheme other than paint, but I did get some sheers for the six windows. I then tired to get a  color that was several shades lighter for the walls and the red is for two cabinets. Here's what I have tentatively picked out for my room colors. I can't get into the room until July 30 so there's plenty of time for me to changed my mind! LOL

We are still having a mouse problem!!! Don't worry, I have no pictures for this one. I think it is partly due to the city converting a foresty type field close to my house to a dog park. The neighbor next door said they are having problems too. I don't like seeing a mouse in the house, but I have an even bigger problem with a dead mouse in the house. I can't even bring myself to look at it! I have had to pay my daughter to take them out to the trash. (I know it's crazy, but I really just can't do it!) We tried some of those glue traps...disgusting. I had to pay her $10 instead of $5 because the mouse was still alive. We had to have the neighbor take care of one because Delaney said it was barely stuck on the trap and she was afraid it would come off when she picked it up, plus she said it had beady red eyes (I don't know, because I refused to look at it). Anyway, the other day I left her at home for just a little bit so I could return my laptop to my old district. she called me and said I needed to come and pick her up. She wanted something to eat so she got the box of Slim Jims down and found a dead mouse in it!  So now we are going to scour the house and look for any little hole where they might be coming into the house. I have also set out the trays with poison in the house, garage and attic. I've watched so many HGTV shows that I am worried that they have been up in the attic chewing on all of the electrical wiring.

Signing a Contract

Yesterday, I signed my contract at the new district. I had forgotten about all of the decisions that had to be made. It was a little easier for me since I have been teaching and thought to bring a pay stub with me. Some of the new applicants had to take home the insurance to look it over, I was able to sign up for what I already had.

It is very different going from a large district with 43, 000 students to one with 18, 000 students. The admin building is much more "user friendly". When I was signing up for insurance, I got to talk one on one with someone instead of being herded into a room and sort of left on my own to figure out what I wanted. I had a question about what would happen with my 146 days of sick leave, I got to speak to the person in charge and get my questions answered. When I got home I called  my old district about the sick leave, I got to talk to someone on the phone that talked to me in a rather terse voice and didn't really answer my questions. It is also going to be nice to work right where I live, the admin building is 5 minutes away if I have to drop something off, I don't have to figure out how I am going to get there in time.

So far through this process there have only been two negatives 1) My daughter and I will have to go a month w/o insurance unless I want to pay the premium out of pocket. My pockets are empty, so we will have to be careful!  2) Since my old district was on a semi-year around schedule, our pay schedule doesn't meet up with the new districts. I get my last pay check from OKC on July 30. I'm not scheduled to get a check from 

Mid-Del until Sept 25, yes you read that right. Yikes!!!  It's times like these I wish I had inherited my dad's financial genes. Fortunately, they do offer the option to let you get 13 checks instead of 12 the first year so you can get a check on Aug. 25.  I'll be getting less on each check, but I don't have any other options at this time, but I am glad it is an option. : )

I decided I am  going to try something new with Delaney. It may sound weird, but I think it will save me money and be a good lesson for her. I am going to start giving her $20 -$25 a month when I get paid. she will have to budget that money for all of those little extras she asks me for when we go to Target, etc... 

I remember when I was in college, a financial guy came and talked to us and this was one of the things he talked about...helping children become fiscally responsible. So when she gets her money, she has to set aside some for church and some for savings, the rest she can spend or save as she chooses. She is very excited about doing this. When we went to Texas, I gave her some money to buy school clothes. I found out, she is much tighter with her money than she is with mine! hahaha

Five for Friday July 11, 2014

 I'm joining Doodle Bugs Teaching for her weekly linky party Five for Friday. It is summer and most of my five have nothing to do with school.

Delaney and I took a mini vacation to Texas. We went to Six Flags on Monday. We had a good time, but it was very hot. I was never so glad to get to my sister's house so I could take a bath!

On Tuesday, my niece and her two boys came over. I seriously think Delaney would have chosen spending time with them over going to Six Flags. Don't they look like fun?

We went shopping at Grapevine Mills Mall. I gave Delaney some money to buy school clothes while we were there. It was amazing how tight she was with the money when it was coming out of her purse! hahaha  I'll have to try that out again.  ;)

I like going to Texas to see my sister and her family, but I absolutely hate driving in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. I would hate having to drive in that traffic all of the time. The other problem is there is constant road work so even if you are using your GPS, you end up on the wrong interstate...well at least I do. It didn't help that my person in charge of checking the GPS was an 11 year old who was trying to look at all of her purchases! I somehow ended up driving through the airport and had to pay $2.00 to get out. We almost ended up going through the airport from the other direction when I realized I was close to my niece's house so we stopped there so I could  regain my composer and try to figure out how to get out of there! I may sound overly dramatic but after driving around down there a day or two, I seriously always appreciate coming back to Oklahoma!!!

 I spent most of Thursday going through files, shelves, cabinets,etc... to get rid of some of my first grade stuff. I feel bad looking at all of the paper and ink I wasted printing things that I can't use anymore. but 1) we do recycle and 2) I am making up some backpacks of things for a couple of homeschooling moms at church. I still have a lot to go through, I am hoping if I keep working I will finish it on Saturday.

Well that's it, I didn't go to Las Vegas, but I did have a great week!

New Room, New Color Scheme!

As I told you a couple of posts before, I am changing schools this year. I am very excited about the new challenge. the new school is older and in bad need of some sprucing up. Here are a couple of pictures.

 

I sent the one above to a friend of mine who works for a paint shop. She puts together color schemes for the customers to look at to help them choose their paint colors. I asked her for help because I knew she was good with decorating. I was wanting to know if the color scheme I liked would go with carpet. Well I was really excited when I checked my email, here is what she sent!

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

I think my favorite is number 5, but I really like all of them. I just wish it was that easy to paint the room! 

Wordless Wednesday

I'm linking up with Christina @Sugar and Spice for her Wordless Wednesday linky.

It is difficult to do a completely wordless post, I really need to explain the pictures. Delaney and I went to the zoo yesterday and witnessed this little scene. The sweet little baby rhinoceros is only ten days old. He got under the fencing and was eating grass with his mama.

Uh oh, mama walked away and every time he tried to follow her, he got caught on the fence. 

Fortunately after about four tries he got free and ran to his mama. :)

Show and Tell Tuesday

I'm joining Barb @ Ruby Slippers Blog Design (my blog designer) for her weekly linky party Show and Tell Tuesday.

This is my first time to link up with Barb for her linky party. I have nothing to show and what I want to tell isn't technically about school, but it is about part of our country's (USA) history so I'm going for it.

Delaney and I were talking about World War II last week and somehow we got to talking about prisoners of war. I told her that I thought my dad had told me that they had some German prisoners of war that worked on their farm when he was a boy. As soon as I said it, I thought to myself did he really tell me that or am I making it up! lol

Anyway, a couple of days later he was at our house so I told her to ask him about it. One reason I'm "telling" this story is I didn't want to forget what he told me. He said that he was about 11 or 12 at the time. His dad and another farmer down the road "shared" 5 German Prisoners of War to work o their farms. It was just for two days, but my dad said he worked with two of them both days. He was driving the tractor and one of the POWs was on the ground tossing bundles of maize onto the trailer and the other was on the trailer stacking the bundles. One of the two spoke very good English and when it was his turn to toss the bundles, he would ride one the side of the tractor and talk to my dad. My dad said at one point, he asked if he would be allowed to move the gear shift. He said he had never seen one before.

When it came time for lunch the first day, my grandma fixed fried chicken, mashed potatoes, etc... for my dad and grandpa, but she also fixed enough for all five of the POWs. When my dad brought the food to them they had already made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches from their rations. My dad said they finished one half of the sandwiches and then carefully wrapped the other half in a napkin and put it in their pockets. They were very surprised and excited about the home cooked food. He said that one of the men put the five plates out and then they divided all of the food evenly.  the next day the other farmer asked his wife to do the same, but she refused to cook for the enemies, so he went into town and got them all a hamburger. My dad said that the ones he got to meet neither one wanted to go back to Germany. He said that they were young and didn't really even agree with or understand why they were fighting.

I searched for some pictures, but I didn't find any. I did find a really good article about the POW camps in Oklahoma HERE if you would like to read more.