Author Archives: Elisabeth

About Elisabeth

The joyous and sometimes odd adventures of a former English teacher and her trusty sidekicks, Jared the Hottie Husband and her two Italian Greyhounds, Stinky Stevie and Bonnie Boo. Recently the adorable baby, Princess Evelyn, has joined the clan to shake things up!
Sep4

The 10th Kingdom

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The 10th Kingdom

It’s a three day weekend, and I’m still feeling pretty yucky with the head congestion and mini-cough.

So what does Jared let me do?

A Sunday movie marathon of “The 10th Kingdom”!

Did any of you ever see it when it came out as a miniseries in 2000? I think I must have been in junior high still. It was on for a couple of Sunday nights in a row, and I stayed up late to watch it. I absolutely loved it, even though my mom had a few moments of horror about some of the innuendos that occurred (I’ll admit, they totally went over my head at the time–it took me being an old, married woman to get a lot of it!).

Anyways, I’ve seen it a few times since then, and even Jared likes most of it (and makes fun of my liking it during the cheesy parts). Totally love it and recommend it, but you need to have a good day or two to dedicate to watching it.

I’m so sad that they never got around to making a sequel. It really was so well done, clever and creative. Maybe someday it will happen…

At least I hope they put “The 10th Kingdom” on bluray so we can enjoy it in better quality. 🙂 For now, we’ll enjoy the cheap DVD version we have. We only have about 2 more hours to go!

Sep2

Still sick…

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Still sick…

But I’m back, baby!

So, I felt SO much better today. Not 100%, by any means. But my head stuffiness was about 75% better, and I could breath, and mostly talk. So what did I do? I went to work.

And the amount of kiddos who acted excited to see me back was phenomenal. It was like I had been gone a whole week, not just one day. I was shocked. That plus the great gratitude they showed me for allowing them library time yesterday when I was out sick was astounding.

I’m really liking these kids as a whole. They are really sweet. I hope, against all odds, that they stay sweet seventh graders and don’t get that 8th grader attitude until the very end of the year. They are enthusiastic, positive, fun kids as a whole and I want to maintain and harness their positive energy!

Now here’s to hoping the cold isn’t moving from a head cold to a chest cold.

Sep1

Home sick….

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Home sick….

Well, it’s week two of teaching, and I was home sick today with a nasty head cold, which compounded with the headaches I routinely get, makes for a bad case of vertigo and congestion. I suspected it Tuesday, and was readily confirmed yesterday. Throughout the day I felt worse and worse, and it didn’t help with everyone saying “Wow, you look terrible!”

I tried to make it to Open House last night, but after initial announcements, left for home because 1) I didn’t think I could stand for another minute and 2) I decided that meeting parents with a cold and potentially spreading it around would be worse protocol than not meeting them face to face. (Though I know one of the assistant principals disagreed with me on that…)

Anyways, two good things came from staying home for today.

First, I am actually feeling significantly better. Like, I can taste food again and sort of smell through the half of my head that is not as congested. I might actually make it to work tomorrow!

Second, I got good cuddle time in with my dogs. There’s nothing like a nice snuggle from your puppies to make you feel a little bit better when you are down. They really enjoyed just cuddling up next to me in bed and on the couch throughout the day– my little couch potatoes.

Don’t they just melt your heart?

Aug28

Surprise thank you

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Surprise thank you

To whomever sent Jared a copy of The Hunger Games really for me and for my classroom, thank you. Jared kept your identity a secret as requested.

It reminds me of my amazon wishlist. I had the my Classroom Book Wish List from Amazon up for some time on my blogroll, but never received anything from it for my classroom. I actually took it down a few weeks ago because 1) I didn’t feel like updating it and 2) I figured nobody ever looked at it anyways.

I went ahead and updated it today and put it back because I usually lose around $200-$400 worth of books every year to maintain my classroom library. There are a lot of people who argue that I shouldn’t have that “library” in my classroom, but it’s worth it to me because it helps the kids have books in their hands. As a teacher of writing and reading, isn’t that pretty important? Especially for the kids who can’t go to the real libraries, or even the school libraries for whatever reasons?

So, whoever thought of me and my students. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I truly appreciate it.

I’ll end with a quote from a very wise man:

 

“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.”

-Mark Twain

Aug27

A week without a disposal in the sink…

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A week without a disposal in the sink…

While Jared was eating Lobster at Dean Kamen’s home in New Hampshire last Thursday, our kitchen’s garbage disposal gave up the ghost. It just no longer worked. It hummed softly when turned on, but never again viciously tore apart small food remnants into even smaller remnants to be washed away.

(And no, I didn’t stick anything into it to jam it, abuse it, or break it. It was just its time to pass on.)

So, the past week, we’ve been trying to make it work without the disposal. And let me tell you, I will never take them for granted again.

I won’t go into too much detail, as not to take the glory away from all the time Jared completely redoing the plumbing under the sink and replacing the old disposal with a “totally awesome monster one.” But I think tomorrow we’ll be able to use the sink again. And that makes me happy.

Also thinking happy thoughts is the fact that I got to meet with my CTWP friends in our post-institute meeting. Not everyone was there, but it was definitely a nice chance to see most of them again. But as it’s late, and Jared wants me to start sticking to a back-to-school sleeping schedule for my health, I will go into that more another time.

In summary: Long Live the Garbage Disposals!