These first three weeks of school have brought on many new challenges in the classroom and out of it. I am learning how to be a teacher. One that is tough, expects much, but one that also "does life" with her students. That, I believe is why my sweet 3rd graders will work for me. I sit cross cross apple sauce on the floor with them taking turns asking about their weekends, share my small anxieties about our puppy or how I still can't tell you what 7+5 is right off the bat, and how I am still learning with them.
I am learning even more of what it looks like to be a wife - faithfully loving and taking care of my sweet husband, who is doing most of the "taking care of" these days, and a child of the Most High - savoring the time that I have with Him and learning what being diligent and cautious of where my time goes really looks like. Some of the times I cherish most are the times that seem the most mundane - those in which at first you wouldn't give thought to worshipping or waiting. When I am alone in a dark bathroom taking a bath just listening and waiting for Him, or when I am passing out warm-ups first thing in the morning waiting for my little ones and I can just have the music on my iHome praying over each of their spots - for the words to say when they want to fight, for the energy to learn and retain the information, for the Band-Aids that need to cover their hurts.
I love my job. Not a day goes by that I don't leave feeling humbled and brokenly thankful. I learned what having "shoes that talk" meant this last week as a boy opened up about how he felt being teased about his "shoes talking". "You know, Mrs. D.," he said, "like when your shoes come apart so your toes show and you're so poor you can't get new ones yet? That's what I'm sayin' when your shoes be talking."
I frequently bring this "job" home with me. While I do bring pocketfuls of beads home with me (I use a bead reward system which rocks), to which I usually discover as they spill all over the floor when I change clothes, I bring papers to grade, phone numbers of parents to call, and a list of things to gather from home for the next day, I usually bring so much more than just the physical things. And I thank the Lord every time I pull in the driveway that I have a husband whose loving arms I can run to and just remain - without words, until things seem to sort themselves out. How Colin can hear my struggles, my frustrations, my burdens and still love me, love my kids, and want to help. Oh, and we are both grading papers these days. Colin is grading for an Ocean Engineering class, and I'm grading spelling tests. Oh the irony....
My dad used to tell me that there is no such thing as having a 50%-50% marriage. That those will fail. Unless you are willing to go 100%-100%, forget about it. There are times when you can't bring 50% to the table, when you can't even bring 20. So always bring your best to your spouse. There will be times they are so broken, busy, and finding their way, and if you aren't "bringing it" (as I tell my kids), you won't make it. So to our sweet married couples: Bring it. 100%.
Now for the lighter side of my blog (and THIS is where my list starts). I'm keeping it short and sweet people, I have dinner to cook. Speaking of cooking. Check out our kitchen. Now, the green paint on the walls is not our first choice, but we are renting and are making do. What you can't see is the extreme lack of cabinet space, to which you will notice our pans hanging from hooks on the wall. My husband is ingenious.
One was excited I was taking pictures. Clearly.
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And apparently since Lean Cuisine's are outlawed once you get married, we have this nifty meal planner (I am so OCD organizational sometimes) that lets us plan out our dinners. Oh, and it's dry-erase just in case plans change. Which they do. My goal this week is to photograph our meals and give the recipes on the blog. We are going for inexpensive, healthy, semi-quick meals, which I think pertains to most of the population. So, you will at least have 5 new recipes. Unless you cheat and read Cooking Light. Which in that case, BYE.
NOTE: This was our menu LAST week. I'll be posting the updated one tomorrow. The lighting was bad for picture taking in the kitchen and I couldn't wait to post.
Annnnddd we have a nifty way of keeping track of our recipes. Dang, I just LOVE our Scrabble magnets. Make you some. They are easy, cheap, and cute!
Oh, and Sundays are sweet too. Literally. My other goal is to bake something new every Sunday. Not only will my husband stay with me (kidding, Colin), it will help my become more bake-y. More pastry chef-ey. I love cooking, but am so not skilled in the baking department. Anyways, we had this bizarre bunch of bananas that stayed green for like 6 days and then started to have brown spots. Like passed yellow and collected $200 without us even knowing. I kept those and some of our other old ones, intrigued at what the issue was and decided to make banana bread. The last banana bread was meeehhhhh, but what do you know.....it just so happens REAL SIMPLE sent me an emailed recipe for Banana Bread with Apricots, so we put our two culinary brains together and came up with this beauty!
Banana Pecan Apricot Bread
3 cups all-purpose flour (I used half white, half wheat to appease my original taste-loving husband while keeping him healthy)
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
4 Tbsp. chilled butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup apricots, chopped (traditionally I wouldn't be jumping to bake with apricots, but Colin convinced my after trying some organic Turkish apricots at the grocery store. They were so sweet and when chopped up, were FABULOUS in the bread.)
2 large VERY RIPE bananas, peeled and mashed
1 cup buttermilk
2 eggs, beaten
Head oven to 350. Lightly coat a 5x9" loaf pan with cooking spray.
Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon in a large bowl. Using your fingertips (come on, it's fun), work the butter into the dry ingredients until it looks like coarse crumbs. Mix in the pecans and apricots. And add some flax seed people. It is SO good for you and you don't even know it's there!! Stir in the bananas, buttermilk, and eggs until well blended.
Pour into pan. Bake 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean. Turn onto wire rack and cool.
I'm telling you. Make this. Now. Thank me later.
Obsession. Alphabet wall. This might just be a teacher thing, but let the world know that our child WILL have one of these. Somewhere in our house. Thanks Ohdeedoh.
If you are in the Bryan-College Station area, get yourself over to The Village Cafe in Bryan. Colin has been talking about this place for the past 4 years we have been here, but I've recently fallen headfirst onto the "bandwagon" and love this place. 2 dates with friends in the past 2 weeks here. I think we pinky-promised each other we would start to come here every Saturday.
Second to last on the list. Mini-diaries. I'm all about short and efficient, and when I was going through the daily grind of my blogs I follow I found these! Not only are they so cute on the outside....
They are PRECIOUS on the inside. They let you just write short phrases of your "favorites" from the day. I'm all about this. And they are such a good price. She only has a few left so get on over to marta writes and get you some!!
http://minimart.bigcartel.com/product/mini-diary
And last, but not least. The best of the best quotes from my kids from this past week. (These are just the ones I actually remembered and had time to write down!)
Every morning I pick my kids up at 7:30 in the gym. There were 3 girls finished eating breakfast when I got there and they all had some type of glitter/bling/sparkly-ness on their shirts, so I commented them. Duh.
"Girls, I love all of your sparkles today!"
At the same time I said that, one of my boys came up next to me and heard me say that.
"Mrs. D, I've got sparkles too!" (referring to the "bling" on his shirt)
Sure enough. He was correct.
We are starting to write personal narratives in class. I wanted the kids to brainstorm a list of 5 things they would like to write about and then circle three of those things to narrow it down. I gave a few examples: watching fireworks, taking my puppy to the park, getting married, getting a bad haircut, etc. As I was walking around I asked a little girl to read me hers. (Remember I teach 3rd grade....) Her first one was "getting a new boyfriend".
Since my classroom is jungle-themed, I frequently refer to us as being a pack. I remind them that the pack sticks together, and when we are strong together, no one will mess with us, especially Mama Lion (me). The kids love that, but apparently forgot our Pack Pact, as 5 of them got in a pretty escalated fight last week. I whistled for them to line up and get away from each other, but eventually had to run over and pull them away. As I was walking them back up to the building, I was telling the other kids to line up on our line. Out of breath and upset, a little girl reminded the others, "Ooooooooooo y'all best get in line. Mama Lion's face is turning red. I think she is about to growl." Indeed I did. After I turned around and laughed to myself.
Patiently.
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