My thankfulness comes a few days late...

could also be called...did everyone else get the memo that said, "please post what you are thankful for this week!" ~ thanks! the management...

Anyway, I missed it...

So here is my list of things that I am thankful for...

1. family (some...KIDDING!)

2. friends

3. a home (it may be ghetto but they are about to name it after me!! I can't leave now!)

4. a job (Do something you love and you will never work a day in your life....RIIIGGGHHHTTT!)

5. technology (what the heck would I do without all this stuff?!?!)

6. all my teachers (crap, I apologize for EVERYTHING!)

7. food (although it is a neverending battle!)

8. good people in this world...(thanks Mr. Target!)

Good People...

could also be called..."Teachers are the best!"

So remember how I lost my wallet, bag, iPod last night? SOMEONE FOUND IT!!!!

Small world...a guy that must have found the bag 3 minutes after I left came to my house last night to return it. I was a little freaked because it was 10:30pm and I was home alone. I didn't answer the door, not thinking he had my bag! He left a note and then Target called to tell me he had called them too.

I was kind of freaked out about why he wouldn't have turned it in to them.

I called him this morning and got my belongings back!

He was a really really nice man with cute little children running around the house.

He had found my work email which was fishy, but I soon realized he did EVERYTHING he could to find me and my health insurance card has my employer on it so he knew how to find me. Guess what? He is a teacher in my district. =)

There are great people in this world!!!

Enragement...a short essay

I am enraged right now...I should only be mad at myself, but unfortunately I am mad at a stranger too!

Today I decided to NOT go out and brave the crowds shopping. I mean I so desperately wanted to hit up Target, but I held back. My eyes were intrigued by the $5.98 movies that were on sale today but once again, I held back. Tonight after going to the gym...I couldn't hold back any longer. I actually had gotten over the cheap movies. I was looking for a copy of The Polar Express starring Tom Hanks as the voice of the conductor. All day I contemplated how I would get my hands on one of these. I had approx. three weeks to do so as I am showing it on the 19th to my munchkins in class. They get to wear their jammies, drink hot cocoa, and eat popcorn. At the end, they get a bell to wear around their necks...

Back to my story...I literally thought I would NEVER find it. I walked into Target and got that "warm fuzzy" feeling inside as I usually do when I wonder in. I had a few things I needed to pick up but nothing fancy. I happened to notice some large red cardboard stands with $5.98 MOVIES! Yes! They still had them...okay okay so I wasn't totally over them. Guess what movie was right in front???!?!?!? THE POLAR EXPRESS!!! Hot diggity dog! It was my lucky day! I grabbed that thing and kept looking at it making sure it was the real deal. Sure was! I was happy so I grabbed "The Holiday" too...you know the one with Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz? That was cheap too!

After a few more items were tossed in the cart I was headed out. I grabbed an ICEE which was not needed. Bad GIRL!

I headed out to the parking lot. I should have grabbed my ONLY bag and left the cart inside, but nooooooooooooooooo I was too busy drinking my ICEE and I wasn't sure if I could carry the overloaded bag, plus my drawstring Nike backpack, as well as the ICEE. So the cart went all the way to the car. I unloaded it and shoved it in the convenient cart coral.

My drive was 5 minutes. The second I hopped out of the car I realize there is no drawstring Nike backpack in the car. SH*T! I sped back as fast as I could...the bag had my iPod (from being at the gym) my gym card, and my WALLET!!!! CRAPOLLA!!! I was praying those carts hadn't been taken in yet. They weren't...I jumped out really fast looking like an absolute idiot and low and behold....NO BAG!!!!

I ran inside to find that nice person with that holiday spirit had turned it in. NO SUCH LUCK!!!!

So..Mr. or Mrs. Scrooge...if you are out there...(probably not reading this!) but if you are out there... You need to get into the Christmas spirit and turn my bag in!!! It isn't all my fault that my bag blended in with the red cart! WORST DAY OF MY LIFE!

On a good note, the bank and credit card companies were super duper helpful and quick. American Express is even sending out a temp. card and it will be UPS'd to my house at "no charge to me"!!!! Now, no shopping or gym until then...worst day EVER!!! Okay maybe I am not crying so much about the gym thing...=)

An interesting thing happened on the way to the deli...

this could also be called, "Why the heck do you let your kids put stickers on your car windows?"

So I was sitting at a light today. I was en route to delivering a sandwich to my friend Don...aka Donavin Viallobos. He will be my music star in my video that I am creating soon called "Funk on a Whole New Level". Starring ME of course! (that is a high school joke...maybe a dream...)

Don's wife had the ever so dreadful...wait for it...TONSILECTOMY!!! Ugh!!! I know that story WAY too well! So she had her surgery and he is on his own with the baby. I think he is a great daddy and takes just as much care of little Tony as she does. I mean granted he is the bread winner and all but he knows his baby stuff. She can't pick the baby up right now so he is on daddy duty 24/7. I took him a beloved SUB from Foster's on Fremont. This joint is a great little place...very similar to Sandwich Depot Deli if you are familiar with that hole in the wall of PURE goodness.

Anyway, back to the light...across the intersection I see this car...pretty nice one if I do remember correctly. It had these white things all over the back window. Hmm...what in the world is that? The car gets it's green light before me so I get a closer look as she comes around the corner. It was STICKERS!!! Who in their right mind lets their kids put stickers on the windows of the car!!! Let's all say it together...GHETTO!!! Now don't get me wrong...I am fully aware that stickers probably will come off with a little exacto knife and Goo Gone...(i think Goo Gone and Gorilla Glue should be married and maybe even come in a package together) I can picture it now..."Sure kids! Mommy doesn't care about her $40,000 car!! Stick away!!! What are people thinking? This proves my theory... as a teacher, I have come to realize there are A LOT of parental units that have NO skills at parenting therefore that is what they let their kids do to keep them "out of their hair". God forbid you have a nice conversation with your ankle biter while in the car on the way to your tanning appointment!

The Hills is on...gotta run!

Pass the yams?

could also be called..."Rutty rut rut....GO AWAY!!!"

When I start writing about yams...you know I am in a rut...sorry! But this might be knowledgable for you people like me. Those of you that are smarty pants...move along! move along!

Last night at a faux Thanksgiving dinner...I commented to my friend how yummy the sweet potatoes were. With the same friend, I had had a lovely scruptious sweet potato goodness at a restaurant that we enjoyed just Tuesday night...Can I just tell you how good that thing was?!?!?! It was like a freakin dessert! There I was...potato, pool of butter, and a little brown sugar to top that baby off! Good thing I had just weighed in! I actually saved it till last so I could pretend it was my dessert. I am a genius really!

So back to last night...we were at the table. Jason and I were sitting on the automon (weird weird word!) at the table, so basically my chin on was on the table. Whateva, it's cool. So after I complimented the chef on the sweet potatoes, he insisted on correcting me telling me they were yams. We conversated...my argument being this tasted very similarly to the sweet potato goodness I had "downunder" that previous Tuesday evening. There was no way that was a yam because it was clearly advertised in the menu as a sweet potato and NO ONE false advertises!!!! How would we resolve this?

Mac Guy to the rescue! He literally pulls out his iPhone to research. This is what he found...

Sweet Potatoes: Popular in the American South, these yellow or orange tubers are elongated with ends that taper to a point and are of two dominant types. The paler-skinned sweet potato has a thin, light yellow skin with pale yellow flesh which is not sweet and has a dry, crumbly texture similar to a white baking potato. The darker-skinned variety (which is most often called "yam" in error) has a thicker, dark orange to reddish skin with a vivid orange, sweet flesh and a moist texture.

Yam:The true yam is the tuber of a tropical vine (Dioscorea batatas) and is not even distantly related to the sweet potato.
Slowly becoming more common in US markets, the yam is a popular vegetable in Latin American and Caribbean markets, with over 150 varieties available worldwide. Generally sweeter than than the sweet potato, this tuber can grow over seven feet in length. The word yam comes from African words njam, nyami, or djambi, meaning "to eat," and was first recorded in America in 1676. The yam tuber has a brown or black skin which resembles the bark of a tree and off-white, purple or red flesh, depending on the variety. They are at home growing in tropical climates, primarily in South America, Africa, and the Caribbean.

I was RIGHT!!! I am not usually right!!!! I was this time! YESSS!!!


I would post a picture, but that feature isn't working at this moment...

So remember this...Sweet Potatoes are orange inside, and Yams aren't.

P.S. I hope something funny happens at school Monday!!!!

Only children...

So...I have just a couple of "only children" in my class. Those are my "special friends". Who has one kid these days anyway? SMART PEEPS THAT IS WHO!!! =( Kidding!

Anyway, I have a new job. This entitles teaching the whole first grade technology. As you all know...I am a technology genius!!! I was thrilled when Stewie asked me to take this on...all I could imagine was Facebook pages galore! Perhaps even a blog...or 75! It would be glorious!!! Okay Okay...that didn't really happen. So in my technology lessons we use laptops that our wonderfully generous PTA purchased for us. Dude..the kids sold enough wrapping paper to wrap our school a few times for those things...don't even think they were being nice!
When purchasing a "laptop cart" you have a 34 laptop option or a 20 laptop option.
(i learned this in my training a.k.a. the manual) Considering that we have NO classes with less than 20 kids...34 would have been the best. Bet you can't guess what happens next?...we got the 20...YEAH! So we have to share...it's not easy sharing laptops. Don't they know you can't have two Facebook pages up at the same time? I'm just sayin!

So I have 24 ruggety rats in my class which means some have to share. I promised that if they shared this time they wouldn't have to again...we only use them once a week...I haven't figured out that math equation but I am sure it's not right. They won't remember.

So DQ ends up sharing...I turn around to see her in tears (surprise!)...I ask what the matter is only to get the cold shoulder. She can be mean. Ladybug, who she is sharing with quickly pipes up with the answer.

"DQ is upset because she has to share. Miss MegPie...she doesn't have brothers or sisters you know...so she doesn't know HOW to share!"

Oh snap!

My thoughts would best be expressed in a monologue...

This video here is something special...
enjoy...I think it will stay up but it could go away...in which case...PLEASE LET ME KNOW I don't want to look like a inexperienced blogger!