I wrote my first book!

End by Mary J. Orta hits the shelves next month! Actually I am just wasting time until Corey gets home. I found this dealio to CREATE YOUR DEBUT YA COVER at Book Nut and decided it would be a good way to practice using Photoshop.

The directions:
1 – Go to “Fake Name Generator” or click http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/

The name that appears is your author name.

2 – Go to “Random Word Generator” or click http://www.websitestyle.com/parser/randomword.shtml

The word listed under “Random Verb” is your title.

3 – Go to “FlickrCC” or click http://flickrcc.bluemountains.net/index.php

Type your title into the search box. The first photo that contains a person is your cover.

4 – Use Photoshop, Picnik, or similar to put it all together. Be sure to crop and/or zoom in.

5 – Post it to your site along with this text.

Let the fun ensue.

Cute First Day Quote

"I guess first grade isn't so hard after all."
Line Leader, age 6

P.S. Circle Time is by Emily Martin.

Remember my friend Katie from the Dave Matthews concert?

She's the one on your left.

This is the email I got from her the other day:
Hello All:

I am doing the Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk Nov. 13-15...Please donate as you are able! Send this along to everyone you know so they will donate as well! This is completely tax deductible. Below is the link to my donation form. Thank you!

Love,
Katie

So if you've had a burning desire to donate to the war on breast cancer lately, I've provided a link on the left side of my blog. It's probably by her head.


Speaking of cancer...does anyone watch "So You Think You Can Dance"? Did you see it on Wednesday when Melissa and Ade did the cancer dance and all of the judges, even Nigel, started crying?! When Mia Michaels started crying I finally lost it. That show is insane.

Remember to cherish your loved ones

This month's challenge at ScrapMojo is, "We would like you to use I'm a little bit _______ and a little bit ________....The 2ND part of the challenge is to use dots."

All I could think about is that I still feel so sad about Jersey dying, but I also feel so happy that Captain has come into our lives. But I am not just a little bit happy and sad; I am a lot happy and sad. So I changed it to, "I'm still sad, and I'm happy."

I planned on writing a long thing about Jersey, but it's still too soon, so the dots worked well to get a few memories down, and also were a good place to journal some highlights of Captain's first month with us before I forget them.

Thank you for voting for my school!

Guess what?! We won $5,000!!!!!!!!!! Thank you to everyone who voted, and a special thank you to those who voted even though I didn't vote for their cat's picture.

"Best in Show" is by Danielle Thompson and it makes me want to dig out my model horses and play with them. "Riding" is cute too:

summer is for scrappin

I discovered a blog called Theatre Challenges and finally decided to join them in this challenge, which was to use the Sweeney Todd video "By the Sea" as inspiration. Here is the video:

These pictures are from a short trip we took to California 2 years ago. I only had one picture from the restaurant we like to go to when we're there, so I used a picture from the beach that day to give people an idea of what the view is like from the restaurant. ;-)

I was trying to use the ribbon to represent the second dress Mrs. Lovett's wearing in the video, but it didn't quite turn out as cool as it looked in my mind! I call the middle ribbon cluster the calamari that we had, and the bottom ribbon is the fish Corey had. It was fun trying!

I also scrapped these pictures from 2002 when we went to Phoenix for our friend Stephanie's birthday. Coincidentally Stephanie and I went to a Diamondbacks game on Thursday, which turned out to be a historical game. It was the biggest lead the Diamondbacks have blown in their history (7 runs), and the most runs scored in one inning for the Marlins (10). Ouch. We still enjoyed talking about Michael Jackson and our pets.

They were playing the Orioles at this game, and they lost 9-2. Gotta love em.

Also I just wanted to direct everyone to the bottom of my blog where I now have a playlist that goes with my posts, if you care to give a listen and play along.

I'm not above pimping my dog to get kids to read

Today I went to my classroom to start getting ready for school. I brought Captain Skippyjon Jones with me of course, and my camera for some pictures of the Captain with his namesake. Before I was ready to begin the photo session though, he went into the class library and curled up for a nap on the tree stump bean bag my delightful sister-in-law got for my class:

I had a cardboard reading castle last year, but it could not hold up for another year of first graders. So I got this reading tee-pee tent as a replacement, and assembled it today:

Here are his books! Too bad the one in the background is a little shiny:

Total luck shot...or my dog was a model before he came to live with us:

If you were a kid, wouldn't these pictures make you want to learn how to read?

I'm thinking of getting him certified as a therapy dog so I can bring him to class once in awhile as a reading incentive. I'm still trying to figure out what that entails.

much better!

Captain Skippyjon Jones is officially on the mend! Turns out he has tick fever AND pancreatitis! So we are giving him special dog food for the pancreatitis, and antibiotics for the tick fever.

I knew he was feeling better yesterday when he did the dance of joy (when he skips around when we get home or go outside with him) for the first time since he got sick. He's so stinkin' cute!!!

sick doggy

This morning I noticed Captain Skippyjon Jones had a little cough and felt warmer than normal, so I took him to our vet. When we got there we went to the scale to weigh him in, and there was one little white dog ahead of him named Sergeant! I double checked with Corey and Captain does outrank him.

He won over the staff with his cuteness. The vet tech took him into the other room to give him fluids and when she brought him back I could hear her say to him in the hall, "I love you!"

He checked out well except for his high temp of 104.3 (normal is 100-102.5). So aside from the fluids he got some antibiotics. If he's not feeling better in the next few days they'll do some blood tests. He's been sleepier than usual, but still was up for a walk tonight. Hopefully he'll feel better tomorrow.

Photo Credit to the stupendous Stephanie.

:0)

Today was this kind of day:

by Raymond Savignac

:(

What Did I Learn Today?

In 2003 I got a student loan and went back to school to get my master's degree and become a teacher. I discovered the Department of Education had a program where if you worked at a Title I school ("schools where at least 40 percent of the children in the school attendance area are from low-income families") for 5 years you could get $5,000 forgiven from your student loan. However, today I learned there is no monetary thank you for working in a Title I school for 5 years. I applied for Teacher Loan Forgiveness and found out I do not qualify because I, "...had an outstanding balance on a loan that was disbursed prior to October 1, 1998." To me "outstanding balance" means that I have not or had not been paying on the student loan I got for my bachelor's degree. I have worked hard to pay it off in full, but as with everything that seems too good to be true, "outstanding balance" is actually a cleverly worded loophole meaning, "If you ever had another student loan at all we don't want to help you." I looked on the internet and found hundreds of other teachers who were fooled by this little secret as well.

What does that tell me? America does not value higher education, and America does not value people who work to help lower class society. America does not value people who work to put themselves through college instead of having parents to pay for it.

I will continue to work at a Title I school because it is my passion. Department of Education: Thanks for nothing, and you're welcome.