Project Life March

I'm currently working on June but I'm behind on my posting. Here is another favorite week of mine, but I had to cover a lot of it to share on the internet because I have a lot of pictures of kids from my school.

This week documents a student earning a Happy Meal for completing all of his timed tests in math, my tutoring kids, giving Strega Nona her medicine, the new pope getting elected, a field trip to the Arizona Science Center (best field trip ever!), spelling with Play-Doh, and finding some clips from my Amazon wishlist in Target.

I used a felt blue star border for my math star, and Lego letters for my tutoring kids. I used packaging from the Sparrow Clips to share the story of coveting the clips for so many years.

My friend Alana gave me a guinea pig calendar from Etsy a few years ago when she was my secret santa. I saved it and cut out all the cute guinea pig pics at the end of the year. I got those out to document Strega Nona getting her medicine and found the one of a pope guinea pig. Coincidentally this was the same week the pope was voted in so I had to use it. I don't know why I followed the story so closely on NPR all week, being an agnostic, but it was interesting to learn about the special shoes and all that stuff. However, Corey and I had a little off-color joke about it which is why it's covered for you. We are pretty PC people but sometimes we can't help ourselves.

Here's the rest of the week which documents the boys basketball team winning the championship, watching The Fighter and Property Brothers, and having lunch at Jimmy John's on St. Patrick's Day.

I printed The Fighter movie poster from the internet but The Property Brothers came from a magazine ad. I had a marathon and graded a lot of papers that night. Probably something I normally wouldn't deem interesting enough to share but with their picture from the ad I had to do it.

When we go to Jimmy John's I try to save the tape that holds my sandwich closed for this Project. I'm sure they had a whole team of people working on that tape design which saves me some crafting time. The St. Patrick's Day card came from an old Creating Keepsakes magazine insert. I cut it out and painted the letters with watercolor paint. It feels good to bust out the paint every now and then.

There's also an 8.5x11 insert this week. I made a collage pic from the multitude of exciting pictures I took on our field trip. It's a great way to get up to 20 pictures on one page which is why I mention it, but of course I can't share it because of all the innocent little faces on there. I get my collage prints from Walgreens but you can also make one yourself using Photoshop and help from The Nerd Nest.

Yesterday was a holiday just for me.

Yesterday was National Scrapbooking Day, and with my new found mojo jojo I went right to my scrapbook room when I woke up and went to work. First I finished this page which I've been working on a bit at a time all week:

When I blogged about paying off my student loan, it got me thinking about what's happened in the last 11 years. I decided to say it with pictures, and it gave me an excuse to scrap these pictures of my cute nieces and nephew. Here's a closer view:


I leave my Christmas card pictures up on the wall in my scrap room all year and then I scrap them. Good incentive to send me pictures, hint, hint. Usually I sort them by friends and family, but this time I sorted them by kids and no kids. It was a fun study in contrast.



Then I put away my scissors to go with Corey to a friend's and watch the Pacquiao/Hatton fight. I've been looking forward to it for forever it feels like and I knew Manny Pacquiao would win! What I did not know was that he would do it with a knock out in 2 rounds!!! I like Ricky Hatton, so since then I've been worried about how he's doing today. Is he crying? I would be. Can he even remember the fight? I barely can myself.
Next I would like Pacquiao to fight Floyd Mayweather. I can't stand Floyd and I know Manny would annihilate him.

The Barfighter by Ivan G. Goldman

In December I was selected to be an Early Reviewer on LibraryThing, which means I got a free advanced copy of a book I chose in exchange for a 25+ word review of it. I was giddy when I got the message because there are usually about 1000 people requesting a book, and there are, say, only 15 copies of it. So I never thought I would get one!

I requested this book because I enjoy the sport of boxing. When we first moved to Phoenix I trained to be an amateur boxing official. I wanted to be a referee, but first you have to be a judge. Once I started learning about judging I decided I would like that more than being a referee. But once I became a teacher I didn't have enough time to continue, and that was the end of the pursuit of being a boxing judge...for now. But I still like to watch boxing. Last year my favorite fight was Pacquiao vs. Marquez in March. Pacquiao won in a split decision. I watched the fight again in December and I still couldn't say for sure who won.

Anyhoo...

At first I had trouble getting into this book. Some of the character descriptions seem to be centered around racial and socio-economic stereotypes. The book begins in 1984, so maybe the writer was trying to capture the mindset of people at the time? Also the timeline of the story at the beginning is a little confusing. Putting aside the Vietnam flashbacks sprinkled in, the first chapter takes place in May 1984, then the third chapter goes back to February 1984, and the rest of the book comes after May 1984. In my opinion it should have just been put in order because the May 84 chapter is the weakest and there's no clear reason why it's out of order.

However, it is clear that Ivan G. Goldman knows boxing. His descriptions of boxing matches made me feel I was sitting there watching each punch. A few of the matches were a quick paragraph summary, and since the fights were the best parts I wished he had described them fully. People who love boxing will like the behind-the-scenes look into the dirty world of the sport that's not just a game, and they will like this book.

This book also counts for the What's In a Name Challenge. It's my book with a "profession" in its title.