Monday Nights (and Saturdays.. and Sundays.. )

Some save it for FHE, but we save it for FOOTBALL! I've never watched so much football in my life, but luckily I don't mind it too much (unless it's more than 1 game a day). I especially like it if we watch a game on DVR where we can fast forward during all the commercials and halftime. We're thinking about getting DVR for ourselves for our anniversary. Just think how many episodes of Barefoot Contessa I could save!

So James and the other Texas boys are all sports fanatics, but nothing beats football for them--especially the Dallas Cowboys. What a game the other night! I must say... I was even pretty riled up about Romo's fumble in the end zone and the bad calls, or lack of them. We came out on top in the end though. After a big TD, I figured I'd snap a shot of the jersey boys while they were happy.

Pose #1

Pose #2 (Clark said he didn't know another pose besides "sexy")

People Want to Give Us Free Stuff

So for some reason we've been getting free/discounted stuff recently. We don't think it's because of anything we've done right, but it sure is interesting.

1) I took an extra long lunch break on Friday (Teacher Work Day) to go pick up my transcript at BYU, so James and I decided to go to the bookstore. I wanted to find a shirt that actually fit, as opposed to my last year's nightgown. Surprisingly, there were a lot of smalls available for the new QUEST football shirts. I took one, knowing it would be only $5 (already a good deal), and was pretty happy about it. Well, James also loves a good deal, and he found a white BYU hat, which he's been looking for, for only $11. So, we went to check out and the lady gave us the total and apparently she only wanted us to pay for the already discounted hat. Free shirt for me!

2) As I said, we love good deals, so for lunch on Teacher Work Day, James and I went to Gandolfo's. Delicious. We brought a coupon for a $5 foot long (not to be confused with Subway, but same deal), but the lady decided the coupon meant $5 off a sandwich. Sooo... she totaled it up for $1.36. Not bad for us, but seriously lady, do you think you'd have a coupon for $5 off sandwiches that are only about $6 in the first place? No complaints from us though!

3) That same day we had to go to Lindon to the Comcast office to fix our internet bill because we we've been getting free internet since we've been back. The lady fixed it on the computer, and we were planning on paying for this month, but she didn't care and is letting us start paying next month. We're also getting the same great rate we got last year. Who knows...

4) Last night, we went to the Malt Shoppe with our friends (despite my feelings of ickyness about their cleanliness... my roommate worked there for a week and quit because it disgusted her so much). I DO like their shakes though, so James and I shared a mint oreo regular size shake. Oddly enough, James walked away from the counter with what looked like a XXXL cup of mint oreo shake. I'm pretty sure we paid for a regular. Too bad this wasn't for the better though because the mint extract was a tid bit too strong.

Hey, worse things could happen. I hope I have more to add to the list!

9/17/08- New Addition to Good Deals:

5) James found a coupon for Payless, so I thought I'd go look for another pair of disposable teaching shoes. I wanted some flats obviously because who wears heels all day as an elementary school teacher? Anyway, I looked around for about 2 minutes and then spotted these cute purple-ish flats. They fit perfectly, and low and behold... what did I see? A $5 tag! No other shoes had that tag on them, so I brought them up to the counter and asked if it was a joke. Nope. $5 shoes. Forget the coupon.

FoodNet-Aholic

Admist all the stress, there are a few things that keep me sane.

1) James attempts to make dinner sometimes. Yea!
2) FOOD NETWORK. What would I do without it? Some of my favorites...

Tyler Florence on Tyler's Ultimate. He's been a favorite of mine for some time now. He used to have the show Food 911 where he would go to the house of a chef in distress and help them fix their recipe. I used to think of recipes I could mess up so badly that he just had to come teach me how to do it correctly. So he's put on a few pounds and kind of does the deep, loud breathing when he cooks, but I don't mind. His dishes look and are amazing... and so is this picture.


Paula Deen on Paula's Best Dishes and Paula's Home Cookin', but NOT Paula's Party. The latter is a little bit much. So is her butter and cream cheese, but I love that southern cookin'.

Fat = delicious grub

Ohhhh Tessa. Ina Garten on Barefoot Contessa. I call her Tessa because one time James was trying to learn the names of these chefs out of necessity, and he asked if her name was Tessa because of the title- Con/tessa. He thought the show was Barefoot with Tessa. Thank you Espanol. She's pretty much my favorite. Nat always makes a hilarious impression of her because Tessa never really gets worked up about anything and always speaks so calmly. Nat will say, "Oh, there's a murderer at my door..." in a super relaxed voice, and it's hilarious. I like Tessa for that reason though because she's such a mom and is relaxing to watch.

Last, but not least - Iron Chef America & Ace of Cakes.



I watch pretty much everything else, but these are just my favorites. As far as I'm concerned, the network can get rid of all the newbies on the channel. How did Guy get so popular? He drives me crazy, but somehow he keeps getting new shows. All I want are the classics..... and my own show--Christie's Culinary Creations. =)

The whole food family.

My Job

So I pretty much was debating whether or not to keep teaching this year because of all the craziness. I could go on about all the difficulties of this year, but I'll keep it simple--too many 11 year olds who all need tons of help, too much planning, too much stress. So I had to ask myself, "Is this worth it?" I only had 1 more year to go, but still it seemed forever away. The thought that this was my last year didn't help on the day to day basis for some reason. Also, people in Texas were telling me how much better and easier it would be to teach there, not to mention the pay raise.

Moving on... things have been looking up! Both Julie and I (thank goodness I work with a friend who keeps me sane) went to talk to our amazing principal about getting another teacher. Although it wasn't possible because of our total school numbers, my principal listened and tried to work with us on anything she could do to help the situation. After a few hours, she gave us a list of things she would try to accomplish for us. It's funny... sometimes I feel like she's my therapist because I feel a lot better after walking out of her office.

First off, she found money to hire an aide in each of our classrooms for 2-3 hours. Hallelujia! The aide could even just help me keep everyone on task and focused. He/She could also do things like grades and copies for me...amazing! The other thing is the principal isn't allowing any other new sixth grade students to join our classrooms during the year. We can't put a cap on our student numbers (because of some ridiculous Utah law), but she can have the new kids go to a 5th/6th class with one of the 5th grade teachers. I'm happy to say my number will stay at 34. haha. Sad, but true! Could be worse! Also, we have absolutely no time to plan/breathe during the actual school day, so she extended our lunch for 10 more minutes for some planning time. This will REALLY make a difference. Before, we hardly had time to scarf down our sandwich. Yea! Ok, so Julie still brings her peanut butter, jelly, and loaf of bread to school to make her sandwich every day. =)

Another perk that I already knew about but is just happening now is... we're having Promethean boards installed in our classrooms, and I love technology! With this comes a permanent projector and possibly an ELMO. I know that doesn't mean much to anyone else, but it's the coolest thing ever. It's like an overhead projector except you don't have to have overhead sheets. You can just put a book or paper under the built in camera and it projects on the screen. The funny thing is, I put an ELMO on my teacher wish list for 2 years in a row as a joke, and now I'll have one!

All in all, I have a lot of things to be happy about. I know it won't be a blissful, perfect year, but I feel much more confident that I can do it for one more year and do it well. I'm getting more used to my kids, and I even have 2 girls who give me hugs.... who knew that could happen in 6th grade?!

LABOR DAY!

No work on Labor Day! James and I went to the first BYU game of the season with our friends, and we're pretty happy about our seats this year. We're in the North endzone, so most of the time we have a great view. The only thing was that it was pretty hot with all those bodies. We left at half time to drive to St. George for the long weekend. James's grandparents live there and are always willing to house us plus our friends. Since we hiked the different trails at Zions last trip, we saved this trip entirely for the Narrows. The water was higher and more murky this time because of the recent rain, but it was still a great time! We suffered only a few face plants in the water.

Jackie, Bri, and me

Right after I unintentionally sat in the water