2011 Status Recap

Below are all my Facebook status updates for 2011. Feel free not to read them. It's always interesting to look back on the year. It's amazing how little I updated things some months. And I neglected to post some things (I forgot to announce Addisyn's birth!)but I guess that's okay. If you compare this list to last years, it's really short.

Happy New Year!

My Year in Status: 2011 Recap.

January – Happy New Year! May 2011 be a blessed one. – Could use another day this weekend. – Is home after braving Costco on a Saturday afternoon. – Is watching “Mamma Mia!” – Had a fairly productive day. – Is really bored. – Is watching 10 year olds play basketball. – Four hours of conferences and no parents showed up. What a waste of a day.

February – Had a great afternoon hangin with Jen after a yummy lunch at Pizza Amore. – I did not post that. Sorry. Trying to delete. – Go Steelers! – Thanks for all the wonderful birthday wishes everyone. It was a good day. Hope the rest of the week is fabulous for you all. – Hmmmm. How to spend this snow day…. – Is watching it snow some more. – Is at the Newport Seafood and Wine Festival.

March – Home from Board of Management in Grants Pass. It was great to see the ladies from Brookings. – Is at the 4A State Championship Game. Go Cougars! – Woo Hoo! Lady Cougars are the 4A State Champs! – Is at the KRKT/St Jude Mystery Concert with Traci. And the mystery is….James Otto. – Home from dinner with Erin. It was a great way to start Spring Break. – Is at the Creating Keepsakes Convention in Portland.

April – Organizing scrapbook supplies is a major pain in the butt! – Just got home from an impromptu night out with Erin and Jennifer. We saw “Arthur” and had tapas at Andaluz. – Happy Easter everyone! – Is enjoying the sunshine with Mom and Traci at Taste of Ashland.

May – Happy Mother’s Day! – Is enjoying a campfire at the Coast.

June – Busy day. Saturday market, planting flowers and veggies, dinner with family and finally drinks with Erin at Cloud 9. – Happy Graduation day to Meka! – Is at the Sister’s Rodeo Parade. – It’s Rodeo Time! – It’s the first day of summer vacation and I’m going to do as little as possible. – Is having lunch with Fjell at the Wild Pear. – Strawberries are picked. Cake is baking. Strawberry shortcake for dessert tonight.

July – Happy 4th of July! – Is at the Marion County Fair with Mom. We’re waiting for the Tracy Lawrence concert to start. – Woo Hoo! No jury duty tomorrow. – Is picking raspberries with the family. – The high school reunion was fun, but I’m exhausted.

August – Is at Famous Dave’s BBQ – It’s 8 am and 56 degrees. Last week I was in Arkansas and it was 113! I’m enjoying this. – It’s official. I’ll be teaching social studies at the junior high this year. – Home from a great weekend at the Willamette Country Music Festival in Brownsville where I ran into Sami. – Home from the lake. Back to work tomorrow.

September – Great morning with Erin and the rest of the Pirate Crew at Race for the Cure. Glad the rain held off until we finished.

October – Had fun with Tina at the First Annual Cascade 60/60 fundraiser. – Had a great weekend in Sisters with family and friends. – Happy Birthday to my Mama! We celebrated with brunch at Eola Hills Winery. – It must be fall. The flannel sheets and down comforter just went back on the bed. – Sitting on the floor + grading papers = numb mind and butt.

November – What is the point of having an automated voice system if it never picks up? And why let the live line ring 30 times before it goes dead? Just pick up the damn phone and answer my questions! – Busy Day! 5K with Erin in Rickreall, hanging with the family in Corvallis, and finally dinner with Jen in Tigard. It was excellent! – Thank you to all our military servicemen and women. Happy Veteran’s Day! – Love it! My personal trifecta of college football: OSU wins. Montana wins. Duck LOSE! – Pecan pie in the oven. On to the next thing on my list. – Happy Thanksgiving to you and your loved ones! Enjoy your time together.

December – Touchdown! Go Griz! – And the Christmas presents are wrapped. – Merry Christmas everyone! Wishing you a wonderful day! – Thumbs up to Christmas being put away. Thumbs down to the cleaning I need to do now. – Happy New Year! Wishing everyone a wonderful 2012.

Day 25: Merry Christmas!

After opening presents....


The guys hanging out after dinner....


Why play with the toy when you have the box?


Setting out the spread.


Uncle carving the prime rib.


Wearing the hats Becky knitted for us.

And since Dad was taking the pictures, he managed to not be photographed! We need to work on that. :)

Day 24: Christmas Eve

Day 23: December Daily

Home.

Day 22: December Daily

Christmas lights at Mission Mill. Tonight we went to 'Magic at the Mill'. It's a fundraiser for the museum with music, Santa, kids crafts and historical stuff.




This quilt is currently on exhibit. It was made around 1860 by my great great great grandmother, Nancy Albertson Williamson before she and her husband left Missouri for Oregon.

Day 21: December Daily

Santa's Magic Key



Kids by the tree. Obviously one doesn't do a great job of sitting still or smiling on cue!

Day 20: December Daily

Cat antics....
"You're not here if I won't look at you." says CeCe.
"I'm not touching you." replied Kit.



And Dutch Bros. cocoa.

Day 19: December Daily

Today's task was shopping at the farm market. I love this place!

Day 18: December Daily

Front door.

Day 17: December Daily

Always helpful.

Day 16: December Daily

Wrap party anyone?

Day 15: December Daily

Homemade peppermint drops.

Day 14: December Daily

Last night a 14 year old girl was killed in a car accident. I didn't know her, but her connection to my connections made this something our school will be dealing with for some time. Tonight I found this star while trying to finish my Christmas shopping. It seemed incredibly appropriate.

Day 13: December Daily

Did I mention I like stars?

Day 12: December Daily

Christmas Music....still on CD's. I keep thinking I need to upload to my iPod, but I just can't do it. There's something about flipping through the basket looking for just the right disc.

Day 11 : December Daily

Day 10 : December Daily

Before the start of the Keizer Jingle Dash 5K.

Day 9 - December Daily

Yummy Peppermint Hot Chocolate. I'm not a Starbucks regular, but I love it when the red holiday cups come out.

Day 8 : December Daily

Christmas Lights! This tree is outside the Salem Convention Center. It's so bright I just had to get a picture.

Day 7 : December Daily

It's Kit's look-a-like. My mama bought it for me.

Day 6 : December Daily

These little block houses were made for my grandmother by one of her neighbors several years ago. Unpacking them each year reminds me of Grams.

Day 5 : December Daily

This star is made from an antique carpenter's folding ruler. I bought it at the same little shop where I found the feather tree.

Day 4 : December Daily

Yesterday I baked. It's called "Aunt Glynn's Gooey Cake" from Paula Deen. It's rich and yummy with coconut, pecans and chocolate chips.

Day 3 - December Daily

Kit...need I say more?

Day 2 : December Daily

I bought this little feather tree a few years ago. I think it looks really good with the shiny red ornaments. Or with miniature candy canes. I've done both. :)

Day 1 : December Daily

Ali Edwards challenges people to scrapbook the little things in life. One of her projects is the December Daily. I'm going to try it this year, and I thought I'd post some of the photos I'm taking here.

My paperwhites are starting to appear...

Tree Hunt 2011

Today was our annual Christmas Tree hunt. We chose to return to the site of last year's success and found our trees (mine, the parents, Traci & Eric's) relatively quickly. Then it was home to deck them out.

Black Friday Shopping

What an experience. This year we left the kids at home and headed out, four women, to enjoy the adventure of insanity.

Our first stop was Walmart. We arrived t 9:30 pm. It was chaotic and disorganized with lots of rude, obnoxious people. One bright spot was running into some family friends and catching up while waiting in the checkout line.

At midnight we were waiting in two different lines: Target and Old Navy. I had to be at Old Navy. My jeans were on sale for $15. Can't beat that. The rest of our happy troop braved Target and I met them a bit later. Again, we ran into friends and spent some time chatting.

From the mall it was off to Denny's for grand slams and time off our feet. I can't remember the last time I had breakfast at 2:30 in the morning. Refueled we hit our next stop at 5:00, then on to Fred Meyer at 6:00. We were back home by 7:30 for power naps before going to KMart and then lunch at Panera. My "day" ended at 1:30 this afternoon.

We had a good day. It was fun to hang out and pick up a few things. And starting early wasn't so bad. I think I prefer it to starting at 4:00 am.

Thanksgiving....

Here are some images from our wonderful holiday. We were blessed by the company, the food and time together.

Veteran's Day Parade

Gotta Love A Parade!. I marched in my first parade as a member of the high school marching band way back when. It was fun. That hasn't changed. This year I took part in the Albany Veteran's Day Parade for the second year with the DAR. The weather was beautiful. A perfect day to honor our our military veterans.

Eola Hills 5K

This morning Erin & I participated in the inaugural Eola Hills "No Hills" 5K in Rickreall. This event was a fundraiser for the Central High School and Dallas High School Track and Cross Country Programs. It was a good excuse to get some exercise and to help out two local schools.

The weather was cold, wet and windy. But it is November, so that was expected. It did serve to motivate. My time was (walking...I don't run) 49 minutes. Not bad considering. And at the end we got pizza and beer, wine or soda, plus the nifty t-shirt above.

Soon it will be time to start preparing for a 10K in January.

Conferences...an observation

Today we had conferences in our district. I've never been a huge fan of these parent teacher meetings, mostly because I rarely saw parents at them in my previous position. That was then. Now...different story. During the first two hours I had parents at my table non stop with more waiting in line. Wow! Not my usual experience. Nor was the following scenario, which happened more than once.

Me: "Your child is doing very well. He/she is a delight to have in class and I have no concerns about their behavior or work."

Parent. "That's good to hear, but his/her grade is 90%. How can they raise it?"

Me: Unsure what to say at this point. We don't give +/- grades. It doesn't matter if if the grade is 90 or 100, it's an 'A'.

To Nano or Not....

NaNoWriMo started today and I'm still undecided about whether or not I'm going to participate. I have an idea, but do I have the time? Teaching middle school is really time consuming. Maybe I'll go for it and see what happens. Wish me luck!

Harvest Time

Today we took the kids to EZ Orchards in Salem for their Harvest Festival activities. The weather was wonderful and Logan had a great time with the tractors, petting zoo, and running through the corn maze. Addisyn slept for most of the afternoon, and the adults indulged in apple cider donuts while soaking up some sun.

What is it about boys and tractors? Logan loves them.

I write like who?

It's getting close to NaNoWriMo time. I'm not sure if I'm going to participate this year, but I've been reading about other people's preparations and anticipation. Today on the NaNo Facebook page was a link for I Write Like. It's a program that will analyze a piece of writing you enter and compare it to a database of writers. Out of curiosity, I had to try it.

First, I copied part of the dialogue I entered in the DAR American Heritage Contest in 2010. I won second place at the national level, so I figured it was a good place to start. According to the program, I write like....Cory Doctorow. I've never read that author.

Second, I entered the blog post just proceeding this one. This time, I write like...Kurt Vonnegut. Another author I've never read.

Third time, I entered the first few paragraphs of my NaNo book from 2009. At least I've read this author...James Joyce.

I had to try one more time, so I just entered this text. Now, I write like H.P. Lovecraft.

This is just too funny! Four pieces by me and the result is four different authors. Who knew?!

They're so funny!

Middle schoolers are a different breed of people. A family friend who spent 34 years teaching middle school says that "Sixth graders aren't human and seventh graders are only slightly closer." I'm not sure I completely agree, but this age group is definitely different from the high schoolers I'm used to.

Yesterday, at the end of our world history lesson it came across loud and clear that my seventh graders don't really get roman numerals. (I find this to be sad, since I've always thought they're kind of fun to decipher!) So, we had a few minutes left in class and I did a quick, down and dirty lesson in just a few minutes. We ended with translating dates. For instance, 2011 is MMXI and 1980 is MCMLXXX. Then one of the kids asked me to put my birth year up so they could translate it. As the kids were leaving one of my little lovelies stopped and said "I didn't think you were that old!" and proceeded to tell me she thought I was a good dozen years younger than I actually am! It was really cute.

Harvest Faire

My family spent the weekend in Sisters at the Harvest Faire. When I left the valley Friday afternoon it was raining, and I chased it all the way up and over Santiam Pass. My no so sunshiney mood really lifted as I broke over the pass and saw....blue sky! It was really nice to hang out with family and friends, and enjoy the sunny weather.

My Learning Curve...

Teaching middle school is a challenge. It's not because the kids are difficult, you just have such a variety of levels in ability and maturity. They don't communicate very well and I'm having some trouble with that. Today one of my little angels refused to work and then burst into tears. OMG! I'm so out of practice with emotion that isn't anger. And I'm constantly questioning how much of a response is genuine versus how much is an act to see how far they can push. It's no wonder I'm exhausted!

Race for the Cure - Portland

Today I took part in the Komen Race for the Cure with Erin as part of the Lou's Pirate Crew Team. (Lou was the mother of Erin's friend Mary, and every year Mary puts together a team for the race.) We had a great time. It's definitely a worthwhile cause since so many people I know have been affected by breast cancer and the exercise did me some good.

9/11....

It's been 10 years since that overwhelming Tuesday. Somethings about that day are very clear. I first heard about the towers on the radio while I was getting ready for work, but at that point it wasn't clear what was happening. I turned on the TV, and saw what everyone else was seeing.

My scheduled day was going to be busy. I was contracted to substitute teach that day, then I had planned to drive to Portland to pick up my sister. She'd been in Nevada for a friend's wedding that weekend. Before I got to work the airports had been closed, and all planes were grounded. I called my parents to see if they had heard from my sister.

School was a pretty non-productive day. We didn't have TV access, so everything we were hearing was from the radio. The internet had crashed, and we waited. I remember hoping that none of my East Coast friends had been flying that day, and that my college friend who lives in DC was nowhere near the Pentagon. My sister and other wedding guests arrived home very late that night after driving in from Nevada. Other than those details, the day is a blur.

The next few weeks are really blurry too. I think most people were in shock. Attacks like this were not supposed to happen in the US. In hindsight, that was an arrogant belief.

The terrorists who participated in the attacks on 9/11 had a goal to cause pain and weaken us. They achieved their first goal, but I do not believe they achieved the second. 9/11 made America stronger.