What is going to come out her mouth next?

I know some of you are thinking that I never blog, when in reality I just like to keep you guessing what is going on in my life. For example, I bet most of you are unaware that I have become a very crafty person.

Just like most of my posts this is going to be an update. "Now, sit back with a cup of hot chocolate and a nice unbroken candy cane...Enjoy!!!"

November- Home Sweet Home
The weekend before Thanksgiving I got do a drive by visit with my family :) I say drive by because I probably only saw them for a couple of hours the entire time I was home. Even though the visit was super short seeing their faces was an extremely wonderful thing. (They all look the same by the way.) The real reason for my visit was to participate in my friends wedding, which was beautiful and super fun. The weekend was filled with lots of fun wedding festivities such as a bachelorette party, wedding rehearsal, decorating the reception hall (winter theme), and of course the actual wedding. The bride was stunning and the bridesmaids were looking pretty nice themselves (me included). At the reception the bridesmaids wore sock money slippers, which were warm, comfy, and super cute. Once I get some pictures I will post them so you can see what a great weekend I had.

Thanksgiving-
If you were worried about me being depressed and lonely on Thanksgiving have no worries because I wasn't. My friend and GA informant invited me to come celebrate with her family. I had a splendid time eating and socializing with her family. On Thanksgiving day it was her birthday so her mother put candles in the turkey and we all sang to her. I was completely entertained by the whole experience.

December- CRAZINESS
The past couple of weeks have been crazy in my classroom. When I got back from GA I found out that three of my students had lice; thinking about them having lice still makes me itch. We had just started to get over that itchy experience when a stomach bug went around my classroom. Thankfully I have avoided the lice and the stomach bug...fingers crossed I continue to avoid them. So, the week after Thanksgiving I only had about half of my class till Friday. I would like to say that I enjoyed it but I just wished they were there so they didn't miss out on instruction. This past week my students were STUPENDOUS everyday but Friday and I will take blame for them being crazy. On Tuesday, I had an observation, which my students and I did wonderfully on. (I love my kids behavior most of the time.) The reason they were crazy on Friday is because we went to another classroom and started working on making gingerbread houses. The process of making the gingerbread houses wasn't that bad but the whole you can try the "glue" confectioners sugar and water was not so great. Here comes the part where it was my fault they were crazy, at lunch they got to come into the classroom to eat and I rewarded them with a winter shaped cookie for their great behavior on Tuesday. Poor students their little bodies couldn't handle the "glue" and cookie in one day. Some of them kept themselves together and were not crazy but others suffered from a sugar overload. (lesson learned) We did go to the neighboring schools pep rally because I help out with the cheerleaders and my students were 200% better than the students at that school. Go Kids!!!!

BEST NEWS OF THE WEEK!!!!!!!!
JARED IS GETTING TO MOVE BACK TO ARIZONA THE FIRST WEEK IN JANUARY!!!!
This may not excite anyone else as much as me but I can't wait to have him here....well closer than he is now.

I would say I will be better about posting but I shall not lie especially since it's the Christmas season.

Yours Truly!

Twenty-Two Thankful Thoughts

This girl is going to be GA bound in four long and hectic days. I couldn't be happier to be flying home to participate in my friends wedding.  Also, I am just plain excited to see and spend time with some familiar faces. Even though my visit will only be for four days it's going to be crazy busy but extremely worth it. The one part of this trip that I not looking forward to is all of the preparation that has to take place before I hop on the plane.

The other day while I was attempting to prepare for my trip home I realized I HAVE MY OWN HOME! I know you are probably thinking "duhhh" but it never seemed like this was home until I had to prepare to leave it. That takes me on to my next thought at the age of twenty-two I have a ton to be thankful and proud of.

Twenty-Two Thankful Thoughts:
I am thankful for.....
1. a loving family.
2. my amazing friends.
3. my "big girl" job.
4. the opportunity to show I can be an awesome teacher.
5. my new home!
6. everyone who has been supportive of my choice to move out west.
7. the ability to have a new set of wheels. [Not thankful for the payment] :)
8. my co-workers.
9. the wonderful group of students that I get to teach Monday-Friday.
10. my parents because without them this blog would not be possible. thanks mom and dad.
11. the fact that I live in a place with amazing weather.
12. being able to get a job right out of college.
13. the start time of my school. (I don't have to be at work until 8:05)
14. the gym. (Just wait, you will understand this one when I see you.)
15. the friends I have made since being here.
16. my parents sending me teaching supplies.
17. a town that is laid out like a grid, so I don't get lost as much.
18. the chance to go home and see my family and friends.
19. a car that gets amazing gas mileage.
20. for my bestie because she is always willing to listen to my random thoughts and happenings in my life, even with the time change.
21. for my East Coast partner in crime. (Without her I would never know what is going on back home. Soon enough I get to see her and get caught up on life. I can't wait! :)
22. Jared's impulsive decision to move out west. (Clearly he didn't move but I ended up with a job and an amazing life.)

I hope my list helps to get you thinking about what you are thankful for in life. Over the past few months I have learned to be thankful for the small things in life even if they seem silly. What are you thankful for?

Yours Truly!

Let's Play Catch Up

Yikes....it's been several weeks since I have updated you all on my life. I am going to try my best to update you all on the adventures going on in my life. Please sit back in your seat and prepare to relive the past three to four weeks.

Cliff Notes:
A couple of weeks ago I had my first parent/teacher conference week. I am very happy to report that I had 23 out of 24 parents come in for conferences. Even more exciting is that I survived all of the conferences and the parents seemed pleased with their students progress and their time in my classroom. Also, everyone loved the cracker candy "crack" that I made for the bake sale, my item sold out first. (I am not bragging...just saying)

One thing I love about my school district is that the week following conferences we had our fall intersession. I think it is extremely smart on their part to give the students and teachers a break right after a hectic week. Prior to fall intersession I was dreading the fact that I had to entertain myself for an entire week, I wanted nothing more than to hop on a plane and fly home. Looking back on the week I am glad I stuck it out and stayed in my new home. Each and everyday was filled with something to do, which kept my mind off missing home. The big events of the  week were that I went to the movies, painted pottery, and had several lunch dates.

The past two weeks I have been back in the classroom teaching and loving on my students. The week before last we read the story "Hedgehog Bakes A Cake", so of course we had to make our own cakes. My students did a stupendous job following the directions and ended up making edible cakes. Go Kids! Last week we read the story "Lemonade For Sale" all throughout the week. Can you guess what the class got to do on Friday? Well, if you guessed make real lemonade you are correct. My students thought rolling and squeezing lemons was an exhilarating activity that they had never participated in before. Of course I had to make the lemonade educational so we compared/contrasted real and concentrate lemonade, we also used our five senses to come up with adjectives to describe the lemonade.

This week we are starting the story "Johnny Appleseed" and you better believe we will be doing tons of activities with apples. I absolutely love having my students do hands on activities that they will remember over the weekend. I know I should probably say that they will remember them  for a life time or for their schooling career or even for their elementary years; but lets be realistic the activity could slip their mind by the end of the weekend.

I will leave you with a funny story about one of my students and a fabulous fact.

Story- A student came up to me on Thursday and put both of her hands on my stomach, she then proceeded to tell me an entire story. Once the student has finished her story she looked down at her hands and then up at me several times. After a few moments she said, "Miss Martin your real skinny real skinny" she then proceeded to take her hands off my stomach and  follow her class out the door. I just smiled and said, "thank you."

Fabulous Fact- I will be home in eleven days. :) :) :)

Yours Truly!

Open Mouth Insert Dessert...I Mean Foot!

So, here is some back history to my lovely incident today. This week at my school we are having parent/teacher conferences, which equals tons and tons and tons and tons of stress. (If you were wondering I am a bit stressed this week) Anyways, this week we are also having a bake sale every day during conferences, which means the teachers have to bake something to bring one of the conference days. You may be asking yourself two questions right now.... First, does Jessica even know how to bake? Second, will it be safe for the parents and students to eat what Jessica bakes? The answer to both of those questions is of course I can bake (follow a recipe) and no one will be harmed in the eating of my baked good (weight gain does not count).

Tonight we had our first round of  parent/teacher conferences, which meant a lot of sitting and waiting for me. That's another story in itself...focus! Since I had some time to kill I walked in to the hallway and ran into my coach, who by the way is amazing. She asked me what I was making for the bake sale and I responded, "crack candy." She politely asked, "what is crack candy?" I went on to explain to her what crack candy was made of....fast forward about twenty-minutes. My parent never came for her conference so I proceeded to walk myself down to the book fair where my coach was working. As I am talking with my coach and another teacher, my coach says, "Tell this teacher what you are going to be making for the bake sale." I quickly respond (no processing involved before speaking) "CRACK CANDY." If you guessed that parents and children were looking around the book fair as I made this proclamation you are correct. Yikes!!!! To say my coach and the other teacher were shocked would be an understatement; as they were picking their jaws off the ground I quickly fixed my mistake and said, "I am making CRACKER CANDY." I proceeded to blame my word vomit on my frontal lobe because I have heard it isn't fully developed until you are twenty-five. I still have three more years of making dumb decisions.....right?

FYI- If you are going to use the term crack candy make sure it's around those who know what you are talking about.

Shout Out---Thanks Tracy for the recipe :)

After this hectic week is over I will update everyone on my physical and mental state of being.

Yours Truly!



This pan has white chocolate m&ms on top. Yummy!  



This pan has candy corn on top. I haven't tried this one becuase I am not a fan of candy corn. (Crossing my fingers it is good.)

Fall is Officially Here...Well Not Exactly!

So, last Friday was the official start of Fall and you better believe my kids and I had a party. No really, we literally had a party to celebrate the first day of Fall. Now this may come as a shock to you but no other teacher celebrated Fall quite the way we did. One other teacher did some Fall activities with her students but that was about the extent of the Fall excitement in her room. I do not blame my fellow teachers for not feeling the same passion for Fall as I do because it is currently still over a hundred degrees everyday out here. So, in their defense it's a little hard to get excited about a season you don't even get. (Please take a moment to think of these poor people who don't get to experience the amazing Fall weather and scenery...me included now.)


Our Fall Day:
The beginning part of the day was filled with fun assessments...yay! (not really) Then, it was time for science to start and that's when  my kids worlds were turned upside down. My parents sent me a box of dried leaves, which my kids thought was the greatest thing ever. You would have thought I had given them a million dollars each when in reality all I gave them was a leaf. Ok, I might have built the leaves up and made a huge deal about them coming from GA and not being able to get anymore and how fragile and special they were; but all of that aside my kids thought the leaves were the greatest things ever right until....Soandso broke one. Let's just say soandso almost lost his hand because of the breaking of a leaf. Thankfully, I was able to rescue him before the leaf detectives were able to get to him.


The rest of our day pretty much consisted of leaf and fall activities, sprinkled with a million questions about fall and why we don't have Fall. The best part of the afternoon (other than the cake) was when my students made their leaf into a creature or monster. If I ever figure out how to put pictures on this computer then I will take pictures and show you how amazing they did. Some students made their leaf into real animals like tadpoles and fish, while others made theirs into scary/silly monsters. The students also wrote about their creature/monster that they made. Crazy cute! 


Funny Story Time:
The other day one of my fellow teachers was getting observed by our principal and coach. Well, she pulled out a book about the four seasons and soandso from my class started going off about fall and all the things we had done in our classroom. Bet she never thought one of her kids would come in with background knowledge about Fall. (Yay! For Me!) Apparently the fall activities and leaves left quite the impression on him. The teacher is amazing so she recovered and went on to have a wonderful lesson.


Dear East Coast,


If you would like to send some of your amazing Fall weather this way that would be much appreciated.


Thank you,
Jessica (The girl who misses fall like crazy!)


I suppose that is all for now, but just remember I would be alright if someone would bottle Fall up and send it to me.


Yours Truly!

Jessica VS Running

I can do it....I can do it....I can do what?

What I can do.....Run a 5K in December. My goal is that by December I will be in shape enough to run a 5K. When I joined the gym a couple of weeks ago I told the guy that the only thing I wanted to be able to do was run. Well, that was a couple of weeks ago and I have yet to run. I have been to a variety of workout classes but none of them have actually involved running. There is one class that I love going to and it's called body tone. The class consists of a full body work out using cardio and weights. I am going to go out on a weight here (get it..haha) and say that my body is becoming a little more tone.

Reward System: I have learned through teaching that sometimes my students just work better if there is an actual reward at the end of the task. So, I have decided that if I actually run a 5k in December that I will reward myself with something. The only thing I know so far is that I refuse to reward myself with food. I have thought about new tennis shoes, work out clothes, pedicure, or new outfit. Sadly none of this things really motivate me to want to go to the gym and run. Any suggestions?

There is one reward that I am hoping to get in December when I come home, but I can't tell you what it is until it happens. Sorry you must wait until then to find out what it is. Plus I am just giving you incentive to check in on my blog every so often.

My goal for this week is to run/jog (probably walk) three times.

Look out Georgia, I am going to be coming back as one SEXY (sorry mom/dad but it had to happen at some point) young woman.

Yours Truly!

(Crossing my fingers I am better at running than blogging.)

Three Day Week

The answer to my previous post is the library. I love going to the library and checking out books for my students to read in class. The library books really motivate and push them to finish their work on time. My goal is to change out the books every week for them so they have a new collection to pick from. So far providing my students with library books has been an excellent decision.

In the past two weeks I have only taught my students six days, three days the week before and then three days this past week. The week before I had training on Thursday and then Friday the students did not come to school. This past week we had Monday off and no school on Friday due to the power outage. I love teaching my kids so I am genuinely looking forward to a full week. Plus having all of these weird schedules is causing the kids to get out of the routine of school. No good!

The AMAZING outcome of a three day week!!!! Thanks to the power outage which resulted in school being cancelled I was able to see Jared this weekend. Jared is in town visiting with is parents who live about 7 hours from where I currently live. So, yesterday I drove up to meet Jared at a half way point between where he is and where I am located. (He ended up driving a little bit farther than me but I am alright with that.) We were able to spend the majority of yesterday together and then a small amount of time today. I LOVED being able to see him but even more than that I loved being able to see a familiar face. The visit was very unexpected which made it that much more special; although the leaving part was of course bitter sweet. (No tears at ALL, everyone should be extremely impressed.) I will admit though once I made it back home I was in a bit of funk for a couple of hours because I started to miss him and everyone else back home. No worries though I have begun forging through with school work and I am going to hang out with friends tonight so life is happy just like always.

I am not the biggest fan of fundraisers and it seems as a teacher you get hit up all the time to help out with stuff. I have decided to start my own fundraiser though, so if you would like to see my face in October instead of December you can donate to the SEE JESSICA FUND. I am just kidding there is no fund to get me home in October. I have already been out here 2 months, so the next 3ish months until I am home should fly by. Fingers crossed.

I hope you all enjoyed reading about the randomness in my life.

This picture isn't from our visit this weekend. It's actually from

when we came in December to visit his parents and go to the

company party.

 
Yours Truly!