decorating with cents

Our bedroom has been constantly put on the backburner since we have been in school and all.  Blank walls, piles of junk, and 11 loads of laundry prevailed around the room. I could say that I was purposely going for the disorganized look but I would be lying.  Once I finished student teaching I decided that it was time to fix this problem once and for all.  So here you have it, Mission Organization: $40 or Less

I apologize for my poor cut and paste job for the "after" picture being cut together, but you will get over it. It took a little work and even less money to transform our room into something halfway decent. I'll break it down for you...

2 frames from DI = $9 (that's a rip off I would say)

1 light blue flat sheet = $15 (you could get a cheaper one but I wanted a specific color)

1 jug of liquid starch = $3 (Instead of painting the walls (no-no) I starched the sheet on the wall)

wood for shelf = $12

Paint, stain, and other = $0 (McKay's parents already had some)

One of the main problems was the overpopulation of things on top of my dresser.  I sketched up a shelf and showed it to McKay.  He really liked the idea and told me "Oh that would be SO easy to build."  But this was a totally different story when we were in a house that had TV in it.  Carrie, your brother is also a TV addict. ha! After some begging and some "encouragement" from his dad it was built in 30 mins. I love it!

...now, if only the dressers matched

Ending and Beginning

Student teaching is over and let me tell you, it has been fabulous coming home and not having to do anything. One of my favorite things to do is to not do anything.

While I was teaching all of the kids wanted to know my first name. Whenever they would ask I would just say "Mrs." This really bugged some of the kids and they would keep asking me questions like "Is your name Penelope? Britany? Sarah? Tiffany?" Eventually I told them that I would tell them on my last day. My last day came on April 1st and at the end of the day, after the bell rang, I had scores of kids come and ask what my name was. I told them my name was Katie and after they were all gone I wrote this message on the board so they could read it the next day when I wasn't there! Hahaha! I got a kick out of it! I'm sure they were angry! haha!

It has started to warm up here in Idaho. Most of the snow has melted and I am looking forward to spring. Temperatures have been in the 40's-60's and it has been wonderful. I still find it amusing to see people walking around in shorts and tee-shirts because it is in the 40's and that is "warm".

McKay has been doing well. He has a really hard job as you can probably tell. TV for 5 hours, work for 3 hours, and paid for 8 hours. Not fair.


Braiden and Sharon are back too. They just moved into their new apt this Friday and it has been fun hanging out with them.


It has been fun seeing their new home and helping them move in. Check out their pretty curtains! Oh, and I got another haircut.


For Easter we all went down to Pocatello to eat dinner with McKay's and Braiden's parents. We all rode in the same car and McKay and I sat in the back with Ethan. Ethan likes McKay and was laughing at all of the weird noises and faces McKay was making. It was really cute.


Dinner was wonderful and we loved spending time with family. Currently we have one more week until the new semester starts. We will be busy cleaning, repairing, shadowing, painting, applying for jobs, building, and hopefully getting all of this stuff finished before the new semester starts! Yay!

Theres no such thing as a stupid question, just stupid people

Ok, well maybe not. I just thought that this saying was extra funny because of the subject matter that I am about to address, so I'll start at the beginning. I received an email from the floral dept asking for art pieces so they could do floral interpretations of them for the floral show. I thought that sounded interesting so I gave them my number and eventually I got a call from some girl. I showed her pictures over the internet and I let her decide which project she wanted to pick. She ended up choosing the "Bridge Under Construction" one.

I really like how she hung the rocks from it! She went really abstract with it and I think that hers was the best one (I'm not biased or anything.) Anyway, the day of the show I called up Heather and we went to the show (McKay was in the testing center). We had just found my sculpture when I got a call from McKay saying that he was out and was coming up. So we waited for him but as we were waiting we eavesdropped on all the people walking past us (this is where the "stupid people" comment ties in). Here is some of the things we heard:

"Is that a cake?"
"ha ha ha ha!"
"What is that?"
"Did she make that?"
"Is that a cake?"
"Interesting"
"Oh, it's a cone thing."
"That is a...."
"Is that a cake?"
"Daddy, is that clay?"
"Some people do some really strange art."
"Oh, man!"
"I don't get it."
"Is that a cake?"
"They are going to use it to make Cheese Wiz."
"That's Jessica's. It says so."
"What the... is that?"
"Is that a cake Daddy?

McKay looks nice and innocent in this beautiful scenery but really he jumped into the picture. Thanks a lot babe.

This cake was seriously the best cake in the whole show! I love it! (above)
This table arrangement of orchids is soooo pretty! When I'm rich I'll have one of these arrangements in my house. (below)

I love this arrangement and I took a picture of it not knowing that Ashley (the girl who did my ceramic project) did this one. After we saw each other in person we both realized that we were in the same ceramic class together.

This was in their Japanese themed room I love the woven snakegrass placemats! Awesome!

Winter...

Sometimes I like to pretend that winter is almost over. Most of the time I try to refrain from this optimistic attitude. Usually I wouldn't be so negative, but Rexburg isn't famous for spring in March, or even April for that fact. Last year it snowed in June. So I have decided that I will keep my mindset that it is still winter so that way I won't get let down. Even if the weather does tease us with warm spring-y temperatures in the 40's, I will not be convinced that we are in spring. My bet is that we will get at least 2 more snowstorms before "real" spring.

A couple of days ago, when I was skipping inservice, whoa... I mean, McKay came and brought me flowers for no reason. Sigh. I love flowers. It makes it feel much more spring-y and happy.

Yeah, you probably caught that... I skipped inservice. Yeah, I don't care. My cooperating teacher said I didn't have to go, because he was going to another meeting in some other city. Hah ha! Let me tell you, it was awesome! I loved not going and I don't regret it. Inservice is stupid. It's pretty much just a waste of time. The last one I went to they were teaching us how to use a search engine... ooooOOOO! Really didn't need to be there for that one. Maybe they should put an age requirement or a technology aptitude test so that way you don't have to go listen to "searching for articles/images/other" for four hours.

So McKay and I did something fun this weekend. We fed ducks. Yeah, we're really wild.

While McKay was feeding the ducks he noticed that if you dangle the bread in front of the geese they will try to jump for it. It was funny watching the them try to jump.

I am not sure why this clip wont play all of the way but if you skip forward you can see more.

I got my new tri kids this week and they are awesome! I will let everyone know how that goes later... this is enough posting for one day.

dead dogs and children

The tri just switched yesterday so I no longer have any of the kids that I used to have. I will get a new batch of kids on Mon. That makes me sad... wait... no, not really. I really liked my 4th hour history class though (pictured below), they were the most fun.

My 2nd hour history class was horrible, there was only eight students in that class. Three of those students showed up once every two weeks, another three hung out with the wrong crowd and was doped up all the time, and that left only two who were relatively normal. It was pretty depressing.

Sometimes these kids say the weirdest things. They are all in the stage where they are trying to be cool but they don't know what they are talking about. Yesterday I heard two of my kids talking about sushi. It went something like this:

1: "Have you ever had sushi?"

2: "No."

1: "You haven't?! *gasp*"

2: "Do you even know what sushi is?"

1: "Yeah.... uhhh..... I know what it is. uhhhh.... uhhhh..... like raw fish? Have you ever had quiche?"

2: "No"

1: "It's exactly like sushi."

sure it is...

___________________________________________________

A couple of days ago Heather ran over to my apt and told me to come with her because there was something I should see. We went back to her apt and there was a dead dog partially wrapped in a garbage bag in her backyard. Very interesting. As we sat in her living room looking out at the bloodied corpse (this photo doesn't show the blood part) we discussed who could have put the dog there and why. We came up with many different scenarios and then we saw her korean neighbors come out and wrap it with more plastic bags. Her neighbors didn't own a dog and we found it very weird that they, all of the sudden, did. After her neighbors were done wrapping it they brought it into their house. We watched but they never left to throw it in the dumpster... dun da duuuuuun!

What happened to it? We will never know.

Oops I did it again...

...got lost in the game.  Oh baby, baby

(Did I mention I love book paper?)

Ahhh.... 8th graders.....

While stuck grading research papers this Friday the 13th, I was unusually surprised when I found out that a number of my student's projects on the Revolutionary War were plagiarized.  Many of these are really good students too.  Anyway, it is definitely a dead-giveaway when a thirteen year-old uses words like "sovereign," "whilst," or "associates." I find it particularly entertaining when they even have the guts to come up to me and act like they are so confused about why I gave them a zero.  Yeah, yeah, yeah... I'm a jerk. 

But enough with all this negative stuff, there was some essays that were original and I found rather funny.  One of the assignments I had these kids do was to write a letter pretending they were a soldier in Valley Forge.  They had to include their living conditions as well as their feelings about being an American soldier.  Most students wrote about being starved, cold, and needing supplies but I found one of the students' letters particularly interesting.  So for your viewing pleasure here is a wonderful sample of the letter.... 

"Der mom

I've been having some trouble with my gun.  Yesterday it backfired and I got a broken head.  I feel discouraged and sad.  I need to know how to mend it and have to fix my gun, so will you help me?

The other day when I was firing at the British, I felt sick because I had exposed some of my head to the snow and had a brain freeze.  I have tried to get a bigger coat, but that didn't work.  But I feel proud to be an American.  I feel that I've worked to hard to die.  Some times before going to sleep I would sing the national anthem to feel comforted, but then I saw a British solder and just shot him through the hole in the tent.  Later in the morning I realized that it was one of our soders dressed up in a British uniform.  He was supposed to be a spy for us  but, someone shot him during the night.  I feel sad for the solder.

Sincerely, Grant*"

*Name has been changed

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