Birthday fun

One of the nice things about birthdays is that sometimes they end up being stretched over a week or so. Last night, we had some of Ryan's family over. My nephews Ian and Kai made me these very cool birthday cards. On the way out the door, Kai said, "Wait, I need to say one more thing to Amy! Enjoy the 'Bolt' cards." (This is one of two "Bolt" cards.)

Ian is very creative when he draws creatures. His drawings are really fun!

Mom gave me some birthday money, so today Ryan and I went out to our favorite local nursery, and bought a plum tree. Maybe we will be lucky next year and get some plums. The trunk is a little crooked, although the base is perpendicular to the ground. I'm hoping it will straighten as it grows. Right now, depending on the angle that you look, it has kind of a drunk look to it.

Restful Vacation

My parents came out to visit for Thanksgiving. Ryan and I were thrilled. It's always fun to have them here, plus my dad always brings a car full of tools so he can help us with projects we have. Boy do we have projects! This is the roof to our back porch. (They started the demolition before I got home from school, so I wasn't able to get a proper "before" shot, but chunks of the fiberglass roof on our porch have been blowing off over the last few years every time we get a good storm.) Whenever the wind blows, we can hear the part of the porch roof that's still partially attached banging against the beams of the porch.

We ripped the remaining room off, and added some more support beams. We painted the top part (we'll get to the bottom half later.)

Here's a typical Dad pose--in the middle of a project, answering the phone.


I must say, I can hardly keep up with my dad and that's taking into consideration the fact that he has Parkinson's. Tuesday night, after a long day of working outside, we were all sitting around the table playing Upwords. It was obvious that Dad was tired, and his tremors were starting to really kick in. Instead of going to bed (what I would have done), he got up and started fixing the broken doorknob downstairs. He needed a project to help him feel better, and after moving around to get his tools, he had made a visible improvement.

Now that the roof is on our porch, we are waiting with baited breath for it to rain. I can't wait to see the rain/snow dripping off the edges, instead of all over the deck.

And on a completely random note... I went to yoga class today. A student of mine from last year happened to be in the same class. I figured it was only a matter of time, seeing as I also taught the daughter of one of the yoga teachers (although I had her years ago when I first started teaching). Small world.

Catching up

I think I'm finally there! It's been a busy month, as evidenced by the list of things I finally caught up on this week...

• make posts for my blog (top of the list, of course!)
• balance my checkbook (I love the little prompt Quicken gives when it's been longer than a month--the: "You might be trying to reconcile out of order" message. Yeah, yeah, I know!)
• catch up on loads of laundry, although that one never ends
• get all my grades caught up at school--and I had a STACK of stuff to enter!
• clean the kitchen (haven't made it to the floor yet, but everything else looks good. Just don't look down)

So, I'm feeling much better about life. I still have a laundry list of things to do, but it's not as overwhelming as it was before.

Student Gems

It's been a hectic month, as evidenced by all the posts I've had time to write. Friday was the end of first quarter, and my favorite kind of day--a "Quality Teaching Day" (district's term, not mine) with no students.

Each quarter, my students are assigned to hand in a paper about something they did relating to Deaf people and their culture. I enjoy reading them because of the insights I gain into their personalities, not to mention the funny mistakes they make. (I can laugh about them because I'm not their English teacher...) Here are a few from this quarter's batch:

"Well for my deaf culture experience I watched TV for like Thirty five minutes with no sound."
"Being able to hear is a gift and we shouldn't take it for granite."
"The weighter [waiter] came up to our table..."

This quarter has been a good one. It's had its bumps, but overall, I have been very impressed with my students. I think it's interesting to compare the start of the quarter to the end. There are a few students that I had pegged for being total air-heads, and I'm happy to say I was wrong. I've learned a lot, and so have they.