I'm done...

Wow. It's still quite strange to say. I'm not really sure how I feel right now. Today was my last day of school. I don't know if it will be my last day of teaching ever, but it's definitely my last day of teaching for a while. A lot of people asked me how I was feeling. I'm not sure. I'm excited and happy, but also scared and sad. It sort of hit me when I left our FAC this afternoon. I really love the people that I work with and I'll really, really miss everyone. Sunset has been such a great place to work. Granted, I haven't worked at a whole lot of different places, but I've never worked with so many great people in one place. I'm not sure if it's all really hit me yet. Teaching is such a strange profession anyway. I mean, you spend so much time with your coworkers during the year, but come June, people generally go their separate ways. You usually don't see people a whole lot over the summer. It's a strange existence. I think it might hit me a lot more in in August, when for the first time in my life I don't be going back to school. I just don't know... we'll have to see how it all plays out. Right now I just feel weird.

again with the long absence....

Right. I keep thinking that I'll post daily, or even weekly, but I just haven't gotten to it. So... here goes the marathon post. I'm not sure that any one actually reads this, but if you do, you're in for a long post. Get a snack and brace yourself.

First: School... counting down the days. Everyone's been asking if I'm getting emotional or if I'm going to miss it. I haven' t yet. I think I'll be a bit of a wreck in August when, for the first time in my life, I won't be going back to school, but we'll see. I'm excited right now. I'm really ready to have some time and energy to write.


Second: Reading... I've actually finished a couple of books. Inkheart and The Power of Intention. I wrote reviews for both of them over on my Goodreads page. So I won't bore you with a full review now. I started reading The Secret and The Birchbark House. Hopefully I can finish them in a reasonable amount of time. Yet another thing I'm looking forward to once school is out.

Third: I've been seeing an acupuncturist, as I think I've mentioned before. I'm pretty excited about it. She's the first person who has actually had some answers for all of the symptoms that I've been having for years. She believes that, among other problems, I have a gluten allergy. So, I'm going gluten -free to see if it helps. I'll be posting about that aspect of my life as well. One of the things I was really worried about when I first found out about my allergy was going out to eat. We like to go out with friends all the time and I didn't want to be the lame one that couldn't because of an allergy. So far I have had great luck though. We went out with Jenny and John last weekend to Jim and Nick's BBQ at Northfield Stapleton. They were fantastic! The server went and checked on the gluten in the chips and the BBQ sauce. We ate a giant plate of DE-licious nachos. I never thought to put BBQ sauce on nachos, but they were fantastic. Then I had a giant (literally the size of my head) backed potato with all the trimmings, plus pulled pork and BBQ sauce. Now, I believe that I'm just gluten-intolerant, not majorly allergic, so I can't say if there were trace amounts of gluten in anything or not, but the restaurant was really accommodating and helpful. It was my first outing gluten -free and definitely put me at ease.
The next outing was for Mother's Day with Andrew's mom and sister. We went to the Colorado Coal Company in Erie. They too were awesome. Granted, it's a steak house, so it's a little easier to go gluten free, but they were still nice and able to answer all of my questions.
Finally, last night we got Chipotle. At first I was really worried about going gluten free because I love Mexican food, but EVERYTHING at Chipotle is gluten0free, except the flour tortillas (duh). The guy there was also super nice and gave me a little allergy card with all of the major allergies on it and what they're in. Fantastic. I'm sure I'll be eating out more... so for those who are in Colorado and living gluten-free, hopefully my adventures can help.
Oh... I also bought some gluten-free bread at Great Harvest Bread Company today. Now... I'm only into this gluten-free thing about a week, so I haven't gotten the chance to try any other GF breads, but this stuff is pretty darn good. It's mostly buckwheat, but it's really hearty and not as crumbly as I imagined. The Great Harvest in Longmont bakes it every Wednesday, call ahead to place an order so they don't run out. Also, if you're seriously allergic, there probably is still wheat in the air and stuff. Very good though.

Finally... some knitting. :) And pictures too! I'm plugging away at the orange prayer shawl. No picture for that, it still looks the same. I did however finish the hardest thing I have ever knit in my life. Only after completely screwing it up.

That's the first one with all of the screw ups pointed out. I literally threw this thing across the room I was so irritated. Grumble...







Well, whatever... it got fixed. The next two are pictures of the finished square.

























I'm so glad it's done. I hope it looks as hard as it was. Ugh... This one I finished before the square of death.... It wasn't nearly as bad.

















And finally.... the square in progress now!


It's quite a lot easier than the last square. I really needed a break after that headache. :) Only 6 squares left. I really hope I can get this thing knit, blocked, sewn together and lined by the end of June. Yipes! Something else to do when school is out. :)
All right... hopefully I can post again soon.

I might miss the kids a bit...

Well, though I am very excited about leaving teaching (only 22 days left!) There are some things I'll miss, mostly the stupid things that kids say. I got two new stories to tell today. One of my teammates had a student teacher this semester and tomorrow is her last day. He got her out of the classroom earlier this week long enough to plan a surprise party for her with the kids. So yesterday one of the kids ran up to her and said, "Miss Roe, Miss Roe, I'm so excited about your surprise party tomorrow!" Priceless... :)
Second story: Today the kids who were applying for Accelerated Language Arts in 8th grade had to do their writing sample for their application. The prompt was pretty simple: Accelerated Language Arts students have a variety of attributes including time management, self motivation, love of reading and independent writing. Use three of these attributes to describe why you should be in Accelerated Language Arts next year, or something of the sort. As I was explaining this prompt to my last class of the day, one of my boys raises his hand and says, "What if we don't have three of those attributes?" Well...maybe you should be applying for Accelerated Language Arts then. Seriously. Luckily he figured that out on his own and wrote for his essay: "I don't think I should be in Accelerated Language Arts next year because I don't write out of school and I have no time management." At least he spared me from telling him... :)

I ordered some beautiful sock yarn, a couple of cute felting projects and a WPI calculator from The Loopy Ewe today. That site could very well be the death of me. BEAUTIFUL yarns... just beautiful. I think I'll need to start making more socks. :)

I also ordered a couple of sweaters from the Gap (a fantastic blue cardigan and a grey cable knit. I really, really love cotton sweaters) and a MAXIglide hair straightener from HSN. I know, I know... but it looked totally awesome on the TV and Andrew had actually seen it on a late night infomercial and thought it looked pretty cool too. I had read a bunch of reviews online and there were some complaints, plus it was super expensive, so I didn't get it. Today however it was on sale, with a bunch of extras and it was a new generation with a lot of the problems fixed. So, we'll see. I'm excited to try it. Though I do like my hair curly, I really like it straight too. I have high hopes...

In other news the book is coming along, slowly, but I did work on it a bit yesterday. I'm thinking of posting parts of it on Goodreads, but we'll have to see.
Until later...