It’s Saturday – Why am I up?
I have been bouncing off the wall for the last week or so frantically trying to get ready to start my new “job”.
That is kind of strange to say.
While it is “new” – I will be working under someone I have worked with for several years. So in a sense it isn’t that new – at least expectation wise. But it is a new position, in a new place.
So why did I end up waking up at 6:30 on a Saturday? Well as I told a dear friend a few minutes ago via text – I don’t know.
Oddly enough I nearly fell asleep at 8 and instead opted to go shopping and ended up nearly falling asleep on the phone with the above mentioned friend.
Good grief – I am not old enough to be going to bed so early!!! =)
I sit here in my chair in the living room listening to hum of every fan in the house (because in case you didn’t know it is unusually hot here in Oklahoma and I have a cantankerous air conditioner) trying to figure out if I can actually fall back asleep for a decent length of time and not be woken up by a text or a phone call.
The decisions of an educator/counselor on the weekend! HAHA
While in general I am not thrilled with doing “nothing” on the weekend (believe me I could be doing more productive like laundry), I am going to try and enjoy the “nothing-ness” because the next month is going to be crazy. We have two birthdays next week, two more birthday parties the following week, working on stuff for work, finally going back to finishing up that beloved dissertation (or at least getting further in it) and trying to battle the unusually long heat waves.
Don’t misunderstand it is hot here but it odd that we have had 20+ days over at least 105. Growing up it was unusual for the temperatures to be 99 with some 100, 101, 102 and some random 103 but 109, 110 upwards to around 115?!?! I didn’t realize I lived in the desert.
Complaining aside – I have lots of little projects I want to finish! Crocheted blanket, attaching ears on a hat (that really should be complicated but yet it is), practicing knitting, some little gifts for friends throughout the upcoming year to name a few things. Yet, I am sitting here still contemplating whether I can fall back asleep for an hour before the air conditioning man calls.
So why have I been up since 6:30? I guess because I am crazy – maybe my brain won’t shut off (which is usually the case) – maybe my body just decided it was time to get up.
Who knows?!?! I guess I will take the semi-relaxation route while I still can. It won’t always be this quiet at home with us and dogs!
Is summer really almost over?
The summer as I know is almost over. Yeah don’t get me wrong it is hot as all get out in my area but the end of July is like the beginning of a wake up call that I (and kids who attend school) have to go back to work. =)
I started this draft sitting at my cousin’s center island listening to seven children running around, playing video games and talking with the other 4 adults in the house. It was busy, and at times loud but that is the way it is out here – at least when we are in town. =)
Then I got sidetracked with the idea of shopping and promptly closed my computer and decided the blog could wait a day or two.
So here I am two days later still pondering the same question:
What have I done this summer?
Not much.
And I am paying for it now because I have been nothing but busy the last week and a half with very little relief in sight.
To be honest – not much has happened (overall). I guess after years of working and going to school you get to a point where doing a lot of productive things is just not in the plans. Oddly enough I can’t say that I am extremely relaxed by any means. Go figure. (Haha)
So what is going on in our household?
Josh is busy with work and working with youth events and technology at church. We spend a lot of time with our nephews. (The oldest nephew just turned 4 today!) And our calendar is getting fuller each day with events with family, work, and social events.
I went to Colorado with my family and recently went to visit other family in Texas last weekend.
Despite the fact that I feel like my summer has been very “quiet”, I made a huge change a week ago. I was offered the opportunity to become a school counselor in another school in our district. After much thought, prayer and advice I decided that this was a good opportunity and if I wanted to become one this would be the place to do it. While I am scared, I am excited. The school I am going to seems happy for me to be there and I will be working for a good friend of mine. I will miss my colleagues at my old school dearly but I have already told them expect phone calls and emails! =)
So I am crazy busy (at least I feel that way) packing up my old room and getting my new office ready. (I am hoping it will be finished before school starts in 3 weeks!)
With that said, I am ready for new challenges and ready for our little household to have a return to somewhat of a schedule! (And October will be just around the corner with my birthday and of course, hockey!!!)
It’s been awhile
Life happens and I haven’t been writing in what feels like an eternity! Well hopefully that will change in the next few weeks. I am working diligently to become a little more organized and working to finish the school year and hopefully take a little time for me! =)
Girly Clock Redo
As you may know I teach school and ever since I began teaching I fight with my clocks at school. It started in my first classroom. I had one of those HUGE traditional school clocks in my classroom and one day it started acting funny. It would work and then it would stop and it would work and then it would stop. A family friend and colleague came by and started giving me a hard time and telling me he messed with my clock.
I was convinced he broke it. I finally gave up waiting for the ancient clock to work properly. I ripped it off the wall and ran to the local Wally World to pick up a new, electronic, digital clock assuming it would work as long as I could remember to occasionally replace the batteries.
Fast forward several years and a few room changes later. Same digital clock that has seemed to work fine for the past several years decides to stop working. I assume my friend has messed with it again (even though he’s since retired he tutors in the building) and change the batteries, hang it on the wall and life is great. A few months later it does it again, randomly changing times and stops working until I set it on my desk. While it sat on my desk, students tilted their heads or got out of their seat to check the time and colleagues could never find it because I always changed where it is placed.
I was/am beginning to think clocks and I just don’t get along.
So this summer I made a new one! A girly one at that!
I saw an adorable clock redo on a blog (and couldn’t remember which one) and finally found another blog that had basically the same information. (Let’s face it I could do it on my own but why think harder than I need to during the summer?)
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Supplies needed:
A clock (the plainer the better) – I got mine at Target for around $3 (I think)
Patterned paper, solid paper and glitter paper (if you want to do it the same as I did mine) You could also use stickers or plain paper
Glue
Glue gun
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There are two clips that hold the front piece on. I carefully used scissors to pry the front off. (Normally I would not suggest using scissors because let’s face it I am clumsy and luckily didn’t cut myself but I could not find pliers or a flat head screwdriver anywhere in the garage and quite frankly I gave up after a few minutes searching for them.)
As you can see there’s the front of the clock ( The front piece is finally off; it took me a few minutes to “unhook” it from the two slots).
Flip the clock back over and carefully take the clock mechanism (the square) off the back and take the hands of the clock off the front. If you use the Target clock, the second hand will pop off the top and the minute and hour hands will take a slight twist.
In a perfect world the paper centerpiece of the clock would come out and all I would have had to do was trace the paper and go from there but I was not so lucky, the original clock face was glued down.
I took my patterned paper and traced around the entire clock. I then cut out the circle and little by little cut around the circle until I had a circle that would fit over the plain paper clock face.
Then using the clock face as a guide I placed sticky notes around the patterned paper for my clock face numbers. (Don’t you just love my resourceful torn sticky notes?? haha) I would have normally written on the actual paper instead of using sticky notes but the patterned paper made pencil markings hard to see.
Next, cut out 12 circles. These should be smaller than 2 inches dependent on the size of your clock.
I cut out 12 black circles for my numbers. These circles were about 1.25 inches around. I had a template but they were either too big or too small so I used a template for 1.50 inches and cut it down to the right size. I then used my new size as template for the other number circles. I used craft/scrapbook glue to adhere the circles to the paper.
Cut out numbers.
I cut out my numbers using pink glitter paper and my cricut. If you don’t have a cricut you could use stickers, handwritten numbers or printed numbers.
Using craft glue, glue the numbers onto the circles.
Next, use hot glue to adhere the new clock face to the clock.
When placing the clock face on, you can either try to punch a hole for the middle or do like I did and carefully push the paper over the center piece.
Replace the clock mechanism and the clock hands. Put the cover back on, add a battery in the back and you are set!
Here’s the finished product!
A suggestion:
* Before you put the cover on the clock, put the battery in and make sure the clock is working properly. I realized that hands were not working properly and I had to take it all apart and tighten the hands.
I love this clock! It will totally go with my black, pink and lime green color scheme in my classroom at school!