Happy Halloween!

Today is Halloween!

Like it or not, when you teach in an elementary school, you'd better like Halloween or at least pretend like you do. It's part of the unwritten contract. I am NOT a fan of dressing up. It causes me great anxiety. I don't like the way I look as it is let alone making it worse by adorning myself in clothes I don't like and parade around. This year I wore the same witch hat I did last year. I'm a creature of habit. I'm fine with it. Here's my "costume".

Here's a picture of me with my awesome student teacher Maddy. I love this girl!

My next door teacher neighbor, Marci, who I adore. She dressed up like Squirty the Clown from the Junie B. Jones book Boo... and I MEAN it! A must read for everyone!

 

Our principal and office staff dressed up as characters from Despicable Me. Well done friends, well done.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Ha ha!

Senile...

Everything, at some point, goes crazy I'm finding out.

 So Tank has been acting weird over the past few weeks... well, weirder than normal. He's super duper extra needy a lot of the time, and avoids us completely at other times. He stares at walls. He's losing his hearing and his eye sight is noticeably failing. His coordination isn't near what it used to be. It makes me sad.

The weirdest most recent thing he does is start to shake uncontrollably and pant really hard. His tongue hangs all of the way out of his mouth. It's kind of scary. It also seems to be on cue. If he thinks we're leaving or not paying enough attention to him, the shaking starts. It's almost impossible to calm him down. He won't eat any of his dog treats or even "people food".

So I called the vet last week. I told them about the shaking, wondering if it's something serious or not. The vet's office told me they could do a bunch of testing and blood work to rule out certain things but the problem was most likely senility. Yep. My dog is having puppy panic attacks, separation anxiety and moments of complete and utter senility. Senile. He's basically losing it. I'm sad about it. I got online and looked up a bunch of stuff and found this...

Tank is showing a lot of these signs. I also found online that a lot of pet owners have their animals put down once they begin showing signs of senility. NO WAY! I couldn't believe someone would do that because their pet's personality was changing. Seeing my 13 year old little Tank in his moments of craziness makes me so sad but there is no way I'm putting him down. That's all. I just had to vent about Tank. It's hard to watch!

Too young?

One thing that bothers me is when people dress much younger than their age. If you're in your 60's, you really shouldn't be wearing any of these... unless you're in Hollywood walking the red carpet... and even then it's questionable.

Don't get me wrong... I'm not saying that someone mature (yep, I said mature) should dress like this either. There must be a happy medium. Not too young and not too old.

 When I think of someone that dresses totally age appropriate, I think of the very classy Dame Judi Dench. She dresses her age and looks amazing!

So onto my quandary...

I wear a headband every day. They're all just plain old black or brown. It's probably a phase... like my phase of always wearing my hair pulled up. The hair pulled up phase has been going on for over 10+ years. I NEVER wear it down. Never. It's a phase, I'm sure. I have one headband that has a big foofy flower thing. I cautiously wore it to school yesterday for the first time. I'm not sure what I think about it.

I'm thinking I've joined the ranks of children everywhere by sporting this headband. I've got foof in my hair. What do you think? Is it age appropriate? Too juvenile? I can tell you one thing, I don't think Dame Judi Dench will be rockin' hair foof anytime soon.

A ridiculously priced purchase...

Over the summer I decided that, even though I hate the way I look, it was time to embrace what I am and buy some new clothes. I previously blogged about buying new hangers for my new clothes HERE. Anyway, I've been adding all kinds of new things to my closet over the past two months. I recently struck gold. I've lucked out with buying mostly clearance on my new clothing quest, but this recent purchase takes the cake.

I really like the store CJBanks. They carry sizes 14 and up. That would be me... size 14 and up - emphasis on the up. Their mall stores are nice but their stuff tends to run small and their prices are high, in my opinion. I keep my eye on their online store. I've had a lot of success with their clearance. Case in point...

This box arrived for me.

It's full of new clothes!!

Here's what I ordered...

6 new shirts!

4 at $35.50 each

1 at $29.50 

1 at $19.50

total: $191.00

2 lightweight shrugs.

$45.50 each

total: $91.00

3 lightweight cardigans.

(they all look identical in this picture but they're not)

$39.50 each

total: $118.50

3 other tops.
White sweater with crochet $45.50
Olive green shirt $35.50
Black and white plaid $39.50

total: $120.50

That's a grand total of
$521.00

For whatever reason, it came with two shipping invoices.

I paid a whopping $3.00 for each item.

The total I paid for everything is $38.99
Yep. You read that right. Thirty eight dollars and ninety nine cents.

I saved an incredible 
$482.01

And how did I do this?
I shopped all clearance (which was already priced really low) and used an additional 40% off my total coupon. I was shocked and excited to get 14 things for $3.00 a piece. I scored! I love it when I stumble on amazing finds!

The ABC's of me...

I'm on Fall Break. Good! I have a sinus infection. Bad! Since I have nothing much to blog about today, I give you the ABC's of me...

 Age: 37 (until the end of the year anyway)

 Bed Size: King. When we got married, I insisted on replacing my queen with a king. In my mind, 1 person=queen. Therefore, 2 people=king. No?

Chore you hate: Cleaning the bathtub/shower. I have to psych myself up to do it.

 Dogs: Just one. Tank. Tanker. Tankaroo. Tankerton.

 Essential start to the day: An icy cold Vanilla Coke Zero.

 Favorite color: I pretty much like all of them.

 Gold or silver: Silver.

 Height: 5ft 8in. (at least that's what my driver's license says)

 Instruments you play: None. I was a piano lesson dropout as a kid. It wasn't my "thing". Everyone assumes I can play the piano since my husband is an organist. They are soooo wrong.

 Job title: Nurse, child psychologist, judge and jury, disciplinarian, referee, counselor, cheerleader, magician, child advocate... oh wait. Title? First grade teacher. 'Nuff said.

 Kids: None yet. It's on my list of wants and I'm hopeful.

 Live: I'm proud to be an American!

 Mood food: I'm always in the mood for some good food!

 Nicknames: None... that I know of. I've had friends call me 'Chits' and supposedly my dad called me 'Jabber Jaws' when I was little. I certainly can't imagine why...   :)

 Overnight hospital stays: None yet, knock on wood.

 Pet peeves: Too many to list. One that comes to mind is Costco shoppers. People push those gigantic carts around without ever looking behind, to the back, front, or side of them.

Quote from a movie: "What did you do all again last summer, Napoleon? I told you, I spent it with my uncle in Alaska hunting wolverines. Did you shoot any? Yes, like 50 of them. They kept trying to attack my cousin. What the heck would you do in a situation like that?!" (I just typed that from memory. I'm pretty awesome)

 Right or left-handed: Left. All the best people are!

 Stores you love: It depends on what I'm after! I'm always up for a trip to Gardner Village or Hobby Lobby.

 Time you wake up: It depends on if I'm washing my hair that morning. 5:40 a.m. to wash and 6:15 a.m. if I don't.

 Underwear: Clean ones. Everyday.

 Vegetable you hate: I was raised eating all types of vegetables. I don't really hate any of them. If I had to choose, though, I would say Jicama. I just don't get it. It's like a flavorless potato. Why?

 What makes you run late: My hair or my mascara. Yep. Mascara. Weird, I know.

 Xrays you've had: My teeth (of course) and arm. Does an MRI count? I had an MRI on my back the last time I had kidney stones.

 Yummy food you make: Ummm... hello?! It's ALL yummy!

 Zoo animals: Monkeys. I love those furry little guys!

 I saw this on someone else's blog. If you read it and have a blog of your own, copy and paste it onto your blog and change the answers. I'd love to see the ABC's of you!

A Sunday out...

Sunday night Ken and I went to an organ recital. The organist wasn't anyone Ken knew. It was part of some festival of music thing... I think. I'm not sure. Ken's world and my world are so different. It's always just "music stuff" to me. It's like a foreign language. I like when our worlds collide but I am soooo not musical. The recital was at the very beautiful Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City.

It is a beautiful church.

Here's the organ. Very pretty.

And here is a really grainy and blurry picture of us. Oh well. Getting Ken to agree to have his picture taken is a feat all in itself. Clearly I succeeded.

We had a great night filled with some amazing music!

Still here...

I'm alive. 

Ken's alive.

Promise.

We've been busy. The past week at school has been extra busy for me. I had parent teacher conferences on Wednesday and Thursday. I was at my school until 9:00 p.m. and had a great time visiting with all of my students parents. I really enjoy parent teacher conferences. It just makes for a long day. We also had a field trip yesterday. I'm worn out. I'm also trying to get our upcoming primary program nailed down. I'm taking a different approach to it this year so we'll see how it goes.

Ken is still busy with school. He's busy taking classes, teaching classes and practicing. He's also got a lot of homework during the week. He decided this semester to not work on homework or practice on Sundays. So far, so good. I think it's been hard (feeling like he has so much to do) but is also paying off in other ways. I'm glad he's on the downward slide of his Master's. I get tired just trying to keep track of his schedule.

There's not much new with us. Still plugging along. I'm looking forward to a 5 day weekend next week. Woohoo! It's Fall Break for our district and I have Thursday, Friday, and Monday off. Ken doesn't have a break, poor guy. But I do! Maybe I'll be able to catch up on some sleep, some reading, laundry, housework, and blogging. I'm also going to try to bottle apple pie filling. I've never bottled anything in my life! My dad has a lot of apples on his trees this year. Wish me luck!

Tank's alive too! He barks and runs away every time he sees his Halloween costume. You can click HERE for that awesome post. Too bad for him. He'll be donning that dino-suit on the 31st! I'm looking forward to it.

On a side note, happy 33rd birthday today to my baby brother, Brian. Keep checking your mailbox for that cashier's check.