3 Years ago today

"You're My Best Friend"

Queen

(our recessional song)

Ooo. you make me live

whatever this world can give to me

It's you, you're all I see

Ooo, you make me live now honey

Ooo, you make me live

                                                         

You're the best friend

that I ever had

I've been with you such a long time

You're my sunshine

And I want you to know

That my feelings are true

I really love you

You're my best friend

Ooo, you make me live

I've been wandering round

But I still come back to you

In rain or shine

You've stood by me girl

I'm happy, happy at home

You're my best friend.

You're the first one

When things turn out bad

You know I'll never be lonely

You're my only one

And I love

The things that you do

You're my best friend

Ooo, you make me live.

I'm happy, happy at home
You're my best friend
You're my best friend
Ooo, you make me live
You, you're my best friend.

Happy anniversary!

P.S. Last year a I did a whole wedding series. If you want to see more of our day you can check it out:
Proposal Story
Getting Ready
The Ceremony
The Reception
Stuff I wish I had known

In the Closet

6 months ago, I wrote out my 13 in '13. One of my goals was to "purge." The problem with purging my closet is that Iloveallmyclothesandineedthemall. So, at the beginning of January I did the "hanger trick." I'm sure I read about it on a blog or Pinterest, but I don't remember where. Basically for the "hanger trick" you turn all of your hangers backwards in your closet, and as you put wear clothes and put them away, you hang them back up the correct way. As I said, in January I turned all my hangers around and yesterday I pulled out everything on a backwards hanger.

I went through each piece, and I did keep some. It wasn't super warm at the end of the school year, so a few of my "warm weather" work tops didn't get worn. I ended up putting 10 things back into the closet, but I did get rid of a few of the other things, so I think it evened out. After I went through everything, I ended up taking out 2 big trash bags of clothes. Finally I turned all the hangers back around, and now I have a bunch of space for new things my closet is much more organized. In December, I will do it all over again!

Do you have any organizational tips? Have you ever done the hanger trick?

This weekend I...

This weekend I...

went to the zoo!!
We actually did this Friday, but since Craig now has every Friday off, our weekend starts a day early :) (Well until I go back to work in August.) It was a perfect day at the Oregon zoo. I also saw this sign, which is yet another reason why Kimye did their daughter no favor with that name.

We had some inappropriate comments about this, and how Ms.
Kardashian became famous herself.

Saturday we hung out around town and hit up the farmers markets and headed over to Rogue to enjoy the sunshine on the farm.

We also thought it would be good to harvest our cherries. For the last 3 summers, our trees have always produced gallons and gallons of fruit. This year, this is all we got.

How depressing. We did have to cut down one of the cherry trees in the fall, so I was expecting less, but this is just sad. Especially with the amount of cherry pits on the ground. I say the tree is sad because we killed it's tree friend.

Sunday the rains came. I did manage to have lunch with a girlfriend, but after that I was at home. The gloomy weather made me want to make cookies. Luckily Melissa at Lulu and Sweet Pea tweeted the link to her peanut butter cookie recipe. Craig loves peanut butter cookies, so I decided to make a batch. They were super moist and chewy! Delicious!

How was your weekend? Any ideas why my dumb cherry tree sucks?

Candy Lei Tutorial

One thing that I love about my school is how diverse it is. We have a large population of Islander students (Guam, Chuuke, etc.) In island culture, people celebrate with leis. Traditionally they are made out of flowers or shells, but really they can be made out of anything. Last week was our 8th grade promotion, and the Islander families came out in force with all kinds of leis. Probably the most common was the candy/money leis. My nephew just finished 8th grade, so I thought I would bring him a little something to celebrate. In just under 6 minutes, I had made two separate candy leis.

This is so super simple, I just don't even know where to begin.
Materials needed:

various candy, plastic wrap, ribbon, scissors, tape (not pictured)

Optional: photo bombing cat

Step 1-3:

Lay out the plastic wrap. 

Place the candy down in small groups.

Roll the saran wrap over the candy (kind of like a tube.)

 Step 4-6:

Tie the ribbon around each section of candy. 

Curl the ends of the ribbon.

Tape the two ends of the tube together.

 Tada!

These are super simple and quick to make. They also can be as inexpensive as you need them to be. You can trade out the ribbon color to go with the school colors. Also the candy can be switched with little trinkets or what ever is appropriate for the occasion (mini alcohol bottles for a bachelorette party?) I think they would be really cute favors for a baby shower.

Do you have any quick go to gifts/favors?

1st Weekend of Summer

This weekend I proved a complex math problem:

Why summer > the rest of the year

1. Roasted/grilled farmers market veggies

Thank you Picky Cook for the picture.
I ate mine before I could take one.

2. Summer movies

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1245492/

3. Weekend hikes at the coast

4. Early morning runs

5. Fetch in the River

I admit that a couple of these happened on Monday, but sometimes my weekends bleed into the week now :)

How was your weekend?

The real reason I teach middle school

Today is my last day of work for a while. (Well, that's not entirely true. Tuesday I am going to a 2 day training on critical reading skills for non-fiction text, so that's a hoot.) For the last week or so of school, my students have been working on a final project, so there was a lot of them working and talking, and a lot of me listening in on their conversations. Here are some gems.

"Suck it Amy." (about how to cut paper)

Boy: "Is it hard to wear high heels?"

"My dad is Pablo Escabar."

Ben: "Will you adopt me?"
Me: "I don't think my husband would like that."
Ben: "Why? He doesn't like Islanders?"
Me: "No, he just doesn't like middle schoolers."
Ben: "I get that."

Student 1: "Have you ever heard of a red panda?"
Student 2: "Is it a bloody panda?"

"I don't have life insurance. I hope I don't die."

@ 10:07: "What time do we get out?"
Me: "10:17"
"Cool, we have a half hour left."

Finally I will leave you with two conversations that were brought up in my leadership class. To preface this first one, you have to know that I teach in a very ethnically diverse school. Many times I am the only white person in the room.

A few weeks ago I jokingly asked the class whose mom was making me tamales. A few kids said they would bring some in when the one Caucasian boy in the room asked what a tamale was. This sent the majority of the class into a little frenzy describing what they were and then asking him if he had other types of Mexican food (carne asada, carnitas etc.) One of the other boys looked at him in all seriousness and asked, "What do white people eat?"
"Chicken. We eat lots of chicken."
Me: "Meatloaf." Then a girl raised her hand and asked this gem of a question: "Mrs. Coleman, don't white people eat a lot of pasta?"

This next one I had to sit back and laugh during the whole conversation:
Boy 1 raises his hand: "Do girls check out guys butts?"
Girl 1: "Sort of but its not like we turn all the way around like you boys do when you look at girls."
Girl 2: "But we can't really see anything because you guys always sag."
Girl 1: "Except when you wear basketball shorts."
Boy 1: "So are basketball shorts like yoga pants?"

I have always said that one reason I love my job is that it makes me laugh everyday. My job is pretty stressful, but its conversations like these that get me through the tough parts.

To the Class of 2017

Last year I wrote a letter to the class of 2016 (it's still one of my favorite posts!) . Today is the last day of school for my kiddos. If I were to speak at promotion, (8th grade graduation) I would try to tell them something like this

To the Class of 2017:
You have the power to change the world. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise.
Do not let fear stop you from trying something. If it sounds like fun, go for it. Even if none of your friends are doing it.
Take risks.
Be silly. Don't grow up to fast. Enjoy this time. You will want to relive (parts of it) this time later.

Get outside and explore. The Internet can only show you so much. You need to experience it.
While you are outside, stop texting!
On that same line of thought, try talking with your parents and siblings more.
Pictures on Snapchat are not secrets. Don't be dumb.

Class of 2017, the next four years have the power to shape your future either way. Don't forget that. You will make mistakes, but what you do from those mistakes will show what kind of adult you are becoming. This is the start to the next chapter in your lives.

What advice would you give to any of the graduates this season?

13 in '13: May Update

Good bye May! It's time to check out how I am doing on my 13 in '13.

After last month's snafu with the mortage payment, I am back to my normal savings schedule: 10% of my check goes into savings, and then 50% of what ever is left at the end of the month. It's not a perfect plan, but it is working so far. Maybe this summer I will look into a CD or something.

We are slowly going through the stuff in the garage. This is one goal that is going to take us awhile to accomplish.

I got mom's house officially listed with our real estate agent this month and within 24 hours we had a full priced offer! Yay! Then, they ended up backing out of the deal. Boo. Then we had another full priced offer. We are now waiting for an inspection etc. I am afraid to get my hopes up.

I'm up to 7 books for the year. That really isn't all that impressive, but summer is here!

I have done so bad at this! I even gave myself a little reward if I were to meet my 12 hours a month goal and I can say I did nothing for the month of may except for maybe a walk. Here's hoping that June goes better!

In May I helped out at a second track meet for my school.

As we are going through the garage, we are also starting to take quite a few trips over to the Goodwill drop off. It's good to get rid of stuff.

These monthly check-ins are keeping my 13 goals for the year at the forefront of my mind. It's so easy to forget about  resolutions after January 3rd. I am not doing too bad so far, although there are still quite a few that I haven't done anything for yet. How are you doing on your resolutions?