math review. . .

i have just accepted a position working at timpview high school.
woot woot!
i'll be working with special ed students, who either struggle due to physical/mental handicaps
as well as students who are performing below grade level.
i'm really excited for the job!
i was not so excited today however when i arrived at school and they told
me i would be teaching math.
math.

words cannot describe how much i loathe math.
not to mention how horrible i have been at it my entire 23 years of life.
so i walked into the classroom filled with students, and the math teacher
proceeded to hand me a book as he said, "have fun!"
i literally stared at the class for about 7 whole seconds in terror.
they were learning about parallelograms, linear symmetry and trapeziums and stuff. . .
i introduced myself as mrs. theodore.
"you mean like alvin and the chipmunks?" a girl yelled from the back of the room.
i said yes as i stared at the problems in the book i was supposed to teach.
i had no idea what was going on.
their teacher told them to work on problems 1-43 in the chapter before he left.
therefore, i told the kids to get started on the problems, and i would walk around
and answer any questions they had.
bad idea.

before i knew it their hands were shooting up left and right like rockets and everyone wanted to
know how to do #16 and #23 and #31 and #34 and basically they didn't
know how to do anything.
i had a flashback to my high school years sitting in math class. terrified the teacher would
call my name and ask me to solve the problem on the board.

i clutched the math book in my hands as i tried with every fiber of my being to
describe how to find the answers to their questions.
the book did a great job of telling me the answers.
after each question the answer would be written in red.
you would think the book would give an explanation as to how to achieve these answers, but
that would be too much to ask.
therefore i was forced to use every brain cell i could muster and recall back to my 9th grade math years, when i myself struggled through countless math problems.
after about 40 minutes of this torture by myself, the teacher came waltzing
back into class with a smug look on his face.
i wanted to kill him for leaving me alone so long.
he took over at the front of the class as i continued to walk around attempting to help.
when a kid asked me a question i would literally stare at the book for a whole 20 seconds
at the answer, and then try to come up with how it was to be achieved.
for those of you who have kids in remedial math classes at timpview, i am letting you know
that i am truly sorry that i was hired to help your child.
i was as lost as they were.

luckily, teaching is not really in my job description!
i will only have to step in when they are desperate.
most of my time will be spent in the classroom with students who need individual attention.
ill help them take notes in various classed, set goals for them, meet with
their parents if needed, etc.
it will basically be a tutoring/counseling position.
can't wait to walk those high school halls.
go t-birds!

valentine's weekend. . .

i guess you could say i grew up always having mixed feelings about valentine's day.
if you don't have someone special around then you hate it.
if you happen to have a significant other it's the best day of the year.
anyways, this valentine's weekend i was lucky enough to spend it with
friends and of course my favorite valentine of all time.
i have been feeling real crafty lately with the quilting i've
been doing, so of course i took a trip to hobby lobby and bought a
bunch of valentines paper to make valentines and such.
P.S. if you have ever been to the hobby lobby then you know how
amazing/seducing it can be.
they literally have aisles and aisles filled with crafty things.
it makes all of these ideas go through your head about neat crafts
you could make, and before you know it you have spent $20 on glitter
& paper & cardstock & ribbon & stickers, etc. etc.
in sum, beware of the hobby lobby.
to start off v-day right, my dear friend whitney & i decided to make
some little valentines on friday using our paper & ribbon & stickers & such
we have accumulated from trips to places such as hobby lobby.
we had a lot of fun. but after making a grand total of 2 valentines
each, we decided our creative juices were not flowing anymore and we
decided to clean up our mass of pink and red paper.
whitney had a lot of cute crafting ideas. she is a beauty.

i made a couple of cards, including this one for logan.
he really liked the card. but i was sad when he only
looked at it for like 7 seconds and then gave me a hug.
i spent a lot of time on that thing. therefore i kept
showing him all of the details and made him look at
it for a good 5 minutes before i let him hug me and
tell me how much he liked it and appreciated me.

the next day(saturday)we picked up wilbert and nuvia like we always do.
these darlings are siblings that we have been mentoring for a while now.
every saturday we pick them up and go to the library or the park or something.
this saturday we decided to help them make valentines boxes for the party
they were going to have in school on monday.
i was secretly SO excited to help nuvia with her box. i haven't
made one since i was in elementary school, therefore i may or may
not have taken over her box and told her what to cut out and where
to put everything. . . but she had fun doing what i told her to do.
her box turned out pretty cute if i do say so myself.

logan helped wilbert with his box. they got real creative and
made a valentine's monster. wilbert is apparently mimicking the
monster face in this pic. . .

on valentine's day logan went to school as usual. he told me to
pick him up around 6 and we would do something 'special'.
all day i was excited. i couldn't wait for where we would go, etc.
the doorbell rang at the house around 5:30 which never happens, so
you can imagine my surprise when i saw logan standing on the porch
with some flowers. he just loves to surprise me.
we walked to center street and ate dinner at this great place
called spicy corea. why they chose to spell Korea with a 'C'
instead of a 'K' is a mystery to me. but the food was still great!
we both got bulgogi. i got chicken, he got beef. it came with a
bunch of side dishes-the kimchi was a favorite.
logan was really legit and used the metal chop sticks.

i was not as legit and used the metal fork.
nevertheless, i was overwhelmed by how much food we got!

after that we walked home and i was surprised (yet again) with my
favorite cupcake from the cocoa bean (raspberry chocolate).
logan put it on my seat in the car, and i almost sat on it
without realizing. that would have been a valentine's disaster.
luckily i spotted it at the last second, and i was able to
successfully sneak it into the movie we saw with help from
my purse:) overall it was a great valentine's day and an
even better valentine's weekend.
yay for love.

sewing project. . .

my grandma doris bought me a sewing machine for christmas this past year.
i had all of these grand ideas about sewing my own clothes and accessories
(perhaps inspired by watching too much project runway)
but i decided to start a little smaller and make a quilt for my first sewing project!
grandma doris and i went to this hole in the wall sewing place that only she
would know about after being the home economics teacher at timpview
high for years. there were a bunch of other little old ladies puttering
around the shop buying stuff to make quilts too.
it was classic.
i bought all of my quilt-making things and for the past couple of days
grandma doris has been helping me sew my first quilt!
i could try and explain exactly what the pattern is and what
i have to do in order to finish it. . .
but i dont really have all of the quilting/sewing lingo down yet,
so bare with me.
i just hope that the pictures will do most of the explaining. . .

DAY 1

first: i took my pre-cut fabric squares and decided how i
wanted them to go together.



second: i sewed together all of my little groupings of 4 squares



third: it took me about 3.5 hours to sew all the squares together.
in my defense, this is my first sewing project
i was pretty happy it only took 3.5 hours



DAY 2

first: i cut out strips to go between the blocks of squares and sewed those to my groups of 4



second: i cut out longer strips to go in between the blocks of squares that i finished sewing together



and then we ran out of fabric.

i am going to the store with my grandma tomorrow to get the last pieces of
fabric so we can hopefully finish it up this weekend.

yay for sewing!

date night. . .

last friday night logan and i were driving home from red mango.

i got about $30 in gift cards there for my birthday.

he comes with me at least once a week because of my obsession with frozen yogurt.

logan is lactose intolerant so he can't even eat anything.

therefore he sits and watches me eat to my heart's delight.

on the way home we passed nickel city.

we had been joking about going there for a while, and to my surprise

he flipped a U turn and we were in the parking lot before i could say, "look, nickel city!".

when we walked in i was a little shocked.

it was the first time i had been in a place like that since the birthday parties i used to go to

at chuck e cheese and jungle jim's when i was like 7.

it was a swirling scene of flashing lights, neon carpet and arcade games.

it smelled like pizza and sweaty children.

we looked at each other and figured we had made it this far--there was no turning back.

a man who literally looked 75 years old stamped our hands with blue stars as we payed for a

$5 bag of nickels.

we were ready for action.

logan found a game where you drive these little cars.

we only put in 2 nickels but we played for like

10 whole minutes.

logan loved this game. his favorite part was when he would win the golden wrench that allowed his little red car to be upgraded with super speed and tred.

logan also loved this game:

it was fascinating to watch him navigate this large pod as he shot down airplanes.

the other games we liked were basketball, where you throw real basketballs into real hoops,

and football, where you throw real footballs into holes in the wall.

we decided to win some tickets so we could buy prizes.

we ended up getting a grand total of 77 tickets, and got

a spiderman tattoo, an airplane, and nail art.

we gave the prizes to wilbert and nuvia, the little kids we mentor.

overall, nickel city was an unforgettable date night!