Reflection

This week is turning out to be one of reflection. Today my thoughts and prayers are with the family of Mrs. Judy Frick a member of our church family and a family friend for many years. She has been strong with her fight against cancer and does not have much time left. Her family has gathered to be with her today.

Today, be thankful for the loved ones around you and the precious time you have with them. Each day is truly a gift.

Tuesday

After I posted yesterday, I recieved some bad news. My grandmother who has been in and out of the hospital for a few weeks was referred to hospice. I hadn't had much interaction with hospice in the past and to me the only thing I associated it with was going home to die. In reality she won't be going home at all. There is a facility close by that is run by hospice where she will be going. The family gathered at the hospital this morning to meet with the doctor and social worker. My family is large My grandmother who is 91 had 7 children all still living, and living in the immidiate area. Sometimes I forget how lucky I am for this. I went to the hospital but did not go in the meeting, I sat in the room with my grandmother.

I am feeling better now that I know the facts although it is still heartbreaking. My grandmother had a VERY bad kidney infection it had to be treated with strong antibiotics. Unfortunately a 91 year old body just doesn't withstand as much as a younger one would and the antibiotics killed the good bacteria too. This caused a disease in her stomach. The medicine that would treat it would do more damage to her memory which right now is in very good shape. They have decided not to treat it.

She will go to stay in the hospice facility. She will be one of only thirteen patients in the facility. If she recovers she will be able to come home. If not, the hospice nurses and staff will make sure she is as happy and comfortable as possible. Family can stay in the facility with her at all times and nurses will be availble around the clock. Our family will be able to enjoy her company for as long as possible. For this I am very thankful.

Please keep my family in your prayers this week, we are all handling this in our own ways.

Update

In case anyone was wondering I'm not MIA I had quite a busy week last week. Here's a brief summary.

Monday-Well we won't talk about monday...not that it wasn't busy but it wasn't positive either.

Tuesday-I spent the day with a wonderful friend that I hadn't been able to hang out with in about a year. It was great. We ran some errands, VOTED, had lunch at Moe's and hung out watching some TV. Best news...She decided to be my assistant leader for my Daisy troop! Tuesday night I finished up my Girl Scout training. This training was way more helpful than the first. We went over policies, rules and paperwork.

Wednesday- I had lunch with the girls and made plans for watching the newest Twilight movie this week.

Thursday and Friday - I spent at home relaxing it's hard to believe but my summer break will be over soon.

Saturday- Weighed in, I lost 1.6 pounds! Went shopping. Hung out at home for a while and watched TV.

Yesterday was our preachers farewell sermon. I hate to see him leave. He has been with us for 6 years, but that is the methodist way. We sent him off with a wonderful covered dish. Both churches came together. Before leaving he was presented a computer to help with his new placement and a cookie jar from the kids. The cookie jar was really great. The kids mad it at a local pottery studio. It had thumb print people for each of our church kids and had other memories from the pastors time at our church. We are very proud of Bill on his recent ordination and wish him the best of luck with his new churches. Our new preacher will come on Sunday and I am looking forward to meeting her and keeping an open mind about this change.

So, whats on the horizon this week? Not much except for the movie. I am going to enjoy my last week before class starts, and study for the Praxis II. I hope ya'll are having a great Monday.

Oatmeal, Fluff, and Raisin Cookies

So as I promised yesterday I would post one of my favorite snacks. I came upon these while trying to come up with a sweet but healthy treat for the children at church.

Take one Oatmeal cookie (I like the soft baked) look for one that's 120 calories or less, less than 6 grams of fat and at least one gram of fiber.

Next add one table spoon of marshmallow creme like icing. One table spoon is only 20 Calories

Finally add as many raisin as you like to the top, a small box of raisins is 45 calories.

I hope you enjoy!

The non-adventures of Miss JoAnne

I started this blog about a year ago with big plans. It happened to coincide with my election as president of the Future Educators Association at my university. I wanted to write about all of the exciting things that were happening in my life. Unfortunately, so many things were Happening that my blog fell to the back burner and I quit posting. Now I've finished my first internship in the classroom and my term as president will soon come to an end. I decided to start posting again.

What happened to my exciting life? Where did all my events, activities and friends go? There's nothing like clicking "new post" and staring at a blank screen to make you realize you are a boring person. I'm sorry if my posts bore you. I want to thank my new followers! In the past week I have doubled my followers from 2 to 4!

Stay tuned... Tomorrow I will share my favorite snack.

Is this what my summer is going to be like?

I won't share the full details of my week, you probably wouldn't believe them if I did, instead I will give you a brief overview in list form.

• I accidentally ordered 120 Avon catalogs instead of 10(don't ask me how)


• Every time I make plans to walk down the street and put the Avon books in paper boxes something happens


• Saturday afternoon/night I read an entire book while sitting in the urgent care waiting room


• I got lunch to-go yesterday only to get to where I was going and realize they didn't give me my full order.


• I spent an hour looking for my cat yesterday after my door got mysteriously opened. Only for him to show up (still inside) looking irritated that I had woken him.

I hope ya'll have a great week!

Girl Scout Training "Leadership Essentials"

Last night my mom and I drove all the way to the other side of town for Girl Scout training. I sign in and pick up the packet of hand outs only to realize this is the same training I went to last year. Apparently it never got recorded that I was there so I sat through the already boring class again.

If I had not been a girl scout growing up, this might have been a useful class. If I was not an education major with LOTS of experience writing hands on lesson plans, this might have been a useful class. But I was a girl for many years and I am an education major. I did however learn some things at last nights meeting. I learned to appreciate the fact that I am an education major. I never realized how much this training affected my ability to be a great girl scout leader.

During the training we broke into groups by the age level we plan on leading. I was the only person in our group that has already been a leader and the only one with ANY experience with the new Journey program. Our group was supposed to basically write a lesson plan using one of the activities from the journeys book. I started by explaining to the group what I knew about the journeys program, then I sat back to let them do most of the work (no, not because I'm lazy but because I've had a year of experience and they are about to go out on their own and lead a group of 5-6 year olds). I soon realized that people who are not teachers (in some aspect) do not understand what it is like to lead a group of 5 year olds. Our group consisted of basically three pairs on my right were to middle aged women who were starting a girl scout group at their church. Their big idea for an activity to do with their troop was to take them to volunteer to clean out cages at the zoo. HELLO PEOPLE YOUR GIRLS ARE 5! THE ZOO IS NOT GOING TO ALLOW THEM TO CLEAN CAGES! The pair to my left were young girls probably in their late 20's who couldn't seem to come up with any activities they thought a 5 year old would be able to do. Both groups also thought "learning by doing" meant drawing a picture of a bird when learning about bird habitats although the one group did want to take their kids to see a habitat and go to the animal rescue place. When I suggested they make bird feeders you would have thought I had come up with an award winning idea.

I would love to meet up with these same leaders a year from now and find out how their first year went.

Summer Reading

If you've known me for anytime at all, you know that I ALWAYS have book in my hand. Last summer after taking a Children's lit class in may that basically required me to read a novel every day or two, I decided to spend June rereading the Harry Potter series. As I started this task, I also started a new job at a summer academy and my coworkers could not believe how quickly I sped through the books and onto another series.

I recently found out that my student teaching placement would be with a second grade class. I want to be able to personally recommend books to my students. So this summer I have decided to read more books around a second grade reading level. Do you have any suggestions. For those of you who are not teachers these books will vary from picture books to beginning and more complicated chapter books. What were your favorite books as a child?

I started this summer with the Little House books. I've read the first three and while I enjoyed reading them I have to question their content before giving them to my students to read. In my children's lit class we were told these books are racist because of the way they speak and treat the Indians. I don't feel the books are as racist as they are realistic for that time period. As with any book, there will be issues to discuss with children when reading them. I am also concerned about the descriptions of butchering animals. I will recommend this book to my students only after I have had a chance to get to know them and judge their abilities to handle the content.

Next on my list... I'm not sure, maybe a Junie B Jones.

Here is a video I found over at http://k1teacher.blogspot.com/ It's a wonderful video done by the students at ocoee middle school.

Reality TV, Vampires, and Reality

Reality TV
I told you the other day that I started watching the Bachelorette. Well apparently I caught the reality TV bug because that is all I have been watching. Other than the Bachelorette and America's Got Talent(I have always loved this show), This week I watched the premieres of True Beauty and Losing it with Jillian. I like true beauty but it's not going to be a show that I HAVE to watch. I absolutely LOVED Losing it. If any of you missed it NBC is showing it again tonight at 8 followed by a new episode of America's Got Talent. Looks like my summer will be filled with Reality tv, but that's not all...

Vampires
I saw a preview today that made me really happy. The CW is going to show reruns of MOONLIGHT after encore episodes of the first season on The Vampire Diaries on Thursday nights! I loved the series Moonlight and I was really upset when it was canceled. I have also recently gotten interested in the Vampire Diaries but always felt a little lost since I had not seen the first episodes. Looks like Thursday's this summer will give me a way to catch up on what's going on in the Vampire world.

Reality
So back to the real world...I am currently waiting on emails. I hate waiting on emails. Last week I emailed my coaching teacher for next semester to introduce myself. I haven't received a reply and it has me a nervous wreck. I know that she must be busy with end of the year stuff and I didn't expect a long reply but Student teaching already has me nervous and this isn't helping. The second email I am waiting on is from the Girl scout office. As you know I am making the jump from Assistant Leader to Leader this year and there is lots of paper work that goes along with this. Last year I felt out of the loop the entire year and because of lack of communication I didn't finish all of the training that I was supposed to do. This year I want to get everything finished before the Scout/School year actually starts. Another new leader has been calling the scout office for two weeks and hasn't gotten a call back. Today I sent out an email to the person who I think may be in charge of leaders. I hope I hear back from her soon. Until then, I'll be waiting...