I'm sorry, I know, I'm so lame. Almost three weeks has gone by with no posting. Two field trips and 18 report cards later, here I am. Sometimes even I, the queen of relaxation (that's a title my husband has given me) am too busy to post. Recently I have been thinking about the summer and wondering, "Now just why was I so eager to come back to school?" I guess the grass is always greener, eh? I have some great pictures to post but I have to get them from home first, as we are still without internet service. It's not really that we don't want it, it's that we can't find any worth paying for.
By the way, Happy Birthday to my brother, Dan, who is 24 today. 24? Didn't he just graduate from highschool. I can't believe how old he is. He is living in a house in Damascus, OR with his crazy friend, Dan (yes, they are both named Dan) and planning on going to Multnomah in January.

Mrs. Robinson's class made apple pie today. The smell in our hallway was the envy of the school.

As a teacher, I can tell you that five and six year olds are for the most part just plain selfish. Aren't we all though? I try to encourage and praise acts of unselfishness and gratefulness that I see in my students. The other day they had P.E. and I decided to have cold Capri Sun's waiting for them when they came back from P.E. because they are always thirsty. I usually just let them drink water. When they came in and found their Capri Sun's they actually said thank you! I gushed with praise. Finally, a glimpse of unselfish behavior. For once they thought of someone else. There was a brief silence after I praised them. Their conversation follows:

"Well, I said 'thank you' first."

"No, I did."

"Nu-uh, I said it first."

As you can imagine, it escalated from here. For the love of Pete, does it matter who said it first? So their brief bout of gratefulness was followed with a stellar first grade "I'll take the credit for every good thing that happens, whatever you say I can top it" performance. I guess I'll take the good and leave the bad.

Mrs. Robinson

The pictures below are a little off kilter. I am still getting used to putting pictures in my blog. Sorry!

This is a little pumpkin that Paul carved (a man of many talents).



And this is the pumpkin glowing in the dark.




My Dad is an ameteaur filmaker. Stay tuned for the upcoming Tupper filmfestival.

I am teaching my sister in law, Anna, to knit.

I can't even explain this.

I know I said I had a three day weekend - BUT - here I am at school. I love days when no one is here, I get so much done. I told myself I'm only staying for three hours but I know I can get caught up and lose track of time. I need to get to the Walmart Supercenter before the Friday night rush so that's a BIG (and I mean BIG) incentive to leave early. I usually go to the Walmart Supercenter at around 5 or 6 am (to avoid crowds) but since I had the day of I went to "boot camp" (this is an excercise class) with my SIL Anna this morning. Have a great weekend!

Paul and I tried this new recipe from allrecipes.com the other day and it was relly yummy. I thought I would share it with all of you. It's really good with guacamole too. Enjoy!

Chicken Lime Soft Tacos

1 1/2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast meat - cubed
1/8 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 lime, juiced
1 teaspoon white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 green onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
10 (6 inch) flour tortillas
1 tomato, diced
1/4 cup shredded lettuce
1/4 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1/4 cup salsa
DIRECTIONS:
Saute chicken in a medium saucepan over medium high heat for about 20 minutes. Add vinegar, lime juice, sugar, salt, pepper, green onion, garlic and oregano. Simmer for an extra 10 minutes.
Heat an iron skillet over medium heat. Place a tortilla in the pan, warm, and turn over to heat the other side. Repeat with remaining tortillas. Serve lime chicken mixture in warm tortillas topped with tomato, lettuce, cheese and salsa.

Interesting Story: "Bloggers Seek to Mix Faith and Internet"

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,172054,00.html

One of the things I like most about my job is that my school is small, incredibly small. There is only one teacher for each grade so everyone knows everyone. Kids have a hard time getting away with stuff. Plus you get to watch kids grow up. Parents and community members are very committed to supporting the school.
There are drawbacks to being in a small school though, and one of the biggest is that you don't have anyone to mentor you. There is no one else that teaches the same grade as you so you have no one to share ideas with and no one to compare yourself to (a blessing). Last year I found myself wondering if what I was doing was the norm.
So this year our principal has hired someone to mentor the new teachers in our building, me and my friend Rosie. This woman actually taught for more than fifteen years in my school and most of them in my classroom and she really knows her stuff.
So yesterday she took me to another school to observe what a K/1 classroom looks like. I spent most of the time saying to myself, "See, you're fine. You ARE doing the right thing." I took digital pictures of different things. But most of all I thanked God for the job that I have. I love it. I missed my students all day.
Actually, my brother drives school bus (along with being a youth pastor) for the district I was visiting. So when I saw the buses outside waiting for the students to board. I ran out to tease him.
"Hey Bus Driver Kyle I'm ready to go home."
(with a silly grin on his face) "You're such a dork."
I grew up with only brothers, no sisters, a fact that I love because being the only girl is "the bomb" as my students would say. You get to go on all the shopping trips, you don't have to compete for attention, you get your own room. Yet even now the sister relationship is a mystery to me. Brothers are pretty straightforward. If they think you're a dork, they tell you and you ignore them.
And hopefully you like the person they marry because that's pretty much the closest you will ever come to having a sister. But more on how much I love my sisters in law later.
I have to go home. I have a three day weekend.

The 25th day of school, 153 left to go

It's been a while since my last post. I have been sick for three weeks and finally went to a naturopathic doctor in Olympia yesterday. I am finally settling into the routine of school after more than a month. Now I can leave earlier each day and spend more time with my husband.

Today we were talking about our "roots" (ie. whether we were part Irish, etc.). I ask one boy which part of him was Irish. "My left side", he said. I love it.

Someone has been burning by our school because they recently lifted the burn ban in our area. The air is smokey and the leaves are red, orange and brown. It is totally fall. This weekend we go on our yearly jaunt to the secret garden fall show. It's a craft fair.

My doctor actually wrote me a prescription to make chicken noodle soup tonight (along with other things). Sounds good to me.

Yes it's shaping up to be quite the weekend. Chicken noodle soup, a muppets movie, a Philip Gulley novel, a craft fair. In a few moments I will bid my class turtle, Tornado, goodbye with an extra helping of food for the weekend and leave this place.

Have a good weekend.

"When I was in second grade my teacher, Miss Maxwell, read from the Harmony Herald that one in every four children lived in China. I remember looking over the room, guessing which children they might be. I wasn't sure where China was, but suspected it was on bus route three."

-Philip Gulley in "Home to Harmony"

FYI:
The final Mitford book "Light from Heaven" comes out on November 8. My dear mother and I won't have to wait too much longer.

A new name for our blog? Say it isn't so! Paul and our landlord, Larry, redid the front of our barn in TAN metal siding. You can see that the barn doors will have windows in them to let in more light. We think it will make our little barn more cozy in the winter. The rest of our barn is still red, but I'm seriously considering a name change. It's time for something new. Side note: It makes me really nervous to see Paul on high ladders. I stayed in most of the evening. The top window where he is working is our loft-style living room.  

Paul helping with the metal siding. 

We went to the Puyallup Fair today and Paul had his eye on turkey leg. He said it was very good. I must say that he looks a little caveman-ish (ala Fred Flintstone). Some of our favorite things were the photography, quilts, canned goods, vitamix demonstration and produce display. 

Looking for other MBC bloggers? Check out the Multnomah blogospere project:

http://www.mbcblogosphere.blogspot.com/

This weekend I have watched almost the complete first season of "Monk" - a non-scary funny detective show. I love mysteries but can't handle stuff like CSI or Law and Order because they give me bad dreams, I am a little bit of a sissy. The "Sixth Sense" really freaked me out (my brothers rented this one time and I made the mistake of watching it). I got the first season of Monk from the library - I love this because they really do have some great movies and I can have them sent straight to my school since we have a branch in our school library. Paul got me a DVD player for my birthday. I have a bad cold and I always love to watch movies when I have a cold. Happy Autumn everyone!

Grandpa Paul Robinson, my Paul Robinson and Mark Robinson on a trip to Mt. Ranier a couple weeks ago. Grandpa is visiting from Mission Viejo this month. 

Paul and I walked around Port Townsend and looked at the old buildings there. This is a church with a neat red door. 

Paul on board the Lady Washington when we went to visit Sarah and Paul in Port Townsend last weekend.