OH BOY BROCCOLI!!!!!!!

My cats LOVE broccoli!  LOL

Colt and I were eating our Hong Kong Express Chinese Dinner and Ghost, Colt's cat got up on my table and begin eating my broccoli.  The plate was sitting on the table unsupervised and Colt was cleaning up.  He said, "Hey, what is going on down there?  What are we eating?  Is it broccoli?"  When I got up to see it I laughed hysterically, seeing on the cats surrounding something, responding, "YES!"  ALL three cats were biting at my hands as I picked the broccoli up off of the floor and put in on my plate again. 

TOO CUTE!  I WISH I COULD HAVE MANAGED A PICTURE...IT JUST ALL HAPPENED SO QUICKLY!

Kids say the darndest things....

Today in one of my many interesting, humor-filled, crazy kid encounters I was nearly knocked off my feet.

Here is the conversation that took place:

Student 1: Mrs. Clemens, do you have some scissors for me to cut this
string off my pants? (hem was completely ripped from bottom of pants)
 

Me: (With a quizzical look on my face) Well, I do have scissors, but you aren't cutting your clothes in my class. 

Student 2: Oh. That's called prostitution! 

Me:(Whipping my head around more quickly than I knew could happen) Excuse me?

Student 2: That's what they said about this girl on the t.v. the other
night with rips all in her clothes!

Me: No that is not called prostitution.  Do you know what prostitution means? 

Student 2: Um, someone with holey clothes? You know rips and stuff all in 'em?!

Me: Nope, not at all.  Go ahead and wait in the hall for me.

(Student 2 was very embarrassed at the choice of words and has promised to think before they speak out like that again.  

ME: NOW THAT YOU KNOW WHAT THIS WORD MEANS, LET'S MAKE A DEAL....THAT YOU WON'T TRY OUT NEW VOCABULARY WITHOUT FIRST SPEAKING TO AN ADULT ABOUT IT.  DOES THAT SOUND LIKE A PLAN?

STUDENT 2:  OOOOOOOHHHHHH!   YES MA'AM!  SORRY, MRS. CLEMENS!  (Grinning went back into the class and was quiet for the rest of the day! :)

OH the joys of my adolescents!  Just can't help but love them.  :)

What did we do?

Today was a challenging, boring, almost completely UNproductive.  What is it that we did without the internet?  

Here is just a brief list of what I COULD NOT do:
1) I could not check email
2) I could not send email
3) I could not look at my grade book--it is ALL online
4) I could not add grades to the grade book since I could not log on.
5) I could not find pictures for my lesson later this week.
6) I could not print anything--due to the fact that the computer could not find the printer
7) I could not create my lesson plans for next week
8) I could not look at the lesson plans for this week
9) I could not take attendance of ANY of my classes
10) I could not fill out paper work that I needed for my Special Education folder/meetings
11) The phones did not work
12) Any message to or from the office or to or from other teachers/classes had to be sent with HAND DELIVERED NOTES!!!!!

My students were completing a test today, so I had an entire 8 hours to do whatever I needed to do; HOWEVER, nearly NOTHING was accomplished.

What I WAS able to accomplish on this very challenging day:
1) I graded tests from last week that many of my students completely BOMBED! All because they did not read the directions.
2) I met my Ready, Set, Teach student from the high school.  She will be with me until May!  She DOES NOT LIKE ENGLISH!  She wanted a Math class!  Whatever am I gonna do?

Just to let you all know:  School begins a 8:15 and lets out at 3:25.  ALL schools in the district were without internet for the morning, but they were all up and running by lunch time.  Agnew was the only one down all day long.  The internet came up at 3:45...20 whole minutes AFTER school let out, and 15 minutes BEFORE all the teachers left for the day.

I must say....the entire day was so strenuous that ALL the teachers were gone early.  We could not deal with any more today.  :-/


How do you think you would fare without the internet?
What would you NOT be able to do without the internet?
How would you spend your time?

Just some questions to see if I am the only non-technologically advanced person that feels useless without the use of technology during the day.

Isn't is funny to think that we couldn't handle anything else today, even after we spent the whole entire day dealing with NOTHING...literally......

The things that make that teacher smile :-) laugh :-D cringe :-/ or simply go insane *-*.....

I have started a class blog for my 7th grade students.  The first assignment they were to complete was started on Monday, November 1st was and due on today, November 3rd.

They were to watch a Disney movie and list the protagonist, antagonist, conflict(s), resolution(s), tone and theme.

One would think that teaching the students of the "digital generation" to use a blog for class would be easy, but NO!  That couldn't be further from the truth. 

I have gone over (on Monday, Tuesday, AND Wednesday) how to find the blog, how to read the blog, how to write your name in so I identify them, but a stranger couldn't, and how to leave comments.  I have even shown them that they cannot see their blog comment until I approve it.

But I still have crazy, ridiculous questions every day, ALL DAY!  At least the students care enough about their grades to turn the assignment in multiple times, trying to get it to appear....but it just makes all the more work for me.  :-/

This is the most recent post from one of my students, and it made me laugh so hard --maybe in crazed frustration, maybe from my previous illusions of grandeur, or maybe I am just finally losing my mind--maybe we will never know....you may not laugh as I did...but you might!  There is always hope, right?!?!  Anyway, I thought I would share.

AGAIN...this is seventh grade English (WRITING) class.
All parts required are given, but I am just curious....look at it....read it.....enjoy it....try to think as much like a teacher as you can...what grade would you assign?


I wached penockeo
The protagonist is the fox and his frend
The antagonist is ponockeo,and his fouther
The coonflict in the move is caricter vs caricter.penockeo gets trickt in to going to a happy place for kids but they just keeping bad kides in ther
The tone of the story is misterios because its like a happy sed
ponckeo's theme is never talk to strangers


Thanks,

THAT Teacher

My Birthday........just one fourth of a century....

Today is that day....the best day of the year....the day of my birth, OR my "birfday" as my daddy said in a Happy Birthday text earlier this morning.  :)

But I must say that this year my birthday hit the records as one of the strangest.  How many people do YOU know that have received a party to go....with all the ingredients crammed inside a birthday card?

This came in the mail on Monday, November 1st, and on the back of the envelope, right where the flap will be opened this cautionary phrase was cheerfully written: "Be Very Careful! :)"

And just as I described.....this is what I found......

The pink Post-it says, "One party to go"!

Inside the card was confetti, a piece of ribbon that says "Happy Birthday" and balloons with birthday greeting hand written on them with my Mama's pen.

My Mama says some sweet things when signing the card, and my Daddy just adds..."& MINE  Love Daddy".

My parents are so weird!  :)  But they are completely responsible for me being me!!!  :)

Love y'all!  I have had a blessed 25 years.....or 24.....who really knows.....  ;-P

Halloweening...

The Halloweening began during our after church shopping trip to Wal-Mart.  We had to get candles for our pumpkins and extra candy for Colt, but he blamed it on the kids.   


When we got home, we went in search of Roger.  We wanted him locked up and safe, as soon as possible.  He came home about 4p.m. and we played with him to wear him out.  He told us he was concerned about everyone thinking he was going as "Garfield" for Halloween, and he didn't like that idea.

SOOOOOO he wore this "BOO" Court Jester collar.......for about five seconds!  :)

He was all of the sudden okay with being seen as Garfield.  (Look at those eyes!)

Roger is a really sweet kitty.  After we took his BOO collar off, we played him crazy.  We wanted him to be worn out when he was put up for the night.  I just couldn't let him be out with any crazies that might come around this evening. 

Colt took the jingle, jangle, string/wand toy outside, and Roger had a blast.

While we were outside with Roger, Link began howling inside the house.  He is not so fond of Roger, and in fact, acts a bit jealous and possessive of us when we come in from spending time with Roger.  We decided to take Link outside to see how it is for a cat to live on the rough streets (patio) of Forney.....

Needless to say, he was too scared to be really curious, and curious is something he is quiet a lot.  :)

Next came the our carved pumpkins.  We had to put the candles in them and light them.  They looked amazing...especially mine, seeing as it was my first one ever!

FINALLY, it was time for the kitties' favorite time of Halloween night......KITTY CAT COSTUMES!
Now, I know how this sounds, but although we are the "crazy cat people" we do not buy new costumes for them every year.  But here they are.......the cats know they are loved!

Ghost, the ghost....and a box of allergy meds.....

Our sweet angel, Aziza......haha, NOT!  She was growling and hollering the entire time.....

Link is by far the cutest of them all!

He was a PLUMPkin...

I am not sure that he knows he is really loved.  I think there was some hate behind those sweet eyes, and I just can't stand to think that the hate is directed toward me.  :-(

After all costumes came off, and we heard the crowds thinning outside, Colt went to check on Mr. Roger.  I was asked to help him find Roger.  As I entered the garage, I see Roger on top of my car, rolling and have a great time.  He had to be so careful coming down to get his before bedtime pets.....and he decided sliding would be the most efficient use of his time!

And now.......it is time for bed!

Pumpkin Carvin'

I have no recollection of carving pumpkins as a child.  Maybe it did happen, and if so then my mother can correct me.  :) 

On the flip side, my husband, Colt, has carved pumpkins almost every year of his life.....that he can remember anyway.  It is a tradition he has wanted to continue in our family, but something has always come up.  We have purchased pumpkins for the last four years, but have only carved them once.


Tonight we sat down and carved out our pumpkins for our Trick-or-Treaters tomorrow night!  I must say it was an experiences.  First of all the inside of the pumpkin smells SOOOO bad, and to top it all off my hands got grimy and sticky from having to scrape and pull all the insides out. 


After we completed them, our cat, Roger decided he needed to smell them, chew them, and feel them out!  Maybe he was thinking he resembled the pumpkins. 


Oh....to be cat!

Hello blogger world!

I must say, this is all new for me, and I do not know if I will be successful, but I am going to give it a shot!  :)

I wonder if I have anything interesting to share with the world?.....