Thursday, April 30, 2009

Roach Determinator

This morning I was heating up some soup and biscuits for breakfast (I know........I love leftovers. What can I say?!) and I noticed that my dog Chloe was staring intently at something. I watched as her eyes were glued to the carpet, right next to the step in the living room. From my vantage point I couldn't see a thing so I cautiously crept up behind her, hoping not to scare away whatever it was she had found. As I got closer I half held my breath, as though going on stealth mode would make a difference in this situation, and I expected to either see a scorpion or a roach. At first I didn't see anything but after a closer look I found the culprit of my dogs attention. A red roach. I immediately went into "GO" mode and told Chloe to sit and stay while I ran off for a shoe. I grabbed the closest one I could find (don't tell my brother) and came back to find Chloe guarding the spot where I left her.

As I went in for the kill, Chloe was close by watching the whole ordeal. I picked up the shoe to see the damage done and OUT ran that little roach! He took off running directly for Chloe and just at that exact moment she decided to lay down. That dumb little roach took off under her leg and I know a look of panic and frustration flitted across my face. That roach was crawling on my dog somewhere! SICK! I immediately grabbed Chloe by the scruff of the neck and hauled her up. OUT came that dirty little roach from his hiding spot as he took off running across the carpet. Well, he didn't make it far. I slapped that shoe on him so fast and knocked him senseless. As I turned around, Chloe was just standing there watching me with an amused look on her face while Abbie came up from behind to see what all the commotion was about.

Chloe is going to be my little roach determinator, LOL!

Monday, April 20, 2009

Pur-ple

First grade math, what fun it is!

The students were doing an activity today where they take the number of the day (how many days we've been in school) and show us in their math journals all the different ways they can come up with that number. Normally it involves math equations, etc. Today's number was 157. As I was walking around the classroom checking over their work I couldn't help but notice one little girls answer. She had written:

purple + 155 = 157

I was very curious about this so I knelt down and asked her how she came up with that. How did she figure it out? I needed just a little explanation with that one, LOL. She matter-of-factly told me that purple equals 2, and then she added 155 to that to come up with a grand total of 157. Ahh-ha! Then it dawned on me! I looked at her with a smile on my face as I said, "I see! Purple has 2 syllables." So clever!

I love how little kids think! Talk about outside the box......... :)

Female or Mammal

I was with some first graders this morning and the teacher leading the class was preparing the students for the lesson they were about to learn. The lesson was about bears and before they read their bear story they had to fill out a KWL chart. (what they KNOW, what they WANT to know, and what they LEARN) When the students were filling out the section about what they wanted to know, the teacher called on a few students to share the questions they had come up with regarding bears. Now remember, these children were very serious with the answers they replied back with.

One little girl raised her hand and popped in with, "Are bears female or mammals?"

Another little boy raised his hand and asked, "How do you know if it's a boy or girl?"

Logical question for a first grader, I mean---bears DO have a lot of hair down there. Pahhhh! Try keeping a straight face through that one!

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

How do you know?!

I had the wonderful opportunity to go on a school field trip today with a load of first graders. What fun it was! I wound up in the front row of the school bus sitting next to two little boys. You can only imagine how entertaining the conversation between first graders can be. Kids can be so funny without even trying. One of the boys next to me started talking about robots and I told teasingly told him, "What if I was a robot......" He looked at me skeptically and informed me with a raised brow that I was NOT a robot. I then asked him, "Well, how do you KNOW I'm not a robot?"

He replied back in a matter of fact voice, "You are NOT a robot because robots have square heads." (insert hand movement to show me a square shape with his hands.) You try keeping a straight face during that.

Well, at least I know I don't have a square head. Pahhhhhh!

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Planting Paranoia

I was working in the garden this morning and I tell you what---I had more heart stopping, more breath catching, and more near slips than I've had in a loooong time.

I started out planting two pots of flowers in the side garden. I was out there in flip flops, not quite the right apparel when using a shovel but I made do alright. However, the jeans were quickly rolled up due to the amount of mud I was getting all over my feet. I can only imagine that it was my father who soaked that planter the night before, thinking that softening up the ground would be a help to me. Well, it went soft alright, about a FOOT DEEP! I placed one foot on the shovel to begin digging my hole and placed the other foot as a brace on the ground ONLY to nearly slip in the mud and land face first in the squishy mess. There I stood, two feet planted on a shovel that was slowly sinking into the earth. After pulling up the first few shovel fulls I decided to reposition and come around from the back to widen the hole. Despite walking gently on the questionable slippery surface I nearly did another back flip when my flip flop went sliding into the mud. You can only imagine how many looks I was throwing over my shoulder to see if there were any early morning walkers out and about that might have seen that slip up. It's not like they were few and far between. Pahhhh!

After finishing up that planter I moved onto another area of the garden. One less muddy. I had just turned my back to the street and was just about to squat down and throw my hands into the soil when out of nowhere came a horrendous crashing sound that stopped my heart and threw me into a backwards spin to see WHAT was coming up behind me! I know my eyes were huge saucers and I had a look of panic on my face. Nothing to fear, it was only my neighbor dumping all of his GLASS bottles into his empty recycling bin. Talk about a scare! I nearly yelled at him but swallowed my fear. LOL!

THEN, as if my morning in the garden could get any more exciting, I was pulling some flowering plants out of their little cups when I felt something touch my hand. The leaves on the little plant were covering my hand so I had no idea what it was that was touching me, and all I could think about was some freak insect clamping onto my hand.........and I freaked out! I gasped as I immediately pulled my hand back---only to find that it was a little twig from the soil that had brushed past my hand. I think my imagination was on overdrive.

Oh what fun I have.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Catch & Release

Last night as I was walking through the house I couldn't help but notice that there was a huge, eagle-like moth hanging out on our ceiling. As it was just a few short feet away from my dad who was working on the computer I decided to point it out to him. Dad had just turned the little computer clip light upside down so the bulb pointed upwards and he and I were oohing and ahhing over the new light effects. As we were preoccupied with the new lighting effects, neither one of us felt the need to capture the moth and release it into the wild so I left Dad to his work and went to my room to go to bed. A few minutes later I heard Dad call my name.

I rushed out there only to find him sitting at the computer with an amused smile. The moth of monstrous size had fallen into the upturned light and was kicking up dust. It was causing a little dust cloud to rise above the light and Dad thought it was rather amusing while I immediately set to work to rescue it. With a simple, "Turn the light off" comment I flipped the light over and the moth came flying out at kamikaze speeds. As the little corner of our room was a little dark with the light out I wasn't able to see where the dang moth had flown but I'd rescued it from death once. I wasn't about to go chasing it through the house just to release it outside. It disappeared and I wasn't about to try and find it. I was tired, what can I say.

Soooo, once again I headed to bed. I was just about to crawl into bed when I paused and thought I'd better go to the bathroom one last time before hitting the hay. I walked into the bathroom, turned on the light and as I looked into the mirror my eyes popped and my jaw dropped. That freakishly huge moth had parked it on my shirt! No wonder it disappeared from sight.......I wasn't looking at my tummy.

Needless to say I quickly clapped a hand over it and threw it outside. No free rides allowed on this girl. Chaaaaa!