You know, that other part of my life

Ah. Isn't summer nice and relaxing? No school, just a newborn and toddler to sap my energy. But notebooks and pencils are showing up in the stores again, so classes are looming.

Last year, as I'm sure all of you remember, I taught and I tutored. Teaching was awesome, overall. Four students for 45 minutes a day? All of them highly motivated and intelligent? Awesome. They all earned their Algebra credit with flying colors and will start their high school careers with Geometry.

Or, as I found out yesterday, they will start with Geometry and Algebra 2. Told you they were motivated. One of the girls from my class last year lives in my neighborhood and I ran into her and her mother while out for a walk yesterday. The mother even inquired about getting extra help for student when school starts. Hello tutoring!

Yesterday afternoon that same student called and asked to stop by real quick. Turns out that she and her mother bought Josie a few gifts. They like me, they really like me!

As for tutoring last year, I let go of the high school student because she was not showing up and I'm pretty sure just using tutoring as an excuse to get out of the house. I did stick with the 7th grade girl who wanted to study ahead so she could get into my Algebra class. The testing to get into the class was in May and the results took until the very last day of school to get. Keep in mind that my job (the awesomest job) kind of hinges on students passing the tests to get into the class. It was a little tense.

The student I tutored was the only one to pass with flying colors! Yeah for her! And a little yeah for me! Her parents already told me that they talked me up to some future 7th grader parents, so possibly more tutoring!

(Um, about all of that tutoring... I have a newborn and toddler at home. Hopefully that will work out).

Of course, one student does not a class make. So after re-testing, five more students were added to the class. Again, yeah! Of course now I have the fun of being moved to the computer lab that does not have a chalkboard or smartboard. The computer teacher has a plan, so I'll let you know how that pans out. Oh, and the great fun of finding a new babysitter (for a newborn and a toddler already) for while I teach is only mildly stressing.

And finally, there are the classes I am taking so I can renew my teaching license which is expiring... right... now. It involves videos and books and lots of typing. Oh my. I received an A- in the first class. The second class is nearly done. Once I send it in and get the transcript and send in the license application I should be good to go. I hope. *gulp*

Xander's Room

Since we've moved Xander's room I have had to do a little work to make it 'his'. I decided that he needed to see his name in his room so Chris painted these letters white and I added yellow, blue and green stripes. It doesn't look great on the counter but I think it will look awesome on his light blue walls.


The flowery curtain that the room previously contained had to go. So I found this striped material that worked. This curtain turned out so well even if it does look slightly circus-esque.


And of course a matching pillow. I managed to whip this out today and even learned a new way to make a pillow cover. It's amazing what you learn when you read!


I know many of you are thinking "Wow, she has a newborn and a toddler and she's doing all of this?!" Well, the curtain was done pre-Josie. The letters were done while Josie napped and Chris had Xander. And the curtain was done instead of the massive amount of chores I haven't done in weeks. Obviously I have my priorities in the right place.

And that bunch of green is called what?

Our vegetable garden is growing really well this year, thanks to Chris. I'm not sure what all we have growing, but it includes cauliflower, tomatoes (of course), peppers, cantaloupe and zucchini. The zucchini plant is huge and is slowly taking over one end of the garden, so I better figure out what else to make besides zucchini bread. Mmm, that sounds good right now. Zucchini bread with chocolate chips, yum! I did see a recipe for stuffed zucchini, maybe I'll give that a try.

We also decided to join a CSA program (Community Supported Agriculture). There were different amounts we could decide on and we prepayed one amount. We decided on getting one portion of vegetables and one portion of fruits every other week. Here's what we received the first time I picked it up.


I don't even remember everything we received. It included those beautiful strawberries, beets, turnips, broccoli raab (??), and a couple other things that I have no idea about. I'm really having to expand my taste bud spectrum here. I don't know half of the veggies that they give me or how to prepare them. I've never really eaten beets! The upside is that the program gave me the nifty bag you see in the photo and they also include a couple of recipes for the vegetables included. Slowly I will learn.