1. Higher Ed Conferences – I  had the opportunity to attend the U.S.-India Higher Education Research Conference
2. I finally have a real mouse (bluetooth is way better than wireless – no need for the USB receiver!)
3. Beautiful leaves in central PA
4. Telling myself that it’s socially acceptable to wear thse to school/work since I’m a grad student.
5. Won tickets to see this musical on campus with a friend recently – we saw In the Heights
6. I chopped my hair!

Where: Seattle, Washington

When: August 2011

Why: PAX

It was our first time taking the Seattle Light Rail.

Our first time staying at the beautiful Hotel Monaco.

The first evening we did a little exploring.

We ended up at the Science Fiction Museum.

And enjoyed a tasty dinner with local beers at the Pop Kitchen + Bar.

We made sure to visit the Space Needle too. This was our first visit since 2004.

And our first ride on the Seattle Monorail.

I had some fun with Animoto putting together a video of our monorail ride!

Menu: Quiche (Sausage and Cheese, Crab and Spinach) and Asparagus with Cupcakes (Raspberry Lemonade and Cherry Cherry) for Dessert

Etc: Picked up from Back Burner Gourmet to Go

Verdict: Tasty! Cupcakes were a little dry, but they were two days old. I liked the icing a lot. Hubby ate all his asparagus!

The husband and I recently spent a week at Disney World to celebrate our anniversaries ( 5 years married and 10 years together!).  Since our first visit in either 2005 or 2006 together (we aren’t exactly sure when our first visit was – in the early days we’d go for one afternoon/evening here and there as part of a conference that the husband would attend in Florida that would provide extremely discounted tickets), we’ve visited at least once a year for a couple of days. We took one long trip together with my parents in 2008 – right before I defended my Ed.D. dissertation (interesting preparation choice, I know – but I passed!).

Since then we hadn’t spent more than 3 nights at a time because of work/school schedules so we were very excited to spend 6 nights! We found a great rate at a new (to us) hotel called the Walt Disney World Swan. They offer discounts to educators so this made the per night cost MUCH more reasonable then staying at an on-property Disney hotel – i.e. under $200 a night which is simply unheard of if you want to stay around the BoardWalk area. We love staying around the BoardWalk because you can walk to both Epcot and Hollywood Studios from your hotel instead of having to ride the bus. As much as we love Disney, we can’t stand the bus transportation systems. Buses make many stops and don’t really run that frequently.  Walking to two of the four parks saves a lot of time.

Our first day/night at Disney consisted of checking into our hotel,

and then waiting in our room for the thunderstorm to stop! It absolutely poured! Thunder, lightening, the whole 9 years. We watched the Casey Anthony trial on TV while the weather went crazy. The picture above, by the way, is not the Swan. It’s the Dolphin – which is a separate hotel. The Swan and Dolphin look a lot a like, and are side by side. We had this view of the Dolphin from our balcony. Notice our buttons? Disney offers celebration buttons so I made sure we picked up our Anniversary buttons. There are many opinions on the point of wearing the buttons, but in general, Disney people seem to be a lot nicer to people wearing buttons AND sometimes you get perks or free stuff like dessert at restaurants.

Once the weather cleared up, we rode the bus to the Downtown Disney area. I had bought tickets in advance to the new Transformers: Dark of the Moon movie to celebrate the husband’s Name Day. When we arrived to watch the movie, we noticed that there was a new side to the AMC theater that offered something called Fork and Screen - we attempted to switch or tickets to this but it was booked. More on this later since we ended up going back a few days later!

After the movie, we made our way to the Raglan Road Irish Pub. While I love the vibe of the Downtown Disney area – lots of street performers, cool lights, and music is always playing – we don’t love the crowds. At night it’s absolutely crazy with people!

This was our first time at this restaurant. We really enjoyed it! Great food, Irish dancers, and FREE dessert (yea for the Disney buttons!). After doing a bit of running around that day, it was really nice to relax and just enjoy each other, listen to good music, and to be still for a little while.

More pictures + stories to come!

I am totally looking forward to the upcoming four day weekend. I plan on:

• Spending time with my husband
• Eating some good food
• Visiting a spa for a little ‘me time’
• Reading some books on my Kindle
• Watching some movies/tv shows on my iPhone
• Taking pictures with my cameras (haven’t used my 5d since July and I feel like it’s time to play with it again)

I’ll be back on Monday night or Tuesday to share a weekend recap.

I’m currently sitting on the couch between my two sick cats (more about that in a moment) and my allergies (from the cats) are driving me nuts. I should get up and take my allergy meds, but both cats are sleeping happily next to me so I don’t want to disturb them.

Random thoughts from the past 5 days:

Monday – Work – Day one of the Learning Focused Training. I enjoyed the presenter – she was knowledgeable and entertaining to listen to. Loved Peter’s idea to have dinner at 5 Guys. That was a perfect way to end the day.

We gave the cats their first can of wet food in YEARS because Jasper was not eating much (probably because of the meds he was taking because of his cold) and they were very excited about this:

Tuesday – Work – Day Two of the Learning Focused Training. Started getting my classroom together. Lots of little things to do that day. Worked out with my trainer at the gym. I tried karate and kickboxing for the first time!

Wednesday – Work – Day Three – First day with students (I only had 10th grade): I finished setting up my Inspiration Wall:

This year I covered my desk with contact paper I found at Borders. I love it:

I also put together my GRE study schedule (another one):

Thursday – Day Four – first day with 11th and 12th grade students: This day was one big blur. Lots of lesson planning, Blackboard course creation. Made a new beef stew recipe! Peter picked up really tasty artisan bread rolls to have with dinner.

Today – Day Five – first day with all students. This…went…by…so…fast. It was insane. But a good kind of insane. I have such a great group of students this year. I’m really excited to try some new Learning Focused strategies with them. I worked out at the gym after work and was really happy to discover an iPod dock at the treadmill. Evidently I can plug in my iPhone and watch my movies and TV shows off of the larger screen. But the only two movies I have on on my iPhone right now are the first and second Twilight movies. Yes, I like Twilight – the books AND the movies, I’ll admit it. However, I’m not such a hardcore fan that I was willing to watch it at the gym. I thought somebody might laugh at me. So instead, I watched Oprah and Food Network.

Overall, I think this week went really well. I didn’t get as much studying done as I had hoped, but the first week of back to school is always a bit crazy so I’m planning to readjust a few things in my schedule next week to make sure everything gets done the way I’d like.

The 2010-2011 school year begins.

Students don’t arrive until Wednesday, but I am still excited.

I’m excited to participate in two days of Learning Focused training (LFS).

I’m excited to finish setting up my classroom.

I’m excited to hang this up.

I’m excited to simply begin.

Visiting 5 Staples + 2 Office Depots on Teacher Appreciation Day 2010 =

* 5 Binders
* 5 packs of college ruled filler paper (120 sheets each)
* 2 Lesson Plan books
* 5 Zipper Pouches
* 5 Red Pens
* 1 highlighter
* 5 Dry Erase Markers
* 1 Black Pen
* 4 Pencils
* 1 Free Sample of Lipstick (Mary Kay)
* 1 bag of Popcorn
* 1 piece of Hershey chocolate
* 8 Packs of NoteTabs
* 2 Packs of Super Sticky Post It notes
* 1 Multi Pack of Post Its
* 1 Book
* 2 bags

Total Cost: $0

I first read about the idea of creating a “Mosaic Wall” on Liz Tamanaha’s blog. This post explains how you can make your own.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how I want to set up my classroom this year and about the activities I want to do with my students. In the process of designing my own Mosaic Wall, which I am calling my Inspiration Wall, I came up with a neat way to decorate my room AND it gave me an idea for a first day of school activity with my students.

First, some views of my inspiration wall ( before I actually hang it up in my classroom):

I was really impressed with Jasmine. She didn’t bother the pictures once while I was laying them all out. She was more interested in sleeping.

I’ve come to realize that I am most inspired by my personal experiences while traveling so my Inspiration Wall contains photos of some of the places I’ve been in the past year: London, France, Portugal, Spain, Prague, Washington, D.C., Disney World, Bahamas, PAX East (Boston), Santa Fe, New Mexico, Alaska, and Hershey, PA.

Here’s a close-up on the individual squares.

One of my favorite blogs is written by Ali Edwards. She designed Photoshop brushes with some of her favorite creative mantras which happen to be mine as well. I used a black square with a phrase every so many images or so to break up the pictures.

Tomorrow the husband and I will be out early to Staples and Office Depot so I can get free swag (it’s the annual free for all otherwise known as Teacher Appreciation Day). and I plan to find something that will work to stick all 60 of these photos to my cinderblock walls so they won’t fall off or droop mid year.

In another post I’ll describe how I plan to use a similar activity with my students on the first day of school – I’m still working out the details.

It’s much too soon to tell.

Meet my garden.

It has looked so sad for the longest time. After I worked out, I looked up to the sky and noticed that it was very overcast. Grey and cloudy, not as hot as it has been, but at the same time it wasn’t raining either. I decided that was a sign that it was time for me to fix up my garden.

I started by picking out two hanging plants. These are my favorite plants because you don’t have to weed or dig or anything. Just plop them on the rack and they are all set.

But it wouldn’t be a garden if I didn’t plant actual flowers. Here are a few I decided on:

And the finished product (with assorted lawn ornaments strategically placed (ok I just plopped them):