The Wooden Wedge

I'm posting this blog from our hotel in Loveland, Colorado. Here in a few minutes we're going to make our way up to Estes Park. When we get back to Idaho I'd like to blog about our trip, but for now I just wanted to record the conversation I had with my husband last night in our hotel. Well, it really wasn't much of a conversation, it was more just a comment he made that made me laugh and made me remember how much I love him and my mother and how grateful I am for the both of them.

As Ken was crawling into bed last night he turned to me and said, "You know what we should have brought for the hotel? The wooden wedge, in honor of Caren."

The wooden wedge is this wedge of wood my mother gave Ken and I before we left for our honeymoon to Las Vegas. She told us to wedge it into the door at night to keep people from breaking into our hotel room. She didn't think the hotel lock and deadbolt was enough:) We actually still have that wooden wedge somewhere. I love my mom. That story always makes me laugh. I also love my husband for remembering that and for being around to share those memories about my mom with me.

Summer

Summer has really flown by, and in a little over 3 weeks I'll be back in school. I am doing a jump start program at my school, which is basically a two week long summer school program; so my first day of school is actually August second, which is coming up really quickly! I have mixed emotions about this. A part of me is ready to go back already. I know, kind of sad, huh? I think it's because I have cut myself off of the "True Blood" series, and so I have found myself a little bit bored this last week:) Another part of me wishes I had a little bit more time for summer. I know that there are still some projects out there that I would like to finish before the school year gets into full swing. I did go out to my classroom yesterday and I must admit, I kind of missed it. I'm hoping I make the best of these next few weeks and that I take advantage of my time off.

Our summer has been low key and I thought that I'd use this post to share a little bit of the Dietz summer experiences.

This is what our summer has looked like:

I was verylucky this summer and my incredibly good friend Amanda came to visit me from Wisconsin. It was much needed. We really didn't take her to do anything too exciting, but I'm hoping that was O.K. I really enjoyed having her here and so far that has been the highlight of my summer. Sadly, I have no pictures of us from the trip (Well, I have a really bad, wind blown picture of us, and just a plain bad one Ken took, so I should rephrase: I have no shareable pictures of the two of us:). Here are the highlights of her trip:

*We partook in a lot of this----------->

paired with sometimes intelligent, sometimes not, conversation.

*We consumed A LOT of junk food, resulting in me gaining two pounds and having to eat incredibly healthy for the week following Amanda's departure.

*We attempted to exercise...


*We watched all but two episodes of the "True Blood" series while lounging on the pull out couch. Amanda introduced me to this series and I have become addicted to both the books and the HBO series. I will not let myself pay extra for HBO though and so I am just going to have to wait until season three is done playing out and available for purchase. It will be tough, but I can do it:) I would like to take this opportunity to say this series rocks! Thank you Amanda!


*We spent a night dancing the night away at Mugsy's. Amanda had some very creative moves:)

*We had a BBQ, where again, we ate incredibly unhealthy food and...

*We toured a few Vineyards in the area. Bitner's was beautiful! Although I think we ended up enjoying the wine the most at Indian Creek.

Those were the highlights from Amanda's trip. Again, it was so much fun to have her come to visit. Next time I am going to have to plan a trip out to Wisconsin to see her.

The weekend after Amanda left we celebrated both my nephew's thirteenth birthday and Fenix's 8th.






It's hard to believe that Dennin is officially a teenager. These years have flown by. I used to change that kids diaper! My friends and I used to bring him along with us when we hung out in high school. In fact, at one point, I think we tried putting him in a hand cart and carting him through the store like that. I literally used to hang out with him all the time. There were many nights when we stayed up late playing Mario Cart. I even took Dennin to my Senior Prom. I had, by far, the best date there:) Ah! It's just hard to believe how much time has passed and how quickly it's passed. Pretty soon he will be speeding through high school. Kind of scary...:)

As for Fenix, eight is a big year too! I think Ken and I realized just how big of a year it was just the other day when Fenix was getting ready for the day and he brushed his own hair! Normally he gets dressed and brushes his teeth and one of us does his hair, but this time he took the liberty to do it himself. He is definitely getting older. Fenix is such a good kid. We are so blessed with him. I really hope that when Ken and I have children that they turn out as wonderful as Fenix. Although I have a feeling that if we have a girl some day she will be a terror in the same way that I was:) Fenix is just so well adjusted and polite and grateful and sensitive and creative and intuitive and intelligent and...I'm being obnoxious and I'm going to stop. We really are lucky though. I am proud to be his step-mom and happy to play the role in his life that I do. This is the sixth birthday that I've celebrated with Fenix and I really can't imagine my life any other way.

O.K. Moving on... as for the rest of our summer, Fenix did both swimming lessons and soccer camp. We got him signed up for soccer in the fall and he's really excited! He gets to play on the same league as Brooke and so this fall should be really fun and filled with Saturday soccer games! We've spent a few days at the water park and a lot of days at Hastings, which is the book store near our house. I swear to you that Fenix may just read us out of house and home:) It could be worse though. In all reality I just need to pay off our insane library fine! Fenix has also started an obsession with "Club Penguin". Don't ask:)

In addition to all of that, we've spent a lot of time in our yard. I planted a new rose bush and laid down new mulch, etc in out rose garden...if you can really call it that. We set up some barrel planters in our backyard, with clematis and some annuals, and Ken built an arbor that I planted grapes around. Our hope is that by next year we'll have some grapes that we can hopefully use to make some wine with. We also had a patio cover built and we've really enjoyed having that.






All in all this summer has been good. Ken and Fenix's mother were able to reach an agreement on where Fenix will be attending school, which is awesome! That has also been a highlight as well as a stress to our summer. It's taken a lot of work and came at a price, but I think it will be well worth it in the end. We're happy Fenix will be in a district that he lives in and we're really excited that he will be attending Meridian Elementary and will be able to bus to our house every day. He seems to be pretty stoked about it too.

Our next adventure for the summer is our trip back to Ken's hometown. We leave in exactly a week to visit these folks in Nebraska...



...plus quite a few more as well as some in Colorado:) We're really excited to get there, but less than excited about the actual trip due to two factors. One being that it takes 14 and a half hours. The second factor is that we are bringing this...

She may not be wearing the costume for our trip, but I am sure she will be playing the part after 14 hours in a car:(

Well, that has been our summer thus far, in a very big nutshell:)

School's Out for Summer!

Ah! School is out! I am done with my first year of teaching and am no longer a rookie. This year flew by incredibly quickly. I am in awe at speed at which the months came and went. I have accumulated so much knowledge and so many memories in the past nine months. I am ready for summer. I have been feeling anxious the last few weeks. At the same time, I have been reluctant to hand this group of seventh grade students over. I was blessed with a wonderful group of students. I had my share of chatters and my advisory most definitely gave me some challenges, but all in all, I could not be more grateful for the students that I had this year and for what they taught me. I have said it many times before, but they were a lifeline in an otherwise very difficult year for me. They gave me a gift that they had no knowledge they were giving.

I think it's funny that in September I said I would post a picture of my "very first classroom" and here I am at the end of the year, and still haven't posted one. Maybe in a few days:) I thought I would use my blog as a way to post a few memories/excerpts from my first year of teaching, in part for you to enjoy, and for me to remember:)

*The very first day that I was there was a staff day and Paul (our Principal) had us play a game called "I've never..." All of our chairs were set in a circle. When it was your turn you had to stand up and say "I've never..." and then you had to finish the sentence with something you've never done. Everyone else was to remain in their seats, but if the speaker named something that the speaker had never done before but THEY had, then they had to get out of their seat and run to a new seat. Each time the removed a seat so that you lost a person each time. Anyway, I was one of two new teachers, and the staff at my school is very small and so I was feeling a little bit nervous about fitting in. The part of this game that I will always remember is when the counselor stood up and said, "I've never drank a beer in my life." Only two people stood up at that point and I remember thinking to myself, "What have I gotten myself into?"

*Reading over the shoulder of student as they were writing and coming across something that struck me as incredibly funny. I laughed so hard that I cried. Luckily this student had a good sense of humor and was able to laugh with me.

*Dress like your favorite teacher day when everyone who dressed like me was dressed in nearly all black.

*Melaney's inquisition of Jim when we went Portland:)

*I made the mistake once of telling one of my advisory students if he really had a problem with reading during advisory that he could take it up with the principal and then had him promptly storm out my room and to the principal's office. That will be the last time I use that threat. He most definitely called my bluff.

*One of my students telling Ken he looked like a rapper:) That just made me laugh.

*Scattergories.

*The day I drew a stick figure of myself on the board with curly hair (large curly hair) and one of my student asked me if my stick figure ever had a hard time playing hide and seek.

*The science fiction short story one of my students wrote that was titled "Mrs. Dietz is a Robot". In it I'm a robot who is trying to not expose my secret of being a robot to the Principal. I brought my students brownies every day and I had a Mrs. Dietz human suit that I changed into.

*Recently a student wrote a paper where he said that when I taught I made him feel like the smartest kid in the class. It completely warmed my heart.

*How excited my 7/8 period class got when they made our high school T.A. graduation cards and how heartfelt their messages were.

These are really just a few. There are so many more and I hope that I sit down and type up more when I have the time. This school year has been wonderful. I feel like I've found a school that's a good fit for me.





As far as summer goes, Amanda will be coming to visit in less than two weeks, which I am really excited about! Then, in July we will be driving to the Nebraska/Colorado area to see Ken's family.

Ha! If I were to grade this blog post using the six traits, I do not think I would score it will in organization. This was by far a very lame conclusion! :)

My Mother's House

We are currently in the process of packing up my mother's house and getting things ready so that we can put it on the market. For the most part, everything on the inside of the house has been packed up and moved. We painted the majority of what we need to paint today. We only have the floors, ceiling, and garage to do and then we'll be done. It's a bittersweet feeling. I don't want to sell my mom's house. Although I never wanted to be put in this position in the first place. Sharie and I drug our feet for a quite a while, and at one point I thought we were just doing lazy, but I really think we were just putting off having to deal with it. I will be happy to be done. It's emotional to be there every week going through her things and packing, and so I will be happy to be done with that. I know that when it does sell though, that it will be an incredibly hard day. When we were painting today, it almost felt like she was home. I think it's because it's spring. I think it had something to do with the way the light came through the windows. For whatever reason it reminded me of Mother's Day last year. I will miss my mother's house because all of it reminds me of my mother. It also holds nearly all of my high school memories and a large portion of my grown up memories as well. I know that I don't need a house to keep those memories alive, but it will still be hard to let go of. While I am thinking about them, I thought I would jot a few of them down.

*Sunday dinner's with my Grandpa.
*Stumbling through the halls with Sharlee on the day we coined "Big Shoes"
*Sitting up until all hours of the night on instant messenger with Rob. I remember hiding it from my mother:)
*Wendall and every memory associated with her from the first day we brought her home, to the day she stood up for the first time after she lost control of her hind legs, to the day she died, when my mom met me at work to tell me. She even told my manager I wouldn't be in that day. I know that's not a house memory, but I love my mom so much for that.
*Watching "In Her Shoes" with my mom, with each of us curled up on the couch.
*The day Ken and I told my mom we were getting married, I remember that I told her we had something to tell her and I was incredibly nervous (and looked incredibly nervous) and so she responded with "What? Are you pregnant?" Only my mom would ask that:)
*Planting the bushes with Brandon in the front yard.
*Croquet, every Mother's Day weekend.
*Christmas Eve. We used to spend the night there. We'd have snacks and margaritas and we'd always stay up later than my mother:)
*The Thanksgiving that I was highly emotional. I remember drawing myself a bath and then when I went to get into it, Brooke had stripped down to nothing and hopped in. I was already emotional and bratty. I remember I cried and Brooke felt to guilty that she crawled out of the tub and hid in the spare room.
*Helping my mom make stuffing two years ago.
*All of the kids birthday parties in her back yard.
*Ken falling asleep at her house the first Halloween that we were together.
*Even though I was married and had my own house, I went there once because I had a migraine while student teaching. My mom tucked me into her bed, gave me migraine medicine, and placed a cool wash cloth on my forehead. I still remember how it felt to have her sit down beside my on the bed, with her hand rested on my forehead; I remember the indention the bed made, and the cool feel of her fingers. It's sounds horrible, but I loved being sick at my mom's house.
*Wheeling my luggage down the driveway the day Sharlee and I decided to stay at a hotel for the night (randomly, I may add).
*Each of my birthdays. I will remember every haphazard looking cake that she made. They were never pretty, but I loved them. If anything I loved them because they were never pretty.
*Moving back home when I was 19.
*Crawling in bed with my mom after my Grandma passed away.
*The day a guy brought me roses for the first time:) I had no tact. I left him on the porch, meanwhile I tossed the roses in the sink. My mother came home to a sink full or roses:)

I have a lifetime of memories and I'd like to write them all down if I could. I think I'll have to end for tonight though.

I am SO bad at keeping this up to date!

Well..I can honestly say that not very many exciting things have happened since I last updated this:) Here's the short version of the last few months:

1) I had my last observation and I have a job next year! Woohoo! Well, possibly I am speaking too soon. There is a chance the district will decide to cut positions, at which point I am on the bottom of the totem pole, although I am really hoping that won't be true, and according to the school board, is at the bottom of their list. It does sound like we will be following suit with so many districts around the state and declaring a financial emergency. I love my school. I'd like to teach there for a long time. Although I do not want a cut in pay, I'll take one if it means I still have a job and that I get to stay at a school I love. I really do feel like I have found the right school for me. I'm attached to both the students and the staff and I feel blessed that it's such a positive environment. This year as been a hard one. I was very afraid I'd lose myself, and I think that teaching has really kept me grounded.

2) My students are in the midst of ISATS. This has been incredibly stressful! I had no idea that I would stress this much over ISATS, but I have. We just did our first round of them on Wednesday, and when I arrived at school, I really thought I was going to make myself sick to my stomach with nerves. My kids are doing well though and I'm proud of them. On whole, they are putting forth their best effort and that's all that I can really ask for. They have made a lot of growth. There were quite a few yesterday that went from basic to proficient and that was really neat to see. There were also quite a few that made me ache because the tried incredibly hard and worked really hard this year, but their growth wasn't accurately measured on the ISATs. I have another group testing tomorrow, and then we have a little over a week until we take the Language Usage test. I'll be happy when we're done and school can go back to normal.

3) We built an arbor and bought grapes! Well, Ken built an arbor:) We haven't planted the grapes yet, and we really won't have any this year, but I'm looking forward to having them in the future. We're hoping to try our hand at wine making:)

4) I finished "The Hunger Games" and it's sequel and they were amazing! I have yet to get really into a book since. They were phenomenal!

Hmmm...sadly, that's about it:) I usually have a funny story or two from school each day, but I'm drawing a blank today. I did actually send a student on a mission to find my stapler (that she borrowed from me during advisory) only to have her find it on the corner of my desk, buried under papers. That was after I sent out of my classroom to look for it. I laughed at myself when we found it, although I think I was possibly the only one that was amused:)

Middle School Memories and February Update

I love teaching Middle School for many reasons, one being that my students constantly make me laugh, even if sometimes I have to wait until the lunch period to do so. Here are just a few recent memories that make me laugh and that I want to hold on to.

***Today the Shakespeare festival came to our school to perform the play "Othello". It was amazing! I really enjoyed it and I think my students did too. They used the word "whore" pretty candidly, and naturally, because I teach 7th grade, this was a big deal to some of my students. Coincidently, the students it was a big deal to, are also my students who watch rated R movies. After the play I had a student come up to me and say, "They used the "H" word a lot!" :) At which point, I responded, "No, actually, they used the "W" word a lot." It made me chuckle.

***A few weeks ago my students were discussing the movie "The Lightning Thief". The book series has been a huge hit with my kids and so I recently read the first book in the series. My kids know me pretty well and I have no problem sharing with them how much of a book geek I am. At the beginning of the year, I explained that Sharlee and I loved "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" series and so when the movie came out we made our own sisterhood of the traveling pants, pants, to wear to the movie. As my students were discussing "The Lightning Thief" movie I overheard one of them say, "Are you going to bring a pen to the movie?" (The main character has a pen that turns into a sword.) Then I heard the other student say, "That sounds like something Mrs. Dietz would do." :)

***Each quarter we cover a new set of root words. My students keep track of their roots in a chart with a definition, example words, and a picture to illustrate the definition. I usually use my whiteboard to create my own chart as they are creating theirs. One of our roots for this quarter is "auto", which means self. So, my example picture was a stick figure of myself. My stick figures always have curly hair, and I managed to make the hair on this particular stick figure huge. In response to my stick figures massive hair, one of my students said, "Do you have a hard time playing hide and seek with that hair?" :)

These were just a few highlights from the last couple of weeks. I'm sure I have more, but I don't write them down like I should. I really appreciate my classes sense of humor. I'm looking forward to summer, but I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to seeing this group of students go. I've really enjoyed them this year and I have a feeling that summer will be here before I know it.

As far as updates from my life outside of school, not much is new. Things are pretty much the same as always in the Dietz household. Fenix is loving school and doing incredibly well. We got to see a large chunk of Ken's family over the Thanksgiving holiday, which was really nice and we're planning a trip out to the Nebraska/Colorado area to see them again this summer. Ken and I also got to take a trip to Jackpot to celebrate a friends birthday in Decemeber. Unfortunately we didn't win big, or at all, but we had a really good time. Other than that we've been spending a lot of time working and just being homebodys. That's pretty much been our life in a nutshell the last few months:) Oh, and we have been playing a lot of Wii, which we can thank Santa for.

Formal Apology to Sharlee

I just wanted to formally apologize for never commenting back to you when you leave comments on my blog. I never check for comments and it doesn't notify me when I have them (or if it does, I don't see the notification:) You left me a comment well over a year ago and I just read it today:) Oh and I do like that cover of "Imagine". I was just saying that I normally am not big on "Imagine" covers:)