I officially checked out of my room, turned in my grades, and completed district-directed professional development yesterday at 4 p.m. To celebrate, I went to Starbucks on that lovely, sunny, warm afternoon and then got my nails done. This time, I even got a design on my big toes just for the heck of it. Afterward, Justin and I went to Jalisco, a Mexican restaurant we like close to the theater. We ordered fajitas and enchiladas, but they charged us for two fajitas and one enchilada plate. After notifying them of the mistake, they just charged us for one entree! We walked several blocks to Intiman and went to Namaste Man, a monologue by a man who grew up in Nepal and a variety of other locations when growing up. He artfully and hilariously describes his experiences in international school and of his lack of belonging in Nepali culture and American culture.

Today is a room-temperature, yet cloudy, Saturday. We slept in (and I’ve been getting plenty of sleep lately!!) after leaving the bedroom windows open all night. I made raisin toast, eggs, and bacon for breakfast while we listened to This American Life. I worked in my garden; Justin went to Lowe’s. Today is laundry, de-clutter, vacuum, dishes, and all-around chores day. Tonight: a bridal shower (read: Mexican food and Wii games). Tomorrow, I anticipate reading and going to Ohana Project. Perhaps I shall even watch a movie (I’d love to go to Get Smart with Justin!). No grading or lesson planning awaits.

Monday (and for two weeks thereafter) I shall be attending a “Summer Institute for Biology Teaching” from 8:30-3:30 at the UW. I expect I will enjoy it, although I will be missing the home visit training and the AP Bio institute.

Well–it’s time to de-clutter. Hopefully I will blog again before two more months pass!

Today I’ve been at my school’s open house for the community, alumni, former and current staff, parents, and current students. There was a staff reception with snacks near the library and a ceremony in the gym at noon with an entertaining swing band. We just got a brand new building, and since my room has a good view, we had a chat room in my area for the classes of 85-89 this afternoon. I was hoping I could have some people sign up on my wish list for class materials which was to be our incentive for having our rooms open today, but no one actually did.

I was also hoping to get some work done in my classroom, but there was always a group or individuals coming through that had questions for me or that I needed to welcome, which is fine. I feel, though, that this afternoon I will be grading notebooks well into the night.

Today has been a busy day already, and it started with the smell of baking bread. This time of year–when the days get a little shorter and the nights get a bit cooler–is great for baking bread. I use a bread machine for this task, which allows me to dump everything for a delicious loaf of bread into the machine and set the timer. I could smell bread at 5:30 this morning, which, on a cool day, is quite a motivator for getting out of bed. My school colleague at our meeting this morning asked if I liked the smell of bacon and if I knew of such a device that could cook bacon each day like my machine does for bread….excellent idea! At any rate, my delicious, fluffy, warm white bread was a filling breakfast after the addition of butter and honey on the thick slices. I had a glass of milk along with it to add some more protein, too.

After breakfast and my morning meeting, I had a lab with my AP students and a lab with my Biology students. My Daphnia finally came in, and students were able to observe them under the microscope and carry out their self-designed experiments with them today. The ones that were left over got added to my aquarium–and so did the beautiful male betta that a student bought for me over his lunch break!

I hope to have a more low-key day after all of the labs today. I got some more new students, which makes it hard for them to participate in lab on their first day. My language arts students are going with me to see Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan woman who won the Nobel Peace Prize and the Woman of the Year award for her reforestation of parts of Africa and for helping the rural poor in east Africa. We were able to get free tickets through a writers program, so I’ll be going to that and then to Lukas’ birthday party.

Before all of that, however, I am going to enjoy a hot cup of tea–a variety Bethany gave me when she was visiting. Here’s to 20 minutes of relaxed lesson planning.

…and we’re off again, this time to Spokane. Nothing too exciting. Justin’s got a workshop presentation he’s doing at a Principal’s conference. Tuesday thru Friday I’ll be doing an AP Biology workshop, and then I start working again!

Perks of going to Spokane with Justin:
Our hotel has a hot tub, 2 pools, and a fitness room, and it’s right by the river
I plan to indulging in one of many books I’m going to read this summer
Time for summer curriculum planning while he’s at workshops for principals

(In case I didn’t say, I’ll be teaching environmental science to Upward Bound students at South Seattle Community College for 5 weeks this summer–it’s a pretty sweet part time job!)

Here’s a brain blurb of what I’ve been doing lately:
Got a new phone…Red Blackberry Pearl.. yummy sweet technology goodness
Awards Ceremony for 9th-11th graders Wednesday night
Packed my whole classroom and stayed ’til 7p.m. Thursday working on it
Got my grades finished early Friday
Played soccer and got hit in the face and my collarbone
Went to our staff party Friday night
Stopped by Justin’s school’s lock-in and watched Night at the Museum with 4th graders
Went for a walk with my hubby and saw a sign with the realtor’s name “Anita Hearl”–hilarious!

Well, it’s time to go to Spokane. I just wanted to update people on what I’ve been up to before I forget.

We just got back from our trip to Camano Island. What a relaxing weekend it was! I didn’t get much work done, so in many regards it was a retreat. I had a great time, but I left feeling guilty about what I didn’t do as far as paper grading. Aaron rented a beach house from a coworker, and Elaine, Jesse, Raleigh, Daniel, Aaron, Andrea, Asher, Justin, and I were there for the weekend. The “cottage” is 2 bedrooms/2 baths/2 stories and it’s right on the beach. We got there Friday night and mainly stayed inside for the whole weekend, as there is a lot of living space and the weather was unpredictable (mainly rainy and cool). That was fine, though, because we played ping-pong, watched Shallow Hal and Lemony Snicket, played Wii games, had a late-night poker game, talked, beach-combed, kayaked, ate A LOT, and just had a great time. I finished reading The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, which was one of my personal solitude treats. I ate some of Theo Chocolate’s Bread and Chocolate bars and drank my miracle red tea while finishing the book. This is one of my favorite things to do–drink hot beverages and eat chocolate while reading a book with a nice view nearby. Bonus points if it’s raining or if there are friends or family sitting quietly by, doing their own thing.

By the way, I call it miracle red tea because I kept whining about not having brought my own rooibos tea, and I asked Justin to find some while he went to the store Friday night, but since we were in a rather rural area, there was none. I whined some more the next day about my lack of red tea, and decided to make some of the Celestial Seasonings tea that a previous guest left behind. Upon opening the box, lo and behold, I found a solitary packet of red tea flavored with vanilla! I really appreciated the tea, savoring every sip.

Now I must work. Monday morning calls my name. I only have two more Mondays of teaching this year–and the last one doesn’t count since I’ll have a sub while I help with graduation rehearsal.

Here are a couple of photos from this year’s prom at the top of the Pike Place Market.

My hair is curled, so it’s really longer than this, but you may notice it’s lighter–I got highlights a couple of months ago.

So much has been going on since I last posted. I can’t believe it’s been two weeks since I blogged last. Since then, prom has happened (quite well, really) and the seniors presented their senior projects. For those of you who don’t know, these are (sadly) my most stressful school-related activities of the year. Prom is stressful because of money (do we have enough?), ticket sales (have we sold enough?), and dirty dancing (will our dance get shut down?). Speaking of dancing, I have gotten my 15 minutes of fame in this article on freak dancing, of all things.

Senior projects are stressful because we involve the community members as judges of student projects. I have a hard time getting 60 judges organized, in addition to getting the students ready to present. I couldn’t have done it without my coworkers (and my husband) helping with certificates, cleaning up, judging, listening to practice presentations, and picking up food.

In other news, I’ve also:
started a reproduction unit with my bio class
started a poetry unit with my seniors after senior project
hosted a clothes swap party Sunday
admired Justin’s work on our new patio
chaperoned a trip to Eastern Washington to Ellensburg Saturday for a HERO Institute
helped judge M.Ed. students’ culminating portfolio
bought 4 books I will have to wait to read (grrr)
bought Brandi Carlile tickets for June 1 and Bela Fleck tickets for August 1
dealt with allergies/sinus infection
met Cherry Banks at UW Bothell
made a chocolate cake with icing (tonight, while procrastinating)
watched Deja Vu, the season finale of the Office, the latest Lost, and several episodes of 30 days

Here are my plans for this week:
read more NTPOG
actually go to my soccer game
read for fun
grade like the wind!
plant my sprouting carrots, etc. outside (I must post photos of my almost-mature broccoli!)

Less than 25 days of school! w00t!

1. I am very tired for a Tuesday.
2. Good teaching day today….I love seeing the seniors somewhat nervous about their presentations. They produce higher quality work and are much more focused. Also, my bio students are getting to be much more self sufficient at writing lab procedures. In “grading” news, my seniors almost made me cry with their touching dedication sections in the letters to the judges.
3. I want to eat more fruits and vegetables, and I want to be working out more. Justin and I took the first steps (pedal pushes?) in doing this by riding our bikes today and yesterday. We also upped our Pioneer Organics
deliveries to weekly rather than every other week.
4. I also want to live more frugally, which was further reinforced to me while watching the first episode of 30 Days, a documentary by Morgan Spurlock. It followed Morgan and Alex, his fiancee, as they tried living on minimum wage for 30 days in Columbus, OH. Dang, that was hard. And they had a lot going for them, too….I must say it makes me think our health care system and our rate of minimum wage are utterly ridiculous if you can’t work two jobs and pay for an emergency room visit.

Recent Media/Events:
Lost
Gem of the Ocean (play at Seattle Rep, directed by Phylicia Rashad)
Driving to Graham, WA to visit Justin’s dad
Lesley’s B-day party
Justin’s extravagant school auction
awesome video archive website
Watching a 1948 online video of 2 cats reproducing and raising kittens (I know, I’m a weird science teacher)
seeing Justin on our local PBS station, KCTS, on All About the Money tonight!
The Omnivore’s Dilemma

Upcoming Events:
Ogle baby sitting
Anna’s graduation May 5–I wish I could be there!!
watching The End of Suburbia
Soccer game this Thursday

I hope to come back to some of this. So much is going on!!

Jesse’s Birthday Party 029, uploaded by amybaeder.

I put some photos up on Flickr from Jesse’s birthday party. Dawn took most of them (thanks, Dawn!), including one awesome photo of Elaine’s piroshkies. Highlights of the evening: Lukas winning Settlers, Jesse’s awesome borscht, my new set of old-skool primers from Daniel, Jesse’s Walden-photo book from Justin (as in Thoreau’s Walden Pond), getting to see friends (of course), checking out a REALLY old Seventeen magazine of Elaine’s, and drinking Justin’s (now Jesse’s) Intelligentsia Black Cat coffee (french-pressed).