Current Listening: Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell - If this CD keeps skipping, I quit!
Current Reviewer:
Recipe of the Day: Ghormeh Sabzi, Makaroni, Cocada, Brigadeiros, Beijinho De Coco, Passionfruit Mousse, Pav Bhaji, Peruvian Chicken Soup (Recipes from my ESOL students

Advent Calendar of the Day: Dec. 4 : Papa Bear's Advent Calendar is by the people who brought you Tate, the French cat. Before there was Tate the French cat, there were bears! I read the whole thing, and it is precious and "bear-y" imaginative!

Yesterday was another wacky day! It was AEB Day at our school - Afternoon Enrichment Block, which is where regular school lets out at 12:20 and teachers organize activities for the students from 12:30 to 2:50. This leads to a shorter schedule, a different class being omitted each time, and 7th and 8th grade classes that overlap! Wackiness! I also had to take classes to lunch, which I never have to do. What I do, since my eighth graders arrive while I still am teaching seventh graders, is take them to lunch together - there are only 15 in all, so it's not that many. Then, only the eighth graders were required to stay, so I just told mine that, if they wanted to stay, then they could come with me to the computer lab and work on their projects. What fun!

While we were there, I opened another blog and am considering using it as a classroom webpage. I also opened yet another account with Bravenet, to handle the future guestbook, notify list for parents, polls, counter, etc. I have three accounts now at Bravenet, so I eventually will need to document all of my information somewhere, as i will eventually get confused! I also am supposed to be entitled to a small free webpage on Bravenet - make that 3 of them, since I have three accounts, and I haven't used the other three. I will have to think about how or if I can use them. Mainly, I couldn't seem to log on to Funbrain.com, and was unable to put together a quick and dirty links page that my students could access for web searches and and access to teacher approved games to play. I want to have that for next time in the computer lab. But this will be yet another web commitment - should I really have another one of those? ;-)

Before I went to my therapist appointment, I went by my mother's place to pick up some pants that she has altered for me. Now I have lots of pants!!!! I am now mainly wearing Weekenders clothes to school. This is the line of clothes that my mother sells at presentations in people's homes. They are great for school - neat-looking, coordinated, and comfortable! I don't wear a lot of straight skirts, because my - ahem - lower half - ahem - is proportionately - uh - larger than my top half. These skirts are made of a nice knit cotton polyester blend, and are very flattering. I have several skirts with coordinating jackets, and wear them most days. They are great.

I plan on going through my wardrobe and tossing anything that does not fit any more - I have too many clothes, anyway, with all that I have inherited from my mother-in-law. They are nice clothes, but some of them are not me. As it is, I must fold and put away all of my laundry today, anyway. Tonight is TV night - maybe I can get all that done while watching Must-See Thursday!

Last night, although I managed to resist the urge to go out for more sushi (mainly because my husband was at home until 7PM before he left for choir practice, and I simply had to eat something before then!) - I was still tempted to go around the corner for egg rolls at the Lee's Golden Buddha after he was out... I didn't, and ate my leftovers from Chinese food there the other night. Then, I ate the rest of my husbands Chips Ahoy with coconut. Vegetables? What are those? I took the two servings of gumbo I had frozen out to thaw for tonight. I am determined to have a real meal, with salad and everything!

Last night, I put our new printer/scanner to work. I had misplaced the JPEG of a collage I sent out on Christmas cards four years ago, and had to find the original and re-scan it. I am thinking of sending it to CafePress to make t-shirts and stuff. I also found a fun collage I did of the Eiffel Tower and scanned that, too. I am very aware that, as much as I like to "borrow" artwork from other artists (to embellish my website, etc.), that will not be okay for sales! Time to work on my own art!

I also did some work on this journal. I was showing my husband the links to the articles on CafePress, and he pointed out that my site links in my journal entries should be a contrasting color. I had never thought about that. I guess that I knew where they were, so I assumed that everyone could see them - after all, they are orange, not red, like the type! So, I changed the links to blue - since there is blue in my picture, that is not too disruptive! I also took the pains to update my archives page - it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be!

Next, I plan on making a special page for reviewers. I did an interview a while back, and that was a lot of fun. I have been a bit hesitant about inviting site reviewers for two reasons - I don't have room to link everyone in the world on my template - even now, one must scroll down to see many of my icons. And, I think that too many blinkies and squares on the page is not neat. So, I am putting a "Current Reviewer" link up temporarily because I see in my Bravenet stats that someone from Starry Reviews is "watching" my site...:-) A Reviews link will be up sometime soon - I don't know yet if I will do a Javascript link, or just a whole separate entry page. Decisions, decisions...

The other reason why I have been hesitant to invite reviewers is that I really love my template and layout - I worked really hard on it. I love my bright colors, although that is not everyone's cup of tea. But, I am not averse to constructive criticism, and I could learn something! Besides, it may attract more readers to my journal. Not that I think that my life is that enthralling, but the idea of a public journal is to have others read it, I suppose! I also need to look ahead to promotion, in case I do decide to sell my art.

My next project is to produce a t-shirt promoting my designs, with the URL to my site. That should be interesting! I had toyed with the idea - since I have purchased all of these iron on transfers - for a while. A sort of commemorative t-shirt, to remember this layout by, because I am sure that I will change it someday!