A few happy things

I'm feeling compelled to post today, but I'm not quite organized enough to write on a single topic. So...

A few happy things recently:

-- Crisp, juicy apples in season. Is there anything that tastes better this time of year? (That's rhetorical. I mean: No!)


-- Being able to "wake up" my daughter to make sure she's okay by shoving at my belly a little.
"Wake up, you! Are you okay?"
*boink, boink*
"Oh, that's good, then. As you were."

-- A relatively painless car-buying experience. Tiring, yes, but painful, no. The car payments are painful, oh yes!, but not as bad as they *could* be. Plus now we have this cute new car with four doors, more space, and rubber floor mats all around. If we have to have (nngh!) a new car, at least it's attractive and practical.

-- Freezer waffles! With real maple syrup! How I love thee and thy lack of complexity.

-- Having the dance program pull together and find a shape. Having old teaching patterns click into place.

-- A postcard from Italy. Even if you know that the happy couple was just churning these out in their free(?) time.

-- Surprise phone calls from friends wanting to get together. Yay!

-- Bloggers who email appreciation after I comment on their blogs. I know! I'm impressed! I'm not usually that organized.

-- Snuggle cats. Especially the bad cat who decides he'd rather snuggle than shred random important documents.

-- Dancing to lively Quebeçois bands. Oo, yeah, this'll be fun!

-- Thoughtful, well-written blogs. My blogroll doesn't even begin to cover the swath of things I read. Here's a short list of some blogs/websites I've been enjoying recently. Not that these are new, not that these are all of them, just that I've been slow (and lazy) to update my blogroll.

uppercase woman
vanity fair mag online
peculiar momma
Pam's House Blend: Always Steaming
sweet juniper
xkcd: a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math and language


-- Cut-n-pastIng together a handout for my students, and giving them just enough information on a single page that they can grasp at their (low-beginning) level. It turned into a surprisingly interactive material and built on the vocabulary and concepts they were already familiar with.

Some students were drawing lines from illustrations to vocabulary terms, and others were carefully re-writing every new word, and others were gleefully latching onto this American concept we call Halloween. Oh, so that's why people are doing these weird things. They think it's hysterically novel that people make Jack-o-Lanterns, dress up in strange costumes, and ask for candy.

So the handout was a hit. Yay for clip art! And an extra yay! for my husband who pulled this project out of the fire when my printer choked on said clip art.



Next week: Doorway dialogue. "Trick-or-treat!" "Who are you?" "I'm a ghost." "Oh, you are very scary! It is a good costume." "Thank you."