a little inspiration...

okay - i've been avoiding the blog. and the reasons are two-fold.

one - i said i would be posting more wedding pics...well i'm not. i've been not wanting to post because it takes so much time to upload photos on my blog and when they're all on facebook anyways...why would i re-post them? sorry aunt laurie - if you haven't seen them, get judy and rachel to send you a link to their facebook accounts. :) though my uncle sent me a few so maybe i'll post those. but anyways, the point is that why should i not want to blog just because i don't want to post photos?


two - no one blogs. no one comments. facebook has turned the blogging world to bleakness. however, i was feeling a little more inspired today because three friends had posted and my heart felt uplifted. ha. but you know what i mean.

so here i am. back. making the effort to blog a little more because, as i was told a couple weekends ago, "it makes me mad when you don't blog." thank you laurie.

this week was report cards. it was definitely a different experience than my first year when i was in tears and spend hours and hours labouring over my comments. this year, apparently, other teachers were crticized by parents for not having as many comments as Mrs. Shulba. haha. it's nice having just 16 kids. this will probably be my easiest set of cards ever since i know them all so well too. but overall, a positive experience. parent teacher conferences on the other hand...haha. no, not too bad.

it's most definitely feeling like christmas. tim forced me to help put up the christmas tree (which only means pulling the fully assembled tree from the room downstairs and bringing it upstairs) on the day that it snowed this week. apparently, to tim, snow equals christmas. so it's set up before december even hits. but tonight tim and i are going to "Christmas in the Valley" which TWU is a part of. they put on a live nativity with acting and there's a play that you can go to and lots of live music in the atrium. we were very impressed last year when we went with both sets of parents but this year it'll just be us. we're going to eat at the caf for old time's sake. haha.

a taste of what's to come...

yes, there was a wedding. it was in edmonton. it was awesome. and so is the dance move my cousin sarah is pulling in this photo. holla! i'm waiting on some family uploads to get a few more photos to help tell my tale of our weekend in edmonton. but when my aunt bonnie sent me this one...how could i resist posting it?

you know you live in BC when...

you walk to the gym in your capris, tshirt, and thin zip-up on a day in november and you're sweating.

the fight against carwashing

besides a stint of youthgroup related car washes at the now-gone petro can at the corner of 152 and kg, i do not wash cars. tim, on the other hand, does. and it takes hours to wash a car properly.

so since we got married, tim will ask me to come help wash the car or tell me to wash the car and i never do. when we bought the mazda 3, tim said, "you're going to have to wash your own car now" and i said, "i'll take it to the carwash then." which means, he'll wash it himself as he's anti-carwashes. clean cars were never a big priority for me. maybe because i drove an oxidizing 89 topaz for so long. but i just don't want to spend the time.

well today the question was posed "do you want to help me wash the car?"

"no."

"okay." and off he goes to wash the car alone.

and then i felt a little bad. and it's a gorgeous day outside.

so i went and helped wash the car...for the first time in our marriage. and we captured it on film.

i was in charge of the hose.

here tim is looking warily at the hose in my hand because i'd just accidently sprayed a bunch of things inside the open garage. then i'd dropped the hose and it had sprayed up into the air getting us wet.

so i was put on wheel duty.

alyssa as teacher

so on friday, i had my first friend come visit me in agassiz...not just to visit but to teach all about weather to end off our weather unit! it was so great! she did an amazing job...and i'm not just saying that. :)look how engaged those kids are - hand raised with questions! go alyssa!

thanks for coming mrs. charbonneau!

take the parents...

tim and i went to the movies tonight and say "dan in real life" with steve carrall.

no swearing, no inuendos, funny without being over the top. perfect movie for seeing with the parents...or the kids.

there were a lot of older parental-types sitting around us at the theatre tonight and man they laughed a lot. i think they were getting some undercurrent jokes about having teenagers that tim and i just can't grasp. and they must have needed a laugh because they just let go. tim and i laughed half the time at all of them laughing.

but it is sweet...date-night type movie. worth a watch. it was nice to see steve play a bit more of an understated character. i was getting tired of his other character. ha.

i'm a "phase" person...

my brother goes through crazed phases...like canucks or baseball or pogs...and it's all he thinks about and talks about during the phase. sure - these phases were a long time ago and i'm sure he doesnt appreciate me bringing them up again but each one was much stronger than any of my phases...

however....

i am still a phase person nonetheless. maybe you remember the rice pudding phase? kozy shack at least once a day. or the john mayer phase? listened to him non-stop. or shopping at winners phase? wait a sec...

anyways, i wanted to keep you up to date on the phases du jour.

pears, creamy dill ripple chips, and tom petty. i watched a 4 hour documentary this weekend and if you've talked to me since saturday, i'm sure i told you something about tom petty or the heartbreakers in our conversation. i'm trying to stop the chip phase but they're just SO good. ifyou like dill pickle chips, i highly recommend creamy dill. as for pears? i've just been buying them all month since ang's birthday and want one everyday.

yep. what will be next?

in lieu of halloween...

okay, so maybe you've seen these ones but they're still funny.

circa.1985

vivid memory of going to k-mart to pick out a mask with my dad and picking this one. his response? "don't you want a girl mask?" me - "no." and so i handed out candy at the door in this outfit. very scary. though good to see that at the time of this photo i wasn't gorging on candy but instead choosing celery.

circa.1989?

the macdonalds were all about making your own costume. poor matt. i think he was a baseball player for the rest of his trick-or-treating years. haha.

since november 1st was always conveniently "bible dress up day", i usually had a costume that doubled. i was queen esther that year. minus the mask.

circa. 1990?

matt's memory of this halloween? some kid asking him "are you wearing pantyhose on your head?" this was maybe my least creative costume ever. black spandex, black sweatshirt, paper ears on the headband. angela showed up in a wooly sheep costume and put us all to shame.

lack of learning?

i just saw a commercial tonight for monopoly that has no money. it's all put on charge cards. so when someone lands on your hotel? they put their charge card in your bank thing-y and it adds up how much they should give you.

oh man. and if you think you're not great at adding? we have some problems for future generations.

okay...i know it's just monopoly. but you know what i mean.

the never-ending pillow search...

has it maybe ended?

i hate pillows. i can never find one i like. i've been searching my whole life.

this week i bought an extra-firm nautica pillow on clearance at winners and have slept on it for the last two nights.

but what's this? a pillow i like? it's still a little early to tell. but there's perhaps an end in sight to this search.

i heart sleep.

painting the spare bedroom....finally

we've been planning to paint this room since the day we moved in. when we went and bought the paint for our kitchen this summer, we bought the paint for this room too. every weekend tim suggested painting and i shot it down. i'm not a big fan of painting. haha. but it was finally the day. and now it's done.

oops - forgot the before photo...but you can still see the pink and yellow.

during...i can only reach so high.

after! gray-blue-teal?

now that it's done and we moved the bed in (that's been sitting in our office since we got it from the charbonneaus!) tim says he doesn't like the colour. the mattress is blue which makes the walls look quite green. he thinks that the colour isn't relaxing. me? i'm afraid that when i buy bedding to match, i won't want to sleep in my own room anymore i love it so much! haha. hopefully it'll grow on him.

so who's coming out to stay with us first?

the blame game

so today in class, we talked about not "playing the blame game". when you tell someone "it's your fault that we're in trouble!" - that's a blame message. we want to give "why" messages. (did we do this kind of stuff in school? i definitely can't remember...maybe we didn't even have personal planning) the kids love making up skits which is a lot of what we do in personal planning. but what i learned today was the 3 steps to giving a "why" message.

i thought maybe you should know too...this really could have helped us in life. ha.

> name the behavious that's bothering you.
> say WHY it's bothering you.
> say what you want to happen instead.

so now that you know the steps, take the quiz: are the following messages blame or why?

1. Someone in your group didn't do a part of an important project. You say, "I knew this would happen! That's why I didn't want you in our group. You never do your work. You're so lazy!"

2. A classmate told the teacher something was your fault when it wasn't. You say, "What you told the teacher wasn't true. I don't want to be blamed for something I didn't do. I'd like you to tell Mr. Jones the truth."

3. You were walking down the hall and someone ran into you, makin gyou drop your books. You say, "You jerk! Look what you did! My books are all over the floor."

the thing is...i did touch on the fact that just because you give a why message, it doesn't mean that that person is necessarily going to do what you ask. but i didn't really say what the alternative was...i don't know. what is it? tell a teacher? that can't be the only solution. because i'm tired of solving problems.

the library loophole

well...if you know me well - you'll know that i usually have mega-fines on my public library card. this summer, i did not frequent the library as my fines were up to $75. i wanted to go to the library but didn't want to pay my fines. unfourtunately, i had also racked up some fines on tim's library card. i once took out a teen book called "bad girls in love" on his card, lost it and never returned it. who knew how big the fine would be on that card?

finally - something had to be done. tim and i went in, i paid my fine down to $24 (has to be under $25 so that you can take out books) and started happily taking out books. however, tim wanted to be able to use his own card again but didn't want to have to face the librarian about why he'd had "bad girls in love" out for over 2 years. since i took it out, i'd found it again and it was sitting on our bookshelf at home. so tim made me go ask about his card. i told the librarian the deal and explained that i'd found the book - what would the fines be? she told me that only the cost of the book is still on his card ($9) - no late fees. AND if we returned the book, the cost of the book would be DELETED!

WHAT?

do you realize what this means? if you have a book overdue, you just keep it until they erase the fine and charge you for it then return it. for free!

okay okay - obviously i'm not going to be doing this BUT...it IS a library loophole that they really should look out for.

how much?

today i stopped at the dollar store for a few things. i bought one of those extra small bags of chips. i get to the till and the woman says, "you know, these are 3 for a dollar." and i say, "how much is one?"...she says, "25 cents."

...

to be a grown-up

the older i get, the more i think i should be feeling like a grown-up...however, i still seem to find myself in situations that seem strange because on the inside, i just feel like a litle kid. am i the only one who feels this way?

(just to put the following stories into context, keep in mind that i went to the store three times on the previous night for a variety of things that i would need for meals for the next couple days.)

something a grown up does that i do not: checks for all ingredients before beginning a recipe. today i dumped a box of cake mix into a bowl (okay - not exactly a recipe but you know what i mean) then before adding the wet ingredients, i thought ahead (!) and checked to be sure i had cupcake papers before starting. i did. so i poured in the oil and water and realized...i didn't have eggs. so i had to go to the store.

something a grown up does and i tried: make a list. i made a list of everything that i needed at the store so that i wouldn't have to go out again. i am hosting thanksgiving dinner at my house so i thought about what i'd need for that. i even thought forward to tuesday because i'm hosting another dinner that night. i made a long list. so far so good.

something a grown up can do that i cannot: estimate how much of something there is in a package. for example - i am planning to make a reciepe for tuesday that calls for 1 3/4 cups of sour cream. so at the store i look at the sourcream containers. you know them. tiny, medium, and yogurt container size. hmm...the medium didn't seem quite big enough so i got the large. at home? i'm sure the medium had more than 2 cups in it. why do i overestimate? who was at my place on fondue night and saw how many chocolates i'd bought to melt? case and point.

something a grown up does and i didn't: check to make sure you have everything on your list before leaving the store. it sounds easy. in fact, i'd thought that i had. but i forgot three items. oh well - at least they were tuesday items. they can wait.

back to the cupcakes with my eggs...stir stir stir. then i go to put out the cupcake papers in the muffin tin...i hadn't thought to actually count the cupcake papers when i checked them at the beginning of this story...and there were only 12.

back to the store.

it's painful to read - i know. doesn't this girl ever cook or prepare meals? (umm...) my aunts who read this are thinking, "are you related to judy?" haha. but as i am writing this out, i'm thinking...maybe it's not a "grown-up" thing. maybe i equate grown-ups to having things put together...but actually i may never be that way. i'm just this way. oh the psychoanalysis. but let me tell you - grown-up or little kid...i'm sick of going to the store for one more thing. but i still don't have everything i need. :)

you love teaching when...

in the middle of class a student calls out, "wow mrs. shulba! you really know how to make school fun!" seriously. word for word. but then i schooled them in soccer.

oh small schools...

today i taught PE to grades 1 - 5. it's a bit of a range. it's not great for soccer in the gym even though that's what they voted to play. those poor grade 1s and 2s didn't know what hit them...though it was usually the ball. i just ran around putting out fires (metaphorically of course) but it was quite the experience.

the french program is going great though. tomorow the 6/7s begin desk work. i'm a little nervous as i want to be on top of them to be speaking only french but it's easier when they're contained on the carpet. i'm sure it'll be fine. you wouldn't believe how much french i can speak now. haha.

i now no longer have 18 students in my class - it's down to 16. we had a family leave and they had 2 kids in my class. that means when my gr. 5s are out of the class, i only have 12. crazy. though it means we get to do some very fun things. (umm...maybe they're only fun in teacher-minds).

so that's the school update fyi. i cannot believe that next week is october. it really flies.

snow? in september?

on saturday, tim and i did something silly. we hiked mt. cheam again.

now maybe you don't know the tim and rebecca history of mt. cheam BUT in short: after we'd been dating for about a month, tim suggested we go on a hike - pretty much my first hike ever. he picked cheam because it was "easy". it's not. you drive an hour up a rocky, potholed mountain in 4-wheel drive then begin your hike staring up at the peak to which you are headed. and you stare at it the entire time you hike and it never seems to get any closer. it's discouraging. there are switchbacks. it's steep. at one point i told tim, "i don't need to go any further. i'm done." of course, we made it to the top. i was happy to have made it and learn that the gorgeous view is the reward. tim was sad because his new girlfriend did not like hiking. we came down. tim went on vacation for a week and didn't speak to me. thought about breaking up. who knew it was so important to him? but he decided he could be with someone who didn't like hiking. and we stayed together...as you know.

THEN (okay this isn't the "short" history...it's the whole history) we attempted mt. cheam again. (smartly, after we were married.) it was summer. there were more flies than i've ever seen before. 45 minutes in, i swallowed a fly. i don't know why i swallowed a fly. i guessed i'd die. and i freaked. we headed down the mountain.

SO here we were setting up a hiking date with our friends ryan and heidi to hike cheam once again. it was under clear terms that if it were cloudy and rainy - we would not go since there would be no view. but saturday morning came, it was cloudy and i asked tim to cancel and he said no. then ryan and heidi showed up at our place and we made jokes about it being cloudy and jokes about cancelling but still no cancellation. "it's our tradition to hike in the worst possible hiking weather ever!" ryan and tim told us. heidi and i were apparently along for the ride. shoot. and off we went.

as we bumped our way up cheam in 4wheel drive, it started to rain. "let's turn around!" the girls suggested. no way. then we find out that ryan hadn't thought to bring jackets. "we better not go without jackets!" i warned. no way. the higher the truck climbed, the rain turned to snow. "we're not hiking in the snow!" i said. of course we are!

this was the most miserable hike ever. part of me was very glad that ryan and heidi were with us because it was more fun with them BUT as we hiked, ryan confided in us that "if it was supposed to be just me and heidi - we wouldn't have come" and tim tells them that "if it was just me and rebecca planning to hike, we wouldn't have come". THEN WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE?

but we made it to the top. sort of. it was some wicked blowing snow at the top and it's all shale as you scramble for the peak and then there's a cliff drop-off. so we were at the top. but not at the very peak-top. really - it was enough.

and i have never moved so fast down a mountain in my life. i ran halfway down. with 2 inches of snow on the path. at the bottom, tim says, "but now you'll have a story to tell."

no email?

today i bought a package of "munchies".

there were only four pretzels in it. FOUR.

i went to the frito lay website to complain. thought maybe i coud get something free?

they cleverly do not have an email address - only phone number and address.

is only 4 pretzels worth writing a letter? hmm...i'll have to get back to you on that one.

but i really like pretzels.

the float...

how is it possible we only came in third?

this was before more kids had gotten therem. the sign says "fall in love with learning"

me and some of my students. (the plaid is my costume...)

sally and some of her students.


you wouldn't believe how long this parade is for such a small little town. the first year that i'm not working in agassiz, i will still be at the fair to watch the parade.

here's one of the reasons we should have won - fluttering leaves along the side of our float...