Coming out from under my rock....

(but only briefly!)

It's been a while, right?  This school thing...WOW.  It's been an emoticoaster ride!  Last week was the first FULL week since I've been student teaching.  We've had calamity days for the extreme cold weather (but oddly on the days there's snow up to my kneecaps we've not been cancelled. :P), holidays, and teacher in-service days.  And last week was the first week since winter break ended that we had a full, five day week.  It felt sort of triumphant.

Coincidentally, it was also the first week where I didn't cry after coming home.  I suppose it may seem weak to admit this.  But it's just the truth.  I want this very badly, and I'm pouring everything I have into it.  And there is a HUGE learning curve.  There is so much that goes into teaching - it seems so obvious until it all falls on you. But when things start to jiggle into place, when you say "Can I get an 'a-ha!' if you get it" and get a rousing "a-ha!" in response? Oh my. It feels GOOD.  I want to be better and more consistent, but I'm still learning.

At any rate, I've not been blogging much lately.  I haven't been scrapping much either.  I miss it, but when I finally get a chance to play at my table, I'm really cherishing it.  I thought I'd take a minute to share a couple of the layouts that have been up on the Silhouette blog recently:

Working backwards:

I really love this one.  Mostly because the story just cracks me up.  This was the day that we went to the park and Kerig jumped off the swing, and ended up wiping out (and breaking his cellphone case).  He was fine, and after dusting him off we all shared a laugh.  I wish I had taken a close-up of the journaling on the tag.  It's a series of questions with the answer "key" at the bottom...upside down.  Remember the puzzles in magazines like Highlights and World?  They would do the same thing with their answers.  I think I'm so clever. :P

And before that, there was:

(Things that make me crazy: I failed to size this properly and Photoshop has decided not to open for me.  Again.  It does this periodically, and the only way to "cure" is to reboot. Grrr.)

So anyway: I love Instagram.  I do scrap the pictures that have stories, but not all pictures have enough of a story to warrant scrapping.  Does that make sense?  But they are - ultimately - PART of the story. Part of MY story.  And so I'm wanting to make collage pages. Sort of a month-in-summary page.  I don't feel a big need to journal.  These pictures speak for themselves (at least they speak to me).  You might not get the utensil rack full of sea shells, but I'll know they were given to me by Molly after a trip to the beach in Florida.  "Buy Local" might seem odd, but it was doodled into the frost that had formed on the inside of the front window of the store.  And just after I doodled it, the sun came out and was setting, putting the whole window ablaze with that beautiful golden light.  The month also had lots of snow, my first weeks of student teaching and an amazing, once in a lifetime opportunity: being a guest on the Paperclipping Rountable.  Such a fantastic start to my year.  I hope the layout reflects that: how fun and busy and exciting things were this January.

And lastly:

Probably the least favorite of the three.  I love all the little sentiments, I don't like the execution, color scheme and the over all juvenile quality.  Kerig deserves something more dignified.  But it's fun and sweet and happy and celebrates him in a Valentine-y way.

So that's that.  I hope you're keeping warm and making the most of your February.   There are 28 days til Spring.  Which is positively laughable.  Today we had the warmest day we've had in a month. But while it was 39º it snowed like crazy for about 20 minutes. HOW? Tell me how it snows when it's that warm? CRAZY.  So, 28 days until the calendar says spring...we'll see how long it takes for that thought to catch up to Mother Nature.

Thanks for stopping by!