Today I finished up writing a lesson plan that would teach 4th graders the phases of the moon. I don’t actually have to teach it…it’s just practice on writing lesson plans. I wish I had done this one for my Critical Assignment though, as I think it is really good. This one isn’t even for a grade, as my professor just wanted to give us another opportunity to practice before doing the real thing. Oh, and I now know the eight phases of the moon as well (I previously thought there were only 4).

After finishing my schoolwork, James, my mom, my sister, and I went out for dinner and to do some shopping. We had Chili’s (yum!), then hit up Old Navy. I ended up getting a fleece jacket for about $14. Then we went to Wal-Mart to do a little Christmas shopping and get groceries. James and I will be getting a name off the Christmas tree that the Dept. of Family and Children Services places in the mall each year. We always get a small child off of there to purchase Christmas gifts for. Tonight, we got him (we’ve decided to pick a boy) a few puzzles and some SpongeBob bath stuff. The tree doesn’t actually come out until the week of Thanksgiving, but I’m sure we’ll be able to find a child the right age for the items we purchased!

I’ve been trying for over a month to get Twitter Tools to work correctly on my blog. Ever since I updated to version 2.0, which now uses bit.ly to shorten the blog post link in the tweet, the plugin was posting the tweet without the link. I tried everything I could think of, browsed the Internet several times regarding the issue, and finally figured it out tonight…I capitilized my bit.ly username when it actually starts with a lowercase letter. But, at least it works now and I no longer have to manually update Twitter every time I post!

This weekend has been very fun and quite productive. Since Friday, I have created study notes for 2 chapters in my Exceptional Child textbook, read a chapter and completed this week’s journal entry for Language Arts, typed 5 of 7 pages of a Field Based Journal for Classroom Management, typed up and practiced a demo lesson a classmate and I will be teaching Thursday, and studied 2 chapters of Math for a test later this week. On top of all the schoolwork, I helped James do deep cleaning sessions on both the kitchen and living room (He doesn’t know it yet, but we’re tackling the bedrooms next weekend!). Along with the work, I went shopping with my sister on Friday afternoon, then my mom Friday night. Last night, my mom came over (my step-dad and brother were deer hunting out of town) and we were up until almost 2am playing board games and watching Howard the Duck.

Also, as you can tell, I gave my blog a makeover just before Halloween!

I absolutely love 3 day weekends. It doesn’t matter that I don’t work full time or have anything to do on Monday…I love the fact that James is home for an extra day and I can spend more time with him, my family, and my friends. This extra time has contributed to shopping and game nights this weekend.

Yesterday, James and I left our house with the intentions of going 3 places: the college library, Wal-Mart, and a local used bookstore. We started at the library, where I printed about 25 pages for next week’s classes. I really wish my professors would become more environmentally friendly, and then I would just print at home. I don’t want to waste all my ink in a short amount of time though, as it would be gone in a month with the amount of things I have to print daily. We then went to Wal-Mart to get my oil changed and tires balanced, but with their wait time being 2 hours, we decided not to get it done.

My mom called us then, and said that her and my sister wanted to go with us to the bookstore, but wouldn’t be ready to go until about 3 or after because they were going to my great aunt and uncle’s 50th wedding anniversary party. It was only 1:30pm at the time, so James and I had some lunch, then stopped by GameStop and purchased Lego Batman for the Wii. It’s such a cute little game! When we finally met up with my mom, we ended up going to a clothing store similar to TJ Maxx and Marshall’s (New clothes, but last season’s styles so they are marked down drastically) first. I got a pair of gray dress pants and a dress shirt for just $18. We finally made it to the bookstore, and I purchased one book for myself and about 10 children’s books for my future classroom (an early start, I know!)

We also hit up the mall, which has a Barnes & Noble inside. I ended up with 4 more books: Frostbite and Shadow Kiss from the Vampire Academy series, The Essential 55 by Ron Clark (for the teacher in me), and Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (for a lesson plan I have to do in class). I know I really should consider purchasing books online, but when I go into a Barnes & Noble, I cannot leave empty-handed. After having dinner in the food court and stopping by Wal-Mart for groceries, our exhausting but fun day was over.

Today has been MUCH more relaxed. We’ve just been laying around the house, doing laundry, and playing video games. We are about to start dinner and my mom and sister are coming over. My step-dad and brother are gone camping for the weekend, which explains why we’ve had to entertain them all weekend. We are going to have yet another game night.  Our last one was Friday night, which involved 6 people playing a few hands of Skip-Bo. Tonight will be more geared toward board games.