It’s so nice to have a weekend where I didn’t have to worry about doing anything for school. Even half of it was spent just lounging around the house, it was still lovely. Yesterday, we went down to my aunt’s around noon to help set up for last night’s family Christmas dinner. It was the dinner that included my mom’s extended family, which meant there was about 45 people there. My aunt had to work until 3, and the event started at 4, so my sister and I went down and cooked a few things and made sure the house was ready to go. Other than burning the apple pies because my aunt’s oven runs hotter than the temperature you set it to (and I didn’t know this), the night was very successful!

We also got our shopping for our 4 year old Secret Santa child finished last night. We ran by Wal-Mart after leaving my aunt’s house, and picked him up a couple more outfits, socks, and underwear. I am so glad I was able to do this for a child this year. This week, I’m going to be focusing on writing articles to make money to cover some of what we’ve spent on Christmas gifts this month. Plus, James hasn’t finished his shopping for me yet…which means I have to get to making some money!

Today, James, my mom, my sister, and I took a drive across the mountain into the next town over, which is famous for their apple houses. We hit up two of the stores, and James and I came home with Granny Smith apples, apple cider, applesauce bread, apple salsa, and sweet potato butter. We also got some boiled peanuts to eat while we were there. On the way back, we took a dirt road that really winds through the mountain, which allowed us several opportunities for photos. We stopped by a waterfall for lunch, and took several photos. There’s more on my Flickr!

When we got home from our Sunday drive, I backed up the important documents, photos, and music on my computer. James then upgraded my computer to Windows 7 for me while I took a nap (I’m coming down with the sniffles , so the nap was needed!). It’s not a huge change, but I really like the new look and features. So far, it’s running nicely!

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!