We got back from Illinois yesterday afternoon, full of food and with lots of pictures to share. Pictures that need to be processed first. And then I ran off to go volunteer for a few hours, and then we had to go to Southern Lights for their tent sale, and before we knew it, it was after 8 pm and we hadn’t eaten dinner yet.

So, you see, I won’t be sharing pictures from the weekend just yet.

On top of needing to process the photos, I also have some school work that needs to be completed before tomorrow night’s class, and the rest of my student teaching application materials to prepare.

So you’ll just have to wait.

Happy Tuesday!

I totally don’t approve of grown adults using text-speak, but I think it’s wholly appropriate today.

Earlier in the week I’d finished my draft student teaching goals and education resume, and sent them off to my temporary advisor. Well, I got them back today, with feedback. I had been instructed that my goals needed to be objective and measurable (of course, but often goals, especially learning goals, aren’t), and I wasn’t sure that I’d actually hit that mark, so I pointed that out and asked, just to be sure. The feedback? Yes, they were objective & measurable, and… he had absolutely no changes to suggest. One change on my resume.

What?

So, although on a fairly regular basis I feel compelled to put off student teaching indefinitely because I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing and am terrified of the whole thing… I might actually be more prepared than I think I am, or at least can write down some stuff that makes me look halfway prepared (though I will not let that get me too confident, because I’m told that you should be prepared for failure when you student teach, and in your first few years of teaching, and I’m totally set for that – no perfection or even excellence expected).

You know, I’ve got to say that I felt much more confident about my first career, youth ministry. Perhaps it was the many, many years I had spent as a volunteer actually doing most parts of that job that made me feel that way. Perhaps it was being 22. I was a much braver person at 22. But then again, weren’t we all? The phrase “young and stupid” comes to mind….

Well, for kicks, I thought I’d post my goals here. I figure, if nothing else, they will show my naivety and ignorance, and after I’ve completed my student teaching, I can reflect back upon them (as I’m sure I’ll have to anyway, since we’re all about urban education and reflective teaching) and have a good laugh at myself. Experienced educators, feel free to have a good laugh or twelve at my expense. (They keep telling us that being transparent is a good thing in education, letting kids see your reasoning, your failures, etc…. So this is me, trying to be transparent.)

(Side note: We had to have 5 goals with “measurable actions towards those goals,” and they had to be aligned with the Board of Teaching Standards for Effective Teaching. So… a lot of these are basically just rephrasing some of those standards.)

(Another side note: Reviewing them, I am still not positive that these are actually measurable, but I’m going to let it be. Approved is approved.)

1. Use formal and informal assessments to improve student learning.
• Use formative assessments to gauge student learning and effectiveness of lessons.
• Modify lesson plans based on informal assessments to more effectively reach all students and maximize learning.
• Design/use summative assessments that are aligned with the standards and are appropriate for the content/students.
2. Develop positive relationships in the classroom and maintain a positive classroom environment that encourages collaboration and positive relationships.
• Use group learning when appropriate, setting guidelines and expectations, and provide authentic learning experiences for all students.
• Maintain positive classroom environment, including discipline, relationships with and between students, and the effective use of time.
• Identify potential problem areas for classroom management (students who don’t work well together, class clowns, etc.), and create and implement proactive strategies to mitigate negative effects and maximize learning for all.
3. Establish positive relationships with parents/guardians, students, teachers, and other school staff.
• Encourage interaction with parents, keeping open lines of communication.
• Network with in-school professionals and identify opportunities for collaboration and support.
• Communicate student progress in a timely manner.
4. Develop lesson plans that maximize learning for all students and allow for flexibility/responsiveness.
• Adjust lesson plans as necessitated by student feedback and informal assessments.
• Design lessons and activities that address various learning styles and needs of students while remaining true to learning standards and class goals.
• Create activities that build on existing knowledge and skills, and help students recognize that Social Studies is relevant.
5. Understand and accommodate the needs of diverse learners.
• Identify student strengths, learning styles, and needs, and adapt lesson plans as needed.
• Use a variety of teaching methods and approaches to the subject matter to better reach all students and make subject approachable.
• Develop and implement a differentiated lesson (if possible and appropriate).

Now then, anyone want to help me try to explain why I’d rather teach 10th grade American History than, say, 11th grade World History? Because, in all honesty, I’d rather be teaching middle school, but I totally messed that one up. My paragraph on why I want to student teach in high school is… amusing, at best. (Actually, I think it’s total crap, but again, it was approved, so I’m just going to let it be.)

(Did you want a few more side notes and asides in parentheses? (Because I could totally do that. (Really, just for you.)))

It’s fall. Everyone wants to knit in the fall. Something about the colors and the cool, crisp air. I have one project that I started early last Spring that I think I could take with me on the bus (a child’s scarf in 1×1 rib – super boring and fairly small) – I’m contemplating switching from reading books once I finish what I have checked out right now. Just for a while. Knitting on the bus provides a good time frame for me, in that I can’t really knit for all that long if I want to keep my elbows happy. However, I probably need to make sure I’m catching the earlier bus (7:00) in the morning instead of the 7:15, because that one is frequently overcrowded, and that would be awkward.

Anyway, I’m looking for a project that I could work on at home (that is not the unfinished baby blanket I started for a child who is now over 2 years old, and may never be finished) – something fun and slightly challenging, but quick enough to complete and without too many worries about sizing. Also, it’ll have to be able to be made out of yarn I already own – this of course will require finding the time to go through my huge yarn stash and figure out what needs to be given away, sold, or kept. I’ve needed to do that for a loooong time.

So, here’s what I’m contemplating for this project (pictures link to the project on Ravelry, if you have an account there):

Something Lacy Shrug by Vera Sanon - I've done lace before, and I quite enjoy it, though I haven't read a pattern chart before (I don't know if this one is charted or written up). I like that this has sleeves, the rib trim, and the lace pattern looks interesting.

Sagebrush Shrug by Hanna Breetz - OK, wow, until I saw this right next to the previous one, I didn't realize how similar they are.

Lace Rib Knit Shrug by Dawn Leeseman - I love that this has long sleeves, though people complained about it being a boring knit (probably due to those really long sleeves and fairly small pattern repeat). Still, if I'm going for a layer that will provide warmth, this seems the best bet.

Mine for Life by Emma Papinkivi - Slightly longer sleeves than the first two shrugs, with a smaller lace pattern. Seems a bit less fitted, too, though that could certainly be modified for personal preference.

Sheri by Jannette DeMary - Were you expecting another shrug? What can I say, I really like them. Anyway, this is one of the smallest scarves I could find, and I'm afraid that the main body of it would bore me to tears. But the trim is pretty. Maybe I could work on this after finishing the other scarf - the main body would probably be fine to work on while on the bus.

Springtime Bandit by Kate Gagnon Osborn - This one looks very interesting. Certainly couldn't get bored with this. The beauty of scarves? If you mess up the size, it's totally OK. I think a shrug would be more useful to me, though, especially at work or while student teaching. I'm unlike to walk around with a knit scarf around my neck all day long.

I have some really interesting hand-spun yarns, some lace weight, and a lot of medium weight boring stuff, if my stash in Ravelry can be trusted.

I’m leaning towards one of those short-sleeved shrugs, if I can find an appropriate yarn.

Or, perhaps I should just leave the yarn stowed in the back of the hall closet until I’m done with school. It’s not like I need more [active] hobbies. I don’t plan on stopping sewing anytime soon – I find sewing even more important while knitting, because knitting projects take so much longer than sewing ones.

I finished a skirt last night (needs to be thrown in the wash before I can wear it, so look for it late next week), and have two pairs of pants completed except for hemming (and the hems are all pinned – I just need to iron and then figure out how to use the blind hem foot again). I’m trying to make work-appropriate (and student teaching-appropriate) clothing at the moment, and trying to make things that either match what’s already in my wardrobe or make items that coordinate with each other (I’m trying to be more purposeful and intentional in my projects, that’s what I’m trying to say).

I should definitely find something to bring with me on our trip to Chicago. There’s always time spent lounging about, and reading books / playing with my iPhone sometimes seems… well, I could be spending that time better.

There’s nothing wrong with taupe. Taupe is lovely. It’s just a bit boring. But not everything can be hot pink, you know?

Friday night, we went to the Twins’ game at their new outdoor stadium. Note: outdoor baseball is a great idea in July, not so much in September. Otherwise, it was quite nice. I don’t really have an opinion on the stadium’s quality – I don’t have much to compare it to. My tax dollars at work, whoop-de-doo. The game was decent, the 9th inning in particular was fantastic. Though we didn’t win, we at least came close on Friday.

My Saturday was split between working outdoors and doing homework, with an emphasis on the latter. I also made a lovely lasagna, freezing half of it for later. I love that plan! I’m currently creating a list of recipes that can be halved and frozen. So far? Stuffed shells, lasagna, and enchiladas. We did a tuna noodle casserole once, too, which was halfway decent, though we wouldn’t repeat the specific recipe again.

I didn’t have time to do any of the preserving of farmer’s market bounty that I wanted to. I have recipes for pickles and peppers, and a stash of banana peppers, jalapenos, and cucumbers. There’s sweet corn and lots of green beans in the freezer – I can’t think of much else available at the farmer’s market worth preserving. I’m not really into okra (though, to be honest, I’ve never tried it). Carrots – why? They’re available year-round at the grocery store with no discernible difference in quality. Bell peppers don’t freeze well – they’re only good for adding into things at that point, and I don’t like my peppers mushy, thankyouverymuch. That leaves lettuce and eggplant, basically (which either don’t freeze well or are on the list of foods I won’t eat, I’ll leave you to figure out which is which). Oh, sure, I might buy some zucchini and shred it, but that’s about it. Hopefully next summer we’ll have plenty of produce from our own garden.

As I’d promised myself, I worked on Simplicity 2925:

The pants, in this lovely taupe suiting.

Last time I mentioned these, I’d gotten them cut out (along with Simplicity 2475). I basically haven’t done much apparel sewing since then (early August). Thankfully, these were easy pants with just a side zipper (not even a waistband facing, which is actually not a good thing), so they were quick. The only complication was that, because it’s suiting, it frays terribly, so I bound all of the edges before assembly. I’ll have to show you – it’s amusing. I had to do the waistband twice, but now that I’ve done it up right, they look great. I just have to hem them, and I’m debating doing a blind hem like I did on my linen pants, which seems so luxurious, or if I just just do it like I regularly would.

I really love this fabric, so I think I might make that skirt up next, even though I should probably make a top to balance things out. The skirt is part of Simplicity’s Amazing Fit line, and the last item I made from that line was a pair of pants with a button fly that I still haven’t finished. I should really do that. Anyway, they seem to use a lot of couture-like techniques, so it will take much longer than a regular pencil skirt, but it should fit well in the end. At least, that’s the plan. I think I’ll bind all the edges of that before sewing, too, though I’ll see if I can find some very lightweight ribbon to use instead of the thicker bias binding that I did – the thickness messed up my seams a little bit on the pants, which wasn’t a bit deal, but might be on the skirt

And then we went out to dinner, at ‘s insistence (for our anniversary, though we didn’t end up going to the place we had planned, because we hadn’t made reservations, so we’ll be doing that after our trip to Chicago instead). We went to Champps, which is just up the street. I tried their “Ultimate Margarita,” because I actually understood the difference in the different types (making one’s own margaritas has been quite educational). It was quite tasty, but very large, and very… strong. The rest of the night was kind of shot (it was late anyway).

This week we’ll be trying to schedule some companies to come out and give us a quote on our house painting project. I suppose I should probably get some quotes on tree trimming too, before winter decides to show up (not that they could actually do the work until October 15 – stupid oak wilt). We’ll also need to fill in our trench, if we’re going to have people out to work on the house – it’s a bit of a liability as-is. We’ll see if the weather cooperates with that plan. We’re going to Chicago for a long weekend, so our time is limited. I’ll be spending Thursday night and Monday night doing homework.

In other news, there was nothing wrong with my car, but it’s good to have that reassurance (the “maintenance required” light was on, and it may or may not have been leaking something). They did take care of the two recalls on my vehicle, so that was nice. Finished up before 9 this morning, and we dropped it off at 7. And here I was worried I’d be without a vehicle for longer than convenient (I need it Wednesday for class, and then for that road trip to Chicago on Friday). No worries – the air bag is safe again.

I wonder if fall is here to stay – do I need to switch out my wardrobe? It seems so early!

By 7:30 am, I was pretty convinced today was going to be one of “those” days. Because I’d had to completely change my outfit 2 1/2 times this morning (and should have a 3rd time, because my nylons have a run in them, but I couldn’t find an acceptable pair of pants to wear instead), I was two buses behind schedule. When I pulled onto the exit ramp from the highway that leads to the park-and-ride lot, I found I couldn’t make a right turn, again without any sort of signage for the detour. After I did my U-turn, they had the street narrowed down to 1 lane, from 4. It was slow-going for that block and a half. And as I sat at the light waiting to make my left turn, instead of the light changing to green when it should have, it switched to a flashing red light. This particular intersection has 3-4 lanes in each direction, (7 north-south, 6 east-west, give or take a lane), so that was a mess. And then the bus driver took off suddenly as I was trying to sit down (while wearing heels and a pencil skirt), causing me to bang my elbow quite hard into the window frame. (Sidenote: I really didn’t want to wear these heels for a second day in a row, and now my feet hurt. They’re great for one day, but I really should have worn flats, but that would have looked ridiculous with this skirt.)

I wasn’t actually surprised when I had a headache at 9. (It seems to have gone away mostly on its own, thank goodness.)

Yesterday afternoon, we had an unscheduled meeting at work announcing some major changes in management – none that should affect me, but it still had people edgy all day.

And, just because I’m putting it all out there, let me (finally) explain the drama in my education program.

To back-track, I started taking classes first at St Paul College in 2006, and had no problems with them whatsoever. The next year I started at Metro, taking the third week of classes off to get married. I applied to the program, but it took me a while to get all of the application requirements (namely the 40 hours and letters of recommendation). In the meantime, I was able to take the intro courses, and get my social studies classes completed. Since I wasn’t admitted to the program, I didn’t have an advisor, and being a post-baccalaureate student didn’t help things any (there are fewer of us, and we seem to fall through the cracks a lot). I did, however, have a social studies advisor, who is a wonderful man. During my last year of social studies classes, he went on sabbatical, and my temporary advisor didn’t have a clue – things got messy when I needed to approval to take a class at a local community college to meet a requirement. Thankfully, he came back from sabbatical in time to teach the capstone course. At some point, I was made aware that I should have met with the post-bac advisor. When I finally did meet him and he learned I’d been “in the program” (kind of) for two years, he accusingly asked me why I hadn’t met with him before. I told him that no one had informed me I should, and after doing the math, we figured out that I applied just before he came to work with the program, and I was one of the students who fell between the cracks in the transition.

For the most part, things have gone fine since then, although I continue to have registration difficulties and they still haven’t figured out where all of my application materials are. However, the state made some changes to the licensure process that ensured the waters were not calm. The big change was that Minnesota no longer uses the Praxis series to test basic skills, content knowledge, or pedagogy. Minnesota decided it was better than that, and needed to come up with its own tests. The MTLE became effective last fall, and I was one of the first groups to take the basic skills test (they offer the tests once a month, and I took them in the fourth or fifth month they were doing it) – I waited a bit for them to work some kinks out, namely that no “passing scores” had been determined yet. As I reported at the time, in the end it wasn’t a big deal, and I passed with flying colors. It was, however, frustrating and unnerving that there were almost no test prep materials available, and I spent a lot of class time after taking the tests telling my classmates about the tests, to alleviate their fears.

Fast-forward to this August, when I met with my post-bac advisor to go over student teaching stuff. I was told to work on my goals, send him a draft, and he’d help me polish it up. He made no mention of the resume, application letter, or September 1 deadline. Arguably, I should have paid more attention to the details myself, so I can’t put that all on him.

Forward another 3 weeks to last Friday night, when I went to my practicum class. (Are you still paying attention and following all of this craziness?) Several things were announced during that class that just made me think that … I really should have found a way to complete the program before now, because it just keeps getting more complicated.

1. My post-bac advisor is, suddenly, on medical leave for at least a month, if not the rest of the semester. There was some sort of tragedy. This means I have another temporary advisor.
2. The September 1 deadline was stressed (it was September 9th), but it seems it’s not a hard and fast deadline. Just… get your paperwork in soon. Stressful and yet not.
3. There’s yet another change to the licensure requirements. Now we have to submit a series of videos that will be reviewed (anonymously) before we can get our licenses. Because we’re the first group to go through this (there was a test group last year and it sounds like things were crazy messy for them, and I’m glad we weren’t the pilot group), there’s a lot of unknowns. Will this cost anything? Well, it won’t cost us anything, because the program decided to purchase the necessary memberships to a website that we’ll need to use, but no one knows what the future holds. It’s an unfunded mandate (love those).

Here’s the last bit of craziness. Back in my technology class (which was terrible), we were forced to use a certain website to create electronic portfolios that we were told were required for the licensure process. The website that we were given memberships to for the video thing also has an electronic portfolio component, and now we can choose to use that one if we so desire, instead of the other, incredibly crappy one. Needless to say, I spent some time earlier this week moving content from the crappy site to this new, easier to use, aesthetically-pleasing site.

Oh, I also learned that the requirements for this second practicum are drastically different from the first one, and so basically now I have to do my student teaching at a high school instead of a middle school, lest I want to do a whole lot of extra work (all because I couldn’t find a middle school placement last spring and chose to be grateful for the high school placement someone found me). This means I need to write my application letter and pretend that I really want to teach high school – that should be interesting.

On top of this, back at work, my program recently received a promotion of sorts. We are no longer a program within a division (within a department of state government), we are now a division unto ourselves. This has meant more for management, but it has affected some of our website stuff, and suddenly yesterday I was dealing with needed to do a mini redesign of our internal website (which will again need to be modified later today to reflect certain staffing changes that were alluded to earlier). Oh, but don’t do too much, because the department has decided to do a redesign of the entire internal website, and I’ve been invited to be on the committee, but we won’t be meeting until the end of the month, and “soon” probably means “implement a whole new thing right in the middle of my leave of absence for  student teaching.” But we won’t know anything until the end of the month.

So, when I say I’m having a day, I really mean it.

That said, I really am trying to turn it around. I’d like to post some “Thankful Thoughts” by the end of the day, but I’m having difficulty finding the positive (with all the negatives floating around). I’m hoping that spilling all now will get some of it out of my system, and I’ll be able to move forward with a better attitude. Truly, I’m trying. To that end, I plan on getting a real lunch today (didn’t have time to make one this morning), going to the farmer’s market, and spending some time sewing when I get home while goes to his fitness class. And then I’ll paint my nails (red and blue, because we’re going to a Twins game tomorrow).

Now, if you actually got to the end of this incredibly long post and understood most of what I said, 1 million bonus points for you, and a gold star to boot!

I mean, really, truly, turn into dirt/mud?

Because that’s how long it’s been since our gutters were cleaned.

Last night, we literally pulled out handful after handful of mud. Yes, lots of non-mud handfuls too, and a lot that just washed down the gutters with the help of a spray nozzle on a garden hose, but… lots of mud.

You should thank me for not capturing the evidence on film.

So, clearly, it’s been a while.

I should note that we haven’t cleaned the gutters since we moved in, other than to clear out some piles of leaves in the corners once. I wasn’t really worried about the cleanliness of our gutters – they have some mesh grating on them, after all.

Clearly, I was very wrong.

Also, several of them were missing this fancy piece that attaches the downspout to the gutter, so water doesn’t exactly flow out the downspout anymore.

We tried to fix that, but neither Menards or Home Depot had said fancy piece in the right shape. Everyone sold rectangular pieces, and we needed circular. Had to order them online.

Even though we didn’t complete that part of fall home maintenance, I’m giving us gold stars for effort.

***

Yesterday was hot (90*)… until fall arrived at approximately 6:45 pm. That’s about when the wind grew remarkably cooler and it was quite obvious that summer was being moved along. Bummer. I’ve been trying to cling to summer as long as I could, but I guess I need to switch out my pink floral spring/summer wreath for my autumn one.

I usually love autumn – I’m not sure why I’m not embracing it this year. Perhaps it’s because my summer was not filled with homework. Or because I haven’t completed everything on my mental “to do” list for the summer. Or maybe I just don’t like being cold. (That last bit is true, but I really don’t do well in the sun either, so it seems like a lose-lose situation there.)

Sunday afternoon I finished up the 9-patch blocks I’d been working on, but didn’t get them photographed. I’ve also been working on cutting more yellow charm squares for those table runners. That’s the only action my office / sewing room has seen lately. It’s less to do with homework and more to do with taking advantage of all the daylight temperate hours we have available to us. Our house isn’t going to paint itself, after all. (Side note: the neighbors have most of their house sided by now, and it’s a lovely shade of khaki, which is kind of similar to the blue-ish grey he told us it was going to be. What is it with men and color? Anyway, it’s not the blue we want to paint, and that’s all I cared about. Also, it looks much better than the white it was before.)

Now then, I did a bunch of work yesterday moving stuff from one e-folio website to another, and today I have to write up a draft of my cross-cultural project and work on my student teaching goals, which apparently I was supposed to turn in September 1. I think I’ll save the retelling of all the drama in my program for another time. I should also try to make it out of the office to get some squash at the farmer’s market – is it winter squash time yet, or are we still drowning in summer squash?

On Friday, I stated that I wanted to be able to announce we were done with our irrigation project for the year by Sunday. Well, we fell slightly short of that goal, but we made good progress nonetheless. The weather was not in our favor: hot and sunny, and since our backyard is entirely fenced in, there’s almost no breeze. It was brutal (and I wasn’t even doing the hard work).

The end of the line, at least for now. Next year we'll go straight ahead (to the left, that is) under the fence to the front yard. Well, that's the plan.

That said, finished digging the trench, we laid the rest of the hose, tested out the sprinkler heads and made adjustments, and then buried the pipes that lead up to the heads (so that they were upright and not at some wonky angle). also ran the power from controller box into the garage. Alas, it was too hot to bury / fill in all our trenches. It looks like tonight it will also be too hot, so we might clean our gutters. So much fun!

I had and over for ice cream Sunday night – it was good to catch up. I made up mocha ice cream at ‘s request. It was a bit tricky to figure out, seeing as how I wanted it to be caffeine-free, but making it wasn’t all that hard in the end. I used the basic David Leibovitz chocolate ice cream recipe (you can Google that and find it, but it’s also the same recipe I used for the peanut butter cup ice cream I made last weekend), with some tweaks. All of the mocha recipes I found called for espresso powder or strong-brewed coffee. Well, you can’t get decaf espresso powder, and I just didn’t want to make up strong coffee. Some of the coffee ice cream recipes I found infused the dairy with coffee before making the custard out of it, so that’s what I did. I got the dairy hot (not boiling), poured in about 3 Tablespoons of Teeccino, and let it steep for about an hour. I had difficulties straining out the Teeccino, but that’s only because I don’t have a fine mesh colander, and the French press was not working well with the dairy. But it all worked out in the end. I melted the chocolate, added in the “coffee”-flavored cream, and continued as usual.

It was quite tasty in the end, even if it didn’t freeze all the way. I think our kitchen was just too hot.

There’s all sorts of drama to report about my education program, but I don’t have the energy today to get into it. Maybe tomorrow.

I’ve got to say, I just love this dress! Not a new photo, but I’m wearing it today, and I just feel happy and confident in it. I’ve decided to wear it on my first day of student teaching, if I can swing that weather-wise.

Barring the jewelry, this is exactly what I'm wearing today. Lovely! Such a happy color, and the dress is comfortable without looking slouchy. Prince Charming told me I looked "elegant" this morning. At least, I think that's what he said. If it wasn't that, it was something equally flattering, I'm sure.