Summer bloggin'

I've logged in to blog three times since summer break started for me last Wednesday but got too carried away reading other peoples blogs to post anything on my own :)  It's nice to not feel rushed to skim through a few blogs before I start working on an impossibly long to do list or rush to or from one place or another.  This is my first real summer off since high school...12 years ago.  Last summer I had knee surgery and half of my summer was a percocet/loratab induced haze then I started physical therapy, which is a painful job in itself, to get up and running before I had 20 first graders up and running around me.  I've been so busy catching up with all the friends I neglected this year working 2 jobs (to pay off that knee surgery!) that I haven't worked on any new materials yet.  I'm hoping to start editing some things I created earlier this year to start posting.  In the mean time I thought I'd tell you about 2 exciting-ish things that have been going on!  My cat Wrigley went missing about 3.5 weeks ago.

This is Wrigley!

Which is definitely not the exciting part, I'm still devastated and miss her dearly.  It's amazing how attached you can become to a pet.  She was a real talker, especially every morning at 5:30 when she woke me up to feed her because she thought she was wasting away...can you believe I actually miss that?!

While I was trolling Craigslist hoping for a glimpse of her on the 'lost and found' page and the 'pets' section I came across ads for our local animal shelter.  Animal Care and Protective Services is an incredible place at the moment they are overrun with kittens and are offering an adoption special...2 kittens spayed/neutered and microchipped for $25.  I went by ACPS to see if they had happened to pick up Wrigley and couldn't walk out alone.  Meet my new buddy Meela!

Getting her 'pin' on :)

Such a lady...

Words can't describe how much I miss Wrigley but this little sweetie definitely brought some joy back into this house and is an awful lot of fun!

Exciting tid-bit #2 is from the parent of a former student!  We became friends on Facebook and I follow her blog http://katiehigg.wordpress.com/ .  A while back she posted about Overnight Oats and I like oatmeal...sometimes.  I've been trying to track my calories and get back in shape so I did a little research and found this site with TONS of recipes http://www.katheats.com/favorite-foods/overnightoats.  I decided to give it a try and of course I got a little ahead of myself and tried the pumpkin pie recipe first, it didn't turn out so well :/  I'm no quitter so last night I tried the basic recipe which looks a little like this...........

........and it is, well, amazing!  You don't have to cook it, just mix the ingredients together, put it in the fridge overnight, and eat it for breakfast the next morning.  I'm pretty excited about it, check it out if you want to try something new, easy, and delicious for breakfast!

I hope you're all having a great summer whether you're working or taking it "easy" (as easy as any teacher can really take it???)  Stay tuned for some word building activities later this week!