Friday, January 30, 2009

Finish it Friday! Finishing the UFOs!?!


OK I'm running late and I really need to get my self ready to walk out the door. But I have to add this little guy in here! He is so CUTE! And maybe it will inspire me to finish some of those UFOs. Check back tonight and see if he actually inspired me or not.

Now for an update--if you can call it that!


This is how my day started after I first posted this cutie of a guy first thing this morning!**************************************************************************************
What a way to start a Finish it Friday!
This is definitely something I should have taken care of long ago (and didn’t realize that I needed to!). I got stopped ½ a mile from work this morning by one of our local officers in blue due to an expired license plate! ACCKKK!!! Luckily I only got one ticket as the insurance card I had with me had expired in 2007—now that doesn’t mean I don’t have insurance, I just didn’t have the correct card on me! Needless to say, THAT will be remedied before getting into the car to leave work! On the way home, I think I will be stopping by the courthouse and renewing my car tags! Lordy, what a day! Wait, let's rethink that, I'll have to drive even further to go to the courthouse--now I'm paranoid. So I'll go straight to the house, let hubby fool with the courthouse on Monday morning after he drops me off at school! Yeah that is a much better plan!

Thanks to Melissa at Three Prince Designs found this wonderful site, http://www.oneprettything.com/ that has so many great crafty things on it. That site led me to http://www.craftideas.info/ to make these wonderful “Year of the Ox” free hanging mobiles with my students. I should have made one for myself as well; but I think the students enjoyed making theirs! We actually finished them up yesterday and will be hanging them up in the hallway for all to enjoy today--ok this didn't happen either, we couldn't get the ladder today.
If you want to see more Year of the Ox ideas you can go to either http://www.craftideas.info/ or to http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/ that also has several Chinese New Year crafting ideas.

What we DID get finished was the ox made out of handprints. Now for those with small children, this is really a fun thing to do--although I don't know how to explain that the poor ox has 8 legs! But for some reason, it actually looks like an ox (even with 8 legs)! This is something else I found at http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/.
Now you may be wondering why in the world I'm posting things I do/did in my classroom as opposed to things I've done with my kids. For one thing I've had people ask what class I teach.

2nd-Hmmm, let's think about this a bit, my youngest is 17 and lives with his dad--that leaves no kids in the house. My class on the other hand is with me from 8:00-2:30 EVERY WEEK DAY! I have 6 students--but most days that is MORE than enough. You see, my students are ALL severely/profoundly developmentally delayed, multiply handicapped, and medically fragile. Many times in the last 23 years I have been counselor to the parents, as well as teacher, nurse, physical and occupational therapist, speech therapist, the hearing impaired instructor, etc. etc. etc. Yes all of those specialists are at my school. Yes they all see my students. But due to the fact that our school is still a separate facility, they have to see ALL the students and often their time is limited with each student. So, when their different therapies recommend the range of motion or oral motor exercises or teaching the signed language, or even tube feeding, then my assistant and I do that in addition to all the other things we do in a day. The few of my students that have any oral communication at all call me "momma". For some I'm as much "momma" as I am teacher--in some cases over the years I've been more momma than anything else. These students are the love of my life, my heart, my soul and everyone that I've ever taught has a special place in my heart for them. I've gone to their funerals and cried more than some of the family members. I've been the one to sing at one of their funerals and it almost killed me. I have family members of one of the angels that still comes back to see me, even though its been 4 years since she lost her son. My students are not students, they become family. Most of the parents come in and give me and my assistant hugs whenever they're at the school. So when I show off things my assistant and I did with our students, you will now understand why! Oh and by the way, none of them cannot physically perform any of the tasks independently to create any of our art/craft projects. Some of them cannot even do it with hand-0ver-hand assistance as their poor little bodies don't allow such movements. However, even when Micki and I do almost all of the work, we always have something on it that they have helped glue or paint or even throw things at (like the artic fox you will see shortly that they threw salt on while the paint was wet to make it glimmer).

That being said, the Chinese New Year is what we finished up the month of January with; but the rest of the month we spent talking about animals that live in the polar regions. Here are pics of some of the things that they/we did during the month.













Another thing I got FINISHED was that I paid for 26 boxes of those OMG wonderful Girl Scout Cookies! I absolutely love GS cookies. Of course, they are no longer the $.50 or $1 a box that they were when I was selling them way back in the dark ages! They are now $3.50 a box and there are only 12 cookies in some of those boxes! But they're so good. We get enough between what I order and what hubby orders to last almost a year (we freeze them).
The other thing that I DID get FINISHED today was my lesson plans that were due today. I know that doesn't sound like a big deal of any sort, but by golly about the time you think you have the time to get them done and turned in, something else happens to cause you to be late with them. But they are turned in and I'm off the hook for another month! Whew!

I'm off to see what things around the house I can FINISH today--before we go to dinner and then afterwards as well! I'll write more on those things later. (If there are any of "those" to write about! LOL)

7 comments:

Maddie Dean Photography said...

I was just looking through the calendar quilt blog and I'm impressed. I could look through it all... do you have any squares posted? One of my goals for 09 is to learn how to quilt! I'm doing a calendar quilt, but using my kids hand prints for each month... That being said, it is Jan 30 and I haven't done the first month... oops :)

Simone de Klerk said...

And, did he? I'll have a look soon (O:

Shelly said...

Maddie,
I have several of my squares posted as well as other quilts I'm working on. I hope that you are able to come back and see them.
Shelly

Three Prince Designs said...

Wow- that is all impressive! I am glad you found that site and it helped with all your wonderful projects. I love looking at www.oneprettything.com to see what they have. I also finally realized that your blog background is Mickey Mouse colors! Too cute! My computer did not load properly the other day - so I did not see the pics of your dining room- too cute! A true Disney fan!

Kristina said...

Wow, TONS of great ideas, thanks! I definitely need to go check out those websites. I love all your pictures!!

Maddie Dean Photography said...

oh yah, I'm addicted to YCMT. I just completed my first square swap and when mine come back I plan on cutting and sewing. I'm doing her 'made up quilt' as my first try... figured I couldn't go wrong there! I've been stalking the mail man for my squares and really looking forward to starting.

Jaya P said...

hi shell, it is so wonderful that you take care of those with true needs. you rock, woman! i wish i could give a rockin' blogger award, but i am not so good with blogger technicalities yet. i can understand that they are more than just children for you..your love for them practically radiates out of the computer screen! here is wishing you a 'totally-off-the-charts-amazing' year!
jaya