The Water Problem

We noticed the other night that there was a wet spot on the carpet. At first, we thought maybe one of us had spilled water and the carpet was just wet. Then I woke up and more of the carpet was wet, the was water on the bathroom counter as well. I had a slight migraine, so I took some meds, called out from work, and decided to go back to sleep before I called maintenance since I knew there would be no sleep once I called them, and I had to stop this migraine before it turned into a full fledged, throwing up, migraine.

It turns out there was some pipe leaking on the third floor. That somehow just ended up all the way in our apartment without anyone on the second or third floor noticing. This is what we have lived with for a few days. Now, we are just waiting for maintenance to return and fix up the water marks, missing paint, and padding under the carpet.

Take a look at it. The carpet just is getting fixed now, I've been promised repairs will be done by 5 pm today (over a week later).

The End of the Year

Things have been SO crazy lately. I have been neglecting the blog, sorry all. I'll share some highs and lows for the week.


Highs:

1. My mom sent me a box of cereal. This has turned out to be one of the best gifts for right now. It is comfort food...
2. My 6th graders are practicing for GRADUATION! So exciting. They are so sweet lately.
3. My final meeting for the department for the year is tomorrow and they will FEED us!


Lows:
1. The hubs is working a lot, which is kinda a high because more work = more $$
2. I've had a headache off and on, since Sunday... creeping into a migraine...

Impromptu Get Together

This weekend changed from a very relaxing do-nothing kind of weekend to the best kind ever! Full of friends and family and lots of people cramming into our small apartment. I love weekends like this where I get to hang out with family and friends. There have been a lot of things happening, 1 to get prepped, and 2 to just get things done around the house. I decided the best way to do this, is a nice little group of pictures. Plus I did some cooking recently that I haven't shared so, here it is:

Honey Lime Shrimp with Mango Salsa and Cilantro Lime Rice! YUM YUM!

My most recent deal thanks to Hip2Save! 4 boxes of coffee (48 k-cups) and a 15 pc. porcelain tea set for only $15!

Stuffed Peppers! A first time for me also SO GOOD!

Fun summer-y cups ready to be filled with tea or lemonade tomorrow! 

Enjoy your memorial day weekend and take time to remember those who have died for our freedom!

New Favorite Show

Recently I was looking around Netflix trying to figure out what I should start watching, I had been watching Crossing Jordan, but the death and murders were getting to me. I found this show, Wild at Heart. This show is about a family from England that end up working and running a game reserve for wild animals and an animal hospital. This show is pretty good. I like it because there is a plot but it isn't violent or gory. It moves pretty quickly too.

I recommend looking at it and watching some if you have some spare time or are looking for something to watch.

Teacher Sites

I found this when looking at Pintrest the other day. I think that some of these are new to me and others are really helpful. Take a look for yourself!

Wine In the Woods

First of all... GENIUS event! Whoever thought to have an entire park full of about 30 wineries offering wine tastings and food vendors along with live music is simply genius. It is a great idea.

This event was a lot of fun. We went with our small group and some of their friends. We all brought blankets, chairs and food to share. It was a great time to talk and a great time tasting wine. I want to highlight some of my favorites. The best part? All of the wineries are in Maryland! That means local!


Boordy
First of my favorites, which one of our friends said we HAD to try. Boy was she right. This literally tastes like juice. Dangerous but would be so good on a hot summer day.

 

Here's the description from the website:

The pure juices of strawberries and raspberries harmonize to produce a wine with racy fruit flavors and a sweet/tart finish.

Other notables from Boordy Vineyards: Tango Peach and White Sangria










Legends Vineyards
Our next favorite was Legends Vineyards. We tried almost their whole list and pretty much liked everything we tried. I'll name our 4 favorites.

1. Vidal Blanc
2. Sunset Blush
3. Midnight Red
4. Peach          

The peach wine was SO good and it was one of my favorites. It was a tad too sweet for the hubs. We almost bought a bottle but, we refrained and there were only two bottles of it left, so I'm pretty sure that by the time we would have decided to buy or not buy, it would have been gone. Hopefully we can find this at our favorite wine store though.








Detour Winery

Next up is Detour Winery. These wines were some of the hubs favorites I think.
1. Bonfire
2. Meadow Breeze


Meadow Breeze won my vote from here. I could see myself sipping on this in the evening. Bonfire had some cinnamon in it. It seemed like it would be best for the fall or winter.




Harford Vineyard and Winery

There was one wine from here that we liked. It was the 2010 Merlot. This had flavors of plum and black cherries. I liked it and would probably drink this in the fall and winter. I am not a big red wine person and the hubs liked this more, but I enjoyed and could appreciate the flavors here.












Big Cork

I really liked their Traminette. The description says" Semi-dry wine from the Taminette grape, a relative of the famous German grape Gewurztraminer. Enjoy the bright aromatics and spicy, fruity flavors suggestive of pineapple and melon."






Another fun part of this event was that you were able to buy bottles of wine and sit and sip while talking with friends, having a picnic, and listening to music. Some of the friends we were with bought a bottle of Solomons Island Winery's Watermelon White Merlot. This was delicious. This wine was fruity and tasted just like watermelon. This wine also only has about half the regular alcohol content of regular wine (6.5%) which means that you can drink more?


Overall, I would go back to this event and hopefully try all of the 30 wineries that are there. Hopefully next year we have better weather and are able to stay longer. Anyone want to join next year?

What's Cooking?

Well the other night I made some Turkey Burger Meatloaf. I wanted to make it last week, but inevitably that didn't happen, as usually something I plan on gets left off the menu. So,  dinner was turkey meat loaf and sweet potato wedges.

I LOVE sweet potatoes. Here's what you do:

• quarter 2-3 sweet potatoes (usually 3 medium is enough for the two of us with left overs)
• put them on a LINED (I use my silpat but tin foil is good too) baking sheet (make sure there is a rim, the hubs tried this once without and I was cleaning up olive oil from inside my oven for weeks)
• coat lightly with olive oil
• sprinkle with salt and pepper
• toss in a pre-heated 350 oven for about 45 minutes (if you up it to 400 or 425 it will take 20-30 minutes)

Enjoy when they come out! This is by far one of my favorite ways to eat sweet potatoes. I don't peel them either. I don't mind the skins.

For the turkey meatloaf, I got the recipe from here. I didn't follow the recipe exactly. I left out the milk and used half of a large fresh onion, rather than dehydrated minced onion. It came out pretty good, although I ended up baking it for almost 1 hr 15 minutes to make sure the middle was done, not just the hour that the recipe says.

There was a lot of liquid around the meatloaf. I looked like it shrunk in the pan. But it tasted pretty good. Next time I would not put as much brown sugar in the ketchup on top. Maybe I would even just use ketchup. It was TOO sweet for me. 

Incredibly Blessed

This past Friday we had what our church is calling 3rd Friday (creative as it is the third Friday of every month). What 3rd Friday is, is a get together of the young adults at church. We socialize, play some trivia-esque games, worship together and discuss a topic. Lately, we've been going through the book of Acts. It has been wonderful.

This past 3rd Friday I walked in and realized a few things:

1. I have made friends and am building relationships (no longer do I feel totally out of place with these people)
2. People there genuinely care about us
3. We have been blessed with an amazing church family
4. God has put us right where we need to be right now
5. There are people who are more of an encouragement to me than they will ever know

You see, this past week has been incredibly taxing. Really, these past few weeks and months have been taxing. I have been begging and praying that God will provide the hubs with a full time job he loves. It has not happened and I have been very broken lately. I think that God realized how incredibly broken I have felt lately.

This past week I was able to meet up with a young woman from church and have coffee. It really was just what I needed. I feel that sometimes it has been difficult to find other young, newly married, not ready for kids yet, couples. I had coffee with a woman who has been married about a year, and has been having a difficult time finding friends as well. Our God is SO good. He knew what I needed.

Also, Friday night, Bradley was handed an envelope. He told me to open it and read the note. I was expecting just some words of encouragement. But, God had something else in store. In the card was incredible encouragement. There was not only word of encouragement, which was just what I needed to hear, but a gift card for us to go out to dinner. Somehow, God knew that this gift card would be such an encouragement. This meant that someone saw that the hubs and I needed to do something special for us.

Life has been so hectic lately that even date night can be difficult some weeks. It can be hard to stop life from     getting in the way of our marriage. If we are not careful, our marriage will suffer. I am so thankful for this gift that I almost started crying. Sometimes, it doesn't take much to bless others.

This got me thinking. How can I bless someone? What can I do to be just a small bit of encouragement? There is so much to be thankful for. God is good!

They're Getting It...

Well I think they are...

So Friday my 4th grade boys and I started to work on our Science Fair Display Boards. I'll have to upload pictures of the final things... it should look really nice. I say this because I typed everything up for them and cut it out. What my students have to do is glue it onto colored construction paper, cut it out from that leaving a nice border, and glue it onto the display board. Sounds easy, right?

Perhaps the best part was being able to listen in on their conversation during the gluing process. It's almost like they forget I'm even in the room, even though I am sitting right there. They started talking about how they thought they were going to fail the science fair project and then one of my boys chimes in and say, "We wont fail, we have Ms. Favazza!" Like I'm a super-hero or something! Get that!?! They think I actually help them! It was an encouragement.  For the most part, my boys are fairly eager to learn, as long as I make it on their level.

It's so fun to be part of their conversations. Things have come up like, "Do you go to church?", "I think that soccer is awesome!" and even, "My dad is in Salvador, things at school went downhill for me when he left. I hope he comes back on Monday."

My boys bring me smiles on a daily basis. One of the brightest spots for Friday though? On of my students from last year (who is almost in the 8th grade!) stopped by and told me that he made the honor roll! I was SO proud of him. He didn't want to tell too many people but I was so happy! He must be working so hard and that is wonderful.


There are many brights spots...and some ink blots in my day. What's your bright spot for the day?

Remember That One Time When...

I tried to feed the hubs raw chicken?  Oh wait, that was the other night...

So I was inspired this week to make some stuffed chicken. It sounded really good, like REALLY good, thank you Pintrest... I was inspired by this recipe for Cajun Chicken Stuffed With Pepper Jack and Spinach. I decided to switch out some of the ingredients and make it differently...

I decided to make a mixture of spinach, 1 small container of Greek yogurt, and feta cheese (mostly because that is what I had at home). I cut the chicken breasts almost in half and stuffed this mixture in them. Then into a glass pan they went and into the oven.

We sat down to enjoy dinner. (I was going to post a picture, but the camera wasn't working) About halfway through the chicken, I realized it was REALLY difficult to cut, like cutting raw chicken difficult to cut. I looked more closely and realized, wow, this is NOT cooked enough! I made the hubs stop eating and into the microwave the plates went for a few minutes to finish cooking.

In the grand scheme of things, this is not that big a deal. I suppose we didn't really have that much chicken that was under cooked and it wasn't raw, just under cooked. And I have been lucky, there has only been about one meal in our two years of marriage that was TOTALLY inedible and that was really because I wouldn't let the hubs even touch it. He probably would have toughed it out because he is just that wonderful...

Anyone else had a cooking faux paux? It can be hard to come back from... Especially when you are not used to things not working out...

Today...

Today's post is a quick one, but in the interest of trying to post something every day.... I was going to post about last nights dinner fiasco where I tried to give my husband food poisoning, but that will have to wait...

Today I am thankful for...

1. Date night with the hubs
2. Coffee dates with new friends
3. The smiles on the faces of my 4th grade boys :)
4. Plans for the summer coming together
5. A night where I do not have to worry about dinner (the hubs said so)

What are you thankful for? 
Leave it in the comments below...

**Don't forget to follow me!**

Life Lately

Things have been crazy! It got me thinking... how do you keep your marriage going when the two of you are on completely different schedules?

Let me explain. The wonderful hubs has started working nights 4 nights a week until he finds a full time permanent gig. I am so thankful that he has chosen to help support us this way and it is wonderful that he is able to. While he's been working nights, he also decided to continue to work temp jobs. The past few weeks he's been working this temp job that has an hour and a half commute as well as working the night shift. Now, if that's not enough, throw in continuing to attend church and small group, while balancing family life. He is pretty busy. I love him so much!

Now, while the hubs is busy with all of that, I am working a full time job teaching, tutoring two different kids outside of school, doing grad school, and taking care of the house, all while trying to spend time with the hubs.

A few weeks ago, I decided, mostly after picking up Fridays We're In Love, (where a young wife writes about dating her husband) that we need a date night. I know the hubs has wanted to find time for us to be together and focus on our relationship, as we're still newlyweds and readjusting to living together again, so, next we had to decide what day to have date night...  This actually came pretty easy as he works four nights a week, and I tutor 2 nights a week and we have small group one night a week. We picked the one day we both were free.

Last week was our first date night. It was my night to plan so I decided we would go classy. I chose to make shrimp scampi (I had two packages of Campbell's Skillet Sauces, you will want two).

So, I decided to cook some shrimp, make some spaghetti, and toss a salad. When I got home from work, the hubs had a surprise for me. After a short scavenger hunt, I came upon 2 cupcakes from Georgetown Cupcake! So good!

So, I made the hubs set the table before I started cooking as I had to get our activity ready. I decided that we would ask each other questions that I found online, mostly fun questions for couples. This turned out to be pretty great. I found a cute mason jar, decorated it, cut the questions into strips and stuck them in the jar.

We ate dinner and just enjoyed being with each other. It was nice to just sit an enjoy a meal together. After dinner we spread a blanket out on the floor, sat down with some candlelight and dove into the questions. This was my favorite part of the evening. It was nice to sit and be able to just have a conversation about life.

What do you do to keep your marriage fresh? Any fun, cheap ideas for date night?

Saving Diva

Since I got married 2 years ago,  I have become a self proclaimed saving diva. Now, don't expect that I am going to write about how to save hundreds of dollars a year and be one of those crazy extreme couponers. I just like to save money. Perhaps its become more important since the hubs is no longer a full-time employee.

A little background on that... We got married and moved to Maryland with no jobs. I know, looking back it was kind of crazy. Well, I was hired on as a teacher after about a month while the hubs continued to be unemployed. He did temp jobs and some private contracting but no luck finding a full-time permanent gig. Then, he was offered a position on a political campaign in January.  The kicker? The job was in Massachusetts. I know, being newlyweds this sounded.... um... great? Well, not exactly and it didn't make sense for me to relocate with the hubs as this job was temporary, so thus started our 11 month separation.

While we were both unemployed, I got pretty coupon savvy. I mean, to the point where I stock piled toiletries and have not paid full price since we got married. Most of the soap, body wash, shampoo, conditioner, even laundry detergent, has been free or a few cents. Then the hubs went away to work and I got all the money sent home to me... I got pretty good at spending. This is when I decided to start graduate school. Let the bills start flowing!

When the political hoopla was over, in November, the hubs arrived back home. This is when he started, yet again, his search for full time employment. Well, now we had student loan payments, graduate school, savings, life all happening. Couponing and saving started again.

SO, with ALL of that said, here's how I do it. (Keep in mind I am not a magician nor do I think I do this the best possible way. All I can tell you is that this works for me.)

1. I buy my meat at Costco and freeze it. I only make a trip to Costco about once every 2 to 3 months. But, the quality of meat is worth it for the price.

2. I clip coupons whenever I remember. Really, the best way to do this is to follow Hip2Save. This woman, Collin, posts deals and tells you what coupons you need to get the best deal. I use this for Target trips and when I need to buy toiletries. This is how I get almost free and free stuff.

3. I take advantage of sales at the grocery store and do not buy out of season or processed stuff if at all possible. I have found ways to make homemade english muffins and all kinds of other things, thank you Pintrest!

4. I cook and freeze. This means that yes, I do cook a new meal almost every night (I HATE leftovers). And then we have food to eat either for lunches or I freeze things. I have frozen anything from soup to lasagna. If only I had a deep freezer.... yes, my freezer looks crazy and has things JAMMED in there... it happens though and we make it work.

5. We don't go out... and I mean we don't eat out, or buy fast food, I have even given up Starbucks... I know, for some this sounds crazy but it means having more money to pay the bills.

6. We make a budget. Perhaps this should be number one since it is what dictates where all of our money goes for the month. In January, we did Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. This was eye opening and really taught us some great tips on how to be smart with money. I STRONGLY suggest looking into it. Yes, he is a Christian and yes, he teaches about money with a Christian perspective. BUT (and this is a J-Lo BUT as the hubs would say), he provides really great information about how to handle money from day to day life all the way to saving for retirement. We learned SO much.

I think these are all the money saving tips I've got but I'm sure I will come up with more. I got a sewing machine for Christmas so I am trying, somewhat unsuccessfully, to make some clothes of my own and revamp some thrift store finds...

F.A.S.T. Testing

This week starts the last round of testing for the year. Yes, it is May. Yes, there is MORE testing. I know, we all thought that after the MSA (Maryland State Assessment) we were home free. So the school system I teach in has three tests a year, aside from the state test. These tests are the county's way to get data about our students and supposedly the tests are supposed to help our students get ready for the state test. So, now after the MSA we have one last and final test, the Formative Assessment System Test 3. My students don't even know it is coming. Poor kids.

Perhaps the best part of testing is that for a special education teacher, this basically means the entire next 2 weeks are totally useless. I will be testing every single day morning and afternoon. Now, most teachers test first thing in the morning and call it a day. In the special education world, we get to test small groups of students, and have to provide them with accommodations. This is exhausting. Imagine that you aren't even taking the test, just reading directions and then you have to sit and make sure your students are bubbling in the correct bubble for the corresponding question. It is SO boring and tiring.

I decided a while ago that I would start talking about a pizza party for my students. This was my last attempt to motivate them and get their best behavior. My students have been talking about this since Spring Break. I think it has done its job. Now, it is just a matter of finding the best time to have our small pizza party. I think we will wait until FAST testing is over and then we can celebrate that we are REALLY done.

Anyone have any ideas o ways to motivate students? Anyone have a way they like to celebrate the end of the year? Share your ideas!

***Don't forget to follow me and comment***

For the Moms

Well, I am not a mom yet but the sermon at church this week was about being a Godly woman and how for most, that means being family focused. I think that our pastor did a wonderful job of explaining the importance of being a mom and making sure that your family comes first.

The sermon was on Titus 2:3-5

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.(http://www.biblegateway.com/)

Basically our pastor did a great job of explaining how a mom cannot be replaced. I thought it was a great sermon and even though they don't have it up online yet, I would definitely listen to it when you have a chance.

Here is the link to the site: http://www.gcchoco.org/MessageDownloads/tabid/59/Default.aspx

Here's to all mom's but especially mine! I love you! Thanks for always loving me!

Finally They're Excited!

This year has been a struggle. I have been working SO hard to get my 4th grade boys excited about school and wanting to do the work. They lack so much motivation. I have tried a reward system, which turned out to be more of a distraction than help as they would come check on their progress ANYTIME they were out of their classroom, I've tried getting them excited about what they want to be when they grow up, positive reinforcement, prizes, stickers, promise of a pizza party, you name it, I've tried it. Yet, nothing helped... nothing seemed to motivate my boys.

Finally, we were assigned a science fair project. I have been dreading this, as it is a lot of work and when your students are working at least 2 to 3 grade levels behind, it is difficult for them to undertake such a large project. I turned to the wonderful web to figure out what in the world to do. I came across Science Buddies. This website had a TON of experiments, all of which were fairly simple and already had procedures and background knowledge. This site is GREAT! If you have any reason to do a science experiment, or even if you just want to get your kids excited about science, check it out.

I gave my students a few choices of experiments and let them choose which they wanted to do. First I suggested Bubble-ology, A Soluble Separation Solutioin and a few others I found. My students we very excited about the bubble one. They didn't understand all of it, actually pretty much any of it, but I went with it.

Well, finally, the day came where we actually had to preform the experiment. My students were thrilled to be able to go outside and started saying they were going on a field trip. We went out side with 2 bubble solutions, pipe-cleaners, clip boards, a timer, and four wonderful 4th grade boys.

Although I still am pretty sure they have NO idea what the point of any of this was or how it applies to real life, they LOVED it. I think I may just do this every year for my kids... Take a look at some of the pictures we took.

Not Stupid, Just Different

Perhaps I'm just jumping onto the blogging band-wagon but I think that I should start doing something with everything that is going on in my head. Here I will discuss my life which at this moment includes, being an Elementary Special Education teacher (hence the name), going to grad-school, tutoring, being a newlywed (how long does that title last?) and deciding to lose weight and eat healthy. Wow, I'm tired just from writing that... do I really want to add blogger to that list? Well, it's a no pressure kind of thing, if I do it, then great, if not, not harm done!

So, if you're still reading by now, I guess I should start an actual post. Last weekend I had the stomach bug that has been floating around. During this wonderful weekend bound to the couch, I had a lot of time to read and putz around online. I came across this blog Crafty Healthy Mommy. I read the entire blog from the beginning. As I was reading it, I saw so much of myself and decided, hey, if SHE can lost half of her body weight, why can't I? So I decided that I was going to make sure that I became a much more healthy me. What better way than to blog about it? That's a great way to keep me accountable!

The next thing that hit me was that I am not only a special educator (hence the name of the blog), who has to create a ton of her own stuff, but I tutor privately which means, I have gotten pretty creative. There are a ton of people out there making money by just putting their ideas on the blog-o-sphere. Why don't I do that?

So, there you have it, at least two things that have provided me with an idea to start getting myself out there. Now comes the hard part, deciding to get myself out there and sharing this with the family? Facebook? Do I want to be anonymous or do I want people to know it's me? That shall be the question for today.