Why we do it

One of the last things I picked up in my office mailbox the last day of school was my "You made a difference" forms.

During the last advisory period of the year, students choose a teacher to write a note to. The top of the form says "You made a difference..." with the student's name and teacher's name. Then, the kids get to fill out the form.

It really is nice to see what the kids have to say.

That one is from Brooke, the managing editor of the Tiger Print. She was a great student - hard worker, always willing to do extra when needed, to improve pages when needed, and so nice to all of the staff members. I was lucky to have a student like her with whom to work this year.


This one is from Cole, a sophomore on newspaper. He almost dropped at semester, but chose to stick it out for the rest of the year. He did some great work, and he's got a great heart.


Kylie is moving to Texas in a few weeks, so she'll have to join another newspaper staff for her senior year. We'll really miss her - so much enthusiasm and such a hard worker.


Last but not least, from a sophomore, Stephanie. She's going to be a rock star on the newspaper staff very shortly - I just know it. She's a fast learner, and is constantly honing her skills, whether it's writing or InDesign.

Out with the old, in with the new (in more ways than one)

Well, it's official. Our cute little pink house is now owned and occupied by a new guy. We officially closed today.

All together now - giant sigh of relief.

Buh-bye, little house that I loved so much. I hope that the new owner loves it as much as we did.

•••

Already, we're working our tails off at "Grandma's House." Yes, as Aunt Janet said, we'll probably call it that for a while. We still call the bedrooms "Julie's room" and "Mark's room." It's going to take a while to stop that. Maybe once we get some of the work done, it'll be more like "ours."

Tomorrow, I'm headed to find some good plants and flowers for the front flower bed. It's right in front of the porch, you can barely see it in this photo. It's mostly shaded, so I'll definitely be looking at hostas and the like. I wish I had a friend like Georgia here in town so I could dig and transplant instead of buy!

Here are some "before" photos of the kitchen.

Adam's pretty happy. He's going to have tons of cabinet and pantry space, and lots of countertop space. We've been concentrating most of our work in the kitchen the last few days. Mostly, we've pulled down wallpaper.

Here's the little eat-in area of the kitchen.

Same area, viewed from the stove-fridge-sink work triangle (yes, I've been watching some HGTV and DIY!).

This was always the dining room, and a huge rolltop desk and the sewing machine were also in this room. When the house was brand new, it was actually the garage, but Grandpa converted it. Almost all of the houses in the neighborhood have done the exact same thing - making "bonus rooms." At least they added a two-car garage in the back. Most of the houses just don't have garages anymore.

See that big built-in cabinet? I'm thinking that's going to be scrapbook and knitting storage. It'll be nice to have a place to keep all of that organized and accessible, without it being right out in the middle of the room all the time.

Because that room used to be the garage, the living area is a very large L shape. We're thinking we might make part of it a dining area, which would provide a natural break, making the area below the "living/TV" area.

Adam is standing just inside the front door. To the far right is the kitchen. I'm standing taking the photo from the possible dining area. Check out the awesome hardwood floors under the carpet. They look really good. I bet they've been covered for most of the time since the house was brand new.


That corner would be the dining table space maybe.

Here's some proof that we have been working!

The kitchen, sans wallpaper and appliances. Uncle Mark came over and moved them today.


I'm off to watch some more DIY shows then head to bed. We're getting up early tomorrow for more work.

Must get out of being an apartment dweller

YES! First day of summer vacation.

NO! Freaking landscapers are outside cutting the grass and blowing the clippings at 8 a.m. So much for sleeping in.

Add this to the new Loudy Loudersons who have moved in above and across the hall from us, and to all of their cigarette butts they leave in the breezeway, and the Dunes is no longer "Luxury apartment living" for the Chittums.

Good thing we're only here until end of June. As soon as we eat some breakfast, we're headed over to Grandma's house to continue taking down wallpaper and prepping it to remodel. I'll post a few before photos later this weekend.

Worth the wait? SPOILER AHEAD

WARNING: Read no further if you don't want to know about "Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."




After cake and ice cream at Mom and Dad's, Adam and I met Mitzi and Betsy and we went to the late showing of the new Indiana Jones movie. Adam's been eagerly awaiting the movie, and I've also been pretty excited for it. It was a good choice for a birthday night activity.

I'm not sure that I think it was worth the 25-year wait. I loved the other three. This one just seemed so overdone. I was so aware of the lighting (all very soft and pretty - guess we had to make Harrison look as young as possible?) throughout the movie.

And, even though aliens are part of what some people think gave the early civilizations their technology, I just couldn't buy the crazy alien crap. (Adam was totally into this part, because he reads about that stuff all the time.)

There was a great vintage Harley stunt scene in the movie, with Harrison Ford and Shia LeBeouf. I enjoyed the first half, but the second half is when it got a little crazy. Too CGI-special effecty for my taste.

Have you guys seen it? What did you think?

Let the festivities begin

Many of you are well aware of the traditional weeklong Jill Birthday celebrations. Parties here, parties there, parties on the campouts, etc. We are missing the big Memorial Day camping trip this year. I can't remember the last time I wasn't there. I'm pretty bummed about that.

Who will tend the fire?

My birthday is Saturday, but we'll be one last time on the moving road.

So, tonight, we celebrate. It's Betsy's birthday today, so it'll be a joint operation. (No, silly - not THAT kind of joint operation.) We're heading to Tanner's for trivia and general merriment. Luckily, even though it's a school night, school's almost out - tomorrow's an easy day. So, I'll be all right if I stay up a little past my bedtime.

Must be clear-headed, though, because I've got to speak in front of the whole school again tomorrow during the spring recognition assembly. It's going to be outside on the football field, if the weather cooperates.

My dream come true - hearing my voice over the Football PA system. NOT.

Three freaking seventy three?

Seriously, I'm all for some sort of major governmental intervention when it comes to gas prices.

If it goes up much further, we will not be able to afford to drive ANYwhere, except school (and I'm beginning to wonder if that will be possible!). Good thing we only have to drive to school for a few more days.

Adam put $20 in my car the other night. Imagine my surprise when I got in the car and saw it was only a half tank. I remember the good old days, when $20 would fill it up!

Yikes. Looks like we might have to put any money we make on the house into a savings account for gas!

How in the heck do you SUV drivers do it?

Graduation Day

It's been a tad psycho around here lately. School, yearbooks, prepping for finals, moving out of a house, graduation parties, etc.

Adam and I left right after school Friday afternoon and went to Wichita to load up the truck once more. We stopped by Amy's house, and stayed with Jeff and Kat. It was really good to see everyone, even if it was only for a night. I feel much better about the moving/closing now. I KNOW we won't have to make two trips on Memorial Day weekend, so my nerves are a little less frazzled. We had a great day for traveling, too. Warm and sunny, not too windy.

Last night, we stopped at two graduation receptions for a couple of my students. One was in Stilwell (my first visit) and the other was in Leawood. I told Adam it was like we were getting a little tour of the BV attendance area. Both were very nice, and I'm so glad I got to see the girls in their non-school element. I missed three other receptions - we were out of town for all of those.

Today, I'm headed to Kemper to watch the class of 2008 walk across the stage. I've got to finish getting ready so I can get to school to catch the bus. Yep, that's right - some of the faculty are "buspooling" so that we don't have to pay for gas or for parking. Crazy - it's like $7 to park at high school graduation. I had to get up early this morning and press my gown. Good thing ironing is a chore I don't mind, because it took a while.

Wonder what shenanigans are in store for today? We'll find out.

Day off, but not for relaxing

I'm headed to Wichita with Dad today to bring back a pickup load of stuff from the house. We don't have much stuff left there, but there is a little bit. Mostly lawn and garden stuff that we didn't need to use here at the Dunes, and we didn't have a place to store either.

As of May 28, we will no longer have stuff strewn out over 189 miles. That's the day we close on the house. Luckily, I had one personal day left that I could take today so we could go down there. Outside my window it looks bright and sunny, so hopefully it'll be a good day for moving.

•••

In other news, I made a sale on Etsy yesterday! What a nice surprise. It's going all the way to New York. I feel like I've been neglecting my shop for a while because I've been so busy at school, and I've been working on other knitted projects, like Jayne's armwarmers and the baby blanket. I'm looking forward to the summer when I can make some new merchandise.

Time for breakfast. I have to get ready before Dad gets here to pick me up.

You stalk me, I stalk you

So, awhile back I added a Sitemeter to my blog. It counts hits, visits and it track the location of visitors. Once you log in to Sitemeter, you can go to a page that tells you who, what, when, where, and how they got to the blog. (It tells TONS of information, but I'm pretty much interested in a small amount of it).

I'm always curious how far away some readers are. Of course, most of my list is Wichita, Shawnee, Lenexa, Olathe, Derby, Kansas City, etc. I'm no fool - most of the people who drop by here often are my friends and family.

Every once in a while, I'll get a hit from Japan, British Columbia, Australia, etc. Usually these are folks who have Googled a phrase I used in a post. These surfers don't usually stick around long. The night of the Oscars, a bunch of people stopped by the Chittum Files because they Googled the phrase "Cautionary Whale" from "Juno." I had named a post with that phrase once.

Then, there are the people who Google search me by name. Yep. That's a LITTLE weird. Just last week, someone in Chicago, someone somewhere in Arizona, and someone in Tennessee searched me by name and came across my blog. That's when Sitemeter is kind of addicting - I want to know who that person is and why they're looking for me.

A few times, someone in Baltimore typed the phrase "charm city cakes anna" into their Google search box and briefly clicked on my blog. Could it BE Anna from Charm City Cakes herself? I've never written about her specifically, but I have written about my obssesion with Duff and his crew. Maybe when she randomly Google searched herself (we've all done it - you can admit it) my post was on the list.

How cool would it be if someone from CCC actually looked at my blog once?

Being a blogger is SO much more fun when you think people are reading your words. You feel less like you're toiling for nothing. That's why I love comments so much. Lately, I've been lax about commenting on other blogs. I need to do that more often - share the love.

Maybe I'll make one of my goals for this summer "get some celebrity to comment on my blog." Even if he only stopped by for a few seconds, it would be pretty effin' sweet if Duff Goldman said hi...

Someday, I would like blogging to be a money-making proposition for me. Sitemeter will be a good tool for that eventually, because I can tell what words draw clicks. It's like stealthy market research, I guess. In the future, that could help me get more ad revenue...who knows?

For now I'll have to be satisfied with the big bucks I make from teaching...

Oh, wait.

Phew. A photo story.

It is finished.

Blanket Update

Well, I keep reading Amy's posts about the iminent arrival of the Player To Be Named Later, so I figured in the midst of everything else going on, I better get going on the blanket.

Here's all the pieces laid out so far. Figured out that I'm short just a couple of light blue and a couple of cream-colored. Luckily, I have both of those yarns here, so I should be able to whip those up soon. The top three rows are sewn together. I did the third row tonight.

The sewing isn't as bad as I expected.

Shower-goers - you should be proud of your handiwork!

Off to knit some more and watch LOST. Can't wait.

The other kind of delivery

Producing a yearbook gets compared to having a baby A LOT. Both take nine months. Both are highly emotional endeavors. Both have up days and down days. Yearbook staff members look at the finished product as "their baby." And, each book weighs 6 pounds - about the size of some small newborns.

Today, ours was delivered.

See those palettes? We unloaded seven (!) of them, 25 boxes to a palette. Each box containing 10 books weighs 60 pounds. This is when you really start to wish that there was more than one boy on the staff. Unlucky for us, guess who was just about the only staffer who had a test and couldn't miss class to help carry.

Yep. The boy. Here's the crew who helped unload. We considered it our strength training workout for the day, and we all agreed that we wouldn't need to work out after school. Luckily, it was only lightly sprinkling, not pouring rain when we did the deed.


Once we got each palette inside, we had to undo do the shrink wrap and start the bucket brigade.


Usually, I ask the editors to cut open the first box, but the girls wanted me to do it. I think they were nervous that they'd accidentally cut the covers on the top of the box. (I was nervous about that, too.)


I love this photo. These are the co-editors-in-chief, and I love how they look nervous and excited as I open the first box. They loved the cover. It looks great.


Sorry to say, dear readers, you'll have to wait until Friday to see the finished product - just like the rest of the student body. The books are under lock and key in the computer lab for the next 48 hours. Hopefully some extremely muscular thieves won't find their way into my classroom in the next few days.

The worst part is that I'm out of the building all day tomorrow for a committee meeting on drug and alcohol abuse prevention. Bad timing. I hope the sub can follow my no-unlocky-of-the-doory instructions.

But, the week is halfway over - and today's task was one of the biggest. All's well so far.

Week from hell, day 2

Survived so far. Sent out the "Here's what's happening for yearbooks on Friday" e-mail last night, already had to make a couple of corrections. We're going with the flow.

Tomorrow the books come in at 9:30. Any guesses on how much 1,400 copies of a 360-page yearbook weigh? At least we'll have some good boxes to use for moving this summer and getting the little bit that's left out of the Holyoke house. I'm going to try to remember to photograph the delivery so you can have an idea of just how much space that much paper, ink and cardboard take up.

I went to the library tonight to check out "Helvetica" the movie but they didn't have it. It's on order for the library system.

My brain's a little fried, so I'm short on witty repartee for this evening. My apologies. The "booze cruise" ep of the Office is on TBS, so I'm going to go so I can watch that.

Week from hell, part 1

It's not bad - it's just going to be absolutely crazy. Today, I had to run to Wally World during my plan to pick up a few supplies for distribution day. Thank goodness Wal's is only about two minutes from school. I don't have to drive across town anymore like I did in the Dirty Derb.

Tomorrow, during my plan, I have my final appraisal meeting with the assistant principal whose in charge of evaluating me.

Wednesday, during my plan, a few of us are driving over to the location for the senior picnic so we can make sure that everything's kosher for passing out books on Friday morning.

Thursday, I'm at district office all day for training for the Drug and Alcohol Prevention Committee I signed up for.

Friday, I'm out all day for yearbook distribution. Oy.

Two days of sub plans to come up with, and three days of planning periods taken up by something other than planning. I'll be a busy girl.

Guess that means I should go and do some work.

Cinco de Cold-o

Thanks to Molly and Eric for inviting us to their annual Cinco de Mayo party in El Village de Prairie. The food was awesome - homemade salsa, guacamole, jicama and dip, taco bar, and the drinks were nice and frosty - cervezas, sangria and Palomas. Betsy picked up Adam and me and Mitzi and we headed over.

Unfortunately the drinks weren't the only things that were frosty - temps were down around the 40s, so as soon as the sun went down, most of us headed inside. This even though they've got a great deck on the back of their house, which is perfect for warm-weather parties.

Does this mean that our summer is going to be brutally hot?

It was nice to meet Molly and Eric. I read a lot about them on Betsy's blog, but now we all know that we're not imaginary...Now, I just have to meet Betsy's parents.

Living in Wichita for so long, I was conditioned to the fact that Doodah is more like a small town than a city - I was ALWAYS running into someone I knew or who knew someone I knew. I didn't think it would be that way here in KC. Bigger city, lots more places for people to go, etc. Last night, there were four people at the party whom I either knew, or had some connection to.

Two were teachers I work with (one went to high school with Molly), one was the opinion editor on the newspaper at Shawnee Mission North (she graduated the year before my freshman year), and one is the brother of a girl I played softball with and went to high school with. It was really strange.

Since I went away to college (trust me, when you grow up in JoCO, going to K-State IS going away for college), then moved to Wichita when I graduated, I'm not used to being around people from that era, or running into high school acquaintances. It's a bit of a paradigm shift for me. I am quite impressed though, with people who have maintained those friendships for so long. I don't think I'd have anything in common with my HS friends anymore.

I'm glad we got to go to the fiesta - it continues the string of CDM parties following the trip to Lawrence for state. It's always the first weekend in May, so when I get back from the state trip, we used to go to Ross and Leigh's for their CDM party, then last year it was at our new neighbor Rachel's house.

Luckily, I no longer have a two-and-a-half-hour drive to get to state anymore. I was home by 1 p.m. yesterday. Gave me enough afternoon time for watching Lost and the Office, before I took a nap. I needed one. When the alarm went off Saturday morning, I could not remember why I had to get up so early on a Saturday. It took a few minutes of bumbling around before I remembered that I had to drive to Lawrence.

•••

One last question I'll pose to the group:

Suppse you're a soccer mom, heading to a local high school for your kid's soccer game on a Saturday morning. You pull up, drive right past the GIGANTIC student parking lot (empty, by the way), choosing instead to park in a spot right next to the field. The empty spot is clearly marked "PARKING FOR SCHOOL VAN ONLY." Do you park your SUV there?

STATE of mind

After four years of advising yearbook and newspaper, I can finally add "advised an All-Kansas newspaper" to my list.

Yesterday at KSPA state contest, The Tiger Print picked up an All-Kansas award in the publications critique!

After the awards ceremony, our carry-in entries were judged during the day. Sarah took third-place in headline writing and design.

It was really sad, looking at the overall results - only three BV district students placed at state since we didn't get to compete in the on-site contest back in February, thus not qualifying for state. Oh well - we'll just have to come back even stronger next year, hopefully.

I always enjoy the trip to state. There's a nice brunch meeting for the advisers and it's really nice to see all of my friends at the brunch. I also got to see three of my Derby kids! One of them took third place in sports writing, thus continuing the string of state placers since 2005. That makes me feel good. It was so nice to talk to them for a little bit.

Note to self...

When teaching the young 'uns about the diopter on the camera, make them focus on someone else - NOT ME!

I guess it's a good thing I can laugh at myself - or else this photo would have gone right in the trash. This time of year, though, that photo is pretty illustrative of how crazy things can be. I definitely blog less as we get closer to the end of the year. I'm trying to stay caught up with the real job. Google Adsense doesn't bring home enough bacon yet!

The last issue of the newspaper comes out tomorrow and we distribute yearbooks next Friday.

Oh, and we got a contract on the house. Let's all cross our fingers to make sure nothing happens to make it fall through. We close the last week of May, so we'll be coming down to Wichita in the next few weeks to do one last sweep of our stuff that's left.

I know - I drop that nugget and now I'm going to close for today instead of give more info, but we're heading to Mitzi's so she and I can work out before Earl, The Office and Lost come on. I didn't get to work out Tuesday or Wednesday this week, so I have to do it now.