I'm ALIVE!!!!!!

Hello!! I've been MIA for the last two months. And.. although I love writing my blog, life got in the way. I have been wanting to show my classroom photos, organization, decorations, my fall stuff.. but I was just so busy- October is my busiest month with testing, our school fall festival, Halloween, and my birthday on the 30th. November we've been busy with work, Thanksgiving, and our annual reunion weekend. School has been very stressful and I have been re-thinking so many things in my life. I'm grateful I have my wonderful hubby to hold my hand through it all. I'm not giving up on the blog just yet... even if I'm the only living soul reading about my craft projects and endless dream to-do lists!!! I have so many plans, dreams, and ideas, wish I had the time and ENERGY to make them come to life.



Hasta Luego.....
Michelle

Thyroid Cancer Awareness Month

Before March 2010, I had no idea what a thyroid was, much less thyroid cancer.....In May 2009, my good friend Corina convinced me to go with her to a Life Line Screening at school. The test was about $100 and I thought it was pretty expensive. Eventually, I gave in and went to have the tests done. In July 2009, I got my results in the mail and they were abnormal. For awhile now, I had been feeling extremely tired, I was at my heaviest weight, and I was very unhappy. Worst of all I couldn't get pregnant.  Everything in my life suffered.. my job, my relationships, my poor house, and I stopped crafting and scrapbooking.  Dr's couldn't figure out what was wrong- one dr. even told me to "lay off the fajitas" errrrr.. another told me it was all in my head, which made me feel even worse. So when this came to light, we did a little research and found that the thyroid is a kind of gland, that can affect a lot- your weight, your energy, it can even cause infertility and depression. Great! finally some validation that I wasn't crazy.... but then the word CANCER came into our radar.. I was scared, but I didn't worry much about it, my doctor assured me that it would be ok and that most of the time, the modules or cysts were benign. I finally contacted a doctor in San Antonio, Dr. Jaime Cruz. I had 2 biopsy's done and after the second test, Dr. Cruz's nurse called that the doctor needed to see us. We traveled to San Antonio reassuring ourselves that it was ok and whatever happened we would be fine. After greeting us, Dr. Cruz sat down and said " its cancer".... Marc gasped and I froze, I could hear him talking, but I couldn't understand... It hit me like a ton of bricks. A few days later
( March 2010), I had a total thyroidectomy and dr's learned the cancer had spread to my lymph nodes. After the surgery, I was also having trouble breathing, So the surgeon, Dr. McManus had to insert a trach. Once I woke from surgery- reality set in and my journey with Cancer began. First the awful trach- it was a nightmare!! For 4 months, I had that thing, it made taking a decent shower impossible, it was pain and I hated every second!!  Worst part, my vocal cords were damaged and the dr. feared I would never get my voice back, also I would not be able to finish the year at school. It was the hardest thing to know I would not be able to finish the year with my class- it was heartbreaking.  I  Did some speech therapy, but mostly I made myself talk, even if I was in pain.  I also had to do the low iodine diet, which means absolutely no salt.. no flavor :(  Then I had radiation.. twice. It wasn't a walk in the park.... but I was lucky- No chemo and my cancer cells are so low now, they are almost non- existent. :)
I couldn't have survived this hell, if it weren't for prayer, my friends, family, and of course my wonderful sweetie, who supported me and took care of me every step of the way. I still have my bad days, but I'm doing good.. Thank God!
September is Thyroid Cancer Awareness Month and like me a lot of people don't know about Thyroid
Cancer or Thyroid disease. So like any other cancer, we have to be informed on how we can find and fight this disease, before it's to late. I always say.. If it weren't for Life Line screenings, who knows where I'd be today.
You can find out about Thyroid Cancer here and here
And here's a link to Life Line Screenings- They saved my life... and of course my Dr's ( Dr. Jaime Cruz and Dr. Keiko McManuss. They are more than doctors to us they are part of the family! They are our heros!! Love them!!

Be back later with how we did with our September to-list!!


Take care & God Bless!

Michelle

September To-Do List

Now that school has started, I don't have a lot of time to do things around my little house. So instead of having a weekly to- do list, I have decided to do a monthly to do list:

My House To-Do List

Get new mattresses
Re-arrange our bedroom
Take out all our old clothes from closet
Clean & organize master closet (phase 1)
Clean my scrap cabinet
Start buying stuff- mirror, baseboard, paint, & accessories for guest bath remodel
ORGANIZE MARC'S DESK!!!!!!!!- yeah this needs to be done!!!!PRONTO!!
Organize & line kitchen drawers
Finish off the finishing touches in laundry area
Finishing packing & take all the garage sale stuff to my aunts
Replace lights in laundry area, office, and hall
Switch living room ceiling fan to master bedroom & put new ceiling fan in living room
Organize memorabilia and into nice big boxes in closet
Re-pave front walkway

The Crafty List

Work on Project Life- GET CAUGHT UP!!
Finish my niece's senior scrapbook- I REALLY NEED TO FINISH THIS!! She's already in college, lol!
Start organizing my nephew's baby album
Start putting together Christmas planner
Spray paint some decor for kitchen
Re-vamp charging station
Make wreath for classroom
Start planning Halloween/ Fall decor

September will be a busy month, so wish me luck. My goal for October- to stay more weekends at home!! It will help so much- I'm sure the hubby will like that!!

Asta Luego.....

Michelle

Summer Wrap-up 2012

Here I am, the last Saturday of my summer vacation. It seems that once school starts, life moves 100 miles an hour. I have been back at work for a week, in meetings, working on our rooms, lesson plans..etc. But to me, it's when we have our have the kiddos in the classroom that I truly feel that summer is truly over!! I love my job, but I love summer...
This Summer was AWESOME... here's a wrap-up of Summer 2012.

June

Our niece graduated from High School- so proud of her!!

My Aunt Oralia retired after 35 years as an educator. We celebrated with a Hawaiian luau. I was fun!!

Also these cute boys got to meet...Awwww!! Love this pic!! It looks like Xavier is introducing himself to Joey.  Gotta post the other pics- So Cute!!

Did I mention we had THREE parties on the weekend of my aunts retirement party!!

My sweet momma's birthday and we also celebrated my little cousin Tino's 5th birthday a bit early. So sweet to have my grandma's three great-grandsons together!!

Our trip to the Bahamas!!!!

The annual trip to County Line BBQ for our great friend Adrian's birthday!

July

My nephew's 15th birthday!!!

Celebrated the 4TH with a BBQ with family!!

Participated in my first PINTEREST challenge

SNEAK PEAK!!! Finally built our shed barn!! More info on that later!!

Our trip to Austin/ New Braunfels to visit family & where I found lots of great finds at the thrift stores.

August

Ate lots of new, healthier recipes, saving those for a rainy day :)

Also tried some yummy drinks!! Also saving for a rainy day.

And... we celebrated Xavier's 1st birthday! And I created my first birthday hat- LOVE the way it turned out..

As far as my Summer to do list, here's how I did

House Stuff

Put up blinds & curtain rod in the kitchen

Make no-sew curtain for kitchen window
Clean and organize under kitchen sink  Still need to get some organizational stuff to finish it up!
Clean and organize kitchen drawers
Clean and organize upper kitchen cabinets

Clean and organize pantry

Clean and organize lower kitchen cabinets

Clean and organize laundry area-  Still need to get some baskets, and other things to finish this space. 

Clean and organize bookcase in office

Organize and rearrange office furniture

Clean and organize Marc's desk

Clean and organize master closet

Organize under sink in guest bath

Paint guest bath & redecorate

Remove carpet and paint master bath ( yes, we have carpet in the guest bath, not by choice, YUCK!)

Empty guestroom and put stuff in barn- I still working on this, slowly taking stuff to the barn and slowly reclaiming our home!

Put up the light fixtures we bought in the office, hall, and laundry room

Repave front walkway

Organize craft closet

Craft Stuff

Finish my niece's senior album- A monster of a project I was not able to.....but I'm so close to finishing!!

Get caught up with PROJECT LIFE

Make a treasure box for school

Get caught up with regular scrapbooking!

Spray paint some stuff for kitchen!!Still need to paint a few more things, but got the stuff I had wanted to do   

Paint & line drawers of old desk, also new knobs!!

Make labels for album spines

Decorate clothespins and make art for laundry room

Make wreath for classroom- Just bought the stuff to make wreath- will show SOON!!

Make a Christmas Planner - I've created the pages for my planner, just need to tweak and print!

I'm pretty happy with the progress on my list. Now that school is starting, I know I will post a lot less.I'm still putting the finishing touches on some summer projects, that I can't wait to show you. Also some pics of my classroom and other school projects. For all the teachers have a great year and God bless!!

Michelle

Xavier's First Birthday!!!

TWO POSTS IN ONE DAY---- WOWZA!!!!! My posts were long over due!! Chose to put up this post because today is my friend Cori's baby boy's 1st birthday!!!

Happy Birthday, sweet boy.. You are a wonderful blessing to your family and to us!! May God bless you...

Well this weekend Mr. Xavier had a birthday party... A monkey theme party for mommy's little monkey!!

My friend asked if I could make him a birthday hat. She bought some felt and other supplies and threw some ideas at me of what she wanted. I worked with felt before, during Christmas when I made personalized stockings, but this was my first try at making a hat. We started with a birthday hat, Cori got at the dollar store.. for... yes- a buck!! Don't you just love dollar stores?? Well anyway, when we put the felt on the hat, you could see the design show through the felt, so we put a plain white sheet of paper around it. It worked pretty good as a coverage and made it more sturdy. We then put the felt around it using our trusty friend- the glue gun!! 

After putting on the felt we decorated it with felt letters to spell his name and lime green feathered  boa to trim and top the hat. To make the monkey, I went on google and googled " monkey clipart". We picked the cutest one and that looked like the monkey she was using throughout her party decor. I copied and pasted it to a word document and sized it to the size we needed. I first traced the monkey head on the brown felt and then cut it apart and traced the face and ears on the tan felt. I put it together,, adding the eyes and using a piece of brown felt for the mouth . Wish I had pics of the process.... But here it is my very first birthday hat for Xavier's very first birthday...

Here are some other pics of Xavier's party..

Here are the centerpieces...Cori bought almost all the stuff at the dollar store and the balloons and dowels

 ( or whatever they are called to hold the balloons) at a party supply store. The mini palm trees were in the party section for a luau- themed party and the monkey plates were in the grocery section where they had the plates, cups, napkins, etc... This was all Cori's idea... The palm tree had a hole at the top so we slipped in the dowel, using a hot glue to secure it. We then sandwiched the dowel between two monkey plates. The balloons were added at the party.

The cake was ordered at a bakery, but mommy, aunt, and grandma lovingly made each cupcake. You can find instructions here.

Here's a few more shots of the b-day boy!!

Happy Birthday, little monkey!!

Michelle

Getting Ready for BACK TO SCHOOL!!!

Hi everyone...........crickets.......crickets.....
Well I have been MIA for awhile, with in-service training starting next week, I have been BUSY!!! I've been trying to finish my summer to-do list, as well as cleaning, organizing, and decorating my classroom. So I'm finally going to show you somethings I have been working on for my classroom.
I always find myself scrambling for certain things, like birthday crowns, my monthly calendar markers, and I find myself looking on the net for ideas for a certain theme or holiday, trying to remember what I did the year before or what idea I loved, but lost the website or sample....

Well I had this pink crate.. I bought three a few  years ago at Wal-Mart- this pink one, a lime green, and a blue... I love them!! They are durable and so useful. I slipped in some hanging folders that my hubby had- one for each month that we are in school. I then put in my calendar markers in to plastic ziplock bags and placed them according to month. I also put in activities for themes and holidays and put them according to month. For example.. I know that the back to school theme is the first 2 weeks of school, so I put activities with that theme in the August folder, along with first day of school projects, a supply list and Student info sheets- which I have the the parents fill out during open house. The birthday crowns are in the back, along with other important forms. My plan is to slip a birthday crown for each child according to month.

I used some Martha Stewart labels to label each folder.. I'm loving it and it will HOPEFULLY, FINGERS AND TOES CROSSED, keep me organized. If I happen to see an idea I love, I just slip it in the folder to use when I need to. I also worked on something that I've had on my to-do list for as long as I've been teaching. When my aunt Mary retired after 30 + years of teaching, I inherited some of her stuff.... one of them was this thrift store find. She used this box to hold prizes for the kids. It's octagon shape was perfect to make a treasure box.....

So I got a can of gold spray paint and got to work... I used this....

After the box dried I added some jewels I had from a Christmas project AAAANND..... 

thrift store box becomes treasure box!!

Seriously.. why did I take so long to do this- it was so easy. I couldn't wait to add all the great prizes, awaiting some very lucky, well behaved children, Well let's hope so... lol :)

Oh, I also downloaded these cute letter cards for my letter wall.  They are cute..I'm cutting them and laminating them as I speak type. 

You can find them here and they are F-R-E-E!!!!. I finished a lot this summer and I will share soon, along with my classroom and other back-to-school stuff when I get done. Just please bear with me!! Thanks!!

Michelle

Weekend Fun and Shopping Finds!!

This weekend we were in the Austin/ New Braunfels area, I love it there! If I ever moved it would be to New Braunfels- my sis and her family live there and so do my very best friends, Adrian and Erika and their baby girl, Liana. I also love Austin, when I was younger I wanted to move there, but of course that was not to be.. God knows why things don't pan out sometimes. We had a great time visiting family and doing a little shopping. Most importantly I got to see my little man.. my sweet,  adorable nephew!!! LOVE HIM!

While my hubby visited with his brother, I headed out with mom and aunts to the thrift stores like Goodwill, Salvation Army, and Saver's. One thing I learned from my aunts is to take my time and look at things. They always come back with the most fabulous stuff! I found the boy and girl rabbits at each end at Goodwill for .59 each. The three in the middle were bought as a bundle for .99. I have some plans for these come Easter time! Stay tuned... 

I found the frame for 3.99 at Goodwill. I'm planning on using the frame for a project here in the office. I also found a big pack of 12 x12 red cardstock for 1.99 at Saver's. Also at Saver's I found my biggest find of the day, The Singer Sew Quick Handheld sewing machine, the exact one I almost bought at Amazon for 13.99, for only 7.99.  :)

We also took a trip to Ikea. I have three Expedits shelves and an old desk, that I love. But I needed a desk, to take all my stuff I was working on, off the dining room table!! So I got this: AND I LOVE IT!! Plenty of work space!!

Ikea.com

I also got a JULES chair, four large KASSETT boxes, and a rug for my classroom. Thinking about using it in my Library center.

Ikea.com

I have been doing a lot of organizing and cleaning around the house and there are so many projects I want to finish before school starts- with very little time!! EEEK.. wish me luck!!

Michelle