Category Archives: Uncategorized

I am a big fan of Mexican food.  Other than one Sour Cream Chicken Enchilada that seemed to be covered in white biscuit gravy instead of a sour cream sauce, I don’t think I’ve ever really had a complaint.  Even then, I just needed to rename it Granny’s Chicken and Gravy Roll-up and it tasted great.  Some Mexican meals were definitely better than others over the years, but even when they weren’t great I still ate them.  The only thing that ever really keeps me from eating Mexican food is how spicy it is.  I used to do spicy with no problem, but for some reason I can’t handle the heat like I did in my younger years.

The other day I had a craving for MexiDips and Chips from Taco Bueno.  Since the closest Taco Bueno is in Austin, I figured I would have to make some myself.  My freshman year of college I made frequent trip to the Taco Bueno across the street from my dorm.  It was there that I discovered the amazing idea of multiple dips and chips as a meal!  Yum!

Anyway…I made some.  I ate them.  Craving satisfied.

Now I’m craving a hamburger from Fuddruckers.  It’s been a few days since the craving started, but there has been no time to venture over to Fuddruckers.  At least there’s one fairly close to me though.

1.  Some flavors of gourmet jelly beans do not go well with other.  When I wanted to try a strawberry and lemon together to see if it tasted like strawberry lemonade I accidentally ate a cinnamon and a lemon.  Not a good combination.

2.  Many people have no idea what celebrating 4/20 means.  I didn’t know the meaning of 420 until 2009 and this year, for the first time, I heard people actually talking about celebrating.  Most days I still wish I was clueless about some things.

3.  I AM able to start a fire from the banked, almost out embers of a fire from the night before after much coaxing, smoke inhalation and 30 minutes.  I refused to give in to the lighter, matches, and lighter fluid.  And I conquered!  (We went camping.)

4.  I do have some class.  The other day in the drive through line at the pharmacy I was dressed in sweat shorts and a t-shirt the same shade of heather gray as the shorts.  I was starving and had gone through the drive through at KFC a few minutes before.  I decided to chow down while I waited my turn in line.  Just before I lifted the hot wing to my lips I glanced over at the car next to mine in line.  Mercedes, dressed for success woman, hair perfected coifed, staring straight at me.  I smiled and slowly slid the fried hot wing back into the bag and held out until I was driving away.  I didn’t make it all the way home before I cleaned that wing though.

5.  I love Shakira.  I always liked her before, but I am enjoying her immensely on The Voice.  She just seems like a fresher version of Christina, who I also enjoy.  And I love the singer Caroline who was on Team Blake but has now become part of Team Adam, who I also love, by the way.  Lots of love over here!

I was reading Brittany’s blog and she mentioned Alfonso Ribeiro.  Actually she didn’t mention him…she posted a video of something I honestly don’t remember.  How in the world do I not remember this?  I loved Alfonso Ribeiro!

Sidenote – I loved Silver Spoons and Ricky Schroeder!  I loved Jason Bateman’s role of Derek.  And I loved Alfonso playing a kid named Alfonso!

I loved him so much that I bought his single Not Too Young.  Here is a sample of what I still own from my youth!

Wasn’t he just perfect?!?

And honestly I never did like him as Carlton!  That’s when we had to break-up.  I had a hard time seeing him being anything other than cool!

And for the record…see what I did there…record…I love nerds.  I just didn’t love Alfonso as a nerd.  It didn’t work for me!

So I’ve been working on this whole budget thing.  I am pretty good at categorizing things and figuring out how much money goes into each category, but I keep forgetting things.  Like haircuts.  I want to get one and didn’t budget for it.  So do I pull from entertainment, medical, clothing?  Or does it come from the miscellaneous money that seems to float around that never gets put in any category.  I do that on purpose just to have a buffer.  But if I get my roots done and a haircut it will be more than the misc. money.  And then I won’t have a buffer for unexpected things.  And why are there always so many little unexpected things?   Just this week we had to buy a finger splint for $7, a book of stamps for Sweet Tea’s daughter’s graduation announcements, and some Easter candy.  None of these things were planned for or budgeted expenses.  I should have known about the candy and stamps, but I didn’t think of either one when I was putting together our budget for the month.  And the finger splint became a necessity when the oldest slammed her finger in the front door and then again the next day in the dishwasher.  

Thankfully, that curve you see there is the natural curve of her finger, and I don’t think it’s broken.  It is sore though!  And it cost 7 unexpected dollars so far.  I just hope she doesn’t have to go to the doctor, although I do have some money budgeted for that!  They said it would take 90 days to get the hang of the budget.  I’m thinking they’re right!

All kidding aside… I must say it’s been a great thing so far.  I love paying off bills.  That has been one of the perks.  Getting some of our stuff paid off quicker.

Once we have our bills paid off we’re gonna be rich!  (Nevermind that there are 6 kids that need to go to college around here.  We lie and tell ourselves that we are going to be independently wealthy.  It takes the sting away from the paying off bills part.)

Yesterday I was craving a seafood boil.  I love crawfish, shrimp, crab…well pretty much any seafood thrown in a pot with some spices, potatoes, sausage, and corn will do.  We went to Blue Water Seafood where we tried their namesake, the Blue Water Boil.  It was a combo of all of the above!  It was pretty good, but I’m still thinking the best boil I’ve had in recent years was this one.

This was last summer in Pierre Part, Louisiana, where we were visiting Sweet Tea’s daughter and grandson.  Her pseudo son-in-law treated us to this amazing feast.  The crab were amazing, but it was the shrimp that were to die for!  Bayou shrimp just taste different than gulf shrimp.  I assume the difference is a salt water verses fresh water thing.  I ate my weight in food that day!  It’s hard not to when the food is just thrown down on newspapers and everyone digs in.  Picking crab and peeling shrimp means you are working for the food, but you don’t realize how many you’ve eaten until you’ve eaten too many!  

I can’t wait to indulge again!

Words muttered around me and and by me lately.

Scenario 1 – while working on reading passages

Me: Why do you have a metal fork on your desk?

Student: For my lunch (and he pulled a metal can of spaghetti-o’s out of his jacket pocket.)

Scenario 2 – while working on reading passages

Ms. White: (After checking Alyssa’s paper.)  It’s your birthday.  Go Alyssa.  You got them right!

Ms. White:  (After checking Tasha’s paper) Ok, go back and check number 3.  You might need to reread to passage to understand it.

Tasha:  Aren’t you going to sing to me?

Me:  Um, it’s not your birthday.

Scenario 3 – while working on reading passages

Student – What?  I got it wrong?  I thought proposition meant to corner someone and make them an offer…

Me – Um…how old are you again?

Scenario 4 – while talking about getting a driver’s license

Will – Can’t we use the jeep for my driving test?

Me – We can if Papa hasn’t sold it yet.  He’s got a sign in the window.

Will – What?  I love the jeep.  I’ll offer him some chewing gum for it.

Jacob – Man, I wish someone paid me in gum.

A letter from a student.  All spelling, grammar, punctuation mistakes are his AND make me want to stab my eyes out since I am the English Language Arts/Reading teacher.

One must also note that a very similar note was given to another teacher in the school by the same student.  She is the Assistant Principal/Instructional Facilitator for our school.  She taught 5th grade ELAR before I did.  She works with the student in a small group just to give him the extra push he needs.

Ms. Dixon you are the 2 best teacher ever I wish that I was a strigh A & B student I was In 1st-3rd!  I know you try your very best to make us past the star test And I thank you for that.  You are the kind of woman I want to mary I admuir you. Best regards, 

His note made it sound like the Staar Test was in the past, when in reality it is next week.  I am trying very hard to keep myself together and not stress out too much over it, but this test will determine who goes on to 6th grade and who stays with me again next year!  Oh my, I hope they all “past,” because I am ready to put this in MY past!!

(The whole marry and admire part of his note is sweet and all, but this kid loves attention and will say and do anything to get it.  He wrote those same words in the note to the other teacher first and saw her reaction so he included them in mine.  I have a feeling other teachers might be receiving similar notes in the not too distant future!)

A count of the classes I’ve been taking lately…

1.  Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace course – I love it!  It is something I wish I had done years ago!  I’ve heard so many good ideas and learned several habits of financially successful people.  We are working on implementing them around here.

2.  Staar Test Facilitator Training – This is the stuff I need to know in order to give the Staar Achievement Test to my students in April.  This is where you learn what you can and can’t do, can and can’t say, etc.  Pretty much I learned that if asked a question I am allowed to say, “I can’t answer that question for you, just do your best.”  Also, if during my monitoring I notice that someone has not bubbled their answers on their scantron, I am allowed to say, “You have failed to record your answers on your answer document.  Please go back and mark your answers now.”  Good times will be had by all!

3.  TELPAS training – These were online videos where I learned how to determine a student’s ability to write, speak, and decipher spoken English.  After the videos I had to actually do this and I failed miserably at it the first time.  I was a hard grader apparently.  You wouldn’t think so since I have experienced some language acquisition issues myself.

4. Healthy Relationship Workshop – Sweet Tea and I did this one together.  It was basic information about how to establish and maintain healthy relationships.  It included ideas on boundaries, communication, fighting, intimacy, and a variety of other issues.  It was a great class.  The best part was when two gay men started whimpering when they learned how long they should wait before adding sexual intimacy to a relationship.

I need to make some wall space for all these certificates I’m earning.  People will want to know how learned I am!

(I have to say I was a tad bit disappointed in the fact that there were no certificates for the relationship class.  I thought everyone gave out certificates nowadays!  Maybe it’s my teacher self coming out.  I guess I’ll have to make my own!  Totally a teacher thing to do!)

I love my principal!  I honestly can’t say enough good things about her.  She’s great at her job, but I love her personality more than anything.  She’s encouraging, supportive, and so funny!

I work at a school that’s almost an even split between Mexican American and African American students.  There are a few Jamaicans, a few Caucasian, and that pretty much sums it up.  Many students are actually mixed race babies from the above categories.  The staff is a more even mix between the groups, with 9 Hispanic teachers, 13 African American, 6 Caucasian, and an Asian thrown in the mix.  We also have a few mixed race teachers as well.

Today we were talking about some of the extremely unusual names our students have.  It’s important to note here that my principal is African American and has a common name.  We’ll call her Susan.  She married a man whose name is almost common.  We’ll call him Donal, like Donald just without the final D.  She has two children with common names.  Peter and Ashley.  Pretty straight forward.  Easy to read.

During some of our meetings we were filling out paperwork for our students and one of the other African American teachers, a lovely, young woman named Miranda, wondered aloud why a parent would give a kid such an unusual moniker.  The name was something similar to Der’Maestro.  Susan, my principal, piped up with, “Don’t act like you don’t know how we do.  You know how we do!”  I died laughing.  I said you didn’t do it!  Your kids have common names.  We also had to do paperwork on La’quadrion, Queylin, Geshowni, and Joshacheley.

I actually enjoy the unusual names.  It makes for much more interesting classes.  I would much rather say, “Chaneshea sit down!” than “Beth sit down!”  It’s like a tongue twister!

(All names have been slightly changed to protect the innocent, but believe me it didn’t add to or detract from the impact of their actual name!)