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Twas the day after Christmas and all through the house,Not a Torrie was stirring, not even her spouse.The presents, unwrapped, were strewn all around,The laundry and garbage were all in a mound.And Torrie, all wiped from a long Christmas day,Rejoiced in her innards as she heard an elf say,“I’ve come here to grant you some wishes–say three–Like ‘mopping the …

So I came home yesterday to these lovely beauts (that’s pronounced b-yoots for you people who aren’t familiar with slang abbreviations I make up on the spot). This is exactly (well, more or less) how the conversation went down as I walked in the door: Matt: “Honey, these are for you” [whipping out the flowers …

This morning, all of us teachers were instructed to teach  our students the drill for what to do if an active shooter should start going through the school. As I saw the frightened, unsure looks on their 12- and 13-year-old faces, I could hardly bear it. Being a teacher makes you part of the larger world …

In years past, I will admit to having been a big of a Scroogette when it came to some things about Christmas, such as Walmart playing Christmas music soon after Halloween or hearing the song “Holly Jolly Christmas” over and over again on the radio. And while I’ll admit that I still don’t particularly love …

Have you been on a middle school bus lately? It’s LOUD. And HOT. And it smells slightly like corn chips and wet snow boots. Trust me, I know–I had to spend over an hour on one today, just me and 68 kids. The entire way back to the school, they were yelling (I won’t even …

In trying to keep up on my professional skills, I’ve started reading Nancie Atwell’s In the Middle, which is basically a how-to guide for teaching middle schoolers. Something she talks about in that book is your “reading territories,” which is nothing more or less than those genres or types of books or authors that you …

SO, a couple weekends back, I ran across this book on organizing during one of my escape trips to Barnes & Noble (you’d be surprised at how often those trips seem to happen). I felt so inspired that I ended up ordering the book from Amazon a few days later and, in my frenzy of excitement …

Even though these are the pictures that didn’t make the cut to put on our Christmas card (which may or may not be a theoretical concept as of now–it all depends on how my energy levels are feeling in about a week), I still liked ’em enough to share. Funny story: we had originally planned …