Today's To-Do-List

After a busy week... end-of-season cross country banquets, band concerts, carving pumpkins, making Halloween costumes, Pumpkin Day at school, Halloween party at school, trick-or-treat last night... a very busy week, my at-home-to-do-list is rather large for today:

1. clean house
2. do laundry
3. pull out annuals killed by the frosts last week
4. fill bird and deer feeders
5. bake m & m cookies (with m & ms leftover from Halloween candy)
6. put Halloween decorations away (there aren't many, but it's time for them to disappear)
7. get Thanksgiving stuff out (again, I'm not a big decorator with Thanksgiving stuff, but I have a few things, like our thankful turkey that I made last year)
8. call Gram, my grandma who comes for a visit about every season, we have her visit for a week or so, but with all the subbing I've done, we haven't had her down, so I've got time planned; thus I need to call and make sure it works for her
9. call parents to check in (Mom had arm surgery and has been progressing just like the dr predicted, although not fast enough for her, and I chat with my parents at least once a week)
10. Write Thankful feather letter and make/get feathers ready to send out, as well as stamp and address envelopes. A yearly tradition I really love!
11. week's menu and grocery, as well as lunch menu for Tuesday (Tuesday is a conference day for teachers in the district, due to voting polls in the school buildings, so 1000 teachers will be at the conference and needing a place to go for lunch. That means very busy restaurants, so I invited the first grade team I'm currently working with to come over to my house for lunch instead of worrying about going out. I'm right nearby the conference location. :) Now, to find some good recipes... :) )
    
12. bathe dogs-they need it!
13. clean pantry and lazy susan (it's that fall time of year when I get in a cleaning/purging mode. Last week I did my clothes, the shoe/coat closet, brought up winter things and put away warm weather shoes/sandals, and cleaned out some cupboards. I get like this a few times per year, and I have to take advantage of it while I feel like it! :)
    
14. run (I've been running three times this week and last week was four, so I have to keep at it. Just running when I have time has been so nice! :))
15. Pick up dry cleaning... it's been there a week and I haven't done it yet... :)
16. Edit blog (check :))
    

I should be able to get that done before church at 5... right? :))
A few notes about our busy last week:
Pumpkin Day in the class I'm teaching was so fun! We had volunteers sign up, and each volunteer brought a pumpkin. We had enough for 2-4 kids in each group with a volunteer/pumpkin. The kids did things like estimate how much it weighed, then weighed it, estimated how many seeds were inside, then counted them as we carved, they estimated how many creases the pumpkin had, then counted them, etc. They had a great time! It took about an hour and fifteen minutes and the "pumpkin math" was so fun! :) Then I saved two seeds per child in case they wanted to plant them next year, roasted the rest and brought them in the next day for the kids to taste. It was a great day! :)
The Halloween party was fun, the room parents were in charge of coming up with the "centers" and the kids had a great time, but they were wound up all day! :) At this school the kids dress up and I dressed up. The first grade team of teachers were the "three little kittens". We wore black, donned some face painted whiskers, a headband with ears, a tail, and one mitten. The kids loved that I was a "black cat" but didn't know the nursery rhyme, so they didn't understand the one mitten. :)
We always try to make our kids' costumes, and this year was no different. Our oldest gave out candy instead of trick-or-treating, but our youngest needed a costume. So, after a few weeks of trying to come up with a good original idea (last year was grapes...) we decided on a jellyfish. I saw this jellyfish idea, but changed it a little. This idea had a clear umbrella, which could not be located within a ten mile radius, so we used a pink umbrella, varying lengths of bubble wrap for tentacles and glow necklaces woven into the those bubble wrap tentacles, as well as taped around the inside of the umbrella. She moved the umbrella as she walked and made it look like it was swimming. It was great fun! :)
That's all I have for today... I hope your week went well, was positive and the week ahead is good, as well!! :))