I have no excuse other than school started back thus I have been obsessing over lesson plans and such. School is better this year now that I don’t have to do my internship. I have a great group of kids this year (overall). I also have a smaller class – 18 this year – which is totally awesome. I sometimes miss all the time I used to spend on Twitter, my website, and the internet in general but I really do enjoy teaching and spend a lot of time planning lessons and such.

Right now we’re in the middle of the Gingerbread Girl craze. She ran away on Friday. The kids were even more excited about it this year than last year’s group was. It’s really fun. We’ll be making gingerbread ornaments, and cookies, and cakes this week. Fun times! My mom made another gingerbread house around my classroom door and it is even cuter than the one last year! Way more color this time around. I’ll have to take a picture of it this week.

Christmas is right around the corner. I have a lot of shopping left to do. I also have many crafty things I am working on. I am working on adding items to my Etsy shop which has been ignored for a couple of years now. I am going to be adding some major cuteness to it, and I can’t wait!

For now I leave you with this yummy treat I baked up at Thanksgiving. More on my Flickr.

And the layout… it was coming along well, but then I got busy. And now I think I may have a new idea.

I have a few things I’d like to accomplish this year. They are (in no particular order):

1. Pass my teaching internship.
2. Exercise more often.
3. Drink more diet drinks.
4. Save more money.
5. Buy a house!!!
6. Come home from work earlier.
7. Do my lesson plans during my weekly planning at school so I don’t have to do them all on the weekends.
8. Clean and cook more.
9. Possibly get a new(er) car.
10. Make time to do all of the fun things I used to enjoy doing (working on my website, doodling, crafts, etc.)
11. Blog more often!

I could probably list more things, but the more things you list, the more likely it will be that you won’t accomplish them all? I kept it pretty realistic too. I mean, I’d like to go to the moon, but that won’t be happening. What is your main goal for the new year? And, are you excited for the new year, or will you miss last year?

Everyone has memories of their childhood. Everyone has childhood memories of school. Some of you may have memories about going to the school library as a child. Well, I have very fond memories of my school’s library. There was this one particular book that I loved to check out when I was little (between the ages of 7-9?). My friends and I loved the book. Why? Well, it was a small book. I guess that had a certain appeal to us for some reason. When one of us returned it to the library, another one would then check it out. It was a revolving door of sorts. I have thought about that book at least a couple of times a year practically every year of my life. I mentioned the book to Colin before. I did a very brief search for it, but couldn’t remember many details about the book so I didn’t come up with anything.

A few weeks ago, I got to thinking about the book again and tried searching for it again. I didn’t know the title or author, so this made the searching quite difficult obviously. It really bothered me that I couldn’t find the book. I persuaded my librarian husband to do some searching one night using his librarian skills. We found a couple of other books based on the few details I remembered about the book that triggered more memories of the details. Basically, I knew these things about the book:

1. It was a small (in size and word count) book.
2. The title was short (possibly three or four words).
3. It had a man and woman who lived in a house that was made into a hill (sod house).
4. There was a cow on the roof. (This was the most important detail.)
5. It wasn’t a picture book. It was mostly text with some pictures throughout.
6. It had a dingy cover.
7. It was old.

So the most important detail (the cow on the roof) is what I would search for trying to find this book. Well, the night we were looking, we found some books about sod houses, but nothing about cows on roofs really. Colin said he’d look for the book some more the next day at work.

By this point, I was getting really agitated. It was really bothering me that I couldn’t find the book. I didn’t think I’d ever find the book again! I really wanted to know the name of it! A couple of days later, I started searching some more and Colin made some comments that basically led me to believe he had found out the name of the book while at work. So I made the comment, “If you know the name of the book and don’t tell me, I am going to be so mad at you!” Well, I was sort of being dramatic and was freaking out about it all, and Colin grabbed a present from under the tree and told me to quit whining and open it. Well, then I felt bad because I thought maybe he had actually found the book and that I had just ruined Christmas. I didn’t open the present though, but did do a little more searching. I finally ran across an e-book of folktales. In the bibliography, it referenced a folktale called “The Cow on the Roof” or “The Husband Who Was to Mind the House.” I also found a picture book called “Cow on the Roof.” I was on the right track, and the folktale story sounded familiar, but still I couldn’t find the book. I decided to give up and wait until Christmas and see if Colin had indeed found it.

Well, he did find it. The book is called Gone is Gone and it’s written by Wanda Gag. It was written in 1935. I don’t think it’s the exact same cover as the edition we had in the school library, but I could be wrong. The book is actually in print again. Basically, it’s about this man, Fritzl who decides that his wife has it easy taking care of the house, animals, and their baby and so he switched places with her one day. She goes off to the fields to take care of his work, and he sits home to do her work. Well, turns out, her work is just as hard if not harder than his own work and everything that could go wrong pretty much does. It’s a great story. I can’t believe I finally know what the title is, and I own the book thanks to my wonderful librarian husband! :star: :love:

What did you guys out there get for Christmas? And, do you have any books you remember from your childhood?