Facebook is weird.

I am not a huge fan of Facebook. In fact, Facebook is lucky if I log on once a month. Recently, however, I’ve had more people requesting to be my friend and such. People from high school that weren’t even my friends or people I barely talked to suddenly want to be my “friend” on Facebook. Why? So they’ll be able to boast that they have 200+ friends and need little ol’ me to push their friend count higher? Do they have any intention of establishing a meaningful relationship with me? Are they just bored and adding everyone they’ve ever known regardless if they even like that person or not? It all seems a little silly to me.

I usually don’t add people to my friends list on any site unless I know them from somewhere whether it’s real life or an online community like The Quilting Bee. This week though, I’ve added a few new “friends” to my Facebook, all of whom I went to school with at one time or another. Once of which was never really a “friend” of mine. I barely spoke to her the whole time we went to high school together, although we did have a few classes together. I decided to be nice and go ahead and add her (out of curiosity mostly). Last night I spent some time looking through her photos on Facebook, and it was indeed confirmed that she married this guy we went to school with. They dated in high school (and they were sort of this odd couple), and are now married and appear to have a daughter. I felt kind of slimy looking at her photos. It was like I was spying on her life or something. It felt sort of uncomfortable. After it was all over, I felt kind of bad that I had wasted 20 minutes or so of my life that I will never get back.

Let me just add in here that I haven’t really stayed close friends with anyone from high school. I really had no desire or need to. Does that make me an awful person? Were my friends really my friends if I don’t even associate with them now? On the flip side of the creepiness of looking through people’s photos, I did have two girls add me as their friend on Facebook, and it was kind of nice to hear from them and how they remembered good times we had in high school. One congratulated me on my marriage and wanted to know what I’ve been up to for the past 7 years. I just still find the whole concept of Facebook a little bizarre, and it’s kind of a more upscale MySpace in my opinion.

What do you think about Facebook? Do you add everyone you know to your friend list, or do you just add people you are friends with? Do you use Facebook to satisfy your curiosities about people you used to know? Why would someone want to have over 200 “friends” on Facebook if they don’t even know, like, or care about some of them?

April has started off rather wet here in Western Kentucky. As I type this, it is pretty much pouring down rain here and thundering. Yucky.

I have been kind of “absent” from the online world for the past several days (maybe even longer?). I’ve just been really busy at work, and when I get home I haven’t much felt like getting online really. The time just seems to fly by these days. Last Friday night I started feeling a little sick, and Saturday I work up and ended up having diarrhea all day (TMI, I know). That whole weekend was pretty much ruined. I was fine by Monday though. It was a 24 hour thing I guess.

This whole week I have been teaching the 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders how to use Microsoft PowerPoint. Pretty much none of them have really used it before. I didn’t get a chance to do PowerPoint last year due to all the testing I had to do (way more than I do now). I wanted to make the assignment as easy as possible for everyone. Each grade has to do as many slides as the grade level they are in. (5th grade does 5 slides, 4th grade- 4 slides, 3rd- 3 slides) Except, they all also have to do a title slide in addition to their number of slides. Here’s what each class is working on:

5th Grade: Sense Poetry - Each student had to choose an emotion word (sadness, happiness, jealousy, anger, etc.) and then they had to write a sentence about their emotion word for each of the five senses. For example, if they chose ‘happiness’ they might say, “Happiness tastes like a warm, gooey chocolate chip cookie my grandma made me.”

4th Grade: Fun for all Seasons - For each of the four seasons, they have to write what they like about or like to do during that season. I tried to make this as simple as possible for them because the 4th grade group is the roughest group in the school.

3rd Grade: Favorite Holidays - Each student picks their three favorite holidays and tells why they like that particular holiday.

The kids are really doing great with it and seem to be enjoying it a lot. I did some really pimped up versions of their assignments. I added transitions and sound and cool backgrounds and everything to get them excited about it. My plan worked. They can’t wait to add all of the clipart and things. I’m making them type everything first and making them keep everything boring old black and white until they finish their typing. I can’t wait to see what they all come up with!

I showed 1st and 2nd grade this really cool website I found called Kerpoof. It’s similar to the software we have called KidPix, but this is WAY more user friendly for younger kids. My first graders really struggle with KidPix, but love Kerpoof! It is fun! I created an account on there myself. The best thing is- it is super kid friendly, and there’s no advertising. You can make drawings, pictures, stories, movies, and cards on there. Try it out! It’s fun to make things!

I also found another cool website called Glogster. I haven’t actually tried it out myself yet, but it looks really neat. Basically, you can create digital collages or posters. You can add interactive things to you posters as well, and they have tons of stuff on their site you can add to your creation. It’s pretty nifty! I’ve found a lot of other neat sites while at work this week and last week too, and I’ll share some more later.

I taught Kindergarten how to play Sebran. Sebran is a free game I downloaded. It’s great and has lots of mini-games that make it up. Kids of all ages love this game. There’s math parts (adding, subtracting, multiplying), memory matching games, hangman, and a great set of games called “rain” games where letters or numbers fall down the screen. This is GREAT for helping little ones learn where they keys are at on the keyboard. If you have a small child, I’d recommend this for them. Most of the activities are geared for say K-2, but my older kids love it too.

I am so behind on reading everyone’s blogs! I also haven’t been ab;e to really return comments lately. Sorry! :shame: I also owe a few people snail mail letters. Hopefully I can catch up on things next week during my spring break (yay!). I will also be updating my site next week. I need to upgrade to WordPress 2.5 and I think I’m going to be making some changes to the layout and/or adding more content.

Oh, one of the teachers at school was collecting money for Relay for Life. She said our principal agreed that if we we donated $5.00 we could wear jeans all week (this week). I donated right away!

I leave you with this bracelet I made my mom for Easter. I love it! I want to make myself one. It’s made of acrylic and glass beads, silver stars, and sterling silver.

It’s that time of year again - The annual Quilting Bee Blog Day. This is where I get to reflect on being a member of the “first and original pixel trading club.” The Quilting Bee website is where I spend approximately 95% of my time online. Where should I even start?!

I joined The Quilting Bee on August 6, 2006. I can’t believe I’ve been a member for over a year now! It seems like I’ve been a member forever, but then on the other hand, it hasn’t seemed very long at all! If I am being completely honest, the thing that primarily attracted me to The Q*Bee was all of the adorable, colorful little quilts and patches I was seeing all over websites. It looked very cute and fun, and I wanted to be a part of it all. I was a little nervous about joining because I am not really what I’d call a “pixeller.” I thought only people with fantabulous pixel skills were accepted into the club. I finally decided I’d give it a try though, and lo and behold - I was accepted!

Hey, why not check out my Quilting Bee Quilt, or take a look at these member patches I have made over the course of being member #267.

I was one of those newbees who was super excited about everything. I wanted to trade with everyone. Get “all” the patches. Win awards. Participate in every contest/activity. I quickly learned that there is way more to it than all of the pixel goodies. The Quilting Bee is a community. It’s more than just trading patches, winning contests, and even more than hanging out in the BBS. The Quilting Bee is a place where you can make friendships that will hopefully last forever. It is a great source of support and not just support for how to pixel better or how to make a website, but also great personal support. We share laughs, jokes, pictures, patches, but also real-life stories. It’s a great place to have to go to when you just need to talk about something, anything really! Someone is always around to talk to usually.

I have been very privileged in winning several awards and holding several staff positions. It does make you feel good when you win an award or when you mark momentous occasions in the club. I became a Princess Bee on February 27, 2007. I was really surprised and honored when I was asked if I’d like to become a Princess Bee. I have always been a bee who loves to help out any way I can. Becoming a Princess Bee was very exciting for me. I’m also a WorkerBee (bees who check member websites/quilts), HoneyBee (bees who vote on newbees), BBS Moderator, and I am the head of the Welcoming Committee. I send emails and welcome patches to newbees along with Arien. I am also the Rejected Bee Liaison (doesn’t that sound fancy, thanks Jem!). This means I email potential newbees who were not accepted and work with them to make changes so that they might apply again and be accepted. This is probably one of the most rewarding things I do. I love to help people get accepted and really be with them throughout the whole process.

If you have a website with a decent amount of content and personal information about yourself, consider joining The Quilting Bee. I really don’t think you’ll be sorry you did. You have nothing to lose, and lots to gain.

Play this crazy game to earn a chance to win a $25 gift card from Target. See the video of my game above.

I was tagged by Bubs. (I’ve never been tagged before! Ah!)

I started blogging back in the spring of 2001. I had a blog I wrote in daily (sometimes more than once) from about 2001 - 2003 (or 4). For awhile, I went blogless. Eventually I picked my LiveJournal back up but didn’t blog faithfully. That was a stressful time in my life. I was teaching in Lexington, having a miserable time.

I’ve only been using WordPress since March. So far, I’m loving everything about it!

So, why do I blog? Well, for a variety of reasons I guess. It’s personally satisfying. It’s fun. Relaxing. A good way to keep my online friends aware of what’s going on in my life.

And I’d like to tag…. Jenn, Jessica, and Arien.

Sometimes I feel like an old lady. Like, seriously. I have so many health related issues. Granted, none of them are serious, so I am thankful for that. At this moment my head and neck hurt, my left ankle and foot have been sore for a few days (it hurts to walk on it, no idea what I did), my eyes feel sore, I have a feminine issue, and I’m tired. It could be much worse of course. It’s just silly sometimes how “old” my body feels. I’m 24 years old for crying out loud! Oh well. This probably sounds dramatic.

I joined StumbleUpon and installed the Firefox toolbar. I’ve found some cool sites so far. This one is pretty neat. It’s an interactive web radio. You choose the genres you like, and then click on a mood, and it gives you a random song. It’s fun to play with, and colorful! Check it out!

I just ranged on my local library. The site is http://www.publiclibrary.org and it is a disgrace! Here’s the email I sent them:

I have lived Hopkins County for all of my life, and I must say that I am highly disappointed by your website. You have a domain name that could get you so much traffic. I imagine other libraries would kill to have the domain publiclibrary.org And yet, you do virtually nothing with this website. Much of the content hasn’t been updated in forever even though people have submitted link changes (AR list link changes, for example). It’s highly unattractive. The navigation is in no logical order and is confusing. It’s hard to find the information you’re looking for. It comes across as very unprofessional and unorganized. The flashing graphics included on several pages are un-necessary and slow down connection speeds for patrons using dial-up internet. You shouldn’t include the date the page was updated unless you plan on updating it frequently. I found several pages that were last updated in 2004. The preschool page is a rainbow mess. This is all very distracting to a patron.

I believe you need to find a professional web designer to design your website. It needs a major overhaul. It makes me sad to see my local library make itself look so amateur. I would like to see the website look more updated and professional. I suspect that visually imparied patrons could probably not utilize this website at all because I am guessing this website does not meet accessability standards. I tested the site with the W3C Markup Validation (http://validator.w3.org/) service and found it to have 579 errors. I also tested it with Bobby/WebXact (http://webxact.watchfire.com/) and it does not comply with all of the automatic and manual checkpoints of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

By the way, I tried to type in my web address in your contact form, and it doesn’t even give you enough room to do that….

I’ve tried to get them to change typos and mistakes on their site several times. I also sent them the new link for the Accelerated Reader lists like 2 months ago or something (?) It’s just so sad that their site is so bad. I wish someone would email me back, but I expect they won’t. I don’t think they even check their email….

Have any of you seen this website? http://snowflakes.lookandfeel.com/

You can cute out your own virtual snowflakes. Totally fun.
Here’s some of mine:

http://snowflakes.lookandfeel.com/viewflake.php?id=12676812
http://snowflakes.lookandfeel.com/viewflake.php?id=12676866
http://snowflakes.lookandfeel.com/viewflake.php?id=12676932