My Most Embarrassing Experience

The most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me took place when my son was in eighth grade. I was fortunate in that for the first six years of my teaching career my children were able to attend the school in which I taught.  I did not have to worry about before and after school care, and we had the same days off each year.  I also had the pleasure of being my children’s 8th grade Language Arts and history teacher.  My children might have another opinion as to whether or not it was a pleasure to have their mom as a teacher.    They could not get away with anything!

The incident in question happened one day in the middle of one of my son’s Language Arts classes. One of the guys decided he should “break wind”.  Gross!  Something most 8th grade boys or just boys in general think is funny.  With a disgusted look on my face, I walked over to the window and opened it.  My son immediately piped up.

”What’s the big deal?” he asked. “That’s the first thing you do at night when we get into the car to go home at the end of the day!”

The class had a great laugh at my expense. Mortified, I laughed along with them.

When my son and I got into the car to go home that night, I quickly engaged the child lock on the power windows.

“Oh my god!” my son shouted.

Ahhhhhh! Sweet revenge! “That will teach you,” I thought.

Here is my card today.  I call it Lovely As A Tree Meets Festival of Trees.  I’ve paired an oldie but goodie which can be found in the Annual Catalog with a new set from the current Holiday Catalog.

 

Lovely As A Tree Meets Festival of Trees

I will admit the lighting on this isn’t that great.  That’s because I loaned my digital camera to my son to use while student teaching to record some of his lessons.  That leaves me with my cell phone camera which does an okay job, but my other camera has a flash on it.  The things we do for our children!  If only I would have the opportunity to embarrass him in front of his class as he did me when he was in 8th grade!  You never know!  Maybe when he gets a job I will pay him a visit one day.  🙂

I did some heat embossing on this.  That seems like the thing for me to do these days.  I’ve rediscovered heat embossing.  Sorry, but the Pool Party Seam Binding is no longer available, but this color is available in the cotton ribbon.

Hope you enjoyed your visit here today.  Please let me know what you think of my creation…and my story if you like.  Thanks for visiting and until next time…

Happy Stamping!

Josie2

 

 

 

 

What’s in Your Bag?

I was trolling the internet and happened upon USWeekly.com. They do a feature called “What’s in my bag?” where they ask celebrities that exact question.  The celebrity then tells us what is in her bag.’

Journalist and celebrity Meredith Vieira says she carries the basics, like her personal BlackBerry, work iPhone, Starbuck’s Card, make up, and make up removal wipes. Celebrity Tia Mowry says she carries hand sanitizer; an extra pair of her son’s training pants, a book on potty training, and a DVD player for her son in her “Mom” bag.

The website MailOnline.com says “82% of us believe the contents of a woman’s handbag reveals a lot about her personality (and what is important to us), and 42% of woman say looking inside someone’s hand bag is as personal as reading her text messages.”  I would have to agree with the 42%; I always taught my children (and my husband) that my purse was my private stuff therefore off-limits.  On the few occasions I have told either my son or husband they would find what they needed in my purse, they always appeared a bit intimidated to go into it.

According to the same article, some women carry toilet paper. Well, I guess you never know when the spirit will move you! 🙂 Others carry their iPod or mp3 players, chocolate, and money/bank cards.  They also said that 4% of women have confessed to carrying a spare pair of under ware.  Probably the ones that don’t carry the toilet paper!

So, I was cleaning out my purse the other day, and this is what I found.

  1. Another tote (You never know!)
  2. Three dirty tissues
  3. Four starlite mint candy wrappers
  4. One lipstick
  5. Two chapsticks
  6. One sunscreen stick SPF 55
  7. 1 travel size mascara
  8. 1 ½ packages of purse size tissues
  9. Crumpled up post-it note
  10. $2.77 in change
  11. One feminine hygiene product
  12. Three business cards from the salon I go to with my last three appointments on them
  13. Two used toothpicks L
  14. A package of plastic tooth picks from the dentist’s office
  15. A pair of ear rings
  16. Business card holder w/ business cards
  17. Pillbox containing Motrin, aspirin and several of each of my prescriptions
  18. Beano  🙁
  19. A note pad
  20. Five pens
  21. Two mechanical pencils
  22. Small pencil sharpener
  23. My rosary (not because I say it)
  24. Two small tubes of hand lotion
  25. Comb
  26. A zip lock bag of Dum-Dums
  27. A zip lock bag of mixed nuts
  28. Reading glasses and case
  29. Sunglasses
  30. Two rubber bands
  31. Checkbook
  32. Id card holder attached to a lanyard w/o my work id in it
  33. Whistle
  34. Expired coupons for Macy’s, Kohl’s, and Michaels’
  35. A coupon for a firearms training class
  36. Mini binder clip
  37. Two half consumed rolls of roll aides
  38. Nail file
  39. Mini screwdriver
  40. Nail clippers
  41. Eyebrow tweezers
  42. Extra business cards in case I run out of the ones that are in my business card holder.
  43. An old grocery list
  44. A small case containing rewards cards from various local businesses.
  45. Pocket calendar
  46. Smart phone
  47. Wallet w/ credit cards, debit card, and receipts from recent purchases
  48. One mis-matched white sock
  49. My car and house keys
  50. Nail polish
  51. Lens cap for my husband’s camera (He thought he lost it)
  52. Small slip of paper containing usernames and passwords

What’s in your bag?

Whats in my bag

The card I am sharing with you today features the For All Things stamp set which is found in the Holiday Mini Catalog.  I am very pleased with the way this turned out.  I like it so much that I’ve made multiples to send for my Thanksgiving card.

For All Things - 2

I stamped the leaves and background directly onto a piece of 4″ x 5 1/4″ piece of whisper white card stock using Hello Honey for the background and Mossy Meadow for the leaves.  I stamped the Hello Honey first.  For the leaves, I inked my stamp then stamped directly onto the Hello Honey, then stamped again onto the card stock without re-inking.  Then I repeated the process; ink the stamp, stamp onto the card stock, then stamp again.  So you are essentially stamping off right onto your card stock.  To get the loopy linen thread, I laid down a strip of sticky strip, cut a length of thread and just looped a few times and laid it down onto the sticky strip.

I cut the burlap ribbon about 4 1/2″ long.  I bannered the end then wrapped the other end around the back of the card.  Part of the sticky strip helps to hold it down.  I used glue dots to hold down the piece of Moonlight DSP.  The crumb cake card stock is 1″ wide.  I layered everything and then stapled everything to the card base using the Hand Held Stapler in the Holiday Mini.  The sequins were leftover from the August My Paper Pumpkin Kit.

Hope you enjoyed your visit here today.  If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to let me know.  Until next time…

Happy Stamping!

Josie2

Works Cited

Lacey, Martha. “Emergency loo roll, chocolate and spare knickers: What women REALLY keep in their handbags (and why men are afraid of them).” Mail Online. Associated Newspapers, 27 Sept. 2012. Web. 20 Sept. 2014. <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2209423/Loo-roll-chocolate–spare-knickers-What-women-REALLY-handbags.html&gt;.

“Meredith Vieira: What’s in My Bag?.” Latest News. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Sept. 2014. <http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-beauty/news/meredith-vieira-whats-in-my-bag-201459&gt;.

“What’s in My Bag – Us Weekly.” Latest News. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Sept. 2014. <http://www.usmagazine.com/whats-in-my-bag&gt;.

MLA formatting by BibMe.org.

Need My Head Examined

No, I didn’t bump it.  I think I am loosing it!!  I retired after 21 years of teaching  this past school year.  I knew that I would want something to keep me busy, as if I don’t have enough, so I applied for a few jobs as  a teacher assistant in one of our school districts.  I knew it would be a job easy to do and stress free.  That was my biggest thing…I wanted something stress free.  Being a substitute teacher for the district was also an option, but for some reason I chose to do this.  So, for the last 4 weeks I have been a Title 1 Educational Assistant in a Title 1 school.  All that means is that the school I work in gets extra federal dollars because it has the qualifying amount of low income students.  These dollars are to be used to help bridge the achievement gap between these students and others that are achieving at higher levels. Let me digress for a moment.

Although no one will ever officially say that higher income students perform better than lower income students, they usually do.  Why is that?  Maybe because the families of students that come from a higher socio-economic background can afford to do a lot of things that low income families can’t.  Things like, take your kids to see a play, the zoo, etc.  In other words, they can afford to  experience some of the  THINGS in life that you wouldn’t think would help a child achieve.  Maybe higher income families put more emphasis on education.  Maybe they can afford to have one parent stay home and help kids with their home work.  Maybe it is a lot of things.  Who knows?  Just know that no one will officially say the amount of money a family does or doesn’t have affects the achievement of its children even though in my experience it does.

Any way…I’ve been working as a part time 4th grade Title 1 Educational Assistant for two teachers.  Corralling a class of 35 fourth graders is like corralling bees.  They are everywhere and have something to say about everything!  They can be just as disruptive and disrespectful as some of the older kids I used to teach, but they got something going that the older kids don’t.  They are cute (most of the time), and they still like their teachers, and for the most part they still like school.

So why do I need my head checked?  Well you see…the school is about to hire another 4th grade teacher, because the two classrooms have too many kids in them.  I applied for the position, and I am scheduled to interview for it tomorrow.  My reasoning is, I know the kids already, they’ve already been disrupted by having a sub take over their class for the past week and a half, and I feel like I can do it.  Heck!  I KNOW I can do it.  But my stomach has been aching, and I’ve been dreading taking on that big of a responsibility again.  We’ll see…I will probably not even be offered the job.  Sometimes I hope that I am not because then I won’t have to decide and I can say, “Their loss!”  🙂

Here is my card for today.  I realized I got this stamp set for free at convention, and I haven’t even used it.

Bright & Beautiful - 1

I used two of my favorite colors on this one; Crushed Curry and Lost Lagoon.  Although, Stampin’ Up! hasn’t had a color I haven’t liked yet!

Hope you enjoyed your visit today.  As always, I enjoy hearing what you have to say either about what I’ve written or what I’ve created with my stamps.  Until next time…

Happy Stamping!

Josie2

Hardest Thing I’ve Ever Experienced

I’ve been through many hard things in my life, and when asked to write about the hardest thing I’ve ever been through, I wasn’t able to pick just one.  There are three events that come to mind that were very difficult for me.  These events are Army basic training, the death of my father, and witnessing my son’s struggle with a life-changing illness.  For brevity’s sake, I will only write about one.

Army basic training took place around the summer of 1978 or 1979.  I don’t remember exactly.  It was the first time I had ever been away from home, and it was the first time I ever flew!  I was a poor college student at the time, and I remember seeing an advertisement in the school newspaper about how I could earn $100.00 a month tax-free.  In those days, $100.00 a month was a huge amount of money.  A broke college student could buy books for four college classes with $100.00!  It was worth checking out.  It turned out to be an advertisement for the Army ROTC program on campus.  Since I had already completed two years of schooling, I could get into the two-year program by attending basic training to make up for the two years of Military Science classes I had already missed.  And, I could do all of this without signing a contract!  As I spoke with one of the Professors of Military Science on campus (in this case, an active duty Army Major) my biggest concerns with attending basic training were, “Will I be able to blow dry my hair every morning?” and “Can I wear makeup?”  Of course, the answer to both of my questions was yes, and he DID NOT lie to me when he said so. He did; however, fail to mention that I would have to get out of bed at 3:45 a.m. every morning in order to do those two things!  But I am getting ahead of myself.

Telling my parents that I was thinking of joining the military was not an easy thing.  As mentioned in my last post, my mother was “old school”.  Born in Italy in 1931 and raised a Roman Catholic, she spent a lifetime mastering the fine art of “feeling guilty”.  She immigrated into the United States at the age of 15, and lived with her parents until she married my father when she was 23.   As I grew up, I was always told that being married and having children was the ultimate thing to experience, and if I did, I would not want for more.  Or….SHOULDN ‘T want for more.  In spite of all of her beliefs about a woman’s role in life, NOT going to college was always out of the question.  But joining the military?!  When I finally gathered enough courage to break the news to my parents, the first words out of my mother’s mouth were, “What?  What do you mean?  Only whores and lesbians join the Army!”  My mother was a piece of work.  She insisted on meeting the Army Major with whom I had spoken.  The Major agreed to a meeting.

After the meeting, my mother’s concerns were somewhat alleviated.  In the meeting, she discovered that his family and hers were somehow “paisans” (compatriots) from the “old country” and everything would be okay.  (The Major was Italian!  Thank God for small miracles.)

I flew off to Louisville, KY the following summer to endure six weeks of basic training in Ft. Knox, KY.  A place that would be sheer misery, agony, and heartbreak (famous hills in Ft. Knox with which every trainee is familiar because they are either road marched or run) for a short time of my life, but  unbeknown to me at the time, a place where both of my children would enter this world, and a place I would call home for five years of my adult life.  (A different story!)

I remember eating breakfast before leaving home that morning and not eating again until 11:00 that night.  I was given all of my combat gear that day.  Once stuffed into the standard issue olive drab duffel, I carried it on my back to the barracks I would call home for the next six-weeks. For me, this was no small feat.  A standard issue Army duffel bag weighs about 100 pounds and stands approximately 3 1/2 feet tall when filled. In my twenties, I weighed around 115 pounds and I stand 5 feet tall. So I am sure you can envision that I was bent double at the waist as I carried that bag.  And to top it all off, I had never done anything physical in my life until I arrived in boot camp. (This was a time of firsts in my life.)

I awoke the next morning to shower, wash my hair, and put on makeup before “falling in” for first formation at about 4:30 a.m.  I remember doing my first PT (physical training) and thinking I had died and gone to hell.  The humidity in Kentucky is so high that when I was finished, the make up on my face had been sweated off.

Sleep in basic training is a precious commodity. It did not take long to learn that lesson. In order to get the maximum number of minutes of sleep each night, I took to showering and dressing for PT the night before. On day two I remember waking at the sound of the bugle’s reveille, and the only body parts I could move without hurting were my eyeballs.  I rolled out of bed already dressed for the morning’s PT no makeup, no freshly washed and styled hair, not caring what I looked like. “God; help me make it through today.”

I really wanted to go home. But I didn’t.  I had made a deal with my grandfather, before leaving for this place.  He told me to do it to the end, whether I decided to stay with it or not.  He said, “Don’t quit.  If you quit, you will always wonder.” So, no matter how stinkin’ hot and humid, how bug and mosquito infested, how prickly-rashed, how sun burned, how poison ivied and poison sumaced, how athletes footed, how butt-chafed, how snake infested, how dog-tire, how home sick, how agonizingly grueling it got…I DID NOT GIVE UP!  Even though there were millions of times, I wanted to.  Grandpa was right.

In the end, my Drill Sargent said that on the first day he looked at all of us and asked himself who would be the first to go home.  He said he had me pegged as the one, and he was surprised when he realized I would make it through to the end.  You know what, Drill Sargent, I was surprised too!

Today I am sharing a Christmas card that I made using Festival of Trees and Endless Wishes.

Festival of Trees Emboss Resist - 2

 

Festival of Trees Emboss Resist - 1

I used the emboss resist technique on this one too.  Since I’ve learned what it is all about, I think I am hooked!  In order to make the snow mountain at the bottom of the card, I tore a piece of paper and lightly attached it to the white card stock upon which I was planning to stamp.  I then inked my tree stamp with Versa Mark ink and stamped, gradually allowing the stamp to overlap onto the mask I had created with the torn piece of paper.  This gave the effect of the trees getting smaller.  I then heat embossed using White embossing powder.

Hope you enjoyed your visit here today.  I am adding one last photo, but not of my card.  I found a photo of the three hills I mentioned in my writing and wanted to include it so you can see why they are called what they are called.  Thanks for stopping by today.  Until next time…

Happy stamping!

Josie2

051D4BFB-DFD3-440E-865C-F123D6B862E8-2354-000002D6E9D8E057_zps51724852[1]

Here is the website from which I obtained the photo of Misery, Agony, and Heartbreak:

“M14 Forum.” M14 Forum RSS.N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Sept. 2014. <http://m14forum.com/army/139287-figure-will-stir-some-memorie-knox-2.html&gt;