My First Christmas Snow!

I want to be a weather man because according to The Weather Channel yesterday, it was not supposed to even rain today. (If I had that poor of an accuracy rate at my job. . . well, you know what would happen.)

So, I tried a lot of different shots, but since the ground was too warm for it to stick and it was really very little flakes, the only way for me to show this to you is this way. Apparently, even if snow won't stick to the ground or the cars, it will stick to the black lab.

This is officially my first ever Christmas snow:-)

Christmas Light Show

This man is smarter than I can ever hope to be! This is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. We have seen a couple others, but this is the best one, by far. These guys also have more time on their hands than I can ever hope to have:-)

Yummy Dip

This is the dip recipe that everyone liked and was asking me for at our Roerdink Christmas dinner. I know I served it with tortilla chips, but it goes really well with a soft cracker like Ritz or captain's wafers. I think it would also be good with cut up strips of a crusty bread or pita.

1 pound mild sausage, browned and drained well
24 oz container sour cream
8 oz package cream cheese, softened
2 cans Ro-Tel tomatoes (you find these in Mexican food section), drained

Mix it all together and heat it in a small crock pot on low until it is warmed through. You will want to keep an eye on it because if the sour cream gets too hot, it will begin to break down. Serve warm (right from the crock pot works well).

Marathon Grading Day!

75 Reading Response Journals
75 Writer's Workshop Notebooks (notes section only, thank goodness! If I don't grade it, they fail to keep it organized.)
75 Word Stem Tests
75 Pieces of Expository Writing

I want to get as much of it done today as possible, even though grades are not due until 2:00 on the day we come back in January (the 7th) because I want to take home as little as possible. I already know the expository pieces will be coming home with me because I have wordy gifted kids (when we did narrative, some of them wrote 6, 7, 8, 12! pages.). But everything else will be in the grade book program before I leave today even if I have to stay until 5:00.

I remember when I started and I taught regular ed. and I had 120 kids. If I still had 120 kids now, I think I would have jumped off a cliff already. Or, maybe just dumped the grading off the cliff.

Jeff's second fire

Gwinnett County decided to send Jeff's class on another overhaul yesterday. This was an apartment fire that was caused by someone disposing of cigarettes inappropriately (the only good way to dispose of those stupid things is to never make them). It was really sad to see the footage of the apartment building and realize that one person's careless made so many people homeless last night.

Here is the news report:
http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail;jsessionid=7A29AC1B735C7BEF562634DE2531DE48?contentId=5144904&version=2&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=1.1.1&sflg=1

A SLOW TRAIN IN GEORGIA

This is the the steam engine of the Tennessee Valley Railroad doing their fall color tour. The ever so slight red neck dialogue that is going on in the background just adds to the charm of the video. This train is another reason that I love living in LaFayette. Nothing says, "It's fall!" like sitting in church on Sunday morning and hearing that train blow its whistle.