Student or Teacher?

So I will be beginning my student teaching on January 9th. I am very excited about it and have already been talking with my cooperating teachers.

I will spend my first 8 weeks at Coolidge Elementary in Cedar Rapids. I have talked on the phone with this teacher and I am VERY excited to spend these weeks with her. I will have 18 classes a week and have grades K-6. One of my college professors is also very good friends with her and cannot stop saying wonderful things about her. I will get to meet her in about a week.

My second 8 weeks will be at Jefferson High School in Cedar Rapids. My cooperating teacher goes to church with a few of my good friends from Cedar Rapids so I am very excited about that connection as well. Jefferson is a Big school in comparison to Roland Story so this will be a new and exciting change. They will be putting on Thoroughly Modern Millie for their musical this spring which I will help with. I am very excited about this since I was in this musical during my high school years.

I will keep the updates coming once everything begins. Can't wait for this chance to learn and teach at the same time!!!

4 letter word everyone seems to hate...

S.N.O.W.

The forecast for tonight is 1-4 inches of beautiful, unique, incredible white fluff. Whenever I have heard someone talk about this today or have mentioned it to people their first response is "really?" in a monotone, annoyed tone.

Now I'll be the first to say that scraping snow off my car and trying to stomp through feet of snow when late or dressed up are not my favorite things. There are aspects of winter and snow which I could do without HOWEVER...

I can choose to live in Iowa or Texas.
I can choose to be annoyed or excited.
I can choose how I respond to this forecast.

So for the past 4ish years I have chosen to LOVE winter. To embrace everything about it. Why complain?!? We live in Iowa... God has given us 9 months to prepare for snow and since you've experienced it say 20 times before, you know what's coming.

So let's all choose to LOVE winter and when there's a -30 degree windchill and you are outside scraping 2-inch-thick ice off your car which was covered with 2 feet of snow... SMILE because you are experiencing an incredible creation of God in an extremely intimate and interactive way. :)

Blessed.

We are blessed.

Over the past month I have been bombarded with stories about people who have a much harder life than I have. Here are a few examples:

-Watched "Hotel Rwanda" and saw all the lives of those people being torn apart.
-21 year old boy: mother and brother were shot in his presence when he was 5.
-21 year old girl: had a gun stuck in her mouth at the age of 4 and threatened to be shot.
-21 year old girl: husband of 1 year is filing for separation and kicking her out.
-Started reading Kate's Kisses which explains the lives of children in Uganda and the trials of living there.
-Read my cousin's blog about living in Africa and the daily struggles that brings.

And those are just a few examples. Yet I continue to complain at times. God has blessed me in so many ways. I have never seen anyone be killed, I have never been abused, I have never been 'hungry', I have never had to worry about money or where I was going to sleep at night. I have a WONDERFUL life.

Yet... I am distracted in this world of "comfort" and "easy". In Kate's Kisses the author talks about how going through all the trials without any 'comforts' caused her to fall on her knees before the Lord. It MADE her depend on Him. In this world where I have a 'wonderful' life I am never MADE to fall down. I am never without help from a worldly thing.

So yes I am blessed, yet at times I see those 6 year old children in Uganda as more blessed than me. They understand what it means to fully drop before the Lord and praise Him for ALL that He is since they have nothing else in their lives.

Burlap Wall Hanging

Burlap Wall Hanging
(just inspired)

I was going to do another craft from Pinterest which required a frame so I bought a cheap one from good will. I ended up getting inspired in another way and that original craft never happened. Maybe another day. But here is what came out instead!

Bought a cheap frame, felt, burlap, and wooden letters to spell whatever I wished, in this case...Family.

Painted the letters red (to match the felt) and the frame brown.

Lined the backing of the frame with burlap.
(I had never thought of burlap before as an option for decorating but am starting to love it more lately... and it's decently cheap!)

Made some more felt roses which you can see a tutorial on my previous post.

Hot glued everything on! DONE!

Twine Letters

Twine Letters

(inspired by Pinterest)

This craft was a bit time consuming but ended up really cute! I am very excited about it.

I started by outlining the letter with twine.

Then I wrapped the letter completely, hot gluing the twine on the back as I went.
It was kind of hard determining which was the twine should go and how to get it there.

The finished wrapped up letter.

Next... felt roses. Here's a quick tutorial.

Cut a 'wiggly' circle like below.
(I had started the next step when I took this picture)

Cut around the edge going towards the center so it becomes one long 'snake'.
Leave the end as a little circle. (See below)

Start rolling up the fabric starting at the end you started cutting.
You can change the look of the flower depending on how tightly you roll it.
Hot glue the bottom of the flower to hold it all in place.
Take the circle piece at the end and glue it to the bottom to make a finished look.

I made 2 flowers for this. The size of the flowers depends on the size of the original circle.

Then I cut a strip of the fleece and glued it on the back. SIMPLE!

FINISHED PRODUCT:

Reusable Makeup Removers

Reusable Makeup Removers

(inspired by LisaGrace Alsbury)

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Craft #3-- If you didn't see the other two crafts I've posted look below. There's one more to come as well...
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I go through around 1 tube of cotton rounds a month. They are about $2.00 a tube ($24.00 a year) and I just throw them away... not a way to save the planet!

So I saw this on another blog and decided to try it out! Nothing crazy and they aren't well made (because I made them so fast) but they will work.

Bought a 1/4 yard of FLANNEL.
Sewed right sides together into a long strip.

Turned it right side out.
Cut into small squares.

Did a quick seam down each side of the square and viola!

A completed square (don't judge me by the horrible side seams/cuts... I am a bit embarrassed by them)

I am simply putting them in a 'delicates' bag when I wash them. Hopefully these work.

Total cost: $0.68 for 30 pieces
Saved: $23.32 and a bit of the world :)

Easy Canvas Design

Canvas Design

(inspired by Pinterest)

I simply put drywall mud into a plastic bag, snipped the end off and squeezed it onto the canvas. Then once it dried I painted it all.


I did draw out the design before so I knew where to put the mud. It was also hard getting the mud to come out evenly so I may experiment with new types of pastes or something. The people I got the idea from said elmer's glue but I tried this and it did not work out.