happy december 31st!

guess how many photos i took in michigan for christmas? one. and it was blurry.

blogging fail.

anyway.... we are BACK to our darling home. welcomed by 50 degree weather. joel's out washing our cars in his t-shirt. he even had to get the hose back out from hibernation!

we're spending the day preparing for our new years lunch tomorrow. i've been cooking/baking up a storm and joel cleaned the entire house. tonight my bff is hosting a little dinner party and we're bringing chairs & homemade hummus. should be a grand time. (ie: relaxing before the craziness that will be tomorrow morning!)

on our 1-year anniversary

ok i realize that our anniversary was one month ago tomorrow. and i realize that we didn't take any pictures & posts are relatively lame without them.

however, this year was way too big not to reflect upon. plus, i kind of imagine myself reading this post next year so i want to have some record of my thoughts.

and because i love lists, that's how i'm going to organize them...
1. this year a lot of miscommunication happened. i thought i was good at speaking clearly and expressing myself. apparently not. there were so many occasions where joel thought one thing and i thought another. but we both thought we thought the same thing (see, just explaining miscommunication is confusing!)

2. even though waking up to the 5:50 alarm is hard (mostly because we just want to hang out with each other all day), it's also easier knowing that the next 50 minutes will be spent with the love of my life. eating breakfast with joel, making our lunches, talking to him while he showers/i brush my teeth, and kissing him goodbye as he gets dressed in his shirt & tie.as i drive to school i'm optimistic & joyful & filled with gratitude because my morning began with joel.
3. my husband is so.incredibly.selfless.goodness, this man! he does it all: washes the dishes, irons, cleans the floors, unloads the dishwasher, scrubs the foreman grill (my LEAST favorite task!), carries in the groceries, listens to me, hugs me, etc. etc. etc. joel has loved me beyond what i thought were human capacities. i'm so grateful to call him mine.

4. i think i was doing alright before joel & got married. i had a steady job. i ran fairly regularly. i was emotionally stable. i was relatively kind to others. i was pretty patient. BUT this year, being married to joel has grown me in unbelievable ways. his love has given me freedom to pursue grad school, comfort to cry when it's necessary, perseverance to run farther & push myself more, patience to avoid yelling at my students (one.more.time.), and courage to branch out in my community.

words really can't describe how much this year has meant to me.

thanks, joel, for choosing me, and for loving me unbelievably well.

[note: i decided to add a few random pictures. simply because they break up the text nicely.]

new years lunch: planning

we're hosting a new years day lunch for some friends & neighbors on january 1st. here's what i'm gonna make.

main courses: black bean salsa chicken (with rice. which i'm making in my rice maker. for the first time ever), homemade mac'n'cheese (for the kiddos, mostly), pumpkin sage pasta
sides: raspberry walnut salad, hummus with crackers,grandmommy's rolls (1st time ever making them by myself!)

desserts: brownies, monkey bread, poppy seed bread

i hope it's enough food. i'm super excited but also semi nervous.

class, tree, book, hair: in other words, no semblance of order

i just finished my first grad class ever. it's one in a series of four that will earn me a certificate to teach ESL. no final grades have been posted yet, but above is part of my final project. i think it was probably the first poster i've done since middle school science fair. hopefully i've improved since then. [once, after a gigantic project, my then-about-6-year-old brother said "i'm sure glad we're done with our math fair project." operative word being "our" since it was actually mine. but i totally procrastinated (like always) and it ended up being a whole family endeavor. sorry, mom & dad!]

 i loooooooooooove our little christmas tree! it looks seriously darling.

 this is my current read. written by one of the writers/actors on the show "the office." SO freaking hilarious.

whenever i read a blog and see a woman wearing a scarf as a headband, i think to myself, "that looks utterly darling," so i try it myself. and usually end up thinking it looks absurd (bordering on disgusting!). this morning i realized there are 2 reasons for that fact. 1. if my hair isn't perfectly high on my head, i look bald. never a good thing. 2. i'm usually not wearing makeup whenever i decide to do my hair like this. add a little blush & some mascara= much better overall appearance & better feeling about the scarf/headband. ha!

blog awesomeness

1. i can never remember where i found cool stuff online so i always blog about it. but then i can't ever find the specific post. darn. anyway, in attempt to save this cool i idea i saw (on a blog, of course), here's a photo. and here's where it came from. the family apparently has a similar clothespin chart for quality time with mom & dad. brilliant!

2. i saw this beautiful doily blanket on another blog i read (zoiks, can you tell i'm obsessed?!) it's way too expensive to buy for myself, but i think my bff will make one for me. if i can choose a yarn. which is turning out to be slightly impossible.

tonight and tomorrow and friday

my bff found this blog on pinterest (which i'm avoiding on purpose. internet, don't tempt me.) i don't use my crockpot as much as i imagined, since it automatically goes to "warm," and leaving food on warm while i'm busy being a teacher (about 6:30 to 4:30pm) actually ends up with burnt dinner. SO. i do have a few classics that i make, but they tend to be on weekends.

report card conferences start tomorrow. can't decide how i feel about them. i'm not really nervous. i'm excited about conversations with some parents. i'm not thrilled about meeting with a few.
 
on friday, to celebrate the conferences being over, we're going to get our christmas tree. i'm totally jazzed about this. about a month ago i got white lights while they were still in stock. [side note: last year around this time white lights were nowhere to be found. joel kindly offered some blue lights he had in the basement. my newly-wed self struggled silently for a good long while before quietly thanking him and putting on the blue lights. it actually turned out cute and will be a special memory in my heart forever. first.married.christmas. success.]

 

here's what the living room looks like tonight, with the addition of a few handmade christmas gifts from momma. and with an updated arrangement of a nativity set we got as a shower gift. i like it on the mantle a lot.  

2 quick things

there are 2 blog posts you should all read:

1. my friend rachel and her husband are having an auction. it started yesterday and their are some AMAZING things!! all the $ goes towards adopting their little Ethiopian.

2. this recipe looks delicious. i may try it. next week, though, because my meals are already planned for this week. and the ingredients are purchased. so it'll wait.

somebody make these!

oh goodness. i may try to make this.

and probably this advent calendar (with things to do together!). 


someday.

because for goodness sake, i don't have time right now.

lately...

since my last post i've celebrated our first anniversary, driven to rhode island & back for thanksgiving, graded a hundred million essays/tests/journals, written report card comments, checked attendance for 21 students for 3 months, and opened christmas presents from one side of the family. what a (wonderful!) whirlwind.

and now, in no particular order, a few photos from life lately.

 (joel drew this on my hand on sunday, november 20th. who cares? oh, yeah, it's our anniversary, duh.)

 (nelson family christmas)

 (it was on zoom. oh well.)

 (cliff walking in newport)

 (my rad brother)

 (merry christmas to meeeeeee! new hand-made white pillows from momma!)

 (this book is a total throw-back to my younger years. i'm reading it to my students next)

(if i can't eat dinner till 8pm, i better have a little snack)

this will be random

first item of business: my blog friend rachel and her husband are in the early stages of adopting a baby. they're doing an online auction to raise money for the process. check out their blog and stay tuned for more details.

second: i'm completely swamped with work right now. it's two weeks from report cards and things are just insane. plus, grad school is winding down. tonight i got news that i did an assignment wrong a few weeks ago. i'm going to try to make up the points, but it was a frustrating class nonetheless.

third: on sunday joel and i will celebrate one (successful, amazing, joyful) year of marriage. this has to be a post in itself because i am utterly overwhelmed with love for him and gratitude to God for the gift of this marriage. gosh.

fourth: a funny snippet from my week... on wednesday i gave the kids 2 minutes to talk to their friends, hoping that it would cut down on the constant chatter that happens when i teach. one boy came over and this is what was said:
me: A, you are running out of time to talk to your friends.
A: i wanna talk to you.
me: oh, okay. did you watch the new girl last night?
A: yes!! it was good.
me: what happened?
A: well, jessie. well, jess... was having this date. and she was nervous about cooking the turkey. and...  [i can't remember the rest of what he said because i was simultaneously monitoring the other 20 hooligans in my classroom]
<2 what a darling!

best veterans day ever

 dad took a 4-hour bus ride (each way!) to meet me in NYC for the day

 we took the ferry to staten island and got a relative close-up of the statue of liberty...

 (she's in the background behind me, but you can't really tell.)

 while crossing the brooklyn bridge, we saw a bunch of wedding photos being taken.  

it was 11/11/11, after all.

 the wind was chilly. dad had his laptop in a backpack (heavy!). my legs hurt the next day.

but it was awesome.

 i got my wish of checking out brooklyn bridge park, which i've seen on a couple of my regular blog reads.

 THANKS, daddio, for a great day of adventure! i love you!

winter yumminess

i just stumbled across this post for making your own hot chocolate (on a stick!). so awesome.

a great holiday idea!

ohhhhhhhhhh the holidays are coming! i'm so looking forward to gift giving, christmas trees, giant feasts, and family galore.

for an inspirational start to the season, read about this family's tradition. i LOVE that the idea focuses on quality time, generosity, creativity, and does not promote materialism.

gabrielle (design mom) doesn't share about it in this particular article, but i'm pretty sure hers is the family that gives one clothing item, one toy, and one book to each child at christmas. i plan on stealing that idea some day.

pitiful/hilarious

happy saturday to me.
sewing this:

to avoid grading this:

on avoiding procrastionation 1: cooking style

i'm currently putting off lesson planning in order to write a post about planning ahead when cooking. kinda ironic, eh?

this year i think i'm much more proficient at meal planning than i was last year. i start my shopping list/weekly meal list on thursday night when the store fliers come. by monday, when i go shopping, i have a complete plan & list. i'm trying to figure out how to decrease the amount i spend each week, but that's another post in itself. this post is about planning my meals ahead of time. here are a few examples from my kitchen lately:

1. last saturday we had our third annual oktoberfest. i signed up to bring chili, corn muffins, and caramel corn. since i had plans in the early afternoon, i did all my cooking when i woke up. i got all the chili ingredients ready in the crock pot & put it in the fridge for joel to turn on later. the corn muffins went in a bag to stay fresh & the caramel corn got wrapped up tightly. (all the food i made was demolished quickly, so i'd say that effort was a grand success!)

2. tonight's another good example of prepping/cooking ahead. friday nights are a bit more rushed so i planned what to make on friday (recipe via "the good neighbor cookbook") and started part of it while cooking tonight's dinner. speaking of that... joel comes home late from grad school so i try to have dinner ready by 7:45pm. tonight is also lesson-planning night so i started my chicken broccoli casserole (recipe via my mom) as soon as i got home. while the chicken/broccoli cooked, i started my plans. then i took a break to mix up the other ingredients and get it ready to put in the oven, which i'll do about 30 minutes before joel's due home.

 (accidentally ripped my recipe!)

*on a related note, for the recipe i made for friday, i tried this garlic peeling trick for the first time. worked like a dream!

**on another related note, all this prep-ahead causes my sink to look like this. my darling husband's been doing the dishes basically all week, but i'm going to clean these bad boys up tonight before he comes home from class.

overheard in my classroom 2

"if you're gonna be my girlfriend, you gotta start acting like it. you gotta be nice to me"

HA!

Good Neighbor Cookbook

my brother-in-law gave me an amazon giftcard for my birthday (what a brilliant idea!) so the first thing i bought was a book i've been eying for a while.

it's organized into categories based on appropriate-ness of recipes: bringing home baby, church potlucks/PTA meetings, new neighbors, summer BBQs/block parties, condolences, "get well soon", etc.

i already ear-marked a couple pages to use in the future (whenever any of my friends has a new baby and/or if new neighbors move in nearby!). i also added the ingredients for one recipe to my week's shopping list because i want to make it next saturday. just for us. yum!

halloween idea!

halloween is monday and this weekend we already have lots of fun (& school work!) planned. but next year i might try this idea for carving pumpkins... using cookie cutters! (i found the link via design mom)

what fun!

overheard in my classroom 1

"a little boy was nekkid playing on the floor in the bathroom"
(sadly, i couldn't stop my laughter after this comment & it encouraged the kids to keep saying it over and over. oops. but come ON! nekkid on the floor?! who was that kid?!)

"ooooooooooh, your mom's pretty" (said to one of my girls)

"mrs. alberts, i love you"

"you draaaaaawin!! that's so draaaaaawin!"

and the best part of my day today:
"you're amazing. i've only been here an hour and i'm exhausted!"
[well, thanks, mom of a new student!]

and a happy veteran's day to you

i invited my students to participate in writing letters to my granddad for veteran's day. here are a few gems they created...

"dear Mr. Kelly, Thank you for fighting for our country. That was amazing for you to do that.  I thought anyone who fought for the war would not make it. Thanks again hero"

"dear Mr. Kelly, how was it like to hold a gun? so sorry many people died each day."

"thanks for saving the world."

"mrs. Alberts told us that you were alive and that you still are. thanks. I thank you for your hard work."

 "thank you for riscing your life to save us. i hope you stay alive for a long time now."

"you saved your army members and beat your enemys. I'm thankful you saved the united state."


"Truly, your grandchild's student, ________"

"My grandpop was a veteran, too! he fought in vietnam, he did not kill many people. he mostly killed wild dogs" [wait, what?!]

"Dear Mr. Kelly, thank you for fighting in the war for use i am so happ you are alive right this moment."

annnnnnnnnnnnnd my favorite:
"Dear Mr. Kelly, I am verry geatfull you fought in the war for our country. I wish I could hug you. Thank you hero. P.S. Have a nice day"

a fall road trip to VA

last weekend my cousin tom got married. it was awesome not only because now we (finally) have another girl in the family (welcome, kai'li, to this wild world of kelly boys) but also because so many family members were there together.

the wedding was lovely. my cousins were hilarious. my granddad was darling. my aunts & uncles were fun. joel was a champ, as always.

 joel & i shared a cabin with mom & allen at shenendoah crossing. the fall foliage was amazing and the weather was perfectly crisp!

 we took a tour of UVA since there's so much fam. history there. it was homecoming, which made the crowd a little crazier than usual, but we enjoyed seeing the sights our parents saw & chatting together.