Leave a comment on any post from Jan. 28--Feb. 4 to enter my birthday give away. You don't have to have a blog to enter, but you will need to check back to see if you are my winner.

I need lessons with the camera!
I know it's NOT fun to enter a drawing and not know what you could win! Please be patient with me, and I will extend the give away until I get some sort of pictures to add to the blog.

A small group of teachers and I get to attend CCIRA, in Denver next Thursday and Friday. During the 30 years (or so) of my teaching career, I've never attend this convention. I am excited because I missed going to a national Reading First conference in Nashville last summer when I broke my arm. This will be so much better--no humidity and no plane travel. I am willing to travel to Great Britain again, but really don't enjoy flying.

Leave a Comment to Enter

Please leave a comment on this post to enter my first give away!

My birthday is less than a week away and I am going to celebrate by drawing a winner next Wednesday. Sarah, my daughter is going to win, if you don't leave a comment! Now aren't there rules about family members not being eligible in a contest?? (Many thanks to Graphics Fairy for the image)

Oh my! We have five days of school this week. Some of the students were quite restless and made it difficult for their classmates to concentrate and work! Last week our school had a four day week because of MLK Day so that makes this normal week seem so loooong!

I learned how to add a special signature tonight. I can't wait until doing these things gets easier. However, as a teacher I know it just takes lots of practice!

Give Away--Please leave a comment to enter...

Anniversaire is French for birthday!(Thank you Graphics Fairy) So this card is perfect for announcing that it's one week until my birthday! When you visit, leave your name in the comments section and you will be entered in my first give away. I'll need an address to mail the prize to you, so leave some way that I will be able to contact you. Your chances of winning are excellent! I have one week to gather the treats and post a picture. And you have a week in which to leave your comments.

Please invite your friends to stop by Heart Song for a quick visit so they may also leave a comment. It will be a lot of fun for me to meet you!

I LOVE READING!

I've loved books since I was in First Grade! I can remember the name of the reading series I had as a student at my first elementary school. Of course, some of those books are now on their way to becoming expensive collector's items!

After moving to a new farm near Wellington, I attended a four room country school house and I even remember my dear teacher's name. (Yes, we had indoor plumbing...) Checking out a stack of books from the children's area of the Fort Collins Public Library was also an important part of my life long love of books.

If you love books, check out Paper Back Swap!! It's a system with over 2,900,000 books and adding more titles everyday! Both Wallace and I look forward to receiving books in the mail and have mailed out more than 139 books since joining about 13 months ago.

It's REALLY COLD outside!

I found this picture on The Graphics Fairy and thought the fur muffs, hats, and scarves would be just the thing for today. But here on the plains of Colorado, currently at 8 degrees F. and going down to an overnight low of 3 below, we need buffalo skins with a few heated bricks in the sleigh for warm feet. Thank goodness this isn't the 19th century anymore. Out here on the plains we actually have all the same conveniences that city folks have . ; ) I love my defroster and heater in the car. And our seat warmers are sure going to be used tomorrow morning!

Sunday Fun

This past week I potted up the rest of our Amaryllis bulbs that we brought in before the first frost last fall. We let them grow outside during the summer so the leaves can "feed" the bulb so the plant will rebloom. I love to see them inching their way up to produce these huge blossoms. We have bulbs in a variety of colors, and once they start blooming we have almost a month of flowers to enjoy inside. Aren't God's beautiful creations wonderful!?


Besides making Sweet and Sour Pork for our Sunday dinner, I've been learning to add more things to the blog! My face has a big silly grin this afternoon because thanks to Sarah and help from Jan at Rose Haven I can add pictures and gadgets to the side!! Thank you both! This is SO much fun! However, I am not getting much done in the cleaning department. Oh, well.

Tea Cup Give Away at Rose Haven

Apparently, I now know how to get a link on my page!!! Hurray. Thanks, Sarah. You are so wonderful.

It is time for weekending...several more things to learn about while my own personal expert is at home to guide me. Also, several people asked me to design lanyards for the ID badges we must now wear every day at school. The only thing I am not fond of is pricing my work. I will have to do some serious thinking because most everything I make I give to family or friends.

BUSYNESS

Time goes quickly when there's an activity after school EVERY day!

Now I'm learning how to add comments on other blogs, actually getting things "on", and not have them disappear. I am really good at having my fingers hover above the keys, but once in a while they must land on SOMETHING that makes things disappear. Of course, I don't know what I've done, or how to recover the info. Consequently, I begin again! Or if my patience is nonexistent, I give up!

I am also learning how to enter give-a-ways and how to add a "button", but I don't know what that means or how to do it. Another item on my list to ask Sarah about! (Can't find the answer myself)

LIFE LONG LEARNER

2009 Goal


Our mission statement for our school district includes preparing our students for the 21st century and creating life long learners. That would also apply to teachers, like me. Cindy at My Romantic Home responded to my entry for a give-away, and shared with me that it is easy to start a blog (a goal for 2009). I had mentioned my hope when I signed up for the give-away. I didn't win the lovely "prize", but I did get the encouragement I needed. Thanks Cindy!

I put one foot forward into the land of the 21st century (computers, blogging, etc.), and am now writing on my own blog. (Not very exciting news/pictures, yet). At the present time, I think I know how to add an address to the page so that a visitor can click on the link and open a new blog. We'll let Sarah try it out first! On to more learning...

My daughter starts a blog!

Got an e-mail from dot, and now she is blogging, too! Of course, she's better at it than I am. She even has pictures! You must understand that she has the camera and the knowledge to put it all together. I'll just have to get her to show me how to do the fun stuff.

So for now, all I can do is type. Since I had late game duty after school, I am ready to relax and get my brain going on something more fun. In our small school, teachers have all kinds of duties that colleagues in other areas never have to do.

As one of my favorite story book characters says, "TTFN!"

SUNDAY, our day of rest

Today was a quiet day at home. We celebrated Sarah's birthday, which isn't until Tuesday, since she'll be back in Denver. I can't believe she is going to be 28. WOW, time marches right on and what a blessing it's been to see this beautiful child grow into a wonderful woman.

We live next to a dairy and the calves have been bawling the last few nights. I don't know what's going on over there, but it bothers our Newfie, Boo-Boo, so he barks, and barks. Newfies usually aren't barkers, but when something is not right, ours lets us know. Also, the coyotes were noisy, so the two females in the family haven't had a good night sleep. Of course, the man of the house doesn't hear all that is going on, so he feels fine. Hope Sarah and I can get going tomorrow morning!

As I am new to blogging, I am going to experiment with the fonts. There's nothing fun about reading something that is difficult to see. Or is that just because my eyes are aging at the same speed as the rest of my body?

First time blogging

Greetings to all!

This is my very FIRST posting! I am so new at doing this I know I'll have many questions to ask our daughter, Sarah. Thankfully she often travels back from Denver to visit. Her dad and I love having her come home and bring Buster, her very spoiled pound puppy.

Special thanks goes to Cindy at My Romantic Home for her encouragement in starting a blog. I mentioned that one of my goals for 2009 is to begin a blog...and here it is, only the second weekend of January, and I am doing it!

No pictures or links yet. Those will be the next items on my list of things to learn about in the near future.

Today is the one year anniversary of a miracle in our family. It was 10 below with a wind chill making it a horrible time to be out and about. My husband was driving slowly on the icy roads when he was hit by a SUV that was traveling too fast and coming off the interstate. Since this driver couldn't stop at the stop sign, she pushed his car into the path of a loaded cattle truck. Because of the icy roads, the semi wasn't going very fast (this driver knew how to drive in winter), so Wally was able to climb out of the car. Now, a year later, after surgery, lots of therapy, many refills on pain meds, he still has some back pain that bothers him. However, he is still here...singing in the choir at church and in his chorale group that he loves so dearly. Praise God from whom all blessings flow.