Catching up on DVD's

I continue to be thankful that I have my electricity which means I have HEAT! I am also thankful to have my Internet up and running after being pretty sporadic yesterday. However, the only thing I still do not have is cable. Therefore, I've been catching up on watching DVD's.

I've mentioned before that I'm not much of a movie fan, but I do have 2 seasons of one of my favorite shows on DVD. I have always been a huge fan of The Waltons. Many who know me know that I am more of a fan of the older TV shows and I love The Waltons and their family dynamic and how they lived. I miss my DVR capability that I have with my cable from Insight. How did we ever live a few years ago when we only had recording capabilities with a VHS tape and having to program a VCR!!

Just another example of how far technology has come and how we have grown to rely on it!




Keep safe and warm!
Susan

I've Rejoined Society..mostly...

Hello everyone! What a winter weather mess we have had here in Kentucky. We got hit hard here in Bullitt County and all parts throughout! My family in Grayson County is still in the dark with no phone service.

I lived without power from sometime in the middle of the night Tuesday until about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday evening. Needless to say I was getting quite cold! I think that's the longest stretch I've ever had to go without power. God bless everyone who is still without. After the electricity was back on, my Internet was down all day today and I still have no cable. But at least I have HEAT!! I got caught up on my house cleaning and laundry today without the TV and internet to distract me.

Keep all the families in your prayers that are here in the Louisville area as well as the Leitchfield and Grayson County area and all over Kentucky who are still waiting for their electric to be restored.

On Monday night all of my work friends and I were waiting eagerly for ONE snow day or maybe even 2, but not 4!! Hopefully this icy mess gets cleaned up soon and temperatures will be on the rise. The picture below is the view outside of the window of my condo on Wednesay.

I'm ready for spring!

Susan

Time for Some Snow

Are you ready for this? Well the forecast has talked about it for a few days now. A winter storm warning is supposed to be going into effect for this area around 10 p.m. tonight. The hype has commenced and I am now "officially" hyped up for at least one and maybe 2 days off from work.

I'm not normally one for a lot of snow days so that we don't have to make a lot up at the end, but I'm ready for these days off. January sure does turn into a long month. So, if that snow doesn't come I know a lot of teachers, including this one, who will be very disappointed!! Probably even more disappointed than the students. We've got the day off mindset and the snow better start falling.

Have a good week, and thanks for joining in my snow prayer!

Susan

A Trip to the Movies

I had an awesome time last night getting together with a few old friends to go and see a movie. I'm not a huge movie fan as I am more into TV shows. Maybe my attention span is not long enough for a marathon of movies like some people can do! At least when I sit and catch up on TV shows, I have somewhat of a variety and commercial breaks to get up and stretch. I do have some favorite movies of which Forrest Gump and Titanic top the list. A couple other favorites of mine are The Bucket List, Music & Lyrics, and The Holiday.





Anyway, my friends and I did get out to the movies last night and saw Last Chance Harvey starring Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson. I enjoyed it greatly. It is a nice love story and making you think about remembering the important things in life and not letting your priorities get out of order.





I would recommend this one, especially to any of you "chick flick" fans out there. So what is your favorite movie? Feel free to comment and share!





Enjoy the day and the rest of the weekend!



Susan

Pilates

Good evening readers! As you know, I've been trying to stay up with my exercising. I haven't been to Curves in over a week...Shame on me, I know. Work has been a little crazy busy. I've been trying to do some at home in the evening, though.


I was at one of the schools today, that I go to pretty often to do technology lessons and trainings, and they have a twice a week or so exercise group of a few teachers and staff. I decided to join them after school today and they were going through a Pilates tape and using the huge, bouncy balls. Boy, am I sore in the tummy, not to mention the bottom!! LOL. If I feel like this now, what is it going to be like when I try to roll out of bed in the morning? I needed the good workout, though, as I have never tried much of the Pilates stuff before. I have mostly been a step aerobics or Curves girl.

My goal is to get back into Curves next week, but will visit my Pilates pals when I can also!

Have a wonderful evening!

Susan

PhotoStory

Good evening! It's time for another tool of my trade! Today I want to talk about PhotoStory which is a free download from Microsoft. This is a great way to get students involved in Digital Storytelling.


I just spent today at one of our district elementary schools with two 3rd grade classes creating a PhotoStory video that went with their study of Martin Luther King, Jr. Students had drawn pictures that showed various aspects of the Civil Rights Movement and various scenes of freedom. One class had a Reader's Theater and another class had a poem. I let each class record their performance of their play or poem using Audacity. With PhotoStory, the user is able to Import the pictures in and make transitions, record narration, etc. At the end, the user can attach music or sound files. We attached the student recitations along with a short clip of the ending of King's "I Have a Dream" speech. The students were so proud.


Another use of this program has been used from a group of 7th grade students I worked with last year. They had written a memoir piece for their writing portfolio. We had them bring in photographs and put them in PhotoStory and narrate the story using the writings from the memoir.


At the end of the PhotoStory once the pictures and sound files are attached, the project can be saved as a Windows Media File. Photostory is a great alternative or next step up from PowerPoint.

Enjoy the Evening!

Susan

Cooking

Something else I have been trying to work on throughout the last several months is learning to cook. Being single, I've mainly taken the easy way out and stuck with something from a frozen box and pop it into the oven or zoom through the drive through on the way home from work. Unfortunately that is where many of those unwanted pounds I mentioned a few posts ago came from!

I have been on the look out for some easy recipes that do not take long to prepare or are easy to throw into a crock pot. I've slowly mastered a few things over the past few months thanks to the advice of my Mom and my Sister (they got the cooking talent in the family), and a few other friends. One thing that I've mastered pretty well is barbecue. I put the pork roast into the crock pot and let it cook and then pull it apart and add bbq sauce and there we go...Barbecue! I've also mastered Tortilla Soup with a great, easy recipe I found online. I've tried my mom's meat loaf a couple of times, which is an easy recipe but am still working on making it not fall apart. I've also been working on chili which is coming along. Today I cooked a chicken in the crock pot overnight and just ate it and it turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself. I had some instant mashed potatoes and canned green beans and I really look like I cooked something!! Ha!

It does feel good when I try something new, that I always watch other people make, and it turns out somewhat edible for me! Please feel free to comment and share any easy recipes that a single girl like me could handle trying!

Have a wonderful day!

Susan