Answers from Q & A

Wow! I have to start updating this more often. Don't I say that every time?

I'm finally getting around to answering the questions from Q & A. Thanks Ann and Patrick for your questions.

Ann asked if I had tried the Wii Fit for weight loss.
I have not tried it yet. Mat actually bought me a Wii for my birthday and grad. school graduation (neither of these occurs until August) but couldn't wait to give it to me. I was going to go out and get one for myself so he thought he better go ahead and give it to me. It is so much fun!! We don't have the Wii Fit yet because all of the stores around us are out. Hopefully we'll have one soon. Our neighbor has one and he's already lost 5 pounds using it. :)

Ann asked what different eating habits I have now.
I am starting out with the basics. I'm drinking water and eating healthier. I am actually thinking about what goes in my mouth which is always difficult for me. Also, I'm giving up fast food. McDonalds and Wendys had become our favorite places to eat. No more of those! Also, I'm trying to eat more protein because that keeps you full longer. My mother-in-law taught me that after she had surgery. Even peanut butter has protein!

Ann's last question was to tell the strangest thing that has happened in the last 3 days.
Well, let's see. I'm a teacher so strange things don't happen. HA!!
Probably the strangest thing that has happened was our dog, Patsy, eating chicken bones (no, they're not good for dogs). We had wings (yummy!) the other night and put the bones in the trash. Well, our little sniffer decided to pull them out and eat them while we weren't here. She's never been too interested in the trash can before so we didn't think about it. However, when I got home, she had trash all over our floor. She was sick all day Friday. I think she was rethinking that decision to eat chicken bones.

Patrick asked about recipes.
I don't cook a lot. I'm learning but I'm not great at coming up with meal ideas or recipes. I love cookbooks that are like "3 ingredients or less" because I don't have to have tons of stuff to make them. I've also discovered the Crock Pot and love it because I can start something in the morning and it is done when we get home. Melodie is a much better cook than me. Fish?! That girl is talented.

Patrick also asked for 10 reasons that he, Melodie, and Jamie (their son) should move up here to DC.
They currently live in Georgia (right outside of Savannah - my favorite city ever!!). But, they are going to move up here soon. YIPPEE!! Here are my 10 reasons they should move up here.
1. Free babysitting. Mat and I will babysit anytime!!
2. Playgrounds and parks. There are playgrounds and parks everywhere up here. Our neighborhood has several and we're right down the road from a HUGE park.
3. Great teaching opportunity. Patrick and Melodie are both teachers. Our school system is the 13th largest school district in the country. We have our own professional development department, get paid a lot more than in Georgia, and I work with lots of awesome people.
4. Great schools for Jamie. Because the school system is so big, we have tons of opportunities for kids.
5. There is never a lack of stuff to do. The Smithsonian museums are free, there are lots of malls, and all of those playgrounds and parks. SO much stuff to do.
6. The Cheesecake Factory! Just this week I found out that the Cheesecake Factory is the greatest restaurant ever. You should move here just for that. Yes, I think they do have them all across the country but our's is the best. :)
7. A great group of friends. We've already pre-selected friends for you to hang out with. We are of course the best of those but there are more.
8. Bad Movie Club. Every other weekend, Mat goes to "Bad Movie Club". Him and some of his friends get together and watch horrible movies. It isn't my kind of thing but you and Melodie might like it.
9. Wii Competition. We can all play games on the Wii. It would be much more fun than me trying to beat Mat all the time.
10. You would give Mat's mom a grandson. She cannot wait until Mat and I have kids because she wants grandchildren. She could be Jamie's adopted grandmother and that would take the pressure off of me and Mat. :)
There are lots of reasons but these are what came to mind.

I think everyone is probably tired of reading so I'll update more later.

Have a great Sunday! I hope your weather is nice like it is here. Bring on Spring!!!

My Weekend

I hope that you are all having a great weekend. Mine (Jess) hasn't been so great. Yesterday, we took Patsy to the vet and then to have lunch with Mat's Mom and sister. I was very tired there and got a stomach ache after eating. However, if you know me at all, you know this is normal for me. I came home and took a nap (again normal) but woke up feeling hot and achy all over. BLAH!!

Last night, things got worse. I laid on the couch all evening and finally decided to move to the bed about 1am. Well, Patsy couldn't sleep and neither could I. We woke up at 2am, 3am, 4am, 5:30am, and finally slept until 9:30am. It was a pretty miserable night. Once I moved back down to the couch this morning, things were the same. I've slept a little on and off. Mat did go get me a thermometer, Gatorade, and soup. I'm feeling a little better since I ate and slept a solid hour. I'm working on graduate school work now and hope that I can get that done.

There is supposed to be snow tonight and tomorrow so I'm praying for that!!

Once I feel better, I'll answer the questions from my last blog post.

Have a good rest of your weekend!

Diets and Q & A

Can anyone else relate to that? Well, if you were in the McCarl house you could. We have decided to go on diets. We could both stand to lose some weight and have tried for a while to diet but it just doesn't seem to work. Now, we are both watching what we eat and will attempt to exercise a little. Yes, Mat is the one pushing for the exercise. My idea of exercise is getting up to let the dog out. Pray that we can keep this up!

Have you noticed that every single post I say I'm going to blog more? What happens? I don't! It seems that something always gets in the way or when I have time there is nothing to blog about. If anyone ever desires to know what's going on I figure they'll email or comment and ask. Speaking of comments, is there anyone reading the blog? I know Melodie is but that's about it. So, to see who is reading and to come up with stuff to blog about, leave a comment and ask whatever you want to know. I'll read all of the comments and answer all questions. I figure this will be something fun that I know everyone will be interested in. If you'd rather email your question and have me answer that way, feel free. My email is jfmccarl@yahoo.com.



Have a great week! I can't wait to see all of your questions and comments!

Valentine's Day - A Little Late

It is about time that I posted something about Valentine's Day!

First, let's start with Valentine's Day - First Grade style. Valentine's Day is a HUGE deal in 1st grade. Even as the kids were coming in, they were asking when they could give out their cards. Because I am the horrible teacher that I am, I made them wait until the afternoon. So mean, I know!

The whole day I was sort of dreading it because this class is very active and not always appreciative. However, they really surprised me! They were all so well behaved and thankful for everything they got. They were saying "Thank You" for every card they got. It made me so proud of them.

I think the proudest moment was when I was giving out the cupcakes that I had made for them. Little A said "This is the best Valentine's Day I have ever had! Thank you so much Mrs. McCarl!". I didn't know what to say. It is moments like that that make it worthwhile to work with little kids all day.

Here are pictures of the amazing cupcakes that I actually made myself.

Of course I got tons of cards and candy from the kids. I also got these from D (have you noticed that I don't put my students' full names?). They are gorgeous and were so unexpected!

Now to the McCarl Valentine's Day. This year, Mat and I decided not to do anything special or get each other gifts. We really didn't have the money to spend. We did get each other cards and ended up going out to a little Chinese place to eat. Oh, the best part, we stopped by Krispy Kreme and got heart shaped donuts. That's a great Valentine's Day to me.

This weekend, we did a lot of relaxing around the house. We were going to waterproof our hardwood floors but realized Sunday afternoon that we forgot all about it. Hopefully we'll get to do it next weekend.

Saturday night, I made these cupcakes for Mat's mom's birthday that was 2 weeks ago. They also turned out being for my father-in-law as well because his birthday is on Valentine's Day. The cupcakes are supposed to look like groundhogs (because my mother-in-law's birthday is on Groundhog Day) but they didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. That will probably be the first and last time I make those. Everything said that they were good though so I guess that is what matters. Thanks also to Mat! He actually made much better looking groundhogs than I did.

Why so many cupcakes you ask? Because I have this:

and this:

I LOVE both of these things. The first is a picture of my stand mixer. I have wanted one these as long as I can remember however the KitchenAid brand is over $200 so I wasn't getting that. At Christmas time, Mat and I were out shopping at Target and discovered this one for only $25!! I had to have it and my hubby loves me so much that he let me get it. I LOVE IT!!

The next thing is my new cupcake holder. It has a cupcake pan on the bottom, another holder on the top (they are stackable), and a cover. It holds 24 cupcakes! This is a must have for anyone who often travels with cupcakes. My students are going to love that I have this. I'm already planning cupcakes for every holiday. :) And, of course, this also came from Target and was purchased by my awesome husband. He is so good to me!!

If you have learned anything from this post, it should be:

1) You need to make cupcakes.

2) You need a stand mixer and cupcake holder from Target.

3) My life is so boring that I am blogging about cupcakes and things I buy at Target.

I hope that you had a wonderful Valentine's Day and are having a wonderful start to the week!!

Happy Presidents' Day!

Wednesday is Wonderful

I have already been fussed at by my Mom for not updating after my doctor visit so I guess I better get to it!

I went to the doctor yesterday afternoon. The MRI was normal so that is good. However, that means that I get more tests. I now must have a stomach emptying test because my stomach may not be emptying fast enough. I also get to go have another blood test to see if my liver is now functioning normally.
I was excited to hear that I wouldn't have to have surgery (for that sphincter muscle at my gallbladder) right away but I wasn't happy to hear that I would need more tests. I still may have to have the surgery but she doesn't want to do it until she knows if it is absolutely necessary. She says that it is a high risk surgery and can cause complications so that scared me a little. I just hope that the blood tests are now normal or that it is just my stomach. I really don't want to have surgery!

In other news, are there ever days when you aren't really in the mood to do anything and then something happens to change everything? Well today was one of those days for me. When I woke up, I wasn't all that excited about going to school. I wanted to stay in bed and I wasn't happy about the doctor's orders for more tests. I was just in a funk. However, when my students started coming in, they were all so happy and excited (only God knows why). Two of my little girls brought in Valentines even though I already told them we weren't exchanging them until Friday. They were both so excited because they had special Valentines for me. There was also a note from one of the girls' parents asking what my favorite flower was. I didn't really know what to say. I talked to the little girl and she told me that she wanted to get me flowers because I was "pretty like a flower". It was so sweet that I wanted to cry! I always tell the kids that they don't have to give me anything but they always insist. It is nice to be appreciated. All of the kids wanted to hug me all day and one of the boys even told me I was going to be his Valentine.

I don't know how Mat will feel about me getting flowers and having little 6 year old Valentines. It will be welcomed from me though because Mat and I have decided not to do anything special this year. I guess when you become homeowners you have to give up the simple holidays. I figure that we love each other more everyday so we shouldn't have to do anything special on Valentine's Day.

Anyways, I hope tomorrow is as great as today!! Now I'm off to do graduate school work.

Nice Weekend

First let me say that I am so sorry for not updating better. I never thought that I would go this long without a good update. Things have been so busy and I just haven't had a spare second. Thankfully things are settling down a little now.


We had a wonderful trip to Lenoir for Aunt Lucy's wedding. Well, some of it was wonderful.


We left Friday evening but it seemed to take us forever to get there. We had a few "bumps" in the road but we finally arrived at 3:30am! We all went right to bed and all slept as long as we could before we had to get ready for the wedding.


On our way to the wedding, Mary's car started having trouble. However, we made it to the the wedding. Lucy and Don's wedding was beautiful. I never thought that I would love such a simple wedding but it was amazing. These two people have so much love for each other and it showed. They were smiling the whole time! Their reception was at a cute restaurant with a beautiful outdoor seating area. The food was wonderful!! I think I ate about 5 of these truffles that they had. Amazing!! Mat was happy with the meatballs. Yes, we love food!!


Saturday evening, we had to go to Advance Auto Parts and Charles tested the alternator in the car. Of course that was the problem but they weren't able to get the part until 9am on Sunday. So, Charles ordered the part and a wonderful guy at Advance offered to put it in for us on Sunday. Yay for the nice guy in Lenoir!!


After that, we all tried to relax a little and went and had a nice time at Lucy and Don's new house. It was great to be with people that we don't see very often. All of Mat's cousins live far apart now so it is hard to keep up with everyone. We are hoping to come up with a way that we can all get together and visit more often. We had a wonderful time Saturday night.


On Sunday morning, we packed up, went to have the alternator fixed (and enjoy the finer shopping of the Big Lots and Dollar General while we waited), and then said goodbyes to everyone. Our trip home was much better than the trip there. We enjoyed some wonderful fast food. I learned that I really need a Sonic and Jack in the Box closer to me.


We got back about 8pm and picked up Patsy from her weekend with Cubbie. Then, I got to come home and do a paper for grad school that was due by midnight. I got it finished with 30 minutes to spare!!

Then, today it was back to work. I was tired from all of the traveling but it was definitly worth it. We were all so glad to get to spend some time with family. We wish we could see everyone so much more but it makes it so much nicer when we do have these times together.

By the way, tomorrow afternoon I go back to the doctor and we'll discuss my MRI and possible surgery. I really hope that I don't have to have surgery but we'll see what the doctor says. I'll try to get on tomorrow evening and update everyone.

Until next time, enjoy these pictures from the weekend.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Busy

Just a very quick update since I haven't been on in almost a week.

I'm doing fine just very busy and it will be even busier this week. I have tons of graduate school work to do as well as school stuff to do. We're going out of town next weekend for Mat's Aunt's wedding (YIPPEE!!) so I'm trying to get ahead on my grad. school work. So much to do!!

I go on Wednesday to have my Abdominal MRI and after that I will have to meet with my doctor again to discuss whether or not I need the surgery. I'll let you all know how Wednesday goes and when/if I hear anything from the doctor.

Have a great week!! I'll try to get on and update more as I have time.