Roses

The beautiful purple roses I had waiting for me when I came home from work yesterday. They are opening up and looking even more beautiful today!

Jon thinks he's luckier because he got cake to eat, and all I got was flowers. I think I'm luckier because I got cake to eat AND flowers.

Thanks for the roses and for sharing your cake, babe!

Aloo Gobi

It's hard for me to believe that this year was our 7th Valentine's Day together. We met each other in January of '05 but didn't become "official" until March, so maybe that first Valentine's Day wasn't official... but since I haven't solemnly sworn that this is our 7th "official" Valentine's Day together, I'll say that it is.

Whew. Glad that's over.

Thanks to some wonderful coupons from Groupon, we went out for a delicious Indian dinner. I've had Indian food several times, but we don't get to eat it often so it was definitely a treat. My favorite dish (actually, it's the only dish I've ever ordered from an Indian restaurant) is Aloo Gobi, which is potatoes and cauliflower in this tasty sauce. Jon ordered Chicken Vindaloo, which is chicken and potatoes in a curry sauce. We also ordered simosas and naan. I ordered my dish mild, because they can make it pretty spicy. It tasted anything but mild, so I was glad I had ordered a Mango Lassi, which is a mango yogurt smoothie to help sooth my sissy throat (I stole that description from my father, and I really can't think of a better one.)

The yummy naan bread.

Aloo Gobi and Chicken Vindaloo

My Mango Lassi. Sweet enough to be dessert!

I love you, my favorite Valentine!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Brown Baggin' It

I survived the white lunch bag drama, sucked it up, and used the brown ones. They turned out cute enough. I was tempted to go to Wal-Mart this afternoon just to see if they had restocked their white lunch bag inventory.

I gave each table hearts to cut out and candy sweethearts, and they wrote various phrases from the candy hearts onto the paper hearts. It started conversations about kissing and girlfriends and I felt like I was teaching the 8th grade or something, but it was all good. They had fun, and even though I dislike the taste of candy hearts my room smelled delicious so I kept the hearts out all day. Excellent air freshener.

After dismissal I had a post-observation meeting with my principal, and when I went into the conference room she had two giant red cabbages sitting on the table. Odd, no? The 4th grade team has some people from 4-H come every Wednesday, and they have vegetable gardens behind the 4th grade classrooms. The gardens are tiny but stuffed full of things like cabbage, cauliflower, tomatoes, and more. Apparently these cabbages were ready to be cut so they gave them to her. She didn't want both, so gave one to me. I got a cabbage from the principal!

It doesn't get more local and organic than that!

H-E-A-R-T

I went to a workshop today called Shake, Rattle and Read. I got another wonderful Jack Hartman CD and upper and lowercase letter magnets, and was able to make several more books and activities for my classroom. One of my favorites is a Valentine's song that goes to the tune of BINGO. It's not the most educational from the day, but it sure is cute.

HEART

To show you like your friends at school
Just give them each a heart.
H-E-A-R-T
H-E-A-R-T
H-E-A-R-T
Each heart says "I like you".

After we sing the song the first time, then the "H" holder flips it around to find a pair of lips, and instead of saying "H" we give a kiss! We go down the line until we are saying no more letters, just giving lots of kisses. I can just guess what my 5 year old boy's reactions will be!