About Me

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I am a twenty-something second year teacher living in the midwest. I am a Christian woman and proud of it! I am the middle child of three girls. I am the proud aunt of the very beautiful Lil E and Lil C!! I love TV, movies, reading, and baseball. I am in my second year of teaching , but my first year teaching kindergarten. It has been quite the journey!

29 November 2010

It's Christmas Time in the City

It is a Bean Family tradition that we chop down our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. This year was no different.

We headed to the Christmas Tree forest all bundled up, as it was about 27 degrees out and flurrying! We looked around for a few minutes, not really seeing anything good. Then we found a couple of decent prospects, but nothing to write home about. We had almost decided on another tree, when I saw IT. IT was a little bare in places, but tall and skinny (just what works in the space we have). So we chopped it!

Then comes the fun part. We got it home and had our annual Height Guessing Contest. Momma came out the winner at exactly 13ft! We have very tall ceilings in our family room, so we get very tall trees!!

It was Lil Sis' year to put the star on top, but since the tree is so tall, we have to put the star on before we stand up the tree.



But the tree was soooooooo tall that the star was scraping on our very tall ceilings... So we had to lower it down and chop a bit off the top...
And then stand the tree back up. Then the moment of truth, cutting the twine that holds the tree. One year it took us hours to get the tree re-balanced after we cut the twine, so we're always nervous for this part.

Even though the star was still touching the ceiling...

Then Daddy climbed up to the highest step on the extension ladder, the yellow one, well above the step that says "Do not go above this step," while I held on for dear life and pretended he wasn't up that high, to put the lights on. We got extra large bulbs this year, which are very pretty.

Finally it was time for ornaments! Well, after a lunch of leftover Thanksgiving appetizers :) It is tradition that Lil Sis puts the Winnie the Pooh ornament on the tree first.



Momma and Daddy get in on the action.


All done!


Well... except for the annual trying on of the Christmas tree skirt!

28 November 2010

100!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Long time, no write. Basically because I was trying to get inspired as to what I wanted my 100th post to be. Then I got sick for almost two weeks and didn't feel like posting. Then there was just so much that I hadn't said... anyway, here it is!

The Jillibean's 100th post!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *cheering* *applause* *the crowd goes wild* ...

Here's a recap of what's been going on in my life since I last posted...Nov. 7th when I got hit by a deer...

*My car finally got a new mirror! Yay! No more having to drive Momma and Daddy's cars!!

*Thanksgiving!! Big Sis and BIL and Lil E came to visit!! Hooray! They spent the day with us and Momma's family on Thanksgiving and then all day Saturday :) We were so excited to see their cute little faces!!! Also, Lil E is the cutest baby ever. period.

*I got job for after graduation!!!!!!!!!!!! I will be subbing for a first grade teacher who is out on maternity leave. It is scary and nervousing, but so nice to know what I'll be doing after graduation.

*I've been stressing out about graduation and getting all of my stuff to me. Since I'm student teaching near home and not near my university, it has been lots of work getting my cap, gown, graduation tickets, honors cords, etc. I've decided that everything regarding graduation is 2x harder when you're far away.

*I got chosen to speak at the college of education graduation ceremony, the night before "real" graduation!!! So excited and nervous... but proud :)

*Visited Lil Sis at college. She and her roomies cooked Thanksgiving dinner and no one died!

*Saw Harry Potter at midnight with Momma and then with Lil Sis.

*Met up with Lil Sis and her BF, Kev for a delicious dinner.

*Stayed home by myself ALL weekend. Scary!

*Was sick as a dog for about a week. Tried to teach with no voice, my students had no pity on my :(

*Went to a wedding shower of one of my former roomies. Then stayed with Laura H, my bff from college. We had such a fun night!

*Met my bff from high school's daughter, Rylee for the first time. She's such a cutie.

I've been busy! And I still have a couple of special posts up my sleeve!

07 November 2010

You got hit by a deer?

Rory: Oh my god, I just got hit by a deer!
Lane: You hit a deer?
Rory: No, I got hit by a deer!

This was me on Tuesday on the way to school. Yes, I got hit by a deer, while more specifically, my car got hit by a deer!!! So scary. Luckily my friend J was in the car with me otherwise I probably would have freaked out.

It was still darkish out and we were coming down a hill and there it was. Thankfully it only hit the mirror and both J and I are fine. God was definitely looking out for us! But still so scary.

Then we had to head off to school and teach all day. My CT was so sweet about it, making sure that I was OK and all right to teach, which I was.

p.s. The deer ran into the woods, so hopefully it's OK.

p.p.s. the next morning we hadn't even made it out of my neighborhood when a rabbit ran in front of the car. It was pretty ridiculous. I'm pretty sure that this is proof that God has a sense of humor.

05 November 2010

I am Grateful for... An Excellent Thursday

I am grateful for an excellent Thursday.
After waking up sick, I had a pretty great day on Thursday.
The lessons I taught at school went wonderfully!
The students were engaged and excited.
One of them told me how much fun he was having doing math activities.
It was a great feeling.
And my CT told me that she got goosebumps watching me teach :)
And she told our principal, which is awesome!!
What are you grateful for today?

03 November 2010

I promise you, the right man won't care

Don't keep reading if you don't Clockwork Angel spoiled for you...





I detailed my feelings toward Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instrument Series here. However, I recently finished Clockwork Angel and had to share my feelings about it (my book reading buddy hasn't had time to start her copy yet and I am dying to talk with somebody who had read it. Sorry Momma, you're a great listener, but you have no idea what I'm talking about...)


At first I was very disappointed that again, I had fallen for the "other guy" in one of Clare's books as I fell head over heels for Jem. Love me some Jem. He's so sweet and caring and nice (a lot like Simon, but not as funny :)

Will on the other hand I could do without. The bit near the end where he was telling Tessa that he just wanted to sleep with her, but would never marry her or even date her. I think I punched my book. Jerk! I yelled, glad to find out that I had indeed made the right choice in going for Jem.

Then of course the epilogue happened, Will went to visit Magnus, presumably to find out if there was a way that Tessa could bear children. So maybe he isn't quite the jerk I thought and Tessa will end up with him and I will again have chosen the "wrong" guy.

Plus Jem will probably die :( But he is the best. Evidence: " 'I know you feel inhuman, and as if you are set apart, away from life and love, but...' His voice cracked a little, the first time Tessa had heard him sound unsure. He cleared his throat. 'I promise you, the right man won't care.'"
And then my heart melted. It could be that I'm especially prone to sighing at the whole "right man" thing in my life right now, but I think that Jem is the best.

Here are some more insightful quotes from the romantic Jem, who gently kisses your hand instead of wanting to sleep with you but never marry you... "Whatever you are physically, male or female, strong or weak, ill or healthy-- all those things matter less than what your heart contains."

"It is only ever about whether something is good for the Nephilim or bad for the Nephillim. Sometimes I think that we forget to ask whether it is good or bad for the world." (Umm hi, let's substitute Americans, Democrats, Republicans, politicians for Nephilim and I think we have a pretty valid statement as well...)

"Sometimes...our lives can change so fast that the change outpaces our minds and our hearts. It's those times, I think, when our lives have altered but we still long for the time before everything was altered-- that is when we feel the greatest pain. I can tell you though, from experience, you grow accustomed to it. You learn to live your new life, and you can't imagine , or really remember how things were before."

"There are more important things than being careful."

"But there is more to life than not dying."

"And Mizpah, for he said, the Lord watch between you and thee when we are absent one from another."

"It is as great a thing to love as to be loved."

"I believe in good and evil...And I believe that the soul is eternal. But I don't believe in the fiery pit, the pitchforks or endless torment. I do not believe that you can threaten people into goodness."

Here is a quote not said by Jem, but about him... "There was something in the way Jem looked at her, she thought. Like he could see into and through her. But nothing inside her, nothing he saw or heard, could bother or upset him."

How can you not fall for this guy???

Especially when your other choice is a guy who says, "I've never seen someone get so excited over books before. You'd think they were diamonds." To which Tessa astutely replies, "Well, they are, aren't they?" True dat. You tell him Tessa.

Here are some of my other fav quotes:
*"If no one in the entire world cared about you, did you really exist?"
*"The handsome young fellow who's trying to rescue you from a hideous fate is never wrong." This was before I had really met Jem and still thought Will was charming...
*"Only the weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry."
*"Inanimate objects are harmless indeed, Mr. Mortmain. But one cannot always say the same of those men who use them." Henry is so wise.
*"It could hardly hurt the Nephilim to cease thinking that all those who do not live exactly as they do must therefore not truly live at all."
*"It's all right to love someone who doesn't love you back, as long as they're worth you loving them. As long as they deserve it."
*"I'm a lady, Sophie. It is expected that a man sacrifice himself for a lady's safety." [Jessamine] "That's rubbish." [Sophie] Girl Power!

Anywho, you can basically judge how much I liked a book by how many quotes from it I write down in my quote book. This one was pretty high :)

I really liked Tessa's character. Partially because my sisters and I once wrote a Harry Potter FanFic about Hermione's much younger sister Tessa and her exploits at Hogwarts... and partially because I thought that she was a strong woman, who stood up for herself, who didn't let Will take advantage of her and who used her gifts to save not only herself, but others.

I got Clockwork Angel at the same time as I am Number Four, which I've never reviewed... I'll have to get on that, but I lent my copy to my friend J...

01 November 2010

Halloween fun!

Here is a step-by-step tutorial of how the Bean Family carved our pumpkin this year. We tried to be experimental and light our pumpkin with blue LED battery-powered Christmas lights. It didn't turn out quite how we'd hoped, but we got lots of comments on it from trick-or-treaters and their parents.

We didn't carve our pumpkin until Halloween day, because we're slackers...

Step 1-
Paint an Olde English D on the pumpkin with runny blue tempra paint (really, it's better if the paint isn't runny, but you work with what you've got.

Step 2-
Cut off the top and scoop out the pumpkin seeds (to be roasted later).

Step 3-
Have Momma get out all the gooky stuff.

Step 4-
Have Daddy scrape all of the strings out.

Step 5-
Drill holes into the pumpkin for the lights to poke through.

Step 6-
Insert the lights into the holes you drilled.

Step 7-
Turn the lights on!

Sadly you can't really tell what shape the lights are supposed to be making once it gets dark out... but here's one with the flash where you can still see the D painted.


Here are a couple pics of me dressed up in the fab Belle costume Momma made me (she is the best!!!) When I wore it at school I didn't have the long-sleeved shirt, but it was fuh-reezing last night!!! I ended up wearing gloves and hat, handing out candy!!

Of course Belle has to be reading! Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.