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!

27 February 2011

Oscars Red Carpet 2011

My Red Carpet Tweets- And they're actually in order, unlike last year...

Thoughts so far- loved Mandy Moore, Mila Kunis and that sweetie from True Grit.

Jennifer Hudson looks so good. Such a fun color.

I loved Amy Adams dress too. So classy and beautiful!!

Scarlet Johansson's dress- Absolutely gorgeous. Love the color and the beautiful lace. But is it transparent?? yikes.

So excited for Beastly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I kind of love Melissa Leo's dress.

Justin Timberlake brought his Mom. Adorablespice.

Helena Bonham Carter looks better than at the Golden Globes but not as nice as at the SAGs...

I love Hillary Swank, she seems so intelligent and down-to-earth.

:) Hugh Jackman.

Reese Witherspoon looks beautiful. Love her hair. Her dress looks very similar to a dress I wore to Snowcoming. :D

Nicole Kidman- yikes!

They're showing Mila Kunis again, so so gorgeous. Beautiful color, beautiful dress.

Christian Bale is the best, Newsies, Little Women, The Fighter.

Sandra Bullock is the best!

Celine Dion looks fantastic and she had twins just a few months ago...

Robert Downey Jr. is so nice to look at.

Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law presenting together, so much attractiveness on one stage.

Natalie Portman looks beautiful, but she seems a little sad, I keep thinking she's going to cry...

26 February 2011

Oscar Preview

I love the Oscars. They are one of my favorite times of year. I love the fashion, I love the celebrities, I love the movies, I love the tradition.

As the Oscars are Sunday, I decided to publish my pics for all the major categories. I already put my two cents in on best picture

Best Picture- The King's Speech

Best Director- Tom Hopper- The King's Speech.
I don't really know how directing affects a movie, aka how you can tell that a movie had a good director, but the best movie I saw was the King's Speech, so I guess it had the best director...

Best Actress- Annette Benning- The Kid's Are All Right- Didn't care for the movie, but have to go with her because it was the only movie nominated that I saw...

Best Actor- Colin Firth- The King's Speech

Best Supporting Actress- Amy Adams- The Fighter- Love her and she was spectacular in this movie.

Best Supporting Actor- Christian Bale- The Fighter- Love him and he was fantastic in this movie.

Best Animated Movie- Toy Story 3- If this doesn't win I will seriously punch somebody.

Best Original Screenplay- Inception- I think the King's Speech is very well-written, but I have to give best writing to a movie that was actually an original story, I mean the King's Speech is based on real life... Inception was totally original.

Best Adapted Screenplay- Toy Story 3- I'm not really sure how this is adapted, but it is amazing.

Best Original Song- I See the Light- Tangled, loved Tangled and the music :) did I mention that it has the first green-eyed princess :D

Best Original Score- I'm going to go with Inception, but I don't really recall the scores of any of them...

Best Visual Effects- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I

Best Costume Design- The King's Speech.

Enjoy the Oscars and may the stuff I want, I mean, the best films win!

17 February 2011

The Best Goodwill Find Ever!!

Every Christmas Eve in memory Daddy has read us 'Twas the Night Before Christmas before we go to bed. We have one version that we love above all others. It is a very old Golden Book that was Momma and her sister's when they were growing up.

This year Daddy bought a copy online for Big Sis, BIL and Lil E, so they could continue our tradition.

When I was at Goodwill today, looking for fancy things for our Fancy Nancy party tomorrow, I was so excited to see this:

The Golden Book of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, plus the 45!!

For only $.25!!! Such a deal. If you want any other Golden Books with 45s, they had a bunch more!

So of course I had to buy it. We love this version because it is so old fashioned looking. It has the original old-fashioned language and beautiful illustrations.


Beautiful! Such a great find!!

14 February 2011

:)

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Please check out Busy Bee Lauren's beautiful Valentine's Day post. The pic of Lil Sis and I that I submitted is about halfway down the post. It's a pic from the Backstreet Boys concert this summer :) Good times.

L-O-V-E

Busy Bee Lauren is doing a post today featuring many of her followers and people they love. It inspired me to do a post about the many different people that I love.

I love my sisters so much!!!!! They are the best friends a girl could ask for!!!



I love my parents more than words can say. They are absolutely the best parents in the world; I am soooooooo blessed to have them in my life.




I love my girlfriends so very much! They are such great friends and have brought so much joy and laughs and support to my life!



I love my beautiful niece Lil E!!! I'm so grateful for her!




I love my Tigers!! Maggs and Inge are my top two Tiger loves :)




I love my big ol' extended family, including my wonderful cousins!



I love all of these wonderful books and the book boyfriends they contain :)

I hope that you can spend the day with those that you love!!!!!!

13 February 2011

Just like Romeo and Juliet

Lil Sis and I have been pretty excited to see Gnomeo and Juliet ever since we first knew it was coming out!! (Actually, before we knew that it was coming out, Momma was telling us about this movie about warring factions of garden gnomes, but she thought she was just making it up, I think maybe she read about it and forgot...) We have a strange affinity for garden gnomes, I think it stems from the dad on Lizzie Maguire's love of garden gnomes...

Anyway, we've been very excited. When we went to see the Fighter, we discussed how we wouldn't get to see any fun previews, like for Gnomeo and Juliet. Well, guess what preview we saw, Gnomeo and Juliet, we were so excited!!

Since Lil Sis is away at school, we decided that we would see it separately first and then go see it together when she's home some time. So I went to see if Friday with my friend Jessie.

Here's my spoilery review...

I found the movie pretty funny. I had read a review that said it lacked that humor Disney/Pixar movies always have which appeals to adults, but goes over kids' heads. I thought it had some of that humor, but that it was usually thinly veiled innuendos, which I didn't find appropriate for a children's movie, even if they aren't going to get them. (ex. Gnome's hat height representing their honor/manliness, and one character asks about Gnomeo's hat, Juliet says it's very tall and pointy...) The adults in my theater found it very funny.

I realize that this is a children's movie and should have a happy ending, but I was slightly disappointed in the un-tragic ending. I mean you can't change the end of Romeo and Juliet...

But I did find the movie highly entertaining. Garden Gnomes are fabulous and awesome. I loved their lawn mower races and the 2B and Not 2B house numbers. I loved all of the places Shakespeare references came up. I loved Juliet's "Nanny" the frog. Those little bunnies were adorablespice.

The Elton John music was perfect for the movie, I loved the little Elton John gnome :) But I kept waiting for the character of Benny to break out in Bennie and the Jets and he never did. I mean why name a character Benny if he's not going to sing that... But otherwise loved the music :) Good times.

Also I love that Juliet had green eyes. I love girls with green eyes, like me. One of the reasons I loved Tangled so much :)

Overall I would definitely recommend going to see the movie!!

11 February 2011

I am Grateful For...

I am Grateful for... God's Plan.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've had the opportunity to interview for two long-term subbing positions in the district I'm currently working in. Both of them would be great opportunities, in grades where I have experience and at new schools I haven't worked in.

I interviewed at one first and it went really well.

Before I heard back from them, I had the other interview. They seemed very interested, but didn't want to step on the toes of the other school, but they wanted me to keep them up-to-date on what was happening with the first job.

Last time I was all confusedy. I didn't know what to do. There was one spot that I would slightly prefer and I wasn't sure how to handle the two competing jobs. I prayed that God would show me where he wanted me to be and that His will would be done, not mine.

Today I found out that I didn't get the job that I interviewed for first. At first I was pretty disappointed, but I tried to remind myself that God had a plan for me. I was getting kind of upset that I didn't get this job that I really wanted, when it hit me. I was one of those people.

Like that story where the guy is sitting on his house, which is all flooded and he prays to God to save him. When boats and helicopters come past he says he's fine, God will save him. Well, he ends up dying. When he meets God he asks why God didn't save him. God says, "I sent a boat and a helicopter."

It hit me that I had prayed and asked God to show me which position I was supposed to be in and that His will was done, yet when that happened I was disappointed. God had answered my prayer and shown me that the first job wasn't where He wanted me to be. God closed a door because I asked him to give me guidance and vision on where He wanted my life to go. I realized that I should have been praising him for answering my prayer, not reaching out for comfort. I trust that God has a plan for my life and that I am living it. I'm hoping that I'll hear back from the other school soon, but I know that God has a plan and that's the one I want to follow!

10 February 2011

Let It Be

I love, love, love the song, "Let it Be." I've never been the biggest Beatles fan (I used to dislike them, but I think it mostly pre-teeny angst trying to annoy Big Sis who loved them...). I think they're great and all that, but I've just never been a Mega Fan.

But I loooooooooooove Let it Be. I think part of this love is based on one of my high school bff's high school dance recitals. One of the advanced ballet classes danced to Let it Be and it was gorgeous.

I think it's such a beautiful song. The lyrics are so simple, but uplifting. The melody is also very fabulous.


When I find myself in times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree,
there will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is still a chance that they will see,
there will be an answer. let it be.

Let it be, let it be, .....

And when the night is cloudy, there is still a light, that shines on me,
shine until tomorrow, let it be.
I wake up to the sound of music, mother Mary comes to me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

Let it be, let it be, .....



It makes me smile and makes my heart happy and hopeful.

This guy on American Idol just sang Let it Be, which is what inspired this rather random, unorganized post...

08 February 2011

Tuesdays at 10

Tuesdays at 10 get a little crazy at the Bean house. There are four shows that we want to watch and our DVR can only record one, while we watch another. This presents quite a conundrum.

Up until a few weeks ago our plan went like this:

Momma and Jillibean watch


On our main TV, while we record


And Daddy watches
upstairs.

This was working fine, until the return of White Collar in January.
Now there was no way that Jillibean could watch the three shows she wanted to (Parenthood, The Good Wife and White Collar). So we had to switch it up a little.

Now Momma and I still watch Parenthood, but we don't record anything. Daddy still watched Detroit 1*8*7 upstairs.

Then Wednesday night while Momma and Daddy watch American Idol, I watch The Good Wife and White Collar online in the basement. Not a great system, but it works :)

07 February 2011

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Love, love, love Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Just watched Inception and was reminded of this fact.

Remember way back in the day when he was the star of Angels in the Outfield?

Yeah he was way cute, plus I love this movie! It's about baseball, so of course I love it. And in the end, when the coach ends up adopting him. The best.

Also the best? J.P.
"Hey it could happen." But that's getting off topic...

Next we saw Joseph Gordon-Levitt he was starring in the fantabulous (500) Days of Summer. I am in love with this movie and with his character in this movie.


I love his smile and his dimples. So cute!

When Lil Sis and I first watched this movie, we both fell in love with it. We absolutely adore this scene.

The first time we watched it, in the middle Lil Sis calls out, "They're all wearing blue!" :)

My favorite parts of this scene
1) when he randomly throws his bag to stranger.
2) When he grabs a baseball bat, in my mind it's an homage to Angels in the Outfield
3) The animated bird. It made me smile re-watching it right now, even though my sound was turned off...


I love the style of the movie, the randomness of it, the odd little bits, like the random dance number, love documentary, the narrator with the great voice breaking in now and then and the movie Tom goes to see. Some of my friends don't like it because they thought these parts were weird, but I love it for them. I love how it's not told in order, but they keep us in the loop by telling us what Day of Summer it is. It makes it not hard to follow. Also I love that they play duck, duck, goose with the kids at the wedding.

I love that the movie doesn't have a typical "happy ending" with the guy and the girl ending up together. I love that the new girl he meets is named Autumn. :) Basically one of my favorite movies! I need to watch it again soon...

He was great in Inception, too. Love his style and his suits. I read somewhere that he went to do his audition in a nice suit, just to have a good impression, but it ended up fitting his character perfectly :)



He's a pretty snazzy dresser in real life, too.


05 February 2011

Best Picture of the Year?

I have currently seen 6 of the 10 movies nominated for Oscars for Best Picture, which is pretty awesome. I'm still hoping to see True Grit at some point, if anyone will see it with me... :) But for now six will have to do.

Here is how I rank the six that I've seen.

1)The King's Speech

Hands down, the best movie I've seen this year. The acting is impeccable, the story is hearwarming, an odd sort of underdog story. Fantastic film. If it doesn't win the Oscar I might throw something at the TV... unless of course my #2 wins :)


2)Toy Story 3

Such a great movie, that won't win because it's animated, but seriously a touching movie. Disney/Pixar does such an excellent job of making movies that appeal to both children and adults. Probably the best threequel in existence. There were so many moments where my eyes filled with tears and then the next moment I'd be laughing. Years ago, who knew we'd feel so much love for a ragamuffin bunch of toys? (p.s. I saw the original story as a third grader with my Aunt. :)

Check out this link from Busy Bee Lauren's tumblr. It's the truth.

3) The Fighter
Another excellent film, with excellent acting and an excellent story, based on a true story. The excellent Christian Bale, Amy Adams and Marky Mark.


4)The Social Network
A good movie. Very interesting, great acting, cute guys.
Andrew Garfield is such a cutie.


5)Inception
Just watched this last night with the fam. Momma fell asleep after about five minutes. It is a very intellectual, thought-provoking movie. I followed it, but I'm sure that I only grasped about half of the movie. I like that it has an open-ended ending and it had some lovely actors. Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Leonardo DiCaprio. Ellen Page.


6)The Kids Are All Right
Would not recommend this movie. The acting was excellent, the story intriguing, but it is one of those movies that would be much better were it rated PG-13. It's R rating caused some very awkward moments when Lil Sis and I watched this with Momma and Daddy. Love Mark Ruffalo, loved the actors who played the kids (the son was played by the kid who played Jess in Bridge to Terabithia...) but I could definitely do without all of the explicit scenes...

What's the best movie you've seen this year?

Goal 1 Complete!

I made a list of ten goals that I wanted to complete in 2011. I decided not to post them all at the start of the year, but chronicle them when I complete them. Well, I finished up my first goal this weekend- Completing my teaching portfolio by the end of January.

I thought this thing was going to kill me, but it's finished and I'm still alive!! It was a lot of hard work and tedious work and making copies and then finding typos and making more copies. But it's done!!! Hopefully it helps me get a wonderful job this spring/summer.

Here is the outside of my main portfolio. It's a one-inch binder stuffed to the brim, but we couldn't professional looking binders that came in larger sizes...

A sneak peak at the first page. I did all of the first pages of each section in colored paper. Then I added "Warm Fuzzies" that my third graders had written about me. Warm Fuzzies are basically "I am Thankful for Ms. Bean because..." I tried to line them up with what was in each section. i.e. I am thankful for Ms. Bean because she creates fun and interesting lessons for us. went at the beginning of the section about lesson plans.





In addition to my main portfolio I also created 5 mini-portfolios, which basically contain a resume, letters of recommendation and a few pictures/quotes about teaching that I love.
"Every person is gifted in some area. We just have to find out what that area is." Evelyn Blose Homan

"It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men." Fredrick Doublass


It was so much work, but I am so grateful that it is done!!

04 February 2011

Snowpocalypse Part 3

Even though I never got a call from our school fan-out... We got another snow day thanks to Snowpocalpyse 2011.

I woke up around 9:00 again, grateful to see a text from a co-worker confirming that there was no school :) I chillaxed, checking facebook/the internet and eating Momma's delish chocolate chip muffins. Then I worked out again (it's so much easier to work out when you don't have to go to work!)

Momma and I decided to venture out to run some errands and get lunch. We bought new yarn for hat knitting and Valentine's day crafts for our students. Such fun, bright, new colors! I can't wait to get started knitting.

Then we headed to Panera for lunch!!!!! Delish. Their mac and cheese is the bombdotcom. (not my pic...)

Next we stopped at the library, since I almost finished with The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. I had a nice chat with the cute, young, male librarian about the Chronicles of Narnia and which order they should be read in. :)

I worked for an hour on job applications, not fun, but it had to be done...

I finished The L, The W, and the W.

And organized all of our old yarn, into neat skeins. (This is the before picture...)

Then dinner, getting ready for school tomorrow, watching American Idol, Grey's and Bones.

Another productive and relaxing Snow Day :)

03 February 2011

Snowpocalypse 2011 Part 2

My eyes opened Wednesday morning, I rolled over and the clock said 9:00. I smiled, it was so nice not to have an alarm wake me up. I peeked out the window to see how much we'd gotten, but it was hard to tell when everything was white!

Turns out we'd only gotten about 6-8" at that point, but snow was still swirling and whirling from the sky.

I checked out facebook and all my blogs and ate breakfast while watching the news with Momma and Daddy.

Then I decided that since I had lots of extra time to relax, I should get in a work out. So I did one of my Dancing with the Stars workouts and chatted with Momma while she sewed in the basement. She did some quilt sewing and made two cute wallet/credit card holders, which are perfect for carrying in small purses, when you don't need your whole wallet.

I put comfy sweats back on :) I watched The Good Wife online, while knitting. I love the Good Wife!!! Such a good show, with great acting, complex plots, intriguing legal cases, interesting characters, so good!

After that I was going to watch White Collar, but it wasn't posted yet. So I called my dear friend Laura H. We haven't talked in awhile, and since we both had snow days it seemed like a good day to catch up. We had a lovely chat :)

Then I worked on online job applications for about an hour, but I figured that I should get some work done. This is around the time that Momma found out she didn't have school again on Thursday... and I was very jealous.

After dinner I re-planned my week based on our snow day, read some of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and made crafts for my class's marketplace next week, (I'll show them to you later :) while watching American Idol, and some shows my dad likes.

Then Momma saw online that our school is cancelled again tomorrow!!!!! I haven't got the call yet, but we've found it online two different places... so the Snowpocalypse will live to blog another day :)

Thanks for Daddy for snow-blowing once and shoveling another time!!!! We love and appreciate your hard work!!

02 February 2011

Snowpocalypse 2011 part 1

The last two days in the Midwest have basically been filled with panic-inducing weather reports and long lines at grocery stores and gas stations, stocking up for "the big storm" or as the internet seems to have dubbed it "the Snowpocalypse." We were supposed to get 10-16" of snow!! Which is a lot, even for the mitten :)

Yesterday at school, my students were all atwitter with thoughts and hopes of a snow day. At the start of the day, I gathered them all together and told them, in a whisper, that if we talked about a snow day it would jinx it and we'd have to go to school, but if we didn't mention, we probably wouldn't have school. Problem solved. The only time anyone else said anything about it for the rest of the day was in a whisper :)

Momma found out that they had a snow day around 5:00pm, before the snow had even started falling! Daddy knew his office was closed when he headed home around 5:30... Jillibean still hadn't heard. I was furiously checking the internet, watching the school closings scrolling on TV, taking time from playing Angry Birds to check the texts on my phone... nothing. Finally around 8:30, I decided that I was jinxing it by not having anything ready for school the next day. So I graded some spelling papers, looked over the math lesson and started packing my lunch. Just as I went to wash some grapes, Momma saw on my school district's website that we were closed!!! Yay! I was very glad.

A few minutes later our house phone rang and it was for me. Weird, because that rarely happens. It was a teacher from school, calling to tell me that there was no school. Except it appeared that our phone fan out was going backwards. I was supposed to call the person who calls her, but somehow the fan out got started at the bottom instead of the top. So she called the person who was supposed to call her (the person I'm supposed to call) Confused yet? but couldn't get a hold of her, so she called me. Why/how she had my home phone number, I have no idea...

Anyway, so I called the first grade teacher I'm supposed to call and she had just heard. Then a few minutes later I got a call from our music teacher, the person who is supposed to call me... I have no idea what happened, but hopefully nobody showed up today!

I stayed up extra late, watching some DVRed episodes of Wizards of Waverly Place and went to bed around midnight. It was very nice knowing ahead of time, so I didn't have to set an alarm and get up early. :)

Happy Snow Day!