About+Me

**Who am I **
I feel like I am a million people rolled into one! Most important is my job as wife and mother. My husband, Paul, and my kids, Michael, Kevin, and Julia, are the force that keeps me going. They provide love, laughter and meaning in my life. I am also a volunteer at church, school and in my kid's activities. Like the rest of us, I am spread too thin thinking I can do too much. Somewhere in there, I also hope to be the teacher that "goes the extra mile." I tend to bond with my classes and become the "momma bear" that not only defends them to the end but also prods them to be the best that they can be!



Interests I love to travel, especially with my family. When my husband and I had our first child, Michael, we thought a fun goal would be to travel across America to see all the baseball parks. We are slowly making headway on that goal collecting baseballs from the various stadiums. And although I honestly cannot keep track of where we have been, my kids seem to have fond memories of each stadium and the adventures we have encountered along the way. Even though airplane rides are exciting, we have actually found that road trips are the most fun for my family. The bonding, catching up and planning we do in the car, not to mention the sites along the way, make our "car time" exciting. Our road trips to Texas and Washington/Oregon provide the best memories because of what we encountered along the way. Yes, I would love to take my family to another country, but for now we are happy plugging along creating memories throughout our own country.



**Books, Music, Movies, TV **
 Wow, this part is hard. I have loved different books, music, movies and TV at different times in my life. I guess I will attempt to figure out my all time favorites .  I love, and always have loved, //Gone With The Wind. // I think it is the most romantically frustrating book ever written. Rhett could just take me away from it all with all his money. I promise never to give him the grief Scarlet did! What a fool she was!

Elvis Presley has always been my favorite musician. When I was little my dad used to sing //Love Me Tender // to me at bedtime and my husband and I danced our first dance to //Can't Help Falling In Love With You. // So I guess Elvis is my sentimental favorite. My modern day favorite is pretty much anything "cool" playing on the radio. Sometimes it's //U2, // sometimes //<span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Switchfoot, //<span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> or a new American Idol winner, and an all time consistent old time favorite is //<span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Brian Adams. //<span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">

Movies! There are so many to choose from and each one reminds me of a specific time in my life. There are the classics like //<span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Top Gun, Pretty Woman //<span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">and //<span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Bull Durham. //<span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Although I do not, as a parent, necessarily agree with their messages, I am a sucker for fun actors and great romantic movie. (Heck, I named my daughter after Julia Roberts and my son after Kevin Costner. My oldest is named after Michael Jordan or Michael J. Fox depending on who you talk to.)

My favorite TV shows right now are //<span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Survivor //<span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> and //<span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Amazing Race. //<span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> These are my reality TV guilty pleasures. I love them because they are what the //<span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Wonderful World of Disney //<span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> was to me as a kid. These are the shows that my entire family sits down to watch together. We TiVo them during the week and watch, discuss and argue their merits together as a family on Sunday nights.

**<span class="mw-headline" style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Present-Day Heroes **
<span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> My heroes are my kids! Kids are expected to do so much these days. Gone are the easy days of going to school and playing outside after dark! Just "google" college entrance requirements and you will know what I mean! Kids today are expected to not only do activities they love, but also do tons of volunteer work and keep up their grades. My kids are all involved in time consuming activities outside of school and seem to be running from place to place all the time. I never could have kept their schedules AND kept my grades up. As parents, my husband and I recently said "too much!" We pared them down to volunteering at church and one sport/music each. Julia dances! All kinds! Hip hop, jazz, tap and ballet. She would be happiest if she could dance her way through life. Kevin is in a band playing both electric guitar and drums. He can play piano beautifully, but hates it. He is my musician. Michael, being the oldest, has done it all! Currently, he is an avid water polo player and swimmer. He is also what our family affectionately refers to as our "uber nuber math geek." He is taking a college statistics class "just for fun" this summer. Between practice schedules and homework, and church, these three manage to do it all with grace and humility. I am extremely proud of them all and they are all my heroes!



**<span class="mw-headline" style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">My goals and my future **
<span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">I kind of proud to say I just finished one of my biggest goals! I can finally say I have my Masters in Education: Digital Teaching and Learning. I really believe that technology is a language all teachers should be fluent in because even if we choose to ignore it, our students will be fluent in this language. In order to understand them we need to understand the language they are speaking. That means always staying current in technology and getting my Masters in this area is a great start. A future goal would include continuing to take classes as technology continues to change so I continue to change with it. Beyond that, I have two goals for my family and myself. I want to be able to take my family to Disney World! We are Disney fanatics and this would complete our obsession. I also hope to someday travel across the wine country of France with my husband. Collecting wine is a hobby we started when we were first married. It has always been a dream to go wine tasting across France and something I pledge to do before I can say my life is complete.



**<span class="mw-headline" style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> I think school is **
<span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> ...an opportunity for growth; physically, emotionally, socially and mentally. Physically, we learn to move our ever growing bodies in new and appropriate manners. We learn to skip a bar on the monkey bars, we learn to kick the ball and not get out in kick ball and we learn to sit in a desk at the right time and clam our bodies for learning. Emotionally, we learn to control our feelings, or at least adapt them to survive in the world. We learn that when our parents drop us off we will see them again at the end of the day, we learn to feel our emotions but perhaps not always to act on our feelings, and we learn that it is okay to fail because when we fail we have a new opportunity to learn. Socially, we learn to get along in our small school world which will help learn to get along in the big world later on in life. We learn what our part is in having a class run smoothly, we learn how to be successful in our classroom world and most importantly, we learn how to interact in a positive manner with those around us. Mentally, we learn how to stretch our brains to promote a life long love of learning. We learn math, science, reading and writing, we learn how to make our friends and teachers happy and we learn how to become better members of society. That is what school is to me.

**<span class="mw-headline" style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">A teacher that made a difference **


<span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> A teacher that made a difference in my life was actually my daughter's teacher first. Her name is Marta Shamblin and she is, in my opinion, one of the best teachers around. She not only touched the life of my daughter, but she has also touched my life as well. After beginning to substitute teach, it was Mrs. Shamblin that asked why I did not go back for my teaching credential. She told me that she saw something in me that was worth exploring and offered to help in anyway possible. She began by training me as her substitute teacher. She was the first to use me and the first to explain how, even substituting, should be done right. After substituting for a while, I decided she was right; I would be much happier with my own classroom. Taking her up on her offer of help, she wrote me a letter of recommendation to get into graduate school. From there, she offered her classroom for my case studies and observations. Ultimately, I got to spend nine weeks working with her during my student teaching experience. She taught me not only the fundamentals of teaching successfully,and how to manage my paperwork, supplies and stay organized, but also how to positively connect with my students. Through her gentle spirit, fun approach to learning, and willingness to go the extra mile for her students, she has inspired me to be a teacher like her. During my fifth grade student teaching experience, I continued to look to her for support and inspiration. During fifth grade promotion, she was thanked by more students than any other teacher at our elementary school. I believe this is because she takes the time to relate, connect and learn about her students. Marta Shamblin is my inspiration, mentor and dare I say, friend. I hope to be the teacher that impacts my students lives with such a positive force as the one invoked by Mrs. Shamblin!

**<span class="mw-headline" style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Comments **
<span style="color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> Erma Bombeck is one of my favorite writers. This year has been difficult on my family with my going "back to school." It was necessary to find words of wisdom in which to survive by. These words of Erma Bombeck's relieved my guilt about letting my house "go" this year. <span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;"> My theory on housework is, if the item doesn't multiply, smell, catch on fire or block the refrigerator door, let it be. No one cares. Why should you? -- Erma Bombeck

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