Passed Task 4 of 5

Last week felt like 3 weeks! On Tuesday I swear every wrong thing happened. Some stupid boys turned on the gas on the stove on purpose and it was gassing us out for who knows how long. I noticed the smell and turned it off. 30 minutes later the principal came in in a panic because of the smell so it had made its way down  the school. Dangerous, annoying, embarrassing, maddening.  Oy! Then it was just one disaster after the other and I was exasperated. I've had most of my students for a full school year and they still make me CRAZY in the kitchen, they still don't pay attention enough and add 1 cup instead of 1/4 of a cup and they don't follow the recipe or instructions. I decided to give a final on Thursday where I gave zero instructions and just graded them on everything. You get a F! You get a F! You get a F! I didn't really say that, but I thought it! 

I had a miracle from the WGU grading Gods and passed task 4. Halleluiah! I do not know if I could have handled any more revisions. I turned in task 5 a few hours later. It's the waiting game again now. I should pass but you never know. This is my LAST task. If I pass...I'M DONE! If I don't pass, that's okay, I have time to revise and turn it in again. I really hope I just freaking pass though. I'm SO OVER THIS!!!! I will know by Wednesday.

Scott went on a friends trip! He has the best childhood friends. They've been chatting on a group marco polo chain for a while now and planned a trip. They met up in Vegas where Richard lives and then they drove to St. George together. They stayed in Richard's brother in law's vacation home. It's beautiful. The guys reminisced and played pickle ball and probably lots of other things. Scott was supposed to be home tonight but his flight got canceled and he won't be coming home until tomorrow. Boo!  I've had a good weekend with the kiddos though. Gabby had a sleep over so Piper and I watched Austenland which she loved. Corbin and I went to dinner at Kyotos on Saturday night. It's expensive but it's where we both really wanted to go on Mother's day, plus I needed to celebrate turning in my last assignment. Corbin loves Japanese, Thai, Chinese food so much. It was fun!  

I went to the "Bans off our Bodies" rally yesterday. My friend told me they were going and they were going to wear their handmaid's tale costumes. I told them I wanted to come so I ordered a costume. I didn't realize we were going to stand on the steps in front of everyone. We walked up and Roxanne was like should we go to the steps and so we did. The crowd cheered for us when we went up. It was intense. I don't know what's going to happen. It's depressing to think about. Making abortions illegal doesn't stop abortions. Education and birth control do. Women still need options because you just don't know! Even the Mormon church is a little gray on this area when it comes to rape/incest. Okay, rant over.

Yummy Kyotos!

"Mom, take my picture."

I had to make a slideshow about my paper and "present" it. 

My final paper. WOOF!

I found this paper in my box. Ahh, it was nice to read after my week last week! 

That was intense.

Pickleball tournament.

Building things?

Cute boys!

Reminisce! 

Happy Mother's Day

Today has been a good day. We binge watched "Married at First Sight" while I was searching for recipe ideas. I only have 4 more cooking days! We went to Golden Carrel for dinner. It was BUSY, no surprise really but still. The only bad part about today was I got my results for task 4 and I have to do some revisions. I had a good cry for a minute. It's not that big of a deal and I have time but I'M SO READY FOR THIS TO BE DONE! I can feel it in my bones. 

Scott's birthday was on Wednesday but he was out of town for work training and we celebrated it last Sunday. Piper dressed up for May the 4th (Star Wars day). She is obsessed with baby Yoda. I'm trying to rest and refresh as much as possible. May is a tough month in school. It feels like the kids get extra crazy and the teachers don't have any reserves left to deal with it. I'm just trying my best to rest and push through. It was teacher appreciation week though and that was nice! We got some breakfast items on Monday and lunch on Friday. I won a $15 gift card to Target, a $5 gift card to Goody's (an overpriced candy shop downtown) and several students gave me gifts. It was nice! 

Scott and I went to dinner with my teacher friend Roxanne and her husband last night. It was fun. Well, nothing much else. I will turn in task 4 again soon. Fingers cross I pass. 

Sweet Piper! The heart says, "My mom is the best mom in the entire world." Purple says, "My mom is an amazing cook." Blue says, "My mom is the best." Green says, "My mom comforts me." Yellow says, "My mom loves us all equally." Orange says, "My mom gets us treats every Friday." Red says, "My mom love me no matter what." My fav! 

Ryan gift. The necklace he made is actually pretty cool! 

Front of Ryan's card. I love it! 

Our yard looks so good in the spring! 

Piper loves baby Yoda!

Spirit Week

My school had spirit week last week and Piper's school was celebrating their 45th anniversary and had dress up days. I was feeling tired and unmotivated to care about dressing up until it came to Thursday. That day was dress your favorite era and I had to go 80's because I mean....it's the best! I got a bad headache on Monday night and was awake for a lot of the night so I only worked a half day on Tuesday and I took Wednesday off as well. I was proud of myself for taking some sick days. It's hard because they are always short on subs and so the staff has to help cover but I always cover for people so I took some sick days. It was nice to rest. It's May. The end is so close. I turn in task 4 this week. Fingers crossed it passes on the first shot. If it doesn't, luckily I have some wiggle room. Time will tell.

On Thursday night we went to Summerwind to celebrate their 45th anniversary. The weather was terrible so everything got moved indoors. They had a few games set up and the Summerwind skippers performed. They also had some food trucks but I did not want to wait outside to get the kids a treat so I took them to Sonic instead.

This weekend was good, Scott and I met up with one of his work friends and his wife. We had a fun time meeting them. His wife is a part time dog walker. She loves it. She will go and stay in rich people's houses and take care of their dogs when they leave town. Interesting. On Saturday night Scott and I went to the new Nicholas Cage movie, we loved it. Today we are celebrating Scott's birthday early since he will be at a work training on his birthday. I'm making him pork chops, scalloped potatoes, green bean casserole, and tres leches for dessert. Hopefully it's good. Well that's all! 

The girls were playing some intense battle game with their stuffed animals for hours today.

 

Summerwind celebration.

My friend Aimee also dressed 80's. Oh ya!

I love watching a show with my girls.

Piper also had an 80's day. She came up with this outfit herself. Impressive! 

3 of 5

WGU update, I failed one part of task 3 so I had to redo that section and resubmit. I found out I passed task 3 yesterday. Woot! 3 of 5 done. I can't do do task 4 until after I finish teaching my finance unit, then I can collect data, analyze, and write my final paper. So I'm on a forced break. So close, but still ages away it feels like. In some ways it's kind of good I can't finish yet, it helps me stay engaged and focused in general. I still have 4 1/2 weeks left of work. I need to push ALL the way to the end. 

We made frittatas in class. I had SO many leftovers. They are really good and even the students generally liked them but it's a lot of eggs and they don't eat eggs like they eat cookies. Ha. I now have 3 bags full of frozen frittata to eat. It tastes pretty good heated up in the microwave. I burned myself worse than I ever have before. We cooked the frittatas in a skillet in the oven. Several of the students touched the handle and I instinctively grabbed it when I was checking to see if the eggs were done by shaking the pan with the handle. Oh my! I had to have a cold compress on my hand for 4 hours because my hand felt like it was on fire. Ouch! I may or may not make that recipe again in class. I also experimented and adapted an artisan bread recipe that would work within my class time restraints. It worked and it was good! That felt like a double victory.

This weekend has been NICE! I've had plenty of down time and plenty of time to clean and organize some things. It is looking good around here!

Corbin hosted a sleepover on Friday night. I was grateful they could crowd and sleep in the shed. 8th grade boys are goofy and loud! I know, I deal with them at work everyday! 

Before: I decided to change up my front door porch chair. It's been yellow forever.

After: It's bright! It will take some getting used to. Ha.

We made artisan bread in class.

Ryan's drawings. These are chicken nugget characters (a TicTok trend I guess). He's pretty good at drawing!

Piper made her own strawberry shortcake and wanted me to take a picture for the blog. Ha.

You can't really tell...but my oh my! 

Scott planting some of the garden.

I'm Going to Make it!

 I'm going to make it! I already passed Task 1 & 2 on the first try. That was a BIG deal because not passing those for a bit would have delayed and possibly jeopardized everything. I've already turned in Task 3 and I'm still waiting for results. Now I have to put on my patient pants because I can't do Task 4 until after my instructional unit that doesn't finish until May 4th. After that I can write and turn in Task 4, wait to pass and then submit Task 5. With grading waiting time and finishing my data collection I will likely be done the middle of May at the earliest. This still gives me 2 weeks of buffer time for any possible blunders. Now to be patient...I'm hoping to channel any nervous stress into deep cleaning projects while I wait. No luck so far.

I tested several recipes for school this past week. I've never made homemade pretzels before so I had to do it at home and make sure it worked. It's hard sometimes to make recipes work for groups of 5 students and in a 46 minute class period. The pretzel lab had to be split into 2 days. Now I'm trying to figure out if I can make an artisan bread recipe fit in our class period time. Attempt number 1 failed. The dough left on the counter for 24 hours tasted BAD. Now I'm trying to see how it does in the fridge for 24 hours before cooking. We will see if I can make that recipe work. I also found and made a frittata recipe which worked great and we will cook this week. 

Nothing much going on for us for Easter. The kids dyed Easter eggs yesterday. They hunted for their baskets this morning. We will have an Easter dinner tonight. We are changing it up and we are going to have French dip sandwiches and scalloped potatoes, along with green bean casserole, deviled eggs, and strawberry short cake for dessert. 

Looks like Gabby has the classic Cannon sleeping face. This exact same face can be found on Papa, Noel, Scott, Piper, and probably many other Cannons. It KILLS me! HAHA!

Piper is proud of her pretzel.

Ryan did not make this pretzel but wanted to take a picture posing as "an Italian chef" mmmkay. 

Raccoon hideout, no humans. 

Gabby made a batch by herself.

Perfection! 

Frittata, so easy and delicious! 

Dying Easter eggs.

Turns out Corbin desperately needed new shoes. 

Piper has been working hard on her backbend walk. Ouch and creepy! 

Quick Trip to Utah

Scott's childhood friend lost one of his children last week. Bridget was born unexpectedly with special needs and it's been a rough road ever since. She had 9 surgeries and spent 300 total days in the hospital. Endless sleepless nights and endless joy and love. She died unexpectedly in the night although her life expectancy was never expected to be long. We wanted to be there for the funeral so we headed out Friday evening to Salt Lake. Most of Saturday was spent with Scott's childhood friends. The funeral was incredibly touching and beautiful. The musical numbers were expectational and the mom and dad gave beautifully eloquent and poignat talks. Each sibling read a letter to Briget. It was really sad but so special. That evening we had an early delicious Easter dinner thanks to Nana. Scott and I went and hung out with Royce at his new house and had a great time chatting with him. This morning we had a delicious brunch followed by a visit from the Easter bunny. Now we are headed home. It was a sad, great short trip. 

WGU update...I passed my last class and was able to accelerate to my capstone project. I now have 7 weeks to try to finish my master's completely. I need to at least pass the first 2 tasks in the next month so I can do my 2 weeks of lessons and collect my data before the end of the school year. We will see what happens. I have A LOT OF WORK TO DO! Wish me ALL the luck!

TNRT group (high school nick name Thursday night round table, where they would meet at Dee's for hot chocolate and to lament about girls). Great friend group, still friends.

Beautiful Bridget

Easter egg hunt!

All The Swears

I was super tired last week even though I slept well and didn't have a lot going on. I think I've been running on adrenaline for a while and when I went back to normal my body was like....YOU'RE TIRED! So that was rough. I'm still playing the waiting game with WGU. With paper 3 I forgot to list one source so my paper failed and I had to resubmit and wait. I turned in paper 4 and resubmitted a few times for various reasons and when they went to grade it they saw multiple submissions and failed it. I was SO mad. Grade the most recent one! DUH! So I had to resubmit again and I get to wait to see if I passed my stupid paper even though I finished it a week ago. These delays are killing me! I'm trying to calm myself down once again and give up on my goal so I don't lose my mind. If I make it I make it, if I don't oh freaking well. OY! Stupid, stupid WGU. All the swears.

On a brighter note, the weather is beautiful! That's all I've got.

Piper and Ryan doing a bridge...ouch!

Scott was super happy to see some pollinators.