Judgey Judgerson

We all know someone who is a judgey judgerson right? Someone who looks down at you or someone else for something they do or say or how the behave. Yeah, we all know someone like that. A facebook friend posted a rant not long ago about people being so judgemental and how terrible they were. I have some thoughts on that.


I saw a guy at WalMart today wearing his pajamas. Yeah. His girlfriend/wife was wearing a pair of yoga pants that would have fit my 11 year old. She was not the size of my 11 year old. It was straight out of a 'people of walmart' video.  I'll admit, I took one look and judged them. Was it a fair assessment? Probably not. Maybe they were living in a shelter and those were the only clothes they had. Maybe they have a critically ill child and their priority is not their appearances.  

How about tattoos? I've got tattoos. Two of them (well technically 3 since one was done in two parts) One of my tattoos is highly visible, on my forearm. If I'm not wearing long sleeves you can't miss it. The other is on my lower leg/ankle so if I'm anything but pants, you can see it. I'm sure I'm judged because of them. As much as they are more socially acceptable these days, especially in women there are still many (mostly of the older generation) who might view me as trashy or uneducated.

It doesn't bother me, what they think. Given the opportunity I can prove otherwise, quite easily. I am intelligent, well spoken, educated and when need be, sophisticated (though I find sophisticated me to be a bit stuffy) My tattoos don't reflect my intelligence or worth. They reflect my victory over cancer and my children both here on earth and waiting for me in Heaven.  I chose their placement on my body, not so they would be somewhere in which I could hide them but because they were somewhere I could show them off. I paid a lot of money for these original works of art to be permanently put onto my body. Why would I hide them.

But I will still be judged.

You know that Mom who stares at her cell phone while her kids are playing in the park and she's missing it all? How about the parent whose child runs wild in the store? Or throws an unholy fit. How about the parent who takes their kids to McDonalds 4 times a week? What about the parents who don't sign their children up for any extra curricular activities because they are just too tired after work to take them? How about the parents who sign their kids up for so much that they can't keep schedules straight?

We judge them.

That brings me to the whole  reason behind this post.

We all know we should judge others. Judge not lest ye be judged, those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones and all the rest....

And we rant about others who judge. We judge them. That's right, we judge those people who judge others.

Why?

We want to be right? We want to feel better about ourselves at the expense of another? Perhaps.
 Who knows? Not me, that's for sure. But one thing I do know is that we will continue to rant about people who judge others, all the while, judging others.

What The Hell Was I Thinking??!!

You know when you have one of those stroke of genius ideas and then you look back on it a little later and say,

I've had that moment.

About a month ago at school one of the boys in grade 5 came to me and asked me if I was going to have my Christmas craft club again this year. You see, last year I thought it would be fun to get some of the older kids involved in a craft club, making ornaments and such to sell at our school's Christmas Fete (our annual Christmas concert/fundraiser)

The club was a great success, I had about 60 kids sign up and they made some super cute ornaments to sell.

So I thought, hey, sure why not. We'll do craft club again this year. So on the drive home from work I got to thinking about all the ornaments we could make and the spirit of Christmas fell upon me. (yes, in October)

And then I thought - WAIT! Why stop at a craft club. Wouldn't it be super fun to put on a Christmas play with some of the older kids? The younger kids do songs and such every year at the Fete but the older kids don't. How fun would it be to organize a Nativity play with the older kids.

I came home and Googled and found a really fun script, the Nativity as told from the point of view of the angels and it's got a modern spin on it. Love, love, love.

So I recruited 30 kids and a few teachers to help out and now I'm knee deep in nativity hell. Yeah, you read that right, nativity hell. (Sorry baby Jesus.)

Don't get me wrong, the kids are having fun and some of them have even memorized all their lines already. We still have over a month to rehearse and I'm sure they will be great. But the logistics of planning a play are tough. Because there are practices (limited to lunch hours and not in the gym because of volleyball and basketball practices) There is the scenery...I'm going to have to get kids working on that soon. There are costumes. We have virtually no budget for this play so it's whatever we can dig up.  Oh, and then there is the voices. My darling children, who through the run of a day are probably told to be quiet 500 times can't seem to find their loud voices in rehearsals. Oh, and the boy playing Joseph quit. He's got no lines so that's okay but since there are only 3 other boys in the play....well, my choices in replacements are limited.

I know it will work out and I'm sure it's going to be fantastic but I lay away thinking about it at night and wondering what possessed me to do such a thing.

As for the Christmas craft club. Next year.

Tasty Tuesday - The Friday Edition. Bruschetta Chicken.

Ah Pinterest, that sweet, sweet time suck. I can't tell you how many recipes I've pinned and never tried. But now I can scratch one off that list. I found this recipe on Pinterest but I changed it to suit my tastes. And it tasted so good!! 

5 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

3 cloves of garlic

1 c of fresh basil (I didn't have fresh and the grocery store was out of fresh so I used 1/3 c of dried basil)

1 tbsp of olive oil

1 tsp balsamic vinegar

1 small red onion sliced

1 pint of cherry tomatoes

1/4 c of water. 

1/4 feta cheese

Now, let me walk you through how insanely easy this recipe is. Throw the olive oil, water, basil and garlic in a blender or food processor and blend that goodness up. 

Pour it over your chicken breasts that are snugly in the baking dish. Layer the top with the onion slices, feta and tomatoes. And it will look like this. 

Pop that bad boy into the oven at 350 for 45 minutes or so and it will come put looking like this. 

I served it with rice and spinach salad. 

And it was fantastic. Yummers. An add it to the rotation dish. 

So now, I should find my way over to Pinterest and pick my new recipe for tomorrow. If I'm not back in an hour it's because I've created a new Christmas ornament DIY board and am pinning like a madwoman. 

On Again, Off Again

Don't you hate it when people are so on again off, off again. Kind of like I've been with this blog?

Yeah, me too.

Today is an on day so here I am. Actually I have been blogging, quite busily in fact. Remember I deleted my kindergarten blog. I didn't like the direction it took. I wasn't in it to hock my wares as it were. I was in it to share the learning that happens in a full day kindergarten class.

Well, about that same time my teaching partner mentioned that he wanted to start a class blog and while he loved the idea he was a little short on know how.

Enter ME!  I am far from short on know how so I made that project my new baby and I'm quite proud of it. Feel free to go and check it out.


I've also been doing a lot of professional development. I'm eager to bring the "new" way of delivering the Kindergarten program to my class and while it's not necessarily new to me, bringing it into the public school system is new for us all. My sister in law (also an Early Childhood Educator) and I have been going to conferences and workshops on weekends. We work for different school boards so this gives us a chance to connect with others professionally - and it's also a day out! Best of both worlds.

I also mentioned I was going to bring Tasty Tuesdays back to my blog and I'm gonna, but in a different context. We're in a food rut in my family so I'm going to make use of my Pinterest recipe board and I'm going to cook one new thing each week - either Saturday or Sunday.

Today is my new recipe day so stay tuned to hear all about it.