My Classroom, a Happiness Project Update, and my Sexy Husband

I absolutely love my job.  Yes, there are some days that are better than others, but at least once a week I think to myself, "This is fun.  How lucky that I get paid to do this."  I'm not kidding.  Anyway, I thought I should take a few pictures to show where the magic happens.  This is my room.  Uncensored.  I took these pictures while the kiddos were at recess, so it may not be spotless, but this is the real deal.

 I teach math for the majority of the day.  The bins on the desk hold math supplies- whiteboards, markers, manipulatives, etc.  The yellow cards above the bins are point cards.  We do lots of group work and students earn points for being a cooperative team.

 We created a pledge on the first day of school, and everyone created their picture to add to the border.  Isn't it cute?

 I love this rug.  Our superintendent bought them for all K-3 teachers.  At first when I heard I thought, "Seriously?  I already have a rug."  But then I saw this beauty.  Each child has their own square.  It's ingeneous and I love it.

 I'm really proud of this.  Last year before I went on maternity leave I spent hours organizing all the math games and putting them in bins with labels that state what should be in there.  It has seriously changed my life!

 A different view of the room.  This is my vantage point from the front of the room.  Sorry for the messy round table up front, but I told you it was uncensored.

These are decorated pringle cans to the untrained eye, but to us they are time capsules.  Students answered a series of questions at the beginning of this year and put the answers inside.  They'll answer the same questions at the end of the year and see how they've changed.

That's the tour.  Hope you like it.

That leads me to my Happiness Project update.  First of all, where did September go?  My goal was to do five new things.  I managed two.  Sorry folks.  When school starts it gets crazy in my world.  Here's what I did:

• I used bok choy for the first time.  I made a bok choy salad with sesame honey dressing.  It was okay, but not note worthy.
• The other thing I did was went "star gazing" with Ysmaille.  We laid a blanket on the deck and just looked at the stars for a few moments.  Then we got cold and went back in. 

That brings me to the story of my sexy husband.  So, on Sunday I was totally convicted of treating my husband like my third child.  I've decided that October will be "Respect Your Husband month."  I will let him make decisions without second guessing him.  Here's the deal.  I'm bossy by nature.  I'm the oldest child.  I boss children around all day and sometimes I boss my husband too.  I'm not proud of it, but it's true.  A few weeks ago on the way to church I was harping on him about something in our finances and he finally told me, "Melanie, you take over.  You are obviously better than me."  In my head I smugly agreed with him and we went on our merry way.  Last night when it was time to balance the check book and pay the bills I realized we were in the negative.  I panicked.  I demanded he help me.  I threw a fit.  I cried.  He watched it all from the couch.  Then he calmly said, "Melanie, you want control over everything.  If you don't have control then you work away at it until you do.  You asked for this, now do it."  Ouch!  I was so ticked off.  It took me close to 45 minutes to create my game plan and get all the bills sorted out.  After I calmed down my heart melted. Is he not the sexiest thing?  He totally put me in my place.  He taught me a valuable lesson that I wouldn't have learned if he had bailed me out.  I politely requested he take back being in charge of our finances as I ate my slice of humble pie.