This stuff makes my heart happy

It is the eve before school starts.  Yay!   Boo!  As I was telling my friend today, it is the beginning of the end (of the school year).  State testing starts in two weeks with 4th grade Writing.  The students are responsible for writing compositions and for revising and editing papers.  Usually the mistakes in the test follow common grammar concepts and spelling rules. 

I have noticed that a lot of adults, even teachers at my school, could benefit from a refresher course on these 4th grade concepts.  Unless I am really close to you, I will not point out your grammar mistakes; however, please know that I am desperately trying to teach children the correct way as other adults consistently show them the wrong way through their speech and written words.  (Disclaimer: I am not perfect, and I will make mistakes, but I just hope it is not concerning the rules that the state of Texas requires 4th grade students to know.)

I found this on pinterest and thought it appropriate.

Grammar matters.

As I tell my students, there is a big difference between

"Let's eat Grandma!"

and

"Let's eat, Grandma!"

Join me next week for a refresher of the usage of your and you're!

I am alive!

Good Morning all!  I feel like I have not blogged in forever which is super sad because I have some great people on here that I love connecting with.  I am going to try to do better this week.  If you are visiting from the link-up, follow along, and I will be sure to come visit your blog and follow you back!

Life has just been kinda fast paced lately.  We are headed into the crunch-time season with my students as we prepare them for the state assessment.  This is the second year to take STAAR, but we still don't know much more about it than we do last year.  The pressure is just as intense if not more so to be successful though.  Being responsible for the only writing score for the whole school is kind of crazy amounts of pressure.

Anthony and I are in a very exciting time of our lives.  We are currently house hunting!  Most of the time this is fun.  We will detour from our route every now and then and slowly creep by a new house.  We have even gotten brazen enough to go pick in a few windows of houses we knew where empty.  Not only is it exciting to try to pick a house, but we have had discussions about what the rooms will be used for and how we envision our life going.  It makes me happy to plan a future with this guy knowing that whatever house we pick, it is who we share it with that makes a difference.  (BTW Anthony, there will be no man cave unless you are referring to the garage, and there will be no naked room unless you are referring to the bathroom.)  House hunting also gives me added reason to be on pinterest and go thrifting for awesome deals.


In other news, God has really been revealing my sin of a judgmental heart.  Sometimes I don't think that others were raised a different way or are in a different place than I am emotionally or spiritually.  I pass judgment on them because I assume that they are in the same place as I am.  What is really neat is that God is working on us in DIFFERENT areas and in DIFFERENT ways.  My biggest gift to them is to extend them grace instead of judgement.  If they are a believer, it doesn't excuse me from not calling their attention to their sin, but it is with grace and not judgment.  More on that here.