Bright Star

So Emily and I saw this movie in theaters and I just rented it this weekend so that Devin and I could watch it. If you love English period pieces with lots of birds chirping and classical music then I highly suggest this movie. It is a sentimental tear jerker and very sweet. I know that I sound like a mother but it is very refreshing to watch a movie that is clean without all the extra nonsense.

You should watch it while eating ice cream on a rainy Sunday afternoon. I mean that's not what I did today. I read my scriptures like I am supposed to. If someone feels like buying it for me I wouldn't say no.

Anyway. Rent it. Love it.

Disclaimer

Sorry about the previous post. I didn't mean it to sound like I was curled in the fetal position ready to take a razor blade to my wrists. I actually kind of think what my students say is hilarous.

Another example for your reading enjoyment...

Wednesday last week I woke up late and wasn't going to make it on time for the kids I tutor in the morning if I didn't literally put on clothes and walk out the door. So picture left over make up, hair in a pony tail me. Yeah gross. So needless to say my kids commented on how pretty I looked.

So Thursday rolls around...I actually get ready. No comments.

Friday. I get ready again. (which is normal by the way)

A student walks in second hour.

"Mrs. Fletcher, you are actually wearing make-up today"
"Yeah I was yesterday too didn't you notice?"
"Oh no, I didn't pay atttention to anyone yesterday."
"Gotcha"
Then a kid who has no shame in telling it like it is turns and says,
"Yeah, but it doesn't do a very good job of hiding your zits though does it?"

Apparently I = This Guy

I thought I was done with junior high and low self-esteem

Remember how awkward Junior High was? and how especially cruel it was that if you grew up in Mesa, AZ you had to deal with 3 years of junior high becuase you go to high school when you are a sophmore rather than a freshman?

Well I get to relive that Every. Single. Day.

The students I teach have no filters. That means they think it, they say it.

As their teacher, I get the lovely end of those non-filtered comments.
I bring to you my new segment: I thought I was done with Junior High and low self-esteem.

Part One

Yesterday I got to my first hour. I am up in the front talking about the journal question of the day. Students are sharing their answers to the question. One student raises his hand. I call on him expecting that he will share his journal response. Instead I get this:
Mrs. Fletcher, are you gaining weight?

Part Two

This winter I purchased a new pea coat from Downeast Basics. It was a green coat. One day I wore the jacket with tan-ish brown pants. During second hour one of my students mentions that I look like someone. He can't quite figure out who but I look familiar for some reason. The hour passes and I forget about his comment. One minute until the bell rings, I tell the students to go ahead and pack up their stuff and he shouts out, "I got it Mrs. Fletcher! I know who you look like! You look just like Shaggy from Scooby Doo!" Laughter ensues. Students leave.
Needless to say, I don't wear that jacket and those pants anymore.

New Blog to Ignore

Hi there, Devin here. If any of you are facebook friends with me, you will have noticed (until you hit the 'ignore post' button), that I have been recently been including links to songs that have been lost to the ages that I have been, at one time or another, obsessed with. Since Facebook is hardly a place of permanence, I have decided to additionally list these treasured gems at my new blog, aptly titled "From the Vault". Yes it sounds like the name of some cheesy infomercial hosted by Donovan, or Stephen Stills, or maybe a cable access show extolling the virtues of the B-movie genre of the 1950s. Still, I think you will enjoy them. Because, hey the only thing better than being ignored on facebook is putting in twice the effort. Word up peoples.

http://fromthevaultmusic.blogspot.com

25 Things.

Hi there, Devin here. The lovely Laura "Jones" Fletcher and I are spending our fifth Christmas together and to commemorate it, we here at DevandLolly.blogspot.com would like to put together a list of twenty five little-known facts about Laura "Jones" Fletcher.

1. No matter how good you think you are at Mario Kart, she can beat you. Especially if she is using the red koopa troopa or birdo.


2. She is the proud owner of not one, but two bachelor's degrees.

3. For as good as she is at scrapbooking, and for as many wedding books as she has scrapbooked for other people, she has never once made anything for herself. It is a testament to either her selflessness or to her getting burned out. Kind of like the maid with a dirty house, or the mechanic who drives a beater.

4. She is a bad negotiator. e.g. (Laura: $20, Devin: $10, Laura: $25, Devin: . . .)

5. She got a teaching job in this economy despite the best efforts of the state legislature to combine all students everywhere into one big class and fire all the other teachers.



6. She can tell you the plot of any episode of any Disney Channel show. Be it Suite Life of Zack and Cody or Hannah Montana, she knows it by heart. That Annie Jones is a terrible influence.


7. Laura will obsess over a tv show until she has seen all the seasons of it on DVD. Current obsession: The Big Bang Theory.


8. Fines Fines Fines. The amount she has paid in fines to ASU parking , Mesa Traffic Court, and the Gilbert Public Library is greater than the GDP of certain sovereign nations.


9. Laura is easily the most selfless and devoted sister I have ever met. She would do anything for her sisters and even my siblings.

10. Her love of chinese food borders on obsession. Luckily we have a about 80 chinese places within a four mile vicinity of our house, and they all hurt her stomach.


11. She doesn't know her rights from her lefts. Because of this, when I ask her which way to turn while driving, she has started saying "right" by default. Thus, I have learned to never ask her for directions.

12. She loves to travel and would go to Europe in a heartbeat.

13. She plays Settlers of Catan (sort of nerdy) on the internet (really nerdy) against other people on the internet (who did I marry? answer: this guy)

14. She likes to drive. One time we went on a road trip from Gilbert, AZ to San Jose, CA and she drove the whole way there and the whole way back. Ugh.

15. She has had two organs removed: appendix and gall bladder. At age 23, that's an average of slightly less than one per decade. Pretty soon she will start running out of vestigial and vestigial-ish organs to lose.

16. Every time she tries to grow her hair out, she gets about six months in and then can't take it anymore, so she chops it off.

17. She has six toes on her right foot. *

18. She hates gift bags. I mean, despises them. I try to put presents in gift bags and she takes them out and makes me wrap them. This year, for Christmas, I put one of her presents in a gift bag, but thought better of it and wrapped the present and the gift bag.

19. She loves Jesus.

20. When she goes shopping she is always thinking of things she can get for other people. Whether it is a headband for her friends or candy for me, she is always looking for things to get other people.

21. Halloween is her favorite holiday. She loves it so much she will decorate crazily for it and not nearly as much for any other holiday. She loves the candy, the parties, and most of all the costumes. The order of her favorite holidays goes like this

a. Halloween

2. Thanksgiving

d. all them Jesus ones.

22. She has better musical taste than you.

23. When she was a kid, she got chased up a tree by a rooster.

24. She works like inifity hours a day. Like, I think if you divided her salary by the hours she works, she makes less than this kid.

Queen Creek, you owe me money.

25. She is my favorite person in the world.

Anyway, those are some things you should know about her. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night . . . or something.

* May not be true.

Remember me?

You may not... I am the giant loser who hasn't blogged in oh say six months?

Yeppers. That would be me.

Well I decided if I waited until I had something important to say I might never blog again so inspired by Emily, I decided just to tell you what I have been up to/random info about life lately at the fletcher casa.

1. I teach junior high students or walking/talking attitudes. I love most of my students but I'm not gonna lie there are a couple fighting for least favorite.

2. I decked out my class for Halloween and didn't take pictures. Sad face. But I lost my camera also impacting my blogging motivation.

3. Kia gave me a free GPS. I might have agreed to them sending it while on pain killers yet cognisant enough to know that if they tried to charge me later I could blame it on just having surgery and being on pain killers. It is awesome and I love it. I use it to go to Fry's approximately .2 miles away because it tells me where to go in a British accent. Her name is Bridget.

4. I was a giant box of OxiClean for Halloween. Devin was Billy Mays.

5. My new obsession in the land of TV is How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory. Very entertaining. I highly suggest them.

6. The best books I have read this year (read: only books) were The Hunger Games and Catching Fire. Read them. Emily told me to, which means they are good.

7. I am a writing teacher, yet my husband corrects my grammar and writing ALL of the TIME. See also as I type this blogpost.

8. I am realizing as I write this that I spend all of my time at school and have nothing to say that doesn't involve school. I= a workaholic. When you have to ask your principal what time the school alarm sets because you are afraid you might trip it when you leave at 10pm, you know you have a problem.

9. I have officially lost 30 pounds. I don't feel like it is very noticable because I am tall but hey progress is progress.

10. I forgot how to blog.

The end.

Oh yeah.

So it would probably help if I gave some
more info on my new job.

Excitement got the best of me and I
kind of forgot the details.

I am going to work at Newell Barney
Middle School in Queen Creek.
I will be teaching writing in a resource classroom
to 7th and 8th graders.
This school is only a year old and
has amazing technology resources!

Each teacher gets
a document camera and a laptop.
I seriously feel so blessed to not only have a job
but to have one that is so perfect!

And, their mascot is the buccaneers.
I'm hoping I'll get to dress like a pirate at least once.

GOOD NEWS!

I got a job! I got a JOB! I got a job. I GOT A JOB! I got a job!!!!! I got a job! I got a JOB! I got a job. I GOT A JOB! I got a job!!! I got a job! I got a JOB! I got a job. I GOT A JOB! I got a job!!! I got a job! I got a JOB! I got a job. I GOT A JOB! I got a job!!! I got a job! I got a JOB! I got a job. I GOT A JOB! I got a job!!! I got a job! I got a JOB! I got a job. I GOT A JOB! I got a job!!!

And I am REALLY excited!

That's all.

Let's review...

Now that I am furthermore finished with Arizona State University I can blog again.
Aren't you excited?!?

So I got two degrees from ASU and I couldn't be happier that I am finally done...



Oh wait yes I could... I would be much happier if the economy wasn't stupid and districts were hiring teachers.

You see earlier in the semester I went to this little rally at the capitol building where people were slightly upset that the state was cutting millions of dollars in education. Aren't these two little girlies cute as buttons? They held up that sign for a good hour before getting tired.

Anyway, let me tell you a little story. Student teaching sucked up all my time. But I loved it. So to catch the world up on my life I will give you an assortment of pictures that will tell you what I've been doing.

For I ♥ to Read week we made green eggs and ham and painted toast. Thanks Mrs. Doreen!
(I stole the idea from my preschool teacher)


I assume it tasted bomb because my kids ate it like lunch wasn't in an hour. But I'm not gonna lie I was too afraid to taste it.

Food dyed the wrong color grosses me out.

Later in the month I made volcanoes for the kids to explode.

Let me just tell you a little secret,
neon pink play-doh + neon purple play-doh + neon orange play-doh + neon green play-doh and little bit of green food coloring = gross orangish volcano looking play-doh.
That might just save you some trouble down the road.

Oh and walgreens is the only place in, say a 10 mile radius that has pop-rocks when you need them at 11:30 at night.

If you can see the clock on the oven then you can tell it's 1:55 am when I made these beauties.
Someone should tell ASU that student teaching 50 hours a week is TOO MUCH!

See the cute dinosaurs? The sand is compliments of the park down my street where all the moms in my ward say you get pink-eye at. Luckily no eyes were hurt in the making of these volcanoes.


Then we made them explode at school.

The kids got to put in a mixture of baking soda, vinegar, water, dish soap, red food coloring, alkaseltzer, red glitter, pop-rocks and minty life savers.

I thought it might make the explosion bigger and adding stuff is always fun. The pop rocks made the explosion sizzle. The kids learned that dinosaurs drowned in the lava and that pop-rocks and gushers are great mixture!

Later I switched to a fifth grade class. We had lots of fun too! We watched "Gone with the Wind" and we made planet models and planet posters. Those pictures are on my other memory card. Come back soon to see the planets. They are AMAZING!

Besides student teaching, we sent Elliot off on his mission.
I have actually been keeping up on his blog.

Isn't this picture of him and his dad precious?


I also hung out with this kid when I had time. I am the best wife in the world because I bought us matching clip-on mustaches.

My favorite thing was going to the Jimmy Eat World Clarity tour this spring. Devin, Me, Emily and Julia all went but didn't hang out together. We also saw half of Mesa there.

Pre sweaty hair

Post sweaty hair

Devin kept hoping that Davey from The Promise Ring was going to show up when they sang "The Praise Chorus". He didn't show. Devin's hopes and dreams were crushed.

I taught Julia how to pump gas too. She failed. It got all over her jeans. She smelt like an auto-mechanic. I made her walk home. Okay not really. But I thought about it.

She also participated in her and Devin's favorite hobby. Taking awkward pictures together.

Normal picture. (sans the rock star gear)

Awkward molester picture.

For spring break me and Emily decided to go and get our finger print clearance cards. Emily needed one to apply to the nursing program and I thought I needed a new one with an IVP number on it.

We got all gussied up to go and then remembered that we were going to a government facility where we should have worn pajama pants and wife beater tanks if we really wanted to fit in.


Of course per usual, the building was near impossible to find. Says the lady who we finally found to give us directions, "oh no, you see when the road says 'No Access Dead End' you're supposed to go past it and then make a left to get to the building."
We were mad at them until they reminded us to buckle up and we promptly forgave them.

Thanks crash test dummy DPS man!


Then we had a party of the century for Annie's birthday.

First week was the family celebrations.

Then we moved on to the friend celebrations.

They decorated purses.


Had brownies with powdered sugar which blew into our faces.


Blew bubbles, had a silly string war and spent the night.

Finally, Teeny was bored and hated me for never being home and decided that a box made a better mother than me. See how she averts her eyes and won't even look at me?!?
I'm crushed.
My cat hates me.

We have since made up and are now best friends again.

Next up girls camp pictures. I went for a FULL week so don't you worry about a thing. There will be plenty more posts a comin'.

Okay so I posted. Can we be friends again?

Happy Birthday ANNIE!

It's that time again. Annie just (on March 7th) turned 15 years old!
Hard to believe she's 15 eh?


Here are 15 reasons why I LOVE Miss Annie Jones Fletcher King (self named)

1. Annie is hilarious! No really you don't get it. She is really ridiculously funny.
Por ejemplo...

When my dad first started dating his new wife Annie asked him if he was coming to her choir concert. He said yes and that Dianne was coming too. Annie leaned over to me and behind her hand said, "Uh-oh. Incoming."

The other day she said this while hugging the cat. "Oh Jane I'm so sorry. Will you forgive me?" And then she proceeded to sing from "Just Friends"
"Forgiveness...is more than saying sorry."

2. Annie LOVES Disney channel. She can quote anything that's from "Hannah Montana", "The Suite Life of Zac and Cody", "Wizards of Waverly Place" or "Sonny with a Chance". She is so good at memorizing what the characters say we have seriously considered asking Disney Channel to start embedding things we need Annie to memorize into their shows like the Young Women's theme or the Articles of Faith so she can start quoting those things instead of the random lines from the TV shows.

3. Annie is an amazing dancer. She can shake it like nobodies business. She loves to come up with choreography and to tell everyone where they should be and what to do.

4. Annie also loves to teach people how to dance. If you're ever bored on a Saturday night and want some entertainment, come to our house and watch Annie teach me how to dance. Its like watching Justin Timberlake try to teach Steve Urkle. Kind of pathetic.

5. When Annie grows up she wants to be famous, a teacher, and a dress designer. She doesn't want to be a famous teacher or a famous dress designer. Just famous for being famous. Watch out Paris Hilton.

6. Annie loves America's Next Top Model. Tyra Banks is her idol and she has a FIERCE runway walk. Ask her. She would love to show you.

7. Annie is a great reader. Right now she is reading Twilight because "Edward is SO romantic" her words not mine.

8. Annie loves to learn. She is a fantastic student and always wants to get straight A's. If you want her to do well you just tell her that she needs to get an A and she will do the best she can. She loves to talk about school especially the units her amazing teacher Mrs. Schulte puts together. Right now she is learning about the human body and her favorite thing is to tell you about all of the different systems in the body and what they do. She retains so much of the knowledge she learns is science and loves learning it.

9. Annie is super excited to turn 16. She has been talking about turning 16 since she was 13. It started out with..."Next year I turn 14, then next year I turn 15, then after that when I'm 16 I'm going to go on a date and get driving lessons." Now that she is 15 she reminds us every day that she is almost 16 and that soon she can go on dates.

10. Annie is an amazing swimmer. She loved doing swim team at Mesa High last semester and really had a great time with all of the other swimmers. She is a really great at freestyle!

11. Annie really likes to learn sign language. She is going to take it at Mesa High next year and she is already practicing out of her sign book so she will be ready to go. She thinks it is so fun to talk to people by signing.

12. Annie is the most polite girl you will ever meet. She always says "please", "thank-you", "you're welcome", and "bless you" when she needs to. She is so nice to be with because she is always so polite.

13. Annie always compliments whoever makes the dinner. It can be macaroni and cheese and she will tell you that you are the bomb.com because it was the best food she has ever had. She seriously makes you feel so amazing because she always tells you whatever you made was fabulous.

14. Annie is afraid of our chickens. If you want to give her a heart attack you will make her go outside and feed them. She really freaks out if she thinks they are chasing her.
Annie+petting chickens = not friends
Annie+ eating chicken = best friends


15. Most of all we love Annie because she is such a sweetheart. There is a reason we have Annie is my BFF! bumper stickers. She always tells her friends that they are her BFF. Annie is great at complimenting others and is very in tune with others feelings. She is always concerned with how others feel and wants everyone to be happy. I love having Annie around. She really is my BFF! (shh don't tell Devin)

Happy Birthday Annie! We love you!!!