It's January of 2015! Whaaaat?

The New Year started off taking care of the aftermath of a flood that happened New Year's Eve day.  An overhead sprinkler next to the band room exploded and both the band and choir rooms flooded.  There was at least an inch of standing water in my music library.  Thankfully, none of my music was damaged because of the incredibly quick response of my amazing administration.  When I came back from break, everything from my office outside of it.  The janitors were AWESOME and helped us get everything back in to place in no time at all. Some band music was damaged and replaced, but probably only a few hundred dollars worth.  It really was a miracle. 

January is a big month for our family, as both my sisters celebrate their birthdays! For Anna's birthday on January 10th, I got a peek into her college life.  She and her roommates threw an enormous "Roaring Twenties" birthday party.  So many people came dressed up to match the theme.  Christina and I found ourselves a bit old- especially considering my roaring twenties are now past me- so we dropped in once or twice and mostly stayed holed up in the condo having dinner with Jer, Scotty, Christian and Chelsey.  I was so proud of Anna for being such a great hostess with the mostest.

Tina and Jer brought Scotty up one Saturday so I could watch him while they went to the temple.  This kid is growing up so fast, and learning SO MUCH.  He can throw and (sort of) catch a ball, he is saying lots of words, and he's the hippest toddler on the block- check out his outfit! He loves to crawl into our laps and have books read to him.  He says, "ho ho ho" whenever he sees a picture of Santa Claus.  He does baby signs, especially sorry, please, and all done.  If he gets excited and hits, we tell him to be soft and he drags his little hand "softly" across the face of the person he hit.  It's so cute.

I also got to have another "girls night" sleepover with cousin Nicole! We visited Scotty and she read him a book.  We also helped babysit for stake conference and got milkshakes.

For Christina's 27th birthday, we had a family dinner consisting of one of Christina's favorites meals, Stauffer's lasagna! My mom made Tina's favorite buttermilk chocolate cake (sans the discontinued rainbow chip frosting...so sad).  We also went to the outlets for Tina to pick out her birthday present from my parents, a puffy winter vest.  Scotty had the time of his life running around outside in between stores. Again, please appreciate the way his mommy dresses him. 

 My dad and his brothers own my Grandad's property.  AND THEY HAVE HORSES! And two llamas.  It's like my dad's dream come true.  And all the kids have a bit of cowboy and girl running through our veins, thanks to a mom who was raised on a farm and a dad who lived every summer at his grandparents' ranch.  I had a great time brushing and walking Annie. I am known as the only Houston kid who doesn't love animals, but I have a special love for horses.  Check out that brush-- crazy! I wouldn't like that thing on my hair, but Annie loved it. Christina got a chance to ride her a couple days later. Can't wait for my turn!

I started my very last graduate school class.  Below is a sample of the kind of excitement that happens for 2.5 hours every Thursday night.  I have to admit, I actually am quite fascinated by music theory and I am enjoying this class.  It goes really fast, though, so I can't afford not to pay attention for even a minute.  And that's hard for me.  But...after this, I finish my project over the summer and I'm done! As of December 2015, I will have finished my master's after a mere 3.5 years (ha ha).

Well, I did it. I got my hair colored after years of abstaining.  And I am LOVING IT.  I really shouldn't have started...because now I won't be able to stop.

For New Beginnings, we are introducing the mutual theme this year of embarking in the service of God.  I am in charge of the frames we will send home with each girl. Gilary made the darling picture we are putting inside each one.  I find it therapeutic to come home from work and school and work on a few frames at a time. I'll be kind of sad when they are all finished!

The Before Picture

I came across a pretty accurate before picture of what my hair looked like before Violet rescued it:


Am I lucky to have a friend in the hair biz or what?!

Paging Dr. Violet

My hair has been STRUGGLING lately. Don't know what the issue is. I've been trying to grow it out for a long time, but it was definitely damaged and dry. So I had to call my hair doctor, Dr. Violet Williams. She was able to prescribe me some new shampoo and conditioner and do some surgery on my hair.

Note: Please forgive the Emo-bangs-over-the-eyes look. Wasn't posing that way on purpose. I promise.

Bad Hair Day

One of my mission companions from Brazil saw my post about my student's comments on my bad hair last week. She sent me an email with a few pictures of what bad hair REALLY looks like. It was so funny I wanted to share it with all of you!

Out of the mouths of big annoying babies

Today during first period, I was standing up in front of my class trying to get things started. One of my more outspoken and loud students said, "Ms. Houston! Did you wake up LATE today?!!" My jaw DROPPED to the floor. I turned to look at my pre-student teacher, and her face mirrored my own exactly. We were both shocked.

He proceeded to make more comments about how my hair looked messy and I had to be careful because my boyfriend might walk in the room at any second. (1. Who says that to their teacher? 2. What boyfriend? 3. At least I'm not late to class every day like he is). He said, "I want to hear the story." He thought there had to be some sort of good reason attached to the fact that my hair looked unacceptable. I had to inform him that there was no story, I apparently just looked awful. I guess sticking a flower in one's hair for good measure doesn't make a hairstyle cute, as much as I thought it did when I fixed it this morning.

Here's a picture of me and my hair today, so you can see for yourself. To be fair, I didn't spend that much time on my hair this morning. It was just a shocker to me because I honestly didn't think it looked bad when I came to school. His comment seemed out of left field (although, looking at the picture makes me think maybe it was mostly accurate).

But who says that to their teacher?!

Red is for Valentine's Day

In honor of Valentine's Day, Violet dyed my hair red. This is Kate and I before leaving for our our huge stake Valentine's dance, complete with a catered dinner, love song karaoke, speed dating, and cupids.

They just wanna, they just wanna!

So I added a finishing touch before I left my house this morning...

This is Christy Giblon, the band teacher. I was so proud of the music department for representing.

It was jersey day at Kate's school. GO COUGARS!

Today, I asked my students if they knew what music was popular during the eighties. I had one boy raise his hand and say, "Oh, there was something like...the sliding....the sliding rocks or something, wasn't there?" I said, "You mean the Rolling Stones?" and he said, "Yeah! That's it!"

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Today is eighties day. Please note the following:

Layered socks
Pegged pants
"Permed" hair
Jeans jacket with a popped color
(you can't see this but) A dangly earing in one ear and a stud in another
Blue eyeshadow
A bright colored shirt tied to the side with a ponytail holder

I haven't participated in any of the decades days this week...until now. Because I lived the eighties.

Hair Cuts and Budget Cuts

This is my 80th post. It will be more exciting when it's my 100th post. But all the same, this is the big 8-0.

Here is my new hair.


Violet convinced me to go side-swept with the bangs. I pretty much trust her with my life so when it comes to my hair, when she says, "Jump," I say, "How high?" I even just told her to go buy whatever color she thought would look good and that's how we did it. Chocolate brown this time. I don't know if I'll ever go light again. And the title of my blog post is misleading...she actually didn't take scissors to my hair at all this time. She just styled the bangs differently. She's a master.

Things are financially looking grim for our school. The budget cuts are starting to directly affect our day-to-day life at Dixon. We no longer have a stipend to pay for teachers to do lunchtime supervision; as a result, we have all been asked to volunteer one week out of the semester to supervise lunch. That's not too big of a deal, just a pain logistically. Also, we can no longer print things in the teacher's lounge unless we take our own paper and load just the amount we need ourselves. I don't have a printer in my office, so it makes things a little more difficult. We had to cut back hours for the janitorial staff, which means we no longer have the luxury of having our rooms cleaned as often as they were. We're cutting back on heat, making our rooms a little chilly. These are all little adjustments, but it really makes us as a school evaluate our priorities. It has been an interesting thing to watch unfold.

My students have a little game they like to play where they whistle when I'm not looking so it's extremely obnoxious but I can't tell who it is. So, in true teacher form, I told a little lie that goes something like this: "If the whistling doesn't stop, we will all stay here as long as it takes until someone confesses. That person will lose all their participation points. We can stay here all day if we need to." After I caught one kid whistling again, his name was put on the board and he lost five points. After that, things calmed down a little. I was kicking myself for letting them get under my skin like that, because that's EXACTLY the point. One kid in my 7th period clucks his tongue all the time to bother me. He drives me crazy. I feel like I'm in a class full of siblings, except I can't do something annoying back. Sheesh.