The death of January

Okay, tell me that January wasn't just the longest month for everyone? And you're at least a little happy to be done with it? Yeah February!!!
So it's all been same old, same old for me, it seems.
I do like like my job with the 6th graders. I wonder what Valentine's will be like for them :)
On Fridays the students are able to go to little classes that are fun and educational. In the past I taught a babysitting class and recently I've been helping out with study hall, where the kids who have missing assignments have to be.
But then I decided to take the digital camcorder that Jay won at a work party and teach a "film making" class. The quote marks are because how little I really know, and can teach in 5 one hour session of class to 6th graders :) It should really be entitled: Having Fun With a Video Camera. I brought in several props from around my house for them to film with. They made their own commercials, one about instant water (just add water!) and the other about Granite Bear (defends women against having their purses stolen). But they had lots of fun :) Unfortunately I didn't get a list of who was going to be in my class until the day of: I had 1 girl come and 6 boys and here I'd brought a lot of my girly things--a purse, a purple cap, the teddy bear.
And then to my surprise... the girl wanted to be the cameraman and the boys really just wanted to use the girly props :) Not that all the props were girly.
Any ideas for other things we could do? I'm compiling some.
Before I brought the camera, I think I managed to delete off of it the footage of me trying it out and, since Jay asked, we got on film me saying, "I have NO idea how to work this!" On the other hand, you know how memory cards are; you think you've deleted something, and it's really still there.
Jay's having a VERY busy semester and I really appreciate him. I also appreciate Natalie and Chad who don't seem bugged that I hang out on the main floor often when Jay's home, leaving him alone to study. Because we live so far from the BYU library, he has to do a lot of studying here at home.
Speaking of Nat and Chad and the cute kids, they've been gone to Houston and will be back soon. The house has been so quiet! It can be a bit eerie (don't you love the way the word "eerie" looks?) and Jay's gone a lot, but it means that I can practice the keyboard without Seth becoming demanding that he "help" :) Seth's less than 2 and can recognize a toy when he sees one... even if the rest of us might call it an instrument...
The worst part about them being gone is that the very first day Little Foot injured his paw and, bored and alone, keeps licking it raw! So I took him to the veterinarians, where of course they had issues finding his health plan (the staff is so incompetent) and I had to leave him ALL DAY from before work at 7:15 am to 6 pm when they could finally see him. Happy had been home alone all day and was frantic when Jay got back from work... our dogs get lonely. Well, so L F now has a cone of shame to keep him from licking.
Our new primary class has been fun. We now teach the same age as Sakura, but not the class with her in it. One little girl pointed at Sakura and said, "What's your granddaughter's name?"
I hear from Sakura's teacher that they're just as funny. She said she brought in a picture of her son, in a white shirt, tie, and name tag. She asked the kids who he was. Instead of "missionary" the kids exclaimed, "It's the prophet!"
A week ago at my school one kid saved another from choking. It was also the week that prospective parents toured, with members of the student council to guide them. Apparently one parent asked, when they got to the library, "Isn't this where that kid saved another from choking?"
And my student replied, "It is, but it actually happened lots of times and we saved him every time!"
Apparently our lessons in honesty don't work :)
We've been letting Happy sleep with us since Nat's on vacation. I'll tell you, Little Foot is much nicer to snuggle with. He doesn't wake up at who-knows-what-time and decide he wants to lick your feet! What a weird thing to wake to.
I'm making stew today, although it's not as cold as it has been. Jay's catching a cold and I'm going to be allergy tested for my hay fever on Thursday and so am not allowed allergy medicine for a week beforehand. It means we both have headaches, sore throats, etc, so it's a good night for stew.
I actually had the testing scheduled for a week ago on Thursday. After the long, horrible week without any allergy meds, they called me literally 5 minutes before I left for my appointment to tell me that the girl who does the testing was in the hospital and they had to cancel my appointment. So here I am rescheduled.
It's a good thing I don't believe in fate or I'd hate her. Or is fate a him?
But, on the other hand, Sakura had had some sort of stomach virus or something and was really sick and, since I had work off that morning anyway, I was able to help. So that was a good thing about the appointment being rescheduled.
So apparently the craft room was left open and the dogs just came out with the tail from Seth's Halloween costume! They're pretty good about being nice to our things... but the long, stuffed, green tail looks very much like a doggie toy! I can't really be that mad that they started tearing out the stuffing. It's repairable, so that's another reason for not being so mad.
We've only had 1 real snow storm that blanketed everything this entire winter so far. It's been nice, but I have to admit that it was absolutely gorgeous in the moonlight! It was nice to see it on the trees, across the lawn, made into snowmen and giant snowballs. It didn't even make the roads too bad. It was pretty amazing to see close to ten 6th grade boys pushing around the biggest snowball I've ever seen--it took that many people to push around such a big thing :)
I guess that's all for now.