The 25th Hour ~karenjcardoza.com~

It’s been an incredibly busy week since coming home from the Rendezvous. Unexpected things have been happening in the personal life and I’m wrapping up things at school so online time has been limited. As of right now, there are 9 more mornings that I need to get up for work this school year! There’s been little time to blog but I’m hoping to carve out at least a few minutes each day from here on out.

I’ve finished my last two IEPs for this year and met with parents on my free periods today and yesterday. These will be the last two done in this manner as RI has changed their procedures and forms. (I attended a training the other day and it’s going to take some time to “unlearn” what I’ve been doing all these years and change my mindset.) One of my favorite students has moved back into my district so he started again on Monday. We’ve been kept busy meeting his unique needs so my assistant and I are really on our toes.

Tomorrow, the adults in the room are holding a Cultural Feast for the students. I’m making traditional French Canadian Meat Pies (Tourtiere). Each family has their own recipe but the basic ingredients are beef, pork, potatoes, and spices. Right now, my house is starting to smell like the holidays! In my family, this is also the meat stuffing for the Thanksgiving turkey. It’s quite a bit of work but so very yummy!!

Due to the inconsistencies on Twitter of late, many of us have taken the opportunity to check out Plurk. It’s yet another microblogging site and is good for a back-up or as a page to visit in it’s own right but is not the same type of service as Twitter and will serve different purposes. I’m mrsb there as well. Add me if you wish. To me, Plurk is much more like Seesmic; a place to visit and spend time involved in the conversations. I’m playing around with a new toy a bit but Twitter is my mainstay. (Mostly because I don’t “go to” Twitter. I never spend time on their website, I just have Twhirl open and it scrolls on by. Sometimes I get in on the conversation and sometimes I don’t. It’s invaluable if you need an answer for something fast and it hasn’t let me down yet. My son needed some information about the price of refinishing a wood floor for a math project and businesses were closed. A quick tweet and I had a number of answers within minutes!)

That’s all for tonight.. going to fill the pies, tuck the girls in and hit the bed with a book. More tomorrow for Day 8.

Edit : Don’t forget the ketchup!

The folks at Common Craft are at it again. Here’s their explanation of Social Media… In plain English.  (Thanks for sharing, guys!)

Check it out:

I just installed the new Seesmic Video Comment plugin so not only will I be able to post video messages directly here, you can video comment back as well. Check it out and give it a try!

You can download yours here:

Seesmic Wordpress Video Comment Plugin “}

Technorati Tags: seesmic wordpress video plugin seesmicvideo comments wordpressplugin

The crew at Commoncraft are at it again! Here it is… in plain English!

Technorati Tags podcasting commoncraft video

I guess most of my day revolves around coming and going… and my favorite place to be: Home!

If you’re a twitter user, you can make your own here.

Technorati Tags: twitter tweetcloud tweetclouds

If you’re reading this entry in an RSS Reader then you’re probably saying “Not Again!” because you’ve seen this video posted over and over again on the blogs that you subscribe to so this is NOT for you! (You’re most likely a geek and if you’re geeky enough to be into rss then you’ve been Twittering for a long time for sure!)

This post is for you: family, friends, and Pats fans alike who have stumbled here or purposely come here for other reasons and wonder “Just what the heck is Twitter, anyway?” Commoncraft explains it so well that I couldn’t even begin to compare so just sit back, watch, and see you on Twitter! (I’m mrsb so be sure to add me if you jump into the Twitter pool!)

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Early Sunday morning and the dogs are playing while I wait for the coffee to brew. Vacation week went by really fast (as they always do) and it was a good one save for one thing. I was going to post midweek but started to write it then had to leave to give Jake a ride. So, the draft sat there but I decided to delete it because it was extremely negative and re-reading it only dragged me down. Of course, it was about how I was feeling at that point, due to the Assessment. I’m not going to get into it here but let’s just say it was the low-point of my week.

Other than that, it was a good week and I did get to accomplish a lot of what I set out to do.

• I exercised most days and while an hour walking on the treadmill was long and boring it’s what I need to do since running is out. (I’ll be jumping on for the Long, Slow, Burn after this post and my morning cuppa.) I’ve begun lifting weights again (gently… don’t want to re-injure my back) and doing some deep yoga stretching after my walk which is loosening things up nicely. Scott would be proud.

• One of my goals was to get rid of the pee-pee pads and be diligent about taking Chloe out so as not give her the opportunity to have any accidents in the house. While the weather was not the most cooperative and I made lots of trips outside in the rain at the beginning of the week and icy snow at the end, she’s getting the concept that it’s not OK to pee in the house. I haven’t cleaned a puddle all week, and while she’s not ready yet to “tell me”when she’s got to go out, if I keep a close eye on her, I can catch her sniffing and head her off at the pass.

• I did manage to get some reading in, and although I didn’t finish any books, I put a dent in my magazine pile and made progress in The Freedom Writer’s Diary. I also started A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle and will be joining in with the rest of the Oprah Book Clubbers for the online seminar beginning on March 3rd. For my final day of vacation, I would love to just lounge out and read, read, read!

• Jake’s wrestling season has come to an end, so by mommycab duties will now be reduced greatly. It’s time to start heading out with him to practice driving since he’s gotten his permit but has been so busy and hasn’t had a chance to get behind the wheel yet.

• Managed to do a closet purge and got rids of lots of things that just don’t fit or I don’t wear anymore. Nice to have room in there! I need to hit up the cabinets this week as well.

Yesterday, I attended NewBCamp in Providence. It was the first un-conference that was geared towards the real beginner. It was a small group but was manageable since most folks were starting from the ground up. I ended up being a mentor in one of the sessions and explained blogging and podcasting and helped someone set up her first blog. Many of the people there were brand new to computing and used it for email and the occasional google search only, so I give them a lot of credit for coming out to learn something that was completely foreign to them and for trying to understand the online world of their children and grandchildren. (Photos tagged Newbcamp are here.)

After it was over, we headed to AS220 where Matthew Ebel played for 90 minutes. As always he put on a great show and gained quite a few new fans along the way. All of the women that I walked back to the car with had never heard him before and raved about his music and stage presence the whole way. I have a feeling that more than one Beer and Coffee and Goodbye Planet Earth CD are being played today for the first time. Here are some great shots by Chris Penn. (I was trying to embed one here but Flickr is not cooperating for me on this computer.. can’t see any embed links.)

Got lots I want to squeeze in to this final day but for now… more coffee!

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