Best of the World Puzzle Completed

Wahoo! Third puzzle done with P! From wedding planning to puzzles, we make an awesome team. We worked on the border together. This was a test of our geography of the world. P put in almost all of the pieces of land quickly after he found a strategy that helped him figure it out quite easily. On my last day of Ski Break (which was pretty much resting and wedding planning all week), I finished up the buildings that surround the land. It was fun to figure out where the 500 pieces go since I didn’t let us use the picture on the box for help, or else it would be too easy. I have picked up a hobby of doing puzzles while staying at home until I can do my favorite hobby of traveling the world!! ✈️🗺

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Spring Flowers in Paris Puzzle Completed

P gifted me this Spring Flowers in Paris puzzle for Christmas as we look forward to traveling together and reminisce about travels while waiting for COVID to be better. We started this puzzle on New Year’s Day and finished yesterday! Puzzles are so addicting, and it is nice for a change to be able to use color to place the pieces. My Eeyore puzzle took years because I got stuck on all the photomosaic pieces that were the same color for Eeyore’s body and the sky. SIP has changed my hobbies and is making me become a homebody from reading books (on to the last book of the Harry Potter series!) to working on puzzles, but it’s a nice break from ongoing wedding planning.

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Eeyore Puzzle Finally Completed

Started this puzzle sometime after I moved home from college when I got it from a neighborhood garage sale and all 1026 pieces were still in an unopened bag. That’s how long this photomosaic puzzle took, and it wasn’t until I was stuck at home during SIP that I picked this up to finally finish it!

During distance learning in the spring, I shared with my first graders that I picked up working on this puzzle that I started years ago. I asked them to guess what they thought the picture is, and my students guessed all sorts of things but Eeyore. This motivated me to work on the puzzle so they could guess what it is. My goal was to add 10 pieces a day and finish by the end of the school year. Every time I had a weekly class meeting, at least one of my students would check in on how my puzzle was coming along. Talk about accountability! Well, summer came, I didn’t finish, I wasn’t even close, and I lost motivation to continue working on the puzzle for some time.

April – May 2020

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I gave up and took a break from the puzzle until my brother & sister-in-law picked it up again. They saw this puzzle in my brother’s room every time they visited home and were determined to help me finish it this time. The unused pieces were sorted by color and organized by their exact shapes on a few box lids (thanks to K’s system that worked!). It was a tedious and patient process of trial and error, but it felt addicting once a piece fit in the right place. We used our different strategies to work on different parts of the puzzle together without bumping into each other.

October 16-18, 2020

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COMPLETED on 10/18/2020

A close-up of just how hard this photomosaic puzzle was

Wahoo!!! I could not have completed this puzzle without help from my brother, sister-in-law, and P!

Staff Bowling Party

Thanks to my principal, our staff enjoyed an evening of bowling, food, and hanging out on Thursday after work at Bowlero in San Jose. It was a fun time with my coworkers! 😀

my new neighbor next door! It’s reassuring to hear someone else on the other side of the wall at work when I’m there in the early morning and after school.

first grade team!

first game – 121 points, my all-time record!

playing with upper grade teachers aka nerds who came up with our bowling names – Framework, Gradual Release, Scope and Sequence, Rigor, and Closure

second game on the right – 105 points. Jessica M&M outscored the whole staff with 144 points and a turkey! X = Strike, XX = Double Strike, XXX = TURKEY?!?!

loner third game – 113 points

Winter Break 2016

Winter Break is over, and it was perfect because I got to do just what I wanted – relax and read. My two weeks off from work can be summed up as being miserably sick for the first week and being way productive for the second week. Here’s my recap with the only photos I took…

Canned chicken soup for dinner on Christmas Day

Unfortunately, I woke up on Christmas Day with a cough, which turned into chills, body aches, and congestion. My body crashed once the busyness of work and the holidays was over. I was in bed for 5 days straight, but the cough lingered for 10 days. While getting the flu was not what I had planned because I wanted to visit my mommy friends and their babies but couldn’t get them sick, it was God’s way of making me rest at home. I caught up on sleep and watched a Korean drama series, 1% of Anything. Watching Drama Fever clips on Youtube led to reading all the episode recaps in English, which led to watching the whole series, hehe.

CCCC Youth Group reunion

New Year’s Day dinner at the Co’s

6 bags/boxes of things that I am happily donating away including prom dresses

All the time resting in bed bottled up my energy to do a lot more once I felt better and gained my appetite back. Apparently finding good end-of-the-season deals on new winter clothes and throwing things out bring me a lot of joy. “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

• Finished 2 books – Hidden Christmas and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
• Watched 2 movies – Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and La La Land
• Tried 2 Santa Clara eats – Kunjip and Din Tai Fung
• Shopped for 2 days at Old Town Los Gatos and Valley Fair
• Cleaned out and organized almost every part of the house
• Made snacks for church

Snacks for PBC – curry beef triangles, soy sauce eggs, edamame, tuna dip with crackers, hazelnut chocolate filled french crepes, toasted almond crisps, and cuties

Monday is an Inservice Day for teachers and the district’s Employee Recognition Event, so I get one more day to ease back into work. Can’t believe the second half of the school year is here. I’m excited to see my students continue to progress and get them ready for second grade!