Good News...and Major Rambling

...I finally got a replacement camera- WhooHoo!!!! My old one is definitely fried now. BUT, this new one is going to be even better (I hope). It's nothing super fancy but it has twice as much digital and optical zoom than I had before so I'm pretty excited to give it a shot...get it, give it a shot? HA! I crack myself up.

This song? Blessed Assurance by Randy Travis. Totally made me cry.

I'm getting pretty excited for school to start. I got a wild idea to have my kiddos tye dye shirts on the first day of school...they will be transitioning from elementary to middle school and embracing a whole new set of colors and a new mascot. What better way to become a Viking than to tye dye blue and orange, right? Plus, I have a bunch of field trips planned for this year and it'll be so nice to have everyone looking the same when I have to keep track of 100 plus kidletts.

I also finished reading another book on my summer adolescent literature list- Ida B by Katherine Hannigan. What a great little read. I love keeping up on kid lit so I put the 'just right' book in a kid's hand. Who knew that I was putting the 'just right' book into my own? LOVED this book. It's about a girl who is very much a naturalist...and I can definitely relate to her (even though she's 10!). She goes through some rough things and learns to love and let go (just a little bit). This is from the back of the book:

This is what I have for lunch every single day: peanut butter on one slice of bread, milk, and an apple, preferably a McIntosh because they're tangy with a thin skin, which Daddy says resembles me at times.
"Don't you want to try something different, Ida B?" Daddy would say.
Well, by lunchtime I'm wide awake and I've already been busy doing my shores and learning and having some fun. I've got a list of things that I can't wait to do in the afternoon, my head is filled to the rim with interesting ideas and plans, and that's exactly who I want it to stay.
"There are too many things to think about in this world besides what I'm going to have for lunch, Daddy." I say, and he looks at me like I am a true mystery.

There is such wisdom in children, huh? One of the parts I most loved about this book is when Ida B, very apprehensively, attends a public school for the first time after a 'bad' school experience. She was expecting the worst until she met Ms. Washington...

I stopped in the doorway of room 130 for a minute, just taking it it so I could do like soldiers do before a battle: assess the enemy , formulate a plan, get armed, and attack.
There were rainbows and pictures and big colorful words on the bulletin boards. There was even a pretty rug at the far end of the room where there were no desks, only shelves of books that looked like real books, not schoolbooks. All that was missing were bluebirds and chirpy music.
And there was Ms. Washington, I figured, sitting in a kid's chair with her chin resting in her hand, listening to some girl who was picking her finders and talking at the same time.
I could tell that this was a warm place. Not a warm temperature place, but a warm-feeling-inside place. Some part of me knew it, but my heart refused to feel it.

And I've not realized it as much as been reminded of it...the fact that kids come into my room and are not as excited about the start of a new year as I am. I want my new students to feel at home...I want the classroom to be bright and cheery and warm. Not temperature warm, but warm-feeling-inside :) And so we're gonna take it one day, one student at a time and grow from there. My new over-the-door-motto? Mrs. McElroy's Class: A Great Place to Grow.

This is going to be a great year!