Shine Bright Like a Diamond? (A simile that doesn't really make sense...)

Does ANY teacher enjoy the end of the quarter?

I vehemently answer...NO. 

The end of the quarter means that students in all walks of grade lives come pouring in during every spare moment (and the not-so-spare moments) to grub for grades that they clearly did not earn.

Typically, my response is a hand in the face accompanied by a "be gone" or "skadoosh." Sometimes, I keep sputtering out gibberish every time they try to speak. Eventually, they grow so annoyed that they walk away. Now, some of you might be thinking I'm a wicked witch whose heart blood runs cold. 

On the contrary, like most teachers, I spent all quarter offering every ever-living opportunity for success. I give up planning periods to meet with students about essays. I post homework online, on the back board, and I always go over it verbally before class ends. I spend hours making graphic organizers and I scaffold like a boss. Yet, despite my efforts, some rapscallions still act like rapscallions and presume quite ridiculously that I will, through no effort of their own, promote them from rapscallion to royalty. 

No dice.

This quarter, here is what I think in my head when they approach me, or I see that I'm-thinking-about-harassing-you-about-my-grade twinkle in their adolescent eyes:

Oh, I'm sorry, student. You want to raise your grade at the very last minute? Let's talk about wants for a moment. I DON'T want to move all of my shit from a house to an apartment, close on my house on Halloween (and take a "sick day" in order to do so), find time to sign the apartment lease, continue my hour commute, get all of my letters of recommendation in by Friday (to an online system that is making all of us teachers want to flick someone in the eyeball), go to the market because one more day of bagged rice is unacceptable, put up with your end-of-the-quarter-I-should've-done-it-when-you-assigned-it jackassery, or deal with these very angry, grudge-wielding lady parts of mine. In summary, we do not always get what we want. Sometimes, we get everything we don't want. In one week. Don't say you never learned anything in English class.

Since I've packed up all of my clothes but the ones I picked out for this week, I'm crossing my fingers that the weather doesn't go all hormonal on us and sprint back to 80 degrees. Otherwise, I might be forced to buy new clothes instead of digging mine out of boxes. Liiiike I need another excuse...

The Outfit:

Cardigan: Old Navy (current--I lurrrve the pink one.)

Top: Old Navy ($10 on the clearance rack. Boom.)

Black Jeans: NY & Co.

Boots: Madden Girl

Scarf: No idea...I own too many. I mean, not enough.

The Details:

Occasion: What'd Cher from Clueless call it? "Riding the crimson waves?" Does anyone remember that part of the movie? Anyway, I was in the same boat (look at this water imagery go), so dark bottoms all week it is. Okay, that's not the "occasion." Teaching is the occasion, but whatever.

Comments: You can sort of tell in the second photo that this cardigan has sparkly elbows. How delicious. I think the detailing on the boots is tubular. My scarf has some sparkle in it, too, but I don't think you can tell in pictures. I was comfortable and felt pulled together. Need I say more? 

Linking up with Molly. 

Friday Teacher Favorites

One of you asked me to post about cute things I love/my favorites, so hooray for me and my A+ in this week's Friday Favorites and High Five for Friday. I'm telling you five of my favorite things that all deal with teaching. Now, you're probably wondering what in the name of Hades dry shampoo and food have to do with teaching. Well, fear not, dear reader, I shall answer all of your questions because that's the kind of teacher I am.

(By the way, if you want to know how to make a collage easily for your blog, use one of my favorite programs for teaching: PowerPoint. Just drag and drop images onto the PowerPoint slide. Instead of clicking "Save As," click the option under it, "Save as Pictures." All of the slides save as different pictures in one folder. If you're linking to items, include the links in the note section of your slide. If you include links in the notes section that you want to save, just be sure to save the PPT as a PPT in addition to saving it as a picture. I have one folder on my desktop labeled "Blog Pictures." Easy peasy lemon squeezy as my co-teacher would say.)

The Favorites:

Maroon Exact Stretch Straight Work Pants: I love The Limited. One, they give a teacher discount (even on sale items), and I can actually find pants that fit. (Apparently, being short-crotched but with thicker thighs and an actual behind makes finding pants rather troublesome.) I probably wear these pants at least once every other week. For fall, the color goes with everything: lace and gingham for a start. The pants are actually work pants, but they don't flare at the bottom, a quality I've come to realize makes it difficult to find the right shoes. The straight or skinny cut is great for flats, heels, or booties. I know these pants will be workhorses for me this fall.

Black Skinny Work Pants: Express is the other store that always provides me with pants that fit. They do not provide a teacher discount, but their clothes are quality and have lasted me for years and years. If you consider cost per wear, they pay for themselves. Oh, and these pants feel like pajamas. They are so soft and comfortable. God bless you, 2% spandex.

Cognac/Camel Cardigan: I wanted a cardigan this color for awhile, and Old Navy did not disappoint. PLUS, they have matching flats (should've included them in the collage...maybe next week.) Old Navy has been killing it recently. I walk in and want to buy ALL OF THE THINGS. This cardigan, especially because its color goes with my boots and flats, is my current favorite. Plus, it's soft and just the right length. I like it a bit baggier, so I sized up.

Redken Dry Shampoo: I wake up at 5 dark thirty. I do not want to style my hair every morning particularly if I'm surrounded by teenagers who clearly own nothing other than booty shorts, leggings, and sweatpants. In a future post, I will show you how I make it three-four days without washing my hair. For now, I will tell you that this little bottle is my not-so-secret-anymore weapon. Previously, I used the Suave dry shampoo (got it at Target.) That worked okay, but not nearly as well as the Redken has. This stuff rockets grease out of my hair. Sorcery, I tell you. Disclaimer: my stylist said that it works well on blondes, but it might make brunettes look like they have dandruff. Since I'm a blonde, I can speak only to the fact that it works beautifully for me.

SunButter Crunch : Why a snack, you ask? We teachers are conditioned to think that 9:30-10:30 a.m. is lunch time while the rest of the working world is waiting at least two more hours. Every other day, I can't eat until noon, and I will wither away to nothing squared if I wait that long. As such, I need to wolf down a snack between 2nd and 3rd periods. Enter these delicious snack bars. I have tried the mixed berry, caramel apple, and sunbutter crunch. I love them all, but I love SunButter best. I can't try the chocolate one because I'm allergic to chocolate. (Horrors of horrors, I know.) All of the bars are dairy free, nut free, and soy free. If you have loads of food allergies like I do, then you might want to try out the Enjoy Life brand. I find them at the local Martin's, Giant, and natural foods stores. (The link takes you to the company's website where you can buy them. Plus, they put the nutrition facts right there for you to see. I love the transparency.)


Any of these things on your list of favorites? Do tell if you decide to try them at my suggestion and actually like them as much as I do!

Striped Peplum: Two Looks

When Jeff and I visited friends in New York, we ended up at the Loft in NYC. I wonder how that happened? Oops. Anyway, I saw this top, and we fell in deep, steamy like. 

I had a small case of buyer's remorse (though Jeff bought it as a Christmas gift) because I had no idea what the crap to pair with it. I didn't want to be terribly boring, but I considered it. 

Enter my a-ha moment, and it wasn't even inspired by another blog or Pinterest.

Holy cow, I can have independent sartorial thoughts. Gasp. 

I decided that my red blazer and new necklace would do the trick.

I considered wearing my red wedges, but I decided against my natural inclination to be supremely matchy matchy. 

One of my senior aides told me that my outfit was Pinterest worthy. Be still my vain, vain heart.

Ya know, I thought my hair was too big today. It's looking a little Marge Simpson-esque. 

I felt mildly self conscious until a previous student saw me and complimented my voluminous locks. 

The best part about our encounter? She wasn't sure of the adjectival form of volume. She looked at me and said, "volum...?" I said, "voluminous?" 

"Yes! That's the word.  I didn't want to say the wrong thing. I mean, come on, you're an English teacher." Ha.ha. 

Sometimes I think documenting my outfits is silly. There are so many bigger things happening right now. I then realized that, regardless of the vanity and triviality of fashion blogging, it might just provide a little bright spot for someone else. Maybe my narratives serve as amusement. And, hey, I try to include some educational links. Ultimately, this small corner of the world offers me positivity and sanity. I see so much misery and feel so much compassion for those who are in need that A Little Bit of WoWe serves as my reprieve from the pandemonium that we call life. 

I hope your visits here help you to escape whatever might be plaguing you. 

If not, there's always this.

Anyway, on with scheduled programming.

Please excuse that unsightly excrescence on the side of the house. I'm typically much better at cropping it out of the frame.

If I wore this shirt outside of the teaching realm, I might style it like so. Like WO. 

Bahaha, I slay me. 

 Welcome to my wardrobe, you fun, red flats. 

I'm not sure why I ended with the most awkward picture of the bunch, but I felt like you'd be disappointed by just one picture of this look. Of course, you might be disappointed anyway, but such is life. Please enjoy my larger than life hair. 

Outfit Deets:

Red Blazer: Old Navy (exact)

Peplum top: Loft (exact)

Nude Pumps: Naturalizer (I like these.)

Necklace & earrings: The Limited 

Military jacket: Forever21 (lots of choices here)

Red Flats: Urban Outfitters (these from Zappos have fun sparkles)

Peplum, Black, and Leopard. Touché!

My mom took this picture, and this is her yappy (yet cute) dog, or, as my dad likes to say, my little "bruh bruh." Yuck. Gag me with a spoon, Dad. 

Before the capturing of this image, I had to ask, "his weiner isn't showing is it? I don't want his weiner hanging out." Who says these things? I do, folks. I do. 

Anyway, my department jokingly (or not?) decided to dress up as the Ravens (yeah, the team, not some cool Edgar Allan Poe theme) for Halloween. I would like to state that I do.not.watch.sports let alone own a jersey. My co-teacher brought in one of her kids' jerseys, but I thought it'd look weird with this peplum top, haha. Plus, I couldn't take off the top because jerseys have holes. Oh, costume problems. 

Also, dudes LOVE leopard print shoes. Dudes of all ages love leopard print shoes. Some old man at the grocery store stopped me to tell me how much he loved my shoes. He said, "You know, they're just the right amount of leopard. Classy. Not too much like an entire pair of pants." Oh, if only he had seen some of the patterned pants in my closet. Of course, not one of those is leopard print, so I guess I'm safe. 

A little Instagram love for you.

Up close and personal with my heels ;)

You have made it this far, so I might as well give you another lesson. How many of you know where in the sporting word we use the term touché?  Years ago, I decided to research this term because it confused me, and I'm admittedly a weirdo for loving these kinds of lessons. It's actually a fencing term. Here, I'll quote you some Merriam Webster (online version, but of course): "[the word is] used to acknowledge a hit in fencing or the success or appropriateness of an argument, an accusation, or a witty point." It's as if to say, "OH! You got a good shot on me there, buddy. Nice work! [Insert thank you for poking me with your sword.]" Not surprisingly, the word comes from the French past participle of toucher, to touch. Okay, I think I'm bordering on  too much information now.