Discount School Supply

To all the mommies and teachers:

Discount School Supply has an offer of 10% off every item with coupon code TENOFFEV. Offer good through August 3.

If you're in need of art supplies, curriculum, manipulatives, play toys, and other child development tools, head on over and take a looksie. Don't forget to sort through their free arts and crafts activities too!

For what it's worth, I made two orders in the past (including their $10 off $10 promotion) and received speedy delivery and exactly what I was expecting. My purchase included sparkle paint, brushes, paper bags, water colors, and fabric squares. A happy customer has been made! :)



The other go-to site, not only as a teacher but for scrapbooking and some wedding supplies, is Oriental Trading. For our school carnival, I was able to put together so many goodies for the students. They frequently have free shipping, and sometimes + __% off or free gift, codes as well. Currently you can use WCX8262 for Free Shipping + 15% off orders of $49 or more until August 4. (This may not be worth it for small purchases. If you're looking to order but don't have enough to fufill the minimum, you can contact me to see if I'm placing an order any time soon. Chances are, yes, since I always have items in my cart.) When I throw parties for my future children, I'm going to this site first.

Enjoy!

Note: No, I am not getting paid a cent to give my positive feedback. I still have my minimal teacher's salary (which I am thankful for). Providing my readers with resources is satisfaction enough. :)

Poker Night #3 Winner!

Thank you to all our participants of our third monthly PN! Tonight I have the pleasure of announcing our winner. But first, a brief recap...

Our contendors:
Please excuse the poor framing. It is quite difficult to fit everyone's face in when smooshed against the wall.

Dinner: Curry + Red pears.
Snacks: Quesadilla, ChocoPie, Chocolate covered macadamia nuts

The game:

Sample - The flop: Q, Q, Q. / Turn: 2 / River: 2...
















In the end, ................... /vs./















sweet victory,

was lost to Freddy.

Congrats Fred! You have won yourself a homemade dinner and/or dessert of your request* with the Woo's. This voucher allows you to also bring a friend. Please contact Mrs. Woo with your schedule of availability to redeem. *Offer expires 3 months from this date of winning.


Stay tuned for postings of our next month's Poker Night!

Ball gown! ...Is this thing on?

If I could get married again (to the same man, of course), I would.

But I can't (I already asked).

Still, I delight at the thought of being able to wear a pretty crisp white dress, swoon over new venues I discover, and gawk at the massive deals around. I'm no fairy godmother (I'm more of a Glinda who can't perform spells), but I shall share some of my findings to an audience who may benefit from my research - or just enjoy the eye candy. :)


Exhibit A: David's Bridal
You can't really go wrong with the most-brides-will-check-it-out bridal store. And with their frequest $99 gown sales, who can blame them? Let's take Style: VW8893 for example. The organza, the ribbon, the buttons(!) down the back, the sweep train... sigh. This dress could make even little 'ol me look tall and slender with its trimmings in the right places (think telescope)!

Exhibit B: WeddingBee
This wedding blog has become a big hit among the wedding community. There's pictures, a group of 20 bride-to-bee bloggers (plus the past bees), pro advice, and a classifieds. I came across these glass vases and thought they would make chic centerpieces. Imagine the possibilities with the white - tabula rasa! I'd like to have a few myself and display them on a black shelf with some magazines/books to add some color.

Exhibit C: Ebay/Craigslist
I've said it before, and I'll say it again - do your homework! There's really no reason to pay full price if you can, with a little research and patience, find steals for much less. If you want help, e-mail me and I'll dig through the endless pages of the WWW to find what you need. Dresses, decor, photographer, whatever - it's all there. By the way, my shoes came in and fit wonderfully.

Exhibit D: Etsy
Where to begin... Etsy is like a cute little store (that has grown to be ginormous) of handmade products. You'll find adorable cake toppers, "green" flowers, brilliantly made boleros, gorgeous fascinators, and so much more. But be careful, the sellers who are making a name for themselves and asking for a lot more now. My favorite trend at the moment: birds and branches. I'm really liking birdcage veils with fascinators too - super chic.


Gone are the days when people were unable to research much online, or even refuse to order anything from it when they could. Sure you could plan as they did back in time during the snow-was-up-to-here-when-I-walked-to-school-(barefoot) era. But today, without the Internet, wedding planning would definitely not be the same. I'd advise you to take advantage of it.

Which aspect are you most looking forward to/did you enjoy most in planning?

Hamburger Cupcakes + Brownie Balls

As promised, pictures from today's harvest in the kitchen! A few words before the "1000 words"...

Unfortunately, I cannot claim creativity points for this project. I first saw these sugar burgers on Bakerella. However, I do claim brownie points (pun intended) for the 3.5 hours I spent on these slider-wannabes.

Without further ado:

The mess I made:
The yummy mess I made:


Now, what to do with all those brownie "scraps"...

Make brownie balls, of course!:

I will admit that I rolled the balls a bit bigger than I should have. But since I had been in the kitchen for half of the afternoon, I didn't want to dip so many. Result: Too sweet. (Even Tad ate just one!)


There it is folks - hamburger cupcakes + brownie balls:



What I discovered...

• WAX PAPER! - I've had it lying around, yet every time I baked a cake or brownies I'd dump it upside down onto a cutting board or plate. Why didn't anyone tell me to use wax paper???
• Cookie cutter - This is super neat. But the only round thing I could find was an ornament shape cutter so that's what I used. I then found that it was too big for my "burger buns," hence the trimming with a butter knife. I do think that it gave it more of a patty texture though. :)
  
• Food coloring - I know it's been a while since I've last used it, but when did it change from the liquid droplets to gel??? It was difficult to measure (creating the red took a long time, and the green took even longer) because I couldn't count drops.

What I would do differently next time...

1. Think about how/where I'm going to transport the burgers to/onto in order to avoid catastrophic consequences (ie, "lettuce" smearing onto other buns).
2. Add a fruity-ness to the brownie balls. OR Use white chocolate for dipping and drizzle the milk chocolate on top.
3. Perhaps petite fours instead of brownie balls?

The extras I sent with Mr. Woo to take to class and "play nice with the other kids." :)

Flower power ... low.

This week is the last week of summer school. Mr. Woo knew that it had been a difficult bunch of little sinners that I was teaching/correcting/disciplining/etc., so he came up with a brilliant idea - send Mrs. Woo flowers to school!

So he did. And kept it a (not-that-good) secret (he always tells me things before it happens, but not in detail so that I'll forget about it).

And they arrived at school today, the day before the last (in case they messed up and didn't deliver it on time for the last day). I was sent to the office by our librarian, who said I needed to go talk to them about something I didn't complete last year. And upon my arrival was the long black box with MY NAME on it. *squeal*

I ran into Mr. Woo in the hallway and showed him my prize that I had yet to open. He said he was going to go out with the kids and let me read the card inside that he had spent a lot of time on. So I rushed into my classroom, grabbed a pair of scissors, and decided to play a game: open the box quickly but carefully.

Mission completed. I tore open the plastic and found no card. My heart sank. But I took a look at the roses and was uplifted again:


Then I was leaping when I found the "A message just for you" envelope tucked underneath. I snatched it out of its shelter and read the endearing message that Mr. Woo had written. What could he have written that took so much thought? (Click on the image to enlarge)


Confusion. Why is he calling me "Mom," and who is this illegitimate child "Roxanne" that I don't know about???

Then I realized that it was mix-up by the company and now poor Mrs. Roxanne's Mom was sitting at home with my bouquet and a card written by my husband! Needless to say, I immediately informed Mr. Woo (after having a good laugh in my empty classroom) and had him call the company to see what could be done about this mistake. Though the element of surprise is now lost, my actual package will be arriving next week.

Bring your (own) poker face!

CALLING ALL POKER (TEXAS HOLD'EM) PLAYERS

to the (supposed to be) monthly Poker Night at the Woo's

where we play for non-cash prizes! :)



For this month...

Date: Thursday, July 30
Time: 6pm

Entrance Fee: FREE
Dinner: Provided
Rides: Not provided

The Woo Society's Hall of Fame:

1. Mrs. Woo
2. (J)onny/Mrs. Woo
3. It could be YOU!

First 5* to leave a comment below will have their place reserved.
Hurry - spaces/food are limited!

*Exclusions do NOT apply.

More teachers needed, but without credentials...

What happened to "CA needs more teachers!"???

Taken from the CSUEB site:

Due to the state budget shortfall, the California State University Chancellor’s Office has asked all CSU campuses, including Cal State East Bay, to stop accepting Winter Quarter 2010 applications as of July 6 and to not accept any Spring Quarter 2010 applications. A limited number of majors may receive a special exception to this application closure policy. These majors are being determined now. As soon as more information is available on this application closure and the majors considered exceptions to the policy, Cal State East Bay will communicate this to our students and educational partners.

You can read the rest here.

I guess I'm not getting my credentials any time soon. Praise the Lord that Mr. Woo got in this summer! Better him than me. And for those who applied and didn't get in - you're not alone. In fact, more than half of the qualified applicants were turned away due to these nasty budget cuts.

I'm seeing some contradictions here...
Obama or Arnold?

OH SNAPfish

Gift-giving ideas to the parents don't seem to create uniformity among brides. One bride does this, another does that, and everyone agrees to disagree. Personally, I didn't want to do a formal bouquet presentation, nor did I want to give them something that was not practical. So I decided on pictures.

When I was studying on Bear Territory figuring out what to do to maximize my 3.5 years there, my momma was at home (after a hard day of work) looking at the latest pictures I had uploaded on to their computer or pausing in front of hard-copy pictures that I'd sent to her. That was her way of coping with her child leaving the nest. It hasn't changed much since I started building my own nest with one of the male species who sang out to me.

I did my homework and read up some reviews on various companies to find out who wouldn't mess up my first-ever order. The choice was an easy one. I used Snapfish back when Oprah was doing her free photobook giveaway (another one of those "just because I'm Oprah" events - Thanks, O!) The book took me hours of editing because I was very particular about what I wanted where and how large/small. But in the end, they couldn't wreck free and it was most definitely worth it. It was a hardcover with 20 pages, pictures on front and back cover, text on front and back and spine (I really liked that). The pages are nowhere near the thickness of our flushmount album, but it's definitely thicker than paper I would use to print my essays. Quality of everything was better than I expected, and it was even shipped in a flat cardboard box. (The second time I ordered multiple so it was bubble-wrapped.)

Now on to the visuals!

Front

Back


Inside

Some photographers offer these parent books as an a la cart option for their customers. The books are not the same as the flushmount, but are still quite expensive for what you're receiving. Hence my decision to take the concept and find a solution to come out as the (satisfied) winner, not the (money-) loser.

Note: This decision was made independently from Yong Studio. Never did he pressure us to do/sign anything. He understood our budget situation when we came up with a package to obtain a hi-res DVD of all our pictures edited and this is one of the beneficial outcomes of that.

Would I recommend Snapfish? Yes. (But use coupon codes for discounts!)

For 20% off ALL photobooks, use coupon code BOOKSALE. Offer ends July 26, 2009.

Down by the (e)Bay

where the watermelons grow / back to my home / I dare not go / for if I do / my mother will say... / you bought shoes again???

Okay, so that's not how the song goes, but I wanted to share with you the wonder of eBay! Most people know that it's a site to auction items off. But not everyone thinks to search here. I did some hunting for our budget wedding on eBay, but ended up not making any purchases for various reasons. You'd be surprised to find Vera Wang wedding dresses, the latest Honda Accord sedan, or even turtle poop (the thought came to my mind from Tad). Crazy, aye?

For Sara's upcoming wedding, the BMs are wearing different styles of Berry colored dresses from the Jasmine line. She's requested nude/tan colored shoes. I did get sidetracked while looking for this shade as I found myself looking at a pair of black sequined heels (should I go for it???), but had to refocus my attention.

Then I found them - a pair of satin champagne Steven heels! There were a handful of bidders before me, a few with automatic bids. I took a potty break and came back to start my mission. I like to wait until the last couple of minutes (depending on the item, view count, and number of bids) to make my pounce. I also like to throw in a couple extra bids (only up to my max amount) in case I'm outbid by another wide-eyed soul whose heart is also pounding in her ribcage. I'll also share a tip that I probably shouldn't be doing on the WWW: Instead of bidding $10.00 for something, try bidding $10.02 or something a little extra more than what can be expected from others. There. I put my CAL degree to work (American Studies: Social Psychology & Media Representation in the U.S., remember?).

Back to my shoes. So instead of working on my progress reports, I finished a quilt, updated more posts, and purchased the following shoes:

Steven, champagne, satin, peep toe, clean lines.

The best part? They only cost me $5.50 + S&H. :)

Family Quilt #1 - done!

Indeed, rather than finishing my progress reports for tomorrow, I instead picked up a needle and thread and finished my first family quilt!


It's not your typical family quilt with a scrap of fabric from every family member sewn together with neat patterns. I'm not that advanced, but I am going to insert pictures in those "frames" and hang it in our living room to cozy it up a bit. The back is the same pattern as the pink sides and hearts. You can click on the picture to enlarge it, but the center heart says, "Families that are stitched together in love seldom unravel." I'm so happy about the batting inside! It gives it a "plush" feel. :)

One down; as-many-as-I-can-without-a-sewing-machine more to go!

i iz a well stoodeNt

The end of summer is near which means it's progress report time. In the midst of the awww-I-don't-want-to-go-through-ALL-of-those-notebooks-ness, there are a few shinning moments that get me to the other end. No, not the "brilliantly genius" shining, but the "haHahAhAhah" shining. All conventions theirs; here we go...

Example 1:

Describe Amber.

"Amber has sordove a messy hair. Amber is wearing black pance..."

When I say "sound it out and try your best" that exactly what he gives me.


Example 2:

Describe Amber.

"discrib amber
she is very mesy..."

Okay, I can understand Example 1, but when I write the directions/spelling on the board, is there really any excuse?


Example 3:

Write a letter to Amber about her problem with Jusin.

"Dear Amber Brown,

If you are sad because your best friend had left to Alabama. You can build two suspension bridges for the Tacoma Narrows Bridges, that will be extra fun becing an engineer. Or your best friend could write a letter to you, or you can twist the deck of Galloping Gertie. and break the cables by wacking it down and you can use a big piece of lego to wack the towers. The collapse is on 1940.

Your friend,
_______________"

I'm watching out for this student. He's either going to be some crazy good engineer or the destroyer of all bridges. Either way, his fascination with bridges amazes me.



Do you have any of your old school work? What were some of your obstacles?

They want a sub? :(

Another episode of Mrs. Woo's class. This time, summer school...

Mrs. Woo: Mr. Woo bought me a book to read to our children, but since we don't have any right now, I'm going to read the story to y'all.
Student #1: Why don't you just get pregnant then?
Mrs. Woo: Well, I'm not.
Student #2: Are you going to be pregnant tomorrow?
Student #3: Ohh! Are we going to have a sub?
Mrs. Woo: -_-

Then, later in the day... after I was done teaching them enough English and Math for one morning, they scurried off to Art where they made flower pens!

Student #3: Here, Mrs. Woo.
Mrs. Woo: Ohh, it's beaUtiful!!!
Student #1: Can I have mine back? I have you the one I made for my mom, but you can have this one.
Mrs. Woo: :/
Student #4: Mrs. Woo, this is for you.
Mrs. Woo: Wow! These are more beautiful than my wedding bouquet!
Student #4: What kind of flowers did you have?
Mrs. Woo: Well, I had roses, but these are prettier because my students made them for me.
Student #4: Actually, can I have mine back?
Mrs. Woo: :(

(She later gave it back. And after receiving a handful more from other students...)
Student #5: (shouts) Mrs. Woo is so popular!!!
Student #6: (shouts) Mrs. Woo is on the red carpet!!!

ahahahaha I suppose after the trouble they give me they don't really want a sub and even have enough heart to give me something more. :)

At the Summer Picnic ... Oh baby/ies!

It was a beautiful day for a picnic,



and from the picnic I remember 5 things distinctly...




(1) Food - Yum. Enough said.












(2) Fun - Sports, flying balloons, etc.












































(3) Fellowship - Catching up with brothers and sisters.















(4) Kimlang + water - Too much of this:











Not enough of this:














Solution:













(5) Babies galore!

They're growing up so fast:



And sideways too:








Discovering lots of emotions:





Pretty woman~ walking down the street~
(or just sitting under a tree):






Not going to be a vegetarian:











Taking advantage or Having fun?
You decide:













Speaking of babies, my mom seems to have a few words about them...

Mrs. Mom: I had a dream the other night ... and I picked up diamond earrings! Do you still have your period...?
Mrs. Woo: Yes, Ma. I'm not pregnant.
Mrs. Mom: Oh... Maybe it's [a relative] in Korea...
Mrs. Woo: Maybe.

A few weeks later...

Mrs. Woo: Hi, Ma. You called?
Mrs. Mom: Oh yeah. I had a dream, and this time I was picking fruit! Are you pregnant?
Mrs. Woo: No, I'm not. These are just dreams. They don't mean anything.
Mrs. Mom: No, but I was picking fruit!

And of course that means that I'm the one who's pregnant even though my menstrual cycle begs to differ. Korean mommas are so funny with their superstitious dreams.

Baby + fruit