Football Friday

Let's be honest. It's the first Friday of school. It's the Friday before a 3 day weekend. And it's the Friday before the start of college FOOTBALL!!!! Ain't nobody gettin' anything accomplished 'round here. 

5 reasons to LOVE Baylor Football.

1. It's the last year at "The Case" aka Floyd Casey Stadium. This stadium is near and dear to my heart and I have always loved parking in the Mexicans' yard and paying them 5 dollars sometimes writing them a check for 5 dollars to do so. 

2. Have you seen our new chrome helmets? If you haven't, you will surely see them from 300 yards away at least. The sun will be reflecting off Seastrunk's helmet as he streaks towards the end zone for sure!!! And you might even sing the old Trace Adkins song, Chrome.

3. Because my uncle is the defensive coordinator. Ok, fine. Not really. But he's sorta kinda like my uncle. He's from the Louisiana side of the "family"... the people that aren't blood family, but are family. And instead of having to explain to people the logistics of it all it's a whole lot easier to just say he's my uncle. He's my uncle from another ...... I don't know where I was going with that. 

4. Because we're the underdogs. Every year we face the "oh they're just Baylor." "Oh they don't have RG3 anymore." "Oh, they had to pay off the Big 12 to stay in it." Keep em coming... they only fire us up more. They only help us beat the #1 team in the nation, Kansas State. We can win. We will find a way to win Jim Rome.... maybe Allen Iverson can give you some tips on rants. We are Baylor.

 

5. Because nothing makes this non emotional person want to cry like a hype video. I love them. It makes the hair stand up on my arms. It makes me want to bleed green and gold. It makes me want to be a forever college student. It makes me relive my glory days. It makes me fall in love with Baylor all over again!!! 

Rip em Up, Tear em Up, Sic em BU!!!

1st School Day

If you were in my life yesterday... these might be some of the questions you would have heard. My responses are in purple. 

“Is Coach Lindstrom a boy’s coach?”

“Shhh… she’s right there!”

“How tall are you?

“Can we take a field trip to your ranch?”

“If you can get it approved!”

“Why do you need me address?”
“So I can stalk you…”

“…. Yes!!!!”

“Can you tell me where room 713 is?”

“Oh, it’s actually 713 and three-quarters and you have to run through that wall right there.”

Overzealous 6^th grader working 2 years ahead: “Ms. Lindstrom??”

“…. Nope! You are cut off from questions. You now have a limit of 2 and that’s all you get every class period.”

“Can you tell me where room 606 is?

“On the roof, next to the swimming pool.”

“What position did you play in football?”

“Safety.”

“Cool.”

“What’s your favorite number?”

“12.”

“Why?”

“Because I like that it’s divisible by 2,3, and 4.”

“Are you nice?”

“If you do everything I say and turn in your work and don’t annoy me and don’t ask me any non thought out questions and are witty and funny, then yes!”

“Do we have homework?”

“Do pigs squeal?”

“Can you tell me where room 408 is?”

“In never, never land.” 

I pray

As I’ve been back at school this week, my mind can’t help but wander.

I’m not so interested in learning the “new and improved” system for whatever we’re deciding to call “just be a good teacher!!” I do not care if you can boil it down to 5 simple things.. I do not care if you think you have a great recipe. I already know a recipe and it’s simple.. like a Progresso Soup can. All you have to do is heat it up.

All I have to do is let my kids know I care about them. Warm their little heart up and they will tell me anything in the world. It’s a relationship. Sidenote: Not the relationship that I have to sit through an hour of ethics course for… but a relationship that fosters an environment where students want to learn. I spend 187 days with them. I spend hours upon hours with my athletes in the gym, on the bus, during critical losses, and vital wins. I build relationships with my little nuggets, all 250 of them. I impact slash reflect on slash am a role model to over 250 little people every single day. And that’s why my mind always wanders during this week.

Who are they? What are their home lives like? Who are their friends? How will that change during the course of this year? How long will they take to catch on to my two, very simple rules?

I know all of this is out of my control. So I spend this week doing the things I can for them. I make sure my room is perfect, that the set up is the most conducive to learning. I make all my copies in advance and plan out as far as I can. Once that is done, I pray for them. Not only do I pray for them, I pray for their parents. I pray they will support me and they will understand that I love their children. I have their best interest in mind and I want to set them up for success; if I assign them 50 definition of respect sentences, it’s because my classroom won’t work when students do not respect each other or me. I pray my nuggets will be open to my way of teaching and excited to walk into my room every day. I pray that my room will be a refuge for them, even if they hate school. I pray that I will be the best role model I can be. There is a culture war in today’s society and I hope I am proof to my students that you can make right decisions and still be “cool.” I pray that they learn to make the best decisions for themselves. 

I know “prayer” isn’t allowed in school, but it’s what I spend this week doing. 

Outdoor Summer Wedding Attire

Let me start off by saying, i am fully aware I am not a fashion blogger. However, I'm about to attend my 3rd summer wedding that will be outside.
I dread dressing myself for outside weddings. So I decided to compile a list of pointers!

Do not be the fool who is in cotton. 
Just because it is outside doesn't mean it's not a nice event. I was so embarrassed when the brother of one of the brides showed up in khaki shorts. It's still a wedding. It's still important to the bride and groom. And it's still a whole bunch of money for an event. Look appropriate.

Do not be the fool who is sinking in the ground. 
News flash: stilettos sink into the ground. One bridesmaid didnt get that memo and looked like baby bird Amelia trying to fly for the first time walking down the aisle. Flats and wedges are acceptable. They can still look very nice. Side note: old navy flip flops are not considered to be flats.

 

Do not be the one who has 6 inch sweaty arm pits. 
There is nothing wrong with sweating in the 102 degree Texas heat. But I wouldn't recommend
wearing a three-quarter length sleeve dress when you know you're going to be outside for hours! Know your self. If you need a sleeveless dress, get a sleeveless dress!

Do not be afraid to accessorize. 
It is so easy to dress up a casual dress by pairing statement earrings with it. Or a statement necklace. Or a statement bangle of bracelets. You get the point?

I looked and looked for Duck Dude's sister's wedding that is the 24th. And I just couldn't find any dresses that I was in love with. I liked them. They were fine. But I wasn't excited about them. By them, I mean I bought 2 different dresses. Then I finally found a dress that I could pair cowboy boots with and look nice in and that I loved and would want to wear all night long!

Commander In Chic

If I were to have another job... I don't... But if I wanted to... I would want to be.. Wait for it.... A nail polish namer. 

My nails are important to me. There is not very often where my nails are naked, and if they're naked I am trying to fix them immediately! And don't even get me started on chipped polish. If you have chipped polish, I am probably judging you.

I also have a horrible habit at picking at my polish... Especially when I get bored! So I change my nail polish quite often. It's become a game to my kids! It's one game I'm ok if they play it during class. Its also the reason why I'm somewhat of a hoarder of colors. Do you know how many shades of pink there are? That's why it's only fitting that it be my next career.

Some polish names are classic, some are logical, some are witty, and some are just plain awesome. What are some of the names of my personal polish collection? Here is a small list.

Wink, Gilty Pleasure, Mellow Yellow, Champagne Toast, Russian Navy, Naughty Neutral, Lilacism, You Don't Know Jacques, Racy Rouge, Rags to Riches, Mrs. Plum, Set the Nude, Over the Edge, Honeymoon, Frenzy, Mint Sorbet, Temptation, Silver Sweep, Instant Iris, Commander In Chic

And I love each and every one of them equally. I want to be a commander in nail polish!! So, OPI, if you're reading this... Pay me more than a teacher's salary (ha) and I'm yours!!

Ohh, you need a resume? Well just from this blog, here are my suggestions:
Naked Nails - a clean, neutral color
Chipped Polish - a crackle polish, probably silver
Hoarder of Colors - an iridescent glitter that changes colors when the light hits it
Teacher's Salary - a poop green

OPI, call me maybe?

To My Students

We do mistakes.

"Ms. Lindstrom.... Huh? This is a math classroom. There's a right and wrong answer and you can only write in pencil and you must grade in red pen. That's how a math classroom works."

I spend the first week of class trying to lay a foundation in my classroom that we do mistakes. We fail. We are not correct all the time. We don't erase our work, because its our thought process; our guide to the answer, even if we got it wrong the first couple of times.  

You can write in pen, but don't you scribble your mistakes out! I want to see them! 

The book Mindset is going to help me foster more of this rationale in my classroom. It's going to change my language and its going to help me show my students that it is ok to make mistakes. I will instill in them it's what they do with those mistakes that is important to their learning. They will learn by correcting mistakes that they have made. They will challenge themselves by pushing their limits. They will not be satisfied with an easy problem. By instilling these traits in my students, the book will not only be changing my mindset, but changing the mind sets of my 100 students as well. 

To my students I say (to quote Ron Washington), "That's how [math] go." 

A Bug's/Bird's Life

Why am I awake at 1 am blogging about birds and bugs? Well, it's been an interesting day in the life of apartment living Mollie.Also, thanks to sucky lungs and starting on steroids, I'm wide awake.

So here's my day. I've been reading all day for an institute I'm attending later this week (more to come on that!). I've also been trying to stay inside since my lungs produce an equivalent to a mouse's squeak. However, the Bachelorette finale was tonight and I was determined to make a new dip for the people coming over to watch this brilliant  addictive reality tv show.

I back my car out of my covered parking spot and start freaking out. My mom is on the phone with me and says, "you're scaring me." Mom!! It's a baby bird!!!!!! It's on my windshield wipers!! (And there was a car waiting for me to move so they could drive around me!) I had to drive! The baby bird was fluttering around and I was looking like an idiot trying to figure out what to do with it! I drove about 20 feet and stopped by some grass (completely blocking cars coming into the complex). As I was trying to think about how I could not touch the baby bird so it's mom wouldn't disown it, it flew, hopped  fl-opped off my hood and into the grass about 20 feet from where my parking spot is. Wow, that was exciting.

I return from the grocery store and am talking to Duck Dude telling him about this sweet little bird who looked like the bird from Are You My Mother and I turn the opposite way to my parking spot to see if the baby bird is still in the grass where I left it. It's not. So I pull into my parking spot and once again I'm freaking out!!! I found it!!!!! It's in the same spot on my neighbors car!!! Here's where I concluded the bird and I were meant to be friends. It's also where I concluded the bird had a love for windshield wipers. She fl-opped off again when I got to close but here she is. Meet Amelia. As in Earhart.

There she is! So pretty! And so floppy. And I don't know how long she will be in my life, but I thought she'd be the most exciting part of my day ( besides Desiree of course!). 

Cue the entire Bachelorette party and an excellent recipe which I will post later. And everyone leaves me. 

Now. One of the benefits of living on the 3rd floor is exercise the amount of bugs that you do not see in your apartment! In the 2 years I have lived up here, I have seen one gecko... And I thought it was 

cute and I wondered how hard he worked to get all the way up here. So when I walked into my 

kitchen to clean up, I was terrified to see a cockroach just staring at me. Uhhhhhhhh. No. I don't do those things. And when he ran into my burner, I was satisfied. Ha easy. What did I do? Duh, turned 

the burner on!!! What did he do? Ran further into the electrical part. 

I called Duck Dude to let him know about my recent encounter and stood in the kitchen the whollllle time. When we hung up, I turned the burner off and went to finish the show I was watching. It took about 6 minutes before I heard a loud flying noise and turned and saw the little joker on my carpet!! Not even on the kitchen tile! Are you kidding me? He flew like 6 feet?? I didn't have a shoe handy so I grabbed my remote and went to whacking..... And missed every time. Cocky, the cockroach, had escaped me. Really? I had a remote and random curtain rod and Cocky is hanging out underneath my couch... That is so not right!! 

So, maybe Cocky can fly like Amelia Earhart wished she could... But I'm left typing a blog in the wee hours of the morning and feeling like a failure. 

Signing off with a towel underneath my door.

Ranch Dressing

Oh, ranch dressing. We have a love/hate relationship. I really love ranch dressing, but I really hate the calories and the amount I use.

Cue Greek yogurt. I've read and pinned and heard about how Greek yogurt can be substituted for all sorts of less healthy options. So when I saw this at the grocery store, I knew I had to try it!

A bottled ranch dressing that is made with yogurt! A nice, easy way to transition myself into using yogurt instead of sour cream and mayonnaise. And one serving (two tablespoons) is only 45 calories!!! As if anyone only uses two tablespoons of ranch dressing, it makes me feel so much better about using a tad more.

How does it compare to regular ranch? Good question. Hidden valley ranch has 160 calories every two tablespoons. Oh, you use light ranch? That's great, it has 80 calories for every two tablespoons. So, essentially, even if you're using light ranch you are still cutting your calories in half!

But does it taste the same? I'll be honest. No. But it is very similar!! And I couldn't tell a difference at all when I made a recipe with it. The only time I could tell it was a little different, was when I dipped pizza directly into it. And I still didn't stop. It tasted different, not bad, but different.

 
 


Maybe this will make me use yogurt a little more. It's just hard for me to wrap my head around putting yogurt on a potato instead of sour cream.

If you've had success, let me know!!

A Father's Love

A while back, I blogged about my Baylor Family. Those were my main peeps, my go tos, my bestest buddies. However, there were plenty of other friends that made differences in my life.

Holly and Taylor were definitely two of those people. They were like pseudo-roommates! Melanie and I lived in a 3 room house; they lived in a 3 room house... And we all switched third roommates every year. This story isn't about them. It's about their first, 3rd roommate.

Gracie was super cool, there was just one thing a little different. She only had one leg. This didnt stop her in anything and we had so much fun with her. She ultimately ended up transferring schools, but since she's from my home town, you still see her around every now and then.

This story is not about Gracie either. It's about her dad. And her father's love.

Click here to read about Gracie and her dad and see a collection of beautiful pictures.

(Sidenote: as someone who's dad has beaten cancer twice, I cried throughout the entire thing. Also, if you have feelings, you might cry. That's a fair warning.)