Julie A. Duncan

 I started teaching Title Math for fifth grade this year. It's been an up and down type of thing. I've made a lot of mistakes and had some frustrations because it's not what I really want it to be and I'm not sure how to get it there. However, some days have been good and I like to think I'm helping in some way. Today was a win, or at least it was fun.  We have been working all week on adding and subtracting fractions with like denominators. Fractions are pretty abstract and so I wanted us to have a real-world example of them. I halved a recipe for chocolate mug cakes. The students had to double the recipe and also simplify the fractions. For example, we don't have sixteenth-size teaspoons, so when the recipe called for 1/16 of a teaspoon, they had to double that to 2/16 and then simplify to 1/8 of a teaspoon. It was a bit of a struggle getting all of that (math!), and we really got hung up on 1 1/2 + 1 1/2 and thinking that was just two. I made them pull out th...

 It was a busy day. We had a great Sunday School lesson and sermon about money and how it all belongs to God. I need to work on giving first, saving second, and spending last. Then we jumped into the car, stopped by Walmart for a pickup, put stuff away at home and jumped back in the car to head to Norman. Hailey is part of the Boomer Concert Band, which is how Pride members continue to play on their instruments during non-marching season. They played four songs. The first was The Ride which was a fast song, then a song about sledding, The Beautiful Life, and finally a four-part symphony with a part for each element. I liked the song about sledding. There were parts that reminded me of a Christmas carol and the whole song really did bring visions of sledding gently down a really big hill and beautiful memories of that time. When I was younger, we would sled down the water tower hill at the end of the street. You had to be careful because it ended at the street. Most of the time when...

 I am blessed to have Allegra Robertson as my friend. Cory became a deacon last year and they, along with us and the rest of the deacons, were assigned widows to check in on. Allegra came up with the idea of having a luncheon for ours. During Fall Break, we hosted them at our house, and today we hosted them at her house for a Valentine gathering. Allegra went all out. It was so beautiful. She had fancy dishes, red chargers, and even made red napkins that she folded into hearts. We had so much food that we were all literally stuffed. The best part was all of the conversation though. I just enjoyed chatting with the ladies and hearing about their life experiences. I had made some conversation starters, but we honestly didn't need them. They all just talked and talked. We ended up spending over two hours there and having the best time.

 Valentine's Day fell on a Saturday this year, so people were really able to celebrate it. Greg and I both got each other flowers. Mine had blooms already, but his bulbs will eventually have blooms too. ;-) We went over to Marlow and ate at Guiseppe's before going to a couple of antique stores. Unfortunately, the big one in Marlow, the Marlow Mercantile, is going out of business. They have been there for so long. The owner was ready to make major deals though. Greg found another end table like his mom has. It was originally priced at $215 and Greg paid $60 cash for it. I wanted to get a couple of kitchen items. One was a spatula spoon that was priced $7.95 and dip dish that was priced at $24. I had brought down another spoon of a different color and told her I wanted the green one, but that the orange one had a price tag on it. She threw both spoons and the dish in a bag and said it was $9.95! Crazy. I am thinking we should drop by there again soon....

 Jake and Marissa welcomed their first child into the world today: Madeline Grace Noel. They're going to call her Maddie. She was 7 pounds, 2 ounces, which is a great size. Marissa was due February 9, and they had been telling her that Maddie was on the small side. However, they didn't want her to go past 41 weeks, so they induced her starting Wednesday afternoon. Maddie didn't come until about 24 hours later! It took awhile for the induction to work.  In the meantime, there was a big question on whether or not they would be going home with Maddie or to an Airbnb. When we had all of the cold weather last month, Houston had one night of freezing. The next morning, Marissa and Jake didn't have water. Nor did it thaw later in the day. Or the next day. Or the next. For some reason, they lost their water. The super couldn't figure out any reason in the house. The city couldn't see any reason outside of the house. It reached the point that the city was telling them th...

 Without the girls with us, Greg and I managed to not buy anything from Sweet Treat Sunday. Of course, we had a big cheesecake in the fridge and really did not need any more! I think sweets are my downfall. I have been eating way too many of them lately, and without doing any exercise, I have not been able to lose the couple of pounds I gained from the holidays. <sigh> Anyway, I did *make* some treats to be sold still. no bake cookies and chocolate chip bars Sunday night we started a new set of Discipleship University Classes. I decided to do the ladies only study of Old Testament stories being led by April Luptak and Jennifer Kirkes. April was gone to her daughter's baby shower though, so we pretty much just sat there talking while Jennifer created books for everyone. We started discussing some of creation and I just loved all of the dialogue. We talked about whether we could actually go in space or whether we weren't allowed in the "heavens." Apparently, that ...

 Since it snowed several inches for Jordan's birthday, we had to reschedule our lunch with her. Mom and Dad decided to go with us. We ate at the Cheesecake Factory where we bought a lemon raspberry cheesecake to split with everyone to eat later. Afterwards, we went to antique and thrift shops. We found two we had not been to before. One was a little different than most of them we go to. Each person's booth seemed more like it had themes. They were definitely vintage. One room seemed like 70's decor and even had old TV's. One was Victorian "porn" and was painted black with black lights! 😳 The other place we went was one of those really big buildings where you get lost trying to figure out how to best navigate. Do I go down this aisle and then backtrack to get to that other aisle? ...or??? Mom and Dad got tired both times and found nice seats to wait on us. Jordan ended up finding a few items - a standing stuffed Garfield, an art auction game, and a few Christm...

 Eye exams make me so nervous. There are too many decisions. What if I answer all of the first/second questions wrong? What if I should have said that the first lens was clearer and instead I said the second one was? Then I get the wrong prescription, and I'm stuck with it for a year?! It is very nerve wracking. I am pretty sure my blood pressure goes up for this day.  Then, comes the even bigger decision. Choosing glasses. This time I was going alone. No kids to tell me what frames look best on me. And I can't see without my glasses!! It was time for a new game plan. Last night, I asked AI to tell me what to do. I pulled up Google Gemini and asked it to take a picture of me and suggest frames that were the best fit for my face. Over and over, she told me to wear cat frames. No thank you. Here were some of her good suggestions. It wasn't very successful, but it did help me narrow it down to wire frames that were not silver and no plastic ones. That actually did help somewha...