st. louis

I spent nearly the entire week in St. Louis for work and forgot to take pictures because I was either too busy enjoying the company or simply too busy! However, I did manage to take one photograph in St. Louis and one photograph of what greeted me at my return home.

I stayed at the Renaissance Air Port Hotel and it was by far fancier than any hotel I have ever stayed in. Another teacher from my district and I were there to assist in professional development planning for our district for a program called the National Writing Project. Our goal is to help students become college or career ready writers by the time they graduate. Not being an English Language Arts teacher I was definitely out of my element. This working meeting was nothing like that I have experienced with an Art Education convention. I was so self-contious over the four days I was surrounded by English teachers. I was afraid they would think I was unintelligent, I simply felt silly being there. At one point I was unaware of the difference between the words consistent and regular and used the words interchangeably. Mortified I was when my fiancé explained the difference to me over the phone. I just did not understand why I was there writing a plan for professional development when I was the one needing the professional development on how to emphasize writing in my curriculum! What I did come away with were new ideas and methods of teaching certain things in my own classroom. I think I am going to overhaul my teaching strategies and provide more opportunities for students to dig into the information, rather they have to figure everything out themselves. I hope not to lecture at all over the 2013-2014 school year.

After getting significantly lost on my way back home, I waited for Matt to return from a short fishing trip. He caught two catfish and a blue gill that he brought home for dinner. You have to understand that this is a very strange occurrence in our home. We do not eat meat in our house and typically I am the only one to order meat at a restaurant and even that is becoming a rare thing. He fried up the fish for tacos and I bravely ate half of my taco. I started to feel nauseated from seeing the fish go from whole to food all in our tiny kitchen, I could not finish eating and neither could Matt. Lady sure enjoyed fish for dinner though. Needless to say we probably wont be eating fresh caught and home cooked fish any time soon.

St. Louis

Matt and I recently took a quick trip to St. Louis. We stayed with his brother Taylor and his cat Sammy while his girlfriend Hana was away on safari. The night we got there we went to Sasha's on Shaw where Taylor and Hana both work. The place was darling and filled with costumed people for the Halloween festivities. The walls are lined with wine bottles from their wine selection and they had the best patio with little pit fires and a garden filled with pumpkins. We had the Grilled Veggie Pizza, some Crispins, and Matt had some of the darkest beer I have ever tried.

That Saturday we went to the St. Louis Arch which I was ridiculously excited to see because it is such a great piece of art and architecture. We didn't go up into the arch because Matt is afraid of heights and we didn't want to spend the money. Just to see it was treat!

After that we went to the St. Louis Galleria. Anthropology, Urban Outfitters, and H&M were the stores I had to go to. And sadly, I ended up talking myself out of every purchase. I am good at that which makes me angry when I leave a store like Anthropology with nothing in hand including those $8 coasters that I've been lusting over for years now. Do any of you do that, talk yourself out of everything? I suppose it is a good trait to have if your trying to save your pennies!