Blog tweaks and Bulletin Boards!?!

What is with me lately? I have been crazy about messing with my blog. I found a website that tells you how to change the html code so you can have 3 columns instead of 2. ( http://tips-for-new-bloggers.blogspot.com/2007/02/three-columns-blogger-template.html ) It was fun for me to look at the code and mess around with it a little. I took courses in grad school on how to create and teach online courses so I am familiar with a little of what the code looks like. I understand some of it. At least I am not afraid to get in there and mess things up. Sometimes at TFA, I would tell our tech guys that I was just comfortable enough to get things messed up really bad but at least I wasn't afraid to try new things. And besides we always kept a backup, right? I was actually on staff there when we first got computers in our classrooms. I was one of the first to start doing my lesson plans on the computer (in Excel), I spent MANY, MANY hours helping other teachers figure computers out. We had some amazing teachers who hadn't been around computers very much in the beginning. But like all great teachers, they were willing to try new things. Then I got the privelege to work in the tech department. It was fun offically training the teachers and getting them excited about using the computers in their teaching.

I am one of those people that used to put up her bulletin boards and then take them down again and rearrange them. SICK! I know. Especially when I worked at TFA and we changed our literature theme EVERY month and therefore changed all of our bulletin boards EVERY MONTH. Like August was alway the rainforest...picture paper vines hanging from the ceiling and all my bulletin boards coordinated with the theme. YES...Bible bulletin board that month for the character trait of self control had a tree limb with a Chamealeon on it (I think it was an animal in the rain forest). My "Job" board was the "Hop to it" with Frogs and lily pads. There are some really big lily pads in the Rain Forest. I had a book with pictures of them. In November I think we read The Mouse and the Motorcycle...so mice, fall, thanksgiving. It was a cute combination. In the fall I would hang all kinds of magazine and calendar pictures of what fall REALLY looks like. As Floridians we don't have a clue. I felt it my duty to educate my dear sweet second graders about fall...even though I haven't ever lived anywhere that you truly experience it either. I would stick up tonz of construction paper orange, red, brown, and yellow leaves all over the room. In December I remember doing dinosaurs. I actually remember having a poster of a dinosaur dressed in a Santa suit. Shhh!!! I had LOTS of baby Jesus stuff up and a REASON for the SEASON bulletin board. Anyway...It was a sickness...the room decorating. I guess I kind of miss bulletin boards with homeschooling. I do hang posters up on the windows in our school room. And every now and then I go look in my files and see what I have left from teaching that I can hang up. That reminds me I have a bunch of laminated pics of fall I could put up now. (Can you believe after 10 years they still look good...gotta love that laminating machine and the librarian-she did the laminating!!!) Forget seeing out the windows. Hee,hee! We don't have much wall space to hang stuff in the school room.

So you get the picture. You would think I would be crazy organized and decorated like this in my home...oh, well...I suppose I am venting that energy to my blog. It bothers me that I don't have all the fonts and backgrounds coordinating like I really want. I keep thinking if I had the software I could create these backgrounds and stuff that I find for free. But why? Why do I feel the need to spend the time doing this. I mean some people read it but WHO really cares what it looks like except ME, ME, ME!

I should go do dishes or maybe go sit in the same room with my hubbie...he did get home from New Mexico today. He's really tired though and has serious jet lag!