Mel's Box of Chocolates

Yesterday, I confessed that I'm Facebook Illiterate and today I'm talking a different social media site...Twitter. Now Twitter, I get. Perhaps too well. Hi, I'm Mel or on Twitter known as @boxofchocolates and I'm a Twitter Addict. Short blurbs. 140 characters. Short, sweet. It's what your thinking. What you are doing. It's life happening. I know some of you question why anybody would want to know what a stranger is doing all the time, heck I'm still puzzled why anybody would want to follow me, but they do. I think my favorite part of Twitter is that people are always there. Being the extrovert that I am, I enjoy twittering with a variety of people on a variety of subjects. Ask a question and it shall be answered. I actually just celebrated my twitter-versary on Saturday and have enjoyed watching its popularity grow. Twitter is a hot thing right now and it's amazing all the references to it that I have heard lately in the newspaper, on the news, and e...

What can I say? Sometimes I just give in to peer pressure and the leader in me takes a backseat to the follower in me. So like everybody else I went and set up my Facebook account . I found a few old friends, some friends found me, I do a status update now and then, and even uploaded a few pictures. But now what? The tech side of me doesn't want to admit it, but I think I'm facebook illiterate. I just don't get what everybody sees in it. The only thing that I really enjoy is looking at everybody's pictures and to be honest that is pretty much the only thing I do when I get on there. I know many of my readers are also facebookers so help a girl out. Here are a couple questions I have... What is your main purpose for using Facebook? Stay in touch with family/friends, social media purposes, something else I missed? Do you find that you usually only "friend" people you know in real life or do you pretty much add anybody who "friends" you? Do you find yo...

I was searching through my posts from last year at my time and look what I found ! Today is my Twitter-versary . I can't believe I've been twittering for a whole year. Don't worry about getting me anything special for the occasion, but if you decide to follow me that would be a great treat! Subscribe in a reader Follow me on Twitter

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I know officially that the first day of spring was last Friday, I even learned the scientific term for it. However, I am still waiting for spring to arrive. Last night we were in the low 20's and today stayed in the 40's. That is most definitely not what I have in mind when I think spring weather. It doesn't look any better for the rest of this week either. There is hope for the high 50's next week though so I'm crossing my fingers. I am in desperate need of warm weather, flip flops, and skirts, I want to hear birds singing, I want to see buds on trees and colorful blooms, Did I mention I want warm weather?? What are your favorite parts of spring?? Subscribe in a reader Follow me on Twitter

Every school morning the teachers in my hallway stand outside and greet our students as they walk in the room. It gives us a great excuse to spend a few precious moments talking to adults before we shut ourselves in a room with little people for 6 hours. At about 8:10 we have school announcements and this signals to wrap up our adult conversation and drag our feet in the classroom. This year we have a new staff member doing announcements and thankfully he is always upbeat and has something interesting to add to the otherwise dull announcements. Last Friday he went through the usual for lunch we are having...band members...student council...science fair...la-de-da. Then he closed by saying "Enjoy the Vernal Equinox". To which I then turned to my fellow teachers and said very puzzled, "What the heck is Vernal Equinox. Did something happen to the moon?" After they got back up off the floor laughing at me they kindly explained he just meant to enjoy the First Day ...

I have incredibly thick and curly hair. Not the beautiful ringlet curls but the kind that are half curls and half frizz. Here are two recent pictures of the hair and the only reason they look a bit more curl than frizz would be thanks to John Freida and Frizz-Ease. The top picture is most recent as you can see my hair was longer and that was taken in December. As I was looking for more current pictures I couldn't find one within the past three months that I didn't have my hair in a ponytail. It's what I do. Cut my hair short, decide to grow it out, end up always having it in a ponytail, get tired of the ponytail, and then begin the cycle again. Well after saying I was going to get a cut for the past month, today was the day. I even squeezed in an eyebrow wax. Now I just have to put in a plug for my salon, Bad Hair Day . If you are ever at the beach in Delaware and need a hair cut this is where to go. I enjoyed my hands being wrapped in warm towels, cucumbers on...

I used to write my weekly weigh in result posts on Saturdays since that was my weigh in day, but to be honest have found myself slacking in the weight loss (or gain) reporting. When I joined The Sisterhood I found myself posting on Wednesdays because that was when they had "Weigh In Wednesday" which I must say has quite the ring to it. So I think I'm going to try to make a formal switch and get back to posting weekly, consistently, because I find that it helps me keep up my momentum. Nothing like telling the blogosphere that you fell flat the past week. What's that you say? Today's Thursday? Well then...Weigh In Wednesday will officially start next week! Problem solved. Not to mention hopefully The Sisterhood will have a new challenge by then with reminders to post on Wednesday so we can kick off the new date in style. So now that we got all that cleared up... let's talk about weight loss or should I say weight gain ? After digging through my posts, I realize...

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Why I enjoy being a mommy... snuggle time sweet, butterfly kisses tight hugs random "I love you"'s kid conversations giggles tiny hands holding mine fresh perspectives naivety tickle spots sparkling eyes dreams unconditional love watching LIFE unfold before my eyes! What are some of your favorite parts of being a mommy? Subscribe in a reader Follow me on Twitter

In honor of my hubby's 40th birthday, I decided to make a list. 40 things that I love about my husband First of all...he married me and I really love that!! Watching him play and interact with Dylan and Zoe always makes me fall in love with him more. He is an awesome dad. He's always up for a road trip and some of our best vacations have been just when we hit the road with no plans to where we would end up. His patience abounds (thank goodness cause I need somebody patient). He is an awesome cook... and is always willing to make dinner when he gets home. He always supports me in all of my endeavors. He's never asked me how much I spent when I come home with shopping bags (it's probably more because he truly doesn't want to know, but I'll take it!) He makes me and everybody else laugh. Strangers always start conversations with him. He just screams, nice guy. He understands my need for girls night out and always tells me to go and have a good time... then he liste...

Tomorrow is the beginning of our state test. Woohoo ! To be perfectly honest, I don't really think to much about it. I do my job throughout the year, teach the kids what I can, and keep high expectations for all of them. I expect them to all do well and they usually do. I always tell people that I have never been surprised by any results of the state test unless pleasantly. That's when I ask, "How on God's earth did you manage to pass?" and tell the student, "You should be down on your knees thanking whatever angel was sitting on your shoulder!" Anyways, tomorrow we start with math. So today we did a bit of reviewing of some of our common vocabulary words such as perimeter, area, congruency, symmetry, and so on. One of our math review problems asked about an array something we haven't really covered yet in 3rd grade. We spent a good 15 minutes discussing arrays, drawing arrays, writing multiplication sentences from arrays, and doing all things array...

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I've been hopping around the blogosphere, leaving little posts here and there. Here are a few of my latests. Over on the Leapfrog Community you can see how the Tag was a lifesaver on Dr. Seuss day . Watch out cause I get serious and a bit political over at Philly Moms where I talk about the importance of actually ((gasp)) failing ! Then I talk about Eyeslices over at Chic-Critique . You have to check out this spa treat for your home. I'm even hosting a giveaway !! Subscribe in a reader Follow me on Twitter

Usually my Saturday goes something like this: Wake up late, usually by 9am, and get out of bed. I have trained my children to get up, be quiet, and make their own bowl of cereal. They are pro's !! Pour the coffee and then catch up on email, twitter a bit, and record my Weight Watchers weekly weigh in. Start a load of laundry. Pour the 2 nd cup of coffee and begin reading some blogs so I can catch up on what I missed all week throughout the blogosphere . Start another load of laundry Write a couple blog posts to be scheduled throughout next week like my Wordless Wednesday, Tackle it Tuesday, and Five Point Friday. Switch the laundry. Run on the treadmill. Make lunch for everybody. Tweet a little and answer email. Clean the house. Take the kids to swim lessons. Make dinner and clean up some more. Enjoy quiet night with hubby at home! But, today is going to be different. I have done a bit of twittering, and did answer the email, but I am going to apologize now because I will not b...

If you follow me on Twitter then you know that I have been using the Couch-to-5K (C25K) running plan in hopes of becoming an official runner. I use the podcasts from Robert Ullrey to keep me on plan and am currently on Week 6 of nine. I'm over halfway to running a 5K! Why is this such a big deal, you ask? Let me backtrack a little. I have never been one to run. Not as a kid, not as a teenager, and surely not lately. I just never liked to run. I played sports like softball and tennis so I moved, but didn't really run anywhere. When I first started teaching at my current school, five years ago, a group of friends encouraged me to join them at the gym. I fell into the peer pressure and eventually joined. I was impressed by the way they all ran. I began walking on the treadmill, increasing my speed every workout, and finally jogged a little here and there. It was great having them cheer me on and I must admit that not wanting to fail in front of them gave me more reason to run. T...

The kids and I had a snow day on Monday, but didn't brave the cold, windy day outside (other than my shoveling adventure ). Yesterday, staff was supposed to report to school, but could use a liberal leave day so I decided to enjoy another day off with the kids. Since Tuesdays are Dave's usual day off we all got to play in the snow together. We went sledding, built forts, made snow angels, had snow stuck all over us, made snow ice cream, and completely enjoyed the day! Subscribe in a reader Follow me on Twitter

Spring on the Tree Winter on the Ground Subscribe in a reader Follow me on Twitter

I decided to be a nice wife on Monday ( not saying that I'm normally not nice of course ) and shovel our driveway since Dave had to go to work and I got to stay home. Next time I get the idea to be nice, please remind me that there is no need because I shoveled the driveway! BEFORE: AFTER: Can I just tell you that I will NEVER be moving to Minnesota cause it took me hours to warm up after shoveling in 20 degree weather with a bitter wind? Oh and one more thing. The activity points that Weight Watchers gives you for shoveling is a joke! Totally not worth it. Subscribe in a reader Follow me on Twitter

I made my 100 miles on Nike+ and got my time below 20 min. If I can do this...anybody can. So who's running with me??!! Subscribe in a reader Follow me on Twitter

Today is Dr. Seuss' birthday! I had a huge party planned at school. We had made Cat in the Hat hats last week, parents were bringing in Green Eggs and Ham casseroles for breakfast today, activity packets were copied, and games were planned. Then this happened... Of course, I am not complaining. I mean snow days were in my top 10 reasons I became a teacher!! However, I was bummed that my party plans were ruined. That was until I decided to bring the party home. So far today we have enjoyed green eggs and ham (well turkey bacon) for breakfast, colored some pictures, completed word search and crossword puzzles, and read Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham. Still to come... Making some red and white cupcakes in Dr. Seuss honor using Zoe's cupcake maker that hasn't been used yet from Christmas! Do you do anything special for Dr. Seuss day?? Subscribe in a reader Follow me on Twitter