Gift Card Holder Giveaway

The first time I did A to Z, I noticed some participants had pretty letters decorating their posts. I was impressed. I knew I needed my own set. And I knew that I'd knit them.

What form they'd take varied. At one point I thought I'd make the letter blocks into an afghan.

Last year for my sister-in-law's birthday, I wimped out and got her a gift card. As a flourish, I made her a little something to put them in. And the knitted gift card holders were born...

It has a little clip so it can hook onto a zipper pull or strap or something.

And I decided it had to have a monogram, which is how it became my A to Z project. Because I could make one for every letter.

(I also listed them in my Etsy shop, Zizi Rho Designs. You can find the gift card holders here.)

I started making them in earnest in January. (I made a few for gifts for Christmas.) I finished them mid-March. I took pictures of each.

And now those little pouches are taking up space. Collecting dust.

If you want to purchase one, I would be ever so grateful. But I'm sure you'd rather win one.

Yep, you can win one of the letters you've seen at the end of each post. Or you can win one of the letters still to come. I'll let you decide which one you want.

This giveaway will last throughout the rest of the A to Z Challenge. Winners will be announced in the A to Z Reflections post. Number of winners will be determined by number of entries--up to five winners (although I might give away more, depending on my mood when I do the drawing).

Not every letter is available. At some point this week, I'll put up a tab at the top with pictures of the available letters and another link to the Rafflecopter. (The currently available letters are: A, B, D, E, F, G, I, J, K, L, N, P, Q, R, S, U, V, W, X, Y, and Z.) I might be persuaded to make the missing letters...

Make sure to enter...

a Rafflecopter giveaway
Are you going to enter? Which letter would you like to win? What do you think of my little project? 

Today's A to Z Challenge post brought to you by the letter...

Fanfare

At the heart of much speculative fiction (and fiction in general) is a question. What if? On Tuesdays I like to throw one out there and see what you make of it. Do with it as you please. If a for-instance is not specified, feel free to interpret that instance as you wish. And if you find this becomes a novel-length answer, I'd appreciate a thank you in the acknowledgements ;)

What if we all had our own theme music that played wherever we went? What should your theme song be?

Today's A to Z Challenge post brought to you by the letter...

Earth Science Shenanigans

A certain type of student takes Earth Science. The kind that I have to keep an eye on.

I did my usual walk-around and noticed a boy copying from another packet.

"I didn't get the notes."

Me: "That looks like the assignment, not the notes."

"But it's all right here. It's easier to copy."

I took the packet he was copying from, noted it belonged to Kevin, and moved on.

Miriam claimed to be completely done with the assignment. I doubted this, but I got distracted by something else. Upon returning to her side, I noticed she had gotten out her packet--her blank packet.

Me: "You told me you were done. You lied to me."

Not that it bothered me. Or seemed to bother her. I get lied to numerous times a day. But sometimes I like to point it out.

I stood over her, waiting for her to get to work. She refused. She flipped open the cover of the book when I asked her to open her book. She "couldn't find" the right page...

Later she called me over. I hoped rather than expected that she had an assignment-related question.

"How old are you?" (To which I gave my now standard reply.)

They'll do anything to avoid doing work. Sigh.

After I finally distanced myself from Miriam, I turned to find Kevin throwing something across the room. Something that made a metallic clang when it landed.

Since the period was over in two minutes, I let Kevin know that he would be receiving a referral for that the next day. (Too bad I didn't catch the other boy who was throwing stuff at Kevin.)

If only they put half as much effort into completing assignments that they do into avoiding assignments...

What's your favorite procrastination activity? (Please don't tell me it's throwing things at people.)

Today's A to Z Challenge post brought to you by the letter...

Dove

Nice pose, dove. Thanks.

Today's A to Z Challenge post brought to you by the letter...

First (partial) week down. How's the challenge going for you?

Commonly Misused Words

You know you sound bad when the sub caller hears your three attempts to say, "Hello," and then says, "You don't want to work today." It wasn't a matter of want, more a matter of ability. Ah well, I guess I was due.

So, today I'm giving you: Can You Correctly Use These Commonly Misused Words? 

How did you do? 

Today's A to Z Challenge post brought to you by the letter...

Edited to add: Thanks for all the well-wishes. I'm all better now. I write all these posts a week in advance, so the cold in question hit me on Thursday of last week. Sorry for the confusion.

Blatant Lie

It was an interesting day. They were holding short trainings for all the teachers--trainings that took about an hour--so we subs were covering teachers for one period and then moving on to cover another teacher the next period.

There are pros and cons to this. One big pro is that the teachers were there as the kiddos came into class.

Ms. C was on her way out when a student brought her his SSR log. He explained that he had left it on her desk yesterday, but apparently she hadn't gotten it.

Ms. C told the student he was full of it (although, not quite like that). While her desk wasn't pristine, it wasn't so messy that she'd miss stuff. And she informed the student that she had looked through her stuff the night before and had not seen his paper.

8th graders... *shakes head*

She was accepting those logs. She had a stack of maybe 10 by the time she left. I think they were a day late, but she was still taking them. So, I'm not sure what he got out of the lie. (Perhaps whatever she was deducting for late work?)

Have you ever told a teacher a lie about turning your work in? Did you get away with it?

Today's A to Z Challenge post brought to you by the letter...

Advertising

In school I took French, so I avoid Spanish classes. But when it's the whole Spanish department out...

Student called me over. With trepidation I approached. But I was pretty sure it wasn't a Spanish question. And it wasn't.

"How can taste be soft?"

Huh?

The boy showed me what prompted the question. His water bottle. Fiji water. The tag line: "The soft taste of solid rock."

For about a minute I tried to come up with some logical reply. But then I realized that we were dealing with marketing. Advertising.

Most commercials nowadays make no sense to me. So why would the tag line of this water?

I said something to the effect of marketing department trying to brand their water.

The boy turned to his friend. "I'm right." Because that's what boys do.

I walked away. There was no point in arguing. I don't think the friend believed he won the argument anyway.

Well, the boy did take out his Spanish book after. Success? (I can't say he got anything accomplished, though.)

Have you ever declared victory over an argument that there was no right or wrong to? How can taste be soft? Do commercials make sense to you nowadays (or am I the only befuddled one)?

Today's A to Z Challenge post brought to you by the letter...