Ok so disgustingly enough, I am just ridiculously giddy. After three fabulous dates this week, this pretty much captures how I'm feeling:
How wonderful to know
The things a woman knows;
How marvelous to wait for a date
In simply beautiful clothes!
How lovely to be a woman
And change from boys to men,
To go to a fancy nightclub
And stay out after ten.
How lovely to be so grown-up and free!
Life's lovely when you're a woman like me!
Gotta love the corny Bye Bye Birdie....
Nope, no pictures yet. I suck.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Exciting weekend!
So I'm tooting my horn. toot! toot! It's true, I had a fabulous weekend. Let me just recap for you.
Friday night I had a beautiful little girls night with my delightful friend Cristy. We watched girly movies, made cookies, drank tea, and of course talked and talked and talked and talked. No, I won't tell you what we talked about. How dare you ask!
Saturday night I hosted the dinner portion of a progressive dinner. We had sooooo much fun! I can't take a lot of credit for the amount of fun, because there were some freaking hilarious people who were assigned to come here. We hosted David, Dan, Brad and Steve (all 4 accountants!), Tess, Lisa and Shanna. Also in attendance were my roommates Joy and Kelli. We laughed a ton, it was fabulous. That Tess is a real kick in the pants. Then we went to the harbours for a little dessert, which was also delightful.
Sunday I went over to a boy's house and we just spent the entire evening talking. It was a fabulous time. We talked a ton. The plan was to watch a movie, but we never got that far. In fact, we talked so long that I only got 3 hours of sleep before I had to get up to go to work all day Monday. That made for a long day of meetings, but that's ok. I am more than happy to give it up for some good connecting with a delightful person. In fact, I may just sacrifice the all-coveted weekend sleep for more.
If only I had pictures to document the weekend. How do I manage that? Well, I'll tell you. I absolutely SUCK at taking pictures. I just always forget to take out my camera, so it usually just sits in my room. BUT, I am resolving to do better. Hopefully this week I'll have some fun things of which I can take pictures. Then I can blog. Yay for blogs.
Friday night I had a beautiful little girls night with my delightful friend Cristy. We watched girly movies, made cookies, drank tea, and of course talked and talked and talked and talked. No, I won't tell you what we talked about. How dare you ask!
Saturday night I hosted the dinner portion of a progressive dinner. We had sooooo much fun! I can't take a lot of credit for the amount of fun, because there were some freaking hilarious people who were assigned to come here. We hosted David, Dan, Brad and Steve (all 4 accountants!), Tess, Lisa and Shanna. Also in attendance were my roommates Joy and Kelli. We laughed a ton, it was fabulous. That Tess is a real kick in the pants. Then we went to the harbours for a little dessert, which was also delightful.
Sunday I went over to a boy's house and we just spent the entire evening talking. It was a fabulous time. We talked a ton. The plan was to watch a movie, but we never got that far. In fact, we talked so long that I only got 3 hours of sleep before I had to get up to go to work all day Monday. That made for a long day of meetings, but that's ok. I am more than happy to give it up for some good connecting with a delightful person. In fact, I may just sacrifice the all-coveted weekend sleep for more.
If only I had pictures to document the weekend. How do I manage that? Well, I'll tell you. I absolutely SUCK at taking pictures. I just always forget to take out my camera, so it usually just sits in my room. BUT, I am resolving to do better. Hopefully this week I'll have some fun things of which I can take pictures. Then I can blog. Yay for blogs.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Fabulous peruvian gloves... or are they mittens?
Once upon a time I went to italy with my roommate joy and her friend jason. i got some gloves there that were kind of mittens, kind of gloves - you know the fold-back mitten kind so you can still do things with your fingers? That kind. I love them. See photo.
So my roommates joy and kelli went to peru once upon a time. they were so kind and thoughtful and brought back some delightful peruvian things for me. I got some gourdish things, and a tapestry/blanket thing, and some of those mitten/glove combo things.
It snowed here thursday. After school thursday I decided I would be a super cool roommate and shovel the walk and a part of the driveway that is always hard to drive on when it gets icy. I knew the snow would turn to ice, and snow never melts well at our house because of how it faces and the trees and definite lack of sunlight. we will probably have this ice on our stairs and driveway until february. so i eliminated some of it. that's a good roommate thing to do, right? I got home earlier than everyone else, and was excited for the snow - I had all kinds of energy. it was fabulous. so I dug out some winter gear, including my snow hat made with baby yarn (it's not itchy like all the other hats) that joy made for me, and then I also got out my peruvian glittens (gloves and mittens. it works.). They served me well.
Today i was cleaning up some stuff, and grabbed my hat and mittens I had left upstairs to dry after the snow. I don't like to leave my stuff around upstairs and was a little embarrassed that I had left things there for so long. So I put on my gloves. I noticed a little peek hole in the thumb. Then I realized my thumbs can come out just like my fingers. AMAZING!!! Do you know how fabulous that is? Because really, my little thumbs just feel left out when all the other fingers are out playing and the thumbs are locked inside. While they stay toasty warm, it really does become difficult to do things when you can't use the fine dexterity your thumbprints add to your thumbs.
Want to see?? It's amazing.
Well, pictures are coming soon - blogger doesn't want to upload pictures right now. I guess we're all entitled to some crankiness from time to time.
HA! I fixed it ..... enjoy the pictures!
So my roommates joy and kelli went to peru once upon a time. they were so kind and thoughtful and brought back some delightful peruvian things for me. I got some gourdish things, and a tapestry/blanket thing, and some of those mitten/glove combo things.
It snowed here thursday. After school thursday I decided I would be a super cool roommate and shovel the walk and a part of the driveway that is always hard to drive on when it gets icy. I knew the snow would turn to ice, and snow never melts well at our house because of how it faces and the trees and definite lack of sunlight. we will probably have this ice on our stairs and driveway until february. so i eliminated some of it. that's a good roommate thing to do, right? I got home earlier than everyone else, and was excited for the snow - I had all kinds of energy. it was fabulous. so I dug out some winter gear, including my snow hat made with baby yarn (it's not itchy like all the other hats) that joy made for me, and then I also got out my peruvian glittens (gloves and mittens. it works.). They served me well.
Today i was cleaning up some stuff, and grabbed my hat and mittens I had left upstairs to dry after the snow. I don't like to leave my stuff around upstairs and was a little embarrassed that I had left things there for so long. So I put on my gloves. I noticed a little peek hole in the thumb. Then I realized my thumbs can come out just like my fingers. AMAZING!!! Do you know how fabulous that is? Because really, my little thumbs just feel left out when all the other fingers are out playing and the thumbs are locked inside. While they stay toasty warm, it really does become difficult to do things when you can't use the fine dexterity your thumbprints add to your thumbs.
Want to see?? It's amazing.
Well, pictures are coming soon - blogger doesn't want to upload pictures right now. I guess we're all entitled to some crankiness from time to time.
HA! I fixed it ..... enjoy the pictures!
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
brunch.
Today's best moment: that is torn between being called red-locks chili peppers and the following demand
M: can you not interrupt me
M: i am improvising
Today's Worst moment: leaving at school, just to go grocery shopping and go right back to school to cook for another ohhhhhh 4 hours?
I'm hosting the guidance department for brunch. See, I have them in my room, and I show them a lovely time and tell them all about the delightful classes I teach, and then they put lots of kids in my classes and then I have a job next year. It works out well. A little buttering-up tends to go a long ways.
Said brunch is tomorrow. 9:20 a.m. I was at school for ohhhhhh 11 hours today, frantically getting things done for said brunch. Dangit, I forgot to make the copies I need. Hopefully my slacker aide comes to class tomorrow! If not, I'm screwed! I hope you appreciate my moment of panic there. It'll be a fabulous brunch if I can enlist the help of my morning class. I'm not sure how excited they'll be about that since they won't get to eat, but oh well. I'm the teacher, right?
Anyway, it'll be a delightful menu. I'm excited about it. I'll be too busy and stressed to take pictures, sorry about that.
Lucky French Breakfast Muffins
Individual Breakfast Casseroles
Fruit Kabobs (which might just turn into a platter)
Bacon
Ricotta triangles (with a raspberry inside and baked in phyllo)
Spiced cider (gotta remember to take the spice with me!)
There might be something else, but I don't remember.... it's not that late, but I'm really tired!
M: can you not interrupt me
M: i am improvising
Today's Worst moment: leaving at school, just to go grocery shopping and go right back to school to cook for another ohhhhhh 4 hours?
I'm hosting the guidance department for brunch. See, I have them in my room, and I show them a lovely time and tell them all about the delightful classes I teach, and then they put lots of kids in my classes and then I have a job next year. It works out well. A little buttering-up tends to go a long ways.
Said brunch is tomorrow. 9:20 a.m. I was at school for ohhhhhh 11 hours today, frantically getting things done for said brunch. Dangit, I forgot to make the copies I need. Hopefully my slacker aide comes to class tomorrow! If not, I'm screwed! I hope you appreciate my moment of panic there. It'll be a fabulous brunch if I can enlist the help of my morning class. I'm not sure how excited they'll be about that since they won't get to eat, but oh well. I'm the teacher, right?
Anyway, it'll be a delightful menu. I'm excited about it. I'll be too busy and stressed to take pictures, sorry about that.
Lucky French Breakfast Muffins
Individual Breakfast Casseroles
Fruit Kabobs (which might just turn into a platter)
Bacon
Ricotta triangles (with a raspberry inside and baked in phyllo)
Spiced cider (gotta remember to take the spice with me!)
There might be something else, but I don't remember.... it's not that late, but I'm really tired!
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Bathroom. Hole.
So we've known for a while that this was coming. There have been pleas and beggings and all kinds of pitiful crying from our knees to get some particular repairs completed in our home.
I have a little vanity I've created in my bathroom.
Our house is kind of old, so it doesn't come with like, oh, real closets or drawers in the bathrooms and things like that. I'm not sure how people didn't have drawers in their bathrooms, but we don't. Anyway, I have come up with a few little creative things to meet my needs. So I sit in the bathroom and get ready for work in the morning, or where ever I may be going. And, in proper design style, the bathrooms are stacked on top of each other. It makes sense, and if you think about where plumbing is in most houses, you'll notice that for the most part, everything is one on top of the other. It's more cost-effective that way, not only for the incoming pipes with clean water, but also the outgoing pipes, since they have specific design to work with gravity.
Occasionally someone will be taking a shower in the upstairs bathroom while I am getting ready for my day. No big deal. I don't complain to much as long as it's not while I'm in the shower and we're having to share the hot water. Our house doesn't like to share very much. Until now.
Occasionally, while sitting there getting ready, I will hear a little "plop plop" on the ceiling above me. This is rather curious because there is a bathroom above me. But I'm not hearing someone drop something on the bathroom floor. No, I'm hearing it on my ceiling. We determined at least a year ago that the upstairs shower is not sealed correctly and water gets inside and drips onto my ceiling. We have pleaded with the management company to fix the problem. We have explained the situation. They sent some incompetent people out to re-caulk our showers.
Re-caulking the showers is a 4-step process.
1. Scrape out old caulking
2. de-goo residual old caulking
3. bleach out caulked area to eliminate any mold and other crap
4. apply new caulking
Not tough, right? A little googling will instruct you easily in the correct process. Not hard, but a little time consuming. The last time we asked for it to be done, the guys were in and out in 30 minutes. Obviously they didn't do the job, because it would take longer than that to do two showers and around 3 toilets. We called the management company and told them as much. They refused to make the repairmen come back and do the job correctly.
That's the preface.
Last night I went in the bathroom to wash my face. Joy was in the shower upstairs. I heard a plinky-plink on the ceiling. I look up and see a drippy-drip. That's happened before, so I go look at it. I touch the drippy-drip. My finger goes right through the layer of paint which was all that was remaining and up into the under-shower cavity upstairs. Yes, my friends. I have a hole in my bathroom ceiling.
The drywall is completely rotted away.
The little bit of the wood that you can see is black, covered in rot, and is not an entire solid piece of wood.
My dear friends, if I don't show up to something, please come look in my bathroom. I may have been smothered under the shower falling through the ceiling. Do you see the close proximity of the hole being at the edge of my vanity? The upstairs bath goes from the hole in the ceiling to the back wall. I'm estimating that the hole is about the centered left/right at the front of the upstairs shower. Save me!!! Save me!!!!!!!!
I have a little vanity I've created in my bathroom.
Our house is kind of old, so it doesn't come with like, oh, real closets or drawers in the bathrooms and things like that. I'm not sure how people didn't have drawers in their bathrooms, but we don't. Anyway, I have come up with a few little creative things to meet my needs. So I sit in the bathroom and get ready for work in the morning, or where ever I may be going. And, in proper design style, the bathrooms are stacked on top of each other. It makes sense, and if you think about where plumbing is in most houses, you'll notice that for the most part, everything is one on top of the other. It's more cost-effective that way, not only for the incoming pipes with clean water, but also the outgoing pipes, since they have specific design to work with gravity.
Occasionally someone will be taking a shower in the upstairs bathroom while I am getting ready for my day. No big deal. I don't complain to much as long as it's not while I'm in the shower and we're having to share the hot water. Our house doesn't like to share very much. Until now.
Occasionally, while sitting there getting ready, I will hear a little "plop plop" on the ceiling above me. This is rather curious because there is a bathroom above me. But I'm not hearing someone drop something on the bathroom floor. No, I'm hearing it on my ceiling. We determined at least a year ago that the upstairs shower is not sealed correctly and water gets inside and drips onto my ceiling. We have pleaded with the management company to fix the problem. We have explained the situation. They sent some incompetent people out to re-caulk our showers.
Re-caulking the showers is a 4-step process.
1. Scrape out old caulking
2. de-goo residual old caulking
3. bleach out caulked area to eliminate any mold and other crap
4. apply new caulking
Not tough, right? A little googling will instruct you easily in the correct process. Not hard, but a little time consuming. The last time we asked for it to be done, the guys were in and out in 30 minutes. Obviously they didn't do the job, because it would take longer than that to do two showers and around 3 toilets. We called the management company and told them as much. They refused to make the repairmen come back and do the job correctly.
That's the preface.
Last night I went in the bathroom to wash my face. Joy was in the shower upstairs. I heard a plinky-plink on the ceiling. I look up and see a drippy-drip. That's happened before, so I go look at it. I touch the drippy-drip. My finger goes right through the layer of paint which was all that was remaining and up into the under-shower cavity upstairs. Yes, my friends. I have a hole in my bathroom ceiling.
The drywall is completely rotted away.
The little bit of the wood that you can see is black, covered in rot, and is not an entire solid piece of wood.
My dear friends, if I don't show up to something, please come look in my bathroom. I may have been smothered under the shower falling through the ceiling. Do you see the close proximity of the hole being at the edge of my vanity? The upstairs bath goes from the hole in the ceiling to the back wall. I'm estimating that the hole is about the centered left/right at the front of the upstairs shower. Save me!!! Save me!!!!!!!!
Is it horrible to do this?
Until I figure out a better way to do this.... One massive copy and paste? We'll see....
Please forgive the freakish mess I just made??
October 14 2005 - Oh the Excitement
I don't remember if I announced this before, but the boyfriend and I broke up. Yep, it's over. I'm moving on. He just really wasn't the right one for me, and the more I talk to him the more annoyed I get with him. He's coming into town next weekend and wants to go out on a date, but I think he thinks we're still dating. I can go on a date with him, but he's talking about getting schmoopy and cuddly and all that. I don't think so! I just have no desire for that. I am actually a bit amazed at how fast that went away. But I guess being so far away, not talking as much, and definitely not seeing each other as much, and additionally consciously putting the feelings on the back burner, that would make sense.
So, I have a fun little story today. I got asked out today by a guy I work with. I love the compliment of a guy asking you out. It's great. Becaues even though they haven't said it, they find you attractive enough, and hopefully intelligent enough to want to get to know you more, and want to spend time with you. So, huge compliment. I do have to say, I was feeling mighty cute today too, so I suppose that was helping a little bit. Unfortunately, though, I had to decline because he asked me to go out on Sunday, and well, of course I can't go out on Sunday. But, I said I'd love to but that I don't go out on Sundays, but I'd love to another time. So he's going to call or email sometime this weekend. SO cute. Well, the whole asking out is so cute. He's a pretty decent looking guy. He used to have a long pony tail, but he cut that off recently, and I'm SOOO glad!
That's the latest excitement. I know it's only 7:30 on friday night, but it's still Friday night. I'm exhausted, and I think I'm going to get ready for bed!
I'll be better - I promise!
So, the boyfriend and I are a bit rocky right now. One would think that the rockiness would be caused by living 3 hours away from each other. Actually, the rockiness is caused by my religion and his religion not being the same. It's an issue for me, not an issue for him. In fact, he has a hard time understanding why it is an issue for me. Oy. I finally spelled it out for him all plain and dumb-like, which is not to say he's dumb, but just that the "want's" were quite blunt. So I finally said, "I want you to stop drinking, be my religion, and I want us to live happily ever after." That about freaked him out.
Saturday I went to a craft show with the new roommates. It was called the Crafty Bastards, and it was in Adam's Morgan. I could be totally slaughtering that, but, well, I don't know any better. It was good fun though. It was sooo beautiful saturday and we just had a lovely afternoon, and then we went to Heidleberg Bakery on the way back. Ok, can I just say YUMMMMM!!!! Wow, that place was incredible!! Most of the stuff at the craft show was pretty crappy though. And the stuff that wasn't pretty crappy was so freaking expensive that there was NO way I could purchase anything. It was still fun to get out though.
So, Friday night I got such a horrible phone call. Brady called, and left a message on my phone. The fact that Brady called was concern enough. He's not one to call and just chatty chat. So I knew something was up. Then, the message he left was, "Sara, we have a family emergency. You need to call me right away." OY!! So, here's what happened. Ready? hold on to your hats kids!
Friday afternoon Dad and Jeff, his little buddy, were out in the woods cleaning up some fallen trees and wood. They're all remenant of the ice storme last christmas when the power was out for 6 days. Dad and Jeff have been chopping firewood, and hauling logs up to the house to turn into lumber. There's some incredible walnut and cherry out there that they've been salvaging. So, they were doing something with a tree, and something happened and the tractor flipped over. Not a big deal except that Dad was sitting in the tractor. And after it flipped, he was still sitting in the tractor. You know how you can flip something upside down and it dumps out? And then you swing something upside down and it all stays in the bottom? Yeah. Dad stayed in the bottom. He was pinned in a way that he couldn't really breathe, and eventually stopped breathing and then passed out.
The ambulance came, took him to the hospital, and then they flew him to a real hospital in Columbus. It was a pretty serious accident and they had no idea what kind of damage was done. It turns out Dad didn't even crack a rib. Nothing. He's got some bruises and his face is scratched up because he was flipped into a bunch of briars, but that's about it. He's sore and has to rest for a while. The whole series of events was odd though. Jeff had called the ambulance. Brady came up the driveway behind the ambulances, fire truck, and 2 sherrifs, as well as the fire chief. You know, when you live in a small town, and someone who has lived there for years has an accident, EVERYONE is going to come. Brady had no idea what was going on and got out there in time to help load Dad up into the ambulance and then call Alison and me to start the phone tree. Mom was at Grandma's house and saw all the trucks flying by, and of course wondered where they were going. When she pulled up to the house, she of course realized and then obviously got upset. Jim, the barber in town has a scanner and heard the call to go to our house. So he called some people from church who went right to the hospital to administer to Dad before they took him to Columbus.
Friday night 4 or 5 couples were with Mom at the hospital. Saturday a bunch of people stopped in to see how everyone was doing. It's amazing though, that nothing happened. Black eyes, yeah, some bruises, but nothing serious. Not even a cast of any kind. What was even more fun was the doctors and nurses who had no idea how he survived such an ordeal. No, not witchcraft or wizardry. But definitely someone upstairs looking out for him.
The whole thing gave me quite a perspective of life. And also helped me to cherish my parents more. I realized there were so many things I still want to learn from my dad, so many things that I don't know and that I want to know. And the same about my mom. So much I want to know, and so many things I'm sure I've missed over the years that she's tried to teach me and I've just been oblivious or stubborn.
So, I still like the boyfriend. I just want him to be my religion. He's not so keen on it. Is it horrible of me that I just want him to miss me so much that he'll at least consider it?? I know it's asking a ton though. But I also know he could handle it. He could so handle it, and in fact, he'd rock being a good little boy. So, we talked last night about taking quite a significant trip together. I want to go to Paris for Thanksgiving. Mom and Dad are going to Japan to visit Paul and Jill. So, I say why not go somewhere too? So I want to go to paris. Tickets are about 350. We could find a hotel for about $45 a night, and split that and it's totally do-able. And then just money for food and transit in the city. And it'd only be 3 days in the city, so we could just backpack it, and have more than enough space. Actually, I'd probably backpack it, and pack another bag that I could put other stuff in and check for the trip back. It'd be sweet.
So here's another little bit of interesting information. Apparently in the WMA, they don't believe in one-stop shopping such as super wal mart or super target. What is so bad about being able to get groceries and everything else in one place? Personally, I prefer one stop to driving all the snot over town. Maybe another wally world somewhere else around town has the super part. I hope so!
So I decided to walk to church today. It was a lovely day, and I was ready to go in plenty of time, so I just strolled along to church. It's maybe half a mile, but I just took my dear sweet time. When I say dear sweet time, I mean dear sweet time. I took about 20 minutes to get there. But also, I was being careful to not break my ankle or something. Anyway, church was interesting today. Because of the holiday weekend, it was much less crowded which was nice. I had a great opportunity to sit and really think about some good stuff that I've wanted to resolve. I got to talk to a few people after church too, which was nice. I haven't really taken the opportunity to do that, being all pensive as I've been lately. Then I was walking home from church. That's what you do when you walk to church. When it's over, you have to walk home. I got about a block from the church and some guy from the ward pulled over and gave me a ride. I couldn't very well say no when he was already holding up traffic. So I got in, and in the remaining 4 blocks to the house, we had a really nice chat. And then we sat in the driveway and chatted for a while too. Well, he was really nice, and I wanted to keep talking, so I invited him in for a little dinner. So I whipped up some chicken parmesean and some frozen corn. He was quite impressed, and it's my favorite meal to do last minute. It's always a winner. So he was going to call tonight about ward activity plans for tomorrow, but he hasn't called yet. Maybe he'll call tomorrow about it. We'll see. Anyway, it was nice to have such a lovely dinner, and he was so fun to talk to. Just a really nice down to earth guy.
I love lazy weekends, just sleeping late, taking naps, being unproductive. Tomorrow is the end of that though. I'll still sleep late, probably, but I get to be uber productive tomorrow. It will be the end of being lazy. I get to clean and organize the apartment, and clean out the car. I can't go to school with all this crap all over the place, so it will be good to get it taken care of. Oh and dishes. I get to do dishes too. That'll be good fun.
I talked to the brother in Japan last night. THat was so fun. He told me my niece was looking in photo albums the other night and saw a picture of me and said "Sara is my best friend!" And then she found out that my brother and I were talking and she said "I love you, Sara!" How sweet is that!?! I just love my little baby. She's three and a half, and just adorable. I love my other little baby too, who just turned three. She's a riot, and is always saying some goofy things.
Please forgive the freakish mess I just made??
 | |
| January 14 uhh...well, it's late and I should be trying to sleep, but I just have to say two words. I'll report more later. bathroom. hole. This is not good, my friends. Not good. I promise, you won't want to miss this. the challenge of TV watchingLet me just start by saying I love my Dad. He's a good man. He's good with computers and good with lots of things. One thing he is not good at though, is connecting all the components of a tv and sound system and all the other extra curricular gadgets together to make it easy to use. In fact, it has become such a problem that when I go home to visit the family I do not watch tv. Or, if I do, I watch it on the tiny little 13" in the kitchen, which needs to be turned at a strange angle if you're anywhere but standing in the kitchen. So here is how it worked. Mind you, this is rather vague because I'm not sure I really ever did figure it out. It was usually just a stroke of luck. But it went something like this:
Now here's the catch. The "surround sound," which is a term that should be used loosely, was topped out at 4 speakers. There were two front side speakers and to rear speakers that weren't really all centered. There was no volume control on the tv. So, when watching something, you had to rely on the side speakers to deliver all the speaking. Now, the problem with that is when you have a sound system set up and don't have a center speaker, you don't have many words because those are the speakers that deliver all the ambient sound like people walking around and monsters creeping up behind you. So, presuming you can get all the correct buttons pushed and arranged just so, once you get it all going nicely, you won't be able to hear the movie unless you are laying on the floor right next to one of the front speakers. Really, it reminds me of the scene in Singin' in the Rain where they are just opening the studio to record their first talkie and Lina Lamont is being wired for sound. The sound tech picks up everything except for what Don and Lina are saying. Kind of humorous in the movie, absolutely ridiculous when it's how you have to actually watch an entire movie! So, now Dad is all excited about the HD technology. The day after Thanksgiving Dad found himself a fabulous deal on a 65" HD television. Over Christmas, he finished the new entertainment center (side note, the old "entertainment center" was this table that had these thin metal legs which held the tv over a tower of accoutrements - it was a miracle that the table never fell over!) which spurred the assembly of the new system. Luckily my brother-in-law Mark was there to assist in putting everything together so there was minimal frustration in TV watching, and switching now between not just the satellite and dvd, but also a wii. Yes, that's right, my mom got her wii for Christmas. It still makes me giggle that she wanted a wii so badly. Also, the new tv makes adding such accoutrements much easier as it's expected to have everything. Sadly, the tuner is still old. The sound system still sucks. But now we can at least use the tv speakers, where before we couldn't. It pains Dad to not use his "incredible" sound system, but it pains the rest of us more to attempt to hear what's happening in a movie using the sound system. My favorite... COMMERCIAL! Ok, so this makes me laugh every time. Hard. It's so dumb, but I have to share the love. I'm sure you've all seen it, but check out the link anyway. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7614649706382704254 Oh holy crap I laugh so hard! On a completely different note, apparently I have some lurkers? I don't mind, I just hadn't blogged in a long time since I figured I was the only one who ever read it, and that's just kind of silly to read my own blog, because, well, I wrote it! I don't need to read it again! So I was at dinner tonight and one of the girls there said I needed to update, so here I am updating. And now that I'm thinking about blogging, dang I have some hilarious stories I need to post here. Some are schadenfreude-ish which I'm sure will delight all to revel in my pain. Some are just goofy. I'll have to spread them out so that I don't use up all my clever in one sitting. Clever is a funny thing. You can have it in droves and droves one day and then just be all dried up for a month! I should really be more social because it seems when I'm in social situations I become more clever. That is helpful so that I don't sit in the corner so much without anything to say. I guess it's all about practice. The more you put yourself out there and practice being clever, the more clever you are. Oh wow, that was a big epiphany. And now it's fading.... fading..... melting.... melting.... So, in case I lose my list I just jotted down, here's what I have for the blogging to come, in no particular order:
I feel like for this to be complete I need to add a picture. I'm not sure what picture to add. I did give you a link for a video though.... Next post: cool pictures. How's that? October 07 Washed-up WeekendIt's been all too long since I last blogged. I have been dying to go to the beach all summer long, and haven't been able to go for a variety of reasons. I am delighted to announce that my weekend activities included going to Rehoboth Beach in beautiful Delaware, the first state, and home of no sales tax. I had planned on spending the weekend in North Carolina, but because of a variety of reasons, that didn't happen. Instead, Darin and I went to see Ratatouille Friday night at the cheap seats - $4 for a movie! Whoohoooooo!!! Much better than the highway robbery at the mall, and really, for that kind of movie, it doesn't really make a difference if you see it in the fancy-schmancy theater or the cheap-o theater. Then we went to Nielsen's for frozen custard. That was num! I had cake batter flavored custard, my new favorite, introduced to me by Darin, and on it I had raspberries and hot fudge sauce. So stinking good. We decided the next morning we would go to the beach, either Ocean City, MD or Rehoboth, DE. We got on the road about 8:40 and arrived in Rehoboth after a delightful drive DJ'd by Darin (I was driving) to find that there was a greyhound convention of sorts in the cute little touristy-shop-filled downtown area of Rehoboth. There were greyhounds everywhere, but they were pretty cool. I don't particularly like the look of them, but they were all so mellow and just chill. Even around other dogs, they were just laid back, which is kind of nice since so many dogs are so spastic. My picture is a little crappy and washed out because I didn't have my camera set for the sunlight, but the dogs were seriously everywhere. It was kind of fun.
Darin and I found the beach - it was pretty easy. The sand was so nice and soft, and it had just been raked and graded that morning, apparently. It was super easy to walk in, which was nice for me since I have the delightful dysfunctional ankle. We spent the afternoon playing in the ocean. The waves were great, and the second time we got in the tide was coming in so the waves were huge - so big we couldn't jump a lot of them, and instead had to dive through them. Unfortunately, because of how the beach is in that area, we couldn't boogie board or bodysurf. The beach was really steep, so if you tried, you went nose-first at a rather frightening speed into the hill of the beach. The waves were so intense that if you got caught in the surf, you got stuck there. Darin and I both took a couple good slams in the surf. At one point, we saw a jellyfish. Darin happened to catch it right between waves so he got out of the ocean in time. I, however, wasn't quite so lucky. I got up to the beach and a huge wave crashed and knocked me down. As I got up, another crashed right on top of me and knocked me down again. By the time I sat up from that hammering, another wave was well on it's way to crashing on me, so I rolled back with the surf and tried to swim under the next crashing, which sort of worked, but I still got slammed into the little strip of gravel under the surf. By the time I got out of the crashing waves and was able to stand, I had a swimming suit filled with sand and gravel. I looked like I had growths all over my body with all the gravel I had in my suit. I was pulling out handful after handful of sand and gravel for the next 10 minutes. I wish I could have seen the people's faces who were watching me from the shore get hammered on the beach. It was not graceful. In fact, it may have been in my Top 10 Least Graceful Moments. I'll have to enumerate them sometime. But they were big waves.... see???
Darin took a few good slammings too, but his were all due to body surfing, pretty much. His weren't so much because of being clumsy when trying to get out of the water. I think I fared better than he did though. He got some good scrapes and even a bruise, I just got a shattered ego. Which is worse? I'm not sure. But look how cute we are on the beach!!
There wasn't anywhere to shower, so we were stuck in wet, sandy swimsuits for the remainder of the day. It just added to the excitement of the adventure. We strolled along the shops lining the street as we headed back to the car. Then we went back to the real part of the town and enjoyed a down-home dinner at Friendly's, with complimentary ice cream sundaes. They were pretty good.
If there's something we both love, it's a good deal. And outlets. We're both a fan. Rehoboth happens to have a LOT of outlets. Naturally, after dinner we made a point of strolling through the 3 outlets in the 1-mile stretch of road. Darin got some snappy new clothes, I got some snappy new jeans and some pots at the Corel store. Then Darin DJ'd again as we drove home. The only down side to the day? We forgot sunscreen. Apparently you can get quite the sunburn when you're on the beach in October. I am a little sore today. August 17 Who needs feet?!June 8 I stepped in a hole in a parking lot. Yes, I know I should avoid those but this time I didn't see it. It was under the shadow of another car and it was getting dark and ready to rain. I stepped, of course with the bad ankle, and down I went with a crunch and a splat. Now, in all fairness, it was a DEEP hole!
A good 8 or 10 people saw me and came running, one dialing 911. I quickly got them to stop calling for an ambulance. I hadn't hit my head and I was really ok except that I couldn't walk. One girl ran and got some ice from the subway down the street. I managed to get up on the sidewalk, out of the impending rain, and my ankle swelled up immediately.
I found out, after several doctors appointments and a CT scan, I found out I in fact did not break my ankle, but had a bad sprain which means I tore ligaments that have already been reconstructed. Pretty dang sucky. I was in a boot for 3 weeks and then slowly worked my way to not having any support. Then it was time for 6 weeks of physical therapy. August 16 NYC I just got back from a fabulous trip in NYC. It was lovely. I loved it. It was fabulous. I flew up Wednesday, the 8th, and met my darling dear Cameron at the airport. We got our crap and then this super-crammed shuttle shuttled us back to Manhattan. The last two people to get on the shuttle were a couple good friends who just happened to run into one another at the airport and had shuttle reservations together. Crazy, huh? THe guy got in and said, "I'm matthew, this is susan. You'll get to know us very well as we have a lot of catching up to do. We hope you don't mind." Which made me laugh. Then we all got to talking. When I say all, I mean Matthew, Susan, Cameron and I. I have this horrible disease. I just can't keep my freaking mouth shut, always have a comment for something. I wish there were a drug for that.
It was fun to walk along the boardwalk and enjoy some sun. Then we went back to Manhattan and changed for an evening on the town. Cameron and I had tickets to Spring Awakening. Let me just say A-freaking-mazing!! It was so intense and incredible. The people in the show are so freaking talented! Not only did the sing and dance and act amazingly, a few of them played some of the music on the piano that was part of the set! Serious. How many people on broadway also provide the music for the show as part of their character? I"ll tell you. Not many. That's Cameron and me and my new best friend Michael at coney island.
Then our hotel-mates got sloshed. Cameron had to drag them back to the hotel from another bar. Then we had to put them in bed. Then they had s. e. x. I fell asleep before it got too bad. Cameron was up the whole time. Apparently our bed was a leverage point. Poor Cam got an education. There were also a few Monet's and several other amazing notable names. All in all, it was beautiful and wonderful. After we were done tinkering in the museum, we stopped at a crepe stand for a little snack. I got strawberry and nutella. so stinking yum! Again we changed into hottie clothes for a hottie night on the town. We had dinner at this fantastic turkish place just down from our hotel. For a prefix of $20, we got an appetizer, main dish and dessert. Not a bad deal. You can't even get that much at Applebee's. Then we enjoyed another hottie night at the theater, this time enjoying Wicked! Oh so much fabulous fun. It makes me love the music even more.
5 hours??? And apparently a parade just for the hell of it - their independence day is in February. So when I left at 2, they were just getting rolling. Apparently it was scheduled to start at 1. And what the hell do you have in your parade that makes it last 5 freaking hours? Anyway, we stopped by the hotel after walking a snippet of the parade rout, already crowded 2 hours before it started, and took our crap down to the storage room. Then we wandered the other direction from our hotel and found this incredible little street fair. All of Madison Ave was closed and there were vendors lining both sides of the street. Apparently that was the Workmen's Circle festival. I guess that explains why it was all handicrafts and food kiosks. It was fun all the same. I got 3 pearl necklaces, 3 pairs of pearl earrings (two pairs go to my mom and lil sis when they come to visit), a painting and a few other things. It was a fabulous find! June 05 GraduationSo this is the time of year we teachers reflect on if we did anything or not. This year, I'm feeling like I didn't do anything. Maybe I made the difference in the life of a child. Wouldn't that be profound?? But instead, I think there are a few more kids who won't burn down their kitchens by taking stuff out of the oven with a towel instead of a hot pad, and a couple more kids who won't die of malnutrition (or food poisoning) due to poor college cafeteria food. I had a fabulous last week. We had munchkin graduation. That's right. Preschool. I teach (-ish) preschool. I say "ish" because I teach my high school kids how to teach the little ones and then they teach the little ones. I will jump in from time to time, but for the most part, my 16-18 year-olds are large and in charge! Scary thought, huh? So the grand culmination (that's obviously a school buzzword, huh?) was the munchkin graduation. So I made this dvd of pictures we'd taken throughout the year. So fun! I even put a soundtrack behind it. Maybe one day you can come over and watch it with me. It's really so stinking cute. I even impressed myself, especially for the amount of time I had to put the thing together. I figured out the program (enough to get the thing done) and burned it on a dvd. Fabulous, eh? So the parents watched the dvd while they waited for us to come in, then the kids walked in, said the pledge of allegiance, sang a few songs, and then they were awarded their diplomas. I invited the principal and the VP's so they came down and the principal came in his graduation gown and hood. He handed the munchkins their diplomas, which was SO incredibly cute - you couldn't even believe it! Then we had a lovely little reception in the sauna that is the preschool. One of my kids brought me a beautiful bouquet of flowers and said "Here Mrs. F! You are the best teacher in the world! I love you!!" How excellent is that?? I mean, even if it is coming from a 4 year-old, who doesn't like to hear they're the best teacher in the whole entire world??! The other great part of graduation is the annoying seniors who aren't coming back because they have GRADUATED! So congratulations to my little darlings who I will miss horribly, and good moving along already to those of you who should have maybe considered some kind of alternative educational avenue! Another great part of graduation is that I only have to work 9 more days until I don't have to work for 2 months. There are parts of being a teacher that are really fabulous. Shall I be done enough with rubbing that in your noses now? Ok, then I'll tell you how amazing duck beach was! We (my roommates and some boys and I) rented a house on the beach for the massive migration of single mormons to the outer banks area of North Carolina. With the windows open, I could hear the beach from bed. I walked the beach for the sunrise and even got a few partial conch shells. I learned how to boogie board. That was so excellent! I have had all kinds of unrealistic fears through my life, or maybe just some crazy beliefs that I couldn't do things like everyone else. I had some recent realization that it's a bunch of crap. I can do whatever I want to do! So this will be the summer of crazy adventures! Boogie boarding. Friday I'm going to Hershey Park and I"m going to ride a roller coaster. Yes. It's true. I haven't been on a roller coaster since I was maybe 10 and my dad made me ride on the vortex at kings island. It was one HUGE hill (of course), 6 loop-de-loops and 8 or 10 corkscrews. Maybe my numbers are off there, I just know I went upside down a BUNCH of times and I wasn't particularly thrilled about it! I'm now, approximately 17 years later, ready to get on a roller coaster on my own accord. Wish me luck. Luckily, I don't think Hershey Park has a ton of HUGE roller coasters. I think they're all about medium-sized. I think I can handle medium-sized. Saturday I'm supposed to go sailing. I've never been before. If I can get up early enough to make it worthwhile, I may go. I may be too dang tired from being at Hershey all day. May 23 wed nes day!16 days and counting until I'm a free woman! Previously said senior is seriously grating on my nerves. But I do have a few delightful things to post today. Sherpa has Wordless Wednesday. I think I'll begin a "Quote Me Wednesday." Ok, so it doesn't have the same ring to it, but it'll serve my purposes today. So some favorite things in the recent past: "Who would win in a fight? General Tsao or Colonel Sanders?" - A student in class Sherpa put on some of my chap stick in church to soothe her poor burned lips. It was lipsmackers and she smeared it on because she was in some serious pain. Then it hit her - after she realized my fits of laughter. "Oh, it's colored!" Poor Sherpa was a bit like a 5-year old putting on her mom's makeup. It was cute. "Higher! . .. oh yeah.... harder.... harder... mmm... so good!!...." - Jessica at dinner Saturday night when Cam was scratching her sunburn. Not what you were expecting it to be, hmm? Get your mind out of the gutter! "That black guy just checked you out!" - D, when we entered a Wal Mart across from Easton. "I am thankful for wine" - Mommy Chickadee, in France, meaning to say she's thankful for the wind, but said wine instead. In Sunday school. On a completely different note:
May 18 Rude awakening . . .There was a fire up the street this morning. What a bummer for the family. J and M and I were out there watching the goings on. I took some pictures. Wanna see? The sirens came at 5:30 - I thought it was an accident. The helicopters came at 6:30 - that really woke me up! Then I saw the flashing lights through my blinds. I went out to chill with my roommates and see what was happening that would cause all the noise around my house! Across the street and a few houses down, all up in flames, and TONS of trucks, helpers, fire trucks, ambulances and the like. All up the street to the top of the hill, and even down on the main road - with it all blocked off and closed. It made for an exciting day - stuff to talk about today! But sadly, there's a kid who lives there who is a freshman in high school. He is quite the misfit and has to take care of himself most of the time. I drove past the house today on my way home - what a bummer for the family! There isn't much left. I think the worst part is that it's a brick house, so it didn't even burn down ALL the way - there's still the structure there. So the family will have to bring in crews to bulldoze and scoop out the remains. So sad for them - we should do something as a neighborhood for the family! May 16 It gets better....I am now a victim of a hit and run. But first, a really quick recap on recent events: Friday - The zoo went off without a hitch - parents, munchkins, student teachers - nobody lost, no fatal injuries, nothing lost or stolen. Fabulous! The bus driver was mostly on time, and we even met the afternoon cut-off time. BEAUTIFUL! Friday night - temple night. Interesting. The people around me had me SO frustrated that all I could do was sit and cry. Saturday - a delightful day with a good friend. Kite flying and watercolor painting at Glen Echo park. That place is fab! Have you been there yet? I LOVE it there. It's very retro, has this beautiful carousel, and all kinds of beautiful scenery. What a lovely date place. Makes me want to go back with my camera and shoot the place up. There'd be some amazing shots, that's for sure. I just need a tripod first. And maybe a fancier camera. Saturday night - a beautiful dinner at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse with my best friend. We sat in front of a beautiful picture window looking out over Regan airport and enjoyed a delightful dinner together. We had a lovely lesbian couple sitting in front of us who even shared a kiss on the way out. Then we had some lushes behind us. Our server kept trying to sell us on other restaurants, which was quite amusing. It's really fun having a good reason to get dressed up and extra primped. Sunday I enjoyed leftovers from dinner and then laid on the lawn and read for the afternoon. It was a perfectly beautiful day - nary a cloud in the sky, perfectly warm. BEAUTIFUL. So I have this one student who is afraid to talk to me. Perhaps rightly so, because every time she comes to ask me something, it's an absolutely retarded question. Like, she'll ask me where to find the books in preschool. It's the 4th quarter. If she doesn't know where the story books are, should I tell her? I don't think so! If she wants me to tell her where something is, really she wants me to get it for her. If I say "the big book bookshelf top lifts up. It's inside that top." She'll look under the bigbook bookshelf, she'll look behind it, but she won't even touch the top. Now, you might say she's just that dumb. She's not. She does it on purpose. She'll ask a question and then ignore the answer on purpose so that she doesn't have to do anything. She has this "disability" where she doesn't remember things. Most people call that "selective listening" or "selective memory," where one CHOOSES to not pay attention long enough to hear the answer. She has somehow managed to get her selective listening a big old truck-full load of accommodations so that she doesn't have to do much of anything. She's "graduating" and doesn't know how to do simple things like iron, look for the papers she needs, talk to a teacher about a grade. Even more amazing is that she apparently has selective reading too. She sent me an email asking why she got a D on a project in class. Want to read? I edited out the names and addresses, of course, but enjoy: -----Original Message----- From: student Sent: Tue 5/15/2007 6:06 PM To: Me Cc: counselor; Mom Subject: Powerpoint follow up #2 Dear Miss, I really don't understand why I got such a low grade on the power point project. I finished the project early and then asked what I needed to do to get really good grade on the project. I have trouble interpreting directions so I did what I perceived what you meant, and went back just to make sure that I interpreted it right. However, when I did that, you didn't want to look over it again to see if I understood. It seems like every PowerPoint that I saw was formatted the way I had originally interpreted it, and I overheard several people saying what their grades for the project were and most of them got good grades, even though they did not to it the way you had explained to me. Can you clarify to me a little more why I got the grade that I did, and what specific errors I made to get this low project grade. Thanks, Student ----- Original Message ----- From: Me To: Student Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2007 6:23 PM Subject: RE: Powerpoint follow up #2 Student, If you are concerned about your midterm grade, I would venture to guess that you've missed some labs you have not yet made up during your 2-week absence. Your PowerPoint project alone would not warrant such a grade, but a combination of low grades might. I am available for a little bit after school, and also during lunch if you'd like to see your current grade sheet. Class is not a good time because I am not able to explain things to you without being interrupted by groups needing help on their labs. Me -----Original Message----- From:Student Sent: Wed 5/16/2007 5:04 PM To: Me. Cc: Mom; counselor, special ed accommodater person. Subject: Re: Powerpoint follow up #2 Dear Miss, Thank you for responding to my e-mail. I know that I missed a couple of labs because of my hospitalization,(which I am in the process of making-up) but I was not refering to my interum grade, I was refering to the "D" I received on my powerpoint project. See original e-mail below. I'd really like to understand why I recieved such a low grade on the project after speaking with you. Any clarification you could give would be appreciated. -Student Student, As I previously mentioned, if you want to know the status of your grade, you may come and talk to me after school. I can show you the grade sheet then. Also, 83/100 is not a D. It's 83% - as I recall that is somewhere between a C and a B. You can discuss it more with me after school if you'd like. Me Now, just between you and me, she got docked down because she's an idiot and didn't complete the assignment. Sure she had a bunch of PowerPoint slides, but she didn't appropriately answer all the questions asked. She is insistent that she got a D. While she in fact does have a D on her midterm, she has also missed some labs. She did not get a D on the project. She got an 83. Last I checked, an 83 is like a high C. Not a D. Ok, back to the point at hand - selective reading. So she sends me this email, because she can't ask me in person, demanding to know why she got a D on this project. I told her she could come in after school or during lunch to discuss it. This was last night I sent that email. Tonight I got another email from her, again wanting to know why she had a D on that project (again, she doesn't have a D - not a bright little lightbulb....). Didn't I tell her to come see me? Yes. Did she? No. So again I emailed her back and said she could discuss it with me after school. We'll see if she will. She won't because she's afraid of me. And because every time she want something she brings this huge attitude. She doesn't listen when she's got the attitude going, so I refuse to talk to her. Is that bad of me? Does all this make me a horrible person and a bad teacher? Opinions?? Am I mean? And the icing on the cake: Someone sideswiped me today while I was in the grocery store. Someone else saw it, wrote the license plate down and went to the customer service desk. I was a bit startled to hear MY car description and MY license plate! You know how you always hear those and you think "man that poor sucker - gonna have a dead battery!" So I go over there, kinda smiling and say "oh did I leave my lights on?" The guy kinda smiles and says "uh no - someone hit your car, this is the car's information. It's that red Honda Odyssey over there - see it?" (and he points). Of course I'm a bit flustered and taken aback by that. He offers to call the police for me. I probably should have - just to nail the people for a hit and run - although I don't know that they would have bothered because it was right about rush hour and I live near an interstate HOV area. I said I'd go out and look at it and decide what to do. Sure enough, there is a HUGE scrape down the side of my car. Like a good 8-inch wide, 20-inch long swath of red on my poor gold little Stanley. Most of it wipes off though - apparently it did more damage to the other car than it did to mine. I went to look at the other car. Yep. Huge area with no paint on it. That's a bummer for them. Most of the paint wiped off my car. There is one good long scratch, but it's not too terribly bad - nothing that needs to be buffed out or really requires a lot of work. That makes me happy. I did leave a note on their car though. And I went back inside to get more info. The store manager said that it was someone who SAW the people hit my car and not do anything, so she wrote down their license plate info and took it in the store (as well as my info so they could inform me, of course). And the nerve of the people who took off the side of their car on my car to just not do anything about it - someone else had some sticky notes handy and wrote it all down. The nerve!! She had cute sticky notes! And she put one on my car, but it was raining pretty badly, so she took a note in the store too. What gem. So then I wanted to thank her, but she didn't give her name because she didn't want to get in the middle of it all. Understandably so. I'm a victim. Good thing Stanley has plastic doors and nothing was dented. I'd be really mad if I had to have the car in the shop again! Although sometimes it's fun having a rental car. May 10 zoo! can we say stress??I'm taking some kids to the zoo tomorrow. 25 kids. 15 are under 5. I am responsible for them. I am responsible. I am responsible. I am responsible. Maybe if I keep saying it to myself I'll believe it!! So can we say stressed out? Yes. A little bit. Which brings me to one of the bigger issues of the day. I went to the dermatologist today. She gave me some shots. Now, ordinarily, you'd say a shot is no big deal, right? And if I told you I had big huge crocodile tears, you'd say I'm a total baby, right? Well, let's talk about this a bit. So I have to get these shots because I get stressed out. Majorly stressed. How do you react to stress? Heartburn? The need to run until you can't breathe? Eating an entire carton of ice cream? Well, I just float right along, but then my body shuts down. And my hair falls out. Not like "a little thinning" falling out, although that happens too. We're talking more like massive clumps. Not all at once, but kind of. I'm sure it's a gradual process, but one morning I'll wake up, run my fingers through my hair, and find areas where there isn't any hair where my fingers are running. Now for most women, one of their "pride and joy" type things is their hair. I'm sure men have some "pride and joy" things with their hair too, but when they start to lose it, they can just bic it and that's damn sexy! How many women have a bic'd head and you look at her and go "damn that's sexy!"??? So when it's not there anymore it's a little bit traumatic. So, stress causes my body to attack it's own hair. Not in anywhere useful though. I still have to shave my legs and all. So the cure for it is to get a shot in the actual bald spot. Except, it's not just one. And let me just say, it's not like getting a shot in your arm or your butt or anything. It's your scalp. There's not a lot of excess skin hanging around there to allow for the addition of fluid. So when the drugs go in, you FEEL it! And each spot gets oh, 6 or 8 shots, really fast. One right after another. All in the same neighborhood. NOW am I justified in my big crocodile tears? So, you enjoy your carton of ice cream. I'll just be floating along seemingly happily and then getting some shots in my head in a few months. Ouch. Holy Freaking OUCH! Now, after the derm, I went to the optometrist. This is where my day changed drastically. Eye candy. Yumm. I kind of want to keep saying the prescription is wrong just so that I can keep going back to see doctor dan. Wow, that's nice. I know very few things about him. 1. He was in the air force. 2. he likes to lift weights - he hasn't told me that, but dang he's cut. 3. He's not a good bowler, which is amazing because he could use a really heavy ball. 4. Flirting with him is fab. Let me just say, I'm not horribly broken up about having to go back in a week or so to get my new glasses and just pop in to the office there to say hello. So after having my head poked, at least I had a lovely reward of eye candy and shameless flirting. Is that horrible? May 09 things i've heard today
New news?Ok, so I suppose any new would be considered new news since the last time I posted was um. yeah. well, almost a year ago! Ok, 9 months. I could have had a baby in that time! I didn't. Since then (and not particularly in this order):
pictures coming soon. don't hold your breath. I'm a sucky blogger. August 13 It's a party... I thinkThis week has filled me with a plethora of anticipation. I have spent the majority of the week planning an adieu party for a dear friend. She is moving back to Utah. While this is a fantastic thing for her, it will be sad to see her go. She's a good girl and is trying hard to do what is right. It's frustrating to see her make interesting choices though. So we planned a party for her. Another friend hosted the party at his house, and he and I did the majority of the food. I made a delightful layered cake for the party using techniques I learned at the conference I went to. It was one of the two classes that I really got something good out of the presentation. Earlier this week I focused on getting some school work done. I got a good chunk done, but still have a lot to do. I'm getting a bit overwhelmed with the prospect of having a preschool and what all is involved in that. I guess I will just have to really rely on my students to help me through and understand exactly how they did everything in the past. I'm hoping they are good kids!!!! So, goals for this week: I missed a day playing the piano. I need to be better with that. Also, I need to find some music I really want to learn how to play. I"ve kind of lost my energy for playing the piano, but that may be due to it's location. The piano lives upstairs now, and I feel like if I play it has to be when everyone else is gone. Or I have to use headphones. I need new headphones!! Actually, what I really want is a pair of wireless headphones. That would make for the most playing pleasure. Then I wouldn't have to worry about a wire over my shoulder or under my arm or anything. As for the other goals, they all went well. My ankle is feeling better, though still not 100%. We have had some nice weather so I've been going out walking with it all wrapped up. Maybe this week I'll attempt some kick boxing. That's really where the weight loss comes in, and the really feeling healthy. It makes me sore, but that's a good thing - it's the good kind of sore, not the "oh crap what did I just do?" sore. Today is dad's birthday. He's the big 63 today. What a good man my dad is. He really is. He works so hard and does so much. I love him, what can I say? I still need to call him - I"ll get to that shortly. No call from the lawyer - big surprise there. But hey, he asked for my number! Haha... oh well. Maybe one day! I wasn't about to hold my breath for him to call. If he does, of course I'll be delighted, but if not, hey no biggie. I'm sure he'll be by to visit again sometime in the near future. And if not, well, I probably won't notice that much anyway - I'll be too busy immersed in work. Speaking of which, school starts tomorrow, sort of. I'm going in this week to get a bunch of office work done. I'm not going to worry about setting up my preschool until my students come. My kitchen is pretty much already set up. I'll wait until I have a student aid to help more with that. Really, I just need to get paper work done. Oy, and there's a lot of paper work to get done! I need to get my syllabi completed, as well as disclosure documents and lesson activities. I want to make a bunch of copies and have everything ready for my 15-minute lessons for the year. I need to take all my file boxes into the school and get unpacked and situated in the office. I need to organize the office to fit me, as well as the food pantry. I need to go through all the cupboards and figure out what is in each one, what kind of equipment I have and don't have. I need to make calendars for my classes and decide exactly when I'm doing things. I need to get a school calendar before I can do that so that I know when there are special things happening. SO much to do! And if I get 2/3 of that done before I leave town on Friday, I'll be amazed. Luckily, I think I kept pretty good records from last year, so a lot of it will be reviewing what I did before and deciding what to change for this time around. I'm glad I kept good records from gourmet and international foods. That will make a world of difference for this year!! And really, I'm not at all worried about that class! I'm more concerned about how purchasing is going to work (it's a screwy system!) and the preschool. I know it will all work itself out though, and that's good. I'm glad for that. I'm going home this week, which is why I'm working this week. Katie gets back from her study abroad/internship in Paris on Saturday. Mom went to pick her up and travel around a little bit. So I'm going home so I can be there when she gets off the plane. Katie is doing a french dinner and slideshow thing on the 23rd. My contract starts on the 22nd. So I wouldn't get back until the 24th. SO, I'm working this week to make up for the time I'm missing next week. The delightful thing is that because I'm staying for the whole french dinner and all, it will count as a professional development thing, which is why I'm allowed to trade time. It will be excellent. Now I'm just hoping I can get a good flight out on Saturday - nice and cheap. I'd rather fly than drive, really. And if I fly out first thing saturday morning, then I think I can beat Mom and Katie to the airport. I'll have to check the details on that. But also, I'll be able to go out with my friends Friday night. I think they're having a dinner and going bowling. It should be fun. Unfortunately, I think I will be driving though. Right now tickets are still too expensive. I'll have to wait until probably Wednesday or Thursday to get a last minute flight at a good price, IF I can get one. I should have been looking for this a long time ago! Oh well. Tomorrow will be a busy day! I should rest up! August 06 Musings of a SundayI'm really trying to create a good habit here. But I don't have a ton to say. Here's what I have, in no particular order, of course: 1. I ate too much chocolate/sugar today, and now am feeling sick. I hate it when I do that. You'd think eventually I'd learn. Apparently I haven't learned. 2. I have to speak in church at the end of the month. The topic? Service and Gratitude. Hm. So much to say on all that, and it's SOOOO vague!! I guess I"m going to be working on that for the next little bit. And I'm sure I will write my talk ten or fifteen times between now and then. I've been stuck on this idea of where your focus is set - like a zoom lens on a camera. If you're zoomed in really close then the only things that matter to you are the blurs you can see in your ultrazoom. But if you zoom out a little bit then a little more you can see and the more that is important to you. I wonder if I can tie that in somehow. 3. I twisted my ankle today. There's nothing like a good crunch of the ankle to keep you humble. Man, and I was feeling soo good about it too! I thought "hey, maybe I don't have to be so careful anymore! Maybe I can run and play like everyone else!" Maybe I was wrong. Yeesh. It sucked. The worst part, I was wearing like 2-inch heels, and I was stepping on the curb to go into church. Brutal, eh? This should make starting the exercise regimen tomorrow a little bit interesting. Maybe I can do Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday instead of Monday Wednesday Friday. 4. A really cute, nice, temple worthy guy asked for my number today. In fact, it's a guy who was at my house this week and who I quite enjoyed talking to for the few minutes he was here. OY!! He is cute. He's a lawyer and works on research for fraud cases - so like, Enron or whatever, but except not Enron, because that's all secret and all. So he gave me his number, and I called his phone. But he was asking for my number so we could get together - excellent! Now just hoping he uses it, sooner rather than later! Really, he's one of those guys that you think you'd never get to go out on a date with. I guess I shouldn't count my chickens before they hatch though, right? 5. Water is a fantastic thing - too bad I can't get myself to drink more of it. 6. I want a manicure. Oy I want a manicure sooo badly!! And I want the really good kind that has the pink and white acrylic so you don't have to paint them - you just look put together all the time. Maybe I just need to learn how to do it myself. 6. I know there was something else I was going to say, but now I can't remember it for the life of me. Ugh. Hate it when that happens! I suppose I should start doing a little research for my talk. Who knows what I'll come up with for that. And I only have 10 minutes. How am I supposed to go for only 10 minutes? I'm a teacher, and the topic is so broad, and they want me to limit it to 10 minutes? For crying out loud!!!! I suppose I'll manage. Of course I'll manage. Also, I think I looked pretty dang cute at church today. I love it when that happens... August 04 PicturesJust for proof... or maybe you can't tell a difference. plain pink shirt is pre-weightloss pink plaid shirt is after 25+ pounds Is there a difference? you tell me... My new lifeSo, how fitting that my first post in a long time finds my space looking all new. Fitting for a new life. Wow, how amazing the last 7 months have been, and so scary at the same time. I think only one person knows of my space, so I'm not sure anyone will find anything here. That's fine with me. This is my own place to rant and rave, and I'll try to keep it safe. Mostly safe for me. In January I met an amazing man and we started dating. We dated until April and then have continued to see each other on and off since then. We went all over the city, never doing the same thing twice, except for our favorite restaurant which we visited every Friday night. We went to the air and space museum and saw the "roving mars" movie. We went to Ruth's Chris steakhouse, which was amazing. I felt like the most spoiled woman in the world that night. It was so romantic and beautiful. We saw the cherry blossoms around the tidal basin. We went to Balitmore and walked around the marina and then went to the aquarium - a fabulously fun afternoon. I love being on the water like that. We went to Georgetown one night and just walked through the shops and restaurants and then we went to an art therapy benefit thing at George Washington. It was interesting, to say the least. We both made pretty pictures, and then traded them. Our first date we went bowling and then to applebees -nothing fancy, but with him it was a blast. We went to the Hirshorn and Native American museums and then went to dinner at the Starfish Cafe. I had lobster for the first time there, and the most amazing chocolate mousse cake for dessert. We went to a dinner theater - the Blair Mansion Inn. We had so much fun there. We went to a lovely cuban restaurant in downtown DC and then went to see Richard Lewis at the Improv. We stayed in one night and watched a movie - that was a faisco getting the tv and dvd player connected, and then getting the tv to work. We broke up. It was sad, but we're still friends, so I suppose that is good. I love the man, and the man loves me. We still have good solid heart to heart conversations. The man is getting his life in order, which is an important thing to do. The deal is that we stay friends, and we keep our relationship at friends. Really, I think it will be better for both of us. He really is the most fantastic man. We went to the 4th of July fireworks together, which was delightful. We had tickets to a rooftop party and were so close that we had ash on us. He is thoughtful and kind and patient and loving and hard working. That is just his nature. How many men have been so conscious as to make that their nature?? Not many I have met. When we go out, even still, he is the perfect gentleman, and even thoughtful of others we are with. My roommate had the tickets for the 4th of July party, so it was the 3 of us there. He would always ask both of us if we wanted anything. Here, 4 months after we broke up, he is a better man. His life is falling into place, he is setting his priorities to where they need to be. I couldn't be more proud of him. In a few days he will be 90 days clean. Amazing, isn't it? Now just one more day at a time, and soon it will be another month, and then a year. I went through the temple on June 21st. What a beautiful experience. I love going to the temple, and the Washington DC temple is by far my favorite. My parents came in for a few days to be part of it. That is by far my most favorite place in the entire world - not just because it is the temple, but the DC temple in particular. I took the man to the temple last week. He has lived here all his life and never been there. We took a picnic up and ate on the grounds. Then walked around for a little bit. We stopped at the reflecting pool for a little bit, and then went in the visitors center. The man got to see pictures of the inside of the temple and a missionary talked to us a little bit. Then we sat down in front of the Christus and they played the overhead thing. So powerful, so beautiful. That really struck both of us. I knew how it made him feel, which was amazing. It was a wonderful feeling to be with him when he saw and heard the things you see and hear at the visitors center. What now with the man? No idea. I know I love him and I don't want to lose contact with him. I also know that time for him to continue to heal is important, and I want that for him. I am switching schools again, which I hate. This time it is not my choice. I would have loved to stay where I was, but there wasn't enough enrolment for a full time position there. The new school is actually closer to my house though, and I don't think I"ll be involved in as much drama, which is exciting. My old department was very dramatic. It gets exhausting. I spent a week at Baby Chickadee's house. She's pregnant again, which is very exciting. I think they caught the pregnancy in time to get her on blood thinners so that she can carry the baby full term instead of miscarrying. She has the best family - I just loved being with them. Her two little girls are the cutest things in the whole world, and the sweetest too. It was hard to leave, but it's always better to leave on a high note than when you've worn out your welcome and you're being pushed out. After the visit to baby chickadee's, I went home to visit the old people. The old people are my parents and grandma, who I love dearly. It was fantastic to be home with them. Mom and I went all over town to garage sales and shopping and all sorts of things. I spent a little time with dad which was nice. I don't always get to do that when I'm home. Mom and I both got our hair cut too. I'm loving my new style. The guy who cut my hair was trained at Vidal Sassoon, and really, it's a fantastic cut. I feel so glamorous all the time. I don't have bad hair days. How often is it that you get a cut and then don't have a bad hair day???!!! I guess I'll have to go back around Thanksgiving and get it fixed up again. The last thing I want to do is get it done by someone else, they butcher it, and then charge me $50 to do it. No thanks! I came home for a few days, and then headed out to a professional conference in Virginia Beach. Ah, that was delightful!! We went down a bit early and spent sunday at the beach. I played in the water for an hour and a half, then we dried out on the beach and walked the boardwalk. That was definitely the highlight of the conference. The conference itself, I got a bit of good information, but really there was nothing fantastic and amazing about it like there was last year. Our hotel room was moldy (holiday inn.... surprising?), the food served to us was NEVER hot, usually about lukewarm, and the presenters were not ones I was excited about seeing. Oh well, I had a lovely time chatting with my friends and I did get some good information. And I got a beautiful tan to start out the week. It sounds like I'm complaining, but really, it just got to be humorous. We had the same vegetables at lunch and dinner for 3 days, except for one day they gave us pasta salad with our sandwiches. We had the same rice, which actually wasn't that bad, but I'd rather have different things every night, not leftovers! If we're paying $35 for a meal, I expect it to be something I haven't had the last three days, you know?? OY!!! So now I'm home. I'm facing the sad music that work will be starting again very soon. I'm hoping to be able to go home for a few days when I should be on contract, so I have to go in a week early and do some work in my room so that I am ready for the school year to begin. I am hoping they will allow me to trade days so that I can go home and see Mommy Chickadee. I haven't seen her since christmas. Mommy Chickadee is doing an internship in Paris. She has been there since april. First she did a study abroad there, and now she's doing an internship. She gets back August 19, and then is doing a dinner on the 23rd. My contract starts the 22nd. I figure I can justify it as professional development because I teach an international class. I can get good pictures from her, and real authentic recipes for the international class. That counts, right? I'm hoping my boss will see it the same way. And I also figure that I've been to a professional development conference on my own time, and if I'm coming in a week early and making up those days, it shouldn't be that big of a deal. I need to see my mommy chickadee!!! I think that's all for today. Really, I'm going to be better. Oh, goodness, and here I wanted to talk about the new me and all. I got so sidetracked. So with the breakup with the man, I decided I had put all this energy into him, and had really neglected myself. So I set some goals for myself. I really want to be the best person I can be, and be more prepared for the different things I know will be coming in my life. I knew my life was out of balance, so my goals are to round out my life and get back to those important things. I have set a goal to exercise at least 30 minutes three times a week. I get bonus points if I exercise every day. Ok, not bonus points, just the joy of feeling that much better. I have to have breakfast every morning, and morning scrpiture study. Morning and evening personal prayer, and practicing the piano every day. I also am not eating sweets during the week - only on the weekends. Since I have been keeping track, I have lost 25 pounds. It has probably been a bit more than that, but that's just from when I started keeping track, a month into my program. I started in April. It is now August, but I pretty much took off the new lifestyle in July due to traveling and all. Now I am getting back into the swing of things and a bit sore today. I didn't stretch after today's workout - gotta remember to do that! The best part about all of this?? I am fitting into clothes I couldn't wear a year ago. I had to get new jeans because the ones I had been wearing are falling off, and are so big they look ridiculous with a belt. And everyone who hasn't seen me in a while is marveling at the changes. I hope they continue! (the man gave me a hug the other night and it felt TOTALLY different - not as much for him to squeeze!) So, this will be my place to vent and post updates. I've lost a few inches, but realized that I was measuring in the wrong place. To know the change in size of the blobs, you have to measure the blobs, not the waist that is hiding underneath! I have to have more accountability. And I have to have a place to talk about this so that I don't annoy people to death with what i"m doing and how much weight I've lost and all. It's delightful that I'm losing this weight, but really I'm more delighted that I am living a healthier lifestyle. The energy is worth it! So, weekly posts, at least, I figure. And hopefully the new position doesn't kill that goal! Maybe I should add it to my checklist that keeps me in line! So, until something exciting happens.... December 06 Amazing things in the worksSo I've realized lately that I say "amazing" a lot. I really came to that realization after I got back from Italy. Ok, Italy was AMAZING! Sheesh it sounds so stupid to say, but really, it was tons of fun. I went to Florence with my roommate and a friend of hers over the Thanksgiving holiday. It was really just the right amount of time. Traveling is a blast, but really, sometimes just stinking exhausting. You want to see and do everything, especially when it's somewhere you know you'll not necessarily visit ever again. So we went to Pisa and saw the leaning tower, we saw some of the most incredible art in the entire world. We went to the Medicci palace. We saw the real and original David by Michelangelo. Dating is nonexistant, but I'm having fun in life anyway. I don't need a man for fun, in fact, I've determined that they generally just cause trouble. I went to Boston for a weekend, that was great fun. OK, well not anywhere near as much fun as Italy, but it was still fun. My birthday is tomorrow. I'm going to be 26. That feels so old! The older I get the more I hate birthdays. Actually, I think I just don't want a birthday because I don't have anyone to be with to celebrate with me. So I'm having cake with my kids after school, but really that's just to entice them to come to a club meeting. We'll see what happens with that. I think the roommates and I are going out on Thursday night, but I'm getting to where I just don't want to go. I'd like to be home with my mom and dad. I want my mom to make me a cake in the shape of a christmas tree. I've always had a tree cake. And then the weekend of my birthday we always go get our christmas tree. It's so sad, this year mom is doing a fake tree! I totally understand why though. Grandma had a stroke. When mom took her to the doctor, the doctor said that she had actually had several strokes. SO, Grandmama is in a rehab center right now, but mom is working on trying to figure out what to do with her once she's done at the rehab center. There's a senior day care kind of place, there's assisted living, or there's also the possibility of getting a 2 bedroom apartment and finding a roommate for her, just so she's not alone. Poor mom is doing this all alone, and she's not having a very easy time of it. I love my mom. She's the best! |
October 14 2005 - Oh the Excitement
I don't remember if I announced this before, but the boyfriend and I broke up. Yep, it's over. I'm moving on. He just really wasn't the right one for me, and the more I talk to him the more annoyed I get with him. He's coming into town next weekend and wants to go out on a date, but I think he thinks we're still dating. I can go on a date with him, but he's talking about getting schmoopy and cuddly and all that. I don't think so! I just have no desire for that. I am actually a bit amazed at how fast that went away. But I guess being so far away, not talking as much, and definitely not seeing each other as much, and additionally consciously putting the feelings on the back burner, that would make sense.
So, I have a fun little story today. I got asked out today by a guy I work with. I love the compliment of a guy asking you out. It's great. Becaues even though they haven't said it, they find you attractive enough, and hopefully intelligent enough to want to get to know you more, and want to spend time with you. So, huge compliment. I do have to say, I was feeling mighty cute today too, so I suppose that was helping a little bit. Unfortunately, though, I had to decline because he asked me to go out on Sunday, and well, of course I can't go out on Sunday. But, I said I'd love to but that I don't go out on Sundays, but I'd love to another time. So he's going to call or email sometime this weekend. SO cute. Well, the whole asking out is so cute. He's a pretty decent looking guy. He used to have a long pony tail, but he cut that off recently, and I'm SOOO glad!
That's the latest excitement. I know it's only 7:30 on friday night, but it's still Friday night. I'm exhausted, and I think I'm going to get ready for bed!
I'll be better - I promise!
October 03
Oops, I forgot!
Wow, I'm a horrible blogger. No wonder only like 3 people ever come to my blog. I'm such a dope. Oh well. It's for my benefit anyway. If you all get a kick out of it, that's splendid for you. I call blogging my therapy. It works great like that.So, the boyfriend and I are a bit rocky right now. One would think that the rockiness would be caused by living 3 hours away from each other. Actually, the rockiness is caused by my religion and his religion not being the same. It's an issue for me, not an issue for him. In fact, he has a hard time understanding why it is an issue for me. Oy. I finally spelled it out for him all plain and dumb-like, which is not to say he's dumb, but just that the "want's" were quite blunt. So I finally said, "I want you to stop drinking, be my religion, and I want us to live happily ever after." That about freaked him out.
Saturday I went to a craft show with the new roommates. It was called the Crafty Bastards, and it was in Adam's Morgan. I could be totally slaughtering that, but, well, I don't know any better. It was good fun though. It was sooo beautiful saturday and we just had a lovely afternoon, and then we went to Heidleberg Bakery on the way back. Ok, can I just say YUMMMMM!!!! Wow, that place was incredible!! Most of the stuff at the craft show was pretty crappy though. And the stuff that wasn't pretty crappy was so freaking expensive that there was NO way I could purchase anything. It was still fun to get out though.
So, Friday night I got such a horrible phone call. Brady called, and left a message on my phone. The fact that Brady called was concern enough. He's not one to call and just chatty chat. So I knew something was up. Then, the message he left was, "Sara, we have a family emergency. You need to call me right away." OY!! So, here's what happened. Ready? hold on to your hats kids!
Friday afternoon Dad and Jeff, his little buddy, were out in the woods cleaning up some fallen trees and wood. They're all remenant of the ice storme last christmas when the power was out for 6 days. Dad and Jeff have been chopping firewood, and hauling logs up to the house to turn into lumber. There's some incredible walnut and cherry out there that they've been salvaging. So, they were doing something with a tree, and something happened and the tractor flipped over. Not a big deal except that Dad was sitting in the tractor. And after it flipped, he was still sitting in the tractor. You know how you can flip something upside down and it dumps out? And then you swing something upside down and it all stays in the bottom? Yeah. Dad stayed in the bottom. He was pinned in a way that he couldn't really breathe, and eventually stopped breathing and then passed out.
The ambulance came, took him to the hospital, and then they flew him to a real hospital in Columbus. It was a pretty serious accident and they had no idea what kind of damage was done. It turns out Dad didn't even crack a rib. Nothing. He's got some bruises and his face is scratched up because he was flipped into a bunch of briars, but that's about it. He's sore and has to rest for a while. The whole series of events was odd though. Jeff had called the ambulance. Brady came up the driveway behind the ambulances, fire truck, and 2 sherrifs, as well as the fire chief. You know, when you live in a small town, and someone who has lived there for years has an accident, EVERYONE is going to come. Brady had no idea what was going on and got out there in time to help load Dad up into the ambulance and then call Alison and me to start the phone tree. Mom was at Grandma's house and saw all the trucks flying by, and of course wondered where they were going. When she pulled up to the house, she of course realized and then obviously got upset. Jim, the barber in town has a scanner and heard the call to go to our house. So he called some people from church who went right to the hospital to administer to Dad before they took him to Columbus.
Friday night 4 or 5 couples were with Mom at the hospital. Saturday a bunch of people stopped in to see how everyone was doing. It's amazing though, that nothing happened. Black eyes, yeah, some bruises, but nothing serious. Not even a cast of any kind. What was even more fun was the doctors and nurses who had no idea how he survived such an ordeal. No, not witchcraft or wizardry. But definitely someone upstairs looking out for him.
The whole thing gave me quite a perspective of life. And also helped me to cherish my parents more. I realized there were so many things I still want to learn from my dad, so many things that I don't know and that I want to know. And the same about my mom. So much I want to know, and so many things I'm sure I've missed over the years that she's tried to teach me and I've just been oblivious or stubborn.
So, I still like the boyfriend. I just want him to be my religion. He's not so keen on it. Is it horrible of me that I just want him to miss me so much that he'll at least consider it?? I know it's asking a ton though. But I also know he could handle it. He could so handle it, and in fact, he'd rock being a good little boy. So, we talked last night about taking quite a significant trip together. I want to go to Paris for Thanksgiving. Mom and Dad are going to Japan to visit Paul and Jill. So, I say why not go somewhere too? So I want to go to paris. Tickets are about 350. We could find a hotel for about $45 a night, and split that and it's totally do-able. And then just money for food and transit in the city. And it'd only be 3 days in the city, so we could just backpack it, and have more than enough space. Actually, I'd probably backpack it, and pack another bag that I could put other stuff in and check for the trip back. It'd be sweet.
September 04
Ramblings of a Sunday
So I had all this amazingly clever stuff to say, and now it has just escaped me. Tuesday I go back to school with the kiddies all being there. I'm a bit nervous about it because it's a new school district and all. New kids are going to try and push the limits, and I'm not always good at being mean and stern. I just hope that the special ed kids are ok. Yikes. So the one special ed kid I thought I was going to get out of the class is going to still be in the class. I'm just worried that she won't be able to handle it because of all her anxiety and limitations and all. Yikes! The severely handicapped kids always make me nervous.So here's another little bit of interesting information. Apparently in the WMA, they don't believe in one-stop shopping such as super wal mart or super target. What is so bad about being able to get groceries and everything else in one place? Personally, I prefer one stop to driving all the snot over town. Maybe another wally world somewhere else around town has the super part. I hope so!
So I decided to walk to church today. It was a lovely day, and I was ready to go in plenty of time, so I just strolled along to church. It's maybe half a mile, but I just took my dear sweet time. When I say dear sweet time, I mean dear sweet time. I took about 20 minutes to get there. But also, I was being careful to not break my ankle or something. Anyway, church was interesting today. Because of the holiday weekend, it was much less crowded which was nice. I had a great opportunity to sit and really think about some good stuff that I've wanted to resolve. I got to talk to a few people after church too, which was nice. I haven't really taken the opportunity to do that, being all pensive as I've been lately. Then I was walking home from church. That's what you do when you walk to church. When it's over, you have to walk home. I got about a block from the church and some guy from the ward pulled over and gave me a ride. I couldn't very well say no when he was already holding up traffic. So I got in, and in the remaining 4 blocks to the house, we had a really nice chat. And then we sat in the driveway and chatted for a while too. Well, he was really nice, and I wanted to keep talking, so I invited him in for a little dinner. So I whipped up some chicken parmesean and some frozen corn. He was quite impressed, and it's my favorite meal to do last minute. It's always a winner. So he was going to call tonight about ward activity plans for tomorrow, but he hasn't called yet. Maybe he'll call tomorrow about it. We'll see. Anyway, it was nice to have such a lovely dinner, and he was so fun to talk to. Just a really nice down to earth guy.
I love lazy weekends, just sleeping late, taking naps, being unproductive. Tomorrow is the end of that though. I'll still sleep late, probably, but I get to be uber productive tomorrow. It will be the end of being lazy. I get to clean and organize the apartment, and clean out the car. I can't go to school with all this crap all over the place, so it will be good to get it taken care of. Oh and dishes. I get to do dishes too. That'll be good fun.
I talked to the brother in Japan last night. THat was so fun. He told me my niece was looking in photo albums the other night and saw a picture of me and said "Sara is my best friend!" And then she found out that my brother and I were talking and she said "I love you, Sara!" How sweet is that!?! I just love my little baby. She's three and a half, and just adorable. I love my other little baby too, who just turned three. She's a riot, and is always saying some goofy things.
August 31
Driving in the WMA
So I was posting on my lovely johnboy's blog, and was cracking myself up. So I figured I'd post this about the lovely culture in the new location. Isn't culture a wonderfully hilarious thing?? My brother and sister both went to Russia and said that when kids raise their hands in school, they don't put their arms over their heads like americans do. Instead, their elbow is firmly planted on the desk, but they still do the reaching thing when you REALLLLLLY want to be picked to talk. So, go ahead and try it. Plant your elbow, raise your hand, and do the reaching thing that you'd normally do when your arm is fully extended. Now don't you find it hard to keep your elbow firmly planted. Funny, isn't it? Can't you just imagine a classroom of 25 8 year olds, all excited and wanting to say something, but with their elbows firmly planted on their desks? Sheeesh, american kids can't even keep themselves in their SEATS when they're excited about something. They think that if they raise their hand the highest they'll be the one to be picked. Of course, if you have ever taught kids, you know that's the one you pick LAST, but anyway. That's another story.
So, have you ever lived in a big city? It's a real kick in the pants. Actually you don't have to have LIVED in a big city, you can just have driven in one. Salt Lake doesn't count, by the way. That's not a big city. So I'm driving home from work today, and I"m behind this guy. MInd you it's like ohhh 4:00 pm. We're driving TOWARD DC, so theoretically this guy hasn't even hit the bars yet. The dude is swerving all over in the lanes. Unbelievable. Seriously. Totally weaving, but still staying in our lane. That's the most mild insanity. The other day going in to work, we were all making a lovely 2-laned left turn. Not hard, right? We've all done that a thousand times just in driving classes in high school (or shortly before we married . . . for those to whom that applies). So this lady turns really super sharp, which was unnecessary, because this is the WMA (washington metro area, for those of you nonlocals who don't know about the wma. Incidentally, the people in the metro wear vests that say WMATA on them, and I find that quite amusing. Wmata? What the hell is that? Ok, well, I know what it stands for, but still, it just looks funny, and I like to actually say it in my head. And that's even funnier. You just tried it again, didn't you. Funny, right? So ha!) Anyway, since this is the WMA, there is always serious lane-age. So, to correct for her way-too-tight-turn, she swerves into MY lane, the bitch. She about drives right into the side of my car, which would have been very bad because she would have hit ME, not just my car. The little wench. So, since I'm in the WMA, I honked my horn at her in furry. That's what we do here, ya know. We honk our horns. It's an extra long one in furry. It's a beep-beep-beep if the idiot just isn't paying attention and the light has changed or traffic is moving. There are all sorts of honks, actually. I have yet to attempt the honk/finger combo, but actually I'm a bit frightened to do that, AND it's just not something I'd do. I'll swear in my car at the idiot, but flying the birdie I'm just afraid the guy is going to pull out a big ole uzi and take me out or something. THAT would be horrible!
The end.
I spent the weekend with the boyfriend and that was good fun too. He's such a sweetie. He's coming up this weekend too. It'll be 3 months on Saturday. Oy, I'm such a schmoop, where did that come from?? I've never been like this before! That's ok though, I don't mind, and I am not close enough to anyone here for them to be annoyed by my schmoopies.
So have you ever eaten something, and as soon as you bite into it, you know it's going to be the best you've ever had of that particular thing? I think that's about how I felt when I bit into my lovely little swiss cake roll today after school/work. You know, for as much as I hated college, it's quite odd that I chose to sentence myself to a life of going to school. What was I thinking?! Oh, but I love working with those good ole high school kids.
So have you ever just had one of those days? You know, one of those days where you get little to no sleep the night before, nothing seems to go right, you spill your breakfast on you in the car on your way to work, you forgot your lunch, and it's just boring meeting after boring and painful meeting? Yeah, so, today wasn't one of those days, and dang am I glad for that. Tired, yes. I couldn't get to sleep last night for anything. I think I got a decent 3 hours, but tonight will be better. All the rest of that crap didn't happen. Good thing, huh?
I'm excited to be getting back into the swing of things, even though adjusting to the new schedule is a bit exhausting. It's nice to have a schedule and routine, and have very set things to do. I feel more productive, although I did quite enjoy the summer and not having to wake up at any specific time, but man was I lazy! Now I have lots to do and I will be kept plenty busy with school work and whatnot.
*sigh* I guess that's all for now. So sleepy . . . so needing rest . . .
So, I spent the last few days with the boyfriend at his parent's house while the old people were out of town. I am so happy! Dang, that boy is just so stinking good to me. We didn't do anything particularly exciting or splendid, but it was just all the lovely quality time we spent together that was so great, and all the excellent conversations about very important topics. He makes me so happy! Now if only he and I didn't have a huge difference of religion. Maybe he'll change for me . . .. that'd be the day!
So, I'm mostly unpacked now in the new house. It's still a bit odd though, I don't feel like it's home yet. Well, I feel like my room is home, but I don't feel like the upstairs is my home. I kind of want a microwave and hotplate downstairs so I don't have to be upstairs, but I guess being comfortable up there will come with time. I still get to unpack some kitchen stuff, and hang pictures. But beyond that, I think I'm done with the moving stuff, which is very exciting. It's fun how fast my new room feels like home, and has fit well with my belongings. I still have too much crap though. Oy!
I just bought a printer the other day with the boyfriend. It's a very exciting purchase because I haven't had a printer in, oh, I don't know, 3 or 4 years at least. It's color, which I don't like, because when the color dries out you have to replace it, even if all you want is something printed in black. So annoying when I just want a paper printed out for my kids at school! Very excited that I"ll be able to print things from home and take them to school now. That was always a pain in the butt, to have to email things to school to print them. Also, with the move, it'll be nice to be able to print out directions to new locations. It's so different living in a large metro area!
Speaking of a large metro area, I went to Home Depo last Saturday and they had a parking garage there. A PARKING GARAGE! At the home depo! What the?!! Yeah. I went to the mall though, and actually parked right in front of the store. I think I just lucked out though. There's obviously a parking garage at the mall, but that's not TERRIBLY uncommon, for any decent-sized mall.
So, I feel the need to talk about the boyfriend. I don't really have tons more to say about him, or a particular story to tell, but apparently I like talking about him. I like talking to him too. I am anxious for when he gets back to his house and we can talk on the phone again. It's hard while he's at his parent's house because there are always people coming in and whatnot. He can't be as schmoopy as we sometimes like to be. And when I'm schmoopy, he gets all squirmy about it. I think it's funny when he gets all squirmy though, so sometimes I do it on purpose. I'm rotten!
I love that the more time we spend together, the more he shows feeling and emotion. He's generally a very conservative person, and very reserved, but I love being close enough to him that he can comfortably talk about fears and worries, and things that make him happy or sad. And that I feel comfortable enough to talk about all those things too. Something else that totally impresses me about him is that he never complains about me or things in our relationship. I know I am faaaaaar from perfect, but he never says anything. If something upsets him, he addresses the problem, but never says anything about being upset with me. He always says I look nice, even when I feel yucky. How does he do that?? How does he not complain about anything in our relationship? I wish I could be like that. I feel so bad about the silly things that I get on him about, like slamming the lid to the washer. Oy, it drives me nuts, and he slams it every time, but it's so not a big deal, and I totally made the biggest deal about it. What was wrong with me?? Well, it was PMS, but still.
He about made me cry the other night with all the sweet things he was saying. I was expressing concern about some factors in our relationship, and he was absolutely amazed at the things I was concerned about. He said he was so impressed with my values and ethics and he's never met anyone with values as high as mine. And he was amazed that I was having a hard time because I wasn't doing all the things that I know I should be doing. Well, that just made me feel even worse for not being a better example of some of those values which I should be better about. THe whole weekend just made me love him even more. When I was leaving (I had to because his parents were expected home shortly) we were hugging and kissing at the door, and just not wanting to let go. During the talking in between hugs and kisses, he was looking me in the eyes, and I noticed that he was kind of tearing up a bit, but I thought "hm, that doesn't seem right." But then I noticed it again, and he was a bit sniffly. Well, that just got me going, which got him going even more. Oy, we were quite the pair, standing at the door, hugging, kissing, and crying.
I miss him so much already, and it's only been what, a day?? How pathetic is that? I miss laying in his arms, I miss the silly inside jokes, I miss just sitting together and watching a silly show. And of course I miss all the schmoopy stuff too, can't forget that. There's something about the way that boy kisses me, especially when he's feeling particularly schmoopy about me, that is just perfect.
I need to go find my empty picture frame so I can put our picture in my room. That's the next thing on the list to do for the unpacking . . .
The End.
August 24
GreeN? Why green, I say, WHY!??!!
Ok, let me just say, first. I am a bit annoyed because I typed this whole big long blog and then it got lost when I went to post. GRR!
So now I have to make notes for myself to try and recreate the blog. But it won't be anywhere near as amusing. Sad, isn't it?
Alright, so I love the new job. IT's absolutely excellent. I got gobs of work done today. I turned on some Indigo G
So I turned on some indigo girls and rocked out while I got work done. It was great because it kept me going when I was tired, and oddly helped me focus and get through things. For some reason, Indigo Girls has that affect on me. Anything else and I get a bit sleepy or sing along too much. I think the IGs are just so ingrained in me that I can sing along while I’m typing something else. It’s splendid like that. And generally just enough upbeat. Not at all annoying to me. So I got gobs of copying done, like I said, and I think everything is just about ready to be passed out the first couple days of classes. I have everything copied for the first week, and am almost done with copies for the second week. Splendid, eh? So it’s a good thing I got so much done today because it took me an hour to get all the copies done.
You might say, Holy cow! How many copies were you making? Well, 150 of everything, because I’ll have something close to 140 students, and a few who will add/drop the first week, so lost copies. Secondly, the copier was having issues. Apparently it always has issues. Every 50 copies or so, it would get a paper jam or, when I was doing a packet, it would lose count of what page it was on. What? You say, lose count? Why yes, in fact, it would lose count. Believe it?? I didn’t really either, until it happened over and over. But it’s an old copier, so it scans each page every time it makes a copy of it. So when I’m doing a 5-page packet 150 times, it had some serious issues. Between losing count every so often and getting jammed, it was having issues. So, I only got 90 some copies before I threw in the towel on that set because I just got so stinking sick of dealing with it. It really was a bit of a comedy though. I’m just glad there wasn’t someone else there wanting to make copies, otherwise I would have felt like I needed to leave and come back later. There are two copies though, but it’s a bit of irony. The old copier loses count. The new copier was broken. Technology! Sheesh!!
So, I’ve had good fun talking to the boyfriend today. He kind of got on my nerves a bit because he was venting about the irritating people at work. So, me being the good girlfriend that I am, started making suggestions and questioning him about things he can do to make it better. In the process of me trying to make connections with him, I said he maybe needed to make more of an effort to look past his coworkers annoyances as I’m sure he does with me. He promptly came back and said that there’s nothing about me that annoys him. Nothing. So the whole analogy didn’t work at all, and he was being all sweet and nice and everything. How does he do that? He’s not really a schmoopy person, but he’s good at getting things in like that that make me feel good and whatnot. So, anyway, It took me a bit, and him a bit of just saying as much, to realize that he just needed to vent and get it all out of his system. So he did, and I relaxed, and we were all much happier. Then later he was looking for some bills and papers around his house. Bless his heart, he’s not the most organized person in the world, but the things I’ve done to help him be more organized he’s stuck with, so that’s good. Anyway, so he was asking me where some of the papers were, and I told him. I was there over the weekend, but I knew the papers hadn’t moved since he’d used them over the weekend because he just hasn’t had time to do anything with them. So, I like to make smart comments to him. I’ll ask him if he loves me just to make him squirm a bit, but it’s also kind of my way of telling him I love him. I’m not sure he realizes that, but someday maybe he will. Anyway, so my smart comment about the bills was that we make a good pair and we work so well together. He totally agreed and said he had been thinking about that earlier today. Oy, I like my boy. I can’t wait to see him again this weekend! He’s coming on Friday, which means I need to have laundry done and have some things cleaned up before he gets here. I’m thinking he’ll probably get stuck in some fun traffic though, which will make for an interesting trip for him, and a stressful little bit when he first arrives as he relaxes from the drive. You know, the other thing he said about the annoyances? Well, he did have one little thing. He doesn’t like when I talk on my phone while I’m driving because he worries about me being safe. My holy, can a woman ask for a better man?
So, Pumpkin has this neighbor who is just crazy. So, naturally, we call him crazy guy. And I think every day, pumpkin has a new story about the crazy guy. He’s going through everybody’s mail, or going through the garbage. He keeps tabs on who is using the laundry and who isn’t. The guy is special. Actually, we’ve decided that he has some for reals mental issues and is like, OCD or something. Poor guy.
I ordered some clothes from Old Navy online. Very excited about all that, it’s supposed to arrive tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll be delightfully surprised when I get home from work. The plan is to end up with some super cute pants, a shirt, and a jacket. Very fun. I’m still anticipating sending them back for non-fittal though. That’s always frustrating.
I talked to my older sister today. Baby Chickadee is her name. She’s pregnant and is due in a little bit, but they’re going to deliver her September 6, so that will be lots of fun to have a new baby in the family. She’s on blood thinners, so they have to be really careful about the delivery, so they’re going to take her off the blood thinners 2 days before delivery, and take the baby c-section so that there aren’t many risks for her bleeding out.
So now it’s been all night it’s taken me to get this stinkin blog done a second time. The first time around it went nice and fast. But phone calls have interrupted the redo. All good fun phone calls, but still, phone calls. Oh, and now it’s late! Ok, one more quick story.
I was in the storage room today, my office/pantry/storage. I was digging in one of the shelves to see what type of office supplies are in there. IN my digging I found some boxes in the back of the shelf and they looked to be pens. SO I pulled a box out and it was green pens. One box of green pens isn’t a big deal, but I kept digging. The second box? Green pens. And the third? Also green pens. As was the fourth and fifth. The sixth box? Green permanent markers. Not pens, markers. The seventh box was also markers. Boxes 8-10? Guess!. Green pens? No! actually, blue pens. Same style as the green ones, but blue. And boxes 11-13? Green pens again. What, I ask, does someone have against using green pens? I mean, yes, we’re teachers and all, but really. Green is just as good as any red pen, in all honesty. It’s going to be different than what the kids use, so what’s the big issue? Sheesh! They’re pens friend! Just use it. So, I am apparently going to be doing everything in green for the next however many years. There’s probably enough there for 5 years.
Ok, that’s enough for tonight. I’m done. I need to wash my face and crash. I have a fun little drive tomorrow!
The end.August 23
New Job!
Alright kiddies, so the fun begins. Today was the first official day on the new job, and let me tell you, GOOD FUN! I can't stinkin believe how great this new job is going to be! All the people I have met have been so amazing and nice and helpful, and not just the fake kind of nice and helpful, the for reals kind of nice and helpful. My department head came in my room today and gave me a big ole hug, and towed me around introducing me to all sorts of people. I think I got a decent 45 minutes of work done today. The thing that stinks about that is that I'm going to have to haul ass tomorrow to get everything done before I sit in meetings Thursday and Friday. It would be so much easier if I had a printer that printed, and a login for the computer, but that's all being worked around, so for now I think I'm ok.I spent the weekend with the boyfriend and that was good fun too. He's such a sweetie. He's coming up this weekend too. It'll be 3 months on Saturday. Oy, I'm such a schmoop, where did that come from?? I've never been like this before! That's ok though, I don't mind, and I am not close enough to anyone here for them to be annoyed by my schmoopies.
So have you ever eaten something, and as soon as you bite into it, you know it's going to be the best you've ever had of that particular thing? I think that's about how I felt when I bit into my lovely little swiss cake roll today after school/work. You know, for as much as I hated college, it's quite odd that I chose to sentence myself to a life of going to school. What was I thinking?! Oh, but I love working with those good ole high school kids.
So have you ever just had one of those days? You know, one of those days where you get little to no sleep the night before, nothing seems to go right, you spill your breakfast on you in the car on your way to work, you forgot your lunch, and it's just boring meeting after boring and painful meeting? Yeah, so, today wasn't one of those days, and dang am I glad for that. Tired, yes. I couldn't get to sleep last night for anything. I think I got a decent 3 hours, but tonight will be better. All the rest of that crap didn't happen. Good thing, huh?
I'm excited to be getting back into the swing of things, even though adjusting to the new schedule is a bit exhausting. It's nice to have a schedule and routine, and have very set things to do. I feel more productive, although I did quite enjoy the summer and not having to wake up at any specific time, but man was I lazy! Now I have lots to do and I will be kept plenty busy with school work and whatnot.
*sigh* I guess that's all for now. So sleepy . . . so needing rest . . .
August 11
The boyfriend
FYI - This entry is more for my own personal journalishness, less for the entertaining of the masses. Soo, read at your own risk of boredom and gagging at schmoopiness.So, I spent the last few days with the boyfriend at his parent's house while the old people were out of town. I am so happy! Dang, that boy is just so stinking good to me. We didn't do anything particularly exciting or splendid, but it was just all the lovely quality time we spent together that was so great, and all the excellent conversations about very important topics. He makes me so happy! Now if only he and I didn't have a huge difference of religion. Maybe he'll change for me . . .. that'd be the day!
So, I'm mostly unpacked now in the new house. It's still a bit odd though, I don't feel like it's home yet. Well, I feel like my room is home, but I don't feel like the upstairs is my home. I kind of want a microwave and hotplate downstairs so I don't have to be upstairs, but I guess being comfortable up there will come with time. I still get to unpack some kitchen stuff, and hang pictures. But beyond that, I think I'm done with the moving stuff, which is very exciting. It's fun how fast my new room feels like home, and has fit well with my belongings. I still have too much crap though. Oy!
I just bought a printer the other day with the boyfriend. It's a very exciting purchase because I haven't had a printer in, oh, I don't know, 3 or 4 years at least. It's color, which I don't like, because when the color dries out you have to replace it, even if all you want is something printed in black. So annoying when I just want a paper printed out for my kids at school! Very excited that I"ll be able to print things from home and take them to school now. That was always a pain in the butt, to have to email things to school to print them. Also, with the move, it'll be nice to be able to print out directions to new locations. It's so different living in a large metro area!
Speaking of a large metro area, I went to Home Depo last Saturday and they had a parking garage there. A PARKING GARAGE! At the home depo! What the?!! Yeah. I went to the mall though, and actually parked right in front of the store. I think I just lucked out though. There's obviously a parking garage at the mall, but that's not TERRIBLY uncommon, for any decent-sized mall.
So, I feel the need to talk about the boyfriend. I don't really have tons more to say about him, or a particular story to tell, but apparently I like talking about him. I like talking to him too. I am anxious for when he gets back to his house and we can talk on the phone again. It's hard while he's at his parent's house because there are always people coming in and whatnot. He can't be as schmoopy as we sometimes like to be. And when I'm schmoopy, he gets all squirmy about it. I think it's funny when he gets all squirmy though, so sometimes I do it on purpose. I'm rotten!
I love that the more time we spend together, the more he shows feeling and emotion. He's generally a very conservative person, and very reserved, but I love being close enough to him that he can comfortably talk about fears and worries, and things that make him happy or sad. And that I feel comfortable enough to talk about all those things too. Something else that totally impresses me about him is that he never complains about me or things in our relationship. I know I am faaaaaar from perfect, but he never says anything. If something upsets him, he addresses the problem, but never says anything about being upset with me. He always says I look nice, even when I feel yucky. How does he do that?? How does he not complain about anything in our relationship? I wish I could be like that. I feel so bad about the silly things that I get on him about, like slamming the lid to the washer. Oy, it drives me nuts, and he slams it every time, but it's so not a big deal, and I totally made the biggest deal about it. What was wrong with me?? Well, it was PMS, but still.
He about made me cry the other night with all the sweet things he was saying. I was expressing concern about some factors in our relationship, and he was absolutely amazed at the things I was concerned about. He said he was so impressed with my values and ethics and he's never met anyone with values as high as mine. And he was amazed that I was having a hard time because I wasn't doing all the things that I know I should be doing. Well, that just made me feel even worse for not being a better example of some of those values which I should be better about. THe whole weekend just made me love him even more. When I was leaving (I had to because his parents were expected home shortly) we were hugging and kissing at the door, and just not wanting to let go. During the talking in between hugs and kisses, he was looking me in the eyes, and I noticed that he was kind of tearing up a bit, but I thought "hm, that doesn't seem right." But then I noticed it again, and he was a bit sniffly. Well, that just got me going, which got him going even more. Oy, we were quite the pair, standing at the door, hugging, kissing, and crying.
I miss him so much already, and it's only been what, a day?? How pathetic is that? I miss laying in his arms, I miss the silly inside jokes, I miss just sitting together and watching a silly show. And of course I miss all the schmoopy stuff too, can't forget that. There's something about the way that boy kisses me, especially when he's feeling particularly schmoopy about me, that is just perfect.
I need to go find my empty picture frame so I can put our picture in my room. That's the next thing on the list to do for the unpacking . . .
The End.
August 06
MOVED IN!
So, let me just say, IT'S ABOUT STINKING TIME! I'm mostly moved into the new place, obviously got the computer set up and whatnot. I'm quite excited about the new net connection - cable net! whoohoo! It's super speedy gonzalas! Today will be uber short because, well, I need to finish cleaning up my space and whatnot, but just wanted to say I'm back again. Yay for me :)
The End.
So, back by popular demand, my BLOG! How wonderful, huh? I know you all just missed my rantings and ravings so much. I suppose "you all" would just really mean one person. Ha! but that's ok!
Now, it's been a while since I've been here, and I don't remember where I left off. Let's see. The short version: Pumpkin made up with me, we were happy and good, and then he made me mad again, and then Pumpkin held me tonight while I was a brat and a snot and let me snot on him (literally - I was sobbing...) and we made up. No nookie making up though, just left on good terms, and the potential for a sweet date tomorrow night. I hope I'm still in the mood for a nice date because that will probably be the last time for about 2 weeks that I will get to see him. Today, that's a bad thing. Tomorrow or Tuesday, it might be a good thing. I hate being a girl sometimes!
Saturday the boy and I drove up to Washington DC to check out the new digs. I am pretty pleased with the house, although it's a bit old and a little small. But that's ok. My basement bedroom will be my little haven, and I"ll fix it up all cute-like. After we checked out the new place, which will be a pain to move into because it's at the top of a set of stairs, and my room is in the basement, we went into the city and tailgaited before a Washington Nationals game. I hate that he drinks. He drank at this game a lot, to the point of running out of money for all the beers he bought, and not buying me anything to drink at all. I was a bit grumpy about that. There was a cute little old mormon guy sitting next to me though, and he bought me a lemonade, it was so sweet. He and I had a fun talk, and it was nice having them (him and his friends) right next to me. The trip in general was alright, just very stressful for me because the backseat driver in my car was so tense and stressed about there being traffic on the roads in DC (go figure, traffic? in dc??? oh come on!) that he almost couldn't handle it.
Anyway, I got home about 2 am, and then got up and went to church this morning. Needless to say, I took one killer nap this afternoon!! I was still so tired. Still am, in fact. Oh goodness, I guess I shouldn't have let this go so long. SO much to say! Just novels and novels worth. I guess I"ll save some for the blog tomorrow, because I know I"ll want to procrastinate cleaning and packing to blog simply because it's a good excuse.
Now, back to my Al. He's a good boy, it's just too bad he doesn't love me enough to give up his vow of never getting married. If he ever did, dang I'd be all over that like white on rice! Ya know, I'd make a good wife. I'm a home ec teacher, how could I not? I know how to cook, clean, take care of little kiddies, I grew up on a farm so I'm all resourceful and stuff. It's a stinkin shame I haven't been snatched up yet. I guess the man just isn't ready for all of this yet. HA!!!
Ok, that's enough for tonight. Here's the love
So, I pretended to pack today. Then my friend Kee-em called me and wanted me to come over and hang out tonight. So I did. Really her name is Kim, but I call her Kee-em because in the south "Kim" is a two-syllable name. Anyway, so I went out to her place. She has this cute little farm house they're renting until they build a house on their 350 acres. She made me fried okra for dinner and it was soo good. I'd never have guessed. I guess now I can leave the south confident that I've learned some good southern culture.
Pumpkin called on my way over to Kee-em's house and sounded a bit upset that I wasn't home to entertain him for the evening. He got back early though, and I wasn't expecting him until like 7:30 or so. Then, on my drive back, he called again, and seemed upset that I was not home yet, after he had gone and played trivia (and got drunk) with his friends. Then he started ranting and raving about all the places he went today, and how stupid the people are who are with him in this class. I don't mind the ranting and raving. The part I minded was the "colorful" language.
Now, if you ask me, if someone uses the same 2 words before they say a person's name, or refer to a person, that's not exactly "colorful." That's dull and boring and uncreative. I just get tired of hearing F-this, and F-that. Between the fbomb being dropped every few words, and calling people fags, I got kind of upset and told him I didn't appreciate his language. He apologized, but then said "well, this is part of who I am, so sorry. I am a college student right now, you know." As if taking a college class justifies him being an ass. Wow, I had no idea! You mean if I'm in a college class I can be a bitch to everyone, including my significant other, and think it's ok because that's what college students do??
If I'm being told I'm special, and amazing, but not treated like I am, what should that lead me to believe? Ugh. How do I go about calling him out on all this without coming across as a bitch. Do I even care if I come across as a bitch? I just don't know what to do. Any suggestions anyone??
So, closing happy note: Had a great time with Kim tonight and she filled me in on some really good dirt going on with the schools and whatnot. There's always good crap going on within schools. But you generally never know unless you're working in the schools. It's so fun to hear the stuff though. Ha. The end.
Here it is not even 9:00 pm yet and I"m exhausted, ready for bed, and if I were sitting on the couch, I'd be passing out to the food network on tv. For some reason the food network just knocks me out. You'd think I"d be enthralled by it, seeing as how that's what I do. I teach high school home ec, particularly foods. I should be taking notes, paying close attention, but do I? Noooo.... I wake myself up to my own snoring due to some horrible position I've collapsed into while watching Emeril or Bobby or Rachel. Pathetic, I say. Just pathetic. It's even worse during the school year. I've fallen asleep at 7 before! 7!!! But, high school kids will take all the energy right out of ya. I'm not complaining, mind you, I love my job most days. But dang I'm worn out by Friday night! Amazing I'll be going back to work in a month. Let's not think about that.
So, I impress myself. Since i'm talking about cooking and food and whatnot. I made this killer orange marmalade chicken the other night. MMM that was good! And tonight I made sesame chicken, although something has changed in how I do it and it's not as sesame-y as it used to be. The sauce was far too sweet. I'm going to need to work on that. Maybe looking at an actual recipe for that might give me some good ideas as to what to do. Maybe toasting some sesame seeds would add to the flavor and make it really good. Hm. I think I"ll try that next time.
Usually, I'm kicking butt at desserts, but since the boyfriend doesn't much care for desserts, I don't make them much. I'm not quite sure what happened to him, but it's true. He doesn't really like dessert. And what's more, when he does have dessert, he is usually quite satisfied with just a few bites. I guess that's why he's 130 pounds and I'm.... umm..... not 130 pounds. That'll be a nice thing about the move. I can make desserts and then just leave them for the roommates to help eat, and not feel like I'm being wasteful by making a pan of brownies or something, and then getting full after one or two.
And what are we going to do tomorrow?? The same thing we do every day!! Try to conquer the world!
July 24
Oh the stories!
Al, this one is for you, baby!So, back by popular demand, my BLOG! How wonderful, huh? I know you all just missed my rantings and ravings so much. I suppose "you all" would just really mean one person. Ha! but that's ok!
Now, it's been a while since I've been here, and I don't remember where I left off. Let's see. The short version: Pumpkin made up with me, we were happy and good, and then he made me mad again, and then Pumpkin held me tonight while I was a brat and a snot and let me snot on him (literally - I was sobbing...) and we made up. No nookie making up though, just left on good terms, and the potential for a sweet date tomorrow night. I hope I'm still in the mood for a nice date because that will probably be the last time for about 2 weeks that I will get to see him. Today, that's a bad thing. Tomorrow or Tuesday, it might be a good thing. I hate being a girl sometimes!
Saturday the boy and I drove up to Washington DC to check out the new digs. I am pretty pleased with the house, although it's a bit old and a little small. But that's ok. My basement bedroom will be my little haven, and I"ll fix it up all cute-like. After we checked out the new place, which will be a pain to move into because it's at the top of a set of stairs, and my room is in the basement, we went into the city and tailgaited before a Washington Nationals game. I hate that he drinks. He drank at this game a lot, to the point of running out of money for all the beers he bought, and not buying me anything to drink at all. I was a bit grumpy about that. There was a cute little old mormon guy sitting next to me though, and he bought me a lemonade, it was so sweet. He and I had a fun talk, and it was nice having them (him and his friends) right next to me. The trip in general was alright, just very stressful for me because the backseat driver in my car was so tense and stressed about there being traffic on the roads in DC (go figure, traffic? in dc??? oh come on!) that he almost couldn't handle it.
Anyway, I got home about 2 am, and then got up and went to church this morning. Needless to say, I took one killer nap this afternoon!! I was still so tired. Still am, in fact. Oh goodness, I guess I shouldn't have let this go so long. SO much to say! Just novels and novels worth. I guess I"ll save some for the blog tomorrow, because I know I"ll want to procrastinate cleaning and packing to blog simply because it's a good excuse.
Now, back to my Al. He's a good boy, it's just too bad he doesn't love me enough to give up his vow of never getting married. If he ever did, dang I'd be all over that like white on rice! Ya know, I'd make a good wife. I'm a home ec teacher, how could I not? I know how to cook, clean, take care of little kiddies, I grew up on a farm so I'm all resourceful and stuff. It's a stinkin shame I haven't been snatched up yet. I guess the man just isn't ready for all of this yet. HA!!!
Ok, that's enough for tonight. Here's the love
July 20
Visiting friends
So, last night I was up until oh, about 4. I talked to a friend on the phone until 2:30, but then I was so wound up from the conversation that I couldn't sleep, so I went in the living room where the tv was still on, and 7th Heaven was on TV. It was a newer episode. Lucy is pregnant and she's causing hell for the rest of the house because she's on bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy. Well, naturally I got all sucked in and watched what turned out to be the entire stinking episode. It was annoying, but good. So then it was 3:30 and I finally went to attempt to sleep. I figure by the time I dozed off it was around 4. Since I was up so late, I of course wanted to sleep in. but did i? Well, not really. I woke up at 7:30 for some sick reason. I knew I couldn't stay up and have a functional day, so I forced myself to go back to sleep. I woke up again around noon. That's the first time my entire summer vacation I've slept in until noon. It was great. I just hope I'm not perpetuating a horrible cycle. I'll have to be sure to get in bed at a decent hour tonight.So, I pretended to pack today. Then my friend Kee-em called me and wanted me to come over and hang out tonight. So I did. Really her name is Kim, but I call her Kee-em because in the south "Kim" is a two-syllable name. Anyway, so I went out to her place. She has this cute little farm house they're renting until they build a house on their 350 acres. She made me fried okra for dinner and it was soo good. I'd never have guessed. I guess now I can leave the south confident that I've learned some good southern culture.
Pumpkin called on my way over to Kee-em's house and sounded a bit upset that I wasn't home to entertain him for the evening. He got back early though, and I wasn't expecting him until like 7:30 or so. Then, on my drive back, he called again, and seemed upset that I was not home yet, after he had gone and played trivia (and got drunk) with his friends. Then he started ranting and raving about all the places he went today, and how stupid the people are who are with him in this class. I don't mind the ranting and raving. The part I minded was the "colorful" language.
Now, if you ask me, if someone uses the same 2 words before they say a person's name, or refer to a person, that's not exactly "colorful." That's dull and boring and uncreative. I just get tired of hearing F-this, and F-that. Between the fbomb being dropped every few words, and calling people fags, I got kind of upset and told him I didn't appreciate his language. He apologized, but then said "well, this is part of who I am, so sorry. I am a college student right now, you know." As if taking a college class justifies him being an ass. Wow, I had no idea! You mean if I'm in a college class I can be a bitch to everyone, including my significant other, and think it's ok because that's what college students do??
If I'm being told I'm special, and amazing, but not treated like I am, what should that lead me to believe? Ugh. How do I go about calling him out on all this without coming across as a bitch. Do I even care if I come across as a bitch? I just don't know what to do. Any suggestions anyone??
So, closing happy note: Had a great time with Kim tonight and she filled me in on some really good dirt going on with the schools and whatnot. There's always good crap going on within schools. But you generally never know unless you're working in the schools. It's so fun to hear the stuff though. Ha. The end.
July 19
amazing, aren't I?
So all the drugs that are out there just amaze me. You hear all these great things they do on the ads on tv, but have you ever read the cautions in the magazines when you can read the fine print? I remember there was one weight loss one that just struck me as particularly disgusting and hilarious. They even gave the warnings on tv, and one of them was "may cause uncontrolable greasy bowel movements." Oh yum. Let me just run and get that so that at any moment I can be surprised by the appearance of greasy poo running down my pants because I'd never make it to the bathroom in time. Lovely image it gives, isn't it?Here it is not even 9:00 pm yet and I"m exhausted, ready for bed, and if I were sitting on the couch, I'd be passing out to the food network on tv. For some reason the food network just knocks me out. You'd think I"d be enthralled by it, seeing as how that's what I do. I teach high school home ec, particularly foods. I should be taking notes, paying close attention, but do I? Noooo.... I wake myself up to my own snoring due to some horrible position I've collapsed into while watching Emeril or Bobby or Rachel. Pathetic, I say. Just pathetic. It's even worse during the school year. I've fallen asleep at 7 before! 7!!! But, high school kids will take all the energy right out of ya. I'm not complaining, mind you, I love my job most days. But dang I'm worn out by Friday night! Amazing I'll be going back to work in a month. Let's not think about that.
So, I impress myself. Since i'm talking about cooking and food and whatnot. I made this killer orange marmalade chicken the other night. MMM that was good! And tonight I made sesame chicken, although something has changed in how I do it and it's not as sesame-y as it used to be. The sauce was far too sweet. I'm going to need to work on that. Maybe looking at an actual recipe for that might give me some good ideas as to what to do. Maybe toasting some sesame seeds would add to the flavor and make it really good. Hm. I think I"ll try that next time.
Usually, I'm kicking butt at desserts, but since the boyfriend doesn't much care for desserts, I don't make them much. I'm not quite sure what happened to him, but it's true. He doesn't really like dessert. And what's more, when he does have dessert, he is usually quite satisfied with just a few bites. I guess that's why he's 130 pounds and I'm.... umm..... not 130 pounds. That'll be a nice thing about the move. I can make desserts and then just leave them for the roommates to help eat, and not feel like I'm being wasteful by making a pan of brownies or something, and then getting full after one or two.
And what are we going to do tomorrow?? The same thing we do every day!! Try to conquer the world!
July 18
Random Whines
So , I think I might have poison ivy or something. I itch everywhere! My arms, my neck, ugh. It's no fun. The last time I had it, I had to get a nice steroid shot in the ass. THat was lovely, especially considering how much I just adore needles. Now, just to be clear, that's not a bitch, that's just an informative blurb. I'm realizing that I don't have as much to tell you since I've blogged 2 novels in the last 2 days. You've read the blogs, so um, yeah. haha.
So, I like starting a paragraph with "so." Have you noticed?? I think I did that for almost two complete blogs. It's quite fun. You should try it. it's more ummmm. . . .how do you say. . . . conversational-esque. It's kind of like "So did you hear about the psycho old lady in the news??" And hten obviously it would go on for the rest of the story.
You know what I'm completely tired of?? Car insurance commercials. SHUT UP!!! They're just the most annoying, don';t you think?? geico, all state.... blah balh blah. Ya know what ya big marketing yahoos??? If you find some way to advertise that doesn't PISS me off, I might use your product. But your plain overannoyance just bugs so I'm not going to give in to your retarded marketing ploys!!
But, I guess they are appealing to the masses because stupid people are taking over the world. YOu know this theory right?? Stupid people are too dumb to use any kind of protection, so they just keep reproducing at enormous rates. Educated people realize that they have to have a certain amount of money to support children, so they stop at maybe 2. so, stupid people are taking over the world. stupid people fall for annoying marketing ploys like geico commercials. Therefore, they really are appealing to the masses. Sick, eh??
So dinner tonight was blah. We didn't go to the mexican place. WE went to some hick hole in the wall. I think the total, including tip, was somewhere close to $10. It costs more to go out to fast food! So on the way back the bf is bitching about how the ambiance there sucks. I told him he couldn't bitch about ambiance when it's only costing $3 a plate. I had a hamburger. I could have made one at home for free. Except I don't have tomato and lettuce on hand.
Goodness I'm whiny tonight. Oh the joys of being a woman, let me tell you!
So, tomorrow's agenda: Pack, Pack, lunch, pack, pack, pack, a little piano playin and dinner. I can't wait for this stupid move to be over with. Oh, I also get to call and make sure that I have the apartment lined up, that my job is secure (no contract yet, should I be worried??), and if I'm really going to a conference in Richmond the week after I move. If the school district doesn't pay for it, there's no way I'll be able to afford going. I can't shell out for half a hotel room for a week. No way Jose!!
Packing . . . Oh the joys!
So, today I'm packing. I hate packing. Packing up my life for the last year. What I hate most is that I realize how much crap I have. I justify it by being a teacher though. I never know when I'll need something as a resource. Honestly, I just can't wait until I settle down and don't have to be moving my crap all over the place all the time. I'm hoping this move will be the last until I'm married. That's the plan, anyway. That is as long as this basement I'm moving into doesn't stink so badly that I can't stand living there.
So far I've packed almost all the books I have, all the school stuff, and I've taken the pictures off the wall. I think next I'll pack winter/work clothes. That should be fairly easy, and I can do that in rubbermaid boxes. Those things are great! This is thrilling, isn't it?
Pumpkin called on his lunch break today. He's so cute. He's taking a summer class, just one week long, and they're traveling to all sorts of historical sites, but today is in the classroom. It's going to stink for me because I won't get to see him much this week, and I'm moving next week. Ugh! Poor me, huh?? He's taking me out to dinner tonight though, that will be fun. I usually cook for him so it's nice to be taken out. He did cook dinner last night though, although it was in my kitchen and with most of my food. He brought the spaghetti sauce because I hadn't had a chance to get to the store. Hm, that reminds me . . . another thing I need to get done today!
So the reason he's taking me out to dinner is kind of funny. He just bought a laptop last wednesday and was sooo excited about it, but he knows very little about computers. So he went out playing on the web without antivirus or spyware protection. Not only did he go out playing on the web, he went surfing for porn. He plead loneliness as I had already left for the wedding. I'd been gone about 16 hours at that point. I'm not buying the lonely thing! Anyway, I'm a bit of a computer geek, so I spent a few hours last night working on his computer and getting it functional again. We're improving, but it's still got some issues. He felt so bad for being an ass and surfing for porn and also that I was spending so much time fixing it that he said he was taking me out to dinner tonight. I thought that was kind of funny. I'm so irritated that he was looking at porn though. Ugh!! How shallow and disgusting! I gave him a bad time about it too, saying things like "So what, is your girlfriend not good enough? she's not pretty enough and doesn't love you enough? is that why you were out surfing for porn??" Well, then he felt REALLY guilty. As well he should too!! Maybe some of you guys can enlighten me on that whole porn thing. If you've got a woman, and there's no wanting in the relationship, what's the attraction of porn? Honestly, it makes me feel cheap. Like I'm at the same level as porn hos. Now that just sucks, doesn't it?? I bet you guys never thought girls would feel that way, huh? Or, you know and you just don't care. I think that's worse.
I should be nice now. Pumpkin certainly does take good care of me. And I never question whether he cares for me or not. All this reminds me of a conversation I had the other day with a good friend, dj. He was saying how negative and horrible relationships are , and that 90% of them fail and everyone is so negative and all he hears is bad stuff about people's relationships. So we got started talking about how we, the human race in general, enjoys bitching about the crap that happens to us. Something along the lines of "misery loves company." He then said how he makes a point of sharing positive things with people because he noticed he was bitching a lot. I think that's a great thing - to make a conscious decision to be positive and share good things that happen to you with people around you, not to brag, but just to be a happy person. So, the new goal is to always end on a positive note. We'll see how that goal holds out. But at least now I'm aware of it, right??
My fingernails are pretty . . . all done up and painted and all. and kinda long too, hence all the typos and all. That's my happy note :)
July 17
So, here it is. . .
I've finally given into the the world of the blog. Ugh, I can't believe it!! But I suppose I have things to blog, and if nobody else reads this, that's fine, because maybe this way I'll actually keep a journal. The last time I kept anything journalish was last summer, and that was only because my little sister sat beside me and pretty much MADE me write. I'm so glad she did though. She's a good egg like that!
So I suppose I should introduce myself. I'm me. I have a family and friends. Terribly exciting, eh? There's a boyfriend. We'll call him Pumpkin. No, I don't call him that, but that will be his name until further notice.
So I had this wedding I was in this weekend. Let me just say, I'm not going to subject people to all that when I get married. I dropped probably $400 when it was all said and done. SO ridiculous. and she really thinks I can afford that on my salary? Yeah right!! I was happy to be there, and she's a great friend, but really. THe dress, the gifts, the hotel room, the blah blah blah. After this weekend, I just want to elope, and then we'll throw a big ole potluck party after or something.
Sweetness of the boyfriend during the wedding weekend though. I had invited a friend before the boyfriend existed. The friend bailed on me 3 hours before he was supposed to be there (asshole!!), so I called the boyfriend in tears, and caught him as he was heading out of town to go to a concert on the beach. After a bit of phone tag back and forth, he called and said "so how do I get there?" Oh what a sweet boy!!!! He drove 5 hours to go to this wedding with me. That TOTALLY melted me! We haven't said the L-word yet. It is a 4-letter word, ya know. And he is so anti-pda. That annoys the daylights out of me. SOmetimes he'll be sweet and want to hold my hand or kiss me, and then other times, he won't even touch me!! But he more than makes up for it while we're home. He holds on to me all the time, and it's great.
So, I got sucked into this bigtime by my scot friend. We'll call him Junior. He's so goofy, and always makes me feel pretty and sexy, even if sometimes he's um, abit.... well,.... inappropriate. I love him anyway though, and I totally miss his rockin' accent!
These are the boredomnessicities of my life. I'm packing to move this week. I'm moving north about 3 hours. Better job, better pay, better environment, more social life than the hickville I live in now. Pretty much anywhere is better than where I am now. I'm sure I'll have all sorts of exciting things to report about the move. The parents are coming to help with the move. They're AKA "the old people." Love 'em! But also, I've had my own place for the last 2 years, and I'm moving in with roommates - complete strangers!! I'm a bit nervous about that, and actually haven't seen the place yet either! YIKERS! But I'm sure it'll work out just fine. If not, I'll have a better idea of what I want to do and what I can afford and then I can move! That will be splendid, if necessary.
Wow, who knew I had so much to say!! And I could go on, but I'll save some for later this week. . .
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