Sherlock always outsmarted Watson!

And today I am Sherlock. I got this email in my spam folder today. It just made me laugh. And then a little sad that people actually think it's legitimate.

Please note the ridiculous spelling and grammatical errors. Sure thing, Dr. Watson, I'll send you allllll the information you need to pretend you are me. No problem. You got it. Be looking for it around the 10th. Of what month, you ask? Oh... the 10th of NEVER!!!! Really, who falls for this stuff??? And really? You think I'm going to think an email from att.net is legit? HAHAHAH Just because you put BOA as the sender?? Silly kids....


From: Bank of America (boanyk01@att.net)
From The Desk Of: Dr.Grey Watson
Bank of America
Branch Offices New York
1680 Broadway, New York,
NY 10019, USA.
Vice Chairman on Investment Banking
Director, Credit Control Dept.
Email:boanewyork@ovi.com

Attn: The Beneficiary,

TELEGRAPHIC TRANSFER NOTICE.

We are hereby officially notify you concerning your fund telegraphic
Transfer through our bank, Bank of America, New York, to your bank
account, which has been officially approved by the management of World
Bank Swiss (WBS) to credit the sum of US$18.5 Million into your bank
account.

Note that I have started processing your payment and every thing
concerning the immediate remittance of your funds will be carried out
within the shortest possible time from the time we received your? Below
needed information.

Also be informed that the Governor of Bank in London (BL) will sign on
your payment advice and a copy of the advice will be sent to the World
Bank in Swiss for some record purposes. Meanwhile your information and
your full contact details were received from our research manager, Barr.
Paul Peterson on your behalf to FRB for immediate release of your fund.

This fund was part of the lodged Late President Saddam Hussein of Iraq
discovery fund with World Bank of Switzerland, which the Swiss Bank has
decided to distribute it generously to help few lucky individuals and the
American Government is in agreement with the Swiss Bank to distribute the
fund to 700 hundred thousand people in America, Europe & Asia in other to
help improve their businesses.

Therefore, reconfirm the aforesaid information accurately, because this
office cannot afford to be held liable for any wrong transfer of funds or
liable of any fund credited into an unknown account.

These are the information we needed to be reconfirmed by you.
1.Your Full Bank Account Details
2.Your Direct Cell or office phone to reach you
3.Your address of locations
4.Your full name

Finally, you are required to reconfirm directly to me the above
information to enable me use it to process your bill of payment.

Your quick response shall be mostly appreciated; all your response should
be directed through our alternative email address for the immediate
attention of the credit control department.

Yours Faithfully,
Dr.Grey Watson.
Vice Chairman, Director, Credit /Telex Department.

in my office...

I have the following hanging on my wall in my office. I think it's fabulous. Make sure your volume is up to get the full effect.

lookie!!!

So I am a family & consumer science teacher. It is really a lot of fun but I am forever exhausted by hearing "oh we have that at our school???" or "where's S112??!!!!" So today, as part of my teacher prep week before school starts next tuesday, I put my artsy fartsy skills to work. And lookie what I've done!




I think they are fabulously cute, and bring quite a bit of attention to my classrooms in the hallway. Nobody else has anything like this in the building, and I LOVE it. Although I have given lots of people the idea, and it is taking off. I'm not done - I'd like to decorate them a little more, add some sparkle, if you will. But the basics are there. And I love it. And I did it all freehand.

a letter to a sister.

Dear Katie,

Remember how you took a video of our house? SOoo uhh... how did that turn out? Will you share it? Please??

Love, Sara.

home improvements.

We've done a few things since family has been here to make our home a little more homey. The very first thing we did was hang a clock we got for our wedding. We love it.

Here is my husband being very manly. He likes to be very manly. When everyone was unloading stuff from the wedding reception, he carried three cases of water up two flights of stairs. All the womenfolk (and maybe some of the menfolk too) were gasping at the manliness of my husband. So Tony is putting an anchor in the wall, on which we will hang our clock.


And here is the finished product. We love it. It'd be even cooler if we put a fun color behind it. We'll work on that. Maybe one day we'll paint.

the party before the party!

So as is tradition, lovely friends (my sweet Sundee and Laura and Cristy) threw the party (who my Dad still thinks is "Sunday" because he says "Sunday" as if it were Sundee. He doesn't do that with any other day of the week. Just Sunday.). We had a little bridal shower at Sundee's home. It was fabulous and I was delighted to have some close friends there, and to spend the evening laughing our heads off. WE didn't play any dumb games (THANK YOU!!!!) (I don't care for shower games much). We just had some dinnerish and sat around and laughed and talked. It was SO MUCH FUN!!! So here are a few pictures from the evening...

(Sister H, Cristy, Sarah, Jenica)

(Cristy & Sarah)

(Laura & Jenica)

(Sundee, Alexis and Karen)

The whole group - I had a great time - thank you all for partying with me!!

above water honey moon pictures

TADAAAA!!! Here we are - just arrived in Cancun after a LONG day in the airports, and we were waiting for our shuttle to the hotel. I was amazed at how organized and structured they had everything. We didn't have to lift a finger our entire vacation. Right there is about as much as we touched our suitcases.




So this is the resort - the pool and one of the restaurants (the roundish building there to the rightish in the picture) and my sweet husband.

Here's the water - oh my heav was it clear and beautiful. Each little dark spot was a spot of sea grass. That's how clear the water was - you could see the sea grass from a distance!! (this is taken from the boat on our snorkeling/isla mujeres trip)

This was the view from our oceanfront room. We didn't pay for oceanfront. They just gave it to us. It was GORGEOUS! Do we look like we were photoshopped in? We weren't. It was just the effect of the flash from being on the balcony.

This was before guitar hero and dinner one night. This was the night we got HOOKED on guitar hero. We have since purchased the game for the wii. We pretty much love it. But not more than we love each other, don't worry.

About the wedding....

I don't have a single picture of my own from the wedding, so we have to be friends on facebook for you to be able to see the pictures that were tagged of me. I'm pretty sad about that. But my sisters posted on their blogs about our wedding, so I'll just link them here.

Alison posted here and Katie made a video here.

Thank you both for making lovely little montages of pictures!!

it was sooo cool!!!

Here are a few trips from our snorkeling trip we took on our honeymoon. We bought an underwater camera and got some ok shots. I think if we take our film somewhere else we may get better-developed pictures, but CVS did NOT do a good job of developing the pictures. They were all kinds of grainy, and really, you shouldn't have that if you're using a film camera.

We loved the snorkeling. We had so much fun and it was so cool to see all the fish and creatures under water.

by request...

...and because it's LONG LONG overdue, I am updating. Briefly.

A lot (which is still a gross understatement) has happened over the last few months.

After Tony proposed, we made plans to visit his family in Oklahoma. We spent Memorial Day weekend in Oklahoma meeting his wonderful family. We had a great time there. His family is great and I was welcomed to the family with open arms. They even threw us a great party to celebrate our upcoming marriage.

In June I got the final assignment for my masters degree which I worked on full time this last year. It was suicidal enough on it's own. And then I met Tony. I really didn't have time. But it's amazing how you can make time for things you really want, isn't it? I just didn't really sleep or exercise all year. In June we also found an apartment and did 90% of the preparations for our wedding. We were VERY busy. This all happened in the first two weeks of June. The last two weeks Tony was gone for his annual training with the national guard in podunk, virginia. That was a horrible two weeks. The worst part of the two weeks was that towards the end, his unit was informed that they would be deployed in 18 months for approximately one year. That means January 2011. This camper was not the least bit pleased about that.

While Tony was gone for his two weeks of training I did my best to keep busy by completing the majority of the final research project with a woman from class. We decided it would be MUCH easier to divide and conquer. And it was. And we rocked it. And now I am a master. And that is fabulous.

The last saturday of June I went tubing with Darin, his wife Melanie, Adam and his new flame. We had a great time, but I was really missing my honey. When we got back to the car, my phone rang and it was Tony telling me that he had gotten back a day early and so I promptly went home after we got back into town from being in WV for the tubing. I kind of offended my friends, but it had been two weeks since I'd seen Tony and I REALLY missed him!!

Wednesday July 1 we moved all of our belongings to our new house - Tony's first, and then mine. It was a very busy evening, and thankfully one of Tony's coworkers came and helped out. It was great to meet David and also great to have another strong man to be lifting and carrying things around.

July 3 we drove home to Ohio so Tony could meet my family. Tony stayed for the weekend where we enjoyed all kinds of Ohio 4th of July festivities, including the parade and street fair. We enjoyed a plethora of street fair foods and had a great time chillin with the fam. Tony got everyone excited about setting off our own fireworks, so we spent some time picking some out and then later in the evening setting them off. Everyone LOVED them!! And we can't believe we've never done that before! It was SO much fun. And I was so proud to have such a clever man.

I stayed in Ohio for another week and sent Tony to drive home by himself. He made it safely, and I enjoyed a few more days relaxing with my family. It turned out it was good that I stayed because of some family things that came up last minute. It was nice to be able to be home to be supportive and help out where I was needed.

The rest of July was busy with getting my family coordinated to come to Virginia for our wedding and making final arrangements for the wedding. August 1 sneaks up on you - you don't have all of August to anticipate the wedding. If you are planning a wedding at the beginning of the month, I suggest you start thinking of it as being at the end of the previous month, so as not to accidentally miss some deadlines. I should have thought of it as July 32. I didn't miss any deadlines, but I could have!

July 30 my family arrived. August 1 I married my best friend. He really is the greatest man in the entire world, and the last three weeks have been really amazing.

August 5 we left on our honeymoon to cancun. We had a fabulous time!!! Tony was disappointed he had to ask for tortillas every time we went to eat, but we really just enjoyed relaxing at the beach, snorkeling, and swimming in the pool at our great hotel. We came back Sunday. I was kind of ready to come back, but I really loved being on the ocean and spending so much time with my husband. I love him.

August 15 we had a reception in Ohio. I got to spend some time with some good friends and see some people I haven't seen in forever! Tony got to meet some of my very favorite people, and while he does not remember everyone's name (can you blame him?!! He just got dumped on with all kinds of people to meet - just the family who came to the wedding totalled 20 people), he does remember the people, and we both had a fabulous time with friends.

For our 3-week anniversary we went with our good friends Darin and Melanie to Ocean City, MD to go to the beach. Darin and I started beach day 3 years ago, and this year we were excited to bring our new spouses along on our excursion. We were glad they were happy to be there and we were also happy to include them on our tradition. We had a great day at the beach. It was forecasted to thunderstorm, but the rain missed us by thismuch We weren't really allowed to swim because of the harsh rip currents due to Hurricane Bill which was working its way up the eastern coast. We could play in the already crashed waves though, and that was more than enough to keep us entertained.

And now it's back to work. Tony starts school tonight, and I was in a meeting today. Tomorrow starts the full days. Not fun at all. But I have a great husband. I love him and he loves me and we could just make you gag with how happy and in love we are. I won't go into details. You can thank me later.

Playlist?

I need suggestions. We need to make a play list for our wedding reception. What songs should we add to our list? C'mon, give me a list. Please please?

Our website!

I have made a wedding website for Tony and I. Go visit!!

The address is:

www.weddingwire.com/tonyandsara

a sneak peak

Go check out Sydney's blog - she took our engagement pictures. She posted a little teaser there. I think my favorite is the last one!

yes or no?

I think I like this cut. It should be just barely long enough to pull back the front, but short and sassy and easy to do. What do you think? yes or no? the longer hair isn't working for me - I need to go short and have a good summer 'do.

Here ya go!!!

Last night, around 8:00 pm, this amazing man you see here....


....took me to the location of our first date and....asked me if I would marry him and love him forever.

And then he gave me this:

And I giggled.


And said yes. I might have shouted it, I'm not sure. I was right near tears.

It's perfect. Just absolutely perfect.

And I have been giggling ever since. That kind of became a problem when we went to church today - it's not exactly appropriate to giggle through sacrament meeting. Oh well!!



I couldn't possibly ask for a better man. We have more fun every day we are together and I can't wait to start our lives together, just the two of us.

my fabulous honey...

The other day I was having a very very difficult day. I had a meltdown, crying and stressing over the results of my stress. Not a hysterical meltdown, just a sad one. I was with Tony, and just started crying on his shoulder. He ran to the store to pick up a few groceries and brought back this beautiful rose - which smells sooo soo soo good!! He's so wonderful. I am so lucky to have such a loving, caring, thoughtful man in my life.

yeah gross...

So I just moved into a new house. I noticed the drain was going slow. So I decided to clean it out. It was dis-gus-ting!!! It took me a good long time to get the thing cleaned out. I should have worn gloves - see how nasty???

And this is what i dug out of the drain....

....and a closeup view. arent you disgusted? It was so horrible. It wasn't just a hairball. I pulled and pulled and pulled and pulled - it just kept coming.

Once I got that mass out, I tried to rinse out the tub. The tub just filled - it didn't drain. So I had to take the plunger to the tub. Nast-o. After a good little plunging, the drain clears like new - too bad it was such a disgusting process to get to that point!!!

Darin got married...

One of my best good friends got married once. His name is Darin. His cute woman's name is Melanie. They got married in the DC Temple. It was nice.


Sorry to the friends who got cut off here - I'm not sure what happened...

My cute honey got to come party with us at Darin's party. We had a good time.

Oh look, Darin and Mel at the temple posing for pics!

Aww how cute - coming out of the Temple! I think they might be a little excited!

Italy...mmmm italy!

My kids made some pasta from scratch before break. I loved how it looked all laid out on the parchment paper to dry between classes. They did an awesome job with making the pasta and the sauce - it was pretty dang tasty! I couldn't help snapping a few pictures of the pasta...

incessant apologies?

Yes, I know I am a crappy blogger. For that, I don't really apologize. I'm kinda busy. But some highlights:

Tony and I went to a Brazilian BBQ place - the type where they come around with swords of meat and slice it onto your plate. It was pretty tasty, but pricey. I don't feel as though I got my money's worth.

Yesterday an old friend from my freshman year of college (and we lost touch the following year due to a variety of reasons) found me and we caught up. Turns out we've both been living in the DC area for the last 4 years. Insane! It was fabulous to chat with her though and I so look forward to getting together for lunch or dinner sometime soon!

Grad school sucks. Royally. Especially when I'd rather be spending time with Tony or sleeping. Both rank pretty high on the lists. I am terribly afraid I am going to completely bomb the research project this semester. That is really not good. I have GOT to buckle down there.

One of my best-good friends joins the ranks of the marrieds on Saturday. I am totally stoked for him and his lady. They are both fabulous and I love 'em to pieces. I just hope they don't drop off the planet once they do the deed as marrieds tend to do.

For some reason, all the sinks in my kitchens at school are not draining right now. Funny how it's the sinks that the community ed cooking classes use. Oh wait. So not funny. Sooo obnoxious. The program has yet to be a positive experience for me.

I have really great students. Now that I've said this they'll probably make me regret it. But for now, I am glad I have great students this year.

I love to laugh, and I love it when the fabulous people around me make it their mission to make me laugh.

My preschoolers are stinkin adorable. One of them ran up to me and gave me the biggest hug because he got to be the caboose today. He's not one who usually talks, especially to me, so I was completely surprised (and delighted).

Valentines day...

This is the first Valentine's day in four years I haven't been dumped. That's right. The previous three years I have been dumped immediately before or immediately after (with the impending sense of doom, thus ruining any hopes of a happy day). Really, not being dumped on V-day makes it a successful Valentine's day. Given my rather unfortunate history, I made Tony promise to not dump me until the end of the month if, in fact, he was anticipating doing so. I knew he wasn't, but I made him agree to it anyway. He did. And he also made it a fabulously lovely day.

It's probably no surprise, given my history, but let me just say, I hate the "holiday." Really, it's not a real holiday, just some forced day for boys to show girls they love them. I'm not complaining about that aspect of it, but sheesh it's so stressful to make it all fabulous and romantic and crap. But, my boy sure did do a fabulous job of making it fabulous.

I think we really celebrated on Friday - he sent me these:


Then friday night I hit up the local whole foods for some groceries - Tony had to work late and I am trying to eat a little bit better, so we decided to make dinner at home instead of going out. So I picked up some beautiful, lean steaks, and a few other things to make a lovely dinner at home. We ended up with blue cheese-stuffed steak, a lovely salad, baked potatoes and strawberries. It was delightful! We spent the rest of the evening cuddling and talking about upcoming events.

Saturday we spent the day together, lounging and watching tv. It was so nice to just cuddle up together and hang out all day. We both had a lot of homework we should have been doing but in the interest of some quality one-on-one time, the homework stayed put away and we had a great day together cuddling, talking, and watching movies.

Saturday night we decided we'd do a little celebrating. We got a little gussie'd up - compared to what we were all day - lounging in pj's is lovely and all, but not appropriate for a night out on the town. Isn't he adorable?


So we went to our favorite store - Target! We had a few essentials to pick up so we could get through the week - groceries and toothpaste, garbage bags and water. After Target, we went out to a lovely little dinner at

Even at 9:30 when we got there for dinner there was still a 45-minute wait. We determined that the little hostess honey was new and didn't really know what was going on - there were SEVERAL empty tables and lots of people standing around not doing a whole lot, and lots of people leaving. But, no worries, we sat at a table in the back corner of the bar area - we could just go sit there and not have to wait for a table in the "dining room." It wasn't smokey at all, and we were really all alone tucked in a little corner, so it was actually a lot nicer than being in the dining room. Also, we sat on the same side of the table, which we really never do, but the table was HUGE, and I felt WAYYYY too far away, like I'd have to yell across the table to talk to him, so we sat on the same side. It was fun and I think we should do that more often. It's a good thing he likes to have his arm around me!

Sunday we were together again, but more in a technical sense - he was doing homework ALL day - I was doing homework too, but not nearly as long as he was. I have enough to do that I could have, but in-class research is holding me up. But it was still lovely to have such a great weekend with my honey.

So now I have to apologize. I'm sorry I'm a horrible blogger. Occasionally I have really good stories from my kids or really fun things that happen, but right now besides Tony being in my life, there really isn't anything exciting happening - and Tony is plenty of excitement. We're both busy working full time, going to school full time and he's in the National Guard. So, we're not around to lounge all day very often - hence the excitement of just being able to cuddle all day. And when we do get a little time, we are usually so exhausted one of us is falling asleep at 9 pm. So I'm sorry I don't have all kinds of fabulous outings to update you with. Just lovely times with my honeyboy. Sorry if that makes you ill from all the cheese and sap....

en francais, s'il vous plait!

Once upon a time... from Capucha on Vimeo.

good-NESS!

This picture has nothing to do with anything except that I love that child! He is one of my preschoolers and is absolutely adorable!

How fun to have so many of you find my blog. Not many even knew it existed, and now Mom is spreading the word, so now I feel like I really have to update things more often.

At the moment I am sitting in class. I am doing an accelerated Master's degree in Education with an emphasis in Curriculum/Instruction and Character Education. I am taking 13 credits this semester and am in class every other weekend, Thursday and Friday 6-10 and Saturday 9-4. I'm still teaching Family & Consumer Science, and of course I have my honey love. Busy, to say the least.

This week I was informed that I was to vacate my house in 30 days because I had violated the terms of my lease. I have been stressing about it all week, and a little topsy-turvey about the whole thing. I am thankful though, for some very good friends (dave!, julie!, surrogate mom!). And I have not violated the terms of my lease.

I am home this weekend without my honey-love to cuddle with. His name is Tony. He's in the Army National Guard and is out on drill this weekend. So one weekend a month he is away for training, and then he'll also be away for two weeks in June. He's also going to school. Oh and he works full time.

We are equally busy, but unfortunately on different nights a lot of the time. My classes are Thursday through Saturday, his are Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. So we have a guaranteed Wednesday and Sunday, but we both have to do homework at some point. Last semester we just did our homework together. Strangely, that's more difficult now than it was initially.

And my bottom hurts. I mean it really hurts. And I'm really not quite sure what to do about it. Thursday night is always fine, but about halfway through Friday night, I start to have serious problems. Nevermind that I rarely sit down at work to eat lunch, so I'm not used to sitting around much. I have a hard time sitting through a movie - I always have to be up to do something partway through. I'll go to the bathroom or change the laundry over or decide it's a great time to make my bed, or I'll get up and check the email or put a piece of paper in the garbage. And I have to sit for 4 hours straight? My bottom hurts. Also, I'm sitting in a chair that, while it does have padding, it is not comfortable in the least. And there's no getting comfortable either. Ever. And I don't know what to do. Any suggestions? It's getting seriously ridiculous.

Really.

Input.

Please.

My.

Bottom.

Hurts.

weekends.

This weekend is lovely. I have 4 days. So that means I might actually get my homework done. And maybe some shopping for school too. Oh am I a slacker. Today is day 3 of the weekend and I have just barely started my homework that is due on Thursday. Think I can get it done? Hope so!!! It's 25% of the grade for the character ed class. Which I think is insane. I already teach all this, and the prof who is giving the assignment knows me really well and knows I teach this and all about my unit since she was at a few meetings where I presented the unit to my teacher peers. And I still have to do it. Bugger. Hate that. Oh well... at least I have it started-ish, right? I guess I should finish it, or at least work on it some more.

Wellllllll.... you should know.

I have a honey... isn't he adorable? I sure think he is! I suppose the story of how we met and fell for each other is due. But, it's late, so it'll have to be delivered another time.



I love this picture of us, except the seat belts. But we're obviously very safe in the car, right? That we'd get in and put our seat belts on right away? And didn't even think to take them off to take a picture. I wish we had, but oh well.

We went up to the temple to look at the lights and see the stuff in the visitors center. He had much better pictures, but I haven't gotten them from him yet.