Where I pour my coffee

Our house is old and unremarkable, but there are small spaces here and there that I like. Like this old wooden window above the kitchen sink. There's something about standing there looking out at the yard or the vine or the birds or whatever that's just really relaxing in what is currently my hectic life. Sometimes simplicity is okay.

I is appreciated.

Last week was Teacher Appreciation week (my first), and boy was it profitable! The students were given a list of my favorite things from a survey I had to fill out (a room mom handled), so let me tell you, I have Cheetos and Diet Dr. Pepper and M&Ms and Orbit gum to last me a few weeks. I also got gift cards, a coffee set, cookies, brownies, and a greatest hits CD of the Chili Peppers. How cool is that? And then there was the kid who was on time for class and told me that was my gift. Yeah, thanks. NEXT.

As if I had his best interest in mind. It was all about me, baby!

Raindrops on roses and...

Garage door openers on new garage doors! Yeah, that's what I'm talking 'bout. It's my new favorite thing. We all appreciate different things...it's all relative. So when you haven't had automatic garage doors for nearly a decade, it's a sweet thing. It feels like we've just given our house a facelift of sorts - a little pulling and peeling here, a little injection there.....aaaah, she looks 10 years younger:



Before:

Counting down

I plan to blog more soon. Last night at a little after 7:00, I was sitting on the couch talking to Bailey, having difficulty keeping my eyes open. I don't remember much after that, but woke up around midnight I think, still in my slacks and blouse, and finally got in bed. I still didn't want to get up when the alarm went off this morning. I might be a little tired, just guessing. I like the job, but it's stressful and exhausting some days. I wasn't trained to deal with emotionally disturbed children, but today's educational system says that regardless of your choice to teach regular ed or special ed, you will teach special education students and you will fit them in your classroom.

After this week, 5 more weeks. And that's 5 more weeks closer to Florida, Oklahoma, and maybe even a Braves game in Atlanta this summer. I should post pictures of all three somewhere in my classroom to remember what's over the horizon. :-)

Ready for my closeup

There's something about having a fresh new manicure and pedicure (the home treatment of course - I won't pay to have someone do it for me) that makes everything all right in the world. I'm very self-conscious about having chipped polish or rough looking cuticles. I use a document camera at school for lessons, and when I see those nails magnified 20 times up on the smartboard, it's just embarrassing. So...it's time to take care of business while watching The First 48. Manicures and murders - it's a good evening!

Ouchee

I can't remember the last time I had a migraine so bad it brought me to tears. The tears could have been less about the pain and more about feeling sorry for myself. I had headaches all week and I guess decided to end my week with a bang yesterday. All day yesterday. But it has subsided a bit now and hopefully won't reappear after the 7:45 a.m. bell. I don't like that bell.

Doors are opening and closing

Is there drama in boys' sports like there is in girls? The answer is YES, because there will always be MOMS. I hate troublemakers and complainers, but I did a fairly decent job keeping my mouth shut yesterday while all the bitching was going on, and that's no small task for me. The end result is that our season may be abruptly over. But the good news is that many feelings were hurt, too! Grrrr...

But we're back home early, and today Alan and I have some work to do on the garage. New garage doors (with openers!) are coming later in the week, and last Friday Alan had a guy come out to replace all the wood trim and molding around the doors. So today we'll be outside caulking and priming and painting the bare wood. It hasn't rained here in forever, so I'm thinking today's our lucky day.

Here's what we won't have to look at after Friday. Notice the bowing at the bottom? That's where I backed into it from inside the garage a few months ago:

Joysticks

If you can find these at your nursery and can grow these in your area, get some! I've seen them called "joysticks," but can't find their real name. They're perennials, require very little care, and will bloom all throughout the year. After a big blooming burst in the spring, the flowers will die and you have to break or twist off the stalk. But give them time and more stems will grow, and I even had a few blooms during the coldest part of the winter. The leafy mound at the bottom stays green ALL year. They really increase in size the second growing season, and I think they look so cool popping out next to other plants in the beds. And if I can't kill it, it must be a hardy plant.

Whinings and Whippings

It's very cliche, but this morning as the alarm went off I had to wonder if I really had a weekend. I guess I did though, since there's a nicely mowed and manicured lawn to prove it.

We had a volleyball round robin yesterday that took about two hours longer than normal, and a volleyball weekend just wouldn't be complete without drama. Put a bunch of teenage girls together, and I guess the odds are there'll be some dramatics. Whatever. Maybe next year we'll have a club team that actually wants to compete, attend the tournaments, etc. without complaining.

And my week of teaching got off to a grand start today with a trip to the office to witness my first paddling. Not pleasant, but not as awful as I thought. I felt for the kid, but some things have to happen. I hope it doesn't happen again.

It wasn't a fascinating post, but I'm trying to keep blogging regardless of what's going on.

Tonight's the Night

"The Office" is back! We have no volleyball tonight, no softball games, no meetings at the school....all we have is an appointment with NBC. I've been waiting for this, will remember several times today, and will most likely forget to watch it tonight. This happens to me all the time. So help me remember, since I'm helping you right now. I heard from Steve Carrell's mouth that as they were doing the read-around of the script (right before the strike) he thought it was the best episode to date. Can't wait!

My cheap entertainment

Today as Alan was getting out of his car in the driveway, a lady pulled up to the curb, motioned towards Junior and asked if it was our cat. He says yes, to which she replies, "That's a BIG cat! I drove by a minute ago and thought it was a dog! Do you mind if I take a picture of him?" So she gets out of her car and takes a picture with her cell phone and drives away. I told Alan we should start charging admission.

Anyway, I mentioned some time ago that I'd upload a video showing how much Junior doesn't like it when I point at him. I don't instigate this, but once he starts something with me - IT'S ON!

It's like a cloud that follows him.

Alan is cursed - there's no way around it. Things are never easy with him. He accepts this as fact and can luckily laugh about it. So....

We're in Dallas over the weekend for the "Big D Marathon," a big marathon but not the biggest in the Metroplex. Anyway, Alan was registered for the half-marathon which is about 13 miles. (I'm giving the distance, because I've discovered how many people don't know how long a marathon is.) The race starts at 7:30 a.m., so we plan to be there by 7:00. BIG mistake. Turns out that Sunday morning traffic on marathon day is pretty ridiculous. We were parking the car at 7:30, and the distance from our parking spot to the starting line was way the heck out there.

So he gets to the race and they've already pulled up the starting mats for the half-marathon; therefore Alan can't find where his race starts. Long story short: they direct Alan to the wrong starting line, which was the starting line for the 5K, he runs part of the 5K and back, runs across I-30 and into part of the Dallas ghetto, whereupon multiple dogs begin chasing him, finally makes it to the half-marathon start after he's already been running for about 50 minutes. Rather than run 13 miles, he ran about 17 minimum.

I was at the finish line getting PISSED that he was so late, with thoughts such as "where the hell are you?", "why are you so slow?", "old women are beating you!", etc. I was having a hard time being patient and loving, because what I was really thinking was that something bad happened....he broke something, was on the way to the ER, etc. I knew there was no way he should be taking that long.



Finally he crosses the finish line about 45 minutes late and says, "Have I got a story for you." Of course you do. I'd expect nothing less.

Big D

What better way to end the weekend than to leave this dusty city, although this time it's not for volleyball. Alan's running a half-marathon in Dallas on Sunday, which gives us all day Saturday to do whatever, anything! We get to see DeeBee and Caitlin for a short time at Caitlin's soccer game, but after that who knows. We haven't been to the Dallas Museum of Art, so I'm thinking a trip there will satisfy my little-known artsy needs. Or shopping. Shopping could be good. (I think our hotel is close to the Galleria.) Anyway, come 4:00 we're outta here!

Discipline

Is it wrong that I was secretly pleased to send a boy to the office today? Or wrong that I'm perfectly okay knowing that on his next visit to the office he'll be guaranteed a "paddling?" I'll answer that - NO. Those were rhetorical questions anyway.