Category Archives: House

Sep13

On to week 4!

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On to week 4!

Well, I’ve made it through 3 full weeks of school. The house is a mess, but I’ve been keeping up with the school part of things, so life is good, right?

Really, the house isn’t that bad. It’s more or less that we just haven’t had time to look through all the boxes and put things away properly, so it makes everything look more cluttered. Which I can barely tolerate, meaning Jared is on the verge of a breakdown for not having time to keep things pretty and organized. (Love you, babe.)

In my spare time, I have been working on my project for Aunt Linda for way back when with the whole “Pay it foward” thing. I’m pretty proud of myself. I’ll post pictures once I know she’s gotten it. I am close to being done, but it’s taken a lot of man hours and planning. 🙂

My students are a lot of fun. Naturally, you can’t get away without having a couple of them be complete pills, but in general class has gone really well. I love the fact that my students look forward to “Poetry Circle” and get sad when we don’t get it or get to sit on the floor. This class is so different from my kids last year–I think part of it is that I am more sure of myself and what I am doing, but part of it is that many of these kids are really just more involved with good things in their lives.  They are a lot of fun, and when I am in class, I can remember exactly why I’ve always wanted to be a teacher.

So, between frantically trying to keep up with my students and planning the class and unpacking the home, I haven’t gotten a lot of downtime. Unless you consider “Downtime” the moment right after I get home from work and take care of the dog,  I collapse on to the couch or bed for a bit in a comatose state. 🙂

The best thing of all is that it’s finally raining here. We’ve been in a pretty nasty drought the past two years in the area, and in this weekend alone, I think we got around a foot of rain. MUCH needed rain. It’s so lovely to be able to look into the back yard and see all the wildlife; crazy dancing squirrels, doves, pigeons, hummingbirds, blue jays, cardinals, and even some really neat tropical looking birds with a black back and NEON orange belly. The closest thing I can find to it is this picture of a Baltimore Oriole.

Baltimore Oriole

So, life is pretty good right now. It would be even better if I had about 5 extra hours per day so I could do everything I need to and then get the sleep I need on top of it, but alas, it is not to be.

By the way, some books to read if you have time (I do silent reading time with my kids almost every day, and I try to read along with them, so that’s where that time comes in):

The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins

Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins (sequel)

Uglies, Scott Westerfield

The Lightning Thief, Rick Riordan

I love these books!

Aug30

Cleaning…

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Cleaning…

I’ve done my cleaning for the year.

This weekend was crunch time to get out of The Apartment. And naturally, when you have two procrastinators, these things get down to the wire, which in plain English = WE HAD TO WORK OUR HINEYS OFF!!!

Kids, do not do this at home. Seriously. Muscles I had forgot existed ache, head ache, and I got kinda nauseated from working with cleaning supplies for SEVEN hours. That’s right; SEVEN FRICKEN HOURS. I lost valuable brain cells during that time, and I really didn’t have any I could afford to lose.

And that’s just from the cleaning.

Also, I think I bumped my head on about  3 different times; my hands got burned from using so much cleaner; I am dead tired; and I walked into some walls and hit  various parts of my body doing so. That’s really nothing new; yesterday Jared and I were grocery shopping and somehow I didn’t realize the shopping cart’s vicinity to my person, and basically Heimlich-Maneuvered myself. Yes, once again, that will leave a mark. No wonder my legs are always covered in small bruises…

But I digress. The point is, I don’t think I could be more tired. And in pain.

Moral of the story: Procrastination is a very bad thing, especially with procrastinating perfectionists. It’s a bad combo. And possibly “Don’t expose yourself to various cleaning items for long amounts of time,” or “Be aware of your body and it’s proximity to other stuff so you don’t injure yourself.” All very important life lessons.

I am excited about the second week of school- I almost got everyone’s names down, which is good because parent night is this Wednesday, and how sad would it be if the kid walks in with his parents and I forget or say the wrong name. I’ll have to add more details about the name situations later–it’s pretty crazy.

Anyways, it’s late. And my bedtime. 🙂

Aug24

My SECOND first day!

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My SECOND first day!

I just have to agree with EVERYONE out there that says the first year is the hardest.

Today was my SECOND first day of school ever! And this time around, I wasn’t nearly as nervous or falling over myself; I knew the basic expectations and how to work on the timing of everything… and it was amazingly wonderful. I was just so relieved to make it through the day.

I also had lots of my “former” students come by and say hi and tell me about about their summers! That was just INCREDIBLY neat. I just had to smile so big that they didn’t avert their eyes and pretend they had NO IDEA who that crazy lady was!

My students this year seem great so far. A couple of them got a little ancy with the routine stuff that I had to talk to them about, but I was really pleased with how well they did. I still have really reasonable class sizes too, which is wonderful. I had one class of 15 by the end of last year, so this year my class of 23 (and counting) seems much bigger. I guess I really shouldn’t let it surprise me though, I had a class of 29, 33, and 36 when I was student teaching sophomores, but that just didn’t seem as overwhelmingly huge at the time. Still big, but I guess I found them a bit more manageable. Still, most of the 7th graders were incredibly cute and sweet; still mostly 6th graders mentality, and not sick of school yet.

My hope is I can keep that “sick of school” mentality as far as possible from my classes! I feel much better about this year and how I have taught most of these lessons at least once before.

So, all in all, other than the fact I was silly enough to wear HIGH HEELS ALL DAY, it went really smoothly.

Came home, put my feet up high to try and keep the swelling down, talked to my family about my experience today, and rested. Then, Jared came home a little later than expected and bought me A FLIPPING AWESOME FUTON/COUCH and two of these sweet lamps from the World Market store. It’s going to go with our “Asian” theme we have going in that other room so well.

I am so lucky!

Aug8

Cutting down the forest, one tree at a time.

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Cutting down the forest, one tree at a time.

I have a crazy headache right now. *WhineWhineblahWhine.*

At least today was pretty dang productive. Of course, there is never enough time in the day to do everything you intended to do. I mean, I get 5 books for my birthday and you expect me to actually WORK?! I believe that truly falls under the 8th amendment in the US Constitution: “No cruel and unusual punishment.” You lock an English teacher in a room with some great classics, new and old, and then tell them to scrub the walls. WITH A TOOTHBRUSH. What do you really think is going to happen?

(Note: this is a partially true story. I wasn’t an English teacher -obviously- when I was growing up, but my parents would take away my books as punishment or if they wanted to make me do something I didn’t want to do. Cruel. I KNOW.) Love ya, Mom and Dad.

But I digress. Despite the obvious distraction, I was surprisingly productive today. Slept in (yay!), got up, had a gourmet breakfast of off-brand cereal, and then Jared and I did a whole crapton of work. In no particular order: went to the apartment, cleaned, got some more stuff that I have to put away at the house. Went to the bank. Did grocery shopping. Vacuumed. Price-checked products at Lowe’s and Home Depot.

Well, Jared price checked. By the time we made it to Home of Pot (if you know latin languages, you’ll get it) I was not feeling so well and decided to distract myself at the flower section. I was able to identify several of the plants in our backyard. So far, I found Texas Sage, Autumn Sage, Mexican Heather, lantana, crape myrtle, and purple fountain grass. Oh yeah. I was busy at the Home Depot. I also know we have some lilies and a rose of sharon tree, but really, I knew that before. And as you read that your eyes probably started to close and you were threatening close to nodding off, but hey, PLANTS ARE EXPENSIVE! It’s good to know what you have so you don’t kill it off, and then you have to replace it or look at dead ugly plants in a dead, ugly yard.

When we got home, we decided to have a delicious dinner of Costco cake and ice cream. OH YES WE DID! I still can’t beleive Jared was okay with that, but I’m not complaining.

Then to work off all those fatty calories, we did a lot of yardwork. To give you an idea of the comfort level, we were doing yard work at 7:00 PM in the evening. It’s now 11:00 PM and it’s STILL 88 degrees.  I took comfort by trimming bushes back and wagging war with the many, many mini trees in the area that we call “The Forest.”

TheForest

Here’s the infamous Bee Tree. This picture doesn’t even begin to show the immensity of The Forest, but when you are in the middle of it, it can be kinda overwhelming. It did surprise me how much I enjoyed cutting down all the sprouts. I think it would have been even better if I hadn’t been covered in sweat from having to wear jeans and a long sleeved shirt to protect myself from the bugs. Bugs are attracted to me as if I covered myself in chocolate and asked little kids to lick me. And then when they bite me, I am left with several days discomfort from bites that swell up to the size of a discolored, mottley orange.

And still, Jared loves me. Am I a lucky woman or what?

Hence the eau de “OFF!” and battle armour to protect Jared’s sanity. I am still awed by how I found it mysteriously satisfying physical labor for the hour I did it. And still, the majority of the forest is still there. And will need to be removed, because it’s a bug breeding ground.

So. I guess you could say I am just working on destroying nature, one tree sprout at a time.

Aug8

Birthday fun!

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Birthday fun!

First of all, before I get started, I just want to thank everyone for their kind words on my previous post. It means a lot to me and having those kinds of words in writing really does help to go back at and read.

Moving right along, yesterday was my 23rd birthday. It makes me excited because maybe, just maybe, I won’t be the youngest teacher at the school this year. Last year my nickname with many of the teachers was “86” because through one of the beginning of the year activities  we did to “get to know each other better, it was revealed that I was born in 1986. Which apparently bothered some of the teachers born in the 1940s. LOL. I would really love it if there was an 87 this year. 🙂

Yesterday was great. I woke up pretty happy because 1) I actually slept pretty well for once, and 2) I felt good about how much I got done yesterday.

I think due to my anxiety, sleep becomes an issue because I typically wake up several times a night after rather dumb dreams, making it difficult to fall back asleep. The end result is I generally wake up just as tired as when I went to sleep, or more so. So, when this doesn’t happen, and I actually sleep pretty well, it’s a big deal.

On #2, our house is starting to look more and more like a home, and you wouldn’t believe how nice it feels NOT to have a bunch of boxes lying around the living room or just stuff lying about the counters and floors. I also organized our closets (Jared and I both get our own closet… much to Jared’s relief!). Being able to see the possibilities and potential of this house is so exciting to me.

The rest of the day was a happy blur. Jared and I went to this great place downtown called Zilker Park. That’s just one of the cool things about Austin. First of all, it’s pretty dang cool that right next there downtown, there’s the big Colorado river. Secondly, Zilker Park is a real, and big, park. And within that area, you can experience wonderful things like natural springs and kayaking.

Jared and I were gonna do the kayaking, but my headaches decided to ruin that plan. It was a hot, like 100 degrees hot, long walk to the kayak place. Once we got there, they only wanted two things from us. Our cash, and our photo IDs. And naturally, because we didn’t want to get all that stuff unnecessarily wet, we left all but the cash amount for the kayaking in the car. We started the long trek back to the car… and suddenly that nagging mosquito buzzing headache turned into a throbbing mess, pounding in sync with each step I took.  Jared and I stopped by Barton Springs so I could rest enough to make it up the hill to the car. It was such a pleasant place! Dogs were allowed, people were just hanging out, and they even had a diving board! It was pretty awesome.

Jared was also sweet enough to make me all 3 meals yesterday. And I would just like to say, as the main cook in the house, IT WAS AWESOME to have a break. I need to make him cook more often…. or help me out at least. 😉

Presents were AWESOME. Thanks Aunt Linda and co. for the Inkheart books- I seriously have meant to get around to reading them, but haven’t yet, so I was PSYCHED to get those. Especially because I was really struggling to figure out that cool flowerpot card. Apparently, not all cards open up, y’all. The pretty “flower” part slides out of the flowerpot part and THEN you can read the message. And the sad thing was, Jared had to tell me that after I examined the card for 2 minutes. ha. Along with the book theme, the in-laws sent me the remainder of The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. Seriously cool series for those of all ages, and I get that extra thrill from it because of how much I LOVE Greek/Roman Mythology! I had the first book, and the last book, not the 3 in the middle. So I think Jared must’ve colloborated with that, cuz I got the remaining three! Now, I just have to figure out how to read all of these 5 books in the next week before school/training starts. 🙂

My mom sent me this pretty purple jersey dress that actually looks pretty good on me. I also got this very colorful apron from Nana and Grandpa, Jared’s grandparents. I think she might have made it herself! And I can’t wait to make Jared put it on sometime and get a picture of it. It’s just a matter of time. DON’T THINK THAT I’M NOT WATCHING FOR THAT OPPORTUNITY!

Last, but not least, because perhaps he didn’t think the day had been awesome enough, Jared surprised me with tickets to WICKED. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh! 3rd row. I seriously don’t know how I resisted the little girl squeal because I was so excited. It’s showing in Austin for the next 3 weeks, so I can’t wait to go to that. I have heard from several reliable sources that the play is completely different (and better) than the book. (Take my word for it, DO NOT read the book. Unless you enjoy sickeningly pornographic images and seriously twisted relationships happening.) I also love the music from the musical version, and even Jared gets a kick out of “Popular.”

We ended the evening with Neapolitan ice cream,  succulent chocolaty chocolate Costco cake, and watching one of my favorite movies, Stardust. This cake was the 7 pounder glorious cake that you gain weight just by looking at it. We’re hoping there’s some left when my mom and Stephen come next Wednesday. We might just eat ourselves sick before then. Just because it’s there, and we can!

Ok, back to the movie part. And even though Jared isn’t a big fan of such movies, he didn’t fall asleep until the last 30 minutes of the movie were left! Which, according to him, “are the best and most exciting parts of the movie!”And since it was late, and no longer my birthday, I figured it was okay to pause it and go to bed.

And that, was my intensely awesome and busy birthday day. And I can’t believe that it took me a good 40 minutes to type all of that. If you made it to this ending, congratulations. Go get yourself some chocolate. NOW.