Turns out rain isn’t mythical, after all!!!!!
There’s nothing like the sweet sounds and smells of rain. The soothing pattering and pounding it makes against the window… the feeling of how all outside is being refreshed and renewed….This has totally made my day.
Don’t worry, no dogs were harmed in the grading of these papers.
Fortunately for Stevie, I didn’t put the REALLY big pile of graded papers on him. He only let me put about two classes worth of papers on him before he decided it wasn’t really a fan of being buried under them. So it goes.
As per my last post, I’ve been really down. For a lot of reasons.
So, Jared decided that we could get away from the weekend. And since his work rented out Six Flags Fiesta Texas for today, he thought that might play in perfectly to my need to separate work from the rest of my life.
So I wasn’t able to get any work done, and I needed to be away from anything remotely school related SO badly.
Saturday morning we dropped the dogs off at the boarding place, and then drove to San Antonio, where we stayed in a B&B. We stayed with this particular place before a year ago, and they remembered us, which was cool.
We went out to dinner at Azuca, a rather expensive Caribbean restaurant, but the food was REALLY good. We got a rather wimpy appetizer (you’d think that if you ordered an $8.50 coconut shrimp appetizer, and there are two people, you’d get more than THREE medium sized shrimp!) and so we were worried about the rest of the meal. But out came dinner’s MAIN course:
It looked better in real life, but believe you me, lots of food, and lots of GOOD, very tasty food. I couldn’t finish it!
We then went swimming in the B&B’s lap pool, which was amazing. I loved to swim when I was younger, but just haven’t really been able to do that in a long time. It felt so good just to swim and be in a pool and do the different strokes (and know that I could still do them).
Then after showing so I didn’t smell like chlorine, I went to bed soon afterwards. Jared had to do some church-related work until pretty late, but I couldn’t handle the masks that were visible in the main room/kitchen area:
I mean, what’s not romantic about THIS wall?
Anyways, I was feeling pretty sick for various reasons, so I didn’t sleep very well. So even AFTER Jared came to bed, I was up a lot during the night, which left me a lot of time to ponder about what the heck this might be:
I think it looks kinda like a washed out chili pepper, but Jared said it reminded him of a snail. So I don’t know.
Anyways, this morning after breakfast, we spent the morning at Six Flags. It was awesome because our average wait was like 5 minutes or less, even for the BIG rides like Superman or Poltergiest. But between the 100+ temperature (because Texas still doesn’t realize it’s fall, yet), my headaches getting bad, and the fact that we got all the big rides and some of the small ones too, by 1:00 we were ready to come home.
Which we did.
And even though I have to go back to the real world tomorrow, which I am hating, I know that I have a wonderful husband who goes out of his way to make me happy and will always be there to catch me when I am down, like he did this weekend. Thanks, babe.
It’s been a pretty rough week. Most of the reasons are probably not completely appropriate to discuss on a blog, so I’ll keep it pretty simple with the public appropriate downers:
1) Teaching twice as many kids in half the time is not conducive to a happy, positive learning environment. Especially when kids aren’t turning things in. Thanks for those budget cuts, Rick Perry. The future of America looks forward to how you can destroy more than just Texas school children’s education.
2) Work drama. I can’t say much more than I got pushed to the wayside for something that I was very qualified for and that could have potentially been a great add to my resume to be more desirable for being a high school teacher. Awesome.
3) The new online gradebook thing that we have to use for grades stinks, and causes lots of issues with parents either completely not being able to figure out what their kids grades are, or freaking out because what they can see isn’t always happy, which increases my email/contact role. And when is it NOT fun to speak with an angry or confused parent?
4) We cut down our VERY dead maple tree. It took a few nights (as I refused to operate a chainsaw without husband supervision, and also, he wanted to play with his new toy) and was rather dirty. As the maple tree was my favorite tree until this summer, that was very sad. Expect an “Ode to the Maple” sometime soon.
5) I found out that my husband’s family’s beagle, Brodey, needed to be put down today. And even though I don’t think he really liked me ever that much (or anyone other than David and Sarah), it makes me really sad because I remember how much it hurt a few years ago when I found out that our family dog, Dixie, had to be put down. And that’s always a heartbreaking feeling. I kind of told Jared to not tell me too much about it because it would reflect badly on me to cry in front of the kids at work.
However, there were a few things that did go well this week, so I will end with those:
1) Jared sent me cookies from Tiff’s Treats on Tuesday because I had a really rough morning. And they delivered it to me in front of my best kiddos, who thought it was the sweetest thing ever. And wherein several kids also offered me $5 a piece if I gave them a cookie, which I sadly turned down because I probably would be in trouble if somebody found out about it. But if I wasn’t morally bound, I could’ve been rich!
2) I got another book donation from a secret sponsor for my class. The Candy Shop War was written by Brandon Mull, same author of the amazing Fablehaven series. And since I haven’t read it yet, I feel somewhat obligated to read it before putting on the bookshelves for the kids at school. Once again, moral obligation, but this time totally in my favor! 😉 So to my secret donator: Again, both I and my students thank you!
3) The dogs are enjoying the large amount of sticks that have come from the death of the maple tree. Each day they try to bring several into the house, but I usually catch it before they start reducing them to slivers on the couch.
They are so cute, no?
3) Jared is going to surprise me with something awesome this weekend. Which I am totally looking forward to. And need, desperately, after this rather painful week.
Today marks the eighth year mark of the day where I realized I really liked this cute guy I was getting to know. He was finishing up the semester in another state, so most of our communication was through the internet, but I knew that there was something special about this particular guy. And the best part? He was starting to like me, too.
His name was Jared.
And eight years later, we’re still going strong.
Thanks for the reminder card and beautiful flowers this morning. Especially since I have been feeling so yucky again this weekend. It totally made my day AND made me happy all over again that I got choose you eight whole years ago.
I love you lots!