Tomorrow's Itinerary

1. Wake up
2. Go to school
3. Have root canal
4. Eat lunch
5. Nap
6. Grade papers
7. Sleep

Wait, root canal!? Yup, a root canal is on my to-do list for tomorrow. I am less than thrilled about it.

It has to happen as I've spent all weekend whimpering in pain, slurping down some mashed potatoes, and waking up every three minutes at night yelping when I've put my right cheek too close to the pillow.

#4 might have to be amended depending on how the root canal goes. I've never had one so I'm completely nervous and unsure of what to expect. The pain can't be any worse than it is at the moment. I've made jello and soft cookies to eat for lunch, should the pain persist.

The only upside is I'll be home from work, hence an afternoon nap will be feasible.

Wish me luck for tomorrow's dental torture, I mean procedure.

Amazon.com

My husband has discovered amazon.com. I'm not sure how he hasn't known about this fabulous web site, but he was looking for a DVD today and I directed him to the site. He was amazed at the selection. He kept saying, "But they didn't have this blu ray DVD in the store!" Yes, love, amazon has basically every blu ray DVD ever made.

Then I showed him how to add things to the shopping cart. Within 10 minutes I think he had almost 20 DVDs added.


I'm going to have to keep a close eye on our bank account as I see him shopping here frequently.


In other news, more tomato pictures! I now have 26 Roma tomatoes growing. I can't wait until they are ready to eat. The grape tomatoes only grow two or four at a time and are much quicker to mature. They are so fresh and delicious. I'm sure the Roma tomatoes will be just as yummy.

See how huge the plant is?

A close up of some of the great looking Roma tomatoes.

The jasmine is really taking off. Can't wait for it to climb up the wall.

Also, remember the Blu Ray player I got Richie for our anniversary? And then had to exchange? Well, we had to exchange it yet again yesterday. This time, the sound stopped working. Err...hopefully 3rd time's the charm. It is a pain to drive almost an hour and a half each way to exchange this thing. It is times like this that I miss living in a bigger city where we actually have stores.

Oh, and my Dad got a new tv while we were there. And guess what? He has to drive back today to exchange it. Oh, Best Buy, can't we just buy something and be done with it?

Tomatoes!

We've been working on the yard lately. It looks totally different than it did a year ago. Probably because a year ago we didn't even have grass!

We have spent lots of time on the backyard, trying to make it a comfy and relaxing place to hang out. I also have my little "food garden" out back. So far I only have tomatoes, but the plan is to add more next year.

These pictures are about three weeks old. I'll have to take newer pics this weekend because, again, things have grown much bigger and higher, and we've added in a few new things.

But for now, here's the latest in yard progress.

This is Richie planting the jasmine (finally!) and lattice work.I tied the jasmine to the lattice so it (hopefully) grows up the bare wall.
And my wonderful tomato plants! The cherry tomato plant has barely grown, but

has produced four tomatoes to date. (And they were delicious!)

The roma tomato plant is huge! Seriously, it has grown five times

larger since I took this picture. It also has produced...20 tomatoes!
Yes, 20! I'm so happy! I can't wait to plant more fruits & veggies next year.

This is totally not related to gardening, but it is an update none-the-less.

Richie & I put up these floating shelves in the family room. It was a little

tricky, but we are very happy with them. I took this picture at an

angle so they look crooked, but I promise they aren't! We plan on putting

pictures and candles on them.

We haven't yet, but baby steps. It only took us a year to hang them. Hopefully

we'll actually put stuff on them within the next 6 months ;)

The Chunkling

The Chunkling is now walking and talking. He has lots of teeth and is growing faster than I can keep up with. Not to mention, he gets cuter by the day! Here are some pictures from our recent afternoon with him.

Playing with my keys, hamming it up for the camera.

Such a sweet boy.
He decided to read the newspaper...

He took it apart, probably looking for the sports section... And then left the mess for Daddy to clean up, although he first stopped to

pose for a picture.

Chunkling taking the cup from Uncle Richie...
and giving it to his DeeDee.Such a sweet boy!After giving up the cup, he then went for Daddy's drink.

He finally settled on just chomping on his thumb.

Happy almost 1st birhtday!

Hellooo!

So I know it has been almost forever since I've written. That's what I get for writing this post. Murphy's Law. I should've kept that goal to myself, and then you'd be getting daily updates no problem!

I'm back and blogging. Hopefully I will be better at updating this week. Er, maybe I shouldn't say that. How about, this will be the only post I write this week? Yeah, that's better. We'll see what happens.

So we've been pretty busy lately. Here are just some random happenings.

This is Lilly. Otherwise known as "The Grey Cat." I got her when I was in 2nd grade after suffering through some shots I had to get. She was a mess when we adopted her but grew to be a part of our family over the past 20 years.

As you can see, she was definitely old and struggling. My dad had to put her to sleep yesterday. She made the move to Mississippi ok, but her health went down hill. She will be missed!

Wednesday I got home from work and plopped into bed to watch tv, as I do every day. Richie got home and I got up to do our normal routine. We went outside and walked the yard. As I was standing in the driveway, this view struck me as particularly beautiful and relaxing. I'm not sure exactly why, but it was so peaceful to just stand there and admire the clouds, trees, green grass, all while the workers hammered away on the house. So nice.

Speaking of routines, on the weekends I make breakfast for Richie. And then bring it to him in bed. Breakfast is always the same: bacon, fruit, and either toast with jam or an English muffin with peanut butter. We really enjoy having lazy mornings with breakfast in bed.

Yes, Richie eats at least 6 pieces of bacon in a sitting. I've tried telling him how unhealthy this is and offering only 4 slices. He didn't want any part of it. Slowly but surely, I will wittle down the number of pieces he eats.

We use these breakfast trays all.the.time! Breakfast in bed, dinner in bed, snacks in bed. In fact, they are getting worn. It might just be time to invest in some new trays.

So there are a few random things we've been up to. Look for more pictures soon!

My Classroom Before & After

Before- bare walls & boxes

After- posters up, boxes unpacked, desks neatly arranged.

And my view. This is what I see when I teach every day. I love teaching. Love it.

A New Direction

It's happened already.

I have been home sick the past two days. If you've lost count, that is at work 4 days teaching, 2 days home.

My goal was to make it to Thanksgiving without needing a sick day. HA! Why do I even try?

The doc & I had a long talk about my working...looks like it has finally come time for me to have to find a job I can do from home. I feel kinda bad because I said, "I'm not going to waste my day being a telemarketer or something!"

She was really understanding, and we talked about several ideas.

So now I'm off to try to figure out what in the world I'm going to do. I've already found one job opening that would be awesome. Getting it will be, I'm sure, a whole other problem. Any ideas?

I will just say a little prayer every night that I am able to figure this all out.

It's Almost Time...

...for football season!

Sorry! (Especially for Shayne)

I know, it has been, like, over a week since I last posted.

I'm sorry!

If you are a teacher, live with a teacher or know a teacher, you will have sympathy for me as the first week of school is...close enough to a curse word. But I don't curse. Suffice to say, it is rough.

Anyway, I'm back on the blogging wagon as I am now back in the school groove.

Except that I thought today was Friday. Seriously. First period I said, "I know it's Friday, but we have a lot to do."

A sweet, timid girl raised her hand and reminded me today was Monday.

A throbbing headache followed shortly thereafter.

But I'm adjusting.

Oh, and one of my students has the swine flu. Totally really has the swine flu.

Great.

Happy new school year to me!

First Fail

One week into my new goal of blogging everyday and I've already missed an entry. Oh, well. Figured it would happen now that I'm officially back at work.

Yesterday was a great day! While we did have a long meeting, I felt good about everything. I was worried there'd be all these changes and we'd have extra duty (as was threatened last year). But I tried to stay positive. You know, my new goal. Thankfully, I didn't have to try too hard because all is the same. Yay!

I only got to meet briefly with my team, but that always goes well. Thankfully I work with other organized and efficient teachers. If I had to work with another teacher ::coughteacherwhomakesabazillioncopieseveryfreakinweekanddriveseveryonesupercrazycough:: who shall remain (relatively) nameless, I'd probably go crazy. My team is all about getting it done and not dwelling on unnecessary things. I love it! Plus, I got myself organized with handling our team money this summer so I am ready to roll.

I just dread getting up early every day, actually having to be at work all day, you know, just the logistics of it. Two days in and I'm already dead tired. I told Richie, I just don't think I'm physically cut out for full time work. For real.

But mentally I'm excited to get to know 90 new students. So here's to being positive! I can do it! Sure :)

1st Day Back

Today was my first day back to work.

Honestly, it wasn't as bad as I thought. Having my dad there was so wonderful! Everyone loved him, as I knew they would.

We had a long meeting this morning. All of the faculty and staff were there, and I was surprised at how many people make up our district. For the first two and a half hours, we had a guest speaker who talked to us about technology. I agreed with most of what he said, however our school district blocks every.single.site the guy mentioned. Plus probably 20 others.

I basically stared down the head of IT the whole time, to see if he was listening too.

The second speaker was our new superintendent. I'm nervous about her, so I'm still feeling her out (not because of her personally, but because I have anxiety about change).

I did take one thing away from her talk- have a positive attitude.

This is going to be my goal this year. No matter what happens, I will strive to keep a positive attitude and create & support a positive environment.

So bonus points to her for that very good message. Hopefully others around me will also take on this challenge. That will make it much easier :-)

We also had time to work in our rooms today. Let's just say mine needs lots of work!

I took pictures of 'before' with boxes and stuff everywhere. I will take after pics when I finish and post them here so you can see how much work I actually did to get ready for my new students.

They really have no idea how much time goes into prepping everything for them. Ah, the bliss that comes with being a student.

Food Phases

Richie goes through phases of things he likes to eat. And during a phase, all he will eat is whatever he is craving. Once the phase is over, he wants nothing more to do with that food. He isn't very good at telling me the phase is coming to an end, so I keep stocking up on whatever it is, you know, being a good wife and all, and then he comes home and announces he wants no more of his craving.

This time, I told him he needs to tell me when he is getting tired of his latest craving. We'll see if it works out any better.

So what is his latest food phase? That would be homemade chicken salad. With crackers.

If you know me, you know I'm probably tied for world's pickiest eater. Chicken salad is not something I like. I usually can't even stand the smell. (It's the mayonnaise that kills me.)

Richie doesn't like egg, so his only request while I searched for a recipe was no egg in the chicken salad. I, on the other hand, added in not lots of mayo. It stinks and isn't healthy for you.

I spent about an hour looking, and found what 500 reviewers claimed was "the best chicken salad recipe ever." Figured if 500 people agreed, it would be worth a shot. Plus it had no egg and very little mayonnaise (even the word mayo makes me gag a little).

It was super easy to make, and the longest part is waiting for the chicken to cook.

Thankfully, Richie loved it. As did my mom and dad. I hit gold with the recipe! I was worried about it since I didn't do a taste test, but I made Richie promise to be honest. The only thing he said needed changing was he wanted his grapes chopped up smaller, not just cut in half. Easy!

I've also only let him eat it for one meal a day. If he had his way, he'd eat it for lunch and dinner, plus two snacks in between. I think this is how he burns out on things. I want his chicken salad phase to last a little longer than normal since it is a quick, easy, healthy thing I can feed him for lunch.

Here is a picture of the finished product, ready to be served to my wonderful husband.

His other latest food phase is V8 juice. While it is healthy, that sucker is loaded with sodium! Like, enough to last you a week. A flight attendant pointed it out on the plane, and I'm glad she did. I'm going to try switching Rich to the low sodium version without telling him. We'll see if he notices :)


I'm working on organizing and cleaning my fridge, so that I can stock it up before going back to work. Notice I have only 5 more cans of V8 left. I better start mixing in the low sodium cans to ease the transition.

PS- The whole "food phases" title reminds me of my high school job. "Your order number is P as in phat" :-) True story.