Checking In

I've been less computer-oriented the past week or so than I have in years. My laptop had to be sent away because of a motherboard/wireless connection problem that HP's laptops developed. They extended the warranty to cover the problem, thank goodness, so all I had to do was send it in and they're replacing my motherboard. While it's been gone, I've been using the fabulous new Dell desktop that I bought for W. for his bday/Father's Day/you're in nursing school and you need a better computer. Between W. and the kids, there's not much free time online, lol. The nice part is that I've not really missed it, kwim? I run in and check in here and there for a second and then I get up and go do something else. I think that's what my poor manic brain needed.

I've read a LOT of books in the past month. I desperately need to update my Goodreads info. Goodwill had their monthly 50% off everything sale yesterday and I went into book-buying overdrive. I bought 74 books. About 15 or so are for my classroom, the kids or other teachers, but the rest of them? Novels. I had already read all the stuff I bought at McKay's last month, so I needed some more books to read on vacation next week. Once I started piling them in the cart, I couldn't stop. I found lots of good things--some book I'd been wanting to read such as Like Water for Chocolate, Atonement, Snow Falling on Cedars, some Maeve Binchy and Steve Matini titles and the like. I also bought several Patricia Cornwell and Mary Higgins Clark titles and a couple of Sue Grafton's alphabet series as well. I tried to get a good variety so that W. and SIL would have stuff to read, too. I read Atonement yesterday. I've been reading a book a day for the past couple of weeks. I am forcing myself to cut back this week in order to get housework and mommy stuff done. I have seven days next week with nothing to do but cook a few meals, supervise my ornery children and lie on the beach. Such a rough life I lead, lol.

We're going to Gulf Shores, Alabama, for a nice stay. SIL and MIL, Lynda (with a friend) and Jeffrey are going, too. The condo will be a bit full, but I think we're going to have fun. It will be a treat to have more adults around so that the kids have more options--I'm very much a lie on the beach and read/nap/people watch kind of chick. W. is all about fishing. The kids like to do both, plus swim in a pool. Usually since we only have one car there, it takes a bit of juggling to get everyone where they want to be, but this time will be a bit easier. Sometimes I take for granted how well-located Tennssee is. We're just a seven-hour or so drive from great beaches on the Gulf, three or four hours from Atlanta or Memphis, a long day's drive from DC, three hours from the Smokey Mountains, etc.

Five is on a mission trip to Kentucky this week. He'll be helping repair homes in a poverty-stricken area. Packing for a week for him was no fun. Just the sheer volume of t-shirts alone was daunting. I used my fabulous Delsey suitcase that my mom gave me for Christmas. When I had all of his stuff packed, I called him in so I could explain what I was sending and the first thing he said was, "Mom, I think the suitcase is a bit too big. I think I'm supposed to bring a small bag." Translated: He was embarrassed that the suitcase was so large. I had quite a time explaining to him that in order to take enough long pants and shorts, t-shirts for working and for hanging out, socks, boxers, towels, medicine, toothbrush and other personal stuff AND a tool belt, measuring tape, nail apron and hammer along with an extra pair of shoes, there really wasn't any way to take a small carry-on sized suitcase. He pondered this and then asked, "Well, can you try to put the sleeping bag in the suitcase?" Uh, no. An adult-sized sleeping bag will NOT fit into an already loaded suitcase. He resigned himself to looking like a tourist and moved on to more important topics--snacks for the trip.

Sam, Jay and I are home on our own this week. W. has to work everyday but Thursday, so the boys and I will be doing a great deal of pool time and maybe a trip or two to the park. They havie swim lessons every day, so that gives us a good reason to get up and get ready at a decent hour. Speaking of swim lessons, I guess I should go get stuff ready. A day at the pool requires much food and drink planning and I'm such a ditz I have to allow enough time to figure out what I've forgotten.

Hope everyone had a great 4th!!

Oh, last thing....my cousin's daughter has a fabulous new online biz--Good Fortune Soap. All her things are handmade with natural ingredients. She's going to be sending me some samples so I can farm them out to some of you. When they arrive, I'll post more info and tiny little presents will be shipped out to those who want some.

I cannot seem to get into a good workout routine. Either something comes up at the last minute or my neck hurts so much that I don't dare do anything strenuous.

There's No Place Like Home, There's No Place Like Home

*clicks well moisturized and exfoliated heels together while wearing pink Old Navy flip flops**

So it has occurred to me that no matter how much of a sty one's home is, it is still HOME. Gah! I left my house on Thursday, May something, intending to return home the following Monday morning. I went down to participate in the Relay for Life (my faux sister Susan organizes it and my high school friends that now teach at the middle school have a team that I join) that I extended that stay until Wednesday voluntarily--Sarah was moving to Calgary and I wanted to be able to spend some more time with her and her girls. We went so many years without ever seeing each other that I feel like I have a lot of catching up to do with her daughters.

Insert really unflattering photos of me and Sarah's oldest daughter Jackson at last year's Relay here:

And with Austin this year here:

Friends, never let it be said that I am too full of myself to hide the less than attractive photos of myself...it's what keeps me real and in touch with the people.

Anyway, read the other post if you want to know exactly WHY I didn't leave Chattanooga as planned on Wednesday. No, here it is Saturday--NINE frigging days after I left home for a 4.5 day jaunt, and I'm preparing to leave. You can imagine how thrilled W. is with me a this point. He's a good egg no matter how much I bitch about him. Frankly, no matter how much he's complained about me being gone, I think he and Five have actually probably enjoyed having the sty, er house to themselves for the whole week plus.

Since Sarah left, I've had lots of free time. I could have gone out w/ a friend on Thursday night, but I just didn't feel like it. Everyone that I know had to do mundane things such as work or spend time with family, so I had lots of solitude. I went to see Sex and the City. I ate at Panera a lot. I stayed up faaaaar too much (last night was freakish and I went to sleep at SIX a.m.) and watched all sorts of my favorite cable rerun shows, Top Chef, and Regis and Kelly. Good times, but pretty damn boring after awhile.

I miss having something to actually DO. This is a clear sign that the Wellbutrin is kicking in, I think. So, I'm heading home in just a few--meeting the parents in Murfreesboro to pick up my kids on their way home from their trip to Wyoming because I don't want to wait for them to drive all the way here and then leave. I'm that ready to just be home. Weird, but true.

I will update here more often, but if I disappear other places, you understand why. I have summer school for two weeks and many, many weeks worth of housework to deal with. Plus, I have to begin my holy-shit-I'm-almost-40 workout regimine so that I don't cry when I see pictures of the unfortunate event. To quote a smart lady, "Be safe!"

Your Day Might Suck If...

1. Your husband has to turn your water on and off at the meter due to a broken pipe that was discovered just before dark.
2. Your heater blew a fuse and you made not one, but two trips in the freezing cold to go buy replacements.
3. You did that in your slippers.
4. You have a very unfortunate gas problem of such proportion that your husband complains loudly and bitterly, which will undoubtedly make work incredibly miserable if not resolved.
5. The oil light flashed off and on and then off again while you were trekking out in the elements to get fuses.
6. Your microwave popcorn smells foul when popping.
7. You have an obscene amount of laundry that needs to be folded or washed or dealt with.
8. You need to wash your hair, but the whole water and heat thing make that task unpleasant.
9. The only person in a worse mood than you is your hateful, snippy spouse.
10. You have three final exams due to the principal by noon tomorrow, but you only have one completed and you have a meeting during your planning period.

A Few Things

1. My neice gave birth at 21 weeks this morning. Needless to say, the baby did not survive. While a baby was positively the LAST thing this child needed (she's 20 and already has a 5-year-old with mega special needs), I am so sad that a beautiful baby girl is an angel now.

2. Tomorrow my mini-me turns nine. NINE. I just do not see HOW this is possible; I mean, come on, there is no way that I am anywhere near old enough to have a nine-year-old as one of my 'little' boys. If he's nine, that means Sam is seven, which means I am..........shit. Old, that's what I am. Here are Jay and I in a self-portrait at the state fair back in September on some ride that nearly shook our livers out. BTW, that's not my finger in front of me, even though it looks like it is. I'm just doing the Myspace duck lip look...he's got the gangsta fingers flyin'.

3. My school collects aluminum pull tabs. Sorry, Estee. It's not a legend.

4. I like wine. A lot. I wish I had more money for it.

5. The people who make policy in education in Tennessee, as well as at a national level, are buffoons. As long as education is a political issue, it will continue to be mired in b.s. Our state is now going to require FOUR years of math and science. Okay. I can almost, sort of, live with that. But the fourth math? Must be higher than Algebra II. Um, okay. That leaves trig, calculus, pre-calculus or statistics. That also means that everyone has to take Algebra II. Quick, think back to high school--do ya think everyone in your class could have/would have passed Algebra II? Uh, not just no, but fuck no. Yet the PTB seem to think that kids have magically gotten smarter over the generations and will just embrace higher-order math skills because they have to. Yeah, right. Their asses will be dropping like flies...hello, NCLB target list. WOOT!

6. I need someone to create a viable protein pill so that I can live off of popcorn and Lorna Doones. Get to work on that, mmmkay smart peeps?

7. I actually had a reason to come post, but I cannot for the life of me remember what it was.

8. Did I mention that I love wine? That probably explains number 7.

9. W. made me chocolate chip cookies. He's ridiculously good to me.

10. I did not get my living room clean per the previous post. I did get the bathroom cabinet and counter and drawers cleaned up and the kitchen sort of straightened. It was cloudy and cold and gloomy and I ended up succombing to the pull of the aforementioned domestic epicenter.

11. For some reason I am leaning back as I type this. Turning my head to the right, too. I'm almost cross-eyed and in a backbend while I sit here. I do believe that it is due to numbers 7 and 4 and thus, I must go to bed.

Sunday Plans

I am going to go on record in a mildly public forum and 'fess up to the fact that I have been an utter and complete slug for months. Since I hurt my knee and back in October/November, I have used every excuse in the book to do NOTHING.

At this point, I need to go on record thanking W. for not kicking my slacker ass to the curb because when I say nothing, I mean NOTHING. Nada. Not a damn thing. Our house is the biggest mess it has ever been. Laundry is everywhere. Suitcases and totes from every trip I've taken since summer are strewn around in various places. We still have a Christmas decoration on the coffee table (although in my defense, it was given to us after Christmas and I don't know where to put it because candles are involved).

Part of the problem is the knee--that is true. But that's really only an excuse from December 19 forward. The months before can only be blamed on being overwhelmed and the fact that I worked or had other engagements pretty much every Saturday from August unti I had knee surgery.

So the piles have grown larger, the dust deeper and the chaos great. I started plowing through some of it today, but I just didn't get motivated. It was cold as hell in the house and very gloomy outside, so I kept being drawn to my domestic epicenter, the couch. Tomorrow it is supposed to be warmer and sunnier, so I'm going to jack myself up off the couch and get something done. Homer is still around, but he doesn't really inhibit movement as long as I watch how I turn.

Thus, tomorrow, I clean. I am tired of cringing when someone knocks on the front door, so I'm going to tackle the living room and clean it from top to bottom. Vacuum, dust, freshen, straighten, everything. Once that's cleaned up, I'm going to clean my under my bathroom counter so I can get the piles of junk off of the top and clean that, too. Finally, I'm going to put away all of my clothes that have been thrown in piles here and there. I think it's time to clean out the dresser drawers again so I have room to put the clothes that I actually wear.

I also have to get the kids' stuff ready for the week. I'm tired of running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Tired to death of it.

I will post tomorrow night to be accountable. Perhaps the risk of public humiliation will goad me into action.

change is in the air

new school year=time to start from scratch:

1. i colored my hair today and did not use anything from the red family--i went with biscotti, which is dark blonde and a cool tone. i'm not sure i like it--it's not that dramatically different, really, just no red tones, but i think it's a bit ashy or cool for my skin. i'm going to give it a couple of weeks and then assess. i'd like to go lighter and blonder--not blonde, really--so i figured i'd just work my way there slowly. now i'm thinking i really do like the red, so who knows.

2. my desk is CLEAN. i can walk in my classroom and see the top of my desk, i can find pens and pencils and i can put my hands on files. it's my new promise to myself--clean desk at the end of every day. we'll see how long this one lasts.

3. i have faculty meetings every monday. by the end of this semester, i think we'll have had more meetings than i've had to attend in the previous 12 years. i'm okay with it, though, because they will actually have a purpose and we'll have goals. what a concept.

4. on a not as pleasant note--our teacher handbook says we can wear jeans on friday with a school shirt or school colors. um. no thank you. i do not want to be limited to school color stuff with my jeans--our school colors are black and gold. yucko. i also have a little bit of an issue with the idea that jeans cannot be 'professional dress' yet knit pants and top sets that essentially look like pajamas would be acceptable. i'm pretty sure that i'm going to wear jeans with whatever i feel like and see if anything is said and then make my argument. part of me thinks that the policy is just a holdover from the past regime and no one ever enforced it then, so i should be okay. technically, i don't think the principal can restrict jeans because it is a contract issue, so i'm hopeful that i will not be relegated to wearing wildcat crap if i want to wear denim.

5. w. has been admitted to the nursing program for the fall, so he'll be quite the busy guy and i'm going to really have to come out of my lazy mode and pick up the slack. i've gotten very spoiled having him around as needed on his own schedule to deal with whatever came along. 18 months from now, though. he should be looking for a job, so it's definitely worth it.

crazy week over and crazy one approaching---i'll be around more, though, i hope. the balancing act begins.

yo.

• that's really all i got.
• the closer is about to premier. i love the closer.
• i missed the first epi of top chef: miami. pisses me off, stupid dvr and stupid digital cable that doesn't 'see' bravo for some effed up reason.
• i am thru with summer school as of today. going back down to work in my room for a bit tomorrow evening, but that's MY choice, no kids, my time. the way i like it.
• i am having surgery of the knee a week from tomorrow--at least i think it is. that's the 26th, right? i'm totally out of it.
• mr. kim is taking anatomy and physiology this summer---i've not felt so dumb in a long, long time as i did when i tried to help him review. me? not so much a science girl. i know, you're shocked.
• i forgot that once upon a time, i was almost a mod at OT. talk about a flashback--ayak posted about it and it was like, 'hey! that's me!!' and can i just say, the drama from that year? not the mod stuff, but the rest of it? gah. live and learn and become a better person.
• and may i also just add that based on a post sunday night that nearly sent me into frigging coronary arrest, i'm GLAD i don't have to watch my tone or worry about 'playing favorites' there as a mod. argh....flames and steam are shooting from my head right now.
• sam hs been having me 'act out scenes' with him on the digital camera. in this scene, he is 'tarzan' and i'm supposed to be alternately puzzled and then scared. i'm not sure WHAT his looks were, but they sure are cute.
  
  
  

Say Hello!!

To the spousal one, mr. kim, who alleges that he had no idea I had a new blog, much less a new domain. How he missed out on that fact is beyond me, but I'm a little vague sometimes, so perhaps it is all my fault (not frigging likely, but I'm open).

Mr. Kim does the laundry and cooks most of the meals in our house. Isn't that super-nice of him?