listes

things i enjoy:

1. bananas
2. whole wheat baguettey french bread from kroger
3. max factor volume couture mascara in soft black or auburn
4. cheese
5. flip flops
6. laminating
7. sharp scissors
8. cheap bottled water from aldi
9. maroon 5
10. muscle sculpting classes at the Y
11. digital cameras
12. pedicures
13. cinnamon graham crackers
14. short hair
15. hot tubs
16. boats
17. banana boat sunscreen spray
18. ipod
19. dvr'd top chef and the closer
20. a well written sentence
21. london and new york
22. hair straightening products and utensils
23. myspace surveys
24. stila tinted moisturizer
25. cold zin
26. lavendar and maroon
27. blogs
28. freshmen
29. wedge sandals
30. grilled chicken

things i hate:

1. sweating in the car
2. leg cramps
3. yaz birth control pills
4. protein shakes
5. squash
6. putting away laundry
7. torturous undies
8. shaving my legs
9. 'pro' wrestling
10. senior girls with attitude
11. smelly middle schoolers
12. frigging legos
13. step aerobics
14. bad local commercials
15. morons on message boards
16. spammers on myspace
17. balancing my checking accounts
18. being late
19. being so far away from friends
20. dog hair
21. spider veins
22. hangnails
23. woody allen movies
24. road contruction
25. drunken neighbors
26. cartoons
27. arm fat
28. run on sentences
29. holy rollers
30. getting old

we heart school

sam and me on the first day of school. this is before I took the reds out of my hair (and covered my atrocious roots).

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.

more random

my brain is too fried to focus on one topic, so i'm just going to sort of release the pressure.

1. school starts tomorrow and i have a small bitchy rant. i had the cutest outfit planned to wear for registration day--it's a short day for kids and i can change after they leave. i was going to wear my cute new skirt from target (susan knows the one) and a black tee and my favorite black wedges. very professional and cute and summery. on friday i found out that we are expected to wear a school t-shirt to make the faculty more visible. like i was going to get lost in a high school with less than 200 students? where i've taught for twelve years? where my homeroom students haven't changed from last year? where maaaaybe ten parents will show up in grades 9-12 and need to talk to a teacher? so, the cute outfit is scrapped and i get to wear a gray-tshirt with school crap on it (it's not even cute) and jeans. i don't have a clue what shoes to wear now--my tennies are brown, mywedges are too dressy, obviously, and old navy flip flops are almost too low and make me walk on my hem in the jeans. pisses me off.
2. our internet is so slow, i swear dial-up would smoke past it. charter said it was probably the modem, so we bought a new modem. still creeping along at the speed of molasses. neither of us will be home this week, so who knows when we'll be able to get a service call. pisses me off, too. more than the clothes thing.
3. some friends of ours are having marital problems--probably divorcing. i've never really understood how they ended up married in the first place. i've never known a couple that was so drastically and totally opposite. night/day and then some. do you think that opposites attract? i do, actually. i think there is something inherently interesting and exciting about connecting with someone for reasons other than the typical common interests or background, etc.; however, they are such an extreme that i can't even see where the common thread could have ever been.
4. i love pringles. they have no nutritional value and aren't even real chips, but i enjoy them tremendously.
5. i have spent entirely too much money and time on underwear lately. i am on a quest to find comfortable panties--i've tried several styles and i'm just NOT loving any of them: boy brief, hipster, low rise, low cut. i swear, what does it take to make a pair of underwear that doesn't hang out the top of my pants nor ride up my butt nor put seams in uncomfortable places? sheesh.
6. i'm eagerly awaiting the new matt damon movie, the bourne ultimatum. i have been watching the bourne supremecy on dvr. i have the bourne identity on dvd. love matt damon and love the series. it will be a nice back-to-school treat for me.
7. i do not have killer abs. i will never have killer abs. i go to a class called killer abs and i enjoy it muchly. it's futile, though, rather like banging one's head, or abs, against the wall, i suppose.
8. i'm watching shark and tonight's episode is about a madam. i find it utterly ridiculous that prostitution is illegal.
9. i need to color my hair. i have no idea what color i want to use--i'm sort of sick of the same old red. may do more blonde this time, just for the hell of it while i'm tan.
10. do you have one person that you use as your 'confessor'? a person that you can tell anything without any qualms? other than a spouse or s.o., of course. i think everyone needs a friend like that. i feel very lucky.
11. just to make it odd and get outside my comfort box, i'm going to add an 11. did you know that you can pre-order wheezy's book?

'tis the season...

back-to-school is upon me. i left home at 10 this morning and did not get back for good until 8.30--i did come home long enough to check on the boys and run to kroger for them something for dinner.

my classroom looked like a tornado had struck. it's unreal the mess--a combination of factors at play: 12 years of accumulated teacher crap, i'm a packrat, i didn't file stuff at the end of the year, the painters totally trashed my floors, all of my desks plus another teacher's were heaped in the middle of my room, of my 9 computers, only two were on their correct table/desk with nothing else on top of them, part of my furniture was pulled apart, literally, and i had to empty a cabinet and a bookshelf to deal with the damage, i had about eight boxes of other people's crap in my room, i threw stuff in piles when the rains came, so there is no rhyme or reason, i can't open my desk drawers...and so on.

but today, things are MUCH better. i could teach if i had to, albeit maneuvering around piles of things i can't really totally identify. i have a shitload of filing and sorting to do (the 'put it all in a box' method is NOT effective) and i have to hang up all of my posters, which in itself will take a couple of hours because i have dozens.

i shall post before and after pics to impress everyone with my teacherly devotion.

tomorrow, wednesday, is our last full day to hang out at the pool, so we're heading over there around 11 and may not return until they close at 7 if we're so inclined and not sunburned or too cranky. thursday, i return to work for teacherish meetings and the whole 'get ready to start the school year' deal. i've already planned to work late that night, so i'm hoping that i won't have to spend the entire weekend getting things ready. i have vowed that i will not start the year off with things crammed in corners or shoved under tables--i'm sooooo sick of the chaos. i need calm and order as i face the 33 seniors in my brit lit class this year. yes, 33. last year? i had 12. talk about a drastic change. oy.

random

1. i have one of THOSE zits that hurts like a mofo and is just sitting there, taunting me as it causes most of the left side of my face to throb. i'm 38. i should not be having zits still. it's not fair, dammit.

2. i've started running on the treadmill at the Y. i am so NOT graceful that it is ridiculous. these wee, lithe women sprint effortlessly and silently along on their treadmills while i give the impression that a herd of small african animals are charging toward the watering hole. maybe i need new shoes??? yes, that must be it.

3. my kids have a puking virus. sam started it and passed it to jay and then five. and of the three kids--sam is the super puker. he woke from a dead sleep and went straight to the bathroom, puked, got a drink, and went back to sleep. no huge drama, no vomit onthe floor. just did his thing. he's 6. jay? puked all over the sunroom carpet, which required us to rent a carpet cleaner. he's 8. five? he threw up in a bucket and then proceeded to bring the bucket outside to show me and w. while we were at the neighbors. and then, later, after he'd thrown up again and made such a ruckus i was sure an internal organ had been regurgitated, begged me to take him to the doctor because he 'obviously' had a life-threatening illness. yeah, whatever buddy. he's 14.

4. if i get the puke virus, i'm going to be pissed off if for no other reason because i ate a protein bar today (EAS Advant Edge carb control chocolate creme) which was 1.79 and i'll be pissed off if i throw it up without getting the 21g of protein.

5. today is five's birthday. i am simply not old enough to have a 14-year-old child. i have acne, for god's sake. where did the time go?

6. i wanted some sugar-free ice cream last night and my kroger didn't have any. wtf? i can get edy's sf butter pecan at walgreen's--everyone's source for ice cream products-- but KROGER doesn't carry it? so now i get to pay walgreen's prices if i want to eat it.

7. my classroom is the biggest wreck you can imagine. it is going to take days to straighten thanks to blind, illiterate prisoners who put our stuff back in our rooms after the floors were cleaned.

8. where are all of my socks? where, where, where.

9. i have yet another skort with hidden, mystery shorts. it's very comfy--goodwill, thank you, a liz claiborne. this one has a much more complicated entry, but it looks like a cute wrap around skirt when on. i need a tan t-shirt. i've been wearing white, but tan would look better.

10. jay is the whiniest child in the western hemisphere--8-year-olds annoy me.

here's a rant for you

why the fucking fuck will fucking blogroller not fucking update my fucking blogroll like it is fucking supposed to so i don't fucking have to fucking check the fucking blogs individually and infuckingvariably skip someone's fucking blog or miss some fucking important bit of news or a useless fucking meme that i might have fucking wanted to fuck around with.

from the mouths of babes...

soooooo, i got my hair cut. and when i say cut, i mean serious, no-holds-barred, shorter than my sons' in the back, cut. i was just ready for a change and i decided to embrace my inner posh and go long in front, short in back. i wanted it more like hers but my bangs aren't long enough to pull that off yet, so we did it shorter on the sides and in the back--this way it should grow out fairly smoothly.

anyway, when i got home, i had some serious roots and higlight gaps because she cut a lot off the top and we sort of changed the part. no problem-i always have highlights and/or color around, so i just whipped out the highlights and fixed the problem. or so i thought. i didn't look at the back in the full light and it never even dawned on me that the majority of the color on the back of my head ended up on the floor of the shop (i'm not always brilliantly logical irl). today, sam was checking out my hair and he got very excited.

how cool! your hair is brown like mine in the back!

yeah, sam, really cool. and now i've got to color--but i just did highlights, so if i color over them, i'll lose them and have to do them again--and i really like them right now. damn, damn, damn.


photo--not particularly flattering, but you can see how short the hair is.

pardon the brief interruption

shitty, terrible, horrible, no-good, very-bad mood lately and i have nothing even remotely positive or constructive to post or bitch about, so i'm going to take the weekend to just pull my head out of my ass and get my act together. or get really drunk and forget anything unpleasant. not sure which yet.

i call bullshit

tonight we ate chinese and at the end of the meal, the highlight was, of course, the fortune cookie. even though i don't actually eat the cookie anymore, i still read the fortune because you never know when they might stick in a coupon for a free buffet or something. so, my little scrap of paper contained this view of my future:

a friend is a present which you give yourself

that is NOT a fucking fortune--it's a cheesy, proverby, homily, so WHY was it in my fortune cookie? i guess on an amusing note, i could use my friend kelly's trick of adding 'in bed' at the end of my so-called fortune and it would at least be interesting...assuming the friend had batteries, of course, and not like a real person because that would be, well weird.

a friend is a present which you give yourself in bed