Tuesday, June 26, 2007

For My Sister

LaRae tagged me. I've never been tagged in cyberspace before, so why not?

First and Last

First Memory: We went to a circus when I was about 3. (My family says all my stories used to start with "when I was about 3...") There was this gorilla in a cage that got loose and started climbing into the audience in the bleachers. The performers were freaking out, and I was scared and sitting in Dad's lap. He kept telling me that gorilla was going to get me! Turns out it was a man in a realistic suit, but I was SOOOO scared!

First Real Kiss: Have I had a "real" kiss? First boyfriend from 8th grade to about end of 9th grade, Travis, and I shared some really innocent pecks on the lips in the band instrument storage room. First "real" one? I guess with a guy my frosh year at collge -- Andrew -- in the field behind Dr. Burks house. It meant nothing and was really a rebellious dare type thing. I still laugh that that! So no, never had a "real" kiss -- any takers? ;-)

First Concert: 8th grade -- Newsboys "Take Me To Your Leader" tour with Michelle Roark and her parents. Plankeye and Third Day openned for them. It was AWESOME! We were in the 3rd row, and I got projected on the to the big screen on stage! Soooo fun!

First Love: I'm gonna go ahead and say I don't think I've been in love before. In like, yes, but not in love. Again, any takers? ;-)

First crush: Brian Bunch. 4th grade. I asked him out and was rejected (thus it started). Where would we have gone? Lol. First obsessive crush was Brent Cate. I loved him...

First thing you think in the morning: No, no, no, Sprinkles! Don't pee on the floor. He wakes me between 6 and 7 am. If I don't jump out of bed when he does, he'll sprinkle my floor.

First book you remember loving: No idea on this one. I was quite fond of Are You My Mother? like my sister.

First pet: Ginger, a cocker spaniel my Nana and Daddyray gave us. I loved her until she bit my friend, Tina, on the mouth. Then I was scared of her until she was sent back to the farm.

First question you'll ask in Heaven: Not sure I'll be asking questions I'll be soo happy to be there!

First thing you think of when you hear the word vacation: skiing

First best friend: Beth Johnson, friends forever K - 3 until she moved

Last time you dressed up: Can't remember. I mildly dress up for church.

Last CD you bought: My Chemical Romance

Last book you read: Lfet Behind

Last time you cried: Church on Sunday when LaRae asked if I was ok. The Left Behind books are freaking me out. My emotions were really getting to me.

Last movie you saw: The Other Sister -- watched it this morning!

Last time you told someone you loved them: Sprinkles -- right before I left to come to the White House to use the internet

Last really funny thing you did: I have no idea. I'm sure some of you could tell me...

Last thing you watched on TV: The Reba McIntyre and Kelly Clarkston concert on CMT

Last Halloween costume: Last on I remember was being a broken china doll. That costume was great!

Last Concert attended: Something lame at HU I'm sure

I tag Mark and Mario. :-)

Monday, June 18, 2007

I Don't Want to Update...

...because it will shove the post with all the cute Sprinkles pictures down! Also I'm out of fun pictures to post. My camera battery died, so I'm unable to take anymore pictures right now. Maybe tomorrow I'll go to WalMart and fix that issue. The other day when Sprinkles jumped in the bathtub (when I was out, but it wasn't done draining), he looked so funny, so I ran to grab my camera....waaaaaaah! Batteries "fell out", as Katelyn would say. (Apparently, the batteries "ran out" means that to her. :-) )

Updates updates updates. While I don't have a myspace, I do have a blog -- have had one for a long time now. In fact I've been through 3 different sites before I've found one (this one) that I like enough to stick around. In all honesty, I've never seen a myspace that looks professional or grown up (no offense...believe me, I make an effort not to look), and the district "strongly urges" that we teachers don't have one. Now with all that said, I've found the next best thing (LaRae and Randy call it "basically myspace): FACEBOOK! I love facebook! I was able to easily find my hs and college friends and get quick updates on them. I can communicate through it and post my updates, and BEST OF ALL (drum roll please!) it's FREE (and we all know free is a very good price)! Yeah, my summer has been sooo productive. I've spent a lot of time messing around on facebook lately.

When it hasn't been raining, I've been swimming. I even have a tan (yes mom, I've been wearing my SPF 1050001.2)! Ok ok it's more like a lot of freckles, and it's more like I'll tell people in the fall that I've been swimming daily and their response will be, "really? but you don't have a tan!" but dang it, it's darker for me! If you could see my arm up against my stomach (I'll spare you the picture), you'd be shocked. I look tan next to me...next to anyone else I look albino. Which brings me to how pale my tummy is -- putting it simply, if you look at it with the naked eye, you'll go blind from the glare! :-D

VBS stuff has died down a little; the initial get it all in the computer is done, so now it's just getting to work. We have our first work night on Thursday (7 pm for those of you who are local -- come help!), and I'm looking forward to it. Since the theme is water park (as opposed to a different country every night like last year), the work nights aren't as tough (or hopefully as many). It's going to be a blast this year!

I got my first library card today. (I always used my mom's when I was in GA.) It's actually an Irving card, which is 2 towns away, but I'm tutoring a kid in an Irving library this summer, so it makes it easy for me to use the card. The library isn't too far away really. I'm going to get a Lewisville one this week when I go up to the school to make some copies. When I was in college I used the HU library quite a bit. I read all the Left Behind books, and while I don't agree with the concept of the Rapture, I did enjoy the Christian fiction aspect of them. They made me search my soul and realize I needed to change a lot bc if Jesus came right then (at that time in my life), I'm not so sure He would have known me. Anyways, recently they did a prequel series of 3 books that lead up to all the people being left behind, so I'm working on reading those. I think I'll reread the rest of the series after that. It's some good writing! Not talking about these books to stir up controversy...like I said, I read them as FICTION.

Well LaRae and Katelyn will be here to swim in about an hour, and I've got a bit to do before then. Sprinkles is wanting to play I think. The other day he was literally wandering around the apartment bored. It was like watching a little kid who says, "there's nothing to do" when there are toys scattered everywhere. I took that as my cue to turn off the tv and get on the floor and play. :-) Right now he's giving me the same body language as the other day... love ya'll!

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Happy Birthday, Sprinkles!

Today is Sprinkles' first birthday. I wish I had letter blocks to lay by him as I took his picture. tee hee. I bought him on his 3 month birthday, so this also marks 9 months that we've been together. He still acts like a puppy sometimes, but he is calming down quite a bit. I was looking at pictures of him the other day. I can't believe how tiny he was! I didn't know how life-changing it would be to get a dog. Looking back, I can't believe how much happier I am and how much less lonely I am. I also am a bit surprised at what an over-protective, worry-wort mother I am! I'll also a proud mommy, so this post is going to be full of pictures of him (hopefully in chronological order). Enjoy the cuteness of my child.



If it weren't for working on VBS, I'd be accomplishing next to nothing this summer. Today I finished up the supplies, donations, and volunteers needed lists. I've got it all on my computer in tons of files. It's all organized. Problem is, when one lifeguard (section leader) changes or turns in something, I have to change it in about 3 files! Just means I have to use my brain, but am I allowed to do that during the summer? ;-) LaRae and I stopped at WalMart tonight and got one of those tri-fold display boards to put the sign up for donations and volunteers on. I walked into my apartment with it and commented that I felt like I was about to put together my science fair project. Randy called out, "good luck with your volcano!" It was fun to make the board though. I like to create things with paper, and I think it actually looks nice and eye-catching. Yes, that was possibly the most boring paragraph I've ever written...


I also spent part of today organizing my comic books. When I started to file a 6 inch stack of comics the other day, I realized I had run out of room in my comic boxes and dividers (I've started picking up some new titles). Oh yes! That meant I had a new organization project! See, I'd already reorganized and cleaned out ever nook and cranny (cabinet and closet) of my apartment during the spring semester, and so I had no projects for the summer! It's nice to know my comics are all sorted in their boxes now. Oh wait, THAT was the most boring paragraph ever...


OK, so who am I kidding, my summer is sort of dull and uneventful, but isn't that great?! The school year is so stressful, and every summer (in about 6 years), I've had to move, so getting to stay in one place, not pack, and enjoy my home is really nice. I have gotten to spend a lot of quality time with LaRae, Katelyn, and Joshua. We've been swimming. Tonight we went and forgot Katelyn's water wings, so LaRae or I had to hold on to her the whole time. Thing is, she'd just walk off the step or shove out of our arms and *glug glug gulg* go under water, and when we grabbed her and pulled her up, she'd be grinning so huge totally unfazed that she'd just been unable to breath! Side note -- the other day when we swam she was totally freaked out if we did an underwater pass with her or her head went under. Ah, the mixed emotions of a 3 year old. :-) Really, she's quite brave, and tonight she was really fun to play with. LaRae ended up feeding Joshua at my apartment 3 times, and Sprinkles really got used to him. He sniffed Joshua and figured out he wasn't a threat and stayed calm for the most part. I think he's getting used to Katelyn. That makes life a lot easier when she comes over.



This week I'm hoping to make some head-way on some curriculum work I want to do. I also need to actually set up my interwrite pad. Go figure, I was so excited to get it, and I haven't done anything with it yet! I should probably clean out my car too. I wish I could be like some people I know who have barely anything in their cars, but as soon as I get it clean like that, I put a whole bunch more junk in it. It's not as bad as some cars, but I do want to keep it clean until I get rid of it (by the end of the year, I'll be driving a new car...hopefully a Nissan Murano).





I better go to bed. I've been staying up well past midnight and then getting up around 9 or so. Something's got to give, or I'm going to end up over-tired when school starts up again!

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Summer Shows

While summer is in full swing, and the concept of waking when I please is quite alluring one thing has bummed me out: the lack of good summer tv shows. Yes, I know summer is the time for reruns, and for those of us who tape our shows (or those who are fortunate enough to get to TiVo them) and watch them religiously each week, this flat out sucks! Some of you love this because it gives you time to catch up; although, I'm noticing networks running less and less reruns lately. Tonight I put my tape in the VCR to check what's been recording since my shows have ended, and I haven't stopped the VCR from recording. I was pleasantly surprised.

First off, I did have 2 shows to watch this summer. Hell's Kitchen with Chef Gordon Ramsey began on Monday. 3rd season, and it's still a great show so far. As the chef wanna be's were about to start their first dinner service, Gordon asked them if they were ready and ok. One man actually started to cry. Ha! I'm still laughing about that one. I'm also watching Grey's Anatomy on Lifetime since I didn't start watching it until last season. Go figure people were right about that one -- it really is a great show! OK, so one reality show and one set of reruns later, and my evenings are dull. (Unless you count me picking up random episodes of MTV's Inferno 3, which I actually do usually try to catch, and Charm School. The latter of the two my 4th period loved that I knew about it and could talk about it with them!)

Ah yes, back to my trusty old VCR. It didn't let me down. In fact it's sort of like that TiVo feature that you can set to predict what you'll like based on what you set to record and record it for you. It recorded Lifetime's new series Army Wives (poo on Lifetime for not warning me they were changing the Grey's time!) and the second episode of ABC's Traveler. Yes, Army Wives is a girl show, so I don't recommend it to half of you, but it has the potential to be funny and dramatic at the same time. Of course this comes from the girl who loved Strong Medicine and 1800Missing, so do you trust my judgement on Lifetime shows? :-) Traveler though looks really good. It doesn't recreate the "hit" wheel in that it starts with a mystery that the show is based around solving using flash backs and present time sequences. I went online to ABC's website, and they have this thing where you can watch full episodes for free (ok, you all knew that...I'm a dork and never pay attention to that stuff!), and I was able to watch the first episode and the one from Wednesday as well with about 1.5-2 minutes total of commercials. If I could trust this internet connection, I'd only watch it that way! Anyways, if you've missed it, go to the website and watch what you've missed. It's not too late to catch up, and I'm thinking this is going to be one of those shows people are talking about.

Finally something to post, eh? Oh yeah, just a tidbit of info about today: LaRae and I took the kids to the Galleria to meet Randy for lunch, and when we got back to the van, LaRae hit the button to open Katelyn's door for her, and it was shutting when I walked around the van. Apparently we missed closing it, and it was open the whole time we were in the mall. Nothing appeared to be missing, so weird, but no big, right? Wrong. This evening I get a call from LaRae asking if I brought her Container Store bag in for her. I'm a brat, so I hadn't. Turns out it's not in the van or the house. Looks like someone saw the open door and the bag sitting literally just inside the door and decided they needed whatever it was in the bag. How sick is that? First off, ew, makes you feel sort of icky that someone looked in the van and had their hands in it while we weren't in there. Second, we were in the mall for about 2 hours; lots of cars around us moved. Surely someone saw the open door. Was no one BRAVE enough to be a good Samaritan and close it for us? I was talking to Julie today, and she said, "yeah, I've closed trunks and such before..." OK, I'd have done it with my shirt tail or something, so there was no way my finger prints were there...

AND, when we were waiting to get on the elevator, these women and kids got out of one of the elevators saying they had been stuck in that particular elevator for 1o minutes. They had used the phone and called; the people said someone was coming; 10 minutes later they got out by prying the doors open from the inside. No one ever showed while we were around the elevators. Frustrating and scary! I've been trapped in an elevator (funny story, ask me about it...), and it's not cool when they don't answer that phone or don't come. If you're ever trapped, by all means, try the phone, but your best bet is to go ahead and Hulk out and open the doors yourself.

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

One Burned Knee Later...

So I went swimming today. Well actually at first I laid in the pool on my pool float reading for about an hour or more until I saw one of my students and left that pool (when you can pick from 8 pools, that's a nice luxury to have)! Apparently sometime during my reading time, I burned one knee. Yep, just one -- huge red burn -- the wonderful spray on sun screen has its downfalls! I took a break to reapply sunscreen (and find somewhere else to do some actual swimming), and LaRae came over with the kids to go swimming. :-) We found a nice shaded pool, and while Joshua slept by the side of the pool in his carrier, Katelyn swam with us. It was sooo fun! Next time I just need to have be more careful with the sunscreen.

I've been wasting time discovering TV shows. Bravo has had a Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List marathon today. Right now I'm watching an airing of one of her shows -- whole bit and all. She's really really hilarious! Ok ok she has to bleeped out a lot, but she SLAMS on celebrities, and it's just too funny! I'd go see her for sure. I think it's funny to me because I read US Weekly like religiously, so it all makes sense. I know who she's talking about. She just said something like, "I'm not going to go confront people! I was raised right; I talk about people behind their back! Um...it's called manners!" :-)

I also discovered Band in a Bubble last night. It's really neat. Basically it's a band, Cartel, in a glass bubble house in the middle of New York. They're locked in there for 20 days and must come out with an album completed at the end. You can watch them at drpepperbubble.com. If only I had some old Dr. Pepper bottle tops to put the codes in so I could watch all 23 cameras! There's something neat about being able to watch someone 24/7 without it being dirty... last night I was watching after midnight, and they were in the kitchen laughing, and I kept hearing words like "booger, grass, and earwax". I finally figured out that they were trying Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans and daring each other to try different ones! I was proud of myself for figuring it out.

Tomorrow I get to go see Madagascar. That should be fun... Hope ya'll are having an equally "productive" summer!

Friday, June 01, 2007

A Woman's Right to Shoes

Ya know, a few things here and then a short post -- I never thought I'd be one of those people who stopped updating, and I'm really not that person, so I'm going to try to update more often now that it's summer, and my life is becoming increasingly more fun as I get to do things not school related. :-) (Was that a run on??) Also, I haven't posted complaining about being single for a while -- granted what I'm about to post by no means is meant as a complaint, but I've always loved this dialogue from Sex and the City. It's always made me laugh, and it's also a good point, so I thought I'd share it. Oh yeah, there's an update on me at the bottom of this post...if you really could care less about my quote; although, it's really funny. :-)

The episode's title is the title of my post today. Let me set it up. Carrie goes to a baby shower for her friends, Kyra and Chuck. Upon arriving to their ritzy home, Kyra requests they remove their shoes. (I think people who do this are insane by the way!) Carrie reluctantly adds her $485 Manolos in the pile (hello! they made the outfit!) only to discover them missing when she goes to leave. Kyra gives her a nasty pair of sneakers to go home in, acts completely unconcerned, and somehow makes Carrie feel super bad. When Carrie takes the sneakers back, Kyra realizes she's being a punk and offers to pay for Carrie's shoes. When Carrie told her they were new and $485, Kyra offers her $200 and callously says something about Carrie not having a "real life" (since she doesn't have kids or a husband) and that they shouldn't have to "support [Carrie's] extravagant lifestyle!" WHAT?! (I have a real life without all that!) Anyways, Carrie decides to register for the Manolo's in the end and leave a message telling Kyra she's decided to get married (to herself) and tells her where she's registered. Kyra buys the shoes (and has to pay tax) and sends them to Carrie.

When Carrie calls Kyra to smooth things over, Kyra's young daughter gets on the phone and asks, "Santa?" Carrie looks a little surprised, and then has an epiphany that she shares with Charlotte, and that I will now share with you:

Carrie: You know what? I am Santa. I did a little mental addition and over the years I have bought Kyra an engagement gift, a wedding gift, then there was the trip to Maine for the wedding- three baby gifts...in total I have spent over $2300.00 celebrating her life choices and she is shaming me for spending a lousy $485.00 bucks on myself? Yes, I did the math.

Charlotte: Yes, but those were gifts. And if you got married or had a baby, she would spend the same on you.

Carrie: And if I don't ever get married or have a baby, what? I get bubkiss? Think about it. If you are single, after graduation, there isn't one occasion where people celebrate you.

Charlotte: Oh! We have birthdays!

Carrie: Oh, no no no no- we all have birthdays, that's a wash. I am thinking about the single gal. Hallmark doesn't make a "congratulations you didn't marry the wrong guy" card. And where's the flatware for going on vacation alone?

[Carrie goes on to say she doesn't mind buying the stuff and celebrating with her friends, but...]
"The fact is sometimes it is hard to walk in a single woman's shoes, that's why we need really special ones now and then, to make the walk a little more fun." -Carrie

Anyways, I just love all that. I've seen that episode a few times, and it always makes me smile.

My summer so far in a nutshell: I went to Canton today with LaRae, the kids, and Beri. I took Sprinkles in his front carrier (like a baby bjorn or a bag I wear on my front for him to sit in), and lots of people commented on how super cute he was. Well he is, isn't he? :-) I also have been catching up on sleep which has been absolutely glorious! Maybe now that the rain has stopped (trying so hard not to complain!) I'll get to go swimming. The other day I got to see the third Pirates movie. LOVED IT! It was a lot more like the 1st one, and I laughed a lot. I totally recommend it. Don't wait until the dollar movie--it's worth paying full price now. I went to a textbook training (snore), but it was in the district's technology building, and while I was there an email came through that my interwrite pad was in. (Seriously, check out the link!) This is some really wonderful technology for my classroom especially since it looks like I'll be getting a smart board over the summer too. Granted, only the interwrite is portable enough for me to take home to practice with, but my classroom is going to be great next year! OK it's late, and I'm ready to go to bed (loving the unsecured wi-fi connection I've found in my apartment!). Hope you're all having a good summer! I promise I'll update sooner this time -- of course no one answered the last question I posed, so...

OH YEAH! I do have a question. You know I can see locations of people who visit my site (also where they came from if they click a link to get here). You can see it too if you click on the visitor counter in the black box to the right. Someone keeps visiting me from Louisville, Kentucky. Who are you? :-) I didn't know I knew anyone there -- shoot me an email and let me know who you are. Not being mean, just really curious. Love ya'll!