Summertime!

Alrighty, it's summertime! Couldn't have waited any longer for it!

Here's a quick run down of what I'm up to just in case you're wondering.

Thursday was our last day of classes. In fact it was a half day for the kids, late day for the teachers. My classroom packed up pretty easy this year; all items have to be off of horizontal surfaces, so all items can be removed from the room for re-waxing the floors. My classroom lights are off, the door is locked, and it's going into its happy, peaceful rest for the summer.

Friday started the summer off with a bang. LaRae, Katelyn, Joshua, and I went swimming in the morning. Well Joshua played with pool toys in his stroller bc he apparently hates the pool! That's ok. With his mommy, sister, and aunt loving to swim, eventually we'll win him over. Katelyn was a lot of fun. The water was chilly, but she didn't care. That child LOVES the pool. :-) She jumped right in and giggled just about the whole time. :-) Really fun to watch.

Then after lunch, we went to LaRae's house to discover it had been broken in to. Thankfully they have good neighbors who called the cops and got the plate numbers and such, so hopefully the jerks will be caught. We all are having to monitor our credit and change account numbers bc our tax returns were on the laptops that were taken. While it was only just stuff, my heart goes out to them for the loss of their wedding rings, LaRae's engagement band, Katelyn's piggy bank, and their camera's memory sticks. Being there when we discovered the house had been broken into was really scary -- what if they were still there?! I was watching some of my worst nightmares happening to my sister and her family, and I hated that. So scary. I'm so thankful everyone is safe.

TO ALL THE THIEVES OUT THERE: You suck! I don't know what gives you this sense of entitlement -- that you are owed something or that you deserve something that isn't yours, but you're wrong. You work for what you get in life. You don't take it! Nothing gives you the right to come into someone's private domain and touch their things, invade their lives, and take what was never yours. Get a job. Get a life. In David's words, "GROW UP!" If you're bored or needing more money for drugs or just for games and fun, try the old fashioned way of earning it yourself! I can't stand a thief; I can't stand that there is a part of the youth of America that makes me fear for the future. I can't stand this attitude of entitlement and nose-thumbing at authority that's cropping up more and more. It's not ok. It's not cool. It's selfish, Godless, and makes you worthless as a human being. Make something of yourself other than a prison inmate. I hope you, the jerks who broke into that house, are found and that justice is done.

Done now. I know the thieves will never read that, but it made me feel a little better...

Yesterday I spent 4.5 hours at the salon getting hot pink highlights in my hair. Don't tell Mom and Dad! It should be a fun surprise! Here are a few pictures.

For those of you on facebook, here is the link to the album of more pictures. It's my real hair. They bleached highlights and then highlighted it with hot pink. :-) In the words of my friends, it's "sexy, hot, cool, and rocks [their] face off!" I've never gotten to rock someone's face off. It's really fun to finally have that ability! I know I'm going to get some "fun" comments at Woodstock, but I'm ready for it. I like it, and it's a lot of fun! :-) Hurray for pink hair!

So Monday through Wednesday I'm working for the district on a curriculum writing team I've been working with all school year. Friday I'm flying out to Georgia to see Mom and Dad. Once I land though we're driving to Florida for a quick stop to see Nana on the farm and then will be back in Woodstock on Sunday for church in the evening. Then I'll be in Woodstock until the 24th of so. VBS is the 28th, so June is basically full up! After that though, it's time for poolside relaxation and lazy fun for the rest of the summer. Can't wait to be in GA though -- I'm ready to get some quality time with the 'rents.

For those of you in GA - if you want to hang while I'm there, shoot me a message. :-)

Peace and love to all! Hope your summer's are starting out great!

Sex and the City

In college I would spend slow weekends and even weeknights at Hastings, the local video rental store/bookstore/coffee house/music store. Yeah, Hastings had the best combinations -- comics they let me read for free, books I would randomly pick up and buy, caffeine, and movies -- all at my fingertips. I could go there alone and be perfectly content. In fact, I preferred to go alone. I would sometimes go study there. Studying for me had to be done away from my dorm room or apartment. Often one could find me studying in the student center; I welcomed the interruptions. Later in my college years though, I would happily tote my advanced math work to Hastings.

Why am I telling you this? Why would you care? I dunno - except I'm taking a quick walk down memory lane to simply say that Hastings is where I would rent episodes of Sex and the City one disc (4 episodes) at a time until I'd finished the whole series. I loved getting a quick glimpse of the world of New York that I would never get to really be in. You see in my head, in my dreams, I am one of those 4 women -- independent, strong, beautiful, skinny, stylish, wearing fabulous clothing, carrying fabulous bags, and having a fabulous time. Sigh. To be a Charlotte York or Carrie Bradshaw (not sure I'd like to be Miranda Hobbs even if I am more on the logical side like she is and definitely don't want to be Samantha Jones with her relationships)... I can't fully imagine that life, but I enjoyed getting to watch it.

Tonight I got to see the movie with LaRae. First off, I love spending time with my big sis. More than once I've written about how cool I thought she was growing up. She really still is one of the coolest people I know. Second though, the movie was wonderful! The friendship, the bond, those women share. I know, I know, they're fictional, but it's still so great to watch. (Mild spoiler alert!) There were numerous parts that I could call my favorite, but the one that stands out is Charlotte being fiercely protective of her friend, Carrie, who has just been hurt deeply. Out of all the love lost, love found, broken dreams, broken hearts, that is the moment that made me want to cry the most. The amount of warrior-like ferocity that came out of that woman lashing out at the man who hurt her best friend was amazing to behold. On the way home, LaRae and I talked about the movie. There were points in it where we were laughing until we about cried and points where we could have cried (but not tears of laughter), but that point in the movie stood out to both of us.

It makes me think about my friendships. My sister and I have the bond that turns us into "mama bears" if someone hurts the other. Lord help you if you hurt my sister; you will rue the day you come into contact with ME again! Same holds true for the opposite. Sisterhood is easy like that for me.


In a previous post I said I wanted my real smile to be seen more... now I'm thinking about real friendship. How many friends do I have that would tell someone "I curse the day that you were born!" if that person had hurt me?? How many friends would I do the same for? How many friends are so close that my pain really and truly is their pain, not just a story for them to listen to? How much of my friends' pain to do I really feel? I want to be that sort of friend; it's not possible to be that close to everyone, but it is possible to have a group like that. Who is my group? Where do I fit? Who loves me that much?? I have friends that come to mind when I ask those questions. We all do I think. Now, I'm not asking you to step up and say, "I love you that much, Joanna!" Ha! I'm just wondering "aloud" really.


Excuse my nostalgia for a bit longer. The picture below is some friends from college. Horrid picture of me, so ignore me. The Charlie Brown Christmas Tree in the background was $10 at WalMart, and I did the best I could do with it, hence the giant bow on top! The 4 of us got together my last Christmas at Harding. One of the girls I've been friends with since I was a child. I sometimes get to talk to another one of them and we try to stay up on what's going on in each other's lives, and the final one my eye hesitantly strays to, well I haven't talked to her since her wedding day. All 3 of them at one point or another I was so loyal to that I would have yanked my earrings out and bitch slapped another girl for (ok maybe not something so fierce...). Sadly out of the 3, only 2 of them were willing to do that in return for me and did (again more like a verbal bitch slap than a physical one!). To you two -- I will always thank you for turning in your GATA jersey when you knew what was happening was wrong. I told you both the other day that I'm finally able to look back at my GATA memories and separate the good from the bad. You two were so much of the good. Thank you for being that good. I love and miss you both. To the other - I do miss you and wish our friendship had been as deep as I thought it was. I wish you'd been more thoughtful and that I'd been less trusting. When lines are drawn in the sand when you're out of the country, you can't stay on the line; one side or the other will always pull you over. If you'd realized that, perhaps things would have been different. Again, I miss you.

Life is short. I hope I am really surrounding myself with good friends, with people I can really trust to have my back. Because when it all came down to it in Sex and the City, those women had each other's backs. See the movie -- even if you didn't watch the show -- you'll love it. :-)

Tiny Update

I needed to update, and I have a lot to say, but I don't feel like doing a full on update tonight, so I'm going to do a tiny update to give you an update to a post from a while back. About 1 month ago I wrote about leash laws (click here to read again) and how people are not putting their dogs on leashing in my complex and the dilemma I was facing in how to respond when peoples' dogs run up to Sprinkles and I.

I've started "fighting back" in a couple of ways. The first way is that I'm being a little more vocal when the event actually happens. Typically someone's dog runs up to Sprinkles and I, freaks us both out, I get flustered, so when they apologize, I say "it's ok!" Now I say, "it's ok, just please find a leash!" Take that you freaky unsafe dog owners! I also have gotten a lot quicker at grabbing Sprinkles up from the ground to save us from growls, snaps, and being tangled in leashes.

Second I've started calling the apartment complex and leaving messages -- specific messages with the apartment number if possible. I also kindly remind the complex that there is a leash law in Lewisville, and that I'd appreciate a reminder being placed on that person's door. Not sure if this does anything, but I've left two voicemails so far, each with a different person. The one tonight was the voicemail of the manager of the complex. Ah yes -- this brings me to tonight.

Tonight I am still shaking a little. I was walking Sprinkles, and I saw my neighbor who has two boxers walking her dogs. We were all walking (about 10 feet away from each other) towards going around this circle in the parking lots -- like a large cul-de-sac of apartment buildings with parking in the middle -- when a HUGE dog came running at us. The boxers were closer, so it ran up to them. By the time it got there, Sprinkles and I had turned a different direction, and I had snatched him up into my arms. However, this was like a train wreck you have to watch. The owner of the HUGE dog was running up repeatedly yelling, "he's ok, he's ok!" to which the owner of the boxers screamed, "but they're NOT!" First off, you go girl! I was proud of her for yelling back that what was happening was NOT ok. Second though, she was scared, I was scared, the dogs were freaking out... someone was going to get hurt. She was screaming and begging the other owner to please get his dog (oh yeah another HUGE dog not on a leash ran up with him to get the other dog and joined the melee). Finally all dogs were grabbed and under control, the boxers' owner started to walk up fuming, when I spoke up. Yeah, not my battle, but that could have been Sprinkles, and he would have been bloody after that. I yelled, "man, you can't have your dogs not on a leash in a complex full of people! It's just not safe!" He said, "they're not off the leash!" With that the boxers' owner turned around and said in a very sarcastic tone, "oh, they're not?!" He's like, "yeah they're just walking between apartments with me!" What?! How is between apartments somehow becoming across the complex attacking other dogs?! He wasn't really apologetic, so we all walked off (I later ran across her and her boxers, and everyone was ok... still a little shaken up though).

On the way back into my apartment though, I was more than happy to call and leave a message for the manager of the complex telling her the building number and which garage they were grilling out in front of. Too bad I didn't have the apartment number. I also explained to her in the voicemail that this is not the first time I called, that this is a huge problem around these building, that I don't feel safe (with or without my dog), and that something needs to be done, at the least a reminder notice. Argh. I'm just going to call everytime this happens. The heck with it... I know if this happens enough, they can be evicted. Hope I can get apartment numbers from this point on. :-)

Smiling?

I've been thinking about this post for a while now, and so here it goes... well at least the idea about smiling. Have you ever noticed when you're smiling? Like a real smile, not a fake, plastered on smile? Lately it feels like real smiles have been sneaking up on me in random places like when I'm playing with Katelyn and Joshua and honestly enjoying myself or watching something funny in a movie. I spend a lot of my time faking a smile:
- a person I don't really care to be around walks up
- someone tells me a joke I don't really think is funny
- everything is ok when it's not
- I'm hiding behind it
- I'm expected to smile
etc. There are so many times I'm expected to smile. It's refreshing to enjoy a rare moment when the smile is natural. When I'm smiling because I'm happy and enjoying life. When it's my real smile. Not all of you have seen the "real deal" smile. I want it to be seen more. I want my smile to be real.

Two Posts in Two Days!

That's right, I'm posting again. It's ok. Read this post and the one below it. Actually this one is a follow up to the post below, so I'd read it first and come back to this one. I'll wait while you scroll down and read...

Oh you're back? Good deal. On to today's drama! Last night I got the baby cake baked, and I decided to decorate it this morning and then run and get a camera battery at WalMart, so I could take my own picture of the cake. (Riss' blog said they were having camera issues, so I didn't want to chance missing a picture of this cake.) So I get up, actually get out of my pj's and get a shower, and decorate the cake. I have about 45 minutes until cake pick up, so I grab my keys and run out the door to head to WalMart.

*SCREECH!* Someone is parked in front of my garage! So I call Chapel Hill to explain what's going on, and they give me the number for the towing company. The tow place won't tow without management approval, so I call Chapel Hill back (very annoyed at this point), and they put me through to a voice mail box! So I call back, and I'm hot at this point, so I'm relaying what has happened to the guy who answers and tell him something like, "and I need this car towed like 30 minutes ago!" He is actually very nice and calls in the tow for me (I called the tow place to double check), and in about 45 minutes the car would be towed. Meanwhile, I left this note on the car, "You see the garage in front of your car?! Yeah, my car is STUCK in there since you chose to park here! You better hope you get your car moved before I can get it towed!" Not my nicest note, but I'm so angry about this I can hardly see straight! Who parks in front of another person's garage?! So I call a series of friends to help me, and all of them have very legitimate reasons why they can't until I get to Erin. Sweet Erin lives in my complex, and she very kindly took me to WalMart to get the battery.

When we got back, the car was gone, but I know it wasn't towed in that amount of time. I called the tow place to cancel the order. So whoever you are, driver of a blue Chrysler Pacifica -- you got away this time, but perhaps you won't be so lucky next time. Good job dodging a tow bill! Jerk.

Thankfully I got the battery, so here are pictures of the cake I just finished. Notice that the small one is Lukas' baby cake (simply decorated), and there is one picture of the rocket on the invitation by the rocket on the cake. I think it looks pretty close! The icing is pale pale green, and the dots on the side are actually giant sprinkles. I hope it's good enough. No I'm not just saying that... freehanding the rocket wasn't that easy, and I know the red isn't true red bc I can't achieve that without chocolate icing...

Cake H-E-Double Hockey Sticks

No, I didn't make another cake of shame, but I did make a dumb mistake that's costing me a lot of time.

Let me start at the beginning. It's apparently cake season right now. I made a birthday cake for Katelyn, a small cake for Joshua's birthday, and now I'm working on Lukas Swayne's first year birthday cake. His cake isn't too bad really - Eric and Larissa are awesome. They're laid back and happy to let me work my creative juices as long as the cake is marble cake and has a rocket ship on it. I really put a lot of thought into this one. I have the picture of the rocket from the invitation, and I've been deciding the best way to put it on the cake: fondant, painting it, freehand piping icing, etc. Finally I decided that freehand piping the rocket in icing would be the best bet.

Oh wait I need to start back even further! This week is TAKS Math "Camp." The math department does math tutoring for an hour after school every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday for about 3 weeks. Seeing as how I had a meeting after school on Monday and then stayed after school Tuesday - Thursday, I've had a week of not getting home until almost 6 pm (so basically 10 hour days). Needless to say, I've been really really tired, and I didn't get to bake Lukas' cake until tonight. TOTALLY part of my master plan. I had time to relax, bake, take my time.... all good.

Fast forward to 11:30 tonight. I have baked the cake. I have carefully piped the rocket ship on the cake. I am finally putting the finishing touches on the cake -- the border, and I realize, "crap, Eric and Larissa wanted a small cake for Lukas to dig in to on his own!" Well poop, wouldn't ya know I didn't bake that small cake? And wouldn't ya know I didn't have another cake mix at home? Wouldn't you also know that when I went to WalMart, they were out of marble cake, so I had to get yellow cake? Yeah... me being sooooo dumb, so here I sit at 12:45 am waiting for cake to cool enough for me to decorate it. (Now Eric and Larissa, if you're reading this -- do NOT feel bad! I'm totally happy to make this cake! I love decorating cakes; I've missed getting to do so lately! HONEST!) Yep, good thing I need to catch up on stuff on my DVR. :-)

Good news is that I think the cake looks really cute. My camera is broken right now, so I'm hoping they'll take lots of pictures for me, so I can have some to post and put in my portfolio. I've got to do another one (same cake) for Lukas' second party next weekend, but that should be easy. Kinda cool really - I made the cake for Larissa's baby shower, and now I'm making that baby's first birthday cake. :-) Wait, I did that for Joshua as well technically...

Anyways, not much going on this week. A little drama, but that's over and done with. Only about 9 school days until the TAKS test and then summer will be here soon! Can't wait! :-)

A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes

Today is Katelyn's 4th Birthday! Happy Birthday, Little Bear! Here she and I are with her Cinderella doll cake. Yes, it's another Joanna-made cake. :-)

Could I love my niece more? She is honestly one of the sweetest little girls I know. One of the best little additions to my life. She LOVED her cake and sat there looking at it all amazed for a while. It was such a joy for me to watch her play and enjoy her birthday. I am amazed at how old she is!

Speaking of sweet, sweet children. Joshua, my nephew, is also one of the sweetest additions to my life. I think we decided that he possibly enjoyed Katelyn's birthday more than she did! He ate pizza and cake. He had a blast watching everything, and he loved sitting with his Aunt Joanna. Here he is laughing with me. He kept putting up his cheek for me to kiss. What a cutie! He'll be ONE this week. Wow, how time flies!

I realize I've left my blog-readers without any reading material for a while. Sorry about that! The assignment from the last entry had its desired effects. Class had a great, deep discussion where we hit that personal level of connection that I was so desiring. Also, Ashley started a blog as a result of our class. Check her out!

Not much else is going on. I've been busy teaching, catching up on reading some comics, and making cakes. Should have more cake pictures in a week or so since I'm making Lukas' 1st Birthday cake(s) this week. On to a rocketship... sorry this one won't be standing up! :-)