Very tired, calm, and looking forward to the weekend.

It has been a good but long week. Yesterday brought with it lots of drama at school (thankfully none of it involving my class), requiring a lock down in our part of the building and a visit from the police to remove a parent from the premises. But, my kids have been great and hopefully we’ll have a good day. They are usually pretty mellow on Fridays. I think they feel the strain of the week, too, and look forward to the weekend for the same reasons I do.

Kate and Jennifer taught me how to knit on Wednesday, and it’s all I want to do now. I’m in the process of knitting a beautiful rectangle. It’s really wobbly and kind of gross looking at the end where I started, but it’s starting to even out as I get better. My professor at J. Sarg allowed me to knit all through class last night because apparently he is awesome. I paid excellent attention and could probably tell you all you want to know about salinity and density.

This weekend should be nice and mellow. I get a haircut this afternoon, which I’m sure will be followed by a nice long nap. I think I’m going to start knitting an actual scarf this weekend while Ross watches VT play Georgia Tech. Hopefully we’ll get to see Ross’s parents this weekend. I’m really craving the Southern Fried Chicken, green beans, and mashed potatoes from the Hill Café. Keep your fingers crossed that we get a double dinner date with them. The only thing I *have* to do is some laundry and vacuum upstairs.

October starts on Sunday, which means my birthday is so soon. I’m turning 25, which I think is awesome.

Some things I'm considering.

1. Having a talk like a robot day at school.

2. ALSO having a talk like a pirate day at school. I might even make them dress up as pirates. I just have to figure out how such a day would instructional value first.

3. Requiring my students to refer to one another as "Mr." and "Miss." I think it might be amazing.

4. Making the 90's version of "Lean on Me" our clas song and making them sing it everyday. Maybe I'll make them dance, too.

5. Taking my kids down to kindergarten to lead a seminar on walking in line, because, truly, they are amazing at it.

Let me know what you think. I am now going to bed for the 21st day in a row praising the Lord for my hilarious/wonderful/kind children.

Impaired.

I am very crafty. By crafty I mean that I can make crafts, not that I am sneaky (although I can be very sneaky at times.) If you look around my house you will find things that I have made that do not necessarily look as if they were lovingly constructed by my hands alone. But they were. My repertoire is pretty extensive, I will admit.

But still, there is one thing that I still manage to suck at. Not even suck at really, because you have to do something to suck at it. I’m so terrified of it, I don’t even know if I suck at it.

Knitting. Many of my friends do it. Most of the people I work with do it. Justin Morgan can even do it (don’t make fun of him – he spent a lot of time with girls in college learning how to do it). I’ve tried to understand how it works, and often marveled at the beautiful sweaters, caps, scarves, and ridiculously cute baby things produced by this craft. But, something in my brain just doesn’t connect the steps together.

Out on the playground (yes, part of my job involves being out on the playground), Debbi (a fellow 5th grade teacher who reminds me so much of my mother-in-law) was talking about how she knits Christmas stockings for all of her friends’ new babies or for any newlyweds she knows. We got to talking about how knitting lets you make really cool presents for people, and I confessed to her that I cannot do it. Well, she’s determined to change that. Tomorrow she is bringing in her old needles and extra yarn and, by God, she is going to teach me how to knit. Or so she says. I’ll let you know how it goes. Maybe you all will be getting lopsided scarves and tea cozies for Christmas!

Almost Fatmous?!?!?!

I'm not really one to be concerned about weight. I try not to focus on what the scale says and concentrate on how I feel and how my clothes fit. However, I recently calculated my BMI, and found that I'm currently at 23.6, only 1.4 away from being technically overweight. OMG!!!

I worked out a ton this summer, but as I started using my brain again since school started, I ended up neglecting my body. But, no more! So, I've committed to a minimum of 30 minutes of physical activity a day. I made this promise on Thursday and so far it's going well. As I've learned, you just need to do something everyday for 21 days to make it a habit. I've made it 3 out of 3 days, so hopefully I'll keep up with it. Here's how it's gone as of now:

Thursday-Walked Zapp
Friday-Exercised on the Balance Ball
Saturday-BELLY DANCING DVD!!!!

In addition to this increase in activity and my new obsession with Green Tea (and consequential disinterest in soda), I'm sure to be in tip-top shape in no time. Right?

You are the love of my life. Quite simply, the love of my life.

My life has been made better, by you, Diet Lipton Green Tea With Citrus.

HOW CAN MY NOSE BE RUNNING AND STUFFED UP AT THE SAME TIME?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?1/1

I'm going to wear a biohazard suit to school from now on. It's only week three and I've already been floored by a wicked cold that makes me "gurgle" in my sleep, according to Ross. I've was feeling much better yesterday, but apparently my re-entry into the filth that is an elementary school classroom, my cold has gotten stronger and become a bigger pain in my ass. All I wanted to do today was to plop them in front of a Magic Schoolbus Video, curl up under my desk, and go to sleep. Good thing my principal was making the rounds today, or I just might have done that.

This cold better go away because I got plans to be at the beach this weekend. Don't worry, Phannie. If I don't go, I will still pay my part of the rental fee. But please only accept my payment whilst wearing latex gloves and a SARS mask.

You have one month and 6 days until my birthday.

Here is my wish list...

1. A gift certificate to have Merry Maids come and clean my house
2. Tile my downstairs hallway
3. Purchase and install a new furnace
4. Purchase and install new windows in my house
5. The new iPod shuffle
6. A baby
7. A sewing machine
8. For Ross to clean the office

Hop to it.

Mi esposo, Ross

He takes my iPod and puts music on it without telling me. Sometimes I like this, sometimes I don't. Usually I do because when I push play, it's like a little surprise he made for me. Even though I skip through a lot of songs after 5 seconds.

He leaves his bladder on the dining room table. Not his *real* bladder, but the one that goes with his camelback thing that he wears while biking. I like just calling it his bladder because it sounds absurd.

He gets really mad when people say bad things about marriage. It's the one situation where I think he would actually get into a fight with someone.

He love love loves his parents.

He demands that infants do tricks in order to keep him entertained. If they don't, he openly mocks them.

He calls my sister his sister and my brother his brother. None of this in-law mess.

He often stands in the shower with his eyes closed and his arms crossed across his chest, looking very formidable. This is the only time he looks formidable. Ever.

He never yells.

When he finds a good restaurant, book, movie, anything really, he will tell everyone he knows about it, in detail. Everyone. And I'm usually there for each time he tells them.


He loves me more than he loves anyone. HA! Suck it, fools!

I'd put an old man to shame.

I have so many ailments right now, it's ridiculous. After taking just one iron tablet, my stomach went INsane (as the warning label said it would). I won't go into details. On top of that, I already have my first cold of the school year. Being that it's only the second week, I'm kind of frustrated. My TMJ is acting up and I need to sleep with a heating pad on my face tonight. I also can't seem to remember anything for more than 5 minutes. THINGS ARE AWESOME.

And the verdict is...

Anemia. Yet another medication will be added to my daily arsenol. I guess it could be worse, though.

I <3 LabCorp.

Time in: 4:00 pm
Times stuck: 1
Time out: 4:09 pm

I’m a human pincushion.

Yesterday, after much urging from my husband, I finally went to the doctor to figure out what the heck my problem is. For the last 3 weeks I have major headaches during the day, as well as an overwhelming feeling that I have been run over by a truck. After a near temper tantrum yesterday morning over not being able to find a shirt that I believed fit, I scheduled an appointment with my doctor, saying, “I’ve felt like crap for almost a month and I’d like to know why.”

My appointment was at 3:45. I got into the exam room at 4:45. Awesome. It was also freezing which doesn’t make a tired person feel any better. When the doctor (who I love love love, even though he has really hairy hands) finally came, we sat and chatted about my issues. After about 15 minutes of him hmmming at me and my teeth chattering at him due to the polar temperatures of the room, he basically said he had no clue what was wrong. Soooooo, he decided to get some blood and test me for just about everything.

The nurse came in and tried to stick me in my right arm. No luck. My left arm. No luck. My left hand. No luck. My right hand. No luck. Just as I was about to offer her my foot to try, she said that they were just going to give me a lab order for me to take over to LabCorp and have them draw the blood. Still awesome. So today, I will go to LabCorp, get stuck again, and hopefully by the week we will find out if I am anemic, pregnant, have mono, have a thyroid condition, or none of the above. Or maybe ALL of the above?!?!?!?!?11

Oh, and if they don’t find anything, I have to go to a sleep specialist to see if I have some kind of sleeping disorder. I love love love disorders so I’m putting my money on that one.

What a great start to the weekend!

It's 1:11 and I'm just getting out of bed. I *did* get out of bed at 9 to let the dogs out (yeah, it was me), but when I got back upstairs Ross looked so snuggly in the bed, I just couldn't resist. PLUS, when I finally got out of bed, I found a new ink cartidge for my printer resting on my desk, courtesy of my non-lazy hubs. Now I will take a shower-maybe that will be magical, too!!!!!!!!!!!111

Things that are irritating.

I've recently begun to experience what "normal" people feel when they are irritated. Pre-Meds, I would have a physical reaction to being irritated and fixate on it for days. Now, I just think, "Man, that's irritating." It's quite a breakthrough.

In honor of my new-found normalcy, I thought I'd list a few things that are irritating to me...

1. People who toss cigarette butts on the ground or out of the car window. This is littering in every possible way. There is no justification for it. Please stop.

2. Chronic lateness.

3. People who spell it "definately" rather than "definitely."

4. When people say "I wish I was." It's "I wish I were."

5. Errands

6. Dust

7. When old people say, "It's five o'clock somewhere."

8. Frat boys. Well, just the loud ones who remind me of after-school specials about date-rape.

9. Victory Nissan commercials. True Richmonders know what I mean.

10. Vanilla anything: candles, lotion, perfume, anything

11. French accents

12. How sweaters get those fuzzy, little pilly things on them

13. People misquoting movies in large groups when everyone is listening to them. If you're not absolutely sure that you've got it right (as in, you've looked it up on the internet), don't say it.

14. Pie crust

15. Children running around public places, subjecting us all to the choas to which their parents have become numb.

What about you?

So far so good

Today was day #2 out of 183, and I must say that I was pleasantly surprised. Either I was just super-together from the jumping off point, or I just have a good mix of kids. We were very nervous about the little ones that were coming up, but we're starting to think that they were just grouped really badly last year. Honestly, this was the best start to the school year that I have ever had. They came in today and hit the ground running. Keep your fingers crossed that we have a nice, solid, steady year.

!?!?!??!?!?

The Crocodile Hunter is dead.

Hooooo. I'm funny.

I saw this. But I would much rather have seen this:



Ohhhh, homophones. You so crazy.

It's that time again...

School starts on Monday. I didn't go in for our last day of teacher workweek because it's quite possible that I wouldn't be able to make it home. See, my school is surrounded by roads that all have very steep hills. The slightest bit of rain tends to wash those roads out. Personally, I don't want to be trapped at school for the holiday weekend.

It was a good workweek, overall. I like being busy, so it was a nice change from this summer. My room is all set up and beautiful, if I do say so myself (and I do). We have a new class pet. He's a hamster named Snooze. Snooze is very cute but he screeches when he gets nervous. Who new that hamsters could scream?

We had Back to School Night yesterday evening. I had a good turnout despite the rain. I met several parents who seem very nice and supportive. It should be an interesting year. I have a lot of kids who are said to be high maintenance and chatty. Hopefully I'll be able to break them of that habit pretty quickly. I just know that my room will have to be even more structured than usual to keep the kids on track.

We have two kids in 5th grade named Earl. Weird.

I'm really excited about the motto that my school has adopted. We are now officially a "Work Hard, Be Kind" school. The music teacher wrote an awesome song for the kids to learn. It involves clapping, drums, and different groups of kids singing different things at different time. She told me the word for that but I forgot. She taught the song to the teachers at our last staff meeting and I got to play a huge drum. A fourth grade teacher and I were in charge of chanting the background beat. I don't know why we got paired up because we kind of have a history of playing around A LOT, but we did a very good job and had so much fun. The teachers already love the song and I know the kids will flip out over the chaotic, yet rhythmic nature of it all. I mean, they get to sing really loudly. What kid doesn't like that?

I'll give updates as the school year gets started. I'm feeling really good about everything and I actually can't wait for all of the craziness to start!