Tomorrow Is Another Day...

Good Things

Last week was a whirlwind of events, and this week looks to be even crazier... followed by another busy week visiting my sister in NYC, then another busy week with multiple family members in town.  Fortunately, I had an incredibly low key weekend to recuperate and prepare myself for the onslaught.

But I'm really not complaining, because things have been going so much better than I thought possible.  We made our payments for our IVF cycle and my fertility medications, and much to our great shock, the total came to just a little over half of what we had budgeted.  Partially this is because we were initially planning on the multiple IVF cycle payment plan, so deciding to just go with the one cycle dropped our payments by about $5000.  Then there was the fantastic news that Tricare will cover part of the medication, dropping that payment about $2000 from our estimate.  Then, when we went to the clinic last week to sign some consents and get our finances in order, we were told that they had had a meeting with Tricare just the day before and the company had agreed to cover the $900 room fee.

It's funny how when you're preparing yourself for a bill in the five digits, a total in the four digits seems like pocket change in comparison.  I mean, a LOT of pockets full of change, but you know.  It softens the blow.

Still, we haven't quite cleared the financial obstacles ahead of us, so we aren't blowing our ravaged, but still intact nest egg on a round the world cruise or anything.  We hope against hope that we'll be one cycle wonders, but just in case we aren't, it's good to know that we've got a small buffer to help us through another cycle.

Then there's our beautiful, beloved Charleston home which we're planning to put on the market in mid-February.  We met with our realtors last week, and while they helped us feel a bit more optimistic that our house will sell fairly quickly, there's always the chance that we'll be responsible for two stateside mortgages as well as a steep deposit (usually one or two months rent) and rent payments in Germany.  But they seemed reasonably confident that we'll be able to at least get our money back on the house, and if we're lucky maybe a little more.

We've been spending each weekend for most of January going through each room of our house and making brutally difficult decisions about what will come to Germany, what will stay in storage in the US and what can go to consignment shops or Goodwill.  It's absolutely astounding the massive amount of stuff that accumulates with time.  We have only been here for two years and don't have an attic or a basement, so I honestly have no idea how all of this extra stuff has been floating around our house all this time.  But we are making progress, and I only have a few closets left to purge and plenty of time before the movers arrive.

I've also been working quite a bit, and still enjoying every minute of it.  I'm nannying four days a week, and with additional as-needed babysitting jobs, I'm typically working five or six days each week.  I'm very proud to say that with just a couple more weeks of work, I will have earned enough just from my jobs to cover our fertility meds.  The only regret I have is that I didn't get into this business a long time ago!

This week is full of more work, more home improvements, and lots of fun times with friends.  We've only got a little time left before our life changes dramatically in multiple ways, so I'm trying very hard to live each day to the fullest and not wish away the now in exchange for the unknown future.  Times they are a'changin'!

Poor Unfortunate Soul

It has been way too long since I blogged.  I've kept myself quite busy since my last post, and kept thinking, "I really must blog this," but now that I'm sitting down to write, I'm having trouble remembering all of the terribly interesting activities I've been getting up to.

Well, for one, I had my hysteroscopy last week, and the doctor removed a polyp from my uterus.  I'm proud to say that I have been polyp-free for four days now.  It was actually surprisingly painless, though I'm a little concerned that I may be a drug addict now.  My anesthesia was absolutely dreamy--literally, I had a wonderful dream having to do with a large Christmas tree and angels--and for 20 minutes I enjoyed the best sleep of my entire life.  I actually managed to wake up from anesthesia feeling remarkably rested.  Well, after it took 2 nurses to transport me from the procedure room to recovery.  For a minute there I felt more like I'd just downed three cosmos and a panty dropper than like I was recovering from minor surgery.
As a side-note, ever since I discovered that I may be rife with uterine polyps, I've been imagining that inside of me is a tiny reproduction of Ursula's garden of unfortunates in The Little Mermaid.  I imagined mine as a sort of greying, mustachioed little man--an unholy combination of a polyp and the Lorax.  I kind of miss him now that he's gone.

My parents were in town for the week, to ensure that I did not have any sort of anesthesia related emergencies, not the least of which included perusing the underbelly of Craigslist for enterprising doctors who may be convinced to ply me with a steady drip of propofol on a nightly basis.  They kept mentioning Michael Jackson.  I got the message loud and clear.

When we weren't spending quality family time at the fertility clinic, we managed to have a little fun out on the town.  They treated me to a mouth-wateringly delicious anniversary dinner at Hall's Chophouse in downtown Charleston, my mom and I spent a day knocking out our Christmas lists, and we even squeezed in a matinee of The Muppets.  I still tear up when I think about The Rainbow Connection number, though that may have still been the remnants of drugs giving me such a warm, glowy feeling.

They headed home on Friday, and I spent the weekend recovering from all of my non-hermit behavior with a full DVR and a new book.  I even managed to squeeze in a little money-making, babysitting for a new family with three adorable kids.

All in all, it's been a good few weeks, and my mood has been, for the most part, pretty elevated.  I feel like I've finally gotten into my deployment groove, and have somewhat acclimated to my routine of single spousehood.  Obviously, I really wish that Colby could be here for all of the holidays and, well, everything, but I'm in a pretty good place, and it seems like time is going by a little more quickly now than it did a few weeks ago.  I've still got plenty to keep me busy with my favorite hobby of uselessly stressing and fretting, but at least now when I cry I generally have a pretty good reason!

Workaholic

I've never been much of a go-getter when it comes to career aspirations.  Mainly because I've never quite figured out what sort of career actually appeals to me.  Well, scratch that, I find the prospect of being an author quite appealing, but we can all see how well that's going.

When I've had a job, I've done my best and worked my hardest to do it well, but ultimately, money was the only reason I was working, not any sense of personal satisfaction.  I wanted to have the means to do the things I like to do--go out to incredible restaurants, travel, go shopping, own pets, maintain a home that I love.  When it became apparent that we could afford to do all of those things as well as funnel money into savings and investments, I immediately became much less motivated to spend my days earning a paycheck.  I don't think that made me worthless to society--I diverted the energy I'd spent in a meaningless office job or exhausting myself wrangling kids into a graduate school, keeping our house clean and organized, improving my health through fitness and a better diet with healthier home cooked meals, and appreciated the flexibility I had to spend time with Colby when he was home.

Then came the IVF bomb, and the knowledge that our financial landscape was going to change drastically for the forseeable future.  We created a savings plan, part of which was that I would go back to earning a paycheck to soften the multi-thousand dollar blow.  My foray into babysitting has gone better than I ever could have hoped.  It's been less than three weeks since I started working, and I'm aready about one third of my way to the five month earning goal I set for myself.  I don't think that's an entirely sustainable pace, but I'm excited to be off to a stellar start.

What this is all leading up to is how my attitude toward working has changed.  I am motivated to work, not only for the paycheck, but for what that paycheck represents beyond money in the bank.  Each dollar I earn gets me closer to having a baby.  Each extra dollar that we make over our goal is second or third round of medications, an adorable crib with the perfect bedding, a precious onesie, or maybe even a second crib.

I've become entirely fixated on finding hours to work and cutting costs where ever possible.  If I'm not working, I'm scouring postings to find a job and applying to positions.  In the past, I've jetted off to visit friends or family without much thought to the cost, but when it became evident that one of the trips I had planned for the upcoming months was going to be far outside of our budget, I had to make the incredibly difficult decision to cancel.  It was hard because I am so heartbroken not to be able to visit a friend that I haven't seen in over a year, but I knew in my broken heart that it was ultimately the right decision and will get us that much closer to our goal.

I made plans to go home for three weeks over the holidays, and recently the thought of going three weeks without a job has given me severe anxiety.  But then I was offered an incredible babysitting opportunity in South Carolina for the week of New Year's, and I simply can't pass it up.  The old Angela would never have cut a vacation short and agreed to working over the holidays, but the new Angela sees it as just another step in the right direction.  The opportunity to breathe a little easier, and feel a little more financially stable.

It doesn't hurt that I'm incredibly competitive--even with myself--and when I set a goal, I feel reasonably certain I will die if I don't achieve it.

In other news, I went to see Breaking Dawn on Sunday, and it fulfilled my comedy quotient for the week.  Seriously, those telepathic werewolves.  Doesn't get much funnier than that.  I think the film's greatest achievement was how seamlessly it was able to transition from incredibly cheesy to incredibly boring to incredibly disgusting.  Well done, indeed!  The vampire baby was cute though.  Spoiler alert.

Ups and Downs: The I'm Still Here Edition!

Down: Clearly I abandoned NaBloPoMo.  I was all excited to participate, because when I did it a few years ago, I found lots of fun blogs and got some extra readers round these parts.  Sadly, this time it just feels incredibly impersonal, and I've had all of ONE hit from the extensive list of over 2000 participants.  I've also been feeling like blogging has been a "job" and I always promised myself that I'd never allow that to happen.  Blogging should be footloose and fancy free.  Unless someone starts paying me.  Anyone?  Bueller?
Up: That doesn't mean I've given up blogging altogether, just that I shan't be clogging up your Reader/Facebook/Twitter feed every bloody day.  I think we can all toast to that!

Down: Colby and I have had really rotten luck with the phones since he deployed.  He's been gone for just over three weeks now, and we've only managed to have one successful phone conversation.
Up: At least we got one phone call!  I try to remember how lucky we are to have all of the methods of communication that we do have available to us, and how much harder it would have been in the days of only being able to write a letter to the last known address and hoping it got there.  We got to talk for about 30 minutes on Wednesday, and it was glorious!  Here's hoping the internet continues to cooperate and we can do that again before another 3 weeks goes by.

Down: I've been so busy, I've really been letting the house go instead of sticking to my daily housekeeping chores.  I had some time to get things together today, but I've got a ways to go before my parents get in town on Monday.
Up: I've been so busy!  And my parents will be here in three days!  It really is amazing how much faster the time goes by when I'm not sitting around feeling sorry for myself.  Instead, I've been babysitting almost every day, spending time with friends, squeezing in lots of runs, and working on my Thanksgiving and Christmas to-do lists--I even made room in the budget (because I bought the tickets a month ago before there WAS a budget) to go see the national tour of In The Heights.  It made me wish I was a super sexy Latina!

Only Up!: Speaking of Thanksgiving, I'm SO excited to be hosting the big dinner at my house next week!  My parents will be in town and a few of my "single spouse" friends will be coming over with their kids to help us celebrate and feast!  I'll be talking more about my Turkey Day plans next week, but for now I need to hit the road for a seven mile run (hold me) and gear up for a working weekend.  Hasta luego mis amigos!

Adventures in Babysitting

We all knew it was only a matter of time before I whipped that title out, right?

Anyway, I have been officially (or unofficially if you work for the IRS) employed as a babysitter for one week, and already, I've had a veritable roller coaster of ups and downs.  Overall, though I am absolutely loving this, and wondering why it took me so long to realize that babysitting is a perfect fit for me.

It combines my love of children, flexibility, and money, and all of my favorite parts about working in a before and after school child care program with none of its drawbacks.  I literally play games and cuddle babies.  For a living.  And being that we're talking about a ratio of 1:1 or 1:2 instead of 1:15, I spend much less time dealing with discipline issues.  The best part?  If I really end up disliking a bratty kid or a parent, all I have to do is tell them I'm busy every time they call. Brilliant!

So far, my client list includes two friends kind enough to hire me on a few occasions, one regular nannying job for an infant and toddler sibling set, three families who have interviewed me and said they will schedule occasional jobs, and a sitting service based out of Charlotte that organizes child care for group events in the Carolinas.  Since November 2nd I've managed to rack up 32 hours of work.  I don't think I'll be able to aquire that many hours on a regular basis, but I definitely feel like I'm off to a good start.

Of course, not everything has been perfect.  This weekend I was hired to work for the service I mentioned earlier--the same one that gave me 15 hours of work last weekend.  I showed up at the hotel where the conference was being held at the appointed time, and there was no one else around.  I found the room full of toys, labeled with the name of the conference, so I knew I was in the right place, but after 30 minutes of waiting and an unanswered phone call to the organizer, I grumpily headed back to my car and returned home.

Later that night, I got an email from the service saying that they apologized, but a lot of families had cancelled so they wouldn't need my services on Sunday.  In a wine-fueled fit of frustration, I wrote a strongly worded (though even upon sober review, respectful and firm) email detailing my disappointment in how this job had been handled.  Of course, they were also offering another 13 hours of work for next weekend, so I kindly asked to please be signed up for that.  I might be annoyed, but the money is still good and I've got a baby to buy.  While I was out for my run last evening, I received a very apologetic voicemail from the organizer of the event asking me to call her back so that she could talk to me.  So we'll see how that goes when I call her back later today.

But as for the good parts, I'm so excited about my weekly gig hanging out for a few hours twice a week with a teensy infant--seriously teensy, he's only 3 weeks old--and his precious two-year-old sister.  The little girl is super well behaved and so easy to entertain, and the baby is just... oh, be still my heart.  I was a little worried that working with an infant would be hard on me, but instead I find myself looking forward to my time with him, and spoiling him rotten with cuddles and hugs any time he opens his mouth to bleat.  I spent an hour last Thursday with the little girl playing on the floor at my feet, the baby sleeping on my chest, and the Muppets on television.  Heaven.

So anyway, that's a whole lot of words to say, in a nutshell, there are certainly some downsides to working a job with no set or guaranteed hours, but I'm so in love with what I'm doing, and it's incredible to have a job that I actually look forward to!  And babies!!  GAH!!!

What Goes Down Must Come Up

Down: It has been an incredibly long week since Colby left, and I still have moments where I just want to stop whatever it is I'm doing and throw a good, loud tantrum.
Up: We're one week into this and that's one week less to get through.

Down: Colby's internet connection in Overtheristan is complete crap making it impossible for us to carry on a phone conversation over Skype.
Up: I finally figured out how to use the Skype app on my cell phone, so we're able to use the chat option like text messaging.  It's nice to not feel chained to my computer in order to hear from him.

Down: I left quite possibly the most embarrassing voicemail in my history of embarrassing voicemails for a propsective babysitting client.  I managed to 1) say "um" about seventeen times 2) refer to the two children of unknown gender who I would be watching as "her son" 3) sound as though I were about to hang up before launching into a whole new series of ridiculous sentences and 4) forget to say anything along the lines of "goodbye" before hanging up the phone and launching it across the room in sheer terror.
Up:  She called me back.  And I've got three other parent meetings set up for this weekend and early next week, as well as a job that will give me 15 hours over the course of Friday evening and Saturday.  Woo!

Down: On my Tuesday run, my knee started to feel twingy around mile two.  I kept running, and the pain was gone by the time I got home.  But then it started throbbing while I was in the shower, and has been sore ever since.  I've been scared to run on it, and tried wearing a brace yesterday, but the brace just hurt even more.  The pain has abated, so hopefully this is just a one off incident and I'll be back in business for my run today.
Up: My runs have been getting much better and are verging on enjoyable.  I've also been working on improving my speed, and am so close to getting my pace under 10 minutes, I can taste it!

Down: It's been about seven years in internet time since the new Facebook was released, and I still hate it.  There are so many posts from people I love that I never get to see, and while I used to get tons of hits and interaction on my blog from friends, now I get about 20-30 click throughs a day.
Up: I'm spending a lot less time on Facebook these days! 

What are your ups and downs this week?  I hope the ups are vastly outweighing the downs!

Off To A Good Start

I decided to begin this deployment as I mean to go on.  No... not crying alone in my car.  Not inhaling an entire carton of Pringles and a bag of Twizzlers in one sitting...  Maybe let's just not actually take Thursday into account at all.  But from Friday on, I was bound and determined to have a Good Weekend.

I kicked things off on Friday evening with a girls' night at a friend's house.  We ate tons of junk food, played corn hole in the dark (I still don't fully grasp that game), watched YouTube videos, and generally just helped take each others' minds off the fresh absence of our husbands.  I had intended to spend the night, but around 2 in the morning, I felt an overwhelming wave of homesickness and just wanted to be at my house.  Fortunately, I didn't have to call my mom to come pick me up--being 28 is SO much better than being six!

Saturday, I got the house in order, went for a four mile run, and made a sizeable dent in our DVR backlog.  Then, yesterday, I tried out Barsa, a tapas restaurant downtown, with a friend.  We've both been facing a lot of the same obstacles over this past year, so it's always nice to hang out and know that the other person just "gets it".  Also, the drinks and food were delicious!  I was thrilled to see "Pisco Disco" on the cocktail menu.  When I had my bachelorette weekend in New York many moons ago, we went to a swanky club where we ordered and subsequently fell in love with, Pisco Punch.  It's not a liquor I see on a menu often, but when I do I always try it out and bask in the fond memories.

I also uploaded a profile to a couple of babysitting sites, and have even booked a couple of jobs with a friend!  I'm really focused on trying to make some money over this deployment to put toward our Baby Buying Fund, and I like that with babysitting I can still retain some flexibility and make about the same hourly wage (if not more, which is pretty sad) than I would in many local office and childcare jobs.  Hopefully the jobs start trickling in soon.

This upcoming week is also pretty full, and I'm looking forward to brushing off the Alice in Wonderland costume for some Trick or Treating at the Outlets this afternoon!  Happy Halloween!!

Where Do I Begin?

Hiiiii!!!  I'm back!!!  What?  You didn't notice I was gone?  Well, hmph.

*****

We whisked ourselves away for a week in Louisiana, driving from one end of the state to the other, visiting both of our parents, various friends, and even squeezing in a wedding.  I'll do a more thorough recap soon, but I just had to write a crap post to get myself back in the habit of blogging.

*****

I've been training (somewhat half-heartedly) for a 10K, working diligently on my 30 Before 30 list, and trying to decide if I want to start doing work in exchange for money on a part time basis.  Running is so boring.

*****

I hate the day after returning home from a vacation.  Piles of laundry are overtaking my front room.  I have a million errands to run and can't do any of them because I have a flat tire.  I've got loads of blogs to catch up on.  My DVR is overwhelming me with options.  I can't even count as high as the scary number on my Google Reader.  So, I think I'm just going to go sit on the porch and stare blankly at birds.

*****

I don't even have any pictures downloaded off of our cameras to attempt making this just moderately engagaging.  Close your eyes, imagine me feeding a giraffe.  Isn't that CHARMING!!!

Oh, What A Beautiful Weekend!

Have I ever shared my theory about how much nicer the world would be if everyone just worked slightly longer days four times a week, and the weekend was three days?  I mean, I don't really care--there is very little difference between a week day and a weekend when you are a super hard-working stay-at-home-wife (This house doesn't clean itself!  I got an email about what a stay-at-home-mom's salary should be, so I estimate my take-home should be about 75% of that four trillion dollars or whatever).  IRREGARDLESS, it makes such a big difference to Colby's level of happiness and relaxation, and by extension, MY happiness and relaxation.  Anyway, this is my way of announcing that I will be running for President in 2012 on the platform of 3-day-weekends.  Voting is sexy!

So yes, we had a three-day weekend, and it was indeed splendid.  One of my very lovely, talented friends gave birth to her second equally lovely and talented child last week, and Colby and I were immediately pulled in by the tractor beam of adorableness.  We met the little princess when she was just one day old, and the tiniest, brand-newest baby I have ever held in my quivering arms.  I was terrified I was going to crush the little bundle of delicious baby, but still managed to fall totally in love.  We brought dinner over on the 4 day anniversary of the baby's birth, and it was amazing how much she had filled out in just those few days.  She was still as delicate as an expensive brazier, but riding the wave of confidence based on the success from our first day together, I was less afraid of crushing her and could focus all of my energy on not dropping her.

Sunday, we got together with our friends who moved here from Washington at the same time we did, and headed downtown to celebrate the fact that no one had to wake up early the next morning to go to work, whether that be in an office or in the kitchen washing dishes from the night before, BECAUSE THAT IS WORK TOO YOU KNOW.  So, we went to Amen Street, and enjoyed the 3 for $30 menu.  The shecrab soup was one of the best I've had, but sadly, I was not a fan of the shrimp and grits.  Things ended on a happy note with the chocolate terrine, a delicious mousse-like flourless chocolate cake with cream and blackberries.

Monday was a bit more low-key as the weather was gloomy, and we weren't inspired to actually get dressed.  Colby, the handyman, whipped together some sturdy wooden shelves in some dead space in our garage and WALAH, instant storage for all of our Christmas crap that was slowly taking over our entire second floor.

So, now it is Tuesday, which feels like Monday and the week will creep by slowly because everyone always expects a four-day week to be short, but they never are.  Unless the four days are Monday-Thursday.  This is my theory based on science.  And why I will specify in all of my Presidential race debates that the weekend will begin on Thursday evening and go through Sunday.  So, Mondays will still suck.  But that's as it should be.

Ennui

Every night is like the opening scene to Bridget Jones Diary around here these days.  Messy hair, pajamas, bottle of wine, yes sometimes there's even some random singing, much to Jack's chagrin and Ellie's embarrassment.  She is such a teenager.

I didn't realize how accustomed I had become to Colby being around after we spent 37 whole days together during the holidays and the move.  That might be an all-time record.  Now that he's been gone for ten days, I feel like it's been at least half a millenium.  I'm sticking with my plan of getting out of the house on a regular basis, but it has been a few days and I'm starting to go a little stir crazy.  Now that it's not so bloody cold outside, I think I'll take the dogs on a walk to explore the neighborhood just so I can see something other than the inside of the refrigerator.

I've been applying for jobs, but so far the only responses I've received are suspiciously spammy in nature.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's weird to require a credit report to be run prior to scheduling a job interview, yes?  I'm supposed to start back at school at the beginning of March, which I think will give me a much needed sense of direction, but until then, I'm left to my own devices.

I did find a book club to join, but won't have time to finish the book before the first meeting, so I'll be starting in February.  It's at a wine shop.  Is that not the most perfect marriage of entertainments?  I also found a tea group on meet-up.com, but it doesn't appear that they've had any actual meet-ups yet, so I don't know if that will pan out.

I feel a bit like I'm just twisting in the wind though.  I'm running out of projects around the house that I feel comfortable doing on my own, so I'm sort of in a holding pattern there.  I should really start back running or resume my meetings with Jillian Michaels, but I'm in that pre-working out phase before you've established a routine where you just can't convince yourself to put on a pair of tennis shoes and get to it.  That and my tennis shoes hurt my feet.

Ah well, it could be worse.  I know Colby will be home for at least a little while in just three weeks, so it's not as bad as it could be.  I mean, he could be gone for four months over the summer and fall!  Oh wait, he will be...  Back to our regularly scheduled Shiraz and chick flicks.

Tormented by Timing

Timing is everything these days.  Two weeks left in our house.  Less than a month left in Washington.  One month until we visit our families for the holidays.  A month and a half until we close on our new house.  And that's just the moving related timing.

Lately I've been starting to think very hard about the future.  As my life is currently scheduled out, I will take the next term off of school to deal with the move.  I was hoping to return to class in January, but because I get a reduced military tuition, I have to take off the entire term, meaning I won't return until March.  That will put me finishing classes at the end of August, and *hopefully* beginning my 16-week student teaching period from September through December of next year.

At which point I will begin looking for an actual teaching job.  In a county that just laid off all of its first-year teachers and is now hiring back RIF-ed teachers and those laid off first year teachers before even looking at any outside applicants.  In a county that is not even currently in need of substitute teachers.

If I am *lucky* I'll be able to find a teaching job for the 2011/2012 school year.  At which point I will be just months away from turning twenty-nine.

And let me let you in on a little secret.  I've been thinking a lot about babies lately.  And I don't think I'm the only one in my household whose mind has edged a little closer to that track.  Am I ready to start popping out infants the moment we get to Charleston?  No.  But am I thinking it's a little unlikely that I'll actually want to hold out another 4 years or so until we're settled into our next assignment?  Yes.

Another factoid that is less than a secret is that I have no desire to be a working mother.  I place absolutely no judgment on those who ARE working mothers, and in fact I appreciate their decision at least in part for the fact that it's currently keeping me in a job.  But I've worked in daycares off and on for my whole life.  They can be really wonderful environments for a child, but that's just not how I want my child raised.  We're lucky enough that Colby's job could support a family independently, so it is my hope that I can be home with our children.

But are we seeing how the time lines are starting to get a little mangled at this point?  If I finish school and start teaching in the fall of 2011, that's right around the time that I'm starting to think I may want to get pregnant.  And so I sit here wondering, have I just thrown away all of this money on my education?  Is it the right thing to continue spending thousands of dollars on a Masters degree that, it is beginning to look highly likely at this point, I'll never get to use?

I honestly don't know what to do.  There's a big part of me that feels completely disappointed in myself.  Why did I wait so long to pursue my teaching dreams?  Why can't I be a more modern gal and be okay with the idea of working and raising a family?  If I don't stay in school, what the hell am I going to do with myself for the next few years until I actually manufacture a child?  Am I just being a giant quitter?  I have no idea.

I've got just over three months to figure this out, and if the speed at which the past three months have flown by is any indication, that is no time at all.  Maybe it's time to pull out that Magic 8 Ball?

Fallness

I don't think that Washington is aware of the fact that it is now Fall.  Shhhh.  Let's just keep that fact between you and me.  I remember once upon a time in a land of endless summer, wishing desperately for just one day below 70 degrees so that I could wear my sweaters, jackets and boots at least a couple of times over the course of the year.  Oh, how the tables have turned!  I'm sure by next year I'll be back to praying for a couple of cold snaps around September.  But for now, I am perfectly happy with our sunny 80 degree Washington days

Would you like to know what else I am happy with?  All of those other lovely Fall events.  School is back in session which means I am making money.  With that money, I can once more afford new sweaters!  With those sweaters, I can go to exciting Fall festivals, like Oktoberfest in a tiny, Bavarian-themed Oregon town.  At that Oktoberfest I can drink overpriced wine and learn to polka!

Yes folks, I have learned to polka and I nearly died trying.  You try hopping from foot to foot at a frantic pace as a German gent in leiderhosen flings you around a dance floor.  You will probably die trying too.  But at least it would be a pretty enjoyable way to go.  Seriously, how did the polka go out of fashion, let's bring it back!  And the Charleston too while we're at it--I think it would be rather precious to dance the Charleston in Charleston, don't you?

Oh, and also, Fall television?  I welcome you back with open arms.  There are so many shows that I am L-O-V-I-N-G right now.  I'll have to do a run down once I get my schedule fully set.  I'm still on a trial period with some of the newer shows, but let's just say that Glee and Community have nothing to worry about.

This is kind of all over the place, isn't it?  I'll be honest, I'm blogging because I can't think of a concluding paragraph for a paper that I have to turn in tonight.  And next I'll probably watch Glee, then sometime around 11:30 pm, I'll bang out 75-100 words in random order and call it a day.  Hey, at least it wasn't another Hawaii post, right?

Oh Frabjous Day, Callooh Callay

Look at me, being all positive despite adversity.  Rise above and all that.

Obviously, lots of fantastic things have happened lately.  Hawaii was smashingly fun, and I'd definitely do that again.  Then over the Labor Day weekend, we had some college friends come in town for the LSU v UW game.  We had a great time showing them the sights of Seattle and Tacoma, eating ourselves half to death, and of course watching the Tigers beat up on some Huskies. 

It was actually kind of hilarious--I think we managed to frighten and overwhelm a large number of Seattleites as 10,000+ LSU fans crashed into their city and turned it upside down.  I couldn't help but laugh as we walked through Pike Place Market on Friday and heard the mellifluous tones of Southern accents on every corner, LSU flags and stickers flying proudly from cars on the street, and I don't think I've ever heard any zydeco in Seattle until this past weekend.  The natives seemed a bit bemused by the influx, and we were asked on more than one occasion if we were here for some kind of conference organized by the university.

Um, yes.  It's a conference on a large grassy field upon which we take turns throwing a strangely shaped ball and ultimately defeat you.  It's lots of fun.

But there have been some other less thrilling events that have taken place over the past few weeks/days.  First, our offense is decent, but our defense is deplorable.  Then, I found out that the amazing opportunity I had at work to move to a closer site had fallen through when not enough kids were signed up for the before and after program at the school.  And my old site had already filled my vacated position.  And being that I'm moving in a little over three months, it wouldn't really make sense for me to start at a new site anyway.  So, I was offered a position subbing, which is better than nothing, but not the income we were hoping to be able to save for moving costs.

Still, things were looking up when I got a call to sub at a site both yesterday and today--I started to think maybe I actually will be able to get some hours!  So, I got all dressed to go, grabbed my name tag and a granola bar, went to start my car and... nothing.  Nothing but a click, click, click... whine...  Sigh.  So, I called my boss and apologized profusely about the fact that there was no way I could get to work in the next 20 minutes and instead of making money, we're going to be shelling out money to have God knows what on my car fixed.  And I'm stuck at home.  Not that I necessarily wanted to go anywhere mind you, but I don't like feeling stuck.

And on top of all that, I'm having the worst time getting my car signed over to Colby's name so that we can legally register it in Louisiana and not have to worry about changing it every time we move.  I thought I'd taken care of everything I needed to and was ready to go to court to argue my case, and then, I suppose unsurprisingly, the form that we paid a notary twenty bucks to fill out was filled out wrong.

So, there's that.  But to console myself I've taken to scouring realtor.com and reading Charleston message boards and dreaming of a life in the South where nothing ever goes wrong, money grows on trees, and the streets are paved in gold.  Maybe I could be a notary... twenty dollars for 10 minutes of work and a fancy stamp?  Not bad.

The Palmetto State

So much has happened in the past few weeks, I hardly know where to begin. I know when a blogger that I read doesn’t update for a while, I sort of lose track of them and when they “come back to life” it’s always a little surprising that they were off living their life without my knowledge. And yet, life does go on away from the blogosphere, and mine has been a whirlwind of late.

It all started about two weeks ago when Colby came home and delivered the news that we had finally gotten our next assignment, and in less than six months we’ll be calling another part of the country home. In the words of Rhett Butler, “I’m going back to dignity and grace. I’m going back to Charleston, where I belong.”

We’re hoping to leave Washington in mid-December, head down south through Oregon and California, hit I-10 East, be home for Christmas and then continue on to our new home. It’s still a little surreal, and I’m unsure as to how this will go over with my company since I’m supposed to be starting back to work in September and now will need to be terminating employment in just a few more months…. but overall, I’m beyond thrilled to be moving to Charleston. It was our first choice, and I think I’ll feel much more comfortable and happy back in the land of crawfish, SEC football, and Spanish moss.

The next week was filled with touring as Colby’s parents came in town and we nearly killed ourselves driving to the far reaches of the region from the Oregon coast, to the Fremont/Ballard areas of Seattle, and Friday Harbor in the San Juan islands. We packed all of that and more into their five-day visit, and I also scrambled to finish three weeks worth of school in one so that I could go on vacation without making time for homework every night. My in-laws left on August 5th and we had that one day to run all of our errands, finish last minute chores, and throw some swimsuits into our suitcases before our 8:15 am flight out of Seattle on August 6th for HAWAII!!!

And that’s where I’m reporting to you from now. I’ve got tons of material to write about from our time in Kauai, but I think I will save that for a later post. Always leave ‘em wanting more, right?  We’re sitting at the airport and boarding for our flight to Oahu in about 10 minutes, so right now I need to put away my computer and start praying for the remnants of Tropical Depression Felicia to give us a break so that our beautiful 20 minute flight doesn’t turn into an Oceanic Flight 815 kind of experience…

The Fun, The Funner, and The Unfun

So, yeah, not working pretty much rocks my freaking socks off.  I love being able to keep the house clean.  I love being able to keep up with our laundry--actually folding clothes after washing them, what a novel concept!  I love not being too tired to meet up with friends in the evening and being home when Colby has a short day at work and can leave early.  I love having time to run errands and fit in running and shredding.  I can't tell you how fabulous it is to be able to do my homework during the week so that I have my weekends free, and I've actually been WRITING!  I haven't worked on my book in almost a year, and I've renewed my interest in it and am thinking of it constantly.

I can say with complete honesty that I'm not the least bit bored, I don't feel remotely unfulfilled, and I don't have any weird hangups about being a stay at home wife--at least for the summer.  Plus, Colby still cooks dinner, so what's not to love?

Buuuuuut.  And there's always a but.  Part of the deal when Colby agreed that I wouldn't have to work this summer was that I wouldn't buy any new clothes or shoes until I went back to work.  To tell the truth, I made that promise just as much to break my shopping addiction as I did to save money.  I have more than enough clothes and no one really needs more than sixty pairs of shoes in their closet, so I'm planning to spend the summer rediscovering outfits and shopping in my closet instead of Banana Republic.

When I get bored, instead of pulling up one of my favorite shopping websites, I blog or I write or I take my book outside and read in the absolutely gorgeous weather we've been having lately.  I feel like it's a win-win situation--plus I don't have to buy hangers every time I go to Target anymore!

Tomorrow the fun will be tempered by my very first EVER experience with jury duty.  I guess I didn't really understand how jury duty worked.  I thought you got called for one or two days and that was it, unless you got put on a jury.  But no, in my lovely little town, I've been called for five separate days over the course of July, one of which is a day that I won't even be in town.  I wrote them a letter a couple of weeks ago, requesting to be excused on that day due to my previously made vacation plans, but I haven't heard anything back. I'm going to ask about it tomorrow, but I'm just imagining them issuing a warrant for my arrest while I'm gallivanting around Montana, and a brigade of policemen waiting for my return to Seatac to put me in handcuffs.

But seriously, I paid an arm and a leg for a non-refundable ticket to middle of nowhere Montana before I got my jury duty dates, so they can't really expect me to just not go?  Right?  Right????

And then, you may have noticed that the month of June went by without any word of assingment notifications like we had been previously told to expect.  I'm a little bummed that it's looking like we'll be spending another summer in the great Northwest, but mostly irritated because now who knows how long I have left to wonder about where the future will take us?  I wish I was a more go-with-the-flow kind of person...

Anyway, today I'm gearing up for a four mile run, then meeting Lori for coffee so I can pick up tickets for our really fun 3rd of July event, and then heading over to another friend's house for our weekly So You Think You Can Dance date.  I'm going to try to put all of the stress out of my mind, focus on my fun and relaxing summer that is going by all too quickly, and enjoy the fantastic weather!  Key word there being: "try".

Lessons Learned

I've had a lot of jobs in my lifetime... hostess at an Italian restaurant, administrative assistant in an oil marketers lobbying association, Air Force officer, office manager at a technical marketing firm, and most recently child care assistant and then child care director.  I think I've learned something from every single one of those jobs that has contributed to the person I am today, but no other job has opened my eyes and taught me more about myself and who I want to be than working with children.

Like most pre-teen and teenage girls, I spent most of my middle and high school years with pretty steady work as a babysitter.  I knew I liked working with kids, and that combined with my love of teacher's manuals and roll books plus bossing my sister around while playing school were the main reasons I decided on teaching as the next step in my life.  I wouldn't say I went into that decision naively, but I certainly think I had a rather rosy view of the teaching profession.  I haven't changed my mind about teaching, but I have had a lot of revelations about what kind of teacher I want to be and what exactly teaching IS over the past year.  And I'm not even officially a teacher yet--I can't even imagine the "lessons learned" I'll have after my first year of teaching.  So, here is my not all-inclusive, but fairly comprehensive list of this I've learned about being:

A Teacher

• Your primary job is babysitting and discipline.
• It's a major plus if you manage to squeeze in a little education.
• A child will scream and cry and curse you and your family, then ten minutes later be your best friend again.
• Gratitude comes rarely--appreciate it when you get some.
• Nine year olds today are getting into the kind of trouble middle schoolers did in my day.  Don't ever underestimate what kind of mischief or far more serious trouble a child can make just because he or she has an angel face.
• Your biggest battle, far more treacherous than managing a classroom, will be dealing with parents.
• Try to form good relationships with the parents regardless, but don't beat yourself up if there's one that refuses to cooperate.  Usually, it's not really about you, but you make an excellent scapegoat.
• Whining.  Complaining.  Lying.  Tattling.  Get used to it.

A Parent

• No one else thinks your kid is as cute, lovable and perfect as you do.
• When multiple child care givers have the same problems repeatedly with your kid, they're probably not making it up.
• Kids lie.  They exaggerate.  They manipulate.  Get a clue.

A Child Care Giver

• It is highly likely that you are the person that a child spends more time with than anyone else outside of school--including their parents.  Whether you know it of not, you are making a difference in their life.  Try to make it a positive one.

The Good Life

School's out for summer!  School's out forever!!

Okay, well, not forever, but until September 2nd anyway, which is good enough for me.  If it was out forever, I'd have to seriously reassess my education and career plans.

Our last day of before and after school care was last Thursday, and it was... strange.  As I was cleaning up the stage where we have our care and watching the kids slowly trickle out the door for the last time this year, I actually felt a little sad.  It's funny, as horribly as they behaved sometimes, as absolutely insane as they drove me, as completely tired as I was of conversations on an elementary school level--I still managed to form an attachment to those kids.  Some of them I even really, really liked, and actively miss.  It was a surprising realization.  Like Stockholm Syndrome for non-captives.

Anyway, I am now a lady of leisure for the next 10 1/2 weeks, and I plan on enjoying the hell out of them while they last.  Is it just me, or is that an unusually short summer?  I feel like in the South our summers were a few weeks longer, but maybe that's just my imagination.  It would also reinforce the stereotype of the dumb Southern hick that I hate so much, so maybe we just shouldn't discuss it any further.

I spent my first three days of freedom in mostly bliss, with a little homework thrown in just as a reminder that life is inherently not fun, and I shouldn't get too caught up in the enjoyment.  On Friday, I caught up on all the sleep that I'd been missing over the past 10 months, then after a little 30 Day Shred action, got myself all gussied up for Rent at the Paramount in Seattle.

Let me tell you, as much as I ADORE Wicked (and you know I do), seeing Rent with the original Mark and Roger MIGHT have been the coolest theater experience I've ever had.  It was so amazing to hear the same voices that I listen to on my soundtrack, and see the people who made those characters into real people for millions of fans.  Not to mention the rest of the cast was absolutely incredible, and yes, I cried my eyes out at the end.  I really wanted to haunt the stage door and wait for Adam and Anthony to come out, but Colby had to wake up to leave for a trip at 3:30 am the next morning, and the show didn't get out until 11 pm, so we headed home for some sleep.

Sunday was a pretty dull day of homework and catching up on BBC costume dramas, but Saturday, I went to support a friend who was taking part in a Crossfit challenge (um, completely insane), and she ended up not competing, but we cheered on a group of competitors nonetheless.  And it was probably a good thing she didn't, because after that experience, I think she would have been dead on her feet and unable to participate in our POLE DANCING CLASS that afternoon! 

Oh yes, indeedy.  I am well on my way to changing my name to Bambi and installing a spinning pole in our loft.  Ostensibly, pole dancing is a good workout, and I can tell you that my arms and back were feeling it yesterday, but let's be honest here, this is really just a fun way to hang out with gal pals and figure out how to feel a little sexy without busting out laughing at myself!  We spent most of our time on Saturday learning the basics on the pole, but did eventually get ourselves in the air and spinning toward the end of class.  Get your dollar bills ready pals, because I am once more rethinking my career goals!

*Tap Tap*

I swear, I have not forgotten about my blog.  In fact, I think of multiple blog ideas per day, and am constantly composing epic posts in my brain while refereeing kickball games at school, gasping through a run, cursing Jillian Michaels, or trying to fall asleep at night.  I just cannot seem to find the time to both live my life and actually write those posts down.

Times like these, I really miss the days when I filled endless hours sitting at a boring job with this darling blogging hobby.  I got paid a lot more then too.  Man, what was I thinking quitting that gig?  Oh, right, that I needed to find something more meaningful to do with my life.  But really, what is so wrong with meaninglessness!  Front desk girls are important in their own coffee providing, package signing, office organizing way!

Anyway, right now my life consists of: work, sleep, school, eating, trying to maintain some semblance of a social life, and from time to time, working out.  In exactly one week, work will be gone from that equation, which should give me an extra 40+ hours per week to dedicate to blogging and other amusements for the summer.

Until then, let it be known, I am buying not one, but two pairs of Crocs today.  Truth.  Commence with the hurling of stones in my general direction.

Little Miracles

Let me tell you.  I have not felt this happy about life since... last summer!  Actually, that's not even true, because last summer is when Colby left for four and a half months, so though I was not in the depths of despair the entire season, I don't think I was as happy as I've been lately.

Thing the First:

I don't think I have a black thumb!  I don't think I have a green thumb either, but I finally decided to throw caution to the wind and attempt this whole gardening thing I keep hearing about.  I was tired of admiring and coveting beautiful front lawns in our neighborhood and then coming back to our ratty little contractor planted garden, so last weekend we hit up the farmers market and Home Depot and came away with a bountiful crop of fleurs.  I want to show you just how beautiful they are before they all shrivel up and die, but alas, my camera is currently lacking any picture taking abilities and Colby is off gallivanting in some far flung corner or the world (also known as the East Coast) with our schmancy camera.  So, I will tell you them.  Thus far, I have managed to not kill the following:

• 3 rhododendrons of varying colors-- light pink, bright pink, and cream with pink "highlights"
• 1 fuschia
• 1 potted red dragon tree in its infancy
• 3 tiny terracotta pots of some such flowers that I got in the $1 bin at Target and am growing from seeds
• 2 toddler lilacs, henceforth known as Lila and Lacy
• 1 herb garden consisting of sweet basil, lemon basil, pesto basil, mint julep, chocolate mint, lemon thyme, and rosemary, and an ivy, which I realize is not an herb, but does look awfully pretty amidst the more edible plants
• 4 African daisies
• 3 Asiatic lilies

Of course, it's only been a week, so feel free to make a pool placing bets on what actually makes it through the season.  I'll work on pictures in the near future, because I don't feel that a flower post is nearly as enjoyable without them.

Thing the Second:

The weather here has been absolutely phenomenal for nearly two weeks now.  I am cautiously optimistic that this summer may prove itself to be one of those "gorgeous summers" I heard so much about before moving here and have yet to experience.  I think Washington is just being coy.  It has heard that we're leaving, so it's doing everything in its power to woo us into staying.  I will not be fooled by your coquettish behavior, Washington!  I know, come September, you'll be up to your old tricks again!  But seriously, look at this forecast:

That right there is a little something I like to refer to as "perfection".

Thing the Third:

Not only do I have less than three weeks of work-school left before I'm taking this job and shoving it for the summer, but next fall I will be going back to work at a school that is 10 minutes from my house as opposed to the ~30 minute drive that I now face.  And that adds up to not 40, but 80 minutes less spent commuting nearly every day as I make the drive four times because of my split shift.  Even better than the cut in commute time, but from what I have heard, the kids are saints compared to the ones I've worked with this year.  Hallelujah and AMEN!

Thing the Fourth:

And finally, I have a bunch of exciting countdowns going on right now.

• 20 days until my last day of work-school
• 1 month and 5 days until my week-long trip to Montana to visit my sister at her summer theater, see my parents, and go to Crater Lake
• 1 month and 16 days until Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
• ~2 months and 8 days until I'm lounging on a beach in Hawaii with my favorite husband

So, that's what has been getting me through my bipolar days recently.  What has you excited about life?

Resigning From Life

BLEEEAAAAARRRRRGHHHHH!!!!!!

I quit.  Consider this my two week notice.  I am turning in my resignation letter to the Department of Living Amongst Society and moving to a hut on the beach in an as yet undiscovered island.  I'm not leaving a forwarding address.  I go alone.  Don't come looking for me, because I am DONE.

I don't want to clean up after a destructive dog who will pull items out of thin air if there are none within reach that he can rip to shreds in my absence and then prance about proudly when I return home.  I don't want to clean the bathroom, wash the dishes, do the laundry, vacuum the floor only to have to do it again in what seems like mere hours.

I don't want to be a law abiding citizen, vote in elections, throw my garbage in the trash can, give money to causes that need it more than I do, and be a generally good person, only to be given a $340 ticket for not registering my car in the state of Washington, when I had no clue that I was supposed to.  I'm not registered to vote here, I don't claim residency here, I'm a military nomad and I'm sorry you Office-Space-Boss-Looking-Asshole Cop, I have never been made aware of this rule.  I'm not claiming that ignorance of the law is the perfect excuse, but how easy would it have been to have given a friendly warning and gone about your day?  You can take your, "Have a nice day, ma'am," and shove it up your power-tripping, quota-filling rear end.

I'm tired of being tired.  I'm sick of exhausted kids who treat me and each other like crap and make me dread the day I see two lines on a pregnancy test.  I'm flummoxed by my suddenly shitty gas mileage that makes me suspect a gremlin is sneaking into my garage at night and siphoning the gasoline out of my car.  I wish the damn cd player in my car would stop overheating and spitting cds out at me with a snotty "Check CD" message on the display every time I try to listen to something other than our lame radio stations.

I'm so over feeling negative.  I want the fucking sun to shine.  I want to wake up and feel excited about another day.  I'm sick of being a single wife.  I'm worn down from the constant stream of "what ifs" running circles around my brain about where we're going to live this time next year, how we'll sell our house without losing our shirts, whether or not we'll be able to get another mortgage, and what furniture or precious family mementos will be destroyed in the move.

I'm just so ready to check out.

But I can't quit.  This is my life.

As shitty as it makes me feel sometimes.  I love my retarded dogs.  This job is the first one I've ever had where I feel like maybe I'm making a difference.  I know I need to just suck it up and have a little faith that God won't dish out more than we can take.  The military infuriates me on a daily basis, but it has also been very good to us over the years.  As for the cop and the ticket situation... well, I tried, but I can't find the silver lining there.

I just want to escape from it all.  But then I guess everyone does, and we just keep riding this completely absurd roller coaster of life.  In the meantime, thank you Jesus for wine, carefully cultivated savings accounts, Gossip Girl, and giant, liquid puppy dog eyes that just won't allow you to stay angry for too long.

But I'd still rather be in Capri.

Happenings

* I think at some point over Spring Break, the aliens came and replaced my kids with slightly upgraded versions.  I don't know if it was that we all just needed a nice break from each other or if all that I have been trying to teach them finally clicked in their little brains, but work this week has been--dare I say it?--PLEASANT!

* As I got off of the plane all by myself in Seattle on Sunday, I was thinking to myself, rather morosely, how sad it was that I wasn't getting off of the plane in Rome with Colby like I was on the same day last year.  Then as soon as I got home, I heard about the tragic earthquake in Italy, and now reports are coming in that deaths have risen above two hundred.  I'm absolutely heartbroken for the residents of L'Aquila, and hope that they are able to pick up the pieces and recover from this disaster.

* I can't believe it, but somehow, I have managed to make it 42 days without Facebook or Twitter, and have only 3 more days to go until I can get back involved with internet society!  It was kind of hilarious how every time I would meet up with a friend while I was back in Louisiana, the conversation would inevitably turn to my absence from Facebook within five minutes.  I thought maybe this 46 day fast would help break my addiction, unfortunately that doesn't seem to be case as all I can think about is the joyous feeling I will get when I am logging on again for the first time.  You know, so I can see who wrote on my wall.  And added pictures.  And got divorced or married over the past month and a half.  And then log off only to log on again 10 minutes later.  God.  Facebook is worse than nicotine and I have a carton a day habit.

* In happier--or at least somewhat less superficial--news, Colby is scheduled to come home in less than two weeks!  He's been gone since mid-March, so it hasn't been a terribly long time as compared to some of our separations, but I'm looking forward to having him back nonetheless.  Particularly because I'll have someone else with whom to share the dog poo load.  And that right there is what marriage is all about.  That and having someone else there to get your juice when you just don't want to get up off of the couch.

* I'm going to see Britney Spears tomorrow at the Tacoma Dome!  The show doesn't start until 8:00 with the Pussycat Dolls opening (Yes, I love them too.  Shut your Judgey Judgerson face and loosen up my buttons, babe.) and then Britney probably coming on some time around 10.  I am crazy super excited about the show, and waaaaaay less excited about waking up at 5 o'clock the next morning.  But I'm bringing one of my most fun friends and I feel preeeeetty sure it's all gonna be worth it.  It's Britney, Bitch!

* Sigh.  It pains me to admit it, but I am firmly planted in the Team Adam Lambert camp after last night's American Idol performance.  These kids are all just rank amateurs and then Adam comes on stage and blows them out of the water on a weekly basis.  I was skeptical of him during auditions, reached my pinnacle of Adam-hate on country night with that nightmare inducing version of Ring of Fire, and last night's Mad World literally brought tears to my eyes.  I still think he's better suited to a Broadway stage than the pop world, but DAMN, that boy can sing.

* Yesterday, I ran for 20 minutes straight, then after a 2 minute walking break I made it another 10 minutes of running without dying in the middle of the street.  I only started running regularly again last Sunday and then took an extended break (Thursday through Monday), so I am super pumped with the progress I've already made.  It's never been this easy for me to get back into the swing of running after many months away from it, and I'm riding the endorphin wave so high that I am actually considering training for a half marathon this summer. (Insert laugh track here.)

T.G.I... Wait, I Just Said That

(Edit:  As an aside, why does Google Reader hate me so much lately?  My posts have been taking 4-5 hours to show up in recent weeks, but this particular post was published over 12 hours ago and Reader has yet to pick it up.  Is anyone else having this issue, or is even Google deciding that my entries are too mundane for publication??)

This week... happened.

I think I've just kind of given up, accepted that I am hugely boring, and come to terms with the fact that I can no longer scrape together enough interesting material to blog more than once a week.  It's not a conscious decision, it's just...I've kind of lost the plot.  I don't know what to say other than variations the following:

This morning I woke up at a time that I consider to be the middle of the night.  I went to work for a couple of hours where I attempted to keep grade schoolers from committing any sort of illegal or life threatening activities.  Then I came home and ate/took a nap/watched tv/folded laundry until it was time to go back to work.  Then I came home, ate, watched tv, and will go to bed around 9:30.  10:30 if I am feeling particularly energetic.

Can you imagine anything more dull?  And can you imagine that more than once a week?  If I'm being entirely honest with myself, I'm not even narcissistic enough to believe that I'm in any way interesting enough for even a weekly post, but I'm just not quite ready to put this horse out to pasture yet.

So, here I am.

Super bummed that Alexis Grace went home last night.  Still trying to figure out if I love Megan Corkery (who seems to have changed her name?) or if I find her affected and irritating.  My feelings on this change daily.

I went to the dentist today for the first time in over two years, and was astounded to discover how much dental hygienists have in common with Billy Mays.  I suppose I was just sheltered by Air Force dentists who weren't forced to make a buck shilling xylitol based products, Sonicare toothbrushes, and at home bleaching kits, but crap.  Just massacre my teeth and gums for the agreed upon fee and let me out of there.  I did at least get some free gum samples.

Colby left yesterday for a five to six week school in Oklahoma.  I never thought that I would be jealous of that fact, but it was sunny and in the 70s there today, while Washington is still firmly in winter's grip and the rest of March is projected to look something like this:

I want to cry on a near daily basis.  I blame poor parenting and rain clouds.

My dinner tonight consisted of a single serving package of pepper jack Tillamook cheese, a bowl of Golden Grahams, and a buttered english muffin.  If I die of malnutrition or depression during the next five weeks, I am blaming the Air Force.

I can't even believe I am hitting "save" on this steaming crap pile of a post.  But, alas, I am.

T.G.I.F.

Believe it or not, I have yet another story of anxiety and uncertainty to share with you all.  But today is not the day for dipping into the endless depths of my neuroses, today is the day for rejoicing in the sunshine and that fact that today is FRIDAY!

A confession that is either funny or embarrassing, probably a combination of the two:

Have I ever told you about that time when, early in my relationship with Colby, I was musing at length on how his R.A. could have possibly gotten her car from Alaska to her on campus apartment in Louisiana.  I eventually settled on the fact that she had probably taken a ferry, and was satisfied with my conclusion, when Colby kindly took my hand and explained to me that Alaska was not in fact an island unto itself as seemed to be the impression that I had formed over countless years of geography classes, and just maybe she had driven her car down to Louisiana from Alaska.

Well, last night we were watching an episode of Rick Steves where he was exploring the beautiful country of Greece.  As the television zoomed us in on a map of Europe, to highlight Greece, I made a dive for the remote and hit rewind and play again for another look at the unzoomed in map.  As it turns out, Greece is not, in fact an island, as I have thought for as long as I can remember.  I don't know where I got all of these misconceptions about how countries are connected or not connected to their neighboring countries, but I feel confident that it is somehow my 5th grade teacher's fault.  This is in sharp contrast to Colby, who actually spends his free time looking up random locations on Google Earth.

Things that are kind of adorable:

One of my little angel-faced 1st graders, who is obsessed with High School Musical, Indiana Jones, and efforts to combine those two interests, has taken to calling himself Hoops Man, and everytime I call him by his real name, he gives me a reproving glance and an enormous sigh.  I can't decide if his reaction to my faux pas is more precious than the nickname and his near idol worship of Zac Ephron, so I just sort of alternate between calling him Hoops Man and his real name.

Things that I am excited about:

1) The sun is shining, and it is downright WARM for Washington in March, at a pleasant 50 degrees.

2) The kids are generally easier to handle on a Friday afternoon, and oftentimes, downright enjoyable and entertaining.

3) I get to get dressed up for two separate events this weekend--a casino night birthday party for one of my friends tonight, and Colby's birthday dinner tomorrow night at the schmancy, well reviewed Seattle restaurant, Chez Shea.

4) I am leaving for Baton Rouge in exactly two weeks and one day, and I just found out that there is a very high degree of possibility that not only will I be seeing my family and friends while there, but my little sister will be making the seven hour drive down from her school in Missouri for the weekend!!  I haven't seen her since my wedding in November of 2007, and seeing as she is one of my top favorite people in the whole world, I am absolutely ecstatic that I might be seeing her very soon!

I hope that you are all going to be enjoying a fantabulous weekend, and if you have any good news of your own that you would like to share, I'm sure it would go a long way toward sustaining my suspiciously out of character and out of season good mood!

Restless

You like how I patted myself on the back there for blogging more frequently, then promptly fell off the radar for the rest of the week?  Yeah, that was great.  I've been consciously making the decision not to blog, because honestly the only thing I want to write about right now is just how restless and apathetic about life I've been feeling lately.  And it seems of late, every time someone dares blog about something making them unhappy trolls have come out of the woodwork to lambast them for daring to not be happy about everything in their perfect lives, and quite frankly, I just feel too fragile for trolls right now.  But then I was all, "Angela, this is YOUR blog and if someone doesn't want to read your little epistle of unhappiness, they are free to navigate away to cutepuppies dot com."

So basically, I've just felt like a huge old lump of grump for the past couple of weeks.  I've been picking fights with Colby at home, I've been ridiculously sensitive and defensive about just about anything anyone says to me, and my tolerance for nonsense at school has been dangerously low.  Every morning I wake up and tell myself that today will be better, then I really make a concerted effort to be more positive until around midmorning when I reach the end of my rope.

I don't know precisely what my problem is.  One can really only blame so much on that much dreaded time of month, and the excuse wears a little thin when it is used every day of the month.  When I try to put my finger on exactly what is upsetting me, it just makes me feel utterly ridiculous.  Por ejemplo, Things That Are Currently Bumming me Out:

1) I am not going to Italy next month.  Or anywhere glamorous and European for that matter.  We're getting closer and closer to the one year point of when Colby and I left for our honeymoon last year, and I've been torturing myself by reading through my posts leading up to and after the trip.  I know, I'm a twit, some people never get to leave the country, and I'm bemoaning the fact that I have to go more than a year between trips abroad.  But still, every time I broach the topic of my dreams of a trip to France next summer, Colby all but laughs in my face.  In the interim, he's jetting off to Korea, Italy, and Germany, while I'm stuck in Washington, explaining once more to 9-year-olds exactly why it is not okay to use the term "cracker" in a derogatory manner.

2) I'm sick of winter, I'm a little over Washington, and I just want to know what our future holds so that we can stop stressing about the what ifs and start making a plan.  We've turned in our updated dream location list for Colby's next assignment, we have a pretty strong feeling that we'll end up at one of our top two choices--either Charleston or a base about an hour outside of San Francisco.  That's all well and good, but with the real estate market in its current state of gloom and doom, those two options provide us with two very different paths down which we'll travel depending on where we're assigned.  And of course there's always the threat of ending up in Alaska or middle of nowhere Oklahoma.  And please don't tell me that Alaska is actually quite beautiful.  I don't want beautiful.  I want warm.  And not Oklahoma.

3) I really do enjoy what I do.  For the most part, I think the kids I work with are pretty great, and we just had a talent show on Wednesday night, that oh my God, had me in stitches the kids were so damn cute.  But there are are 3-5 kids (depending on the day) that absolutely make me want to rip my hair out.  It is amazing to me how just a couple of disrespectful, physically and emotionally aggressive children can really ruin what should be a great day.  And every day it's a different thing.  A fight. Name calling.  Lying.  Sidebar lessons on what sex is while I'm talking about Dr. Seuss's birthday.  I know this is no different from what I'll experience as a teacher, but it really is exhausting and I feel that in a daycare setting, children are allowed to get away with more than they would in a more structured school setting.  I find parenting other people's kids exhausting, and it's frustrating that they all seem to operate under the delusion that their little angels couldn't possibly be the problem.

4) I've been feeling a little bit taken for granted by Colby lately.  Not in a huge way, just in the little things, I don't necessarily feel that what I do is important and that somehow I've become a little bit of the Lucy to his Ricky.  I know I probably bring this upon myself in the way that I make jokes out of things that I'm really serious about.  Like, I constantly make jokes about wanting a third dog.  I joke about wanting to plan that trip abroad next summer.  I don't come across as really serious about my desires and I often make jokes about my job, so it's to be expected that maybe he would do the same.  But the other night, after repeated reminders about the talent show at school, Colby completely and utterly forgot to show up.  I'd been talking about it for weeks, and it just wasn't on his radar at all, even though he'd participated in the conversations with me.  I was incredibly hurt and angry, and I think it was sort of a culmination of all those feelings I've been having for a while now.  I'm okay with making light of situations, but I don't want to be the foil in the relationship.  There is probably a whole blog for another day, exploring this further, but basically, these feelings had been seething for a while and that was just the final straw for me.

Anyway, the sun is shining today, I've got two hours of America's Next Top Model to watch before I go back to work, it's Friday and I think we're actually going to do something fun this weekend instead of sitting around the house doing homework.  I'm hopeful that next week will be better, and if not, maybe I'll just write about it as it comes instead of saving everything up for another ten page long missive on why I'm still not feeling like rainbows and starshine.

How I Spent My President's Day Vacation!

Friday and Monday were both no school days for my school district, but of course, being that we are a day care provider, I did have work on Friday because it's not technically part of the federal holiday.  It really wasn't a bad day of work though--I got in at 9:30 and was gone by 4:45, so it was a perfectly lovely schedule, and my few bad apples weren't there, so I actually had a lot of fun.

We kicked off our vacation weekend by trying out a new Mexican restaurant, Playa Azul.  We already have a favorite tiny little Mexican restaurant in the town a little to the south of us, but I'm thrilled to have another tasty option closer to home.  The prices were a smidge higher than our favorite hole in the wall, but I think we'll definitely be making a return visit.  After an amazingly fattening dinner, we headed off to the movie theater where Colby was kind enough to sit through Confessions of a Shopaholic with me. 

Now, this movie is more controversial than I thought it would be.  People who love the books seem to not be too impressed with the movie and people who hate the books hate the movie equally.  I don't know, maybe I'm just not that deep, but I loved it.  Sure, it deviates from the books (that, admittedly, I also love) but I actually felt that Isla Fischer's Becky Bloomwood was more likeable than the book version and Luke Brandon was dreamy.  My only two wishes were that they had kept the setting in London and cast a better actress for Becky's sidekick, Suze.  But alas, Luke retained his Britishness, and Suze made minimal appearances, so I couldn't get too upset.  The movie will definitely be added to my DVD library, and I'm sure it will enter the rotation of chick flicks to watch when Colby is deployed.

Saturday, I woke up to the smell of French toast wafting its way up the stairs, and when I woke up from an after breakfast nap there were a dozen beautiful roses and a heartfelt card, referencing one of our favorite couple jokes--the piguin.  I remained pretty firmly rooted to the couch most of the day, while Colby did some homework, and then I finally got myself all gussied up for our romantical Valentine's dinner at another favorite, nearby restaurant, DeCaterina's.  I made the near fatal mistake of wearing a fabulous corset top to dinner, not thinking about the fact that I was probably going to want to cram a lot of food into my stomach and that may be difficult when dealing with steel girders up my side.  Anyway, I pushed through the pain and managed to eat an amazing dinner and dessert.

Sunday, I had my turn to work on homework and that night we had some other couples over for a supremely enjoyable game night.  We had tons of food, wine, beer, and round after round of Cranium, which I am heartbroken to admit the girls lost two out of three times.  We still managed to have a great time, despite the losses, and Monday I spent on the couch once more, recovering from a hangover caused by red wine and defeat.  Now, it's back to real life as I'm working my way through a mountainous pile of dirty laundry and preparing to head back to work for my afternoon shift.  But the good news is that it's a short week and I've got tons of tasty leftovers to eat my way through. 

Yesterday, I also booked a flight back to Baton Rouge for March 28-April 5, so I've got another exciting vacation to start counting down to, and I can't wait to spend some relaxing time at home with my parents.  I haven't had a trip home just to hang out and visit since the March before I moved to Washington in 2007, so I am way overdue for a vist, and I can't wait to see all of the changes to Baton Rouge that I've been hearing so much about.

Finally, I want to thank you all for your comments on my last post.  I was amazed at how good it felt to get all of that out, and I was overwhelmed by the wisdom and kindess you shared with me.  Y'all seriously are the best, and we should totally eat ice cream and cupcakes together some time.

Six

Every now and then, when more than a week has gone by without updating the blog, I get to thinking that maybe it's just too much of a hassle and I should just go ahead and ditch it like every journa or diaryl I have ever written.  But then I forget a rather important, pressing detail of my life, like, just for example of course, how long exactly Colby and I have been together.  You know, it seems like it might be six years, but that couldn't possibly be right because I'm just not that old, right?  But then I can do a little research and find a post from three years ago about how we've been together for three years, and well, you know, the sanity and peaceful sleep that comes with the ability to retrace my steps like that--you just can't buy that peace of mind at Target!

So, I carry on blogging.

Six years.  That means that we've been together for more than 20% of my life--ever since I was just a wee pup of 19 years old.  I'm three years older than he was when he started dating, and holy hell, I thought he was just about the most grown up, mature, OLDEST dude ever.  Even my little sister is older than that now.

We talk a lot about the future.  It makes me laugh sometimes to remember how difficult it was to get him to open up about "where do you see us in five years?" when we were dating and I was desperate for a commitment, or even the hint of one.  Now we toss around the idea of having babies and moving to far off locales and where we want to retire like we're discussing what movie we want to go see.  It feels so natural and completely organic that we'll have all of these experiences together.

Life is a little overwhelming right now.  We're both a little stressed at work and in our respective graduate programs.  The economy is taking it's toll in the form of a continuously diving house value and we are dealing with the uncertainty of having no clue where in the world we will live at this time next year.  I haven't had the time or energy to reconnect with many of my friends lately, and I feel a little bit of the lonely winter sadness creeping around my heart.

Colby asked me the other day if I had changed my mind about ever wanting to have kids.  The full weight of just how incredibly difficult it is to deal with children hits me every single day.  And every night I come home from taking care of and disciplining other people's kids and thank the good Lord above that I can just veg out on the sofa and watch tv without having to worry about taking care of anyone else.  I can just sit, snug in the crook of my husband's arm and feel perfectly content.

I don't know when I'll know that I want to have kids.  Right now, building a family seems rather like the prospect of college did when I was in grade school.  Something that I knew that I was going to to do, but no concrete ideas of exactly when or how I would get there.  I want to be a better person before I have kids.  I want to do the laundry on a regular basis, keep the house clean, and be the wife that gets dinner on the table every night, and doesn't have to be scolded to eat her vegetables.  I want to finish school and actually use my degree for a little while and then take a break so that I can stay home.  I've seen a lot in my short time working at daycare facilities, and as great a program as I think we have, the working mom and dad lifestyle is not what I want for my children.

But I'm just not ready to give up my life for them yet.  I remember sitting in the parking lot of Colby's apartment when he lived in Georgia, about four years ago.  We were in my car, saying our goodbyes when he suddenly stopped talking and gazed steadily into my eyes.

"Our children will have beautiful eyes."

What I didn't know at the time was that we still had years of tumult and distance ahead of us.  What I did know was that he was right and that some day those theoretical children would become a reality.  And even now, six years after he shyly asked me to be his Valentine, as he was dropping me off after our first date, and four years after that out of character moment in the parking lot, I know that some day he will be right.  And when that time comes, whether I'm serving up four course meals or just barely managing to pour cereal and milk into a bowl, I know that our children will have the most beautiful eyes in the world.

Hodge Podge of Stuff Circulating in My Brain

* Guess who's sick again?  This girl!  There's been some kind of ick circulating at school and this week alone five kids have come in running a low grade fever, sniffling, and hacking up lung bits.  I managed to hold out through yesterday before my immune system threw up it's hands in defeat and caved to the germs.  Fortunately it's not nearly as bad as the various colds I had earlier in the winter, and the predominant symptom seems to be extreme crankiness.

* Come to think of it, that symptom may not actually have anything to do with the cold...

* The oppressive fog that blanketed the Puget Sound last week finally lifted, I've seen the sun for at least a few seconds every day this week, and it's no longer pitch black outside at 4:30 pm.  I feel like maybe I can see the light at the end of this dreary winter tunnel.

* My current class is English Language Teaching Foundations, and I am completely and utterly lost this week.  It seems as though the further I get in this Masters program, the more it is expected that you have some teaching experience under your belt and understand basic teaching terminology and rules.  I have neither, so I feel like I'm working twice as hard as everyone else just trying to understand what exactly the assignments are asking for, never mind complete them.  If anyone out there could help me decode this statement, "compare and contrast either the ELL Proficiency Standards or the Language Arts Standards with the standards from an academic area, i.e. science, social studies, or math", I would be forever indebted to you!

* I'm so boring lately, oh my God.  All of these updates are about my health, the weather, and school.  I honestly thought I might have something more interesting to say if I just started typing.  Turns out: No.

* Well, there is something kind of funny-slash-interesting that has developed on the Book of Faces recently, but since I link here from there I don't feel totes comfortable sharing on the blawg.  Am considering doing an email post if I can't figure out how to do a private post, so shall keep you, my adoring and adorable readers, apprised of the situation.

* Oh, I know!  How amazing is Lost so far this season?  To all of you people who gave up on the show in the admittedly lame second and third seasons, wow, sucks to be you!  I freaking love time travel stories, and I am SO thrilled that now we're starting to get more answers and having all of these overlapping time lines thrown at us.  It almost makes up for the fact that Doctor Who won't be back for its 5th season until 2010!

* Exciting plans for the weekend include: Sleeping, homework, season 3 of Arrested Development, and if I am not feeling like total crapola on Sunday, a Super Bowl party.  I couldn't give less of a crap about the game, but it'll be fun hanging out with friends.  And eating their food.  What can I say?  It has been a REALLY long time since I went grocery shopping.

The Enforcer

I've been working in my new(ish) job as director of a before and after school care site for close to three months now.  Almost as long as I worked as an assistant at my old site.  That is just absolutely crazy to think about.  Could someone please do something about how quickly time is passing?  It's freaking me out.

I loved my old job.  LOVED IT.  The kids were awesome, the site was really perfect for our needs, I really and truly enjoyed going to work every day.  This new job... I don't hate it.  It's just so much freaking harder.  My site is notorious for having some of the most poorly behaved kids in our entire pool of childcare sites.  They are disrespectful, not only to staff, but to each other.  They are physically and emotionally aggressive.  They had absolutely no structure or rules before I was hired.  They aren't bad kids, but they have been running absolutely wild and it's been a struggle every single day to get them under control.

It's difficult for me, because I enjoy relating to kids.  I think they're amazing little things and I love talking to them and playing with them.  As an assistant, that was my job.  From time to time I might have to throw out a little discipline, but since the kids were already firmly under control and the site director did most of the reprimanding, I was free to just have fun with them.  And they loved me.  They would run screaming at me when I got to work and at times there were actual tears shed when I would leave early.  When I left to take on my new position, I was truly heartbroken to leave those kids behind.

As a director, I am now the one doling out the discipline.  My assistant is a great girl, but she's only eighteen and sometimes it seems like she's just as wild as the kids.  Of course, they adore her because not only has she been around longer than I have, but she isn't the one doing the punishing and the lecturing.  I know that it's not my job to be a friend to these kids, it's my job to keep them safe until their parents can come get them and hopefully teach them a little something about values and manners along the way, and of course to form a bond with them, but it's a very different relationship now than it was before.

Things have gotten better--the site is much more organized now, kids are starting to follow rules before I have to remind them for the tenth time per day, parents are warming up to me a bit more, and I know that the kids have accepted me and respect me for the most part.  But there are still days when my fuse is short and the day has been long, and I think how much  easier the road would have been if I had stayed on in my previous position.  I know this is great training for when I'm in a classroom and am expected to manage a class for 6 hours a day, and I don't regret accepting the promotion at all. 

But sometimes, I just want to be the cool one again.

Looking Back

So, I'm finally going to close the book on 2008 around here and get the rest of December all wrapped up in a neat little bow.  It was kind of a crazy month  for me and the highlights were definitely the panic inducing snowfall we had just prior to winter break, my birthday, and those other two big December holidays.

The Snow

Unfortunately, I have hardly any photographic evidence of any of these big events as Colby has developed the annoying habit of downloading all of our pictures onto his computer, then deleting them off of the camera before I can get them.  He assures me that it's easy peasy to transfer them onto my computer, but so far that's all talk and no action.  We ended up getting about 8 or 9 inches of snow in our area, and I have never in all of my life seen a city shut down like ours did.  Colby still braved Mother Nature and went to work every day, but the schools shut down on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday--before "the big storm" even hit.  Jack and Ellie totally loved romping in and chowing down on the freshly fallen snow, and I'm willing to admit that it was kind of pretty.  However, I am still not a fan of the slipping and sliding across roads and I never realized how many damn hills there are around here until they all turned into mini-ski slopes.

The Birthday
My birthday was, in a word, AWESOME!  Colby had a pretty steep learning curve when it came to my expectations for birthday celebrations, but he picked up on things after last year and when I woke up, my birthday was already in full swing.  I crawled out of bed to find him making muffins and french toast, a chocolate cake already baked and frosted, hundreds of balloons scattered around the house, and I even got a fancy Birthday Girl badge to wear.  The morning was pretty relaxing, the snow fell softly throughout the day, and that evening we made the trek into Seattle for dinner in the Market and the Pacific Northwest performance of The Nutcracker.  Dinner was absolutely delicious and we had a prime table overlooking a gorgeous view of the Pike Market.  The snow continued to fall as we ate and then headed over to the theater, and The Nutcracker was incredible. 

Funny story:  I recognized the design of the Nutcracker painted on the curtain before the ballet began, and upon reading the bio of the set and costume designer, realized that he was the man who illustrated Where the Wild Things Are, and upon receiving praise for his take on the Nutcracker in the 80's, he published an illustrated version of The Nutcracker story.  Turns out, I just so happened to own that book when I was a little girl and read it yearly, dreaming of being Clara with visions of Nutcrackers dancing in my head!

When we left the performance, we were surprised to see that the snow had begun coming down much harder and the accumulation had already increased by a few inches from the time the performance began and the drive home was more than a little scary at times.  But we survived it, and all in all, it was a phenomenal beginning to my 26th year!

Favorite gifts included tickets from Colby to go see Brit Brit perform on April 9th at the Tacoma Dome, a Nordstrom gift certificate that I put toward the brown leather jacket on my wish list, and a fantastic page-a-day calendar with a picture of a different fabulous shoe each day!

My birthday tea was supposed to take place the next day, but ended up being postponed to the following Sunday because of the snow.  I was thrilled that some of my gal pals were able to take time away from holiday plans and brave the still rather nasty weather to make it to the Meeker Mansion, and we enjoyed our ladylike tea and a tour of the mansion.  I don't have any pictures of the tea, but I do have to show you the fabulous Mad Men dress that I wore for the event.

It makes me feel just like Betty Draper.  Except without all of the crazy and the alcohol/cigarette dependency...

The Holidays
We spent Christmas Eve at Lori's house, eating good food, spending time with great people, and playing a down and dirty game of Scene It? Squabble, boys versus girls.  I always love spending time with Lori and her family because they always do such a great job of making sure that we feel included and like we really are a part of the family.  Christmas morning we woke up and did our standard stockings, breakfast, then presents routine.  It was a totally relaxing day spent with the DVD player going and amazing food just appearing before me from time to time when Chef Colby was inspired.  We got some great deals at the seafood counter on Christmas Eve, so throughout the day our entrees consisted of shrimp, crab cakes, and salmon.  Yummo!

I gave Colby Cranium WOW! and a new lens for his camera that he's been playing with ever since, so I think those gifts went over well.  Highlights of my Christmas goodies included all three seasons of Arrested Development (How had I never seen this show?  HILARIOUS!!) and my spiffy new Marc Jacobs watch (also on my wish list), both from Colby, some beautiful Banana Republic tops from my parents, and a gorgeous Manolo Blahnik coffee table book from one of my favorite girls, Shani.  We were totally spoiled on Christmas morning, and even though we missed being away from our families, it was still a wonderful day.

New Year's Eve was much quieter than last year's craziness.  We went to dinner at a yummy pizzeria and then saw Marley & Me where I proceeded to sob my freaking eyes out.  I wasn't the least bit surprised since I had a pretty identical reaction to the book, but I thought I might be able to retain some semblance of composure.  Yeah.  No.  New Year's Day we spent rooted to the couch while I subjected Colby to hour after hour of The Twilight Zone marathon on SciFi.

And that pretty much wraps up December and my musings on 2008.  I'm ready to look forward to the future and have a lot to say about 2009, but right now the dogs are crying and Gossip Girl awaits, so the new year is just going to have to wait around for another day or so until I'm ready to tackle all of those thoughts.  Ciao for now!

Sing Out, Louise!

Today was supposed to be our little before and after school care Christmas performance.  I pulled together a bunch of sweet Christmas poems and five Christmas carols and the kids have been practicing and decorating the stage (where our child care is conveniently located) and yesterday things got a little tense as we all realized that we were only one day away from the play and we still hadn't made it all the way through a rehearsal without a stop.  I was nervous because we weren't able to get a microphone from the school, and while the kids seemed excited about doing the play, when it actually became a reality their nerves were getting the best of them and I could barely hear their soft little voices over the hum of the gym air conditioning and buzzing of the fluorescent lights.  My directorial patience was tried as I tried to keep practices going when the lure of Legos and markers was only inches away, and I felt a little swell of pride when we made it all the way through an acapella version of Silent Night.

Then, this morning I woke up and logged onto the school report website to discover that school had been canceled in our district because of snow.  On the one hand, I feel a little sense of relief.  There is a pretty high degree of possibility that the show would have been an absolute catastrophe--I honestly had no idea there were so many verses to learn in Up on the Housetop for one thing--but the kids have been talking about a Christmas performance since Thanksgiving and it makes me sad that I wasn't able to deliver on it.  And quite frankly, I think the world was looking forward to my directorial debut!

Of course, all of those thoughts ran through my head in the five minutes it took me to dry my hair after the shower I'd already taken and then crawl back into bed to sleep for another four hours.  Since then I've done a bit of homework--all I have left is one paper before I finish my third class and then have two weeks off for the holidays--cleaned the kitchen, and watched Love, Actually and Britney caroling on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.  Quite frankly, as much as I hate the snow itself (that actually turned to rain around 10 am), I could get used to this whole snow day thing.

And if you're wanting to see a little snow, here are some pictures from our very cold and snowy (but beautiful!!) day in Leavenworth.  I don't think my feet have ever been as frozen as they were when we got back in the car to go home.  I was seriously worried about frostbite for about ten minutes there.

Just a pretty farm house we passed on the way.  I thought it looked like it should be on a Christmas card.

Colby made fun of my umbrella until I explained to him that snow is just frozen rain, justifying the use of an umbrella.  Then he still made fun of me.

The prettiest Santa I've ever seen.  I told him he was lovely because I thought that sounded more masculine.  Colby laughed at me.  Noticing a trend?

Did I mention that it was cold?  And that I almost fell down about nineteen times?

Warming up with peppermint tea and a hot buttered rum.  I really wanted to like the hot buttered rum, but I wasn't totally won over.

Baked goods and hot chocolate are just more my style.





And the main event--the town lighting.  It was a beautiful lighting ceremony, complete with Christmas carols and a big countdown, and despite the fact that I couldn't feel any of my toes, I really did enjoy our snowy day in Leavenworth.

Oh, and Colby was there too!

So, that's been about all of the excitement around these parts lately.  My birthday presents have started trickling in--so far a gift card to Nordstrom (SCORE!) and a mystery text from my parents about a gift that will arrive some time in February and then once a month after that for two years.  I'm thinking Puppy of the Month club?  I'm doing a snow dance for another snow day tomorrow and the forecast is looking promising, then this weekend birthday celebrations will kick into high gear with a schmancy dinner at Matt's in the Market followed by a performance of the Nutcracker, and then a high tea with friends on Sunday afternoon as long as the wintery weather doesn't interfere.  I'm so excited about presents and tasty food that I don't even care that I'll be officially well past the hump of the "early 20's" and embarking on my journey into the later years.  I have a feeling they won't be so awful, but that's another post for another day.  For now I'm going to enjoy my last few days of 25 and enjoy the rest of this wonderful day off!