I broke my toe. Stubbed it on one of J's work boots while I was getting something out of the dryer at quarter to five. He was laughing at me for complaining at first, then I sent his a picture text of my toe after first period. It's a brilliant shade of fuschia on one side with a royal purple darkening to navy blue on the other side (that's the side that actually broke). Absolutely beautiful. My students were awesome about it though. They got me ice and tried to find ways to keep me off my feet. I have some great kids this year.

Doctor's appointments and life in general

This weekend I got sunburnt. Really sunburnt, sun poisoning sunburnt. And it was only on my face and arms. You know, the places people see when I'm at work. Awesome! I was at J's rugby game, and I freely admit I was not paying any attention. Usually I pay attention to the games; I'm learning how to keep score (have you ever tried to figure out rugby? it's hard!) and I hang out with the wives and girlfriends. One of the wives (Stephanie) brought her 16 day old twins! So adorable. I kept having to walk away becuase I get baby fever whenever I see babies. I know that babies are hard and I definitely know I'm not emotionally or financially ready quite yet (not to mention that pesky marriage thing) but there's something about bringing a new life into the world with the person you love most that gets to me. Anyway, no more babies. I shouldn't even look at them. Back to sunburn. I actually spent most of the game sitting in a chair reading a book. I cannot remember which one. I know it's a book I've read a million times because I haven't been to Barnes and Noble in months (and yes, it is killing me). Ah well.

My week got even better when I went to the doctor to establish primary care. I haven't been to a doctor for a check up in years, so it was much needed. I had to go back for labs yesterday because I hadn't fasted and that was horrible. I have the world's worst veins. They are hard to find and they are really deep so it took what seemed like ages to find one and when the needle went in the lab tech lost the vein...great. She had to go to the other arm and I ended up getting stuck right over a bone. Horrible. She laughed when I asked her at the end if she now understood why I hate needles.

I found out today that over the course of the next few weeks I will miss significant instruction time. Thank you explore test, PSAT and pep rallies. I am a teacher. I hate missing class time. It gets to me. I haven't done my glucose test for the doctor yet because I refuse to take off work. I'm trying to find a day when I can leave around 12:30ish so I will only miss teaching one class as opposed to 4 classes. Hopefully it will work out.

Getting home from work

There's something I love about getting home from work. I can (hopefully) shut the door on everything that happened at work (I have made a LOT of people mad at me over the past week for advocating for my kids, although I have the ESOL district level coordinator backing me up) and I can play around in my tiny kitchen. Cooking is the one thing that really relaxes me. I love creating new healthy meals and I love that I get to eat the end product. I always always follow the recipe the first time through, just to make sure that it tastes ok, and then I get to experiment. I love to experiment. Tonight its a Maple-Mustard pork roast with roasted potatoes and carrots. We are also going to have romaine salads. I spend a lot of time in my kitchen after work, and the best part is that I have a wonderful man who does the dishes after dinner! I love it. I have the next couple weeks planned out, and I've got to say that I really can't wait until I get to make lasagna....only 9 more dinners to go! I love lasagna and it is so much fun to make!

As you can see, this is the best way I know to decompress after a long day at work.

I haven't posted in quite a while. It's been a long summer (technically the season of summer is not quite over). My grandmother died less than 3 hours after my last post. As I said, it's been a long summer. I still forget that I can't just pick up the phone and call her.

A new school year has begun. I love my kids, but I was asked at the end of last week to pick up an extra class in lieu of my planning. I did lose my homeroom so I could have a little more planning, but I still lost significant planning time. I will survive. I know it will end up being rewarding. However I'm very glad that I decided against doing my National Board Certification this year.

I found the house of my dreams. It's affordable, it has a large yard, and it has 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. It is also in Columbia (SC's capital). We talked briefly about moving to Columbia down the road, but that takes a lot of coordination and planning. We will see how it goes.

14 years ago yesterday my mom died. It was a hard day. I was 12 years old, in my 3rd week of 7th grade, at a brand new school when my mom passed. What a great way to make an impression. I still feel bad for yelling at Pat Menchen in the hallway the first day I was back at school. I was a wreck, and we had been going to school together for I don't know how many years. He was concerned, I was not doing well. I was a weird kid to start with, but everything that happened to me that year made it so much worse (dad picked an interesting year to come out of the closet to say the least). I am thankful for the growth of my spirit and character and the strength I gained, but I think I would trade it all again to hear her voice and spend the day with my mom.

So that's me since the end of May in a nutshell.

Oh, and J and I are doing great. Living together came naturally, like we were always meant to be like this. Everyone has their good times and their bad times, but I'm so thankful that the good times far outnumber the bad ones. Definitely something to be thankful for.

prayers needed

My grandmother is in hospice. She has been for a couple weeks. I flew in (thanks to my wonderful maternal grandparents) over the weekend and was able to visit with her one last time. Yesterday my family called and told me that she wasn't expected to make it. Miraculously, she is still alive as of now, but i'm beginnning to believe she would be better off passign quietly. Is that wrong of me? I don't know if she's comfortable, and I don't want her to be in any pain. Her breathing is a bit more comfortable, its true...but this weekend she was so miserable I couldn't stand it. I don't know what to ask for prayers for, but please keep my family in your thoughts

It's been a day

I truly can't stand standardized testing. First of all, as a teacher, I know not every child can and should adhere to a certain set of standards. That's part of the reason I don't like No Child Left Behind. NCLB implies that every person is capable of achieving the same level of success. If that was so, then everyone would be a CEO or a multi-millionaire. Anyway, today we started the May administration of PASS. Then, after testing was completed it felt like all hell had broken loose. We caught kids cutting class....and nothing was done. They thought they could do anything and get away with it, and thanks to those that are slightly higher than I am in the school, they pretty much could today. Not all people were letting them get away with cutting class, breaking tables in half, etc....but it only takes one or two people turning a blind eye to convince the kids they can do whatever they want. It also sucked that testing ran so long. My last kid was done at 10:10....we were not released from testing until 11:40...you try having 23 kids who don't want to be in your room quiet for a further 90 min after testing is complete. It doesn't work. I should be grateful I have a job, and I shouldn't complain, but this is my venting outlet...so if anyone reads this, sorry.

New House?

I think we found a house! Its quite small, but the kitchen has just been redone and it has a large yard and a fenced in patio. For our first place together I think it's pretty ok. Blue will like the yard, and I love the fact that is has a patio. I want to plant a vegtable garden out back and we are allowed to landscape as much as we want, in fact, we get $50 a month knocked off the rent for taking care of all of that. There are 2 bedrooms, one of which we would equip as an office and put my bed in the storage room...which will also function as a closet. I'm pretty excited :)