TGIF

So happy that tomorrow (today for those just getting around to reading this) is FRIDAY! I’m exhausted. Tired, sleepy, worn out, all of the above. I started feeling like crap on Friday. I took a bunch of meds and felt better by Saturday night, so I went to dinner with Mary. We ended up going back to her apartment, killing a bottle of wine and watching The Holiday. It was a good girl’s night. I woke up Sunday feeling bad, bad, bad, went to brunch and then landed on my couch the rest of the day. It snowed Monday. (again) I felt icky. Tuesday was our field trip. The sky was blue and the clouds were fluffy. The kids had a fantastic time. They were awesome. I was a little better. It snowed Wednesday. (again) It snowed A LOT. I was surprised we were even at school. The kids came in complaining about the buses sliding. It was a steady snowfall until about 1 or 2. I had a very long evening last night. Fitz and I were volunteered to put together spreadsheets and graphs based on all of our results team data. (school stuff) It took us SIX and A HALF HOURS to sort and build. We thought, maybe, maybe an hour. Yeah, we won’t be doing this again. Excel can be a wonderful thing if your spreadsheets are already set up, but cutting and pasting makes things a little faster. So, that brings me to today….I feel better. I will be going to bed early. I WILL be going snowboarding this weekend. (I hope) It supposed to start snowing (again) tomorrow. Fresh powder on the mountain will be sweet!!! Now that I have bored you with my week, here are a few things that I miss.

Things that I miss about Memphis:

• Walking out of the grocery store, pushing the cart to my truck on pavement that is NOT covered in ice and snow.
• Molly having a doggy door, so she can go play and not attack me.
• Shopping! I need new black shoes. (I have to drive an hour to go to a bigger mall.)
• Chick-fil-A. (again, have to drive an hour. Thanks, Jason, for making me think about it.)

And All of YOU, of course. Have a great weekend. Love to you all.

Commercials, White Stuff, Field trips!

I’m sitting here watching TV and I swear I expected to hear a Corey B. Trotts commercial. You know how his annoyingly catchy tune goes, CBT is the way to go, just call ……. or something like that. It was a commercial for another lawyer here in Colorado. I guess that is just the lawyer jingle jangle or something.

Do you know what I love that is white? Besides snow. Besides snowmen. Besides snowflakes. Oh, come on! I’ll give you a hint. I have a tattoo of one. Right! A daisy! Guess what I got today. (Oh, shut it, I know you can see the picture. )

 I took this on my camera phone. I decided to leave them at school so I could enjoy them the rest of the week. : ) Fresh flowers make a cold winter day so much brighter.

We are taking our kids on a field trip tomorrow. Should be fun. Bowling and a movie. They are going to “get to know” their team members for their end of the year project. I’ll let you know if the teachers survive. ; )

Happy Birthday, Lovey!!

Dear Lovey,

It is hard to believe that we have been blessed with your life for a full year. You are the happiest little girl that I have ever met. It seems like only yesterday that your daddy called to let me know he was taking your mom to the hospital so that you could come into the world. When I arrived at the hospital, your mom was not so happy. The doctor gave her some medicine and made her so much better. We all gathered in the hospital room and waited. AND waited. I climbed in bed with your Mom and talk to you for a little while. Everytime I would touch you, well, you would get very still and comfortable inside your Mom. Eventually, you decided it was time to enter the world and meet your family. You have been blessed with a very big, loving family. Not every little girl is lucky enough to have 4 grandmothers and so many aunts and uncles that I can’t even count right now. It has been an exciting adventure to see you grow this past year. You started out so tiny.  I would rock you and talk to you about your Mom and I growing up together. You have grown into a beautiful bundle of energy. I’m sorry that I am not around to spend as much time with you as I once did. I still know what you are up to. Your mom keeps me very informed and sends me pictures. I hear you talking and playing everytime I call. You are a very busy little girl. I hope that you continue to love books. Your mom and I both love to read. I want you to be safe in your discovery of this world. I want you to know love and happiness. I want you to know that just like your mother, I would do anything in the world for you. I miss you and love you!

Love,

Aunt Chrissy

P.S. Help your mother get over her anxiety about flying and come visit me this summer!!

Note to self

 

Do not wear shiny, dangley earrings with the puzzle killer around.

When you take off said earrings, do not, I repeat, DO NOT leave them on the coffee table. The puzzle killer will attack them anywhere. She ran off with one. Hope I can find it.

**Picture is fuzzy b/c Molly is attacking the shiny, dangley earring. I guess I should be happy that I took them out first**

Snowboarding Take 4!

Today was my 4th day to go boarding. I still love it. There is nothing more satisfying than taking on a mountain and riding it down. (okay, i’m sure there are. play along) I linked my turns today. : ) Translation: I started out on my heel side and turned onto my toe side and the other way around. The sides are just what you think they are. Toe side is the side that your toes are on and vice versa. I’m getting much faster, but still afraid of speed. I’m no longer afraid of having my back to what is below me. It is just a very awkward stance that will become natural if I keep doing it. I’m strapped to board with my knees and ankles bent, pelvic bone forward, all my weight on my right foot, leaning towards a mountain trying to remember how the hell to just slow down. I still love it even when I do kiss the ground. This is such an improvement because last time I was freaked out. I would tense up and fall. I don’t even feel nearly as sore as I normally did. I did fall on my ass really hard one time. It still hurts. It will probably still hurt tomorrow. I know some of you don’t understand, but it is totally worth it. Anyone want to come visit? The mountain doesn’t close until April 4th!! I know a great instructor.

Puzzle Killer

Growing up we did a lot of puzzles. We watched a lot of movies, too. I still enjoy doing both. I tend to watch movies more than put together puzzles, because, well, it’s easier. I joined Netflix and have movies delivered right to my mailbox. All I have to do is make a list of the movies that I want to see and mail back the ones that I have watched. They have a place where you can rate movies and they use the ratings to suggest other movies for you. Pretty cool system. Before Christmas, I decided that I wanted to put a puzzle together. I bought a Thomas Kinkade puzzle at Target and it was still sitting on my kitchen table until Friday night. All of you know I live by myself, so I can keep strange hours. I just try not to be loud and wake up the people upstairs. I fell asleep aound 10 on Friday night, just to wake up with energy at 2AM. I decided to straighten up a little. I didn’t want to vacuum, b/c I thought it would be too loud. So, I opened up the puzzle. I’m probably the only person that would begin a puzzle at two in the morning, but I wasn’t sleepy. I cut open the box and dumped all of the pieces on the table. My plan to put together a puzzle is to find all of the edge pieces first, then sort the rest by color. I’m sorting and Molly decides to help. She jumps on the table and stands directly over the pieces I’m sorting. Fine. Move. I get part of the  pieces sorted and Molly starts stalking the puzzle pieces. You know, down on all four legs, really low with her rear end twitching. Then, she pounces. The puzzle never had a chance. She grabbed a piece, jumped to the floor, and begins her low growl. (The growl means I have something dead to gross you out with to offer to you.) I grab the piece not wanting to loose it and have a hole in my puzzle. Same thing again and again. I guess I never realized how vicious puzzles could be. Molly, my hero, was saving me from the scary pieces. I’m sure you know that I didn’t get much accomplished.  I’m waiting for her to sleep before I start again. (Just like having a toddler or something.)

Molly is soo funny. It’s like she has a split personality. One minute she is very loving. She crawls up on you and nuzzles, just wants to be close. Then she stalks you and attacks. It hurts. She keeps her claws very sharp by using the couch and the bed. (I keep trying to break her from the bed. I’m not worried about the couch until I get a new one.) I was upset one day and she jumped up in my lap. I thought, how sweet she wants to nuzzle me to make me feel better. Wrong! She slapped me, meowed, and jumped down. I guess she thought Get over it already!

One of her favorite things to play with (besides puzzle pieces) is a balloon. The people upstairs had a party and a balloon floated down my steps. It came inside to play when I opened the door, so I left it for Molly. She was smart not to use her claws, but would bat it all around the apartment-in the air, across the apartment, everywhere.  I came home to find the balloon popped on Friday. Oh, how I wish I could have been here to watch her jump. She already freaks out over loud noises. A video tape would have been even better.

Hope everyone had a great weekend. I think I’m going to jump in the truck and head up the mountain for a few runs. :  )

Staff Meeting??

**Caution: You may fall asleep reading. I’m pretty boring tonight.** 

We had our FIRST staff meeting after school today. Did you read that? Yep, the first one. Okay, sorry, I’m sure only the teachers understand how incredible that is. My principal prefers to meet with us by grade level if he has something to say. I love this because it means that we have NOT stayed after school FOR a staff meeting at all until today. In the awesome, um, great crappy system that I used to work for, we had to leave every Wednesday open for a meeting. They would be called, canceled, and called all within the last fifteen minutes of school. Oh, how nice it is to have administration with brains. 2/3 of my last administration had brains, but that 1/3, well, it had final say.

Anyway, what have I been doing??? Not much really. I blogged about Friday. I slept in on Saturday, had tires put on my truck, talked to Jana, took a nap, talked to Jana, talked to Mom, and finally, went back to bed. I woke up early on Sunday, but couldn’t convince myself to do anything. I had a free lift ticket, but just didn’t feel like going. My mind was elsewhere. I decided that it was best to stay off the mountain and not hurt myself. I’ve been trying to keep the kids at school busy and focused. Stop laughing. I said try. They have been so crazy after being off for almost three weeks. (2 weeks at Christmas and then snow days)

I don’t want get emotional on here tonight. Just not in the mood right now. So, I will keep rambling on about nothing. We are on a really weird schedule at school and our semester ends next week. So, the following week we’re going to kick off our 8th grade interdisciplinary projects by taking the kids on a field trip. Did you read that? My first field trip. At my last job, it way toooo expensive to take our kids anywhere. Here, it’s still too expensive, but very important. We are putting the students in groups and doing team building (bowling) and showing examples of people that have made an impact in the world. (going to the movies to see Freedom Writers). Can you believe that? The theatre in town ordered the movie and is showing it for free. We just have to pay for the shipping of the film. Living in a small town is nice sometimes. Okay, sorry I was long and boring. I felt like I owed everyone a post and I don’t really have much to say tonight. Love and hugs to everyone.

Friends

This is what friends do when they want to cheer you up. They wear hockey helmets and pose for pictures. No, not really. This pic is from Friday night at the Fitz’s house. Mr. Fitz has a rule in his house. If you say something stupid, you have to wear his old hockey helmet. KK is in the helmet. I have no idea what it was that she said, but Mr. Fitz had just taken it off. He said something to put it on and I ended up in his hat. They have all been a great support group. They’ve listened when I felt like talking. They’ve distracted me when I didn’t.  I want to request a prayer for KK’s boyfriend and his family. His grandmother’s health is not good. I hope that he and his family find peace. Times like these are not easy and our friends and family make it better. I’ve talked to Jana a lot this weekend. We spoke several times Friday night, before and after visitation on Saturday, and I’m sure we will talk again after the funeral today. Love to you all.

An Angel

God has taken another angel to be with him. Jana called me about an hour ago to let me know that Stephanie is now at peace. We stayed on the phone talking for a long time. I pulled out a few pictures from our senior year. I plan to go through more this weekend and relive some memories. I’m at a loss words and feelings right now.

A few pics

 The crazy but fabulous….KT and Chrissy

Alison is practicing her vowels with Daddy.  She’s such a cutie!!

Here you have Lovey, Lucky, and Fris….