Hi.

Monday night my chest suddenly tightened and I started coughing.

Tuesday my body started to ache.

Wednesday consisted of sleep, doctors visit, and more sleep.

Not the flu. ??? They gave me antibiotics.

Thursday was teaching and in bed by 8.

TGIF! I survived the day. I am curled up on the couch, but going back to sleep soon.

Good News: My laptop is back from HP!!  Bad News: They shipped it without its battery.  ???? Can’t do much without power. I called and talked to a heavily accented man that transferred me to a heavily accented woman who had to repeat and confirm all the information that I had already provided or listened to before I finally heard, we’ll ship that out in one to two business days. Urgh! I just want my computer back.

How about those VOLS!!!!

Number 1! I am soooooo excited to say the least. I don’t know if everyone knows, but I can.not.stand Memphis. I’m not really all that into sports, but I’ve had a strong dislike for Memphis for a very long time. The main reason is my personal experience when I decided to attend school there. Rude to say the least. I know they have great programs and yadda, yadda, yadda. I’m reasonable. I forgive. But, there are a few experiences stick with me and I just don’t get over them. That was one of them. (The other was a particular politician coming to my high school my senior year. I still don’t like him.) Another thing I have against Memphis is some of their fans. Stop. Re-read the sentence. I said some not all. Some of their fans are such buttholes. I’ve witnessed more Memphis fans go against their team when they are down than I care to remember. When it comes to football, Memphis fans still talk about the one time they beat us. (It’s been over ten years.) Getting over all of that stupid stuff that makes me dislike Memphis…I was molded into being a UT fan. It started when I was in 8th grade with a boy and he continued to influence me. So, here I am sitting in Colorado singing Rocky Top by myself. I could call Jamie. He would sing with me. I could call some Memphis fans I know and rub it in, but I’ll run into them soon enough. (and I promise I will be polite) When I come home, I’ll have to purchase some more UT attire and more stickers for my truck. I wonder if I can find an orange snowboard? lol I really don’t have much UT stuff. I am very pleased with the game. It was hard to watch. I was standing and yelling at the tv at times. I don’t know the people above me thought I was doing down here. Both teams played hard and were exciting to watch. Good job, little brother. If someone had to break your streak, I’m glad it was UT.

On ESPN’s website you will find..

Memphis pushed hard late in a give-and-take game, but Tennessee pushed back. The No. 2 Volunteers closed out a 66-62 victory with an 8-1 run, and the top-ranked Tigers were unbeaten no more.

To brighten your day…

Here are a few more pictures of Colin. He is such a cutie. I can’t wait to meet him in person.

I know. You just want to kiss him, don’t you? Speaking of meeting this new addition to our family…. I will be home on March 21st!! Actually that’s not true. My flight gets in at 12:05 AM, so technically it will be March 22nd. : ) I will be in just in time to catch a few hours before heading out to race. If you haven’t signed up yet, here is the website with all of the information PRAY for a Cure .

Come out and see everyone. If you can’t make it, give the money and get a T-shirt. You know it’s a good cause. : ) I’m coming in town just to be there. BTW, I was so excited the other day. One of my girls wasn’t in my literacy class first thing in the morning, but made it to school for my Algebra class. I casually said something about missing her first thing in the morning and that I’m glad that she made it to school that day. She replied by telling me that she had been at the doctor getting her shot and thanked me for telling her about it. I often wonder if I share too much with the kids, but this told me that I didn’t. One of our teachers has a small group of girls that meet once a month for lunch. They met today and asked if I would come in next month to share Stephanie’s story. They want to see all of the news casts and hear about her website. I’m excited and can’t wait to share with them. Plus one of my girls makes awesome brownies and I know she’ll bring them.

I don’t know what my plans are for the weekend, but I will give you an update later.

I’m alive!

Hello, Everyone! Something is going on with my wireless service at home. I can get on with the neighbors, but not with my own wireless router. It’s strange. The airport shows a full signal, but there is always a “problem loading page” error when I go to any website. I’m hoping the signal from the neighbors will last long enough for me to finish this post and publish it.

Here are a few updates from the week: (I know a lot of you have talked to me, so you already know. Just play along.)

• Last Friday, Granny had back surgery. It was longer than expected, but she came through very well. She was released from the hospital on Tuesday and is now at a rehab facility. Mom said that Granny is doing great in rehab. We don’t know how long she will be there yet. Maybe one week, maybe two.
• My little taller, just younger cousin, Jenifer, had her second baby on Tuesday. (It was a busy day for my family.) Christopher Colin came into this world weighing 8lb. 1 oz. and was 20 inches long. His brother was much bigger, but I hear that they look A LOT alike. Mommy and Colin are doing well. Just say a prayer that they will remain healthy. Dad is sick and Mommy has had a cold almost the entire pregnancy.
• I have no new snow to report. It’s kind of strange.
• I need to send out a big congrats to the Heisser’s! They found out today that they are having a little girl!!! Sonya is our 7th grade LA teacher and Jeremy is our tech teacher. They are an awesome couple and will be fantastic parents. : ) Sonya is due in July. (pronounced with a long o)
• I am about 20 pages short of finishing a book I started in January. I’ve been very busy, because I should have knocked it out a long time ago.
• My kids and I discussed gambling today. I was teaching them about probability and next thing I know we were discussing casino games. I rock as a teacher. Don’t judge. They were awake and they were listening. Don’t get me started on how I was able to relate slope-intercept form to get married and having babies. y=mx+b
• I watched Ratouille (or however you spell it) last night. Very cute movie. I enjoyed it. I took it upstairs for the girls to watch.
• My compaq laptop is sitting in a Fed Ex drop box. I managed to miss all of the drop off times in this town. The latest is 4! There is not a store to take it to, so I dropped it in the box and said a little prayer. It will be picked up by 3 tomorrow and on its way to Tennessee. Hopefully, it will be fixed quickly and shipped right back.

I leave you with the only picture that I have of Colin right now. It’s from a phone camera, so it’s a little fuzzy.

Working backwards…

I told you all how I spent my exciting Saturday evening on the phone with tech support, but I forgot to mention my great girls night on Friday.

After work EVERY Friday the newbies all go somewhere that serves alcohol and drink to surviving another week well, to drink and have some adult conversation. The chosen place this week was the new BBQ joint in town. We went to sample the wings. I was a little leery of trying it seeing as how there was a big fence in front of it and you can’t see the front door. It was awesome and actually reminded me of something I would find in TN. Flat screen TV on the wall tuned to ESPN, beer signs everywhere, tables, chairs, clean, playing blues on the radio, did I mention there was a tv that was tuned to sports! There are no real “sports bars” here. I think one or two of the restaurants have a tv, but they are more of a restaurant. This place feels like somewhere you can go, hang out, drink beer, and watch a game. I know, I know, I only go for the socializing, but it’s nice to have. Anyway,
the wings were fantastic. They had several different sauces to choose from. We tried 4 different sauces and they were all yummy. I’ll have to go back to try the bbq later. I don’t know what it will be like. I’m completely off track and not sure where I was going with this. hmm….oh, yeah, KK invited me to a girls thing that night. I wasn’t planning on going, but decided to at the last minute.

KK came by and picked me up around 7. I hung my head out the window of her little Honda Civic (i think, can’t remember for sure right now) and commented on how beautiful the river looked at night without a glare. Are you catching this? No passenger side window. It fell down a few weeks ago. If you want to get technical it fell down about 6 hours from home when she was coming back from Christmas with the family. There was no getting it up. She and Ryan just bundled and drove. So, Ryan fixed said window and it was fine. until. a few weeks ago and fell again. She wants to take it in to get it fixed, but has been very busy and had the flu. Lucky for me we were just going 3 or 4 minutes from my house. We pull up to the condos and there is NO where to park. KK has a little car, so we pulled up to a walkway of sorts between cars and park there. When we pull up, she feels guilty because some guy is outside and cracks a joke about her parking. But, he quickly pointed out that he was parked in handicapped and didn’t know which one was worse. I squeeze out of the car and follow her up to the condo. It’s really nice. (I’m taking note on everyone’s homes here.) I have dinner and drinks with KK’s friends. Then, we head out to the car. Suprise! It was still there. : ) I’m a little goofy and parking place is tight….so, I jump in like I’m on Dukes of Hazard and the giggling begins. We were laughing and KK is loading the car. She is always hurting herself. She once fractured her foot chasing a chicken, but that is a story for another time. Somehow, I’m not sure how it happened, she walked into the rack (Jason and Rachel, stop laughing.) on the top of her car. I hear a insert bad word that starts with f then she throws her glasses in the car. Her eyes are all teary and she’s trying to get over the pain. She gets herself together and jumps in the car. We notice a guy walking his dog that had to have heard the whole thing, but is choosing to ignore us, which is actually impressive. I mean can you ignore to hot chicks like us. One is jumping through car windows and the other is yelling curse words because she just banged her head. On the ride home I look over and there is blood streaming down KK’s cheek from where she rammed her face into the rack. (had to say it again, hey, I teach middle school) We are then laughing hysterically about how the drive to and from the girls night was the best part of our evening. Just for fun I pretended to be Ace Ventura and went out the window again. Ahh! The life of two middle school math teachers. Here’s a pic of us from last weekend…

And, I have a new camera with a ZOOM!! Yeah! I just need to take some pictures now. I took it up the mountain today and neglected to pull it out and use it. I’ll work on that. Good night!

I need a little blue light…

My laptop (the Compaq) is sick. It no longer connects to the Internet. The little blue light on the front stays orange showing me that it’s not working. It’s so sad. I wasn’t sure what was wrong at first, so I asked Roark to take a look at it. He is very much a tech guy. He said that the wireless card is no longer showing up and that I needed to call HP. If I would give them all my info, he would talk to them for me.

I had nothing to do on my Saturday night, so I dial HP. I listen to the options, choose one, and then get told that I have to call another number. I’m not prepared for this so I’m scrambling around trying to find pen and paper. My call is then disconnected. Urgh! I call back and get the number. Isn’t it irritating when you dial a number and they want you to call another one. Just put the correct number out there first. Make it easy on us. If we’re calling needing help, it’s not too bright to have us call another number. You may end up with one irritated customer.

Luckily for John, I’m pretty easy going. John, the HP techie, and I are on first name basis after spending so long on the phone waiting, waiting. He wanted to do a system recovery and reset my computer back to its original form. This means that I would wipe out EVERYTHING on my laptop. So, I had to back up my pictures, itunes, and documents. The pictures took the longest. I had a ton of pictures on my laptop. We started chatting about Memphis and Colorado, since I had to change my address on my warranty information. Molly then took off to look out the window, so I jumped up to take a look. There were 5 deer wandering up the street. I opened the window just a bit to try and get a picture. It was too dark and then a car came. Molly tried to jump out of the window and I had to pull her back in. Meantime, John is sitting patiently listening to everything.

Pictures Backed-up: Check

On to the itunes, I quickly started the back-up and I think our conversation went to school, snowboarding, or computers. I talk a lot, so there is no telling. I do know that John has two cats, Ren and Stimpy I loved that cartoon when I was in middle school. Jana and I had drawings of them that some of the boys gave us. I think it was Tyler and Nathan that always drew them for us. See how easily distracted I am.

So, I finally get everything backed up and we start the system recovery. Now, John has told me that he will get me started and have me call back in the morning to report if it is working or not. My computer only took 16 minutes to recover, so he stayed on the phone. We chatted some more and laughed about how I was spending my Saturday evening.

Then, I restart my notebook, cross my fingers, my toes, my legs, whatever I could get crossed and hold my breath.

It didn’t work. The damn little light is still orange and the red X is still through the little computer showing me that I don’t have wireless. : ( So, John is shipping me a box to send my notebook to the doctor. I’m lucky that it is still under warranty. Poor computer. It’s not even a year old.

I hope you had a great Saturday night. : )

Spent the day on the mountain

I didn’t get in many runs today, but I did spend all day on the mountain. My kids were in contests today and I got to watch them show off. The first contest was rail jam. I got to film the contestants on the first rail. I had a great view. I realize that I might like to watch this stuff, but I have no interest in trying it myself. Here’s a picture of the rail.

 

The next contest was big air. That was really cool to watch. The contestants were doing flips, turns, and awesome jumps.  Once again, fun to watch, but I have no interest. I didn’t get a picture of the big air. I was so amazed that I forgot to pull out my camera. I did take a picture of the chairlift that I spend a lot of time on. It’s the one on the right. I’ve only been on the one on the left once. Some of my kids took me up on a run, so I could watch them in the park. I’ll eventually get on it again, but not yet.

There was a really good crowd that showed up for the competitions today. Several teachers and families that weren’t skiing came to support the kids. It’s a great community. The weather was awesome. It was warm and the sun was shining. I think we are supposed to have good weather this week. Temps in the high 30’s and 40’s. I think there is a chance of RAIN one day. That will be strange, since we’ve only had snow for such a long time. The only bad thing about it warming up during the day is that the snow and ice melts, but then freezes again at night. It’s very dangerous. I fell walking around downtown last night. I wasn’t hurt, but could have been. I guess all of my falls from snowboarding have helped. I’ve got a very busy week, so I have to go for now.

A few pics

I wanted to get some really good shots of all the snow this week, but that would involve me leaving work before it’s dark outside. So, you are just going to have to deal with what I have….

Here is my truck after sitting in the parking lot all day on Wednesday. It’s hard to see where the snow ends and the truck begins. (hint: just look for the dirt.)

This next one is for her and her. This is what mine looks like.

Where, oh, where do they put all the snow when they plough a parking lot or a street?

 In big piles (this one is actually very small) off to the side. Sometimes the kids in the neighborhood dig tunnels through the piles. Yes, they get that big.

And, one more snow bank in front of a mountain.

I know everyone is tired of hearing about all my snow, but it’s what is happening here.

We have parent/teacher conferences tomorrow. Wish me luck. It’ll either be great or not. We are in crunch time before CSAP and the kids have been wild with the snow days and scheduled days off. At this point, I’m counting down the days until Spring Break. (29 more school days) KT, I’ll be back soon. Will the house be ready for a party?

Edited: Thanks, Jana. I wouldn’t have realized I had two pics with the same name.

Snow Sculptures

Driving down Grand Ave, I always see the most beautiful snow sculptures. I never knew the story behind it, until this article was put in the paper today. I love my small town. It’s so cute. Just wish shopping was closer. : )

Weekend Catch Up

Well, I went boarding on Saturday. It was cold and snowing the whole time. I went on a run with some of my students. They took me over to the park, so they could show me their jumps, flips, and turns. I.have.no.interest. in doing that. I just want to enjoy going down the mountain. They are really good and its fun to watch. I just like my board staying on the snow. I don’t need air, big air, or any of that. Sunday was Super Bowl. Go Giants!! I went to Kristen’s house to watch the game. It was packed. Nice people, great food and beer. I ended up watching the game upstairs with the “serious football watchers.” I couldn’t hear the commercials downstairs. lol It was fun and I won a bet since the Giants pulled it off. : ) And today still counts as the weekend for me. I had another SNOW DAY!! I got the call at 5 am. Yeah! I wanted to go snowboarding again, but I was stuck in my parking spot. Really stuck. The snow plough came through and pushed snow up to the top of my tires. I got towed out this afternoon. Good times. I’m now parked across the street and will be until the some of the snow/ice melts which should be around…..maybe, March or April. I had a nice lazy day today. The snow stopped early this afternoon and the sun was shining really bright. (urgh, i should have been on the mountain) I think the storm has moved on and we are going to get a few days off from the snow. I’m glad since I have recess duty this week. It’s hard to take the kids outside and just have them stand in the snow. They can’t sled. They can’t throw/kick snow. The basketball courts are covered. The soccer field is covered. We go stand in the snow for 20 minutes. ?? Anyway, not so much going on in Colorado just snow. : )  Surprisingly, I’m not tired of it. (yet) I only have the kids for 3 days now, since Friday is parent/teacher conference day and the kids are off.(again) Have a great week!