Friday!!

You know, I was so pumped to get out of school yesterday with the knowledge that I wouldn't be back until Monday...turns out everyone can share in my joy because school was cancelled today :-) So now I'm at home enjoying an early arrival :-)

Happy Thursday Everyone!

I was PUMPED to get out of school today. I have the day off tomorrow because I took a personal day so I can get a head start on going to visit my family this weekend. I haven't been to Hampton since Novemeber, entirely too long in my opinion, but with the weather and holidays and such, it's been hard to make long journies. I'm nervous because I usually travel with Colby on long trips in the evening, but this time it will be full bright outside. I suppose we'll have to stop several times.

So yesterday was a really terrible day for Colby. He woke up on the wrong side of the bed, threw a huge tantrum when I dropped him off at daycare, exploded a sippy cup when we got home by standing on it, and had to go to time out several times. Thankfully today he's been much better. He was his normal happy self and I got several kisses :-)

Got the Giggles

When I went to pick Colby up this afternoon, he was barefoot and wearing this ridiculous looking onesie. Apparently he'd had a pooey accident and he didn't have any extra clothes. I giggled a little at his outfit - the pants only came down to midcalf and it was clearly meant for a child much pudgier than Colby. I wish I'd taken a picture so everyone could share my giggles :-)

Job Worries

Today I went to a meeting about the school budget. It made me really nervous. It seems like they're definately going to make personell cuts starting with people on provisional licences (that's not me), moving on to annual contract people (not me either) and then based on seniority (an issue for me because I only have two years). The issue for me is if they decide to consolidate the middle schools, which it seemed likely, they would try to keep teachers with a higher seniority if they are certified to teach other things. So a middle school teacher who is certified in English with 20 years experience can be placed at the high school and bump someone like me out. It made me very upset, but I felt better when I got home and Brandon had made dinner.

Barnes and Noble Adventure

I have to say that usually Colby is great in public. We almost never have meltdowns at Walmart or restaurants, but today was different. We went to Barnes and Noble, which is normally his favorite place because he can run around the isles and it doesn't normally bother anybody. He doesn't mess with the books so I'm content to follow him around and do some browsing at lightening speeds. Today Colby found the Thomas the Train toys in the kids section. They leave it out for kids to play with. I was perfectly content to let him play for a while, but then he started getting frustrated with them and throwing them so I was going to take him somewhere else in the store and let him run around, but he started screaming. I think I should get the mom of the year award because I just calmly picked him up, carried him wailing through the store right out to the car. We then went home where we went for a peaceful walk around the neighborhood to enjoy the weather. I had other things I wanted to do while I was out, but I'll be darned if I take a cranky baby anywhere else after the show in Barnes and Noble.

Polar Plunge

Yes, this is Brandon with no shirt and a towel around his waist in the middle of Februrary - he had just completed his first official polar plunge. This plunge was to raise money for the Special Olympics, so at least he did it for a good cause :-)

School!

This week we went back to school to meet our new students. Tuesday was the first day of a new semester and so far I like my classes, I have more girls (Last semester I had maybe 15 in three classes), I have fewer students on their way to juvenile detention, and even though some of my students are talkative, they seem willing to work hard. So really I don't have any issues with my classes, but there's certainly of other people with drama to keep things interesting - several teachers have nearly 30 students in their classes, one English teacher may not have a job next year because there's no money, and our school district is facing a nearly $5 million shortfall. The irritating thing is that we have ways to cut our budget that the school board isn't even thinking about such as moving the school board office to a vacant elementary school instead of renting space and our illustrious governor thinks it's a good idea to cut funding for schools. Don't get me wrong, I voted for the man, but I didn't think it would go down like this. If he wants to create a better Virginia, cutting education isn't a good thing. And also, why are we opening rest areas when we're facing a $4 billion shortfall? Why can't people just be normal and stop at a McDonalds to pee like the rest of us?

On a lighter note, I'm glad Evan Lysecek (sp?) won the gold in mens figure skating (Evan is an American). That Russian guy kind of reminded me of an evil Russian mobster in a Die Hard movie. And the Russian hasn't been very gracious since he won a silver. Oh no, not a silver! The horror!

Olympic Fever

Yesterday I got to go out with the other English teachers. We decide to get out of our houses and hit the town :-) We went to see Valentines Day (a movie) and then we went to Red Robin to eat. The movie was great! It actually got a tear out of me at the end. We enjoyed ourselves over dinner and returned home rejuvenated, which is good because we might get more snow on Monday!! FYI, that would be four snowstorms in three weeks.

Last night I missed the winter olympics opening ceremonies, but I'm okay with that, I want to acually watch the games. So far today we've watch short track and long track speed skating, moguls, and ski juming. The short track speed skating is riciulously exciting. I'm looking forward to downhill skiing, it looks ridiculously exciting as well, plus I'm rooting for Bodie Miller who totally blew it in the last Olympics. I also would be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to figure skating :-) Really the only thing I'm not excited about is hockey. Sorry hockey fans!

Colby Pics

Colby has his ducks in a row :-)



Colby is silly!

I have officially become an animal lover. I never used to be - I had an intense dislike for cats when I was growing up and only liked dogs. But now I have two dogs and the other day I made friends with a neighborhood cat. It's an orange fluffy cat that likes being petted. I fed it for two days and gave it water much to Brandon's dismay. Now the cat thinks that it belongs to us and when we had friends come over for dinner last night, the cat snuck in! We chased it back out, but it tried to come in again today when I took Colby to daycare. By the way, I picked the worst day ever to take Colby to daycare. It's not snowing, but the wind is blowing snow across the roads. Where there are trees, the roads aren't so bad, but if there's just open land, the nearby roads are covered. It doesn't matter how much plowing they do, it's just going to blow back. We might have been able to go back to school tomorrow if we hadn't had all this wind, but at this rate, it'll definately be next week before we make it back. That would make it 2 weeks of no school. I don't know what they're going to do to make-up time. Guess I'll find out next week!

Stay at Home Mom

I think I now know what it must feel like to be a stay at home mom. You see I've been off so much because of the snow, I haven't been going to work. I've determined that I don't mind being a stay at home mom during the summer, we can go to the park, go swimming, go outside and play with the dogs, walk around the neighborhood, etc. But in the winter, there's nothing to do except stay inside and get in each other's way.

Today was good though because we had some friends over from church so I was busy cleaning and cooking. Colby even helped clean - he pushed around the swiffer :-) Tomorrow we don't have school again. So far we haven't had a single day of school in February. Maybe we'll got to Christiansburg and do a wee bit of shopping. We'll see.

Bruschetta Adventure

Today I finally got out of the house! Yay! I went to church followed by Walmart. When Colby and I got home we ate lunch and I put him down for his nap. While he napped I made homemade bruschetta. Brandon and I discovered bruschetta a while ago at a Costco. They were giving out free samples and we liked it so much that we bought some. I look around for it from time to time, but I've never found any so I decided to make some. Lets just say...it was delicious! Here's the recipe if you want to try it:

8 Roma tomatos deseeded and chopped
2 cloves of garlic minced (this was a lot of garlic so I thought next time I'd cut it down to 1)
1/3 cup of basil chopped
1/4 cup onion
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

It's super good on store bought italian toast, but probably great on toasted italian bread too. And it tasted pretty good with wheat thins when I was taste testing :-) I felt pretty good about his because Colby can eat it too! And he really enjoyed it!

No school tomorrow...I wonder if we'll have any school in February? I also wonder if we'll be in school until July?

Dorks and Snow

I want everyone to know that I'm a dork. There I said it. This is why - there have been a lot of commercials about things happening around town and I want to go to all of them! There's a production of Cats, Celtic Woman and the Harlem Globe Trotters will be in town and I want to go to all of them...I know...dork.

Anyway, we got a bunch more snow today. Brandon was so concerned about getting to work and back that he took the RAV, which has 4 wheel drive. I probably have said it before, but I'm sick of snow. I'm tired of looking at it, dealing with it, stuck in it, etc., etc. I'm done with snow.

Snow Week!

Well, it looks like we won't have any school this week. We haven't been so far this week and since we're supposed to have another snowstorm tomorrow, we just had another winter break! Unfortunately we'll have to make it up at some point...boo.

So Brandon went to Roanoke for court this morning and Colby and I hung out. I was reading a magazine on the couch and he crawled up in my lap. I wrapped my arms around him and every time I moved my hand to turn the page he grabbed it and put it back. When I realized he was sleepy, I laid down and let him fall asleep on top of me. He can be really frustrating (and he was later in the day), but there's nothing like holding your baby while he sleeps, especially when he's older and doesn't let you do it very often. I eventually was able to move him off of me so that I could get a shower, but I enjoyed it while it lasted.

After Brandon got back we ate lunch and went to the rec center. I used the eliptical for about 20 minutes while Brandon and Colby walked on the track. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out at the house. Tomorrow I guess we'll just watch it snow, but Brandon has to go to work. He's taking the RAV tomorrow instead of the truck so that he can be sure to get to work and get home.

Playing Hookie

Today Brandon and I took Colby to daycare and we went on a date. We went to Alejandro's Mexican Restaurant and sampled the salsa bar - very good I might add - and then we went to see The Book of Eli. The movie was very good and I would highly recommend it to anybody. It has a great twist at the end. My only complaint was the price of a matinee ticket, which was only a dollar less than than the regular price. Dang. I felt kind of like I was playing hookie today...but hey...what are snow days for! Tomorrow I have to go back to school...boo. We might as well not because we're going to off on Friday because it's supposed to snow...again. A little winter weather is okay, but three storms in a week is getting a little ridiculous.

Blanket

Last month an e-mail came across my school inbox asking for people to donate homemade baby blankets to a church that does care packages for underprivledged moms-to-be. I mulled over the possibility of me making a blanket and decided to make one. Here's a pic of it.

Snow Days

Yesterday we had a snow day! I took Colby to day care and cleaned the house. I don't understand how three people can create such a huge mess in two weeks that I feel overwhelmed, but it happened. I vaccuumed, tossed, did laundry and dishes...all the things that are REALLY hard to do when Colby's around. Today we had another snow day so I decided to keep Colby at home. Keeping him entertained is hard because he has the attention span of...well.. a two year old, but he's fun :-) It's not hard to make him giggle, which is possibly my favorite sound that he makes :-)

So the weather is just crazy right now. It snowed on Saturday, as I type it's snowing again and this weekend their predicting more snow! I'm kind of sick of all this snow. A little snow is a great thing, but we've had almost 3 feet of snow this winter! Oh well, I guess it doesn't really do any good to complain about it - mother nature isn't listening :-P