Mi Vida Ocupada: My Busy Life!

1 Down, 171 To Go....

Days of school in this upcoming school year, that is!  I successfully made it through the First Day of School at both schools.  Yay! I know it is going to be a very busy and challenging year, but I am looking forward to it. It was great to return to my morning school.  The kids and I were happy to see each other.... especially after not knowing last spring whether I would be returning this Fall. I am still working on locating the students who need gifted/talented services...once that happens, I can begin my creative scheduling.  I am also trying to put my classrooms together since I never really had the chance last week.  Enough about work now!

Notice the new banner and color scheme? I love this one! I stepped away from my usual floral-motif and made a collage to commemorate some fun moments I had this summer....and yes, there were quite a few despite working summer school and having my knee surgery. 

Speaking of the knee.... I am still recovering, but making progress.  I never did post the pics of my knee, but Greta desperately wants to see them, so I might as well post it.  Click on it to make it bigger.  Sorry if this grosses you out, but there isn't much blood or anything...just shows the effed -upness inside my knee.   Pics 1, 2, 5 & 16 show scar tissue that needed to be removed.  3 & 4 show the severe arthritis, and #11 shows how out of alignment my kneecap was.  17 shows my knee cap after the lateral release procedure. No wonder I was in so much pain before!

*****************************************************************************************************

Dana, Kevin and Jasmine left this morning, Uncle Mike and Marisa left on Sunday morning after we all met for an early breakfast.  We had a nice time with them while they were here (as always :)  We went out to the Mall of America for a few hours on Sunday afternoon (with Rusty and Alex too) and then to Khan's Mongolian Barbeque for dinner.  On Monday us girls went swimming while the boys all went fishing.  Jasmine and I scrapped a little bit this weekend too! She made some pretty great tags for a 7-year-old!

Oh, also wanted to say Congratulations to Mandie (and Jason) who just had a healthy baby girl, Aubrionna Marie, yesterday morning.  I am sure they probably will not be able to make it to Kara and Jesse's wedding this weekend so soon after having the baby, but I hope to go visit them next week at their new house.  You wanna come with, Cass?

Stay tuned for a couple of book reviews later this week........

Lazy Mode.....

During this last week that I have been off of work I have gotten into a bad sleep schedule...up 'til 2-3am and sleeping until about 10am most days. It killed me to have to get up so early again this morning with the start of Summer school.  I am sooooo not in the mood to work this summer!!!!!!!  It was pretty much the butt-crack-of-dawn when I rolled out of bed and made haste in getting my first day lessons ready since there were  so many other things I chose to do over the weekend instead......  Like drinking Mailbu/ OJ  and playing Trivial Pursuit with Heather on Saturday night.  We were both really bored so I made her come over to our house.  Closets have also been cleaned out to get things ready to sell on Ebay.   It was either buy a bigger house or start selling some stuff.  So selling stuff on eBay has now become my second job.  We have been talking about selling stuff on there for like three years and we posted our very first items tonight.  Yay!!!!!!

I got an e-mail today from one of the girls I know at Scrapjazz wanting to know if I had seen that I was this week's SJ Featured Artist. Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!   Its only been like two years now that I was hoping they would pick me :)  I have been fairly active on the boards for over two years now and post all of my work to the gallery, but they had still been selecting unfamiliar artists from time to time.  Someone even commented how one such featured artist was bragging about how she was chosen and that she thought it was funny because she wasn't even a real member. Thats pretty sad and ungrateful IMO!!  I am totally stoked that I was picked!

Currently reading Jennifer Weiner's newest paperback, Goodnight Nobody.  Has a different feel than her other books...kind of like a mystery.  Decent so far....I am about 1/3 through.

Thought I would switch to Firefox last week but it is slower than hell and I cannot stand it!!!!!!  I also cannot get into my Typepad account for some weird reason.  Gonna stick with IE because it is much faster on my computer!

Been craving Italian lately....gonna have dinner with Susan tomorrow night.  Bring on the garlic and cheese! Ciao.......

Random Post of the Week...

**Went to visit our friends Jeff and Toni after work tonight.  Georgia and Cidney are getting so big! Cidney turns one years old in three days:)

** Tomorrow is the last day of the school year.   It is bittersweet....I am sad to think that I might not be coming back to my school next year.  Might not see my students and their families that I have gotten to know so well for the past two years.  I was lucky to have a job I like so much.  Whether I am there half-time next year depends on if I can find another half-time position in my district SOON.  It isn't looking good, folks. I thought I'd have to go back to teaching special ed, but hundreds of those positions were also cut.  If I can't find a job on my own soon, they will assign me somewhere full-time when something in my licensure area opens up.   That could literally be the day before school starts or two weeks into the next year.  That sucks! The good news is that I am guaranteed my salary either way, so being tenured helps to ease the mind some.

**I will be teaching 4th grade students with learning disabilities this summer.  I will have Mon-Thurs off next week and then summer school starts Friday.  It runs 5 weeks, but I will only work the first four.

** I am having knee surgery on July 25th.  I will have 4 weeks to recover and then back to work..hopefully! The healing time needed for my procedure is up to 8 weeks.  I hope I am good enough to do the Tootsie Roll at Kara's wedding on Sept 9...I know she is looking forward to that!

**In the scrappy news, I ordered a ton of overlays and papers from Hambly Screen Prints today.  You have to check out Their layout gallery.  Wow!!  I even saw stuff made by my girls Christina Padilla, Jaime Warren and Kristi Contes.  how cool!  I am going to make some cool stuff when I get it and try to make that gallery too! I never submit my stuff because I'd rather do it for fun, but that looks fun too!

Then Greta asks me if I have seen the new Cricut by ProvoCraft yet.  Well no, I hadn't until she sent me to their site to check it out and now I want one of these bad boys! They are really sweet.  I have never had a Quikutz and this thing looks pretty techno-savy and you get like a million fonts and you can change the size on it too.  Thanks a lot, Greta...one more thing for me to put on my wish list! I think they are going for around $300? I bet Adrienne has one of these or will be getting one soon! I say that because she loves to shop and always has the coolest tools before anyone else I know.  If anyone seriously has this already, let me know what you think!

**I am reading My Friend Leonard by James Frey.  Not sure if he "embellished" this story, like he did with A Million Little Pieces, but I am enjoying it.  Love both books of his, despite all the controversy. Can't wait to read, read, read all summer long! Love it! Kim...I may take your suggestion and add bookreviews to the book thumbnails on my sidebar.  I might have more time to do that this summer.

**Sending positive thoughts to my girlfriend who is going to the Dr. tomorrow to make sure her cervical cancer hasn't come back.  She is the third friend of mine (that I know of )who has had cervical cancer. It is scary how many people are affected. 

**Sent those bookmarks out yesterday...hope you girls like the ones you get!

Good night!

Cool codes & making a map.....

So....Cool new codes/technologies for blogs and webpages keep springing up everywhere!! I am loving it! (As long as some funky pop-ups aren't attached to it! Haha Greta!!)

Its always cool to spice up the blog a little, right? Whenever I add something cool to my blog I usually give credit to the person whose page I first saw it on.  Well, my latest idea is one I got from my girl C.P..  She has a slideshow with pics of a bunch of the Scrapjazz girls..... she used frappr.com to do it.  Turns out that people can add their picture and location and it automatically updates the slideshow everytime someone new enters their info.  Cool huh?

So now I want to make a slideshow and map of ALL OF YOU! My loyal friends and readers:) If you would be so kind, please go to Frappr-my admin page and give your location and upload a pic! Super easy...takes 2 minutes at most! Just a fun way to keep track of where ya'll live. And then you can all see your pretty little faces on my sidebar somewhere too!  Ready, set, go!

Side Note:

**I  wanted to say thanks for all the comments on my hair.  It seems most people actually like it darker like this! Who knew??? Maybe I won't go back to get more blonde afterall.

Now I just need to get a TAN! Lol. 12 Days 'til Vegas, baby!!!

Chop, Chop!

I literally have just two minutes to post today, but I figured 3 days or more between post is too long!!

So I will leave you with this pic of my new 'do...chopped 5 inches off the length and also got layers.  Lovin the cut and shorter hair!!!   Its mostly dark with strawberry blonde highlights just on top.....wanted copper and blonde and thats not what I got.  (Went to a new girl) Almost looks orange to me :( Might go back to have it re-done if I can find the time!!

What do ya'll think?? This isn't the best view of my hair, but I had to take the pic myself :)

Fun Friday=Bad diet day

Boy, was I naughty about the diet on Friday.  I cheated BIG TIME and I had the worst acid indigestion ever!!! But remember, my goal is to have "more good days than bad".  Started with an early lunch at Chipotle with my favorite girls, Lori and Jen.  Unfortunately this place is terrible for a lo-carb diet. Or any diet for that matter, but Yumm!.  Since we haven't taught together in a few years now, it has become a tradition to ren·dez·vous at Chipotle when we have conference prep day.  Too bad they only happen twice a year because I love these work-days without students and meeting with my friends. Got all of my report cards done too, and it feels so good. Plus it was a gorgeous, sunny, 54 degree spring day :)

Later I went out to dinner with E...we were both craving chicken so we went to this place on the East Side that has the best fried chicken...lightly battered with the best seasonings!  Ate 4 chicken wings...after dipping them all in ranch!

And if that wasn't enough, I went over to Heather's house late Friday night to play some poker and see her new house.  She made tacos for all of us (could I ever turn down Mexican?)and this fabulous apple crumbly pie (with cool whip) that was so good I am still thinking about it.  So good that I would cheat again and have a piece right now if I could. Heather's house is so stinkin cute and the way she decorated everything is just the coolest! Her basement is like the ultimate poker party spot...a huge fully stocked wet bar and an authentic 8-person poker table. She also has these cool mardi gras masks hanging from the chandelier to try on....so we tried on masks and played poker all night.....

Guess who won the game?

We didn't play for money or anything, just for fun.  I stayed until 2am and was very tired when I left! As I was getting close to home a cop whipped a U-ie, accelerated on my ass and followed me about a mile and through 2 street turns....I was totally paranoid that he was going to randomly pull me over (even though I had nothing to feel guilty about) when he turned into the fire station parking lot, just a half mile away from my house. Jerk Cop, you freaked me out! 

Don't you hate it when that happens?

Hope everyone is having a great weekend. Plan to clean, scrap and catch up on blogs tomorrow!

Missing out

My life has gotten so boring lately!  It seems like I don't do anything except work and go to the gym these days.  Speaking of work, Its hard to believe that I have almost completed my seventh year of contract teaching. All seven of those years have been at inner-city schools within the same school district. Want to guess how many of those years I have taught the morning or after school programs at each of my various schools? All stinkin seven!!!!  And all seven of those years I have complained about it and said I wouldn't do it again the next year.  And here I am again!

Like I was saying, I work this after school program  and then go to the gym until 8 several nights a week.  Late nights spent chillin with my man for an hour or so before getting ready for bed.  What other few open nights I have each week I like to spend with E, or relaxing,  and occasionally getting out with my girlfriends and family.  I feel like I am missing so much!!!

I feel like such a bad friend, but I know I am just busy.  I am going to make myself a list of who I am missing  and haven't seen in awhile (in no particular order)...I hope  to get together with all of these friends as soon as it works out! I Miss you!!

**Visit Bradie's new baby and new house...long overdue!

**Visit Aimee and baby,

** Visit Kara and baby

**Visit Farrah and baby

**Spend time with My Jenny! Movie, shopping, book talking...whatever!

**Dinner with my college girls....the Lauras, Lindsay, Sally, Kelly

**Hang out with Cassie at her new apartment, watching movies and laughing our asses off about the old days, looking at old pics.  Her yummy lasagna. Talking to her moms and Johnnessa too....

**Dinner at Chino Latino with Shannon, Sarah, Gina, Mollie and Kara

**Dinner with Julie and Shelly somewhere in Bear town...WAY too long since I've seen them, we keep talking but no action

**Sushi with E, Kara and Jesse....Origami?

**Scrap with Shannon and Sarah

**Hang out with Jules....dinner or a sleepover...something long before July 4th at Mary & Dubber's

**Sushi buffet with Jeffrey

**Go see my niece and check out the progress on Bri & Mich's basement project

**Hang out with Johnnie V, Kirsten  and their beautiful baby girl

**Go see Sonja's place (and Jenni) in Applevalley...I miss Angelina!

**Check out Heather's ginormous house in Blaine...poker night (I'd love to see Dana get her booty out there too!)

**Dinner with Amanda (and Cassie and Kara)....Snuffy's again??

**Dinner with Keri or just hang out at her beautiful house

**Dinner with Lily.....oh, I miss her so much! Nicky too if she can make it....

**Dinner with Susan W....Mexican-check....Italian-check...what's next? Margaritas are always good!

Wow, look what I started once I got going...so many people to see and get together with....not enough time!! I am sure there are tons of other people I would like to see that I left out....soon, very soon.

xoxoxoxoxox

My life has gotten so boring lately!  It seems like I don't do anything except work and go to the gym these days.  Speaking of work, Its hard to believe that I have almost completed my seventh year of contract teaching. All seven of those years have been at inner-city schools within the same school district. Want to guess how many of those years I have taught the morning or after school programs at each of my various schools? All stinkin seven!!!!  And all seven of those years I have complained about it and said I wouldn't do it again the next year.  And here I am again!

Like I was saying, I work this after school program  and then go to the gym until 8 several nights a week.  Late nights spent chillin with my man for an hour or so before getting ready for bed.  What other few open nights I have each week I like to spend with E, or relaxing,  and occasionally getting out with my girlfriends and family.  I feel like I am missing so much!!!

I feel like such a bad friend, but I know I am just busy.  I am going to make myself a list of who I am missing  and haven't seen in awhile (in no particular order)...I hope  to get together with all of these friends as soon as it works out! I Miss you!!

**Visit Bradie's new baby and new house...long overdue!

**Visit Aimee and baby,

** Visit Kara and baby

**Visit Farrah and baby

**Spend time with My Jenny! Movie, shopping, book talking...whatever!

**Dinner with my college girls....the Lauras, Lindsay, Sally, Kelly

**Hang out with Cassie at her new apartment, watching movies and laughing our asses off about the old days, looking at old pics.  Her yummy lasagna. Talking to her moms and Johnnessa too....

**Dinner at Chino Latino with Shannon, Sarah, Gina, Mollie and Kara

**Dinner with Julie and Shelly somewhere in Bear town...WAY too long since I've seen them, we keep talking but no action

**Sushi with E, Kara and Jesse....Origami?

**Scrap with Shannon and Sarah

**Hang out with Jules....dinner or a sleepover...something long before July 4th at Mary & Dubber's

**Sushi buffet with Jeffrey

**Go see my niece and check out the progress on Bri & Mich's basement project

**Hang out with Johnnie V, Kirsten  and their beautiful baby girl

**Go see Sonja's place (and Jenni) in Applevalley...I miss Angelina!

**Check out Heather's ginormous house in Blaine...poker night (I'd love to see Dana get her booty out there too!)

**Dinner with Amanda (and Cassie and Kara)....Snuffy's again??

**Dinner with Keri or just hang out at her beautiful house

**Dinner with Lily.....oh, I miss her so much! Nicky too if she can make it....

**Dinner with Susan W....Mexican-check....Italian-check...what's next? Margaritas are always good!

Wow, look what I started once I got going...so many people to see and get together with....not enough time!! I am sure there are tons of other people I would like to see that I left out....soon, very soon.

xoxoxoxoxox

Miscellaneous...

Back at work today, feeling a little better.  No more nastiness coming out of me at this point! What a terrible way to jump-start the Diet!! Still feeling somewhat weak...gonna be hard to work out tonight, but I am gonna give it a try anyway!

Whats new?

***My friend Farrah and her husband Bryon had a baby girl, Berlyn Arianna,  on Friday evening!  Berlyn weighed just under 7 lbs and was 2 1/2 weeks early! The biggest surprise for me was that it was a girl!!! I was convinced throughout her pregnancy that it was a boy. Can't wait to meet her very soon!

***That reminds me...I still have to go visit the baby girls of both Bradie and Kara M too!  I feel like I am missing out on so much sometimes :(

***I really miss my niece Annika, but will get to see her on Sunday.  My parents are on their way back from Florida after 5 or 6 weeks and we will have a little get together at their place.

***My girl Kara B just came back from a romantic trip to Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas with her fiance, Jesse.  How cool would it be to swim with dolphins? That is something I have always wanted to do! I went to the Bahamas once when I was little, but would love to go back.  E has mentioned the possibility of getting married at Pink Sands Resort in the Bahamas someday.  I'd be cool with that!

*** I started reading My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult.  So far, so good.  Very interesting storyline.  It is a very fast read and what I think I really like about it is that each chapter is told from the view point of a different character in the story.  Anyone here read it yet? I have heard it gets sad!

*** I have jumped on the Grey's Anatomy bandwagon since so many of ya'll talk about it all the time! I never watch any TV series because if I cannot watch it from the very first episode, it seems pointless.  So I bought season 1 at Best Buy for only $16...I am hooked and have seen only two episodes!

***Report card time is here. Dang it!!!!  This is soooooooo much more work than most of you non-teachers would expect.  Especially when you see 160 students!

That's all for now, I guess!

Its Fat Tuesday, Baby!!!

Mardi Gras! Fat Tuesday! Party Time!

I have sadly come to the realization that working out alone is not going to get rid of the unwanted fat on my body.....dieting is a must.  Since Lent starts tomorrow, so does my new diet! Gonna say goodbye to many of my old favorites: Pad Thai noodles, ice cream, chips & guac, cereal, Chipotle burrritos, bagels, french fries, cheese bread, etc.

But since the diet doesn't start until manana, I am going to LIVE IT UP TONIGHT baby!!!  That is the entire point of Fat Tuesday.  I think I am going to go to the Chinese buffet and tear it down!!! I doubt I will be able to walk by the time I am through. LoL.

Hope all is well with everyone....I haven't had time to read any blogs/message boards for awhile or scan/post any of my latest layouts.  Can't wait to hear how my brother's job at the Celebrity Fashion Show went!

Other News:

My girl Kara found her dream wedding dress.  So Gorgeous!! Her wedding is going to be unbelievable...I don't know if I can wait all the way until Sept. 9th! The bridesmaids dresses are beautiful too (but I will not be wearing one). I am extremely jealous that she is in the Bahamas right now!

My girl Farrah has just been put on bedrest for the remaining three weeks of her pregnancy.  We are trying to function here at work without her...she seriously runs this school and it going to be a huge challenge.  We also have two other teachers out on maternity leave, one who just returned from maternity leave, and one who is out on medical leave (surgery). And we only have 20 teachers in our building! Needless to say, things have been kind of crazy around here!

My girl Cassie just moved back to my end of the Cities. Hope to see her and spend more time together soon!  She has a really nice cat that needs a home....anyone interested?? Lord knows I do NOT need a 5th cat!!

Have a great FAT Tuesday everyone!!

Busy Times Ahead!

I wanted to thank my brother again for his guest post yesterday!

I am tired today. I work late every Wednesday evening and then go work out with my trainer afterward....I usually don't get home until 8:30 or later.  Not much time to relax before heading to bed to do it all again the next day.  Here is my schedule of upcoming events:

*Thursday... work with trainer at gym after work.  Head to The Rock late night to catch Xero rock out for Battle of The Bands (Come on out if you can make it!!!!)

*Friday...meeting with Barbara and Lori after work. Yay for fun times with friends I haven't seen in awhile :)

*Saturday...scrappin with Shannon and Sarah in the morning and then going to see Prince and Ta'mar at The Orpheum.  (Can't wait!!!!!!!!!)

*Sunday...going to the Timberwolves game (Please guys, get your act together and win some stinkin games for crying out loud!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

*Monday...working late then heading to the gym.

Good thing I took it easy last weekend and had Monday off!

*****Has anyone seen the new DVD release Waiting, yet? Pretty raunchy but funny!!! The movie is about a restaurant (Shenanigan's) and the people who work there.  The guys play a really sick game..."meatgazing".  Don't ask...just rent the movie!

*****More Babies!!!!!!!!!!!

Congrats to Nicole and Ryan on their baby boy, Porter on Tuesday the 21st.

Congrats to (my cousin) Theresa and Andrew on their baby boy, Timothy....Thursday the 23rd

Creating Traditions...

Creating a tradition is as simple as doing something more than one time, usually around a specific date or event.  Traditions are a big deal in my family...we have lots of 'em!

Er and I started a Valentine's tradition about four years ago when we first went to Fuddruckers for Valentine's Day.  We wanted to go somewhere yummy and fun that wouldn't involve reservations or an hour long wait to get food.  Fuddrucker's fits all that criteria! A few years ago our friend Rich and his friend Ang started having Valentine's dinner at Fuddrucker's with us.  This was our 3rd year with them, and probably 5th year for us.

The boys pride themselves on being able to eat the "pounder, with all the fixins".  Here is Richie with his burger (there is no way E would pose for this pic!).  Now THATS a BURGER!!

I know I have said it before, but all you meat-eaters MUST have a burger from Fudd's....they really are the World's Greatest!! My favorite is the Southwest Burger. Yumm!

Sayonara!

I have a little admission to make.  One that is going to make me look somewhat of an dummie, but it is funny enough that I can laugh at myself and share my little story with ya. 

So, late on Tuesday night after my workout I went to dinner at a Japanese restaurant with E, his mom and his aunt.  Dinner went well (yummy sushi!) and as we were leaving, the host said something to us in Japanese and then E's aunt responded back at him in Japanese.  His parting words were, "Sayonara".  Okay, everyone and their brother in this world must know that sayonara is how you say "goodbye" in Japanese....everyone except me!!! When he said "sayonara", I looked at E's mom and aunt and was like, "Sayonara is Japanese?????????? All my life I thought it was Italian!!!!!!!!!!!" I shit you not, people.  I seriously thought sayonara was Italian!! They all laughed at me and thought it was cute...except E who claimed to not know me!! lol.  I told them that I seriously believed it was "Cianara, arribaderche", one phrase...in Italian!!  I told them that they can all be partially to blame for this, since I have known them all for seven years now and that they are my primary Japanese influence and not once have any of them ever said "sayonara" to me in that whole time!!!!!!!  This could have been cleared up years ago!!!  I admit this story is pretty funny.  What is even funnier is that I am usually very good at recognizing foreign languages and use vocabulary from many different languages all the time.  How that one got past me, I'll never know!!

Wednesday was a crazy busy day for me at work....I had to schedule 300 kids for our schoolwide enrichment day that I am hosting on Monday and it took me literally like 8 hours to do it.  Unfortunately I will not be at school on Monday because we are headed to Chicago this afternoon for Erick's grandma's funeral this weekend.  Being gone from work for 3 days also means 3 days of detailed lessons plans to leave for my guest teacher.  I was at work until they kicked me out at 5pm!

Once I left work I was headed to Stillwater where the private training studio that I work out at is located.  I was on the celly with my best friend Mary (who lives about 5 minutes from the gym) when she was like "hold on for a sec". The next thing I know she was like" Omigod Kristi, the dog just broke my nose, get over here quick!!!!!"  She had put me on hold to put the new puppy on her leash when the dog jumped up and hit her so hard in the nose that she heard the crack and then blood was everywhere!!  I got there in less then five minutes since I was already so close and watched her kids  for awhile until her husband got home.  The poor girl drove herself to the hospital which luckily was less than a mile away!  Today Mary has to get a CT-Scan so they can see where it is broken and then she needs to go to a specialist to figure out how to fix it.  I bet she is going to have black eyes for awhile too.  Poor, poor Mary!!! Oooooouch!!!!!

As far as my weight training is going....fabulous!! Going three times a week with my friend Lanee and our trainer, Jason, is working us!!!!!  My muscles are tired everyday, but it hurts so good!!

I have a ton of work and packing etc, to do today before we head out on the road.  I am taking my laptop with too! Hopefully we will find something fun to do for my birthday Saturday night!!!!!

Chi-town, here we come!

Sayonara!!!!!!!!!!!

On a Happier Note....

Thanks for all the prayers and well wishes about E's grandma, it means a lot to us :) This would have been a very busy weekend for me, but I wanted to spend time with E and his family so I cancelled plans to attend birthday parties for Johnnessa and Mary on Saturday and a car show and a Super Bowl party on Sunday.  E's aunt and uncle arrived in town from Chicago on Sunday night and are staying until Tuesday when his Grandma will be cremated.  It looks like we will be heading to Chicago at the end of the week for the funeral, since all of her friends and family live there.  I am hoping that I am able to go, but this is like the worst week to have to take time from work.  I am doing what I can now so that I might be able to go.  Not looking forward to spending my birthday at a funeral, but such is life!

Before we got all this bad news, we went out on Friday night to see our friends' band, Xero, play.  Rock on!  Here are a few pics from that show. This first one is my friend Rich, the drummer.  I thought this was a pretty cool pic!

Xero (Matt, Bruce, Chad, Bob and Rich)

and me with my girls Heather and Colleen!

Random stuff of the week.....

***Aliens of the Deep

The following pictures were taken in Mexico last week by Mike Miller, of Mound West Tonka, MN.  Apparently these deep sea creatures turned up on shore while he was there on vacation.  Mike is a friend of my friend Bradie. Scientists are studying them to try to classify these unknown fish.

I know this happened after the 2004 Tsunami also.  Makes me wonder what happened this time that caused them to wash ashore.  I always find it fascinating to think about what mysteries our oceans hold for us, which is probably why I enjoyed the Disney movie Aliens of The Deep so much! Excellent documentary, go rent it!

**State of the Union vs. Meet the Barkers

I watched about 30 minutes of President Bush's SOTUA and then it got kind of boring to me.  Flipped on a show called "Meet the Barkers" instead.  I have never seen it or heard of the Barker's before.  Anyone know who they are?? Are they celebrities or just random people getting in on the reality show kick??  I figured at least one of you TV junkies could answer this question for me!

**CHA previews for you scrappers

Monique at Scrap Etc. is at CHA right now and has done a fabulous job of uploading tons of pics to her store's weblog.  Go check it out if you'd like to see all the yummy new scrapbook stuff!  Some of it I absolutely LOVE, but I have to admit I don't love the new KI as much as I loved last year's stuff.  Too monochromatic for me, I guess.  It is still beautiful though. Go check out her pics and let me know what you think!  What are your favorite new paper lines??

***A new puppy for Mary

My friend Mary got this adorable little puppy for her birthday on Monday.  I think she said it is an American Bulldog.  Looks like a pittbull to me!  This is her daughter Taylor who will be 6 years old tomorrow! Aren't they cute!?

***Insurance Woes

How many of you truly understand your auto/home insurance policies and know the contents of them, as far as what is covered and what is not, in the event of an accident?  Do you know how much your deductible is? How about those of you who live in a townhome association? Did any of you know that you cannot be liable for yourself in the event that you cause damage to property you own with (lets just say) your own vehicle? Take it from me.....these are things I encourage you to know BEFORE an accident happens.  It is no fun to find out AFTER the fact that your townhome deductible is $5,000, and that any damage done to your own home caused by a car that you are on the auto insurance for is NOT covered.  It especially sucks when the so-called damage is estimated at just over $5,000 to fix and you have to come up with all of it yourself. I am not going to get into how/why I know this stuff now, but I do.  Makes for a very sad, sad situation.  One that costs so much that the trip you were "waiting to confirm" for Cancun is a distant thought.  If anyone wants to help ease my current depression, I am accepting financial donations!!

Random stuff of the day....

*Remember yesterday's post when I said a friend from college had found me on Myspace?? Well I just about fell out of my chair last night when I saw that she had posted a comment along with several pictures of me on the "Booze Cruise" when we went to Acapulco for Spring Break during our Freshman year at SCSU.  OMG! Can we say muy baracha??? Fun, fun times!  Thanks to those of you who added me as friends :) MySpace = One more time-consuming thing to put on my list of things to do.

*By some act of God, I woke up yesterday and my voice was back!!!!!!!!! So weird how my cold attacked my voice more than anything else.  Seven days felt like an ETERNITY.  I will never take being able to talk for granted again!

*I begin working out with a personal trainer tonight.  My friend Lanee and I are going to get in shape...he has his work cut out for him! lol.  We'll probably go eat as many calories as we burn off as soon as we are done.

*I forgot my effin purse at home today! Oh well, I have a lunch and I have gas in my car so I should be able to make it until I get home at 8pm tonight

*Went out for Italian with Susan last night.  Donatelli's...yummy!

*Susan talked me into (thinking about) submitting some of my layouts for publication.  We'll see if I actually do it!  Might be kind of cool. 

*I haven't eaten any Asian food in about a week.  New record! Just kidding, but right before the New Year I had eaten Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Vietnamese foods all in one week. 

*Work this week has gone pretty smooth with the test I have been administering to identify students for gifted/talented services.  (Other than Monday when I still had no voice, that is!) Can't wait until mid-Feb when we get the results back.  I will probably have another new group of smart little ones to teach :)

*Received April and Trudie's Circle Journals over the weekend.  Gorgeous stuff! Can't wait to work on them, along with all the other layouts I have planned. Maybe this weekend??

*Watched Madagascar last night with E.  Cute movie!

*Reading Life of Pi right now.  Very interesting so far! I also read several short stories from an Agatha Christie compilation over the weekend.  Nothing too exciting, IMO.  Had to take a break.  Looking for some other good books to read.  Any suggestions?

*Sent out a mass e-mail yesterday to people I know "in real life", inviting them to check out this blog.  Nicole and I were just discussing last night how none of our real-life friends ever comment on our blogs.  If you are one who received the e-mail from me yesterday...come out and say hi!  And check out Nicole's blog...she has this little quiz on there about "What age do you act?".  It is only 10 questions, but I took it and it said I act 28...my exact age! (For another month that is!)

*Today is Hump Day! 

Peace and love from my hood to yours!

No Voice......

This week has been a big challenge for me....my cold developed into laryngitis (or something like that) and I have not had a voice for the past three days.  Fun! Imagine yourself trying to teach classes all day long without being able to project your voice, without being able to talk normal at all.  A big pain in my arse.  Good thing it is Friday!!  I am exhausted and cannot wait to go home and take a nap.  And this is coming from the girl who NEVER takes naps!  I always say I could use one, but I never actually do.  I have too much I'd like to do usually to waste it on sleeping during the day!

I got this brilliant idea from Amber Nichole to use YouTube to upload some of my home videos so that I could post them here.  Unfortunately, I am having technical difficulties.  Gonna keep trying!

I have also been very busy at work this week trying to prepare my lessons and making preparations to administer the test that will identify students for Gifted/Talented Services.  We give this test district-wide to all kindergarten and 2nd grade students next week.  Maybe I will get a chance this weekend to catch up on blogs, and the scrapbook message boards and galleries.

For now I will leave you with an adorable picture of Phoenix and Isis.  I caught them in this pose the other day and thought it was too cute!

Hope all is well with everyone....catch you all soon! 

Have a great weekend!

Adios

Korn at the Myth!

We had tickets Saturday night to see Korn play at the Myth NIghtclub....a HUGE band playing before a PACKED audience of 5,000 or so..... Doors were supposed to open at 6 so we thought we'd show up late....there was still a long-ass line when we got there at 7:15 and we had to wait outside in the freezing cold.  I hate that!  Then another 10-15 minutes to get a beer (which cost $5.00 before the tip).  The show sounded pretty kick-ass, but I could hardly see a thing....it was truly packed and nearly impossible to make your way through the crowded floor, so I resorted to the best I could find....about 4 people back from the lower balcony.  I wish I had gotten there earlier to get a better place on the floor.  It was still a great show... I love it when Jonathan Davis comes out and plays his bagpipes......sounds so cool!

What else is new? I might need some help here, people.

I am on the search for a new Vaccum AND a new scanner.  My Kenmore Vaccuum exploded and died last week.  Hoping to get something powerful that picks up all the cat hair.  Maybe a Dyson? I don't know anything about vaccums! I don't want to pay more than $600......What brands should I look into?

I also need a new scanner..... my Canoscan died last night while trying to scan my latest LO (layout).  This is the 2nd time that has happened in the past year.  I am taking it back tonight since I have a warranty for it.  Hoping to get something better.  The resolution on this one is great and it is very small and lightweight.....which I think is also the reason it broke and why it makes such dark shadows....I need something with a heavier lid.  Any recommendations???  Now if only the 12 x12 scanners would come down in price so that I could get one and avoid the tedious process of stitching of my LOs!

I need to get my Holdiay Wish List typed out.... I have lots of ideas of what I want this year.  This makes things so much easier for my family.  Brian, Michelle & Jeff, I want wish lists from you too!  I am one of those people who hates Christmas shopping because of the crowds, lack of parking, etc.  I would avoid it altogether if I had to randomly search for gifts without a clue! Do you want gift cards again???

My friend Lanee got her very first cell phone this weekend.  Wow! Congrats Lanee, for attempting to join the 21st Century girl!  First a DVD player and now a cell phone.  If only you knew how to use a computer and the Internet, we'd really be getting somewhere! Lol

My friend Keith in Missouri called me on Saturday.  I hadn't talked to him in awhile. He is getting married at the end of the month! Congrats, Keith! Now send me some pics of the family, will ya???

I need some dinner ideas.  Especially crockpot recipes.  E is working 12 hour days/6-7 days a week until after Christmas and I am starving and tired by the time he gets home.  I don't want to have to worry about din-din every night!

I still need to go to the scrap store to buy new albums for my upcoming Circle Journals.  My scheme for the color CJ is purple/silver.  Still haven't figured out what I am doing for the other CJ.  Maybe Favorite Places??

I bought several new books yesterday at Shinders.  Stockin' up for my upcoming vacation......Only two more weeks of work until I get two weeks + a day off for Winter Break!!! Let me know if you'd like to get together!

PS I haven't changed this banner in almost a month....because I am not sick of it yet!  I think that is a new record.  Maybe I'll do a holiday one soon.  Hey Raina, did you figure our how to get Christmas music on your banner yet? Let me know when you do!  Otherwise Sade will continue to sing for your listening pleasure.

xoxo

KEAS

Movie Mania!

The past few days have been nice and relaxing.  We've had family in town since Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving meal was complete with pumpkin and French silk pie from Baker's Square.  As long as I have good dessert, I could take or leave the turkey, to be honest!  My brother Jeff believes that the Turkey is Arbitrary.  If you haven't read any of his blog posts, you definitely should!  He is a witty kind of guy and great with what he writes!

Later Thanksgiving evening we all came back to our house and watched The Polar Express and War of the Worlds. I can't tell you the last time I watched two movies in a row..it was great to cuddle up under the blankets and relax.  I feel like I never do that enough! 

When we got up Friday morning it had started to snow so I watched Harry Potter 3. I thought it was pretty good considering that I have heard the contrary.  That was the first HP movie that I had ever seen all the way through, even though I have read all of the books at least twice.   It continued to snow all afternoon!

Later Friday afternoon I went to my brother Brian's house to see my baby niece.  She is getting so big! 15 lbs already! Can you tell how much I love her??!! It is the greatest thing to be an auntie!

On Friday we all went to a new sushi restaurant in Stillwater. Murasaki, I think it was called.  The fish was very fresh and the owners very hospitable...prices a little spendy though.  Despite that, we will definitely go back!

We went home and vegged out to another movie, Unleashed with Jet Li.  Very strange movie!

Today has also been a very busy day.....I am going out again in a little bit.....bye for now!

Weekend Cuteness......

We spent Saturday with our good friends, Jeff and Toni.  Their newest baby girl, Cidney is now 5 months old and boy is she CUTE!! Always smiling and happy...scooting/crawling already too! It was nice to spend time with them....they moved up north about a year ago so our visits are much less frequent than they used to be!

I went out for a lovely steak dinner at The Lakeside Club on Saturday night.  The outside of this restaurant was filmed in scenes from the movie Fargo.  And by the way.....only people who live REALLY FAR north in Minnesota talk like they do in that movie!!!!  But I am not going to say we don't have a midwest accent because we do :)

I got up extra early on Sunday morning so that I could go shopping.....drove all the way to Archiver's to discover that they do not open until 11am on Sundays.  Say what???!!! I drove all the way out there for NOTHING!!!  Next stop: Fashion Bug.  And wouldn't you know that they don't open until 11am either???  I took this as a sign (that I shouldn't be spending money!) and went to Target and the Grocery Store to get the necessities.  Ran into my friend Julie...so great to see her! We e-mail each other all the time but hadn't seen each other in a few years.  So that was fun!

I had plans Sunday night to see King's X, but it was a late show and I figured since I have to work 12 hours both Monday and Tuesday, I would want to stay home and relax instead.  So I got out my scrap stuff and came up with this LO from Laura's bachelorette party.  I finally got to use these Fontwerks pp's that I have had for-evah.  Gonna do some hidden journaling somewhere too....have to write about the "mean greenie" I drank that night!

And now I just have to grade about 50 more projects from my Geography students and print report cards out by 4:30 tonight when conferences start!  No problemo!

Break out the sweaters, boots...and shovels!

We got out first batch of snow last night. I took this picture of the sole tree in my yard when I got up this morning!

  It wasn't a huge amount but it doesn't matter.  People here still drive like they've never driven in it before! Traffic is going to be terrible today and probably for the next 5 months.

As you can tell, I am not one of those people who jump up and down for joy when it snows.  I think it is very pretty as long as I am in my house and have no where to go.  I have lived with MN winters like this my entire life...with the exception of the year I lived in Arizona.   I do not downhill or cross-country ski, I do not play hockey or figure skate (although I loved skating when I was younger).  I do not play broom ball, snow mobile or go ice fishing. Forget about snowboarding or sledding!!! Basically my winter activities consist of eating, sleeping and hibernating!

I hate being cold too!  These are my favorite ways of keeping warm:

* Taking a Hot bath

* Drinking Hot cocoa/Hot cider

* Cuddling

* Sitting in front of the fireplace

* Snuggling up under a pile of blankets

* Big fuzzy slippers

* Warm sweaters and sweatshirts....polar fleece too!

* Eating soup

* Tropical vacations

* Dancing

PS  Did I mention the Bessie has a very difficult time in the snow? If we get 4 inches or more, she can barely make it through the streets until the plows come through (which sometimes takes hours).  I can literally feel the snow under my feet when I drive her!

Breakfast for Dinner!

Dinner time is one of my least favorite times of the day.  At least 50% of the time I do not have something planned ahead of time and work late several nights a week.  I am  really sick of fast food and all the local dining establishments within 3-8 miles of my house. 

Usually when all else fails, I make breakfast for dinner.  You know, bacon, eggs, hashbrowns, toast.  Sometimes french toast or pancakes.  Corned beef hash!  Breakfast burritos!  Cereal.  It saves me from starving most of the time :) 

Does anyone else ever make breakfast for dinner? Is this weird?

After dinner we went to our neighbors Jere and Shannon's house to hang out for awhile....I didn't want to stay and visit too long because I was determined to finish the last entry for the Circle Journal that I am in.  I was up until after 11 finishing it up, but now I am all done and I can mail it off today!!!!!!!  Mine should be returned to me sometime in the next few weeks.  I can't wait to see all the hard work that these girls put into it! I will be sure to post all the entries as soon as I get it!  If you want to see all the entries I have contributed, check out my album in the left side bar that says "Circle Journals"

This one is for Jenn K and her topic is, "What you love about where you live." 

I am still interested in starting another Circle Journal, and I know I have at least one on board with me.  I am thinking it would be cool to do a color themed book....we would all choose a different color scheme and Layouts would be based on that.  Anyone game?

My take on Football; Sevendust Concert!!!!!!

Sunday was a busy day...

Warning! Boring Football Talk to follow in the next few paragraphs!

My friends Lanee & Roger had a Vikings VS. Green Bay Packers party at their house in the early afternoon.  I didn't watch a single minute of the game while I was there.....I am not proud of the Vikings these days.  And not just because of the recent SEX scandal that has gotten them such great publicity in the past few weeks.  They just plain SUCK!!!  I lost my confidence in them during the 98-99 season when Gary Andersen missed the field goal kick that would've brought them to the Superbowl.  It hurt so bad I decided I just couldn't do it anymore with that team! 

To me football is really about the socializing with other people while "watching" the game.  This is the way it always was for me in High School until my little brother started playing.  One time while watching one of his games, I asked my mom why Brian wasn't out there playing.  She was like, "well he plays defense.  That is the offense out there." I am not kidding...I had no idea that the offense and defense didn't play at the same time!  I was a soccer player for goodness sakes and we all played together!!  Anyway, Kim and Katie came to the party and it was really nice to see them.  Here is a cute pic of me Kim and Lanee:

I ended up leaving the party before the game was over because I had a few errands to run before I went back home.  I got home in time to watch the last 1:23 of the game.  The Vikings had come back to take the lead and then Green Bay tied it up with just a few seconds to go.  Can you believe that the Vikings had a chance to score a Field Goal (for the win) with 2 seconds left, 56 yards away....and the kick was GOOD!!!!  That was a team record FG.  And I still hate the Vikings!!

Shortly after the game we got ready to head downtown to see one of our favorite heavy bands of all time: SEVENDUST!!!!  I have seen these guys probably 10 times and they still kick my ass every time!! The show was last-minute at a small venue and they had this place slammin'.  It never fails that the mosh pit opens up right next to where I am standing and I sometimes  get lost in the pandemonium.  Here are the best pictures I could risk taking:

Latest on my effin laptop.....I think the problem is somewhere in my Network Bridge.  Not sure what my next move will be.  Today at lunch I went to Target to by an External Harddrive....a place I can put all my pictures and keep them safe!  I also bought a jump drive so I can easily take pictures from computer to computer.  Thank God I have a pretty sweet PC at home that still has working Internet.  I'd die if I couldn't get online again!  I will try my hardest to keep up with all the fun blogs I love to read.  And maintain this one, of course!

I guess it could be worse...My brother Jeff just told me that the Web hosting company he uses for his personal site and all the ones he creates for business is based in Miami....apparently somewhere near where Wilma hit....because everything is GONE.  Or at least down for the time being! That really stinks if you have them as your e-mail provider as well.

I also wanted to give a shout out to my Gramps who turned *80* yesterday!!! Happy Birthday!!

In the News......

Powerball News.......

Some lucky Oreganian won the $340 Million Powerball Jackpot last night.  Wahhhhhhhhhh!  I wanted it to be ME!!!  Wow.  Imagine being 1:146,000,000.  Those were the odds of winning.  Lucky sucker!!

Hurricane News.....

Hurricane Wilma Pummels Cancun.  This is the 2nd hurricane this year to hit one of my favorite places.  I hope it still looks as beautiful as this the next time I go visit! This pic was taken at the Krystal Cancun (our hotel) when E and I vacationed there last April.

Friendly News....

I was feeling great on Tuesday night.  Susan and I went to Ol' Mexico for dinner and peach margaritas.  Mmmm, have you ever had a peach margarita? They are definitely delish.  I might try banana or some other flavor next time!  After dinner we went to do a little scrap shopping.  They had some really cute stuff at Binding Memories but I actually didn't buy a thing!!

And then the Sickly News.....

I woke up on Wednesday with swollen glands and a stuffy head.  I got sick literally overnight!!!  It snuck up on me faster than ever.  I was really looking forward to having today and tomorrow off from work so I could get things done and meet with some friends.  Being sick in bed and sleeping off some crap until noon today was not what I had in mind!!  Sorry I missed lunch with you today, Jenny!! Whats worse is the daytime TV.  Okay...time to go to the farmacia to get some meds...I can't stand being sick!!

Blogging News....

For some effin reason, my photo albums are being displayed in the side bar TWICE.  The smaller ones at the top and then the same exact ones are also displayed at the bottow with HUGE thumbnails.  I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get rid of the big ones.  I tried all day long yesterday because it is driving me insane.  Can anyone help???

Weekend Goodies....

Oh, how I love the weekend! Especially after a LONG week like I had last week...50 hours worth of work :) I can't even remember what I did on Friday night!!  E worked on Saturday morning so I spent the entire time cleaning our house.  Not exactly what I wanted to do, but having a clean house is such a great feeling!  We went to Best Buy later that afternoon to buy some new DVDs and CDs.  I could've spent soooo much money there!  It was the most gorgeous fall day anyone could ask for, and the trees were all at peak color, so we drove around for a little while.  We didn't stop anywhere for me to take pictures though :(

We had about 8 invitations to do things on Saturday night.... a birthday party, a housewarming, burgers at Lanee and Rog's, dinner with my parents, a get together with E's work buddies in uptown, etc., but after such a long week, we decided to do our own thing and went out for sushi and then went home to relax and watched some videos.

On Sunday morning I went to Archiver's.  I swear I only bought an album and a couple of sheets of alphas and it was $100! Oh, and a couple of new ink pads.  They didn't even have all the hot stuff that I really wanted, which is probably a good thing or I would've spent waaaaaaaay more.  After my little shopping trip I met Cassie, Johnnessa, Mandie, Kara and Jesse at Snuffy's Malt Shop for lunch.  This place is an old-fashioned joint that serves really yummy greasy burgers and a variety of malts. Delish! Mandie brought her wedding picture proofs for us to look at  :)

Later Sunday night I went to dinner with E and our buddy Pat.  Norman Quack's in Forest Lake has a prime rib special on Sundays and the boys love to "tear it down", so we go there often on Sundays. They also have a fish special every day and that is what I often order :)

Since I didn't get any scrappin done all weekend, I had to make a little bit of time for it on Sunday night.  On Saturday I received the last two Circle journals in my group so I did this page for Keelie's Circle Journal.  Theme was "Who has influenced you?" so I wrote about my parents.  I think this page is like 7 x 8 and I also believe that this is my first- ever single page LO! I also didn't use any Card stock at all! Definitely a change for me!!

So now I am down to just one circle journal left to do and mine should be coming home to me within the next month!   Yay!!!!!  Despite some of the problems we've had with some of the girls dropping out, it has been a great experience.

Anyone interested in starting a new circle journal with me??

Oh, and I am sending out the details about the post card swap today.  LAST CALL!!!!!!!!

The Powerball

Tonight could be THE NIGHT.  The night that all my dreams come true.  It is possible that I will win the coveted Powerball.  Tonight!!!! The Jackpot is now at $240 MILLION.   I have been trying to win this sucker faithfully for about 7 years now.  $5 for every Wed. drawing and $5 for the Saturday drawing. Even when the Jackpot is low (You can't win unless you play!) Double that when you include the tickets that E has also been buying.  Just about every month he buys a new issue of the Dupont Registry, the guide to America's most luxurious homes and cars.  So every month we have our cars and homes picked out, just in case we win!!  I have to admit that together we have spent about $20 in tickets for tonights drawing, including a pool I have going at work. 

So what am I going to do once I win?  First of all, I will quit my job...or at least take a LONG leave of absence. Second, I will call a travel agent and have her book us tickets straight to either Costa Rica and Hawaii.  Hopefully we'll get married there.  Then we will honeymoon all over the world.....buying souveniers from all the exotic countries that we visit. Boy, I kind of sound like Becky Bloomwood-Brandon in the book Shopaholic and Sister, don't I?  When we get home we will move into an amazing house and maybe start some kind of business.  Who knows where home will be at that time....if we actually win the Powerball, it is likely that we will have homes in a number of places!!!!  We would throw a huge party for everyone we know...YOU ARE ALL INVITED!!!! We will make sure our families are set and then give some to charity too, of course.

Okay, I am just dreaming, but you just never know...someone has to win it!!

And now on the more negative-side.....Holy Crampola..... This is definitely TMI, but man, do I have some terrible cramps going on today.  And my back hurts something awful.  I've worked 22 hours in just the first two days this week. And I am really looking forward to another 10 hours today. Woe is me!!  I finished a couple of layouts last night when I got home and then went straight to bed.  E said I kept him up all night long, tossing and turning, moaning and groaning.  Oops! And I can tell that I didn't sleep well at all either...I feel like I took a fall down the stairs or something (and I have actually done this several times before, so unfortunately I know exactly how it feels the next day).

Wanna see my latest Layouts?

Have great day....keep your fingers crossed for me!!!!!!

Oh, and later today I should have several answers to the movie quiz that I posted yesterday....leave me a comment if you would like me to e-mail them to you!

Hi

I have no time or energy to retell all the fun details of my weekend....E has two of his aunts and an uncle in town staying with us for the weekend....

But stay tuned for details about Friday night out with some of my high school girls, the trip out to the Mall of America all day Saturday, Laura Blonde's bachelorette party on Saturday night and Sunday's hangover from HE**!!!!!!!!

Speaking of Japanese....

E and I have gone out for sushi not once, but twice this week.  It has taken me about 5 years now to acquire a taste for it...but I become a little more daring with each experience.  Last night E and I went for a late night dinner at Saji-Ya on Grand Ave and sat at the sushi bar.  It is fun to watch the sushi chefs prepare it in front of you! I really enjoy the california roll, spicy tuna roll and hamachi sashimi, but last night I also tried kaibashira for the first time.  I was somewhat leary at first but was deliciously surprised at how much I liked it! Part of the sushi experience is the presentation....you can see why it is a culinary artform.  I took this picture to show you just what it looks like in case you've never had the pleasure. Isn't it pretty?? I won't eat everything you see here, but I do appreciate how it looks! Here is a Sushi Guide ....very useful when ordering!

I can't believe this myself, but.......

I actually scrapped!  I put the finishing touches on these layouts that I started last weekend, then scanned and stitched them together.  A great way to spend a rainy Saturday morning!   

This first one is from the day my niece Annika was born.....

Mary's Bachelorette Party.......

The limo ride after Mary's wedding ceremony.....

Memoirs of a Geisha.....

I have always loved learning about other cultures, people and places around the world.  I love hearing accents and making new friends with people of different backgrounds. It comes as no surprise that I have always been attracted to guys that are tall, dark and handsome!!  When I was growing up one of my best friends was latino and had the most beautiful brown eyes and long, dark, curly eyelashes.  I wanted to look just like her... I would've traded by blue eyes for her brown ones any day.

Anyway, back to my love of other cultures.  My interest and fascination with the Japanese culture began about 7 years ago....around the time that E and I started dating.  Being that he is half-Japanese (and half Norwegian) I wanted to learn more about his family and heritage.  It started with a visit to Chicago where his mother's family has lived since they came from Japan in the 1950's.  I had my very first taste of sushi and tried sake (Japanese alcohol) for the very first time.  Nothing like having the entire family watch you as you try raw fish for the first time!   Prior to having a stroke two years ago, his grandma used to hand-make the most beautiful Japanese dolls.  She would use scraps of silk to make the gowns on the dolls and the body parts are somehow made from egg-shells.  Many hours goes into each doll...she would make one for E's mom and her brother and sister each year.  Here are a few that are in E's mom's collection.  I wish you could see them in real life, because they are so detailed and beautiful!

E and I have always talked about how cool it would be to visit Japan.  Maybe even go there for a year and teach English or something.  I know they have teacher exchange programs like that available, so who knows??  I am incredibly jealous that my two younger brothers were able to go to Tokyo this past May for a little visit.  Check out their pictures at Jeff's Website if you'd like to see them!  Erick and I would also like to learn Japanese someday!

I started this post because I am in the middle of a wonderful read, Memoirs of a Geisha.  Click the link for more details and editorial review.  This book is the fascinating true story of a young girl in Japan during the Depression who loses her family and is taken in by an Okiya where she trains to become a geisha.  For those who don't know, a Geisha is a beautiful un-married artisan who is paid the big-bucks to entertain men (music, song, dance) in Japanese Tea Houses.  Lots of effort goes into making these women as beautiful as possible.  The story is very fast moving and is told from the little girl's naive perspective (but written by an English-speaking author who conducted the interviews with her when she was an adult).  I have had a hard time putting it down! It has given me great insight to this aspect of the Japanese culture.  I definitely recommend it.....it will also be made into a movie sometime soon.

Good bye..........shikkei!!!

I saw something that made me sad....

**Warning.  This is somewhat depressing!

I was on my way to work yesterday when I saw someone's poor kitty laying dead in the middle of a fairly busy road.  This always makes me sad because I think about how sad the owner probably feels.  We had something devastating like this happen to E's family dog a few years back.  It was really horrible.  Too horrible to go into details :( Then two weeks after that happened, an animal ran right in front of me on the freeway and I hit it.  I was going too fast to stop and I know better than to swerve and cause an accident. Unfortunately, it was a cat.  I started hyperventilating and could barely drive home after that.  I felt like total shit.  It made me think about my own cats and how upset I would be.  How upset E's parents were about their dog.  Could I have caused that pain for someone else?  The guilt was eating away at me. I pray that the cat I hit was ferral and had noone to love him...why else would he be out by the freeway and not safe in his home??

So anyway, when I was on my way home from work last night, I saw a woman and two boys walking away from the dead cat that I had seen earlier that morning, sobbing horribly.  The cat had been messed up very badly since the morning.  The woman had her car keys in her hand and I realized that she had probably been driving around the neighborhood, looking for her missing cat.  How sad the ending was.

Don't know why I felt the need to share that with you all.  I feel for any of you who have had a pet die under these traumatic circumstances.  I feel for any of you who were at the wrong place at the wrong time and have to live with the guilt.  Pets are precious......

Who remembers when....

I used to be a scrapper??  Cause its been a lonnnggggggg time since I have had the time or energy to haul my stuff out and get to work.  I don't ever want it to seem like a chore so I haven't made much of an effort lately. Sometimes figuring out what to have for dinner is a chore!  The great news is that the fun scrapper girl inside me came out for a short time on Friday night.  I canceled my dinner plans because I wanted nothing more than to just sit at home and chill.  Relax and maybe get some layouts done with all the pictures I have from events over the summer. ( I actually spent some time last week printing out pictures at home and picking papers to go with them. I find that I can get like 10 sets of pictures paired with papers so that they're ready when I find some time or motivation to scrap.)  Thats as far as I had gotten in over 5 weeks until Friday night.  I started several layouts but then ran out of my favorite adhesives.  Dang it!!!!! I also realized that my Bazzill supply was running very low and that I am out of many colors so I ordered from Wendy at Scrap Supply last week and should be getting my package any day now.  Stay tuned and maybe I will have several Layouts posted by the end of the week!

I also have two layouts to work on for the Circle Journal I am in.  Topics are....."Who inspires you?" and "The song remembers when...".  I have a lot to think about before working on these!  I should have my own CJ back within 2-3 months.  I can't wait!!!  Its been fun but I really, really miss Nicole being part of the group.  I know why it was hard for you to continue, Nic, I am just glad we are still friends :) I know you are busy with student teaching and starting your family, but I sure miss seeing your awesome layouts.  I am glad that you are getting so good with photography though!  **I am also so glad that I have gotten to be friends with Hillary and Lindsay too** I never really thought that I would make friends online, but I have made so many, including many of you!

Wow, this post has gone off in a different direction than originally intended! Well, now that I have gotten this far, I just want to thank all for you for visiting and caring :)

I will be posting some scrapbook layouts again soon, I promise!

Summer's Over!

We've been back to school for a week now....this means summer is officially over.  Things have been going okay at work....I have done an interesting activity with my 5-6th grade classes as a "get to know you" activity....I made students think of things they have done before that they think no one else in the class has done... and I've made my own list.  These are things off the top of my head that I have done that I don't think any of you have ever done! Please let me know if you HAVE done any of these things, then go create your own list of things that only YOU have done and post it on your Blogs!!

• Been to Mexico 20 times
• Driven a classic Corvette every day in the summer
• Lived on an Indian Reservation
• Bred Leopard geckos
• Camped in the mountains in January
• Walked across the Mississippi River
• Broke my elbow
• Visited Ground Zero a few months after 9/11
• Dressed up as a Mensa Brainiac for Halloween
• Had a pretend wedding in Ele. school...complete with gifts and treats
• Rented a limo to look at Christmas lights
• Bought a Rock Star a drink
• Ran a mile in 6 minutes (YEARS ago!)
• Went to Vegas for New Years Eve, 1999
• Lived in a Haunted dorm room
• Studied flute with an orchestra member in 2nd grade
• Put my tooth through my lip
• Walked 4 miles in high heels
• Encountered a pack of coyotes while walking in the desert
• Had a cow that belonged to someone else in my front yard

And to close, here is a collage of some of my favorite summer photos:

Sick...but still truckin'

So why is it that as soon as I go back to work I get a cold??? Probably because I have a tendency to keep pushing myself past the point of exhaustion.  I Never know when to say WHEN!

I wasn't feeling that great on Thursday, but I had to work an extra- long day due to Open House.  I finally got my classroom unpacked and nearly-ready for the students who will start next Tuesday.  Took a short break in the afternoon to have lunch and ice cream with my friend Farrah....check out the size of these ice cream cones!

So, most normal people would go straight home and relax after working 11 hours and not feeling good, right?  Well I am not normal, I guess, because I met E and my friends Lanee, Roger and Sonja at Wildwood Pizza for dinner after work.  We hung out for awhile but I knew I needed to get home to get my house cleaned for E's cousin's from Chicago who were going to be arriving in the middle of the night.  So clean, clean, clean E and I did until about 11:30 pm....then off to bed for a few short hours.  Dana, Kevin and Jasmine arrived at 3:30am and I woke to greet them and give them a short tour of our home before we all went to bed, truly exhausted.

Woke up Friday feeling BAD.  Real bad!  Worked my normal day (dragging some major butt and surviving solely on Dayquil) and then went to dinner with E and his family......we went and had Vietnamese at Mai Village in St Paul.  I have talked about this place before....excellent food and service!  Later that night we all went to Maplewood Mall.  Got a cute new pair of sunglasses and hung out....here is a picture of the carosel that Jasmine and Boe took a ride on.....

We left when the mall closed, hung out at E's parents house for awhile  and then watched a movie when we got home.  Went to bed at 2am....no problem!!

Out of touch

I have definitely been out of touch this past week.  I went back to work on Monday....I went from half-time to full-time as the gifted specialist at my school and was able to move into a big classroom...I have been so busy with meetings this week that I haven't had much time to set my room up and figure out a plan for the year, let alone check e-mails, upload pics, read any Blogs or surf the message boards at Scrapjazz like I was able to do at liberty this summer.  I promise I will catch up ASAP, girls!  My nights have been even more busy.  I have been so out-of-touch that I have no real idea the extent the damage that Hurricane Katrina has done.....I just know that gas is now over $3.00 a gallon.....must be pretty effin bad.  I have also had a lot on my mind about tons of other things.  I am praying that such things turn out for the better:)

So what do I actually KNOW??

**Monday night I went to the Minnesota State Fair with E and Pods.  Perfect night! Hardly anyone there for such nice, cooler weather....no lines or waiting! I ate a few of my favorite Fair-Foods: Corn dog, cheese curds, roasted corn.  Didn't get anything sweet this time, but we will go back this weekend with E's cousins.

**Tuesday night I went shopping with Jenny and then out to Red Lobster for dinner. I feel like I am a big shrimp now, I ate so much. Their scampi is pretty good and don't forget those cheesy garlic biscuits :)

**Wednesday night after work E and I hit Best Buy to get the new 30 Seconds to Mars and Eric Clapton CDs.  They did not  have any 30 Seconds CDs at all. There wasn't  even a place for them on the shelf.  What the ef????  Good thing there is a Circuit City across the street who happened to have 2 of them left!!!!  I also bought the following DVDs:  new Dave Chapelle Live!, Santana Concert Live!, Prince Live in Las Vegas! and the new release, Saharra.  We went shopping in Minneapolis afterward and went downtown to Sawatdee for dinner.  They have such good chicken satay and beef jerky!

**E's cousins from Chicago are coming late tonight and staying with us all weekend...we look forward to taking them to the fair!

**My friend Kara recently got engaged and put together this adorable Website with her engagement and wedding details.  I am so happy for her! Her reception is going to be unlike any I have ever been to...at Windows, a ritzy place on the 50th floor of the IDS building, dwntwn Mpls.  I have heard the view is amazing!

**I just finished reading, The Rule of Four.  Pretty interesting! I didn't like it as much as DaVinci Code, but it was a cool mystery anyhow.

Hope all is well with everyone, I will be back in touch soon!

Creepy Stuffed Beasts- Lots of them

**Caution- Animal lovers beware- you may not want to see these pictures***

My girlfriend Lanee works for a company who has made its home in a very large, old mansion.  The owner of the company is into Big-Game hunting and has been on uncountable hunting trips all over the world over the last several decades.  And guess where he keeps his trophies?  Yep, at the Mansion. All of 'em taxidermied. Lanee had warned me about this place for years, but I had NO IDEA just how many animals there were until I Sonja and I went there on Friday to meet her for lunch.  It was Sick! Animal heads hanging up everywhere...I would say about 300 animals within the entire mansion. I have no problem with deer hunting (I would never do it, but I am okay with

others hunting them), but lions and leopards and bears, oh my!!?  I think many of these might even be illegal to hunt these days.  Hmmm.  Makes me wonder about the guy who hunted them all....he made a joke to us when Lanee introduced us and gave us the tour...."Whenever my wife and I get in a fight, I go hunting."  Ha ha, not funny.

BUT we did think it would be funny to take pictures with us and some of the animals, just for sh*ts and giggles.  Here ya go and sorry if I offended anyone...I know it is pretty sick, but I just couldn't resist the temptation of  these shots.  I thought this part was funny!

**I have been super busy this past week and as of tomorrow (Monday) my summer vacation is OVER! Back to work baby!!  I have tons of stuff to post about......stay tuned.

I think I need to buy...

a sewing machine!

I worked on these two layouts over at Susan's house yesterday.  She is the SB Stitching Queen and showed me how to make the nice zig-zag stitch that is seen on these layouts.  I finally got the hang of it after the 3rd page and now I am hooked! After having some margaritas, Susan also taught me this cool trick to get white journaling. I know everyone wants to know how to do this, but I have already confessed the secret to Christina P and Lindsay T but I am reluctant to tell the rest of the world.  If everyone knows how to do it, will it still be the coolest new thing???!! Of course not! So the rest of you can keep wishin'! Just kidding!

I can't wait to use up the rest of my KI patterned papers.  Love 'em, but soooooo sick of them too.  I just looked through my latest album and 9/10 Los are KI.  Time to move on, baby!

This LO is from Mary's bridal shower:

Click on pics to make them bigger

And here we have some funky painting on these Heidi Swapp ghost letters.  Why? Not only because it is so cool, but because those darn glue dots show right through those effin letters...what else can I do???? Notice how great my stitching is on this one! I am so proud of myself.....imagine being Susan W's sewing protege'! lol

What else is new??

**I re-watched Napolean Dynamite the other night.  It is soooo much funnier the 2nd time! In fact, I thought the movie was pretty stupid the first time I saw it.  

**Borrowed Sex & the City Season 1 from a friend.  I never watch TV, so I am really clueless about all these popular shows.  I figure if I don't see it from episode 1, why bother? so I never bother!  Anyway, I watched the first 4 episodes this morning.  Slightly entertaining, but I won't be watching it is fast as I can and then be off to borrow the 2nd season or anything.  I just can't commit myself to TV.  The internet, yes.  TV, no! But it was pretty funny and there were some pretty cute guys :)

**Got my new Motorola RazR phone from Cingular a few days ago.  Still haven't done anything to it but turn it on and a couple fo calls!  I think I am off to download some funky ringtones. This phone seems pretty cool and the sound/reception has been great so far

**A little embarrassing moment this afternoon. While at Shinder's, E and I took a little venture to the "back room".  No need to explain myself here if you know what I mean(lol!), but I was a little embarrassed to leave the room and coincidentally running into a good friend of ours and his 6-year-old daughter standing directly outside of that room, looking at the comic books. She says to me, "I saw you come from that room!" Ummmm. What does a 6-year-old know about a room like that? So I say, "I know! That is so cool that we saw each other! Are you excited to start first grade next week?"  Yikes!

**Lanee came over tonight and we made tacos.  Yummy!!  I am a Mexican Food Freak.  Love it!!!  Made a lot extra to have some for lunch tomorrow:)

**Only one more week of vacation and then back to school (work!)

I guess that is all I can think of right now!

Roommates: Back Together Again

On Sunday afternoon I attended the baby shower of my college roommate, Laura Brown.  It was very cool to see several of our college friends, including Cora, another one of our roommates.  In fact, this was the first time that Laura (blonde), Laura (brown), Cora (isn't that a mouthful?!) and I have all been together since we lived together nine years ago! I thought it would be fun to do a comparison shot:

Laura has definitely "popped" since I saw her two months ago...whoa mama! There were three other pregnant women at the shower and Laura's sister also had her newborn twins along...I told you I am surrounded by babies!!

**I had dinner with E and a friend at Khan's Mongolian Barbeque.  This place is so good! They have a buffet line of raw veggies, sliced frozen meats, noodles and different "sauces" for you to choose from and then you bring it to the chef's who will cook it up for you on the hot "Mongolian Barbeque" (which is not like a grill, more like a very hot skillet).  If you like stir-fry, this is the place!

**Went to see The Devil's Rejects with Erick and Rich.  This is the 2nd movie by Rob Zombie, not as scary as his first one, House of 1,000 Corpses.  Too much unnecessary killing for my liking.  Lots of creepy characters!

**Saw the best film ever, Baraka.  Have any of you seen this yet?? It tops my "You have to see this!" list.  It is hard to describe what it is about, so I am going to steal someone else's review:

""Baraka" is a stunning visual essay on the relationship between Man and the Earth, set to haunting music from around the world. Without the use of dialogue and merely relying on a series of hypnotic images, this film has a quiet eloquence about it, following in the footsteps of its predecessors, "Koyaanisquatsi" and "Powaqqatsi".

If interested, please read more of this Review:Baraka.  The film is incredible... better than anything I have ever seen on National Geographic or at the Omni Theater. Go out and look for this and let me know what you think!

I needed a little break, but I am back!!

Now that Mary's wedding is over, I have been able to slow down a little and catch up on some much needed R & R. Not to mention spend some much needed time with E, whom I had been neglecting somewhat due to all the wedding help, activities, etc. 

I also pulled myself away from the Computer this weekend and picked up a book, Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner.  So far so good!  I have a lot of blog catching-up to do as well,  and catching up on the message boards and galleries at my favorite scrap-spots, Scrapjazz, Scrap Supply, and 2Peas.

I have also been phone-less since the wedding on Friday night.  This time I really mean it when I say that "I am getting a new cell phone." Yes, thats right, I dropped my cell phone in the toilet when I was under the influence.  It hopped right out of my purse that I had set on the back of the toilet and went right in.  And I didn't even feel bad about it because I know I have needed a new one for so long now, I have just been procrastinating worse than ever.  I actually ordered that new Motorola RazR Camera phone (FREE with Cingular) yesterday but there are complications and they cannot transfer my stupid # because I am already technically considered a Cingular customer (I was with AT&T and Cingular bought them out).  I still have the At&t phone, network and plan but no current contract. 

**I spent most of Saturday recuperating from all the drinking and "tootsie-rolling" that I did at the reception. Boy, I wish my body could handle these things like it did back in my college days, but Nope! My stupid knee has been seriously stiff and painful ever since. But boy, did we tear it up out on that dance floor! Special props to my girls Kara, Kim Lanee and Sonja for their awesome booginess.  Our friends Jeff and Toni came over Saturday night with their daughters, Georgia and Cidney.  Cidney is now 7 weeks old and getting pretty big!

**Sunday.  Slept about 11 hours over night.  Knee still effin killing me!  Went to the mall with E and came home to a power outage in the neighborhood.  How BORING!!!!! I know I don't need electricity to scrap or read, but i sure need LIGHT.  Even our phones didn't work because they're all cordless and only work with electricity.  (And don't forget my cell phone took a shit!) So we took off again and drove around and got a bite to eat.  Came home and the power was back.  yay!

**Monday.  It rained all am so I read a little bit and then after lunch it cleared up so I went to the pool.  Went with E and his friend to Fuddruckers in Roseville for the World's Greatest Hamburgers and who did I run into? My little brother, Jeffrey! What a small world:)  Spent most of the night savoring all the new scrapbook products that just arrived from A Million Little Things.  I ordered $120 worth of brand-new papers.  Oh, it was almost like Christmas morning when I opened that package up! 

This motivated me to use some of the other "newer" papers that I still have in my stash (okay, I have a HUGE stash now of stuff just released this year!).  Its nice to be back in the swing of things...here are my latest layouts:

 

**Tuesday.  Met my friend Jenny at House of Wong for some awesome Chinese food.  This place has been one of my favorites since I was a baby!

Pedicured!

Today is Mary's BIG day!! Last night me, Mary and Kara went to get pedicures.  Oh, what a treat!

We have a very busy and LONG day ahead of us.... I will be picking up some of the flowers and then heading over to Mary's in just a short while.  Leah is doing all of our hair and then pictures are at sometime after noon.  The wedding is at 3 with reception to follow.  Looks like a gorgeous day out there today....Lord, Have Mercy!

Here is a cute picture of Lanee with Sonja's baby, Angelina and Mary's son, Chase.  This is the only picture I took at the rehearsal dinner!  Both babies look like their daddies, but have their mother's eyes! They will be six months old on Aug 15 & 18th.  Boy did that time fly by!

I'll be back in the next few days with (hopefully) some great pictures of the wedding!

My Rain Dance Worked!

Okay, so I didn't really do a rain dance, but the rain we got last night was more than welcome.  Aaaah, the cooling effect!! Its like 60 something degrees right now.  Such a relief! The grass has even started to look a little green again :)

***So I went to Happy Hour with E and Pods last night.  Nothing like 2-for-1's! So E and I can each have one, that is.  Those tall Cervezas  really work one over on me.  I don't drink very often like I did in my college days, so when i do, it goes straight to mi cabeza! .  (I hope no one minds that I have a tendency to use Spanish here and there!) Translation:    Cerveza= beer  mi cabeza= My head

Anyway, I was feeling pretty good and stopped at the bathroom after having that nice tall beer.  Couldn't figure out why the water didn't turn on when I put my hands under the faucet....took a minute to realize it wasn't automatic and that I had to actually lift the faucet handle!!!  I had to laugh at myself for that one....good thing I didn't plan on driving if I couldn't even turn on the faucet! LOL (I NEVER drink and drive anyway)

***E took me to Cold Stone again last night.  Check out the list for "Cold Stone Originals" in this link for examples of some of the flavors you can make.  This place is more than amazing!!!!  It is my mission to try a new flavor every time I go.  Last night I had chocolate ice cream with peanut butter and banana mixed in.  Sooooo Yummy!  E got the sweet cream with oatmeal/apple pie filling/caramel.  It was like the creamiest apple crisp you could imagine.  Sinful!!

***I haven't seen Annika in a few days, but here is a picture from the weekend that my dad sent me of Annika and my mom.  Isn't she so cute!!??  Can't wait to visit with her again real soon!

 

***I am going to be adding a few new things on my sidebar.  I figured out how to add a counter to keep track of the visits!

Its been so hot~ Techmobius 1 & 2

Wow, this week has been a whirlwind!! Not that it has been any busier than usual, but for some reason my head is more cloudy than normal for a Friday night.  I honestly think the weather has a LOT to do with it...its been hotter than heck here.... HOT just about everywhere around the USA.  I even saw that it has been over 100' for 39 days straight in Tucson, AZ.  Times like these make me glad I didn't move back there after college! Anyway, I start my day sooooo early and by the time I get to work it is absolutely miserable in my classroom.  Too hot to think (or teach much!) So I am wiped out by the time I am off, and then I usually have something else going on to keep me busy and up late at night.

So what have I been up to the past few days???

**Went to visit my niece at the hospital again on Thursday. I am just so in love with her!! She was finally awake so I got to see her beautiful big blue eyes.  I swear she looks just like Brian, but Michelle's family think she looks like her.  I say, well Brian and Michelle kind of look alike, so it isn't that surprising! Here is a picture of Annika with Grandpa ( my dad!) They come home tomorrow.

**We said goodbye to Techmobius on Thursday afternoon. Techmobius is a 6 ft x 5 ft painting done by an extremely talented artist, Chris Peterson, who happens to be the good friend of a friend of ours.  Erick bought the painting from another guy he knows sometime last year, and later come to find out it was done by Chris.  He had heard Chris was interested in buying the painting back for sentimental reasons...it was his first-ever painting, created in 1994.  Erick and Chris talked and Chris offered to paint a new painting to replace Techmobius.  He brought the new painting over on Thursday and left with Tech.  The cool thing about the new painting is that it is similar to Tech and was created especially for Erick.  We think it is pretty cool!  The original idea behind Techmobius is that he is a DJ, spinning records like crazy, hence all the arms!! No, he is NOT an octopus, but does resemble one!

The top painting is Techmobius, the 2nd is the new one (not yet named).

**Went shopping with Sonja on Thursday night.  We bought stuff for a project that will be uniquely displayed next weekend at Mary's bachelorette.  Can't spill the beans just in case Mary happens to read this, but it isn't that big of a deal, just something cute for me, Mary Sonja and Kim.  Ooh la la

**Went shopping with Susan Friday afternoon after work.  She recently moved about 5 miles away from me, so we went to lunch and I took her on a tour of the town.....first stop? Archivers!.  I was really impressed to see that they FINALLY had many of my favorite name-brand papers.... KI memories, Basic Grey, Junkitz, NRN Designs, and lots more.  I showed some restraint and spent less than usual!  We also went to a darling little store downtown White Bear Lake called The Gathering.  Lots of stamping and scrap supplies there and TONS of cute gifts, home furnishings, etc.  Bought a very cute necklace for myself and one as a gift for Michelle.  Susan is such an enabler!!! We had fun though and will be hanging out again soon...probably to scrap!

**Over half-way done with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.  I have been staying up much later than I should to try to get through this great book! It is pretty exciting....I have heard there are many "twists and turns" throughout the 2nd half....I can't wait to keep reading! It is so comforting to know that there are so many other Harry Potter geeks like me out there!  I would never have gotten into them if I hadn't started reading them to my 7-8th graders so many years ago when I first started teaching.  I know there are a lot of people out there who have never read Harry Potter and have something against him (even E is a HP Hater), but don't knock it until you've tried it!

** Had to make yet another new banner....these are definitely my colors! Love the way it turned out :) Maye I'll keep this one a little longer, who knows!?

Random Thoughts of the Day

The Good

**Today is the BIG day!  Michelle has her C-section at 1pm this afternoon.  Annika will make her appearance shortly thereafter.  Pray that all goes well and a fast recovery for my SIL!  I plan to visit them tonight and will hopefully post pics tomorrow.  My guess is that she will be 8lbs 7oz, 20 inches long.  We'll see!!! I can't wait to see Brian as a father...he is going to be great!! And Michelle...she loves babies soooo much.  Soon she will have her very own!

**E took my to Cold Stone Creamery for Ice Cream the other night.  This place is an ICE CREAM LOVERS DREAM!!!!!!  I had only been there once in Boulder, CO three years ago, but they recently built one near our house.  I made my own flavor...banana ice cream with coconut, chocolate chips, almonds and real banana mixed in.  Delish!!!

**Got the New Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince yesterday.  Read the first 5 chapters....I have heard it is pretty slow and much darker than the others.  It'll probably take me a week because I have so much else going on!

**Mary has planned a special surprise for Kim, Sonja and I this Sunday.  Not sure what it is, but I bet it will be good!

The Bad

**My old principal just jumped ship and went to the OTHER school district "across the river".  He is now one of the "head honchos" of that district and will be making 6 figures.  About $30k MORE than what we paid him.  They had a big article in the paper about it the other day.  They wanted him because my former school of the past 4 years increased our student achievement test scores by almost 60% over that 4 years.  Our teachers and coaches are exceptional and he is taking all the credit for it!!! I could go on and on about this.  I doubt he will have the help he had with us, yet he is expected to make miracles happen in that failing district.  Good luck, Buddy!!

**Someone close to me has a secret.  It made me sad. Because I am selfish.

**I am BROKE.  Soooo looking forward to my summer vacation after next week, but almost wishing that I was back at work making a salary!!

The Beauty of Old Friendships

You know what I love about true, long-lasting friendships? You don't have to see each other or even talk for a long period of time and then when you get together, it is almost like nothing has changed. Pick things up right where you left off.

I have quite a few friends like that. It is hard growing up sometimes because LIVING LIFE gets in the way of the way we used to be, things we used to do, and friends we used to hang out with. Its always great when I am able to spend time with any of my friends, especially the ones I have had forever!
Sometimes it is fun to see how our old friends have changed as they become adults. Take my friend John, for example. He just became a father 4 months ago, to a beautiful little baby girl named Jasmine. John and I have been friends since the day we met in 7th grade....16 years now. Ever since he made his speech for the Student Council Election declaring that "if elected, he would throw all the school hamburgers to the bottom of the ocean!" He won, of course. Good Ol' John-Boy! We haven't been able to spend as much time together these past few years as we used to, but we made special plans to get together yesterday.
E wanted to hang out with John too (we have all known each other since Jr. High!), so we went to his house (on the opposite side of the Twin Cities) in the afternoon and spent time catching up about various high school classmates and playing with the baby.

A few hours later his girlfriend Kirsten came home and I got to spend some time getting to know her better while E kept John company in the kitchen while he fixed us a fabulous spaghetti dinner. I got her interested in learning more about scrapbooking and promised to get together sometime soon to help her get started. I recomended that she visit Scrapjazz, of course, because that is where I learned everything I know about scrapbooking!
After dinner we stayed and played a game of darts. Considering that I hadn't played darts in at least 3 years, I actually played pretty well! We still ended up losing though :( The game got us all to work up our appetites again...just in time for Byerly's Killer Brownies. These things are beyond sinful!! They are much bigger than the ones pictured here...I could barely eat half of mine because it was so rich and gooey!

It was so nice to spend time with John again and to get to know his baby and girlfriend.  They are both so sweet!

****The Facts****

** It is soooo HOT and HUMID outside that my summer school classroom is around 100'.  It is absolutely miserable...even fans don't help enough. I can't drink enough cool water.  Heat like this makes me naseous!

**Thinking about getting some scrappin' done, but I just haven't been home. Still need to finish up Mary's gift album by Saturday. Getting togther to scrap with Sarah and Shannon on Friday night.... We haven't scrapped together in almost a year! Gonna order pizza and drink Mojito's .  Anyone ever had that???

**Been neglecting my visits to Scrapjazz and the blogs I read. Sorry everyone! Just a few more weeks of summer school and then I will have a few weeks of vacation...I am always playing catch-up with one thing or another!

**Harry Potter comes out in two days.  I finally finished rereading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix today.  Found this Harry Potter Website that I plan to check out some time soon. Can't wait to find out who the Half-Blood Prince is....Dudley? Malfoy? Neville? Harry? Hmmm.  We'll see soon enough.

**I just reconfigured the format of my Blog so that it will be consistent on all computers...I had it set for a "fluid" format and I was not happy with it at all! I think this is much better.  I have had to go back and resize some of my pics to fit, but it seems worth it to me!

The Bra Lady

How many of you ladies have ever had the pleasure of working with a professional bra lady??  Well as of yesterday, I have!  I had an fitting/consultation to get the perfect bra to wear under my bridesmaid dress.  That all went rather well, but ladies.....did you know your b**bs are DOOMED if you don't quit wearing those underwire bras??? And 85% of all women wear the wrong size bra.  Well, apparently my current everyday bra has been doing NOTHING for me, so she also had me try one that she carried in her store. Yowsers!! This thing had them sitting up so high and pointy that I almost mistook myself for Madonna!! The lady tells me that the bra just needs to be "massaged" and it will lose its pointiness.  And she tells me that a good pair should sit up that high (Like right underneath the chin??!! Okay, that is a slight exaggeration, but whatever!).  I'll tell you....is there any better way to spend the afternoon than having your breasts man-handled, poked and prodded??!! This old lady was a trip though! At the very end she made me put my bra on in front of her and actually told me "these things look like you are about to put them in somebody's face". I swear to God!

What else is new?

* Saturday night I went out with Sonja for a little while.  We went to Washington Square and sat on the patio.  Met up with Lanee and Roger.

*Sunday. Went to the pool most of the day. Went out for Vietnamese with E's parents to a fabulous rest. in St Paul called Mai Village.  If you live close enough to try it, you definitely should!

*Monday. Bra fitting. Ran a few errands.  Went to Perkins for a pancake dinner!

Babies, babies and MORE babies!

On Friday night I was supposed to babysit Angelina while Sonja went to work, but they called her and said she wasn't scheduled after all! Bad for Sonja, but good for me, I guess! I hung out with them for a few hours and got some cute pictures of Angelina.  She is soooo cute! She will be 5 months old on July 18th.  Hard to believe how fast that time has gone! Angelina is just three days younger than Chase, Mary's baby.  Its so fun that my two best friends had babies so close together!! Here are a few cute ones of Angelina:

**Because I didn't have to babysit all night, I was free to do whatever.  So E and I went to Jeff and Toni's house for a BBQ.  Another baby for me to hold! Cidney is 3 weeks old now and not even 7 lbs yet! Just a peanut.  Here is one of her from Friday night. Its hard to believe how tiny they start and how big they get so quickly!

**Fast Forward to Saturday.  The annual Sauer Family Picnic up at my mom and dad's place.  Small crowd this year...only 20-25 were able to make it.  Of those who did come were my cousin Dave's wife, Kim, along with 2 year-old Marayna and 4 1/2 month old identical twins, Aidan and Liam.  What adorable little chunkers!! These boys were born Feb 24th at 4lbs and 5lbs.  They are now 16 lbs and 17lbs! What a difference it was to go from holding Cidney to these big boys! They are so cute and everyone was loving them up!! Here are some pictures from the picnic.

More babies to come!!!
**  Michelle is 10 days away from her scheduled C-Sect.  I will be an aunt!!!!!!!!! So excited!
** I have plans with my friend John this coming week, and will get to see his sweet baby Jasmine, just 4 months old!

I haven't scrapped in weeks!!

I have this nearly-finished layout from Kara's birthday sitting on the shelf and it has been there for over two weeks now!  I just haven't found any extra energy late at night when I might possibly have the time to work on it.  As hard as it is getting up at 5am, it is even more tough to be creative after a long day.  I know many of you know exactly what I mean!  I could work on it when I get home from work, but it has been so nice out lately and I just CANNOT sit inside on a nice day when I could be at the pool, out on the lake, or doing anything else outside.  Speaking of the pool, we were there for several hours yesterday.  E and his brothers tend to have water fights in the pool that last forever.  I wanted to get some of pics of this because it is very funny, but I didn't dare take my new camera out with water flying everywhere.  Here is a pic from last summer that illustrates the water wars. I did a little research and found that Canon offers a Waterproof Case for my camera.  Looks like it could be even more fun to play with!

On a side note, I have mentioned that summer school is going rather well.  I took my 3rd graders to the Como Park Zoo for a field trip on Wednesday.  They were very well-behaved, but the gorilla sure wasn't! We were watching him from outside the enclosure (I was taking pictures) and he came flying up to the glass and pounded as hard as he could.  This totally freaked the kids out! We saw many other cool animals, including the mama giraffe and her little baby, the lions, tigers and (polar) Bears.  Oh my!

Another sidenote:  I wanted to point out the creative writing talents of my little (or should I say youngest) brother, Jeff.  He recently re-vamped his message board and deleted many of the old, good posts, but if you read his "Man Struggles with Petty Addiction" commentary, you will experience his sense of humor.  This kid needs to get a Blog! Speaking of people who also need Blogs, my vote is for my cousin, Katie Sauer. This girl is also a very funny writer and lives in Boulder, CO finishing up her PhD.  Many stories that are definitely Blog-worthy.  So what are you waiting for, KT??? Surely writing a thesis for your Doctoral degree in Economics and teaching undergrad Economics courses couldn't take up ALL your time??!! If you have time to DO other things, you must have time to WRITE about it???  HA!!  I know how that goes....I feel like I hardly have time to catch up on this Blog all the time.  I have so much more to say and so little time to say it!!

The Facts:

*Had dinner with Mary and Kim at Macaroni Grill the other night.  Their calamari was nasty!!!  Ew, ew, ew. But the cheesecake was fabuloso!

*Watched a movie called The Jacket. Very strange, but I liked it.  Not sure if it was about Divine Intervention or what, but the story was intriquing and so much better than I thought it would be from the goofy title.

*Trying to finish up my re-reading of Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix before the next one comes out.  This sucker is almost 900 pages long and seems to be draaaaaaaagging.

*Went out to eat with E to Donatelli's this week.  Mmmm.  They have the best Italian fries!

*Just found out that Susan W (from Scrapjazz and Scrap Supply) just moved about 5 miles away from me.  Her Scrapbook Gallery has offered me tons of inspiration.  We plan to get together in a few weeks to scrap.

*Babysitting Sonja's baby (Angelina) tonight.  Wish me luck!

OMG..I am lucky my house didn't burn down

So after the lovely day at my parents' house I came home at around 8pm to a very weird smell as I walked in the house.....

A quick survey of the house led us upstairs to the bedrooms, the source of the smell.  Discovered that one of our cats had knocked a heat-lamp off of the gecko cage and it had landed bulb-down right on the floor. These things are meant to be HOT, and its a good thing I came home when I did- there was already a 6 inch burn through the carpet AND carpet padding- we were seriously MINUTES away from flames and fire.  I feel absolutely SICK knowing that my whole house could have burned down and my kitties could've died if we hadn't gotten home in time.  We also live in a twinhome, the girl next-door could also have lost her home. OMG.

I am very lucky that it wasn't worse, but the SMELL of the burnt carpeting is horrid, nauseating, headache-causing, etc.  Had fans going and still wasn't able to sleep in that room all night.  It seems to be better today, but now I am going to have to figure out a way to fix this burn hole without having to replace the god-forsaken carpet throughout my house.  Unbelievable.

{June 13}

I hate writing the "breakfast to bed" kind of entries, but that is what you're gonna get about my day yesterday!

I spent a good part of the day at my morning school packing up all the stuff I have collected over the past four years.  Stuff sure accumulates over time...I found stuff I forgot even existed! I spent the afternoon hauling this stuff to my afternoon school, the one I love so much and will be teaching at full-time next year.

After school I found two letters in my school mailbox from a couple of 6th grade students that I have worked with this year...their kind words were so touching! They pointed out the littlest things that I did for them this year that really meant a lot to them...I was surprised only because boys that age don't usually show such sentiment, especially toward teachers! So that made me feel really good. I am writing letters back to each of them to return the thoughtful gesture.

Later that night I got to have suki yaki! Homemade Japanese food happens to be one of my favorites.  We had barely finished dinner when the emergency weather sirens started going off...

The storm and the sirens continued all night, so what better way to spend the evening than watching a scary movie?? I watched one called White Noise .....I should have known better!! The movie stars Michael Keaton and the story line is about him becoming obsessed with trying to contact his wife who had recently died.  It was only PG-13, but it had me pretty freaked out, especially with the thunder and lighting going on outside! I have to admit I can be a BIG BABY when it comes to scary movies (especially those that revolve around the paranormal), and I had to stare at the ceiling a couple of times  because I was too scared to watch!! So as soon as the movie was over I tried to go to bed...it was a restless sleep all night as I dreamt about spirits that were trying to contact me...why, oh why, do I watch scary movies before going to bed???? I think I am the most suggestive dreamer because this always happens to me!!

A New Look....

I wanted to thank Nicole once again for whipping up this cute new banner for me....  I love the new color scheme.  As much as I love turquoise/purple, I was looking forward to a change!!  It will be nice to re-vamp the look every month or so, to keep things interesting!!!

In the meantime, My Website has been severely neglected.  It was fun to do before I got this Blog, but this is just more convenient for me to update on a regular basis.  I will have to work on changing that!!

PS  I appreciate the comments I have been getting lately (my whining helped, I guess!) and it is nice to know that someone out there really DOES like to hear what I have to say! So thanks everyone!

Those "Gaming" Geeks!

How many of you know about Gaming Geeks?  I am talking about the guys who are totally into Dungeons and Dragons, Magic, Warhammer, Comics, etc.  I am being especially stereotypical here, so try not to get too upset with me.  These are the guys who typically have long, unkept hair, black t-shirts, army jackets, on the fat or extremely skinny side, and talk in a certain language that can only be deciphered by other Gaming Geeks.  You will find this type at Air Traffic, or locally (St Paul, MN) you will find them at a place called The Source. 

 For one reason or another I found myself at The Source today when I heard a very recognizable voice: that of Ed, the guy we met at the Cancun airport at the end of our vacation.  This is the same dorky guy that we ran into at the Steve Vai concert about 3 weeks ago.  What are the chances!!??  I had no idea that he was one of those Gaming Geeks that I had mentioned earlier, but now I am not very surprised.  He told us he was there to start a new character, because his D&D character of the past eight years (8 stinkin' years?!) had finally died.  So I guess the Gaming Geeks never quite grow out of playing these extravagant "Games", not even when they are in their 40's like Ed!! Wow, it sure is a small world.

Went to Best Buy to buy a new movie to watch.  Decided on Life Aquatic with Bill Murray. It was a very different movie, but I liked it!

After the movie I got the scrappin' Bug and went to work creating two more layouts for my Cancun Album.  Here are my latest and greatest!:

My Honey is Home

My man rolled in from Chicago in the middle of the night...no time for us to catch up since I was in bed sleeping!  Anyway, I woke up this morning to find a note on the counter that he had brought back some fresh sushi and made me a really cute little lunch to take to work today.  How sweet! This is one reason why I love this man!

It is  a dreary Monday morning and I am not feeling very good today...stuffy and swollen glands.  I hope it gets better soon because I cannot afford to take time off work...I have a VERY busy week at work:

• 100 student research projects to grade
• 25 Teacher professional development plans to read and evaluate
• 25 teachers to hound about turning in their PDP's asap
• Hang school art contest artwork at Art Gallery
• Buy treats for Art Gallery Event
• Attend Art Gallery event
• Administer student achievement tests

See what I mean??  No time to be sick!