Ramblings . . .

Here we are at the end...I have made it to Z!!!!

Let me just say that I love... L o V e ZUMBA!!!

but, unfortunately, due to recent developments, I have not been going to class. :(

I'm too tired and I have noticed my pulse being a little higher than usual...I went to my doctor and he thought I should just take it easy for a little bit and see what happens...

Soon, very soon, I will be back at it tearing up the floor, but until then, I will miss it from the couch.

All of my students seemed to be dragging today so I offered up an idea. I put on some relaxing "soundscapes" type music and told them they could put their heads on their tables or read a book. After the initial whispers, they really settled down. I even had one student fall asleep. It was about the last 20 minutes of our afternoon before my planning periods, so I figured, what the heck, they need a little rest and relaxation. Some chose to read but I just sat in my chair watching them all with envy. See, I am exhausted. Actually, I'm not really sure if that even defines what I feel-- all I want in the world is a nap.

Well -- I did it.

I think I sunk to a new level.

I took a nap at school. After I escorted my students to their related arts class, I came back up the three flights of stairs even more tired than when I went down...found a blanket they I have kept in a closet...laid it on the floor...set a cute timer that I have to check their reading fluency...and fell asleep on my floor. It was only about 13 minutes and if anybody needed me they could have buzzed my room...but I think it was the most relaxing 13 minutes I have had in for-ev-er. Now I am feeling refreshed and ready to tutor my kids after school...

THEN I'm getting a massage...saaaaaaa-weet.

Ok, I am a cheater. I am a big, fat, nasty cheater.

See, sweet SarahBeth posted this exact same post yesterday...but she did get me thinking about *good karma* which I of course always need. . . soooo....

Here I am-- sending out hugs and kisses to all of my dear friends, IRL and in blogland. I hope your hump day is treating you nicely!!!

Hello my long lost friends in blogland.
I had to go out of town for work this week, and while I kept myself updated on my readings, I slacked off on my own posting. So, without further adieu, V is for Valentine's Day.

I have a confession.

My name is Amy, and I love Valentine's Day. I know it is a ridiculous holiday, I know it is commercialized to the nth degree...but I can't help but love it. Maybe it is because I am a teacher, maybe it is because of my stellar valentine, maybe it's because I'm wack. Whatever it is, I love it.

Even though the hubs and I have been together for a couple Valentine's Days in the past, I still think my favorite V-day ever was probably the one time I didn't have a significant other. I honestly think I had boyfriends for every single Valentine's Day except one, my senior year of college.

My roommate Laura and I decided we were going to have a little dinner party, my friends Mary and Jen came over and we made steak (my roommate didn't eat because she was a vegan), salad, potatoes, chocolate cake, the works! It was fabulous. We didn't talk about boys, we weren't depressed because we didn't have anybody to share Valentine's Day with, we were just happy being with people we loved.

I think too many people look at V-day as a four letter word; thinking that it is miserable for anyone who is not in a fantastic relationship. I disagree. I think it is nice to have a day to celebrate someone, anyone, that you love.

I don't think hubs and I even have plans for the big day this year...I did get him a nice little book of my boudoir photos that he will hopefully enjoy, but as for dinner? Maybe I will look into whipping up something nice at home. I would much rather eat at home than going out this year. . .

Whatever you do, wherever you are, I hope you enjoy your Valentine's Day with someone you love, platonic or not!

And THAT could be the understatement of the century.

Our county had a two hour delay today which is always a delight! My principal has been getting on the staff about being there on time; unfortunately, just because students have a 2-hour delay doesn't mean teachers do too. We are supposed to be there on regular time, or at least by 8:00, which is most of the time fine because normal time is 7:20. Maybe to prove a point or maybe because it had to be done, he called a staff meeting at 8:45. A surprise staff meeting? On a two-hour delay? He had already revealed the fact that he was leaving effecting March 1, so what could this meeting be about?

You guessed it (but you probably didn’t guess it unless you know me IRL)—staffing.

Staffing is based on the number of students in your school and the projected enrollment. Our school is very small and about to consolidate with another school with very similar demographics, so it is always a fear that we will lose teachers. This year I could breathe a sigh of relief because I was no longer the lowest on the totem pole. There were two other teachers that had less seniority in the county than I did. Bad news for them -- good news for me. Our school had to let two teachers go! This is TERRIBLE news, but I also received some startling news. As matter-of-fact-ly as humanly possible, my principal said, “ We have to lose two teachers, second grade teacher Ms. Red and first grade teacher Ms. Blue. Amy E. will be teaching first grade”.

::::awkward silence::::

Then he goes on to tell everyone in the building the insane amount of students each teacher will have in their classes because of the cut teachers. The students will all be back to regular classes (no more split gender and no more split grade level) and there will only be one class of each grade level, except kindergarten and first grade.

While this is HUGE in my little world, I am very, very, VERY terrified excited to try something new. I was planning to look for new jobs at the year if I had to stay in a fourth-fifth all girls’ class. They have really worn me out this year. Of course I love them, but my patience is running thin and I can’t subject myself to this year after year. So, as of now, I only have roughly 65 more days as an all-girls, fourth/fifth grade split teacher. I better live it up while I can!

Yay for snow and taking it easy!

How dumb and predictable, I know. But, it just so happens that it fell at the right time for an “S” post.

Hubs and I got back yesterday pretty tired and sad from our visit to my brother’s house. We had a couple superbowl parties that we could have attended, but we decided that we would MUCH rather spend a quiet evening at home watching Troy Polamalu the Steelers play. With my ever-so-apparent love of food, I KNEW we couldn’t watch the game without a couple snacks, but we had been out of town for the past four days and had NOTHING in the house. . .

So, at approximately 5:00pm, I went to the grocery store (after a brief detour to my sister’s house where I sliced open my ankle on her screen door). Yikes. I knew everything would be sold out, but I tried my hardest to be creative.

I have been MIA for the past few days, so I thought I would recap with lots of pictures from my weekend with my brother and sister-in-law!

We sang duets while my husband someone who will remain nameless flipped off the camera.

We went to my brother's office where we did really important stuff with the 3D printer.

We ate 1/2 lb. meatballs @ Buca Di Beppo.

And we hated it when we had to leave. It's always nice to get back home, but it does make me sad living away from my brother and sister-in-law. I wish Jessica could go with me, my mom, and my sister when we go shopping every Saturday, I wish Nicholas could go shoot guns with the boys, or go shopping with us, or even just eat Sunday dinner with us. But their life is there and ours is here, so we have to make the best of it while we can, and we have been known to have some good times when we are together!

Since these have been circling facebook, I knew it was inevitable that I would eventually be tagged. 

Well, in my sweet little county, we had a snow day today!!! So, knowing that I was on P for my alphabet blogging...so I set out to have a day full of P's. But not peas, I don't like peas.

First...I started my morning by pretending.

I woke up at my normal time; about 5:35 to start my morning. The weather people were calling for snow, so I went to my laptop to see if my county had a delay or if they were closed. Lo and behold, we were closed!!! Halle-freaking-lujah! I tried to climb back in bed with the boy, but I couldn't sleep and I was squirmy and coughy, and he wakes up about an hour and a half after me, so I decided to get out of bed. I thought it would be fun to pretend to be a stay-at-home-wife so I tidied the house a little, washed dishes from the night before, and made hubs cheesy eggs and ham, bacon, and toast. It was fun pretending, then he went to work and I was bored.

Next, I decided to give myself a little pedicure. I soaked my feet, trimmed my cuticles, buffed my nails, the whole nine yards. Finally, I painted my pigs OPI's French Chambord-Tini. I won this nail polish at the same WWW where I won my massage gift certificate!

Around 10AM I decided to go to my Mama's house...I think that's one of the good things about living in a one mile radius from your mom and sister; even on snow days you can still hang out with the girls, and boys! My dad drove up to pick up my sister and her boys to bring them down because of the crappy roads. I walked over to my mom's house and began my play day.

My mom and sister made me drive out to pick up the pizza and Sam was excited for his pizza. Joelie ate tons and TONS of pizza, but somehow, I didn't have many picture of him and then he was onto his nap.

Later, Sam and I decided to make peanut-butter kiss cookies! He is starting to be a help in the kitchen! He even unwrapped the kisses for the cookies. Here is a picture of Sam eating another cookie while we were making the other cookies...he has quite the sweet tooth.
Later, Sam wanted to get in bed to "play". I pretended to be asleep and he laid down beside me...then he was concerned about where my feet went. He went under the covers to find my feet and decided he wanted to stay under the sheets. He looked up at me and said, "Amy. AMY. This is so fun!"
After Joelie woke up from his nap, he of course had to have a cookie, but not the peanut butter kind, apparently babies shouldn't eat peanut butter until they are two. It's such a good thing my sister knows everything to know about pregnancy, being a mom, what kids can eat because I am sure I will be totally clueless when it comes to that stuff. My mom was making pinto beans for dinner and Sam said he wanted some. She set some out on a plate so they could cool down for him, he never got to those pinto beans because Joel ate them. Joel who doesn't like to eat anything if it isn't sweet or pizza.
Joel and Sam ended our play day by playing the piano together. I promise they are not really dirty, they just had about fifty a couple Hershey kisses. The temperature has warmed up a little here but it is still icy. I am hoping for another snow day tomorrow, but I am not quite sure I could come up with a day full of "q" activities. Oh well!

Well, not really just Old, but Old Crow Medicine Show. And older is for me.

Seriously, what is going on with all these nosebleeds in Lost???

Luckily lostpedia.com has some insight here...

and for those of you that don't watch lost...sorry, I am obsessed with enjoy it.

Um. Massage. Oh, how I love thee.

Unfortunately, I did not have a fabulous experience two nights ago.

I had a massage Monday night, my first professional one in at least a year and it was less than stellar to say the least. I have decided to outline the high and low points of this massage;

word to ya mother;
1. it was relaxing
2. it was quiet
3. it was dark
4. I could sum up numbers 1-3 by saying the atmosphere was perfect, but I am trying to give him a little more help than he deserved.
5. It was warm, nice and cozy while it was about 17 degrees outside

bites a big one;
1. he spoke very softly, I could barely hear him talk
2. the music was too loud. I mean, it may be relaxing to lay in a rain forest while fairies dance around playing the pan flute, but not when they are playing the pan flute and ungodly decibels.
3. he gave me for-ev-er to get undressed. as he could probably see, I was only wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, I already took off my jacket, scarf, and mittens...I was left alone long enough to take off a lace-up wedding gown with a full corset, garter belt, and thigh-highs. . .
4. when I asked him what he would prefer I do with my hair he said he would like me to put it up...he asked if I had a hair thing, I told him I did, he left for another 5 minutes so I could put my hair in a ponytail.
5. he rubbed me with the intensity of an 82-year-old lady, and not a strong 82-year-old lady; the frail kind.
6. he only rubbed my legs to about 5 inches above my knees
7. he tickled my feet when he rubbed them. and not in a good way.

I guess it wasn't all that bad, I had a gift certificate I won from a Working Women's Wednesday so I didn't pay much for the massage and it was relaxing, for the most part. I would have expected it if I went to a student, not a massage therapist at a pretty upscale salon in my town.

But I have ridiculously high standards due to my previous massage therapist that righted all the wrongs in my world when I saw him. He worked out every single knot, kink, any little thing, he fixed. And, he didn't tickle my feet when he did my reflexology. But he has moved onto bigger and better things and no longer massages, even though now, after a craptastic massage, all I can think about is how good I felt when he worked on my back. Ugh. Maybe I can get him to come out of 'retirement'?

On my way out, Mr. Craptastic informed me of all the knots that I had in my body. I wanted to ask him why he didn't get them out, but instead I just simply said, "uh huh". He then wondered why I had so many knots, I let him know that I am a teacher that only teaches girls between the ages of 10-12. He thought that could be the source of stress on my body...ya think?!?!

After paying and begrudgingly giving him a nice tip he asked if I wanted to go ahead and schedule my next massage...

"no thanks you suck, I'll just call when I'm ready..."

Main Entry: lin·ge·rie
Pronunciation: \ˌlän-jə-ˈrā, ˌläⁿ-zhə-, -ˈrē; ˈlaⁿ-zhə-(ˌ)rē, ˈlän-jə-, ˈläⁿ-zhə-, -ˌrā\
Function: noun
Etymology:
French, from Middle French, from linge linen, from Latin lineus made of linen — more at line
Date: 1835

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.' "

This past weekend, husband and I were able to see one of our favorite bands play at a local bar here. We always love to see them whenever we can, but especially when they play so close to home. I became familiar with them when I was living in my college town through my best friend Melissa. 

Well, well, well, I can't believe it, but it's time for a new president!

I am not going to spend my time bashing GWB because I am sure you could find about 1,000,000 other blogs that are doing that at this time.

I am however excited to ring in the new year with a new president!

I have now, officially voted in two presidential elections and I tell ya, I just get so stinkin excited.

I used to work for our county here and elections were always a ton of fun...some people hated them but I loved em! We would be up until well after midnight sorting out ballot boxes and being all kinds of official. . .

Anyway, I always love elections, I don't think I have ever missed an voting in my county, even while I was away at college. . . ahh, the benefits of having an INCREDIBLY political grandmother. . .

This election is different for me now though because of my current employment. I teach at a predominately black school (yes, we call them black because that's what they call themselves, many of them didn't come from Africa, and that's what they told me to call them!) and we as a school are amazed at the progress our country has made in the past 100 years. I am looking forward to celebrating the inauguration, not only for me, but with my students as well. We are looking forward to a new era and even more progress.

So as jenny would say. . . Obamanos!!!

it's when I'm cooking on a propane stove,

Making the world's best pizza sandwiches over a campfire,

Or on top of a mountain peeking over the edge.

My happy place is on the river or in the mountains, but away from society with hubs and my nearest and dearests; I wish my mom and sister would come with us.

Negative degree weather is making me not so happy. I want my happy place back.

As some of you know, I am a teacher. I love my job even though it is far out of my comfort zone.