Sprucing Up the House

Went to IKEA this weekend because I saw some curtains online that would match my kitchen and I've been looking for something to cover my odd shaped window. While I was there I found a light for the living room that I really wanted so, of course, I HAD to get it. Cristian was nice enough to put the light up for me!!!

And here it is! It was hard to find one that didn't hang down, but wasn't plain. You can't tell from the picture, but the lights are VERY bright. It was kinda like a Griswald Christmas when we flipped the switch.

And here are the "curtains" that I got. They were out of the actual curtains in this pattern, but they had these table runners. So I just bought four of them and they ended up being the perfect length! The whole thing only cost $12. I love you, IKEA!

Losing Faith in Humanity

I'm not sure how much more of the nightly news I can handle. Tonight all of the local news stations reported on a little girl who wrote an essay and won a trip to New York for a Hannah Montana makeover and concert tickets. She wrote a heart wrenching story about how her father was killed in Iraq on April 17th and her mom was the best and she wanted her mom to have a special holiday and winning this trip would really make their holiday better. So, she wins the contest and the little girl and her mother go to New York to live it up for free and get what every 8 year old girl wanted for Christmas - to see Hannah Montana. The little girl was being interviewed by a local reported and asked about the essay she'd written about her dad being killed. She just stood there like a deer in head lights as you see her mother run in from the background to pull her away saying that she did not want her daughter discussing the incident. (Not that it matters, but this mother looked totally shady). I guess someone got suspicious and did a little investigation and come to find out there was only one soldier killed in Iraq on April 17th and it was someone with no relation to their family. There are so many things wrong with this situation. 1. There is a good possibility that this little girl had nothing to do with that letter at all and it was all her mother's idea. What a great lesson to teach your daughter: Lie and take advantage of the good nature of others to get what you want. 2. If she did have her daughter write that letter she should be sentenced to a stoning by all the children that actually have lost their father's in Iraq. (I know I run the risk of sounding like Bill O'Reilly here), but that is such a disrespectful and insulting thing to lie about. This woman is despicable. I'm sure all of the children that did lose their fathers this year have other things on their minds besides Hannah Montana anyway. It's parents like this that make me want to quit teaching.

The next story on the nightly news started like this, "A warning tonight: don't buy ground beef from the side of the road." Are there really that many idiots that would do that that we need to run this story? I think I'll just stick to the reruns of Seinfeld and Scrubs at 5, 6, and 10 from now on.

PSA: What Is In a Name?

A lot. I often wonder where people come up with the names they give their children. Not the normal names like Jennifer, or Sarah, or Ashley, but the really bad ones like Gunner, Blaze, or Talon. I mean really, who is going to take a 35 year old man seriously with a name like Gunner? I have to thank Jennifer for introducing me to a website with awesome baby names. If you are interested in looking at names to NOT name your child, then just go to www.gsmc.org and click on the little moon at the top left. Here are my top five awesomely bad boys and girls names:

Boys:
5. Kreston
4. JaKalen
3. Jayden or Jaiden
2. Ja'Maury
1. Domino

Girls:
5. Paisley
4. Kinsley or Kinzlee
3. Adlen
2. Adrya
1. Twins Porsche and Audi (older sister is Lexus)

None of these children will ever be president. However, I'm sure Domino will have a successful career at either Domino's Pizza or as a pimp. Domino is a good pimp name. Stop the insanity and name your kid something normal!!

This Blog is For You, Suz!!

Saturday night was Amy and Josh's Festivus for the rest of us! Here is a picture blog of the fun we had!

Here are the hostess and host, Sue Ellen Mishke and Kosmo Kramer.

The requisite Festivus Pole!

It's an Entenmann's!
Do they have a castle in Windsor?
No, they have a display case at the end of the aisle.

What Festivus would be complete without a big salad, risotto, and a vegetable lasagna?

Black and white cookies!
Look to the cookie, Elaine. Look to the cookie!

Only the upper crust eat their snickers with a knife and fork.

Cereal and Peach Schnapps.

Because people like to say SALSA!!

These pretzels are making me thirsty!!!

Pastrami and marble Rye! I think Cristian stole this particular rye from a defenseless old woman.

Jennifer tasting the schnapps. (She drank it all!)

George and Kruger at the original Festivus.

Eating like a lady!

It was a super fun night and hopefully an annual event! I mean after all we didn't get to have champaign coolies or snapple this year!

Catch Up Blog

I haven't been very good about blogging lately, so I'm gonna type fast with a quick catch up.

1. Had the flu over Thanksgiving, was in bed for a week, and had some scary times. Good thing I had awesome friends that live close by to take care of me. I was so sick my mom had to drive up here to get me to take me home for Thanksgiving with the family. Not a restful break at all.

2. I saw a mouse in my garage and FREAKED OUT!! Apparently all of the construction of new houses is running the mice into everyone's homes. I called the Orkin man and they came to eliminate the rodent. I haven't seen it since, so hopefully it worked.

3. Ran over a nail and had to get a new tire.

4. Spent my last two Saturdays doing band crap. Can't wait til the winter break. Only two more weeks!!!

5. Put up my Christmas decorations and it looks like this so far:

The Joys of Teaching

The first day back after a break is always a little rough. One of Dean's 8th grade percussionist was playing timpani while his band was sight reading a song. He raised his hand and asked, "Does a circle mean a whole note?" Seriously, I really couldn't make this stuff up.


I'm so glad that it's cold outside. Got a splitting headache and I'm going to bed in five minutes.

Early To Rise.....Again

So, yes, it is almost 5 in the morning and I've been up for about an hour and half. I was up this early yesterday, too. I think that all of the laying around and napping has filled my sleep needs, so I'm up at 3:30 surfing the internet. Thank goodness I have a laptop. When I woke up I was covered in sweat and had to change everything, but I think that means my fever broke. I sure hope so. I feel better right now, but I've been taking fever reducers every 4 hours for the past 24 hours so I can't tell if I'm actually better or if it's just the meds doing their job. My coughing is still getting worse. My guardian angel, Natasha, brought me some cough pills last night. I took one about 9:30 and was still coughing my head off at 11:00 so I took another one. That one seemed to do the trick. I'm coughing a little, just not constantly anymore. My throat is really sore from all the coughing though. I'm just ready to get out of bed and actually DO something. Hopefully I will be able to later day. I've been couped up in my house since Wednesday now!!!!

Sick Again.....

I think I got the flu from one of the grimy kids at school. I've spent the last three days in the bed with a fever. I'm freezing, then I'm burning up, and I have a cough that is getting worse instead of better. I was finally able to walk to the mailbox last night. I feel better right now, except for my throat, but I think that it is only because I've taken enough tylenol to sedate a horse. My nurse sister said it was ok for me to take all of this medicine, so I hope I don't end up needing a liver transplant. I just hope I'm done having a fever because laying in bed is getting old. And I'm getting lonely. I've had no contact with the outside world except for a brief visit from Sarah, Natasha, Allie, and Parker today. We sat outside in the sun to get our Vitamin D for the day, except it just made me tired again. And Parker threw a track ball at me and when I told him it hurt he said, "NO!" Apparently that is his new favorite word. And then he stole an apple from Sarah. It was pretty cute. I wish I was two again. You can tell people no whenever you want and steal people's fruit and get away with it. Oh Natasha, your kids are so entertaining!!! And thanks for bringing me all that stuff yesterday. My immune system thanks you, too.

The Joys of Teaching

I've got a doozie of a story today. During concert band today we were rehearsing our song, Angels We Have Heard on High, in the usual groundhog day fashion that is the concert band. I was in the middle of counting off the oboe player when I look over to the saxophone section and watch our very special saxophone player take the neck off of this sax, put the open end up to his nose, close off one of his nostrils and then blow into the sax neck with the open nostril. I was so appalled that I almost fell out of my chair!!!!!!! Now, this kid is so special that he can hardly write his name and he really doesn't do more than hold the saxophone. Most of the time he spends the class swabbing out his instrument and polishing the outside. A few minutes later he was putting the cork end of his neck into his ear. He did swab out the instrument after he blew his nose into it, so I guess that's a good thing. Don't worry, I've already had a glass of wine and I'm going to bed. Tomorrow is a new day - hopefully with fewer boogers.

I finally got some rechargeable batteries for my camera so I am finally able to post some pictures.The first picture is of my bedroom. I finally got the curtains in my room hung up and I got new bedding today. You can kinda see the crown moulding, too. I had some decorative pieces put in the corners. All of the moulding still needs to be caulked and painted and hopefully that will done before the end of the year.

Here is another view of the crown over the fire place.

Things have been so super busy lately. I can't wait for this week to be over so I can get some sleep. I guess I wasn't mentally prepared for the last month. It's just been one thing after another and I feel like I've spent the little free time I've had playing catch up. I'm so glad to have the middle school region tryouts over with and I'm looking forward to being finished with the high school tryouts, too. I woke up this morning singing the A major etude - I'm only a few more weeks away from needing to be committed. Last weekend I had some sort of freak 24 hour stomach virus and I missed the craft show where Natasha and I had a booth. Natasha had to work it by herself (she's awesome!) and we still have stuff to get rid of. If you need any Christmas cards or gifts please let one of us know!! We'll be able to take care of you. Between football games, concerts, makeup lessons because of marching band, migraines, craft shows, viruses, laundry, and bad clarinet playing - I'm pretty wiped.

The Joys of Teaching

We've been in a rut for the last few weeks. There's been a lot going on so I haven't found the students' dumb moments quite so endearing lately. Today was much better, though, so I couldn't get angry when one of my beginner french horn players acted like he had just started playing horn last week. That class is usually my best beginner class, except for this one kid that never practices. (No, it's not the kid that cries every class). So today in our warm up we were playing through a mini-chromatic scale that we'd been working on for a about a week and half. I can hear this one kid missing every note, so I asked him to play it for me. The first three notes are C-C#-D. He plays C then tries to put his trigger down on C# and D. For my non-musician friends, you don't put your trigger down on horn til you get up to G#. I said to him, "You don't need your trigger on any of these notes." So he tried again to no avail. I asked him if he had practiced at home on this and he said no so I sent him to the practice room to work it out and told him to come back when he had it worked out. I'm thinking he's going to be gone for 10 minutes. After 30 minutes I go check on him. I asked him to play it for me, so he starts playing and now he's not moving any valves at all. I showed him the fingerings and then he played it fine. I was confused as to why he couldn't do it earlier. Then he said, "I thought you said that there is no triggers on this?" I responded with, "Right, there's not." Then he asks me while wiggling his three valves, "Aren't these triggers?" So he thought he was going to be able to play 8 chromatic notes on an open partial. And he doesn't know his valves from his trigger. If the rest of the class wasn't awesome I would have really questioned my decision to teach music.

Yeah.....

So I was really angry this morning after I saw this segment on a morning show about equal time off for parents and singles and I had to write that other blog. Now that I've gotten it off my chest, I feel better and don't feel it is necessary to keep it up - especially since I don't want to anyone to feel that it was written for any other reason than my own ranting. We'll chalk my bad mood up to PMS and not feeling so great this week. Lots of headaches and not enough sleep amongst other things.

I want to post pictures of my new crown moulding, but the batteries in my camera are dead. As soon as I get new batteries I'll put up some pictures.

Less Than 24 Hours Til........

The season premiere of Scrubs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't wait! Do not call me tomorrow night between 8:30 and 9:00 central standard time. If you do I will not answer the phone, nor will I call you back.

I'm also getting my crown molding put up tomorrow. Pictures will hopefully be posted tomorrow. After Scrubs, of course.

Lists

Things That Made Me Happy Today
1. My beginner clarinets actually sounded like clarinets today!
2. My beginner french horns were awesome as usual.
3. I got to eat Olive Garden leftovers for lunch.
4. I'm learning to play the bass guitar so I can join a garage band.

Things That Made Me Sad Today
1. My band can't play their stupid scales.
2. It was ground hog day in concert band, AGAIN!
3. I have one beginner horn player that cries every class every time he makes a mistake. (this makes me more mad than sad. and no, I'm not insensitive this kid is just looking for attention. I just ignore him even though I really want to say, "Man up, grow a pair, and try again."

Things That Were Backwards From Every Other Day:
1. My beginner clarinets actually sounded like clarinets!!
2. Dean actually let the sax class out on time! (good thing we got that clock, huh?)
3. I was hungry by 9:30 this morning.
4. I got cold in the KHS bandhall. (this is unprecedented)

I'm Happy Because.......

it has finally "cooled off" to 83 degrees.
this is a short week.
That's all for now.

The Joys of Teaching, Story 3

I once again have an awesome story to tell about our little concert band. To make a long story short, Dean had just finished explaining to the class how to count a dotted eighth-sixteenth rhythm and had gone into detail about how the dotted eighth note takes up 3/4 of the entire beat. Here is how it went down:

Dean: So in conclusion, student 1, tell me how much of the beat is taken up by the dotted eighth note.
Student 1: 3/4
Dean: Very good! Student 2, how much of the beat is taken up by the dotted eighth note?
Student 2: 2?
Dean: No. (He proceeds to re-explain). So student 2, tell me how much of the beat is taken up by the dotted eighth note.
Student 2: 3/4
Dean: Yes! Very good. Student 3, how much of the beat is taken up by the dotted eighth note?
Student 3: 1?
And so on and so on and so on. I think it took until student #5 before we got a correct answer. Seriously - I really can't make this stuff up.

Insomniac Blog

I'm usually fast asleep by now, but for some reason I'm not tonight. Random thoughts:

I hate four way stops. Please pay attention at them. It might be your turn to go.
Check out William Fitzsimmons album "Goodnight". Very mellow. I'm lovin it.
I just realized that I have nothing to eat for breakfast tomorrow. Great.
Three day weekends are awesome. I'm glad I have one in four days.
I love living close to the Smith family!! Endless sources of entertainment!
I can't wait for the season premiere of Scrubs.
I've had three dreams about dating in the past week and half. Consequently, I've had two dreams about work.
I wish I could remember who I was dating in the dreams. I remember the ones about work quite vividly.
I'm so tired of the heat!!! I want to go someplace that actually has a fall!!!!!!!!! I can't wait to be cold. I could go on a trip over Thanksgiving or get crown moulding in my house...........
I love sleep. I wish I was sleeping right now.

The Joys of Teaching, Update

Just wanted to let everyone know that our little concert band trumpeter is still trying to figure out if his instrument is considered brass and gold.

Also, Hershey Kisses motivate kids to play off their scales early.

The Joys of Teaching, Story 2

To spice things up a bit in concert band we decided to divide the class up in two groups: The black and silver instruments (clarinet and oboe) and The Shiny Gold instruments (Tuba, trombone, sax, and trumpet). So after I explained this to the class, our little trumpet student holds his trumpet up and asks, "Is this gold?"

Dean told him that he would get him a color wheel to review after class.

The Joys of Teaching, Story 1

Today I was sitting next to our trumpet player in the Concert Band. (For my non-band friends, concert band is the bottom group). We had a conversation that went something like this:

Dean: Ok, let me hear the brass play line 25, Glow Worm.

Trumpet student, to me: Is that me? Am I brass?

Warms my heart.

Words Cannot Express.......

The day that I had today. Let me start by saying that I always hate the Mondays after I'm out of town all weekend. I also stopped checking my school email on Sunday nights because there never fails to be a parent email that will just piss me off and ruin what is left of my weekend. So the first email I get this morning is from a mother of a kid in Dean's band. She is emailing me, I assume, because she was in my class last year and I teach her sectionals. She is emailing to let me know that her drama queen daughter (drama queen is the understatement of the century) has informed her that they were told to schedule their lives around their band sectional and she wasn't going to be able to make it to her sectional this week and she was very concerned that she was going to be punished severely for her absence. (We asked them to schedule tutorials for days other than their sectional and the coaches have okayed them to miss practice on the day of their sectional. Basically we told them that they need to be at sectionals no matter what. However, some students have had conflicts and these students have come in to make up their missed time on another day - no big deal). So this lady is going off because she is supposed to be induced on Thursday, the day of said sectional, and she feels that her daughter should be there for the birth of her baby brother. She feels that we are being unreasonable by asking her to schedule the birth of her son around our sectional. YEAH - that's EXACTLY what we are asking her to do. And she better let grandpa know that if he's going to keel, it should be on a Friday so that she can get to that dang sectional! Now I see where her daughter gets it. What teacher on earth is that unreasonable? I don't expect people to schedule births around my sectionals. You would think parents would understand that we say these things so that the kids don't take advantage and skip every week for whatever stupid reason they can come up with. I forwarded the email directly to Dean and he sent her an email that made me laugh. I have no patience for this kind ignorance. Especially when her daughter has a tendency (again, tendency is an understatement) to exaggerate EVERYTHING in her life and turn what should be a minor issue into a life altering scenario.
I have so many other great stories about teaching and I will share all of them in a new series of blogs called "The Joys of Teaching". Amusing stories that will hopefully make you laugh.

A Beautiful Day For a Concert

I took this picture of the Bass Hall today before the afternoon concert. It was such a nice day and I ended up walking around town for a while after the concert. I'm so excited that fall is on the way! Sundays are the best days for walking around downtown, especially this time of year. Just wanted to share my picture!

MSNBC Anyone?

If you do not already watch MSNBC, I highly recommend it! I have just recently started watching it in the evening and it's awesome! I like to keep up on the news, but sometimes I get bored watching CNN. I love The Daily Show, but I don't always catch it. MSNBC is like CNN meets The Daily Show. It has all the news of CNN with the humor of The Daily Show. I recommend watching between 7-9. You'll catch up on all of the news and get several laughs in the process. Check it out!

Sarah, This Blog is For You!

I was told that I didn't update my blog with enough pictures and life details. So in an effort to keep you better informed on my very uninteresting life, here is a day with me:

Here I am on my way to work this morning before the sun came up. I walked outside and it felt awesome!!! Finally a cool morning. I was really pumped about it so I put my favorite tunes on the iPod and headed to work.

This is our note review during the oboe class!

Trying to get the oboe in tune. This is not an easy task for a 6th grader, hence the funny face I'm making. We got there though.......

Trying to play the french horn during Dean's band. I am finally getting to live my dream of being a horn player!!!! And Dean, I apologize again for all of the wrong notes today.

This was my lunch today. That diet root beer always makes my afternoon better!

Here I am being "dj" during concert band. We have the kids in this class play their unison songs to a cool beat from our fancy keyboard. It's the only way we can get through class - well, that and lots of inside jokes that fly right over the heads of this group. This is definitely a class we have to keep a sense of humor in.

Here is Dean jammin' out after all of our classes were over. Thank goodness for last period conference time.

Learning how to play a fork F in oboe sectionals. It's a amazing how good our oboe students are - this guy doesn't even need a reed! And he's super excited about me showing him how to play a note he learned last year!

Driving to Subway for a quick dinner before Meet the Teacher night. It was such a pretty day that I had to drive with the window down and with my favorite tunes pumping, of course.

And that is my day in a nutshell. Only difference is tomorrow I will teach clarinet lessons until 7, Thursday I'll go to the gym after sectionals, and Friday I'll drive to Pittsburg for the reunion. So you see Sarah, I don't update my blog as much because I do the same thing every day. I'll try to do better, though. And take more pictures so it is more entertaining. I just don't have cute kids to take pictures of like Natasha, and it's hard to take pictures while you are trying to teach. Maybe we will have lots of photo opportunities this weekend to post! Love ya Sarah!

Things Are Going Well.....

No, really, they are. For once. Things are finally looking up. Being settled into the new house is great and it's nice to have Natasha right down the road. It's great being able to hang out with friends and then be home in 1 minute! School is going really well, too. It feels like the days are shorter this year than the last few years have been. Maybe it's because I don't dread going to work anymore! I don't absolutely love it yet, but I surely don't dread it like I did last year. The only big problem that we've had so far is an inordinate amount of parents telling us that they were in band in high school and that they were just going to have their kids do exactly what they did. They haven't touched an instrument in 15 years, but they're going to teach their kid how to play it better than us and give them better information than what we can give them. Sure. Sounds great. If all it takes to do my job is simply being in the high school band in the 80's, then I am WAY over qualified for my job. Every time one of them talks to me like I'm a moron and tells me how much they know about running a band program, I just want to say, "Look, I've flown on many planes in my lifetime. However, I am in no way qualified to fly the plane. STOP TRYING TO FLY MY PLANE!!!" Parents are one of the few things I hate about teaching. (Not all of them. There are a lot of good ones that are very supportive and very helpful. We just rarely hear from them.) But all in all, things are so much better now. Natasha and I are gearing up for a garage sale this weekend, so if anyone needs any gently used stuff, please stop by!!!

So Much To Do, So Little Time

I knew that when school started I would be bad about blogging (along with being bad about doing anything else besides work), so I've got a lot to catch you up on. What a week it has been. Classes started up on Monday and so far, so good for us in the Trinity Bands. Things are so much better than they were last year when we felt like we were teaching in the Wilmer Hutchins school district. I'm optimistic because there is no way this year could be any worse than last year - unless the school burns down. On Tuesday, the battery in my car died in the parking lot of Half Price Books. Dean was nice enough to come give me a jump and escort me to the Interstate Battery that is in front of the Target in Keller. (Remember this location, people, because you NEVER want to take your car there!) What was supposed to be a 15 minute battery change turned into a 20 hour ordeal of ignorance at it's finest. To make a long story very short. The guy that was changing my battery couldn't get my car to start, decided that it wasn't the battery it was the starter, told me to call someone to get a ride and then kicked me out of the store and left me before Tara could get there to pick me up. (I'm not an auto mechanic genius, but if it was the STARTER, then why did my car START when Dean jumped me off? Operative word here being START.) Dean was again nice enough to come back up there to assess the damage and discovered that this moron had put the battery in backwards!!! It took me about 10 seconds to learn that the black cord connects to the negative side of the battery. SO - the next day, Tara was nice enough to take me BACK up there during my break so I could tell they story to another guy there. He takes a look at it and finds that the first guy put the wrong battery in there to begin with!! It takes two guys calling another guy to figure out that this has blown some fuses. Well, I ended up having to come back later to pick it up (again, this will make it Dean's THIRD trip to the store with me) and I'm thinking that this battery change is going to be on the house. WRONG. I got a whole 10% discount for my trouble. That came out to about $7.19. And they were even going to charge me for installation!!!!!!!!!! I made it quite clear to them that I was in no way going to pay for their crappy installation. Stay far away from this place people!!!!!

Abby's 2nd birthday is today and the birthday party was yesterday. It was fun for her. It was a little too much time with small children for me. Here are some pictures:

Here she is blowing out her candles on her Dora cake. (The two girls sitting next to her were the most annoying children I've ever met in my life. They were constantly shoving Abby out of the way of her cake and they opened nearly all of her presents. Their parents never once pulled them away and asked them to stop, even though clearly they are old enough to understand. It is parents like this that will eventually drive me out of teaching.) Good thing Abby is a very nice girl and likes to share.

Here she is enjoying her birthday cake!

Opening presents with mommy after mommy finally got fed up with the bratty children and told them to back off!!! She got lots of Dora stuff. She loves Dora!!

Abby watching her favorite show, DORA!!!!

Ahhhh, Nostalgia

I was listening to the songs on the Lumberjack Marching Band's myspace page just a moment ago. I wish I'd known at the time that college marching band was one of the best things I was ever going to do. I guess I'm far enough removed from it that I don't remember the sweltering heat, the mosquito infested leadership camps, and the 8am game day practices. All I remember now is all of the cool people, the fun parties, and the away games. Remember the trip to New Orleans fall of 98? Remember when it rained so bad at that game we ended up not wearing uniforms but wearing ponchos instead? That was one of the best trips. Remember all the fights we'd get in with the drunk spectators every time we went to Louisiana? I remember watching Amanda Dickson punch the Northwestern Demon in the head. So many memories. Just felt really nostalgic for a minute.........can't wait to see the Lumberjack Band again soon!

Back to Work

Back to the ole 9 to 5 today. Except it was more like 8 to 8. Yep, nothing like a 12 hour day to kick off the new year. I'm hoping that these kind of days are kept to a minimum this year. I got to come home for lunch, so that helped to break the day up a little. There was no time for dinner, so I got to eat left overs at Dean's. His left overs are much better than mine ever thought they could be. He wins the left over food contest. I win everything else. I put my bumper crop of tomatoes to use today and made this yummy salad of tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, and olive oil. Delicious and fun to look at:

My scarf is coming along nicely. I hope to have it finished soon.
I think this is going to be a good year. I feel like we have more control over stuff this year. And since I'm sort of a control freak (yes, I'll admit it) I think that will be a better thing for us. This year has to be better. It has to be. I won't make it in public education if this year is not better. We are starting the year with music stands, bassoons, euphoniums, percussion equipment, and metronomes so we are already ahead of last year! Only time will tell......

Solving Problems

Today I had a light bulb moment. I figured out a way to save the nation. I have found the answer to our fiscal problems. I'm going to start The Stupid Police. Not a unit of police that are stupid, but a unit of police that fines people for being stupid. Like yesterday at our region meeting. I could have easily made enough money to send a few kids to a private university for a pair of degrees. Here's how it will work. If you do something stupid, such as put those stupid cow balls on the back of your truck, then I will fine you. Or if I let you check out in front of me at the store because you have a few things and I have a lot and you don't say thank you, then I will fine you. Your first offense is $50. Every subsequent offense after this will double upon each offense. All of the money from my program will go directly into the school system to help students get a good education. It will also be used to give teachers raises so that they are paid what other professionals are paid. So all of these people beep-bopping through life acting like morons in public are going start paying for education. It would be an endless money pit. No one would have to pay for a college education again! It would all be funded by the millions of people walking around with no regard for anyone around them. I don't see how we can lose here!! And if people finally learn that we are trying to live in a society here, then it will just be a better place to live.

Update: I have found my first offender. What self respecting man tries to pick women up on myspace? And what self respecting woman agrees to go out with someone trying to pick her up on myspace? I got this message today:
My name is Tim and I just moved to Haslet, TX from Shreveport, LA. I am a 25 yr old male and I am 6 foot 2 inches 220 lbs brown eyes athletic build very attractive and I am just on here looking for a cool friend to get to know have some fun with and kick it with. I have a pic I can send you if you are interested. I am a real person no spam or robots or whatever those people are and I am looking for a real woman in return that is down to earth, funny, outgoing, good personality and definitely a frreak. So get at me so we can talk and get to know each other better. P.S. I like that picture ver nice!!! I live five minutes from the speedway also

This guy does not understand that he is barking up the wrong tree. Between the run on sentences and spelling freak with two r's - I don't know what turned me on first.

Wasting Time on Saturday

Today was the stupid fall region meeting. It was hands downs the most pointless region 2 meeting I've been to yet. I'm just so unimpressed with the people running the region and I wish we could vote them out, but if we even thought about nominating someone else we would probably have a mutiny on our hands. I feel like we are still in 1962 and clearly we are not! Example: in every other region in Texas, all of the schools draw lotto balls with numbers to figure out what order we will play at concert contest. At last year's fall meeting we were told by the executive director of the region (who incidentally looks like jolly ol St. Nick) that he would be picking the order of the performances. Of course everyone one from Keller was appalled and he told us "big city folk" to just settle down because it wasn't fair for a small school to have to play after a school from a big district like ours. That's fine and all if he thinks that, but this region is a democracy and we didn't vote to give him that "executive privilege" to keeps things "fair". (Does this sound familiar to anyone?) So basically, the rules don't apply to our region since we have some many good ol boy band directors that just want to do things the way the were done 40 years ago. I swear, if we had a state wide contest to see which region had the most morons in it, Region 2 would win every chair in the band - hands down, no contest! At any rate - we threw a big fit about the performance order process and we got to draw this year. Needless to say, I was not excited about spending my last Saturday of the summer listening to a bunch old Santa looking good ol boys tell us how they did it in the sixties. Luckily we had a fun carpoool:

Jennifer was our driver. She did a good job and didn't get us lost. Hang a lucky at the sign!

Delaina sat in the back with me. She looked very cute with her Paris Hilton sunglasses.

Hurricane Dean will be a Category 4 later today and destroying a southern Texas town near you later this week.

This is my dinner that Tara made for me on Friday night. It was so yummy!!!! I need the recipe. Great dinner, Tara!

Here is my bumper crop of tomatoes that I harvested today. There are more tomatoes growing, so it is possible that I will get to harvest more in a few weeks.

My Feelings for Fall

Today when I was out shopping I walked by a display of fall scented candles. It was scents like pumpkin spice, apple pie, and cinnamon. I absolutely love fall. It has always been my favorite season. It seems like every September I buy crazy amounts of these fall scented candles and burn them all the time. I love the smell of fall. It warms my heart. And there's nothing like that first day when there is a nip in the air. That was always the best day of marching band. I was feeling really nostalgic for fall over the past week because of the oppressive heat. Someday I hope to live some place where fall lasts longer than a few weeks.......s0me place where it is actually a season, not just a few weeks in November before it gets hot again. But until that day comes, I will be anxiously awaiting fall and all of the exciting smells it brings with it.

Dinner and Dancing

Tonight I had dinner at the Surface house. Our pre-dinner entertainment was Kennedy doing her tap dance. She brought her dad his "tap shoes" so that he could join in on the fun. So Kennedy and Dean did a tap show on the yoga mat for us. Hilarity!!!!


Dean made a lasagna for dinner and it was the best one I've ever had. Seriously. The Olive Garden better look out. It was dang good. Kudos to the chef!

My Week in a Nutshell

My sister and Abby came to visit me this week. We had a lot of fun hanging out with the Surfaces and the Smiths. I sang Itsy Bitsy Spider about 73 times and learned the theme song to Dora the Explorer. We were out shopping one day and stopped at Michael's to get some stuff for our craft project. While we were paying, Abby just plopped herself into this basket and took off her shoes. It was really cute and one of the few pictures I got of her smiling.

This is her Dora movie star look.
I spent the rest of the week working with Dean on our upcoming band camp and parent information meeting. I like to call this meeting "Band for Dummies". We decided we were going to have to have this meeting for our 6th grade parents after a series of events last year. I can't tell you how many times we heard, "What do you mean my kid has to play in a concert?" Well what do you think we do in band? We play concerts. Hopefully people will know what is going on after we spell it out in big purple crayon for them. The highlight of my week was a surprise visit from my retirement investment financial guy on Friday. He stopped by the office on Friday morning to say hi. No, I'm not that excited about my 403b - it's just that this guy is so dreamy and nice and polite and I blush every time he walks in the door. He's the only single guy I usually see - ever - so it always brightens my day when he pops in.

I started a new scarf today. I found this cute pink yarn at Michael's and thought it would make a great scarf. I had to give up on my blue one because I had jacked it all up. I think that this one is going to be much better. And since I'm thinking about going to Boston over Thanksgiving, this will be a nice addition to my very limited winter wardrobe.

Knitting Thoughts

I am really enjoying my new hobby of knitting. I think that maybe I find the repetitive movements very soothing. At some point during my knitting today, I recalled an episode of Grey's Anatomy in which Meredith decides that she is swearing off men and decides to knit a sweater instead. Hmmm. She's not that much older than me. I can't really become that cynical about dating yet. I'm not that dark and twisty, am I? And if I recall correctly, she ended up getting back together with McDreamy anyway. Of course, unlike Meredith, here in the real world I don't have two ridiculously dashing men chasing after me. (at least I don't think I do). If McDreamy came to me with those eyes and professed his love to me I would give up on knitting that sweater, too. But it is not coming to that with me, right? Besides, I'm not knitting a sweater. I'm knitting a scarf.

Suz, I Can't Believe I'm Knitting!

Suzanne left me a book called, "I Can't Believe I'm Knitting". I thought I would try to teach myself how to cast on. And I did it!! I can't believe I'm knitting! Thanks for the reference book, Suz. It's been a big help. And I figured out why I kept adding stitches. I was doing something weird every time I would start a new row. So now I'm ready to make my scarf.

Tomatoes and Yarn

I'm really confused about my tomato plants. They started growing little green tomatoes that I assume will eventually ripen to red, but suddenly yesterday I noticed that I already have one little red one that wasn't there two days ago. In the first picture, there are three different colors of tomato:
These are the first ones that showed up, and I guess they are starting to ripen a little. I really have no idea how to grow tomatoes, I just like to eat them.
I also got a lesson from Suzanne today on how to knit. I really like, but I need lots more practice. After hours of practicing today, this is what I've got so far:
And this is the result after I unraveled it several times to start over. I keep adding stitches somehow. And when I mess something up, I don't really know how to fix it so I just kinda jerry-rig a stitch until I can get back on track. So, with any luck, this could possibly be a scarf sort of thing for me to wear in the winter of 2009.

This Isn't Natural

I've seen television shows about this couple in Arkansas that have had 16 kids. Well, they just had their 17th and they said that they are not done yet. I am in no position to judge their decision to have a billion kids because I don't like it when people judge my decision to have zero, so read this article and think what you wish:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20097968/?gt1=10252

It just doesn't seem natural.

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

So lately I've been having trouble getting a full night's sleep. I can usually fall asleep easily, but something always wakes me up. I usually have to pee at least once during the night. Lately, though, the problem has been crickets. Yes, crickets. I had this problem when I lived in Keller. These crickets would get in between the bricks on my porch and chirp to no end. The volume was what I couldn't get over. It was like they were giant mutant insects with indestructible exoskeletons that would not succumb to the mass amounts of bug poison that I would find myself spraying on them at 3 in the morning so I could get some sleep. Now they are back. They chirp so loud that they wake me up out of a dead sleep at least 6 nights a week. I need to know how to get rid of them. Anyone have any tips?

It was a huge problem last night because I was having a dream that I was on a date with John Krasinski and it was going really well. He was really into me. (No one tell Zach, though, because he gets very jealous). And just before he walks me to my door - the stupid cricket right outside my window starts squealing like an angry hyena and wakes me from my slumber. I don't often get to have dreams about dating cute celebrities, so I'd really like it if they weren't interrupted. I've got to kill the crickets!!!

Coffee Shop Thoughts

I am currently at my favorite coffee shop, River Nile Coffee, to get some work done. I can't work at the office because it is 90 degrees there and I can't work at home because I keep finding other things to do. So, I come here for the great lattes, free WiFi, and quiet atmosphere. Well, til now anyway. There is this annoying kid jumping from couch to couch, screaming all the while, and basically ruining everyone's coffee shop experience. There are no less than 7 people here with laptops that look like they mean business. I realize that this is not the library, but can you please control your kid???? If you don't want to supervise them while you socialize over your coffee, then get a freakin' babysitter. That's all I'm saying. People always say that your own kids won't annoy you when they act like typical kids. I think that is true until they learn how to walk and talk. After that, all bets are off. Mark that down as reason number 458 as to why I'm not looking to procreate: No more quiet coffee shop time. Though, if it were my kid, they wouldn't be running around acting like a jack ass either. I'm just saying.........

Revelations

Tonight I went with Tara and Clara to The Ginger Man in Ft. Worth. It was a super cool place and I hope we can go back sometime.

Sarah Bart told me to try this beer, so I did:
I didn't like it. Thanks Sarah.

This was our view from the patio:
I got really close to a bullseye while tossing the darts around!
Then I had the revelation that beer is just not for me. I tried. I didn't really enjoy it. So I order this rootbeer and I loved it!