Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Hour 48 into family vaca

OK, sorry I haven't written in a while . . . but we now have less than 24 hours left in the vacation. You know, the one that I got as a Christmas gift to go to Florida with my parents, sister and her family. . . the golfing vacation as it turns out. Only one problem with that . . . yup. I don't golf. Sigh.

It actually has been ok. I arrived Monday at about noon. Got into town, had lunch, they went to play golf I hung out. Yesterday we went to the beach. It is a little too brisk for comfortable tanning, but I did give it a good effort. We watched the manatees swim and then headed back.

Today they went golfing again, but at least I got the keys to the car and went to the mall. Tonight we celebrate Dad's bday at Outback Steak House.

Tomorrow morning we get up at the crack of dawn to head towards the airport. Their flight leaves from Miami at 11:30, and mine leaves from West Palm Beach at 1:30. Yes, I'll be at the airport all dingdong day.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Curse me and my foolish ways

Sooooooo, yes, I dragged myself out and ran. Well, not run so much as walk and what I hoped was a brisk pace. I had two layers of pants on, three layers on top, an ear muff, hat, scarf and gloves. The clothing alone added an extra ten pounds. Who can run with that kind of extra weight?????

I ran a little bit, but it was running with long bouts of walking.

Got him and Scott, my handyman extraordinaire came by and asked if I wanted to go to lunch . . . yes, it is a well-known fact that I have no life at this point, and I'm up for pretty much anything.

I went to see Quantum of Solace with another friend. Oh my. Why, Lord, can't I have Daniel Craig . . . or someone very similar? Yowza.

I'm basically walking like a 90 year old woman at this point. Slowly and with pain when I get up and down. Sigh.

I've promised myself tomorrow I stay home and ACCOMPLISH THINGS. We'll see how that goes.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Operation Marathon

First, I'd like to say that in my head I look like this when I run: Smooth, hot, totally like a runner. In reality I am afraid I am much more like this: What makes me think this? (Well, beside the fact that let's face it, I'm not a runner, so starting out without having run in forever, we KNOW I don't look pretty.) In addition I have some additional evidence. One run and I had to have leverage to sit on the potty. So, I know when I ran today, there was a slight hitch in my getalong.

Why did I run today? I ran today cause I got no sense like that.

Weather update: It is . . .what's the term. . . FREAKING COLD. I mean snot rolling out the nose but freezing before it drips cold. Burning in the lungs cold. Toes and fingers numb cold.

However, I would like to say that I ran a blazing 3 miles. Oh, fine, not blazing, but not humiliatingly slowly either. Took me a little bit longer than 30 minutes but not 45 so I'm still faster than some walkers. Baby steps, people, it's about baby steps.

Got home and took a hot bath to soak my legs. Put some stuff on my legs to try to ease the pain and sat my bad self down.

Again, cause I have no sense, I'm thinking I'll get up and run in the morning.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

FYI: Operation Marathon

Well, really it is operation half-marathon, but it doesn't flow as well. Never the less, after watching MB and Mike run the White Rock Half Marathon I am filled with the desire to run 13 miles (something like that).

Some of you may remember that a year ago this time I called MB filled with inspiration because I watched the Marathoners go by on Swiss. I excitedly told MB we had to run it in 08. Apparently she took me seriously because damn if she didn't do it. And she looked GOOD doing it.

So, today I got my running shoes on and hit the pavement. I only ran 25 minutes, but it is 25 more minutes than I have run in a very long time (translate that as more than a year, please . . . maybe even a lot more than a year.)

I am red faced, out of breath and thinking of heaving a lung.

There is a half marathon in Austin the first weekend in April. . . gonna have to get busy.

Friday, December 19, 2008

English Dept Christmas Party

So, some of you may know that the English Department is mildly (I use this term loosely) dysfunctional.

We've had a few incidents recently that have brought home how wacked out we are capable of being.

It was really bothering me, so I decided that I would be Pollyanna Positive and start working on it since it upset me so. This is in part because I have accepted the fact that I am doomed to remain in the English department for all time, so I might as well get withe program as it were.
At any rate, my solution was to have a Christmas party. Strangely enough, THIS I was not going to do half-assed. I totally threw myself (and my unfortunate students) into it.

I borrowed furniture from the the Theater department so that we would all have comfortable chairs in which to sit. I placed them in a circle with chairs so that we couldn't group up and just face/talk to the usual crowd. I wanted to engender a let's all be friends atmosphere (or at least a "let's not all talk about each other while we are in the same room" - my expectations weren't THAT high.)

I found all of my grandmother's table clothes that I could lay my hands on to make it look even more cheerful. None of them matched, and they all need to be cleaned now (grrrr), but it did make it look nicer. I got nutcrackers and candles to decorate. I went all out. In fact, I even made the kids help me go all out. I have a tons of Christmas songs on my Ipod, so we played Christmas music to keep everyone in the mood and worked away.

Please note the snowflakes all over the room. I had them making snowflakes for days. Every time they thought that they were done, I'd start screetching for more snowflakes. One of the kids actually suggested the paper chain (ah, you can't beat a good paper chain!)


We got cotton balls, a lot of cotton balls as it turns out so that we could have "snow" on all of the window sills. Tell me it isn't beautiful. It is. I never even managed to get the lights out of my attic to add to the festive atmosphere, but I don't think we needed them. It looked great, if I do say so myself.


I even went to town on the food. We had breakfast from Jason's deli and lots of other little treaty foods too.

I made rum cake (it was the only way to get alcohol in the building legally, and I figured it couldn't hurt.

At it turns out, it was a morning party, so they weren't quite ready for the let's go crazy on super sweet rum cake idea.) I also made almond bark popcorn (Oh boy is it GOOD) for everyone to take with them back to their room's for snack's later in the day. I need to add that I just learned about the almond bark popcorn from my friend Helen. I can't decide if I owe her or need to kill her for telling me about this new, delicious and fabulous treat.

There I am looking pleased.

Christmas Wrappings

Please pretend you hear The Waitresses singing 'Christmas Wrappings' as you scroll through my lovely Christmas decorations photos. ( I say this because, as many know, it is the greatest Christmas song ever written.)

I decorated happily jamming to my Ipod the Friday after Thanksgiving (may have already blogged this, but what the heck.) It was the first time in years that I had no pressure to be doing anything else, so I was truly able to enjoy myself. Sabrina hardly paid any attention as I decorated. She was much more interested in the goings on occurring on the street. I managed to make the front room completely festive, and the rest of the house slightly festive. Thus giving the people passing by the idea that I really know how to celebrate Christmas without actually having the entire house fru-fru-ed up. I placed the nativity in the front room and prayed that the stupid dogs wouldn't go running in there, slam into the table and destroy my beautiful pieces. In addition I decorated my hybiscus (notice the baby nutcracker and little berries tied to its limbs, AND I decorated the ficus plant with bows. Ah, I do so love the holidays : )

Monday, December 8, 2008

I've used 5 of my 15 minutes of fame.

So, as part of the marketing for The Book, the well-paid PR lady managed to arrange for me to appear on Good Morning Texas. (This is probably, in part, arranged because I live across the street from the host, Gary Cogill.)

I have carefully and with great effort blocked this plan out of my head. However, last night my fabulous and amazing neighbor, Linda, made me play dress up so that she could determine what I would look good wearing. As a side note, we determined that most of my clothes don't fit properly. That will have to be a different blog post, but it is stressing me out.

Then, this morning, she got up at the crack of dawn to put my make-up on. She did an amazing job.

I didn't really tell anyone I was going to be on TV so that everyone I know would not record and/or watch the event in case I turned out to make a dumb ass of myself. It's over, and I didn't humiliate myself, so here it is BAM.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Shoot Me NOW

So, yesterday I was feeling smug and full of pride that I did not take my "girl with no gall bladder medicine" (I wish I had a better name for it, but I don't). I managed to go all day with no problems. Then late last night, small unhappiness.

Today, I took my medicine, but rashly thought oh a grilled cheese sandwich sounds yum. HA. I could feel the unhappiness in my stomach. I felt the pain and the error of my ways.

Yum right till I go running to the bathroom. THIS SUCKS.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving

So I woke up bright and early this morning. . . with a headache. Shoot me. At any rate, I got myself together in time for MaryBeth et al to pick me up, so that we could participate in the biggest cluster @uck you can be a part of on Thanksgiving. 34,000 people most of whom on a 3 mile path through downtown.

They dropped me back off at home, before heading north. I did a drive-by on my friends R and D because they gave me a domain for Christmas. Unorthodox, I admit, but then so are they.

Then I headed over to MB's brother's house. He fried a turkey, and it was so freaking good I could hardly stand it. Sadly, fried turkey may need to be on the "unapproved list for girls without gall bladders" damn.

I did fall into a small tryptophan stupor for a while, but I was able to recover enough to eat some pecan pie. Then we headed over to the in-laws. Yes, I've basically broken her entire family (including in-laws) to just expect me at all events.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Another morning shock

I felt the sun on my eyelids as I lay snuggled in bed. Warm and cosy. No noise from the dogs. And I thought to myself, "Hmmm, what day is it? Is it Saturday? It must be Saturday. HOLY CRAP IT'S TUESDAY." I have to admit that I immediately looked to the left to make sure the stupid dogs were alive. Seriously?? They chose today to be quiet?!

So, I managed to get dressed in about ELEVEN minutes. We did NOT go on a hunt for food. Instead I just flung the food in their bowls, got a wee bit of make-up on, fed the cat and hurled out the front door.

I raced to school, (probably still here ahead of most of my coworkers, but once you freak out about waking up over an hour after you usually do it is just hard to slow down.)

I opened my office door to see this sweet note on my desk on top of a bunch 'o proof pages they want me to check.

THE NOTE:

Dear Perkins,
Good morning! We all hope you have a fab day! Together we can save the world, even if we only have four minutes. Have fun blogging and/or facebook stalking.

senior staff

P.S.: Always remember we do our best work between the covers!
(Heart) HPYBSS 09

Are they the cutest things or what? And, my, but don't they know me well.

Monday, November 24, 2008

It's going to be a long day

My morning began at about 3:30 as I woke to the internationally known disgusting sound of Sabrina barfing. Since I woke with a headache, and it was the middle of the night, I just dropped one leg to the floor and opened her kennel and Buddy's so that they could sleep on the bed. Hell, that's where they would prefer to sleep anyway.

The alarm actually went off at 5:50 which then began the 20 minute process of convincing myself to get out of bed despite the headache still pounding at the front of my head.

Oh, and the barf is still there waiting to be cleaned up this afternoon. I'm pretty certain I saw pieces of the kitchen laminate flooring which means that I might have to finish pulling up the floors myself in order to prevent more dead of night barfing. Crap.

I'm going to go downstairs and get some hot water for my Theraflu daytime cold and cough medicine.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Twilight

I have now seen the movie. I have to say that I liked it very much. There were some seriously obnoxious kids in the front that as I was leaving became very excited and started yelling, "Hi Ms.P". Yup. The same said wretched beasts are my former students.

The kids were unable to maintain "the willing suspension of disbelieve" required to enjoy a movie about vampire love and such. And, yes, Eward Cullen is very cute. Ooohh dreamy.

Friday, November 21, 2008

How did I get here?

So, one of the kids asked me an interesting question. Have I always had it this good? I look around my happy domain and realize, "NO, I did NOT." It was a long hard fought road. My first year here was HORRIFYING. Let's see if I can highlight the horror.

1. I spent most of my free time hanging out in the basement with the head of maintenance for the building and some of the other building crew. Seriously. People were mean. Everyone I saw either wanted to tell me how bad the previous adviser was, what I needed to do differently or some other thing. It wasn't fun.

2. The kids were mean. Not all of them, just most. The previous adviser set me up because she gave a pool party the night before school started for everyone on staff . . .and then they got to meet the new teacher that "took" her job. Oh, yeah, that was a good time. The comparisons were constant and believe me I lost most of the time. She had total cult of personality and the kids really didn't have to do diddly.

3. Truth be told, I arrived here having done 3 middle school yearbooks that, well, sucked. Not the most horrible of sucking that anyone has ever seen, but they weren't winning any awards, I can say that with confidence. So, I had no clue how I was going to oversee the creation of a 450 page yearbook with a staff of 75 kids. YIKES. Oh, and did I mention that I was going to teach a darkroom photography class, but I didn't even own a camera? Gulp.

OK, where am I now?

Well, I have fabulous and amazing kids. So, to you the amazing: here is my shoutout. AK and CD totally keep me in line with grades etc. I would total drown without those two. MMT makes sure all my bills get paid and the money gets deposited. KM, HP and HR are making sure the book gets put together. They are rocking editors-in-chief. BT, MS, KLR oversee the photography. Assign jobs, taking pictures themselves, helping the newbies get good pictures all of it. We have a 720 page yearbook and a staff of about 100, and I get to blog a lot.

Oh, and we have lots of money in the account so we have lots of computers, laptops, cameras and other miscellaneous stuff. In fact, if I ever leave this little job, I won't have anything electronic. Well, my phone, I'd die without my phone, but nothing else.

Skeletons in the closet?

I'm totally amused by one of our science teachers. She has a couple of skeletons in her lab that she dresses, changes their poses and has leaving signs for passers by. I commented to her recently about my amusement, and lo and behold, a new sign is up.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Student Council wanna be

Ok, so our high school has this weird thing where it doesn't let anyone know who the student council assistant sponsor is. I dont' know if it is intentional or by chance. When there is a new stuco sponsor, a nice email is sent out letting everyone know. On the master schedule sent to everyone, the student council sponsor shows "student council" for fourth period.

However, the assistant gets no recognition. Nothing on the master schedule, no announcement. It's not a big deal except this morning got a little awkward. Why, you ask? Let me tell you.

Student Council did a teacher appreciation breakfast. We set the food up, and the line of teachers began strolling through to get their "thanks for being teachers" breakfast. JH, sponsor, and Me, assistant sponsor stood near the table thanking people etc. As they would come through, multiple teachers turned to JH and said, "Thank you so much." Totally ignoring me. Now, I might think that I had actually managed to offend that many people except that many of them I did not know at all. It wasn't a rude ignoring of me, it was a not sure what to do with the girl standing beside the student council sponsor kind of ignoring.

As I stood there I started thinking, "Why do they think I am standing here?" Do they think I'm trailing JH for the fun of it? Secret affair? Puppy love? No other friends?

It's weird. That's all I'm saying.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

I feel blecky

I got home this afternoon feeling a little yucky. So, I started looking for my stash of medicine (hidden under the bed because I have no room in my bathroom.) The dogs are running around acting like idiots and one (who knows which) jumps off the bed and wacks my lip into my teeth.

I was so cranky I got up and left. I went to Tom Thumb and bought food, but even more importantly, Theraflu.

So, now I sit snorting and sniffling, trying to decide how early I can get away with drinking the Theraflu and therefore immediately going to bed. I did stay up until after 10pm two nights in a row . . . so I'm thinking 8pm it is.

I've also thrown the dogs in the kitchen, although I'm going to have to feed them at some point. Cat is sitting happily beside me. Bless his heart.

Oh, and a shout out to my bad little darlings who have found my blog and are secretly thrilled to be following my oh, so very exciting life. As one put it, "Your blogs not as juicy as I thought it would be."

"Tell me about it," I say. "tell me about it." At least I'm not totaling out cars and phones. . .

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

3 words: Worst Date

Listening to the radio this morning, they were asking people to call in and give three words to describe their worst date. Although I didn't call in here they are for you: U2, American Eagle, The mall.

The story? Well, it began early one morning as I listened to the radio. The radio station had a contest to win U2 tickets. I was on my way to a photography class full of students in possession of cellphones. So, the time goes, and I set the kids to a'calling.

However, something weird happened. Apparently some guy had called into the radio station and said that he had two tickets and he was willing to let the radio station choose a girl to go with him.

Well, when you have a posse of kids calling for you, you pretty much get the bet on that one. So there I was. No ticket, but a date and a ticket. So, he works for American Eagle. The airline you ask? Oh, no, American Freaking Eagle Outfitters. Holy. Crap.

Turns out the kid went to school at North Texas. He wasn't comfortable driving in Dallas, and he only knew how to get to Valley View Mall. So, we met there.

He drove like shit. Slowly. Like a very old woman.

We got to the show . . . the tickets weren't even near each other. No where near. I actually called a student who was supposed to be at the concert to make sure I would have a ride home if he disappeared.

On the plus side I worked my way closer and closer to the stage so I ended up with pretty good seats.

In the meantime, his dumb underage butt was drinking all night. Met back at his car, not realizing he had been drinking until AFTER I was in the car and he started driving, I basically gripped my seat and prayed to make it safely back to my car.

So, very not ok. There. One of the worst dates ever. If it can even be called a date that is.

Monday, November 17, 2008

The Marriage of Figaro

The first opera of the season has come and gone. A few years ago I got Mom a great book (if I do say so myself) of summaries of various operas. It is called A Night at the Opera: An Irreverent Guide to The Plots, The Singers, The Composers, The Recordings (Paperback). The book summarizes The Marriage of Figaro as "The one where the Count and the page hide behind the same chair, where the Countess's maid makes a surprise exit from a closet and where Figaro discovers the woman who wants to marry him is his mother." Yup. Pretty accurate. Although there is a lot of coming and going on the stage, that should be mentioned. It was a long one, 4 freaking hours, but at least it was really good. I realized as I was walking in that I had no money. Dang my mother, she had no money, and I was in terrible need of a Coke. I texted my friend KT and she came to the rescue. She brought a Diet Coke with her to the show. Saved. My. Life. I would not have survived without the caffeine.

A friend of my mom's joined us. She was a bit of a magpie, but a very nice lady. Bless her heart, she got the seat next to the couple that were soooooo oversized for their seats. They left halfway through (still two hours of fun for her.) I imagine they were terribly uncomfortable in those seats. We actually have a different spot this year, closer to the center and closer to the front. Other than the fact I sat behind a man that was VERY tall. It required a wee bit of neck craning to see some of the performance, but all in all, pretty dang good seats.

There was a group of girl scouts at the show. They were so cute. I met up with them while in line for the restroom. The adults were a little stressed about keeping them all together and pushing those girls through the potty line. I hope they had a good time. I do love the opera, and it will be fun to have a new generation of opera lovers.

Ok, I totally had to add this photo that came in an email today from the Dallas Opera. I include specifically because of the woman standing on the left. In the Opera Notes before the Opera (presentation by someone connected with the opera with background info, tidbits, things to notice etc.) At any rate, the guy points out that in two of the acts this woman is wearing a dress made from curtains, a bit a la Scarlett O'Hara. Apparently the director or someone wasn't happy with her outfit, so they ordered another. Still unhappy, he was standing in some room when he pointed to the curtains and said her dress should look like the curtains. The curtains, it seems, had been donated by some local Dallas woman. So, they took 'em down, and then they made a dress. She is wear said curtains/dress in this image.

Ballooning

Sunday morning the phone rang bright and early... aka 5am. Oh, but it was painfully early. After ballooning, Randy, Diana and I went to Chubby's for breakfast. Randy was an Army Ranger, so he and Diana have matching flight suit type outfits and he has some of his Ranger stuff on his uniform. People stopped and thanked him for his service a couple of times. It was nice. We determined that Chubby is what one becomes if eating there regularly. It was really good, and I had lots of leftover food. I also went straight home and took a nap before getting ready for the Opera.

The Book Party

The fa la la of the season . . . The infamous, long awaited, good time book party. Al Biernet's was a great place to have the party. There were lots of people there. My friend KM showed up which was great because she kept me company when there was a lull in the adulations. : )

The Boys spoke and I just said that I was glad that I got to be a part of the book. One of the elder book recipients had me sign his book. (Everyone all together "aaawwwwwww")

The Bruton Family. The woman second from the right is Bruton's widow. Too much work done. nuf said. Stephanie, bless her heart, is the admin assistant to one of the men I had the hardest times getting an interview with. She was always polite and kind on the phone, so it was a lot of fun to see her at the party. The author being entertained by a Hall of Fame recipient and members of the committee aka "The Boys."


If you look very closely, you can see the half empty Cosmo on the table that the author wisely put down so that there would be no photos of her drinking it up at the party (in case they made it into the papers and her students should see her tilting a few back.) That's a no go ghost rider.

Also, please note the thoughtful, almost pensive look on the author. You might think she is paying attention to the thought provoking words of DDH. Nope, she is thinking, "I wonder how much they'll pay me to do the next part of this. Hmm, I wonder if I could just get them to pay me in advance. . .yeah, that's the ticket, then I could get the new and improved closet in the master bedroom. That would be great. I wonder if we are going to have dinner here. I bet it would be really good."

They did, indeed, eat dinner at Al Biernet's, and indeed, it was super yummy.

Puppy Love

I don't want too many days to pass without photos of those that keep me company. Please note Cat is no longer hiding from the evil dogs. He held his ground, Buddy sniffed him a bit and then jumped on my lap to sleep. But first he gave me a wee kiss to say goodnight.

PJs and TV

So, if part of my "Time to get a life" plan is to actually go out in the evening, then I am going to have keep my arse up past 8pm and maybe, just maybe stay out of my pjs until later in the evening too. . . and I might have to cut down on the tv time. Of course if I REALLY get a life, it might cut down on the blogging, and then we'd all be sad. So maybe I'll only somewhat get a life.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Oysters Rockefeller

I present you with another food that is totally not approved for girls without gall bladders: Oysters freaking Rockefeller.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Doing School

I have a confession to make. Our administration decided we would have book studies this year. The book is Doing School. (No you can't click to look inside, I snagged the image from Amazon.com ) I haven't read it. We are having a book study 7th period.

OK, being a fairly quick reader I made it half-way through the book. It has 5 studies of individual students and what school is like for each. I read 3 of the 5. Probably didn't matter because
a. the principal, leader of our book study, was sick 6th and went home.
b. I was in a room with 7 coaches and a special ed teacher. 6 of the coaches clearly hadn't read, and that left the special ed teacher and me. . .
c. One of the coaches (had read) volunteered to lead the discussion for the p. The rest of the coaches basically said nothing. The p's assistant came by and said something to the effect of not taking attendance. One of the coaches IMMEDIATELY stood up to leave.

I totally get not wanting to read the book or not having time or feeling pressure to do too much . . ..like soooo many of the kids, but this was pathetic. Book studies are about intelligent discussion, the exchange of ideas, learning from colleagues. NOT sitting with a bunch of jerks who can't be bothered to even discuss what the book was about whether or not they had read it. Un freaking believeable.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Why color doesn't matter . . .

being being annoying or stupid does. So for years I have held firmly to the belief that knocking someone for their religious beliefs or color is liking knocking someone for having red hair. . . totally meaningless as far as why that person is annoying and/or painfully stupid. Mainly because I think people are stupid and annoying because they are stupid and annoying not because of color or gender or any other damn thing. I went to a blog that I enjoy and found an even better recitation of why Racism is meaningless. Made me laugh . . .so I pass it along for you to enjoy.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

The problem with blogging

I frittered yesterday away so thoroughly blogging that I thought for sure I could do it again today. Alas, I have nothing to say today. It may not be the problem, per se, with blogging, but it is the problem with planning to blog every day for 30 days AND the problem with thinking that when I am bored I can just blog. Sure, frequently I think to myself, "Ah, self, that is a good topic for a blog." but I assure you that if I don't write it down, then I don't remember it long enough to walk over to the computer, let alone, long enough to blog about later that day, or Heaven forbid, the next day. Well, like George Bush after a hard question, I find myself scratching my head and thinking hmmmm.

Off to The Book release party this afternoon. TTFN

The problem with addiction

Well, I'm certain there are multiple problems with addiction. Today, I discuss the problem with the HGTV addiction. And, I'm not even going to focus on the HOURS that can be lost watching HGTV. Sit down Saturday morning, perhaps to put my shoes on to take the evil precious dogs for their morning walk and find myself FIVE HOURS LATER still in front of the TV trying to determine if I could spray paint a roll of gauze enough to turn it into a hard backed lamp shade.

Sorry, back on topic. So, I was watching the Top 25 mistakes people make in decorating (mostly just to be certain that I wasn't on the list not to laugh with amusement at what the foolish and untalented do with their homes.)

Sure enough, there I was. Decorating with fake flowers (well, if you've seen my gardening abilities you would understand this one.). Multiple famous and somewhat famous decorators remarked on the horror of the fake flowers anywhere in the home. Sigh. Fine, so off I go to find "dried flowers" and such. . . Michael's? Nope. World Market? Nope. Target? Nope. NOWHERE. I was finally forced to go to . . . . GARDEN RIDGE. That's right the first ring of hell. (What is so bad about Garden Ridge? It's almost impossible to describe but briefly, it is huge, full of stupid slow moving people and very long lines to check out. Wretched.)

So, I packed a lunch and headed off for the very distant Gardenridge. I guess on the plus side of this sad tale, it did have the dried stuff for which I searched. Please feel free to ooh and aaahh accordingly. My front door is now beautifully graced by the totally acceptable dried stuff instead of the terribly gauche and suspect fake stuff.

Monday, November 10, 2008

The tech people left to torture me

Some of you may recall that CHUCK one of my favorite people in the world happened to work at the high school for many years. I loved Chuck. He had a naughty sense of humor. He was fun to make fix wires under the desks because he had a cute hiney. AND HE WAS SMART. Not run of the mill smart, but computer smart. In addition, he didn't like it when he didn't know things. So if he had to fix a problem but discovered he didn't know the answer. He would hit the internet and start researching. He was very good at his job, but a bit of a scamp, so his boss would become very frustrated and unhappy. Sadly, Chuck is now helping other people in the world.

What he left behind was a decided mess. (A request for clarification has been made. He left behind a mess because he left. It was great when he was here. But then he left. And then it was a mess. Hope that helps) Sigh. I try not to hold that against him because as afore mentioned he is a sweetie.

Please note the two people that I shall refer to as Frick and Frack. Working hard. Testing the interactive Promethean Board that wasn't working properly earlier this week. Great right? Hmmm, not so much. So, I have a problem with my promethean board. Actually, I usually have problems any time I go to use it these days. There were many frustrations with it earlier in the yearbook, but we won't focus on that.

So, I am sitting quietly in my office during 7th (working on the computer as the number of blog posts today can attest) when I realized F and F were across the room at the two computers you see in the distance. The left computer is connected to the projection system.

(As Frack has worked on the projection system in the past I would expect her to know that but it turns out she has a strange and bizarre illness. Something is growing inside of her. Word on the street is that in 9 months (well, less than that now) she will recover, but in the meantime that is the explanation given for ANY STUPIDITY she shows. Sorry, I digress.

They are working on the right computer. Hmm, I think to myself. Should I tell them they are on the wrong computer? No, (Cause I'm mean like that) I think I'll just see how long they sit there. About 10 15 minutes later I hear "Oh, it's actually connected to the other computer" sigh. NO FREAKING DUH.

The next thing I see they have disconnected the left computer (computer especially set up to be the projection system computer) and connected the right computer (especially set up to be the ID machine computer). I see red. I mean I am fired up and unhappy.

I hop up, head out to see them working on the board at the front of the room. I say, " You realize the board needs to be connected to the left computer right?" silence. "You need to put it back the way it was." silence. Back to my office.

Few minutes later, both computers shut down, and Frick and Frack are gone.

They catch our campus IT girl, Shelly, in the hallway and say I'm mad, but they left because I was upset, but golly they couldn't figure out how to fix the problem"

THIS IS WHY I DON'T OWN A GUN. OK, there is also the complete lack of coordination I have that coudl likely land me with a shot foot, but this is at least one of the reasons.

Work Avoidance and Killing the dogs

Today did not begin well. Sabrina, that wretched piece of shit dog, began the morning barking. . . and barking . . . and barking. In fact, she barked all morning except for the short period of time when I took her and Buddy on our "hunt for food" walk. I have a migraine. Lights are out in the room, and I've had two of my magic pills, as MB likes to refer to them.

As you might imagine, I am not much use to anyone at the moment, so I have been blogging and reading other blogs. Actually, I really like to go to my sister's blog because she always makes references to other people's blogs. (It's like a dating service - hundreds of men out there, but the dating service weeds through some of the crap, so you have a smaller and hopefully, better pool from which to choose.) At any rate, she sent me to Noodleroux that I am totally in love with because she is very funny. (Her heart is bruised right now and it was almost surreal how quickly I remembered the terrible pain of breaking up with someone I thought was Mr. Wonderful. Sigh.) She then sent me to Diary of a Dying Mom . Maybe not the best choice because crying doesn't ever help a headache. It made my heart ache and reminded me of how important it is to live life as if every day matters and what we do matters because she got to prepare for death and was totally aware of how much meaning there is and most of the time we aren't prepared and forget.

Actually, Sis and I have been discussing the many and various workings of the blog world. For instance, we both have noticed that when you link to some people's blogs they will then comment on your blog. Hmm, I say interesting. Wonder how she knew I did that when I see a comment from Mrs. G . . . .and then off I go doing something else. Not sis. She contemplated. She wondered. She researched. She figured it out. Go Fran! So, although it isn't why I link. I link (and probably she does too quite frankly) cause I want you to follow my train of though (I realize I jump the tracks sometimes, and I don't want anyone left behind.)

That's all for now, folks!

Home Tour

My next door neighbor, Emily, foolishly volunteered to be a house captain for our neighborhood home tour. She then sucked her foolish neighbors into working the house (Linda, Gail and I). Some how I got sucked into TWO shifts. That means I was there from 11-4 (It was supposed to be until 5, but by four I was ready to starting gnawing on the door frame I was so freaking hungry, so she let me leave).

In addition, Emily thought it would be a good idea to put me in the Kitchen all day . . . the kitchen? I stood holding the fridge up staring at the clock on the stove . . .all ding dong day. I had to throw in a picture of the front bathroom that I am very keen for and hope I can manage to have something similar to someday when I actually have money to redo the bathroom. I did manage to get away though. I made a run for the border (ha ha we ate at On the Border) with my friend, K.

Hmmm, not what I was after

So I'm branching out in my dress, trying to be hip, perhaps even a fashion maven. I thought I did pretty well to day. Hair in ponytail (ok, that is because I needed to wash my hair last night, didn't do it, and am now trying to hide the grease factor), scarf (very hip and popular currently), sweater dress (partially covered by big scarf), and scrunchy boots. I even had a couple of kids say they thought I was a student at first. Yeah, that is what I am talking about. Ok, I added a second picture so that you could see the dress itself. It's ok, but I don't look amazing or anything. At any rate, so student council has lunch with the Superintendent of schools, Dr. B. The kids had group picture taken with her. Afterwards we are getting ready to have lunch and she turns to me and says, I'm not sure if I should tell you, but the kids were so cute, right as they were about to take the photo, one of them said, "wow Perkins looks hot." Soooooo not the look I was going for . . .young, yes, hot no. Back to the drawing board.

The Tale of the Trophy Case

Ok, so I thought I wrote about this in August, but when I go back, I discover that I did not. Drat.

That means I have to give the back story before I can give the current story. I'll try to keep it to the point. I have added visual aides especially for those that need 'em. So, first as you walk down the hallway towards the journalism wing, you approach with the trophy case on the left. The yearbook and newspaper staffs have historically split this case and decorated appropriately. The newspaper door is on the right and then you go through two doors that, in effect, lead to the yearbook wing. There are two banks of lockers that newspaper and yearbook kids generally split.

Now, once through the double doors there is a classroom on the left. That has been a newspaper staff room, but now it is an English room because there aren't enough rooms in the building for all of the classes. On the right is a door that leads to my office, but alas, doesn't actually open, so it just makes people think that knocking on it will get them somewhere, but it only gets them on my last nerve most of the time. The door straight ahead, obviously, leads to the Highlander yearbook room. hoorah. Please note the areas above the lockers marked by the red line. I will refer to these later in the story.

I teach with X. X used to actually have two rooms as mentioned above. When he lost the second room, he was, apparently, at a LOSS (I mean totally and completely BEWILDERED as to where to put the MANY trophies that the newspaper staff had won through the years).

The principal, not finding this to be the most important thing he would deal with the week before school started, casually said, "Won't don't you hang them in the hallway above the lockers?" Problem solved.

But no, alas X was ssscccaaarrreeeedddd to ask the mean yearbook teacher if it was ok to put the trophies in said hallway. So the principal sent an email. Fine with me she said, but he might want to put them in his room where his children can see them first, and put the extras in the hall. . . (please refer to above image that shows the double doors and that the newspaper kids would NEVER see said trophies unless they had a locker in that back hall).

The Principal wrote back with perhaps a touch of a snap in the email. Hmm said the yearbook adviser, wonder what that is about, but having many things to do THE WEEK BEFORE SCHOOL, she didn't waste a lot of brain cells on that one.

In the meantime, it was pointed out that the trophy case was looking a little sad and woebegone and perhaps we could spruce it up. So,I the yearbook adviser suggested he put the trophies in the case . . . because there were soooo very many of them you know.

A few more exchanges occurred that almost caused the yearbook adviser to choke the living shit become very frustrated with her coworker.

I will include one of the exchanges involved. The yearbook adviser requested that a big sign that said Newspaper not be put in the trophy case, but that it rather say Journalism to represent everyone, so that, and I quote, "God forbid, the yearbook ever get a trophy we could add it to the case too." In response to that foolish remark, X went down to the principal to say he wasn't sure of what he should do because the yearbook adviser had changed her mind and DIDNT WANT ANY NEWSPAPER TROPHIES TO GO IN THE CASE BECAUSE SHE WANTED IT ALL FOR YEARBOOK.

"WHAT?" She explained later that afternoon as she sat in the principal's office trying to figure out how she could kill and hide the body of learn to communicate better with her coworker.

At any rate, after many months, (It is, after all, now November) of calling and checking in with the maintenance guys, the yearbook adviser got the shelves put up for ALL OF THE MANY TROPHIES . . . please see below, what currently resides in the trophy case.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Saturday Night Live

Funny show. Presidential elections help its funniness. I encourage everyone to watch. There. Saturday's blog post now done.

SHIT, I missed yesterday.

Does blogging twice today count as an every day? This morning I went on a mission for a slip with lycra this morning and hit and missed twice. Kohls and Target. Two places that are inexpensive but should provide the basics right? No, apparently not. I feel comfortable stating that there must be a lot of women walking around slipless cause there are none to be had in the stores!!

This morning has also been a joy because I've gotten to do all of my shopping/lack there of and bitching (because yes, the morning has been interspersed with the bitching) with my sister. Yes, she is in Austin, but part of my love of the phone is because even though we haven't lived in the same city since I was 16, it feels like we got to spend the morning together.

Oh, and I have no excuse for not blogging yesterday. Nothing in particular happened (the children were mildly annoying, but nothing new there). After school I met a friend at Blue Goose for a drink. We yakked it up, but nothing too exciting, and then I went home and went to bed. Day done. Sigh.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Patience, Lord, Grant me Patience

I know I should show more patience, but sometimes children say the DUMBEST things. I mean there is no thought process involved before words tumble out or, even worse, this IS with thought.

Background: The school has a program called SASI. It allows students schedules and information to be looked up. That is what the administration uses to find kids. I have SASI because we have to look up so many schedules and it used to make the secretaries batty to have kids coming to them all the time looking for schedules.

I got an email this morning saying SASI is down starting at 10am. It happens sometimes, they will randomly shut it down to work on it or whatever.

Situation: Student walks into my office and says "SASI isn't working can I do downstairs and get someone to look up a schedule."

"No," I say," because SASI is down."

"Why is it down?" she says.

"I don't know, but I know it is down."

"I can't go downstairs and get them to look it up."

"No, because SASI is down."

"They don't use another program."

"No, they don't."

"oh"

SIGH. It makes me want to beat my head against a wall. Oh, and I can have 50 conversations just like this one in a day. Honestly, I must cock my head to the side like a confused dog every 15 minutes.

For those of you that remember my dog, Eva. . .annoy me enough and I have quite a snarl.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Day of the Dentist

Is it wrong that I love my dentist? I took the day off because I had a dentist appointment, and unfortunately it's really hard to take a half day off, so I figured what the heck, I'd take the whole day.

Dr. Kososki rocks. (He's my dentist.) I love his hygienist too, Julie. They make my teeth look pretty, and they make me laugh. What a combo.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

55 minutes to go

For fear, that the last part of the day may kill me, I am blogging now so that I can call it done. I still have a butt load o proofs to go through and check. I have an ads manager that I think is determined to give me a stroke and I'm fearful that the kids are under the impression I'm ok with working 3 or 4 hours after the bell today. That would be wrong because all I really want to do is lay down and sleep. I'm tired. I'm annoyed. I'm cranky. I want to take my shoes off (although they are darn cute.)

Monday, November 3, 2008

Gossip Girls

So, many of the HP kids watch Gossip Girls. It's a strange little socialite show set in New York City that occasionally parallels life in our own little bubble. A quote from the show, "Princeton is a trade school, there is only Yale."
At any rate, what is the most fun is that we actually have a girl at our school that sends an email out once a week listing the events of the last week. I usually get one of the girls to show it to me, but then they have to tell me what all the initials and everything means. The girl that does it is a great writer. Very similar to the girl on gg.

Does this in any way make them think a little bit harder before they do anything stupid that gets caught and put on the email? Nope, apparently not. At what age do we actually start thinking about how what we do follows us . . . I have no idea, but for some of these girls, the time can't come soon enough.

It is so quiet, it is eery

Ok, so I started to write because I can hardly believe I have the classroom to myself. I have 4th, 5th and 7th open, but 4th I'm in student council and there are ALWAYS kids in the room 5th and 7th. If there aren't kids in here 7th, then I'm usually meeting with Mr. H planning out student council stuff. He's at a workshop for three days, so I sit alone. I almost don't know what to do with myself. (So rather than get school work done, I'm blogging. Perhaps not the best choice, but keeping that stupid 30 posts/30 days thing in mind, I thought it would be a good choice.)

However, with the decision to write about the eery quiet came the realization that I don't actually know how to spell eery. Sure, I could call Dad again to ask how to spell it, but I've already called him once today for a spelling issue. I went to dictionary.com, but when you are really far off on the spelling, even dicitionary.com has trouble assisting. Sigh. At least I got it eventually. Remember the standardized tests we would take in school that told us how we ranked compared to all the other children in America on our writing, math, spelling etc? I would score really well in everything but the stupid spelling.

I am leaving school early today to run to a doctors appointment ( I have three in a two week period because all of my annuals are at the same time. It's unfortunate that I am teaching an 8th period class, because I scheduled all of these appts last year when I foolishly thought I'd have 8th off again.) Unfortunately we have about 300 pages of proofs in at the moment, so I'm going to have to come back to work after the drs. appt.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

NaBloPoMo

In case you didn't know, it is National Blog Posting Month. My ding dong sister started talking about doing it, and, of course, I read about it on Mrs. G's blog. I'm not sure I have the endurance to post every single day for an entire month, but what the heck. So, here I am day two. I actually hit day one just by accident. But today, was on purpose. This meaningless post of nothingness is the courtesy of day two of NaBloPoMo . . . can you imagine how bad things will be going by day 30? Heck, by day 5?????

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Saturday in November

First, it was warm. very warm.

Second, I had to get up at the crack of freaking dawn so that I could walk the dogs (very important as pack leader to walk the dogs before "resting" them and then feeding them.)

I had to do THAT before I could head up to the Goodyear store in Plano. I had to do that because the car was supposed to be inspected in August, but I hadn't quite gotten around to it. I also was fairly certain that my brakes were in trouble and that the car wouldn't pass without a little work. Sooo, $435 later, my car is fixed, but I still haven't managed to get it inspected. Sigh. Maybe tomorrow.

In the meantime, Mom and I ran around and ran errands. We went to the Gap store at the Allen outlet. I got two pairs of jeans for $35.00!! I felt like the lady from the IKEA commercial. I wanted to run out of there screaming, "Start the car" before they called me back and said, "Oops, our bad, wrong price."

Then, Mom and I spent about three hours working on our spring break plans. I'm really excited about it. (I have to admit that it it has been a long time since I went on vacation with my parents, and they are actually pretty fun). So, we worked and contemplated and now we have reservations at a Westin Hotel on St. John's.

The Dog Whisperer

My friend, BB, calls me up on Saturday and tells me about something going on at the pet store across from her neighborhood. Although she didn't want to insinuate that I might need assistance with the ding dong dogs, but maayyybbbeee I might want to go to this thing. She had been that day, and she was really impressed. So, Sunday afternoon, after hanging with my friend, Mimi, for a wee bit, I headed back home to snag the dogs before going to the pet store. Well, I have to admit I was totally amazed. Mark German is the American Dog Whisperer and Janice Wolfe is his sidekick. I was impressed enough that I scheduled for them to come work with the Hellion, her little companion and me on Wednesday. I wish I had gotten pictures. It was really cool.

We worked on many things. The most important is the shht noise and the poke in the neck (mimicing the bite of the pack leader grrrr that's me). It turned out that I had a little trouble mastering the noise and the bite, but I did before all was said and done.

At any rate, I cannot reveal the secrets of the whisperer, the dogs are not yet perfect, but by netty jingo, they are getting better. hoo rah!

Dinner with the Boys

So, we met up at Truluck's on McKinney Tuesday night. It was very nice. We began with crab claws. (Turns out they were soaked in serious butter, and I would pay for that culinary choice later.) Then I had steak, mash potatoes and mushrooms. Yummy. (Ok, I actually ordered it, but then I got to eat leftovers for a delightful week.) The waiter even included a piece of chocolate cake in the doggy bag. Thhhheeeennnnn the boys ordered fruit and cream. I had to have that in the doggy bag too. Thheeeennnn he gave me the left over green beans for the dogs.

I made it home by about 10:30. Filled to the brim!