Waiting to Exhale

I forget how utterly miserable the two weeks before Christmas break are EVERY, SINGLE, FREAKING year. I forget this is when we send off alllll of the people pages (about 100 or so) and we make sure all the other pages from first semester are gone, and we are returning all of the proofs. It's a lot of work. And this year, it turns out English may not be the mother tongue of half the staff. Really, that is the only explanation that makes sense. They don't understand the comma. (My dad is snorting at this point because, yes, I had problems with the comma into my twenties.) They also don't know the difference between men and man. And spellcheck. That is totally and completely a foreign concept to them. So, yesterday when I started saying I HAD to go to take care of the dogs, one of the editors-in-chief hopped up and said she would take care of it.

"Are you sure? My dogs are crazy."

"Yes, I can do it. You must stay here and keep grading."

"Sigh. Ok"

When she got back, she did warn me of what I would see when I arrived after 7:30 after being in the yearbook room all dang day . . . Notice Sabrina trying to look innocent. From this angle it doesn't look tooooo bad. . .

But then I got closer. That (blue thing in the middle of the feathers) used to be a very big, full, feather pillow sitting on my couch.

The white material used to be the lining. . .I think.

And, yes, I feel confident that I know who the culprit is. . . the joyful dog playing in the feathers. That dog. Notice the bag in the background. That is the first bag of feathers. There is a second. And it took ALL evening to clean up.

The fact that they aren't dead is a miracle. Cause death was close.

Today is Saturday

This is the day I'm supposed to sleep late and squander my time. Oh, sure, I knew I was going to need to unpack some more boxes and do some work on getting all of my crapola to fit in the house, but it would nice and lovely and no spazzing.

Today is the day my editors said that we needed to work if we were going to get everything done. Now, how can I possibly look into the eyes of my overachieving UNPAID editors and say, "Hell no, I'm not coming in on a Saturday. Are you nuts?"

I'd also like to add that by the end of the day Friday, I had a doc to proofread for counseling, a syllabus to write for a course that I may or may NOT be teaching next year, and a nice little stack of stuff to do that I have been avoiding.

Of course, the editors won, and I set the alarm to be at school. I started this post at 9am when I got there. I thought what the heck, while they are working, I can at least start working on my school to do list. That went to hell by about 9:30 when they started rolling in for me to proof read pages. And they kept coming, and coming, and coming. So I got ZERO done on my house Saturday.

I did, at least, manage to get the syllabus done with quite a bit of help from Blondie (Thank you, Lord, for Blondie if I haven't thanked you recently.)

So, the day ended and I took everything home. Haven't actually gotten any of it done.

I have to be at school at 6:30 am 'cause the newspaper staff is on deadline and (again Thank you, Lord) Blondie and I are a team - I take mornings, she takes afternoons. Maybe I can get some actual work done Monday morning.

Today, I did manage to unload two batches of storage stuff today, I got Cat and brought him to the new abode, I hit the grocery store, and I managed to do my laundry, although it isn't folded or ironed. Oh, and I walked the dogs and washed my hair. I need more hours in the day if I'm going to actually get real work done.

Yearning for pictures part 2

Ok, so after the downstairs then you get to go up . . . and see my cute little table and picture. awwww.

Turn to the right and you enter the master bedroom. Notice the soothing color on the walls. Not huge, but big enough.

If turn to the left, you enter the guest bedroom,

with the sweet little writing desk in the nook.

Not as much room here, but still cute. I haven't figured out how to make alllll of the stuff that went with my big desk and the entire closet devoted to office supplies fit in a much, much, much smaller area. . .

The bathroom is connected to both bedrooms. The important thing here . . . that's right, the killer tub. If you look closely at the shower, you will notice it appears complicated. And, it is complicated. Damn thing should have come with instructions.

The end.

I know you are yearning

Dying to see the new digs? Sure, the empty crayon box was a vision, but surely as you looked you thought, how in the holy hell is she gonna get her crap in there?? Trust me, you weren't the only one wondering that. And if you weren't wondering that, well, obviously, you just don't know me well enough to know that without a doubt you should be wondering that. (You might also remember that I downsized the LAST time I moved but I had great storage.) Now, I've downsized AGAIN but no storage.

I'll get a picture, but the front of the house is butt ugly. The garage is in the front and it just isn't pretty. Once you walk in there is a short hall to the guest bathroom and the utility closet on the left, the stairwell to the right, and you look ahead to the kitchen and living room.

I have to tell you, the fridge is actually complicated. There is a whole touch system on the door to adjust all sorts of stuff. Way more complicated than my fluids and condiments need.

The "dining room" I use that term loosely just fits a wee table and the china cabinet. Please note, the wall is no longer red.

1 Second

So the other day I was having a great conversation with a friend about one second. That basically if you look at your life and especially the really bad awful things that happen. They are things that happen in an instant: car wrecks, fights with best friends (the ones where something terrible is said that can't be taken back), broken bones etc.

If you add up all of those things, they don't add up to a lot of time. In reality, most of our lives are filled with mundane moments then flow together from moment to moment, mostly filled with contentment and even happiness.

I was reminded of this conversation watching the UT/Nebraska football game Saturday. Certainly Nebraska was trying to run the time out before they made there final play. . . but in the end, it was one second that made all the difference. UT got the second, and they kicked and scored.

It's probably a good thing to remember. We have a hellofa lot more happy seconds than unhappy seconds. Remind me of this next time I'm all out of sorts and cranky . . . say as we approach the dreaded 40th bday.

The Crayon Box

OK, so once I felt confident my house was going to really sell, then I had to get the freak busy finding a place to live.

Let me tell you, there are some crappy ass places out there being rented out. The Crayon box was the best of the lot. More expensive, but built in 2002 with a great bathtub. (It's good to stay focused on the important stuff in life.)

Quick disclaimer: I had the camera on the wrong setting so all of the photos are a little blurry. Worry not about that, focus on the colors. It is like a clown threw up in this place.

First, lavender my friend. This entire room is lavender. For the boys, translate this as light purple.

The downstairs has a red wall. Not deep red. Not gorgeous red. RED, like clown red.

Master bedroom? I can only describe as Microsoft Blue . . .and peek your eye in that bathroom. . .yes, yes it is LIME green.

The best part for me? When I asked about painting, the property management company said the owner wanted to approve the colors. As IF it were possible to do worse. She has let me know twice since that the owner wants to have her take pictures so that he can see it. Whatever.

The curse of the quick fingers

I finally got around to downloading all of my fabulous pictures. . . pictures of the new place, pictures of the house I loved so dear sad and empty, pictures of the dogs pooping in the snow (always a classic), pictures of all sorts of stuff from the last couple of weeks.

On the camera were pictures I have had to take of students for IDs. Those I could delete. So I clicked on one to delete and deleted them all. Auuuuggghhhhhhh. I am so unhappy.

Although I can't recreate some of the pics, I'll do my best to get the others retaken.