Driving

Each day I commute, I'm sorry to say, about 25 miles each way to and from work.
In California.
I am so very lucky.

(Actually, I am lucky... to have a job, that is, since so many teachers were laid off this year.)

Anyway, since I spend so much time on the road I have a few things I need to say to my fellow drivers:

1. When attempting to merge onto the freeway, it would be helpful if people tried to accelerate to the speed limit, rather than attempting to move into traffic a good 20 mph below the posted speed limit.

2. When preparing to exit the freeway, it would be equally helpful if people would wait to slow down until they are actually ON the off ramp. Slowing to 35 mph, even in the slow lane, prior to exiting, is really a BAD idea. And very annoying. Because there is a very good chance that some nice person has moved into the slow lane to prepare to exit in about a mile and they would really like to get to their own exit sometime in this lifetime.

3. If you are not going to go any faster than the posted speed limit, you REALLY need to stay in the slow lane. Really. Since the average speed on San Diego freeways in the fast lane is anywhere between 70 and 90, attempting to go only 65 in either of the fastest 2 lanes is a bad plan. And also, very, very irritating.

4. Finally, while I realize our freeways are often quite crowded, please at least TRY to maintain a minimum safe stopping distance. I don't care if you think going 10-15 mph OVER the posted speed limit isn't fast enough, please DO NOT ride my, er, rear bumper. I happen to like my car and would really appreciate it if you didn't slam into it the next time traffic slows. You can either go around me or wait patiently for me to get over, which I promise I will do as soon as the chance presents itself.

That is all, and thank you.

Must go faster, must go faster!

Get it? It's a Jurassic Park reference. Fine classic American cinema that one!

(Not that this has ANYTHING to do with, well, anything.)

So yesterday after work I pretty much hit the couch and feel asleep. At some I got up and put away the plate from the snack I was eating. I also dumped the soda I didn't drink. I also must have let the dog back in, before moving the party to my bed and promptly passing back out. I know I did this because the doggie had eaten quite a lot of grass in the back yard at some point and it starting coming back to make my evening spectacular. Everywhere. I doubt if he could have helped himself if he'd tried, because, um, without being graphic... that was one sick puppy.

The smell of the sick puppy is actually what finally roused me around 8:30. I got up, saw the mess, put the puppy out and then pretty much did a walking tour of my housing cleaning up the nastiness. Poor Sick Brutus. Poor me.

Anyway, after that I looked at the time and decided to give up on the day again. I let the dog in and went back to bed.

So today I was definitely feeling well rested. Yeeeeeeeah! School was good and after work I dragged my bottom to the gym lest we have another repeat of yesterday. My friend Nikki was there too, inspiring me, unintentionally, to work harder. I ran for 40 minutes! I made it just over 3 miles. Maybe that isn't much to some of you (my husband who, for example, runs about 5 miles as his warm up) that might not seem like a big deal, but I am very proud of myself for running that whole time and NOT stopping to walk even once. However, unless I want to be on a tread mill alllllll day, I'm going to have to start running a lot faster if I want to make it to 4 or 5 miles. Right now I set the speedometer thing to 4.6. I wonder how long its going to take me to get to more like 6.4....

Afterward I stretched and then joined Nikki at the strength machines. She's slowly but surely showing me how to use them. So we did these assisted pull up things, and also these drop down pull up things. Ouch. Then we tried to do some abs. Except my leg muscles were spasming a little from the run and I couldn't do very many.

So then I came home and walked the dog.

When I got home Nikki yelled across the street at me that dinner was ready and she had extra if I was hungry.

Of course I was hungry!!! Score.

Now that I am home, and fed, and happy, I'm off to the shower.

Glen Ivy Spa Day

I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but after the disaster that was everything football last weekend, I quit. No more for me!!

(Yea right.)

But ok, the Buckeyes got killed and the Chargers got ROBBED.

I needed a break.

So when my friend Maria emailed on Monday about taking a trip up towards the dessert for a day at the spa I was happy to agree.

We drove up this morning and each started our day with a 20 minute massage. Then we all got set to properly float around in the pool and soak up the sun for a good long while. (I for one, know for a fact that tan fat always looks less disgusting than pale fat... so I need to bronze up in the few last weeks before I see my husband again.) However, before long we were all getting hot.

So we decided to go check out some of the spa's amenities. We started with one of the main attractions: the mud bath.

Although, it's not so much a mud bath, but more of a bath with mud. Hot water in a pool with a big slab of mud in the middle to slather yourself up with. Maria decided Christina and I weren't getting dirty fast enough so she decided to start the fun for us. (I particularly enjoy the fact that my tongue is sticking out of my mouth in this photo. That's always a good look.)

So below, there we are once we were good and coated. (If only that was a nice deep tan rather tan just the color of the mud.)

We laid out for awhile and our mud mostly dried. Well, Christina's and my mud dried. Maria, had put hers on about an inch thick so she never seemed like she was going to dry.

But, luckily they provide a nice sauna were you can go and do your best impression of a nice clay pot baking in a kiln. I found the hand prints and cave art left on the glass by an earlier visitor to be a little entertaining. Proof positive that a great deal of heat will do funny things to a person's brain sometimes.



After the mud FINALLY dried, we sat and rubbed it all off. Once that was good, we made each of our husbands dreams come true (I'm sure) and showered to rinse all the leftover filth off of each other. It was quite funny because since two of us haven't seen our boys in quite some time, we were giggling like teenagers at what they might say if they could see us now, covered in orange goop and bubbles trying to help each other get cleaned off in time to go and beat the lunch rush.

Anyway, eventually we were presentable so we all ran off to change into clean (non-orange stained) bathing suits and grab some lunch. The rest of the afternoon we spent lounging by the pool trying very hard to get a nice tan without raising our chances too terribly of one day having wrinkles or skin cancer.
By the look of this, I didn't burn. I just managed to turn a nice pale, pink. Hopefully this will transform into a soft bronze in a day or too. :)



What a good day!

Weird Visitor

Um, so just now I went into the kitchen to get a snack and upon grabbing a plate from the drying rack in the sink I noticed something stuck to it. "Well gee," I thought, "That's weird, I must have missed that when I washed the dishes..."

But then I ran the dish under water and the something didn't come unstuck. So I looked closer. I soon realized that there was a good reason that it was still there.. This was no left over stuck on food. This was a snail. A teeny tiny, itsy bitsy, weenie little snail. Hmmmm...

I think the best question to ponder on here would be how the heck a teeny tiny itsy bitsy snail got INSIDE my kitchen and then stuck itself to a dish in the drying rack? While there do tend to be awful lot of snails in the back yard, I've never imagined they could get in the house. Plus, this one is SO small that it must have taken it a very, very, very long time to get anywhere, let alone all the way into my house and then into the sink.

Not unexpectedly I attracted the attention of the cats. Here is KC trying very hard to eat my little snail friend.



Despite my love of all things small and cute and animaly, I decided to resist the urge to keep it and call him Gary and teach him to "Meow" (if you're wondering what I'm talking about watch an episode of Sponge Bob some time) because we have more than enough animals around here already and I don't really know what you'd feed a snail... So my little friend got unstuck and washed down the drain and I went on about my snack finding.

Complaining

I feel like all I ever do in this blog is complain. That and talk about my crazy dog.

But, the way I see it, there is probably a reason why I was voted "Biggest Complainer" of the marching band in 9th grade.

(That's still better than biggest whiner, so I'll take it. Or, I guess rather I took it... 15 years ago, when the honor was bestowed upon my 14 year old self.)

Anyway, I feel like when things are sucking you have two options:

Suck it up and just deal, keeping all your frusterations inside
and probably leading to high blood pressure and an eventual coronary

or

Suck it up and just deal with whatever it is
by venting about the absurd stupidity of the situation

It's a matter of being passive or not. I have never been passive.

Like for example, in 9th grade when I earned that fine title, I attended high school in Boca Raton Florida. There we frequently had marching band practices in the 90+ degree heat in August and the practice field was littered with Fire Ant piles that if you marched through would get you attacked by hundreds of little demon ants that bit you and left little itchy painful pussy bumps all over your ankles.

It sucked. Actually, so did our Marching Band.
Clearly the best solution in that situation was to bitch about it.

Anyway, so today was going well. I was living a nearly complaint free existence. My legs and feet were hurting from the gym, but I felt invigorated from the run so it was worth it. However, when I came home I received an email from my husband. (He had called yesterday to let me know that the ship has pulled into Palau for a week of R and R before continuing their journey homeward.)

First of all:  A WEEK???

Um, why not just COME HOME a week earlier. Because it isn't like we live in San Diego! You know? One of the top tourist destinations within the continental United States. They can R and R here!!!

So anyway, Matt's email today was to tell me that his phone card is out of minutes and apparently he was so busy enjoying the island or whatever that he could not find the time to squeeze in a stop at the quickie-mart to get another one. So he won't be calling me. But, he is going Scuba Diving today.

So what would I possibly have to be unhappy about? Because he hasn't been gone for over 6 months and underway steady for the last 2 months and the last time I heard his voice prior to yesterday wasn't over a month ago!

Why on EARTH would I want to talk to him?!?!?!?

Why on Earth would I expect him to take care of business so that he could call me?!?!?!

Why on Earth would I think HE WOULD WANT TO TALK TO ME!!?!?!????

Yea, yea I get it. He's been busy for the last however many days, he deserves some time to have fun. Fine. I hope he has a great dive and I am in no way jealous that I do not get to go with him.

I do however think his inability to get another phone card is total B.S.

Embarrassing Photos

An ooooold friend from high school recently added me on Facebook which is always nice, because she's good people (despite the fact she made the unfortunate decision to attend The University of M*ch*g*n.) So then today she brightened my day by putting up some old photos from high school. I copied them and now I am posting the two best of them for all of your viewing enjoyment and amusement.

This first one is of course of the good old Dublin Coffman Marching Band marching in the St. Patrick's Day parade in 1996. Julie played piccolo, so I'm sure her parents were aiming to capture their daughter in the first row behind the flags but accidentally also caught me in all of my Flag Corps smilerificness. Aw those were the days!


The second photo was taken during the photo tour of our Junior Prom in 1995, you know, because we went to like 5 different houses. Each of us were bound and determined to go and pulled "dates," seemingly out of no where about a week ahead of time. That was one of the advantages of going to such a large high school: by the end of my Junior year there were still loads of people in my class I'd never met. (Also, I think by the time the night was over all of wished we'd just gone stag, but that's beside the point.) Anyway, from left to right there's Julie, Me, Marci and Amy. Four girls I love and miss so much sometimes. We really need to get Marci and Amy onto Facebook!!!


Not to be vain, but I really like my dress. My mother and I made it (along with my Senior Prom dress the following year) as last ditch attempts towards mother-daughter bonding. Dysfunctional relationship or not, it is nice to have a few good memories. I still can proudly say I can squeeze my hips into that dress, but unfortunately its not really very attractive to wear prom dress paint.

It's also worth mentioning that the following year's Senior Prom went very different. Julie and Amy found dates they were actually quite fond of. I'm fairly certain Julie eventually  married hers. I don't remember what became of Marci's date situation but I ended up going stag with an enormous group of people. On purpose. (As in, somebody did ask me and I turned him down.) Going to prom with a boy just to have a date is a bad idea.

Pancakes!

Immediately after church this morning I wanted pancakes. I blame Matt for this, even though he's still far, far away.

You see, my husband is a tiny bit of an enabler. (I'm not complaining, but he is.) He spoils me rotten whenever possible. (I'm still not complaining.) So, if for example I wake up in the morning and say "I want pancakes!" it is very, very likely that he will go about getting me some. :) If you ignore the whole part about how he's been gone for 6 months, I'm a very lucky girl.

I remember the first time this became clear to me. We were college and I'd had a bad day. I don't remember why but my solution was to come home and immediately get in bed and hide under the covers. Matt was trying to figure out what to do. At some pointed he asked me if there was anything besides hiding under the covers that I felt like doing. I said something about how shopping always helps, but I didn't have any money.

What do you think he did next?

That's right, he found a credit card and drove me to the mall. He followed me from store to store (a task which he largely regards as punishment under normal circumstances) while I searched for that special outfit that would make my day. And when I found something (at Banana Republic no less, a store where at the time I loved looking in but never could afford to actually buy anything) he got me whatever it was.

Why am I acting like I don't remember what it was? It was an olive green silk tank top thing, and a matching black pair of pants and a top. I still have them both.

Anyway, all that to say that while he may be a little tight lipped emotionally, he has always tried very hard to give me what makes me happy.

But now I am very very far away from my original topic of pancakes so let me go on. I think the reason I always want pancakes on Sundays especially after church is because when we are in Ohio with his family his mom will make us almost anything we want after church. Most of the time it is pancakes. Sometimes it is waffles. Matt has a bad habit of requesting sausage gravy and biscuits which I think is very gross, but to each his own.

So today, when we were leaving church I looked at Nikki and was like "I want pancakes!" She laughed because I'd said this exact same thing last week and said something about wanting a nice greasy cheeseburger. But we are both on an eat healthy diet so it didn't seem like either of us was going to get what we wanted.

As some point during the car ride home her girls started piping in about pancakes too. First it was her 4 year old. Soon it was the 18 month old too.

Oops. What did I start?

When we got home they went inside their house to do whatever it is they needed to do today. I went inside my own house to do homework and laundry. A few minutes ago I went outside to take a break and water the rapidly dying plants. While I was out there, Nikki came out to let me know that in the end, she'd had to make pancakes to appease her children.

I am a very bad influence. But those are some lucky children. Pancakes are yummy.

College Football week 3

Heavenly Father,

Please can you grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change (like the fact that stupid USC is absolutely beating the earwax out of my beloved Buckeyes right now, the courage to change the things I can (like the fact that I really really hate USC, even though I know that it is a bad idea to create all that negative energy by wasting my time feeling that emotion,) and the wisdom to know the difference (because that's the really hard part after all.)

Thank you and Amen


I love Ohio State Football. I really truly do. And I know that I do because when they loose it makes me want cry. And in my sadness, I have never ever hated on the team for their misfortune. I still think they are awesome and I still secretly wish I could dress my husband up in a cute little sweater vest like Jim Tressel on game days.

I can not say that I never hate on the other teams though, because I do. (That's the part I'm working on.) Because right now I HATE USC. Actually, I sort of always hate USC, because living in San Diego, I find myself to be surrounded by them all the time. I hate their stupid fans and their stupid smug attitude. I hate their stupid marching band with their stupid sunglasses and there stupid dancing girls on the sidelines. If USC is like, the all time best of the Pac 10 it is simply because they are the only team in that sad little conference that has even consistently been any good.

And if you're wondering I do not hate the SEC. The teams that play in that conference are phenomenal, as a whole and I respect that. Although it hurts really bad when they beat us at consecutive National Championships there is some awesome football going on there.

I do hate M*ch*g*n, but, that is just a given.

As far as us loosing to USC today goes... it stinks. It really does. But there is a great deal more football left to be played this year. You never ever can predict what will happen. So, I still have hope.

We'll get another shot next year in our own house. Go Bucks, then, now and always!!!!


One of my fellow bloggers has mentioned that she feels she is far too big of a football fan. In her case she's talking about the Chargers (to which I say Go Bolts!) But, I fully support her addiction, if for no other reason than it makes mine look a lot healthier. She has mentioned that maybe someone should stage and intervention, but I urge her, if she reads this, not to worry. The crazy thing I've noticed about fandom is the further you go from the home of your team, the more your entire life can tend to revolve around the fate of your team on game day.

Blegh, part 2

I wanted to have something better to talk about today; to write some charming story about my students or some meaningful memory of the events from the very first Patriot's Day.

But, as it is I'm lucky I made it to work at all and then actually survived all my classes. (I did bail out 30 minutes early from prep time.) Then I had a "date" to have dinner with Matt's oldest brother who I haven't seen since before we went to Japan and was in town on business.

So now, exactly 15 hours later I am back in bed where this day started, really settling down for the first time all day. The Funk is still there. I'm not sure if its better or worse, because I think I'm getting used to it and at any rate I'm working through it. But, what I can tell you is that eeeeeverything aches. Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes! (And back. And arms. And legs.)

So I'm ready to give up today and try again tomorrow.

Sorry I haven't got anything better to blog about.

The Funk

*ahem*

(the following is to be read in the whinniest voice possible to ensure the proper affect.)

I don't feel good!

Seriously.

It started with the fact that I couldn't sleep last night which meant I woke up this morning under-rested. And of course my legs were sore from the gym. Then a stress headache started. It got worse and worse. Around noon I literally became unable to hold valuable information in my brain. Like the CD track number for the song we were supposed to be singing. Or the words for the song. Or any information what so ever.

I began to have the most over whelming urge to turn off all the lights and hide under a table some place.

I spent most of my lunch squinting at the wall. Not on purpose. And I didn't even realize I was doing it until somebody asked me why I was doing it. And I was squinting because the light is bothering my eyes.

After school my eyes started to water and that icky feeling appeared in my nose and throat. And the headache inched slowly from about a 4 to an 8. Sharon, my BTSA mentor told me to go home. So did another teacher. They both said "the funk" is going around. Apparently I have it.

I was really hoping it was too early in the school year to get sick.

But thankfully I'm not sick. I've just got "the funk."

Lucky me.

If you need me I'll be sleeping.

All things considered

Well, the good news is that we've officially hit the home stretch of this deployment and Matt will be home soon. Of course I am not allowed to mention the actual date of his return, because "loose lips sink ships" or something like that, but let's just say its getting close.

So how and when did I decide this was the homestretch? That's easy, things have gotten so busy and insane that I actually stopped counting down. And, then last weekend I was thinking to myself how nice it is that he's almost coming home and man, hasn't this deployment just been so easy.

Wait a minute, what?!?!

I swear that thought went through my brain. Then I thought seriously about smacking myself upside my own head for being so ridiculous. How could I have so easily forgotten all the lonely nights, and hefty things I had to carry, and mowing the lawn, and the flat tire, and the dog eating the carpet, and the pet poo and pee everywhere all the time???

I must be repressing it.

Anyway, it's allllmost over now. The end is in sight.

Meanwhile, the school year is back in full force. The kids have mostly been great, as have most of the teachers. I even got an actual compliment from my problem principal yesterday. (And in case you're wondering, she's my problem principal because she clearly has a problem with me, not the other way around.) Additionally I'm back working through the second year of the infinite hell that is known as the BTSA and Induction program. This means I'm much closer to finally clearing my California Credential. In about 5 months after I finish about 5 special projects and the completion of the second half of my portfolio. Plus, I still have about 2 weeks of my CLAD classes online.

So yea, I'm lucky to remember my name sometimes.

In other news, since Matt is nearly coming home, I figured I'd better get to working on some of my other deployment goals.

Like going to church. I FINALLY dragged my lazy behind out of bed Sunday and went to Church. Yea! (And it is amazing how much better I feel about everything this week. God rules!) I really want to try for children once I have a potential Dad around to make me a Mom, so I think it is really time I bring my faith up front and get it off the back burner. It's so ironic to me that our crazy hectic lives keep us from going to church, when really that is the best place for us when things are nutso.

Also, I FINALLY FINALLY joined the gym, which is completely ridiculous because the LA Fitness is literally at the end of my street. Seriously. I can walk there in less than 5 minutes. It's stupid that it too me so long to finally join. But happily, yesterday I swam laps for about 30 minutes and today I ellipticalled for 20 minutes and then biked for 30 minutes. (I hate having to start slow and build up to real cardio, but I'm soooo out of practice.... it hurts.)

And, after the gym, I even took the doggie for a walk. A long one because I tried to discover the back way through the neighborhood from the park. It took about an hour, but man was it a nice afternoon exploring with my furry boy.

So, I guess things are looking up around here. :)

College Football Saturday

Go Ohio! Beat the Bobcats!!

(I mean, like, obviously.)

Personally of the all-Ohio College football games this is my favorite. Both my Uncles attended OU as did my own parents originally before they got married, and my Mother-in-Law and pretty much half of Matt's family. When I was a kid my parents would take us down for Homecoming, and my mother, who considered herself to be quite the marching band expert was always going on about the Bobcat marching band. And don't get me wrong. They have a very, very good band. I considered going to OU for about 10 minutes, and I might have even ended up in the band although to be honest when I was a little kid the idea of being a cheerleader with the cute skirt and pompoms on my shoes (they really did wear those) was much more appealing. So Anyway, it drove my parents crazy when I went to OSU and then eventually became a member of that band.

But besides that, we need to get some good practice in for next week vs. USC. Because, I really really hate USC. It must be something having to do with living in southern California where everyone reveres the "Condoms" and completely deludes themselves into believing the PAC 10 is a competitive conference. Not that the Big 10 is either anymore, but that's beside the point.

Besides the fact that there all these stupid people who go to really LAME schools (lameness of course being judged purely on the quality of the school's football program) like San Diego State, who root for USC. Note to all these people: there is a rule in college football. It says you are a fan of the school you attended. The only exceptions to this rule are when you did not attend college at all or your school did not have a football program. In these cases you can root based on proximity to the school in relationship to where you grew up or where your family members/spouse attended.

So, for example if you are one of the lucky grads of the United States Naval Academy, thank you for your service to our country, but you are stuck rooting for their rather lame program. Go Goats, er I mean midshipmen. Deal with it. Wanna know how? Pro-Football. (Pick you team at will, go crazy even.) Please don't tell me that you grew up in Detroit and you are a m*ch*g*n fan. If you were such a big fan you would have gone to school in the toilet bowl known as Ann Arbor. I'm sure they have a very good ROTC program.

Anyway, its minutes to kickoff so in honor of my beloved Buckeyes.... here is another photo from my own TBDBITL days (because I finally figured out how to work my scanner and boy is it fun.) The cymbal player standing on the ledge is of course me during one of our 3rd quarter trips around the stadium for drum cheers.

Primping in the Car

Today while I was sitting at a stop light on Pomerado Road I glanced in the rear view mirror and noticed the girl behind me doing something I simply could not believe...

She was actually tweezing her eyebrows.

I can't even begin to fathom a reason anyone would do that in the car. Forget the fact that you really need a magnifying mirror and good light to do it properly, doing it irritates your skin and makes it all pink. Which means that where ever you are going you're going to arrive with an irritated, puffy, pink brow line.

Besides the fact that it HURTS!

And it makes your eyes tear up so how would you be able see to drive?

She was behind me for a few miles and at every stop light she was tweezing away again.
When the light turned green each time I'd pull away and she'd continue plucking for a moment before stopping to drive.

It was very weird.

My Teeth

I have been told for as absolutely long as I remember about a time when I was 18 months old and decided to take a flying leap out of a truck, missing my father's arms and knocking my front tooth out. While I have no memory of the actual incident, I have been dealing with consequences ever since because from that point on until I was 9 I had this ridiculously cute smile with a hole in it. (This is kindergarten, by the way.)

Eventually, the adult tooth did grow in. Unfortunately it came in completely crooked and with a large brown spot on it. The spot was a result the damaged enamel, which happened when the baby tooth was originally knocked out. So then I had this "charming" grin. (Try to focus on my Easter basket and cute pink pajamas, and that awesome Swatch watch, otherwise you may run away in horror.)

Although my smile did straighten out a lot on its own, the teeth all remained extremely crooked (there was NO money for braces) and the brown spot was eventually covered. By then I'd figured out the best ways to smile to hide the worst of that nasty smile.



But, the horrible-ness was always there. On many occasions a camera would catch me in a laugh and capture the awfulness in full force. Like this "winner" from my 23rd birthday.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!
(That was me running away screaming, um from myself.)

God Bless Matt for seeing through those awful chompers and falling in love with me anyway. Why is it that his crooked smile and small gap is cute and adorable and mine was so very, very scary?

Thankfully , when I was 24 Matt and I splurged and spent the small fortune it cost to have them fixed. I had 4 veneers put on the front ones to make them straight. I had crown put on 5 others. I had 2 root canals. I had a host of other cavities filled. But at looooong last I had a smile I wasn't ashamed of.

I didn't get it done until after Matt and I had eloped, but thankfully my smile was fixed before our honeymoon, our first stint in California and our big wedding.

Improved? I think so.


To say that my self-confidence improved drastically when I got my teeth fixed is a tiny bit of an understatement. The part of me about which I'd always been the most embarrassed was suddenly fixed!

(This is not to say that by any means there weren't and still aren't any other parts of me for me to be self-conscious about, I am a woman after all... but, it helped. A lot.)

So then this past July when the dentist told me I was going to have to have one of my veneers replaced... you could safely say that I had a bit of a nervous breakdown. Despite my fit, there was no choice, so in August
Dr. Reyes took off the bad veneer and put on a temporary. In the mean time I was left with what I consider to be by FAR the most charming smile I ever had.

(Hmm. Technically, I guess there was a period of 2 weeks back in 2004 where all four of my front teeth looked like that one, so I guess there was a "better" smile. For some reason I don't have any photos of that particular look, though I can't imagine why....)

Anyway, I don't know if it was because I was freaking out about the new veneer not matching or just a great deal of bad luck, but it took 3 visits to the dentist before they FINALLY got it right.

So, today, after school, my smile was returned to "normal."

(And, by the way, why do I have to have such an ENORMOUS forehead?)

I asked the dentist if she could just use temporary glue on the tooth so that if my students or future children ever misbehave I could take it off and snarl my teeny tiny fang at them... she said no.

Political Girl Power

I promised myself I was NOT going to blog about the election. My husband works for the government and this election could in large part affect whether or not he is actually around much in the coming years. I am also hugely uninformed about the election and its issues and I in no way feel able to even comment.

While I do think John McCain is a spectacular man, what with his career in the Navy and the several years of his life he spent as a POW in Vietnam surviving an unimaginable hell, I tend to disagree with many of his policies.

But then he picked his Vice Presidential candidate. Forgetting her stance on the issues and her voting record and her policies and beliefs entirely, I really must say...

After her speech at the Republican National Concention, as Sarah Palin stood there to on stage, surrounded by her family and holding her baby proudly despite his having down's syndrome... a tear came to my eye.

Just one.

Because damn if that isn't one brave lady.

I wouldn't know personally, but I've heard rumors...



Motherhood is hard.

Especially with 5 kids.

Especially-er when one of those kid is born with special needs.

Especially-est when an prenatel testing let's you know that that baby will have special needs and the doctors give you the option of terminating the pregnancy.

I can't even imagine how tough that would be.
And still, she's got some bravery left for politics?

Wow.

That's all I need to say.

Ugh!

I think I've gone brain dead.

Days are going by, I live my life, I teach the same 4 lessons- over and over and over again, I think about how badly I need to go to the gym, I fight with the dog, I check email entirely more often than could ever be considered healthy and I sleep like crap so I'm tired all the time.

All the while I can not think of one single interesting thing to write about.

My students are the same. They are mostly very excited to get to have music class. They mostly all sing well but whine about not yet getting to play instruments. The annoying ones all try the same dumb tricks and make the same dumb jokes, as if we teachers haven't seen it all and heard it all about a billion times before.

Between school and my credential courses I'm tight rope walking along that fine line between procrastination and productivity... getting massive amounts of work done, all at the very last minute.

Meanwhile, Matt's homecoming is starting to approach. His ship is literally homeward bound. Each day they steam closer. I can actually count the days. The number isn't small, but its a number I can calculate so I guess that's progress.

He sent me this picture the other day... he's going to kill me for posting it. :)

I guess its to show me that he's working out (and also that he's a little bit of a weirdo.) I wonder how his workouts are going. I wonder if he's lost weight or buffed up. Mostly I wonder if when he comes home he will notice that I have definitely not gotten any skinnier.

Fatter would be the more accurate adjective.

Food, being very comforting and all, particularly when one is lonely.

This leaves me wondering how much weight I can safely loose in the remaining time, without you know, actually going to the gym or dieting.