Confession #6

I like to drink too much. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't have a drinking problem... I am not an alcoholic. But for the last 2 Fridays I have had little girlie cocktail parties, and I have had soooooo much fun! So much fun that I have not been able to do much of anything on Saturday! The first week I made the "Fuzzytinis" and they were pretty much just vodka with a spritz of peach schnapps and a peach slice. Deadly. And not even very good tasting. It got out of hand. Last night I served only champagne, wine, beer and cherry coke zero. It still got out of hand. Also, I forgot to eat, so a double whammy on my sensitive tummy. Both nights, though, were filled with laughter and crazy girl energy. Which is something I miss since I have moved so far away from my wonderful Twain Harte girls. It has been a balm to my lonely soul. I would like to have these parties every Friday night, but I fear the loud talking has permanently scarred my 16 year old son. He insists I have the loudest voice in the bunch and he asked me not to carry on with my weekly plans. I guess as a mom I will have to oblige him. I don't want to be THAT mom anyway. But, I will miss it. Maybe we should have a 8:30 curfew.... All the fun you can imagine for 2 1/2 hours.... then done. Maybe the boy could go to a movie the next time I have friends over. Hmmmmmmm, I will have to put more thought into this.

Knocked Up

This is my adorable friend Cindy... and she is having a baby!! We are all soooooo excited! The news has been kept on the down low for over a month, and I have been just about to burst! I can't imagine how excited she must be! Can't wait to meet the new munchkin on or around Nov. 11......

and one of my favorite quotes

"There are lives I can imagine without children, but none of them have the same laughter and noise."
-Brian Andreas

House shopping

As we wait and wait and wait (and wait) for our lovely Mi-Wuk home to sell, we are kinda having fun house shopping. We have collected 4 pages of "possible" houses on our favorites over at a real estate web site. In addition to that we have now started frequenting Open Houses on Sundays. We are technically doing this to relieve our poor agent from having to haul us around for no good reason since we can't buy anything yet, but actually we really enjoy it. It's kind of our version of a Sunday drive which is a really big tradition in Mark's family. :-)
Today on my way home from work, I made M come with me while I checked out several houses on the outside just to refresh my memory of what was out there. He got pretty cranky with me and was unpleasant for the rest of the ride home.
Lately my head is just filled with visions of lovely homes I feel eager to own, so I am hoping my wishes, dreams, prayers will come true and our "old" house will sell.

Happy Tuesday! Love, Nancy

Confession # 5

I hate parent teacher conference week.
It's not that I don't like parents. Or have great things to say about the wonderful students in my class. I am always pretty well prepared with things to show... like assessment results and journals and such.
It's just that talking to people I don't know very well is DIFFICULT for me. It takes so much energy to be friendly and upbeat and a good listener and funny and thoughtful to person after person with out much of a break. I am like Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice..... "I certainly have not the talent which some people possess of conversing easily with those I have never seen before." The difference between me and Mr. Darcy (at the point in the story where he makes this assertion) is that I do practice at it, and I think I am getting better at conversation making, but it wears my out. I am entirely weary today. WEARY.
And my poor family has taken the brunt of it.

Duckling Update #1

Today I placed my long overdue duck eggs into the incubator to begin their development. I had purchased 9 eggs with my incubator and auto turner. They kept not arriving... weeks went by. Finally, I emailed the website I got them from. On a Monday (a while ago) I got a phone call in the middle of my teaching day saying the eggs would be here in 3 or 4 days. Seven days later I called the number on the website. Message machine. I left a message. The next day I tried again... machine. This time I did not leave a message. I hung up. A few minutes later they called back and we chatted about my issue while my class sat quietly on the carpet awaiting news of their duck eggs. It turns out the guy had sold his website, and I was not his customer, but that of the new owner. We straightened things out and he gave me the new owner's number. I called. He said the eggs had been shipped 7 days ago and should be here... I said, Are the ducks going to hatch after being in the mail so long? He said they lasted 10 days. He encouraged me to call my local post office. I called my local post office. They were helpful but couldn't do much with out a tracking number. I called the egg guy for the tracking number. He needed to call the farmer and get back to me. He called me back and said that he would send me a new batch of eggs. The "old" eggs arrived on the 10th day. I did not incubate them. I waited for the new batch. They arrived on Friday. I put them in the incubator this morning... all except one which was cracked. So, 8 little duck embryos hopefully to turn into 8 little quacking ducks in 28 days...on May 12th. I am a wreck of nerves.

Confession #4

This week was the first time I ever tried Ben and Jerry's ice cream. The sweet Cindyanna brought me a container of it because she was apalled that I had lived 39 long years without ever having the pleasure of one of her favorite desserts. The flavor was Mint Cookie something. My first response was, "Wow, it's not green!" (of course since it's all natural, that makes sense) My second response was, "It's pretty good." I ate 3 good size scoops of it. I liked it. I haven't gone back to the refridgerator at school to have any more. I guess I don't love it. It might just be the flavor, though. If it had been the yellow cake batter or something with brownies in it, this might have been a completely different post. As it is, I am just too cheap to spend that much money on ice cream when Breyer's tastes perfectly delicious to me! Sorry Cindyanna!

Edwin

So tonight while I was making dinner, I looked outside and saw a bunch of people standing in the street. It was weird, so I kept looking. Soon, I noticed they were all looking one direction, so I looked in that direction and saw a great big peacock strolling right down our dead end street, stopping occasionally to peck at the ground. During dinner, the street was empty, and Mark & I were telling the kids about it, when I noticed the peacock had flown up onto the house right across the street from us. There it sat, gazing about in that cold, avian way.
Kyla says, "Can I keep him?"
"Sure," I say, "If you can catch him, you can keep him."
"I'm going to name him Edwin," she says.
That's one of the things I love about my silly girl. Her great ability to imagine, fantasize, dream.... what a gift.

Confesssion #3

I think all American women have some sort of shopping addiction. Not necessarily clothes shopping or shoe shopping (which is what most people assume), but some kind of thing that they compulsivley buy no matter what state their finances are in or how it will affect them. My addiction is not clothes or shoes, although I am trying to spend a little bit more money on these items and buy a little more thoughtfully (not just what is on sale or clearance, but something I really like that is somewhat flattering and hides my muffin top) since I have been occasionally watching "What not to Wear" and Project Runway. I have come to realize that my TWO shopping addictions (yes, 2) are:
1. Scrapbooking supplies
2. Classroom items

Let's dive a little deeper into this idea.... shall we? First the scrapbooking supplies. I have one of the largest room in our house almost filled with stuff. I have piles of cardstock (stored vertically, of course), 2 shelves of patterned paper, numerous empty albums awaiting photos, flowers of silk, paper, felt, chipboard, acetate, buttons in several containers, hundreds of yards of ribbon, untold numbers of eyelets, snaps, brads, etc. I have letter stickers, hundreds of old decorative stickers, word stickers, rub ons, tools (label makers, punches, circle cutter, paper cutters (3), exacto knives, cropodile, etc) a container full of old metal embellishments, paints, mica, clay, texture paste, transparencies, lace, fabric, old fibers, boxes and boxes of rubber stamps with the inks and powders to go with them, and an outrageous number of other embellishments I cannot keep track of. I am sure that is not even all of it. But I cannot throw anything away, and every time I go past the scrapping aisle at Target or into Michael's or onto a scrapping website, there I am looking at all the fun and beautiful NEW stuff. If I get a gift certificate, that's what I'll use it for. I love to shop for it. I love to come home and open up my bag and spread everything out and look at it. I love to find places to keep my new supplies. Occasionally I even get inspired to use them!

Now for the classroom stuff. This is a completely different category all together. I do not usually impulse buy these items. When I plan the activities in my classroom, I work really hard to make everything as active and engaging as possible. If I need something to do this I will buy it. I will go to the store at 10 pm. I will put things like moon pies for a space unit or seeds and soil for a plant study or plastic farm animals for a classifying activity on my credit card if there is no money for them in the checking account. I will spend $20 on a timer at the grocery store at 9:30 at night because it makes a ticking sound and we need to play the "hide the timer" game tomorrow to strenghten our listening skills. I have even been known to tell my own two children, "No, you cannot have that _________ (fill in pretty much anything here: money for snacks, package of lead for your mechanical pencils, new tshirt) until payday, while at the same time I have purchased a bag full of items for my classroom. This shopping is NECESSITY for me. I NEED each of these items to make my classroom the best possible learning environment. I want my student to have everything they need to learn.
So, there are my 2 shopping addictions. What are yours?

Confession #2

I am a horrible driver. I accelerate too fast. I brake too suddenly. I always go 10 miles over the speed limit (but not more than 10). My favorite speed to drive is 75 mph. It just feels so comfy and right whizzing by all of those slow pokes out there. My bad driving habits have often haunted me. I have been in several accidents/mishaps.
1. I accelerated at a stop sign without looking both ways and hit a car with 1 woman and 4 kids in it BEFORE I had my license. This happened in my mom's Mustang
2. I was trying to back down a long, curvy driveway at night and got stuck to a cement wall (like the whole driver's side of the car was hugging up against the wall). This happened in my mom's sivler Nissan.
3. I was crying really hard because of my at-the-time-on-again-off-again boyfriend and I hit a deer in my own little truck.
4. I fell asleep at the wheel after spending the evening at my aforementioned boyfriend's house watching a boring movie and rolled my dad's truck over a few times. At the time it was our family's only vehicle.
5. I got 2 flat tires the first year while commuting 67 miles (one way) from Twain Harte to Modesto for my first real teaching job.
6. I ran out of gas 2 times in the second (and final) year I commuted from Twain Harte to Modesto.
7. I got a speeding ticket for going 50 in a 35 while trying to get my son to soccer practice in Twain Harte (we were coming from Modesto).
8. I got another speeding ticket for going 80 in a 65 (I was actually going about 87 or so) while driving home from Eureka to Twain Harte after some family holiday.
The last 2 are the reason why I never go more than 10 over. It's my personal mantra.

Happy driving! Love, Nancy