Costco, Tequila, Running and Spoiled Pups

This has been another not-so-eventful weekend.  I spent yesterday doing the Grocery-Target-Costco run all day, and this morning I've been parked on my couch since about 6:00 AM.  But really, nothing in the world makes me happier than my fridge being full of good--healthy--food and my cup being full of hot coffee.  When I woke up this morning at 5:30 I had a moment of oh great, I'm awake early on a Sunday, but it passed when I realized that meant I got some quiet time by myself for a few hours before the rest of the house started to stir.  I didn't do much but clear out my DVR and play on Pinterest, but man was it nice.




Last night E and I went to Centro, because he knows I've been wanting to give some of their three million (slight hyperbole, but not much) tequilas a try since my sister told us about them at Christmas.  We had a great dinner--really good food--and some great infused tequilas.  I tried two (one sweet and fruity--in a margarita, the other spicy--just straight) and I was hooked.  I'm definitely going to be making some of my own this summer.  Like most nights we didn't talk about anything important, but it was good to hang out without the distractions of home and pets and chores.  I like going into Sacramento for a date, too, because I feel like I blend in.  I don't have to be Mrs. P.  If we go to dinner around here, the chances of me running into a student or student parent are pretty good.  Actually, most of the servers of the local restaurants are former students.  That's nice and all, but it makes me feel like I have to be on.  Last night I was just me, hanging out with my husband, blending in to the crowd.  Love.

I am grateful for down time this weekend, despite the fact that there's a pile of laundry staring at me.  I am such a homebody.  I'm glad I got away two out of the last four weekends; I like to take off even if it's with students, but nothing makes me feel more rested than a weekend of being home, seeing the kids, hanging out with friends and E, and prepping for the next week.  It feels like a big reset button.  I was in definite need of a reboot this weekend.

Lately I'm carrying around a big sack of guilt about the fact that I'm not running.  I'll get a momentary burst of inspiration and map out an entire run plan, and then I just can't make myself go do it.  I try to think about why it is that I can't make myself get up in the morning and do it, or lace up my shoes and go outside after school, and I just can't figure it out.  All I know is that I just don't want to.  That's pretty lame, I'm aware.  I've been trying to think about how I might adapt my routine (you know, remove the excuses) but everything I've tried so far hasn't worked because I manage to not go run no matter what plan I set out for myself.

The thing is, I need that alone time.  I'm feeling it quite a bit because I'm not in a place where automatic solitude is happening every day.  I'm also, as I told E in the kitchen the other night, starting to shake like a bowlful of jelly.  I worked really hard to get in shape in the fall for my marathon and a couple of half marathons... I fear that is all slipping away (if it hasn't done so already).  I need to get on it.  My jeans aren't going to hold out much longer and dammit I am not going to go up a size.  I was my fattest ever last February, and I don't want to fall back into that hole just because I'm being a big baby.

I don't know what I'm trying to say.  I need to just stop worrying about why and get over it.  I need to put on my shoes and get outside.

This guy is not helping me leave the house, but I'm glad he likes his new blanket.

Getting caught up.

Yikes, this has already been a long week. I found myself wishing it was over on three separate days.  Since we finished the science fair project, all was (relatively) well last night.  I decided to salute the days end and get reacquainted with the bottom of this glass.



And a couple of nights ago E and I also did some Breaking Bad-watching.  Anyone else watch that show?  We just started season four.  The reason I ask is that I want to punch Skyler in the face.  Also, Marie.  Well, and if we're being honest, I want to punch Hank in the face too.  So pretty much everyone except Walt or Jesse is annoying me.  But I kinda love that this show makes a teacher kind of a B.A., even if he is kind of breaking all kinds of laws.  Minor television detail.  Props to my chemistry teacher friends.



E snapped this one of me and Henry (below) last night.  Buddy boy figured out how to install Angry Birds on Google Chrome for free and he won't leave us alone about wanting to play it on our laptops.  At least he's not asking for his own personal Angry Birds Machine, or as I hear they're more accurately called, a Kindle Fire.  You know I'm right.



It's bugging me that I haven't been great about posting lately.  It's been a case of not wanting (or being able to) broadcast to the world what's on my mind.  But I've been channeling the desire to write into my recent stuff for school.  I suppose it's good it goes somewhere.

Tonight E is out picking up sushi and I think we're going to settle in for some good ol' fashioned Liz Lemon and company.  Love me some Thursday night TV, plus I haven't really watched anything else I recorded this week yet.  Stupid school.  Stupid being responsible.  I uploaded a packet last night, though, so this is the rare but highly celebrated free night where I get to feel really awesome about meeting a deadline.  Free night always comes a day or two before Oh My Gosh I Better Get Moving On My Next Deadline Day.

If I could only stop checking Blackboard obsessively to see if my fiction prof commented on my story, this night would be ten kinds of relaxing.

Peace and Beauty

Last weekend I was chaperone to 12 high school kids on yet another Mock Trial field trip.  Those punks tried their darndest to give me some new grey hairs, but we made it through relatively unharmed.

On the way out of town we stopped to stand for a minute on the edge of the earth and soak in some ocean air.  We weren't there long, but man was it nice.

The ocean makes me feel small in a really good way.

Bad Mommy.

I'm going to break one of my personal blogging rules and say something I promised myself I wouldn't say.


I'm mad at my kid.

I don't typically let myself go there, but I think in the grand scheme this one isn't going to send her into therapy.  Or, at least, she'll find it charming enough when she's 30 that she won't mind that I complained about it to the world wide web.  Fingers crossed.

My girl is making me so angry.  Currently I'm sitting on the couch, foregoing a much-needed nap after a long day (after a long weekend)  while I wait for her to finish her homework.  Then we're starting night number two of Science Fair Extravaganza.  And that would be bad enough, in and of itself (what with my general lack of enthusiasm for science, right and wrong answers, kid projects that need parent-doing and, you know, work) but she's had six weeks to do this and she didn't tell me about it--at all--until Sunday night after I got home from Carmel.

Sunday night I was already exhausted from dealing with other people's children for three days.  When she told me she had a project due Wednesday (and why didn't she tell her father all weekend when I was gone?) I just about imploded right in the living room.

I have a packet of nonfiction work due on Wednesday, too.  I have not been procrastinating.  I've been working to schedule, but that schedule included a large chunk of hours Monday and Tuesday night that I'd spend wrapping things up, editing, and finishing critical papers.  Right now all of that is out the window.  If I would have known she had this due, at least I would have planned for that, too. I have no earthly idea when the work for my nonfiction class is going to get done, but I fear it's going to go something like this: "from three to five A.M. for the next two days."

I'm mad because I can't get mad and that is usually a pretty big trigger for my anxiety.  I can't get mad at her, though, or this thing won't get done and we'll all suffer.  Believe me, we all will.  When you're a teacher and your mom is a teacher and your kid goes to your mom's school, she's not going to not do the damn science fair project and get an A.  It just doesn't happen.  Like my dad always said, we don't get B's.

I'm also afraid that this demonstrates some kind of developing problem in her work habits, but I can't really deal with that right now, either.  There's no time to waste on long talks or crying jags.

The thing is that we have to focus on getting this done.  And yes, I mean we.  A fourth grader doesn't do any kind of project by herself.   Maybe I'm just exhausted from all the hours I put in editing her last project, a California Missions video.  I know there's no better way for kids to do stuff, but my patience is gone.  Hopefully E gets home soon and wants to take over again.

You have no idea how bad I want that nap.

Pweh.

Source: farm3.static.flickr.com via Heather on Pinterest

Pweh, rain.

Pweh, cold. Pweh pweh, I'm grumpy.  Still.

But, I get to go back to Carmel tomorrow.  We can put that on the list of things that don't suck.  I'm traveling again with our Mock Trial team to a tournament.  If it just so happens to take me within a five mile radius of the beach, I won't complain.  A little ocean air ought to do me good, even if it's raining.  I'm going to go to bed early and think real hard about getting better.  This cold is not the business.

Food Network, I'm just not that into you.

Today. I'm not that into you today. I'm sure we'll resume our relationship again soon. But today Ina seems annoyingly smug about breaking into her friend's house to sneak them some truffle mac n cheese (Back to Basics, my ass, Ina!), Giada is way to excited about her arugula, and Rachel Ray needs a throat lozenge, stat.

I'm just cranky.

I was up all night with throat pains and I missed work today to go get a throat culture.  The doc kind of laughed at me for thinking I might have strep.  BUT I'M NOT CONGESTED, I SWEAR.  (Also I've had some back luck with strep in the past.)  She said I'm having some kind of inflammation in a "deep sinus" (what the heck is that?) and even though my nose and lungs and ears were okay, this was just plain ol' post-nasal drip.  Not that I'm disappointed to not have strep, but I love having things wrong with me that need antibiotics because it makes me feel like I'm doing something to cure it.  That's much better than waiting it out for people who are patience-challenged.

But no matter what, I still feel like crap.  So that's fun.  My throat hurts so I can't sleep.  I'm hungry, but OH YEAH, MY THROAT REALLY HURTS so it's not so pleasant to eat.



I'm trying to make the best of my day at home. Been laying low, watching Food Network (natch) and drinking lots of tea.  I just made myself a smoothie, too, so I don't pass out for lack of calorie intake.

Free day

Yesterday felt like summer.  This unseasonably warm and dry winter we're having is so strange.  I love it. I spent the day hanging out with my teaching buds but it was just sunny enough and just far enough away from home that I didn't feel like Mrs. P, just Heather.

We didn't make it off the porch to walk, but we gabbed away the entire day like it was nothing.  Even though I teach with so many of my friends, we barely ever get time to sit around and actually talk unless it's July or we go away.  It's the same for teachers as it is with kids--if your schedule doesn't line up with your friends' then you're SOL.  If you all have different lunches, well then, forget it.  You're not going to manage more than a quick hey, how are you? when you pass on your way to the bathroom during the five minutes you're allowed to pee.

And, really, there's something nice about coming together for good when so much in education is difficult right now.  I have a feeling that sharing this rough time with these awesome people is going to mean something in terms of how close we are.  I know we're going to look back on 2009/10/11/12 and say remember when we thought it was going to be that bad forever?  At least that's what I tell myself when we start to talk about pink slips every year.  And then I say another quick prayer for the economy and the state budget.

It's just nice to kick off my shoes and laugh all day.  I fall so comfortably back into my introversion that sometimes I convince myself it's easier not to hang out.  But then I spend a day with wonderful friends--good people, people I can trust--and I remember that having those people in my life is a wonderful thing.

That's some sound bat logic.

Ah, Saturday. I'm sitting here staring at my Christmas tree. Yes, that's right. On January 14th, a full two weeks after what I am assuming is the socially-accepted Period of Allowable Holiday Tree Displaying.  Stop judging me.  Or at least do it quietly so I can't hear you.  Hopefully when E wakes up we'll get to it.  Maybe.




My fingers are cold while I type because this morning, instead of my normal Saturday morning piping-hot cuppa joe, I decided to go with what is usually a weekday breakfast, the bright green smoothie.*  The very one that both makes my children cringe and makes me feel like Batman.  Batman, you ask?  Yeah.  I remember few things about The Dark Knight, but I do remember it being over-hyped, and I remember Mr. Christian Bale shoving spinach into a blender for his daily dose of awesome.  Ergo, I am basically Batman.  ANYWAY.

*Today's green monster:
-1 cup unsweetened chocolate almond milk
-1 tbsp almond butter
-2 cups fresh spinach
-1/2 frozen banana
-1/4 cup frozen blueberries
-1 tsp instant espresso
-3 ice cubes

Yesterday I finished all of the writing part of my first packet for Winter quarter, which is a feat since the quarter started on January 11th (Wednesday) and my packet of 20 pages of creative work and 2-3 critical papers is due on January 16th (this coming Monday).  Um.  Not a lot of time.  So as of yesterday everything is down on paper, and I'm just readin' and revisin', man.  Readin' and revisin'.

Oh, speaking of yesterday, I decided to make good on my threat to start a new campaign for modesty in my classroom.  I put my printer to good use and came up with this little gem:




After printing it I did discover that someone else beat me to the punch. Please enjoy this link.  And before you say but Heather, stretch pants/leggings/lycra/spandex tights ARE pants! I feel compelled to ask you if you are a male ballet dancer who is currently standing onstage dancing Act IV of Swan Lake.  Or if you are currently at mile 21 of a marathon.  When you answer no, I will feel compelled to share with you that the preceding incident which inspired the sign was seeing multiple ladies wearing sheer tights (like NYLON STOCKINGS) to class with only waist-length t-shirts or sweatshirts (that's right, I could see chonies!) in my presence.  I'm not even trying to deal with leggings yet.  But this tights as pants shit has got to stop.

And last night K and I saw The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, which holds the distinction of being probably the only book in the last ten years I couldn't make myself finish.  The movie was really interesting, but boy was it disturbing.  I woke up last night about 2:30 AM from an awful dream, and I'm sure there's a direct correlation.  I quit reading the book because the details of the family lineage were so dry and hard to follow (read: boring) but in the movie that was all fine.  The rape scene just about put me over the edge, though, and I hadn't gotten that far in the book so I didn't know it was coming.  I don't think I could watch it again.  I'm not saying this means it was a bad movie.  It was definitely a good movie. I'm just saying it means I am a Grade A wimp with some anxiety issues.

Anyhoo... this promises to be a busy but fun weekend.  Today I'm going for some hiking (walking? drinking?) with friends and tomorrow I've got family pictures with the big fam and April's birthday dinner.  Monday we're heading to a party for ML's daughter, and then I'm meeting my friend Dorothy from residency for coffee and a little writing chat.

Aaand... CRAP.  I just realized that I left my draft of my short story in my desk drawer at work.  Yeah, the draft with all of the changes I need to make.  Perfect.  Maybe I shouldn't have been quite so smug.  You know what that means.  To the Batmobile!