haiku

Winter break is over. Today was day one back to work...it was a little painful. Just the waking up at 5.30 part. Here's how it went down:

7.30: Cafeteria duty...I have to herd children, make them sit down (one person per chair!!!), and then dismiss them by row. See, this seems doable, easy even. Really, though, it's not. I'm actually supposed to have duty in the hallway, but every week that I'm scheduled for duty there is either rain for 5 days straight or freezing cold temperatures. Therefore, no kids can go outside so we hold them hostage in the cafeteria. Therefore, my hallway duty which consists of me standing and saying good morning to kids changes to the herding children thing. It's PAINFUL. I can't quite express it. A few months ago, I had all the kids sitting, amazingly, and then it was time to go to class so I just told them to go. Another teacher blew a whistle at me. BLEW a whistle at me. I laughed, threw my hands up, and said some stuff out loud that I probably shouldn't. I mean, a whistle? Really? Why didn't I know to release them by rows??? Because I have hallway duty on a regular basis, not cafeteria! Sheesh! So yea, a week of cafeteria duty because it feels like Alaska rather than South Carolina outside...so I hope I survive until Friday.

8:00: 6th grade: Interesting morning. The kids swear they've never heard the word "haiku" and laughed and laughed when I said it. They kept saying, "Say that word again!" like little kids but they're 11, right? Haiku, haiku, haiku. Weird. Then we brainstormed topics for poetry, and I told them to let the ideas marinate for a couple days, which led to a serious discussion of how to prepare the perfect BBQ. Never heard of a haiku, but know all about how to prepare meat for grilling.

Haikus are so fun.
Fun like eating barbeque.
Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum.

9:30-end of day: survival. 

Jackhammer

This morning, I went for a run with my sister. We are training for a little half marathon. Today was an 11 mile run. The whole run we chatted about silly things, mainly focusing on what we were doing the rest of the day (sleeping!) and what kinds of amazing food we were going to eat since we ran 11 miles. We're relatively slow so this venture took 2 hours which is fine and dandy with us. In my neighborhood, it's really hard to find 11 miles that aren't up and down the steepest hills ever. So we choose to repeat quite a few loops that have moderate hills. This makes us run by my house multiple times during the run (which is really hard because all I ever want to do is flop down the driveway and fall onto the couch). Here's where the story turns to jackhammers. 

Yesterday Will tells me that he wants to dig a hole in the backyard to make a pond. This is because he's also getting a bee hive in April, and these bees need a source of water. Mmmhmmm. I'm trying to be very quiet and very supportive of this bee idea. It would be lovely to have honey from the backyard, right? Right. So we talked about this pond yesterday, and he was telling me what it would look like. In my head I'm picturing a kidney bean shaped hole in the ground, kind of just out there in the middle of the yard. I'm picturing the dogs falling in, me falling in, sticks falling, etc. Oh, and I remember being a kid and trying to dig a hole in my backyard to make a pool. Granted Will is smarter than I was at age 7 but still... At this point though, I'm still in the whatever-you-want mode but start to (strategically) think out loud about how we could make the patio (which is just this slab surrounded by brick) bigger and have it extend out so that the pond is almost a part of this nice patio/deck off the back of the house. This immediately makes the gears start turning in his head and I secretly high five myself for having such a fabulous idea. So on to the jackhammer. 

Mid run this morning we pass by the house and I hear this whirring sound like a saw and I tell my sis, "Hey, hear that? That's Will tearing up the patio!" (Originally, his plan was to get some kind of saw that would hack through the cement.)When we ran by we saw the table and chairs out in the yard, and I high fived myself again. Then what felt like a gazillion miles later we came back to my house and Will and his saw were not there. The dogs seemed in a panic so I'm imagining that he had a stomping scene back to Home Depot with a faulty saw or something. Moments later I hear him return and with him, a jackhammer. Apparently the saw (no idea what kind) wasn't working so now we have this:

 

and a whole lot of noise. One of the things I talked with my sis about while running was how I was going to come home and get back in the bed and try to forget the running torture. Well, let's just say I've had to come up with a new plan for the day. There's no sleeping here or probably in the entire neighborhood. Quote of the day from Will, "Cement's hard!" and then he asked me to make him a sandwich. Lovely!

Not a Resolution Revolution

Blogging...REblogging. It's not a January 1st type of resolution or anything, just a new plan to revive the old blog. In the last couple of months (and in an attempt to find things other than facebook to check on the interweb), I've been reading more blogs. I gave the old blog a little face lift. We'll see how this goes.

excuse me m'am

so today at the gym...

i didn't get there until like 7 because i had to take a nap first. number one sign of being old. when i did get there, every good elliptical machine was taken. so i got on one that i hate because it's not smooth and it makes me move in an awkward way, nothing like running. so i kinda just stood on it for a minute. then saw this girl, who was MAYBE 23, only like 4 years younger. Okay, maybe she was 21, but still she was in her 20's at least. so this girl in her 20's is getting off one of the good ellipticals, so i look over and say "are you finished?" her response??? "yes m'am."

m'am.


m'am?


now i work in a school so kids call me m'am all the time because their mama's taught them that was right, but they're like anywhere from 11-14 so i can deal with being a m'am. but a 20-something calling me, another 20-something, m'am...

it's just too much.

ohmygodit'sbeenforever

yesterday i added a new street to my running route in an attempt to run longer distances. here's what i noticed and was slightly astounded by...streets have smells that we become accustomed to and don't notice. on my normal run, there are some smells. there's the corner of nottingham and massengale (yep, massengale...) that smells like poop because of the sewer cap, there's the park portion of my run that smells dusty from the four baseball diamonds, there's northman that smells like fertilizer. these are smells i never thought about really, i came to expect them i guess. so yesterday i added the new road, lewisham, and the smells on it were fabulous. i actually paid attention and then had a little reflection and realized my other streets had smells too and decided lewisham's smells were much better than the usual dusty fertilizer poop smell of the rest of my route. lewisham had this piney eucalyptus fresh cut grass smell. totally refreshing.

Oatmeal.

I have a new love. Oatmeal.

When I was a kid, my parents never forced me to eat it like lots of Moms and Dads because they don't like oatmeal either, though my Dad tries to eat it for his heart health, but gives up after a couple days. We ate grits instead, which I really doubt have any nutritional value. I'll have to google that.

So my whole 26, almost 27 years, I've avoided oatmeal. I got a health screening a month or so ago and fortunately all my OCD gym attendance/food choices have paid off over the years and I'm in tip top shape in terms of cholesterol and blood pressure and such, whew! But the heart issues run in my family and we are all quickly getting old if you guys hadn't noticed, and so ALAS! I turn to oatmeal to lower my already fairly low LDL cholesterol. So for three days, I ate two bites of oatmeal and then dumped the bowl. BUT on day 4, I had a breakthrough. I started to mask my oatmeal intake by covering it with Kashi cereal, the yummy honey almond flax kind, and so that gave it crunch. Then, I removed that element and turned to cinnamon and sugar, which I can handle now. And today I added raisins. It was actually good and I ate the whole 3/4 cup which apparently is what you're supposed to eat. It took me a week to get to this point. What this means is that when I actually am OLD and actually do have terrible cholesterol from being old and the doctor suggests eating oatmeal, I'll be ready. No worries.

So here's my poll: How do you take your oatmeal?

This is similar to the how do you take your coffee question so if you'd like to throw that in there, feel free. I take mine with a splash of fat free hazelnut creamer in case you were wondering.



On a completely random note...have I been the only one in the dark about google scholar? googlescholar.com. wow.

My dog

IS A MORON!

In January, she graduated from living in her pin during the day. She's a whole year so you know, we thought her brain had grown a little. Not!

Last week, she lost all of her senses and started eating things that do not belong to her. She's been the best puppy...the best, but now is a moron.

Last Friday, I noticed she'd eaten a nice neat square out of the quilt on the bed, the really nice nautica quilt that was a wedding gift. Yea, I wanted to kill her.

Then yesterday, we noticed she ate a nice neat circle out of the couch. Not our lounging laying around couch, but the nice one in the living room that we never sit on b/c the big TV isn't in there couch. Arg!

She also succeeded in eating Daisy's bed AGAIN. She's a little monster.

Needless to say, her pin is back out and that is where she spends her days now. Moron.