My Life In Pictures

I guess I forgot to post about Easters.  We went to my mom's for dinner.  Katie and Dave filled eggs and we hid them around the family room for the kids to find.  It was pretty cute.

Dying Easter eggs the night before

Found all the candy the Easter bunny hid around the house

 The home improvement project from hell finally wrapped up.  We pulled all the vinyl flooring and subfloor, removed all the baseboards on the main level, pulled up all of the carpet, painted Josh's room downstairs, painted the main bath, painted the master bedroom and bathroom, did some touch-up painting on other rooms, and had new flooring put into every room on the main floor and the stairs.  Which necessitated moving every bit of furniture and appliance.  I'm very happy with the results and happy we did it.  Now that it's done and I'm not living like a hobo anymore, having to sleep on the couch and use the bathroom downstairs.  My friend Jennifer just did a similar project, and she said that she felt like she was camping.  Yeah, I get that.

Sean and I went to the Bon Jovi concert.  It was way fun.  I loved it.  We had nosebleed seats, but we were dead center.  I think Jon was looking right at me.  I'm sure of it.  I'm glad Sean likes to go to concerts with me.  It's so fun being in a packed stadium with everyone singing along to "Living On a Prayer."  My only complaint is that I read they did 6 more songs in Denver the night before and 2 encores.  Boo.  

Brittney went to Prom Saturday night.  Her friends did her hair.  It turned out really pretty, although in this pic it looks like it's in her eyes.  

 Courtney and I went to a bridal shower for one of her friends on Saturday and then out to her wedding venue to check out a few things.  Still lots of things to do, decisions to make.

We went today and bought potatoes, peas, carrots, beets, radishes, turnips, and parsnips.  Going to plant them tomorrow.

That's about it.  Things have been a little crazy, and I'm looking forward to trying to slow down for a few days.

Things I Have Learned

Things I have learned this week:

• Spring Break is for going to Las Vegas or St. George or somewhere else warm.  That's it.  That is the only acceptable activity.  
• Never do major home remodeling over Spring Break.  If I had it to do over again, I would wait for summer of 2014.  
• If you think your kids will help you with major home remodeling, think again.  Because they will not.  
• I am a laid back person.  I am more much more productive if I have a schedule, but I usually love to just kick back and go with the flow.  Not when my house is torn apart.  I'm anxious and on-edge.  I can't just sit down and read a book or watch a movie or read the newspaper and write scathing letters to the editor in my head.  I can't get any other sort of project done, like go dig in the flower beds or organize the junk drawer, when I have down time.  I can't do anything when I have workers in my house.  Waiting for them to come this morning, I just couldn't do anything but wander around and wait for them to come.  
• I can do hard things, like pull up subfloor, but I don't want to anymore.  I have bruises and cuts all over my body.  I am hoping I regain all of the sensation in my pinky at some point. 
• Flooring guys have a great schedule.  At least mine do.  I called yesterday to ask when I could expect them to show up, and the receptionist said, "He starts his jobs between 9:30 and 12:00."   Why can't my job be like that?  "Mrs. Chamberlain usually teaches sophomore English between 9:30 and noon.  So, you can just be hanging around until she decides to show up."  
• Eating out is fun, unless you are eating out because your kitchen doesn't exist, and you need something quick so you can get back to the job you are doing, and you look like a dusty, filthy hobo so you don't want to go anywhere good. Then eating out is yuck.

Life

So everyone knows that I love Brantley Gilbert, but most don't know that I am indeed a member of the BG Nation, his fan club.  I was thinking the other day that I should totally try to get him to play at prom, you know like Marcia Brady did with Davy Jones, and then I would get to meet him and go to the dance with him and everything.  Maybe he would play at Courtney's wedding??  Oh, hells yes.  He wouldn't be able to sing Dirt Road Anthem, though, because just the very sound of it angers Courtney for some reason.  She likes the Jason Aldean version.  I prefer the BG/Colt Ford version. Mhhmmmm.   I would like to go see him this summer when he comes with Tim McGraw, but not sure if I will.   I knew he was a song writer, but I read the other day that he won't sing anything that he doesn't write, and he only writes about things that he feels like he has experienced. Anyway.  His new song.  I enjoy the song, and I enjoy looking at him.

So I pretty much have the best visiting teacher there is, and I feel bad for everyone who isn't me.  She's my neighbor and friend, so she just generally drops by and brings me cute notepads or cookies.  Last night she brought me a super cute pastel spring-colored insulated travel mug.  She's all... I thought it was really cute and I got one for myself, too.  And I thought... well, huh, I probably shouldn't give out a coffee cup, so I didn't get that for the other lady I visit, but I thought... Shannon will like it.  I didn't know if you even drank coffee, but I figured you could put beer in it.  Ha!!  My visiting teacher brings me a coffee/beer cup.  I don't drink either one of those things, but I told her I'd fill it full of daiquiri. 

I'm excited for the Bon Jovi concert this month. 

We are in the middle of a giant demolition and renovation project at our house.  We are taking out every bit of flooring in the whole upstairs and doing some painting.  The bathrooms are being tiled, laminate wood in the kitchen, dining, family room, halls, carpet in bedrooms and stairs, and probably a little bit of carpet in the family room.  It's a pain, but it will be worth it.  So worth it. 

I feel like such a lame/non-fun mom.  I haven't done anything for Easter.  No decorating, no planning.  We are going to my mom's for dinner.  And the Easter bunny will hide candy.  That's all I know.  The thing is, when I sit down to budget, I think....  Easter has to do with Jesus, not presents and material things, so we don't need to do elaborate gifts or Easter baskets or anything.  But when it gets closer I always feel like I should be doing something more than I do.  If we color eggs and make some sugar cookies, though, I will feel like it's a success.  We'll see. 

 

Song of the Day

Today is the kind of day where I just wish they would stop the ride for a minute and let me off.  I need to catch my breath. 
 

 

March Party

March Party was held yesterday.  March Party is a celebration that we made it through January and February.  It should always be held on the first nice day of March that the partiers are available, and it should consist of outdoor activities.  We went to the batting cages and had Subway for dinner at the park.  It was a beautiful, warm day, but we were busy all day and didn't get to have our fun until afternoon/evening when it started to get chilly.  

Lexi was mad at me for something or other and wouldn't look at the camera.  

It was a fun March Party and a pretty good weekend.  Courtney, Brittney, and I went out to lunch with Curtis' mom and sister, we got bridesmaids dresses bought, did a little shopping at the mall, I read the latest Stephanie Plum novel, Sean and I did the grocery shopping, and Brittney and I went out to Salt Lake for derby practice this morning.  I let Lexi tag along, and she saw the little kids learning to skate and decided that she wants to do that, too.  Trauma, the coach that works with them, is really sweet.  She came over at the end of practice and was asking her if she wanted to skate and telling Lexi that she'll teach her how to fall the right way and how to stop, and Lexi was all over it.  We'll see.  I'm trying to talk Brittney into bouting next Sunday, but she just started practicing again, so she doesn't know if she wants to yet.  

Josh's Eye and Other Gross Stories

OK none of these stories are gross, but I hate writing titles.

I am so stressed out.  I just want to snarf up Easter candy like mad.  Good thing I don't have any in my house.  And with the way I procrastinate, I probably won't until the Saturday before Easter.

Josh had some sort of weird allergic reaction or something today that made his eye swell up almost shut.

I gave him Benadryl, but that didn't seem to help, and it started to look worse.  The doctor said it looks like it started with an allergic reaction and then got infected from him touching it or something.  I hope it feels better tomorrow.

I finished the book that my classes wrote and uploaded it to the publisher today.  I just hope it's not a disaster, because seriously?  That was a lot of work.  Hours and hours and hours.  I'm just waiting for the e-mail saying, "Yeah, this is not going to work.  You're going to have to fix this and that and buy some different software and do another thing... And pay us a bunch more."

When I was doing the book cover, my spell check told me that I had spelled "school" wrong.  It was so weird, because I wasn't spelling it wrong.  Sure made me feel stupid for a minute, though, because I thought I didn't know how to spell school.

I need to come up with a funding source to get some laptops or netbooks for debate next year so we don't have to keep paper files for extemp and foreign extemp.  I think I'll post it on donorschoose.org and then we'll see what else I can do.

We have a district-mandated common core training on literacy across the curriculum the next two Tuesdays for an hour in the morning.  They are having the English department conduct the trainings since literacy is kinda our thing, and they asked me to be one of the trainers.  I only have to present to a group of 15 or 20 faculty-- there are 5 of us doing presentations-- so it's no big deal, except for the fact that most of the "across the curriculum" folks in this equation are going to be annoyed that they are being asked to do "one more thing," even thought it's really not that big a deal.  Hopefully nobody asks me any questions I can't answer or registers a complaint that makes me want to poke them in the eye.

Had an interesting discussion with students the other day.  We were discussing the quote, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."  We were talking about intervening and standing up for someone who is being bullied or picked on, and one girl raised her hand and said that it's not always a good idea to intervene because then the person might start picking on you.  She said that when she started high school, her aunt told her, "Just don't get involved.  If you see stuff going on, just stay out of it."  That's sad to me, and totally the opposite of what I teach my own kids and what I was trying to teach them.  I don't think this little girl saw my viewpoint.  When the topic of bullying comes up, so many people blame the teachers (and administrators), but kids don't do that sort of thing in front of the teachers usually.  We have to somehow teach our kids to take some ownership of the issue and to stand up for one another.  Our school actually doesn't seem to have too much of a problem with bullying and harassment  but I asked the kids to think about what kind of environment they want to go to school in, and then to take action to create that.  I think it went in one ear and out the other.  Oh well.

This week we:

• finished the round of swim lessons.  I think maybe we'll try private lessons next and see how that goes.
• had Pinewood Derby.  Josh won some and lost some, and said he had fun.
• had parent-teacher conferences for Josh and Lexi.  It was good to talk to their teachers, even though I already pretty much knew what they would tell me.
• made campground reservations for Memorial Day.

We've had some beautiful weather the last few days, and hopefully we will get a little bit more the next few days.  I'm ready to get outside a little and poke around in the flower beds.  March Party is scheduled for Monday.  So far the plan is batting cages and either grill or have a picnic.  

Braces

Josh looks like such a big boy with his braces on.  He's had a really miserable time.  His teeth hurt and it's hard to eat and he has to wear a retainer that bugs him along with the braces.  But he's starting to adjust.

Today is a perfect day for a March Party, but Sean has to work right in the middle of the day.  Perhaps a mid-week March party?  Have to check the weather.

I'm having a battle with mommy guilt.  I'm ready to do some new things and pursue some new interests that I know are going to take me away from home quite a bit, and I'm feeling guilty.  And I guess it's not all guilt.  It's also that I like to be home with my family.  I don't want to miss out on time with them.  I've been a mom for 20 years now, and I've always done things that I wanted to do along the way, but for the last 5 years or so I haven't had the energy or the time, and it put too much strain on my family to do anything extra besides work. Now I'm ready to start taking on a challenge again.  I'm really excited to coach debate next year, but I'm worried about how much time it will mean away from my family.  The season runs from September to March and you can have a tournament every weekend if you schedule yourself that heavily.  I am going to try not to do that.  But I will still be gone a lot.  Probably three times a month on Fridays and sometimes Saturdays.  They also asked me to teach CE Speech, which will require some time in meetings and stuff because it's a concurrent enrollment class with the college, so that is something I need to consider whether I want to do.  And then on Thursday my department head came and asked me if I will take over the English 10 Honors.  Our current English 10 Honors teacher does 10th and 11th, and they want to change her to just 11th.  She and the AP teacher are really great teachers, and they collaborate a lot, so I feel like I would have really great support, and it's not a totally new curriculum, just more in depth, so I guess I'll do that.  When it rains, it pours.  I guess.  I'm excited for change and challenge; I just don't want to kill myself next year and put too much hardship on my family.  Hmmmm.....