Four complaints sandwiched by two completely awesome things.

One of them more awesome than the other.

1. So you may know that I'm one of those people who's totally obsessed with those little hotel soaps.  Or if you didn't know that, maybe it's not so hard for you to imagine.  But, like any adorable collection, they were growing out of hand.  So I'm only using my hotel soaps until they're all gone!  Three down, a dozen to go.  The sense of accomplishment I feel about this is outrageous.
2. The radio needs to stop playing that song, "Good Life" by One Republic.  Yeah, you probably couldn't complain that much if your life is just waking up in famous tourist locations having drunkenly traipsed through Europe, making swanky British friends and forgetting about all your lame friends in various US cities.   We all got our stories, and yours is one of freely galavanting all over the world without need for employment.
3. Someone needs to tell charities that in their plethora of gifts to encourage donations, not all women want their return address labels to use Ms. as the title.  Either get it right or don't do it at all.
4. The sixth graders just got done with a social studies unit on the Harlem Renaissance.  They made collages, and they look okay, those who did them, but I still feel no connection from them -- even to this, this most engaging of eras.  No genuine interest.  Just regurgitation, no appreciation that this was real, what was it like to live this, how did it shape today, etc.  If I had found out about the project earlier, I might have made the teacher show a clip of the lindy hop.  Frankie Manning, even.  Maybe I would have explained that I have the Harlem Renaissance to thank for my favorite activity, for a good chunk of my friends, for my Monday (and also now Tuesday) nights.  Would that have sparked them?  I see all these clips and articles about these amazing students who took something and ran with it.  Wrote a crazy awesome poem that changes their own life.  Started a club.  Petitioned a congressman.  These kids, even the best of them, just don't think like that.  It doesn't occur to them to, no matter how many poems we make them write.
5. For the first time in my many three years of doing taxes, we owe money.  I used to get so excited about taxes.  Now I am so sad.  In fact, we're even a little bit in denial about it.  "WHAT'S THAT YOU SAY, TURBOTAX?  THIS CANNOT BE!  LET US TO THE H AND R BLOCK!"  I'm reminding myself it's all just mental games, the money is the same whether they took it out first and it was too much or you fixed it to take out too little so you could buy a house and then it was too little in the end.  But I guess my point is I AM NOW A JADED AMERICAN
6. EXCEPT FOR THIS.  In this, I am an ecstatic American.  I also drive more considerately so as not to be a hypocrite.  As promised, and a repeat if we're friends on facebook.  Which we probably are.  And if we're not, we should be.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks to everyone for your input.  It was heeded.  Obviously.

Two ornaments

Total ornaments: 42
Trips out to get tree lights: 2
Minutes spent analyzing tree lights in stores: 47
Number of products of tree lights bought: 3
Attempts to light tree: 5
Outlets tried: 4
Figuring out it was your extension cord that was faulty the whole time: priceless

In which the Gym Class Heroes do it again.

Holy smokes.  In addition to the still-overwhelming schoolwork, the last twenty days have featured dancing! and ocean! and food! oh my!  Richmond.  Love.  I took the advanced track for classes for the first time ever and I am like, so happy.  Thennn I drove by myself to Ocean City for the MSEA Convention, which did not provide me with nearly as many post-its as I thought it would.  It did, however, provide me with ocean views and docks, lonely hours, strategies which are at turns invigorating or saddeningly unrealistic, several apples, and an absolutely infuriating documentary where I walked out after the first 40 minutes.  My time was better spent pacing the dock just outside the exhibit halls.  Maybe if I feel like getting super angry some time, I'll write a real post just about this alone.  THENNN I've been making food!  We do this thing where our fridge is almost completely bare, and then we'll make lots of food AND have a dinner out and bring home leftovers AND have more ingredients for food in the works.  Man.  I made quinoa!  With cranberries and cinnamon and apples and toasted walnuts!  Who even am I!  In fact, it was my SECOND TIME making quinoa!  I repeat, WHO EVEN AM I.  Another butternut squash and radish leaf soup is coming up, but this time I felt bad about the radishes, so I braised them (?!)!  They were pretty good! 

 

But.  When I haven't been attempting to teach the children or dance or cook, I've been singing this song.  I can't stop listening to this song.  Not since Up have I heard such professions of love and friendship that ring so true in my heart.  I want to live such that this song defines my life.

There's so much I want to point out about it, but I'll leave it at the two lines, "Appreciate every mix tape your friends make/you never know, we come and go like on the interstate."  So sad! beautiful! true!  People, guys.  Connections.  Good friends.  I'm not even going to try to form sentences about how special and important these ideas are.  Every six or eight months or so I get crazy into the idea that I have zero friends and no one but Justin would ever hang out with me.  But then.  But then!  Some way or other I settle back into reality and find and cherish all my people again.  This line epitomizes that simultaneous joy and sadness.

PS.  Gosh.  Embarrassingly enough, when I listen to a song, basically any top 40, a secret part of me listens, like, undercover to see if it has great examples of literary devices and imagines myself playing them to my awesome high school English classes and they think I'm the coolest and they TOTALLY get personification and simile AND metaphor and the difference between the two.  Then I remember where and who I teach and more often than not, something else in the song nixes it for itself anyway.  ANYWAY, this would totally be one of those songs.

PPS.  Simile and metaphor is totally coming up in sixth grade.  Oh snap.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Guys!  Is it me, or is EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD CHANGING.  All kinds of changes!  Here are some things that I can't believe are changing, all at the same time.

1. WEBSITES.  All my favorite places decided to update their look simultaneously*!  The Google suite is lookin' fine (sorry Justin).  Groupon adapted itself to be more visually appealing.  I'm JUST NOW noticing Pandora's change (sorry P, I got hooked on ITunes' Genius mixes for a while!  SORRY), which is gorgeous.  Yes, the new newsfeed on FB is a tad excessive, but may I say I am totally psyched for Timeline.  It's going to be clutch.  Also mad props to PGCPS for finally hiring some sort of marketing/communication/PR/social media/website facelift team!  You guys did an amazing job!  Our new look is completely svelte and sexy without that incredibly goofy foam finger-esque KIDS ARE #1 or whatever.  And good old Citibank!  I know we've had our differences, but your website is finally leaving 1999 territory!  Good for you!!!  
2. MY JOB COMPARED TO PREVIOUS YEARS.  Holy smokes.  Every day when I leave school, I feel like I just got there.  I spend my days coordinating meetings, having meetings, dealing with emergencies, fixing other people's mistakes, and every once in a while, making and fixing my own.  I don't mind the work!  I quite enjoy it!  But I can't do that AND teach children.  Days go by where I didn't go into a single classroom at all.  When people say they need more hours in the day, I think they mean it a little differently than I do.  I don't mind doing the (not-as-urgent) emails, logs, notes, and plans at home (for now); I need the working hours to be longer.  I need children and staff in the building for more hours!  I need everyone all together, available for longer.  Sigh.  It's like I'm the foreman, but I also have to do some of the construction myself alongside everyone else.  Also, you know how all I want to do is manage the fun and success of students?  And how I compulsively volunteer for things when no one else does?  Put those together and imagine how much I want to volunteer to be the still-unfilled chairperson for awards ceremonies, or of something called character education!  IMAGINE HOW MUCH.  The answer is SO MUCH.  But I am not letting myself!  Because that would officially be biting off more than I can proverbially chew.  And I am SO SAD.  Next year, I reassure myself!  Next year I'll have a handle and literally max out the emoluments I can get at one instructional leadership role and two clubs/committees.  One fine day!
3. THE WEATHER.  I think I'll start fasting now to make room for all the apple pies I'm going to make Justin make me.
4. CONFIDENCE.  Gosh.  I've gotten so much more confident in the last year or so, and it's accelerating again!  I am officially not terrified of the Jam Cellar anymore!  I am honing my 'management' skills to be pleasant, helpful, thorough, yet firm and maintain high expectations.  I'm starting to buy more real clothes instead of convincing myself I should stick with that awkward polyester blouse that was a hand-me-down from a stranger via a 50-year-old former housemate.  Not sure how I can verbalize how that ties in with confidence, but trust me, it does.  Relatedly, one of my goals for this school year is to always feel like I look good.  Isn't that odd?  Shouldn't that be a given?  Alas!  I've left the house more often than I care to admit feeling really uncomfortable with what I was wearing, like a middle schooler trying hard to believe she looked okay and not completely stupid.  And then I'd get to school and pass myself in a window or mirror and be like UGH WHY DID I WEAR THIS and it would make me mad all day long.  Well, NO MORE
5. TASTE IN MUSIC.  Fortunately, this isn't 'change' so much as 'expand' which is obviously still change but not one in place of another.  I've started to love jazz outside of swing dancing!  Here's a track I've had on repeat for so long, I finally broke and made a Pandora station out of it.  Oh man.
6. And finally FINISHING TOUCHES.  You'd think I'd be one of those people who made sure everything had an adorable, perfect finishing touch, right?  Every little thing in place?  Ironically, you'd be half wrong!  For my insanely awesome school projects I did up to and including age 18: totally.  For my wedding: yes, absolutely.  In decorating the office at school: not so much!  Crazy and unlike me, huh!  I'm in the process of making sure that everything I do has details to match.  The devil, they say, is in them.  So like the clothes thing above (the devil is in the ... accessories?), or when it comes to home decor, etc.  No more settling for 'good enough'!  There is time and reason to make it shine.

So, here's to changes.  Sometimes, the more things change, the more things... change.

*Weather.com JUST BARELY did not make the cut to be included in 'simultaneously.'  But they still get a shout-out for joining the 21st century layout a few months ago!  Nice work weather.com!

Also, I CAN'T EVEN

RECIPE OMG

Guys, my pride knows no bounds.  I read cooking blogs like there's no tomorrow, but I don't venture out on my own!  But then I did!  And it was outstanding!  With too many radish leaves to compost and a beckoning butternut squash, I googled soup recipes.  Well, first I just googled those two foods together, but got several sites for what to feed your bunny rabbit.  When I added 'soup' to the terms, I got several for radish leaves and several for butternut squash, but none I liked that combined the two!   So I went with the radish leaves one (from Epicurious, from Bon Apetit) and pretended the butternut squash was four russet potatoes and a few other swaps like that.  Here goes, for your cooking pleasure and for my ease of finding again.

Butternut Squash and Radish Leaves Soup

1 butternut squash, peeled, seeded and 1-inch-cubed
bunch of radish leaves, well washed (mine were all the leaves from about 8 radishes)
3 cups chicken stock
1 T butter
1 onion, chopped
2/3 c milk, room temperature
sea salt and freshly ground pepper

1. Melt butter in large saucepan, add onions and sautee until soft, about five minutes.
2. Add radish leaves and heat until wilted, about two minutes.
3. Pour in chicken stock and add squash, simmer until tender.
4. Puree squash and leaves in blender in batches, and temporarily store the puree in a different bowl or pot for a second.  You'll be left with the stock and maybe some onions still simmering in the main pot.
5. Once everything is pureed, add it back in to the main pot; add milk and stir until smooth.
6. Salt and pepper to taste.
7. Serve, or serve with dollops of soft cheese, like that triangle cow Swiss cheese, because life is awesome.

Someday I'll have a real camera and take preposterously good pictures and then my recipe posts will be as sexy as everyone else's.  Until then, IMAGINE WHAT THIS FOOD LOOKS LIKE

It's that time of year! Plus, NRM update!

So the calendar says summer is over, the weather is about to agree (high of 72 is in the ten-day!), and we will finally have a five-day week of school (barring, of course, tornadoes, volcanoes or the black death).  You know what that means!  I love fall as much as anyone else who says her favorite season is fall, but I AM PUMPED FOR CHRISTMAS.  Getting excited too early is par for the course, but it is kicked up a notch this year because it's our first Christmas with a house!  And real neighbors!  And our own appliances!  I am going to combine these three awesome things into one by baking tins of delicious treats for our very welcoming neighbors.  We're going to have a tree!  And real stockings!  AND A DOG OMG

But it isn't even Halloween yet, so I'm going to try to chill my gills over here.  Speaking of which, I literally realized The Greatest Halloween Costumes for Justin and me last year on NOVEMBER 1 (I'm sure you can imagine how mad I was at myself for such horrible timing, but it was a pretty sweet Halloween anyway), so we're just hanging out waiting for the Halloween party invites to come pouring in.  Any day now, that non-water-proof mailbox of ours will be bursting with them, I know it. 

For those of you keeping track at home, we are currently 11 days into another No Restaurant Month.  But!  We like to be neither insane nor lonely, so we make exceptions when we're eating out with friends, like I did with my birthday friend Kathryne the other night at everyone's favorite birthday restaurant, Guardado's!  I could eat their tapas every day and be happy about it.  In fact, I decided to recreate one of them at home, so Justin and I hit up the cheese shop in Wegman's, and, well, we may have spent some money on some cheese.  And!  Justin's been sick this past week, so sick that one day he bought a breakfast sandwich in some kind of woozy haze, completely oblivious to NRM.  Haha, oh well!  AND we're going out with MORE friends on Thursday, so this NRM is a little more lax than last year.  But for just the two of us, we're doing great!  We've had picnics with friends and packed lunches when we knew we'd be out all day, how adorable is that.  I just made this and I'm about to combine these two recipes, who even am I!  Wish us continued luck!

PS - I meant to introduce There Should Be last time.  Sometimes we have good ideas that we're pretty sure don't exist yet.  If they do exist, please let one of us know.  If they don't exist, but you can invent it, PLEASE DO SO.  Here are some more!

You know what there should be?  There should be an app that uses GPSes so precise and so powerful that they can guide you to available street parking.  Can you even imagine driving in DC or any other over-trafficked city?  It would be SO MUCH BETTER.  There should also be a function on cars where your wheels turn 90 degrees and drive perfectly sideways, and those people who are terrified to parallel park need fear no more.  There should also be an app where you take a picture of a dog, and it spits out its breed(s).  Bonus for what percentage of what breeds it is.

See what I mean?  SUCH GOOD IDEAS THAT WE ARE INCAPABLE OF INVENTING :'(  I feel like we should team up with that commercial about getting your idea patented, with the caveman and the guy who invented an off-brand slip-n-slide.

Goodbye summer, toilet seat

Oh man, This Summer.  Everything happened!  I danced with Matt!  I made then gave away lots of bowls, we had lots of friends over, we acquired a companion animal, our cabinets got their doors, I read Hemingway with an eleventh grader, we cleaned and cleaned some more.  Pretty much everything we do now makes me feel more adult!  We got a handheld vacuum!  I bought fabric and hastily made temporary (?) curtains!  I organized my collection of hotel-stolen toiletries and am USING THEM.  I am flossing.  FLOSSING.  WHO EVEN AM I.  I can't even list all the things we accomplished in the last eight weeks.  But, you guys know me.  The things that I'm most proud of, the things that have made me the absolute happiest, were these seemingly tiny changes that vastly improved the quality of my life.  And all I can think now is of being free, being liberated, to fix the things that bothered me on such a miniscule level that it was tempting to forget about them.  But of course!  They all reached a tipping point, I fixed them, and now I am constantly filled with joy.

Ever since setting up the guest bedroom, I hated our own bedroom.  The bed left three awkward feet or so on all sides, and it felt childish and clumsy.  I talked a skeptical Justin into switching walls to leave a big open floor at the foot of our bed, and he eventually humored me, and it instantly made it mature, sleek and friendly!  Score one for the rearranging-furniture-changes-your-life argument.  It just makes so much more sense, even though I am panicking a little about when we upgrade to queen size, complete with bed frame :( .  WILL ALL MY FURNITURE ARRANGING DREAMS BE CRUSHED AGAIN

But this change, this one cannot be undone, even with certain future upgrades.  If you've been to our house, you have certainly seen, if not used, the World's Worst Toilet Seat.  I humbly apologize to everyone for its existence ESPECIALLY if you used it.  If it makes you feel any better, I used it way more than you did, and was furious about it every time.  If you haven't seen it, or if you have and would like a refresher course:  It was one of those cushion ones, except it had a slice in a side from which the yellow (original color I THINK) foam burst out, especially with shower humidity.  The foam was also dysfunctional in one side so that you felt some weird plastic grid in the seat when you sat on it.  The white was starting to fade into a weird bluish (I know) glow (?).  By this point I know you're thinking, Pam, what is wrong with you, that sounds like the grossest thing in the world.  And you would be right.  But you know what else was the grossest thing in the world?  EVERYTHING IN OUR HOUSE UNTIL LIKE THREE WEEKS AGO.  It got lost in the shuffle of the chopped-up five-layer floor, rotting cabinets, marker on the walls, chewed up bathroom door, and the various holes (ranging from scores of nail-size to 4" diameter) in bedroom walls and ceilings.  But ANYWAY.  You also probably know that this whole process is taking eons longer than we imagined, so you may not be surprised to hear that I realized this was one super-gross thing I could fix, so I bought a reclaimed wood toilet seat at 7 am one morning.  It was the best $10 I ever spent.  After some finagling with weird, cheap plastic screws and nuts, I eventually, triumphantly tore the wretched thing out, scrubbed where it was on our pink and teal (no joke) toilet, engineered some parts to fit, and screwed the new shiny seat in.  And I nearly wept with delight.  It is SOLID and REAL and WHITE and CLEAN.  I still look at it admiringly when I pass it by. 

So, another silly event, another life lesson learned.  Let your anger stir you into change.  The longer you're angry, the more time you're wasting that you could be happy.  I was limiting myself and didn't know it; this creativity and possibility with the whole house reminded me just how much power we have to make these minor adjustments that renew us.  Best summer ev-- well, since last summer.

Summer: So far, so good

So you may have heard that, one week ago, we got a dog!  Her name is Bellow, and she is a springer/spaniel mix who will turn two in two days.  We got her from the place I used to volunteer, until I had a run-in with a frustrated, chomp-happy dog who I think got put down for being unadoptable.  But Bellow was anything but!  We actually went to see another dog by the name of Dizzy, who turned out to be interested in anything but us.  Fine, Dizzy!  Be that way!  See if we care!  We also got The Look from this other dog, Wink, who, when outside with us in her interview, cuddled up to us as well as pranced around with a ball.  Interested in toys, the outside world, AND us?  We were sold, and her super soft fur sealed the deal.  Two days later, we went back and got her and renamed her after Justin's favorite author.

We took her home to construction of bookshelves and installation of major kitchen appliances, and she was super psyched even amid all the potentially scary noises.  She ran from person to person, totally frantically happy.  I think she sat or lied down twice that day, and as soon as someone blinked, she was up again.  We were a little concerned for her heart.  But since then!  She has calmed down considerably, except for when we come home, when she wags her tail so hard and falls into you so much that her tail actually whips her snout.  Oh Bellow!  She also doesn't eat very much, which is good for our budget and her extra few pounds for now but we'll probably want to stabilize that in the future.  We think she's learned her name, she knows 'sit,' and kind of 'stay,' and she's definitely housebroken.  In progress: Not pulling us all over creation when we walk her.

here's a pretty typical picture.

When I'm not couchin' with the dog, I'm making glass (!) dishes and throwing (!) bowls!  And also tutoring!  And, you know, dancing.  And eating copious amounts of succotash.  And trying to compost (ha, I almost wrote 'compose.'  I am definitely not trying to compose), but neighborhood animals know we don't get out the the meadow that often and they eat all my carefully saved scraps!  I hate nature.  I bought a compost crate and everything.  I should write a sad paragraph about that.  Anyway.  Here are my things so far!  Maybe I can sell them on Etsy for millions.

that hole was the fault of the person firing it, i guess?  in exchange, they gave me a free class!

group shot of my FIRST attempts at pottery!

For more, see 'sculpture' and 'other'!

Stay tuned for another post later this week, after my life will be forever changed, for I will have danced badly with Matt in Baltimore.

Also: BE MILD and HEARTS.

Not homeless.

So.  We own a house.

Rather, we own 20% of a house, and The Bank from Hell owns the rest of it, and we are paying them in increments to slowly own it.  It is the dirtiest, grimiest thing anyone has ever laid eyes on.  (The two Mexican families that inhabited it now rent ... two doors down, and my pity for them decreases with every piece of gum or bird poop I scrape off of the floor.)  We have way more stuff than we ever imagined, but unpacking takes a back seat to cleaning and remodeling, so that adds a new reality to "living out of boxes."  It is an intricate shuffle between unpacking, cleaning, and moving.  You need to move in order to clean, you should unpack in order to move... it's like that farmer and rowboat problem. 

We adorably realized that the house is to Justin (slash, dudes in general) what the wedding was to me (ladies)!  I am happy and chill, I mean, I know it's super great and all.  But Justin.  Justin!  Justin is thrilled to pieces every moment.  Our roles have even fallen similarly into place!  Justin is in charge of the whole thing in general, and of overseeing most of the aspects, and I have claimed/been delegated certain areas too.  It is the wedding reverse!  Or, reflection!  Also in the same way, we are divvying up fees and charges ("I'll take DJ, you take cake" has turned into "I'll take mortgage, you take bills," "Alright, fine, but you're doing Netflix"), not that it matters.

Now that we're not begging for a single blade of grass anymore -- now that it has all worked out for real -- we can sit back and fume at the whole process even more.  I saw Citibank's mortgage page today, if you don't sign papers when they predict you'll close, they give you $1500!  We would be so rich right now if "Prosperity Mortgage" had employed such a tactic!  We try to minimize our outrage and maximize our joy.  Rar has set to work replacing doors and rewiring plumbing and electricity.  I have set to work cleaning floors, and Justin has set to work mowing his meadow and grilling.  We realize it a little bit more every day -- we have a house!

this land is my land, this land is Justin's land

Another roller coaster week.

Guys.  There were seriously days this past week where the house was not going to happen at all and I had to sit and think about how I was going to break this atrocious news to all of you.  I don't mean, like, Justin and I were preparing for the worst -- I mean that for hours and days at a time, it had legit fallen through.  But by the skin of our teeth, sanity prevailed.  Recently we've had to rush-order a termite treatment and pray like crazy that the rain held out (it did), prove that shelves were not, in fact, load-bearing (they weren't), buy appliances and have them scheduled for delivery on closing day or after (they will be), and get all our friends to come out and help us that day (some are).  (Stay tuned for the world premiere of the Move-In Day 2011 Music Video.)

Rar and a notice to PLEASE cut the grass

Thanks for the windows and doorknobs, Rar!

Drawing I, check!  The last class I basically spent on my portfolio -- ironically, on the other portfolio than the one I spent the rest of the classes drawing for.  Paul was so nice all semester but pretty adamant that we show up, even if we'd already had our portfolio review (I had mine last Thursday.  It went well.).  So I showed up, hung out with my drawing friends, ate cookies and analyzed teaching then drew a super old typewriter just in case he checked up on us.  (It's not that great, so I won't waste your time posting it :/ But my painting final is now up! :) )  I totally loved a few people from drawing, but none of us went through the motions of being facebook friends or getting numbers or anything.  Sigh!  Sometimes it's a relief of reality but also a spark of sadness that you're not even going to pretend to want to read sporadic or constant updates about their vacations and their cousins.  Even though I do want to read those!  I totally do.  Up next, Parks and Rec ceramics. 

Also, in celebration of having finished this gargantuan teaching portfolio, let me take a moment to reflect on my reflections.  I turned a corner at some point with this crazy thing and actually got excited to make it all fancy and thorough.  It's really reminded me that even though there's all kinds of things wrong at that school, there's all kinds of things right too.  It's been an inspiring reminder.  Whenever I've done assignments for it at school (meaning, there's been tons of things I have to do in the classroom before I write about it and submit student work samples for the portfolio), I feel so ... sound.  Doing those things made me feel like such a good teacher.  Sigh!  Someday I'll teach in the right capacity.  Certificate available 7/1!

Today we stopped at an Open Barn.  We drive past this stable all the time and wave to these happy horses who wear coats too far into the year.  The lady was so animal-intuitive!  She talked to us for a solid 45 minutes about her horses.  She said, "I can tell the kind of day you're having by the way my horse reacts when you're on it."  Isn't that incredible!  I know animals know auras and storms and cancer and everything else but to hear such evidence (she provided examples!) was so astounding.  I was astounded! 

I leave you tonight with Braeden's reflections on how he has grown in the subject of reading:

Things

Things I Recently Declared Were Going to Be My New Thing*

1. homemade scrubs
2. pretty mugs
3. jewelry somehow incorporating prior "love" stamps
4. plantains
5. teaching grammar
6. H&M

:)


Things That Inadvertently Became My New Thing**

1. eating like crap
2. last.fm
3. panicking about summer
4. ~5 hour car rides
5. ignoring my students' friend requests on Facebook

:(


*carried out with mild to moderate success
**carried out to an unreasonable degree

A Letter of Gratitude

Dear Future House!,

Thank you for listening to my plea!  Two inspections, two new AA batteries and a handful of angry phone calls later (Future House, it was not our fault no one wanted to light your pilot the first time around), you have come through with ZERO burst pipes!  Thanks and way to go!  Our preparations for you have really begun in earnest now.  Just you wait!  Our tour of Lowe's yesterday opened our eyes to many fun things we could do with you.  It also opened my eyes in dismay that refrigerators with a freezer on the bottom are mysteriously eight times more expensive than top-freezers.  Sigh!!!  So inconvenient!  Why hasn't America realized this!

Anyway Future House, we're prepared to go broke for you.  Please remember the passing grades you got form our inspectors and don't do anything crazy until we can afford it!

Love,
pam.

Things I Discovered Today

1. DiGiorno's Pizza and Cookies.  Two bakeable treats for the price of one (and a half, or so).  Why did I not think of this?!  It's basically a sleepover in a box.
2. Less a discovery than a realization of that thing people say:  A certain group discount at a hotel was all booked, according to its reservation page.  I flipped out with sadness and rage.  Then I chilled out and I called the nice front desk man, asked for the discounted room with its friendly code, which he was more than happy to give!  Ask and you shall receive.  Or, the half-empty interpretation: hotels are sketchy places that charge what they want, when they want; and talking to a human being will probably come in handy.  I'm going to go with the ask and you shall receive one.
3. For a few days now, including today, I am discovering what it's like to have fun teaching.  Awesome moments with the kids pop up more frequently now.  Kids write poems and things at home and then tell me about them and show them to me.  I send happy notes home when someone understands something really well.  I am teaching GRAMMAR with a FOLDABLE and it is the best. 
4. Thanks PGCPS's Education Insight newsletter, I'm pretty aware of the fabulous things that happen in this county's school system.  And there are plenty of fabulous things.  One of them, I knew, was that there are some schools in our simple county that have lots of children in AP classes.  Hooray!, I always thought.  "From 2009 to 2010, PGCPS has increased the number of students participating in AP from 27 percent of seniors enrolled in AP courses to 35 percent," I read today.  Makes sense!  That's so great!  Until.  Until.  "Additionally, 24.6 percent of exams taken in 2009 scored a “3” or higher, and in 2010, that number grew to 26.3 percent."  The article goes on to quote College Board chairpeople who say that PGCPS is on an elite list of under 400 schools nationwide who have increased numbers of kids in AP classes AND increasing scores.  I don't think increasing from 24.6% to 26.3% of kids who were at least BARELY PASSING was what they had in mind.  Something tells me the College Board isn't praising the fact that just under 1 in 4 kids to just over 1 in 4 kids got the equivalent of a C or better.  Those percentages should be describing kids who got 5s.  I mean.  Come on.  If you're going to fail the test miserably, you shouldn't be allowed in the class.  I was on both sides!  I had NO business being in AP Euro, and my score showed it!  Someone kindly tell me, why are we "opening the doors to more children" ... to get 1s and 2s?  AP classes are for kids who can do "college-level work" (loosely defined).  If you bomb at college level work, don't be in college level classes!  Be in the level below: you know, high school.

A discombobulated post

to go with my discombobulated day.  Yes, more discombobulated than usual.

So you know how I'm usually thinking about four or five dumb things and maybe one real thing at any given time?  WELL.  TODAY I was thinking of like eight or ten dumb things along with five or six real things.  My discom is so bobulated, it's not even funny.

Dumb things I was worried about today involved those silly daily errands that stress us all on some level, and today they included attempting to return non-burning Yankee Candles, missing a Rehoboth Beach (!!!) Groupon ( :'( ), mailing out my WARL donations, and eating right.  And scheduling a Lupus Foundation pickup, and finding things to donate to the Lupus Foundation (their emails plea the subject, "We desperately need clothing!" and the first line of the body of their emails proclaims, "We desperately need knick-knacks!").  Why do these "little things" that make up our days cause us so much strife!  Some days, this list gets checked off methodically and productivity reigns supreme.  Some days, even armed with list, you can't get yourself to accomplish things in a reasonable fashion, so you flail from one half-baked worry to another, not getting anything totally right.  Why is that!  Why, I say!

Medium things I worried about involved school.  I was prepared for a lot of things as part of this program: fighting children, absent parents, mean administrators waiting for someone with passion to change a crappy school culture.  I was very much not prepared to correct the teacher as she's teaching because she's teaching something that is incorrect -- on a regular basis.  She cares!  She means very well!  She is learning the ropes!  She is also, unfortunately, very often wrong.  What to do!  It is a sticky situation.  Also, something greater than a medium worry is the rapidly dwindling budget.  I think instructional positions are safe?  I'm not entirely sure?  So.  That is a concern.  I, for one, see great benefits in having, oh, a counselor, assistant principal, and media specialist (librarian, for those of us stuck in the 80s who still say "gym" instead of "physical education" (I, for one)).  Another (greater than) medium worry is this monster portfolio we have to put together.  I started last weekend, due in June.  I know.  But still.  It's a lot.

Real things I worried about were, I don't know, FINDING A PLACE TO LIVE.  Our time has come!  We can't handle this silly old shared house anymore.  We've been at our breaking point for a long time (it's a SHARED HOUSE) and we recently got a kick in the pants to move.  Places, money, failed appointments... wish us luck in this long and confusing process.  We accept wisdom but only realistic wisdom please (unless you are attaching $$$ to that unrealistic wisdom (eg, "You should live in Bethesda!")).

In a vague attempt to make reading this post worth your while, here is a recipe for a scrub that I wrote!  Making scrubs is my new thing.  I got totally obsessed the last time I had a day off.  I made a bunch from different sources (sketchy no-name websites to Whole Living!) and combined aspects from several to make my favorite!  Here you go.

1 c. brown sugar
1 T  ground oatmeal
1 tsp honey
1/4 c oil (I like almond oil!  I AM SO FANCY)
1/2 tsp vanilla

Mix with a fork, pour into one of those glass jars you're always saving but you don't know why.  Rub on and rinse off in the shower!  Or just your hands at the sink.  I'm not really sure yet how real people use them.  All I know is once you massage it in, it's like you're scratching a deep itch that you never knew you had.  Mmm.

2010, 2011

Accomplishments of Varying Import and Gravitas

1. Survived Snowpacolypse '10.
2. Integrated into a new and crazy elementary school.
3. Um, planned a wedding.  A phenomenal one, if I do say so myself.
   
4. Finished my first year of teaching!
   
5. Got married to the love of my life; celebrated with many of those nearest and dearest to us.
   
6. Rode horses!
7. Climbed the Billy Goat Trail!
8. Had my name thoroughly misunderstood the same way by several completely independent people (get this -- "Tambal").
9. SAN FRANCISCO.
10. Sent our first batch of homemade, married couple Christmas cards!
11. Hugged, a lot.
    

Resolutions.  Goals, more like.  You know the drill.

1. Greenhouse.  Duh.  (UPDATE:  Talked to Frank at Janco Greenhouses today!  He is very nice and wants me to send pictures to avoid the estimate fee!  That is the first thing I will do when I set foot back at school!  I am MORE EXCITED THAN I CAN SAY)
2. Moisturize.  I hear that's kind of a big deal.  Especially in winter.  Justin doesn't understand why I just spent $9 (with a coupon!) on a bottle of moisturizer with SPF 15 -- and it's not even the face-only kind that I probably should have gotten! -- but he'll be fine.
   
3. Dude.  (Try to) buy more organic.  Or at least, grass-fed/reasonable conditions type of food.  I always made fun of those hoity-toity types but we just watched Food Inc. and it was pretty ridiculous.  Something simple but profound that they said (at the end, which attempted to be uplifting) was that every time an item is scanned at the grocery store, it's a vote to keep that item on the shelves.  Hm.  Yes.  Yes it is.  I remain blown away by this silly fact.  There was this whole thing about corn being subsidized by the government, and some form of corn is in 2/3 of all items ever, and that's why junk food is so cheap and healthy food is so expensive and it was super dumb.  What a dumb idea.  Also it turns out everyone in the FDA used to work for the very corporations they're supposed to regulate.  Again, crazy dumb.  They are so dumb, they are really dumb, for real.  Sigh.  Anyway!  All that to say, not to be a health freak, but try to buy more organic.  Also, warn Mint that we're about to buy more organic.  Oops.

2011: Bring it.

Wrapping up eating in

Friends, let me share with you the much-anticipated results of our restaurant-less August.  At the end of the day (month), we learned more about ourselves and about each other than we did about new recipes.  I am going to be more forgiving of changed minds slash less disappointed, more cheerleader; he is going to be more steadfast in seeing through the things he says.  We are going to meet each other halfway.  Once we straightened out our emotional growth, we crunched the numbers: adding up our respective Food and Dining categories from Mint over the past six months proved that indeed, August featured the lowest total.  Data, however, rarely stops at confirming your hypothesis.  You frequently get some bonus findings that you didn't necessarily set out to demonstrate.  For example, this is our ACTUAL graph of combined totals:

we are extremely silly

Oh my goodness gracious.  Our predictability is astounding and ridiculous.  This graph accurately represents the bipolar swings of eating out four times a week (hey, weekends necessitate a LOT of meals; Money doesn't MATTER, it's there to SPEND; Who cares if you order a $3 Coke, it raises your enjoyment WAY MORE; Go ahead Pam, you know you want that sundae), then sheepishly facing Mint and its EXCEEDED BUDGET wrath (uh, let's, uh, cut back a little; Hey look at that, we're doing a great job of finishing groceries and leftovers; Water, please; Don't you have chocolate covered raisins at home?), then feeling a) triumphant at our willpower to spend less than the previous month and b) entitled to lots of restaurants as a reward.  As you can see, it is a cycle that goes back AT LEAST the last six months.  We are extremely silly.

BILLY GOAT TRAIL: CONQUERED

I maintain that my eyes make this picture EVEN MORE awesome

GUYS: I DID NOT DIE.  You can probably fathom the triumph I am feeling, but I cannot.  If you're one of those people who runs marathons or other great feats of physical (and/or mental) demand, you understand.  If you're not, well, then you probably still understand.  I am feeling REALLY, REALLY victorious.  Look at this thing!  As explained by my friend and yours, Wikipedia:

The Billy Goat Trail (also written as Billygoat Trail) is a 4.7-mile (7.6 km) hiking trail that follows a path between the C&O Canal and the Potomac River within the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park near Great Falls in Montgomery County, Maryland. The trail has three sections: Section A, the northernmost, is 1.7 miles (2.7 km); Section B is 1.4 miles (2.3 km); and Section C, the southernmost, is 1.6 miles (2.6 km).

Section A of the trail, by far the most popular, is on Bear Island and traverses rough and rocky terrain, including a steep climb along a cliff face along the Potomac River's Mather Gorge. At another point MOST POINTS in the trail, hikers are required to scramble over and around huge boulders. [edit mine]

So I alluded in posts past about how unwilling -- nay, terrified -- I was of this.  It was a lot like going on my first roller coaster: Dave my junior year physics partner "made" me go on -- and front row of the Superman, at that -- and I informed him the whole 45-minute wait that I very much did not want to do this, I couldn't believe I was still in line, and I was going to murder him when we got off.  Not only did I survive, but I was instantaneously obsessed with roller coasters and demanded to know where they had been my whole life.  Sorry, Dave.

me, trying to keep up with Chuck Norris

Much the same with this trail.  I was so averse, partly because I knew in advance that this was for Highly Skilled Hikers, partly because hiking can sometimes be just a really annoying, steep walk filled with branches in your way and bugs in your face (rendering this an annoying and dangerous steep walk filled with branches in your way bugs in your face), and partly because I didn't want to not look awesome in front of John and Kathryne.  Kathryne spent several emails reassuring me, and I accepted the fact and even got myself psyched up for it.  The morning came, I filled 4 water bottles ranging from normal to huge, packed a bag of pretzels and an apple just in case, and off we went.

I'm not sure how or when, but somewhere along the line, I decided to dominate.  I mean, own the trail.  At least compared to my previous, silently-whiny self from pre-hike.  There were boulders 94% of the way, and I hopped all over them.  I climbed and crawled and was light on the balls of my feet and didn't overthink it.  And it really is a metaphor for a lot of things - once you start thinking about it, you freak yourself out.  And then a bunch 10-year-olds scamper past you, hardly looking where they're going, much less agonizing over every step, and you wonder what their secret is.  Oh, yeah.  Don't think about it, trust your body.  Kids do that innately, adults learn too much and forget it.  I did things I never in a million years would have thought I could handle.

Kathryne and me showing some rocks who's boss

If someone had come up to me pre-hike and said, "Pam, your limit is somewhere above you hurtling yourself over enormous boulders and to the edge of rocky cliffs hundreds of feet raging rivers with nothing to stop you from plummeting to your doom save your own self," I would have said, "What are you smoking, my limit is definitely like fifteen miles below that."  But it turns out that person, had that person said that, would have been right.  We saw awesome sights and lots of friendly people and also a choking lady whom John saved.  I also totally lost my footing at some point past halfway and sent my shin and forearm straight into rock-edges, which unfortunately messed with my head way more than it messed with my limbs.  I stepped way more conservatively after that and cursed myself for realizing all those awesome things and then losing them to this mental block because of my fall.  But, as Chuck Norris said, it's not a hike if you don't fall.  But even so, even so!  Those lessons stay with me, and my triumph has stayed with me even more strongly than my bruise.  How inspiring, energizing and motivating to start the school year!  Let it inspire, energize, and motivate you too.  Go out and do that thing you do.

you can't tell, but we're REALLY high up in this picture

So, about these things that I said would happen

Several of them have happened, or are happening, but several others are too lame to warrant updates.  Here is a convenient numbered list:

1. Yoga:  HAPPENING.  I did it the quick and dirty way, especially after post-room-painting yoga turned out to be very much not yoga.  I got a 7-day pass from the gym that would get me into the last two daytime yoga classes before school started and went to my first one on Tuesday.   I was every bit the super lame new kid who had to piece together shredded and bacteria-ridden mats from the communal mat-cage featured in the studio, so that was kind of sad and gross. The nice Indian man that led it went at an almost grueling pace filled with way more core-exploding asanas that resembled my arch nemesis, the nearly-impossible Pilates, than I had remembered yoga entailing.  But he was super great, and included in his instructions every so often "...and smile."  For some reason that detail made everything part holistic healing and exercise, part photo shoot.  He also led us through a meditation at the end where we were butterflies, landing on flowers, feeling breezes on our wings, then eventually flying into the Bally's down the street from our flower.  I loved him.  Good thing there's a Modell's next door to my butterfly's Bally's, so that I could purchase a real, live yoga mat for future butterfly impersonations.  I Netflix-streamed yoga videos video until Friday, my second free class, for which I came fully prepared.  Unfortunately, this class too started out on an awkward, unpleasant note: a woman towards the back announced that she wanted to be able to see the instructor.  We all do, honey, and you can't really claim that if you put yourself in the back row.  But in any case, the upshot of all this is that I am well on my way to being a master yogi. 
2. Not Dining Out: HAPPENING BEGRUDGINGLY; MAY NOT BE HAPPENING SOON.  Some of us have truly enjoyed making new delicious meals.  But others of us have underestimated how much we rely on the going-out-to-eat process to break up our evenings and indeed, the drudgery of our weeks.  Some of us happen to see this less as a fun teambuilding exercise of awesome challenge and opportunity for creativity and more as a dire punishment that inspires sadness and anger.  As of right now, we've held to our word, but I am pretty sure restaurants will get the best of us in the very near future.
3. What Are the Haps, My Friends: NOT HAPPENING IN COOL WAYS.  Our last two weekends have involved 24 hours in Chicago and 36 hours in Leesburg, VA.  Blog-worthy haps on the imminent horizon include searching for a late summer county fair, going to a shooting range and hiking the Billy Goat Trail.  I might, however, die on at least two of these haps, so farewell, dear readers.
4. Finishing My Peace Book:  HAPPENED.  I also emailed the author my aforementioned concerns about peace and motivation, peace (with) sadness, and being so thoroughly into peace that you can't any more relate to the humans you hang out with, so much that anything that happens or doesn't happen is fine, so much that you can marry pretty much anyone and it'll be great.  His email back to me shall be in two parts!  He is very nice, and his name is Bear.
5. Thank-You Notes: ALMOST DONE HAPPENING.  Wooooooo

To balance those out, here are things that I didn't think would happen, but did:

1. I am now signed up for community college art classes!  Well, class; I have to cancel the one that my teaching class conflicts with, once I get that schedule.  But isn't that exciting!  It was much more exciting when I finally wrangled the in-county tuition rather than the out-of-state tuition.  You should have seen what I brought in my folder of marriage and name-changing goodness: the real certificate, copies of the certificate, lease, a bank statement printout and a credit card bill, half-filled out forms about my passport, and the receipt that I applied for a new social security card.  Now.  If all those things had my name and address on them, would you believe that I lived at that address?  Well, let me tell you, the good people at PGCC did NOT believe it!  None of those things fell on their accepted-proof list, even though 1/8 of that was good enough for the DMV, and put together, I am pretty sure they more than convince that I do, in fact, live in Prince George's County.  "No, we don't accept those, anyone can get a license," I was told.  Hmph!  Trust me, I am ALL FOR following the rules, but it was getting to the point where I don't own the things she needed to see: a lease with a seal (?!) listing every month (?!!) that I have lived there, car registrations, a dated passport application.  It was only by not leaving the counter that she changed it in the system.  Let that be a lesson to you all.  Stand up against ridiculousness. 
2. Seasons 1-2.5 of Dexter.  Oh man.  I have to cover my eyes for 20% of the show, and even still sometimes it gives me nightmares, but he is SO NICE!!! 
3. This.  And I feel like I'm late to an awesome party, but not fashionably late, you-were-doing-something-more-awesome late.  It's the kind of party that knows it's SO AWESOME that nothing you were doing could possibly compete with it, and once you get there, everyone just kind of feels sorry for you that you were missing from it for THAT LONG.
4. I have also watched this over and over.  I love it and don't understand why it hasn't gone viral.