It’s aliveeeeeeee

I swear, I promise I haven’t died, I haven’t lost my limbs or my mind (fully, anyway) or anything like that.  Life just went kind of bonkers after our anniversary.  August is usually a little chaotic, but this August just exploded.  Nothing hopelessly horrible, but super busy.  On top of it, this August was one of the hottest on record for Baltimore, so when I wasn’t super busy it was too hot to do anything but sit almost perfectly still to avoid sweltering.

I did turn 30 on August 8th.  Yay me!  I didn’t have like a crisis or breakdown or anything crazy.  My mother did, for some reason, but for me, it’s just another year, it’s not life altering or causing me to re-evaluate my life and my choices or anything like that.  I’m typically pretty content and switching to another decade wasn’t going to magically change that.

The day itself was nice.  It was super rainy, which it always is on my birthday for some reason and still achingly hot. So I spent most of the day indoors.  Devon made me full rack BBQ ribs for dinner (because he knows his lady loves her BBQ) and a pretty chocolate cake (because he also knows his lady loves her some chocolate).  OMG and he got me the ice cream maker attachment for our KitchenAid Mixer and….OMMMMGGGGGGG…..it’s amazing.  I love it.  I’ve used it like 5 times already.  Best gift ever.

New George Foreman!

So Devon and I were gifted a new George Foreman grill for the house.  One these big ol’ babies here:

                       photocred: Macys.com

It even has the removable plates for easier cleaning.

I have no idea where it’s going.  Probably in a closet for most of the time.  I can’t wait to eventually have a bigger kitchen so I can leave stuff out.

But we’re so excited.  I used to have one of these several years ago and it was so hard to use and clean that I got rid of it. It looks like they’ve done a lot of improvements to make it easier to use and clean.

I think I might experiment/play with it this weekend.  We have friends coming over Saturday night (which means we usually get carry out) but I might try some chicken thighs in there on Sunday night and see if the performance has actually improved from the older models.

I love new toys.  🙂

Sick

For some reason I never realized how sick you can start to feel by not eating enough.

During the summer, I ate pretty steadily throughout the day, or I grazed, if you prefer.  I munched here and there all day.

I got back to school and my eating habits dropped, a lot.  I was super busy and running around again so much that my first real meal of the day might not have been until dinner.  I would munch here and there, but it was never really anything hearty or really a full meal.  Especially once the kids came back and I’m pretty much just a revolving door of student check-ins and introductions of new transfer students, and college check-ins, etc.  I barely gave myself time to eat.

Typical life of a school counselor.

But, my body wasn’t used to it.  Last Thursday I felt a little weird in my stomach after only managing to eat half my granola bar.  My stomach was grumbling and gurgling and I almost felt like I had heartburn or indigestion or something.  I managed to have part of a banana later which calmed it down, but (of course me being weird with stomach issues) that was all I ate until a few hours later to be “on the safe side”.

Friday was the best my stomach felt in all of this and, I later realized, the only day I ate “normally”. I had a decent breakfast, actually stopped to eat lunch and had dinner.

Saturday, again, I didn’t really eat until dinner.  I had a cinnamon roll around 11am, then had to take my cat to the vet and run other errands, so I didn’t eat again until dinner.  Dinner was a spicy baked pasta.

Big. Mistake.

Before I went to bed, I had a little heartburn and indigestion.  I took stomach meds and eventually went to bed when it felt like it was calming down.

Sunday morning, I woke up miserable.   I couldn’t tell if I nauseated or had the worst indigestion ever.  I had heartburn so bad I could barely breathe and I just felt like hell.

Obviously, I again, didn’t eat anything.  Mainly because I assumed if I put anything in my mouth I would immediately throw it up.

I mention to Devon that I feel like my insides want to explode.  He half-jokingly responds with, “clearly your stomach isn’t appreciating being back in school”.  But I’m eating less than I was before, by a lot, sometimes.   Then he gets all science teacher on me, “then that actually makes sense because the acid in your stomach isn’t getting as much to neutralize it as it did before so it’s just sort of churning around and making you feel sick…and likely only having what we had for dinner last night as your main form of food yesterday unlikely helped” (or something like that).

Because he just HAS to make sense all the time.  Damnit.

I did feel better on Thursday once I ate more.  Once I finally ate some bland food (after another hit of stomach meds; I was taking no chances here) I actually did feel better.

I also think there might have been some dehydration happening, too.  Because I was super thirsty on Saturday.  No matter how much I drank I wanted more.

I’m a mess sometimes.  I feel better now, though.  I ate normally yesterday and my stomach felt so much better.

I also don’t like when Devon is right and knows what’s wrong with me.  I mean, I do, because I’m a hypochondriac (which he knows all too well) and more often than not his logical and scientific explanations calm my crazy self.  But I don’t need him knowing he’s right so much.  That’s just un-American.

ITS FRIDAY!!

You know that moment where you just want to celebrate that it’s Friday.  But it’s only Friday morning, so you really shouldn’t celebrate yet because who knows what the hell will happen during the day, but who cares it Friday?

All about that life right now.

This first week has been insane.  My co-counselor and I have been so busy this week; which isn’t really a bad thing.  It’s not a bunch of kids freaking out; we’re just checking in from summer and meeting new students, but dear god.  Between the two of us, at one point yesterday, we each had a student in our offices and three in the waiting room.  We’ve been pretty much going non-stop since Tuesday.

It’s been really nice to catch up with some of my girls and see what they did over the summer and just checking in on their lives.  It’s also nice to not be new in a school this year, so coming back I know a lot of my students already, so while I’m introducing myself to some of the juniors who weren’t really aware that I existed (because I have 11th and 12th grade and my co-counselor has 9th and 10th grade), I don’t really have to “sell” myself so much to my whole population.  It’s nice.

Oh and because I suck at segues (or transitions for all of you not musically inclined), Devon and I bought an elliptical machine yesterday.

It’s not a huge fancy one because we don’t have room for that, but it’s a nice compact one that had great reviews on all the websites I saw.  I’ve been observing our eating habits lately, and while they have improved a lot over the past couple months, we’re still not as mobile as we need to be.  Neither of us are people that will go outside of our home to a gym to exercise, so we need to get something in the house.  My first idea was a treadmill because I’m not one to get a lot of fancy equipment, I usually just walk as my form of exercise.  I’m not into weight training or sculpting or anything like that.  I just want to drop a few more pounds and firm up and stay that way.  Devon suggested an elliptical because it’s easier on the joints (and considering I’m the one with a bad knee, probably a good idea).

There’s a nice space in our living room that it will fit in perfectly.  While a piece of exercise equipment isn’t beautiful, if it’s in our bedroom or the office, it’s likelihood of getting used is pretty slim.  In the living room, it’ll be used more consistently. And it does have wheels so we can always wheel it into our room if friends come over and we need the room.

I just got another one of those almost dancing in my chair moments remembering that it’s Friday.

Okay, I have meetings this morning and more kids to see this afternoon, so I need to calm the hell down.

BUT IT’S FRIDAY!

Okay….I’m good now.

I think……

No more Faculty Meetings, please?

All of my readers who are educators understand when I say that I’m so happy this is the last day of work this week.

The first week for faculty is almost always so much more tiring than the actual first week of school.

At least with the first week of school, I get to see the kids, see how their summer was, get back into my routine, etc.

This week?

I’m spending 5 hours a day in faculty meetings and trainings (half of which don’t even apply to me because I’m not a teacher but I’m required to go anyway).

This cat is my life right now:

We all walked in at 9am on Monday and went straight into a 3 hour faculty meeting on updates and changes for this year. Our principal had to take an “unplanned” break around 10:30 for 10 minutes because it looked like most of us were falling asleep.  We were.  It’s not the most exciting material anyway and it’s hot as hell in our faculty room, so a lot of us looked dazed.

Then yesterday, we have an hours long in-service on our new fully electronic grading and portal system.  The person “teaching” it to us was doing it over a conference call while our Registrar was doing the actions she was saying on the projector.  I…like…can’t.  I don’t even grade things!!  I don’t need to know where you go to calculate the mean of an assignment or where to put comments and things, it doesn’t apply to me.  We never even got to the portal because so many people were so confused by the grading system.  The portal is really the only thing that would have interested me.

I left that meeting a little over two hours in.  I left my stuff on the table to make it look like I was coming back.  But I went to my office and laid out on our couch that we have in the waiting area.  Our secretary, Donna, laughed at me.  She’s like, “you look like someone’s been forcing your eyes open for the past hour”.

Kinda.

It was so painful.

But today is the last day of our week this week.  I work for a Catholic school so the majority of the faculty is going to Convocation this morning (which is essentially a three hour prayer service and where they hand out the awards to those that have been employed for, ya know, 10 years, 20 years, etc).  I’m not going.  I still have too much to do because I have sat through so many meetings.  My co-counselor isn’t going either.  So we’re going in and working this morning and heading out when we’re done.

Devon and I decided we’re celebrating our survival of faculty week.  He says last night, “I’ll let you decide; do we go out to dinner or do breakfast for dinner?”  I’m like….both?  There is tomorrow night, too!

So we’re going out to dinner tonight and going to see a movie.  Pancakes for dinner tomorrow night?  Yes, please!

But for now?  Bulletin board decorating and scheduling!!

Yay!!!

My Birthday = Unofficial End to Summer

I turned 29 this past weekend!!!  YAY!!!!!

Depending on who you are this is either my last fun birthday ever or the first awesome birthday I will ever have.

I have the friends that feel that turning 30 is the end of all life and friends who have said that turning 30 has been the best thing ever.  Turning 30 next year doesn’t bother me. I’m not a “party girl” and never have been so I don’t feel like turning 30 is like the end of my life or anything the way some do.  I’m very happy in my life the way it is, I don’t see that changing just because my numerical age changes.

On the other hand, I love my birthday gift, though.

I have an unnatural love of Alfred Hitchcock movies.  And to get my favorites in one collection made me giddy.

I’m randomly nerdy.  Get over it.

But now that my birthday has passed, it also means school is coming.  This is my (and Devon’s) last week of summer vacation.  We both have to go back to work next Monday and our students come back on the 24th.

I have sooooo much to do already.  It’s insane.  Part of me feels like I should go in one day this week but….vacation, no. And I was there two days last week.

But I have about 15 things on my to-do list in addition to the numerous professional development meetings I have to go to next week.  It will be long.

I want to do some shopping this week.  It’s tax-free week in Maryland and I got a ton of birthday offers so I want to try and use some of them and take advantage of no sales tax at the same time.  Devon and I are going to head up to Towson Town Mall on Friday. Back in the day when we both lived like 15 minutes from it, it wasn’t that big of a deal.  Now that we’re almost an hour away, it actually requires planning on our part to go up there.  So, we’ll go up there, see some of Devon’s ex co-workers (he worked at the Macys there for like five years after college/while he was getting his Masters), I’ll get my hair trimmed, do some shopping, and just make a day of it. It’s like our summer swan song.

That’s depressing.

Again, I do love my job, but it’s been nice to just kind of hang out for the past few weeks and not have to be up and running somewhere all the time.

It’s going to be a good school year for my school, though.  A lot of changes were made (good changes) and we are packed with events and guests coming to our school this year.  So I am going to be immensely busy, really soon.

I think I need to enjoy this last week of relaxation as much as possible.  I will need my strength for this upcoming school year.

I need food.

I was kind of annoyed with myself last weekend.

I realize that I haven’t done a food-related blog in awhile.  Not that I hadn’t been cooking, but I hadn’t shared anything.  Last weekend, Devon and I were going to some dance thing around 6:00 and instead of getting something quick and fattening while we were out, I decided to throw some chicken, some baby red potatoes, and carrots in the crock pot.  It turned out AMAZING.  I even took pictures as it was being made.

Or…so I thought.  Apparently my phone hiccuped (yes, I take all my pictures on my iPhone) and they were gone.

I was so sad.  It was delicious.

But I am going to make things this weekend.  I have a couple things that look scrumptious that I want to try and hopefully I won’t lose the pictures this time.

I promise.  I hope.

ALSO

I just wanted to say that if you haven’t seen Ted 2 yet, you need to.  Devon and I did an impromptu “date afternoon” and went and saw Ted and went to dinner.  It was HILARIOUS!

I was sad, though.  One of my favorite actors from 24, Dennis Haysbert (aka President Palmer) had a small role in it but I missed him.  I had to go to the bathroom sooooooo bad (curse large movie theater drinks) that I did what I don’t like doing in movies and got up in the middle to go to the bathroom and that, OF COURSE, is when Haysbert was on.  I was so sad to miss him.

:sigh:

But totally go see it, we were laughing the entire time.

Teddy bears rule.

Master’s Degree

Thanks Timehop for reminding me that I graduated with my Master’s Degree three years ago today.

Sometimes it feels like 10 years.  Some days it even feels like 100 years.

Some days I wonder how I graduated and wonder if I just graduated yesterday.

I do love what I do even if sometimes it’s hard and challenging and emotionally taxing.  Like now.  When I’m dealing with a lot of upset girls over the death of a parent of one of our students.  He had cancer, so it’s not a shock, but it’s still very upsetting.  There are some days I run for the door at 3:15 just because it’s either been a long day or an emotionally challenging one.  There are some days I’m still here until 4:30 just talking to other faculty members and losing track of time.

But, at the end of the day, I love what I do.  I’m so glad I pursued a degree in this.  I’m happy I get to work in a school where I’m valued and not just “for scheduling” or “college visits”.  Yes, I do college visits, but I’m also involved in the students emotional and mental needs and always consulted before alternatives are considered for a student in a special circumstance.  It’s not often a high school counselor gets that.

Three years later; I’d do it all over again.

In thirty years? I don’t know.  Ask me in 27 years.

Grrr

That moment when you were working on a really long post and saved it to finish it later.

And then it’s gone.

:grunts loudly:

It was like 600 words already. ALL GONE!

:CRIES:

New Page/Blog!

Sooooo…yeah…I decided I wanted more control (shocking I know) over my page, so I bought my site.

This means The wordpress is gone from my site.

My new site is just www.aneducationindomestication.com.  If you follow me here, re-follow me over there.  I am in the process of migrating everything and will eventually just re-direct this page to that one.  But anyone who has done this, knows this process takes a couple days so I wanted to give everyone the chance to just go ahead and change over on your own.

But, I’m super excited.  All of my blogs are already over there, but I’m re-adding everything else now.

So…re-follow, please!  🙂