Well, I'm down to the last school day of the year...2 weeks off. I love it. In the mean time, Eric and I have been preparing for our trip tonight. We have to clean the house before we leave because we're not coming back until the 31st. And...we're having a New Year's Eve party, so we're not exactly gonna have lots of time to clean that afternoon/evening. I've also been baking cookies for my students. I actually had a student tell me today that my cookies were better than his mom's. I'm not sure how to take that.
Tomorrow night, Eric, Katie, Brad Hamilton, Laura Hamilton and I are going to Crossroad's Christmas production. Andrea wrote/arranged the music for it, and it looks like it's gonna be awesome, so we're excited.
So yeah...that's what's happening right now.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Thursday, December 13, 2007
A Quitter????!!!
Recently, my parents were very open and honest about their thoughts on my blogging skills. Namely, they think I'm not very good at keep it up. While this is very true, I am not prepared to give up, as my parents (jokingly) suggested. I am not a quitter. So, I'm going to forge ahead. Give it my best shot.
As I type this, I'm listening to Bud Selig give a press conference in response to the Mitchell report which was finally released today. I have to be honest and say I don't really care about this. I do in that I wish steroids weren't a part of baseball, I think it's something that needs to be dealt with, and all that jazz. But, I'm not sure that this report means anything to baseball. I'm surprised at the lack of "stars" on the list, but also surprised that Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte were on it. I'm breathing a sigh of relief that people like Albert Pujols weren't on the list, because I really like him and I hope that his image will never be tarnished in that manner (although if he is on something I think he should be tarnished). But, in reality, this report I don't think will serve any purpose. I don't think there's a whole lot of substance to the report in truth. It's all a lot of "well, I think he might have" "I think I remember him saying something about..." and things like that. Not a whole lot of hard evidence. I guess we'll see.
Eric and I made a rather large life decision last night. We've been rather ticked off with Verizon lately, and frustrated that we can't ever get cell phone service in our apartment. So, we went out to see what AT&T could offer us. We had no intention of actually switching last night, given the fact that our Verizon contract wasn't up until April or something. But, we got such and amazing deal, that I was so hard to pass up. We got a phone that normally retails for over $400 (that's if you're not signing a contract...if you are, it's normally like $200) for $150 buy one get one free. In other words, we got $800 worth of phone for $150. And the phones are freakin sweet.
Our phones: mine is a redish color, Eric's is black.
We both spent quite a bit of time playing around with them last night, and I'm sure we'll do the same tonight. It's quite exciting to get reception in our apartment, and to have a "cool" phone (instead of the one everyone gets for signing a contract).
Let's see, what else...we're both really ready for Christmas break. We've decided this is going to be the best Christmas ever. We're getting an XBox 360, Guitar Hero II, Guitar Hero III, and Rock Band. Which is freakin amazing. We're so pumped about that. And, we're getting a new car, because my is about ready to die (so we're gonna give it to my brother).
It will be another whirlwind trip. We'll leave next Friday morning (the 21st), and drive to Illinois to spend a few days with my family. Then the morning of the 26th we'll fly into Oklahoma City, spend the rest of the morning/afternoon car shopping, and then do Christmas with the Ankenmans that night. Spend a few days there, and then drive back after church on the 30th to Illinois. We'll spend the night there, and then drive home the morning of the 31st, getting back just in time to throw our own New Year's party to share our new Christmas presents :).
And then, I'll go back to work on the 2nd. I'm secretly already praying for a snow day that day :)
So, yeah. I think that's about all the news I have for right now. I'm really gonna try to update more often...
As I type this, I'm listening to Bud Selig give a press conference in response to the Mitchell report which was finally released today. I have to be honest and say I don't really care about this. I do in that I wish steroids weren't a part of baseball, I think it's something that needs to be dealt with, and all that jazz. But, I'm not sure that this report means anything to baseball. I'm surprised at the lack of "stars" on the list, but also surprised that Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte were on it. I'm breathing a sigh of relief that people like Albert Pujols weren't on the list, because I really like him and I hope that his image will never be tarnished in that manner (although if he is on something I think he should be tarnished). But, in reality, this report I don't think will serve any purpose. I don't think there's a whole lot of substance to the report in truth. It's all a lot of "well, I think he might have" "I think I remember him saying something about..." and things like that. Not a whole lot of hard evidence. I guess we'll see.
Eric and I made a rather large life decision last night. We've been rather ticked off with Verizon lately, and frustrated that we can't ever get cell phone service in our apartment. So, we went out to see what AT&T could offer us. We had no intention of actually switching last night, given the fact that our Verizon contract wasn't up until April or something. But, we got such and amazing deal, that I was so hard to pass up. We got a phone that normally retails for over $400 (that's if you're not signing a contract...if you are, it's normally like $200) for $150 buy one get one free. In other words, we got $800 worth of phone for $150. And the phones are freakin sweet.
Our phones: mine is a redish color, Eric's is black.
We both spent quite a bit of time playing around with them last night, and I'm sure we'll do the same tonight. It's quite exciting to get reception in our apartment, and to have a "cool" phone (instead of the one everyone gets for signing a contract).
Let's see, what else...we're both really ready for Christmas break. We've decided this is going to be the best Christmas ever. We're getting an XBox 360, Guitar Hero II, Guitar Hero III, and Rock Band. Which is freakin amazing. We're so pumped about that. And, we're getting a new car, because my is about ready to die (so we're gonna give it to my brother).
It will be another whirlwind trip. We'll leave next Friday morning (the 21st), and drive to Illinois to spend a few days with my family. Then the morning of the 26th we'll fly into Oklahoma City, spend the rest of the morning/afternoon car shopping, and then do Christmas with the Ankenmans that night. Spend a few days there, and then drive back after church on the 30th to Illinois. We'll spend the night there, and then drive home the morning of the 31st, getting back just in time to throw our own New Year's party to share our new Christmas presents :).
And then, I'll go back to work on the 2nd. I'm secretly already praying for a snow day that day :)
So, yeah. I think that's about all the news I have for right now. I'm really gonna try to update more often...
Friday, November 30, 2007
Man I Stink at This
Sorry. Long time no post. And to be honest I don't really have the time right now to put one up. So, I'll just say that Eric and I are going to see Rob Bell speak tonight in Indy, which we're very excited about. And I promise to put up an update sometime this weekend. Scout's honor!
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Camping Tragedy...
I promised to put some funny stories on here about camping and have yet to do so. So, here they are. I really only have 4, so I'll go in chronological order.
On Saturday night, a group of students from Miami showed up (because we were camping at a place only 5-10 miles from the University). There seriously had to be about 16 of them in 6 tents with 6 cars on a site not too much bigger than the one we were on. They were both frustrating and hysterical at the same time. They could be quite loud at times, including when they went to the bathrooms which weren't too far from where we were camping. So we heard some of the prissiest girls talking about pooping while they were pooping. Quite funny. When they went to get firewood, no joke, one of the guys came back with a large portion of a tree. So large that he had to pull it, rather than carry it. It was amazing.
That same day, some time in the early afternoon, we were sitting around the fire (which incidentally we did the entire day--12 hours sitting around a fire, picking at it, throwing stuff in it, yeah....) when all of a sudden, all four of us stopped talking. We all heard the same sound at the same time. It sounded something like, "tink, tink, tink, tink, tink...." and on and on. We all turned to look at a campsite across a little cul de sac of sorts at another camp site. There we saw the camper that had come the previous night...um....rocking...shall I say...well, you know. It lasted all of about 2 minutes (literally) and then ended. About 10-15 minutes later a couple came out. Needless to say, there were endless jokes about that the rest of the weekend.
Dinner that night was supposed to be sausage. I say supposed to be because the wire hot dog cooker we were using had other plans. Here I am, standing over the fire with this wire cage that's used to cook hot dogs, attempting to cook the sausage we were all looking forward to. As I go to turn it over, the cage decided it had had enough sausage and promptly spit it out--right into the fire and ash. I felt pretty terrible. Thankfully my friends are good natured and told me it was ok...then made fun of me the rest of the weekend. I gotta admit, that was pretty funny.
And last but not least, the losing track of time story. All good campsites are well out of reach of cell phone service, because isn't the point of camping to kind of get away from the world for a while??? This one is no different. Andrea and Tye informed us that last weekend was Daylight Savings Time. Normally, people talk about that enough before hand that I'm usually aware. I wondered why I hadn't, but Tye and Andrea seemed so confident that I just figured somehow I had missed it. So, needless to say, we factored that into our sleeping habits for Saturday night...we didn't figure out we were wrong until we left the campsite. We missed church, but no harm no foul...
As a small side note, I suffered a fatality from the fire...it melted the sole of my tennis shoes away from the shoe. So today I attempted to get new shoes. I forget how much I hate shoe shopping until I have to do it. I spent the better part of the afternoon and evening trying to find shoes that I liked that weren't $100. But, I'll keep looking tomorrow. Ugh....
On Saturday night, a group of students from Miami showed up (because we were camping at a place only 5-10 miles from the University). There seriously had to be about 16 of them in 6 tents with 6 cars on a site not too much bigger than the one we were on. They were both frustrating and hysterical at the same time. They could be quite loud at times, including when they went to the bathrooms which weren't too far from where we were camping. So we heard some of the prissiest girls talking about pooping while they were pooping. Quite funny. When they went to get firewood, no joke, one of the guys came back with a large portion of a tree. So large that he had to pull it, rather than carry it. It was amazing.
That same day, some time in the early afternoon, we were sitting around the fire (which incidentally we did the entire day--12 hours sitting around a fire, picking at it, throwing stuff in it, yeah....) when all of a sudden, all four of us stopped talking. We all heard the same sound at the same time. It sounded something like, "tink, tink, tink, tink, tink...." and on and on. We all turned to look at a campsite across a little cul de sac of sorts at another camp site. There we saw the camper that had come the previous night...um....rocking...shall I say...well, you know. It lasted all of about 2 minutes (literally) and then ended. About 10-15 minutes later a couple came out. Needless to say, there were endless jokes about that the rest of the weekend.
Dinner that night was supposed to be sausage. I say supposed to be because the wire hot dog cooker we were using had other plans. Here I am, standing over the fire with this wire cage that's used to cook hot dogs, attempting to cook the sausage we were all looking forward to. As I go to turn it over, the cage decided it had had enough sausage and promptly spit it out--right into the fire and ash. I felt pretty terrible. Thankfully my friends are good natured and told me it was ok...then made fun of me the rest of the weekend. I gotta admit, that was pretty funny.
And last but not least, the losing track of time story. All good campsites are well out of reach of cell phone service, because isn't the point of camping to kind of get away from the world for a while??? This one is no different. Andrea and Tye informed us that last weekend was Daylight Savings Time. Normally, people talk about that enough before hand that I'm usually aware. I wondered why I hadn't, but Tye and Andrea seemed so confident that I just figured somehow I had missed it. So, needless to say, we factored that into our sleeping habits for Saturday night...we didn't figure out we were wrong until we left the campsite. We missed church, but no harm no foul...
As a small side note, I suffered a fatality from the fire...it melted the sole of my tennis shoes away from the shoe. So today I attempted to get new shoes. I forget how much I hate shoe shopping until I have to do it. I spent the better part of the afternoon and evening trying to find shoes that I liked that weren't $100. But, I'll keep looking tomorrow. Ugh....
Monday, October 29, 2007
Camping...
Eric and I went camping with Tye and Andrea this weekend for Tye's birthday. We had a blast. At times it was quite cold, but with Tye as the fire Nazi, he kept it blazing and kept us warm. It was awesome. I would love to go camping more often. Perhaps today or tomorrow I will put some more in depth stories on here.
As a side note, the Red Sox won the World Series last night. I have to admit, I did not watch any of it. For some reason, it just didn't really appeal to me this year, and seeing as how I was not at home most of the 4 nights it was on, I didn't see any of the games. But, I woke up this morning to the disturbing news that A-Rod has opted out of the rest of his contract with the Yankees. Don't get me wrong, I like A-Rod. He does some bone-headed things some times, and can be arrogant sometimes, but for the most part I like him. He's a great ballplayer. But, I call it disturbing because he couldn't even wait one more day to announce it so that the Red Sox could celebrate their victory without fighting with him and the Yankees once again. Some are saying it wasn't his decision, that it was Scott Boras' (His agent). Still. What a jerky thing to do. Sometimes people are idiots.
As a side note, the Red Sox won the World Series last night. I have to admit, I did not watch any of it. For some reason, it just didn't really appeal to me this year, and seeing as how I was not at home most of the 4 nights it was on, I didn't see any of the games. But, I woke up this morning to the disturbing news that A-Rod has opted out of the rest of his contract with the Yankees. Don't get me wrong, I like A-Rod. He does some bone-headed things some times, and can be arrogant sometimes, but for the most part I like him. He's a great ballplayer. But, I call it disturbing because he couldn't even wait one more day to announce it so that the Red Sox could celebrate their victory without fighting with him and the Yankees once again. Some are saying it wasn't his decision, that it was Scott Boras' (His agent). Still. What a jerky thing to do. Sometimes people are idiots.
Friday, October 19, 2007
First Quarter Down
Well, today marks the final day of the first quarter of my school-year. I gotta say I feel like we're only now getting into a groove with this whole tutoring thing. But, starting next week, I will only be dealing with math, which I'm excited about. I remember now why I loved math so much in high school (so much that I considered being a math teacher). I still don't think I would want that to be my main subject area, but I am beginning to consider maybe trying to get my math certification. At the very least it would make me more marketable. I gotta check into it some more first. It may be financially not possible right now.
But, at the very least, hopefully only teaching math will make me enjoy my job a little more. Language arts just really isn't for me.
Eric and I applied for car and renter's insurance this week. So sarting next week, we'll no longer be dependent on our parents for that part of our life. Kinda of a weird feeling. I really feel like I'm continually having those moments of "adulthood." I know that's a good thing, but it's weird. Sometimes I wish we didn't have to grow up, just because responsibility can be a scary thing, but it's also freeing. I'm ready to have a salaried job...that would help a lot too. Someday, I know.
I just found out my mom is going to start her own business again--bookkeeping. So, pray for that. I hope she gets a lot of business. That would be awesome. And if you know anyone in the St. Louis area who needs bookkeeping or payroll services, tell them to look her up.
But, at the very least, hopefully only teaching math will make me enjoy my job a little more. Language arts just really isn't for me.
Eric and I applied for car and renter's insurance this week. So sarting next week, we'll no longer be dependent on our parents for that part of our life. Kinda of a weird feeling. I really feel like I'm continually having those moments of "adulthood." I know that's a good thing, but it's weird. Sometimes I wish we didn't have to grow up, just because responsibility can be a scary thing, but it's also freeing. I'm ready to have a salaried job...that would help a lot too. Someday, I know.
I just found out my mom is going to start her own business again--bookkeeping. So, pray for that. I hope she gets a lot of business. That would be awesome. And if you know anyone in the St. Louis area who needs bookkeeping or payroll services, tell them to look her up.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Delayed Update
To those of you who check this for updates with any regularity, I apologize for not keeping it up. It's been kinda busy around here lately.
My work's starting to get a little bit better. We're getting ready to start units on math, which I'm pretty sure I will enjoy teaching much more than language arts (reading). Once we're done with that unit, we're actually going to split up our classes into 2 groups: a language arts group that Glenn will teach, and a math group that I will teach. So, if that works out, I will be teaching math at least until the end of the semester.
The free dinner thing at Miami is still going well. We've had one kid that's been there every week (Zack), and a couple of others who have been there almost every time. Zack is in a band, and they have started using our building to practice. We were pretty encouraged by the fact that he felt comfortable enough to ask us.
Today, Eric and I finally got both the titles for our cars transferred over into our names. That's kind of a weird feeling. I jut keep having those moments of grown-up-ness (I'm pretty sure I just made up a new word). It's just weird. Add onto that the fact that we now have Ohio plates on our cars...weird. Good weird...but still weird. Now if we can just figure out where we're gonna get our car insurance from, we'll be doing good.
Be back later with other updates :)
My work's starting to get a little bit better. We're getting ready to start units on math, which I'm pretty sure I will enjoy teaching much more than language arts (reading). Once we're done with that unit, we're actually going to split up our classes into 2 groups: a language arts group that Glenn will teach, and a math group that I will teach. So, if that works out, I will be teaching math at least until the end of the semester.
The free dinner thing at Miami is still going well. We've had one kid that's been there every week (Zack), and a couple of others who have been there almost every time. Zack is in a band, and they have started using our building to practice. We were pretty encouraged by the fact that he felt comfortable enough to ask us.
Today, Eric and I finally got both the titles for our cars transferred over into our names. That's kind of a weird feeling. I jut keep having those moments of grown-up-ness (I'm pretty sure I just made up a new word). It's just weird. Add onto that the fact that we now have Ohio plates on our cars...weird. Good weird...but still weird. Now if we can just figure out where we're gonna get our car insurance from, we'll be doing good.
Be back later with other updates :)
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