feeling bummed

well i'm getting sick again, so on top of feeling bummed for other reasons, i have the crap throat and stuffy nose on top of it. i've been meaning to blog about the dinner party we had the other night party being more like "party" but it was a fun gathering of friends. we had planned to cook for mark doliner and amy wheeless since they were in from out of town, but amy had other plans, so we ended up just calling up a few other people and inviting melissa, jeremy, and jessica over for heavy hors d'oeuvres and some drinks. before they came over, amy stopped in and gave us a really cool mixer and a great bottle of wine (thanks amy!). we had a really nice time catching up with people we haven't seen in a while but have known forever. on top of that, melissa brought her wii and guitar hero, and we all totally rocked out to it! i definitely had no desire to play, as i have snobbily decided i'm not a dork like all those people who love the wii and play games with fake guitars, but i have been totally converted. the guitar hero rocks, even if it does make the curtains look like they're swirling after playing too long. people played before and after dinner, and i didn't join in until the end, but i definitely woke up wanting to play again. the food!

me picking melissa's nose

marc and andrew being happy to see one another while grilling

chicken! mmm!

chocolate fondue

we've also had a really messed up sleep schedule recently staying up until 3 and 4 in the morning and not waking up until 11 or even 1 in the afternoon! i'm trying to change this so that tuesday when i have to work at the vet it won't be so painful. last night we went to bed around midnight, but it took me over an hour to fall asleep, and then once i did my sick feeling woke me up off and on all night. i finally moved to the couch at 6am, and andrew made me come back to bed around 6:30... i tossed and turned for another hour or so, and when the alarm when off at 9:30, apparently i was so out that andrew reset it, and i didn't get up till 11 again.

once up, i tried to get motivated to do something fun, but it just kept raining, and even after we went for coffee, we couldn't think of anything fun and affordable to do so we just came home and spent the day at home. i worked (for the one of many countless days) on marc and lora's wedding present. i forgot to document the stages of it, but i think i will take a picture and post it here tomorrow (or the next day) so they don't see it before they actually get it. i'm pretty proud of it though, so i hope they like it. after working on and finishing that, we made a brief visit for a few hours at the red room for my aunt's birthday party where i found out the cause of my illness is my cousin (note to self, kill her later). oh and byron stopped by on the way to work out and brought us another bottle of wine, which i'm sure i'll like since it has "hints of vanilla" according to the back.

watching "what women want" tonight and blogging has made me feel better, but i'm still bummed out about feeling excluded. i know i should let it go, but it hurt my feelings, so i'm laying around trying to be cheerful but feeling sad and sick. bummer!

i guess tomorrow i should do a goodbye 2007 hello 2008 post or something.

excitement of the holidays

alright we should recap the few days where i have neglected to blog (although, andrew covered my butt for yesterday, so that's cool) because we don't want byron to have a heart-attack. :-)

after our calm, quiet night before christmas, we got up around 9 for our christmas day festivities. first, we went to my parents' house in chapel hill for the opening presents/family time. that was a lot of fun! andrew got a great present from my aunt:

matthew shared his spoils from cameroon:

mom hugged some "chinese-sweeties" (her favorite treat from childhood and a present from her brother):

dad was strangled by a scarf:

and we had a great time just hanging out:

later that afternoon, we went to my aunt's house for a very british sort of dinner comprised of potato/leek soup, yorkshire pudding, mashed potatoes, asparagus (though andrew says i make it better), and really good roast beef. complete with "poppers" those pull-apart things with crowns and toys in them (i really must get some pics from mom of those - they were funny). we had an assortment of desserts, and we exchanged presents once again. the coolest thing we got was a handmade vase from missy as a belated wedding present. it's really pretty and will go well with the picture/frame and fabric matthew got us from africa, as they all have the same sort of feel. they're not exactly what i would call "my style" but i love them for their meaning and their own unique beauty, so we're definitely going to display them in the house somewhere. pictured here is missy with her ADORABLE daughter, lila.

yesterday was pretty uneventful with the exception of half our house losing power again. we're going to get it taken care of eventually, but we decided to get out of the house in hopes of waiting it out and it turning itself back on like before. we braved the crowds at the mall to return/exchange a few things and enjoyed the sales at crate&barrel. we also went to whole foods and picked up a pork loin roast, acorn squash, and spinach for dinner. we got home, and i tried to bake the roast, but unfortunately the power wasn't back on. we had resorted to lighting the stove (it's gas) with a match and cooking it in our dutch oven, when the microwave gave its "we have power again!" beep, and we quickly turned on the oven in case it went off again. cooking by candle-light and without an oven was going to be quite the adventure, but i'm glad the oven worked because the roast was really good! the acorn squash, however, tasted nasty and has confirmed my decision that butternut is the best squash to make - period.

after that, we went out with some of andrew's older theatre friends who were in town for the holidays. we met up with gina, erik (sp?), jeff, byron, ken, will, remi, mary, laura, kerry, amber and john, and probably some other people i can't remember at tir na nog. they are a fun bunch, and after drinking and eating there for a while, the majority of us went over to the rockford to continue the festivities. i had a good time, and it's always fun to meet truly fun, nice people that are friends of andrews since so many of his friends live in other states or countries! i'll put some pictures of this outing up when i get them off my camera.

that is all for now, must get back to my lesson planning and the purpose for this caribou visit!

Doggie Baths

So I gave the dogs a bath the other day. I only got pictures of Lillie. This was before she got clean. They had been outside in the mud pit of a backyard.

Then slightly dejected after getting clean and blow-dried by mom.

new traditions

this will actually be the third christmas andrew and i are spending together. believe it or not, we first spent a lot of time together on christmas night of 2005... and i think that's when we really fell for each other. last year, we were dating but not yet engaged, and this year is our first as a married couple. our little family (can't forget about lillie and bailey) is making new traditions together.

generally speaking, christmas is the time that we tend to do all the running around from family to family from downtown raleigh to durham/chapel hill, to north raleigh and back. tomorrow we'll go to my parents' around 10am, and then andrew's mom is going to join us at my aunt's for dinner around 4pm. doing extended family stuff takes pretty much the whole day. and of my three weeks of vacation, i have yet to begin relaxing until today.

so our new traditions include: christmas eve day being "our" day without friends over or family visits, just the four of us. also, we woke up and made big hearty omelettes and homemade hash browns (and by we i meant i). they were pretty good despite the fact that i don't know how to use our new fancy omelette pans, and they fell into a heap of mush instead of a nice crescent shape.

then i addressed "holiday" cards - perfect to be used for christmas and new years, so they can't be "late". then there was some cleaning. we put on music and candles, and i made some pecan-pumpkin squares (which were exceptionally good despite my aversion to pumpkin!). then andrew made stir-fry with veggies and chicken, and i made some sticky rice with teriyaki. with our dinner, we enjoyed a nice bottle of gewurtztrameiner, a white, sweet, bubbly, german wine - one of my new favorites.

so i guess our new traditions include being lazy, sleeping in, making omelettes and hash browns, making baked-goods, and cooking dinner together while enjoying a good wine. i think this'll be a great christmas-eve-day-family-tradition for the korhonens!

red weddings!

i must begin this post by saying that i am thoroughly irritated with myself for forgetting my purse yesterday. this is even after i made sure to put my camera in my purse so i wouldn't forget my camera! but oh well, what can you do?

i have been invited to and/or attended numerous weddings in the past few months, and it seems that i must have missed the memo when planning our wedding. apparently the color is supposed to be red! now, jessi and i both broke the mold on these, with her purpley-blue dresses:

and my pink dresses:

but every single other wedding i've been invited to or attended has had red as the color. the first was a double-doozy with christin higgins/harrison's wedding occurring on the same day as carrie huff/kirlauski's. obviously, i was only able to attend one, but as you can see, both christin's:

and carrie's:

were red!

then, we went to rachel askew/sills' wedding... also red:

last weekend, i helped kim get ready to be a bridesmaid in shannon's wedding (shannon is the one we sang with for relay for life last year, and we're friends, but not really close enough that i'd be invited to the wedding), and her dresses were, i know you'll never guess... (i tried to find a picture, but i couldn't... they're red too)

then last night was cindi riggsbee/baucom's wedding (pic to come whenever i can pirate one from facebook) here is the manufacturer's picture of the dresses her bridesmaids wore - also red!

and lora's wedding on new years eve will be red too. clearly, i missed the memo! the one thing i must say is that all of these brides were beautiful, all of the weddings lovely, and each selection of red dress different and fitting to the bride who chose it.

dogs, dogs, and more dogs!

i was trying to find a common thread in the several days of blogging on which i have missed out, and the only thing i could think of was dogs. most of my days are filled with entertaining these two crazies (three if you include andrew hehe):though not a huge fan of the angle of this pic, as i seem to have a double chin going on, but the doggies are cute (minus bailey's demon eyes).

the night we went to dinner at kim's, we spent some time bonding with her dog, topher:
he also has demon eyes - gotta do something about the red-eye on this camera, but i'm way too lazy to be photoshopping this sort of thing.

then, my mom and i spent a day bonding and making oodles of christmas cookies. this was a day completely devoid of dogs, where we really needed them! every time i dropped ingredients, i wondered why we didn't have any around! my mom and i had matching aprons that day. after slaving away for hours on end, the finished product (or one batch of them anyway) is pictured below.

we went home since i had work thursday and today. i was only supposed to work a full day thursday and a half day today, but since it was practically the busiest day of the year, they called me in early this morning. but both days, working in a vet, are full of... what you ask? DOGS! or at least they should be. mine were actually full of sick cats for the most part. but tonight at the very end of the night, we had a dog that had been hit by a car carried in by its owner show up, and i took the emergency appointment. the dog ended up being only mildly injured, and went home as happy as an animal hit by a car could be. i went home looking like this:well, i wasn't actually sideways when i got home, but again, too lazy to fix it tonight. all the dirty looking spots on my shirt including the smear that goes across the right side of my chest and through my name? blood. woohoo! (it's funny because the dog was fine)

after work, andrew and i spent our gift certificates at the red room and enjoyed a nice dinner together, and then it was home for some more snuggling with the dogs... and bed. see, it really is all about dogs!

dinner parties are fun

on sunday night, we decided we were going to have people over for dinner, but the only people who could come were melissa and kim/john, but kim and john were already having people over for strombolis, so they invited the whole lot of us over to kim's. it was great. the guests included the aforementioned people as well as jeremy and joan, kim's vet school friend. we got there and feasted on pita points with spinach/artichoke hummus, garlic hummus, and kim's famous herbed cheese with marinara dip - all very tasty! andrew and i provided wine with selections of the biltmore sangiovese and a yellowtail shiraz. both were heartily enjoyed mostly before the actual dinner hit the table. for dinner, we enjoyed salad and the ham/pepperoni/onion/green pepper/mushroom strombolis care of john. they were yummy! i don't particularly like all that meat in my pizza type stuff, but i enjoyed them anyway. melissa made her famous seven-layer cookies, and many of those were eaten before dinner as well. i love food!

then we hung out and talked and played video games for a few hours before heading home. it was finally cold for the first time this year! i guess i'm kinda glad we didn't make it out camping. so monday morning we woke up, and it felt like a sunday. in fact, for the majority of the day, i really thought it was a sunday. we ran a few errands at the vet and the grocery store, and we picked up a mountain of food for last night. since a lot of people couldn't make it sunday, we had several others over last night for a mini-dinner party of our own. we bought the ingredients for madeira chicken, asparagus, butternut squash, couscous, and a cake (well not so much the ingredients for the cake, we just bought the cake). we also picked up a rose wine to taste with the meal. it was gross, or at least not what i was hoping for when i picked it out. and whenever i've made madeira chicken before, i've used the whole foods madeira wine sauce... but this time, there was apparently no such thing at whole foods. we called and andrew went to several of them in search of this sauce, which i know existed (and was very tasty!), but none could be found, so it was left to me to MAKE a madeira wine sauce - scary.

i used all the ingredients the recipe told me to, and i cooked it for as long as it told me to... and it looked like white water. now every madeira sauce i've had has looked like brown glaze, so i kept cooking it and we added some thickening agents, and i kept cooking it... and kept cooking it... and finally gave up. i decided to saute some of it with the mushrooms, and that started to look more like the right color and texture. and i marinated the chicken in the rest of it, which i think added to the chicken's flavor, and then i dumped it all together in the dutch oven and cooked it. apparently that was key because i got raving reviews, especially about the mushrooms - from people who don't like mushrooms. that was exciting.

so before we ate, we enjoyed several wines (some care of jackie) and cheese and spread-y stuff, also care of jackie. it was great. once lindsay and james got here, we dove into the food. unfortunately, i had put the asparagus, that had been sauteed earlier, into the oven to warm... and it got all nasty and stringy. but that was the only pitfall, everything else was very tasty!

to end the evening we enjoyed a "raspberry chocolate fetish cake" from whole foods that was delicious and very rich. the whole night was filled with great conversation, and it was nice to see lindsay for the first time in a while. i guess that's about all - now it's off for a day of working at oberlin! yay for oberlin, boo for working during my vacation.

(perhaps pictures to come later)

bad news

yesterday, andrew went in to work... and got fired. apparently when your boss says, "come to me with any concerns you have; i like to be very up-front with people" it means, "come talk to me and i'll fire you." needless to say, it made us both very upset, but we both agree that we'd rather not have andrew working for anyone that ridiculous. i guess he's on the job hunt again.

we tried to put on a happy face, but we were both pretty bummed. we took back the espresso maker because it wasn't working, and now we can't afford to spend that much on frivolous things. after that, we spent the day at my parents' house enjoying their company and the fact that we were allowed to be bummed with people who care. this changes a lot about what we'll be able to do this month and over the holidays. i hope andrew has another offer soon, because the stress of being the only one working is hard on me.

after my parents' we went to byron's holiday party with jackie and chicken. we had an ok time despite not knowing many people. we got to hang out with mike, and i consumed MANY jello-shots - something i haven't done since college.

today, we pretty much did nothing, and it was good. i was grumpy, but now we have dinner plans at kim's house, and the house is clean with some laundry done and much restful hanging out time under our belts. i think we're going to go camping tomorrow for a night or two at the eno, so maybe i'll have some pictures from that. the question remains though, should we take the dogs or not? they have to remain on a 6' leash the whole time we're there, and that might be frustrating. also, we have to bring everything, including water, because there's no potable water at the campground - a mile from the parking area. with as much stress as they would add, i know we'd miss them and be sad about having to leave them in the back yard over night. what do you think?

track-out, tuna-baking, wine-tasting, history-making

ok so i didn't "bake" the tuna, but tuna-searing didn't have the same ring.

yesterday was a tremendous day! there were so many great things that happened, and i wish i had pictures for them all, but i've been the uber-slacker as far as cameras are concerned, so the one "borrowed" picture will have to suffice. yesterday was the last day of school before our 3-week winter track-out. that meant fewer than normal kids, a lunch party, shorter afternoon classes, no horrible 7th period, and a fun eog review game for the kids. the day went well, and one of my administrators dropped in and was impressed with how quiet and studious my kids were... so i guess that's a good thing. our lunch party was great because this time my kids knew they weren't supposed to let anyone use the microwave, so no one tried to set the room on fire! quite an accomplishment, i felt.

the eog review game was fun, and quite unlike the waste of time i thought it would be. they had the kids pitted against one another in grade levels, so the 6th grade was a team against the 7th and 8th grade teams. we came in third, but only by a few points, which i attribute to the math questions. according to paige, they don't have to know how to add and subtract negative numbers until seventh grade, and many of their math questions were about that sort of thing. we made up points on the language arts questions though, which made me pretty proud of some of my kids. they way they orchestrated this competition was to draw a name of a kid from each grade, that kid went up to a desk, and they were given a question. once they chose the right answer, they ran from that desk across the field to another desk, and back to the first desk. it was a competition of knowledge and speed. i got really into cheering for our kids, and i think they really enjoyed it.

after packing things up, i sped home to clean and get things together for kim. she was coming over to pick up our steamer to take to shannon's wedding, and she'd never seen the house before, so i wanted it to look nice. though she hardly stayed for a minute because she was running late, i was glad to have cleaned the place before the weekend anyway. after she left, andrew and i rushed over to whole foods for supplies for the wine-tasting at dan's. we got some great looking tuna steaks, rice vinegar, sesame oil, wasabi, asian 5-spice, and a bottle of "hope" shiraz. it was shiraz/syrah night at the tasting, and this one sounded pretty good to us both. audrey had listed some foods that were supposed to go well with this type of wine, so i chose the seared seasoned tuna to make as an appetizer. i've never made this before, but it turned out great once i modified the recipe from the one i got online. when i first seared the tuna, the seasoning didn't really infuse with the fish, and it almost felt powdery and dry in my mouth. i brushed it with soy-sauce and seared it again, but didn't taste it because we were running late. it turned out great, so i think that was the key. next time i think i'll marinate more in soy sauce and perhaps brush with sesame oil to get the right flavor the first time. then i made the greens and drizzle to go under the tuna slices. i mixed baby greens and a european cucumber, sliced thinly, with the soy sauce/rice vinegar/oil concoction, and it was fantastic. the recipe called for virgin olive oil, which sounded strange to me. after adding the olive oil, it was strange, so i added more of the other ingredients until i had about double the recipe and the taste of the olive oil was gone. it was good that i doubled the recipe though, because i drizzled it over the tuna also to add flavor, and i wouldn't have had enough with the original amount. i garnished it with wasabi drops on every other slice, and it was a big hit.

we tasted 12 shiraz/syrah/petite syrah wines, and i have once again concluded that i don't really like them. people commented on how there is not much variation within the grape, and i agree. i liked #3, a spicy, full-bodied shiraz, #9, a floral, smoother syrah, and #12, a late-season petite syrah with a spicy scent but surprisingly sweet taste. not sure that i'd ever buy any of them, but at least i've confirmed one thing. if it says "vanilla" on the label, i will like it. every single wine i've liked thusfar in our tasting has said "hint of vanilla" "finish with vanilla" "flavors of vanilla" or some such variation. and i don't even like vanilla that much! i deduced that i like my wine like i like my coffee, bold and thick with vanilla, caramel, and spice.

we were finishing up our tasting when APPALACHIAN WON THE CHAMPIONSHIP AGAIN - for a 3rd time in a row!!! GO APPS! it was a great end to a great day, filled with great company. it sets a good tone for my vacation!!

barf

that's what one student deposited in my trashcan today during 6th period.

i was hoping to post and say that something good had happened... but pretty much vomit sums up the day.

on the brighter side, tomorrow's my last day of work for a while, and andrew and i FINALLY ordered the prints from the photographer after getting our proofs like 3 months ago! woohoo!

and wine tasting tomorrow night with friends, and then byron's party with jackie and chicken saturday. so there's some positive stuff for ya!

::EDIT:: i have since found out that the aforementioned child is in the hospital with kidney problems. sad :-(

hard day

today was a hard day. the end is near, and the children are crazy. 7th period made me want to scream. and i wish i had something exciting to look forward to!

Work

So now that I've been at work for a few days I can tell you all what I've been doing. It's a pretty good job so far. Things have been a little bit hectic b/c we've got 100+ concrete tops to ship out to Room and Board by next week. Once that gets done and the 50+ tops get shipped to New Balance we'll be in good shape and things should slow down.
Last week, saturday, and yesterday I was making molds. Basically It's just a melamine(wooden) box that they use to make square and rectangular concrete tops. For Room and Board these will be sold on their online store and people will be able to match them with all kinds of different bases for tables. The New Balance pieces are going to be the "cash wraps" or the check out podiums. Yesterday before I left I cut cardboard to make boxes with. Since everything is custom and odd shapes we have to make our own boxes. So the raw cardboard is something like 6' x 8' and then gets cut down on this bad boy. Our sliding table saw.
Today I learned how to pack the finished tops in the boxes and spray foam around them and then pack them on the pallets.
The packaging spray-foam is like great stuff on steroids...best thing ever.
My "bosses" are pretty nice and very high energy. I put that in quotes because they don't like to be called that; it makes them feel old. They aren't the type of person that sits behind the big desk and delegates tasks all day. It's great to see both of them back working on the very same things that the rest of us are doing. It shows that they care and aren't above doing the dirty work and it is dirty.
I have also been brushing up on my spanish to communicate better with my co-worker Luis. He is from Mexico and has been in the US for ocho anos (8 years) and lived in Atlanta for most of that time. He has been in Raleigh for a few months and is new to Meld like me. He is a great worker but is lacking in the english department. Pete, my "boss," and I know about the same amount of spanish and do a decent job communicating with him.

As Emily mentioned, I had to change Paige's tire last night. She got a screw in the driver's side rear tire and it had to be replaced with the doughnut spare. It was also a good lesson for the girls in how to change a tire. Although it was a lot easier to do then on the FJ Cruiser, man that sucked.

Well that's what's been going on for now. Work is great and I haven't been working too much. Emily and I are having fun getting back into the swing of things in Raleigh. And the dogs love their new outside pen to play in all day. Yeah, I know I shouldn't start a sentence with and but I wanted to. SO THERE.

i feel blaaaah

i wanted to blog about adventures and excitement, but i feel very blah.

this is the last week of school. i averaged grades today. report cards go out friday, which is the last day of school before our 3-week winter track-out. i am freakin' tired!

and... that is all for now.

"i wannaventuuuuure"

was my cry on sunday. as i demanded an adventure from andrew, i realized my adventures are not quite as exotic as some. i was so hoping to do something cool like to work out or rock climb or any number of fun outdoorsy things, and we had quite the beautiful day to do so, but our adventures didn't lead us to any faraway places.

we got up early-ish and got coffee, ran errands, and were planning to go to church, but we ended up not doing that. after running to target to get our table cams developed (finally we had enough money!!!) and then hit rei - which has been pretty lame recently if you ask us - and had lunch at moes to use up our two-for-one coupon. we were going to head out on our adventure, but at that time my stomach started trying to kill me (perhaps the moes?), so we came back so i could recuperate. apparently that means i do lesson planning while andrew sleeps, but whatever :-) by the time he woke up and i was done, there wasn't much time left in the day. we picked up the photos from target and went to williams sonoma to spend our merchandise credits. after much debate, we chose to purchase the breville espresso maker over the additional calphalon pot i'd looked at. we brought it home and set it up for coffee this morning.

i stayed up late working on a project, and andrew woke up first in the morning. he got all the espresso ready and apparently had a milk-catastrophe. the milk kept curdling in the steamer. the only thing we can deduce is that maybe it was actually burning the milk because the steam temperature is too hot? this theory is supported by a total lack of all other theories, and by the fact that the espresso smelled burnt, so perhaps that means the internal heating coil thingies are too hot... really, i talk out my butt, i have no idea.

today was pretty rough at school, and paige and i decided red room and sangria were the answer to our woes. after a screw + tire adventure (about which andrew intends to blog), the three of us enjoyed tapas, sangria, beer (for andrew), and great conversation. and now i'm way late for bed again, so that's all i got!

AMEN

today, while cleaning the house, the mailman delivered a people magazine to our house addressed to a previous renter. considering that i seriously doubt they'd forward a magazine, i just went ahead and read it. on the cover, i was shocked to see jennifer love hewitt with some huge story about fatty paparazzi pictures and her vehement fight back in defense of her figure. i have always thought she has a beautiful, voluptuous shape with large breasts and healthy curves. i have especially appreciated her hanes commercials because i can identify with her struggle with bra straps and uncomfortable underwear (or at least with the marketing campaign that she so accurately represents). so when i saw that she was having to defend her figure, i was pretty shocked.

the bad pictures were published in the magazine along with her interview. they are certainly unflattering, but it really actually made me feel great about myself because she is right around my height, and she admits to having thighs as her "problem area" and "cellulite on [her] butt" - it's just nice to know that someone who i think is incredibly beautiful has the same issues i do, and is also willing to stand up and defend her right to be happy and healthy. now don't get me wrong, i think the pictures are extremely unflattering, and the figure they feature is not my idea of perfection by any means, but i think that's the point. she's happy with herself and no one needs to be criticizing her. her official blog response to the photos and comments is below.

Thursday, November 29, 2007
Blog: About the Hawaii Photos...


This is the last time I will address this subject.

I've sat by in silence for a long time now about the way women's bodies are constantly scrutinized. To set the record straight, I'm not upset for me, but for all of the girls out there that are struggling with their body image.

A size 2 is not fat! Nor will it ever be. And being a size 0 doesn't make you beautiful.

What I should be doing is celebrating some of the best days of my life and my engagement to the man of my dreams, instead of having to deal with photographers taking invasive pictures from bad angles. I know what I look like, and so do my friends and family. And like all women out there should, I love my body.

To all girls with butts, boobs, hips and a waist, put on a bikini -- put it on and stay strong.

Xoxo

JLH

thank God for jobs

well the last time i posted i was stressed and depressed about the job situation with andrew, and then the answer to my prayers came when he called me at school to tell me he had been offered the job at meld. it made me so happy to know that i wasn't going to have to wait any longer to feel stable and secure. we decided to go out and celebrate since we'd been living so frugally. we had the congratulatory dinner at humble pie downtown. andrew had wanted to go for a while before he went with lora and marc, and we finally got a chance to go together. the food was great, as was the wine, and it was such a lovely thing to be celebrating that now BOTH of us have good jobs, and that's the whole reason we moved back to raleigh.

since my meeting with my mentor teacher, i've been trying to switch things up in class and do more partner/group work. it's been somewhat hit or miss, but i'm feeling like we're moving in the right direction. also, the sixth grade team has put together academic electives to take the place of our "eog prep class", and i'm excited that next quarter, rather than doing stupid eog prep, i'll be teaching a storytelling elective 7th period to kids who actually want to be in the class. in addition to that, we're trying to take our tracked classes to actual inclusion classes for next semester, and we've gotten the ok from the curriculum specialist as well as a meeting set up with the assistant headmaster. we even put together classes for next semester in an effort to get them well integrated and split up behavior issues. i'm excited at the possibilities.

last night, we went to jess and norm's house for dinner. we had good wine and good cheese before enjoying the roast and potatoes, with brownies for dessert. we tried this claret wine (pictured), and i really enjoyed it! we had a great time hanging out and catching up, and we came home and went to bed very late. i had a horrible time waking up this morning and was running late to school, but since i'd stayed late and set up yesterday, it wasn't a big deal.

today was a half-day, so the kids left at 11:30 and i only had 35 min class periods - it reminded me of what class was like when i taught at smith because there the classes were only 46 mins. something about the shortened period gives me a better feeling because the pace has to be faster. hopefully, this positive trend will continue and we're hitting our stride. we shall see. after the half-day we had staff development, and i left work at 3. now i gotta get on the road - we've got dinner with andrew's mom at firebird's, then kim's christmas tune karaoke party - woohoo! :-)

I got a job !!!

First off this is strange for me because I rarely use exclamation marks. OH well this is great news.
So the job is working as a mold maker for Meld USA. I will be more than a mold maker, however, that will be my primary duty. Meld does custom items made out of concrete. Check out their website it has some cool pictures of work they have done for various clients. Maybe I'll add more later once I get started.

stupid blogger!

ok so i got bored and changed the template and tried to change the picture, but now it won't let me upload another picture when i "add page element". fine, i say, i'll just add the new "slideshow" page element and point it to my flickr account, cool. but that won't work either because i go to flickr and it says the free account it gave me when yahoo dumped my pictures is not longer free, but i have to pay 25 bucks a year to keep my unlimited capabilities, and now you can ony see the most recent 200 images. so that's all messed up, and i have to figure out somewhere else to upload all the wedding pics for family. stupid technology not working (or no longer being free) grr.

in other news, i feel like i need to switch up my teaching style to try and get more from my kids. i've been doing a lot of teacher-centered learning because every time i try group or partner stuff, the kids can't stay on task. but i've decided since thats not working (as evidenced by their grades), i need to just go for something new. the new semester's coming up, and the sixth grade is going to implement new sixth grade "house rules", so i think that'll be a good time for me to switch things up. i also plan to change the seating arrangements in the classroom to a more group-centered atmosphere. hopefully, changing the focus to a group and individual, rather than i'm-the-teacher focus, will help the kids take on a better sense of responsibility and take ownership of their learning. i've been hesitant to do this because of how behind they've been, but my mentor has encouraged me to keep moving forward, so that is what i plan to do.

after work today, i went to see the middle school boys' basketball game. we have 3 sixth-graders playing this year, and one is awesome! he starts and plays practically the whole game as point guard, and i was totally impressed with him. one of the others played a few minutes, and he did a pretty good job, but nothing stellar - which is to be expected from a sixth grade student. the third didn't get any playing time in as far as i saw, but it is still impressive to make the team. the game was really exciting with east wake academy beating out lighthouse at the buzzer by three points. go ewa!

since blogger wouldn't put a picture up for me, here's the one that was supposed to be up!

only 9 days!

that's how long i have left of school before our 3-week winter "track-out" - woohoo! although, i do have to say that this is much less stressful than i thought teaching could possibly be after my experience in chapel hill. if anything, this has taught me just how much crap i put up with that i didn't need to, and just how right i was when i sat there thinking, day after day, that it shouldn't be as stressful as it was! that is not to say by any means that school is perfect and that i don't miss my LEAP kids every day, but it does mean that i have time for a life of my own and time with my husband... if only we had the means to do all the fun things we now have time for! oh well, one thing at a time.

let's see, since friday... saturday morning, we went to carmax to see how much we could get for the 4-runner. it wasn't that much, but it was more than they offered when we asked toyota (they wouldn't even buy it). at this point i guess we should just take what we can get, especially since now practically everything of value we own is for sale on craigslist. we shall see. we've got 5 days left on the carmax offer. while waiting on our quote, we went and hung out with jackie at the mall before her date with chicken. we were supposed to go out with them after their movie, but andrew was feeling sick, so we stayed in and went to bed relatively early.

sunday andrew had to get up early-ish to go work at stewart all day. he loaded in and then worked a gospel show all day long, so i had to entertain myself. for most of the morning, i was a lazy bum and laid around on the couch with lillie. then i met my mom for lunch and a movie, but i decided i didn't want to watch a movie, so we just hung out for a LONG time in firebirds before walking around the mall. we got to talk a lot, which was good, and she shared her insights on marriage with me. it was just so nice to finally be able to talk to someone about everything who was truly there and listening to me. and even better that she had advice and support to offer that comes from real experience. i mean dang, if she could be married to my dad for this long, she must have learned a few things! (love you daddy!)

while we were eating, i got a call from brian at oberlin telling me that jason had fallen off his horse, injured his spleen, and was in the icu at wakemed. when i left the mall, i ran home and picked up a few things before heading over to visit him. the doctors seem to think he's doing well and may not even need surgery, so that's good. however, i'm thinking i may have to go help train his horse while he's recovering over the next 3 months or so. again, we shall see.

i guess that's all for today, no pics, sorry! feel free to leave me love though!