woof

Does anyone else think this is hilarious? When we were leaving fireworks downtown the night of the 4th, we ended up in traffic at a redlight next to this car.

I rolled down the window and shouted to the guy to ask if I could take a picture of his passenger, and he didn't find it amusing.

You'd think a guy who drives around with a giant stuffed dog in his passenger seat might have a sense of humor. I guess not.

I took it anyway, evidently risking my own life and the lives of those in my car. But don't you think it was worth it?

Maybe no one thinks it's as funny as I do, but I sure am glad I have this picture.

my life has changed forever.

This is why.

I've had the same coffee maker since my sophomore year in college - in all its plastic, stained, rickety glory, it has served me well. And still does, actually. I had no intention of replacing it anytime soon.

But then, as I was meandering through a parking garage one Sunday afternoon, I came across a massive Macy's "garage sale" where tons of kitchen appliances were on sale for nearly nothing. Compared to original prices, anyway.

It didn't take me long to stumble across the life altering machine you see to the left. It was beckoning to me. Calling my name softly in the June breeze. And I couldn't resist.


I've never had that feature on a coffee maker where you can program it to both start brewing and shut off on its own at a certain time. I've waited on pins and needles to open up this brilliant appliance until after the move. Last night I did the test run, and this morning is the part that changed my life forever. I woke up to the smell of fresh coffee wafting into my bedroom from the kitchen.

"Someone's making coffee....wonder if they will let me have some...." I thought as I rolled over in the bed. I got up, put on my glasses and stumbled to the kitchen, where no one was making coffee. I remembered with glee that I now have a coffee maker that makes it FOR me! I think I did a little pirhouette across the kitchen.

It makes excellent coffee, too. If you are a coffee lover, this is definitely a worthy investment. I'm thinking of taking Old Faithful to my classroom in August. But then, I don't know that I'd ever stop drinking coffee during the day. Caffeine might replace blood in my veins, actually.

Anyway, just wanted to share my newfound love. Hope you're all having a good Tuesday!

I LOVE SUMMER!

Today is my first REAL day of summer vacation since the writing project with nothing to do! YES! I do have to go clean and tie up a few loose ends at the old house, but that's it. Moving is over, writing project is over, and I am free for the next three-ish weeks. Hallelujah.

I do have some interesting stories for you, but I will have to deliver them in moderation. I can't find my camera right now, so the really good stuff will have to wait until I find it, as there are essential pictures to go along with it.

Until then, here are a few pictures from the past few weeks:

We went to hear the Alabama Symphony in Highland Park. It was all music from Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, ET, Abba, etc - Ivan & Courtney and the two of us took a picnic, ate, and watched in awe and moderate horror at all the people who showed up in frighteningly accurate character attire.

This is from our beach trip in early June -- such a good time! I found a dead jellyfish lying on the beach that was LITERALLY the size of a football. How'd you like to jiggle some of THAT jelly?

Below you will see Suzanne, my friend that I followed around at the lake this weekend because I want to shave off her hair and put it on my head. I love this color!! This is me trying it out on my head. Think this could work? I might just take her with me to the salon for a consultation -- thoughts?

Here's Jimmy at the lake, right after he decided out of no where that he should try to swim the width of the lake twice. For his traithlon training, of course. If you could have seen the distance I'm talking about, you'd have been as concerned for his life as I was. He was already tired from skiing. Our friend Sarah, who is a lifeguard, went with him :) Don't you LOVE his swim cap?

Here he is right after the long swim -- he climbed onto the dock and immediately collapsed, like this:

I really thought he was dead. I absolutely love this picture.

Playstation anyone?

I feel like I've really accomplished something today--I listed my first item for sale on ebay! I bought a used Playstation2 for Jimmy for his birthday, only to discover that he'd been "permanently loaned" a Playstation3. Woof. So anyway, I have a Playstation2 and two games, Madden NFL '06 and Tiger Woods PGA Tour '05 plus memory card and TV and wall cables for sale ($50) if you know anyone who would be interested.

I doubt anyone who reads this blog is really into Playstation, but I thought it might be worth a shot.

Putting it up for sale on ebay was really kind of fun--hopefully I won't start selling all I own just for the thrill of watching for the high bidder.

WEDNESDAY is the big move day. Boy am I ever ready for it to be here and over with, even though that means it'll be the 4th of July even sooner--and that is the beginning of the end of summer. I don't feel like I've had a summer yet, and that's kind of scary. If I start the year in August being this tired, I'll be burned out NO QUESTION by October.

The AC is out at our house, so basically I'm living and packing in a microwave. It's terrible, not gonna lie. The writing project ends on the 3rd (the day after we move!) so in a few days, all this will be behind me, I will have a house with AC, and some days to sleep and lay around and really get rested for August. I do have to move into a new school, though, which brings me to some more news....

I found out a few days ago that I'll be at Phillips Academy next year. 8th grade English. This is what I've been hoping for--it's another k-8 school in bham city. It's a magnet school--zoned kids automatically go there, but most of the kids have to test in. I'm thankful to be there for my 3rd year--I was really getting ready to crash and burn. Luckily, I had a few well-connected people in the district who recognized that and worked in my corner to get me over there. I'm very relieved, excited, and ready for a different kind of challenge.

So within a three day timespan, I will be finishing up the writing project, moving my classroom (which exists in my basement right now) into a new school and moving to another house.

a surprise party and a new house!

Did I really just spend a whole Saturday in a writing conference? Two more weeks left of Red Mountain Writing. As good as it is, I am so ready to be able to sleep in. I know the non-teacher working population is laughing at that statement, but it all equals out. Promise.

Happy late birthday to one James Lowell Entrekin, Jr.--on June 17 he turned 30, and was NOT EXCITED about it. For weeks, maybe months, leading to his birthday, he said that he wanted to let it slip by quietly in the night and not think about it. That is NOT like him.

So naturally, I thought this was the perfect time to throw him a surprise party to make sure that didn't happen. I also threw in a slideshow of about 70 of the existing hundreds of rediculous one man shots of Jimmy and projected them on our living room wall, rolling continuously throughout the night. It was awesome. Here are some pictures from the party:

Waiting to surprise him.

Surprise! 30's not so bad!

Good times.

Jimmy being initiated into the next decade of life. With an adhesive mustache, of course.

Jimmy's is called "The Bruiser." Greg's: "The Sheriff."

This is how big the slideshow pictures were on the wall... Thirty, flirty, and thriving.

On another note, I'm moving in two weeks! Katie, Abby and I are moving to another house in Homewood. We love it. It has a bright purple door, too. ??????

Goodnight, Moon

It's late and I am very tired. I got back from the fun beach weekend late Sunday night and headed to Red Mountain Writing Project from 8:30-3:30. It's the local branch of the National Writing Project, which is a month long writing institute for teachers of writing, grades 1-university level that focuses on teaching, research, and writing.

It seems amazing so far (yes I am a complete geek) and is going to be some intense work for the next 4 weeks, but I am getting 6 hours of grad credit to complete my Masters FINALLY. The best parts: they pay for it, you don't have too much work outside 8:30 to 3:30 everyday, and you come away with a LOT more practical preparation to be a better teacher than you came with. And then you are supposedly certified to lead professional development for other teachers (I'm sure I'll be doing a lot of THAT--probably NOT).

The downside: We are doing icebreakers and get to know you games every day this week. One in the morning and one in the afternoon. Makes me want to leap into the Cahaba River, really. Although we DID get to play the "Who Am I?" game today--the game that beloved Michael Scott forced his staff through on the beautiful "Diversity Day" episode of The Office's first season. I about lept out of my skin I was so excited.

Someone told me to be un-PC and guess a stereotyped demographic and I'd be able to guess mine. "Stir the melting pot, Pam!!!!" if you will. So I said gays, and they told me that's who likes this person. BINGO!! Cher. I got it on the second guess.

Back to the beginning though--I'm tired because I got home late Sunday night, went to RMWP all day today, then to UAB's registrar's office to try for the gillionth time to register for the two classes I'm supposed to get credit for, and THEN found out I was in fact on the schedule to work at Anthropologie from 5-close, or in tonight's case, 5-11:30. I'd pretty much decided NOT to work there this summer, but never did TELL them, and since today was the day I told them I could start back, of course they scheduled me. So I went in so as not to burn any bridges. You never know if you might want to return to a career folding shirts later in life.

So I'm home now and about to pass out--but not before I share this video with you that we watched today at RMWP. It's just a bunch of statistics on the information age and how much things are changing--we really do live in exponential times. It makes my head spin to try to wrap my mind around the information presented in this video--it's absolutely astonishing. If you have 6 minutes, you should really watch it. You'll be amazed--I was, anyway.

It makes me realize how much further I have to go as a teacher to prepare my students to live and work as productive citizens--and scary, too, given that technology hates me. Anyway, give it a watch. It'll at the very least make you wonder over the kind of age our kids and grandkids will grow up in.

digressives

IT'S SUMMER IT'S SUMMER IT'S SUMMER!!

I am floored. It's weird, this not having to get up and go to work. Today I woke up at 10, drank coffee, and watched abc's The Mole on TV, which is awesome, by the way. I want to be on that show. I'm really good at Maffia, so I figure if I worked out a little, I could totally win that show.

I'm pretty excited because I'm leaving for the beach again on Thursday at noon. I went to Briarwood's beach retreat two weeks ago and am so ready to go back to the beach. I don't really remember too much of beach retreat, since I was in a stupor of a coma all weekend. This weekend I'll get to really soak it up--a bunch of friends have rented out a gigantic house on the beach and are piling up in it for the weekend. WOO HOO!!

No other news to report on really--just trying to get loose ends from the school year tied up and figure out where I'm teaching next year since my school is closing down this summer (I was on the news on the last day of school! Of course the one day I didn't pin my bangs back, they stick me in front of a camera--the front mullet was perched attentively atop my hairline for all to see). Yes folks--three years, three schools. Yuck. You can't even tell that our basement is also my bedroom right now, what with the remnants of my classroom piled from floor to ceiling.

I'll close tonight's post with two recommendations:

1. Dove Energy Glow tanning lotion

This stuff is amazing--since my trip to the dermatologist about a month ago, I've decided on minimal sun exposure this summer. Just enough to get the vitamin D, thank you very much. So to prepare for the unwelcome swimsuit, I've been using this miracle lotion--which DOESN'T STINK AT ALL. That's it's biggest selling point--it smells like normal lotion, and it WORKS. Looks very natural.

2. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

This luscious slice of summer reading by John Berendt is too hilarious not to devour in one sitting. It is hysterical--I mean SIDE-SPLITTING and you MUST read it. I read it about two years ago and am re-reading it right now--I forgot how absolutely delectable it is. You won't regret picking this one up. The perfect summer read. Msk(s) and Mrs. Sassafras--I don't know why, but I think the two of you, in particular, would love it.

That's all folks--next time I'll make sure to have pictures to document these savory summer days.