Thursday

I took this on my way to work this morning before I went home with a migraine.

Irritated

I just wrote a whole tirade, and then I remembered dooce, and deleted it. Everyday, I eat lunch in my room. It's the only time between 9 and 2:30 that I don't have a class full of kids. I need the quiet time. And I mean NEED it. I have received an email saying that all certified staff must eat in the cafeteria. I guess my solution is to not eat, because I just can't do that. I really can't. I'm nearing a breaking point. I thought I could handle this, but this is ridiculous. I have to keep telling myself that I'm not a quitter, but I want to quit. And cry. It may seem like lunch isn't a big deal, but it's all we had. It's just all we had.

Bertha Poem, Cont.

I'm still not done, but here's 4 more verses. :) It's getting sillier and sillier.

Every time I pull up to my house
Before I can get out the key,
There’s a scratch at the door, and a cute little bark!
My dog Bertha’s been waiting for me.

She'll run around me and around me,
then once more just for good measure.
She just has to say hello!
It's one of life's great pleasures.

If she could speak English,
I'm sure I'd hear her shout:
"I've been inside all day, Mommy!
Let's go OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT!"

She'll potty and chase golf balls,
and she'll wag her little tail.
She'll play fetch as long as we let her,
but too much running makes her smell.

Bertha really likes to cuddle
between her mommy and her daddy,
and she loves to eat junk food!
She's really quite a fatty.

She loves the smell of pizza-
she'll watch the oven till it's ready.
She likes bacon, cheese and crackers,
but her favorite is spaghetti.

Bertha barks like crazy
At EVERYTHING outside-
And one thing she can’t resist
Is to hop in the car for a ride.

We like to roll down the window
And then she sticks her head out far
But we really have to watch her
So she doesn’t fall out of the car.

Even though that dog is precious,
Everything’s not always swell-
Sometimes she goes on the carpet
And it leaves a yucky smell.

Bertha often likes to lick
And by “often” I mean always.
When she does it all night long,
We kick her out, into the hallway.

Allison

Congratulations are in order for Allison, who won trivia last night! Yay!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Cheesy Poem

I'm working on writing pet poems with my younger kids, and I have to write a sample. I'm not done, but I'll share my very silly poem anyway. Feel free to add a verse.

Everytime I pull up to my house

before I can get out the key,

there's a scratch at the door, and a cute little bark!

My dog Bertha's been waiting for me.

She'll run around me and around me,

then once more just for good measure.

She just has to say hello!

It's one of life's great pleasures.

If she could speak Engish,

I'm sure I'd hear her shout:

"I've been inside all day, Mommy!

Let's go OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT!"

She'll potty and chase golf balls,

and she'll wag her little tail.

She'll play fetch as long as we let her,

but too much running makes her smell.

Bertha really likes to cuddle

between her mommy and her daddy,

and she loves to eat junk food!

She's really quite a fatty.

She loves the smell of pizza-

she'll watch the oven till it's ready.

She likes bacon, cheese and crackers,

but her favorite is spaghetti.

I have lots more to write. I'm adding a couple of verses per class, so this sucker could get long. We're basing these on a book by this guy...but his book really isn't much more brilliant than my poem. "Where Emma is/ There is no Buffy./I can't figure out/ Why she's so stuffy."

Trivia tonight! Please come, folks. It's getting so much bigger. Last week, we had 35 people play the whole game. We stuck at about 30 for about a month, so 35 is a good sign. Our first game was 8/27 and 4 people played. In 3 months, that's quite an increase! And starting tonight...Christmas questions.

And, I'm decorating the tree tonight!!! Yay!

Bertha

Bertha's favorite place in the world is the cabin in the mountains. She doesn't like it when we get the camera out, and she usually makes a bunch of squinty faces, and she looks like she thinks we're going to beat her with the big black thing. But here, she actually looks like my adorable little doggy. This is her, lying on the floor, at the cabin. She's worn out from chasing sticks.

My break

Oh this was such a fabulous break. Wednesday was awesome, and I got lots of things that needed to be done done. Like...getting a license with the right name, fixing my social security card, renewed my plates, got my breaks looked at, make a green bean casserole. It was much better than normal green bean casserole. Recipe:

I start with a bag of fresh green beans. I steam them for a few minutes. In a pot, I mix a big can of cream of mushroom soup with a big scoop of sour cream. I throw in a little garlic, and let that get hot. I also microwave some sliced mushrooms and add those.

I slice up an onion really small. I mix up an egg, and swirl the onions around in it. Then, I mix some flour and garlic and spices together and swish the onions around in that. I fry these in a big pot of oil.

I mix together the green beans and the hot soup mixture, then pour it in a casserole dish. I sprinkle the onions on top and bake for 15 minutes at 375.

We spent Thanksgiving day at my aunt Denise's house, which was fun. Then Friday, we messed around and did a little shopping, mostly avoiding the Black Friday mess. I cooked soup for Saturday with Jon's family at the cabin. It was delicious, but I want to tweak the recipe before I share it.

Saturday we got to go to a tree farm, and pick out our very own tree. Both of us neglected to take a picture of any sort, but Jon's relative took one, so maybe we'll get a copy sometime. Next up:
Bake Christmas cookies.
Decorate the tree.
Sing lots of Christmas songs.

I'm a big dork about Christmas. I don't really even mind the shopping. I do a lot of it online, and that helps avoid the stress of malls. I really don't like crowds. I'm fine if I'm in front of it...teaching a class, or on a stage. But I don' t like at all being down in the middle of it. Give me a few people over a bunch any day for me. So, malls at Christmas, or Walmart or Target, just aren't fun.

We got to spend time at the Cabin, and it was wonderful. It was interesting seeing so many people there...Jon's whole family came out. There are a whole crowd of people. And a cute baby and some kids. Usually it's just Jon and Bertha and I while we're there. We stayed after and spent the night, but the clouds blocked most of the stars. This place has the prettiest view of the stars.

I have brownies in the oven, and vanilla ice cream in the ice cream maker. Sounds good, doesn't it?

Last day of School

I have 2 more classes to teach, and then a 5 day break! I may pass out from excitement. That's a long time to be off. On the other hand, these last 2 classes are likely to be very difficult. The kids are as excited as I am.

The laziest day of my life

The laziest day of my life may have been Saturday. I woke up about 11, and went to use the bathroom. Then, I got right back in bed. We watched Black Snake Moan from bed. I didn't get up until about 2:15. And by "get up", what I really mean is that we took my computer to Allison's back porch and watched several episodes of Family Guy while sitting in the hottub. I did go see a play. But that's really all I did. It was awesome, and needed, and I'm a happy girl.

My cousin-in-law, who I haven't met, died over the weekend, so please keep my inlaws in your thoughts and prayers.

My good friend Libby is having a bad day, as her cat of 18 years had to be put to sleep last night. Keep her in your thoughts as welll.

Pretty Picture

I just downloaded a bunch of pictures from this summer that I'd forgotten about. This one is from the fairy on the way to Ocracoke Island. Is that how you spell fairy when you're talking about a big boat? I'd look it up but I'm too lazy.

I'm Back!

I cannot wait until this evening, when (if all goes as planned) I'll be sitting in the newly working hottub of Allison's. And, I knew Thanksgiving was coming up, but I wasn't really paying attention to when. Turns out, after today and tomorrow, only 2 more days of school before our break. That's awesome.

So, I haven't been blogging very much, and that's because I've been editing video. I shot my friend Bonnie's wedding, and I finally finished that, as well as one more wedding. The biggest thing, though, was puppet shows. My kids at school wrote plays and made puppets and performed puppet shows. There were about 60 to sort through, label, edit, etc. In the end, I had each class rate their class projects on a scale of 1-10, and I picked the highest in each class. Then, I put those 8 together on a DVD, which will play for my whole school tomorrow. This has all been very time consuming. I have nothing to show you now, but I will soon. There is a website called MediaMax, where I can put long videos for free. Assuming it works as planned, I should have the puppet shows on the internet for your viewing pleasure by the weekend.

You wouldn't believe how difficult it was to get this video stuff up and running. Everything in the world went wrong. After much manual reading, much reediting, a little cussing, and more RAM for my computer, everything seems to be running smoothly.

School is frustrating. I stick with my earlier claim that the kids are awesome. As a whole, it's the best group of kids I've worked with. The other teachers are mean, though. Not all of them, but most. Apparently, before I started working here there were major issues between specials teachers (drama, music, art, pe, computer) and regular classroom teachers. Well, I didn't have anything to do with any of that, and I'm certainly not shown any special favors here...so they need to stop being mean and petty. That's all I'll say about that.

Jon is still wonderful. Our weekend getaway to the mountains was just magical. We really needed some extended time with no friends around, and no pressing issues to deal with. It was very fun. We needed the break. I really love that guy. I've said it before...everyone thought we were crazy, but it was such a good choice. I can't imagine if he was just my boyfriend. He felt like my husband 10 minutes after we met.

Fun night

Allison and I just had a game night with our men and it was so fun. Also, we cleaned out the hottub and filled the sucker up with water. It should be ready by tomorrow. I'm truly sorry for my slackidasical approach to blogging this week. I've been busy and preoccupied.

Tuesday

So, I haven't blogged for several days. I had no choice, as I was at a cabin in the mountains with no internet. I had a wonderful time, and then came home to do trivia. Today-I get more RAM installed on my computer, so that's awesome. More later.

My favorite 2 pictures

So, I'm no wiz with a camera. My husband and my best friend...wizzes. Me, I'm a dud. But I have taken 2 pictures that I love a lot. One is in the Saba post, but it's small. Here they are:

More bathroom

It's a work of art, no? I feel like Golem with the ring. My precious. I know I already posted a picture, but I thought you needed more.

Saba, Netherland Antilles

This summer Jon and I went to Saba, in the Netherland Antilles on our honeymoon.



View Larger Map
It was the most charming and wonderful place I've ever been. It is a tiny, 5 square mile island. They didn't get a road built, because of impossibly steep and rocky conditions until 1940. They began building it in 1920, and it is the only road on the island. It's the swirly thing on the map. They didn't get electricity until 1960. At one point, the island was inhabited by mostly pirates.

They don't get very much tourism, and the vast majority of the tourism they get is diving related. The island, though many have never heard of it, is consistently rated one of the top diving islands in the world. Honeymooners are rare, and they treated us like royalty. We stayed at Scout's Place, where one of the nicest restaurants on the island was one building over. They even delivered beautifully presented hour-out-of-the-ocean Saban lobster to our room. If you ever go to Saba, Scout's Place has my highest recommendation.

The people there are so friendly. I think it's because they realize that they have to live with the other people on the island, and only those people. So, they're nice.

The island is a very old volcano, so it shoots straight up. Even though it is tiny, it's the highest point in the Caribbean. We went hiking, and snorkeling, and shopping.

That's where we went snorkeling. It was incredibly beautiful. I can see why the diving is always rated so high. We just snorkeled, and it was one of the coolest things I've ever done.

When you hike in Saba, you're hiking to the top of a volcano. You walk through an honest to God rainforest. Unless you're in the rainforest, you can see mountains and ocean from every place on the island. Jon took some amazing pictures while we were in the rainforest, but my camera died for most of the hike. I do have a few.

Everywhere you look, there are goats wandering around. They're everywhere, and they eat everyone's mangoes and papayas and bananas. But no one ever eats them. I really think that would help control the population a little. But, I love goats. They're one of my favorite animals, so I was in heaven.

The plants were beautiful and they had these trees called "July Trees" that are my new favorite trees.

Also, all the rooftops on the whole island are red. Most of the buildings are white with green trims. It makes for such a lovely, quaint scene. The whole island is lovely and quaint.

You can see more pictures here.

I get a little carried away when I start talking about Saba.

Trivia

I forgot to mention that there were 28 people playing trivia Monday. That's awesome. You should be one of them.

And I quote...

An actual word for word error alert on my windows vista: "The server may be a little bit broken temporarily. Please try again in a few moments while it sorts itself out. Error 500"

I find this bizarre. It may be a little bit broken? It almost makes me feel sorry for the poor server. And I feel safe knowing that it will sort itself out.

Bathroom. Yay!

To see more pictures that fully explain the beauty that is the bathroom, go here. http://picasaweb.google.com/CarmenEckard/Bathroom. More tomorrow. :)

No blog for 2 days. Oh well. My apologies.

So, the school system has a webpage that every teacher sees everytime they check their email, and parents and students go often. I've been trying for years to do something worthy of getting on that homepage. Look!

http://www.catawba.k12.nc.us/


I'm sure you guys are sick of hearing about my raindance and the bathroom. But, the bathroom is finished and I'll be posting pictures soon. It's beautiful, and I must kiss my husband's feet.

Our school is in the process of being reaccredited today and tomorrow, and there is a team of people about, and everyone is very tense. In my opinion, if your teachers are highly qualified, your kids do well on tests, and things generally run smoothly, why do people freak out about these?

Preparations

We're (and of course I mostly mean Jon) putting together the final touches on our bathroom. Pictures will be forthcoming. We've decided to have an impromptu party tonight to celebrate. If you're reading this, you're invited. But it's a bathroom warming, so you have to bring a roll of toilet paper.

I have too much to do to blog, so more tomorrow.

13 minutes left to blog

and nothing to say. I'm in a terrible mood for no real reason, except perhaps pms. I want to punch something. I'm feeling arguementative and misunderstood and I'm going to sleep now.

No time

Busy day. Lots of work to do, and then Jon and I went out to eat so see Allison and then shopping, then we watched Punch Drunk Love. It was fine. And now, my hubby is looking extra cuddly, and as much as I love blogging, I love cuddling more. Not such a good start to National Blog Month, I know.