Karma, Karma, Karma, Karma Chameleon!

I really did expect to walk into the courthouse today to meet officers who would handcuff me and take me to jail since I failed to appear for jury duty. I was super anxious this morning and, of course, running late.

After parking and practically running to the doors, I found that they hadn't even opened yet. Score one for me. Then, when we were filing in, a woman leaned in and whispered "I thought we were going to get away with not coming at all." What? You mean to tell me that, though I totally forgot to call in, those people in my group who had been were not instructed to appear until this morning?!?! Score two for me. Then, after a two-hour orientation, our guide read a list of names of individuals who, while not done for the day, were able to take an extended lunch and report back at 1:30. Guess whose name was on it? That's right, yours truly!

So, I just woke up from a mini-nap and am gearing up for another "grueling" three hours in court. Wish me luck!

Oops!

I just realized that I was supposed to call in for jury service on Monday. I was originally called in April but postponed until the Monday after summer school let out. Time went by. I got a new jury summons in the mail, I got a reminder phone call last week yet I still forgot. I just called in and am expected to report tomorrow morning. I'm half afraid they will be waiting there with handcuffs, ready to arrest me for failure to appear.

If you don't hear from me for awhile...

What day is it again?

I've been on vacation now for, what, six whole days (including the weekend which, technically, really shouldn't count) and I have already seriously lost my inner sense of date and time. I have to check the calendar regularly just to remember what day is it. Incidentally, it is Thursday.

I made a pact with myself that I wasn't going to go to school at all this week to give myself a true break. What have I been doing instead? A whole lotta NOTHING. Well, I emptied six trash bags of clothes from our closets and donated them to the Salvation Army. I've re-watched two complete seasons of Dexter and am finishing up the third. I've started the book that Tabitha sent me for my birthday. I've been to a Dodgers game and taken Mark to the doctor. I've written thank you notes for my birthday gifts (they're in the mail). I've laid around. A lot. I've played with my Wii and left my car parked in the same spot for two whole days. I've been grocery shopping and am currently sitting up very straight so that the dye on my head doesn't drip down and color other parts of my body. I suppose it hasn't been too much nothing.

But I am now starting to find myself, after only six days off, bored. And ready to establish some sort of routine. Quote me on that come mid-October when IEPs are due and my CSULB classes are in full swing.

Formatting

My apologies for the lack of uniformity in my last couple of posts, I think I figured out how to make the changes I want and they should all look the same from now on. (I told you we're all on the spectrum somewhere!)

A sigh of relief...

Summer school is done and I am now officially on vacation!!! The five weeks flew by and it was much better than I anticipated it was going to be. Now on to more fun things...

Happy, happy day!

I love birthdays. I think birthdays should be a super special day for the birthday boy/girl and an excellent day to celebrate being you. My birthday always starts several days prior to the actual date of my birth. In fact, I enjoy celebrating my entire birth month.

I always hear people saying things like, "once you get to a certain age, it just isn't fun to celebrate getting older anymore." To which I reply, "Bull#&it!" The purpose of celebrating a birthday, to me, isn't to celebrate living another year or, as some pessimists out there feel, getting a year closer to death. No sir, celebrating someone's birthday is to take one day out the year to make a point to tell the people that you love that you are happy they're alive.

I found myself brought to tears on my birthday this year by the sheer volume of people who extended their well wishes and happy thoughts. Everyone from my students and co-workers to my family to Mark's co-workers and family called or sent cards or emailed or sent me a text message letting me know that they are thinking of me on my special day. I felt truly, truly humbled and blessed to have such special people in my life and I thank each and every one of you for your thoughts.

I had a terrific birthday this year, as I always do. Knowing how important birthdays are to me, Mark always goes above and beyond in making my day special for me. We were recounting all of the birthdays that I've celebrated with him and each one has been remarkable. This year was no exception.

While my co-workers and students had been celebrating with me since the 15th, Mark and I started our official celebration at midnight on the 17th when I opened the package that my mom sent along with one of his gifts for me. We stayed up late watching our TiVoed shows from the past week and enjoying being together.

Mark had the day off so I followed suit and called in sick. We woke up and got moving at our own pace, no need for alarm clocks and morning routines. In fact, I was happily awoken by phone calls from both of my parents and a text message from my brother. While I laid in bed, slowly welcoming in the day, Mark snuck off to finish wrapping my gifts. While it's clear to see why I am the resident wrapper in our home, I absolutely love the effort he puts forth just to make me feel special.

I was shocked and thrilled to open a Nintendo Wii, a Wii Fit, and the Personal Trainer! I'd been wanting a Wii since I first played it at Mike and Kristi's right after Colin was born. He also got me a new bottle of DKNY Be Delicious perfume, my signature scent that I've been out of for a few months, and a new Dodgers bracelet, I get one every season and hadn't bought a new one yet this year.
After opening my presents, we went to breakfast and the headed to the beach. We originally intended on going back to Salt Creek but because we had taken our time getting up and about, we opted just to go to the dog beach at Huntington. We had a great time with King and he even went swimming in the ocean for the first time. He learned to negotiate the waves the hard way (by taking a couple in the face) and it was hilarious to watch as he learned to lift his head and turn away from the water as the waves came toward him. As we were leaving the beach, King was even talent spotted and a lady wanted us to come to the studio for an interview. We opted against it as we didn't quite trust her but, still, Hollywood wants our Kingy.

When we got home, Mark's parents had a vase of flowers, a card, and a cake waiting for me. The card had a really great sentiment about how much they love me. Mark's mom asked me to read it out loud but there was no way I could because just the fact that they had gotten me a card brought tears to my eyes. Mark read it though and both his mom and I got choked up. It was a really nice moment.


Mark had told me earlier in the week that he made dinner reservations but wouldn't tell me where. After taking the strangest route possible and keeping me guessing the entire time, we arrived at one of our favorite restaurants called Dal Rae. We enjoyed a really nice bottle of Strasburg champagne, tableside Caesar salad, a really nice bottle of wine, Chateaubriand (also prepared tableside), and a delicious ice cream dessert along with great conversation and romantic time together.

After such a fantastic day and evening, mixed with a belly full of delicious food and wine, I went to sleep on Friday night thankful for the life that I get to live.

Another Pleasant L.A. Sunday

Well, really, it was a pleasant L.A. weekend but those lyrics don't fit as nicely in the song.

Friday started out a bit rocky. Mark went into work at 7:15 and didn't take a lunch break until after 4. His day didn't end until after 10 and then he went out with the guys from work for a few drinks. After all, they deserved them after working a 15 hour day! Meanwhile, however, I was home with a mini-migraine. I had my first migraine at the beginning of June and I went to class that night anyway, thinking it would go away eventually. It was so painful that, when the throbbing started on Friday afternoon, I didn't take any chances and spent most of the afternoon and early evening laying in bed in the dark with the fans blowing directly at me. I felt better by 8ish or so, thankfully.

Saturday morning I attempted to go to the lab for my blood work that the doctor ordered at my physical at the beginning of June. I know, I know...I should have gotten my booty there much sooner; however, I have to go on an 8 hour fast which makes it impossible to go anytime except in the morning and, in the morning during the week, I have to be at work. Well, when I got to the lab, the line was about forty people deep outside of the door. I have no idea what it looked like inside. I immediately turned around but then figured since I'd gotten up early on a Saturday to be there, I should just suck it up and wait. But, after moving three inches in 20 minutes, I left. I'm going to go Wednesday morning before work and if I'm late so be it. The blood work is to check my cholesterol and my thyroid. It's nothing life threatening or anything.

When I got back from the doctor, Mark and I went to breakfast and then to price doggy doors at Home Depot and the local favorite hardware store, All-American (the irony of the name is staggering). We had planned on getting a security screen with a door for King in it but it turns out that they are upwards of $500 so we then planned on special ordering a regular exterior door with a doggy door in it but then Mark's dad decided that he is going to attempt to install a doggy door in it. So, we purchased all of the pieces needed and shall see how this endeavor turns out.

We then went to The Comedy & Magic Club in Hermosa Beach with our friends Holly and Jake. Holly is a school psychologist in our district and was on my interview panel when I was hired at Cerritos. I knew then that we would be friends. She no longer works at my school but we get together for martinis at least once a month and the four of us get together almost as often. The club is celebrating its birthday and we saw 20 comics, each of which performed for about 5 minutes. It was a great time.

Yesterday, Mark and I were up and about fairly early, around 10 (which is early for the two of us). We hopped into his car, dropped the top, and headed south. We got off of the freeway at Seal Beach and drove on PCH for close to 2 hours. At around 1 we decided to stop at the next beach. We ended up at Salt Creek Beach (pictured above), which is beautiful. We swam for the first time this summer and had a great time. I learned that I just shouldn't try to catch a wave and body surf in. The waves were very large, at least for this Midwestern girl, and when I finally got brave enough to try to catch one, it swallowed me up and spit me out. When I finally had my footing again, I was almost in tears and about to puke. In retelling the story, I swear I was under water for at least a minute. Mark said it was more like 4 seconds! He tried to hold me back and I could feel him grabbing my legs but the wave was too strong and took me away. I hit my shoulder on the bottom and my boobs flew out of my suit, of course. Fortunately, I was able to cover up before I got out of the water. Needless to say, I didn't stay in the water much longer after that. I did, however, laugh about it the entire rest of the day. Before we left the beach, Mark ran back into the water to show me how its done and made body surfing look so freakin' easy! He grabbed a wave and rode it all the way in, I was quite impressed with how easily he did it.

Last night, we grilled steaks with Mark's mom and his sister, Tina and drank a delicious bottle of wine. When we sat down for our meal, I commented on what a perfect summer day and weekend it had been. It was Mark's last guaranteed Sunday off since they will be training 7 days/week from this point on. It was a great weekend.

Another One Bites the Dust...

Three cheers for having jumped through the hoop that was the first of two elective classes that I'm required to take! Doesn't that make it the exact opposite of an elective? My summer session class ended tonight with my group's presentation. The 6 weeks of summer session flew by and I am so glad to have it over and done with.

Twiddling my Thumbs (Better settle in, it's a long one!)

After being publicly called out on Angela's blog and then noticing that I'm at the very bottom of Kristi's blog list, as in I'm the most delinquent blog out there, I figured I should do some catching up. I haven't blogged since May 17th and since then, trust me, twiddling my thumbs is something I just haven't had time for. In fact, since May 17th...

My Spring semester classes ended and I earned a 4.0 in both of them. Both classes really should be undergrad courses and seemed to be designed for people who have never taught in an actual classroom. I was so much more challenged, intellectually, in the fall and was a bit disappointed with the courses this semester. I discovered that earning my Master's is more about dedication, determination, and perseverance and that it really isn't about intelligence at all.

We went to Cambria/Paso Robles for the weekend with Katey and her boyfriend, Kenji. Kenji lives in San Francisco and Katey in Tampa. They fly cross-country regularly and, though Kenji is in the same state, I haven't seen Katey since our wedding. We made a plan to meet up halfway between Kenji's place and ours and, aren't we lucky, the halfway point also happens to be a great place to taste wine! Paso Robles is known for their Zinfandel, which is my favorite. Plus, the city of Cambria, where we rented a house for the weekend, and the city of Paso Robles, and most of the wineries within it, are very dog friendly. So, for this weekend excursion, we didn't have to leave the dog behind. He was even allowed inside one of the tasting rooms. The five of us had a great time driving through wine country, singing about "mini sirloin burgers," playing Cranium, and catching up. Well, to tell the truth, Katey and I never have to catch up, we simply continue on as if we'd seen each other yesterday. That's part of what makes our friendship, one that's been in existence since 1987, the best kind of friendship there is. We went to Adam and Lindsay's for a Memorial Day BBQ. They have a great place in Sherman Oaks, about 26 miles from us in Downey. Their apartment complex has a pool, a couple of hot tubs, tennis courts, basketball courts, and a great place near it all to have a cookout. We were able to meet one of Adam's best friends from home who also lives in SoCal. They always have great parties and, as always, we had a great time. Luckily, it wasn't a repeat of last year's 4th of July party. The one I missed. Because I was passed out. The whole day.
On May 28th, our school had our annual Premios de Oro awards ceremony. Translated, it means "Prize of Gold" for all of you gringas reading this. :) I was shocked and humbled to find out that I had been nominated by a colleague and chosen by the PTSA to win the PTSA honorary service award for my dedication to the school this past year. I got a plaque and everything! I tried my darnedst to find out who nominated me but either nobody knew or they were swore to secrecy. It really made me feel very special and appreciated.

We spent an afternoon/evening watching the Red Wings win one of the Stanley Cup playoff games with our friends Dave and Robin and their new daughter, Riley. Even she's a Red Wings fan! June brought with it a ton of exciting events for me and my class at school, all of which were planned by yours truly. We had two retirement parties for one of my paraeducators, an end of the year BBQ for the entire class, I had to plan a presentation for a colleague who also retired, our annual trip to Knott's Berry Farm and, of course, graduation. My co-teacher and I also get gifts for all of our paraeducators, our general education T.A.'s who work in our classroom, the general education teachers who work with our kids throughout the year, and the support staff at the school. The first two weeks of the month were spent running around like a chicken with my head cut off getting all of the loose ends tied up.
I also started my summer session class at CSULB the first week in June. It's a course on Program Evaluation and I'm taking it as an elective. Since I didn't get my credential in California, my undergrad program in Arizona didn't quite match up and I'm short 6 credits for my Master's degree. I had to take electives in the field of education or psychology and, with the limited number of classes offered in the summer, this one just happened to meet the criteria. It meets twice a week and is supposed to run from 5-8:45; however, our instructor has let us go at 7:45 every class session and not one of us has said a word. The first couple of times that she has said "we only have about five minutes left in class" at 7:40, everyone just kinda looked around thinking "nobody better say a word" and nobody has. A few of us were just joking around that maybe our instructor is thinking the same thing. Who knows. It's only a 6-week course and our last class is on Thursday. In fact, I should be working on my final paper and presentation right now...

I went to the doctor the first week of June for a physical and all looks good. Well, almost all. My doctor and I had a very frank discussion about my weight and, although I'm totally aware of my weight problem, I found myself near tears telling him how hard it is to have to have struggled with it all my life and blah, blah, blah. He told me that I could stand to lose, get this, 60 pounds!!! 60. I've known where my healthy weight range is and I was totally aware that it was 60 lbs away but to hear the doctor say it made me feel, quite honestly, pretty shitty. However, I know that it is all for the good of my health and the health of our future babies-to-be. My doctor also recommended an appetite suppressant, called phentermine, which I've been taking now for just over a month. He said it can be a good tool to support my changing habits. I have to go in monthly to weigh in and talk with him before getting another batch of pills. I haven't felt weird when taking it, except for when I take a pill and have a couple of drinks. I started with 1/2 a pill a day and am now taking a whole pill but 1/2 at a time. It's crazy what it does to my appetite. I'm just not hungry. And, when I first got them, I thought it wasn't necessarily going to work because my problem with weight loss hasn't been hunger. In fact, it's just the opposite, I eat even when I'm not hungry or past the point of feeling full. But, food just doesn't have the same appeal to me anymore and my relationship with food is starting to change at the very basic of levels. I'm starting to eat to live rather than live to eat. When I went in for my monthly check up and for my next bottle, I had lost 11 lbs. Works for me! My plan is to use this tool through the summer and be done come September.

After school let out, summer school started right away and, of course, I'm teaching it again this summer. Hopefully, if all goes according to plan, this will be my last summer teaching for several years, if not forever. My first week of summer school was a bit rocky as I was TOTALLY PMSing and, therefore, unnecessarily stressed out. There is another teacher working with me even though we only have a total of 26 students attending. With all of the budget cuts, I was certain that I'd have all of the students for summer school. I'm very grateful that I don't because, when we split the kids into two groups, I have a very manageable 13 students - a class size I haven't seen since I was working at the elementary school. It's a very nice reprieve from the usual 30+ in the classroom at the same time. This week my hormones were more under control and it was a lot of fun. Two weeks down, three more to go...

Mark's been busy lately too. He is on the opening management team for the newest BJ's Restaurant, which is located 1.3 miles from our house! He actually rode his bike to work last week. The restaurant is not even finished being built yet, although watching the progress is amazing. Mark and the other three managers have set up shop in an empty store next to the restaurant and have been interviewing prospective employees for eleven hours a day for the past two and half weeks! Before he started, I kept asking him what exactly four managers are going to do all day before the restaurant even opens. I had NO IDEA how crazy the hiring process was going to be. They have appointments for 100 interviews everyday plus they take walk-in applicants. People are waiting two or three hours just to get an interview. He said it's so hard to turn those people away but he has had to it quite frequently. When it all started, they needed to hire 260 employees and expected to get a few thousand applicants. It's such an insane process, he comes home exhausted every night. One positive thing is, though, that he works from 8 am until about 7:30 every day so we have our evenings off together and he's been off on Sundays and that will continue for a few more weeks. We were joking around that we're like Ozzy and Harriet now with the same schedule eveyday. That's something we have never had.

Mark also quit smoking! (Insert maniacal cheers and applause here) He's been cigarette free for three weeks now and doing a really, really amazing job. He's using nicotine patches to help him out but quitting is not easy and I commend him for giving it a go. I've been reading research to him about how much his body has healed already and all of the positive things that will come from his knocking out his addiction. I really am proud of him.

So, here I am, on 4th of July, sitting at my computer. Mark's working this morning/afternoon so we don't have any major plans. Plus, our baby is terrified of fireworks and has been freaking out every night for the past week and a half since people have been lighting them off. We've given him 1/2 a Dramamine the past couple of nights, something that a friend of mine's vet recommended for her Rottweiler, and that has seemed to help. For those of you who know King, he is probably the most relaxed and mellow dog out there. But, man does he HATE fireworks. Lucky for him, it'll all be over soon. We may go to our friend Dave's place, if he doesn't mind if we bring the dog, or we may go hang out with Mark's friend Mark who is staying at an awesome place for the weekend in Newport Beach. Or, we may just stay in and relax with the dog. Our little family of three.