Day 90 - March 31

I have been looking for this box for about 8 months now.  As you can see, I clearly labeled it "Put On Top" along with the addition of "don't crush."  Labeling means nothing in this home, so it would seem.  This box was in the back corner of the first room we filled - on the bottom.  Under 3 boxes of china and 2 boxes of video games.  I haven't untaped it yet, so hopefully everything is ok. :)  I'm hoping the winter gloves/hats/etc kept the fragile stuff from breaking. :)

Day 89 - March 30

Tonight was Family Read Night - an idea dreamed up by one of my teacher buddies that she & I wrote a grant for the last 3 years.  Tonight was the last one.  This cake is actually from the LAST Family Read Night, but I like it.  It's the Pigeon from the "Don't Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus" series.  (Look 'em up.  They're good.  Not "Chester" by Melanie Watt good, but still a fun read.)  Now I'm beat and I must sleep.  Forever.  Or til 6:01am, whichever happens to arrive first.

Day 88 - March 29

This is our new front door!  Of course the lock is different than it was a few hours ago when I took this picture, but that's another story for another day. :)

Day 87 - March 28

The National Geographic Museum is happy to sell you ANYTHING with the Terra Cotta Warriors on it.  Even scrapbooking stickers, as shown here.  Which is amusing, since you're not allowed to take pictures inside the exhibit.  I guess you're supposed to buy the postcards with the pictures and then buy the scrapbook stickers and then make pages out of that? 

All I wanted was a Christmas ornament!  They did have Chinese fish ornaments, but that didn't really match the exhibit so I decided to go without.  I'll live.  Somehow. :)

And now to continue with our busy day.  It's unusual that a quick jaunt to DC is the most leisurely thing we do in a weekend.  We didn't even eat.  Just drove, metroed, museumed, metroed, drove, and came home!

Day 86 - March 27

All done ... just need to put on the addresses and mail them.

Oh, and buy the house.  Minor details. :)

Day 85 - March 26

A (beheaded) yearbook picture that didn't make it.  I spent the last several months working on the yearbook.  It requires a LOT of pictures.  I think I took 4000, but only about 700 of them got uploaded to the site and only about 500 wound up being used.  (Not counting the school pictures that automatically get fed in.)  This was during the first grade show practice.  I didn't even realize the stripe on her outfit was there until it stole the light from 3 of my shots!

Day 84 - March 25

Another lovely picture of art in a doctor's office!  Met with the surgeon who did my thing at the beginning of March.  He advised me to go on meds & not have kids until he knows if the meds are helping me or not.  These two particular meds take 6+ months to build up the proteins or something.  He really made me angry, because he was only thinking about one body system.  He doesn't care how it will affect my problems that my other doctors treat.  Why can't I just get all my doctors who treat various parts of my body (and perhaps a shrink to take care of me while they all yell) to sit around a table and help me make the best decisions?  It seems like every medicine that one of them wants me to take is something another one is telling me NOT to take.  (Heck, even one of the meds the urologist prescribes is on the "don't ingest this ingredient" list that he himself gave me!)  I left there very angry today, because I felt like he didn't listen to a word I said, and didn't answer any of the questions I waited 3 weeks to ask.  And because I got flustered, I didn't really realize that until he was gone. 

So for now, this is the last time I will be seeing this particular doctor.  I have an appointment with a different urologist at Hopkins in a couple weeks, and they claim that they work as a team of specialists to figure out the best solution.  Let's hope they are world famous for a reason. :) Oh, and I think I'm bringing a written paper with my questions and concerns and perhaps even my husband, so that I don't leave feeling so mad!

The good news is, I *am* having a little reduction in symptoms this week.  AND it is not snow weather.  AND we're buying a house in 4 days.  AND it's almost a really long weekend.  All of these are good things!

Day 83 - March 24

I read this book last weekend.  Some of his books I really enjoy, others make my head hurt.  This one was kind of a blend of the two emotions.  At the beginning, a New England pastor is telling the story of how a woman in his church was abused by her husband which eventually escalated to the husband killing his wife and then himself.  The rest of the story unfolds from there - the aftermath and it's implications.  Some of it was weird, I thought some of the characters were a little kooky.  But hey, at least it wasn't half set in the town of a fictional novel like the Great Gatsby one.  (That one definitely fell into the "made my head hurt" realm!)

In other news, I counted and now I'm up to 10 people I know who have a birthday on March 24 now!

Day 82 - March 23

Almost done ... 36 trucks stamped, colored, & cut ... 36 sets of furniture stamped, colored, & cut ... 36 card bases cut & folded ... 36 patterned pieces of paper cut & glued to the bases ... 36 "roads" sliced ... 1 silver sharpie to draw the lines ... 36 trucks & sets of furniture glued to the fronts ... 36 "just moved" words stamped & punched ... 36 colored circles punched & glued ... now I just need to stick the label with our new address inside!

The cards are a rainbow of fruit flavors because I was using up all the random paper I had laying around.  They came out cute but if I ever see this set of stamps again, I just might say bad words. :)  And if my darling husband says "Why are you doing this when we could just send an email?" one more time, I also might say bad words! :)  Since I can't mentally prepare to move via packing like normal people, I made "We Moved" cards.  What can I say?

Day 81 - March 22

My dad, as drawn by one of my 5th graders after finding out that my dad can't hike right now due to high levels of rattlesnake activity.  It made me laugh out loud!

Day 80 - March 21

Another shot for posterity - this time, our storage locker.  The left side is just peeking in there; you can see the edges of bookshelves and movie racks.  Below the camera's range is Mike's nice desk. (Although, come to think of it, I don't know where the rolltop part is.  I guess it's in there somewhere!) The light colored loveseat can be seen above the boogie boards, and if you look toward the very top, you'll see our deck chaise lounger 9 feet in the air, wedged between some cross beams.  Luckily, the boys who helped fit the stuff in are coming to help get it out! :)

Day 79 - March 20

I was all ready to use my picture from the line at Rita's today, but then we watched a dude twirl fire. :)

Day 78 - March 19

Why aren't all nights this pretty?  And why don't I ever have my good camera when it happens? :)

Day 77 - March 18

Look what came!  Sorry, excuse my excitement ... I'm a data collection nerd. :) 

And another reason to be excited?  On April 1, Census Day, we can be counted as homeOWNERS! :)

Day 76 - March 17

In 2 weeks, we will no longer have a 2nd bedroom that looks like this.  I can't wait!  Now that we're changing seasons again, there are things I want from boxes again.  I no longer can remember what is in this room or in other closets.  Usually this room is just the neat piles with the TV on top, however, we got a notice from our complex yesterday asking us to make sure the master bedroom closet is easily accessible so they can measure for the closet organizers they're installing when we leave.  Hence the bike, Christmas tree box, lampshades, paper towels, toilet paper, wrapping paper, and all the other messy stuff on top that usually has a "home." 

There are no words to share how tired I am of living in this condition!!!

Day 75 - March 16

This picture was on my phone, and I had no idea what it was.  (It was 180 degrees rotated from this image.)  I could tell the green was probably grass, but I was clueless on the rest.  It was obviously taken when I had my hand on the camera button by accident, but that's all I knew.  When I tried to rotate it on the phone, the image kept rotating with me!  However, now that it's in the computer, I rotated little by little until I recognized the brown/black section towards the bottom.  It's the mailboxes in our complex! The darker blue in the background is the US Postal Service drop box, the rest are the complex mailboxes.  The dark spot at the bottom is where the pole is rusty. 

I will sleep better now that I've solved my little mystery. :)

Day 74 - March 15

This slightly crooked, rather out of focus picture was taken at 6:45pm!  The lack of sleep is totally worth it.  I love Daylight Savings Time!!!!!!!

Day 73 - March 14

May I present tonight's dinner - pre oven.  Mike's side is the good looking one.  BBQ chicken pizza.  My side is white garlic chicken.  Then I made 3 dozen snickerdoodles for dessert.  Well, a weeks worth of dessert. :)  I was getting a little tired of the butterscotch cookies being my only snack so I'm mixing it up!

Day 72 - March 13

For the 2nd weekend in a row, I got to go to girly crafting stamping night.  Good times.

Day 71 - March 12

I told you that the other animal would eventually show up!  This is Moose's angry face.  It amused me.  Really, I was playing with my zoom lens to see how close of a shot I could get, but since I was looking through said zoom lens, I bumped him in the nose and he made this face. :)

Day 70 - March 11

This tree stump plays a different character pretty much daily.  The little girl who lives downstairs creates worlds with any stick, string, stump, bit of tree branch, or moss clump she can find.  Almost every day it looks different.  Today it's a tall stick with a string connecting it to a mini "tree" (a trimming from a tree we lost in the storm) and moss clumps were dug out elsewhere and stuck to the stump.  She's so cute & innocent.

Another set of kids I know that are cute & innocent had some of that innocence taken away today.  Just as the students were arriving this morning, we found out that one of our kindergarten teachers died overnight.  She wasn't at work and after multiple attempts to reach her, the office tried an emergency contact who shared the information.  It was hard to share the news at first even with all the adults in the building, due to the fact that MSA testing started right when the office found out.  So throughout the first half of the day, the county crisis team of counselors came, there were mini faculty meetings in the office 5 people at a time because that's all the coverage they could round up, and then at 1 in the afternoon we all had to tell our classes.  We're a big faculty, so not everyone knows everyone, but Cherry was someone everyone knew and liked because she was so different from the rest of us.  She retired from NYC public schools and came down here to keep chugging.  Her daughter is my age and just had a baby.  So sudden and so sad.  And the kids were heartbroken.  It's amazing to watch the grief process at the kindergarten & 1st grade level. 

Day 69 - March 10

May I present, my junk food of choice.  These are made of sugar and peppermint oil, 2 things I'm allowed to have in whatever quantity I desire.  They have become my snack & dessert.  They're softer than the regular starlight mints you get at a restaurant, but harder than I thought they'd be.  And it was about $5 for a billion of them at BJ's, so I won't run out any time soon!

Day 68 - March 9

For the first time ever in the history of Big Love, I am totally caught up!  That makes watching a finale even harder, because now I know I have to wait a whole year for the next episodes.  Not exactly the most exciting thing to happen to me today, but it was something I could take a picture of. :)  I wanted to take a picture of the long ponytail that the lady at Hair Cuttery chopped off my head, exposing my neck.  It was shorter than I wanted to go, but by going the extra inch or two, it qualified me for Locks of Love.  So I did it. 

Day 67 - March 8

This is the beginnings of my next crafting project.  There is a lot of coloring and a LOT of cutting coming my way!!

Day 66 - March 7

Dexter. So creepy, yet so good. And now I can watch season 4 and be caught up with the rest of the world.

Day 65 - March 6

Tonight was crafting Saturday 1 of 2.  We made a mini Easter basket and a little card.  Good times.

Day 64 - March 5

Butterscotch chip cookies are tasty. Who knew? We have them so often, I've memorized the recipe.

Day 63 - March 4

When I was waking up after my thing today, Mike tells me that I was asking lots of medical questions like my BP, o2 stats, etc., and getting mad when he didn't know. As you see, I had this nifty box over my head, so it should have been easy! Too bad I don't remember any of it. :) I should have told him to take a picture when I was actually hooked up so that the box didn't make me look dead. :)

Day 62 - March 3

 

Normally, I'm at work at this time.  It's just frustrating that this is hitting with my darn surgery, so I'll be home feeling yucky without internet or TV (or the ability to cook food!) that day.  Hopefully I'll wake up feeling fine! :)

Day 61 - March 2

 

I read this book today!  Well, the second half of it.  I started it yesterday.  Thank goodness the math stuff I'm teaching this week is a repeat of last week's lessons because it gave me some free time in the evenings.  Also, Mike didn't get home til 8pm tonight so I had lots of time after work to read.  I think reading this with my teacher eyes gave me some added insight ... I could hear the words being spoken at times and totally see the picture she was trying to paint.  In my opinion, she did some good research.

Day 60 - March 1

 

We got new books!  Sadly, the books on display (all the ones on top) represent approximately $3,500, or most of my yearly budget.  But they're pretty!