Year 2 - Day 242 - August 31

My first day of teaching Children's Lit was last night. I think it went well, and hopefully I keep feeling that way. Our first novel of the semester is Charlotte's Web. Have you read it as a grownup? It's so different!!

Year 2 - Day 241 - August 30

My room at school didn't fare nearly as well as my house did. There's a seam in the (flat) roof that goes across the library, and it leaks often. However, it's never been THIS bad before. We got an email recently saying they were going to stop just replacing the tiles and start fixing the root causes. I'm glad, cause this is yucky.

Many of the stuffed animals at work are mine from childhood. The dog with the sock in his mouth was a gift from my mom's friend that she grew up with and the dark one in the middle is a chimp from my friend in high school. The other two (orangutang & horse) were there when I got there, however the horse is currently sporting a purple scarf from my "$50 Boardwalk Bear." The kids play with the animals all the time and I never know which animals will be wearing which accessories. :)

Year 2 - Day 240 - August 29

This is the current BGE outage dot map for our area (2:46pm). We, luckily, are that white space where there is no outage dot. However, most of the lights are still out in our area and driving is a pain in the butt. I am curious to see what the power is like in Cecil County so they can hurry up and make a decision about school tomorrow. I am happy to go to work, but I would be unhappy if I have to find out about NOT going at 5am!

Year 2 - Day 239 - August 28

We survived Hurricane Irene with just some leaves and puddles. A neighbor lost a branch but it wasn't too big. Our backyard is a swamp right now, and it was very windy all night.

Lots of people have no power today, but our neighborhood is one of the lucky ones. We were out for a couple hours this morning, but it was quickly restored. Hopefully it stays that way because our chest freezer is housing the cold items from a few friends homes. :)

Year 2 - Day 238 - August 27

Usually I visit my favorite pharmacist when I need a prescription filled, but with the storm coming I just went to the closest Rite Aid. While waiting in the drive through line, I noticed the top credit card picture in this line of cards - it's a JCPenney card. What?! Rite Aid takes Penneys credit cards?! That didn't make any sense to me. Wikipedia explained the chain of command to me. At one point, JCPenneys owned Eckerd Drugs. Then Rite Aid bought Eckerd so they just continued to take the cards. Random!

I'm sitting here waiting for Hurricane Irene to finish doing her thing. Mike's at work keeping the computers going and I'm taking a break from lesson planning to watch some GH. Hopefully the power keeps on chugging!

Year 2 - Day 237 - August 26

D batteries from Rite Aid (purchased yesterday, before the world went crazy), a big 6 volt battery for the lantern, and a bunch of water carried up from the basement that I got for cheap back in the spring. We're all ready for the storm!

Year 2 - Day 236 - August 25

I'm going to be teaching a section of Children's Literature at a local community college this fall. It's exciting, but I'm a little nervous too! I just got hired in the last 24 hours, and class starts on Tuesday. I have materials from a previous instructor and everyone has been MORE than helpful and encouraging which is wonderful! I spent this evening at a meeting for adjunct professors learning all about the ins and outs of the school. I'm on brain overload! I'm going to spend the next several days working non-stop to get ready. This is a good stress though, because I know I can do it, it's just going to take a lot of work. That's the kind of stress I can live with!

Year 2 - Day 235 - August 24

I had an interesting conversation with a couple people today regarding a second, part-time job. No i's are dotted and no t's are crossed, but it looks promising. It's scary, although in a good way and not in a bad way like the last couple weeks!

Year 2 - Day 234 - August 23

Today is a day that I will remember for a very long time! As everyone knows, we had an earthquake. It was crazy. I'm really glad that nobody was seriously hurt and there wasn't any very serious damage because I thought it was amazing to experience it (honestly didn't think I'd ever find myself in an earthquake) and if it had been more awful, I'd feel guilty about it. It took me about half of the 10-15 seconds to figure out it was an earthquake. In my classroom, we often hear people walking on the roof. That's what I thought it was first, at the rumbling stage. Then when the banging started, I thought it was a whole CREW on the roof. Finally, we started rolling side to side. The computers were rocking, the projector was shaking, and the tree outside my window was going nuts. That's the moment I figured out it was an earthquake. I'll admit, when the principal said "We have no confirmation it was an earthquake" on the intercom, I thought for a moment that it could have been a bomb or something terrorism related. But I jumped on usgs.gov and confirmed the earthquake theory. Wowza, indeed. I was amused at the pictures on facebook showing the "horrible damage" from the quake. Here's some snapshots of the devastation in our home. First, at the top, you see the picture frames that slid off their holders. How sad.

Right next to them, Mr. Blue M&M wound up on the floor. (He's usually up on the desk.)

In my mind, it's like Toy Story and he rode his motorcycle down the ramp of the roll top desk. ;)

Upstairs was a little more sad.

The hutch on the dresser in the guest room isn't attached, it just sits on top of the dresser. There was a wooden sign (hard to see on top shelf because it's on its side now) that fell over and made things fall off the shelf.

R2D2 seems ok, but poor Darth. He is all broken to pieces. :( I was amused to see that Darth's head was holding Mike's boutonniere from our wedding, too.

Ok, enough about the earthquake. The picture of the day SHOULD be my huge smiling face! My original appointment for my mole biopsy results was for Wednesday, tomorrow, after school. My anxiety has been seriously high all 2 weeks. I have not been sleeping well, I've been hormonal and emotional and not handling anything very well. It is just stressful. I go through a lot of medical stuff and I get frustrated when I don't get answers, but I have never been as terrified as I have been for the last 13 days. It was getting in the way of living my life. So this morning, (pre-earthquake) I called the office & asked if I could get in today at the end of the day. They said yes. Whew! Even better, we got to go home early because of the quake, so I was at the office early and they took me early. The guy I saw said the most beautiful words - "It's not skin cancer." Whew. I lost 20 pounds right there. I got a little teary, too. But then I had a rational conversation with him. He was great. I liked him more than the girl who did the biopsy. However, she did a good job with it. The mole was a little irregular, but the lab showed the margins were clear. (That was written in bold, underline print with 2 ** right next to it. That's what you want it to say!) He was very calming and made me rational again. I wanted to go out and skip! Now I can sleep! PLUS, they already canceled school for tomorrow so that they can inspect the buildings, so I can *really* sleep! :)

Year 2 - Day 233 - August 22

Recently, I found a dress I loved through Pinterest. Clicking on it led me to Etsy! The creator of the dress was on maternity leave so I was unable to make an impulse buy. Weeks went by, however, and she came back to work. After that time, I decided I still wanted the dress. I really don't spend a lot of money on clothes so I decided to treat myself. I am so excited to learn how to make the dress do different things! I messed with it the day it came, but took it off and put it back in the bag to keep it safe from cat hair. It's wrinkle free so the bag is a handy holder for now. The cat LOVES the dress because it has long straps that (to him) signify play time. ;)

The dress is my Etsy success story. However, I also have a serious Etsy Seller Fail going on right now. Back in the spring/early summer I ordered onesie stickers for a friend's baby shower. They came quickly and they were done very well. I was in need of another set over the summer. Rather than use the same seller as before (dumb move, Self!) I found a different seller because I liked the design better. Although the seller's shop was relatively new, she had 100% positive rating. Also, this was an offshoot of a more established shop she started awhile back. That shop also had 100% positive ratings, and was huge. I took the chance and went for it. The shop policies stated that it would take 2 weeks for delivery. Fine. I ordered the stickers. I messaged the seller a few days later to confirm they had received my order, because the charge went through on PayPal. She didn't respond, but since the charge went through I went with the flow. At the 10 day mark I messaged her again, asking when she estimated the shipping date to be since 2 weeks was approaching. No response. On Day 11 I sent a message through the larger shop thinking maybe she forgot about the little one. No response. On day 13 it still hadn't shipped. Also on day 13, 3 people posted negative "non delivery" reports on the shop. I decided to do the same. I also filed a non-delivery claim. Several days later, she finally contacted me and asked me if I wanted her to ship them or give me a refund. I asked for the refund. More than a week later, I'm still waiting. Several other negative reviews have gone up, bringing her down to a 50% approval rating. The same thing is starting to happen on her bigger store, as well. So obviously something is happening to keep her from being able to get her work done. I know you can close stores for awhile because the dress girl did it, so I don't know what is up with sticker lady!

Year 2 - Day 232 - August 21

This pic is blurry because I had to put the phone down and start driving when a car came up behind me!

Once upon a time, this road was 45 mph. One day last October, the speed limit people decided to make it only 40 mph. I learned this when I was pulled over and got a warning. When he said the speed limit was 40, my jaw may have dropped. I drove by the speed limit sign about an hour later and noticed it had recently been replaced. My clues were the bright new wood post and the giant pile of dirt next to it. That whole weekend and many weekends after that, the cops lived in a clearing and gave warnings to EVERYONE. They got the point across.

While we were on vacation in July, there was a fatal accident on this stretch of road.

Surprisingly, when we got home from vacation, I noticed that the sign had been replaced again and that the speed limit was back UP to 45 mph.

Even more surprisingly was the next day, when I drove the other direction on the road and saw that it was still labeled as 40 mph. So if you were going north you could go 45 mph but coming back south was only 40mph on the exact same stretch of flat, straight road. This drove me nuts.

Today, I was coming home from the grocery store and realized that BOTH signs are now back up to 45mph.

Weird, and even weirder that the rise in speed limit would come so soon after a fatal accident.

Year 2 - Day 231 - August 20

Tonight we went to roller derby! It was a fun night with a variety of friends from all over. Also, I ran into a guy I met with my mom at her patient education day at Hopkins last year. This town really is "Small-timore!" Since it was fan appreciation day, Charm City Cakes was handing out slices of cake in exchange for a donation to a local food program. We got some carrot cake and watched the roller derby girls smash each other to pieces! Before the bout, we went to Slainte in Fells Point for dinner. I had mac & cheese with pulled pork on top. It was not spectacular, but it was decent. I very much wish it had been larger, but I guess when you add cheese to something the calorie and fat count skyrockets so they don't give you much.

Year 2 - Day 230 - August 19

I'm not sure where the tradition of M&M's in a bowl on our end table started, but I support it. To celebrate, I had some for breakfast. :) What better way to start a Friday?!

Year 2 - Day 229 - August 18

And so the school year begins. I snapped this early this morning when I got to the park 'n' ride. These older guys meet up every couple weeks to go golfing. They drive us crazy because they don't pull the last couple cars into parking spaces and instead fill up the one-way road to the parking spots while they stand there drinking coffee standing outside their cars. It's a huge group of men, usually 8 but sometimes 12, and they appear to be retired-already age. What a life to look forward to someday! Although when I'm retired, I won't be meeting my friends for fun at 6:45am. :)

Year 2 - Day 228 - August 17

My sister in law made a funny post about this Facebook game recently and since I still had a few days of nothingness headed my way, I decided to waste some of my own time playing. It's kind of like the Sims, but with zombies. Like all FB games, you need to have other friends playing to earn things and keep it moving. In the beginning there were quick achievements to earn but after the first few levels it took way too much checking in to keep up. Luckily, (luckily? Did I say that?) work starts tomorrow so I won't feel the need to spend my time clicking zombies anymore. Plus, I'm sure the game knows what you need and doesn't give it to you!! Additionally, I noticed there are several differences between the Facebook and G+ versions of the game. I don't know if it's because G+'s games are new, but it's not very stable over there.

I have to set an alarm tonight. I can't believe it. Where did summer go?????

Year 2 - Day 227 - August 16

This is my August book club book and it occurred to me yesterday that while I had both the physical AND Overdrive versions in my possession, I hadn't read it. Luckily it was mostly light reading and I got it done really quickly. CeeCee is a 12 year old girl growing up in Ohio in the late 1960's. Her life isn't easy - her mother is mentally ill and her father is a traveling salesman who travels more than he's home. When tragedy falls, CeeCee moves with her Great Aunt to Savannah, Georgia and quickly becomes part of southern society. I enjoyed the book for a quick read, but I wished it had gone further. Once the author sets the scene, the action is set from the last day of school until the first day of school over one summer. I wanted it to keep going into the school year to see what happened. While I thought the book was decent, I was extremely surprised to see that it has over a 4 star average on Amazon.

There are more books in my house to read - Tina Fey, for example ... but tonight is my LAST non-school night of the summer! How did that happen!?!

Year 2 - Day 226 - August 15

When we started getting eggplant in our crop share a couple weeks ago, naturally my first thought was not a positive one. Mike on the other hand was thrilled. His grandmother used to make fried eggplant and he was the only one that would eat it with her. He found a recipe online for the last eggplant and liked it so much that he re-did it with this week's share. That's a lot of fried vegetables on that plate!

Year 2 - Day 225 - August 14

This weekend was the Havre de Grace seafood festival. Even though it was raining when we woke up, we really wanted to try to get over there. We watched the radar all morning and finally saw the end of the clouds headed our way. We jumped in the car and headed for HdG. Sadly when we got there, most of the festival had succumbed to the 24 hours of downpour. The crafters had all packed up and left their spots in the mud puddle that is usually a field and several of the food vendors were gone or in the process of leaving. Since it wasn't raining at the moment, Mike took advantage of the people who were still there and cooking. First he had this fried basket of alligator bites.  The guy at the next stand over was handing out free samples of his chowders and bisques. First Mike tried the cajun crab corn chowder but then the man offered him a blended sample of that and the lobster bisque. Mike was hooked and decided to order the fancy version. Finally he had a crabcake for "dessert." :) There were even me-friendly foods there! I had amazing jerk pork and chicken. So even though it wasn't the festival we were envisioning, it was nice to have zero lines and chat with the vendors and not have to look hard for a place to sit!

Year 2 - Day 224 - August 13

For quite some time we've been hearing about the Baltimore Grand Prix which is coming on Labor Day weekend. To a non-race watcher like myself, it has been hard to comprehend the idea of race cars zooming around the inner harbor at high speeds. The race course has been paved and surfaced for almost a year which has made traffic worse than normal, trees have been uprooted to make sure people paying to watch the race cars can see them, and now they're putting up grandstands and race walls. This is a long term project. The race weekend is still 3 weeks away and already streets have these walls installed. The concrete portion was just about to my head level as I sat in the car and then the cages go many feet further. My friend worded it as Baltimore looking like it's in jail, and I agree!

I was downtown to take the SeaDog speedboat tour thanks to a groupon we got recently. We boarded near HarborPlace and went slow all the way to Ft. McHenry. Then they opened up the engines and bounced us around out past the Key Bridge and back before hitting the no wake zone again. I think I learned some facts about landmarks that I didn't know, but I heard him make mistakes about things I DO know, so hopefully I don't have incorrect knowledge. :) For example, he said the Key Bridge was made instead of adding a 3rd tunnel, but the 2nd tunnel is much newer than the bridge.

This afternoon we were going to swim but the weather changed our plans to an indoor cookout and board game day. At one point, the power went out. For those of us playing cards, a simple flashlight worked. But the boys playing Risk were more creative - they turned on their iPhone light and hung it in the chandelier over the table. :)

Year 2 - Day 223 - August 12

For a couple years now, I've been attempting to check out the Maryland BBQ Festival that is held here in Bel Air. For some reason it's never really worked into our schedule so this year we made it a priority. We were not disappointed! It wasn't a whole day thing but we headed over for dinner and meandered around the different offerings. There were lots of huge BBQ groups there serving out of RV sized rigs. Huge 15 or 20 foot tall frames with various banners proclaiming victory at different competitions were hanging everywhere, and every place had a long line. We just randomly picked one figuring they'd all be good. Mike had a brisket sandwich & a few ribs, I had the pictured bowl of meat. Yes, a festival where "Bowl of 3 Meats" was listed on the menu. :) It was so much food that we stuffed ourselves & have leftovers for tomorrow. My bowl was brisket, pulled pork, and BBQ chicken. The chicken was my least favorite but definitely not bad. After eating we walked around the various vendors and came across an awesome root beer stand. We bought a cutely designed metal barrel mug with the festival logo & got unlimited refills on soda. Granted we had just eaten dinner so unlimited soda didn't go far with us, but it was a neat concept and souvenir.

Year 2 - Day 222 - August 11

Today was super busy, but I enjoyed almost all of it. I was thrilled to realize that my monthly evening meeting in Arbutus happened to fall on the same day as my afternoon meeting in Columbia. How nice not to have to drive all the way down there twice! We added lunch onto the beginning of the first meeting so I was being a productive person all day. We spent the afternoon in Barnes & Noble reading picture books for our Black Eyed Susan nominees. While I didn't find one that screamed award winner, I found several that I'll buy for our library and one that I absolutely want to own for my own collection - http://amzn.to/r391lN

Year 2 - Day 221 - August 10

I guess I wasn't good at taking pictures today, because this is all I have! A lovely action shot of my husband's left hand getting our goodies at the library drive through. ;) Tonight was Duclaw beer release night, but something happened to the new beer and the taps aren't carbonating it right. They chose not to release it rather than serve glasses of foam. (Smart idea on their part.) Since I hadn't defrosted anything for dinner, we used a gift card at Chili's instead and then stopped by Duclaw to get our free tee shirts since they didn't cancel the giveaways. So, we still win! I had a dermatologist appointment today & had to get a mole biopsy. The results don't come in for 2 weeks, but my brain is in super freaked out mode. I am a rational person and I know moles get wonky and then removed uneventfully all the time, but it is not chilling me out. I don't really know why but it's stressing me, and then the fact that I can't unstress is unstressing me more. I'm a piece of work!

Year 2 - Day 220 - August 9

Before we left for vacation, we had grass all the way to the driveway. In the 10 super hot days we were gone, the rubbery spidery weeds took over and invaded! This picture gives you an idea, but doesn't do it justice. The rubbery spider weeds are my nemesis! :)

Year 2 - Day 219 - August 8

For the last 2 television seasons, I have avoided all talk of the Good Wife because it's been on my to-watch list. My library finally got it in stock this month and I have 7 days to watch all 20 something episodes from the first season! Luckily this is my week of doing pretty much nothing. :)

So far, this show is fantastic. I'm really enjoying it. I always enjoyed Julianna Margulies on ER and she's really good on this show as well.

Year 2 - Day 218 - August 7

When we got 3 zucchini with our crop share this week, I decided that I'd try to make zucchini bread. I googled, facebooked, and tweeted and decided to go with this recipe: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/moms-zucchini-bread/detail.aspx

After I grated the zucchini I opted to toss it in the food processor to get the pieces as small as possible. I'm glad I did because the one hunk I bit into in my finished product added a lot of bitterness to that bite. It didn't taste like vegetable, but it wasn't sugary goodness like the other bites.

All in all, it's decent, and I'd eat it again. I think it tastes a lot like the Amish Friendship Bread that uses vanilla pudding. (Mostly because flour, sugar, and cinnamon are the main ingredients of both!) I do prefer banana bread, but neither one is all that healthy so I won't be eating either on a daily basis. :)

My picture shows why I don't bake more often! :)

Year 2 - Day 217 - August 6

Since I enjoyed this beer at the release in June, we got a bottle of it at Wine World today. I know this sounds gross in principle, but it tastes like a cross between beer & ice wine. I guess that's just describing the fact that it's super sweet. All I know is that I rarely like beer, and this stuff is good!

Year 2 - Day 216 - August 5

We got to visit our Stampin Up friends last night at the new catalog open house. It's always so fun and easy to visit with them. I was disappointed to miss July's meeting due to vacation, but I had a ton of fun looking through all the goodies our consultant got at the convention. She even got us all bags! (See picture.) The pile of things she brought home was gigantic and I can't wait to use everything.

I never really understood people's complaints about the cost of our library conference/convention because as the treasurer, I see that we are just charging people what it costs to host the show. But when I found out that it's the same cost to go to the fancy Stampin Up convention as it is to go to our little library one, it all started to get clearer. Maybe because they're such a big show they can save by getting things in bulk, and they are a company hosting rather than a tiny non profit which I'm sure helps. But I spend a LOT of time looking for ways to make ours more affordable and have run out of fat to trim!

Year 2 - Day 215 - August 4

Today's crop share ... zucchini, corn, yellow squash, candy onion, potatoes, watermelon, hot banana peppers (I didn't know they came in hot), grape tomatoes & regular tomatoes.

Watermelon, corn, and potatoes are easy to eat. We are using the little tomatoes in "microwave pasta," I will try to make zucchini bread, and we'll figure something out with the others...

Year 2 - Day 214 - August 3

I was shocked to see this license plate at Target today. I am surprised they agreed to make it!

Year 2 - Day 213 - August 2

One of the morning radio shows I occasionally listen to has a regular feature (or at least they used to - I don't listen to the radio very often anymore) called "profess your love."

I'm here to profess my love for my new favorite app, HBO Go. This fantastic invention makes On Demand look as out of date as a VHS no - Beta! - player. It's not just the last 4 or 5 episodes that are available of the chosen TV shows. No. It's every show, every episode, every season.  Granted, you have to have an HBO subscription, but since we currently do, I am enjoying season 1 & 2 of Hung right now. It's decent, but I don't feel it's the greatest that HBO has to offer. (I actually tend to lean more towards Showtime ... Big Love was my only real HBO favorite.)

I love that it's on my iPad, because I can sit it wherever I want and continue my day. I can make cards & get started on the scrapbook that I have been procrastinating on, all while carting my mini TV around.

Year 2 - Day 212 - August 1

I spent about 8 hours today working on financial things for an organization that I am the treasurer of. I was pin-pointing details and looking at pennies and making spreadsheets, all things I love to do. It's easier to be objective with the organization's money than it is with our household money because emotions stay out of it. I could do that with our family money, but personal needs & wants are different than organizational needs & wants. It's always easier to deal with logic & reason than emotion! :) But I have beautiful matchy binders with post-its telling me things and spreadsheets to match. My math brain was glad for the workout because it doesn't get used very much as a librarian. :) I should have taken a "during" picture - every inch of the floor & desk in the office was a pile or chart of something different. I probably should have done it on a day Mike was at work since I took over the whole computer room, but he enjoyed the excuse to play Xbox for hours!