Year 3 - Day 152 - May 31

I had lunch with my "library camp" friends today to celebrate the retirement of one of the ladies in our group. We ate at Gertrude's at the BMA. I didn't even know the BMA had a restaurant, let alone a decent one. If I knew they had one, I probably would have assumed it was like a snack bar or something. They have all local food and a pretty big variety. Some of it was a little pricey, but my BBQ sandwich was $10, which is a pretty common price. Since I got there a little early, I took a run through the gift shop. This knitting book (with sample!) made me giggle - Knit Your Own Cat. I presume it had patterns for different style cats. If you were a knitter, and you had friends with cats, you'd have a years worth of gifts taken care of!! :)

Year 3 - Day 151 - May 30

Weeding is cathartic. I love it. It used to give me a stomach ache, but now I get very excited when it's time to get rid of old, gross, books with incorrect information. (Or sometimes, kind of new books that no long require lots and lots of copies.) One of my gems this year was a science book that had a kid with an Oriole's hat on the front cover. However - the hat had the old cartoon bird instead of the regular bird. Since the O's just went back to the cartoon bird this year, that book was so old that the picture was new again! ;)

Year 3 - Day 150 - May 29

It's been really hard to put books away lately, because I haven't had time to replace the labels on the shelves. We're going by picture memory. You may not notice this if you're just a casual library patron, but the way the book shelves look is the same to me as a picture on the wall. When whole piles of books switch shelves, it's like moving a picture to another place on the wall or to another room. This particular set of books is the flight and race cars section. They've been on the back of this island on the bottom right shelf for all 10+ years I've been there. Now they're on the top front left! It's weird to look over and see them there. But we have to use that image to shelve the books because otherwise you walk to the wrong section. Before this shift, those of us who shelve daily could walk right to a book and put our finger on it. We didn't have to look at anything when we were putting books away because we just knew where they went. Now, it's seriously difficult. If you're a librarian, you might know what I mean!

Year 3 - Day 149 - May 28

I needed 2 baby boy cards this week, so I used my football scrapbooking paper and brown card stock with a sharpie to make boy onesies. I like the way they came out and they were quick and easy!

Year 3 - Day 148 - May 27

This is the cat's newest medicine. It's some kind of syrupy goo that I have to squirt into his mouth with a needle free syringe. He doesn't love it, but it's faster than the previous goop that I had to rub onto his face. Plus with this stuff, he can't rub it all over the floor and bed. The old gel was supposed to be rubbed around his mouth and then the idea was that he would lick it off. NOT. He quickly learned that if he rubbed his face in the comforter or on the carpet, it came off and he didn't have to taste it. That wasn't going to fly, so here we are with new stuff. It works though, so I'm willing to deal with the hassle! He was so much easier of a pet before he had the stupid reaction to the rabies shot. Ever since then, it's been one thing after another. He seems content with his life as long as I am not holding him down and squirting liquid into his mouth though, so I guess he's ok in general. Just a lot more work than before!

Year 3 - Day 147 - May 26

We had our annual "Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend" party today. We decided to make it Saturday since most people have lots of places to go and people to see on long weekends. This year, we actually remembered to bring out the popsicles! I couldn't believe how many people requested blue and green when I brought the bag outside. This means that all my favorite flavors are still in the freezer waiting for me! :)

Year 3 - Day 146 - May 25

Today was the best snow day ever! Since we failed to miss days for actual snow, we had this lovely built in snow day off to begin a 4 day Memorial Day weekend. I had to grab a couple things at Bed Bath & Beyond today, and I saw this on display. What a far better idea than the Snoopy Sno Cone Machine! Since this one is electric, I bet you still have ice shavings at the end to actually put syrup on! With the (cool at the time) Snoopy machine, by the time you made your dixie cup's worth of ice shavings, the original ones had melted. Plus the pieces were so small that the kool aid syrup melted what was left. Way to go, Jelly Belly people. I hope your product works. I must also point out that there were all kinds of Jelly Belly flavor syrups to put on your snow cone. Yum.

Year 3 - Day 145 - May 24

After spending about a week hemming and hawing, I have finally decided to move the books around in the room. Previously, the books were organized based on the physical space available. For example, the 600's were all on an island book shelf by themselves. However, there were too many books for that zone. It was a hard mental shift to get ready for, but with signage I think the kids will survive. They'll also find lots of new-to-them books in the fall when they walk to the cookbook shelf and it's now farming books! :) I put my hands on thousands of books during the shift, and spent lots of time doing it since I was weeding as I went. After also moving all the mulch this week, my arm muscles have declared a strike and are going on vacation.

Year 3 - Day 144 - May 23

The actual actions here happened last night, but it was too dark when we were done to take pictures! Yesterday we borrowed his parents' car for the day so that we could go get mulch. We guessed it would take about 20 bags to do both front beds and around the mailbox. When we were done with 10 bags, I thought we had super over-estimated. When we got to 19, I wished we had about 2 more. :) We also had to replace the middle plant because the lilac died. The middle one is in a much more normal looking place in person - this picture makes it look like we put it in a really stupid spot! It's a hibiscus bush and will have super cool flowers with a little height. Originally our plan today was to go get the mulch, unload the bags, and then be done. But since it was decent weather and it was relatively early, we just kept going. My muscles are going to be very angry at me tomorrow!

Year 3 - Day 143 - May 22

Today was the first day of our CSA for the year. Last year, we just did the summer share. Our thought process was that I wouldn't eat much of the early stuff but I do eat a lot of the fruits and things that come in the summer. However, since the summer share is a full share's worth of food each week, we couldn't eat it all before it went bad. So we flipped to half the amount of food for more than twice as many weeks. As suspected, this week's food isn't a lot of things I like. We got lots of leafy greens. I did eat the strawberries already, which is why they are not in the picture. :) Red lettuce, spinach, bok choi, and spring onions are the greens of the week.

Year 3 - Day 142 - May 21

I guess because I have baseball on the brain this week, you're getting yet another baseball related post.

This is the sports section at my local JoAnn's. It's been there for about a year or so now. Every single time, until about 3 weeks ago, They had Nationals, Orioles, and Redskins scrapbook kits. The Ravens tag was ALWAYS empty. I searched the internet high and low and couldn't find it. I wanted to use it for Christmas present things last year, but it would sell out the day it hit the shelves, and then the manufacturer wasn't making more because it wasn't football season. About 3 weeks ago, there was Ravens paper there. (I always check, just in case.) I was excited, and bought it.

But today, the ORIOLES peg is empty. CRAZY!

Year 3 - Day 141 - May 20

We went down to DC today for an Orioles/Nationals game. Sadly, the Orioles did not add any more wins to their attempts at reaching .500, but we did get to see Strasburg pitch AND hit a homer. Granted, you don't really want to see the other team's pitcher hit a home run, but it was pretty cool anyway. Their stadium was nice, but ours is of course nicer. :) If we go again, we'll go early so we have time to walk around and see the park. It's way more expensive than an Orioles game. While our seats had a good view (see above), they were $20 and that's as cheap as it gets there. There are tons of tickets available for under that price at Oriole Park. The food was comparable in pricing to Camden Yards, but there wasn't the same variety. We did notice there were some fancier things downstairs but we didn't venture down there. All in all, a very nice day. Even if they lost!

Year 3 - Day 140 - May 19

We went to our friends' house for their annual Preakness Party today. On the way out, we noticed their two cats lounging in the window downstairs. Then, Killer The Neighborhood Cat walked up and Scout & Charlotte jumped to attention. It was pretty funny.

Also cute, but not showing in the photo, Killer's got a new tag on his/her collar - it's an Orioles tag. I'm 100% positive I've never seen that before! More proof that people are starting to think that maybe just maybe this will be the year to get above .500!! :)

Year 3 - Day 139 - May 18

I hopped over to the local-to-school farm with an ice cream shop tonight to support our PTA. (Hey, I do what I can!) ;)

After that, we took a group of 2nd graders to an Integrated Arts showcase. It was ADORABLE. They did a skit and rap about the water cycle. Even though today was field day, all 15 or so of the kids showed up on time. They all remembered their lines even though they were nervous and performing on a big high school stage after just doing it in the classroom. The music pooped out on them while they were rapping, but they just went with the flow and made it work! It was super cute and they were super proud of themselves.

Year 3 - Day 138 - May 17

My double play big bang spireas are blooming right now. Since we killed the lilac (which I hear is very hard to do - but if anyone can kill the unkillable, it's us) these are the only plants we have with color in the front beds. Our goal was a simple look with no effort, so that's the price we pay. We are totally ok with it, but it is exciting to get color a couple times a year.

Year 3 - Day 137 - May 16

One of my cousins is having a baby. Well, his wife is if you want to be technical about it. Which I think is fair, because he just has to stand there. :)

It's a boy. Well, it's supposed to be. Hopefully the ultrasound is right. :)

I've made these before, but I'm getting better at using the Cricut to make little things.

The Cricut direction books are better than they used to be too. The color coding helps so I know how many pieces I need to make with each color.

Planning the books out ahead of time helps too, because I know how much of each color I need for backgrounds, numbers, and words.

 I just got a book of random (Non Stampin Up) baby paper from Michaels to use as the mats for the photo snapshots that the parents-to-be will add to the book as the first year goes by.

 One book I made was backwards and used the patterned paper as the background, but in retrospect that wasn't the best idea because the pages are pretty busy.

 I box the album (it's 8x8), the onesie stickers, and four (0-3mo, 3-6mo, 6-9mo, and 12mo) onesies together to make it look like a nice gift. I have found that in a regular size shirt box, you can fit the album on 2/3 or so, and then roll each of the onesies up and the four rolls fill in the remainder of the space. Then you can just pop the stickers on the top or bottom. I completely stole this idea from the girl I carpool with, but I've made them all a little different. This was my fourth one I realized today, because I only have one of each size onesie left! 

Year 3 - Day 136 - May 15

How cool is that? (Zoom in if you can.)

Stores around town actually have "Go Orioles" signs up!

It might not last long, but it sure is fun right now.

Year 3 - Day 135 - May 14

This picture (of me, Sarah, and Mike Mussina) is mysteriously knocked over. Yesterday, Moose was trying to hide behind that blue and white lighthouse on the shelf. Mike was saying "Knock it over Moose, knock it over!"

I'm guessing the cat didn't actually do it.

Year 3 - Day 134 - May 13

Last year, we hosted Mother's Day. This year we went to my brother and sister-in-law's house to celebrate with her family and siblings as well. It was nice not to have to clean our house for a get-together. :) I gotta say though, today kicked my butt. I was totally not expecting that. I mean, last year we celebrated with Mike's mom and family and it was nice. I was a little sad because I had recently had my miscarriage, but it wasn't like I would have been a mother yet on the actual day. This year I would have been. I guess that snuck up in the back of my brain or something because it was a rough day. But we had lots of moms at our party and I hope they enjoyed their son or son-in-law grilling their dinner and the opportunity to not clean THEIR houses for a get-together! :)

In other news, I can't figure out our rose bush. Every year it is green, leafy, and beautiful after the winter is over. Then, it gets little tiny rose buds everywhere. THEN, all the leaves turn yellow, get black spots, and fall off in about 72 hours. The next day, the roses bloom and the leaves are all gone. It's the weirdest thing. I'm sure it's some kind of rose fungus because of the black spots, but I find it fascinating that it all happens the day the flowers bloom.So here we are, nice and pink, with a few leaves peeking through the back on branches that haven't produced blooming flowers yet. (Oh yeah, it happens by branch. Even weirder!)

Year 3 - Day 133 - May 12

I realize there isn't much to see here, and I'm sad about that, but the room was dark and I was working with an old iPhone camera so oh well. This morning I had a hot stone massage. I've never had a massage before because of the fibro. I've been too scared to let anyone push or knead anything! I read up on hot stone massages and found out it wasn't a kneading kind, so I signed up. I'm sure if you're into a deep tissue massage that you would find a hot stone one boring and useless, but I loved it. It was more about long lengthening movements and letting the heat relax you. For about 2 hours afterwards, I felt ZERO pain. Do you know how long its been since I felt zero pain? I honestly couldn't tell you, but I'd go with 1996 if I had to make a rough estimate. I mean, I function just fine in day to day life because eventually you just get used to a new baseline level of pain, but I'm talking ZERO pain. It was amazing. I was actually depressed when it came back because I thought for a moment that I had solved all the worlds problems with that one massage.

Now I just need a second or third job so that I can get one every day!! ;)

Year 3 - Day 132 - May 11

We went to Chopstix for dinner tonight. I thought I had mentioned this before, but I can't find it anywhere so maybe I didn't. So without further ado, here's why it's cool that we went to Chopstix tonight.

When I was little, our go-to local Chinese place was Lee's. It was down the street, everyone in our family liked it. We didn't do the take out thing when I was little - if we were going out, we ate at the restaurant. For this reason, I'd guess they didn't know our names. They definitely knew us as a family though, since it was a small place.

My friend Sarah's family was the opposite. They did take out from the same place. When you stop by to pick up take out, you of course have to give them your name. Therefore they get to know you, right? Right.

So years and years ago, Sarah & I went to a new (at the time) restaurant in White Marsh called Chopstix. When we walked in, the hostess knew Sarah's name and her favorite takeout order from Lee's! Turns out the family branched out.

Then a year or so ago I noticed a Chopstix up here, too! I didn't think much of it at the time, because Chopstix is a common Chinese Food restaurant name, and in fact I saw the exact same sign/logo at a place near my parents house in AZ. But then I read a writeup and they mentioned that it was the same family. So here I am, 32+ years old, eating food from the same family that got me hooked on Chinese when I was little.

Of course as the picture shows, Mike prefers his Asian cuisine raw and rolled up with veggies and rice. There is seriously a skinned eel on top of that thing. GROSS. :)

Year 3 - Day 131 - May 10

When you're a teacher, there's no clocking out for an hour to run to the dentist or eye doctor or whatever. If you have to get a sub, it's either 1/2 day AM, 1/2 day PM, or all day. That means that those 9am or 3pm appointments leave a lot of time open in your day and sometimes, you just can't avoid those appointment times. Today was a 9am appointment kind of day. However, this particular place was right across the street from the new Sonic. I decided to treat myself to a medium cherry limeade on the way by. When it's not happy hour, these buggers are expensive. A medium was $2 even! Especially considering that about every 6 weeks, Minute Maid Cherry Limeade goes on sale at Shop Rite for less than $1/half gallon. But boy was it good. At least now I've been to the one that's here.

Year 3 - Day 130 - May 9

Oops. It's sideways. Turn your head. :)

Every once in awhile, I get an email from Mike asking if the public library has a certain book or two. These are the ones he requested this week. I am guessing the same person wrote the blurb for each, because they both use a phrase that starts with something along the lines of "If you're interested in how video games became such a huge part of pop culture" and they both end with "...this book is required reading." That's just an interesting phrase to show up on 2 books at once!

Year 3 - Day 129 - May 8

It's Teacher Appreciation week! This was our gift from the PTA today. It's one of the insulated cups with the straw that doesn't pull out! (It can come out the other direction for cleaning, but can't pop out the top.) Very snazzy! Thanks, PTA!

Year 3 - Day 128 - May 7

We dropped the car off yesterday for an oil change with the bike rack in the trunk so that my hubby could ride over and pick up the car when it was done. Sadly, since the FedEx guy needed a signature, he was instead stuck at home all day waiting for the truck. I tried to feel bad, but since he got to lay on the couch and watch TV & play games all day while I worked, I failed in my attempts! Thank goodness I'm coming up on a week off in just a month! In the first 6 weeks or so of summer, I'm working 2 full weeks and 3 partial weeks with only 4th of July week completely obligation free. It's ok though, because at the end I'll have enough money to take a good vacation AND I'll have a brand new laptop. That's totally worth it!

Year 3 - Day 127 - May 6

While I was watching the Orioles game this afternoon (and evening, but more on that later), Brad's posted on Facebook that their "U-Pick" fields were open for picking. I decided to just hop over for 5 minutes or so and pick myself a snack. I got more than half a bowl, just more than 2 quarts, for $3 and change. That's a much more reasonable price than the $4.50 a quart they get for pre-picked berries.

So, the O's game. Before it came on, I got my errands done so that I could be back for the start of the game. They've been playing decently and I thought there might be a chance they'd sweep the Red Sox. After 4 or 5 innings, I headed out to pick my berries. I wasn't gone for long and watched another inning or two while I waited for Mike. We went to drop off the car and stopped by the grocery store to pick a few things up that are on sale this week and came home. Watched another inning or so while we cooked dinner and then ate dinner with the game on since they were well into extra innings at that point. When we cleaned up, the game was STILL ON. The last couple innings were the best, because that's when our 1B/DH came in to pitch. I was just worried about him blowing out an arm (I'm looking at you, Jose Canseco!) but he not only survived, he got the Win. Amazing. It was the craziest baseball game I've ever seen. And it was 6+ hours!!!

Year 3 - Day 126 - May 5

One of my biggest annoyances in life is trying to keep the inside of my windshield clean. The outside is pretty easy because of the squeegee (Wow, that word is in the dictionary because it's not saying I spelled it wrong!) but the inside is a giant pain in the butt. I keep napkins and paper towels in the door, but in my current car it's hopeless because I can't actually reach 1/2 the stupid thing because of the deep console. Finally, after thinking about it for awhile, I got this washable microfiber pad tool at Target this weekend. It is going to make me the happiest person alive. It has a point so it gets in the corners and the handle is long enough to reach the parts I can't reach on my own! Happiness sure changes as I age. :)

So I got talked into seeing the Avengers tonight (with half of Baltimore, seeing as how we had to wait in line even though we had tickets from Fandango.) It was fine, had some funny one liners and didn't completely bore me. However, I felt like the action sequences were too long and just turned into "Hey look at the cool CGI tricks we can do!" I prefer storyline.

Year 3 - Day 125 - May 4

As part of a refresher in 2nd grade, my kids have been doing a scavenger hunt to get quicker at finding things on the shelves. I differentiated the game by making sure certain kids got certain cards. The cards on the bottom (without the underlines) match exactly to a shelf label. (Some are the first number or letter on the shelf label, some are the last number or letter on the label.) The "bonus round" cards are underlined. They exist in the room (and in the case of the letters, there are a whole bunch of books with that call number to make it a step easier.) But the shelf might just be labeled "BLA - BYA" so they have to figure out that's where BRO goes.

Even the kids that took awhile to get going eventually got speedy with the bonus number cards. Those bonus letter cards are hard. That's tough, since that's 99% finding a book in the library! Luckily they get to practice all the time. :)

Year 3 - Day 124 - May 3

I was very excited to see this display in the grocery store tonight. Why? Because I feel like so few people know about this wonderful, wonderful tool. Do you use them? Because lots of people look at me funny when I get them out!

Year 3 - Day 123 - May 2

This is one of the Black Eyed Susan books for next year. It's about the man who figure out how to design giant balloons for the Macy's parade. I love the invention aspect - he starts with marionette puppets and basically goes upside down! I also look forward to paring the book with Milly & The Macy's Parade which is fictionalized.

While I'm looking forward to both of those things, I am in no hurry for November to get here for the lesson to be timely. ;)

Year 3 - Day 122 - May 1

One of the fun things about having the biggest room is that all the great projects hang out in there!

The animal dioramas are on display right now. This one is of a tarantula habitat. See the giant spider?

I love his attention to detail...there's even a little "peeking window" on the side so that you can see the tarantula eggs. :)