good things

I saw Transformers tonight. It was good.

I bought some Michelob Ultra Tuscan Orange Grapefruit, and it's actually beer with flavoring, not bitch water. It's good.

I'm going to Knoxville next week. That will be good.

Fabulous and Fantastic

So I found some brownie mix at my local Food Lion that is fat free and actually tastes good! It's called No Pudge, and you can make a whole pan or you can mix it in small batches and microwave it for individual brownies. It's really easy too, you just mix it with vanilla fat-free yogurt. I've even started experimenting with different flavorings (apparently they make it in mint, cappuccino, and raspberry in addition to the original but I haven't found them here). The best I've made so far: I mixed in some fresh raspberries I picked at my aunt and uncle's house and I substituted one of those Yoplait whips in chocolate raspberry, and it was out of this world. Go look for it. Now!

T-shirt slogans

So I watched Lil Bush for the first time today, and I have to say it's phenomenal. Good job comedy central!

In that spirit, here's a list of t-shirt slogans my aunt sent me:


1) (On an infant's shirt): Already smarter than Bush.

2) 1/20/09: End of an Error

3) That's OK, I Wasn't Using My Civil Liberties Anyway

4) Let's Fix Democracy in This Country First

5) If You Want a Nation Ruled By Religion, Move to Iran

6) Bush. Like a Rock. Only Dumber.

7) You Can't Be Pro-War And Pro-Life At The Same Time

8) If You Can Read This, You're Not Our President

9) Hey, Bush Supporters: Embarrassed Yet?

10) George Bush: Creating the Terrorists Our Kids Will Have to Fight

11) Impeachment: It's Not Just for Sex Anymore

12) America: One Nation, Under Surveillance

13) They Call Him "W" So He Can Spell It

14) Cheney/Satan '08

15) Jail to the Chief

16) No, Seriously, Why Did We Invade

17) Bush: God's Way of Proving Intelligent Design is Full Of Crap

19) Bad President! No Banana.

20) We Need a President Who's Fluent In At Least One Language

21) We're Making Enemies Faster Than We Can Kill Them

22) Is It Vietnam Yet?

23) Bush Doesn't Care About White People, Either

24) Where Are We Going? And Why Are We In This Hand basket?

25) You Elected Him. You Deserve Him.

26) When Bush Took Office, Gas Was $1.46

27) The Republican Party: Our Bridge to the 11th Century

28) 2004-Embarrassed. 2005-Horrified. 2006-Terrified.

Hmm, it won't let me type in the Title box.....how odd....


I'm going to make one of these. What should I do with it when it's done?

I finished my mirror project last night. Today I'll rearrange my living room and get it hung up. Pictures later.

Jefferson Starship was amazing! I'm so glad I got to go. More on that later as well.

we built this city on rock and roll

Even though I don't like cats, I found this strangely amusing.


So here in the land of Lynchburg where north and south are the same thing apparently (Lynchburg Expressway: Hwy 29 South and Hwy 501 North at the same time), the only place in the world where you go two directions at once, I have found some happiness. There are times when I feel like I'm out of touch with the whole world and it can be very lonely, but then I have days like today. I went to my aunt and uncle's house for the 4th of July. It was just the three of us, and my aunt cooked a fantastic dinner. Then she and I sat on the screen porch and painted while Tillie ran around in their huge fenced yard. When it got dark we sat on the front porch and watched fireworks shooting up from between the mountains. It was a really relaxing day. I realized that this year I have spent all the major holidays with them, and it's very comforting to know that they are there. They are really wonderful people.

On the way home, I checked my cell phone and I had a text message from Amanda. She's coming down from DC to see Jefferson Starship with me on Saturday in Charlottesville! I'm so excited! It's gonna be so much fun!

New Pictures

Tillie and I got caught in a rain storm a few weeks ago, just before it started hailing The hail was big and scary and really loud when it bounced off the metal front door. Tillie was pretty upset from the noise and getting drenched, so I got her a towel to dry her off and she wore it around for about 20 minutes.

More new pictures here under apartment and Tillie!

"Settlin'"

Fifteen minutes left to throw me together
For mister right now, not mister forever
Don't know why I even try when I know how it ends
Looking like another "maybe we could be friends"
I've been leaving it up to fate
It's my life so it's mine to make

I ain't settling for just getting by
I've had enough so so for the rest of my life
Tired of shooting too low, so raise the bar high
Just enough ain't enough this time
I ain't settling for anything less than everything, yeah

With some good red wine and my brand new shoes
Gonna dance a blue streak around my living room
Take a chance on love and try how it feels
With my heart wide open now you know I will
Find what it means to be the girl
Who changed her mind and changed her world

I ain't settling for just getting by
I've had enough so so for the rest of my life
Tired of shooting too low, so raise the bar high
Just enough ain't enough this time
I ain't settling for anything less than everything

I ain't settling for just getting by
I've had enough so so for the rest of my life
Tired of shooting too low, so raise the bar high
Just enough ain't enough this time

fastfood burgers with more than one patty really gross me out.

So I finally spray painted the mirror and built the new lighting system inside it. I'm very happy with the color I chose. The lighting inside still needs some work. I didn't really know how transparent the front glass was, and it turned out to be a lot more than I thought it would be. I need to tidy it up a little on the inside and replace some burned out bulbs. I'll post pictures soon.

Tomorrow night I'm taking a painting class at Michael's on the One Stroke Technique to paint sunflowers. I'm painting on a little wooden box that has 2 wicker drawers. It should be fun. There's another one in July on wildflowers that I plan to take.

As it turns out, Glenn is not the one. It sucks, but c'est la vie.

Tomorrow I finish my first week of classes at Lynchburg College. So far the program has been very interesting. Our topics this week were child development and psychology, as well as how to teach persons with disabilities. There are some very nice people in the class from all around the area. I have a lot of work due monday.

It's been lonely around here the last few days. I've been trying to occupy myself with organizing my house, painting, working out and finding ways to explore some interests. It's hard to be by yourself in a new city.

Wow

I miss my job. I thought I'd be so relieved for school to be over, and I am glad that I don't have all those papers to shuffle.....but I miss my students! It's so weird having those interactions all day and then not. It's kinda lonely around here. I'm really hoping there will be some cool people in my classes next week. Keep your fingers crossed for me, I really need to meet some new people.

Another great site: Passive Aggressive Notes

So school is officially over for the year. I don't have to go back until Aug. 16!
However, my classes at Lynchburg college start on Monday and run til the end of July. I've been reading the textbook and so far it's pretty interesting. I'm pretty sure some of the text from my Educational Psychology class last summer was directly out of this book. Tomorrow I'm hoping that it'll be sunny so can go to my aunt and uncle's house and lay out for a little bit and read some more. Today it's rainy and only in the 60s.

I've planted some tomato plants in a flower bed I dug outside my townhouse. Let's hope the lawn maintenance guys don't try to cut them down again. You would think they would know the difference between a random weed and a tomato plant growing behind a landscaping fence in a patch of dirt. Idiots.

Glenn and I went to a neat seafood restaurant last week called Harbor Inn. The food was good, but the decor was amazing. The walls were covered with beautiful underwater murals of fish and stingrays and some of them were even 3D. I'm really enjoying learning what cool local places are around. The restaurant scene in Lynchburg is definitely not up to par with Knoxville's, but then again Knoxville has more restaurants per capita than anywhere else I've been. There are the typical chains here: Olive Garden, Texas Roadhouse, O'Charleys, TGIFridays, etc. But if you want to go somewhere locally owned, that's a little harder to find.

things and whatnot

hey ya'll.
So we just got our contracts for next year, and I will be teaching at the same school again. And each year we teach, we get a little more pay, so that's good too. Next year instead of being in the crappiest mobile classrooms ever, 1/2 a mile from the main building, we'll be in the basement of the building. I'm one of the lucky ones that got a room with windows, even if they do look out onto one of the cafeteria type spaces and not the actual outside. It will be nice to have reasonable access to a bathroom (I've seriously had to ration out my liquid intake during the day) and a copier.

We have 6 school days left, and 3 of those are final exams. I'm so ready for the year to be over and have a little break. It's hard enough being a first year teacher, let alone coming in midyear to an awkward situation. I think we've done a pretty good job of getting caught up. Next year should be a little easier since I'll get to go through the new teacher orientation and learn a few more of the little details of things I was supposed to do and didn't know about this year.

I'm also attending a program over the summer at Lynchburg College. It's a 6 week program of education classes designed to turn my provisional license into a permanent license. Looking forward to learning some new strategies and maybe meeting a few people to hang out with.

Speaking of people to hang out with, I've been dating Glenn for 2 months now. Things are going swimmingly, and I think it's the happiest I've been in a relationship, possibly ever. It's still early in the game, but it's good.

I've also made friends with one of the other Spanish teachers, Jamie. We have mucho en común. She'll also be teaching at JF again next year, and I'm really glad. She is also my neighbor, and whenever we go out somewhere strangers think we're twin sisters. Even though we don't really look that much alike. Our students also think that we're basically the same person. Scary, no?

Oh, and I'll be in Knoxville tomorrow. Probably for the last time til the end of the summer.

america's next top tillie

I just uploaded more Tillie pics here!

Tillie's "Previous Top Model's Celebrity Photo Shoot" Photo Shoot

In honor of the ANTM finale this week, Tillie said she wanted to do a photoshoot inspired by the celebrity photoshoots past contestants have done. She chose Melrose's depiction of Donald Trump as her muse. Here are the results:



Sometimes, like Dionne, I have to remind her not to look mean or do "something called scowling".


I keep reminding her not to lose her neck in her pictures.

the state of the world

is sad.
Today a student brought a gun to the school where I teach. No one was hurt and the gun was confiscated. Here's a link to the news article.

It really saddens me that some people have decided that shooting someone is a solution.

la gordita

so the word "gordita" in Spanish translates to "little fat one" which is what I'm now calling Tillie. The Prednisone she's been taking for the last month has really increased her appetite, and she has gained back the weight she lost while she was in the hospital. I think she weighs more now than she ever has. I couldn't be happier!

We have 16 school days left. I can't wait to have a break!

ew yuck!

So the walls between the townhouses here are relatively thin and not soundproof, so sometimes I hear snippets of conversations, etc. Last weekend the Korean neighbors on one side of me had some kind of group sing-a-long with a song the kids had been practicing on the piano for the last few weeks. There were at least 5 voices, a guitar, a clarinet, a saxophone, and the piano. Pretty singing, too bad I don't know Korean. It sort of sounded like the theme song from Rocky though.

Today I went into my downstairs bathroom just in time to hear the other neighbor's young daughter on the other side of the wall exclaim "ew! yuck!" and then start singing a song that goes "We're going for a trip in our favorite rocket ship!" It was really cute.

More anonymous secrets

Found Magazine is rocking my world on this lovely Saturday morning. This one is my favorite so far.

Shear Genius is sooooo much better than Top Design.

intimate strangers

Lately I've been fascinated by the secret thoughts of strangers. I love going to post secret every Sunday morning and seeing what people have sent out into the world.

I'm also very intrigued by The Letter Project and I can't wait to see what my letter says!

I also enjoy Group Hug, but not as much as post secret because it doesn't require as much effort, and I like looking at the pictures on post secret.

I want to start making collages all the time. I made one a few months ago of things I want to be/see/have/do:

happy

I feel like all the puzzle pieces i've collected over the years are finally making a whole picture. and it's a pretty one, too.