Snow Day

So we were out of school today. Here's what I did with the unexpected free time:

- go back to bed for a few hours and just lay there thinking about how nice it is to not be at work

- graze on snacks slowly all day

- clean the kitchen, including the burner pans from the stove

- vacuum the entire apt

- swiffer wetjet in the bathroom and kitchen

- build a fire and use up the last of my firewood

- make a facebook event for Josh

- text people

- facebook stalk random people I haven't talked to in a long time and contemplate how crazy it is that so many people my age and younger and married and have kids

- grade some papers

- dance around the apt to music

- clean the bathroom - counters, mirror, toilet, and bathtub

- lay on the couch watching basic TV

- talk to my grandma on the phone

- take pictures of snow (without ever stepping foot on the ground level of my apts)

- have a glass of wine because I've run out of entertaining things to do, and I'm somehow always more entertained when I've had a little wine!

So basically I ran out of stuff I wanted to do at like 3pm today, and if we're out again tomorrow, I might just go nuts! Snowdays just aren't as fun when you're completely isolated from everyone else. :-(

Futility

Does anyone else ever grow tired of the futility of life? For some reason lately, I've grown to resent that every week I have more laundry to do if I want to wear clean clothes, more groceries to buy if I want fresh food, more cleaning to do if I want to have a sanitary home, and more work to do if I want to keep earning money to pay for all that stuff I keep needing. And I don't even have to do that for a whole family! (although my boyfriend is here often enough that it feels like I'm constantly cooking for/cleaning up after him).

Maybe this is being brought up because I've been home grading papers, inputting grades, cleaning, doing laundry, and whatnot while my boyfriend has gone to a gunshow to buy a shotgun (I told him he was stupid, but he's always wanted to go hunting), spent most of Sunday golfing (which is probably in his top-ten list of things to do), has joined a softball team, and is going dove hunting. Why does he get to have all the fun while I've been working?! Anyway, I get a four-day weekend soon and he doesn't, so I have to think of some really fun stuff to do while he's working to even the score! :-P

Oh yeah, and I have that whole summer thing off... Somehow I always forget about that. I'll be happy with life again when that comes back around! For now, I think I'll go read Ecclesiastes!

Bad Blogger... Don't Judge!

So I'm a bad blogger, I'll admit it. This blog hasn't changed any since I set it up... Whenever that was. But can I say that I do a lot of things online and technology-wise for school and I kind-of forget about the blog when I'm caught up in the midst of it all? I was just looking at my friends' blogs (Kayla's in particular) and thinking about how ridiculously cute they are and how they seem to be updated a lot. I don't even know how to do most of the stuff required to make a blog cute.

But my excuse is that I'm figuring out all this technology stuff for school without much help, then I'm too tired from it to play around with it at home. I make lessons for a classroom remote-control feedback system, set up accounts for each of my students for the math textbook online, set up online ordering for Scholastic book orders, create computer lessons and online scavenger hunts, maintain an interactive classroom website, set up an online spelling practice page for my entire team, find online videos to stream and show on my classroom projector, and I hope that shows that I'm not a total technology dunce. I can do stuff, I just get burnt out and don't do it for my poor, neglected little blog. And in the summer I'm too busy playing and sleeping to remember to do anything responsible! ;-)

So there are my excuses. Please accept them and don't judge me for my boring, old blog!

Moving

Can I vent about how much I hate moving? I take that as a yes...

I am getting more and more OCD (yes, I know you college friends probably find it hard to believe), and I can't stand having things out of place or not knowing where they are. That being said, moving is extremely difficult on my mental health. Also, I'm not very strong, so as I move things, I tend to use my whole body and end up with sore muscles and bruises all over. Therefore, moving is not so great for my physical health either.

So two weeks ago I spend some time on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday helping my good friend Erin move. She's helped me several times, so I had no problem with it. Except the chaos. Stuff was everywhere and I had to strain pretty hard to not develop some kind of muscle twitch. I was helping her pack the old place, and I had to crawl all over random things. I'm aware that most of the world packs that way. I, however, do not. I do one or two boxes at a time, and keep them pushed aside so they don't stand in the way of anything else. Then I have to stack them in a corner so I cna pretend not to notice them. And even then I'm more prone to emotional episodes due to how out of control things get.

That Friday night after my boyfriend got off work, he had to start moving. He, of course, hadn't packed a single thing. So I ended up packing a lot of his stuff and helping him move all but the heavist of it. His move continued until Sunday. That makes 5 days in a row of moving (not constant moving, but still the chaos of it all).

So this past week, I spent time packing up my apartment for my move starting tomorrow. I also finally got to go into my classroom, which I have to UNpack from getting new flooring. And there was no A/C at school, plus everything was covered in a fine layer of concrete dust (don't ask). Oh, and did I mention that all of the furniture was stacked on top of other furniture, plus some of the bottom layers were glued to the ground because of the clear coat on top of the tile? Several bruises appeared from me trying to move a large table, bookshelf, and refridgerator off of heights by myself.

Suffice it to say, I'm sick and tired of moving and I haven't even picked up the key to my new apartment! But the boyfriend did help me move a lot of stuff into his truck tonight and tomorrow I'll get my key and take little stuff over. Then Thursday I've hired movers for all my big furniture (thankfully, Erin had too) because there is no way I could get that myself. But they charge by the hour so I'll be spending several hours myself (and getting Erin and Josh to help in the evening) moving stuff in so I don't have to spend as much money.

After all this, I've concluded that I either need to never move again or let go of many of my material items.... I think we all know which one of those I'm most likely to choose! ;-)

Pray for Bethany

One of our close family friends, Bethany (the motorcycle-riding Marilyn Monroe impersonator/actress), is in need of prayers. Last week she and her fiance were riding their motorcycles from Dallas up to Maine to visit my grandparents and get married up there. However, her fiance was in an accident and died. Not only does she have to deal with the pain of losing the person she loved right before they were supposed to be married, but she might lose her home too. They lived together, but his daughters are inheriting the house, and they have always hated her. So they're probably going to kick her out as soon as they can. So I don't know what to do for this poor woman except pray. God will be the best comforter she can have.

Opposites attract

For lack of a better topic to blog about, I've decided to list the ways my boyfriend and I are completely opposite.

1. the most obvious: I'm a girl; he's a boy
2. I multi-task almost constantly; he is a single-tasker (even down to eating only one type of food at a time)
3. I speak very rapidly in a high-pitch; he speaks slowly in a very deep voice
4. I listen to all music EXCEPT country; he loves country, even to the point of singing the same line from a country song over and over and over again
5. I am have no athletic ability and therefore dislike all sports; he loves to play and/or watch basketball, football, golf, baseball... get the point?
6. I go to bed early and wake up early; he likes to stay up and then sleep in really late
7. I believe that if you're not early somewhere, you're late; he believes that if you get somewhere before it's all over, you're on time
8. I like to eat snacks or small meals every few hours; he eats 2 or 3 big meals a day
9. I don't like thinking about politics or whatever is on the news much; he loves watching the news and debating politics
10. I can't remember numbers or statistics for anything; he knows the stats for everything
11. I like to cook my own food; his cooking seems to be limited to making PB&J sandwiches
12. I'm a little (well, maybe a lot) high-strung; he's ridiculously laid back
13. I find memorizing and studying facts equivalent to Chinese water torture; he wants to go to medical school (where he'll be studying almost every waking minute he's not in class for several years)
14. I'm a daddy's girl; he is much closer to his mom than his dad
15. I do laundry and go grocery shopping at least once a week so I don't run out of clean clothes or food; Sunday I did 3 loads of his laundry (including all 30-something pairs of his white socks), and he had no food or toilet paper in his apt

So what they say is true, opposites attract!

mail-order spouses

OK, so I tease my boyfriend about getting a mail-order bride if he wants someone to just grocery shop, cook, and clean for him without expecting anything back. Then, I'll get to do the fun stuff with him and not worry about all the mundane homemaker tasks all the time.

I've recently found an apartment to live in and now I'm going through the pain of trying to find the best deal on electric companies, internet, cable, etc that are available in our area. Today I spent a long time on the phone with AT&T trying to figure out if I could get off my parents' family plan for wireless and bundle that with internet and cable at my new place. I spoke to 3 different people. When I got to the person, I'd tell them exactly what I expected and they'd say they'd connect me to the right person to help me. Only they wouldn't. I'd have to talk to the computer, which of course, didn't offer what I needed as an option and kept telling me to only choose one of the options it was giving me. I've decided that figuring out this stuff and talking to customer service people is one of the worst possible things for me to do. After only 15 minutes on the phone, a nice lady (who I flat out begged to please not transfer me to anyone else and just give me an answer) who told me that I couldn't even get AT&T cable in my area. I proceded to thank her for her help, hang up the phone, and fall from the couch to the floor groaning in frustration and agony.

Perhaps I'm a little overdramatic, but I really really hate doing this crap! And I also hate worrying about money and answering people's questions about what I'm doing for my retirement funds. Therefore, I've decided that they should also have mail-order husbands. I need someone to deal with money and whatnot for me, and I need him now! Why should I have to wait for a real husband who is ready to commit himself to me for the rest of his life? I can just buy someone to do all the money stuff and change the oil in my car and reach high things.

OK, OK, I know it's crazy... but a girl can dream, right?