Strange Dream

If you ask any teacher if they have strange dreams before the new school year they will talk your ear off. The fact that I am no longer teaching, but still had the dream a week before the new school year is pretty amusing. Here's this year's version. Now remember, it was a dream, so it is pretty choppy.

I found out that I would be teaching fifth grade in a new open format. All the fifth graders would be in a large open room and have four teachers. Karin Dwors, who I went to HS and college with, Christi Yokoyama, who I taught fourth grade with for four years, and Jay Warren, a teacher I never really worked with at all. I didn't want to teach at all. I wanted to be home with Aubrey. Somehow I was tricked into taking this position on a temporary basis. I was a wreck, and on the verge of tears, because I wanted to be home with my daughter. Also Mike had only taken the first day of school off so I had no arrangement secured for child care.

Christi and Jay were really bossy (sorry if you happen to be reading this, just a dream) and they wouldn't let me take attendance because they wanted to give the kids a math placement test. The phone rang and it was our library time (like you would ever get to go to the library on the first day of school) so off we went. The kids were taking tequila shots and drinking beer while looking for their books. Nobody seemed to care but me! When we returned to class they had to take their math placement test, which they failed because they were drunk! At recess I went to the principal to quit and I got in trouble for not submitting the attendance. It was a disaster! I was thinking about Karin yesterday so I am not surprised I dreamt about her, but the rest of it is utterly strange. What does it all mean?

Helpless in Colorado

I am so dependent on Mike when it comes to this house it is ridiculous. We just had our backyard landscaped (post to come, I'm saving it for Mike) and we now have to program our sprinklers to go off 3 times a day during the mandated time schedule while watering our front yard every third day during the same hours, but not at the same time. Yikes! Poor Dale, our contractor, probably thinks I am a high school drop out for my ability level when it comes to this. I told him that if the grass wasn't in by Tuesday he had to come back to do it for me, since mike would be gone. So he had to drive all the way here today to take three minutes to program our new system. In my defense it is a different control box then we had before so Mike couldn't show me how to use it before he left, but I am sure I could have managed with a little light reading.

Tonight I needed to get a few things from the grocery store. I had Aubrey in the carseat and tried to open the garage door and nothing. I managed to manually open it and pull out the car, but for the life of me, I couldn't get it back down... Six foot ladder and all. So I trusted my little suburban neighborhood and went to the store with the garage wide open. When I got home I tried and tried again to no avail. Out of desperation, I called my neighbor to see if I could borrow her husband. How embarrassing! Luckily I tried one more time and by the power of Grayskull, I Shera-ed the garage door down with brute strength. Well, just enough to get the motor to kick back in and take over.

Who knows what the next two days will entail, I'm sure some other electrical catastrophe that will make me feel like a five year old is right around the corner. O kay, enough of this post. I have some Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream with my name on it! Mike, come home quick!

A Long Week

As many of you know, Mike's grandfather passed away a few weeks ago. Mike's supervisor was more than understanding and allowed him to take time off for the Wisconsin services. I just dropped Mike off at DIA and am now flying solo until early next week. Mike will actually be home Sunday, but Aubrey will not see him until Monday night. So PRAY HARD, because she gets pretty upset when daddy isn't around and this will be the first extended absence since she was 4 months. I also get pretty upset when Mike isn't around, but I think I know how to handle it a little better than she does :)

a few things that annoyed me over the weekend

1. Mike threw his back out about fifteen minutes into the weekend. He was in A LOT of pain, and I had no right being upset that he was hurt, but I was. I'm such a bad person!!! We were having friends over both Saturday and Sunday afternoon and our house needed a little sparkle. We had also entertained Thursday night and had overnight guests so I was still rebounding from that endeavor. Here I was with one person on the floor and a much smaller person trying to climb all over him. Ahhh... Not exactly the little helpers I was hoping for. I needed to go to the store Saturday morning and buy a few things for lunch, but didn't have time to clean, shower, and go to the store. So I made do with the ingredients we had on hand and made chicken burittos for our friends. I had also wanted to spruce up the front yard and do some planting over the weekend, but that was now out of the question as well.

2. During Mike's live Fantasy Football Draft and Aubrey's nap I snuck out to Cost Cutters to get my hair cut. Something I have only done four times since Aubrey arrived. Why I went to Cost Cutters I will never know. I guess I figured I wanted a pretty straight forward cut and anyone could do it. So after waiting a while I got my turn in the chair. I opted out of the wash since I was already freshly showered (mistake number one). The girl asked me what I wanted. I said to take it up to my shoulders (mistake number two). I meant I wanted it shoulder length. Apparently up to my shoulders is about an inch and a half shorter then that. She asked me if I wanted any layers, and I declined since I really want a simple hairstyle for this time in my life. She got started. She spritzed my hair, combed it, and cut straight across. Hello? No pinning it up in sections, no pretending to care. She then framed it around my face (two more cuts) and asked me how I liked it. Less then ten minutes later I was in the car heading home. I have lots of thin strands of hair, so my hair needs to be cut to fall on each other. Now I have the top section turning out and the under section turning under, and it is a little too short to pull it all up! In a few months I'll go to a real salon and get nothing off the length and just a style. I'm starting to understand why Mike cut's his own hair.

3. Mosquitoes! Need I say more? I got three bites over the weekend. One on the under side of my wrist and two on my forehead. Nice. Does anyone have a magic formula to keep these things away form me and mine?

These boots were made for walking

Aubrey has a strange fascination with shoes. She always has for that matter. I've kept socks in her toy box for the last five months because she loves walking around with them in her hands. Also, I have a few unworn pairs of shoes in there that she can tote around the house. Recently her obsession has morphed. She insists on wearing shoes at all times (that is if I leave them in her line of sight). She will simply bring them to you and sit in your lap so you can put them on her. AND, heaven forbid Mike and I dare to be barefoot inside. She retrieves our flip flops one at a time and delivers them to us. I love sitting Indian style, and it isn't very comfortable with shoes on, but what's a mom to do? I have tried hiding my shoes, but she seems to find them. I guess it is our version of Where's Waldo!


She also likes another unnecessary indoor accessory, glasses (tinted pink with rhinestones, thanks grandma)! She wore her glasses for about an hour of her playdate last Monday. I finally took them off and hid them. What a silly goose we are raising. What's next? A purse? Oh wait, she already thinks that mine is hers. At the grocery store she loves to hold my wallet and credit cards at the check out line. I try to give her a used up gift card to pacify her, but she is always reaching for the VISA. Just wait, in a few short years she will be ordering stuff on line too!

silly Aubrey...

For whatever reason, Aubrey was convinced that I should be the one lugging her around on our Saturday hikes. She was in the hiking backpack yelling "mama" and reaching out for me in desperation. She has to be crazy if she thinks I am going to haul an extra 27 pounds on my back (back pack weighs 7lbs). Mike an I decided on our next date, we would go hiking without the munch so we could actually enjoy it. Here are some pictures form our day. I wanted to add more, but blogger isn't cooperating.

Do you see that?

Aubrey had a great time with her grandma and grandpa last week. We went to the zoo and aquarium during the week and saved the hiking for Mike on Saturday. Aubrey finally can see the animals! She always noticed squirrels and geese, but the giraffes completely missed her attention. This last trip was pretty exciting, because she would point at all the animals and look at you to tell her what it was. Jenna took some great pictures and you can check those out on the Hoskinson's blog, but here's a pic I managed to get at the aquarium.

Here we sit

Well my parents are three days in to their Colorado visit and we are stuck in the house. Our TV is being delivered today and we were given a four hour window. I was told I would be given a one hour window, but I am not surprised that I was lied too. DON"T BUY SAMSUNG! Anyway, I'll post a lot more next week as they keep me pretty busy!!! My parents and Samsung.

Saturday Night

What did we do Saturday night? We hung out with Tara and Tommy in NC. No, we weren't in NC. We were in CO, but we called them up to get each other up to speed on life and spent 109 minutes and 59 seconds on the phone. Other than not being able to see each other's beautiful faces, it was almost like they were right here. For anyone who knows how much Tara hates being on the phone, this was a huge accomplishment. :) -Posted by Mike who is too lazy to change log ins.

Our New Patio Set

We did it! We utilized end of season sales and got a nice set for a reasonable price. We do need to buy an umbrella and base, but they weren't 40 percent off yet :) We made our purchase at Home Depot this evening and then had the comical job of getting it into the van, WITH AUBREY. I hadn't unloaded the van from yesterday's swim date with Jenna or today's picnic lunch with Mike, so we had a lot of shifting to do. Now we just need to find a way to protect it form hail. Any suggestions? Mike is in the garage putting a few of the chairs together so we can give it a test drive on the patio. Now I am even more excited to have our backyard finished. Funny side note, my neighbor came over yesterday morning after dropping her kids off at school to tell me about the clearance event. We were both in jammies and hadn't had our coffee from the looks of us. How neat is it that we have neighbors looking out for us? Have we mentioned how much we love Colorado?

I forgot to tell you

Aubrey has been completely off a bottle for some time now. She didn't take to whole milk as well as I thought she would so I kept the security of a bottle in the morning for a few weeks. Then we just tweaked her schedule a little and ZAP, gone. She drinks anywhere from 12-24 ounces of milk a day and hasn't missed the bottle one bit. Of course she now drinks out of a straw cup so there is actually more to clean then with her bottles, but...

Aubrey Eating Yogurt!

In a nutshell...

I haven't really posted about what we have been up to in a while. You can assume that Mike's at work, and I am at home trying to keep the munch entertained. We usually take an early morning walk to get her mind off of "da da" who she always seems to be scouring the house for. Then we try to run errands after lunch. After her afternoon nap it's a short walk, dinner, another walk, Aubrey and I walking outside, and more stroller time! At least on Monday's which is a really difficult day for all three of us. Today we are going to Jenna's to go swimming after lunch. That should be a lot of fun and really help the day keep moving!

Last weekend we invited the Hoskinson's out to breakfast with us and to do a short hike afterwards. Mike and I seized the day and ordered really heavy and delicious meals. Mike had the Belgian waffle combo and I had the biscuits and gravy combo. As our breakfast settled we decided to scale "The Rock" and poor Mike was doing it with 30 extra pounds on his back. Jay must be part billy goat, because he was a good distance in front of the rest of us and kept popping around for pictures. It really was a blast, but we would have been better off getting a fruit smoothie with some ginseng before our little endeavor. The only disappointment was that we were not able to hike to the top. That trail was mostly washed away and it wouldn't have been the safest decision for the group. Especially after seeing a cross at the base for a twenty year old named Nick, who must have given it a shot. So we walked around the perimeter and took in the views. It would be a great place to be at sunset.

Mike and I spent the rest of the weekend searching for patio furniture. Everything is either very cheap and won't hold up with our windy afternoons, or the sets are way over $1000. It was pretty frustrating. Landscaping on our backyard should be starting next week and we would like to have a set for Labor Day, but... I think Aubrey and I will take an afternoon trip to Home Depot to check out what is still in stock. We also played A LOT of rummy and I am sure Mike cheats, because I seem to lose about 90 percent of the time. He wouldn't call it cheating, but that photographic memory of his makes him very hard to beat. He always knows exactly what I need and what is in my hand. All I seem to know is that he is holding a few or a lot of cards. It still is nice to have some quality time with my hunny considering we are both beat when he gets home during the week.

I lied

Well, at least according to Mike I did. Apparently I had posted that I was going to add in the Bowflex to my health and wellness regiment, AND I haven't. So there it is, I am a liar. Duh, I'm a big fat sinner, of course I lie too. I guess it was more of a lie to myself than to all of you. I still "plan" on adding it in on Tuesday's and Thursday's, yet here I sit, typing to the universe instead of working out. I also want to work out one weekend day with Mike, but that has also been "delayed." I do take Aubrey for 30 minute walks about four days a week and do an abs workout when I get home. She thinks I am playing with her so I usually have to crunch with 20 pounds of resistance on my stomach.

So now that I got that out of the way. Here is the update with my "Eat Like a Toddler" challenge. I scrapped it after a few weeks for a better plan. A friend of mine heard what I was doing and gave me "The Abs Diet" to read. It is a great book that actually educates you about food and what it does to your body. It then teaches you how to keep full of the right foods to burn more fat and build more muscle (which is why I really need to get on the Bowflex)! It was a quick read and didn't go against what I was already doing and it is something that I can still do whenever I am fortunate enough to house a little one in my womb again. It isn't a "lose weight" diet, it is a "lifestyle" diet. It is written primarily with men in mind, but I eat as much as Mike anyway...

The last two weeks have been pretty rocky, life just got in the way. So Mike and I have been having quick dinners instead of nutritionally balanced ones. All of me measurements and weight have been pretty stagnant. All in all, I look a lot better, feel better, and fit into my capris!!! I have given up on ever wearing all of my cute shirts from Express. Pregnancy just left me with a lot of body in places I didn't have any before. I am uncomfortable in shirts that hit my pants line. So I now have to shop in the misses department or buy the trendy layering shirts for a few extra inches of length. Oh well, I am 28, I guess I can move over one section in the department stores.