Today was an atypical August day, beating the record rainfall amounts by triple and with temperatures staying in the upper 60s. It feels like fall, not just because of that, but because I feel like I’m already back at work. Justin and I have been getting up to go to work together for the last two weeks, which is a good routine to be in. I put in 8 hours today and that was just getting packets together for staff who are doing home visits for freshmen. Strangely, I like this routine. I actually feel good about starting this school year, and I’m ready for it. I would much rather stay occupied with constructive activities during the summer (yet still have some flexible time) than sit around the house feeling like there’s nothing for me to do (even though I know better). I like a little bit of purpose to my day, and when I face a stretch of 2-3 days without some sort of plan, I get overwhelmed at the options and face anxiety. I think having 3 big trips this summer has helped me feel travel-fulfilled, and having Justin going to work every morning gets me up and going, too, even when I don’t have a workshop to attend at a set time.

At any rate, I can’t blog long, as there is a bowling match going on tonight that I MUST be part of. Lesley, Dawn, and I are going to face off tonight at the Imperial Lanes. Wish me luck!

I worked in the garden on this glorious, 76-78F sunny day–a rare event in Seattle, especially for April. I got a mini-farmer’s burn from before I changed into a tank top. The gardening weather couldn’t have come at a more perfect time, as I had some basil, tomato, and eggplant started inside on March 1 that were ready for the outdoors. Before my outdoor adventures could begin, I had to stop by Lowe’s (where everyone else in the universe converged today) for some more garden soil to fill in my beds. They hadn’t had replenishment in 2 years and needed to be topped off.

Next came a miniature ethical crisis: should I tear out my 4 wild-and-crazy, huge, full-of-blossoms-yet-no-good-for florets broccoli plants? Normally, the answer would be “a thousand times, yes.” However, there were 4 or 5 happy pollinators enjoying the nectar of this cruciferous vegetable’s flowers. Who am I to discourage bees from my garden or to take away their food? Justin assured me that they would find sustenance elsewhere, so I ripped them out. I hope my little bee friends come back for my tomatoes, eggplants, basil, and other garden delights.

Some new developments in my garden include carrots (planted from seed outside today with the already-thriving Swiss chard), peppers transplanted outside (not doing great yet–we shall see), dahlias planted from seed near the rose bush, and alyssum planted outside near the rose bush. I also planted more peppers inside today, along with more mint and some new cantaloupe. I hope to plant mint outdoors in front of the house to serve as a space-filler with a nice scent to mask the smell of cat poop that lingers near the house. There are some cats (not Virgil–his evil cousins) that think our mulch (and my garden beds, if I didn’t have the netting) is their personal litter box.

I have decided to keep some basil indoors for kitchen use, and I’d like to use my chives and rosemary more than I do (which is hardly ever). I will likely keep some mint indoors as well. May thru July brings a new wave of planting, including hollyhocks, watermelon, squash, beans, aster, lupine, more alyssum, and who knows what else. As weather permits, I would like to use our fire pit/patio more and keep up my gardens, in general. I think what usually interrupts this process are our summer activities: when the garden usually needs the most tending and harvesting, we’re traveling or in our summer jobs/workshops.

More garden updates to come….in the meantime, does anyone know what veggie or fruit grows particularly well in Seattle or Seattle-like climates?

Each day–the weather, the light, the feel of it–has a certain color and flavor associated with it for me. For example, today is cool and cloudy with no rain, so I might associate it with the color green and the vegetable broccoli. A day like today with more moisture I would probably call a watercress or lettuce day–bland and pale green. Seattle rarely has hot and steamy days (red and tomato) or hot and dry days (orange and rosemary /basil), but the days I do appreciate are warm and sunny (yellow and peaches/cherries) in late summer. I also like stormy days (eggplant/violet and dark grey), as well as exciting winter weather days (peppermint/frost white). I haven’t thought about this much, but I am sure other people may make these associations as well. Anyone? Bueller?

I should be doing so much right now…grading, cleaning, lesson planning, working on my application for grad school, enjoying the lovely sunny weather we are getting. However, the blog calls and it’s feeling rather neglected. I think my blog is jealous of twitter. This is how I’ve been keeping the world updated lately…one mini-post at a time. This post will be a BIG one about what’s going on in my life, and I think I will structure it based on the categories I have to the right here:

Books:
Currently reading Surprised by Joy (C.S. Lewis) and No One Belongs “Here More Than You (Miranda July)–both for book groups.

Music:
Just got DMB and Tim Reynolds: Live at Radio City and Grey’s Anatomy Season 3 Soundtrack for Christmas. In awe at Reynold’s guitar skillz.

Movies:
Depressed myself by watching A Crude Awakening about the upcoming oil shortage. Makes me want to live on a farm.

Trips I want to take in the near future:

I’d love to go to Portland for a long weekend trip to visit Powell’s. I also want to visit The Bridge church and stay at McMenamin’s Edgefield outside of Portland in Troutdale.
Quebec–just to feel like I’m in Old World Europe in the “New World”
New Zealand/Australia: it’s all about the wildlife and scenery….plus they speak English
Kenya or South Africa on adventurous days
New England/East Coast: we have lots of friends and family there
Idaho: visit J’s parents; ski or snowboard; play in snow; sit in hot springs in the cold weather

Knitting Projects:
Finished Anna’s Alpaca fuzzy black scarf. Still working on baby kimono. Might finish when baby is a teenager. Started making baby bib in purple and green jewel tones.

Seattle Weather:
Boring. Just boring. I prefer exciting weather, for instance snow and drastic changes in temperature. At least the past two days there has been some sun! I really should live further inland somewhere if I prefer such excitement.

Education:
I still have bitten off more than I can chew in my current teaching assignment: 3 preps in a high needs school is overwhelming, so I spend a lot of my “free” time working on school related work. Nevertheless, I am applying for a doctoral program called Leadership for Learning at the University of Washington (L4L at UW, shorthand). The program is mainly geared to people preparing for superintendent duties, but my focus would be on leadership for educators at the school-based level. My application is due February 1, and I still have so much to do on it. I have 2, 3-day weekends coming up.

TV:
Not much of this in my life, but I have enjoyed watching the Colbert Report and The/”A” Daily Show with John Stewart this week. I watch it online, though, which means it’s a day late.

Theater:
One of my new year’s resolutions is to actually get to the plays we have season tickets to. Seattle Rep won’t let you in late, and we inevitably get there 5-10 minutes late, at least the last few times. We have one coming up in February. Here’s to punctuality.

Technology:
Not much new in this category. I am working off of Justin’s old Vaio so we can both have wireless in the same room. Since the addition of Lesley’s cat to the household, we have not been working in the office, as we’d have to keep the door closed, and that’s a rather confined space.

Science:
I’m teaching AP Bio this year, so this week I will be working with Sordaria in a mitosis/meiosis lab. Woohoo!

Grrr…
I have too many for this category. Let me first state that I began to dislike being asked how my break was, because overall, it was a pleasant experience with friends and family, but a series of unfortunate events seemed to befall us. Let me explain.

The first leg of our trip went fine, except that I got sick the day after Christmas with a cold, right after having a sinus infection earlier that month. Being sick again meant that flying, which we did 2 days after I got sick, became ridiculously painful on my ears….and we had to do it twice that day. I couldn’t hear normally out of one of my ears, and a few days later (New Year’s Eve) I went to the doctor in my hometown. I ended up having an ear infection and got put on antibiotics that I just finished. Justin got the same bug, but it wasn’t as bad.

The next Grrr….comes from our flying experience. We just made our connecting flight from Salt Lake to Cincinnati, but our luggage apparently didn’t make it. My sis picked us up from the airport (and we got pulled over for speeding on the way to my Papa’s), and we decided to make our return trip to the airport the next morning, since our next stop would put us through Little Rock anyway. No luggage. Flight didn’t make it. “We’ll deliver it,” they said, “between 3 p.m. and 3 a.m.” 3 a.m……still no luggage. We called them. “We’ll deliver sometime today.” 4:30 pm: we got our luggage…2 days late. All of the presents I had for family I wouldn’t see again that trip was in there. Thanks, airline and baggage delivery service, for your convenience.

The time had come for our trip home. I called the night before to confirm that we had a 7 a.m. flight, which meant getting up at 4 to leave for Little Rock. “Yes,” the live person at Expedia said, “that’s correct.” 5:30 a.m. at the airport: “Your flight has been changed to 2 p.m.” Justin discussed this with an agent for an hour; they both made many phone calls. 2 p.m. remained the departure time. The glorious byproduct of this situation is that my parents were able to take us to Cracker Barrel and we has a scrumptious country breakfast (I, of course, had biscuits and gravy).

More rants: Why does UPS try to do deliveries that require signature confirmation on M-F during normal working hours? If I wasn’t there today between 10-2, why would I be there tomorrow at that time? And then, why are you not open on Saturdays?

Running:
Can we skip this one? OK, so I haven’t done much of this since Aaron, my running buddy, left. Also, I don’t have a gym membership anymore, and it’s dark before I get home (any more excuses?), so this isn’t so much part of my life right now, although I’d like it to be.

Church
So since our group isn’t meeting on Sundays anymore, we’re trying to figure out what to do next. For some, it means individual spiritual time on Sunday mornings. For others, it is visiting churches. For yet others, it is a combination of the two, depending on the week. That’s where I fit in. We’re still doing our other activities, but we’re trying to figure out what Sundays should really look like.

Exercise
I’m getting this some days, thanks to exercise videos for abs, buns, arms, and cardio. Yay! I like being sore, as it means I am making progress and working hard.

Food
I like cooking, but I don’t like HAVING to cook. I like being creative and I like having a choice. I think sometimes getting the pioneer organics box stresses me out because it’s like the fruits and veggies are a ticking time bomb that need to be cooked…RIGHT NOW!! We postponed our order for the last month, and I’m a lot more relaxed, although I haven’t been eating as many fruits and veggies. This AM I made blueberry pancakes and meatless bacon. I want to eat more healthily, so I like planning my menu ahead of time.

Friends and Family
I love you all and I don’t see you enough!

Today we got our first snowfall in Seattle, and it’s actually sticking. It has snowed for about 6 hours–some hours it was heavier than others–and we have about an inch and a half, I’d guess. However, it’s going to turn to rain tonight, so by tomorrow morning we might just have a slushy or soggy mess. Tomorrow it will be warmer–in the 40s–and by Monday it will be in the 50s with thunderstorms and wind. It seems like November and December weather in Seattle is full of surprises, which I like–I’m all about the inclement weather. I wish this snowy weather would stick around for a while…it puts me in the mood to work on Christmas Cards and online Christmas shopping! Which reminds me…if you haven’t created an amazon wish list or sent me a list of what you’d like, hurry and do so!

This weekend (and most of this month) has been rainy, but we managed to have a good bit of fun anyway. Justin and I went out for Thai food, went to a photography show in a coffee shop, went for a walk around Ballard, got some tea, and caught a movie on Thursday night. Saturday, after a big breakfast, we went to see Twelfe Night (the first folio spelling) at Seattle Rep and then got ready to have another couple over for bread, homemade potato soup, salad, and homemade plum-peach cobbler. We had fun just talking with our company for about four hours–something we rarely get to do. Today after church we drove up to Capitol Hill and went to the bike store so Justin’s tires could work again, and then we went for a walk in Volunteer Park in the rain. I could have walked for longer, but we were expecting a Craigslister to drop by. Knowing that I had grading to do, I did what I always do in the face of grading–procrasti-baking. Now I am procrastiblogging, but earlier I made pumpkin muffins, which were quite tasty. This weekend I’ve also been knitting quite a bit on my niece’s baby kimono. Who knows when I will be finished with it. The process is quite fun.

This week is going to be extra-crazy, as I have school- or education-related events every night but Monday this week–including Saturday and Friday. While I’m not doing that, I’ll be reading The Great Divorce for the C.S. Lewis book group I’m in.

It looks like the owner of the MacBook Pro I happen to be typing on needs his computer back (*ahem* Justin) so this mini-blog will have to do.

I’m working in my room to get ready for tomorrow, which includes a quiz, a lab, the start of a new project, a field trip, and an assembly. Tomorrow makes up for today, which was rather light on my duties as I had a guest presenter regarding BioTech Expo. I also have a student teacher, which makes life a bit easier as well.

From my room I can see the thunderstorm progress across Boeing field and I-5, There are showers here which surge at various rates, and the lightning a moment ago caused the lights to flicker and caused my monitor to get a greenish hue, which is bothering me and is persisting.

Tonight I hope to get a bit of grading done, but I don’t want all evening to be about school. Perhaps some exercising and knitting will be what I need.

This will have to be brief, disjointed, and unedited as I have to catch a bus in a while, but I just got back from Upward Bound camp in Sequim, WA. What an adventure we had on the way home…more on that later. I walked from the ferries to lower Queen Anne when we got back, luggage in tow. It was 2 miles of awesome walking, so I got an iced mocha when I got to Queen Anne/Uptown.

I’m heading to my cousin’s wedding and I’ll get to spend lots of time with my little sister. Yay!

Gotta catch my bus…it’s going to be fun in the 90+ heat. Sheesh.

Whenever I don’t blog for a while, I end up with Monster Posts (TM), so I will try to make my update brief, yet entertaining.

So, first things first. I will go in backwards chronological order, starting with right now. I am sweaty and I just ate a banana after our soccer game tonight. I did NOT get hit in the face this week, and I did play hard defense (especially against the guys in the blue and orange socks), but we did not win. Phooey.

This week I’ve gone to an amazing AP Biology workshop where I get to do fun labs all day, get free lunch, breakfast, and 2 snacks, plus all the coffee I can drink **twitch**. I came home today with Nasonia, a tiny wasp with apparently a lab advantage over using fruit flies in genetics activities. We got to make them mate and lay their eggs in flesh fly pupae. I brought some home for future use, as they can be stored in the refrigerator until needed. We also looked at stomata, made respirometers to find out how much water plants lose under different conditions, and ran DNA through gels (like in college!). Oh, the thrill of being a science teacher! I can’t wait for tomorrow–our last day–as I hope to get a plan for how I can implement what we have learned.

I am NOT looking forward to the Friday afternoon traffic, though. I’ve been driving to and from Bellevue each day, and I’ve gone a different route each time, as the commute involves going on I-90, 405, and 520 *shudder*. It’s notoriously bad anytime, but Friday is going to be horrendous.

I don’t have anything planned for tomorrow night, but I hope to do something fun. Last night I fell asleep by 8 p.m. and the night before that, I went to a Chekhov play (Uncle Vanya) with Justin at the Intiman theater. I must say I enjoyed it–it contained elements of both a comedy and a tragedy–and it made me glad that I have the life that I do, which is always good.

Sunday and Monday night we spent on the road to and from Spokane for Justin’s principal conference. We had wonderful weather and a pretty good time in Spokane. He had almost 50 interested participants in his seminar on productivity for school administrators, so that made our trip worth it. We got back super late Monday night/Tuesday morning, which probably contributed to my sleeping so early last night.

Speaking of sleeping…it’s about that time. Oh, and if you see little blog blurbs come up, it’s because I joined twitter, this crazy service that lets you blog from your phone or a computer more often about even more mundane aspects of life in even less detail. Sweet!

It’s been a rather cool and drizzly weekend even though the end of the school year is quickly approaching. We have only 5 days of school left, but a stressful 5 days it will be! This is mainly because tomorrow is graduation and rehearsal, which is hectic as I have to make sure the show runs smoothly. This year I created documents with directions. It took me all afternoon, but it will be worth it.
Also, I’ve spent part of the afternoon working with a student who is trying to graduate and has resubmitted his paper about three times today. Sheesh. The other factors that make this a hectic week are that we’re going on a field trip Tuesday, and finals are Thursday and Friday. I have to be packed and checked out, with all grades done, by Friday afternoon. As you can tell, I’m a bit concerned about this.

In other news, I may be running in a 24-hour relay with a team in late July. It will be a bit pricey, but I may decide to go ahead with it for the adventure. Plus, I’ll have something to start training for when I run again this summer.

Lastly, I just bought tickets for my cousin’s wedding back in Arkansas. I’ll be there July 11-15, although I leave and arrive at ungodly hours.

Well, gotta go grade. I’ve been putting it off all weekend.