I am staying home pretty much all weekend because a) the weather is “supposed” to be bad–we don’t want to venture over the passes for a hike; b) it’s the end of the month and there’s no extra cash; and c) I have a new semester starting Tuesday and I am ridiculously behind on grading (even though it’s been my life lately).

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I am working on this online bible reading plan to get through the bible in a year. Somehow I like reading it online, and then I thought about getting it emailed to me. However, the site charges $9 a year for the emails, so I guess I need to find another site.

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I finished the Miranda July book, and now I am working on 3 books: Holly Springs, Surprised by Joy, and Omnivore’s Dilemma. I want to get more seriously into reading, hiking, and knitting after my grades are due. Right now those are on hold, like just about everything else (house cleaning, hanging out with friends, etc.).

I am concerned about how stressed I am about work, especially since my visit to the ER last weekend with chest pain and trouble breathing. I still have a dull ache all around my left chest area, but I don’t know what to think about it. I had bloodwork done, and EKG, and a chest xray, but they didn’t find anything (they were worried about clotting). They suggested anxiety and internal bruising from soccer. I don’t know what it is, but it’s still bothering me and I’m worried about playing soccer this Thursday.
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My grad school application is due this Friday. I’m pretty much finished; I just need to print out all of my materials and take in my immunization records and transcripts. I will feel much better about life when all of that is done (as well as my grades).
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Paul, the guy who has lived with us in our garage for the last two years, is in a coma in the hospital. It’s not looking promising that he will get out of it this time. Please keep him, as well as his family and friends in your prayers.

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So that’s the news from around here! I know–it’s all rainbows and butterflies, right? I really am happy–I just have a lot on my mind. That seems to happen as I get older. I want to focus more on the beautiful, positive aspects of life. It’s hard to walk the line between being Eeyore and Pollyanna.

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!

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.

Today begins the start of our 6,000 mile road trip. It’s beginning kind of late because of our procrastination in getting things packed, cleaned, and ready to go, but hey–that’s why we’re taking a car and not scheduled for a flight.

Tonight we hope to end up somewhere in Montana–as far as we can drive in 10-12 hours, at least. Our car is ridiculously full of everything we’ve packed, but I hope to spend very little on eating fast food, hence the cooler and 2 bags of food we’ve stashed in the car.

Some tasks I’d like to accomplish while Justin is driving include:
read the rest of Love in the Time of Cholera
knit baby bibs and washcloths for Joanna’s baby
work on AP Biology curriculum
grade papers and notebooks from Upward Bound Summer School
read lots of other delicious books

The weather here has been ridiculously cool, so I hope we get some not-scorching weather in Arkansas, although the last I checked, it was going to be over 100F each day we’re there. Better swimming weather, I suppose.

We’ve had an excellent visit with my friend Bethany since she’s been out here from Missouri. We’ve gone blackberry picking, we played soccer with my team, we went to my book club with Dawn and Erin, and we went to the Farmers’ Market and Pike Place Market, the Elliot Bay Book Company, Andaluz, Fireworks, and Cafe Ladro. She got to come to my classes with me and went to the UB summer banquet and picnic. We’ve had an excellent time and I’m sad to leave her here, but I know she’s going to have a great time with Dawn and the rest of the gang here in Seattle.

Oh goodness! We’ve got to go! Hopefully I’ll be able to make some updates from the road.

I posted more photos to flickr recently–they are of wildlife from when I went with my students to Northwest Trek. I tried to link there but my site got switched to a different server and well, it didn’t work. Anyway, check those out!

Right now I’m just enjoying summer (or what’s left of it). We’re cleaning the house today, or at least doing all those de-cluttering and purging things that people do when it’s summer. We’re getting rid of lots of tech stuff we’ve been keeping for no real reason and I’ve started some new filing systems. All in all, I’m feeling more organized, even if it feels like we’re moving and a million boxes are still in the hall.

On a more fun note, I’ll probably work on one or more books this evening and possibly lesson plan a little for this week. I recently started Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s book Love in the Time of Cholera, and I’m almost finished with Eat, Pray, Love. I’m reading so much more this summer than I usually do, and I hope to be finished with 10 books by the end of summer (I’m only at almost-4 right now).

Other plans for this week include:
Wii game night (and chicken curry dinner) Monday
Bela Fleck concert at the Zoo Wednesday
New Soccer Season starts Thursday
Film night Friday at Daniel’s

I want to start knitting again, as this stopped for me in April. I have plans for a baby kimono for Joanna’s little girl, but I think I need yarn for it. This will be a perfect project for our road trip.

I also want to start running again, which is not perfect for a road trip…I haven’t really run since last fall. I’ve been relying on indoor bikes, 10 lb weights, exercise videos, and soccer to serve as my workouts, but there’s nothing like a good run. We’ll see how that goes.

Well…until my next post…adieu!

Although I am tired from our late-night Lowe’s trip, Safeway run, and video stop….
Even though I stayed up late to make a vanilla pudding-layered fruit salad and biscuits and gravy (not sure why I did)…..
Despite the fact that I ignored my bedtime to work on the Easter homily and got distracted by an online art encyclopedia for several hours….

this morning is a sunny, glorious Easter morning. The birds seem to be chirping the news that “Christ is Risen! Alleluia!”

Today we will celebrate at Daniel’s with feasting and rejoicing. I’m taking a ham, baked beans, and the fruit salad I made last night.

This afternoon I must:
–pack for tomorrow’s trip to Vancouver
–deposit checks in bank
–do laundry
–exercise
–finish knitting hat (almost done!)
–take shirt back to old navy
–work in garden
–clean out car (wash and vacuum)

DSC_0012, uploaded by amybaeder.

Here’s my alpaca blend hat. I don’t wear it much ’cause it’s not that cold anymore, but I do like the color. It’s a bit scratchy after a while, but I like wearing something I’ve made. It was my first experiment in ribbing, and I like the way it helps the hat expand to fit my head :). I think it looks better on someone rather than on our dining room table, but this will have to do for now.

DSC_0008, uploaded by amybaeder.

Here’s the hat I made for mom. I still need to block it so the ends don’t curl up, but I’m not sure how to do it. I like the homespun yarn like this that changes color as you knit it up. I’m working on another one now, and then Lesley wants me to make her one.

Tonight we went to Daniel’s for the Academy Awards party. It wasn’t a dress-up event this year, but the food was themed by the best picture nominations (for example, tea and crumpets for The Queen, etc.). I mainly graded and knitted, but I did have fun. I wish I had seen more of the movies beforehand. From the nominations list, the only ones I had seen were:

Pursuit of Happyness
Pirates of the Caribbean
Little Miss Sunshine
The Departed
The Illusionist
The Devil Wears Prada
An Inconvenient Truth
Jesus Camp
Marie Antoinette
Click
Borat
Superman Returns

I should have seen Babel, Dreamgirls, Pan’s Labyrinth, and The Queen, from the looks of it, but I’ve put them on my Netflix for future watching. I probably wouldn’t watch the Oscars if there was no party for it, but it’s fun to get introduced to movies that one wouldn’t normally watch through people you know.