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 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!

….and it’s easy to believe
maybe this year will be better than the last…”

Last year we got out for Christmas Break on December 15, but this year we drudge on until the 21. Tomorrow is the shortest day of the year, at least in daylight hours, but I think it will be a long one for me, as I will be teaching all 6 classes, finalizing my packing, cleaning the house a bit, completing Christmas cards, and doing all those last-minute right-before-a-vacation household chores. We wake up early Saturday morning to head to the airport to catch our flight to SLC (we’ll end up in frigid Pocatello). The only sanity-saver I have is knowing that I won’t have to go to work for 16 days, and that I will get to spend time with friends and family in the meantime.

Although this trip will be a time of catching up with friends and family, I have calculated that on each day of this break, I must grade 3 senior papers. I also have to grade 30 mitosis labs, 30 photosynthesis labs, 70 biology notebooks, 30 AP Bio Mitosis and Cell communication tests, 30 AP Bio photosynthesis tests, and 70 cell quizzes. As you can tell, I am a bit behind on my grading, as I was out sick for 3 days last week and I simply have not caught up. At least my Christmas shopping is finished, right?

I should go to bed so I can face the last day before break as a well-rested human being!

So we’re in San Francisco for the last night, and our two week trip is almost at an end. Tomorrow we have to wake up early, check out of our hotel, and catch a ferry for Alcatraz and Angel Island. I’m rather tired now after a day that was full of obligations due to our car getting broken into last night. I was rather upset that many of the items that were taken (my journal, bible, knitting materials and knitting books, AP Bio book, etc.) had no “street value” for whoever took them. I did file a police report and we got our back window replaced, so that took most of the day. But I will not dwell on this…we had some fun today, too. We went to the palace of fine arts, Ghiradelli Square, The Cannery, the old pier, and the city hall square. We also went to REI for replacement backpacks right before they closed. Yesterday was a fabulous day, packed with a variety of activities and adventures–Golden Gate Park, Marin Headlands, views of the Golden Gate Bridge, Napa Valley, Twin Peaks, Lincoln Park, and more. It’s time for bed now, but stay posted for photos.

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!

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.

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.

We just got back from our trip to Camano Island. What a relaxing weekend it was! I didn’t get much work done, so in many regards it was a retreat. I had a great time, but I left feeling guilty about what I didn’t do as far as paper grading. Aaron rented a beach house from a coworker, and Elaine, Jesse, Raleigh, Daniel, Aaron, Andrea, Asher, Justin, and I were there for the weekend. The “cottage” is 2 bedrooms/2 baths/2 stories and it’s right on the beach. We got there Friday night and mainly stayed inside for the whole weekend, as there is a lot of living space and the weather was unpredictable (mainly rainy and cool). That was fine, though, because we played ping-pong, watched Shallow Hal and Lemony Snicket, played Wii games, had a late-night poker game, talked, beach-combed, kayaked, ate A LOT, and just had a great time. I finished reading The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, which was one of my personal solitude treats. I ate some of Theo Chocolate’s Bread and Chocolate bars and drank my miracle red tea while finishing the book. This is one of my favorite things to do–drink hot beverages and eat chocolate while reading a book with a nice view nearby. Bonus points if it’s raining or if there are friends or family sitting quietly by, doing their own thing.

By the way, I call it miracle red tea because I kept whining about not having brought my own rooibos tea, and I asked Justin to find some while he went to the store Friday night, but since we were in a rather rural area, there was none. I whined some more the next day about my lack of red tea, and decided to make some of the Celestial Seasonings tea that a previous guest left behind. Upon opening the box, lo and behold, I found a solitary packet of red tea flavored with vanilla! I really appreciated the tea, savoring every sip.

Now I must work. Monday morning calls my name. I only have two more Mondays of teaching this year–and the last one doesn’t count since I’ll have a sub while I help with graduation rehearsal.

Summer is my one time to get away. Last summer I definitely did that–I had an excellent summer full of adventure on a 2-week road trip, a week-long workshop near Mt. Rainier, and almost two weeks in Hawaii. This summer does not yet have anticipation built into it, and because of that, I am feeling restless. I’ve had my first taste of summer this weekend, and because I didn’t have many plans Sunday, I got that listless, bored, sleepy feeling that I despise so much. don’t get me wrong–there was plenty I could have done, but I just didn’t feel like it–there was no pressure to do anything by a certain time. All I did was read and nap before my friend’s going-away party.

I can see my summer days becoming like that since I am not in grad school and I have no job or definite plans. This troubles me. I want to be someone who can just wake up and take care of chores around the house, read, tend my garden, visit with friends, and more without feeling like that isn’t enough. What I REALLY want to do this summer is take a cheap, hassle-free trip to a developing country–all arranged by someone else–and explore it while helping other people. I want to go to Costa Rica, Peru, Thailand, Kenya–anywhere where they’ll take me! I need something to wake up for each morning, yet I don’t want to have to wake up early EVERY morning. I also don’t want to necessarily be in Seattle all summer.

Why am I so restless? Why can’t I be content to enjoy Seattle’s excellent, tranquil summers? I know I’m afraid of boredom even though there’s so much to do around here. I want to escape here when the chance arises, because once the school year returns, I am tied down again. Grrr….Any solutions?