I am important!

I never thought this statement to be as true as it has been this year. I am way popular on campus. People need me. When I say people, I mean PEOPLE. They seek me out! I have never been so needed/wanted before. I kinda don't know how to deal with it.

It almost makes you want to walk down the halls incognito.

"Oh Penny, I was just looking for you."

"Penny, I'm glad I caught you."

"Penny, hey Penny, I'm glad you're in the hall."

"Penny, do you have a second?"

See people need me more than I've ever been needed.

Ducking and hiding has almost become instantaneous with the sound of my name. I'll try to head to the bathroom say at 10am. Sometimes I don't make it there until 1-ish. And they say teachers have a super bladder!

Things I know....

1) My job is ______________________.

Fill in the blank!

How about stressful? exhausting? draining? confusing? difficult? tiring?

Yah any of those. Pretty much everyday I climb this imaginary cliff. The time I "jump" from it can happen anytime between 11 and 4:30. I usually "jump" by eating something fattening. Go me! I'll be a hippo by November.

2) Grad school is here....again! I'm back from my two year hiatus. Man, another reason I'll miss teaching. No, I'm ready to get this Master's degree in a frame. My internship class started tonight. MY LAST CLASS AS A MASTER'S STUDENT!!! I'm ready to wear that little hoodie thing in December when I graduate. But boy I don't miss messing with parking, expensive textbooks, course requirements, yuck, yuck, yuck! Oh not to mention class until 9:30 after working all day! Blah!

3) I really want a new car!

4) Randy is reading, like really. He's on the couch with the book. I know, I nearly fell over myself. He has his "not to be an idiot at work" training again tomorrow. They are discussing book number 3. I guess he figures the boss is on to him....so he sits and reads!

5) Mopac is precious. I don't even feel like I'm bragging when I say this because it's the truth. I'm not a bragger. I'm a truth teller.

6) Christmas vacation is a long way away.

7) Football season, fall weather, pumpkins, and burnt orange everywhere- Fall is definitely coming!

8) That you can incorporate goal setting even in a kid's schedule change request. Yah, I'm upping the ante on these painful scheduling changes. Now, they must tell me some goals associated with their plan of action. I don't accommodate "Because my friend is in 3rd period, and I'm in 2nd period, so I want to switch." I say, GAME OVER!!

9) The hottest colors for fall are plum, burgundy, and hunter green. Target and Old Navy please don't let me down.

10) That I'm not sleeping at night because I'm too worry about how steep my work cliff is going to be the next day.

Phil 4:13

I'm ready for TX-ou weekend....and a fried margarita?

Texas State Fair's culinary contenders fry everything from Pop-Tarts to beer | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Breaking News for Dallas-Fort Worth | Dallas Morning News

You get me every time!

Pottery Barn and I have a love-hate relationship.

Every time I get their catalog in the mail, I take a deep breath. Why? Because I'm about to embark on a shopping frenzy.

Sometimes, I want to put the catalog straight into the recycling bin, so I'm not tempted to order something.

I am obsessed with their stuff. If I could win a shopping spree to any store, I'd pick Pottery Barn. Well their recent fall catalog has my head spinning. Umm, I want every Halloween decoration they have. And look how convenient they make things for me, free shipping! I tell you, it's like they know me.

How can you resist free shipping?

Plus, I did survive my first week as a counselor. Doesn't a girl get a little treat?

I couldn't resist!




I love these rats! My new little "Templetons!" I got both. They're going to look perfect on my porch with my other Pottery Barn inspired pumpkin set-up. Plus they were only $12 together! No shipping, don't forget that!

It's not like I bought this....


This is what I really want! This skeleton punch holder is perfect! But I couldn't justify paying that much money for something I maybe would use if I had a Halloween party.

Pottery Barn, why do you always get me in trouble with Randy? Lucky for me, 12 dollars keeps my addiction going with my husband pleased with the bill!

blood and skulls

I went to the mall today and did a first. I walked into the store Hot Topic. I made the sign of the cross and entered. Wow, could that store be any more scarier? So this scary lady came up to me and said, "Do you need any help?" This sounds typical customer service behavior, but I wish you could have seen her face. It was clearly this, "What in the tarnation are you doing in here?" I agree. What in the heck am I doing in Hot Topic wearing my cute little Banana Republic cream sweater with a swishy collar?

I need my goth clothes for the assembly tomorrow. I told her I was shopping for a "gift." Because clearly, yes very clearly, I don't belong in Hot Topic. How could I say I'm looking for a costume to show middle schoolers what not to wear to school? I could have saved 30 bucks tonight and just invited the clerk to our assembly. But that wouldn't be very nice and not nearly as much fun as dressing up. Can I just say how pumped I am about my outfit? I totally rock the goth look!

I'm wearing my Ann Taylor black pants. Ann Taylor screams goth! Randy's old boots with buckles. So far I've painted you the picture of Bozo the clown, but wait it gets better! This black t-shirt with neon green skulls on it. The lady informed me that the t-shirts were 2 for $12, but if I just bought one, it'd be $10. I think this was also a mall/shopping first for me. I declined the offer. 2 bucks is a non-happy hour Sonic drink. I'll never wear this stuff again anyway. Back to the ensemble... black bracelets, red/pink hair extensions, (these are way cool by the way!) and a hip pant chain. I tried everything on tonight, and Randy laughed when he saw me. That's how good I look.

I also outlined my lips in black eyeliner (is this safe? is eye-liner intended for something other than eyelids?) and piled on the black cherry lipstick. I do have to admit, my teeth never looked whiter. Move over Rembrandt, black lipstick is where it's at.

I also painted my eyes with black eyeshadow, and I made a necklace out of black gorilla tape we had in the garage. I'm so crafty.

There were lots of firsts for me tonight including me declining the free "VIP" members card at Hot Topic. I'm sorry but the incentive to go back into that store needs to be more than a 10% off email. Now, I apologize if you like this store. I'm not sure how because it's scary and painful! I hurt myself just trying on some of those spikey bracelets. Yikes! More power to all the Hot Topic fans.

To finish off my goth trip, I stopped off at Yankee Candle Company. How many people enter that store sporting a stuffed Hot Topic shopping bag? I am in love with the 2010 Boney Bunch Collection. I adore Halloween!!! Click on the web link below. I bought the candle holder display that's on the homepage. I even spent five dollars on those extra cool white taper candles that drip red wax. Ha!ha!Ha!

http://www.yankeecandle.com/cgi-bin/ycbvp/retail.jsp

I was very tempted to walk over my Yankee purchase back to Hot Topic. I felt like I needed to prove my goth side to the clerk, but instead Mrs. Cleaver came home to make dinner.

Goth Get-Up

Thursday we have a behavior assembly at school. All of the office staff are dressing up in the "what not to wear" attire to demonstrate acceptable dress code. What was left on the sign up sheet?

Gothic apparel!


Ummm....I'm a pink lace and pearls kinda girl. Where do you even find gothic clothes? Isn't it just black and baggy?

Well I'm going to need some help here people. I have no idea how to pull off the gothic look. We went to Wal-Mart tonight in search for a costume. I didn't even know what I was looking for in the store.

"Umm excuse me, do you have a goth section?" I mean how do you ask for this type of stuff?

I did score a "black cherry" lipstick. Yuck! I hate lipstick. I can't remember the last time I had waxy lips. Even on my wedding day, I did the whole gloss thing. How can people wear that stuff? I end up licking it off in like ten minutes because it bothers me so much. And can we talk about the taste? It's like eating a candle. I'm sure I'm going to look smoking hot in my black lipstick.

P: "Randy do you think they sell chains at Wal-Mart?"
R: "What kind of chains?"
P: "You know, the kind I can hang on the outside of my pants."
R: "You'll have to go to the hardware store like Hank Hill."

Leave it to Randy to allude to "King of the Hill."

Tomorrow, we will be hitting up the Goodwill. I guess for black clothes?
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! If you provide a suggestion, I'll email you a picture of me in my get-up. Talk about incentive!

2 word post

exhaustion

blisters

Ready, Set, Go!!!!

Tomorrow the kids come!!!! All 880 of them!


What will I be doing tomorrow?


I have no idea!

I think I'm going to miss teaching. I feel so out of the "back to school" loop. I didn't do one bulletin board this summer. I don't have my classroom rules posted. I haven't been practicing my "Be super tough in the beginning" speech. Basically, it doesn't feel like school is starting. I will miss having an agenda. I will also miss the control I felt within the walls of my classroom. I mean I had a plan. My kids knew my expectations. I knew what was going to happen from the beginning of the lesson to the end. Now I don't have a clue what's going to happen. I've given up that control, and I don't like it.

I do know that I'll be in the library in the morning creating schedules for new kids who are registering. Wait, come again? Yes kids will apparently be registering tomorrow for school. I don't get it. How do you wait until the first day of school to register your child? I mean, do parents wake up and say "Hey, look the school zone lights are flashing, I guess we should get little Sally to school." Or, "Look a yellow bus, school must be back in session, load up kids. Let's get you enrolled."

Other than visiting with the kids during lunch, I have a feeling my plan of action tomorrow is creating and changing schedules.

Why must I have a plan of action you ask?

Because I must. It's how I roll people.

Highlights

Do you remember Highlights? That magazine that every kid "reads" or only flips wildly to the hidden picture page. Man, I loved the hidden picture page. I was always so ticked when I would visit the dentist's office and the little terd before me had circled everything. My awesome mother bought me my very own subscription after all of that frustration.

Well we are going to play a similar Highlights game now entitled "What's different?"

A picture of our mantel.


(Yes, we have a family picture with our dog. What? What?)

Find what's different.





Oooh what is that thing? Let's take a closer look.




Any guesses?

Well let me help you out because you'll never guess. It's Pooh! Like in Pooh Bear with the jar of honey. I came downstairs yesterday morning, and I jumped when I was putting my makeup on in front of the mirror. Why did I jump? Let's go back to picture 3. Did you see Pooh? Yah, it's not even a close resemblance to Pooh.

This Pooh is not just any Pooh, but Randy's beloved childhood toy. Now when I say beloved, I mean BELOVED! I love to hear about Randy's childhood stories. He was such a beautiful child. He was one of the magazine babies. So I just ooh and ahh over stories about him when he was little. I've heard all about his Pooh. His mom told me, "He slept with Pooh every night, and if he didn't have it, look out." Randy throw a fit? No way, get out of town!

Well Pooh holds a very dear place in his heart. He found Pooh when we were cleaning out his dad's house last weekend. I was shocked when I saw it. It doesn't look like Pooh. It looks deformed. Now I know it's been patched a couple of times, like a gazillion. But it's kinda scary looking. And he has a problem with Dr. Seuss....

Well now that Pooh has been resurrected, (this is an appropriate term based on the state of Pooh) he has found his new home, our mantel.

P: "Randy, your "Pooh" toy scared the daylights out of me the other morning. Why is it on our mantel?"

R: "Why wouldn't Pooh be on our mantel?"

Ummm let's all go back and revisit picture 3, shall we?

Pooh will need a new home like upstairs in a spare bedroom.

good-bye summer

Well it's official. School starts on Monday. This summer has been a tough one. I'm not going to be little miss debbie downer and reminisce on all the ups and downs. Because for some reason there are way more downs lately than ups. But God gives us what we need to grow. If it was easy, everyone would do it. We find our true selves in the face of adversity. Being brave is not facing a challenge, but getting back up after you fall down. Could I list any more cliches? I've officially become the chicken soup lady.


I am going to talk about all the things I'm proud of that I've accomplished in the last 2.5 months.

-wisdom tooth removal (this sucked!) However, I am still thoroughly enjoying the curved syringe that I use to flush out the pockets aka big fat holes in my jaw. I know it's gross, but it's so satisfying to see food pieces after you spit. Yuck but rewarding at the same time.

-my prayer journal!!! Blogging helps when I'm trying to express myself, but I do have a filter. My filter is my prayer journal. (Some people need to learn that the Internet is not a dumping ground for all of your biz. I'll probably need to write about this in my prayer journal because this little jab is probably not very nice.)

I love that my prayers are becoming more personal. He knows me. I'm a real person, and not a remote prayer-er. Sure I love the whole "now I lay me down to sleep" vibe, but it's not me. I even told God a joke in my journal. I'm pretty sure He laughed!

-figuring out the master schedule....I've changed a gazillion schedules in the last month. My brain hurts so badly at the end of the day. It's like one of those awful LSAT logic puzzles. "This kid can't be in 2nd period band because of Spanish. Spanish is full. Let's look at 9th period. Well if you look at Athletics. Maybe I can cross-team them." Barf! It's such a mind game. But I'm getting faster at it every day. I've learned so much in a month. I have a LOOOOOOOOOOOONG way to go, but I'm celebrating my small success.

-I now have a big grown up "city-fied" bank account. I opened up an account at a big-girl bank. Sure I love my small town bank in my hometown, but do they have debit cards that allow pictures? That's a big fat no. My sweet little Mopac smiles at me every time I swipe my card. She's practically wagging her tail at me to buy things.


Off to bed! Busy week ahead....tomorrow night is 6th grade open house until 9pm. Whoa!

randy=funny

So, I'm not going to lie. Randy gives me most of my material for my blog. I mean I write it, but he lives it. He seriously is one of the funniest people I know. All of my blogging followers keep telling me, "Man your blog is hilarious. It cracks me up." I promise it's not me. It's Randy. He's funny money. Someone once told me that together we could have our own sitcom. Hey does this mean I can quit doing schedule changes? Just a thought.

Well life is crazy busy...what else is new, right? Are you feeling the buzz of back to school? Even if you don't teach, drive a school bus, or scoop up mashed potatoes, it's easy to get caught up in the hoop-lah. Brace yourself for the school zones and traffic if none of it excites you. But really? How could you not be excited about 20 cent erasers and 30 cent boxes of crayons? Seriously? Sales are happening on the school supply aisles.

Randy is on book two in his riveting work book club. This month's read is "How to Deal with People You Can't Stand." Now I know what you're thinking. "How can I get a copy of that?" Well get in line avid readers because this one is going to be on my shelfari next. This book is going to be a very useful little read. I'm more excited about it than he is.

His progress....hasn't opened it yet. Discussion tomorrow....should be good. Stay tuned.

Thank you Lord for blessing me with a husband as cool as Randy. He's amazing and always has me laughing....even though he's laughing at me sometimes. He's lucky I can take a joke....see below.

Conversation on the way home last night:

P: I think I have the perfect pictures picked out for my office.
R: no response---this is completely normal folks.
P: You know, I really love that picture of me you have framed at work. (toot, toot, Can a girl get a compliment?, sheesh:)
R: Yah---still completely typical. I'm not even sure if he knows what we're talking about at this point.
P: Do you ever look at it and think of me when you are at work? (I'm fishing for that compliment...)
R: I put my phone behind it to hide it from being seen.

See how cool I am? I didn't even get mad. I was laughing my head off.

I can't even look at it!

* Go see "The Other Guys!" It's hilarious! Will Ferrell, I love you!

* I'm a professional student schedule changer. It's like working at HEB. You check one person out, and 30 more in line behind them.

* Randy is teaching Mopac a new trick. He's teaching her how to pray. When we say "pray, pray" we want her to bow down. Yah, we love Jesus over here. Is your dog going to heaven? Not sure? Well I'll have Mopac pray for them when she masters this new trick.

* I have not cooked dinner all week. This has been amazing!

* The work exhaustion is kicking my butt (hence the no cooking and blogging)!

Peace out yo! (Gotta get back into my middle school slang!)

still employed?

Randy hates to read. He just does. I don't get it. I mean there are "Sports Illustrated" magazines in his bathroom that he "reads" (or looks at all the pictures,) but that is about as far as we get with reading.


He is also one of the most head strong people I know. If he says he's going to do something, it'll be done. Well it works both ways as well because when he doesn't want to do something, man look out....complain city!!!!


Exhibit A





Doesn't this book look like a page turner?

Okay, okay I'll give him some credit. This book looks horrible! It has been sitting on our kitchen counter for about 2 weeks now. The president of the company Randy works for has started this initiative to better employee relations. I know what you're thinking, so I'll just say it. "Engineers talk to each other enough to have relations?"

Apparently so because the president has required all employees to read the book.

Well, when you tell Randy he has to do something he doesn't want to do, he ummm...throws a fit. He has done more complaining about the book than anything else. He'd be on Chapter 3 by now if he would just read it. He even offered me his lovely book, so I could read it and give him a synopsis. I don't think so! This book is anti-drama, and I only enjoy reading drama.

Instead he and other resistant co-workers googled a summary because "reading books aren't in their job descriptions" and "they can't charge their reading time to any projects."

So they had their little book discussion earlier this week. He came home and reported that it wasn't a discussion but more of a book club. I have no idea what this means? I didn't even know Randy knew the words "book" and "club" could be combined. Randy even got called on to answer a question. hahahahahahahahahahahaha

Boss: "Randy can you tell the group what you got out of Chapter 1?"

lol

lol

lol


oh how I wish I could have been there for this....

Are you ready for his brilliant, "I'll try hard to convince you that I did read this book" response?

He said "Umm something about smiling at people."


crickets, crickets, crickets


bahahahahahahahahaha

Way to do your homework Stubborn!

I miss you Blog!!

....And I'm back! I took a two week break. I was just overwhelmed and mentally drained. But now, I'm back to running my mouth....nonstop. Aren't you in for a treat?


Did you miss me?


Well, I missed my blog. I have no idea how many people read this thing. Heck I'm shocked I have over ten followers. And it's exciting to see a new follower or have someone say, "Hey I could totally relate to what you said in that post." But this blog is more than that to me. I really love how I can look back and see where I was in my life at this point or during that event. I love that Randy reads it, and we have conversations that maybe wouldn't happen because we're both so busy we forgot to mention something in passing. In fact, Randy has been really encouraging me to get back on here. He thinks it makes me happy. Maybe it does!

More importantly, I use this blog as a journal. In a weird way it forces me to stay positive. Who would want to read my blog if I just moaned and complained all the time? I'd rather talk about how my dog would win the "Most precious animal ever" award, or the crazy thing Randy did the other day. So I'm back on the positive reflection circuit. Oh, now don't get me wrong, you can feel free to leave me blog comments. Those make me smile:)


2 more things....

We have been busy....I mean my new job starting, keeping Mopac modest about her good looks, trips to visit family, more prepping for my job, and working on the Giddings house has been time consuming. Lots of posts regarding all of the above in the near future.


Funny Randy comment (because I know you missed these)....

(We were passing a garage/yard sale in Giddings this weekend.)

R: I hate garage sales.
P: Really? They're so fun. You can find real treasures sometimes.
R: It's a bunch of junk. If I went to that garage sale, I'd swipe everything off those tables and ask "How much for these tables? I don't want your crap. These tables are the only thing worth my time and money here."

And last but not least I love this youtube clip mocking the Twilight movies. I totally ripped this off my friend Anne. It had me laughing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHkPJ1ACLrg&feature=youtube_gdata