A Crap Day

That's right, the title says it all. And it was THAT BAD. I wasn't at work yesterday (appointment) and so this morning I go into my room to find that the sub had used EVERY SINGLE SOCIAL STUDIES ACTIVITY FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR PLUS OTHERS IN ONE DAY. HELLO??????????????? THAT WAS A LOT OF MY PAPER AND TIME SPENT PREPARING THOSE LESSONS AND THEY WERE MEANT TO BE SPREAD OUT OVER THE LAST COUPLE OF WEEKS AND NOW I HAVE NOTHING. NOTHING AT ALL. I was so mad. I'm still so mad. Hence the cap locks. That's not all she did, but I'll just stop there with her, because who knows what could happen if I continue to recap what else she did. So my morning was shot, and it was only 730. Today was the last day to pay for our zoo field trip, so of course it was crazy with all the last minute payments and chaperones expecting to be able to go too when they wait till the last minute, yada yada yada. At 820, I am asked to go on a field trip with the other multi-age class (third, fourth, and fifth graders) because their teacher is still on crutches and can't make the trip. I was already gone yesterday, my kids are a mess because it threw off their schedule, they were so happy to see me this morning, I'm so happy to be with them at this point, and I'm still mad about the sub. And I'm expected to take someone else's class on a trip I'm not prepared for?? And for the record, this trip required the chaperones and teachers to be formally trained for about 4 hours, so it wasn't like I was just crowd control. I was expected to do stuff and explain stuff. So I had no choice but to go, and of course my students (some of them) were crying when I left, you know they are just babies after all. And when they are not prepared ahead of time for me not being there, it's hard. Anyway, I was completely embarrassed by some of the fifth graders' behaviors on the trip and wanted to get the heck out of there and I will never do that again. EVER. It wasn't even the kids who were in the class I was in charge of...it was other classes. The day just dragged on and on and on. Ugh. I'm finally home, finally safe from madness, and you know what?? I miss my students. I really do. I told them before I left that they would have movies and popcorn and treats on Monday for being so good while I was gone for two days, and they will get every minute of that.

THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY. I don't know what I would do if it wasn't.

Holy Tired

Wowzaaas am I pooped. Since yesterday morning I have worked nonstop around the house, except for an hour nap yesterday on the couch and going to bed by 10pm last night. I was up this morning working on our scary laundry problem....too many clothes, and the fact that we have been SERIOUSLY BEHIND on laundry since our wedding. So I spent almost 4 hours working on it. And I can proudly say IT'S DONE. Thank GOD. Cause if I see another sock or t-shirt that needs to be put away, or if I see another piece of clothing to iron, I'm all done. I did ALL THE LAUNDRY FOR THE ENTIRE WEEK TODAY. Plus all the back up stuff, several sets of sheets (since we have so many thanks to Bed Bath & Beyond's gift registry!!!!!), towels up the ying-yang. I can't believe I'm still talking about laundry. But come on, you all know what I'm talking about, the stuff that you set to the side and think you'll catch up on it later. Yup. Even that stuff is done. I rock.

We invited the inlaws (I just love saying that, and I love THEM!!) over for burgers on the grill, so Kenny is manning the outside stuff and I'm about to get the other stuff in the kitchen ready. I DO NOT want to go to work tomorrow, it's extra hard to go back after a 3-day weekend, but I', sure everyone feels that way too!! Happy Memorial Day!!!

Blonde

Yesterday I worked with Kenny all day, for about 12 hours. It was fun and exhausting. When I work with him, I'm concentrating and working with numbers constantly. I didn't get a break for 5 hours, which happens, but it does a number on the mind when it's all over with. When we were done, one of his colleages was talking to me about something and I had to ask him several times to clarify what he was saying. I was thinking one thing, he was saying another, and my mind was fried, rightfully so. I know he walked away from the conversation thinking I was a complete moron, an airhead, a ditz, whatever, and I assure I WAS NOT. It bothers me so much still that he is thinking this. So I talked to him about it before we came home, and I still think he thinks I am. I was explaining why I was thinking what I was thinking based on a previous situation, and he said he understood, but I know he was all, "The boss' wife is a dumb blonde." I just know it. And it is still bothering me, even after we came home, even after sleeping, it's still driving me nuts!!! Kenny sometimes does this to me to, where he'll say or ask me something without much information, and I need him to tell me something more before I can answer or help him, and when I ask for more info, it's like I'm an airhead. I SWEAR I'M NOT. SERIOUSLY. I keep it together 8 hours a day with wild smart children who don't belong to me. An airhead could not do that. No way. I keep this house together and I planned a beautiful wedding where everything went off without a hitch and an airhead couldn't do that. I was on the Dean's List in college and had several honors, an airhead couldn't do that. I'm just trying to make myself feel better by stating all these things, but the bottom line is, I really do have my shit together, and that guy, as awesome as a colleage that he is to Kenny, made me feel like a dumbass. Ugh.

(okay, now I'm off my soapbox...and I'm going outside to work in the gorgous weather!!)

OOOPS

You know it's going to be a good day when you get to work and realize you are wearing the same pants as you had on yesterday at work. All I can say is oooops.

I did a whole bunch of laundry late last night, and I was trying to get ahead of the game and iron clothes and put them on hangers so when I get ready for work in the morning, there's no fumbling with things in the dryer or having to iron things. I can just grab it and go. Well, I washed the pants I wore to work yesterday, ironed them, hung them up, and put them back on this morning. I'm just laughing at myself. I doubt anyone even notices, because to be honest, I don't think teachers pay much attention to what other teachers wear most of the time, unless there are flashy dressers, and in those casese EVERYONE notices. But I am not a flashy dresser, most of my clothes are shades of blacks, grays, beiges, and reds, easy to match and apparently easy to wear twice in a row. All my dress clothes look the same, what can I say??

I am counting the days until school is out. We have 15 after today. The count keeps changing because I'm not even sure when our last day is. We might have to make up one snow day, but I really hope not because parents won't send their kids in the last day just to be there, attendance will be under 75%, and the day won't count anyway, so why bother?? I think I should be principal.

I legally changed my name now, on everything. So those of you who were wondering if I took Kenny's name, YES I did, and my maiden name is still in there too, not hyphenated, but it's all there. I have four names now. Cute, eh?? I couldn't drop my maiden name, just couldn't do it. The kids are trying to call me by my married name but it sounds wierd to all of us so I told them to call me either name, whatever they like. I'm cool with being called whatever, even after this year. I still love my original name:)

My mom is coming out tonight....I love it when she stays with us! That means maybe I'll get a homemade breakfast in the morning.

I am looking forward to a fun Memorial Day weekend. Saturday will be a very busy day and I'll be slaving away with Kenny all day. But Sunday and Monday I hope to be in the backyard working or maybe going the lake house. Our new patio will be poured in 2-3 weeks, so I still have some work in the backyard, but I enjoy doing it, so either way, this weekend will be a good one. I can't wait.

Beautiful

This morning is was beautiful outside. We were supposed to get a whole bunch of rain and nasty weather, but, staying true to Michigan weather, it only rained 3 times yesterday, and all 3 times lasted 5 minutes and the sun still shined. Today the sun is out, it's chilly, but I love that kind of weather. I am actually going to work with Kenny today, but if you read yesterday's post, I promise it's not THAT kind of work where I have to dress up and be fake. This work is manual labor, just the 2 of us, no fake-ness involved, I don't even have to talk proper. Bonus. And Puppy comes with us too. Plus, the physical labor will cancel out my trip to the gym this afternoon. Even better!! The house is clean (most of it) and I feel tons better than I did yesterday. So things are looking up. I have exactly 16 more days with kids, 17 for us teachers, until vacation starts. Can't wait. Neither can my head!!

I thought this morning I had lost my marriage certificate. It wouldn't have been the worst thing, at least to Kenny, who didn't stand in line FOR HER ENTIRE ONE HOUR PREP AND GIVE UP HER 20 MINUTE LUNCH TIME TO GO TO THE CITY COUNTY BUILDING WHERE THE MOST INCOMPETANT PEOPLE WORK, EXCUSE ME, THE MOST INCOMPETENT PEOPLE ARE ON BREAK ALL THE TIME WITH A LINE OF 15+ PEOPLE STANDING IN IT ARE. I panicked, then realized I had tucked it away with my school bag for safe keeping because Kenny often loses things. Like on a daily basis. Anyway, I found it, and had I not have found it, I would have been furious because the way this county works, I couldn't deposit MOST of our wedding checks because they were made to Kenny AND Lindsey, where we both had to sign and my name had to be legally changed on my drivers license, which couldn't be done until the city county building called me to tell me my official marriage certificate was done. I called on Monday, they didn't know. I called on Tuesday, it wasn't ready. I waited until Thursday to call again because I was still mad about Monday and Tuesday's phone conversations, both of which the person on the other end was probably on break too. Ugh. Anyway, I JUST legally changed my name at the secretary of state on Friday after that big huge ordeal, so if you happened to send me a check for our wedding, and it hasn't been cashed yet, I'm so sorry, it will be done on Monday!!

Now I'm beginning the process of calling my credit card, car loan place, and all the other places, plus social security and all that good stuff. What an ordeal. What does a guy have to do?? Nothing. Oh yeah, silly me. Even my gym requires me to bring in my marriage certificate saying we are now officially married so my name on our membership can change...oh the drama of a name change!!

Pooped

I am so mentally drained. And I don't have my own kids, but I can't even imagine what I would feel like if I did.

I have been drained for weeks now. Probably lots has to do with just getting married, and the craziness being overwith immediatly, but I'm so loving having my life back at this point. But working all day and coming home is just about all the mental challenges I can handle. Kenny likes for me to be included (submersed) in his business and one day, honestly, I will not teach and work with him. But not for at least 4 or 5 years, except maybe sooner when kids get here, but that's all up in the air for now. My point is eventually I will be working with him mostly from home, but not for a while. It's too much right now for me to process. And I feel bad when I say that I'm too tired or don't feel like going with him places, and sometimes I fake it and go because I don't want him to be diappointed or just want to be with him because we are rarely home together during the week, but other times, I just can't do it. I'm not sure he understands, but I do tell him when I'm drained, and sometimes he's cool with it, and other times he complains.

Today, which this is the point of my post, I promise, I woke up and told him I was going to the gym and then to a friend's house to drop off a birthday gift. I did all of that and came home and cried. He had cleaned the livingroom (I DEEP clean the house every weekend and when I left this morning I had asked him to pick up his stuff and put it away to make my cleaning easier, something I NEVER ask him to do, ever) and vacuumed, put some things away, was understanding about me wanting to stay home tonight and not accompany him on his job (thank GOD), grilled a burger for me on the new grill, and is mowing the lawn right now. I think he is finally REALLY getting it. I'm drained. And he's picking up the slack. I love this man so much.

So Kenny, when you read this, and I know you will, I love you for doing things like this to make me feel better. You are already a wonderful husband!

Boys and their toys

With a couple Christmas gift cards, we decided to buy a new grill. Correction, A grill, cause we never had one before now. So a shopping we went, and FINALLY made the purchase at homedepot. And what a grill it is too! Our neighbor is ALWAYS outside using his grill while he works on the yard, I'm not even kidding, every single day. He really truly uses it daily. So we've been smelling his grill now for over a year, and I think that's what really pushed us to finally get one. I have to admit, Kenny wanted it much more than I did, but like our big TV, once it was home, I loved it. Tonight I got to watch Kenny in action on the grill. It was hilarious. He was loving every minute of it, as was I watching him. Then it hit me....he was grilling to get the neighbor to notice. Not to show off to me or to show off in general, but to get the neighbor's attention so he could see that Kenny can "do it too." I just watched him work on the burgers, he was grinning and smiling and chatting with me, and every once in a while he would glance toward the neighbor's direction, checking to see if he was out watching us. It was so cute. Kenny's burgers rocked, he calls them his Texas Burgers. I don't really know what that means exactly, maybe Lindsay can elaborate on that, but anyway, he did a darn good job with them, and I was so proud of my boy with his new toy:)

Moms

Happy Mother's Day

to the three mother's in my life....

My mom...

My step-mom...

And my new mother-in-law!!!

Randomness on Friday

This week has kicked my butt. But (hahaha) there is hope at work. I met some new admins that seem to be wanting to head us in the right direction. I would love to go into detail about it here, but you know how that goes....that's all I'll say but I'm feeling better now about my work.

We had a stump ground and removed in our backyard this week, the tree was cut down years ago before we bought the house, and I never imagined how much DIRT is leftover. It will take me at least a week to get the pile moved. I'm not even kidding, it was HUGE. Like too much work if you ask me, but whatcha gonna do?? I would love to be around tomorrow to work on it, cause I just love doing yard stuff, but I'll be traveling across the state to visit, grandparents & parents for mother's day. My first stop is my grandparents' retirement village, then my grandma's house, then my dad & step-mom's house, and then my mom's house for the rest of the day. I hope to be at her house by 3pm and stay as long as I can. I'm flying solo, hubby will be home working. It's easier that way anyway, because he's so antsy all the time and can't just relax, especially when he doesn't have any of his "toys" to play with. I can't just go visit one set of family, gas prices are TOO HIGH to drive all the way out there and not make the most of the day, ya know?? Gas here is almost $4 a gallon. Talk about sickening to the stomach. Ugh. It will be $5 by the time summer is over. Talk about depressing!!

We have 5 weeks of school left. I can't believe it!! Today I did the craziest thing with my kids. They lost Fun Friday privileges because they wouldn't shut up all morning, so they were reluctantly working through their Fun Friday time with extra thick math assignments (hehehehe) and I stopped them in the middle and said, "Put your pencils down RIGHT NOW, push your chairs in and line up IMMEDIATLY." They didn't know what the heck was going on, so they did just as I asked, and I practically ran down the hallway with them following me, not knowing what was happening, and I ran right through the lobby and out the doors to the playground....they stopped at the door and looked at me with these crazy expressions..."what are we doing?" I told them, "GO PLAY!!!" I have never seen such happy kids. I got 17 hugs and was told over and over how much they love me....that'll only last until the next time I yell at them for talking when I'm talking. But at least they got the play, and my excuse to them was (besides the fast that I needed a break) that their brains will work out the math problems easier with some fresh air, sunshine, and exercise, which is true, but it was just an excuse to go outside. For me:)

Thank goodness it's Friday. I'm pooped!!!

Cinco de Mayo!!

Today was one of my student's birthdays, so we had cupcakes and did some mexican celebrating!! My students were back to normal today, their sweet selves (for the most part) again. There are always a couple stinkers in the mix. We discussed the fact that there are only 25 school days left, they were as excited as I was!!! Our last day is June 11th, and it can't get here fast enough!! I still have a lot of ground to cover between now and then, but I'll get it all in, I always do!!

I got this strange burst of energy when I got home from work today....so I just started cleaning. Usually I do that stuff on the weekends but I was busy yesterday outside and doing other things, so it got put off. I have been cleaning like a mad woman!! Kenny won't know what happened when he comes home.

I was cleaning the spare bedroom a little while ago and my crenolin slip and veil are still sprawled on the guest bed, still there from the when we came home the day after our wedding. It made me sad, actually, a LOT sad. So much so that my stomach hurt. I can't believe it's over!! Don't get me wrong, the best part is just beginning, our brand new marriage which is the most exciting thing EVER, but I can't help but get that twinge of sadness. It was the PERFECT day:)

Work Work Work

Going back to work on May 1st was hard! It was just tough to get back to the daily grind after such a whirlwind 9 days!! But I did, and the kids were happy to see me. They were pretty good for the sub when I was gone, however, they were rotten on Thursday and Friday for me. ROTTEN to highest power. I think it's the combination of me just returning and also we only have 6 weeks of school left too. So from here on out, they are going to be cute little monsters.

I have been working in the backyard since Friday night. Last summer we completely made over the front landscaping, and this summer, I'm going to do the backyard. We actually started in February by ripping off the nasty old deck that was there. On some of my days off before I went back to work, I did some transplanting and planting new plants, and then this weekend I cut down a tree (all by myself!!!) and replanted some baby ones in its place, along with more hostas. I bought a forsythia tree and planted it right outside the kitchen window. Where the deck was is covered in large stones, so I scooped them (this took HOURS) and placed them around the forsythia and then prepared the rest of them to be moved in buckets before we have a small cement patio poured. I'm not sure when that will happen, as soon as I can get some quotes and then bargain them down. Soon I hope!! Our lawn is so long, but the lawnmower blade has to be sharpened so that will have to wait!! It's like the amazon out there!! So that's what I've been doing.

So far married life isn't any different than life was before!! Kenny is suffering from a siatic (sp??) nerve injury so he's working, but not lifting. He did a little in the yard to help, like help me with the new mulch we laid down in the front yard yesterday, but he really has to take it easy, so I'm doing most of this stuff. I don't mind, especially when I can sit right down in the dirt and get my hands in it.....love it!! I come in the back door, strip down right there, throw my clothes down the stairs and hop in the shower immediatly!! So there's no mess!! The puppy is in heaven while I'm in the backyard, and I'm afraid she might dig, so I have to bring her in with me until the fresh dirt is covered with mulch in the backyard. She is not to be trusted!!

I am out of physical labor energy for the day so I'm going to retire to the couch for a while!! Isn't that what Sunday afternoons are for?