Pork Chop Flu

So, the H1N1/Swineflu/PorkChopFlu/MassHysteriaforNOREASON has hit my town, prompting our schools to be shut down. Best part? They won't let anyone in the buildings which means I can't feel guilty for not going in and getting work done. Luckily, we only have to make up 2 of any days we miss thanks to snow and cold days this past winter. Meantime, I'm getting plenty of rest and killing all germs with large amounts of beer, rum, and tequila. And from the looks of randomly going out to a bar in the next town last night, plenty of my fellow colleagues are doing the same thing.

When I'm not spending all of my disposable do-re-mi on booze, I'm planning on reading and working out. I finally bought weights a few weeks ago so I was able to finally eat the large can of baked beans and jar of pasta sauce I had been using as weights. I had to go back down to level one on my workout dvds because my arms just could not do levels one and two with the weights. I'm planning on going back up to level two mid-week after my two week vacation back at level one. Dear boyfriend just got a text asking why the hell I was killing myself again for no reason? We'll see what he comes back with. I'm guessing it's going to be either "Aruba Baby" or "Cuz you look hot with your new muscles." All I know is my pants no longer fit because my legs now have muscles. Who knew working out would cause me to go from a size two to a size four? That's pissin me off because I have a closet and a half full of size twos and I don't really want to have to replace them!

In other news, it's my Mom's birthday this weekend. My Dad is taking my Mom, dear boyfriend, and I out to dinner tonight to celebrate it AND he's buying pizza, beer, and cake tomorrow night on her actual birthday. I've got to figure out something to get her this weekend and next weekend for Mother's Day. Mom won't let us buy her one big gift to cover both events. I'm thinking a small pot of flowers for one and begging for forgiveness for the other one.

Golden Apples and Mustaches

A good friend of mine at work recently won the Golden Apple award. This is a big award in the teaching field. This friend of mine is a fantastic teacher and completely deserves to be honored in such a public fashion. She was told of her being a recipient of the award on live TV a month ago, given a segment on the news last Friday night, and received quite a bit of do-re-mi to use in her classroom and towards professional development.

This award was to be presented to her officially at a black tie, formal banquet that was held this past Friday. So, I got to get all gussied up in one of my sister's old homecoming dresses and went out with my best girlfriends from work. I wore a strapless, dark purple dress with the bottom outer layers cut at an angle and frilly. (I don't know how else to describe it). I forgot how much fun it was to get dressed up! My lovely dates were two other girl coworkers, one who is single and the other couldn't convince her husband to come out. The three of us had such a blast sitting there, making fun of other people. Seriously, one woman showed up in a dress that looked like she belonged to a polygamy compound.

I didn't make dear boyfriend come with me because the next day was the NFL draft day. Dear boyfriend has a tradition with his friends that they all grow mustaches in honor of "Da Coach", drink shitty 40 oz beers, watch the draft, and act like drunken idiots at dear boyfriends house. He grows a beard every year because he seriously looks like a pedophile when he wears just a mustache. Last year, dear boyfriend shaved his beard down to his mustache a full two days before draft day just to get a kick out of random people look at him weird. I was not about to show up to this very nice black tie event hauling Chester the Molester with me! By doing this, I got a nice evening out with the girls, got to skip helping dear boyfriend clean his house, and got to laugh at every text message dear boyfriend sent me while he was cleaning. He hates cleaning and does whatever he can to get out of it.

Unfortunately, the next day, I came down with the stomach bug that's been going around. So I've spent my weekend lying down on my couch in between the sprints to the bathroom.

Anti-amoeba update

I've got a new plan of attack on the workout. Weekends, when I have more time, will be spent on the longer workouts. During the week, on non-yoga days with the boyfriend, will be spent having my ass kicked by Jillian. I've been doing this for the past 3 weeks or so. It's been working well enough that I can see some baby muscles starting and I don't want to die after each level 1 workout.

I also stepped it up to level 2 and now I want to die. If I'm not around posting and commenting, it's because I've died on the floor of my apartment working out. Only I'm dumb enough to buy actual 5 pound weights to use the day I step it up to level 2. (I had been using giant cans of baked beans/pasta sauce).

Next Life

In my next life, I am going to come back as a bigwig TV executive in charge of programming. My job will be to make sure there is at least always one good TV show on a night. Right now, Wednesday night TV blows. And they wonder why ad revenue is down?

So instead of sitting on my ass, I'm going to have it kicked by Jillian and then curl up in bed early with a book.

Accountability

I'm one of those *freaks of nature* who can pretty much eat what they want, when they want and seemingly never gain weight. Granted, if I'm not hungry, I don't eat. But a good chunk of the time when I do eat, I eat crap. And if I'm stressed for any length of time? Yeah, lets just say I can drop weight like nobody's business. A year and a half ago, things were not good in my life and I was in a really bad place. I had size two pants falling off of me, even with a belt. I've been blessed so far by not having a need to workout because let's be honest. Working out blows donkey balls.

I used to be one of those uber-athletes that lettered in basketball and softball in high school, but then I stopped working out. The girls I played sports with were my close friends and practicing/off season workouts was yet another chance I had to hangout with my friends. When I went away to college, I lost this tight knit group of workout buddies that used to motivate me to get up off my ass. I also lost about 20 pounds not even trying and everyone complemented me on how I looked. I never was fat before, I wore a size 5-6 in high school. I thought "Why mess with something that's working?" I'm sure a good portion of those 20 pounds was loss of muscle since I was no longer seriously lifting weights 3 days a week. Also, now looking back, I realize I was unhappy about things in my life. I was out on my own for the first time, I had gone through some pretty major life changes, I was stressed to keep my grades up, and I was in a stressful long-distance relationship with a boyfriend from back home. Simple for me. Stressed & depressed = major weight loss.

Needless to say, I eventually got back to a healthy but still skinny weight and kept it that way by walking everywhere on campus. I went to a large Big 10 University, so I had the opportunity to walk long distances everywhere. I don't mind walking, in fact, I enjoy it. I did put on maybe five pounds after I graduated, but all of my clothes still fit me just darn fine, so I didn't really care.

Then I got myself into a bad place again about 18 months ago. I was in a terrible relationship with yet another stupid guy, I was stressed about my job, stressed about my master's degree, family issues were stressing me out and I never saw myself being able to afford to truly live on my own without giving up things like cable T.V. Anyways, my grandfather passed away about the same time I got dumped by my ex-boyfriend. During the breakup, things got really really ugly and I just didn't know which way was up and which way was down. My weight plummetted. During my grandfather's funeral about 3 weeks later, I had a hard time keeping up my brand-new size two pants with a belt on it's tightest loop.

(Luckily I had a good friend who made sure I got out of the house and was really there for me. During one of those nights of being drug out, I ended up hanging out with dear boyfriend. That's where it all began.)

Flash forward to the present. About a month ago, dear boyfriend and I were at my parent's house. My sister was making fun of me as usual about how I have zero muscle. Dear boyfriend chimed in and commented that I was like an ameoba and had lunch lady arms. It was all good-natured teasing, but I decided that maybe if I tried a few home workout videos, I could get them to stop teasing me.

I started doing the Biggest Loser Yoga, Biggest Loser Bootcamp, and the 30 Day Shred. I know my size twos fit me just damn fine, and I don't need to lose weight. I just need to tone. The reason I picked these videos? Totally thought that since they were for people overweight and out of shape, they would be easier to start with since I'm way out of shape. They have kicked my ass from here to the moon in less than 45 minutes. Jillian? Kicks my ass in 20.

Last week was a bad week for me and I didn't make fitting in a 20 minute workout into my day at all. I wasn't motivated. Luckily, dear boyfriend came to the rescue again. He doesn't know it and never will so it doesn't go to his already big head. He's always been one of those that goes to the gym just to keep his weight from getting out of control. About 3 weeks ago, dear boyfriend saw the infomerical for that p90x system and started doing that to change things up. I can see the difference in him already and he keeps bragging about how good he's going to look when we get to Aruba. I can't have him looking better than me. We can both look good together. So rather than tell him about my sadistic goal, I'm confessing it here. I will hold myself accountable here to look hot on that beach in my bikini.

I've been doing this about a month now. I went from not being able to do 3 girl-style push ups to 5 actual push ups and 20 girl-style pushups in 30 seconds. Dear boyfriend now checks at least once a week to see my "growing abdominals" like they're a little baby in there. I think I have a shot to be one smokin babe on the beach.

(If I ever find my cord that goes from my camera to my laptop, I will post the before pictures. After ones will come in June.)

Male Stupidity

"So how much more is this expensive trip going to cost me besides the flights, taxis, and the room cost?"

"Sweetie, it's all-inclusive. Outside of tipping the taxi drivers/waiters/bartenders, parking at the airport, and your souvenir money, it's all paid for. So, in other words, not much more than $50 and souvenir money because I'll split the tipping with you."

"So how much more is food going to cost?"

"Already been paid for."

"Alcohol?"

"Yes you giant dork! All-inclusive means everything besides tips and souvenir money has been paid for. How many times have I told you this?"

"Oh. Sweet."

After all the craziness of getting this trip saved for, planned, and now booked, dear boyfriend still has yet to figure out all-inclusive means food and drinks included despite me telling him this repeatedly. Guys are dumb. You think my opening line a year ago of "Free unlimited booze for a week" would've had him.

*Disclaimer, we will actually tip more than $100 while we are gone. He just doesn't know it yet and I've learned if he's bitching about $$, pretend it costs less*

Aruba, Jamaica, oooo I Want to Take You

For over a year now, dear boyfriend and I have been loosely planning a trip this summer. First, we were going to go to Mexico in the first part of June because it's way cheap. It's the off-season and while it is technically hurricane season, it's so early, the odds of us having our trip ruined are slim. But then even the Cancun area has exploded in drug violence, so we decided not to go. I had looked into other Caribbean all-inclusive resorts, but they were way out of our price range. All-inclusive is the way to go for beach vacations because literally, outside of souvenirs, you know exactly what you are going to spend on the entire trip. Food, drinks, alcohol, it's all paid for. (It comes in handy when you've had one too many tequila shots and just have trouble finding your room key, let alone remembering to close your tab in a foreign country). So I had mentally decided that I was not going to get my vacation this summer after all.

Then, one snowy day a few weeks ago, I was looking at all-inclusive Caribbean vacations dreaming of warmth and as many alcoholic beverages I can get with umbrellas in them. I noticed that prices were extremely down. Like, we could go to an island down there and stay at a low rent all-inclusive. I had heard trip prices were down, but I thought they weren't the all-inclusive vacations. We then discussed it and after me threatening to go *by myself without him since we had planned a trip for over a year*, he agreed to go.

So I spent a few weeks looking at different places and had pretty much settled on a low-rent place in the Dominican Republic. Dear boyfriend mentioned to a few of his buddies and their fathers over sports related hangout times that we were taking a trip to somewhere in the Caribbean. One of the rich, very well travelled fathers, said Aruba was by far one of nicest islands in the Caribbean. I was open to it, but it priced out of our range.

Dear boyfriend had asked me to hold off on booking the trip for a few weeks, so I did. Yesterday, he called me, told me he trusted me, and instructed me to book the trip without him. He couldn't come over because it was FREAKING SNOWING IN APRIL here. Looking at prices again, I saw that things had dropped even further. We could now afford on our very very modest budget to stay at upscale all-inclusive resort in the Dominican Republic and Aruba.

Last night, I booked our trip to ARUBA at a freaking 4 star resort. Take that Mother Nature and your April snow storms! I eventually will be as tan and drunk as can be in a warm climate. Oh, and did I mention I'm taking my very hot boyfriend with me?

Why?

Going back to work this week has been tough. I'm trying my best to not get Dooced here, but I'm not going to lie, this week has been AWFUL.

Monday morning, I'm in a classroom, on the phone, when I hear sobbing outside the door. I think nothing of it, because I teach middle school and parents are always hauling their kids in the next school day after report cards come out to clean out their lockers. These kids are always getting hollered at and it usually leads to crying. A dear friend of mine, comes in and asks if I knew that one of our students had passed away this weekend. I knew nothing of it. Apparently, the deceased student's parents came in first thing Monday morning to clean out her locker and dear friend was in the hallway when they came down with the counselor. We knew the student hadn't been sick with anything, and quickly racked our brains about any car accidents that had happened this past week(end).

Long story short, there was a car accident. The student of mine was in the backseat without a seatbelt on (everyone else, including the little ones were buckled up in car seats so the student was probably being an 11 year old rebellious child). The driver hit a patch of black ice, spun, then flipped into a ditch. Everyone else but the student walked away without a scratch on them.

Like I said, this week has been awful. It's been tough walking past her locker, helping students grieve, and establishing a collection the kids can make as a memorial. It just makes me think, why this student? This student was an average, good, sweet natured kid. Suddenly, I feel guilty as hell for giving the student a 10 minute lunch detention last fall for the student constantly wanting to talk to a friend during instruction. I know I'm hugging my loved ones closer and not sweating any small stuff, but it's still rough, ya know? It was a KID. I can't imagine what the student's mother is going through right now. What if the mother and the kid had gotten into a minor parent/child spat just before getting into the car and that's why the kid was not wearing a seatbelt? What if the kid had taken off the seatbelt to get something one of the younger siblings had dropped and then failed to put it back on? What if I had mentioned in class how important it is to wear seatbelts at all times? I have a million what ifs running through my head and all I can do is cry.

I went over to the family's house with a colleague after school to deliver food and drop off sympathy cards the kids had made. The student's bedroom was off the kitchen and the door was open. I couldn't help glancing in, and I noticed there was an unmade bed with a stack of clean laundry on it. I lost it looking at that. This poor kid left, with their family, being a typical middle school kid, leaving a stack of clean clothes on top of an unmade bed thinking the student could put them away after they got home.

I keep coming back to one question. Why?

Random Thoughts From My Week Alone

Holy crap, where did my week go? I got almost everything accomplished on my checklist except get my hair cut. That got postponed until next Monday because the hairdresser's mother in law had a stroke out of state. Instead, I replaced it with a 3 hour trip to the DMV to get my address changed on my license. Boy, if you want to feel good about yourself, go spend some time at your local DMV. Between all the douchebaggy high school kids, the senior citizens with canes and hearing aides, and white trash people, you should leave there feeling lucky. Feeling lucky, you say? Why? 1) You aren't in high school, you aren't dressed like an idiot, and you don't act like you are from The Hills, 2) You feel lucky that you are young enough still that you do not have to have the need of a cane or hearing aide, and 3) You just generally aren't white trash.

My sister was home this week on spring break and it was quite nice to be able to spend some time with her. She and I have a relationship where we are close, yet we end up fighting most of the time. I'm proud to report there was zero fighting this week. We went to IKEA together with my Mom, she helped me hang pictures, and she went curtain shopping with me this week.

I finally got curtains up! My apartment has tons of windows for it's shoebox size (I had to buy 10 panels for a studio apartment). I haven't slept in almost a month. I live on a semi-busy street now and there are quite a few cars that drive by all night long. Additionally, there is a mini-strip mall across the street and semi-trucks full of supplies show up early Monday through Saturday. On top of the noise, there are about 3 street lights that manage to shine right into my apartment and create a spotlight on my bed. Dear boyfriend ends up sleeping with a pillow over his face. I ended up buying those thermal lined, black out, noise reducing curtains. They work! It can be a sunny day out and if all the curtains are drawn, I have to turn on a light to read a book. I'm hoping since the windows are ancient that the thermal, energy efficient part of them will kick in and lower my heating/cooling bills. I'm hoping to take some pictures of it as soon as I find my camera.

The boyfriend comes back from his spring break trip to Colorado tomorrow. He has been sending random pictures of the scenery there all week, trying to convince me to eventually move there with him. I keep telling him no because they just had a blizzard there this week. I also keep reminding him I don't do cold weather very well and I don't like to do things outside in the cold. I am also blaming him for bringing back the snow with him. It hasn't snowed here in over a month, yet the day he comes back from skiing, we're supposed to get 8 freakin inches of snow. Mother Nature, need I remind you that Wednesday is APRIL FIRST?!?

Side note, Memphis screwed me in the tournament last night. I was in 3rd place in my pool (out of 58 people I might add) and was in great shape to win the whole damn thing. I really could have used the $450. Stupid Memphis.

Spring Break

I'm on spring break this week and looking forward to it. I plan on doing NOTHING related to work over this break.

My goals to accomplish this week:

• hang curtains in the apartment
• keep up my new workout motivation
• go to IKEA
• finish unpacking
• watch chick flicks since the boyfriend is out of town
• return things I've purchased that won't work in the new apartment
• get my hair cut
• go to my girl doctor's appt. (ugh).
• sit on my butt

Dilemmas

I have a roommate problem. We haven't been getting long at all the past two months or so, and really things haven't been good for the better part of a year. I need to move, but I've got some dilemmas.

Right now, I live basically rent free with the parents. I've done that so I could get my masters to get my pay raise and pay off the tuition for the degree at the same time. On top of working on paying off the undergrad loans which will be there for the next 17 years. Since I'm one of those people who get a 3 month paid vacation every summer, I get paid somewhat accordingly. In other words, I get paid in cardboard peanuts.

I was just recently preapproved for a loan for a house. Good, problem solved, right? Problem with that is, unless I want to live in a total dump with gunshots going off all around me, I can't afford to live in a nice, safe, small, starter house. Well, I could, but then I'd have exactly $3.69 each month left over, and that's only if the price of gas stays below $4. If not, I'm screwed. I don't really want to rent an apartment because I just know I'm flushing my money/cardboard peanuts into someone else's investment pocket. I also can't find a roommate to save my life. I've tried for the better part of 3 years now. No one wants to live with me.

Dear boyfriend keeps changing his tune on the advice he is giving me. He owns his own house. I'm not moving in that house because a)he bought it with his ex-wife, and b) he's refusing to sell it until he's married again so he doesn't end up screwed and homeless. I can't argue with him on that point. One moment dear boyfriend says for me to stay with my parents and keep living with him half the time like I do now. That way I could save an additional good chunk of money for us to put down on a house once we're married. I could deal with this if the whole wedding wasn't far off, but seeing as how we're not anywhere close to being engaged, I can't. Even the half time now in my current residence drives me to tears at least once a week. Then dear boyfriend switches to "buy a house, get out, and I'll move in there with you when we're married." Again, not anywhere close to a wedding.

My parents don't want me to move. If they had it their way, I'd live here forever doing everything they said. They also seem to be imposing a deadline on when dear boyfriend and I should start moving things along. They don't seem to get that we're not ready for the next step. We will be someday, but not right now.

So, thoughts, advice, opinions?

Give Me the Bedazzler

So I'm currently in the process of getting my master's degree. I know, huge amounts of lameness. However, it comes with a nice pay raise at work and since I technically should practice what I preach about education being a life long experience blah, blah, blah, so I'm working on it.

Anyway. I'm in one of those cohort things where I meet with the same group of people once a week for a minimum of 4 hours at a time. There's this one 50ish lady in my classes that is just flippin obnxious. She is one of those know-it-all-better-than-you-ass-kissing types that I cannot stand. She never shuts up and always thinks she is right. In fact, she thinks she is better than me because she is older than me. Now, I have nothing wrong with people in their fifties or people who are older than me. Let's be clear on that. In fact, I could and do ignore her most of the time.

The biggest problem with her is she apparently owns a bedazzler. I'm not talking like she's got the back pants pockets somewhat bedazzled. She's got hearts on shirts, flowers up and down the legs of her pants, etc. Every. Single. Article. of clothing that she owns has at least some part of it bedezzled. Trust me, I've only seen her once a week for the past year and a half, so I've seen repeat outfits in every season.


But really I'm supposed to take her seriously? Aren't super bedazzled clothes only cute on little girls that change their name to Princess? Or is that just me? Because they're NOT attractive on bitter annoying bitches. I really just want to buy my own bedazzler to bedazzle her mouth shut.

Now back to laying around in my paint covered, ancient, holey, workout pants from high school with mis-matching Muck Fichigan t-shirt that I wore all day today. Gotta love the annual 3 months of paid unemployment in the summer.

Here I go....

So I've been reading blogs for several years now. Like I knew what a blog was before 95% of the population had even heard of the term blog. However, I am the world's largest chicken when it comes to throwing myself out there. Seriously, I'm always the dork who hates going places where I know no one. I don't even like making general chit-chat with phone customer-service representatives while they are making whatever changes I need. (Shudder)

So, why did I decide to start my very own blog? Because I saw how much fun the rest of the blog world was having getting to know one another. And I got tired of lurking. Or being the anonymous commenting freak who didn't have a website of her own. I feel like I know about 15 people in the blogging world better than I know my own boyfriend, yet they don't know who I am. I'm tired of that. And it's time for a new hobby.

The hilarious part of all of this is that I mostly read what people consider to be mommy-bloggers and I don't have any children of my own. Not even close to popping out a lil' darling. Yet, these women crack me up on a daily basis with their humor. I know I can turn to them for a laugh.

It'll be interesting to see if anyone comes to my lil corner of the internets to read the rambling comments on my day or responses to other people's posts. Seeing as how my picture is next to the term wallflower in the dictionary, I'm guessing probably not.