A Site You've Gotta Check Out...

Awkward Family Photos. It's hilarious. My friend Alicia sent me this link and I of course went to it right away and laughed a lot. It makes our engagement photos not look so awkward (dorky, but not too awkward).

Here's a preview of the site for you.




The caption read, "Has anyone seen Aunt Telcia?"

Must Focus

I must log off of blogger and log in to ASU. Although, logging in on the blogger site takes a whole lot less time than the ASU one.

At least I'm headed in the right direction.




Maybe.

Pink Clouds

I get excited over simple things sometimes. Like pink clouds. I love them. I love this picture because it has pink clouds, part of John's face and our neighbor's lovely radio tower. We've named the tower Steely Dan.



I hope Steely Dan moves soon.

Good Bye Friends

When we moved to the Phoenix area in the summer of 2005, John called up a guy that he had met while he was getting his degree in engineering. C graduated before John and he and A were already living out here.

We met up one night to hang out and have been hanging out ever since. They became our great friends. The kind of friends that you can always count on. Well, about a month ago C was offered a job in Austin. Great for them, sad for us. Yesterday we had breakfast with them before they hit the road.




We got them some things to remember Arizona.




Here they are right before the final send off.




We're both going to miss these guys a lot. Austin is lucky.

So Special

This school year our special education team has completely changed. Two of our teachers are staying home with their babies, our speech therapist is tackling new opportunities and my Resource partner and I no longer "live" together out in the boon docks of our school. So, we miss each other.

In order to not lose touch we've decided to have a get together at least once a month. Last night was our August get together. We painted ceramics. I hope they had as much fun as I did because I had tons of fun.

Before we went I was convinced that I wanted to paint something for Halloween. Then when I was looking around the store I saw this really cute plate that said, "My first birthday". It made me think of the Special plate from when I was growing up. It was a family tradition that on the most important days such as birthdays or winning an award that the special person was served with the Special plate. I loved it. I would ask for it.

My mom has our family's plate so I decided that I would make one for John and me. It started out just looking very blue.




After I wrote the message I wasn't sure what to add to it. The girls suggested that I put something in the middle that means something to both of us. I decided to paint a turtle because of our pet turtles in the backyard. Just kidding. The turtle represents our trip to Maui.







Our new plate will be ready in a week. I'll show you how it looks after it's all fired up. I'm excited.

My Body is Telling Me to Rest

Ever since I started receiving O Magazine (thanks, Mom) I have been a faithful reader of Martha Beck's articles. Her articles are my favorite part.

This issue's article is about what to do when life's stresses get to be overwhelming. In short, the answer is rest. I like that.

Check it out if you have access to September's issue of O and a yearning to be soothed by Martha Beck. A site she recommended was intentionalresting.com.

Have a great weekend. I'm off to do some resting...

Just a little longer

These monsoon storms we've been having lately have been great in that they shake the weather up a little around here but not so good for the hole in our garage ceiling. During the last rain an entire bucket was filled up.




I hope the monsoons simmer down a little...at least until we fix the hole.

Sign of a great time

Last night John and I had a night time swim. It was glorious but I wouldn't really call it a swim. We just floated around in our pool chairs with our legs on each others chairs so we wouldn't float apart.

I guess we had such a great time that we weren't really thinking about our security when we went inside. We left our back door unlocked all night. That's crazy because we've been accused of keeping our house on lock down. I guess it wasn't on lock down last night. Weird.




That picture was taken from our car on Saturday night. It's about one street away from our street. I thought I'd share it even though it doesn't have anything to do with the post.

P.S.
My feet are extremely itchy right now. Is that bad?

The New Air Conditioner is Definitely Bittersweet

Since we've moved into our house in 2006 our awesome air conditioner has broken down every summer. Sweet, huh? I think so too. Nothing beats a 115 degrees outdoors than 92 plus indoors. It really brings you close to nature. Pa-lease. It's terrible. The only thing worse than having to get your air conditioner fixed is hearing that your air conditioner can't be fixed.

Here's the new girl. She arrived Friday...




Here she is singing beautifully on Saturday...



New girl, you better be worth your price. If not, I'm not afraid to go up there.

Gone Viral

A few weeks ago I was at my friend's for some graduate school fun. On one of our breaks she showed us these two viral videos. I couldn't help but laugh (not at the subject matter but well, you'll see). It was also funny to watch her laugh. She had seen them about 3200 times but still laughed like it was the first time.

If you haven't already seen them you've gotta check them out (This is not child friendly).

This first one isn't the funny one but is necessary in viewing number two which is very, very funny...





Hide your kids, hide your wife...

Not so Funny

I think a lot of things are funny. Like the new NBC show trailers (Outsourced I think). Those are stinking hilarious, especially the one where some lady tells the telemarketer that she's wearing her birthday suit and he gets excited for her and says, "Happy Birthday".

I don't think it's funny when our thermostat reads this...




That's very unfunny. The air conditioner guy better get here soon or he'll be walking into a naked household.

If you don't have anything positive to say...

Say the "f" word. I find it surprisingly awesome. I'll probably be saying it more and more as November gets closer. November is when I defend my Masters Thesis.

F word.

An Eye for Love

The other day I was making us burritos and saw there was a hole in one of the tortillas that looked like a heart. I showed John and he liked it but thought I made the heart hole. It's definitely something I'd do (I'm corny like that). But I really didn't do it.




I also didn't shape this rock into a heart. It came like that. I found it when we were on a hike two years ago in Sedona. I saw it, kept it and now proudly display it.



As for the clay formation of a heart on our bookcase? John made it. Really...

Give a Man a Bell...

And he'll ring it all night long. Just ask Ryan and Annie. They'll tell ya.




Have a great Monday. I'm planning on doing the same.

Pictures

I'll be forever tweaking it, but doesn't it look a whole lot better?







Thanks Shireen, for the bug mats. The kids LOVE them. So far my favorite part is how willing these kiddos are to dance and sing. They're not shy at all to do it. I so wish I could post a video. It would make you all smile for sure.

First Week of School Almost Complete

I promise to have pictures of my classroom up soon. It looks much better than the last time you saw it for sure.

My first week teaching a class of students who are several grade levels below their current grade level is almost over. It's a whole different ball game than my previous position (Resource). I gotta say, I'm really loving it. My students are awesome.

I just wish I could get the circle time songs out of my mind. I guess they're pretty catchy.

And the winner is...

My sister. Congratulations! Don't be sad you guys. I'll do another one.

It's a Freegan Miracle

I logged on to blogger tonight and noticed that I've written 399 posts. This one makes 400. I think it's time for a give away. Freegan style.

So one lucky winner will get to choose an item from the newest box of freebies we have in the works right now. That's right Ladies, and Tim, you'll be the proud owner of crap...I mean a one of a kind treasure from our house to yours.

Just leave a comment to enter for this awesome give away. I'll randomly choose a winner on Friday. I don't want to get anyone too excited but there's a whole baggie full of googly eyes in there. I'm a little sad to give them up but I haven't put googly eyes on anything since I made Natalie a pickle man. Since that's been a few years now it's probably time to pass them on to someone who will put them to use. That someone could be you.

Don't worry, if you're not into googly eyes there will be lots of other one of a kind treasures to choose from.

In your comment please write one of these options:

Option 1: Pick one item from the box. (I'll include pictures on Friday-I'm not done adding to it).

Option 2: Surprise me.

Good luck!

Ugh...

Last week I walked into my classroom to find it in this state...






Nice, huh? Meet the teacher is this Thursday and the first day of school is next Tuesday. I'll take another picture of the final state of my room before kiddos come. Anything will be better than this.

Freegan Awesome

The other day on Oprah she had some people on there that were Freegans. Have you heard of Freegans? I hadn't until the show. In case you're like me and didn't know, I'll tell you. They're a group of people that are anti-consumerists. They feel like our country is driven to over consume and that we're very wasteful.

Freegans are against materialism and are more about living a life of only taking what they need. They also have a strong sense of generosity and community.

I'm pretty much down with the whole freegan thing except for one thing. Freegans dumpster dive for food. I know the food they salvage is actually still packaged and untainted but still...they jump into dumpsters. I couldn't do it.




It's made me start to think about all of the things we have that we don't need. We have so much stuff that is great but we don't use. Why not go through it all and give to people who will use it? So I'm doing that. I've already gone through a lot of our stuff and bagged it up. We made a big trip to Goodwill on Friday to give stuff away and we already have some boxes that are filling up again.

When I see something that someone I care about would like then I'm tagging it for them. So if you start getting random things from me then you know why.