PSA: you cannot un-corkscrew a non-corkscrew...but you CAN in fact unstick a stuck t.v. cable with a screwdriver!

we made it! first trip-done! so..just call me shadow.  ////ok, so i obviously started this last week, which seems like it was a month ago! my first trip was great-i got to be a part of a texas success training. the best part was getting the opportunity to hang with sarah and cris-and to watch them do their thang.

once we got settled into our rooms, we met in the restaurant area and had some snacks, and then prepped for the next day's presentation. these ladies are on top of their game-preparedness is key.

i was in dire need of a carbonated diet beverage, and so i purchased an overpriced diet dr. pepper at the front desk "store"...and while sarah and cris were talking to one of the ladies, whose son uses istation at school, i was trying to unscrew the cap off the bottle...5 minutes later my hand was raw and on its way to looking purple and bruised, so i stopped. excused myself to go to my room (bedtime), and tried to cut it off with a dull knife provided in the suite...that didn't work, so i stopped that because i really didn't want to impale my hand and have to be hauled into the er in a foreign city...and being desperate, decided to try this:

ok, well...corkscrews are meant for corks...just so ya know. 

 yep, didn't work...so, back to the knife. only this time, since i had poked a hole in the cap, i poked a hole in the clear plastic part to create the best flow and poured it into a glass. desperate times call for desperate measures.  what you may not know is that my alter ego (unbeknownst to anyone traveling with me on that trip) was mother of dragons...yes, a little sad about the shortened season next summer. boo...

so yes, the training went off without a hitch, although sometimes not everyone that signs up shows up...it is summer, and as a teacher, i KNOW how it is-we cannot even keep track of what day it is, so..there's that. and sometimes when a training goes a little long because you're 'splainin' things, lunch gets shorter and shorter, and when in the rural-ness of texas, sometimes lunch just has to come straight from the gas-station, because no entrepreneurial restaurateur has foreseen the amazing possibilities of monopolizing on mealtimes near the airport and regional school building...hmm. just saying, wise investment!

the deal is this, though. i left the boys at home alone, with the automatic feeder. now, the cool thing is that it will call them over, and it is on a schedule that i set; also cool is that it has a webcam, so i can watch the boys, or spy on them, and because there are two, i can watch from different angles. what i have learned is that chaco was too busy waiting for me to come home to eat, and thus bruno (aka: fatty) ate his own, and then proceeded to dash over to chaco's to make sure he could eat it all. he did this not once, not twice, but three times. he's the kid that probably beat up someone's child for their lunch money. i mean, seriously? so if we do an overnighter like that again, i will have to separate them. for real though, why can't they just work with the plan? it's not like i'm asking them to cook their own fajitas and make guacamole or something...just eat-your-own-food!

so yeah. i got home and they weren't too angry.

on friday i text one of my friends who was going to be moving from her apt. because i wanted to make sure that i was going to be able to get my vacuum to her for check-out. i got a text back saying that she might need a little help saturday with the move..i was originally slated to go to the lake house to drop the boys off with joanne, who would be watching the boys on my next trip, but this is actually a pretty big deal, because this is my friend who is a lot like me in the aspect of being independent and not wanting to ask people for help, so i was thrilled to be able to offer that. plus, it was one of the only days we'd really get to hang out this summer. so after all was said and done, the movers-amateurs...took way longer than expected! but everything got moved and then we made our way back to the old apt, which was pretty much all cleaned and ready to go, the only thing was we couldn't get the t.v. cable out of the wall, because it kept getting stuck on something, and then we ended up pulling it in the wrong direction and not being able to get it back where it was supposed to be...STUCK! and even worse, i'd left my tools in my car at the new place...grr. so we asked if i could turn the keys in the next day after i came back to retrieve it. YES. good. so all it took was to unscrew the plates and the wires came right out. child's play.

so sunday i worked to get everything packed and ready to go, and then dropped the boys off in town with joanne, whom they adore! they are always pretty excited and each time they tend to warm up more and more quickly. once they were dropped off, i finished last-minute stuff as i would be leaving for  a longer trip the next day. and guess what, we'll get into that next time, but trust me, you won't want to miss it!

alright, i'm done because it's late, and i don't have any more to say about this topic.
julie