if i'd had a compass and the coordinates, it would've been no big deal.

well. i'm back. i have not given up, i have just been a bit busy. thanks for waiting around!

to explain what happened today, i have to go all the way back to saturday. so, saturday we had an awesome day working in the garden at our school. it was a big deal because we wanted to make sure it was ready for them to work and learn in. (ok, major thrust to get it done because our Real School Gardens trainers are coming on Wednesday, and we needed it to not look totally in shambles. heaven forbid they call the 'garden cps' on us). 

so, yeah, some weeds had taken over 

teamwork is so much quicker and better than solo work!

look at all of those weeds!!! and that is only the first wheel barrow-ful!

i had gone out a few weeks earlier and spent about an hour and barely finished weeding one bed (not nearly as well as it should have been), and by the end of that time, i was drenched and thought i might pass out. so i was thrilled when 11 of our finest showed up at school to pitch in and give it the ol' team effort! linda's banana cake and the pizza made it all worthwhile, the weather was amazing, plus, i had some great conversations!

the best part is that it looks amazing! looking forward to the cabbage, broccoli, cilantro and garlic that will be joining us soon.

well, i thought it would be good to write thank you notes, so i decided to go up to school early this morning to put them into boxes. on the way to school i had to get fuel and a diet coke. so i stopped at the 7-11 around the corner. then i headed to the school and dropped off my notes and stopped in my room to look up the address one last time. when i got into my car i realized that my phone was not on my hip...uhoh. i thought i had brought it from home. so i looked through my bags and did not locate it.

hmm. i had planned to use the nav system on my phone...it's ok, i took a pic of the directions just in case i lost the signal...oh, guess what it's on the phone...so i went back to the apt to look for it. not in the 3 most likely places i had remembered seeing it earlier. not there. so i went to the 7-11 and the girl at the counter said no one had turned it in, and gave me that 'if-i-didn't-have-17-people-in-line-right-now,-i'd mourn-with-you' look. so i pulled out and decided i remembered just enough of the directions to get there.

well, the truth is: i knew just enough of the directions to get lost and frustrated.for those of you familiar with dallas...the numbers 121, and 114 stuck in my head, so i set off on my venture to the west with about an hour to spare. i was feeling like i had gone a little too far south, so i pulled off to a gas station, because all attendants know the area, and are super helpful, right? well...as a matter of fact, that would be FALSE. 

i purchased a map (for 9.98) and went up to the counter and opened it up and asked the lady where we were and how to get to keller. she folded it back up and scanned it as if she hadn't understood what i wanted (she was a foreigner, but i couldn't understand the accent, and her hair was dyed red, so i don't think she was really irish....); i opened the map back up and looked at her and asked if she knew where keller was and she said no. so i stepped outside and there was a guy out at his big construction truck. 

he wasn't a map-guy either...although he was able to point to keller...good job, big guy. i just needed to know where we were because i DO know how to read a map (we actually did that when i was in social studies class in elementary school); i'm telling you, kids need map skills...adults too. so i got back into my car and my clock was ticking at this point. so i got back onto the interstate, and went back to 635, unfortunately my map wasn't complete-it was mostly fort worth...so when i came south again on 121, i actually went through the dfw airport and exited down south. so i took another exit and decided to get off and try another filling station. this time, there was a young man at the counter-also not from around here. he said, "keller?" and he looked at the frito-lay guy who was stocking the shelf for a little think-pair-share, and that guy had a blank look. c'mon frito-lay guy! you deliver stuff, you should know the area. so finally i just asked the kid where i was, and he said, "irving." great.

at one point i was pretty sure i was glad that there was no one else in my car with me because the thoughts in my head were coming out of my mouth, and it wasn't pretty. (i'm glad there was no speaker on the top of my car like the old, old orange crush commercial). and at about the time i realized how frustrated i was, i had to remind myself of what maria reminds us every once in awhile: why get mad? there's nothing you can do about it; it won't change anything. so true. so true.

as natalie so eloquently put it: i took a tour of the major dallas suburbs today...not on purpose...people without phones are probably the most likely to suffer from road rage.

so i got into my car again and this time i stared at my map for a minute and looked for a cross road 1709 looked good. all i knew was that i needed to be going west first, so i kept the sun to my back and took off. i was so frustrated with all of those cars poking along...without a care in the world...80 would be good here, folks. so interestingly enough, when i finally found 1709, i was able to cut across 3 lanes in time to make a graceful exit. i figured i would eventually find keller parkway-even though it wasn't on my map. 

as i was driving, i noticed kimball. guess where i'd seen that street before. it was the first exit i stopped at the first time around, only a bit further south. if i'd known and simply taken it all the way up, i would've been early to my workshop. as i drove, i noticed, i had passed from euless into southlake. then before i knew it, i saw keller signs. i was in keller! i looked at the road sign, and it had turned from 1709 to southwest pkwy to keller pkwy...i mean, why not? then i saw an address close to what i was looking for, only on the wrong side of the road, so i had to make a u-turn-then i drove right past the place i needed to be, so i had to make two more u-turns to get back to the parking lot, which was full.

yes, there are three u-turns in there, and one of them may have had revving of engine and squealing of tires

it didn't look like a building that would host this training, but i asked a lady carrying a bag of ice across the parking lot and she said it was. when i got upstairs, fortunately i recognized one of the reps, and after i explained why i was an hour late, she said let me get you situated and get you a diet coke. soothing words. 

what a great training! at about noon, natalie showed up, and she, maria and i went to fuzzy's for a little-too-much lunch. on the way back from lunch, i was recounting-to natalie- my story of what had happened. at the end i was saying i really thought the phone was lost, but that i needed to stop by school to check and see if it had fallen in my room or something, otherwise i was going to need to purchase another one. at that point maria did her sales pitch for the iphone, and i said i would probably get a samsung like natalie's-i like my android. to which natalie responded, that she liked hers and probably didn't use it to its full capacity.

so we had an entire conversation revolving around my missing phone making me an hour late to the workshop and very frustrated.

when we got inside and linda had arrived at our table, she said, so you got your phone?

what? how did she know about my phone? linda looked at natalie, natalie looked at me, and then she said (mind you AFTER that whole phone conversation)...."oh yeah, i forgot to tell you, linda has your phone." as linda was handing me the phone. it had actually fallen in the room, and one of our other coaches found it and sent it with linda. what a relief! obviously someone had other things on her mind. smile.

i got home much more quickly, and i know i will be early tomorrow because guess what. they have croissants-real ones, not pillsbury...although those aren't bad either-bacon and scrambled eggs. tomorrow will be a good day. today was a good day, but tomorrow will be even better!

flip the switch or not? will it alter the escence of our school?

this morning i heard a kid talking about the yogurt label at breakfast and this was what i heard: it has an indian, that means they made it a long, long time ago. so...at least they got the concept of indigenous tribes in tx before the settlers came!

this morning, the announcements seemed like an extension of last night's world series game-train wreck! it was quite a fiasco...start the pledge, stop the pledge, say it wrong, do the next, repeat...then do bdays, and oh yeah! weekend bdays...and they eventually did draw to an end.

when i was in the special bathroom at school, i noticed something i've never noticed before!

desmond, push the button! it's been 108 minutes!! the red light was definitely activated..i have no clue what that switch could possibly be for!

doesn't it remind you of something from lost? the dharma initiative? i'm not really a lost geek, i had to look up pushing the button and believe it or not, there is a lostpedia...is it just me or is that ridiculous? since when do we just stick pedia on the end of a word and then use that as a resource to tell all about that word?


i love the geico robot daycare commercial! i do a half laugh every time the robot squeezes the juice into the little girl's face! she really looks like it's unexpected and she doesn't know what to do!

yesterday i stopped to get my mail and when i was getting my checkbook from my bag in the trunk of the car, i heard a lady across the little courtyard in the other parking lot yell, "hey!" i looked up and she said, "i like your car! that's a good-looking car!" i politely said thanks and she got in her car and drove off.(is there a more appropriate response? i don't really know 'car-admiration-etiquette') i have no idea who the lady was. so i crossed the drive to go to the office to pay my bill and on the way back out, i detoured over by where the lady had been parked to see if my car somehow looked spectacularly different from this point of view. and i'm sure the two girls in the truck which was now sitting there were wondering what in the world i was doing as i took this strange route to my car.

on the way home today i did go to petsmart to return the cat stuffs...and i got bruno his sweater. he loved it...ok, at least he wore it. then we went out for our walk and tote. bruno rode in the sling because he wasn't in the mood (again). so we went to the office and the boys cut up and joked around with mandy and shannon and they brought out the soft dog snacks...mandy proceeded to smell it and said she wondered what it tasted like, so true to form, i said, "if it's ok for the dog, it's safe, try it!" shannon was also prodding her to try it. and she did. and the shannon tried it because mandy said it was good...tasted like beef jerky! easy targets.

and i thought maybe bruno would walk home...he started out ok, but about 20 ft out, he stopped cooperating. grr...but at least they looked good in their new shirts!

oh weekend, what am i going to do with you??ZZ(that was bruno stepping on the keyboard...i think i kinda like his idea!)

oh, i had a crazy dream last night too. i showed up at a school to confront a boy who was rumored to be sexually harassing some of my Bible-study girls, so i went in and showed his picture to someone who told me i'd have to talk to the coach. so i turned and there were 3 different coaches with name tags on that said 'coach' but none of them knoew who he was..wrong coaches. so i went outside to the baseball field and a guy was throwing practice pitches....only, the practice field was surrounded by huge pine trees and other foliage-it seemed more like we were in a forest. the coach stopped and showed me his plants that were out near the outfield-they were huge bushes with softball sized reddish-maroon flowers (mini-me's of the little shop of horror's plant); and their little mouths opened wide enough to catch the ball.
well, i was going to say 'it's your 12th man!' but i caught myself at "it's your..." because i wasn't sure how many men are on the baseball field at once, and i didn't want to sound stupid, so i just finished with, "your secret weapon!" smart move...and it was about there that i must've woken up because i draw a blank on the rest.

i know, you probably don't care one bit about my bizarre dreams..i think it was the peppermint coffee, world series, piney-woods (social studies), and svu...it might have also been the little girl i saw trying to sneakily cut the apartment roses up front by the water fountain and sneak them into her little basket keeping an eye out to not get caught(the flower bush part).

well, i suppose i'll lay off the coffee tonight before bed!
julie