came home to find the older sibling of my baby nutribullet

i was at school the other day and caught some dude working on the elevator. it wouldn't have been all that interesting, had i not watched LEVERAGE on netflix recently. so i got close enough to kinda' look at what was going on, and get an idea of what it might be like to ride on top of the elevator to pull off a huge heist. which of course wouldn't occur here at our school...unless you were trying to heist construction paper, kleenex or crayons.

slightly blurry because i didn't want elevator dude to think i was spying on him.

 and we were so excited to have jeri back! she took a long vacation across the ocean, and it was so fun to partake in the morsel that she brought back! yum!

thank you, Spain, with a hint of anise! wish i'd had some coffee to go with that, but i was much too impatient!

 so...things have been a little crazy around campus-as expected. so i have decided to join the crazy and maybe for halloween do a little kitty art...tbd

i have indeed been trying to eat paleo again, and loving it! found a great site that offered some paleo brownies! they were not bad!

http://paleogrubs.com/best-paleo-brownie-recipe

and back to green shakes for breakfast on weekdays-it's quicker and easy cleanup! which means i've been giving my nutribullet a workout, so once again...when i turned on the t.v. saturday morning, i was riveted to another paid infomercial! STOP! it was the big brother of my handy-dandy little guy...i had to have it. it's the RX...and it makes hot soups too! YES!

so it's been a busy week- i was off campus on monday and tuesday locked away in a prison off campus at one of our middle schools, working on some curriculum guides. it was a good exercise, in that it gave us an opportunity to dive deeper into the standards. then today i passed on going to a 'changing the odds' conference because i'd gone last spring to a mini-conference and wanted someone else to have an opportunity..and so in staying on campus, i was able to see how the 'skype-for-business'  could work on campus. it has potential. then, after school today, there was a homecoming parade.

when i arrived at the high school, there were about 3 students there with their parents. so i kept looking for more peeps from our school, and they began trickling in-it was almost nerve wracking waiting and looking for the 'float' and everyone who was supposed to be present! but as the time drew closer, everyone was assembling, and the float made it! so we lined up and prepared ourselves for the march! it was fun to see the kids excited-the cheerleaders in their outfits and they knew their cheers! so proud of them! they kept the noise up pretty much the entire parade! great job cabell!! AAAANNNNNDDDD...i got a free jeans day pass out of it-totally worth it.

proud of our PTA moms that went to work last-minute to get a float put together! bigger and better next year!

when i got home from the parade, i was not expecting it, but there was the package at my door! my nutribullet rx! i can't wait to make a soup and some other fun blends!

so...i may have already gone in and tabbed about a zillion gazillion pages already that i want to try!

and the most exciting little part was the alfalfa brush! look at that single little bristle! i guess that's in case you want to paint? and the single bristle is for the micro tiny line.

i mean...please look at this beast. can't wait-meals for a week! seriously though, the other great thing about it is that at the push of the button on this one, it will do its business and stop when it's good and ready. and as i mentioned before, it makes HOT soup! it's the smart machine. i have to watch the baby...

i may have gone into walmart the other day with intentions of only getting a couple of food necessities, but then i meandered over into a section i never should have gone to..and i had no choice. i had to purchase the cute stationery and pens...

i've been using both types, and i am preferential to the pastel set-finer point gels. and as for the stationery, i've already sent out a few good letters on it! in fact, i am once again out of stamps...down to one batman (refer to previous post).

in other news, i should know better. bruno was out of sight for a bit, and then not too long afterward, out of my peripheral vision, i saw bruno trounce up his ramp toward the couch and a little something rolled down the ramp; he turned around as if he had dropped something and was going back to get it, so out of pure intuition, i said in a harsh tone, "bruno! no!" then i looked up and my gut was right.

it was a little poopie. jerk. why does he insist on this???

the boys do seem pretty excited now that the weather has cooled enough to actually go on walks! i've been doing my best to get up early and go for a walk around the pond in the mornings before school. in fact, they've gotten to the point that as soon as i put my shoes on, they are jumping up on the couch and running around in hopes that i'll grab their leash off the hook by the door, and if i don't take them, they pout.
but last saturday, we took not one, not two, but THREE walks! we drove over to vitruvian park for our long walk, and as difficult as it was, chaco didn't bark at anyone!

this happens a lot when i try to get a good pic of them...they stand looking in opposite directions..is this an 'i don't like you' stance, or a guard-post stance? not entirely sure.

mid-pant, bruno looks like he could almost be pretending to be a vicious piranha. 

alright, so that's really all i got-i shouldn't wait so long next time because details seem to get lost.

avocado mousse, birthday surprises and a dream that gave itself away

since my last post, i've tried a few new recipes from this amazing paleo cookbook- i am especially fond of the avocado/chocolate mousse, and the blueberry cobbler stuff! for real though...non-dairy mousse?! what?! amazing, i tell ya! my food processor has gotten more use in the past few weeks than it has in a LONG time!

seriously...too good to be good for me!

a birthday has occurred, so we're taking that in stride. i'm so glad that they work the way they do; the gradual release is a good thing. so glad that we don't just gain a year's-worth of growth over night. can you imagine waking up the morning of your birthday and having all of the aging signs show up at once in one day? that would be a dead give-away. people would look at you and say, "yep, must be her birthday!"

my co-workers treat me well...thanks jeri, andrea, dr. hughes, sean and carmen--bundt you really shouldn't have!

they know me well! my heart belongs to nothing bundt cakes!

always fun to walk into a bday greeting! thanks!

 it's always fun to get all of the messages on fb and whatsapp-feeling the love from afar, and i got the bday card from mom and dad-somehow they always pick out the perfect cards that make me feel super terrific! this year mom sent me an awesome calendar of rain forests-love it! (they also called, so they are in luck, they get props in the blog!) sending out props to gigi for remembering as well, because she is kind of a birthday master mistress..she is queen of all things birthday..in fact, she celebrates hers twice-crazy girl!

HONDURAS! appropriately placed on my bday month!

as i was at school, on my birthday, i got a phone call. my apt. people said they needed to get in because there was a leak in the apt below mine, so they needed to check the utility room. they had to call in because i have the boys, and they needed to know if the boys were locked up so that they could get in...

they got in.

 i was a little flustered that they left it this way, and i was going to take this picture to the office to have a chat, fortunately i stopped back at my place beforehand, or i might've made a fool of myself! they did come back to patch it up. thankfully.

also this month, i was able to go to a great workshop: identifying learning differences 1-6 yrs. it was truly enlightening! i really wish our entire staff could go to this workshop. for those of you with young children, think about teaching your kiddos to write in cursive, and read in print. why, you might ask? well, cursive is more fluid, they don't have to worry about all of the individual steps for printing letters, and spacing isn't an issue. not only that, they won't struggle with the b/d, p/q. so take that tip and do what you will with it!(it's free).

the other free tip for today is that, if you have lower back problems, placing a large pillow under your knees while you sleep will really help ease some of the pain.(two for one!) 

last week i was also able to video chat with my lil sis, sheryl in HONDURAS, and discuss possible plans for a little vacation time in the summer (? maybe?!?) and the biggest surprise was a fun phone call from a dear old friend, with whom i used to play basketball and softball in high school. it was really special and meant a lot-so good to catch up and hear the familiar voice of a friend from the past! catching up is like..the best thing ever! (better even than avocado mousse-just sayin...)

and to close it all out for tonight, i had a dream a few nights ago, and in the dream, i knew it was a dream. two of my colleagues-teacher friends, were in it. penny had decided to invest in a business venture: a library book store. i am not certain how you make any money from this type of a venture, as the two are in direct opposition, everyone would borrow and not purchase, right? but since she is a reading/language arts teacher, my 'dream mind' let it go. then carol decided that she was interested in investing with penny, and they were going to do this together. but at some point carol convinced penny that a roller skating rink would be a better business investment. i'm pretty sure at this point my 'dream mind' confirmed it was a dream because there was no way these two would ever open a skating rink! there's no fooling me! not even in a dream! 

and that reminded me of so many different roller skating memories! couples skate! limbo! conga chain! falling flat on face! woooo! when i lived in brodhead, there was not a rink there, so we would sometimes take a bus, with a group of people to a nearby town that had one (always with my brother and his friend tom walker...and sometimes the mcguinty's) good times! 

i'll save the roller blading memories for another day-they are pretty exciting, too! (the invincible college years)

'evening!

julie

i probably shouldn't love sauteed veggies as much as i do #notashamed

So thankful for long weekends!!

two days in and what have i done? NOTHING!! besides finishing up the merlin series on netflix...and trying out 3 new paleo recipes! every single one of them was amazing! i loved the pumpkin pancakes and the pumpkin custard. i enjoyed the zucchini/carrot crustless quiche...

so good! i saw this at bmayes' and had to go ahead and make the purchase-totally worth it!

even just looking at it makes my mouth water!

then tonight i did something i probably shouldn't have done. i sauteed vegetables. if eating a plateful of sauteed onions is wrong, then i don't want to be right! yes, a pan full of sauteed veggies is one of my weaknesses. several years ago, while working at kamp, a friend and i went to ruby tuesdays for dinner and i ordered the fajitas because the veggies in the picture looked SO good! then i was sorely disappointed when it came back with a sparse assortment of vegetables with little color. i may have complained to the manager about it due to the fact that my plate paled in comparison to the picture.

the weather has been phenomenal, so i took a walk with the boys yesterday-it's been much too long since we ventured on the back trail leash-less. when we got to the dog park we sat around for awhile because there was no one else there. as we were getting ready to leave, in walks a guy with a very large dog and the famous words: HE'S NOT MEAN. and my common response-NO, BUT CHACO IS.  i just worry that he doesn't realize how big he is and they don't realize how small they are. and just as i said that, the big dog came trouncing up and chaco, my littlest, snarled and snapped (i don't think the big fella even noticed). chaco calmed down as i picked him up and cradled him on his back-then we made our way home.

other than that, i saw some artwork at a friend's house and decided to see if i could do something similar...

it's been fun playing around with that...

tomorrow-last day of this fun little break...i'm sure we can find something fun to do!
julie