she turned on the mic for all TWO of us.

i made crockpot roast beef yesterday. as great as it taste, i was not thrilled to arrive home today to an apt that smelled like..well, roast beef. so i opened the windows and then took the boys for a walk. when i got home, it was still roast beefy. so i threw everything into the dishwasher. there's something strange about my dishwasher...at first i thought it was the classical music on t.v., but when i came into the living room, i realized it was not.

i think there is a tiny man inside my dishwasher conducting a symphony...perhaps he wears a scuba outfit...idk, but it sounds like a musical arrangement of various instruments.

so, saturday i ventured out to find some things; i found myself not happy with the options at walmart-although i still found some things that i needed. so i turned around and went to the container store. i found some great stuff! i was especially looking for an appropriate clothespin-holder-deal for room 109 (i don't even know what to call the room that i 'board' in). 

while i was there, i was looking at the push pins and magnetic strips when a lady approached me with a card and a pen to fill out the card. then she asked me to come see the shelving presentation in 5 minutes. i asked her how long it would take, and when she said 7-10 minutes, and you could win a $20 gift card, i stuck around for a bit. not that i was bothered because it was raining out pretty hard, and this would be a great moment to avoid that.

so i walked over to the shelving area and filled out my card. there was one other lady there besides the lady giving the presentation. yes, if you are counting, that would make two of us plus store lady. and then she did the unthinkable. she turned on the microphone and she began broadcasting. did i mention that there were only two of us? so she began reading her cards and we muddled through. i tried to look like i was really interested and planning on eventually getting something. they really do have some great stuff.

and when it was over, she mixed the cards....all two of them for the drawing and the other lady drew a card. it was mine! woohoo! so i got a $20 gift card which i immediately put to use. and i felt even luckier when i saw that they had the umbra card holders! i have been looking for another ever since the little bungee-elastic on mine broke and i had to re-tie it!!

i had a 50/50 chance..i usually don't win.

i really like this hanging deal with solid shelves-i could think of many uses in a classroom.

my new umbra case with the thumb tacks that were so colorful.

i went from there to the 1/2 price bookstore. i purchased several new mentor texts for writing and reading. i love books! i sat myself down and went through my list of authors and filled up my cart.

most girls treat themselves to new shoes. new clothes. a manicure. a pedicure. i went to the gun range. it's been awhile. i need to go more often. i'm still a pretty good shot; next time i am going to try a couple of different rental calibers. if they don't have too much of a kick i might actually look into getting a .40 or .45 because ammunition is a little easier to come by.

yesterday i was working on some reports and questions with our system. so i was e-mailing our amazing rep from all in learning, and i meant to send some screen shots of the issues that i was having so that he would have an inkling of what i was talking about. i thought i had chosen the 5 screen shots that i had just taken, but i was having 'outlook-difficulties,' and my computer wasn't showing me the attachments that i added. then i got his response:

hmmm...

 apparently i sent this in one of the attachments...

let's not like, he is kinda' cute. (and if you don't think so, you can go ahead and lie anyway)

i think we got most of our issues resolved.

remember how i went to the discovery gardens and purchased some fun plants for school? well, after having the milkweed in the car for a couple of days, i was ready to be rid of the creeper.

totally peeking around the headrest...backseat driver-tickled my ear and scared the crap out of me! and made me think of audrey II in little shop of horrors.

and then when i went to the store the other day, i found myself haggling over 9/10s of a cent. what in the world? no wonder it sometimes takes so long to get what i need and get out.

must-live-more-simply....please tell me it's not just me.

i think the lady next door moved saturday. i'm glad. she was kind of an odd bird. bruno and chaco were talking about her dog. he always growled at them and chaco would start the whole 'hold-me-back' routine, knowing full well that his leash kept him safe. anyhoo, i noticed that their welcome mat is gone, so i'm pretty sure they went with it.

well, it's time for bed-
julie

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!