postal workers, new stamps and letter-eating-dogs (fortunately this time it wasn't mine!)

it never fails. yesterday afternoon, when i got out of our meeting, i remembered that i had to turn in that debit card! i left school, thinking the bank closed at 5 pm. i raced out of there and realized at the major intersection that i didn't remember where the nearest wells fargo was...so i turned south on marsh, remembering that there were 2 banks up on forest and marsh. when i got to the corner, i saw a chase sign, so i thought, 'well, perhaps it's the one right around the corner..' when i turned the corner, it was another chase. weird. i guess they just wanted to make it easier for people to access from either side of marsh. time was winding down...it was 4:52...8 minutes; so rushed up forest and turned on midway thinking there was one by the interstate-i was right! did i mention i was in a hurry and because of this, i was a mean driver? well, it's true. it's a little shameful-i was so glad i had no passengers #nowitnesses so i parked and seeing the hours were open until 8 (strange), i burst through the door and i'm fairly certain i had a rather confused look on my face as i stopped mid-step, because the guy looked at me and said, "the bank? it's around back." i'd walked into the phone store without even looking at the sign and realizing it wasn't wells fargo! apparently it happens often. so off around the corner to the bank-duty done!

 i hope the lady didn't close out the card and have to get a new one! but even if so, hopefully she'll be relieved that she won't have to go through all of the paperwork of someone stealing it and running it up!

i have four letters in my bag to send off...but i've been out of stamps for about 5 days-it's been rough! i hate sitting on letters and having to wait to send them, so today i made the dreaded stop at the post office. as i pulled in, i was very thankful to see that the parking lot wasn't full! short line! the lady next to me asked if the nearest clerk was wearing rubber bands around her head. i felt like turning to look at her to say, "WOMAN! what is WRONG with you?!? postal workers, hello? edmond, ok...'86???" instead, i just informed her that it looked to be gold chains fashioned into a headband. and of course, that had to be the next available clerk, and i was up. i asked for a roll of stamps and she informed me that they were out, so i overly dramatically sighed and did the whole body sag, as she asked if i'd like 5 sheets...um. no. it's really difficult to roll sheets up in a small space, sorry. i may have made kind of a big deal about it as i explained to her the huge inconvenience of not having a roll-but i did it nicely...if not humorously. i've had this clerk before, and i think she appreciated a little personality, because when i finally said, "(sigh) fine. i'll take one sheet of the batman and one of the regulars. and this card," (which i'd seen on the card rack), she used a discount coupon, so i got the card for half price, and she put another coupon in the bag for next time. it won't take long to go through two sheets. in fact, once i put the stamps on the letters in my bag, i was already feeling the OH-NO-I'M-LOW-ON-STAMPS feeling. does anyone else go through that anxiety, or do most people just run out of stamps and think. oh well, i'm out of stamps...maybe i can peel one off an old letter and get away with it...

holy toledo, batman!!

i've already got my eyes set on a card i saw today! 

and now i have another one to rewrite. i sent a letter to one of my cousins up in iowa, and i just got a message from her this after noon on facebook. i'll let you read it for yourselves:

it made me smile

i was not shocked, as this sounds like something that bruno and chaco would do! how many times have i caught bruno trying to explain why it was so important for him to shred my documents! so teachers, take note, sometimes the dog does eat the homework-don't penalize the student for the dog's behavior!

the rest of the week is pretty crazy at school. i have some things i really would like to get done tomorrow, as i will be off campus part of the day thursday for PL and all day friday for a mandatory teacher excellence initiative training.

i am excited to report that i finally filled out a report on the online apt site. it has been really exciting that they finally got it set up to pay online! so while i paid my last bill, i made a request for them to change out the lightbulbs in the breezeway, as 2 of the three have been out since before summer...i cannot believe that none of my neighbors reported it! boo. it was so dark out there, it was a little creepy-if only i could've held out until halloween! i was surprised when i arrived today and saw the maintenance man at the golf cart with a bunch of bulbs. he asked me if i knew which lights were out, so i informed him, and he turned the lights on (they are normally on a timer), and he began getting to work. apparently the third floor was not the only floor in need of bulbs. well, i just opened the door to look, and i see that the lights are all in working order-no more shady business around here!

oh, and here is the teacher poster that each staff member made to put in front of their door. it took awhile for them to put mine up- i made sure to add a little flair-i should've put something kanakuk on the poster, because it has been such a huge part of my life, but i wasn't sure what all they were wanting on the poster. sad face. hindsight.

so..i wasn't sure if they would appreciate the humor with the baby pic...

and yesterday, i was told that i had a package in the office that said: julie macgeyver robinson. i laughed, because i immediately knew who it was from. HA! so, i did not self-nickname, that was done when wendy miller was our prized fellow! and it stuck.

coke points. (coca cola, thank you very much)

and today on the way home i decided it would be wise to go ahead and get those stamps. so i stopped by the post office

so, i'm just sitting here staring at my new enlarged beach picture on the wall, and imagining the coconut bread...it's like a window to the beach! it was so worth it! peaceful and relaxing.

julie

who IS alejandro?

who is alejandro? you ask. well. it's rather a long story...so i'll make it longer.

i happened to see a post on a childhood friend's fb page. she posted something about the brazilian blowout, and so it made me curious and i opened it and read about it. it was an article by a huffington post style writer, and it was pretty convincing! i decided that it was important for me to figure this frizzy hair thing out, and see if there really was a solution. especially after having to deal with it at the beach this summer.

fortunately i found a groupon for a brazilian blowout not too far from my neighborhood, and i did it! i committed to it and contacted alejandro. his first available date was august 26th (i had called to set it up on aug. 1). we exchanged phone calls and emails to set everything up, and i'd been looking forward to this for almost an entire month.

so when wednesday the 26th finally rolled around, i made sure that i was at his place of business on time. the only thing was that when i got there, i wandered in a complete circle observing all of the different individually owned salons in this place, and couldn't find his. so i interrupted two ladies having a jovial little chat over nails, and i could tell they were irritated that i interrupted them. don't care! one of the ladies explained that there was a 2nd floor and he may be located up there. so up i went, and sure enough, he was one of the first salons.

"julie?" he asked, to which i replied, "yes, you must be alejandro!" and so he had me sit in the chair and told me what was going to happen and how the procedure worked. then the magic began; shampoo, condition, cut, product, dry under the cool hair dryer that i only see in movies like legally blonde and steel magnolias...then he pulled out the handheld dryer and finished it up...then for the flat iron. he talked some of the time, but he didn't force conversation like some people do, which was welcomed by me-t.v. background was enough noise; on the news they were rehashing the story about the reporters who were shot live that morning...and alejandro was shaking his head about guns. i opted not to tell him about mine. what he don't know won't hurt him (and in turn he won't take out his differences on my hair)!

although, he did find the opportunity to tell me stories about one of his 'crazy' clients who accidentally butt-dialed him at 5 am and later told him that it must've been when she was on her way home from a crazy night...and another who showed him a picture of how she wanted her hair-and that pic was topless, but she made it all less awkward by saying, "i know you're not interested in boobs, so i didn't think it would be inappropriate since you wouldn't be interested in me." yep...it was really none of my business, but maybe he was just trying to convince me that if i did want to talk about anything, he was approachable. like i said, nice guy, but i'm just not into telling a hairdresser crazy things...nor am i EVER going to have a pic in my phone that i would have to explain. and the mere fact that he was sharing with me about other clients was proof enough that i should keep my personal life personal! that wasn't hard.

he did have a great elle magazine that i picked up. i found an article called: i am not my hair. great article about not letting your hair be your identity...i don't know that if i were a hair stylist i would want people reading it, as the girl talked about cutting her own hair and not trying to get fancy with it-just enjoying the natural-ness of it. as i just looked it up, i came across a song-which i believe is based on the lyrics from some of the poetry she'd written, and i LOVE it!! listen to it here!

back to the story. he asked if i was doing anything for labor day, and i said, "well, i probably won't go very far, we may just go up to orlando if we go anywhere." freudian slip!!! he looked shocked, so i quickly corrected myself and said oklahoma, i'd go to oklahoma. then for whatever reason, i felt the need to share with him my train of thought. so i continued with, "i was in orlando this summer, and so it was still on my mind!" to which he felt the necessity to explain why his face looked so shocked, and he proceeded to tell me, "i was just thinking about a trip that my partner and i will be going on this fall to ORLANDO, so when you said that, i was thinking you were reading my mind!" comical. and he continued to tell me about finding cheap flights on spirit airlines, even though they had to pay extra per bag...i may have mentioned something about just taking carry-ons, and then it hit me-maybe they are shoe people, and needed extra bags for fashion accessories (you already know i've seen legally blonde- don't stomp your little last season prada shoes at me, honey!) 

so we finished and he took the after pic and gave me some business cards.
i'd taken some of my own before pics, and an after:

at school right before going to the salon

yikes...there's a lot going on back there.

after-much easier i LOVE it straight!

um...let's see. i've had two occasions now where i've had to help people open things that they couldn't find a key to...cue macgeyver music!! and yes, believe it or not, it worked on both occasions!

i really wasn't sure about the 2nd one, i impressed myself! 

and i should've known better than to purchase aleve gel caps before a training day in dallas. i even thought about not leaving them in the car, but i figured, it's just 8 hours. not my most brilliant moment ever! i ended up with a large clump of aleve. i had to cut the pill bottle from around it, and then meticulously separate as many as i could with a little twisting, pulling, some of the capsules popped and got gooey, but i was able to extract most of them from the lump of pain-killing-nastiness.

what made me think that leaving them in the car for 8 hours was remotely okay? 

and earlier this week we had a request from a campus that was needing some help in their implementation of all in learning. we've been using it for quite awhile now, and so i told them we'd love to spend some time walking them through it and showing them the important things, and giving some tips about how to best roll it out on their campuses to get the results they were looking for. well, i thought it might be a good idea to extend the invitation to some other coaches in our feeder pattern so that we weren't getting a bunch of separate requests-let's knock it all out at once! so today we had a small training with coaches from three different campuses and it went well-hopefully they felt better about it when they left than when they arrived!

and today on the way out, i saw this-the teacher transcribed what the student had written and it made me happy.

i don't understand it, but that's okay, it made me smile!

week one is over...we did it!
we've still got a way to go, but we will get there!

julie